World of Warcraft Authenticator Hacked
The worst possible thing to happen to a MMO player is getting their account hacked. All the work that you put in to your account can be gone and the process of getting your character and items back is a painful and long process. Companies of course take steps to protect customers like Blizzard’s Authenticator for World of Warcraft but recent events show that even these aren’t fool proof.
The Authenticator for WoW has a reputation for being hack proof and because of that a lot of people own one. Basically what it does is it gives you a set of random digits that you put in with your original password. So every time you log in to your WoW account you get an extra random password that only the owner of the Authenticator can know.
From what I know there hasn’t been a case of an account that used an Authenticator getting hacked but that changed today. There is a virus going around that can hack the World of Warfcraft Authenticator. The virus intercepts the Authenticator code when you log into WoW and sends Blizzard a wrong one (which is why you can’t log in since you will get a “Wrong info” error) and then the people behind the virus have a few minutes to log into your account with the real Authenticator code. A Blizzard employee said this about the recently hacked WoW accounts that used Authenticators.
So the Authenticator is not a fail safe way to keep accounts safe but it is still a very good investment. If you want to check to see if you have the virus just search for the file “emcor.dll” on your computer. If you have it then your account most likely has already been hacked.
Tools like the Authenticator can only do so much. It is really unfortunate that people are getting hacked even with this security measure but it all comes down to the user. Safe browsing habits, a good anti-virus, common sense (against phishers) and things like an Authenticator can make your account virtually hack proof.
World of Warcraft Authenticator Hacked
The worst possible thing to happen to a MMO player is getting their account hacked. All the work that you put in to your account can be gone and the process of getting your character and items back is a painful and long process. Companies of course take steps to protect customers like Blizzard’s Authenticator for World of Warcraft but recent events show that even these aren’t fool proof.
The Authenticator for WoW has a reputation for being hack proof and because of that a lot of people own one. Basically what it does is it gives you a set of random digits that you put in with your original password. So every time you log in to your WoW account you get an extra random password that only the owner of the Authenticator can know.
From what I know there hasn’t been a case of an account that used an Authenticator getting hacked but that changed today. There is a virus going around that can hack the World of Warfcraft Authenticator. The virus intercepts the Authenticator code when you log into WoW and sends Blizzard a wrong one (which is why you can’t log in since you will get a “Wrong info” error) and then the people behind the virus have a few minutes to log into your account with the real Authenticator code. A Blizzard employee said this about the recently hacked WoW accounts that used Authenticators.
So the Authenticator is not a fail safe way to keep accounts safe but it is still a very good investment. If you want to check to see if you have the virus just search for the file “emcor.dll” on your computer. If you have it then your account most likely has already been hacked.
Tools like the Authenticator can only do so much. It is really unfortunate that people are getting hacked even with this security measure but it all comes down to the user. Safe browsing habits, a good anti-virus, common sense (against phishers) and things like an Authenticator can make your account virtually hack proof.
Love is in the Air and Big Love Rockets!
This is a little late but I hope everyone had a happy Valentine’s Day. In World of Warcraft there is a special event called Love is in the Air to celebrate V-Day. The event started on the 7th and ends on the 21st. These holiday events that Blizzard makes always have special and novelty items that you can only get during certain events.
One of these novelty items you can get is the Romantic Picnic Basket. When you use it your character drops down a picnic basket with a pink and white umbrella and people can come and join you for a lovely feast. The Romantic Picnic Basket can be purchased from any Lovely Merchant which are found in all major cities. The merchant also sells other items like: Roses, Chocolates, love dummy (called the Love fool).
This year’s Love is in the Air event introduces the Big Love Rocket. The
Big Love Rocket is a mount that can only be obtained during this event. Now this is nothing new because events such as Hallow’s End and Brewfest have rare mount drops ( The Horseman’s Reins, Great Brewfest Kodo and Swift Brewfest Ram) but the mount that drops in this year’s Valentine’s event is a special one.
The Big Love Rocket mount drops off Apothecary Hummel ( Love is in the Air holiday boss). It is a dark pinkish rocket that you can ride around and is very similar to the X-51 Nether-Rocket X-TREME mount which was first introduced in the first expansion of WoW: The Burning Crusade. Now the X-51 Nether-Rocket X-TREME was only obtainable by buying the WoW Trading Card Game and the chances of getting the rocket mount loot card was extremely low. With the addition of the Big Love Rocket it gives players who wanted a rocket mount another shot at getting one.
I am currently farming for this mount myself and here is some info and pointers that will helpfully maximize your chances at getting this mount. First the the Big Love Rocket mount has a low low drop rate. An official comment from Blizzard acknowledges that the drop rate is lower than 1-2% which makes it one of the rarest mounts in the game. My first tip would be to group up with people that have multiple high level alts. When I say high level I mean level 75 and up because at 75 you can get the quest that summons Apothecary Hummel. Personally I run with guildies and we each have around three alts but some of the guys have five so we get a lot of attempts everyday (around 21). My second tip would be to have a warlock in group to drop a summoning stone inside the instance to minimize downtime. Doing this saves a lot of time because you don’t have to constantly run out of the instance to summon alts. My third and final tip would be to plan out who is getting on what alts. Set up a rotation for alt switching so you ensure that there is always at least one tank and one healer when you switch in alts and to make sure there’s no confusion when people are switching characters.
Enjoy the Love is in the Air event and good luck to those of you trying to get the Big Love Rocket!
Love is in the Air and Big Love Rockets!
This is a little late but I hope everyone had a happy Valentine’s Day. In World of Warcraft there is a special event called Love is in the Air to celebrate V-Day. The event started on the 7th and ends on the 21st. These holiday events that Blizzard makes always have special and novelty items that you can only get during certain events.
One of these novelty items you can get is the Romantic Picnic Basket. When you use it your character drops down a picnic basket with a pink and white umbrella and people can come and join you for a lovely feast. The Romantic Picnic Basket can be purchased from any Lovely Merchant which are found in all major cities. The merchant also sells other items like: Roses, Chocolates, love dummy (called the Love fool).
This year’s Love is in the Air event introduces the Big Love Rocket. The
Big Love Rocket is a mount that can only be obtained during this event. Now this is nothing new because events such as Hallow’s End and Brewfest have rare mount drops ( The Horseman’s Reins, Great Brewfest Kodo and Swift Brewfest Ram) but the mount that drops in this year’s Valentine’s event is a special one.
The Big Love Rocket mount drops off Apothecary Hummel ( Love is in the Air holiday boss). It is a dark pinkish rocket that you can ride around and is very similar to the X-51 Nether-Rocket X-TREME mount which was first introduced in the first expansion of WoW: The Burning Crusade. Now the X-51 Nether-Rocket X-TREME was only obtainable by buying the WoW Trading Card Game and the chances of getting the rocket mount loot card was extremely low. With the addition of the Big Love Rocket it gives players who wanted a rocket mount another shot at getting one.
I am currently farming for this mount myself and here is some info and pointers that will helpfully maximize your chances at getting this mount. First the the Big Love Rocket mount has a low low drop rate. An official comment from Blizzard acknowledges that the drop rate is lower than 1-2% which makes it one of the rarest mounts in the game. My first tip would be to group up with people that have multiple high level alts. When I say high level I mean level 75 and up because at 75 you can get the quest that summons Apothecary Hummel. Personally I run with guildies and we each have around three alts but some of the guys have five so we get a lot of attempts everyday (around 21). My second tip would be to have a warlock in group to drop a summoning stone inside the instance to minimize downtime. Doing this saves a lot of time because you don’t have to constantly run out of the instance to summon alts. My third and final tip would be to plan out who is getting on what alts. Set up a rotation for alt switching so you ensure that there is always at least one tank and one healer when you switch in alts and to make sure there’s no confusion when people are switching characters.
Enjoy the Love is in the Air event and good luck to those of you trying to get the Big Love Rocket!
Updated World of Warcraft Armory
Blizzard has recently updated the World of Warcraft Armory, which for those of you who don’t know, is a site where you can search for specific players, arena teams, etc. The updated WoW Armory has a few new features.
The first thing major change they put in is the 3D model viewer. When you search for a character you can now see that character in 3D. You can rotate the character around, zoom in/out, and make the character perform various emotes (dance, flex, chicken, etc). There is also a play/pause, forward, backward button that appears while the character is doing emotes.
Another nice addition that was added to the armory is the Gear List option. With one click you get a complete list of gear that a character has. The list also shows what gems and enchants are on gear and also the level of each piece. You can also mouse over any item to get more info on it.
And finally the next big update to the Armory is the Activity Feed. When looking at a character’s profile you get a short list of what that specific character has done recently. By clicking on Activity Feed you get a list of exactly what that character has done for the past few days. It tells you what raids (and bosses) you’ve done, achievements earned, time of activity and it even shows what gear/loot you’ve won or purchased.
To see a complete list of changes to the Armory please go here.
Updated World of Warcraft Armory
Blizzard has recently updated the World of Warcraft Armory, which for those of you who don’t know, is a site where you can search for specific players, arena teams, etc. The updated WoW Armory has a few new features.
The first thing major change they put in is the 3D model viewer. When you search for a character you can now see that character in 3D. You can rotate the character around, zoom in/out, and make the character perform various emotes (dance, flex, chicken, etc). There is also a play/pause, forward, backward button that appears while the character is doing emotes.
Another nice addition that was added to the armory is the Gear List option. With one click you get a complete list of gear that a character has. The list also shows what gems and enchants are on gear and also the level of each piece. You can also mouse over any item to get more info on it.
And finally the next big update to the Armory is the Activity Feed. When looking at a character’s profile you get a short list of what that specific character has done recently. By clicking on Activity Feed you get a list of exactly what that character has done for the past few days. It tells you what raids (and bosses) you’ve done, achievements earned, time of activity and it even shows what gear/loot you’ve won or purchased.
To see a complete list of changes to the Armory please go here.
What Makes a Good MMORPG
In my first post here at MMOCrunch I went over why I think City of Heroes/Villains (COX) is still a good and somewhat underappreciated MMORPG. This time around I am going to discuss something I touched on the last time, what makes a good MMO. There are a number of points, but there are some key factors in my opinion that can make or break a game.
Fighting the Winter Lord
One of the things that both COX and World of Warcraft do throughout the year is in-game events, especially around the holidays. This consists of special missions or instances that the player can partake in usually around Halloween, Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Just recently COX wrapped up its Winter Event that ran from December 15th to January 12th. The event featured the opening of the ski chalet in Pocket D which is an open zone that both villains and heroes can hang out in. In addition to ski slope runs and extra badges, players were also granted the optional mission of rescuing baby new year (who to me just looked like a little person in a diaper) to gain even more badges and temporary powers. Scattered all through Paragon City and the Rogue isles are also presents that will either spawn killer snowmen or candy cane salvage which can be traded in for badges and powers. One of the highlights of the event is battling a building-sized snowman called the Winter Lord in a zone where heroes and villains can work together on teams while it is open.
In World of Warcraft it was called “Feast of Winter Veil” and ran from December 25th to January 2nd. Like COX it is themed around the holidays and features special achievements and instances for players. Instead of a Winter Lord causing mayhem, Greatfather Winter is the figurehead and seems to be more Santa orientated in its focus. These seasonal events help give long-term players a reason to keep playing, it’s like a holiday thank you from the game developers.
Another key ingredient to making a good MMO is keeping in touch with the community within the game. As I stated in my last post, what keep me coming back to COX is the people I play with. Having talked with many WOW players, it sounds like they feel the same. What both games have done well is keeping an open line to the users and re-acting to what they like and don’t like. Prime examples of games that have not done this are Sony Online Entertainment’s Star Wars Galaxies and the NcSoft’s ill-fated Auto Assault.
Star Wars Galaxies started off strong and early on was very popular among MMORPG fans. I used to have many friends who played it religiously and really liked the game. Then there was the update that changed many things, including making everyone a Jedi. Previously players had a long road to be a Jedi and put in many hours collecting Holocron pieces to get that rank. Then after the update it seemed all that hard work was for nothing and fans quickly left the game in disgust. There is now talk of a new MMO coming out set in the world of the Old Republic and I will be curious to see if fans of the genre will give it another try.
Blowing things up in Auto Assault
NcSoft thought they really were striking into new ground with Auto Assault developed by NetDevil. But after only a few months of being online, it was shutdown and many refunds were given. What made that game unique was that your main character was a vehicle with you having a semi-customizable human to wander around in cities with to either get missions or upgrades. I played the game quite a bit and did enjoy driving around in a post apocalyptic world blowing up things, but found being humanoid clunky and distracting at times. The mission types were escort, patrol and kill which would earn you in game money to upgrade your weapons and look of your vehicle. There was no death penalty per se in the game; once your health ran out your only cost was the time to get back to a mission, but no loss of experience. What ultimately killed it in the end was lack of players. Even though there was a really easy teaming system in place,there just wasn’t not enough people online to team with. I would log on and there would be hardly anyone on the servers. It is a shame though, I think if it had been given a chance by the fans it would have lasted longer.
So as we head into this New Year and decade it does not look like MMORPG’s are not really slowing down at all. Looking ahead I am anxiously awaiting to see what the new Going Rogue expansion for COX, DCU Online, Star Trek Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic has to offer us all. If the developers keep in touch with the fans, listen to the communities and give them what they want it will be very busy online year. Heck, I might even have to play more than one at a time if they can bring the goods to the table, so to speak.
What Makes a Good MMORPG
In my first post here at MMOCrunch I went over why I think City of Heroes/Villains (COX) is still a good and somewhat underappreciated MMORPG. This time around I am going to discuss something I touched on the last time, what makes a good MMO. There are a number of points, but there are some key factors in my opinion that can make or break a game.
Fighting the Winter Lord
One of the things that both COX and World of Warcraft do throughout the year is in-game events, especially around the holidays. This consists of special missions or instances that the player can partake in usually around Halloween, Christmas or Valentine’s Day. Just recently COX wrapped up its Winter Event that ran from December 15th to January 12th. The event featured the opening of the ski chalet in Pocket D which is an open zone that both villains and heroes can hang out in. In addition to ski slope runs and extra badges, players were also granted the optional mission of rescuing baby new year (who to me just looked like a little person in a diaper) to gain even more badges and temporary powers. Scattered all through Paragon City and the Rogue isles are also presents that will either spawn killer snowmen or candy cane salvage which can be traded in for badges and powers. One of the highlights of the event is battling a building-sized snowman called the Winter Lord in a zone where heroes and villains can work together on teams while it is open.
In World of Warcraft it was called “Feast of Winter Veil” and ran from December 25th to January 2nd. Like COX it is themed around the holidays and features special achievements and instances for players. Instead of a Winter Lord causing mayhem, Greatfather Winter is the figurehead and seems to be more Santa orientated in its focus. These seasonal events help give long-term players a reason to keep playing, it’s like a holiday thank you from the game developers.
Another key ingredient to making a good MMO is keeping in touch with the community within the game. As I stated in my last post, what keep me coming back to COX is the people I play with. Having talked with many WOW players, it sounds like they feel the same. What both games have done well is keeping an open line to the users and re-acting to what they like and don’t like. Prime examples of games that have not done this are Sony Online Entertainment’s Star Wars Galaxies and the NcSoft’s ill-fated Auto Assault.
Star Wars Galaxies started off strong and early on was very popular among MMORPG fans. I used to have many friends who played it religiously and really liked the game. Then there was the update that changed many things, including making everyone a Jedi. Previously players had a long road to be a Jedi and put in many hours collecting Holocron pieces to get that rank. Then after the update it seemed all that hard work was for nothing and fans quickly left the game in disgust. There is now talk of a new MMO coming out set in the world of the Old Republic and I will be curious to see if fans of the genre will give it another try.
Blowing things up in Auto Assault
NcSoft thought they really were striking into new ground with Auto Assault developed by NetDevil. But after only a few months of being online, it was shutdown and many refunds were given. What made that game unique was that your main character was a vehicle with you having a semi-customizable human to wander around in cities with to either get missions or upgrades. I played the game quite a bit and did enjoy driving around in a post apocalyptic world blowing up things, but found being humanoid clunky and distracting at times. The mission types were escort, patrol and kill which would earn you in game money to upgrade your weapons and look of your vehicle. There was no death penalty per se in the game; once your health ran out your only cost was the time to get back to a mission, but no loss of experience. What ultimately killed it in the end was lack of players. Even though there was a really easy teaming system in place,there just wasn’t not enough people online to team with. I would log on and there would be hardly anyone on the servers. It is a shame though, I think if it had been given a chance by the fans it would have lasted longer.
So as we head into this New Year and decade it does not look like MMORPG’s are not really slowing down at all. Looking ahead I am anxiously awaiting to see what the new Going Rogue expansion for COX, DCU Online, Star Trek Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic has to offer us all. If the developers keep in touch with the fans, listen to the communities and give them what they want it will be very busy online year. Heck, I might even have to play more than one at a time if they can bring the goods to the table, so to speak.
Challenge and Risk
My last post about Risk versus Reward started a couple interesting conversations both here and offline. Those conversations brought a couple of interesting points to light.
The main thing I have discovered is that most players and game devs tend to jam the concepts of challenge and risk together and call that “risk”. If an encounter is hard, a player is likely to die and they want to avoid dying and so that constitutes a high degree of risk. I think challenge and risk are two separate concepts that might be coupled, but are certainly not the same. For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to define these terms like this:
Challenge = The chance you have to fail at a task or encounter. This could mean dying, party wiping, not meeting your goals or quest requirements depending on the situation.
Risk = The consequences you suffer as a result of failing at a task or encounter. This might be item loss, having to make a corpse run, a loss of experience or the accrual of “debt”.
These two ideas aren’t the same. I could design an encounter in which a boss NPC takes only 10% of the damage dealt to him and two-shots most players and this would be a challenging encounter. However, if there are no consequences for failure, then there is no risk. If you lose, you just get back up and try again, or head off and do something else. Likewise, I could have a creature that was fairly easy to defeat (let’s say 90% of all groups that encounter this creature can beat it with no losses), but if he did manage to kill a group member, that player’s items would be sucked into the void and lost forever. This encounter is very low challenge, but has a pretty terrible risk associated with it.
I think it is interesting to note that there are times when the concepts of challenge and risk are coupled. For instance, in the extreme case of an encounter where you simply cannot die (let’s say you have managed to gain full resistance to the creature’s elemental attacks), then it does not matter what the death penalty in your game is, the chance of failure is zero and so the risk is zero.
Similarly, if we crank the risk in an encounter to zero, we see that the challenge of that encounter approaches zero. I think a good example of this would be Champions Online where some of the boss battles are tough (the boss is a bag of hit points that can two shot many characters), but because the only risk is being sent back to the respawn point, the battle devolves into a “graveyard zerg” and the challenge drops considerably.
Another interesting dynamic is that risk affects our behavior and thus, affects the level of challenge in our encounters. In games with no risk, there is no incentive to hold back any resources that could help you win a fight. So in World of Warcraft, you always bring your best gear to a battle because there is no chance of losing it. If dying in WoW meant a risk of item loss, players would be forced to decide how much they were willing to bet on the success of the mission. Generally, this would mean they would bring gear they were willing to lose — presumably a less valuable set. Consequently, this would make them less powerful and thus increase the challenge of the encounter.
One last thing I noticed is that in my small sample of people with which I discussed this topic, those most averse to the risk of loss almost always mentioned how they would hate to have to grind to get their lost stuff (items, experience) back. I got the impression that for these players, MMOs were not about “doing cool stuff”, but were about “getting cool stuff.” New items, new powers and unlocking new areas were the main point of the game… in some cases even at the expense of enjoying the game play. A couple of my CoX buddies are like this. They don’t mind if a particular mission is boring; they will farm it as long as it is easy xp or drops.
In any case, I am working on a post about adding risk back into the themepark equation and I thought I would post to clear up confusion with the two terms. Happy Hunting!
Challenge and Risk
My last post about Risk versus Reward started a couple interesting conversations both here and offline. Those conversations brought a couple of interesting points to light.
The main thing I have discovered is that most players and game devs tend to jam the concepts of challenge and risk together and call that “risk”. If an encounter is hard, a player is likely to die and they want to avoid dying and so that constitutes a high degree of risk. I think challenge and risk are two separate concepts that might be coupled, but are certainly not the same. For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to define these terms like this:
Challenge = The chance you have to fail at a task or encounter. This could mean dying, party wiping, not meeting your goals or quest requirements depending on the situation.
Risk = The consequences you suffer as a result of failing at a task or encounter. This might be item loss, having to make a corpse run, a loss of experience or the accrual of “debt”.
These two ideas aren’t the same. I could design an encounter in which a boss NPC takes only 10% of the damage dealt to him and two-shots most players and this would be a challenging encounter. However, if there are no consequences for failure, then there is no risk. If you lose, you just get back up and try again, or head off and do something else. Likewise, I could have a creature that was fairly easy to defeat (let’s say 90% of all groups that encounter this creature can beat it with no losses), but if he did manage to kill a group member, that player’s items would be sucked into the void and lost forever. This encounter is very low challenge, but has a pretty terrible risk associated with it.
I think it is interesting to note that there are times when the concepts of challenge and risk are coupled. For instance, in the extreme case of an encounter where you simply cannot die (let’s say you have managed to gain full resistance to the creature’s elemental attacks), then it does not matter what the death penalty in your game is, the chance of failure is zero and so the risk is zero.
Similarly, if we crank the risk in an encounter to zero, we see that the challenge of that encounter approaches zero. I think a good example of this would be Champions Online where some of the boss battles are tough (the boss is a bag of hit points that can two shot many characters), but because the only risk is being sent back to the respawn point, the battle devolves into a “graveyard zerg” and the challenge drops considerably.
Another interesting dynamic is that risk affects our behavior and thus, affects the level of challenge in our encounters. In games with no risk, there is no incentive to hold back any resources that could help you win a fight. So in World of Warcraft, you always bring your best gear to a battle because there is no chance of losing it. If dying in WoW meant a risk of item loss, players would be forced to decide how much they were willing to bet on the success of the mission. Generally, this would mean they would bring gear they were willing to lose — presumably a less valuable set. Consequently, this would make them less powerful and thus increase the challenge of the encounter.
One last thing I noticed is that in my small sample of people with which I discussed this topic, those most averse to the risk of loss almost always mentioned how they would hate to have to grind to get their lost stuff (items, experience) back. I got the impression that for these players, MMOs were not about “doing cool stuff”, but were about “getting cool stuff.” New items, new powers and unlocking new areas were the main point of the game… in some cases even at the expense of enjoying the game play. A couple of my CoX buddies are like this. They don’t mind if a particular mission is boring; they will farm it as long as it is easy xp or drops.
In any case, I am working on a post about adding risk back into the themepark equation and I thought I would post to clear up confusion with the two terms. Happy Hunting!
