Countless people lose control of their World of Warcraft accounts on a daily basis, whether through good old-fashioned hacking, falling for phishing scams, clicking on bogus email links, etc. In answer this ever-growing problems, Blizzard released the World of Warcraft Authenticator at an extra charge, offering participating players a solid layer of security between their passwords and WoW account. Up till recently, the WoW Authenticator proved robust and secure, but has since been the target of a successful hacking attempt.

Blizzard suspects a keylogger may be involved. A Keylogger is a nefarious bit of code that sits on your computer and reports all keyboard interaction, ultimately ratting out your passwords so a hacker.

MMOCrunch article:

So the Authenticator is not a fail safe way to keep accounts safe but it is still a very good investment. If you want to check to see if you have the virus just search for the file “emcor.dll” on your computer. If you have it then your account most likely has already been hacked.

Tools like the Authenticator can only do so much. It is really unfortunate that people are getting hacked even with this security measure but it all comes down to the user. Safe browsing habits, a good anti-virus, common sense (against phishers) and things like an Authenticator can make your account virtually hack proof.

Going outside. It’s quite dangerous. Just ask a World of Warcraft player. Gang fights, turf disputes, trade swindling, imposing authorities, Mr. T. – and we’re not even talking about WoW yet.

So imagine what happens when you mix those things, rampant drug and alcohol usage, internet anonymity, a cross between GTA-style violence and Harry Potter-style witchery, 13-year-olds, and good old FPS teabagging. You get a rather dangerous place called a “PvP Realm.” Roughly translated for those who haven’t yet mastered WoW-speak, it means “open season on your ass.” But since Blizzard has yet to debut its patented in-game butt cup (available soon for only $10, limit one per account) to shield your character (aka toon) from unwanted posterior intrusions, you’ll have to settle with my $5 “Don’t-even-think-about-going-there” tour guide, provided to you free of charge.

So, without further adieu, I bring you, ranging from “hunting guide for Dick Cheney” to “sparring partner for Chuck Norris,” the top 10 most dangerous world PvP areas of WoW.

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I try out every MMO that comes along and Aion was no different. I managed to get my character, a Chanter, up to level 32 before finding myself completely bored. Gold-sellers clogging up chat channels, more automated ‘bots than actual human players, and a near total lack of cohesive content at the mid-to-high-end levels meant the game quickly degenerated into a gruelling grind-fest. Not my idea of fun.

Apparently I am not alone, evidenced by this excellent editorial at MMOCrunch.

The Grind

It seems you can’t read anywhere about Aion without reading about the grind, and this blog has been no exception to that.  That being said, it has to be mentioned because this is probably the first of several pitfalls that is going to be cause people to throw in the towel.

This is a graph that fairly accurately plots the experience points curve in Aion at each level that was made by a member of the community here.  As you can see by the graph, right around level 35 the amount of exp needed literally makes the graph look literally like a wall.  Often times when you read on various forums about people saying the grind is fine, make sure you put it into the context of what level they have made it to. Now to be fair, the amount of exp needed by itself is not necessarily the problem as you start to enter your 40’s, but the way in which questing starts to play far less of a role.

When I hit level 42, I quickly completed all of the new quests and looked down at my 60 million exp bar to see only about 10-15% of it had been filled, leaving the remaining 50 million to be obtained by pure mob grind.  Now I am well aware of an upcoming patch slated to increase the quest exp and mob exp, but I think the problem goes a bit deeper than that.  There is a real lack of quest content that becomes painfully obvious at the higher levels.  Quest content is very good at masking grind in other games, so the lack of it in Aion at this level range really only adds to the pain and tedium.

Source: MMO Crunch

So, Sam Raimi is slated to direct a movie based on World of Warcraft. Half of me is excited at the prospect, the other half is pretty confident the movie will suck. As a fan of the first two Evil Dead films and a moderate fan of the first Spider-Man movie, there is hope that Raimi can find some point to a Warcraft movie.  I quite enjoyed his latest movie, Drag Me to Hell, but that had independent sensibilities that found Raimi in his element.

But World of Warcraft? Ugh. As an inspiration for a live-action film, I find World of Warcraft comes up pretty short. Its plots, characters, quests and backstory are pretty derivative and generic. Nothing I haven’t read before in countless fantasy novels. Whoever has been given the thankless task of locating a valid plot-thread in World of Warcraft and translating said thread into cinematic gold has a hell of a hill to climb.

But there I go again, thinking Hollywood cares about making a solid movie with a good plot. This isn’t about plots and characters. This is about cashing in on a huge fan-base, nothing more. It’s about milking the World of Warcraft brand. If you’re a fan of WoW, then you will have to put your full faith and trust in Sam Raimi, but even here there could be significant problems. Blizzard, like Disney, are very protective of their brand and as such, will have tight reigns over Raimi’s creative ideas. Besides, Rami has some real clunkers in his past like Darkman and, more recently, the horrific Legend of the Seeker series. Which Raimi will show up?

For more details, read the Variety article.