spies
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Hints of espionage in Earthrise
One of the interesting things that happens when you create a sandbox MMO where players can establish political systems, even empires, is that factions of those players will form and work against their opposition. In some cases, this is through large scale PvP campaigns. But another, more subtle aspect to warfare between guilds is espionage, should the game developer allow it. Fortunately for Earthrise players, Masthead Studios won't just allow espionage in their post-apocalyptic game -- they encourage it. Espionage is the focus of the latest Question of the Week asked by a member of the Earthrise community. It seems that spying will be an important aspect of conflicts between guilds, but so will visits to other guild territories for trade runs. Masthead Studios implies that there will be a pass system used to allow non-guild members access to a guild's territory: "Even though one might expect only allies and friends to the guild would be allowed to visit using a pass system, it is possible for clever spies of enemy guilds to find a way to sneak in and report to their headquarters about the development of enemy bases."
The Agency declassifies intel for revamped game site
One of the new titles on the way from Sony Online Entertainment is The Agency which promises to bring espionage into the world of MMOs. There were no announcements for The Agency at today's Sony press event at the E3 Expo, but we've noticed that there's new content to be found on the game's official site. A quick search of The Agency site reveals some new screenshots and wallpapers, concept art, info about both playable factions -- U.N.I.T.E. (spies) and Paragon (mercenaries) -- and a tongue-in-cheek 'evaluation quiz' for recruitment to each faction. In addition to the new art assets, they've also got their latest trailer up on the site as well. If you've been looking forward to some spies-and-mercenaries gameplay in an MMO, check out what's new on The Agency's revamped site.
Urine for a treat as TF2's Sniper practices 'jarate'
We've met the Sniper before, but now we learn what he actually does with all those jars of urine. The latest update in Team Fortress 2's continuing Spy vs. Sniper saga reveals the Sniper brandishing his liquid gold as a weapon. A thrown jar of "Jarate" on an opponent will increase damage by 35 percent (poor Heavy) and can disable the Spy's cloaking device. If it's used on a teammate (eww!), it'll put out fires and jellyfish stings ... if there were jellyfish in the game.We may not be playing Team Fortress 2 that much anymore, but we're more than happy to let Valve keep chronicling the exploits of the well-developed TF2 cast.[Thanks, Anthony]
The Agency still has a pulse, fact sheet confirms
Sony Online Entertainment could have a PC and console hit on their hands if their spies and mercenaries MMO The Agency lives up to expectations. The Agency has fallen off of the media radar of late, but development is moving ahead on the title.The last word we've received on when we'll be able to get our hands on the game is that The Agency will be released in 2010. Massively has some previous coverage of The Agency but we're always looking out for more info, and that's what we found today. While we've touched upon some of this information in the past, SOE has released a brief fact sheet that explains the concepts behind The Agency and its "modern setting of bullets, bomb blasts, and betrayal." We're still hoping that there will be more info announced about the game at the E3 Expo in June, but until SOE declassifies their intel, you can check out The Agency fact sheet below the cut:
EVE PvP Tournament assassination: Machiavellian or bad form?
Struggle between player alliances in EVE Online is very much at the heart of the game. While most conflicts play out in sweeping alliance warfare, with its requisite fleet battles involving hundreds of players, some alliances also choose to face one another in arena combat with the rapt attention of many thousands of their fellow pilots: the Alliance PvP Tournament. The Alliance Tournament in EVE Online provides a way for players to demonstrate what they're capable of under controlled conditions, and offers a shot at fame or notoriety among the playerbase. In some cases, alliances may face off in the PvP tournament to settle a score in a very public way. The rules of engagement in place ensure that all alliance teams are on equal ground with one another. EVE players can be devious though, if nothing else... as one match this past weekend proved: one alliance competitor assassinated his team's captain once the match had begun, and then self-destructed his own ship. The would-be saboteur, ironically named "Happy Joymaker", later announced he had infiltrated the alliance for the express purpose of a public execution of his target.
LightSpeed binoculars transmit video and audio via Infrared
It's not often that tremendous advancements are made in the realm of binoculars, but these LightSpeed specs are something special. Aimed primarily at military / surveillance uses, this device is able to transmit video and audio via Infrared, theoretically enabling rooftop spies on opposite buildings to communicate. Furthermore, this method of communication is undetectable and untraceable. No mention of just how expensive these are, but suffice it to say, you aren't apt to see these on shelves of Toys R Us and the like.
Rumors of The Agency's death have been exaggerated
Rumors abound that Sony Online Entertainment's MMO-in-development, The Agency, has been cancelled. This stems from a GameFly email sent out that the title is now removed from GameQ's, with the explanation message that "For unreleased titles, the game has been canceled by its publisher... We apologize for any disappointment this may cause. If you have any questions, please contact us." Well that's exactly what our sister site PS3 Fanboy did. Only they went right to SOE, not Gamefly, to check on The Agency's status. Andrew Yoon from PS3 Fanboy confirmed with SOE's Katie Hanson that the project is, indeed, alive. So there you have it. The Agency has not been targeted for assassination. You can check out the declassified intel over at PS3 Fanboy.
EVE's spies and metagamers
EVE Online is one of the few MMOs where players in guilds (corporations and alliances) have some valid concerns about spies from rival groups infiltrating their ranks. The concept of being a spy or saboteur is a profession of sorts that arose in the game. There aren't any game mechanics that necessarily enable spying or make it into a viable profession, nor are there any rules that prohibit most of these activities. Wes from EVE Tribune recently wrote a piece called "Metagaming", dealing with how espionage can impact rival corporations and alliances in EVE. Wes asks, "Why is everyone so paranoid about spies and metagaming?" then goes on to explain how espionage in EVE works, categorizing spies by their modus operandi:
A newbie's first war declaration in EVE Online
It's almost guaranteed that at some point in your time as an EVE Online pilot, you'll encounter a war declaration from another corporation. In some cases, the wardec may be provoked -- another corp's pilot killed or harassed, perhaps one ninja salvaging too many, and the next thing you know Concord sends you an email notifying you of hard times ahead. Then again, wardecs can also simply be used for kicks and consequence-free highsec kills. Potentially, a war declaration can also be a form of ransoming, a way for aggressors to extort money as a 'fee' to retract the wardec. Regardless of its cause, the situation remains the same: your opponents are free to fire upon you in high security space without triggering a response from Concord. For a newer player, a feeling of panic can sink in. That warm, comfy security blanket of highsec no longer offers its sheltering protection from harm. Perhaps for the first time, there's real risk involved in playing the game. That's an angle of war declarations that writer Sam Guss discusses in a piece for MMORPG.com called "EVE Online: Surviving Your First War." (Guss is also a writer at EVE-Mag). But that's really just the backdrop. He recounts his own experience with being wardecced, from the surprise of the initial wardec to the sobering 24-hour countdown to war against far more experienced PvP-ers.
EVE exploit warning affects corp infiltration practices
War declarations are an essential part of EVE Online. They allow corporations and alliances to fight for control over resources, territory, or simply to get revenge on their rivals. Then again, others declare war for the opportunity to grief in Empire space. Perhaps it's this latter tendency that prompted the latest announcement from CCP Games. They're branding the monkeywrenching of rival corporations during wartime as an exploit. GM Grimmi states: "The practice of insta-joining/leaving warring corporations for the purpose of surprising war targets, or getting them in trouble with CONCORD, is considered an exploit from here on. Reports of this will be investigated on a case by case basis and warnings will be issued at the discretion of the GM. Repeated incidents may result in bans on accounts involved." This doesn't seem to apply to 'normal' corp infiltrations, though it does beg the question of why a corporation at war would even be accepting new recruits at all. What's the protocol in your corp, do you continue to accept applicants into the fold during a wardec, or is the risk of alt spying and sabotage too great?
TR's Ranger classes get a second look
We're pleased to report that this week's Tabula Rasa Feedback Friday is uncharacteristically juicy. The decision was made in the Classes and Combat teams that Rangers and Spies needed a serious looking at in patch 1.7. Their logic was that the two Ranger classes, Spies and Snipers, are too narrowly restricted by their class-defining weapons. Snipers have been struggling with this recently with the changes to Torqueshell rifles. And while Spies have been anything but hindered by their spectacular Blade damage, their effectiveness discourages Spies from trying different tactics.Among the changes that will be heralded in patch 1.7 (it's worth reiterating here that patch 1.6 is still in testing and has no confirmed release date) is a new ability called Fire Support, which will take the place of Carpet Bombs in the Ranger repertoire. It's different effects at different ranks should give it increased utility for single-target DPS. Another ability with the potential to be quite cool is Tactical Evasion, which, at pump 5, would give the Ranger player the ability to set up a temporary beacon that you will teleport back to after a given amount of time. It sounds like a near way to rush into a crowded area, take out an important target, and get away quickly. To check out the full range of changes, make sure to check it out on the official site.
Tabula Rasa resolution hotfix live
Well, it took quite a bit of concerted bitching, but it looks like the worst of the effects from Tabula Rasa's patch 1.5 have been addressed. A hotfix went live this morning which corrected the issues people were having with the resolution automatically resizing to 1158x864 every time the client was restarted. The patch notes say that some players may still experience problems if they run the game full screen at resolutions of 1280x960, but I got the game running silky smooth on my GeForce 7600 at 1440x900, so it's probably a driver issue affecting very specific cards. If anything, I've actually noticed a performance increase in graphic-intensive outdoor areas, so this patch is quite welcome indeed.Also coming as part of the hotfix is a respec for the Spy class, whose abilities underwent a number of changes in patch 1.5. This change is perhaps the stranger of the problems fixed. It was not a coding or optimization error, as with the resolution problem, but simply a lack of foresight on the developer's part. One wonders how they didn't initially foresee the need for a respec, but were so quickly able to amend their position once the patch went live? It's very strange, but hey, kudos to them for seeing the light.
On Tabula Rasa respecs and resolutions
With Tabula Rasa already on the ropes with recent reports of financial failure, the last thing the TR community wanted or needed to have to deal with was the awfully-implemented patch 1.5 that rolled out onto live servers yesterday. Pushed out of testing a scant five days after it was revealed on the public test server, the patch was bugged by resolution issues and big changes to the Spy class weren't accompanied by a respec to make them worth the trouble. Morale among the AFS-faithful was not terribly high this time yesterday morning.Evidently, the developers actually paid notice and took a rare opportunity to break their usual Monday/Friday announcement schedule to address these concerns. They're working on a hotfix for the resolution problem, and suggest in the meantime that players run the game in windowed mode. Not that doing so addresses the fact that the resolution resets every time you load the game, but at least it doesn't crash. They've also revealed that part of their plan in patch 1.6 is to make respecs a more readily available resource. Instead of the crummy awards players currently get for defending and attacking CPs, players will soon be able to collect talent and attribute respec credits for their trouble instead. It's a good idea, and enough of a distraction that most of the doom and gloom has abated, albeit temporarily.
New TR patch shoved out the door
Well, that was quick. I'm not too sure why I'm surprised, but players woke up this morning to find that Tabula Rasa's patch 1.5 had snuck out the door last night, and is patiently waiting on player desktops. Players didn't quite have a full week to fully digest the patch notes after they showed up on the public test server before they're going live, which is either helpful or incredibly reckless depending on how much stock you put into the QA process. In this case we're going to go with "reckless" because early reports (confirmed after we ourselves downloaded the patch) show a strange bug where the game resets your resolution every time you load up the game, causing crashes for some (this blogger included).As to the content of the patch itself, we've already talked about some of the neat things that players will find within. One of the changes we didn't get around to talking about are the changes to the Spy class. They've reworked the way Traitor works in PvP to make it more like a traditional Mind Control, in addition to throwing in a new melee attack for Spies that is similar to other players' melee attacks, and takes into account bonuses to damage and knockdown given by putting pumps into hand-to-hand. (Spies are one of only two melee classes in the game, so this new attack is distinguished from their normal blade attacks.) Oddly enough though, Spies do not get a respec. Full patch notes available after the jump.
Thrall gets a new big brother: US government wants to search for terrorists on WoW
The Rogue in your next instance or battleground may just be a spy- not from the opposite faction, from the United States Government. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence submitted a report to Congress [Via Wired] on their plans to use data mining in virtual communities to root out spies. The project will involve sifting through vast amounts of data, looking for suspicious behavior and actions. The Intelligence Community wants to target MMOs because they typically fall outside the purview of study. The spying project would only use publicly available data. The findings of the endeavor would not be classified. Data mining is the process of going through large amounts of information for specific relevant information. This is a process that has long been used in the business industry for product and market research. The government plans to use these same techniques to root out terrorist messages in online content.
Potential robospies spotted at political events
Yeah, it's very possible that reports of "robospies" at political events are nothing more than propaganda or the result of blurred vision, but a number of protesters have recently been "seeing" creatures that appear to be "large dragonflies" while out exercising their rights. Some folks noted that they were akin to "little helicopters," and while "no agency admits to having deployed insect-size spy drones," there's always the possibility. As you know, it's not impossible to add spy abilities to bug-like robots and rodents, but many experts question the ability of a camera-equipped device that minuscule to collect useful information in a crowd. Regardless, this is one sure to get the privacy advocates all riled up.[Via The Raw Feed]
Rootkit hack taps Greek prime minister's phone
In 2005, Greek authorities discovered a plot hatched and executed by unknown sources which allowed the tapping of wireless phones on the Vodafone network belonging to the country's Prime Minister and other top officials, making it one of the furthest reaching covert infiltrations of a government in history. A recent report from IEEE Spectrum shows that the tap was made possible by a 6,500 line piece of code called a rootkit, the first-ever to be embedded in a phone switch's OS. The complex hack took advantage of aging phone systems by disabling transaction logs on calls and allowing call monitoring on four switches within the teleco's computers, thus sending the call to another phone for monitoring (similar to a legal wiretap). The spies covered their tracks by creating patches on the system which routed the calls around logging software which would have alerted admins, and were only discovered when they tried to update their software. The case clearly exposes holes in call security amongst providers (due largely in part to outdated systems), and suggests the possibility that this kind of thing could easily happen again... to you![Via textually]
I have to change-- I'm logging out
Kayholder found a level 70 character on the Armory (hi, Subdural from Alexstraza) wearing all kinds of junk, and asks how the guy even got to level 50, much less 70. But the answer from another WoW LJer mentioned something I've never heard before either: "logout clothes."No way. I know players were concerned about being spied on in the Armory when it first came out, but are you guys really putting on a logout set before you exit the game? This guy's a shadow priest, but he doesn't have any arena ratings that I can see, and he's Exalted with the AV faction (not that hard), and only Honored with the other two, so who is he hiding his gear from? Does he not want Magtheridon scouring the Armory to see who's coming to get him this weekend?Seriously, do you guys really do this? Is it that important to hide your gear that you have to carry around a completely separate set to put on every time you log out? And even if you do, can't people see your set while you're wearing it? All they'd have to do, I'd think, is wait for you to log on, and then check the Amory to see what you were wearing (or heck, just go find you in game). Do any of you really use "logout clothes"? And for the love of Thrall, why?
DARPA's zombie-shark trainer looking at non-military applications
Earlier this year we brought you news of an exciting DARPA-funded project whose goal was to take your common, household shark and turn it into a remote-controllable spy capable of gathering critical military intelligence such as the location of enemy mines and submarines. And sure enough, Boston University's Jelle Atema and his team learned how to crudely guide these kings of the sea using either electrical stimulation to mimic their natural neural processes or -- our favorite -- little gadgets attached to their noses that release delicious-smelling squid juice on cue. While Professor Atema was able to make a good deal of headway in his research, biologists still have a long way to go before they fully understand how sharks use odor stimuli to navigate, and DARPA funding ran out before any more progress could be made at BU: the zombie-shark project recently got sucked into the black hole that is classified military research. Despite the lack of support from Uncle Sam, however, Atema is eager to raise fresh funding in order to leverage his achievements into useful civilian applications; remote-control sharks could potentially be used to track fish populations, changes in ocean temperature, or chemical spills. But consider yourself warned: once we're able to lead these creatures around by the nose, so to speak, it's only a matter of time before some mad scientists (read: DARPA) equip them with bionic limbs, turning them into deadly, mythical land sharks; i.e. next time someone rings your doorbell and you hear a little voice whisper "candygram" from the other side, you'd better call animal control and then run like hell to grab that harpoon you keep in the attic. For more details about this project (but unfortunately, no mention of that land shark aspect we fabricated), check out the mini-documentary at the Read link... [Via Defense Tech]
Warning to reporters: "Get new cellphones -- now!"
In yet another twist to the unfolding telephone spying story, two reporters from ABC News were apparently told by a "senior law enforcement official" that their cellphones were being tapped so that the government could track down their confidential sources. The reporters were warned to get new cellphones as quickly as possible if they wanted to maintain their sources' anonymity. We, of course, follow that advice and get new cellphones all the time. Not because we think anyone is listening in, but because we just have this compulsion we can't shake. However, if the Feds want to listen in on our calls and find out who's been leaking all of that juicy Treo info, they can feel free. Trust us, they'll be very surprised by what they learn.
