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Lost Pages of Taborea: What just happened?
There are always plenty of memories to make and share with others, as MMOs tend to be never-ending playgrounds for us to romp around in. And after recalling major events for Runes of Magic's second birthday, I've been stuck in fond-memory mode. Two years of playing RoM is a lot of time to build up memories, too. I've gone through many a server, guild and character since I started, and I've both made memories with friends and remembered events the game itself created. Sometimes a developer forgets to turn off a light switch, a new bug appears, or a new patch brings unintended changes. I remember a handful of times some pretty interesting things have happened. Mysterious statues popping up, bosses appearing in houses, and other anomalies await after the break.
Apple's iPhone / iPod touch daylight saving time woes continue
If a broken clock is right twice a day, Apple's is off twice a year these days -- once each time Daylight Savings Time needs to be calculated in territories that depend on it. iPhone and iPod touch users are reporting on Twitter and the official Apple forums that the Clock app is been demonstrating all kinds of erratic behavior -- regardless of phone model or AT&T / Verizon pedigree -- with some alarms going off early, others late, and plenty of others working perfectly. Amusingly, still others report that DST adjustments occurred in places that don't recognize DST at all: "My iPhone 4 had the wrong time this morning - in Phoenix," reports user M Gnu, "We don't do DST, but iPhone apparently thinks otherwise." Since DST went into effect on Sunday in the US, many didn't notice issues until this morning, but even eagle-eyed iPhone owners could have a nasty surprise as one Engadget reader reports: "My iPhone 3GS changed time correctly yesterday, but for some reason over night it reverted back an hour, thus leaving me an hour late for work." There doesn't seem to be a single easy fix, but affected users report a variety of ideas might work -- restarting the device, changing the Time and Date setting away from Automatic, calling the iPhone with another phone, or turning on and off Airplane Mode. How's your iDevice hanging? Let us know below. %Poll-61642%[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
The Soapbox: Accessibility and customer service
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. I was originally pulled into World of Warcraft by two real-life friends of mine. They liked the game, played for a year or so, and then quit playing. They never got sucked into the world of MMOs like I did. I don't think they ever will either. It's not that they aren't gamers or that they don't fit into the culture. Maybe for their own reasons, they'd never play an MMO again... life and all that. But one interesting thing they told me makes me think they really will never play an MMO again: imperfect games. Now, besides the fact that no game -- online or off -- is perfect, there appears to me to be a great disparity in the functionality between MMOs and single-player games. It's easy to see how someone similar to me can work his way past a few speed bumps to get an MMO up and running, but what about a computer-illiterate person? Before there's even talk of bugs in the game or of the game being fun or not, there's an issue of accessibility and customer service. I want to talk about accessibility and customer service in this round of the Soapbox.
Super Mario Bros. tricks explained with animated GIFs
With the launch of the 25th Anniversary edition of Super Mario All-Stars for Wii drawing near (this Sunday!), you may be seriously tempted to buy all those classic Mario games again for, like -- what? The fourth time? Think again! Not only is the "Limited Edition" Wii game a veritable ROM dump of the SNES All-Stars (which features graphically and musically enhanced versions of the NES games, by 16-bit standards), it's also missing a lot of the great "glitches" from the original games. TASVideos has assembled a comprehensive guide to the elite tricks and tactics from the original Super Mario Bros. games -- with pictures! Animated pictures. It serves as a stark reminder to us purists why there's really no substitute for the originals, even when said substitute comes in a nifty box.
PSA: Apple's iPhone may not wake you up on time tomorrow morning (update: Monday)
Apple is warning iPhone users that the daylight savings time glitch that plagued Europe affects US iPhones too, meaning you'll wake up an hour late if you rely on the Clock app built into the device. Though Apple representatives say there's a permanent fix in the works, it's not due until iOS 4.2, so the company suggests you set a new alarm today if you want to rise on time. Since the bug apparently only affects certain repeating alarms, you can create a new one-time alarm (i.e. with the repeat option set to "never") instead, and the iPhone clock will take care of the rest. Don't be the gal or guy blaming your tardiness on failed technology, folks, when it's this easy to be able to point the finger at traffic, family, or spontaneous bouts of dance fever instead. Update: Did we say tomorrow morning? It's actually Monday when the bug will strike, meaning you'll have to deal with Daylight Savings related hijinx two days in a row. Good luck getting to work on time. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Epic 4G: problems so far -- and a few solutions
Since the Epic 4G launched on Sprint August 31, we've been receiving notes from owners on various issues they've experienced with the phone. We've heard about and experienced problems with the supposedly-fixed GPS, to surprisingly slow 3G uploads (fix on the way), to odd issues with battery drain and glitchy market install problems. Now that we're facing the end of Sprint's 30-day return period, we're wondering if Sprint and Samsung have shown enough of a commitment to resolving any problems to keep owners and potential buyers hanging on. Check after the break for a few of the issues we've found and what can be done about them, and let us know in our poll how optimistic you are about the future of this otherwise well-received device.
BioWare working to resolve 'continuity bug' in Dragon Age's Witch Hunt DLC
BioWare's Witch Hunt DLC for Dragon Age: Origins has been affected by a few unfortunate bugs during its launch, executive producer Mark Darrah admitted on the company's forums. "Unfortunately, there is a continuity bug that is causing issues with a subset of our player base. While this issue is not affecting the majority of people, it is still a significant issue that we will address," Darrah said last night. Furthermore, an issue with saved games not reflecting the DLC's completion is currently being looked into -- our own reviewer even ran into this particular glitch -- which could be troublesome for those hoping to import the DLC's outcome into next year's Dragon Age 2. Darrah also added, "We apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing anyone," and said his team is "doing everything we can to fix this in a timely manner so those who are affected can go back to enjoying Witch Hunt as soon as possible."
Anti-Aliased: I can finally stop playing Mortal Online now
A long time ago, well before Mortal Online launched, I was really looking forward to playing the game. The first-person only perspective made me drool, the Unreal Engine 3 powered graphics engine looked top-notch, the endless amount of customization of weaponry made me giddy, and the sprawling open world made me bow in awe. This was a game that sat at the top of my "WANT NAO" list, and I'm not even a person who's really huge into PvP. I just wanted an Elder Scrolls/Ultima Online inspired sandbox. Upon finally playing the game, however, all I found was a nightmare of errors, glitches, and missing systems. Mats Persson, one of the developers of Star Vault, was right: this game does lack polish, user friendliness, and many systems that could turn this sandbox into a true sandbox. Instead, all I found was a buggy, glitchy, never-ending, pointless deathmatch in an MMO world. Keep reading, and I'll be more than happy to explain every aspect of my time with Mortal Online. If you're interested in commenting on this article, then you have to trek all the way to page 3 this week. Just a heads up! %Gallery-100774%
Shifting Perspectives: Fun with race choice
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we have absolutely no excuse for the column we've written. I'll be honest; I wrote this week's column purely for brainless fun. You won't learn anything (not that you do normally), there are no insights to be gained (not that there are normally) and I don't have any new Cataclysm alpha information. I am very sorry to anyone who came here looking for a solid, informative column, and if you wish to excoriate me in the comments then I encourage you to do so. Anyway. When it comes to druids, the deal with race choice is that you don't really have any. If you play Alliance, you have to play a night elf; if you play Horde, you have to play a tauren. We're the most race-restricted class in the game, and even in Cataclysm, that's not really going to change. Some of you might recall a bug from a little while back that allowed you to model-swap between characters on the same realm by "choosing" two of them at once. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed now, so I wouldn't bother trying it if I were you, but I had lot of fun swapping non-druid races into our various tier sets and wondering what it might have been like to play them. I screenshotted like a maniac while doing so and then set them aside for a future column whenever I felt like doing something just for fun. That would be today. %Gallery-94013%
Lost Pages of Taborea: Costume Killer
If you play MMOs long enough, you may find yourself running across glitches or mechanics with interesting side effects. Sometimes these side effects can be beneficial to your gameplay because they circumvent difficult parts of a game. Maybe jumping at just the right spot lets you walk on air and cross a cavern, or maybe certain spells and items give beneficial effects which allow you to down the Lich King. These types of loopholes have always interested me from a psychological perspective. They present a moral gray area for players to make a decision. On one hand, nothing is being used that isn't already in the game. There are no outside programs or hacking of any kind, but the mechanics of these unintentional easter eggs seem to tiptoe around what are supposed to be challenges. Runes of Magic has its own gray area that affects the PK system on PvP servers. I'll give you the gist of it, what it results in, and my opinion on whether players should be using it or not.
Infinity Ward: Modern Warfare 2 glitches affected 'one percent' of players
CVG had a chat with Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling recently, and surprise surprise, the guy is really good at towing the company line (he'd better be, especially when he's getting confronted with Modern Warfare 2 questions even during random PAX panels about Twitter). He easily fended off questions about whether or not the Stimulus Package's two older maps are worth the $15, the ensuing competition from Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and the supposed backlash from hardcore players, saying that MW2's popularity proves the company has done everything right so far. Bowling was especially dismissive of the glitches that plagued what seemed to be most of the game's players, saying that only "like one per cent of our user base" of 25 million players "experienced those types of things and even participate in those types of things." Could have fooled us -- from our perspective, the frustration over the game's widespread cheating seemed significant. But Bowling persisted throughout the interview. According to him, Modern Warfare 2 is doing just fine, thanks.
More woes with Warhammer Online's new weapons
It's a highly-anticipated feature, but it's been causing more than a few headaches for Warhammer Online's developers. We're speaking, of course, about the RvR weapons that were one of the large features of patch 1.3.4 and have been proving rather awkward in implementation. The short version is that when prices were lowered in a recent live change, there was a bit of an unintended rush of progression, which the developers stepped in as quickly as possible to fix. The problem arose with the people who had been progressing legitimately and wound up finding themselves denied their weapons and the corresponding achievements. The development team has posted a new item asking for players to petition the GMs in a specific fashion to resolve the issue, as well as giving some insight into what went wrong with the whole fix. In short, when they asked players to petition, they didn't ask for enough information the first time around. The statement includes an apology and an assurance that the matter will be quickly escalated for resolution. While it's been an unfortunate period of back and forth for Warhammer Online, hopefully the issue is finally resolved and players can begin enjoying their new battle-earned weaponry once again.
Modern Warfare 2 patch incoming tonight
A new Modern Warfare 2 patch will be releasing tonight for the PS3 version. Once again, a number of exploits will be addressed, including: Care Package, Emergency Airdrop, and Sentry Gun marker grenades sprint speed normalized Fix for "infinite care package" exploit Sentry Guns: Improved placement detection, preventing cases of Sentry Guns inside geometry Model 1887: Bling using Akimbo and FMJ combination now has same range and damage as non-Bling Model 1887s Improved player collision removing cases of getting into geometry and "elevators" Fixes to prevent various XP hacks Unfortunately, the patch went live earlier in Europe, and broke a key feature of the game: being able to play online. Since then, the patch has been pulled, and is awaiting yet another fix. Once SCEA certification clears the patch, it will go live in both territories. An Xbox 360 version of the patch is also in the works, but there is currently "no ETA" on when it will go live. [Thanks Kurby!]
Client bug allows you to swap character models
We've been sitting on this one for a few days now to let people have their fun before we draw a little too much attention to it, but there's a rather interesting bug in the patch 3.2.2 client: you can glitch out the model being loaded for your character upon login, and switch it with that of another character. We don't know how long it's been around or how long it will stay, but watch the video above (which is pretty large, our apologies) for a demonstration. The WoW.com staff has confirmed it works, though the timing required is very precise. You need to be quick, but being too fast hitting one or the other is just as bad as being too slow. A few of us found that we had to slow down our fingers to do it properly, because "fast" to a hardcore FPS gamer is very different than "fast" to a casual MMO gamer. Click first, hit enter second. Not the other way around. Whether this falls into exploit territory or not, we don't really know. What we do know is that the model 'swap' is only visible for you on your client, nobody else sees it, so nobody else should be impacted by it. It's also only graphical, no benefits carry over from one character to the next. You might see your epic iLevel 258 shield on your level 1 rogue, but you won't have the stats. You can't be a Horde draenei to anybody but yourself, so no screwing with people in battlegrounds. You can't be a unique snowflake like an undead paladin to anybody but yourself. It's a whole lot of fun to see what a draenei rogue would look like, or a gnome druid. Check out the gallery below to see what came out of WoW.com's experimentation, and a few from our friends, too. %Gallery-76823%
Gearbox details known Borderlands glitches, workarounds
After dealing with shortages and that PS3 friends list thing, a few Borderlands players have now reported encountering an online glitch that erases everything. Yes, folks -- it's so bad, we had to put it in italics.You can check out the list of ongoing issues for yourself over at the Gearbox forums, where the biggest perpetrator is undoubtedly the glitch that causes a player's stats to be downgraded to a big fat zero following another player joining or vacating an online match. Another glitch does the same thing, only with your entire inventory of weapons; Gearbox says the worst issues are fairly infrequent, as scary as they may sound.As of right now, there's currently no fix or workaround for a lot of the potential game breakers, though the majority of issues aren't as bad as those listed above. Still, Gearbox is working to resolve these issues and if you've found something that isn't on the list, we suggest you hit up the technical support section. We can all make these lands a better place ... together.[Via 1UP]
Gamer sticks Bungie, Microsoft with Halo 3 lawsuit
Randy Nunez is quite upset with Microsoft and Bungie, as TG Daily reports he's leading the charge on a lawsuit against both companies over bugs and glitches he (and others) found in Halo 3. Forget that the game is enjoyed relatively complaint-free by close to a million people every day, Nunez and company say "Halo 3 consistently causes the Xbox 360 to 'crash,' 'freeze' or 'lock up' while the game is being played." The filing even states that "repeated and mounting consumer complaints and inquiries concerning this operational flaw in Halo 3" have been reported, with Microsoft and Bungie allegedly taking no steps to correct the issue or recall the game. Our biggest issue with the game, of course, is that it never lets us win online. Do we need to start spamming the lawyer weapon?
UFC 2009 Undisputed patch incoming
If you've been dragged around the Octagon and beaten to a pulp one too many times due to glitches in UFC 2009 Undisputed's online component, you'll be pleased to hear that the developers are working on a patch. In fact, this blog post on the official site is proof of that.There are several issues the developers are looking to resolve, and one of the more nasty ones involves a lack of repercussion for those who disconnect prematurely. These folks will receive a prize in the new patch, to the tune of some DNF and a loss on their record. Other fixes will target lag, Flash KOs, and the CAF cheat. For the full list, hit up the blog post.[Via Kotaku]
Payback driving game for iPhone updated to version 1.1, lite version added
We've posted about Payback before -- it's a Grand Theft Auto clone that's playable (and pretty impressive) on the iPhone. Apex Designs, the company behind the app, sent us a note that they've updated to version 1.1, and with that update come a nice round of fixes and improvements. As you can see above, the camera angle has been tweaked to take a little more advantage of the 3D engine, the minimap has been beefed up, and the display now rotates as you tilt the iPhone. Looks very nice.And there's even better news: even if you're not willing to shell out the $5 required for the full app, there's a lite version just released to the App Store -- it lets you explore one of the eleven cities available in the full version. Payback was impressive when released, and only suffered from a few gameplay glitches, but it looks like Apex is committed to ironing those out. It has developed into an even better game than before.
One Shots: Should I stay or should I go?
A while back we asked for any glitches our readers were seeing in their favorite games. Of course, we also love it when we get screenshots with fantastic and funny notes like the one that came with today's glitchy Warhammer Online screenshot sent in to us by Maldronnar. He writes in: You said you wanted some shots of glitches, so here's one of my favorites from WAR. Around the High Pass/Talabecland area there are several caves that never seem to look right on my end. A glitch that still exists even after the 1.2 update is what I like to call "Magical Purple Caves". I've heard that if you wait around long enough inside of them, you'll spawn an instance with Barney the dinosaur as a boss, and that he has some really good mythic drops. Here's my Warrior Priest, Maldronnar, contemplating whether or not he should go in after the children's icon, or continue on to that keep defense. For all that they are kind of strange, glitches can be kind of fun to look at - if nothing more, it makes you stop and wonder what the heck caused it! If you've run across any weird glitches in your travels - in Warhammer Online or elsewhere - grab a quick screenshot and send those in to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com. Be sure to add your name and the game it comes from so we can pontificate on what went wonky.%Gallery-9798%
Capcom details patch fixes for Street Fighter II HD Remix
If your street fights have been plagued by nasty bugs and glitches -- even the occasional low blow -- we've got some good news: Capcom is on the case. It's working on a patch for SSFIITHDR coming "in the next few weeks" that will deal with a variety of issues. We're glad to report that details regarding what will be patched are available right now. To keep in line with our New Year's resolution, we're going to keep the front page bullet-point-free and ask you click past the break for the details on what the patch will, uh, patch.%Gallery-9066%
