| APB Reloaded cracks down on cheaters Posted: 02 Oct 2011 10:00 AM PDT Filed under: Economy, MMO industry, News items, All Points Bulletin, Crime, Dev Diaries Cheating and exploiting are problems that plague all MMOs, and developers often go to great lengths to detect offenders. In a new APB Reloaded devblog, developer TechMech explains the company's latest and highly successful attempts to rid the game of cheaters. Three major hacks were targeted, and every account that had ever used the hacks was banned overnight. TechMech won't go into details about how exactly the hackers were observed, but says that a second anti-cheat patch is coming to wipe out any players who choose to continue hacking. TechMech is considering offering a kind of amnesty to cheaters, stating that anyone who uninstalls all hacks and plays legitimately may be permitted to continue playing. Perhaps the most shocking statistic in the devblog was that almost 50% of the banned accounts were paid accounts, and some had over 1500 hours of gameplay on them. TechMech went on to estimate the revenue that the three main cheat makers had been generating as between $15,000 and $50,000 per month each, with users spending $30 per month on hacks.  APB Reloaded cracks down on cheaters originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Global Chat: September 26-October 2, 2011 Posted: 02 Oct 2011 08:00 AM PDT Filed under: Opinion, Massively meta, Global Chat, Miscellaneous Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! We're all about crafting and complaining in this week's Global Chat -- hopefully not at the same time, though. Follow along after the jump to see some of what our readers had to say this week, and pitch in on a conversation you may have missed! Continue reading Global Chat: September 26-October 2, 2011 Global Chat: September 26-October 2, 2011 originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Daily Grind: Can you have too many options at character creation? Posted: 02 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous While Aion may not be your cup of tea, you certainly can't claim that the character creation in the game is lacking in features. It is possible -- easy, even -- to make a tiny, anime-esque sprite or a would-be marble statue, if you wish. Of course, to do that you have to play with several dozen sliders, hair styles, skin tones, eye spacers, and an overall breadth of options that could make some players boggle. All this, of course, pales next to games such as Champions Online and City of Heroes, which have even broader options. And sometimes you don't really want to fuss with the fine details of your arm length before playing the game; you just want to get in the game and start punching things. So is it possible to have too many options at character creation? Or is that like asking if you can have too much money?  Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!The Daily Grind: Can you have too many options at character creation? originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Aeria releases Eden Eternal player housing video Posted: 01 Oct 2011 06:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Trailers, Video, Game mechanics, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play Eden Eternal's feature list just got a bit longer, as Aeria Games has released a new trailer showing off the game's player housing implementation. The new content is scheduled to go live sometime in early October, according to the latest Aeria press release. The video shows a good amount of customization, and player characters can be seen placing a variety of objects inside a spacious interior as well as rotating said objects. Everything from beds to bookshelves to wall hangings will be obtainable via the game's item shop and from various in-game quests. Finally, Aeria is allowing other players to visit your personal house, and doing so will reward both parties with "various status boosts." Check out the housing video after the break, and head to the official Eden Eternal website to learn more about the game. [Source: Aeria Games press release] Continue reading Aeria releases Eden Eternal player housing video Aeria releases Eden Eternal player housing video originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Mog Log: Beauty of the beastmen Posted: 01 Oct 2011 04:00 PM PDT Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Lore, Opinion, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log Well, it turned out to be a very good thing that I wasn't planning on talking about Final Fantasy XIV's patch 1.19 today, since it's not quite available just yet. That includes the absolutely enormous list of updates and changes to crafting, with several items apparently being yanked out of rotation altogether. Use up the ones you have and get ready to just vendor the rest, from the looks of it. Perhaps make some lumber ahead of time. At least your inventory woes should be somewhat diminished. But this week's plan wasn't to talk about the patch; it was to talk about beastmen once again. Regular readers will note that I've already spoken about beastmen once before, taking a look at the often fascinating societies of non-human creatures living outside of the major cities. (I'm using "human" as a blanket term here for hume, elvaan, tarutaru, etc.) Today, I want to look at this in a bit more depth. What exactly do both Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XI use the beastmen for in terms of storytelling? What makes them compelling and interesting? Continue reading The Mog Log: Beauty of the beastmen The Mog Log: Beauty of the beastmen originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| So long and thanks for all the pics: One Shots favorites Posted: 01 Oct 2011 02:00 PM PDT Filed under: Galleries, Screenshots, One Shots, Miscellaneous We bid a final farewell to One Shots yesterday, but we couldn't let almost four years and 1,500 reader-submitted screenshots go without a little nod to some of our favorites. First up, of course, is the first-ever One Shots entry. Liz Harper had this to say about the image: I wanted to start our daily screenshot feature on Massively off with something, well, massive. A memorable, recognizable, and important scene from MMO history... and while you may all argue with me about what makes this particular shot important, it was the first thing that came to mind. Here we see a group of City of Heroes players gathering at City Hall in Atlas Park to "salute the memory and inspiration that is Christopher Reeve on the 2nd anniversary of his death." It's rare to see an in-game event that brings players together for a cause other than slaying dragons and similar. Ready for more? Follow along after the jump for more of the best of One Shots! Continue reading So long and thanks for all the pics: One Shots favorites So long and thanks for all the pics: One Shots favorites originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| The Tattered Notebook: What if live servers go free-to-play? Posted: 01 Oct 2011 12:00 PM PDT Filed under: EverQuest II, Opinion, Free-to-play, The Tattered Notebook For the past few weeks of The Tattered Notebook, I've explored EverQuest II's Extended server, Freeport, to see what gameplay is like on the other side of the wall that separates it from its subscription-based cousins. This week, I'm going to look at the scenario that all EQII players consider: making all servers free-to-play. It's a very complicated issue, and there are excellent arguments on both sides, but there are a few factors that tend to tip the scales. I don't have nearly enough space in this column to touch on every issue involving a free-to-play transition, so I'm going to focus on a few of the most important ones and give my thoughts on what would need to happen if EQII did indeed go free-to-play on all servers. Continue reading The Tattered Notebook: What if live servers go free-to-play? The Tattered Notebook: What if live servers go free-to-play? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| MMO impressions from Eurogamer Expo 2011 Posted: 01 Oct 2011 11:00 AM PDT Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Sci-fi, Galleries, Culture, Events, real-world, Game mechanics, New titles, PvE, Opinion, Guild Wars 2, Hands-on, Star Wars: The Old Republic Some of the industry's biggest names were at Eurogamer Expo last week, including BioWare, NCsoft and Trion Worlds. I was on the floor at the expo to get some hands-on experience with several upcoming MMOs and countless singleplayer games. Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic stole the show, with hands-on gameplay sessions and in-depth developer talks. BioWare also made the bold move of announcing SWTOR's official release date during its talk at the convention. In addition to promoting the heck out of RIFT, Trion showed off upcoming MMORTS End of Nations with a hands-on demo and encouraged attendees to sign up to the End of Nations newsletter. RIFT and World of Tanks were both playable on the show floor for the entire weekend, but nothing new was being shown. Hack-and-slash adventure RPG Dark Souls and the beautifully zen Journey both demonstrated incredibly innovative multiplayer aspects that I'll likely cover in my weekly Not So Massively column, but neither falls neatly into the MMO box. OnLive had a spectacular showing at the expo, giving away free home consoles to every attendee and demonstrating the system's surprisingly lag-free gameplay on the floor. We discovered that although there are no MMOs in OnLive's current lineup, this isn't due to technical infeasibility, so we may yet see MMOs launched on the service. Skip past the cut for my in-depth hands-on impressions of Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic and End of Nations from Eurogamer Expo 2011. Continue reading MMO impressions from Eurogamer Expo 2011 MMO impressions from Eurogamer Expo 2011 originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Hurt Locker is known in BitTorrent circles as more than just an Oscar winning blockbuster, but also the poster child for movie industry lawsuits. The maker of the film, Voltage Pictures, has been working alongside the U.S. Copyright Group to pursue over 24,583 IP address across almost a dozen ISP's. Up until recently the lawsuit has only been expanding, but now suddenly the folks over at 
Last weekend we noticed that RIM was experimenting with a $200 price cut in Canada, however, with the unveiling of the Amazon Fire the company has decided to not just move its discount across the border, 
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Amazon's Kindle Fire could easily be considered one of the worst kept secrets in the tech industry. Almost every detail was known about the device prior to the announcement in New York last week except one, the price. Analysts were expecting it to land somewhere in the $200-$300 range, but were almost universally stunned when CEO Jeff Bazos announced they would be coming in at the low end of that estimate. At just $199 how much money is Amazon making per device? Well, according to iSuppli, they are actually 
