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Debunking another hacked authenticator story
One of our readers, Bill, sent us a tip about a WoW account issue on The Consumerist. It seems that the ownership of Anonymous's friend's account is under dispute and Blizzard won't let him use it in the meantime. The ownership became disputed after the account was allegedly hacked, even though there was allegedly a mobile authenticator on the account. His friend has given up on the account, complete with Val'anyr, and has created a new one. We can't confirm any of the facts in this case. I am willing to believe that Anonymous is truly upset and believes the story he tells to be true, even though he is posting anonymously. There are some serious red flags, however, that seem to point to Anonymous not having all of the facts:
Drama Mamas: We hate hate
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com. The other night, one member of a random PUG The Spousal Unit was in announced exactly which bosses would be downed. He stated that any disagreement would cause something on his body to be put into something on your body -- only he used slightly more graphic words. The run was fine, because, though his method of communication was crude, it did convey a strategy that worked. There are some, however, who are being crude and offensive in the same way that creeps in college libraries reveal themselves to solitary students. These poster children for GIFT (Note: The link for GIFT is not safe for work. But if you are not familiar with Penny Arcade's theory about the internet, you really need to go there.) aren't criminals in the legal sense of the word, but they do have victims and therefore I will call them perps. Who knows what motivates them. Maybe they are troubled teens who have terrible home lives and should be pitied. I don't know and honestly I don't care. I'm too busy spending my sympathy on Haiti to include these jerks in my monkeysphere. And besides, at some point you have to take responsibility for your actions, regardless of how horrible your environment is. This week, we talk about these GIFTed perps.
The Queue: It's just a game
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky be your host today. I might be wrong with this one, but I think World of Warcraft is just a game. I mean, it's something we all do in our spare time, and have fun with, right? And it doesn't really matter, because at the end of the day everything is just pixels on the screen. But maybe I'm off base here, and WoW isn't a game. Maybe it's real. What is real? Is there a spoon? I see dead people. Retadinman asked... "Why are draenei hated so much? The "lorelol" retcon wasn't really that big, but since my main character and posting avatar on the Forums (who are the same) are draenei, I get a lot of hate. Why is this?"
The Digital Continuum: Federation stands for 'fighting' part 2
But in a time of increased hostilities with the Klingon Empire, the universe of Trek is reminding me more and more of how things were in The Original Series where asking Federation officers to trust a Klingon was akin to pulling teeth -- lots and lots of teeth. Some may claim that Cryptic is forcing the lore to work for them, but even during Deep Space Nine the Klingons withdrew from the Khitomer Accords and attacked the Cardassians.
YouTube pulls a Hulu -- yanking API access from Popcorn Hour (Update: Google responds)
Hope you weren't enjoying watching YouTube on the television screen via Popcorn Hour and other set-top boxes, as they have been given notice by the newly 1080p and network TV-friendly website that they are no longer welcome to access its content. The new Hulu-ish Terms of Service (section II, item 10) restricts API clients from the ability to "use the YouTube API in connection with any API Client created for use on television set top boxes, television game consoles, or video screens packaged and marketed as television sets;" according to Popcorn Hour COO Alex Limberis this applies to all with the exception of "a few strategic partner's Google has singled out" -- PlayStation 3, Wii, TiVo, Panasonic, Samsung and other licensed hardware is safe. Update: After speaking with Alex we've got a better view of the situation -- as is clear from the TOS, manufacturers streaming directly via the API as Popcorn Hour did are no longer welcome without cutting a seven figure check to license access. Google did offer to allow continued access via its YouTube XL interface, but for devices like theirs not built around Flash, that possible solution proved to be technologically unfeasible. Obviously these changes apply to all, but as of yet we're not aware of anyone other than Popcorn Hour that has been contacted directly about it. Update v2: After the break is Google's response, stating Popcorn Hour and the like have been in violation of the above TOS for over a year, from its perspective, this is a simple matter of defending its rights from "video scraping technology." As we mentioned above that means most are in no danger of losing access, but fans of these media streamers will have to live without it, until either YouTube can control the experience or the manufacturer pays up.
Music from the MPQs
Want to listen to the music of World of Warcraft without actually playing the game? It's possible -- anyee has posted a quick how-to over on the WoW Livejournal. The music is sitting on your computer in MPQ files, which are a proprietary Blizzard archiving format for their games. But there are a number of MPQ extractors and editors out there (the two recommended are MPQ Extractor for the Mac and MPQ Editor for Windows), so download one of those, use it to break open the MPQ you're looking for, and then find the music you want in that folder. Extract it out, and voila, you've got Warcraft music to listen to whenever you want.I know what you're saying -- this might be against the Terms of Service. But actually, it's not -- the ToS only mentions "modifying" game files, and since you're simply extracting them from their archives, you're not actually modifying them. Plus, Blizzard actually authorizes the extraction of this music for use in noncommercial machinima, so as long as you use this music and any other assets for personal, noncommercial use, Blizzard has no problem with it. Of course, you'll be stuck listening to the music in bits and pieces designed for looping rather than a snazzy CD set. But if all you want to do is taking a listen to some of the tunes out of game, there you go.
New perspective on EVE Online's latest bank embezzlement part two
We read about these things happening periodically, an EVE player pulls a runner with some huge amount of ISK and all sorts of drama ensues. It makes me wonder, what has the real life impact of this theft been on those of you involved with EBANK?If you are to trust the forum trolls, EVE is JUST a game. But having spent 2 years on this project, real-life money and a lot of sweat and tears, it hurts to see EBANK's name being dragged through the mud, and putting up with the drama. It of course causes a huge amount of real-life stress, and makes you wonder about a few things. I even almost managed to miss 2 exams, due to having to deal with this. But it also gave us the opportunity to realize just how many people EBANK have helped.2% of EVE's playerbase has an EBANK account, and we came to be the biggest investment venture in EVE, peaking at 2.5 TRILLION ISK. That, to me, is a pretty big thing, which I'm proud to take part in. But I can't answer this question on my own, hence here's my new CEO's take on it:
The Queue: You ain't nothin' but a Core Hound
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.There's a few good questions today of various voluptuous varieties: raiding, legal ToS (TNG > ToS, by the way), and new gaming hardware. Yummy.Start me off, Delks...Edit: Please be sure to listen to Fly Me To The Moon by Ol' Blue Eyes during today's Queue, or you can listen to the title's name sake song. Delks asked..."What's the point of running old world raids and instances?"
Breakfast Topic: No ifs or bots.
It's not even a question, really. Botting is against the game's TOS. If you're caught doing it, you're going to get banned. In case you hadn't already heard, Blizzard recently dealt the botting program Glider a killing blow in the courts, which should lead to the demise of the program. Whatever your views on it, Blizzard frowns on botting and even here at WoW Insider, most if not all of us are strongly against it.That said, yesterday's 15 Minutes of Fame was an eye-opener for me. I guess because I'd never viewed botters with much regard I often dismissed them. I've even reported one or two over the past years. But Daedren's interview was actually something to mull over.If you did bot, what would you bot? All of us have experienced horrible, senseless grinds in the game. Whether it's farming for mats, grinding Honor, completing long quest chains... at some point in playing the World of Warcraft, we've all felt the tedium that can sometimes lead to unsavory (and TOS-breaking) thoughts of hassle-free automation. I'd never do it, but if I did, I'd probably have used it to level from 1-80 -- something I don't particularly enjoy. How about you? Hypothetically, what would you have botted? Or does the thought of bots make you feel all dirty inside?
The Daily Grind: What if everyone turned over server logs?
One of the pieces of news that came out yesterday is the decision by SOE to fork over all server logs for the last four years of EverQuest II to a group of researchers from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In saying "server log" one would assume that this means not only your combat log, what you've stuffed into the bank or sent through the mail, but also the entirety of your chat logs; public channels, guild chat, and private tells. The question today is - even though it is completely acceptable for MMO companies to do so per their TOS/EULA, how would you feel were you to find out your MMO company forked over all their information - including all your private discussion - to researchers? Would it cause you to seriously reconsider your membership in their games, if not cancel outright? Or would you be entirely OK with it, so long as it were only being used for scientific research? Updated to reflect new information from SOE stating they did not release chat logs.
Markee Dragon taken offline, MMOwned moving
We've received an interesting report on the WoW Insider Tip Line today. Two large World of Warcraft hacking and account trading websites, Markee Dragon and MMOwned, are offline. Article Update: According to MMOwned, they are moving servers, which is the reason their site is offline for some.Attempts to reach the sites prove unsuccessful.This is a good thing for everyone that wants to have a more legitimate gameplay experience in WoW, as both of these sites actively encouraged people to exploit bugs, break the ToS, and do all other sorts of tom-foolery that destroyed the game for legitimate players.Our tipster mentioned that these sites were taken down in part by action taken by Blizzard, however we don't have any proof of that.I've selected the angry baby picture for this article, since that's how the exploiters and account traders are feeling right now. Buh-bye.
The Glider outcome and copyright law
Well, as you may have heard, Blizzard has all but finished off Glider -- pending one more appeal (which doesn't seem likely to win), Glider is getting shut down for good next week. Good news for Blizzard, but not so good for copyfighters? Blizzard used a controversial argument for copyright in its case -- they claimed that by circumventing the ToS, the Glider folks were actually breaking copyright law, and an interest group called Public Knowledge didn't take kindly to that. They argued that a decision for Blizzard would mean that any software developer could then prevent any customer from doing anything they didn't want to do, just by calling it a copyright infrigement. Blizzard responded that "buying" your WoW software was actually "licensing" it, but of course that didn't settle anyone down.And now, Glider has lost -- so what next?
SteelSeries WoW mouse dangerous in no uncertain Terms (of Use)
We had an article here not too long ago about the SteelSeries WoW mouse, purportedly das ubermaus, replete with glowing fissures and lookin' all like a Templar helmet. We actually had kind of a hard time finding out just how the mouse performed -- it was advertised months before it came out, and it doesn't appear that many gamers actually got to use the mouse prior to pre-ordering it and did so based on Blizzard's official licensing of the WoW name on the product.The few that did use it, those that played around with it at BlizzCon, actually reported to us that it felt cheap, flimsy, and about to break. That was a bit disconcerting to read, of course, and it wasn't actually an isolated incident--all of the emails we've received about it thus far have been negative reviews. Folks complained of broken buttons or strange key reassignments with the accompanying software.Now, our sister site Engadget just released their own impressions on the device and they appear to like it, offering a large size, good weight, and robust software among their list of pros.The inconsistency in reviews of the product thus far isn't what really bothers me, though. It's the fact that the mouse is a WoW-licensed product that performs functions that are against Blizzard's policies.
EVE Online trojan warning
CCP Games issued a warning today, regarding a trojan found in a macro for EVE Online. CCP Wrangler said that the macro is being offered by 'Gold Harvest Macro Solutions' and ostensibly allows a player to automate their skill-training with a queue, eliminating the need to periodically log in and change skills. CCP became aware of it and put it through testing; here's a shocker -- the shady software contains a trojan. Please contain your surprise. CCP Wrangler's full announcement (login required): "A number of players have recently received an advertisement for a skill training macro, this macro is sent by Gold Harvest Macro Solutions who claims that the macro will let you create a skill training plan and have your character automatically train your skills. This macro has been tested and it contains a Trojan, so make sure you do not download any software from these people. If you downloaded the program, make sure that you run a complete scan of your system and then change all of your passwords!"Not that anyone who uses programs like this doesn't really understand they're breaking the accepted rules of the game, but pretty much using any 3rd-party automation with the EVE client is a bad move.
Picking apart the MetaPlace Bill of Rights
MetaPlace is not an MMOG. It's a platform for creating virtual spaces that can be used for anything the creators can imagine. As such, the traditional MMO EULA is completely inadequate. Raph Koster -- the head honcho on the MetaPlace project -- made that clear in a panel at AGDC08. So, the folks working on MetaPlace had to come up with a whole new set of rules -- rules that allow users ownership of their virtual property, for example. There's a veritable landmine of problems awaiting this endeavor, of course. That's not to say it's impossible. It's just going to be extremely challenging.Koster published a first draft of the Terms of Service for MetaPlace on his blog the other day. It's based based on the Declaration of the Rights of Avatars that he conceived back in 2000. Readers of the MetaPlace ToS are likely to come away with two impressions. The first: that it's really cool and admirable and that in a general sense, Koster and friends are on the right track. Two is that the MetaPlace team seems to be underestimating just how epic a quest it's committed itself to.
The Daily Grind: Read and understood
End-User-License-Agreements, Terms-of-Use, Terms-of-Service. Some MMOGs and virtual environments get you to agree to them on first-use. Some get you to agree on every load and/or every login. In all cases, proceeding to click through indicates that you have (a) read it, (b) understand it, and (c) agree to abide by it. It is a legal contract between you and the operators and developers of the service. But frankly, did you? Do you? If the agreement contains specialist legal terms, it is technically not even possible for the average user to proceed with any level of informed consent without considerable research. It is even possible that many of these agreements may fail to stand up in court -- there's certainly precedent for that, depending on how finely you slice it. Do you read these manifestly lengthy and fearsomely involuted tracts? Do you understand them? Or do you just click on through and don't care what it actually says?
iTunes 8 adds podcast controls, terms of service geographic limit (not new)
In the iTunes 8 new features listing, a couple of tweaks may have been overlooked. Podcast subscribers have long yearned for more granular control over downloading and retention in iTunes -- "keep three episodes" might be great for Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me or Mac OS Ken, but what about Coverville or You Look Nice Today? You'd surely want to keep those & other awesome 'casts in perpetuity, and there are some podcasts that are so large you want to cull them after one download.Now, iTunes 8 lets you apply retention policies on a podcast-by-podcast basis. Select the podcast in the list and click the "Settings" button at the bottom of the window, then UNcheck the "Use Default Settings" box to enable custom prefs for that particular show. Dee-lightful! Unfortunately, podcast-to-iPod sync settings are still one for all and all for one, but this is a step in the right direction.Update: Comments below (and a visit to the Wayback Machine) have confirmed that the territorial clause in the iTunes store TOS is not a new addition with v8, but has in fact been in place for quite some time. It's interesting that it only came up as a topic of discussion now -- perhaps because everyone was forced to reaccept the TOS with the new version, and read it a bit more carefully? It's also looking like the clause was displayed front and center on the new TOS acceptance screen; this degree of prominence seems to be new, and probably attracted attention to the pre-existing restriction. In any case, our apologies for the error.Speaking of minor changes that might have major implications, a number of readers have expressed concern about something that Robert originally pointed out in his rundown of iTunes 8: that the iTunes store terms of service (long a source of controversy in Europe) now include have long included a clause restricting use to the geographic area where the user's account is established. In the US the rule reads:10. Territory. The Service is available only in the United States. You agree not to use or attempt to use the Service from outside of the available territory, and that Apple may use technologies to verify your compliance. There are several classes of users who might run afoul of this restriction: travelers who shop in their home stores while venturing abroad, for example, would technically be in violation... but our suspicion is that these casual, intermittent border-busters are not what Rule 10 is about. Instead, any enforcement of this restriction is likely to be aimed at users who live in one country and establish an iTunes store account in another -- allowing them to buy TV shows or movies that may not be available yet (or ever) in their localities.Certainly the content providers who sell their wares through iTunes may choose not to sell their programs to a particular region at a particular time; that's their prerogative. It seems somewhat myopic, however, to think that enforcing restrictions by geography in the iTunes store will have any effect other than to drive revenue and customers from the quasi-legal market firmly into the rip-and-download underground.Thanks to Eric & Mark
Blizzard wins lawsuit against bot makers
You may recall the long running Blizzard vs. MDY battle from various reports here on WoW Insider. In short, Blizzard sued MDY, the makers of the MMOGlider bot (formerly the WOWGlider bot), claiming that the bot violated Blizzard copyright by writing portions of the game to RAM in order to work (since you only have a license to run the game files, and do not actually own them, unauthorized copies are against the EULA). They also claimed that the bot tortiously interfered with Blizzard's customer base. MDY sued them right back, claiming they had every right to sell and distribute their bots. MDY received a crushing blow yesterday as the court ruled against them, Virtually Blind reports, declaring them guilty of copyright infringement and tortious interference (Apparently, bots stealing your kills is now a legal issue, which is sort of cool). The ramifications of this decision are still being discussed in various corners of the net and legal world.
GDC08: Are virtual item sales the way of the future?
With the stigma associated with the term RMT -- or "real money trading" -- companies such as Live Gamer and Ping0 have an uphill battle when selling their legitimized RMT services to many gamers. At GDC recently, Live Gamer's Andrew Schneider and ping0's Steve Goldstein tried to explain to a skeptical crowd why their forms of RMT trading are the future of gaming.Though you hear a lot about WoW gold, all online games have a large secondary market for currency. These services are all operated outside of the publisher's terms of service or EULA and are very inefficient, both for the player and the company. The RMT industry is littered with account and credit card theft -- and when a customer's account has been compromised, they don't call the RMT traders: they call the game's customer support line. It's an immense waste of resources for the game company and a huge hassle for the player involved. (Has your World of Warcraft account ever been stolen? If so, you know it can take weeks to get everything restored.) If game companies don't address RMT issues themselves, they're just going to have problems with black market RMT. Live Gamer seems to offer a, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach with their attempts to run a legitimate RMT business.
Griefers can add value to a class
Koin 6 News is carrying an article by Elizabeth Weiss McGolerick about griefing in educational settings in Second Life. The article may surprise some - it quite carefully points out that you get the equivalent to griefers in real classes, where you exclude them from class and usually you exclude them from your Second Life classes too, or move the class since that is simple where the land owner has neglected to give you rights to exclude others.The piece discusses turning the situation into something teachable, the fact that no physical harm can be done, and goes on to discuss, accurately, the "Big 6" ways to get banned from Second Life. In the interests of disclosure, I work with 2 of the teachers interviewed through Literature Alive!(Via SLReports)
