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The Anvil of Crom: Deconstructing the dev update - PvP Edition
It's been quite a while since I devoted an Anvil of Crom entry to deconstructing one of Craig Morrison's monthly Age of Conan development updates, and what better time to resurrect an old tradition than on the heels of one of the lengthier producer letters in recent memory. The end-of-July document took a decidedly pro-PvP approach, and since I've been spending the majority of my game time on the new Blood and Glory server lately, reading between the lines on the bossman's latest state-of-the-game manifesto seems like the thing to do. Join me after the cut for a bit of discussion on PvP, the future, and a bunch of interesting bullet points.
Avatar breaks out the banhammer for Perpetuum cheaters
Rut roh! It's banhammer time in Perpetuum, the sci-fi indie sandbox from Avatar Creations. The latest Avatar dev blog has the (sparse) details courtesy of Dev Calvin. Apparently some players availed themselves of a game exploit that allowed for significant gains in robots, equipment, and other commodities. It's not as innocent as it sounds, though, as the dev blog makes clear. "The method that was used can by no means [be] interpreted as intended gameplay. A lot of technical preparation and effort went into the experimentation and execution," Calvin writes. The ill-gotten gains have of course been removed, and Avatar has also permabanned the offending accounts, which sends a clear message as to the type of zero-tolerance policy toward cheating on display in the world of Nia. Check out the official Perpetuum website for more reading material.
The Daily Grind: What's the most creative solution you've ever come up with in an MMO?
Players are endlessly creative, rebellious beings. While we do play by the rules that are established in MMOs, we're always always looking for other ways to do things and solutions that weren't conceived by developers when they created the game. Sometimes devs call these solutions "exploits," sometimes they're applauded, and sometimes they're even legitimized. You see, MMOs contain a series of problems that need solving -- usually by decapitation. To aid the player in doing so, they provide a toolbox in the form of skills, abilities, stats, and items. The best MMOs allow us to use this toolbox to explore multiple paths to victory, particularly when there are tricky non-combat puzzles and problems afoot. So today I'd like to know the most creative solution you ever came up with while playing an MMO. When was a time that you were beating your head against a problem, tried something unconventional -- and it worked? Impress us with your creative genius! 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!
Wings Over Atreia: Boss world tour -- Inggison
Back in January, Wings Over Atreia brought you the first installment of a series highlighting the who, where, what, and even some how of Aion's world bosses. At that time, we took a tour around the land of Heiron and met up with those tough (and some not-so-tough) bosses who taunt players with their juicy, coveted loot. But Heiron is for youngins; this week, we will focus our tour on the playground of the highest levels, the lands of Balaurea -- specifically, Inggison. It never fails -- the best goodies are never the easy-to-get goodies. As much as Daevas may want to get their hot little hands on some of the weapons, armor, and crafting materials dropped by these world bosses, they have to first find these giants and second actually defeat them. So much easier said than done. On the bright side, some of the mobs are easier to kill and can even be soloed (although they are also well-camped). On the not-bright side, others don't seem to show their faces as often as hungry loot-hunters would like, or they take a friend or 20 to take down. So what's a Daeva to do? Soar past the cut for some tips, tricks, and a handy map for seeking out those Inggison bosses and convincing them to give up their loot.
MapleStory Europe's economy collapses due to currency exploit [Updated]
Despite its huge financial success, MapleStory Europe has had more than its fair share of problems. Last month, controversy hit MapleStory Europe when double-xp cards lasting for 90 days, instead of the intended 24 hours, were accidentally placed in the cash shop during the new year sale. The latest issue to hit MapleStory Europe has done serious and potentially irrecoverable damage to the game's economy. The exploit involved the Chief Bandit and Shadower classes, which both have a skill called "Meso Guard". This causes them to lose mesos, the game's currency, when hit instead of hitpoints. Packet-forging exploits have been used for some time to alter the damage players deal to monsters or receive from them. Combined with Meso Guard, hackers were able to fool the game into hitting them for -2,147,483,648 damage (the largest negative value a signed 32-bit integer can hold). Since the damage was a negative value, the Meso Guard skill then granted the player over two billion mesos. Hacking players used their ill-gotten gains to buy up practically everything in players' market stalls, massively inflating the game's economy by pouring untold billions into the hands of random players. Nexon attempted to patch the exploit last night and responded by permanently trade-banning countless accounts. Reports from players indicate that the exploit is still possible and that many of the offending accounts were not banned. To make matters worse, a large number of legitimate players who were traded ill-gotten currency were also allegedly trade-banned. The follow-up to another meso exploit found last year was similarly lackluster, with no server rollback performed in either instance. [Update: Scott Yoo from Nexon Europe got in touch with us to provide an update on the story. He had the following to say: "[W]e did 'trade-ban' suspected accounts temporarily in order to conduct an internal investigation but we also had to make sure no-more illicitly gained Mesos (in-game currency) are going out to the in-game market and contained in the meanwhile. We do admit that a certain amount of legitimate players can be included in the trade banned list and that's what we are going to reveal through the investigation carefully. [...] The reason why we didn't perform a rollback on our servers was because we detected the exploit too late which may make the players lose even more of their gains if we were to turn everything back. Another announcement that includes more details on this incident will go up live shortly (either today or tomorrow as the latest)."]
Exploring Eberron: The race discussion has been banned
Don't worry, it's just a one-week ban. Once again, it was an interesting week for Dungeons and Dragons Online fans. Tuesday night's banhammer took everyone by surprise, and the reactions on both sides were pretty interesting. I was really excited to discuss DDO races this week, but this week's problems left me thinking long and hard about the dynamics of player/developer interaction in this game. Check out that handy comments section at the end too, because I'd really love to hear what you have to say on the banning issue. Follow along after the break, then weigh in!
EVE Evolved: Downtime deployment debate
Earlier this week, an explosive argument broke out in the EVE Online community. Following an extended server downtime, it became known that Reddit-based alliance Test Alliance Please Ignore had used the server downtime to protect the deployment of 14 territorial claim units. Ordinarily, these claim units are vulnerable to attack for eight hours while they start up. The owner may choose to either commit a fleet to defend them for eight hours or leave them unguarded and hope nobody decides to knock them down. This mechanic is designed to ensure that a force can't claim or attack a large number of systems simultaneously against opposition, as an alliance can't reliably defend several TCUs at once. By anchoring the structures just before the extended downtime occurred, Test Alliance made them invulnerable for their entire deployment time. A controversial debate then ensued, as GMs stepped in and Test pilots began making accusations of corruption, collusion and favouritism. In this opinion piece, I weigh in on the latest debate to shake New Eden. I look at whether downtime deployment really is an exploit and whether there's any substance to the accusations made against EVE's Game Masters.
Blizzard: Use StarCraft 2 trainers 'at your own risk'
Big Blizzard is always watching! Earlier this week, Cheat Happens reported one of its users was banned in StarCraft 2 after utilizing trainers in single player. Blizzard apparently had suspended his account for 14 days over "exploitative activity." The idea is that even though these trainers are being used in single player and against AI opponents, the effects of earning achievements alters the "prestige" of a player's online persona, a supposed Blizzard rep responded via an alleged email. We contacted Blizzard ourselves for a bit of clarification on the matter and were given a statement, which you can read past the break.
Limera1n jailbreaks the iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 4.1, angers dev community and neuters one of our phones (video)
Looking for a jailbreak for your iPod touch or iPhone running iOS 4.1? Your chariot is named limera1n -- assuming you're willing to risk your device on a software developer showdown. The infamous Geohot just upstaged the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team by releasing a reportedly buggy beta exploit of his own, which you can find at our download link immediately below. It only works on Windows at the moment, hacks only official releases and iPhone 3GS isn't supported right now, and it claims to be an unpatchable, untethered release for those of you who appreciate what those terms mean. As you can imagine, rival developers aren't terribly happy that Geohot's back in the limelight. MuscleNerd (of the iPhone Dev Team) claims that limera1n will re-lock iPhones that were unlocked by his team's ultrasn0w software, and recommends you skip limera1n, but the main reason the iOS hacking community is angry at Geohot is because if more than one exploit is released simultaneously, Apple can fix them both in one fell swoop. By releasing first, Geohot has allegedly forced other teams to decide between the good of iPhone users over the short term (by releasing a different, more stable exploit) or over the long term (by saving their exploit for future use) and so far it looks like both teams have chosen to prolong the fight -- the iPhone Dev Team is asking folks to withhold its Shatter exploit, and Chronic Dev Team says it will modify its greenpois0n jailbreak to use Geohot's hack instead. What a weird, wild world we live in. Update: How might this work on an iPad, given that beta versions of iOS (like 4.2) aren't currently supported? Good question. We've struck all references to iPad accordingly, until the powers that be figure it out. Update 2: Video after the break! Also, we're hearing that some folks have jailbroken their iPads successfully with limera1n, and we personally got it working quickly on a pair of iPhones with iOS 4.1... but one of the two was missing icons upon restart and didn't regain App Store, Maps, Game Center and Calendar even after a restore. Be careful, now! Sam Sheffer contributed to this report. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Final Fantasy XIV moves forward with exploit patches and companies
The general release of Final Fantasy XIV is three days away, but the collector's edition has been out for nearly a week. As a result, early players have had the chance to start taking part in that most celebrated of ceremonies -- finding whatever exploits the programmers didn't catch and using them. The most recent exploits are at least team-oriented, as they seem to involve casting beneficial spells during a guildleve; regardless, the issues are being fixed as fast as they arrive. FFXIVCore has also translated a recent interview with Hiromichi Tanaka in which the game's producer discusses both his role in the history of the series as well as what prior lessons impacted the armoury system in Final Fantasy XIV. As he put it, one of the reasons for the flexibility was to allow players to choose their ability loadouts based on the situation, unlike the fairly fixed roles within Final Fantasy XI. The full interview also drops some hints about the as-yet-unseen company system, something which will be implemented in a patch after the full retail launch on Thursday.
Shifting Perspectives: Fun with race choice
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we have absolutely no excuse for the column we've written. I'll be honest; I wrote this week's column purely for brainless fun. You won't learn anything (not that you do normally), there are no insights to be gained (not that there are normally) and I don't have any new Cataclysm alpha information. I am very sorry to anyone who came here looking for a solid, informative column, and if you wish to excoriate me in the comments then I encourage you to do so. Anyway. When it comes to druids, the deal with race choice is that you don't really have any. If you play Alliance, you have to play a night elf; if you play Horde, you have to play a tauren. We're the most race-restricted class in the game, and even in Cataclysm, that's not really going to change. Some of you might recall a bug from a little while back that allowed you to model-swap between characters on the same realm by "choosing" two of them at once. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed now, so I wouldn't bother trying it if I were you, but I had lot of fun swapping non-druid races into our various tier sets and wondering what it might have been like to play them. I screenshotted like a maniac while doing so and then set them aside for a future column whenever I felt like doing something just for fun. That would be today. %Gallery-94013%
The Diamond trade gets destroyed in Runes of Magic
There's an understandable problem with selling game currency in subscription games, where it's generally considered verboten for good reason. While some subscription games will sell you things in addition to the monthly fee, there's a general sense that you should earn your advantages. But in free-to-play games that have a cash shop allowing players to purchase items directly... well, the very idea of gold selling seems kind of silly. But it can happen, and Runes of Magic has experienced a bit of a problem of late with the trade of Diamonds (their cash shop currency) for gold. The game has traditionally treated the currencies as interchangeable insofar as players with lots of Diamonds and not enough gold could sell their excess to other players. Unfortunately, the current spate of RMT activities have called for draconian measures: they've taken away the ability to trade Diamonds for gold. They've also temporarily removed the ability to send gold through the mail. The official announcement stresses that this is a temporary measure to combat unacceptable behavior. While less gold spam is a good thing, fewer features are a negative, so this new is a mixed bag for Runes of Magic players.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Architectural concerns
The big news for City of Heroes over the past week (at least at the time of writing) was the rather borked Mission Architect fix that went live. Well-intentioned, sure, but still borked beyond all comprehension. There's nothing like losing out on experience gained because of rescuing hostages to make players feel like they're welcomed to try out player-created content. But let's not kid ourselves: this is not exactly a unique occurrence. We've been having problems involving some combination of Mission Architect and farming more or less since it launched, and that was back on Issue 14. A year out, you would kind of expect that they'd fix the basic problem of people trying to get something for nothing... but here we are, and the team is still rocking back and forth on the feature. If you're one of the players who prefer the farming style, nowadays it likely feels like more trouble than it's worth. So naturally, I decided to take a look at Mission Architect and what it means for City of Heroes today. Specifically, both why it's important that the team does their best to keep it balanced, and why said balancing is pointless and a waste of time. (I love arguing self-defeating premises.)
Goon Squad downs Tirion Fordring
Perennial pariahs Goon Squad, Horde-side on Mal'Ganis-US, have really carved out a niche for themselves in the World of Warcraft. Well, two niches. The first is a rock-solid reputation of being the foremost trolls and griefers in the MMO market, period -- a reputation perpetuated by a community that operates mostly on word-of-mouth and lovingly crafted by the guild itself. The second is providing some of the best and most hilarious WoW videos on the internet. This one is no exception -- they managed to score a victory for the Lich King by defeating the dread paladin Fordring. It's a rare ability, possessed by Goon Squad and a few other community figures, to be able to take the building blocks of the game experience provided by Blizzard -- strictly compartmentalized and defined by sets of incontrovertible rules -- and then cobble together something wholly new and, frankly, ridiculous out of them. You're not supposed to be able to bring together two often-'shipped faction leaders for an impromptu date. You're not supposed to be able to blow the Wintergrasp fortress wall to smithereens in a minute's time. You're certainly not supposed to be able to kill the head of the Argent Crusade who, by the way, should learn to cast Consecrate.
Wizard101 is no friend of cheaters
You might think that Wizard101 is just a kid's game, which wouldn't be totally incorrect. But if you thought that meant they would just let you do whatever you want... well, nope, not in this playground. KingsIsle Entertainment is demonstrating that they are more than willing to step in and take the reigns when they're aware of an exploit. In this instance, it looks as if an exploit was found regarding the new wings available in the game's cash shop that work as a mount. Players had found a way to purchase their wings via gold alone, getting an unfair advantage on those buying them legitimately. So the game is clipping their wings -- clipping them off entirely, as it were. The wings will be removed from the player's account, all gold spent will be refunded to the player, and they will be reminded that exploiting the game client will lead to a permanent ban from the game. It's not the harshest penalty, but it comes as a stern reminder that no matter how fluffy the exterior might be, Wizard101 still takes cheating very seriously. So it's a bit more like school than you might have thought.
Editorial: Thoughts on the Ensidia ban
Are you wondering what has caused all the ruckus in the raiding community the past few days? Have you been typing your fingers to the bone since Wednesday night, arguing for one side or the other in forums and chat channels? Whoever you are, or whatever side you're on, in the still-burning aftermath of Ensidia's ban, I feel some reflection is needed. Thus, I am going explain, to the best of my ability, what happened to cause such uproar in the raiding community this week. I am also going to, as the title implies, offer my speculations.
Ensidia temporarily banned for exploits
It looks like Ensidia's 25-man world first on the Lich King will go down with an asterisk next to it, because they've all just received a three-day ban for "Abuse of in-game mechanics or glitches with intent to exploit or cheat in World of Warcraft." The Ensidia blog post reporting this is down as of this writing due to traffic, but you can still view the Google cache. The story is that Ensidia made use of Saronite Bombs to "bypass The Lich King fight mechanics" (Saronite Bombs and similar items were disabled in a hotfix last night). In addition to the temporary ban, all items and achievements they gained from downing Arthas have been revoked. Before the ban (but after the hotfix), Ensidia put up a post claiming that they didn't think the bombs were an exploit; Blizzard obviously isn't buying it. Meanwhile, Muqq, the Ensidia player who posted about the ban, has taken this as an opportunity to quit WoW (and rant a bit at Blizzard about "half-assed encounters"), saying "to ban people when they do not know what's causing the bugs is just a [expletive] joke." Update: It's worth a mention that the language Muqq used at the end of his post is identical (save places and names) to this post by Tigole (scroll to the bottom -- it's the last thing on the page), written of EverQuest in 2002. Be warned, neither of these are safe for work.
The lesser of two evils is still evil
There are a lot of choices we face where we don't so much pick a good option as we pick the option that's least negative. Most people would argue that going to work is a better choice than faking illness and calling out, but not really a choice they like. Kill Ten Rats recently posed an interesting question along the same lines: would you rather your game have gold farmers or cheaters? As the full piece argues, gold farmers are the greater evil to the companies running the game -- they aren't paying customers and they're disrupting the playerbase. But the average player is more likely to run into cheaters than gold farmers, and they're more likely to have a direct negative effect upon the experience of the game. Yet teams tend to be more active in pursuing gold farmers (witness Aion's theatrical destruction of them) because cheaters, to the company, are a slightly lesser problem. Obviously, it's not a binary equation, and some games (such as Final Fantasy XI) place both at an equally high target priority. The fundamental question, however, is an excellent one -- cheating jerks, or RMT bots? There's no good option.
Masthead Studios discusses Earthrise economy
It's an immutable law: create an online game where virtual currency is used and it'll inevitably give rise to a black market for that currency, not to mention for the various items in the MMO. Earthrise will be no different, but developer Masthead Studios aims to be proactive about the problem of gold sellers, rather than reactive. They also feel that their game will be difficult to bot. "Most of Earthrise design has followed the paradigm of requiring player interaction and skill through every aspect of combat, crafting and logistic movement so we firmly believe the game will be, by design, very difficult to automate via known methods," Masthead explains in their latest Question of the Week. Another factor that Masthead Studios feels will curb black market activities in Earthrise, at least in respect to items, is that every use of gear slowly degrades the item in question. Of course, where there's a will there's a way. So when Earthrise enters open beta Masthead Studios will keep a close eye on the various ways players find to exploit the economy.
City of Heroes offers a reminder on account security
NCsoft hasn't been having an easy start to the year, at least not in the eyes of security-minded players. The entire Guild Wars security question recently came to a head with suspicions and accusations that the flaw was something wrong with NCsoft's account management, a black eye if ever there was one. Of course, that raises questions about not just Guild Wars, but any game under the company's aegis, which includes City of Heroes. So it should come as little surprise that a reminder about account security has recently been posted on the official site. The reminder itself is fairly standard boilerplate, reminding everyone to avoid giving out their account information to any other players, only log in from secure locations, and so forth. It also addresses the issue at hand in a roundabout fashion, mentioning that they found no malicious workarounds after investigating "current claims." However, the very next line mentions that they have added more robust logging and security procedures, which can lead to the obvious conspiracy theories. With fewer items to be traded than many other games, City of Heroes has a smidge more built-in security -- but a little extra reminder and caution never hurts.
