Well, this is more than a little upsetting. A picture, our forefathers (or someone’s forefathers, anyway) said, is worth a thousand words, but I’m willing to bet they’d have upped that wager a little if their pictures contained bits of decryptable info that revealed very sensitive personal information. Reports coming out of the world of World of Warcraft, however, suggest just that, and – given that hackers tend to flock to Blizzard products like ravens to places that will soon be dooooooooomed – it’s a bit worrisome, to say the least.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Posts Tagged ‘World of Warcraft’
WoW Screenshots Allegedly Include Acct Names, IP Info
By Nathan Grayson on September 12th, 2012.
Good News Bears: WoW’s Pandaren To Be Playable By All
By Nathan Grayson on August 18th, 2012.
Want to have a panda of your very own without any of the typical muss, fuss, or mists traditionally associated with exotic cow-colored bear ownership? Well, you have two options: 1) foist responsibility onto someone else every time it needs anything other than a warm, fluffy hug or 2) play World of Warcraft. I, of course, prefer the first option, but WoW’s offering isn’t half-bad either. In an upcoming patch, Blizzard plans to remove all expansion-based limits from race selection – including the Pandaren, once Mists of Pandaria launches. You’ll find the bear necessities after the bear-ake. (That second one didn’t really work, did it? Well that’s just unbearab– [sounds of hurling self out a window].)
Pandaring To The Crowds: Mists Of Pandaria’s Intro
By John Walker on August 16th, 2012.
Blizzard have spent thirteenty-billion dollars on an opening cinematic for their forthcoming Mists Of Pandaria expansion, so I suppose it’s only fair that we all watch it. Then go, “Huh.” And then think, “Wouldn’t it be great if the game looked like that?” And then go back to picking our nails.
Change Your Passwords (Again): Battle.net Breached
By Nathan Grayson on August 10th, 2012.
I, like many of the highly evolved, vaguely human terminal cyborgs that we otherwise refer to as “Internet users,” perhaps somewhat unwisely use the same few passwords for, well, a lot of things. But damn it, I crafted those passwords. I didn’t use wars or stars, but they’re mine – forged through years of slight tweaks and realizations that my birthday and number sequences I’d learned in pre-school, in fact, presented sort of crackable codes. So I really wish videogame companies would stop losing track of them. But alas, it keeps happening. The most recent victim? Blizzard. Fortunately, it sounds like our most important info (credit card, address, real name, etc) is still safe and sound, but you’ll probably want to toss your password masterworks and start anew all the same. Same with mobile Authenticators – which Blizzard notes “could potentially” be compromised. Ruh-roh.
WOW Loses 1.1m Subs In One Quarter, Blames Diablo
By Adam Smith on August 3rd, 2012.
World of Warcraft had 10.2 million subscribers in February and now it has 9.1 million. Blizzard have been quick to point out that their ageing behemoth is still the most popular subscription MMO in existence and also to reiterate the cyclical nature of peak subscriptions. They fell before Cataclysm and the fall before Pandaria was expected. It makes sense that people would drop out when they’ve experienced all the content on offer but MMOData.net’s tracking doesn’t show sub levels below 10 million since 2008, at which point growth had been continuous. While subs will most likely recover with the release of the pandas on Sept 25, the returns may continue to diminish. During the earning call there were words about Diablo III as well.
WoW’s Mists Of Pandaria Out 25th September
By John Walker on July 25th, 2012.
World Of Warcraft’s surelyitreallycan’tbereal update, Mists Of Pandaria – the April Fool’s joke writ large – has a release date at long last. It’ll be in the shops (shops?) on the 25th September. It’s going to cost a bloody enormous £30 in a box, but of course the digital version, not requiring a significant cut go to the store, price of packaging, shipping, etc, will be… wait, £30. Er. There is of course a Collector’s Edition at twice the price, and a Digital Deluxe containing the non-physical bonuses for £40. And you can now pre-order.
WoW Loses Movie Director, Turns Players Into Mounts
By Nathan Grayson on July 19th, 2012.
These are, I must regrettably inform you, two stories related to World of Warcraft – not two stories related to one another. I apologize for dashing your dreams of Blizzard angrily stirring from its mountain lair and – blind with rage over losing Spider-Man and Evil Dead director Sam Raimi – hurling a spell bolt from on high that immediately transforms its playerbase into horses. Instead, I decided to collect today’s big WoW news in one place – mostly for convenience’s sake but also slightly to mislead you with a headline. I apologize for this most grievous of sins, but gosh, it was so, so worth it.
Crowd Control
Power To The People: The Trouble With Crowd-Sourcing
By Nathan Grayson on July 17th, 2012.
Crowd-sourcing. Crowd-funding. The next big thing. A flash-in-the-pan fad. Call it whatever you want, but right now, the gaming industry’s fallen in love with the idea of putting its fate in the hands of heaping piles of people. Double Fine Adventure was – so clearly that you could see it from space – the point where everyone took notice. Shockingly, crowds did, in fact, exist before that moment, but DFA caused them to really, truly become a thing in the industry’s eyes. Last week, however, saw Phase Two of that movement kick off with things like Penny Arcade’s Kickstarter, World of Warcraft’s Guild Mentoring Program, Steam Badges, and Steam Greenlight. Problem is, with the exception of the latter, we’re sort of doing a really miserable job of leveraging communities, you know, well.
Karazhan Holiday: Warcraft Summer Challenges
By Richard Cobbett on June 15th, 2012.
As if you needed any more reason to hide from the evil star of the day that brings fear and burning to all, Blizzard is launching a series of weekly Warcraft Summer Challenges to help avoid the outside world. It’s a way of gently urging you to go back and relive some old glories, check out some content you might have levelled straight past if you joined with one of the expansion packs, and fill up a bit of time while you wait for Mists of Pandaria that would otherwise be wasted on doing the same old endgame raids for the thousandth time.
First up on the schedule: Karazhan! Better known as the old endgame raid you probably did a thousand times or more. But hey. It’s a pretty good dungeon, if you’ve yet to see it…
Blizzard Beats Early WoW Blues With Cross-Server Zones
By Nathan Grayson on May 11th, 2012.
In my more youthful days – back before my body and face began displaying my clear Yeti heritage – I was a dedicated member of WoW’s legions. After a couple years of raiding and impatiently waiting on new expansions, though, I washed out and up onto the shores of games that didn’t consume my every waking hour. Still, it’s evolved into an odd fascination for me – like driving past my childhood home and marveling at how much it’s changed, or something. And I have to admit, it’s pretty incredible how thoroughly Blizzard’s been rolling out the red carpet for old players to revisit their old stomping grounds. But what about new ones?
Level Cap: World of Warcraft Subscribers Hold Steady
By Nathan Grayson on May 10th, 2012.
Oh what a difference a few months can make. When last we checked in on World of Warcraft’s green, red, and cow-colored masses, things were looking grim – or, well, as grim as they can look when you have over 10 million subscribers. But, rolling hills once rife with freshly rolled alts, that number was a far cry from the 12 million of 2010. One empire was in decline, and another – Stars Wars: The Old Republic – was seemingly on its way to filling the power vacuum. But then, the gaming world did the industry-wide equivalent of briefly glancing at a roving herd of bison, only to look back and see that nothing was the same. Furniture was on the ceiling, cats were starting small businesses with dogs, and SWTOR was leaping up and down and making lightsaber wooshing sounds at a clearly disinterested crowd. So then, let’s check in on World of Warcraft.
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- brog : “It's more a question of whether anyone else can afford the time to understand the solution. It's a 500-page proof, and a page of mathematics ...” on The Sunday Papers
- Viroso : “So what is this indie community anyway? People from all around the globe are making games, people everywhere are discussing it. There are a lot ...” on The Sunday Papers
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