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Google WiFi, OnHub routers inexplicably crashed today (updated)
Google's smart router projects are supposed to provide hassle-free networking, but today many owners are experiencing just the opposite. Reports are streaming in of nonfunctional Google OnHub and WiFi units pushing little more than a flashing blue light. On Twitter, the Made by Google team is advising users to try setting up again, while a support forum thread that users in need of immediate access should use the credentials printed on the bottom of their devices.
Twitter locks 'millions' of accounts with exposed passwords
While Twitter maintains that its servers have not been hacked, the company now says it has "cross-checked" the account data noted by LeakedSource and is taking pre-emptive measures. Particularly notable in light of hacks that have recently affected accounts from Katy Perry to Mark Zuckerberg to the NFL, the social network said it has identified a number of accounts for extra protection. No matter where the information came from, whether via malware or shared passwords revealed in hacks of other services, any accounts with "direct password exposure" have been locked (similar to pre-emptive moves Netflix and others are using when they see account details floating around), and emails were sent to the owner prompting for a password reset.
Crowfall details starting, finishing, and resetting by Hunger
The latest development blog from Crowfall establishes a problem. The nature of any sort of permanent game is to fall into stagnation. Eventually, the most powerful players control everything and there's no room for new people to come in. You want room for new people to come in. But you also want to have long-term effects to what takes place in the game rather than just resetting everything as the game approaches a static state. What's to be done? According to the aforementioned development blog, you reset... but by pieces. At the center of Crowfall's design lies a cycle of birth, corruption, and demise. Characters remain, but as they participate in individual campaigns of the game there's space for players to make a lasting impact on the game world. But the continual destruction of each campaign as certain players "win" ensures that there's always space for something new to happen, that no one ever becomes unassailable in every sense. Take a look at the full post for a clearer picture of how the game intends to keep players engaged by periodically wiping the board clear of pieces.
Twitter accidentally mass-resets user passwords, blames 'system error'
Don't freak out, your Twitter account wasn't hacked. Well, probably. Many users were summarily locked out of their Twitter account on Monday evening, and were then sent an email requesting that they reset their password. However, it wasn't nefarious hackers or bots, but a system error. Twitter has released a statement, saying that it had "unintentionally sent some password reset notices tonight due to a system error." According to Recode, the error affected less than one percent of Twitter users. If you're an unlucky one-percenter, you should be able to reclaim access after you've updated your password. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]
These five surprisingly pointless OS X mods may amuse you
I recently went hunting for interesting OS X mods. For every useful item that turned up, I found lots of dead ends. Many items read by the OS X preferences system (through, for example, calls to CFPreferencesCopyAppValue) have little or no application to end-user needs. They're there primarily for the app's internal state or as remnants of Apple's development process. I've curated a bit of a slush pile for items that are interesting enough to take note of, but haven't quite made the grade when it comes to utility. Here are five of my favorite "interesting, but not very handy" tweaks that I've encountered while scanning for defaults or, in the case of the System Preferences one, that I've stumbled over while using an app. 1. Reset the Dock The OS X installer regularly leaves debris in your Dock. OS-promoted apps include such items as Mission Control, Safari, Photo Booth, iLife apps and so forth. Now, with a simple system command, you can restore all those apps in the Dock that you laboriously removed at least once before. Tip to the wise: Make sure you back up com.apple.dock.plist in ~/Library/Preferences before applying this one so you have a reference guide of your prefs to help you move back to. In the Terminal app, enter the following. defaults write com.apple.dock version -int 0 ; killall Dock Once the Dock restarts, it returns itself to its newly installed default glory. Admire the jam-packed contents before spending the next 10 minutes editing it back to the way it's supposed to look. 2. Prevent edits to the Dock If you're in a particularly evil mood and this is not your Dock, you might want to add this little default tweak. It prevents users from further editing the Dock contents. defaults write com.apple.dock contents-immutable -bool yes ; killall Dock To restore end-user editing, switch off the immutability: defaults write com.apple.dock contents-immutable -bool no ; killall Dock 3. Reveal desktop background paths This next tweak shows the paths for your desktop backgrounds on each of your screens. Why would you want to do this? One of my testers suggested it might help when you have a regularly rotating desktop background. For most people, it's not very handy at all. defaults write com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text -bool yes ; killall Dock and going back: defaults write com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text -bool no ; killall Dock 4. Remove pane icons from the main System Preferences window The System Preferences app consists of rows and rows of icons, which you tap to access individual settings panes. Did you know that you could tweak this presentation and remove items? I have no idea why anyone would ever want to use this feature, but it's a standard part of the app. To choose which panes to view, select View > Customize. Uncheck any item to hide it. You can still access all the panes from the View menu. Another option, View > Organize Alphabetically, replaces the category grouping with a large mash of alphabetically presented icons. 5. Add a useless debugging menu to iBooks for OS X This tweak does just what it says on the wrapper. If you've ever dreamed of a special secret app menu, then this is the system mod for you. (Similar mods exist for several other apps, so Google around to find some other exciting suggestions.) At the terminal, enter: defaults write com.apple.iBooksX BKShowDebugMenu -boolean yes And then launch iBooks. The new Debug menu appears to the right of other options. And there you have it. Five obscure and not-very-handy tweaks. Got any more tweaks you've stumbled across and want to share? Drop us a note in our tips line. We may cover your OS X mod in a future write-up.
Reset powered with IndieGoGo funding
Reset won't have to do just that to its IndieGoGo campaign, having amassed €71,398 of a €65,000 goal with only hours to spare last night. The game is scheduled to launch by the 2014 holiday season and all contributors will receive a second copy of the single-player game as a gift. Developed by Finnish studio Theory Interactive, Reset is a first-person puzzler, where players work with a time-traveling version of themself (themselves?) to cooperatively solve conundrums. The game will also support Oculus Rift when it launches. The decision to make TWIKI sounds the entire time while playing is up to you.
Time-traveling mech puzzler Reset will support Oculus Rift
Reset, the sci-fi, noir mech game from indie developer Theory Interactive, is getting even more impressive – it will support Oculus Rift. Theory Interactive shared a few screenshots of the game in bug-eyed virtual reality, along with a new trailer that doesn't appear to be in immersive 3D, but we can't be sure because we don't have a pair of those special blue-and-red glasses on hand. Reset is an exploration and open-world puzzle game set in a desolate future, on a fictional volcanic island in the Galápagos. Players travel through time as a mech to solve physical riddles with themselves and uncover the island's secrets. Reset currently in the midst of an Indiegogo campaign, with five days left to raise €34,000 and hit the goal of €65,000. We've been excited about Reset since its debut, in-game trailer hit the web in 2012, and the final game is due out on PC at the end of 2014. Click the second VR screenshot below for a better idea of Reset's Oculus Rift world.
Solve wibbly wobbly timey wimey puzzles in mech game Reset
Reset, the time-traveling mech game from Theory Interactive, has officially launched a campaign on Indiegogo, seeking €65,000 by December 23. Theory Interactive teased the campaign in October with the project's first gameplay trailer. Before that, all we knew about Reset was that it offered a unique take on single-player experiences: It's a co-op game that you play with yourself, traveling through time to solve puzzles cooperatively with other iterations or your giant robot. Also, we knew that it was pretty. Theory Interactive is based in Finland, and to comply with Finnish law, everyone who donates to the development of Reset must choose a reward (horrible, we know). Reset is due out for PC around December 2014, with Mac, Linux, SteamOS and next-gen consoles a possibility down the line.
Time traveling robots in Reset are aging well
Reset still looks good. It first popped up in April 2012 with a quietly captivating trailer and premise: It's a first-person, PC puzzle game that involves a lot of co-op – but it's single-player. As a humanoid robot, players travel through time to solve puzzles cooperatively with themselves, in a deserted future city. Today's video offers the first look at gameplay in Reset. For a game about mechs, the future and time travel, it appears to be a patently somber experience. We can't shake the feeling that something terrible happened here, and something even worse might occur if this robot can't fix it. Reset comes from Alpo Oksaharju and Mikko Kallinen, two artists that make up indie studio Theory Interactive. The game is on Steam Greenlight Concepts and the team plans to launch an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign soon. We can't say anything about the game itself yet, but Theory Interactive certainly knows how to craft a nice trailer.
Blizzard drops details on Hearthstone beta wipe
Blizzard Entertainment's Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft collectible card game is currently in closed beta, and those folks fortunate enough to have a beta key are about to see big changes to their accounts. Today Blizzard outlined plans to completely wipe the progress of all beta participants -- gold, experience, class levels, unlocked cards, and arcane dust quantities will all be reset. This wipe isn't unexpected. Blizzard noted at the beginning of beta that data would be reset at some point during the testing phase. The wipe coincides with what Blizz is calling a "pretty major" beta patch, the details of which will be revealed in the near future. Once the wipe goes through, testers in Hearthstone will be effectively starting the game as new players. For those that spent real money on card packs, Blizzard is reimbursing the value via in-game gold. Those players will be able to purchase the same number of packs and arena tickets without paying a second time, though replacing the exact cards is not a guarantee due to the random nature of the packs. This is the last planned reset for Hearthstone; Blizzard is aiming for a full release before the end of the year so no further progress wipes are expected through beta and launch.
Watcher explains Heroic Norushen changes
This week, we saw a bit of discussion on Heroic Norushen, and the means by which guilds were defeating him. This led to the decision to make some adjustments to the fight this week. As you might expect, those guilds that had already defeated the boss using the 'brute force' strategy (basically, paring down the healers brought to the fight to a bare minimum and overwhelming the boss with DPS) weren't happy at the prospect of having to go back in next week and relearn the fight, since their approach was made vastly more difficult by the changes. Now we have Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas' explanation of the changes and why they were made, and it's a pretty interesting read if you're into encounter design and its implementation. Just some selected bits of information from the post: Originally on the PTR Heroic Norushen had a 'draw' mechanic that would have prevented the brute-force method, but it was removed because it had bad effects once gear improved, forcing groups to throttle their DPS. The intent isn't to increase encounter difficulty - the problem isn't that the fight is too easy, it's that people are just skipping the mechanics entirely. Going back to reference the Encounter Design Dev Watercooler, Watcher mentions that "a major factor when it comes to deciding whether to make changes to address an unintended strategy is whether the approach actually involves interesting gameplay." - I think it's fair to say that just throwing DPS at it so you can avoid the mechanics isn't all that interesting. The difference between the changes to Thok this week and Norushen in the upcoming reset are profoundly the difference between a bugfix (Thok was always intended to have Acceleration on all difficulties save Raid Finder, it was simply accidentally turned off on all other difficulties as well as Raid Finder) and a decision to change an encounter to close off an approach that was never intended. That's why Thok was hotfixed immediately, but Norushen is being changed with the server reset so it affects all guilds equally. For more, you can read Watcher's post here on the forums, and we'll reproduce it in full behind the cut as well.
Chromium browser cops reset feature to clean up malware messes
Mopping up after malicious software can land you in a browser quagmire full of sketchy search engines, toolbars or worse. Google's latest version of its open-source Chromium browser now has a remedy for much of that thanks to a 'reset profile' setting discovered by code tinkerer François Beaufort. You can revert the defaults for search, homepage, content settings and cookies all in one go, while also disabling extensions. Since Chromium features often pop up later in Chrome, that means your life may soon be easier after your, ahem, friend has a brush with the dark side of the internet.
Evernote forces password reset after "suspicious activity"
The drumbeat of corporate security issues pounds on, with hybrid cloud/local notekeeping service Evernote reporting this weekend that its internal security team "discovered and blocked suspicious activity" aimed at sensitive areas of Evernote's service. Although neither billing information nor actual client notes were exposed in this breach, Evernote does acknowledge that some user account information -- usernames, email addresses and encrypted passwords -- was accessed. While none of the user passwords were stored in the clear, the fact that they may be in the hands of hackers (along with the corresponding user credentials) led Evernote to force a password reset for all its millions of users. If you've gotten a password reset notice from Evernote, it's almost certainly legitimate, but in the interest of proper procedure you should not click the login link in the email. Open a trusted browser (these days, that means one with Java applets disabled) and type in "www.evernote.com" directly to reset your login credentials. If you need help generating and storing a strong password, our guide to password creation is here for you. As more and more cloud services are subject to attacks that target user login details, it's become overwhelmingly clear that just having a strong password isn't enough; if you reused your Evernote password on any other service (especially your email account), you have a potentially serious problem. Managing unique passwords for scores or hundreds of accounts is no picnic, but utilities like 1Password or LastPass can make it easier to find and change your re-used passwords.
Xsyon opens free trial server
If you've got a hankering for some sandbox action, but find the thought of a subscription up-front is a deal-breaker, then Notorious Games has heard your unspoken plea! The studio announced that a free trial server is now open to the public. The trial server is the same game as the subscription server, although the separation will certainly protect those investing in the title. All you have to do to access the trial server is sign up on the forums, after which instructions will appear on your account page. There's one caveat of playing Xsyon for free, however: The team plans to hit the big reset switch on the trial server every Monday. So if you're looking to preserve your hard work, you'll eventually have to subscribe. [Thanks to UltimateCarl for the tip!]
The Road to Mordor: The reset scenario
At this juncture of my Lord of the Rings Online career, I have zero interest in starting over. I've attempted two fresh characters over the past six months, and while the "newness" was enough to sustain me for a while, I simply didn't have the time or energy to get them through the long, long, long journey of content to meet up with my Captain. So I've made peace with the thought that my main will be my only character through the completion of the game, barring Turbine releasing an incredibly compelling new class or severely streamlining the leveling process. That's OK, really. I'm content. Yet I also like to engage in mental hypotheses in which I am forced to restart -- a reset scenario, as it were. If I woke up tomorrow and found that my account was completely blank, or if I were thrown back in time and had to start all over again, what would I do? Would I choose differently or the same? So here we go: the reset scenario. Let's assume the game is more or less how it is now and I have all of my current knowledge. If I had to start from scratch, how would I forge a different path in the game?
PSA: Resetting your phone risks upsetting Google Wallet, unless you do it right
Spare a thought for Google Wallet users who have learned this the hard way, but at least you won't have to fall into the same little-known trap. Essentially, if you have a Galaxy Nexus, HTC EVO 4G LTE or any other compatible handset and you perform a factory reset, there's a high chance you'll spoil the secure element that is designed to protect your NFC chip from tampering. This disables Google Wallet and it seems there's no fix once that happens, other than calling up a friendly (and hopefully interactive) customer service agent. However, there is a way to prevent it: before factory resetting, you have to go into the Google Wallet app, choose 'Menu' then 'Settings' and 'Reset Google Wallet'. There it is -- simple enough, but evidently not advertised enough by Google or the phone manufacturers themselves.
Reset trailer is almost as interesting as its single-player co-op gameplay
The above debut trailer for Theory Interactive's Reset is made entirely with a unique in-game engine, Praxis, and doesn't include any added effects, CGI or Peter Jackson-level motion capture. We swear. Well, Theory Interactive swears, so they're the ones that will have to deliver on this hefty promise. If the trailer isn't tantalizing enough, Reset's gameplay premise is captivating too. In this first-person puzzle game, players have the ability to travel back in time to solve puzzles cooperatively with themselves, meaning the phrase "single-player co-op" makes an impossible amount of sense. Theory Interactive comprises just two people, Alpo Oksaharju and Mikko Kallinen, but we're inclined to believe it's really just one person and his future self, who has brought back advanced innovations with the sole purpose of crafting this wonderfully entrancing debut game trailer. And, we hope, a game to live up to its promises.
Windows 8's new 'Refresh' and 'Reset' options get detailed
And just like that, your next Windows-based PC becomes more like a phone. We'd heard during our early playtime with Windows 8 that the furniture would be arranged a little differently when it came to resetting and refreshing one's machine, and now we're being given a closer look at what exactly that means. Finalized builds of Win8 will offer a pair of related features; 'Reset your PC' will allow you to remove all personal data, apps, and settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows, while 'Refresh your PC' enables your to keep all personal data, Metro style apps, and important settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows. The goal here? To give end-users a single button to press when you just want "everything to be fixed." An interesting approach, no doubt, but one we're probably better off having than not. We're still many months out from securing a final copy of this OS on our desk, but those interested in every little tidbit -- including a new method for creating a bootable USB flash drive -- can visit the links below.
Twice-weekly raid resets being tested in Taiwan and Korea starting this week
Here's some relatively crazy news that's just been posted on the Taiwanese Battle.net site: All patch 4.0 and 4.2 raid dungeons -- that is, every Cataclysm raid up to Firelands -- will reset twice a week, once on Thursday and once on Sunday. This change will not apply to the Deathwing raid, which will reset once a week as usual, nor will the weekly valor point cap be changing. The change is, according to the post, meant to allow people to gear up faster by killing bosses twice as often. There is currently no word on whether this will play solely to Taiwanese servers, or to all regions. If it does come to U.S. servers, it is likely our reset will revolve around Tuesday downtime, making the ideal second-reset day Friday. Check after the break for a quick and dirty Google translation of the post. UPDATE: Community Manager Zarhym has posted the following: 4.0 and 4.2 Raids to reset twice a week? The new raid lockout changes for Taiwan and Korea adjust the lockout timers for the patch 4.0 and 4.2 raids. The lockout timers for these raids will now reset twice weekly instead of once. These raid lockout changes are being made to allow players to raid more often and get more chances at epic loot drops. Players will be able to down current Cataclysm raid bosses twice a week, accelerating players' progression. We are testing these new raid lockout changes in Taiwan and Korea first. Our goal is to expand this change to other regions in the future, but we don't have anything further to announce at this time with regard to North American implementation. source
The Game Archaeologist uncovers Shadowbane: The highlights
Way back when I used to haunt the corridors of Gamestop and not shun the place due to its stinky evil, I remember being enticed with these fancy-pantsy "MMORPG" boxes when I'd see them on the shelf. I must have picked up Shadowbane a dozen or so times to check out the blurbs on the back, mentally weighing whether or not this would be the one to introduce me to online gaming, but ultimately it was not to be. It's probably for the best, considering that Shadowbane was primarily PvP and I'm a PvE guy at heart. Plus, the title never really took off the way that publisher Ubisoft had hoped, spending most of its six years of operation lurking in the background of the MMO industry instead of sharing the spotlight. But still, six years! That's far longer than any of the titles we've been talking about these past couple months, and considering that Shadowbane won last week's poll to become this month's topic, there are obviously strong feelings lurking among you. What did Shadowbane try to do differently, how did it stay alive as long as it did, and what was its downfall? Hit the jump to find out!
