Category Archives: gaming

Steam Was Hacked: Confirmed by Valve

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Valve’s Steam has been hacked, and with it comes the possible compromising of users’ credit card numbers and personal information. The hacks were confirmed by Gabe Newell, head of Valve. These hackers gained access to a database where encrypted information was stored, but Valve isn’t sure if the hackers took the information or if they will even be able to get past the encryption.

Earlier in the week, Steam took down their forums to clean up mass spreading of video game hacks website fknowned. A message noted that the forums were down for maintenance, but Valve has cleared up that they had some unexpected guests to the forums and database.

What was the information that was stored on the hacked database? User names, passwords, game purchases, e-mail addresses, billing addresses and credit card information, according to Newell. He also stated that they do not have evidence that the encrypted credit card numbers or personal information were taken, and the company is undergoing a full investigation. There has been no reports or evidence of credit card misuse, but Steam users are supposed to “watch your credit card activity and statements closely.”

The full text of Newell’s message:

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users,

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

Gabe.

Source: Ars Technica

New Features from Blizzard at BlizzCon 2011

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While there were technically two days to the BlizzCon event, most of the gaming releases and announcements came on the first day. The second day was filled with mostly tournaments, demos and Foo Fighters. The opening ceremony was great, with Chris Metzen keeping us entertained and being an excellent spokesperson for Blizzard.

Now that the event has come to an end, we can look back at all of the new features that Blizzard released to us, all of it coming from the first day of BlizzCon 2011.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria


The fourth World of Warcraft expansion set, Mists of Pandaria, has been revealed. Basically, this will introduce a new race (pandaren), class (monk), continent (Pandaria), talent system, pet battle system, as well as raising the experience cap from 85, which was set from Cataclysm, to 90.

World of Warcraft Annual Pass : Get Diablo III Free

If you commit to a 12-year subscription to World of Warcraft, you will receive the full digital version of Diablo III when it is released in early 2012. Furthermore, you will be invited to the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta when that is ready.

15-Years for Diablo III

Blizzard celebrated their 20th year of operation this year. They also are celebrating the Diablo franchise’s 15-year anniversary. Chris Metzen went over the past, present and future of the Diablo franchise, where he gave out some key details about Diablo III.

Here is the cinematic they gave about the game. Basically, Deckard Cain’s niece, Leah, is trying to uncover the secrets that Cain had left for her. Here, she is trying to figure out what the Black Soulstone is.

Diablo III Collector’s Edition

Chris Metzen announced and showed some images of the Diablo III Collector’s Edition, which will come with all kinds of different things. The box is white and looks amazing in detail. On the left is the Collector’s Edition, while the right is the original version.

Blizzard DOTA Trailer

Blizzard also featured the first official trailer for Blizzard DOTA, which takes heros from all of their franchises and lets users control them.

They were really excited about this upcoming release, as they should be. They obviously stuck a lot of time into Blizzard DOTA.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Teaser

Not only did they show the Diablo III and Blizzard DOTA trailers, but they also showed a teaser for the upcoming Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm.

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm was unveiled in May, but Blizzard has continued to work on the game in “secret.” This teaser was, as Blizzard stated, rendered entirely within the StarCraft II game engine. That being said, everything that you see is possible inside the game.

Summary

BlizzCon 2011 was a huge success. We got major updates and official announcements on Blizzard’s three biggest titles as well as information about Blizzard DOTA. Chris Metzen had tons of fun and was very entertaining. While speaking of World of Warcraft, he would occasionally yell out “For the Horde!” or “For the Alliance!” to get the audience pumped up. He seemed to sway more towards the Horde-side, as it seems more of the hardcore WoW players do.

Source: BlizzCon 2011

Call of Duty: Elite is Tempting and Expensive

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Last weekend, hardcore gamers gathered in Los Angeles to participate in Call of Duty XP, a convention celebrating everything CoD-related. Tickets were $150, but all of the proceeds went to a charity supporting veterans. Oh, and the closing concert featured Kanye West, if you’re interested in him at all.

The full details surrounding the premium Call of Duty: Elite were announced. Activision is definitely trying to make money off of the gamers upfront rather than later.

What Do You Get?

Regardless if you are premium or not, everyone will be able to access some features of Call of Duty: Elite, but in order to unlock everything the service has to offer, a $50 yearly subscription fee will be a must. Alternatively, you can buy the Hardened Edition of Modern Warfare 3, which will give users the game, a one-year subscription to the service and a lifetime “founder” status for your account.

Activision has estimated that there will be 20 pieces of downloadable content released after the game’s launch. Call of Duty: Elite premium subscription members (and Hardened Edition owners) will receive all of these free. The content will be released monthly for members, whereas non-members will get them quarterly (similar to the map packs for Call of Duty: Black Ops).

…And the Catch!

While premium subscribers get all of the maps and other content before everyone else, it will make it nearly impossible for these people that don’t have a premium subscription to catch up with the hardcore gamers. You will join a lobby and be the “first to play,” but you’ll end up joining a lobby where only you and your friends don’t know the map. Everyone else, the premium members, will have it mastered and be able to just stomp everyone via their positioning and working the map knowledge to their advantage.

Premium subscriptions will allow for extended clan support. Clans can actually level up aside your character, unlocking items and features specific to the clan. Your clan could earn its own double-XP weekend and be able to compete against other clans refereed by actual people courtesy of Activision. As well, players that have premium subscriptions will be able to defend their clans better by having a stronger knowledge of the maps.

It’s going to be difficult on whether or not to pay $50 a year for a Call of Duty: Elite subscription. I believe my choice is that I will buy the Hardened edition, and if I feel that after the year it is absolutely necessary, I will resubscribe to the service.

Source: Ars Technica

Final Fantasy Tactics: A $16 iPhone Game

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The iPhone version of Final Fantasy Tactics is an enhanced remake of a game that was originally released more than a decade ago. The game was originally released on PSOne, and then later ported on the PSP, which was subtitled The War of the Lions. That being said, the iPhone version will have the animated cut-scenes from that version, as well as new content like additional classes to unlock. This version of the game will cost $16, which is approximately 16 times the price of most iOS games. Realistically, you can probably find this game cheaper, but not for iOS. It is one of the best strategy RPGs of all time, so it is probably worth it.

The iOS version is exactly the same as the PSP version, with the same story and turn-based combat system. If you’ve ever played that version, there’s nothing new to see here. The engine and the play-style is the same as the Playstation version as well. This game still looks wonderful even on the smaller screen of an iPhone.

There is one new feature that wasn’t in the previous versions: the inclusion of touchscreen controls. Navigating the menus is a little annoying, as you have to tap an OK button outside of the menu most of the time. However, when you’re actually playing, it’s brilliant. Being able to rotate the camera with a swipe of your finger is very smooth and quite amazing.

People have said the game is a little laggy. However, they must be using inferior devices, because it runs great on the iPhone 4 (Verizon). Honestly, it felt a little quicker and “snappier” than the PSP version, which is what Ars Technica found out as well.

Final Fantasy Tactics is a legend of a game, and putting a pricetag of sixteen dollars for an iOS version isn’t really too high, even if it is expensive compared to other games. That being said, when you’re comparing games like Angry Birds to Final Fantasy Tactics, the scale isn’t exactly balanced. Besides, this won’t get boring after awhile if you follow the storyline and you get to play with new classes and such.

An HD version is reported to be coming later this month for the iPad. The current versions for iOS, as well as the HD version when it’s available, are available via the App Store.

Source: Ars Technica

Developer Dislikes Accurate Borderlands 2 Report from Journalist

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Randy Pitchford, Gearbox CEO, is known for not holding back and releasing his true feelings, and he didn’t fail to deliver last night when the news of Borderlands 2 was leaked. Eurogamer was given information from some anonymous source that the game was in development and that Gearbox had a “major announcement coming soon.” Pitchford called the stories about Borderlands 2 “shoddy journalism” via his personal Twitter account. The story from Eurogamer was actually 100% true, but it ruined the marketing plan for Pitchford and Gearbox.

“I can tell you that myself and everyone at Gearbox LOVES Borderlands and we have been absolutely thrilled at the reception it’s gotten from our customers and the fact that it’s sold over four million units now,” Pitchford told Eurogamer in the past. “But we’ve only announced what we’ve announced. If we haven’t announced it, it doesn’t exist.”

The report from Eurogamer spread across gaming blogs like mad crazy, which definitely seemed to annoy Pitchford. Borderlands 2 was in development, it was coming, and everyone knew this before it had officially been announced by Randy Pitchford or Gearbox. It seems things definitely can exist before they’re officially announced.

“I have long maintained that we will do more with Borderlands,” Pitchford tweeted. “Shoddy journalism is not an announcement.”

Less than a day after the “shoddy journalism,” the official announcement was made by Gearbox. The game is indeed in development and will be released between April 2012 and April 2013. Every detail from the original report from Eurogamer was supposedly 100% accurate. The problem that Pitchford had wasn’t with the report being accurate, but that the game’s existence was part of a larger marketing plan. “Eager gamers can learn more about Borderlands 2 right now by picking up the latest issue of Game Informer Magazine, which has the worldwide exclusive cover story on the title,” Take-Two wrote in a press release. “Readers will find many game details inside the issue, including the first reveal of one of the several new character classes being introduced in Borderlands 2.”

Journalists are supposed to be part of a marketing program, but when the journalist attempts to break a story that isn’t handed to them directly, it is met with hostility. If someone gets the scoop on a new game before it is officially revealed, that person comes into the “shoddy journalism” category. If you have the story before you’re supposed to, you become a target.

Game Informer will still have the first details on Borderlands 2, and that will remain exclusive until the rest of the gaming press is granted access to report on the title. The game will be playable at PAX Prime. Neither Game Informer nor Gearbox was hurt by the early developing news, but the power of a Game Informer cover and story cannot be underestimated within the industry, and publishers are going to do everything they can to protect the marketing plan they have in place. If you threaten that relationship with reporting the things you know, you run the risk of being a “shoddy journalist.”

Game Informer will still have the first details of the game, and that will remain exclusive until the rest of the gaming press is granted access to the title, which will be playable at PAX Prime. Neither Game Informer nor Gearbox was hurt by the early news of the game’s existence, but the power of a Game Informer cover and story can’t be underestimated within the industry, and publishers are going to do everything they can to protect the marketing deals they’ve made with the magazine. If you threaten that relationship with honest-to-goodness reporting, apparently you’re nothing but a shoddy journalist.

Borderlands 2 is coming to the 360, PS3, and PC between April 2012 and April 2013.

Source: Ars Technica

ARM Chips to Compete Against PS3 and Xbox 360

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ARM has been trying to higher their performance lately, and it looks like they may have been successful yet again. They told the Inquirer that a new Mali GPU design is due out in 18 months. This will make their chips equal to the current-gen gaming consoles. The ARM-based mobile chip will surpass these two consoles in pixel-pushing capacity at some point in the future.

ARM has said this in the past (2009 and 2010) and failed to deliver, but it doesn’t take imagination to imagine that this could happen with an 18-month timeframe. At the 2010 ISSCC, Microsoft showed a combo chip that puts the CPU and GPU of the Xbox 360 on the same 45nm die and clocks in at only 372 million transistors, which Ars has said to be “over 100 million transistors more than NVIDIA’s 40nm Tegra 2 mobile chip from that same year.” It seems quite possible that ARM will be able to at least reach what is currently the standard in 18 months, even if it is taking what is in a gaming console and putting it into an application processor. After all, Moore’s Law should withstand at least some general guidelines as to this happening.

That being said, it is certainly plausible that ARM could have something out for application processing that the consoles deliver now, but the real question might be: what will NVIDIA or other companies come up with in 18 months, and will the ARM’s promise really be that great by then?

Source: Ars Technica

Apple vs. Flash (and Nokia and Opera)

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Nokia and Opera, a cell phone producer and internet browser company, respectively, have publicly stated support for Adobe’s Flash software. Adobe and Flash have gotten into a heated spat through the media concerning Adobe’s Flash software. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has called the program a buggy battery hog while Adobe has lashed out at Apple over its refusal to support Flash on the iPhone and iPad. The reason this is such an issue is that a lot of casual gaming on the internet uses Flash for its gameplay.  Second, since people like to have these mobile devices for casual gaming in addition to other functions, they can’t play on the internet because of Apple’s lack of support. This to me seems real simple. If Jobs is correct that the software is buggy and sucks a lot of energy from the battery, prove it. Put your results where your mouth is. Find a way to test the battery drain from using the Flash software. To say something without proof to back it up is unethical and is sometimes a diversion from a larger problem. On the other hand, Adobe can stamp its foot in the ground and pout all it wants to, but Apple has the right to support or not support various software for their devices.

This is truly revolutionary

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In the area of melding products you wouldn’t think would go together, Lysandre Follet has designed a wristwatch that could make time (at work) stand still. What’s so great about this time piece you ask, well, not only does it give you the time but also the opportunity to play Tetris. That’s right, Tetris, the most popular casual video game out there is a part of this watch. If a whole division in a company had these wristwatches, that department would surely lose the productivity contest.

Do they give away the secret sauce

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Apparently, there is a new training practice for McDonald’s employees in Japan.  The revolutionary new method? The NintendoDS and I am not kidding.  The DS is very popular in Japan, obviously, and the Golden Arches are hoping to make the training process more efficient, delivering it in a way that is more readily received for the current generation.  Would you still want to work there, even if the trainer was Mario?