revenge
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Creator of viral glitter bomb video admits parts of it were staged
This week, it seemed the entire Internet rejoiced after a former NASA engineer created a custom glitter bomb designed to strike back against package thieves. His impressive invention resulted in a hilarious video of would-be criminals being coated in glitter and having their nostrils assaulted with a fart spray. But it seems the clip, which racked up more than 42 million views in just a few days, was a little too good to be true -- its creator admits parts of it were staged, seemingly without his knowledge.
NASA engineer creates glitter bomb package to thwart parcel thieves
Because we live in a world where we can't have nice things, package theft is a real problem, and in recent times unscrupulous individuals stealing parcels from porches have prompted police sting operations, as well as longer-term tech innovation, such as Amazon's smart locks. But neither of these things do a whole lot for theft victims longing for sweet, sweet revenge. Now, former NASA engineer Mark Rober has devised a frankly glorious solution that guarantees instant vengeance.
EVE Evolved: Retribution is freaking awesome!
Shortly after the Retribution expansion's deployment, a thread popped up on the EVE Online forums that proved to me that the expansion had been a massive success. In the thread titled So that's what victory in this game feels like, miner Tiberius StarGazer explained that he has always felt like he had no way to get back at people who wronged him. After losing millions of ISK in ships to pirate attacks, he was almost ready to give up on EVE. But when Retribution landed, he was able to sell his kill rights to the public so that every player vigilante who crossed his attacker's path could try to take him down without warning. After just a few hours, Tiberius got a notification that put a smile on his face: He had his first taste of revenge. He'd dealt more damage back to his attacker by clicking a button than had ever been done to him, and the attacker wasn't happy about it. He threatened to find Tiberius and kill him again, and that simple miner's reply said all I needed to know about how successful Retribution has been: "I have deep pockets. Every kill you make on me, I will add as a bounty on your corp; every kill right, I will sell. I can't fight you but others can and you will have to lose five times my loss for wronging me." Retribution has finally given industrialists a reliable way to get revenge and use their wealth as a weapon! In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the PvP that's springing up in empire space, how the new flagging mechanics affect baiting, and what the ship revamp means for new players.
EVE Evolved: Bounty hunting and revenge
Last week I looked into the major PvP changes coming in EVE Online's upcoming Retribution expansion, from the piracy revamp to a new global flagging system that puts players in the driving seat of justice. This week CCP Games revealed full details of the upcoming bounty hunting system revamp, and I have to say I'm really excited. The new bounty system not only makes bounty hunting a viable profession again but also gives players a way to deal significant financial damage to their enemies without getting their hands dirty. As if that weren't enough, players will even be able to enforce the law on their own terms, trawling high-security space for criminals and lighting them up for everyone to kill. Corporate- and alliance-level bounties will push grudges to new levels, enabling a new type of passive financial warfare. The new bounty system can also be used as a tool to motivate troops into battle, a way to incentivise boring but necessary starbase warfare, and even a method for running tournaments. In this week's EVE Evolved, I get ridiculously excited about EVE's upcoming bounty hunting revamp and explain why it makes the Retribution expansion a complete game-changer.
The Daily Grind: When have you gotten revenge?
We've all been wronged by others in games. It's a fact of life. And how we respond to these slights can reflect on our character (moral character, not in-game... you understand). Sure, we can be the bigger person and turn the other cheek. We can appeal to higher authorities to come and smite our enemies, when applicable. More often than not, we can sit there feeling impotent and without a way to strike back. But... but every once in a while, an opportunity for revenge comes along. Finally, you're able to deliver some payback. Maybe you did it fully within the confines of the game's mechanics -- PvP, for example -- or maybe you structured a revenge scheme so unorthodox that several motion picture studios are vying for the film rights. Let's hear your revenge stories today. When did you get it, and did it satisfy you in the end? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What mob type is too cute to kill?
In Star Wars Galaxies, it was the Gubbur. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, it's the Bantha. In World of Warcraft, it's those weird flower-monsters called Lashers. Every game has a super cute mob that I just feel horrible killing. Sometimes I suspect that the devs are purposely adding adorable things to MMOs and asking us to kill them just to mess with our heads in the service of some sort of Milgram experiment. Or maybe it's just meant to put us in our place out of pure revenge: "Flame my game on the forums, will you? Here's a zone full of fluffy Vorpal Bunnies that can one-shot you. Eat it, suckers!" So what say you? What MMO creature is simply too cute to kill? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Dominus reveals its bounty hunting mechanics
We're not sure what it is about bounty hunters that makes them cooler than cool, but there's no denying the appeal of a profession that characters like Boba Fett, John Marston, and Rick Deckard call their own. Dominus is hoping to capture some of that badassery in a bottle via its bounty hunting system, and a new update on the game's official website has all the details. In a nutshell, players are able to place bounties on four of their enemies at a time, and the only other consideration is the amount of money you're willing to put toward your revenge. Hunting a bounty involves accepting a contract via an NPC, and you'll be alerted as to your target's zone location if he's online. After you make the kill, you'll be paid on the spot, and any other players who accepted the same bounty contract will find it removed from their mission log. There's more, but you'll need to head to the Dominus website to read it.
WiFi hacker lands 18-year prison sentence, sex offender status for campaign of cyber vengeance
Look, we understand that being accused of pedophilia is horrible but, if you're not keen on spending time in the pokey, it's probably not best to exact your revenge by hacking and framing your accusers for making terrorist threats or downloading child pornography. That was the unfortunate route chosen by Minnesotan Barry Ardolf, whose neighbors Matt and Bethany Kostolnik went to the police after he allegedly kissed their four-year-old son on the lips. Ardolf broke into the couple's Wi-Fi and e-mail accounts, and used them to post porn on MySpace, send threats to Joe Biden, and explicit come-ons to Matt's coworkers. Now the 46-year-old cyberbully is facing 18 years in prison, a tough sentence for a first time offender sure, but an investigation revealed the Kostolniks were not his first victims. In addition to his lengthy stay in jail Ardolf will also have to register as a sex offender -- an irony we're sure isn't lost on him. [Thanks, Alan] [Image courtesy Jason Morrison]
Nokia's Elop responds to Google's 'Two turkeys' tweet
Like it or not, you have to hand it to Stephen Elop, Nokia's new CEO. The man isn't afraid to shake things up and clean house to meet his vision of the future. And now that he's made Windows Phone 7 Nokia's "primary smartphone platform" in what he sees as a three-way race between Microkia, Googloid, and Apple (sorry HP and RIM), the man's free to unleash his mild-mannered Canadian fury upon Google's Vic Gundotra (via proxy). As you'll recall, Vic insulted the rumored partnership earlier in the week by tweeting, "two turkeys do not make an Eagle." If you don't understand Elop's twitter-burn then we urge you to visit one of Dayton Ohio's fine historical museums while eating a slice of Cassano's pizza -- we hear it's delicious. [Thanks, Jack]
WoW Moviewatch: Revenge (Act 2)
In Revenge (Act 2), we get a little more insight to why Nixxiom has launched his crusade against Arthas. We also get the hint that Nixxiom's pals might have somehow been involved in betrayal. This video is technically a preview. But it clocks in at 10 minutes and has a more fully developed plot than many full machinimas I've seen. My hat's off to Nixxiom and Silverlined Productions for this. Revenge (Act 2) is a very moody piece, featuring a lot of good old-fashioned brooding angst time. Considering the events in the main character's life, that's pretty justified. However, now that the story has been built up and framed, it should be exciting to see the action in the next release. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Breakfast Topic: Revenge is a dish best served at the level cap
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Back in vanilla, my then-leveling pally main loved and hated the time she spent questing in Duskwood. Loved because the mood of the zone was great, the quests interesting -- and which paladin doesn't love a place chock-full of undead? That is, except for Mor'ladim. He was the reason she hated the place. From the first time she died a gruesome death in the clawed hands of the old pile of bones, to the last quests before moving on, she couldn't pass anywhere close to his path without being attacked. Mor'ladim seemed to sense when she was near and make a beeline straight to her. My guildmates at the time joked that he was in love; I said he had a strange way of expressing it. Whatever it was, I vowed to have my revenge. Fast-forward a few levels and my pally, finally 60, returned for the payback. I killed Mor'ladim many, many times. I offered in general chat to kill him for whomever needed or wanted him. I camped him with gusto, remembering all those repair bills and corpse runs. After Cataclysm arrives, I will surely go back to look for my old enemy and kill him once again, if he's still there. You know, for old times' sake. Whose pixelated behind did you or will you rush to kick once you gained the power to do it?
Tapulous integrated into Disney Mobile, releases Katy Perry Revenge
Disney buying Tapulous was one of the most high-profile App Store acquisitions so far, and here are the first fruits of that partnership. First up, Disney reports that Tapulous has been integrated into the rest of the company -- the studio is now fully part of the "Disney Mobile" division, so all future releases will come from the Disney Mobile name rather than the Tapulous brand. That contradicts with the actual App Store listing at the moment -- there's no mention of Disney in any of Tapulous' app listings. But that information can take a while to change, so we'll have to see if Disney updates those listings. Second, the studio's first game under the Disney banner is out now -- Katy Perry Revenge is a Tap Tap Revenge-style title built specifically for Katy Perry songs. There are ten songs from the pop singer in the app, from "I Kissed a Girl" to "Teenage Dream," and there's lots of other fan-specific material, as well as a Facebook connection to share scores and updates. It's available for US $4.99, the same price as Tapulous' other artist-targeted Revenge titles. So it sounds like things are both different and the same for Tapulous -- they've been brought into the company as a whole, but they're either cleaning out the queue of old projects (this new game easily seems as if it could have been done without Disney's help), or continuing to work on the same type of app as before. We'll have to see what Tapulous releases in the future now that they're brought into the Disney Mobile division.
Evil teen Bieber finds revenge is a dish best served on Twitter
Saturday night, from the depths of his subterranean cave, teen idol Justin Bieber took revenge on someone (who seems to be a minor so we're not going to bother naming names) who had allegedly hacked the Twitter account of the star's childhood friend. How best to get back at someone who has wronged you in your world 2.0? By Tweeting their phone number to your four and a half million followers, of course! We've seen this nerd fleeing throngs of girls on a Segway in the past -- which made him seem rather cool in our eyes -- but now we must ask ourselves... is Justin Bieber as innocent as he appears to be? Either way, nice burn.
Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Revenge of the Warrior, now Improved
In the most recent bout of data mining the PTR patch (specifically build 11623), the fine folks at MMO-Champion discovered more changes and clarifications to how warrior abilities will work. Keeping in mind again that this is the PTR and you never know how things are going to change, here are the specifics. Protection Revenge damage has been slightly lowered, it now deals [ 31% of AP + 1636 ] to [ 31% of AP + 1998 ] damage at max rank. Down from [ 31% of AP + 2181 ] to [ 31% of AP + 2665 ] damage. Improved Revenge now Increases damage of your Revenge ability by 30/60% (up from 10/20%) and causes Revenge to strike an additional target for 50% damage. Vitality now increases your total Strength by 2/4/6%, Stamina by 3/6/9% and your Expertise by 2/4/6.(On live, this is Strength and Stamina by 2/4/6% and Expertise by 2/4/6.) Arms Trauma now lasts 1 min, up from 15 sec. The Trauma change is probably one for convenience, as it can be hard in a high mobility fight (like, say, running out of a Defile) to keep Trauma up and this way you'll have more leeway to keep those bleeds ticking at max efficiency while still getting out of bombs or fissures or what have you. Vitality is pretty much exactly as it was the last time we talked about it. As for Revenge, the baseline ability is being adjusted slightly downward from our original exciting 3.3.3 revelation. But Improved Revenge is being hugely buffed. Hugely. When we first heard the news that Revenge would be getting some improvements, we speculated in the comments that perhaps they'd throw some AoE viability in there, and now they have done exactly that. By baking it into the talent instead of the baseline ability (and by removing the stun from Imp Revenge, it appears) you cut back on prot warrior stuns in PvP while giving a strong new reason to pick up Imp Revenge for more damage and more AoE threat. It's a pretty solid change for a tanking prot warrior.
Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Warrior changes
There's only two, but they're reasonably important. Revenge: Damage done by this ability (base and scaling) increased by 50%. Rampage: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc from critical strikes. We talked about Revenge this week, and while this change is fairly unexciting, it's still a sizable buff. 50% more base and scaling damage to the ability will definitely make it attractive to use again. I may even change my spec back to take Improved Revenge again. Then again, since I used to spend 2 talent points to get 20% more damage on Revenge and now I'll get 50% without spending them it may still be better to put those points somewhere else. The stun isn't terribly useful for boss tanking in most cases, although when it does work it's nice. The Rampage change, on the other hand, is what the ability always should have been. While a talented Leader of the Pack will still be better with its healing benefit, Rampage is now exactly as good as the baseline ability. I never understood making Rampage, an ability you have to spend quite a few talent points to get, inferior to one 10 points cheaper. Sure, it's nothing that's going to make or break the spec and it really should have been what we always had, but at least it's finally here.
More tanking changes for warriors
After the changes to Devastate made in an attempt to 'buff warrior tank DPS' (I'm sure you all remember our coverage of said change) many warriors reported that one of the side effects of this change was to make Revenge, a long time warrior tanking ability, less than useful. With Devastate threat up (especially when glyphed) there's just less reason to use Revenge when it lights up. Now, Ghostcrawler interjects into a post that yes, Revenge will likely see some changes. This is interesting to me for two reasons. First, because it's a fairly rapid statement of intent compared to past issues, where months could pass before anyone would address an issue (Thunder Clap only hitting four targets, for example, which was a huge problem for warriors for most of BC) and secondly because it highlights the domino effect that changing class abilities can have and showcases just how difficult class balance really can be. They knew even when they were making the change to Devastate that this might be necessary, but they understandably wanted to roll out any changes in an incremental way. My expectation is either a threat buff for Revenge (which, frankly, isn't really all that interesting a change), a DPS increase (which isn't likely) or perhaps a small bit of AoE viability like a cleave effect. That last bit would be a good way of adding some AoE bite without replicating the paladin model which we've already been told is a touch over the top.
Video: Pandemic goes out with a bang, 'Office Space' style
There's no two ways about it: having your studio shut down does not feel good. However, it does feel good to be a gangsta. Damn good. To prove this ancient adage, some former Pandemic employees put together a little Office Space–inspired video to honor the house that brought us Mercenaries, the Star Wars Battlefront series and the upcoming release, The Saboteur. Kotaku reports that the mercilessly destroyed printer was, in fact, used by the Saboteur team, giving the video an extra layer of sweet vengeance. A word to EA: if you're missing any red Swingline staplers, we might know where they are. Watch the (very NSFW) video after the break.
Major EVE Online alliance CVA disbanded: espionage or hack?
Major EVE Online roleplaying alliance Curatores Veritatis Alliance (CVA) disbanded today, possibly the result of a traitor within their ranks, leaving a power vacuum in the Providence region they once held. It's possible for high-level directors of an alliance to disband the organization, and this is exactly what happened today to Curatores Veritatis Alliance. CVA was an alliance loyal to the game's NPC faction the Amarr Empire and had a long history of enforcing rule in lawless space and resisting rival player organizations of Minmatar freedom fighters -- notably Ushra'Khan -- who they branded as terrorists. In short, CVA has played a significant role in the player-driven setting of EVE Online. At this point, speculation as to how CVA was disbanded is rampant. The concept of a mole using high-level access to destroy an alliance from within is not unprecedented in the game, although some players are asserting an account hack took place. EVE pilot "BULLETPROOF 50CENT" of the corporation Traceless Representatives of Anonymous Players (TRAP) has claimed credit for the disintegration of CVA. He stated: "I am known as bullet, just a small, relatively unknown member of a covert organization, created by and dedicated to the taking down of what we saw as the single largest evil in EVE -- CVA."
The Daily Grind: Vendettas
We've all had them. That one dungeon where your groups always wound up dying long before you got to the final boss, either because you couldn't get past the enemies or there was some trick you always screwed up. That one area that you couldn't quest in because you would get mobbed by adds. The quest you never could finish because the target was too hard to kill or too difficult to find. The elusive weapon a monster should have dropped a third of the time but never did when you got the kill.Even though we all know that there's nothing on the AI side of an MMO but computer chips and electrical currents, we still find ourselves forming our own little plots of revenge. Since many of these points of endless frustration occur early in the game, to boot, we often have the opportunity to head back once we're more powerful and take out our frustration on the dungeons or enemies that always frustrated us before. And it might be a bit silly, but there's always a sense of glee to crushing your former roadblocks.What sort of digital enemies have you made? Do you find yourself hunting down your lower-level targets of hatred, or do you tend to let go of the frustrations more easily?
EVE Evolved: Just another week in the Sleeper's den
Following last week's reassuringly popular article "Untangling the mystery of the Sleepers", our little expeditionary alliance has had an extremely action-packed week. In addition to several PvP encounters with roaming gangs, there's been a POS siege, a system invasion and a lot of drama. At the end of it all, I'm left with a renewed sense of awe for the unique experiences EVE Online can deliver if you're just willing to seek them out and actively involve yourself. At times I can truly immerse myself in EVE and feel like I'm taking an actor's part in a kind of intergalactic play scene, an experience I've never come close to in any other MMO. Taking part in these events is almost like being painted into an illustrative chapter of some historic record. In this article, I hope to solidify that record and share a glimpse of what it's like to immerse yourself in this part of EVE. What follows is a storytold account of Total Comfort alliance's deadly week in the Sleeper's den.
