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Runes of Magic reaches 100k characters created on first day of open beta
As we mentioned last week, the highly-anticipated Runes of Magic fantasy MMO from Frogster Interactive has just entered open beta on December 15th. Normally the news of a small free-to-play MMO would be mentioned, and then subsequently forgotten as the larger, big-budget games continue to hog the attention. Yet Runes of Magic has an announcement that they're quite proud of: 100,000 characters created in the first 24 hours of the open beta.Not only that, but out of the total 220,000 registrations to date, 20,000 accounts were created on Monday alone with more than 2 million quests completed. Just to be clear, this is not 100k accounts created on the first day. It's 100k characters created by 20k accounts. Still, it's great news for Frogster Interactive and we expect those accounts to rise throughout beta and into launch, which is scheduled for release in Q1 of 2009. For the complete press release and more information on the game's features, continue reading after the cut below.
3 day credit for NA, EU customers
When patch 3.0.2 hit, we had a very long maintenance, shading towards 24 hours for some realms. And since then we haven't always had the best of realm stability; I know my own realm has had plenty of restarts, downed instance servers, and lag spikes in the past few weeks. It would have made raiding pretty hard if they hadn't nerfed the pants off it.Blizzard knows about the realm problems as well as anybody, and as is their tendency, they're compensating for it by giving us all playtime credits. This time it's a full three days, for anyone with an active account on US, Oceanic, Latin American, European, and Russian realms (so basically everyone except Asia; the Asian realms have a different payment structure). That's one thing I really like about Blizzard. They may mess up, but at least they try to fix it. Now can I have a Squashling, please?
UN communications chief predicts four billion mobile phone subs by year's end
No need to adjust your set -- the United Nations communications chief has boldly predicted that half of planet Earth's population will be hooked on some sort of mobile phone before 2009 dawns. Granted, the numbers he's talking about do look strictly at subscriptions, so a small percentage will be skewed by those with multiple accounts (and thus, multiple numbers), but really, the forecast isn't all that outlandish. After all, we already hit 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions back in November of last year (and 4 billion lines overall). As predicted, it's growth in developing regions such as Africa and the Middle East which will boost the overall figure the most, with yearly increases in those areas expected to hit 27% and 25%, respectively. So, what are the chances a post eerily similar to this pops up in 2012 or so saying the entire world has a cellphone? Our trusty Magic 8-ball says "Signs Point to Yes."[Via Core77, image courtesy of Road and Travel]
Spore will allow more than one user per account
Even after the initial buzz has faded, Spore's DRM issues live on. One problem was the inability to have multiple accounts for the game, despite the the manual saying otherwise. EA Producer Lucy Bradshaw writes on the game's official forum, called the Sporum, that users will still have one account, but they'll be able to add five Spore screen names to that account.These screen names will have separate entries in the Sporepedia, along with their own buddy lists and achievements. It's good to see Maxis and EA loosening its iron grip a little. Moments like this seem appropriate for quoting Princess Leia: "The more you tighten your grip ... the more star systems will slip through your fingers."[Via Big Download]
WoW Insider Interview: Blizzard speaks about Authenticator security
About a month and a half ago, we reported on the story of a player who had apparently gotten their account hacked while they were using the new Blizzard Authenticator key, and it raised a lot of questions in players' minds about the only hardware Blizzard's ever made: just what does the Authenticator do to protect players' accounts? Have Authenticators actually prevented accounts from being hacked? And what would it take to, through social engineering or other methods, actually remove an Authenticator from an account?At the time we published that first story (which was later disputed by a customer support representative), Blizzard contacted us here at WoW Insider, offering to clear up players' concerns about the new keys. We quickly submitted to them a few questions pulled from our own writers and a few submitted by readers, and they've now returned the answers to us -- you can find Blizzard's answers to our questions about the Authenticator after the break. Thanks to Blizzard for answering our questions about how these keys work, and clarifying some of the issues around their security.
Blizzard reveals new Battle.net features
DIII.net has a great writeup of everything Blizzard has said so far about the new Battle.net features, and while most of the information applies more to Diablo III and Starcraft II, there's some good tidbits in there for WoW fans as well. Battle.net is Blizzard's oldest online service -- it predates WoW by a few years and was notably used to play Warcraft 3, Diablo 2 and Starcraft online. It's making a return with a revamp for the release of Starcraft II, and in addition to the previously mentioned ability Battle.net will give playes to track achievements across all Blizzard games, the system will have a much more social feel than the previous incarnation of the service.Player accounts, avatars, icons, and friend lists are all planned, and odds are that services like the Armory and even the WoW sign in may be tied to your Battle.net account in some way. Tournaments and rankings will be included (though it remains to be seen how this might be implemented in World of Warcraft), and Battle.net will even offer players the ability to save and share replays of Starcraft II games, and other e-sport-like features.That last feature would be a perfect fit for WoW's Arenas, of course, but as much as players would like to be able to spectate Arena matches, odds are that there would have to be a lot of behind-the-scenes coding done on Blizzard's side. Starcraft is being built from the ground up to record matches, of course, but WoW's Arena system doesn't have that ability built in, and putting it in might be more work than Blizzard wants to do on that one area of the game. No word yet on when we might get the new Battle.net (odds are it'll come out right around the Starcraft II release, whenever that is), but from the look of it, Blizzard has big plans to expand the social networks they've built into World of Warcraft towards all of their properties.
Breakfast topic: Account count
I'm not sure how many World of Warcraft subscriptions are currently active. The popularity of the game skyrocketed and then seems to have leveled off. Player numbers have certainly been bolstered by the Recruit-a-Friend promotion. I'm not convinced that it has actually brought any new players into the game. I know several people who begun additional accounts under this new scheme, and a handful of players that have returned to the game. I'm sure there are some new rookies, but they're a fraction of the new accounts. I'm working on my third account. My friend with recruitment benefits and I have been soaring through the levels. I was planning on starting a third account come Wrath anyway, but now seems like as good of a time as any. %Poll-18683%
Authenticator ordering leads to unexplained refunds
We've already reported that the Blizzard Authenticator is sold out, but here's another twist to the story. WoW Insider reader Ryan told us that he placed his order last Monday, before the sell out was announced. However, instead of getting his Authenticator, he instead got an unexplained refund. With no other word from Blizzard, they simply canceled the order and refunded the money. He talked to a coworker who had also ordered the Authenticator and found that he had the same experience. As of yet, Blizzard has not explained the refund to him. It's likely that Ryan was simply unlucky enough to place his order after they'd sold out but before they'd officially announced it, but there's other somewhat unfortunate implications. If they're refunding his order instead of honoring it, it suggests that they don't expect to have any new Authenticators ready for quite some time.
Blizzard Authenticator adds new layer of security, for a price
When you play online games these days, you always have to be mindful that you don't leave yourself vulnerable to viruses, account fraud, and hacks. Something as seemingly simplistic as a hidden keylogger in a UI mod can open the floodgates to strangers to come on your computer and take your account information. Stories abound of players losing accounts they've dumped thousands of hours into because they didn't take the proper precautions. While some of the blame certainly lies with the players, there are some critics who have charge that the MMO industry doesn't do enough to prevent fraud.Enter the Blizzard Authenticator. This new keychain SecurID device can be attached to your World of Warcraft account, making it impossible for anybody to access it without the Authenticator plugged into the computer They'll be debuting the device at the upcoming Blizzard Invitational, but it should be available on Blizzard's online store soon at the low, low price of $6.50. It's a small price to pay for peace of mind.
WoW Insider Twitter returns with updates from the whole team
Back during Blizzcon last year (it seems so long ago now, doesn't it?) we started up a WoW Insider Twitter account so you folks could get updates from right there on site as the event went down. After Blizzcon ended, though, we left the account to lay dormant for a while, and we didn't post any tweets in a few months. We're back, though -- if you're on Twitter, make sure to head over there and follow our feed.Twitter, if you're unaware, is a fun little messaging service, about halfway between email and instant messenger. From now on, our Twitter account (@WoWInsider, obviously) will feature not only periodic updates on posts we think worth tweeting about, but also little insights on what our writers are up to around the realms, whether it's grinding rep in Blade's Edge, raiding Black Temple with our guilds, or running an ICftB event.It's just another fun way to see what we're up to (especially for smaller, more personal things that don't really warrant a whole post). You can follow our feed on the Twitter link above, and soon, we should have Twitter updates posted here on our homepage as well. WoW Insider's Twitter is back -- if you're on Twitter, make sure to follow and keep an eye on what we're doing.
Account thieves make mainstream news
Some determined hackers have gone to great lengths to steal MMO accounts. So much so that they've managed to get noticed by the mainstream news outlets. We guess that's what happens when you hack over 10,000 websites just to get your hands on somebody else's MMO account.Essentially, these guys hacked into thousands of websites and added a small amount of code that redirects users into an invisible attack from some China-based servers. Apparently if you've got your antivirus program of choice up-to-date you shouldn't worry. Although the article points out that some of these attacks are directed at ActiveX controls, so update that as well if you haven't recently.We all know how terrible it would be to have our accounts hacked into and stolen. Many of us spend hundreds of hours in our favorite worlds, which many of us also pay for through our credit cards. Strangely enough, Lord of the Rings Online is mentioned as one of the games targeted by the hackers.[via TenTonHammer]
Officers' Quarters: A moral dilemma
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Every once in a while I get an e-mail where I think, "This person has to be pulling my leg." At first, I thought the e-mail below was one of them. As I read on, however, the author's heartfelt anguish over the decision she has had to make convinced me that there really is a guild leader out there doing this. Judge for yourself:Hello there,I'd love your opinion along with your readers opinions on an issue going on in my current guild. I'm an officer of a Horde guild that is still relatively young (3 months) but very dedicated. We transferred from other servers in order to form an off-hours raiding guild. Things were going very well until several weeks ago when I looked at our guild forum and was shocked to find the GM posting character accounts for sale and urging other guild members to buy them! And if that wasn't bad enough a week or so later he decided to buy a current guild member's account for himself and his girlfriend (another officer and the purchased account's owner supposedly wanted to stop playing those characters).
NCSoft do the time warp, again
There's no reason stated, but NCSoft are changing their entire billing department's time zone from Eastern Standard Time (EST, -5 hours GMT) to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, = GMT) starting tomorrow, a difference of about five hours. As it's just a time zone swap, nobody will lose or gain any hours they've already paid for, but depending on when you opened your NCSoft account you may be billed a day later in future. It's very important that you don't think about why they'd make this change, how you can go five hours into the future and not gain any extra time, or why the acronym doesn't match the full phrase. Trust me.
Dropping EDGE: An iPhone follow up
Yesterday, TUAW reader Stephen wrote and asked whether dropping EDGE would "stick". And that simple request led me a lot further than I expected. So let me start from the beginning. As you can see from this picture, this month I was charged only for voice minutes. So as far as that goes, dropping EDGE does "stick". But there's quite a bit more to the story.
Mobile phone subscriptions hit 3.3 billion
Just last month we heard that there were some 2.68 billion mobile accounts currently active in the world, but a new study by Informa has found that there are actually 3.3 billion subscriptions. This number is somewhat significant considering that it's approximately half of the world's population, but alas, not half of all Earthlings actually own a cellphone. Researchers found that 59 countries had mobile penetration over 100 percent, suggesting that some individuals actually accounted for numerous mobile subscriptions. Sure, the figures here could be picked apart in a myriad ways, but why not just raise your handset to commemorate hitting the big three point three? You are one of them, right?[Image courtesy of W3]
Beware of scam e-mails!
I've heard of plenty of reports of scammers trying to get your account information with e-mails claiming to be from Blizzard, but after having one land in my Around Azeroth mailbox, I thought I'd share it with you. And while we're at it, we can talk about how you can tell that an e-mail came from Blizzard or not.First off -- this didn't come to my primary e-mail address. Blizzard doesn't know me as "aroundazeroth@gmail.com" so any mail going there has to be bogus. And secondly, it's coming from Blizzard Europe, while I don't have a European account. However, if this had landed in my primary mailbox, and substituted US contact information for EU contact information, I'd have to take it seriously -- after all, it appears to have been sent from blizzard.com and it sounds awfully ominous. They suspect me of trying to sell my account and they're going to suspend it unless I verify it! Yikes!However, here's the big catch: after going through all of their ominous threats, they tell me to give them my account name and password. Nope, sorry. A Blizzard representative will never ask for your account name and password -- so don't give it out to anyone claiming to be with Blizzard, because that's all the information they need to take over your account. And if you get a mail like this that you're just not sure about -- don't give them any information, but confirm its authenticity with Blizzard, first. Get in touch with their billing support team by phone or e-mail!For those of you curious as to what one of these scams looks like, the full text of the e-mail is after the jump.
Would you cancel your account if....
I've never canceled my World of Warcraft account, so I can't give you any first-hand experience of the process. However, I do know that Blizzard never deletes characters, so if I were going to go on vacation for a month to someplace without internet access (ha!), I could cancel my account and pick up again later without any real consequences. But what if Blizzard deleted characters when you canceled? Over at Curmudgeon Gamer, they note that the cancellation screen seems to change depending on the reason you choose for canceling. When choosing an option for needing more time for school, family, etc, our curmudgeony friends were given the following message:We are proud that we were able to make a sucessful [sic], enjoyable game. And as much as we'd like you to keep playing, we understand that there are certain cirumcstances [sic] which may prevent continuous game play. Currently, we have no plans to delete World of Warcraft accounts regardless of their activity history. Provided that the characters do not get deleted by the account holder, we will retain all character information on our servers indefinitely.So you're safe for now -- but next time you try to cancel, who knows! It seems like it would be a PR disaster for Blizzard to start deleting character accounts at this point, if you cancel, they still hold the threat over you.
Mac 101: Launch at startup, the Login Items tab
Everybody has programs that are pretty much always open (Mail, iTunes, Quicksilver, etc.), so it's good to have them launch automatically at startup. There are a couple of different ways to do this. If the program is already running you can hold down your (left) mouse button on its Dock icon and choose "Open at Login" from the pop up menu. However, the best way to manage these is in "Login Items" tab of the Accounts Preference Pane in your System Preferences. Here you can manually add login items. In fact, in addition to adding login items (just by clicking the plus sign), you can also remove anything you don't want (with the minus). It's useful to scan the list periodically and remove anything you don't commonly use (sometimes developers, e.g. Adobe, will put things in there without asking). Removing these unused items can free up system resources for more useful things. But be careful that you do not remove anything important (basically if you don't know what it is, don't remove it). In addition to adding applications to the login items tab, you can also add Volumes to mount on login, including network mounts. Just mount the network drive first in the Finder, then after hitting the plus sign select it and it will be placed on the list, as you can see for my WebDAV mount above.
All they're asking for is your blood.
I'm not sure whether we should file this under "I'm glad Blizzard doesn't do this" or "I wish Blizzard would do this!" but Chinese gaming company Moliyo (who run the MMO Cabal Online) is offering banned players an interesting method by which to reactivate their accounts. What do you have to do? Simple! Donate blood, and they'll unlock your banned account within three days. And if you're an active player, you can receive a special game account for participating.This is, to my knowledge, a completely unique way of going about reinstating banned players -- while supporting a good cause. And asking players to donate blood is no more time-consuming than Blizzard's usual procedure for restoring stolen accounts, which requires notarized documentation proving your identity. (And will still likely take several weeks for Blizzard to investigate and restore any missing property, which doesn't always happen.) Perhaps Moliyo's way is easier in the long run -- though, being a needle-phobic, I'll stick to the usual customer service queues.
Over a hundred thousand accounts closed
During the month of November, another 105,000 World of Warcraft accounts were closed world-wide for violation of the terms of use. These closures have resulted in 12 million gold being removed from the game's economy. Many of these closures are the direct result in the investigation of reports made by legitimate players -- so keep reporting, all reports are investigated thoroughly, though rarely immediately. So happy holidays, everyone -- and may your new year be festively bot-free!
