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Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

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Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#111

Post by podperson »

sliverstorm wrote: post #104
pooriaazimi wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks a lot. It suddenly seems so clear. But I wish you hadn't responded! I suddenly want to be 14 again so bad it's hard to get back to work on the app I'm building ;-( EVE will be around for a few years, I hope. And by then I should be able to play it.

It sounds really cool, but I've done some reading and it sounds like the most amazing moments of emergent gameplay (like the hostile takeover of a monster in-game corporation a few years back) are brief and rare, and the rest of the time I'm told it winds up feeling like a second job.

I think obsession with EVE is yet another example of the kind of Stockholm Syndrome like devotion intentionally tedious MMOs engender in players (I speak as a recovering victim, although not of EVE which is unbelievably tedious and boring even by the pretty vaunted standards set by earlier MMOs).

http://loewald.com/blog/?p=59

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#112

Post by rhizome »

adgar2 wrote: post #106
rhizome wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it derives more from a too-expansive definition of addiction that serves only to provide a self-justifying platform for prejudice.

I'm 24. I've been addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, cocaine, and WoW. It's the same fucking thing . They use the same mechanics to tickle your dopamine receptors so you'll come back instead of looking out in the outside world for that same feeling of reward - family, friends, relationships all get fucked up because you spend your time seeking reward from {cigs, booze, drugs, WoW}.

I'm sorry for your troubles, but not everything that touches dopamine is an addiction.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#113

Post by adgar2 »

rhizome wrote: post #112
adgar2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 24. I've been addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, cocaine, and WoW. It's the same fucking thing . They use the same mechanics to tickle your dopamine receptors so you'll come back instead of looking out in the outside world for that same feeling of reward - family, friends, relationships all get fucked up because you spend your time seeking reward from {cigs, booze, drugs, WoW}.

I'm sorry for your troubles, but not everything that touches dopamine is an addiction.

You just wrote off everything I said except the word "dopamine." Given your outright advocacy ("anti-gamer") throughout this thread, it seems you aren't interested in a real discussion.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#114

Post by podperson »

jmduke wrote: post #79
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not all blogging. Very few do. Millions of WoW players are lazy slobs, who are tweeting their friends "bummer man" and maybe, just maybe, going out for a movie or a walk or something actually, concretely social for a change.

I think it's impossibly difficult to argue that wasting time playing WoW is fundamentally worse than, say, watching football.

If someone watches football as obsessively as folks play WoW then I'd agree. But if your child falls over and needs attention you can get up and deal with it without "letting down your group/team/guild". I know of multiple cases of child neglect by players... indeed, my wife and I gave up WoW cold turkey when we realized one of our twins had a fever and we hadn't noticed for several hours because we were so engrossed in the game. Haven't played seriously since.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#115

Post by Havoc »

niggler wrote: post #19
Ogre wrote: post #14

There was a plague in WoW in 2005 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident Could be a similar sort of thing, or it could be a hack.

Debating whether to be impressed or disappointed that this has its own wikipedia article ...

Given that it impressed epidemiologists with how realistically it spread, I think it deserves a wiki, even in real world terms.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#116

Post by EGreg »

josso wrote: post #37
EGreg wrote: post #18

It looks like there were some videos posted from the point of view of the hackers. Doesn't Blizzard put watermarks in each of the clients? They can track it to the licenses which people bought, and probably to the people themselves, no?

The watermarks was only added, if you used the builtin screenshot-feature of WoW, and only if you didn't had it on quality-level 10 (max). So it won't work with videos and I guess that the hackers haven't used the builtin screenshot-feature, if they have released pictures.

They could have rather easily added other watermarks, for videos, etc. There are lots of watermarking techniques that survive lossy compression.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#117

Post by Havoc »

tibbon wrote: post #15

If I remember right, there was a post on HN here a while ago about how there's a dot pattern embedded in all WoW screenshots, so they can identify who the user is even if they remove the character name from the screen. If they have the account information on this, I have to wonder if they could actually sue someone (instead of just banning them) for using this hack?

Yes - easily circumvented though with a few tweaks to the config.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#118

Post by lazyjones »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #36
patio11 wrote: post #24

Admin consoles: the soft underbelly of billion dollar software operations since... Seriously, though: you almost certainly have one if you run a software business. Client side SSH certificates are your friend. If you're not able to do that, because it is really annoying, separate it from the main app and lock it down as much as possible. (Separate authentication from the main site/app's authentication scheme. Lock do…

Blizzard does use client side SSH certificates according to a dev at BlizCon 2 I think. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd guess that someone laid off in [1] took some of the family jewels with them which enabled [2] and ultimately this as well. [1] http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/02/29/blizzard-announces-l... [2] http://kotaku.com/5933454/blizzard-network-breached-change-y...

That's odd, Blizzard should be competent enough to revoke the certificates of former GMs (and have per-user certs, not shared ones).

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#119

Post by robryan »

podperson wrote: post #114
jmduke wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's impossibly difficult to argue that wasting time playing WoW is fundamentally worse than, say, watching football.

If someone watches football as obsessively as folks play WoW then I'd agree. But if your child falls over and needs attention you can get up and deal with it without "letting down your group/team/guild". I know of multiple cases of child neglect by players... indeed, my wife and I gave up WoW cold turkey when we realized one of our twins had a fever and we hadn't noticed for several hours because we were so engrossed…

That is true of most team based activities. I think the difference with online games is kind of like working from home. Other people living with you may expect you to be present whereas really what you are doing is similar to being on a sports team. No one expects you to be present to do other things while out on the sporting field in the middle of a match.

Granted the time invested is likely a little different.

Re: Entire cities dead on some World of Warcraft realms

#120

Post by ohashi »

iso8859-1 wrote: post #90
aesopiate wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dot pattern only exists in in-game screenshots, and only if they're set to 9/10 quality or lower. They won't exist in a frapsesque video.

Source?

http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/world-of-warcraft/world-of-w...
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