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Facebook now flags fake news
After taking heat for months in the run up to the presidential elections, Facebook has been cracking down on fake news spreading through its social network. The company recently began using third-party fact-checkers and gave its users the ability to manually report fake news posts. Late last week, the company announced that it will soon include "Disputed" labels for these false reports as well.
Warlords of Draenor: PvP now requires active flagging on PvE realms
Have you ever been quietly minding your own business on the Timeless Isle, or attacking a world raid boss like Ordos, only to find yourself accidentally flagged for PvP due to a misclick or tab target gone horribly wrong? Earlier this year, Bashiok mentioned that one of the goals for PvE realms was to keep players from accidentally flagging themselves -- and in a tweet by Ion Hazzikostas, it's been confirmed that this has now been implemented on the beta. @holinka @swirlyball @Bashiok You must manually /pvp flag if you want to attack a player on a PvE server. No more misclicks or baiting. - Watcher (@WatcherDev) August 28, 2014 This means no more accidental flagging for players that are simply trying to DPS or quest out in the open world on PvE realms. And this also applies to healers as well -- healers will simply not be able to heal flagged players unless they choose to actively flag for PvP. Naturally this issue isn't a problem on PvP realms, but for players on PvE realms, the change in Warlords should be a welcome relief. When players make the choice to roll on a PvE realm, that choice is usually a deliberate one that's made to avoid the hassle of unwanted world PvP situations. It's nice to see that steps are finally being taken to keep PvP on PvE realms what it was meant to be -- an optional experience that you can choose to participate in, rather than be tricked into whether you're willing or not.
The Daily Grind: Do alternative server rulesets wreck PvP?
A commenter conversation a while back got me thinking about how server rulesets can make or break the PvP in a game, and not in the way you might expect. I've found that when a game offers separate PvE and PvP servers (be those PvP servers factional or open), the middle-ground players are left without a home. My World of Warcraft guild, for example, was opposed to the idea of a PvE-only server where people could flag but rarely would do so, and so we ended up on a PvP server, where smallfry ganking, rather than the Dark Age of Camelot-esque RvR we'd hoped for, is tediously and irritatingly commonplace. Neither choice is ideal because the populations are split along too sharp a line. In Star Wars Galaxies, by contrast, the servers were PvE with factional-flagging consensual PvP, but because there were no full-PvP servers to bleed away the more hardcore PvPers, the population was mixed, and the PvP situation wound up being far more interesting for more players. PvE gamers who wouldn't dream of flagging for PvP in a game like World of Warcraft would see the Galactic Civil War being waged by PvPers all around them in SWG, and even though they could have stayed safely civillian and free from risk, that visible PvP made them much more likely to jump into PvP themselves willingly -- and isn't that exactly what MMOs should strive for? What do you think -- do alternative rulesets divide playerbases and wreck PvP? Are mixed-use servers a viable way to involve more players consensually in side activities like PvP? 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!
EVE Evolved: Baiting players is hilarious fun!
I originally planned to put together updated ship setups for EVE Online's newly revamped Caldari, Minmatar, and Amarr Tech 1 cruisers this week, but I've honestly been having far too much fun baiting people in highsec with last week's Vexor setup. I'm having such hilarious fun doing it that I just had to dedicate this week's column to the dirty art of the bait-and-gank! There's absolutely nothing more amusing in EVE than baiting a ship twice the size of yours into attacking you for an "easy kill" and then turning it into a very expensive smoking wreck. The basic idea of baiting is simple: Get yourself flagged as a suspect by committing a minor crime like theft, fly around waiting for someone to attack you, and then tear him to bits. Before Retribution, you were flagged as a valid target only to the individual people you stole from, but once they attacked, you were safe to engage. Now you're flagged to the whole of EVE, making it easier to get a bite but also a whole lot riskier to engage in a crowded area. It's hard to pick and choose your fights when the whole universe is gunning for you, but when you get a good bite, there are some insanely fun fights to be had. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give some top tips on how to safely bait players in high-security space, where to find the best targets, and what ships are most effective.
EVE Evolved: Three ways to break Retribution
EVE Online's upcoming Retribution expansion is set to revolutionise PvP with its brand-new criminal and bounty hunting systems. Players will be able to hunt down criminals who show their faces in highsec, and bounty hunters will track not just individuals but also entire corporations and alliances. If past expansions are any indication, however, the first thing players invariably do with any new feature is to try to break it. Some people will undoubtedly find ways to bend the new gameplay into scams, others will trick players into getting themselves killed for a few laughs, and a few will hunt for borderline exploits. We now know enough about Retribution's new features to figure out some of the ways they can be potentially abused. The ability to sell kill rights opens up a whole new scam based on tempting players with a juicy target and then pulling the rug out from under their feet. The new Suspect flag that lets players dispense justice to criminals can also be used to bait innocent players into getting themselves killed. There may even be a way to get rid of bounties for free, undermining one of the expansion's core mechanics. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at three potential pitfalls in the upcoming Retribution expansion, how they might work when the expansion goes live, and how to protect yourself from falling victim to them.
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.
