New slot on login screen

[Deleted]

You mean for free free? No money free?
While we are at it, waiting for them to ship it and having to go all the way to the mailbox is lame. So is having to carry around a plastic dongle in addition to all your other stuff.

What they should do, IMO, is make one that you can beam to your phone (or maybe ipod touch for people without smartphones). That way I could get one beamed to me without even having to take my hand out of my bag of Doritos. For free. Of course.

What? You mean they already do that? For androids, iphones, and ipod touches? Free free?

No wai...

Not everyone has an iPhone or PayPal account and if they refuse to use them it's none of your business. Mandatory authenticators will reduce the number of subscribers and there's no doubt about it.

[drsinister]

I agree if they make authenticator manditory then they need to make it free for subs.

But, I was lucky, I got my iPod Touch for free from my company I work for for being the best Tech for that quarter and then I DLed the FREE Blizzard Authenticator App for my iPod Touch, so it was win, win for me.

[Fojos]

Agreed.

The costs are easily covered by less demand for help from customer service..(okay, essentially that means somebody will lose his job...the ppl who now deal with your hacked accounts)

They wouldn't get rid of people. The people who do work there now wouldn't be overloaded though.

[Cyclone Duke]

If people weren't retards in regard to computer security, it'd be a good thing too. Authenticators don't need to be mandatory, people just need to stop being idiots about how they use the internet.

Even the safest people might log in from a friends computer at times, which could have a logger on it. They might let their brother log onto their account from their Pc which could be infected. They might want to log in while in town and hit up a net cafe. There's no way to be totally safe, all the time.

Even for the people who are super duper safe, that's not the majority. The best way for blizz to cut down on hacked accounts is to make them mandotry. If that makes the minority unhappy because they don't want the extra security, well too bad for them. Take the extra security, it's only making you safer.

[Deleted]

If that makes the majority unhappy because they don't want the extra security, well too bad for Blizzard.

fixed

[Kyocere]

I read about it in the patchnotes. They should make the authenticator a requirement but I doubt they'll do it.

Then I hope they are planning on sending them out to every active account for free. I do not need that to keep my account protected, and I will not pay for it.

[cherb]

Even the safest people might log in from a friends computer at times, which could have a logger on it. They might let their brother log onto their account from their Pc which could be infected. They might want to log in while in town and hit up a net cafe. There's no way to be totally safe, all the time.

Even for the people who are super duper safe, that's not the majority. The best way for blizz to cut down on hacked accounts is to make them mandotry. If that makes the minority unhappy because they don't want the extra security, well too bad for them. Take the extra security, it's only making you safer.

Bolded part is against ToS, so if you do that, you shouldn't even be allowed to get your account back regardless. The other things are all avoidable. If your friends computer is infected, odds are he would know if he took computer security seriously at all. Net Cafes have also been notorious for lost accounts, so that is just taking unnecessary risk there. I have been playing MMO's for almost 10 years, and never once has any account I've had been compromised. Call me lucky or w/e you want, but the people who get "hacked" more than once isn't just bad luck - it's being careless with your account and computer security.

[Probie]

If they make authenticators mandatory, they better give them away for free.

+1

[SoulPoetry]

my 2c, anyone who cares about their account probably already has an authenticator. if they make them mandatory, i wouldn't be surprised, but i expect sooo many whines about the miniscule fee which can be earned in 1 hour on minimum wage here in the UK...

[Asur]

I'm from Europe, so we have one more day to wait for the patch.

My question: Is the +10% buff active in ICC now?

You already have a post on this, just wait a little and we can tell you. My money is on no.

[Ubar]

blizzard can just leave authenticators optional, if someone gets hacked or compromise they can simply refuse to restore items. blizzard isint anyones babysitter, they shouldnt need to hold peoples hands because theyre computer illiterate. if these people want to protect themselves, drop 6 dollars ( a small fortune, i know ) on an authenticator and have some peace of mind.

[sammiam]

Even the safest people might log in from a friends computer at times, which could have a logger on it. They might let their brother log onto their account from their Pc which could be infected. They might want to log in while in town and hit up a net cafe. There's no way to be totally safe, all the time.

Even for the people who are super duper safe, that's not the majority. The best way for blizz to cut down on hacked accounts is to make them mandotry. If that makes the minority unhappy because they don't want the extra security, well too bad for them. Take the extra security, it's only making you safer.

I've had my account for 6 years, I've never been hacked. It's not even that hard to be safe. And if you think that authenticators will eliminate account theft, good luck with that. It wouldn't be as large a problem as it is today, if it weren't cost effective for the people doing it. Like cheating in counter-strike, as long as wow is popular, and people are stupid, there will still be account hackers out there, and they will find a way around the system.

As for your "Take the extra security, it's only making you safer." comment: way to be fascist.

[Kyocere]

my 2c, anyone who cares about their account probably already has an authenticator. if they make them mandatory, i wouldn't be surprised, but i expect sooo many whines about the miniscule fee which can be earned in 1 hour on minimum wage here in the UK...

You completely miss the point. I could buy a box of tampons for "1 hour on minimum wage" but for what reason? I am a guy and don't need them. I have never been hacked yet so I don't need an authenticator.

[grimkiller]

If they make authenticators mandatory, they better give them away for free.

Because a one time $7 is way too much to pay for security of your game you paid $50 for (per xpac), and $15 monthly?

[ralphie]

Making them mandatory at this point would certainly violate antitrust laws in the US and probably in the EU as well.

If they do make them mandatory it would be with the release of Cataclysm and the cost of the authenticator would be added to the game.


3 years playing now and haven't had any issues.

[Slavemaker]

If they make authenticators mandatory, they better give them away for free.

You know they are like $6 right?

[cherb]

Because a one time $7 is way too much to pay for security of your game you paid $50 for (per xpac), and $15 monthly?

No, because paying any amount that protects against something that won't happen if you aren't an idiot is unacceptable.

[conscript]

They wouldn't lose their jobs, Blizzard support is constantly adding new staff to keep up with demand on their system, especially as new games are added and new features. It would just take the pressure of 'help I'm a dumb ass who got his account stole, fix it blue plz' off their system. There's still about 100,000 things people complain about every day though.

At the very, very least new hiring would slow down. Sure there are still plenty of customer service issues to deal with, but hacked accounts do take up a substantial amount of man hours and without those issues to be concerned with there will be less demand for customer service. The people seeking assistance because they got hacked won't cause the demand for assistance in other areas to drastically rise to justify hiring more employees or keeping the task force they currently have.

Imagine if Walmart stopped selling shoes. They likely wouldn't lose many actual customers as thousands of people would still be come to the store to shop, but they wouldn't need employees for the shoe department. Those employees could be converted to other departments but if they are there won't be a need to hire new people and if they are running at capacity for employees in other areas they will likely fire those former shoe employees.

[Ubar]

You know they are like $6 right?

thats a lot of money to some of these kids who save up their milk money to pay the monthly fee :

[ikabod00]

Will this 'built in' window prevent those hacking attempts where the code got sent to the hacker? I read somewhere that having the popup window is risky...or something. Either way, I'm glad it's built in - the popup window a) got rid of any light I had in the room if I played at night so I could never see the code and b) wasted like 2 seconds of my life. This will solve both of those issues.

It won't really prevent those hacking attempts. As, your info wasn't really sent to blizzard fully until you enter both password and authenticator. I think what it would do before, most likely, is just check the server to see if that account had an autheticator then pop up that window and then send over all of your info after both password and authenticator were entered. Its just saving the first step now, in some cases. But a man in the middle attack would still work as they could still intercept all your info.