Exploits plague Neverwinter economy, PWE responds [Updated]
![x279582e72bacc5e59c676942cd5ce16f1367601340 1367615016.jpg.pagespeed.ic.0CKxojKyYU Exploits plague Neverwinter economy, PWE responds [Updated]](http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2013/05/x279582e72bacc5e59c676942cd5ce16f1367601340-1367615016.jpg.pagespeed.ic.0CKxojKyYU.jpg "Exploits plague Neverwinter economy, PWE responds [Updated]")
Multiple Massively sources and forum users are reporting that a serious auction hall exploit involving negative bids has turned the fledgling economy of Neverwinter on its head. Perfect World/Cryptic appear to be locking down forum threads on the topic and have posted the following in response to the exploits:
We currently are in the process of taking action against a subset of accounts that were confirmed to have utilized exploits that affected the game balance or economy. These accounts may be banned, temporarily or permanently, depending on the severity of exploit utilization. Anyone who is affected by this will receive notification via email. [...] Thank you for your patience and support while we continue to do everything in our power to ensure that Neverwinter remains a fair and balanced game experience.
EVE Evolved: Fanfest 2013 video roundup
Last month saw the huge tenth anniversary EVE Online Fanfest, a three-day convention packed full of exclusive reveals, behind-the-scenes talks, and community events. This year’s Fanfest was the biggest one yet, celebrating EVE‘s tenth anniversary with special guest speakers from the scientific community, the reveal of a new virtual reality dogfighter, DUST 514‘s launch, and details of the upcoming Odyssey expansion. Massively was there to bring you coverage of the big news as it happened, and CCP streamed some of the key talks and events live to viewers at home.
This year’s Fanfest sold out so quickly that many people who wanted to go didn’t get a chance to, and only a select few talks were shown on the public livestream. With such a packed event schedule, even players in attendance couldn’t be there for every interesting talk. Thankfully, CCP recorded over 30 of the most anticipated events and has now uploaded the videos to YouTube. Highlights include the Make EVE Real videos, the EVE keynote, the CCP Presents Keynote, and the talks on how DUST 514 integrates with the EVE economy.
In this week’s EVE Evolved, I round up all of the EVE Fanfest videos in a handy list.
Stick and Rudder: Why all the love for Roberts and Star Citizen?
I was talking with a gaming buddy recently who missed the whole space sim experience in the 1990s. He’s a Star Wars fan and a real-life pilot pushing 40, so it surprised me to learn that he’d never heard of Wing Commander, Freespace, X-Wing, and the like. My jaw really hit the floor as our conversation turned to current games and I began to evangelize about Star Citizen and Chris Roberts.
“Who’s Chris Roberts?” he asked, with a straight face.
The Daily Grind: Why do you play an anthropomorphic race?
A Daily Grind discussion last week on MMO races that we detest got me thinking about anthropomorphic races — you know, the animals-on-hind-legs dudes and dudettes. The frog-people. The cow-people. The cat-people. The wolf-people. The leopard-people. The rat-people. The lizard-people. The panda-people. Really, the sky’s the limit when you can turn any animal into a humanoid playable race. I’m only disappointed that we haven’t seen platypus-people or manatee-people yet in MMOs.
Without bringing the “imaginary racism” this time, I’m genuinely curious what propels people to play an anthropomorphic race. The easy jab would be to say that it’s just catering to the furries out there, but I think that’s not universally true. What’s the appeal of playing a dog-person? It can’t just be racials such as “mark your territory” and “excess slobber.”
So I want to hear from the folks who play one of these races and hear what your reason is for picking an animal-humanoid character. Don’t be defensive. I’m not attacking you; I’m merely curious. Is it the road less traveled? Is it an affection you have for a particular animal? Is it a rebellion against the boring fantasy races out there?
TUG tech video shows off in-house engine
Recently Nerd Kingdom promised more demonstrations of the tech behind its new TUG MMO hopeful. The company has made good with a new video that shows off the in-house engine, and lead programmer Brandon Nelson starts things off with an interesting tidbit about the game’s contouring algorithm. “An algorithm like dual contouring gives us the ability to have the same quality of terrain that other games have, but not have to have them generated by level designers,” Nelson explains.
There’s quite a lot of additional info packed into the clip’s six-minute running time, all of which you can see for yourself after the break. You can also learn more about TUG via the project’s Kickstarter site.
Wizardry Online prepping for ‘major code update’
SOE’s Wizardry Online website has updated with a post outlining an upcoming “major code update.” The patch will bring the western client “one step closer to all the advanced features of the Japanese version of Wizardry Online,” the company says.
Advanced forging and the game’s socketing system take up most of the space in this particular blog entry, but there’s also a mention of new skills for each class as well as a skill reset NPC.
