Warlock Skill Animations and Challenge Mode Armor, MoP Music, Blue Posts, MMO Report

Diablo 3 - Development Post Monday, Info on Hacking, Diminishing Returns on Armor, Blue Posts, and Farming Spot

Warlock Skill Animations Preview
Today we continue looking at the new skill animations with the new Warlock animations!



Warlock Challenge Mode Armor Preview
Warlocks also got a nice challenge mode set to go along with those new spell animations.





Mists of Pandaria Music Update
One of the recent beta builds added several new pieces of music. Make sure you have annotations enabled if you want to skip through the different songs!



Diablo III Blue Posts
Many of the points brought up here are relevant to WoW Account security as well. Keep your plugins up to date and use an authenticator! You can get one for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7 or even the physical one.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Account Compromises
The "hacking" ("compromising" is probably a better word, since no real "hacking" is going on) being seen in D3 is no different than what World of Warcraft players have been seeing for five years or so. The sad thing is, if no one bought game currency (gold, credits, whatever) from these third-party companies, then essentially no account compromises would be occurring. Compromises not done by gold selling companies are very rare indeed. They strip one player to sell to another, because it's much more efficient than "farming" gold. They still farm some of course, but they do it purely with compromised accounts.

Unfortunately, these compromisers make a lot of money off of the practice (because players buy gold) and so they have a lot of resources to use to try to get your password from you directly, or through your computer. Some of their poorly translated phishing e-mails may be laughable, but their trojans, infected websites, etc. are not funny at all.

If you have the physical or mobile authenticator (both of which major banks use and charge $30+ for) the chances of you being compromised are very, very small. I've personally examined the MSInfo files of nearly all of the handful of WoW players who have actually been compromised through an authenticator, and the sheer number of backdoor programs and other malware on their systems has been mind boggling. Probably not coincidentally, these same people were also running a disturbing number of file-sharing and download programs, including ones which are commonly known to not be safe.

Again, compromising game accounts is a big business in some countries. They have people on their payroll who spread false rumors of "hacked through my authenticator" just to try to discourage people from using them. We charge $6.50 for the physical authenticator, because that's exactly what it costs us to make them. The mobile one is free because we don't have to pay a factory to build them. Use them, and enjoy your gaming without someone mucking with your stuff.

What is the concrete cause of the hackings?
Well, the cause is people desiring a shortcut in their games by buying gold. If you mean the technical cause, as I mentioned previously the gold selling companies use a vast array of methods. A good friend of mine is a long time network admin (and a very good one at that), who had decided to not use an authenticator because he'd never had any security issues with his computer over the years. Well, an Adobe Flash vulnerability popped up a couple years ago, and he procrastinated applying the update by a whole week. As you can probably guess by the fact that I'm relating this anecdote, his WoW account was compromised and stripped because of that one week window.

There's absolutely nothing shameful about getting compromised, these companies are good at what they do. Heck, the former head of Blizzard Customer Service had his account compromised. It's because of how devious and high-tech the gold-selling companies have gotten that we implemented the physical and mobile authenticators. We can't physically go to everyone's computer and make it safe, so we've provided a tool that does it for you.

I've been a computer tech for a long time, and I've never had a single malicious security breach on any of my computers that I'm aware of, but I attached one of the very first batches of physical authenticators to my account. Why? Because no matter how good I am, sooner or later they were going to get me. But now, they can't.

Are you claiming that I did not have both the dial in auth and the SMS auth?
No, you had those. But neither of those are the physical or mobile authenticator, the main line of protection that is being referred to. The Dial-In and SMS are just nice additional layers of security to add to the physical or mobile.

It's becoming pretty apparent that our naming scheme might be causing some confusion, and I apologize for that. I'll bring the subject up with my management, so can we review both how the devices are named and how they are presented. If you have only one authenticator on your account, you want it to be the physical or mobile, not the dial-in or SMS. (Official Forums)

Auction House
Is this intended (To gear up solely through the AH) or will the drops at the end of Hell be better adjusted to help gear up for Inferno Act 1 and so on.
The auction house obviously provides an incredible service to allow for very easy trades between characters, and essentially blows out the wide range of items you could have available to you at any one time. So, in fact, the AH has to be a factor in how we drop items. On one hand you have a huge benefit because you can buy and sell items very easily, as opposed to having to post up WTS threads in the old USEast trading forums, but on the other end it does impact the item pool economy with the inherent ease at which you can trade items. If the AH existed but wasn't a factor at all into how items dropped/rolled, the economy would be completely tanked within a matter of weeks. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

MMO-Report
The MMO-Report is here with information about The Elder Scrolls Online factions, Defiance, and PlanetSide 2.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Warlock Skill Animations and Challenge Mode Armor, MoP Music, Blue Posts, MMO Report started by chaud View original post
Published on 2012-05-27 06:03 PM
59 Comments
Comments 59 Comments
  1. brantay1018's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Linkyn View Post
    You are missing the point. Blizzard is responsible for secure servers and services. What is going on on your system has nothing to do with them. That is what the authenticator is for - preventing your account from being compromised through eg malicious software (which in fact, the consumr is in most cases responsible for).
    He's not missing the point at all actually. He is spot on about Blizz should be including the extra layer of security in the shipped out (or downloaded) product. He is also spot on about including that cost in the price of the game. That being said, people are having their accounts compromised even when they are protected by either the physical or mobile authenticators, the blue even admits it. With that fact alone, Blizzard should stop blaming the users and start looking more closely at what is actually going on. The blame game helps absolutely no one.
  1. Synbaby's Avatar
    So about that lock armor set.... Is that a huge skull on his belt or is he just happy to see you
  1. Valamivan's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Linkyn View Post
    You are missing the point. Blizzard is responsible for secure servers and services. What is going on on your system has nothing to do with them. That is what the authenticator is for - preventing your account from being compromised through eg malicious software (which in fact, the consumr is in most cases responsible for).
    Maybe, maybe not. All I am saying is that it's kinda frustrating at this point that Blizzard's dancing all around the phrasing, hinting/suggesting that authenticator is mandatory without actually saying it is mandatory (because otherwise they need to point it out at every step, like when opening bnet accounts and people would think twice about opening accounts and buying games), instead keep offering this second layer of security as optional.
    They themselves bring up the example of the Adobe Flash vulnerability - show me one person who hasn't got flash installed with his browser. That is not a malware or suspicious software. All in all, they should be the ones making the product as safe as possible. If they gotta add authenticator to every bnet account to make it so then they should do it. Or if they intend to keep it optional, notify the user at every step they take without the authenticator that they are vulnerable and do so only at own risk.
    But first just simply stop preaching it as mandatory while they keep offering it as optional.
  1. BigToast's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by brantay1018 View Post
    That being said, people are having their accounts compromised even when they are protected by either the physical or mobile authenticators, the blue even admits it.
    Wrong, try reading the blue post again.
  1. brantay1018's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BigToast View Post
    Wrong, try reading the blue post again.
    "If you have the physical or mobile authenticator (both of which major banks use and charge $30+ for) the chances of you being compromised are very, very small. I've personally examined the MSInfo files of nearly all of the handful of WoW players who have actually been compromised through an authenticator, and the sheer number of backdoor programs and other malware on their systems has been mind boggling."

    Perhaps you should try reading it again.
  1. BigToast's Avatar
    Sorry, I thought you meant the Blizzard mobile authenticator or physical one, not the non-blizzard ones. They acknowledged that the non-blizzard ones have been hacked in rare circumstances, which of course were not specifically made for Blizzard games, so I don't understand your point.
  1. brantay1018's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by BigToast View Post
    Sorry, I thought you meant the Blizzard mobile authenticator or physical one, not the non-blizzard ones. They acknowledged that the non-blizzard ones have been hacked in rare circumstances, which of course were not specifically made for Blizzard games, so I don't understand your point.
    This is talking about the Blizz authenticator. The point is that playing the blame game helps absolutely no one. Compromised accounts have skyrocketed since the release of D3. I have no doubt that many of these were due to user error. I also have no doubt that many may not have been due to user error. Something else may be going on here, something that cannot be controlled by the user and I think Blizzard is too quick to place the blame solely on the user. Blizzard is approaching this with the wrong mindset and it may come back around to stab them in the back.
  1. yuca247's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by brantay1018 View Post
    This is talking about the Blizz authenticator. The point is that playing the blame game helps absolutely no one. Compromised accounts have skyrocketed since the release of D3. I have no doubt that many of these were due to user error. I also have no doubt that many may not have been due to user error. Something else may be going on here, something that cannot be controlled by the user and I think Blizzard is too quick to place the blame solely on the user. Blizzard is approaching this with the wrong mindset and it may come back around to stab them in the back.
    If you've been playing for a while you know the recent account compromises at the release of D3 is not new in any way, shape, or form. Every expansion or release comes with a definite jump in hacked accounts so no, there's nothing going on here. People will never admit to being careless and dumb with their account security and they will always look to blame Blizz or anyone else except themselves.
  1. BigToast's Avatar
    Again, my apologizes, so the authenticator was the blizz one, but, like they said, the computer was a trojan/malware mess. All evidence points to personal responsibility when it comes to account security. The point is that it is not an issue on blizzard's end, its an issue on the players end to combat the relentlessly ruthless hackers and we have the tools to do it. Now I wan't paying too much attention pre-launch to see if Blizz warned D3 players adequately about account security. A lot of players aren't wow players and don't know how these hackers work, so maybe they should have warned these people better. Regardless, the Blizzard servers aren't compromised, individual's computers are. So until there's a program that has Ghostcrawler's head pop up with a warning whenever one does something that may compromise their security, the onus is on the player, not the game.
  1. Somarlane's Avatar
    The music is beautiful. Which is not to imply that previous World of Warcraft music is not - but there is something to be said for freshness.

    I have it looped right now while doing other activities. <3

    ---------- Post added 2012-05-28 at 02:22 PM ----------

    Oh, and the warlock trolling the mailbox was hilarious. I am almost seriously tempted to level my warlock now.
  1. Laylriana's Avatar
    I looked at the warlock trolling the mailbox and I was reminded of all the times it has been nearly impossible to access the mailbox or a quest giver because of someone sitting on it on their mammoth or other huge mount. Hope the locks only do this in Ogrimmar or Stormwind where other mailboxes are readily available.
  1. Kathranis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Valamivan View Post
    If authenticator is as mandatory as the blue claims then I only have one question: why isn't it bundled with the products? We buy the product and it's the company's responsibility to provide the service safely. If they require us to use this second line of defense to be able to secure their services then they should be providing that second line of defense WITH the product. Even if it would mean that the product would cost a wee bit more.
    (Sorry, I'm just really tired of Blizzard's attitude "working as intended, if something's wrong the user's to blame", on nearly every issue brought up by their customers.)
    They sell the authenticator for exactly what it costs to produce them, and the mobile authenticator is free. Additionally, they've given away free authenticators to people who have gotten their accounts compromised.
  1. Rukh's Avatar
    I'll never understand buying gold. The whole point of a game is achievement. Its fun because you overcome and achieve. If you just slap down your credit card to "have" instead of "achieve", you've just defeated that purpose. Of course, that is the typical American mindset.
  1. Lolkafck's Avatar
    ololo my warlock just pwn all
  1. Celista's Avatar
    No single set yet that looks good. :S

    Blizz, hire some of the D3 art designers!!!
    Totally agree with this.
  1. Verdandy's Avatar
    If you have the physical or mobile authenticator (both of which major banks use and charge $30+ for) the chances of you being compromised are very, very small. I've personally examined the MSInfo files of nearly all of the handful of WoW players who have actually been compromised through an authenticator, and the sheer number of backdoor programs and other malware on their systems has been mind boggling.
    I've been a computer tech for a long time, and I've never had a single malicious security breach on any of my computers that I'm aware of, but I attached one of the very first batches of physical authenticators to my account. Why? Because no matter how good I am, sooner or later they were going to get me. But now, they can't.
    That doesn't sound right...
  1. Elise the Seeker's Avatar
    Why don't they just give us the horns and mask and remove the hat.
  1. Deprived's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Scarlet Elf View Post
    Anyone else noticed how this warlock set bears some Illidan-like characteristics? Like obviously the horns, arcane marking on the chest and having a blindfold with glowing eyes underneath, on their helmet, shoulder and belt? Or am I just being hopeful...?
    When I first saw this armor set "Illidan Stormrage" shot into my brain. I don't really play a Warlock but Illidan is my favorite Warcraft character and this set here just makes me want to roll Warlock from the start of Mist of Pandaria. Fingers are still crossed they bring him back.
  1. Massacher's Avatar
    loving the armor.

    Quote Originally Posted by Scarlet Elf View Post
    Anyone else noticed how this warlock set bears some Illidan-like characteristics? Like obviously the horns, arcane marking on the chest and having a blindfold with glowing eyes underneath, on their helmet, shoulder and belt? Or am I just being hopeful...?
    now that i've had a closer look yes it does have some inspiration from Illidan and also contains a little bit of the nemesis design in there.

    the terror guard looks pretty awesome. i wonder though if you can enchant it's weapons? i doubt it...

    Demonic Gateway... first impressions, awesome! i can already see some possibilities in pvp
    the you aren't getting any mail trolling is pretty cool lol!

    Quote Originally Posted by Tirilka View Post
    I'm very jealous of the whole Warlock class in MoP. Though, all these updates for locks are deserved, they were the most boring class for me.
    looks like warlocks will be viable again. for a long while they have been under powered. now it looks like we may get to be top of the food chain again
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