Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Tricks, Cheats, Instances, Features, Raiding, Bosses, Interviews, Alts, 15 Minutes of Fame
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes - from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you’d like to hear more about.
Last week, 15 Minutes of Fame visited with multiboxer Nixi of team Absolute Power-H of Archimonde to bring WoW Insider readers his 10-boxing strategy for Karazhan. This week, we’ll step back for a look at Nixi’s hardware setup, his top five tips for new multiboxers and a broader look at why he’s a ‘boxer.
Catch up with 10-boxing Karazhan Part 1, then join us after the break for an inside look at Nixi’s 10-boxing team.
Continue reading 15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan, Part 2
15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan, Part 2 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Odds and ends, Economy, Breakfast topics
We reported last night that some of the PvP gear was being shown as discounted or even free, and players were reportedly flooding the vendors, trying to pick up cheap gear. Of course, we also warned that taking bugged gear could be considered an exploit, even as some veteran players warned that taking free gear could result in a server rollback, suspended accounts, or even banning.
Therein lies the question: did you bite? I can see arguments for both sides: maybe you stood your moral ground, said that that gear wasn’t really supposed to be free, and didn’t try to take advantage of a mistake one of Blizzard’s coders made. Or maybe you said, “well, if it’s on the live realms, it must be legit,” and looted as much of the gear as you could (and maybe you’re paying for it, too, either now or later this week).
So what’d you do? This isn’t the first time a game-changing exploit has made loot accessible to players when it shouldn’t be, so if given a possible exploit in the game, do you grab away and let Blizzard worry about their own mistakes, or do you decide not to take advantage of mistakes Blizzard didn’t mean to make and wait for them to fix it while you do things fairly?
Breakfast Topic: To bug or not to bug originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Cheats, How-tos, Fan stuff, Instances, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King
Cabinetsanchez over on LJ has documented something that I saw in action yesterday while running a few instances — while it’s a ton of fun to run my Crashin’ Thrashin Racer around (I’m undefeated since I picked up the achievement the first day I got the toy, by the way), players have found a few extra ways to make the Racers work for them. Yesterday, I saw one of my group members using the Racer a few times to scout the instance ahead and see what pulled with what, and as CS says, it worked great: while the Racer will aggro enemies, they won’t tag on to the rest of the group — they’ll just reset after they destroy the little car.
CS also says that the Racer takes no falling damage, so you can send it exploring off of cliffs and platforms, and he says that though the car is considered level 60, its aggro range is pretty small (I can attest to this, as we were driving it pretty close to enemies yesterday without it registering on their radar). And he’s got an even more devious use (some might say this is an exploit): bosses aggroed by the racer will sometimes despawn after they conquer it for up to 30 seconds or so. That seems like a hotfix waiting to happen, but I haven’t personally tried it, so it may not be as useful as it sounds.
The downside of this is that the Racer was meant to be a fun item, and if it really does lead to behavior that Blizzard considers exploiting, they might have to think twice about including great items like this in the future. We’ll have to see what their ruling on this is, but hopefully no matter what happens (I’m guessing a quick hotfix, maybe even shrinking the range of the Racer’s controller), this won’t prevent Blizzard from giving us more fun toys later on.
Scouting around with the Crashin’ Thrashin’ Racer originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Cheats, Making money
What smells like dead Orcs and flies?
Goldseller spam in Orgrimmar.
In the last few weeks it has been dead Gnomes in Ironforge.
The dead bodies spell out the name of a gold selling website.
This tactic has returned from
about a year or so ago, but this is the first time I’ve heard of it in Orgrimmar. The body advertisements look sharper than the old versions.
All in all it seems like an awful lot of work
to get around spam filters.
Gold sellers have used several means to get their message out to the public, and Blizzard has found ways to combat it. I remember back in the day when we used to get spammed with whispers. Blizzard introduced the report spam feature for users to flag this content, the whispers nearly completely ceased overnight. I have to hand it to them, the gold sellers come up with innovative ways to market their product. Sure it violates the terms of use, but gold-selling by its nature is a violation. What’s one more script here and there for them?
Death is in the air for gold sellers originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Blizzard, Talents, Buffs, Wrath of the Lich King
There are a slew of new updates to Hunters in the latest beta build, but the biggest one comes to Aspect of the Viper. Blizzard has been tuning this spell for a while — originally it gave Hunters back their ranged damage as mana (pretty overpowered), and then was tuned down to each shot giving back mana based on twice the base ranged weapon speed. Now it’s still based on the base ranged speed, but they’ve buffed it back up to a percentage of mana — if you have a base ranged weapon speed of 2, for example, you’ll get 4% mana back for every shot that hits. Not a bad deal, and hopefully Blizzard is getting close to settling on making itso that Hunters only need to switch to AotV sometimes, instead of leaving it up all the time.
Most of the other Hunter changes in 8962 are just tweaks — Kill Shot no longer does a knockdown and got a little damage buff. Tranq shot got added utility, in that it will remove enrage and magic effects rather than just the frenzy effect that was so hard to come by. Misdirection’s cooldown got dropped to 30 seconds from two minutes, which means Hunters will get more chances to dump aggro when necessary.
There’s one new skill which will make things pretty interesting on the trapping side — Freezing Arrow lets you fire off an arrow that will lay down a Freezing Trap (which, by the way, now has only a chance to break on damage, instead of 100% certainty). That, combined with some quick Misdirection, could make trapping a whole new game at level 80. Unfortunately, it looks like the tradeoff for that is that we’re losing Camouflage, which some Hunters already aren’t happy about. But as always, all of these skill and talents are still up for grabs, so maybe we’ll see Camo back in some form before it’s all over.
Update: Whoops, forgot to mention that AotV is still carrying that 50% damage penalty while on. That’s pretty harsh, even with the mana coming back, so look for a buff on that end before 3.0.2 goes live.
Hunter changes in beta 8962 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Mage, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Expansions, Classes, Talents, Buffs, Wrath of the Lich King
Ok Mages. Are you sitting down? We finally got our nerf. We sort of knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make it suck any less. We got a few buffs, too, but the one major nerf was a whopper. It won’t affect everyone, just Mages like me who had fallen in love with the new Arcane tree. This nerf, if it stands, almost singlehandedly kills the whole tree, at least as a stand-alone spec.
Here it is:
- Arcane Blast changed. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage is increased by 15% and mana cost is increased by 300% (used to be 25% damage and 75% mana cost)
Soak that in for a second. I really, really hope that’s a typo. I went onto the beta this morning and spammed Arcane Blast on a training dummy for a bit. After 4 casts, I was suffering a 1200% increase in the mana cost of the spell, while only gaining a 60% increase in damage. The fourth spellcast was costing 2970 mana and doing about 3k damage per cast, fully talented and spell damaged out. That’s about 1 point of damage per mana point, making it so ridiculously inefficient that only the first cast is worth the cost, and then only barely.
I’m praying that the 300% number is supposed to be 30%, and will be fixed. 30% sounds about right to me. With the nerf to the damage buff, that kind of mana cost reduction would work, though they could probably go as far as 50% and I wouldn’t freak out. But to reduce the damage and make the mana cost so incredibly prohibitive? Just…wow.
You can find the full list of changes after the jump.
Continue reading Mage changes in beta build 8962
Mage changes in beta build 8962 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Blizzard, PvP, Arena
Bornakk has laid down a “clarification” on what’s fair in the Arenas over on the forums — he says that there’s been a lot of questions lately over what constitutes fair play in Arena PvP, especially in terms of win trading.
Unfortunately, his clarification isn’t all that clear — he reiterates that win trading (the act of exploiting the queue in some way to face a chosen opponent, or face the same team multiple times) is against the spirit of the game and against Blizzard’s wishes (though his wording gets a little strange when he brings the Terms of Service into it — we think that by “these actions all fall in line with our fair use clause,” he actually means that they violate the clause). He does, however, go on to say that there are certain places in the system where facing an opponent multiple times will happen, and that that’s obviously not the fault of players. So that, it seems, is the confusion: players were worried that because of the lack of population in the queue or other factors, that they would be accused of win trading, and Bornakk is saying that’s not the case.
Not that Blizzard hasn’t been cracking down on win trading as much as possible lately, but the fact is that if there’s a way to exploit the system, players will find it and do it. Blizzard says they’re working on squashing “agreements” between players, but even then, Arenas may never end up being completely fair.
Bornakk tries to clarify fair play in Arena PvP originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Cheats, Blizzard, News items
It ain’t over yet. Blizzard Entertainment, who won a lawsuit against MDY, the makers of the infamous Glider bot program, has asked the ruling court for a permanent injunction that would functionally eliminate the program from WoW. Blizzard has also issued an unconventional request preventing the open-sourcing of the MMO Glider (formerly known as WoW Glider) code and prohibiting MDY from helping other people develop World of Warcraft automation software.
Blizzard’s case against MDY has already sparked some debate, and this latest request may catch the attention of open source and digital rights advocates. Blizzard has always taken a hardline stance against users of the program, even banning countless users back in May. Automation is clearly against the EULA, so players who flirt with bot programs such as MMO Glider should proceed at their own risk. A complete coverage of the case between Blizzard and MDY can be found over at Virtually Blind.
Blizzard against open-sourcing Glider code originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Bugs, Expansions, Leveling, Wrath of the Lich King
If you play a melee or physical damage class or spec that is not a Feral Druid, you have probably experienced this most excruciating of mechanics that is the leveling of class weaponry skill.
We all know the tale: You find a spiffy new weapon, you go out and use it, and find that your damage is abysmal. Then you realize it. Your skill with this weapon is 1! Thus, you’re forced to go trudge off to find some grey or green mobs to solo and thwack mindlessly for a few hours until you can finally get some decent damage out of the supposed “upgrade” that you were so pumped to get a few minutes prior.
One of the ways people have made this strange little grind somewhat bearable is by using the servants out in the Blasted Lands. Because they can’t die from normal weapon strikes, you can simply set yourself in front of one and swing away. If you’re max level or if you have a self-healing proc or ability, you can spend a long time just wailing away mindlessly at the guy, leaving one eye on the screen while you do other things. Some people have even been so ambitious as to drag one of them to Stormwind for a skilling up free-for-all in the trade district.
Unfortunately, it looks like the ride’s over. People are reporting that the Servants are no longer giving skill ups, even after 10 minutes of wailing away on the mob. There’s no blue post confirming or denying the change as of this writing, but if it’s in, it would seem to be deliberate.
Continue reading Servants of Allistarj no longer good for weapon skilling on Beta
Servants of Allistarj no longer good for weapon skilling on Beta originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on Jan 06, 2009 under cheats |
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Blizzard, Humor, Bosses, NPCs, Hardware
If you’re not much of a computer programming person, this one might make your eyes glaze over a bit, but if you have any interest how the AI of videogame characters, including those in
WoW, is programmed,
this article about designing AI pathfinding is a terrific read.
“Pathfinding” is a method of determining how NPCs move within a game world like Azeroth — you and I can clearly see where the walls and bad guys are, and so we just have to press buttons to avoid either ingame, but NPCs (including pets and mobs) aren’t quite that easy — they need to be told clearly by programmers where they can go and how to get there. And when the rules they’re given don’t quite work, you get the funny seen above.
Many games use a “waypoint” system — NPCs are given a series of paths around the space they can move in, and use those paths to determine where they can and can’t go. The article argues for a “navigation mesh,” a much looser definition of available space, which NPCs can then draw their own path across. It’s a little technical, but it’s cool to see the inner workings (and weaknesses) of Azeroth’s code.
Of course, it’s extremely unlikely that we’ll ever really see the NPC pathfinding engine updated in WoW anyway — Blizzard will update their system in certain places to fix things like exploits (and the occasional annoying escort quest, i.e. all of them), but there’s no real need to update the whole system completely when there’s so much content to be done. Hopefully videos like this will bring the problem to light, and in future games we’ll see some better pathfinding. Someday, that NPC will know that it’s easier to go around the pillar rather than trying to walk right through it.
In WoW and other games, pathfinding is still “kind of a problem” originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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