Social engineering FAIL

  My final exams are done and I am glad to say it all work as planned, now for the next 2 months i wont have much to do other then focus on my hobbies, and we all know what those are... gaming!

  While browsing the web I came across an interesting conversation about some kid who tried to scam another guy by posing as Steam employee in order to steal someone else's account, this is known as social engineering, its the act of tricking another person into giving you information/access you should not be allowed to have, one could also call it social hacking, this event reminded me of something someone tried to do to me back when I used to play Counter-Strike on steam several years ago, anyway here is the conversation:

br0kenrabbit says: hi
Greg_ValveOLS says: good evening
br0kenrabbit says: What's ip?
br0kenrabbit says: up?
Greg_ValveOLS says: my name is greg a member of the valve online Support team
br0kenrabbit says: On MSN?
Greg_ValveOLS says: yes :)
br0kenrabbit says: Why?
Greg_ValveOLS says: we logged multiple ips from your account and ned to verifi your information
br0kenrabbit says: My information?
Greg_ValveOLS says: we believe someone may have stolen your account mmmm you havent shared youre account infomation with anyone have you?
br0kenrabbit says: No. I don't even have it written down.
Greg_ValveOLS says: hmmm maybe a keylogger on you r PC then maybe you need a format?
br0kenrabbit says: Well...
Greg_ValveOLS says: if you can verify your account information to me i can insure that only your ip have access to it Its a new security feature were trying because this happens so muchlogin names and passwords aint safe anymroe You know. L:)
br0kenrabbit says: Well
Greg_ValveOLS says: dont worry this connect it secure
br0kenrabbit says: Can I be honest with you, Greg?
Greg_ValveOLS says: k
br0kenrabbit says: Look, I don't know how you go this MSN account name, don't really care, either.
br0kenrabbit says: Unlike you, I DO work for Valve. Trace my ip and you'll see.
Greg_ValveOLS says: huh?
Greg_ValveOLS says: bs
br0kenrabbit says: Trace it.
Greg_ValveOLS says: how
br0kenrabbit says: Start/run/cmd type Tracert and then my IP address and hit enter.
Greg_ValveOLS says: oh k
br0kenrabbit says: As an employee, I know that Valve employees will NEVER contact users over MSN. I also know a valve employee will NEVER ask a user for his/her username and password.
br0kenrabbit says: I'm putting a temporary hold on your Steam account.
Greg_ValveOLS says: why?
br0kenrabbit says: Have you read the ToS?
Greg_ValveOLS says: Tod?
Greg_ValveOLS says: tos
br0kenrabbit says: terms of service
Greg_ValveOLS says: were?
br0kenrabbit says: Greg, this is a serious infraction against the Tos. You are at risk of losing your account.
Greg_ValveOLS says: why
br0kenrabbit says: I just told you why
Greg_ValveOLS says: :(
br0kenrabbit says: I need some information from you if you want me to unlock you account. I'm going to write you up but I will only suspend you account for three days, since this is your first infraction, okay?
Greg_ValveOLS says: k
br0kenrabbit says: First, what is the name the account is registered to. Not the user name, the persons real name who created the account. This is for verification purposes.
Greg_ValveOLS says: xxxxx xxxxxxx
br0kenrabbit says: Is this you?
Greg_ValveOLS says: ya
br0kenrabbit says: Are you the only user of this account?
Greg_ValveOLS says: ya
br0kenrabbit says: Okay, and what is the username
Greg_ValveOLS says: xxxxxxxx
br0kenrabbit says: Okay.
br0kenrabbit says: I see you have purchased a few of our games, thank you. :)
Greg_ValveOLS says: some. dude
Greg_ValveOLS says: m
br0kenrabbit says: Do you always log on from the same IP?
Greg_ValveOLS says: ya
br0kenrabbit says: And who is your internet providers, your ISP?
Greg_ValveOLS says: xxxxxxx
br0kenrabbit says: Thank you. One moment, please, let me verify this information.
Greg_ValveOLS says: am i gonna be bale to play 2nite?
br0kenrabbit says: What is your city of residence?
br0kenrabbit says: That depends on if you cooperate. You're doing fine so far.
Greg_ValveOLS says: xxxxxx
br0kenrabbit says: Illinios?
Greg_ValveOLS says: yes
br0kenrabbit says: Okay. And what is the password associated with this account?
Greg_ValveOLS says: xxxxxxx
br0kenrabbit says: Okay. Do not try to log into steam. If you are connected now you need to log off.
Greg_ValveOLS says: why
br0kenrabbit says: So I can update your account.
Greg_ValveOLS says: can I play 2 nite
Greg_ValveOLS says: clan fight
Greg_ValveOLS says: wont win without me heh
br0kenrabbit says: Heh. You'll have to wait a few minutes. Are you logged off?
Greg_ValveOLS says: ya
br0kenrabbit says: Okay. Give me just a moment.
br0kenrabbit says: Try to log in now.
Greg_ValveOLS says: k
Greg_ValveOLS says: It says login failed wtf wtf!!@?
br0kenrabbit says: Greg
Greg_ValveOLS says: did u ban me???????????>WHY
br0kenrabbit says: Greg
Greg_ValveOLS says: what
br0kenrabbit says: Valve will never ask for your username and password.

  The most interesting part of this conversation was the fact that this kid was fooled with the same trick he himself was using in the first place which was most entertaining.

  Like I said this reminded me of a time when some random 13 year old asked me if  I wanted free full games in my steam account, it was such an obvious trap I wondered if the guy was being serious in his attempt to steal my account information, but I went along with it to see how far it would go.

  At some point he sent me a file, I don't remember if it was a .txt or a .doc file but either one was ludicrous, as I read the content of the file I laughed, it was a survey asking for several information two of which were the account name and password, I asked myself who would get caught by such a ridiculous scheme but then again I also knew several gullible people back then specially the younger generation who would probably be blinded by the prize to see the obvious.

  In the end I gave him the survey back with fake information, he then replied saying the information was not correct, I told him "really? are you sure?", he clearly didn't pick up on the sarcasm so I told the guy how what he was doing was as ridiculous as he was an idiot, of course he tried to defend his scheme saying how he had given access to several other people, then I blocked the guy from the friends list and never saw the guy again.

  I think the most saddest part of this is that this kid probably started doing this because someone else did it to him and he probably fell for it, otherwise there was no reason for him to think such a thing would actually work.

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Guild Wars 2 BWE2/Stress Test 2 Finale

The corruption begins...

The Crystal dragon can't wait, so can't we!

Branded

Near the end of both the second beta weekend and also for the small stress test that was held on the 27th, Guild Wars 2 hosted a finale event that was one of the most entertaining ones so far, one I hope will be part of the game in it's eventual release.

The event starts with the corruption of a few waypoints/players by the Crystal Dragon Kralkatorrik, the waypoints will become crystallized just as any "corrupted" players will take on one of the many forms of the "Branded", players who use the corrupted waypoints will also reappear as the Branded and the objective for this invading force is to contaminate other waypoints, kill players and ultimately invade the Black Citadel/eliminating Rytlock. While the uncontaminated player's tasks would be to destroy any invading force and to re-capture the waypoints by destroying the "Branded Crystal" at the sites.

Motivational Recruiter!

While Arenanet had already stated that there wouldn't be pvp in the pve environment, it was a fun change to have world pvp in the form of a meta-event where players can choose to be on either side and just fight it out as part of the story/event play out at the same time. The goals and objectives escalate in what I suspect is a system to balance out each side, in the very least the Branded at some point will spawn out Champion Devourers/Dragons that will march towards the Black Citadel and provide yet another event for players to accomplish in either defending or destroying these champions depending on which side you play as.

Branded player's underwater form

Branded Warrior Skillset
1 Branded Punch - Punch a single target with your giant branded fist
2 Lunge - Launch yourself at a target area, knocking down any enemies nearby when you land.
3 Throw Crystal Shard - Throw a crystal shard that cripples and bleeds your enemy
4 Corrupted War Cry - Removes conditions from allies and grants swiftness. Dazes nearby enemies
5 Crystal Frenzy - Knock down several targets with a massive kick, crush them with a mighty slam, and then unleash a torrent of lightning strikes on anyone left standing
6 - Signet of branded corruption (passive: grants regeneration and toughness) signet active (heal yourself and gain quickness)

Branded Warrior's skillset

Branded Ranger Skillset
1 Branded Slice - Slice your opponent with crystal fists
2 Flash and Brand - Teleport to your target, striking them and blinding nearby foes
3´Throw Crystal Shard - Throw a crystal shard that cripples and bleeds your enemy
4 ???
5 Crystal Mine Field - Create a field of crystal shards that explode and damage enemies
6 - Signet of branded corruption (passive: grants regeneration and toughness) signet active (heal yourself and gain quickness)

Branded Crystal/Contaminated Waypoint

     

The Shatterer's flyby

Need more Guild Wars 2!

While this was a stress test and of short duration, I noticed that there was virtually no lag during massive events although I'm still not sure at what point Arenanet is with the handling in general for the large scale events/battles...hopefully this is a good sign and while we wait...our friendly neighbourhood charr will cry for more!

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Makai Kingdom - Time to play

Recently I scrounged up some time in the middle of my busy college exam studies(truth: should be studying 24/7) to play through one of the more recent release from the Disgaea Series, for those who don't know the background story of this franchise: it revolves around the concept that there exist many worlds(netherworlds) each ruled by a powerful(most of the time not very smart) entity called the Overlord, each release save the remake for other platforms featured a different world/story and naturally a new protagonist but it always revolves around multiple Netherworlds and even starring characters from the other releases as hidden characters/bosses or part of the storyline as a cameo. As a fan of both tactical and rpg games, the combination of both in these games has kept me coming back throughout the releases, what makes this series so appealing to me is mostly the light-hearted stories that while goofy(with impossibly goofier characters) and yet both story and characters are extremely likeable therefore making the player interested in seeing how the story develops through cutscenes before and after each map battle.

If only we can look as "badass" throughout the game

Much power and sheer luck equals ?

A "badass" book?

Makai Kingdom: Chronicles of the Sacred Tome stars Overlord Zeta, considered the most powerful across Netherworlds due to his immense Mana(innate power Overlords possess), on a certain fatidic day a prophecy from the oracle Pram foretold the destruction of his Netherworld and as any decent overlord woulddo (specially a self-proclaimed "Most Badass Freakin' Overlord In The Entire Cosmos"), Overlord Zetta blasted his way into the forbidden library to get to the Sacred Tome known to record everything and thus holding the answer to what threatened his Netherworld, and yet, in a goofy twist of faith, what the Sacred Tome had to say wasn't agreeable with the baddass Overlord as it blamed the Overlord's stupidity as the sole reason for the ruin brought upon his domain, in a fit of rage the Overlord set the book in Hellfire and watched it burn away---only to find out immediately after that the destruction of the Sacred Tome would *gasp* destroy the Netherworld(his) and as a last desperate move the he bound his own soul into the Tome and that's where our adventure begins.

in-between combat scenes

Battle: Unlike the normal Disgaeas which featured grids for movement and attack, Makai Kingdom took on the combat system from Phantom Brave giving player characters the freedom to move within a circle whose size is determined by the characters Mov(movement points), classes and weapon skills remain mostly the same from the other Disgaea games as skills are learned by mastering weapon types and while some classes remain the same, there are a few additions aswell as a couple others not in the game at the same time. While to deploy unit the game uses a similar system as in Phantom brave where you need to confine characters to objects, in Makai Kingdom this is done in the Homebase and the units will not go away after a certain number of turns once summoned, as it happened in Phantom Brave, additionally units can be set into existent buildings that the player already possess at the base, each granting different bonuses to characters housed in them and summoned into battle afterwards from the also summoned house unit. Lastly, the standalone feature not found in any of the other games from the same franchise is the addition of vehicles, they vary in size, shape and purpose but they are moving and generally faster then normal movement from the characters, they can also damage oponents and level up(although the system required for this is different then the characters and possibly more difficult).

Seriously, try it out, can't help but be charmed

Maps: As with it's predecessors, the maps are randomly generated with a feature called "extensions" which are hidden areas of the map oftenly unlocked by killing a key mob or object, save a few pre-set maps at the beginning of certain chapters, most of the RNG maps provide the player with a fresh replay value as each playthrough in the same map will be different both in objects, area and enemies, extensions also provide with a necessity for further strategy as accomplishing all the requirements and opening all areas at the same time might have the player's army quickly overwhelmed.

Finally, for anyone interested in turn-based strategy games this and the others from the same franchise (Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, Phantom Brave etc...) are definitely something to check out, the light hearted humour/storyline and the combat system are something that make this game noteworthy and interesting to play with

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GW2 impressions after 2 beta weekends and 1 stress test

Like all access for Guild Wars 2, it was a blast!

Last weekend was GW2's 2nd scheduled bwe and while it was meant to be basically the same content as the previous one(with fixes from the stress test), there is still alot that can be said for the roughly 48 hours period that the game servers were up.

Servers and connectivity

Game performance and stability was impressive compared to the 1st bwe, taking into consideration that the last week before the beta Anet had started giving out tons of keys through selected sites in simple contests and plain giveaways. This means that for this bwe at least, the amount of participating players increased both from additional pre-purchasers and others who were lucky enough to grab a weekend-only key---and the servers behaved well against the influx of both recurrent and new players.
    This isn't to say that it was perfect, sometime in the middle of the weekend there were moments when I was in WvW and would get disconnected repeatedly with no special pattern to it, both from the WvW map shutting down or random disconnects. On the pve side the game proved to be more stable save the uncommonly rare slower loading screen. Overall, while from the looks of it there is still quite a long while before the game will be ready, the progresses made in-between the beta weekends and stress tests, the game is steadily heading into a good direction.

Small changes

Utility Skill system


 

Traditional mmo leveling system - get what you want, get what you don't want so you can move on

While there wasn't much in the "new" department, there were noticeable tweaks done to the game in general, such as the utility skill system that is now grouped by their respective tier and the player needs to spend enough skill points in one tier before being able to unlock and advance to the next, this was somewhat a expected change for me as I remember commenting with fellow players back during the 1st beta that the leveling/skill up system was missing the "keep you interested" factor, the current game cap is 80 but even before level 30 players could already have all the skills they wanted as they could simply accumulate the unspent skill points to get only the skills they were interested in, but with the new change players are delayed in reaching that stage and possibly will need to be a higher level then before to be able to reach the last tier of utility skills and more so to get enough points to unlock them.

New dodge gauge position

Another one of these was the dodge gauge being moved to the middle of the player's skill window, not a big change by itself but personally I think it is easier to see that all important gauge now rather then it being on the far end to the right and during the confusion in battle possibly not the easiest thing to keep a eye out for, also not forgetting it looks slicker where it is now!

Mystic Forge

Fun feature to mix and mash items to get something new

The Mystic Forge uses a combination of random and non-random recipes. For example, throw four rare swords into the forge, it will return a random sword with a chance for that sword to be substantially better. There are also specific items that can be created by throwing four very specific items into the forge with no randomness involved at all
-  Eric Flannum Talks Guild Wars 2 Beta Change

This was a welcome addition that I didn't expect, save for console games I haven't seen similar mechanisms in the multiplayer scene---for the players it's a fun way to try and combine various items they might not even want anymore for a chance at something new and possibly useful, and as Eric Flannum has said, for the developers it's a easy way to introduce new and better content/items from time to time...even for consoles this sort of feature was something I always had fun with and spent much time(and materials)on and I'm looking forward to when we can try this out more in future betas--currently the forge will take 4 items(no more, no less) of the same rarity to create one single item with a RNG type and stats/bonuses, there might be a base rule for what type of item will come out but I don't think anyone had much resources and time to try this out in this last beta, what I have noticed is that the item was always slightly higher in level compared to the average of the 4 items I used to make it and the bonuses it can come up with aren't necessarily "inherited" from the old items as I have seen in some games as I had occasions where a brand new bonus such as healing would come out despite the items used to forge with didn't have that.

Black Lion Trading Company

Gem shop under new employment!

The Black Lion Trading Company out of Lion’s Arch has officially taken over operation of the Gem Store, Currency Exchange, and Trading Post. Its new owner’s first action was to completely overhaul the Gem Store.
As a result, the all-new Gem Store is easier to use and has a greater variety of items, from the decorative—like dye packs and costumes—to the whimsical—like the Box o’ Fun, which spawns a chest that applies random crazy effects to everyone who touches it. Each beta player will receive 500 free gems on their account, so do a little shopping on us!

With the provided free gems I had the opportunity to try out the nem items from the gem store, the one item that caused the greatest impression for me during the beta event was the "Box o' Fun" http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Box_o%27_Fun, currently it costs 250 gems and has 10 accounted for transformations plus skill effects, it was "fun" when I first tried it out as we placed it in the field and curious passerbys would all gather up and try out the different effects the box could provide, aside from being able to get the skin of a sylvari while they aren't available for play at the moment, the other skill effect I liked alot was one who name I don't remember but the player had 3 seconds to strike a "pose" before being petrified into that state and I'm sure the readers can imagine the possibilities, it's definitely a fun item to bring to parties although I do hope there will be more things to do later on save the currently accounted skills because as much fun as this is, it's still a one time use item(couldn't confirm the time the box stays as the map went down later on but it did last over 15 min+). Other new items were unremarkable such as a couple of sunglasses as cosmetic and it's with sadness that I report that the dyes are still bound by character and not account...along with the costumes, if by release this isn't addressed or if this is meant to be so, I don't think I will be one of the fans that will buy much in that department as I am used to games with vanity shops yes, but I'm a firm believer that things like this once bought should be account wide and not just one character.

WvW

If your side learned that you don't bring down a door with only sticks and stones!

The best improvement in WvW for this beta weekend was the Squad system, players can now see the leader icon on the world map which gives everyone a much easier time in knowing where to be and what to do, this allowed for people to remain organized despite the times where multiple fortresses were attacked or under attack and also the communication has been enabled for both ways so squad members can now chat back with the commander, this last feature wasn't of much use to our Squad as we were mainly just a group of people sticking together and testing it out but I have no doubts that later on in actual WvW this change would come to be very useful as the default channel is usable for all three sides and everyone in the map can chat in it. Lastly on the topic of WvW, the siege constructs are still under changes as they have already modified range and damage on some over this beta but I'm sure that until release there will still be alot of changes underway.

The disappointment

Forever sad at the lack of real competitive pvp games

I'm not sure this was working back in the 1st bwe, or it might just have passed by me as I was immersed and distracted by everything else that was great about the game...but this beta weekend I came across a feature that is a absolute sinker for me in the world of competitive pvp: auto-facing. Personally, I don't believe that any self-respecting pvp oriented game can call themselves as such with a automated feature that has your character auto-facing your opponent with a simple click of a button, this was my biggest and at the moment *only* disappointment with guild wars 2---a anet staff actually responded to my thread about this in the guild wars 2 forum stating that this feature exists solely to help newbies and only works when our character remains stationary, while this isn't as bad as it could've been...it's still a horrible feature to put in a game.
   The first instance that called my attention to this, that something was *odd* was during my skirmishes in structured pvp as a thief, no matter how I dodged/strafed or moved around my enemy *they were always immediately facing towards me*, in the beginning I had just thought that this was simply because I was fighting against players who knew what they were doing, but the sad reality is that was the devil at work: while I was losing my time trying to reamin out of line of sight from the enemy and hopefully landing a backstab, all my opponent needed to do was stay in one spot and spam their skill buttons while reducing my chances of timing a hit in their back for additional damage to zero.
   While the realist in me knows better, I still hope that anet will reconsider this feature, even if they try to downplay this matter the truth is that this feature alone is enough to cripple everything else they have made so far in trying to promote active gameplay from players, other games have signed their own death sentence by striving to please everyone and that simply doesn't work: a good game either caters to one audience or the other, staying in the middle between competitive and skill based play while enabling automated features such as auto-facing doesn't work for most, people who are used to them will want more(such as click to move etc...) and others like me who want a bona-fide pvp and skill competitive environment don't want anything to do with said features.

Lastly, for those who have come to realize by now(or not) anet has already confirmed that there will be a 3rd beta weekend and it's clear also that it won't be the last, between the 1st and 2nd beta weekend nothing was changed except for the fixes and there are still alot of work to be done, balancing issues and professions like the ranger class still missing three elite skills and I expect that there will be a bwe or two for the 2 missing races of sylvari and asura, all in all I'd say a release date in September can be called "soon" for the state of things as they are now.

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Guild Wars 2 - Released/Leaked Cash Shop info

  Recently Anet provided players with a glimpse explanation on the workings of microtransactions in GW2, in preparation for it's early beta testing during the last weekend. Naturally, a bit more information was leaked through the beta weekend about the cash shop elements and these has raised a lot of controversy and debate among the community. While I would like to remind my readers that these belong to a "early" testing on the beta, these items should still be able to provide players with a good idea of the in-game cash shop structure in general, with that in mind here are some of the shots that have been floating around the internet.

How does it work?
  As we all know F2P games are funded by cash-shops, this much is no mystery to most gamers out there. In these type of shops you can only purchase stuff with a special type of in-game currency which requires real money.

  Now lets explain how this works specifically in GW2. The special currency will be gems which like all currencies of the type can only be bought directly via real money, however it is not the only way to get them as there is also another way of acquiring them.

  Gems have a uncommon characteristic, they can be traded with other players for Gold which is the standard currency in GW2, meaning any player can get them without paying real money providing there are players trading them

  On the above screenshot it shows a in-game market tracking feature on the standard value between gems and gold. What this means is that trading gems will work just like a real-life stock market where players can look at a value/time graph of the gems current worth and decide when the time is right to buy/sell them.

  I foresee a lot of players keeping an eye in this since you could effectively make a in-game profit if use the old "buy-low, sell-high" technique.  I'll also add that the current expected estimate is roughly 5-6$(4-5€) per 400 gems.

Cash shop impacts

  While it's still early to say anything too definitive, it's all too easy to unsettle a community whenever the cash shop is the talk in question. Throughout all this, Anet reaffirms their position in their philosophy of microtransactions on visual perks, services and time-saving conveniences.

Available boosts

  As the Cash Shop images were leaked, I'm inclined to agree that they have stayed within the boundaries they set out for themselves. The game does not have a itemization advantage, nor does the faster leveling make a impact. These things I believe are crucial when referred to and influence what the cash shop can have to differentiate it between pay to win and simply pay because its nice or saves you some time while not giving you actual advantage over other players.

  As the easiest example, having a buff that gives you additional 50% experience while killing monsters for a hour, that by itself isn't much and when in a game where your level is automatically adjusted in dungeons and pvp zones to match the others, actual advantage is almost nonexistent.

The voiced concerns

  The biggest concern with the cash shop for the community, surprisingly isn't the shop itself but the gem currency. While it's true that the ratio between actual real cash paying gem buyers, and those interested to get gems with in-game gold is expected to be abysmal, I don't think that it's such a issue as most seem to think it is.

  As I refer again that most of the cash shop items are not in anyway crucial to gameplay, people who can't pay real cash for them might want some gems very badly for whatever use they intend, and yet its actually "normal" to consider that gems paid with real cash can hardly be compared with a virtual currency made in game, a point which I often find people forget as they complain about this issue.

Style items

  Guild wars has always been a very player driven economy, if someone is willing to pay whatever price for the gems, it's still in the end, part of the economy. This as a taken example inspired from EVE online and their PLEX influenced economy, is a alternative way to bring income home to Anet for a game without monthly fee, instead of illegal gold sellers who infest beloved games with bots and spawn farming.

  Also, taking GW1 as the first example where the cash shop with account services and costumes was made available, people who didn't pay real cash didn't even have the possibility to acquire this things, the existence of the gems raise controversy because it'll be a unknown factor how it will mold itself within the economy, but it's still a chance at these items for people who can't/won't afford them with real cash, and a convenient way for people with more money then play time to acquire in-game valuables, directly benefiting Anet and hopefully thwarting illegal activities.


Guild Wars - The game with the pioneer monthly-free plan

  The existence of GW by itself was unique the moment they charged players for the game, but at the same time kept it monthly free with only a mild cash shop to support itself, this was so with GW1 and it will continue to be so with GW2 albeit with a slightly more varied cash shop.

Areanet explains

  Personally, I always loathed "free" mmos with a pay to win cash shop. Awhile back, I tried a much talked WoW clone called Allods Online... it was well made, had decent gameplay and "good" graphics comparable to World of Warcraft. As I had quit WoW around that time the much familiar gameplay was still relatively new and entertaining up until I reached the part where I discovered that the game was literally impossible to play in higher level areas without Incense buffs, a simple explanation is that it equaled your character's stats to the environment, allowing you to progress throughout higher level areas, what put me off was the literal way that they enforced this system.

  I have tried games with cash shops that sold weapons and equipment but having to pay for a temporary buff to be able to play at all was new to me in the pay-to-win scene. My point with this is that even though GW has a cash shop some still mistake this as a pay-to-win game, while in fact nothing could be further from the truth. While the cash shop is obviously much more varied in it's selection of things to sell for other players, it's to be expected considering the game is operating at a much larger scale compared to it's predecessor, and yet Anet has done remarkably in keeping the shop and the game from crossing that thin line and becoming another pay-to-win environment.

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Steam and the Great Gift Pile

This year Steam has granted us with more Christmas discounts but this time they added a little "fetch the achievement" game.

 Every day Steam selects six achievement that range from "open your inventory" to doing some in-game achievement. Once completed you are awarded with a gift or a lump of coal. You can trade 7 lumps of coal for a gift which is either full game or a coupon, games and golden coupons can be used immediately while regular coupons like the lumps of coal must wait until the event ends.

Honestly i don't see the purpose of the coupons, so far i have gained 3 of them and the discount they give is smaller than the ones Steam are doing for Christmas, so why would i use a coupon if i can get it cheaper now... its ridiculous!

After the event in January 2nd everyone with 10 items in the wishlist will enter in a contest where the top accounts with more lumps of coal may win some awesome prizes:

As you might have guessed, this is an effort to showcase and sell older and lesser known titles, which are even cheaper with the Christmas discounts and not all bad, in fact, some of the most entertaining and innovative games out there are small titles.

So far i am actually having fun doing these achievements and trying out new games i never even new existed, some of them have potential, others just aren't my type but they were fun for the short duration i played, i am however still hoping to get a full game as a gift...

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Guild Wars 2: Engineer overview

  The Engineer is an uncommon profession in a fantasy MMO mainly because it is a technological class and since most fantasy games are centered in medieval times there isn't much room for guns and explosions.

Weapons
  Of all professions the Engineer is the one with the least weapons and the only one with a single weapon set.
The Rifle and the double Pistol can be used to a good extent in long and close range as both have a immobilization skill however i am going to give the advantage to the Rifle because Jump Shot is an incredibly adaptable skill and i will explain why.
Basically this skill will make you leap forward while doing an AOE at both your current and targeted area, this can be used in several ways:

• Charge: use it to get close to your target while he gets hit by the landing AOE and then you can use your flamethrower in his face.
• Flee: put some distance from your target if you need to make a run for it.
• Double AOE: select the area beneath you and who ever is nearby will get hit by the AOE two times.
• Travel/Positioning: since you don't need a target you can use it to reach your destination or to gain access to some locations faster.

  The Shield comes with 2 abilities one to protect you and your team while the other is both defensive and offensive as it absorbs a projectile which you can then redirect at a target.

Tool belt
  This is the Engineers special feature. It give you a predefined additional skill for each of your healing and utility skills making it a total of 4 extra abilities. In the image bellow we can see that the player chose "Med Kit" as his 6th skill and gained "Bandage Self" shown in the F1 slot.

Kits
  This type of skill is unique to anything we have seen before, what this does is replacing your curret 5 weapons skills with 5 new things according to the Kit until you turn it off, as an example we can look at the above image and notice that the player is currently using the Flamethrower weapon kit which as replaced the first 5 weapon skills.

  My personal favorites will probably be the Flamethrower, Mine Kit and the Med Kit the last ones being the most simplistic as they only let you drop 5 bandages/mines but they have the highest strategic value.

Turrets
  They are deployables that help us reinforce our site and you can have more than one as long as they are of different types, so it is possible to have a Flame turret, a Rifle turret, a Healing turret and a Thumper turret(aoe) at the same time... i am looking forward to test this.
  I have however one problem with the Rifle Turret... it's REALLY UGLY! (see image bellow)

  Overall the Engineer is one of my favorite professions, the arsenal at his disposal probably the largest of all professions and it has a lot of support skills giving this class one of the best tactical advantages in the game if you plan the fight ahead of time.

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Guild Wars2: new class revealed!

  After nine long months of waiting ArenaNet finally decided it was time to show us the eighth and final profession available in Guild Wars 2: the Mesmer, which honestly was not a surprise to anyone as they already had announced it was a known magical class so by process of elimination it had to be it.

So what can we expect from the Mesmer profession you ask?

Illusions & Shatter
  The Mesmer main class mechanic is their ability to summon illusions(Clones or Phantasms) which take form of several(up to 3) uncontrolled NPCs that look like the caster and the ability to Shatter them on command applying several effects on nearby targets.

  Clones are exact copies of the player designed to confuse and they deal minimal damage so my initial thoughts were "that's awesome", but in practice it might be horrible because in order for it to be convincing you need the AI to behave like a player(unlikely since even the ranger pet which is a class mechanic is dumb as hell), or you can behave like a NPC meaning you most likely have to run in a straight line to your target which may not be the best idea, either way the player will be easy to spot and the clone will only be good to Shatter.

  Phantasms resemble the caster as well but they are translucent and purplish, they use illusionary weapons to damage or hinder your target, are more resilient then their cousin Clones and they have specific behavior according to the weapon they hold which varies depending on the casters weapon when summoned.

No more Hexes
  That's right, Hexes have been turned into visual illusions so players don't have to stare at the debuff bar like most typical MMOs which i find refreshing, however there is one particular example that they talked about i find weird... the old "backfire" hex is in the game and works exactly the same way(damage is dealt if the target uses an ability) but since it now takes the form of a illusion i imagine you get this weird npc looking at the target until it does something? how creepy is that?

  My only concern at this time is that Engineers have turrets, Ranger has a animal companion, Necromancer has minions, Elementalists can have a Elemental, Mermers have Illusions, even Guardian can summon a flying hammer for a time, that is 6 out of 8 profession have "pets" so the game may or may not turn into a summon fest which will most likely ruin gameplay for me, hopefully there will be lots of skill combinations to choose from so it will be unlikely to happen.

  Other then that i think the Mesmer essence from Guild Wars is still there and it will be extremely fun to play with. What are your thoughts, is the Mesmer what you expected?

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why most new games fail while Counter-Strike is still so popular

  The first time i played Counter-Strike i was in high-school and the game was still a unofficial Half-Life modification, at that time it was closer to a quake-like game with modern weapons then what it is now, but i will leave that for another topic.

History
  For those that don't know what Counter-Strike is, it's a First Person Shooter developed by a fellow player made from a game called Half-life that is why it was a "modification",  i use the past tense because once Valve saw the amount of people playing it, they bought the rights to the game and thus it became an official mod soon after and it became a stand-alone game later on.

The popularity
  The game popularity and success can be resumed into 1 word, "community" it's a bit vague yes but i will explain it in further detail later on , first we need to understand that this game was developed by a player meaning he knew what he wanted to play, i think its something most game developers have lost now-a-days they just build games around a franchise with 1 concept "making money", this reason is why most Indie(small companies) games are so entertaining to play, because it's not million dollar company with people who don't know a thing about gaming breathing down your neck.

ESL tournament at GamesCom

  Anyway Counter-Strike was made with an aspect in mind "for everyone", even back then you didn't need a top of the line PC to play it so most kids with a computer and a copy of Half-Life could play it, and keep in mind that back then internet was still the noisy old 54k modems and it was not that common, so most of us used to spend a lot of time playing in game store with about 20 PC linked over LAN, honestly the most fun way to play any game is to physically be with your team just like in most LAN tournaments which if you are a true gamer you have already gone to some, if not i recommend that you go if you have the chance you will love it.

  The rules of the game are very straight forward, team A vs team B fight inside a small closed map, just imagine an arena with streets and tunnels, many games have this even MMORPGs so why is the game still one of the most popular FPS games for over a decade?

  Well this is where the community comes in, as the number of players grown they started to make teams in which to compete with each other for bragging rights and so player-made competitive PvP was created and started to spread, since making a server was free players would make their own server so they could train with their team adding tactics into the game, eventually some companies started to provide high quality server for rent and now-a-days its fairly common to see game-server rentals for many types of games.

So what is missing in games today?
  This is more of a formula rather then just one thing, first games need to be able to be played by a large audience so they need to keep the game optimised for low-end computers rather then just focus on how awesome it can get with a top of the line one which seems to be what most games do, some people might upgrade the computer if they are really into it but most can't afford to do it.

MLG tournament

  Second is taking advantage of tournaments, people are competitive by nature even caveman would compete for the largest prey to show who was the best hunter, we are not that different as even the PvE players like to kick another players ass every now and then. So just like a great deal of people like to sit in front of the TV looking at whatever competitive sport they like(football, basketball, baseball...), we players also like to see competitions online as it is a sport of its own plus its probably the best publicity one can get specially at large events such as E3, GamesCom, etc...


  The third one is mainly for MMORPGs but some shooters still fail at it, is to allow players to fight guild vs guild(clan vs clan) for bragging rights, and im not talking about just Arena type gameplay like WoW has but for all types of objective based PvP.
  In the begining of this year a shooter named Global Agenda was released and it did not have a way for players to effectively do this and the results was the game losing most of its player-base within the first 2 months.

  A game that follows these simple rules will most likely last for years assuming there isn't something deeply wrong with it to start with, which is one of the reason i am looking forward to Guild Wars 2.

What are your thoughts on the subject?
Do you know any game that failed due to this?

Leave your comments or experiences bellow!

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How to increase your wireless signal!

After waiting 27 long suffering days without internet at home, they finally managed to come and install the damn fiber optics with some good/bad news, the first is that they called asking if they could come 8 days a head of schedule... yay!

Second bit is both good news is that even though i have contacted 30mb download and 5mb upload speed, i can get up to 2x the download and 4x upload if i am connected via Ethernet unfortunately there is a bit of bad news there as well, the router is in the kitchen and the PC is in the bedroom so i have to use wireless which only gaves me about 1/3 download and 2x upload.

Which leads me to the main topic, my project for the coming days will be trying to enhance my wireless connection to see if i can boost my download speed, which will involve some configuration tweaking and making a low tech parabolic reflector made with some tinfoil like the image below.

Unfortunately my router(Thomson TG784) has no external antenna, otherwise there are some better schematics around the web but we do what we can with what we have.

In theory it should reflect part of the waves in the direction of my PC thus increasing the strength of the signal i receive and there fore allow the wireless to work at a slight higher speed therefore increasing my download speed.

One thing that i already done was manually test all 13 channels on my router, by default selects what ever he thinks its best(and fails) and there is no "1 channel to rule them all" and since channels may get interferences from different sources, from electronics to other nearby wireless using the same channel, its best for you to check it out your self... be sure to find the most stable one and not the one with highest signal strength.

I my case it came down to channel 4 or 5, the 4th was the one with the highest strength but the 5th had the most consistency even though a bit less signal, the result was a stable connection that in fact gave me higher download speed, after this was done it boosted my both download and upload by about 5-7mb.

"Pringles cantenna"

Another thing i may try is to boost my usb adapter maybe  with a "pringles can", it works with the same principle as the parabolic reflector by increasing the amount of waves going in the right direction and focusing more incoming waves into the receiver.

Hopefully now will be able to post more often now that i can actually play something, i will keep you guys posted on my search for a better wireless...

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Why i love Samsung!

I have been playing in a Samsung T220 for the last 3 years and it has been a pleasure, great image quality, great aesthetic and the support at least where i live is fast and effective.

Over the course of 3 years i only had to send it for repairs once and not only did they came to pick it up on the very next day they also gave me replacement monitor until i got mine back(about a week after) which was fast anyway.

This week my monitor started displaying some blueish tone on the dark colors, meaning something was starting to fail and i went to check how long i had on my warranty which sadly had expire couple of days ago, it was a chock because i wasn't counting on spending  around 200$ any time soon.

So i sent it to repair anyway hoping it will cost less then a new monitor, as always they came to get my monitor on the next day and 7 days later i got a call early in the morning, it was from the repairing company they noticed the warranty had terminated just a couple of days before, so they contacted Samsung and they agreed in adding the days the monitor was on repair last time(about a week) to the warranty thus making this repair still valid...

Long story short i didn't had to pay for the repairs.
Thank you Samsung!

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ISP frustration!

I'm so pissed at my ISP and i'm going to tell you why. I have internet connection at home since the 4th of October so the only net i get is from public places, on October 6 i made contract with a ISP and they said it would take 15 days(yeah that's right) for them to install the fiber optics in my apartment... fine at least i'll have a awesome stable internet connection.

After 15 miserable days i was so looking forward to having internet again and... they didn't show up and i got no calls from their IT department, on the next they i called them and they said something was not right (duuhh) so they asked their IT department to call me when ASAP.

Two days later and still no call so i when to a nearby ISP store, they said the contract was not created correctly and i should talk directly to the same store where i signed it so they can correct it, there i went again to the other store this time i heard another story, according to them everything was done right and the installation should have been done in the 21st, so the store is going contact the IT department and again tell them to call me...

I'm stuck in this loop where no one wants to be blamed and still no internet connection... So that is why i am pissed and why i haven't been online much thus the lack of posts this month.

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Internet and our life

I have not been online for a long time... ok it was been a little over a week but for a gamer like me it's a life-time, once we get used to the concept of having all the information on the web and online-friends at our fingertips and suddenly lose that connection its like going back to the dark ages, our real life daily routine starts to weight more on our shoulders.

Each person has its own reasons for being online doesn't matter if you are in the gaming community or not, whether you like to search/download new music, learn some new trait, reading world news or just login to your game of choice and play to gain a ego-boost, kill time, to be with your gaming friends or as an escapade from our boring life... to each its own.

For me life has become tedious, i miss the long conversations over Ventrilo with my guild mates while we played or with my friends over Skype, doesn't matter if it was gaming related or not it has become part of my social life.

Most people get attached to something in their life they can't live without, for some its sports, for others is the TV, for teens now-a-days it's a cellphone, i guess for me it's a decent internet connection at home.

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What is "skill" in the gamers world?

I think most players have of been perverting the idea of "skill" to the point that now it is completely misinterpreted, the true meaning of "skill" is knowing how/when to do a certain action and will it influence the battle in order to achieve the desired outcome(victory).

Most players have forgotten how small action have a big impact in the gameplay and that shows skill, things such as:

• knowing that you should run out of Range/Line-Of-Sight.
• recognizing when to destroy an object so your target can not use it to break LOS.
• knowing that a particular route can be used to attack/flee.
• correctly place a ground effect such as a firewall in a place where it will be the most effective(specially while in combat).
• using skills that have bonus when target is in a certain position/state.
• positioning one self in a fight in order to avoid damage or to benefit from a boost.

Each of these small things seam obvious to most experienced players but it is easy to forget that they are examples of "skill" on their own, obviously doing one or two of them does not make one a "skilled player"... for that we need be able to do all of those and much more, however we should not dismiss the less experienced players who understand how to do them.

Becoming a "skilled player" is a long journey, one that even the best players had to partake as well, so next time you see some one that may not be as good as you instead of ridiculing his efforts, try to encourage him to become a better player... who knows it may very well be a start of a great friendship.

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