Category Archives: Asides

Or, They Could Spend Some Money

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Remember from last week how World of Warcraft had a new plan to deal with server overcrowding that wouldn’t involve additional hardware investments: The Character Creation Management System? Summary: ” … a new system that will disable character creation when a realm has a queue to better control realm populations.” Ya, well, it’s not working for shit. On my realm, anyhow. Climbing queues, 60+ minutes primetime and let’s not even talk about holiday primetimes, and still, STILL, everyone and his imaginary brother can create characters there on a new account. (I guess Blizzard meant to say: a new system that will disable character creation when a realm has a three-hour-plus queue to better control realm populations.) Of course, players already have their own system to deal with 3-hour+ queues, it’s called “Bid that Shithole Fucking Adieu and Check Out what Sony has to Play for Free or maybe Dungeons & Dragons Online even though That Got Terrible Beta Buzz, I Can’t Leave Work at 2 PM Pacific to Get in the Queue for Our Warcraft Raids.”

They Make the News

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I absolutely loved this story from last week, from Philadelphia’s Channel 6 ACTION!!!! News: The Nintendo DS System, which, according to the crack team of reporters at Channel 6 ACTION!!! News, can and is being used by creepy adults to stalk budding artists like 11 year-old Emily Keel. Here’s the punchline: even according to ACTION!!! News’ own web writeup, the creeps “… must also be using another DS system and be within 65 feet.” Umm, maybe that crack team of reporters could have scouted around Emily’s neighborhood and caught the stalker in the bushes. Or, they could stop making up stuff. ACTION!!! News had contacted GamerDad’s David Long about Pictochat, Emily’s preferred DS app, before their report aired. Long writes: “I also said at least three or four times that Pictochat was not Internet enabled …” and “I stated specifically that Pictochat would still not work because it doesn’t ever make any connection with a network as it has no means of connecting to an Internet Service Provider (ISP).” I still wish ACTION!!! News would have taken a walk around Emily’s ‘hood, beating the bushes, looking for the creepy DS stalker. (Originally tipped to this story at buttonmashing: Poor Reporting.)

Lineage Identity Thefts

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Approximately 220,000 Lineage accounts were created with stolen identities on the South Korean servers. The prime suspects? Chinese gamers and farmers. (Of course.) Read: Identity theft feeds $1bn gaming black market. The South Korean gamers aren’t taking that shit lying down and are slaughtering the Chinese gamers in retaliation. Read: South Korean gamers stage online massacre of Chinese. I know what you’re thinking: how long until this scam arrives in other games with huge farmer operations? I dunno, maybe it’s already here. (dun dun DUN!) (More to read: The AP report, In South Korea, an online game led to identity theft.)