Posts with tag fake

It's been a slow week. Month? Let's just say: the news hasn't been rolling in like we'd hope. So your intrepid WoW Insider staff took matters in our own hands and took a page from other news organizations. If there's no news worth telling, then we'd just make it up. Keep reading below. You won't believe what we uncovered. (That isn't true.)

Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) I'm working to get all the pets I need up level 25 to do the Celestial Tournament. Only about 12 more pets to go...

Fake Headline:World of Warcraft players to have their real names displayed in-game

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

Sometimes commenters will suggest that we have received a fake letter. I hope this week's is, although that's actually irrelevant. This kind of thing does happen, unfortunately.

Dear Drama Mamas,

I am writing to you today in need of your coveted wisdom and advice. First just let me inform you that I am a gay man of age 16 in real, and that this type of situation has happened before, but in different variations.

Here's my problem.. It all began with an innocent night outside the gates out Stormwind city. I was sat on the grass opposite a guy. He began talking to me very nicely, I replied, and we got on well. We were talking about random topics for around 10 minutes and became instantaneous friends. He was kind, polite and had top notch spelling and grammar (Which I loved). He went on to ask me personal questions. Such as age, place of residence etc. I had asked these questions first so I thought it would be fair to answer his.

Today, there is a rumor going around of a "Vengeance of the Void" leak, detailing some of the aspects of the next expansion.

It's a fake.

Our highly vetted internal sources at Blizzard have confirmed it's a fake. Blizzard's memos don't even look like that. If you're interested in reading the fake leak, you can do so via the image below.

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Normally we wouldn't take an opportunity just to debunk an edited screenshot, but given how riled up people already are over Blizzard's upcoming forum change, it seems like it's necessary in this case.

There's a screenshot circulating, which is cropped above, that shows a new "beta version" of the infamous GearScore mod that is able to see your Real ID name -- that is, your real name -- just by mousing over your character. It's not real. We reported on a possible security loophole in addons that could, with enough black magic, reveal your Real ID name -- but this isn't what's happening here.

The creator of the image has admitted that the screenshot isn't real. You can officially cease linking it around and freaking out. We know that the idea your real names being on the forum might be scary, but it's important to keep a level head and not let fear take hold of your behavior, no matter what side of the issue you're on.

The important thing is that Blizzard knows how you feel. Post on the forums and let them know, cancel your account (or don't), and if you want to opt out of Real ID altogether, Robin Torres has assembled a guide on how to do just that.

A few tipsters have alerted us to the fact that the Warcraft movie now has a subtitle on the Internet Movie Database -- instead of "Warcraft," it's now called "Warcraft: Rise of the Lich King." Though keep in mind what we've said before: almost anyone can edit those IMDb entries, which means this is less than even a rumor. It could be that some IMDb editor saw the title of the book somewhere and confused it for the movie's new title, or it could just be that an overzealous fan threw in a title of their own. Especially this early in a movie's pre-production, nothing is guaranteed.

Two other things to note here: back at the BlizzCon panel a few years ago, Chris Metzen did tell us that the movie wouldn't focus on Arthas anyway, so calling the movie "Rise of the Lich King" seems like it would go directly against that plan. Then again, we do know that when Sam Raimi became attached to the project, he brought his own set of ideas, so maybe he's convinced Blizzard to tell the story of Arthas yet again. Secondly, the IDMb crew page has been updated: apparently the Aaron Sims Company has been contracted to do some early character work for the movie. Unfortunately, their work is all over the map -- he's worked on Evil Dead II (great), Men in Black (pretty good), and Doom (whoops -- one of the worst videogame-based movies around). It's early though -- we do know Blizzard won't let Uwe Boll touch the movie, so hopefully they've chosen worthy talent here already.

Bat Boy, everyone's favorite tabloid freak, has gotten in on the Wrath of the Lich King fervor -- unfortunately, he's too young (and creepy) to actually earn money, so instead he reportedly (reported by the Weekly World News, of course, your number one source for Bat Boy news) scared a Warcraft fan, causing him to drop his copy, and sending Bat Boy off to Northrend to level up to 80 with the rest of us. You can add "stealing the expansion" to the list of crimes Bat Boy's already perpetrated.

Bat Boy could not be reached for comment for this story, which is too bad -- we really wanted to know what class the West Virginia legend plays (is that an Undead Warlock on the screen? And why doesn't he have any skills on his action bars?), and whether he started in Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra.

Thanks, JPM!

I don't like to call attention to trolls on the internet; I think they're vile little beasts who need to be put out old-school DnD style with a roll of a six sided die and a cast of a flaming arrow. But one thing in particular some trolls are doing has caught my attention: a fake WoW guild being as annoying as possible on the forums.

I won't name this guild's name, or tell you where they're from, since I don't need them tracking me down in game or getting a bigger head. What they do to annoy the frack out of everyone (and that was my obligatory Battlestar Galactica reference for the week) is pretty lame - they post updates to bosses they haven't killed. For instance, right now they're claiming they've downed Brutallus. They even have a clearly photoshopd kill picture to prove it. However they haven't, and if you look at their armory profiles no one in the guild is above Kara level gear.

This guild will go and post in progression threads, taking up page after page of space. Eventually these threads have to be closed since they become full, and new ones started. However the trolls are right there to start everything again. 99% of the people on the realm ignore them, however there is always the 1% that gives them the attention they desire.

What can be done about this?

I would hope that most of you have learned this lesson by now, but for those who came in late: there is currently no Wrath of the Lich King beta test going on. We've been getting a steady stream of tips about various scam sites, or questions along the lines of "is this invite I just got real?" No, that beta invite you got from "bl1zzard@yahoo.co.uk" is not real. Wrath is in alpha, company-internally, maybe. Trust me, I want in at least as bad as you do, but any invite you get to a Wrath beta right now, unless you work at Blizzard, is fake.

When the beta does start (as it surely will eventually), and if you're lucky enough to get a real invite, it will point to a site at blizzard.com, worldofwarcraft.com, or (for our European chums) wow-europe.com. It will not, for instance, point to therealblizzard.net. The scammers have gotten pretty good at building convincing-looking sites (as pictured), but check the URL and don't be fooled. Do not enter your WoW account name and/or password anywhere other than the log-in screen of the game, blizzard.com, worldofwarcraft.com, or wow-europe.com. Oh, and use Firefox.

Kupoccino sent us a tip earlier today about a video that's posted over on a German site about WotLK. In the video a level one Warrior walks up the throne of Arthas and purchases a sword from a stone – a sword that appears to be Frostmourne.

The video is a fake, and has graphics elements and game elements, such as the bags, that are indicative of a private server. Additionally Kuoccino points out to me in a later email that the steps are really benches from the Undercity, and that the throne is from the Undercity as well. I'm inclined to agree with him.

Normally I wouldn't post something like this, but it's a good example of how far people are willing to go to try to get a scoop on WotLK. Also, as Mike Schramm pointed out on the podcast this afternoon, now is about the time that we'll start to see more leaked WotLK information. The alpha is going on, and the beta is a few months away - this is prime time for leaks to happen.

Now of course, there is the remotest of remote possibilities that this video is real. If there is even a smidgen of truthiness in here, my hat is off to the person that got this.

If you've got any WotLK screenshots, real or fake, hop on over to our tip line and send away! We're always on the lookout for a good thing! We just reserve the right to laugh and cackle if you send us fakes.

Right now there is no WotLK beta, there is no chance you'll get in the alpha if you're not already in it, and there is no email that's going to be coming to your inbox anytime soon about it. But when it comes, it's going to make you one happy gamer. This is a very important thing for people to understand, especially with the flood of fake emails lately.

Blizzard will make an announcement on their forums and/or their homepage letting all of us know that WotLK beta invites are going out. The email that you'll get if you're lucky enough to get invited will be sent from an @blizzard.com address, will come through the blizzard.com servers (you can check the extended email headers in your email program to see this). The email will have tons of identifiable information in it that only points to blizzard.com or worldofwarcraft.com and nowhere else.

For a reference, let's that a look at what the Burning Crusade beta email looked like that I got back in 2006

Lane over on WoW LJ pointed us to this article about "Playing to Win" -- the article itself is actually about Street Fighter II, but as Lane points out, the concept could very easily be connected to World of Warcraft. I remember Turpster talking about this on our podcast as well a few weeks ago: playing for fun and playing to win are two completely different things, and the difference between them can put a lot of players at odds.

Players who "play to win" wonder why some folks in game try to play by "fictitious rules" -- why not do some arena matching, or why not jump on an opponent on a PvP server when they're almost dead from fighting a mob? If there's a mod that will let you "cheat" on a boss, or a macro that will let you target opponents in the arena, why not use it? But just as the person writing this article about scrubs sees those as "fake rules" (because the game doesn't actually keep you from doing those things seen as "cheap"), many players do see things like honor and discipline in the game.

In the end, it's each to his own -- we all play this game for different reasons, and not everyone does play to win: some play for fun, some play to relax, some play just because they want to follow those "fake rules" (and any others they come up with -- pacifist players, Arena masters, or naked trolls). Players play by their own rules all the time, but that's no reason at all to call them "scrubs."

Take this with a gigantic shaker full of salt, but a sketchy guild site host named Ejeet Networks claims to have received screenshots of the downloader for the Wrath of the Lich King alpha (watch out for the automatic music player on their site, too). Again, this means almost nothing-- even if the downloader is really out there in the wild, it hardly means the game is anywhere near done, or that anyone but Blizzard employees are still playing it at this point. But Ejeet says the DNS server for the WotLK beta is online and answering DNS resolution, and they claim that a "Swedish contact" sent them screenshots of the alpha downloader.

Personally, I call shenanigans-- their first screenshot says version .1, and then the Properties screen they have says version 2.0.3.70, so which is it? They also claim that since the Properties screen says "{c} 2004-2008 Blizzard Entertainment," that's proof that we'll see Wrath in 2008, but that's hardly true as well. I have no doubt that we'll see the beta in 2008, but I'd bet money we won't see the expansion itself until January 2009. I'd love to be wrong, but them's the breaks.

But I leave it up to you-- as much as I disagree, these could be proof that Blizzard has an expansion alpha up and running. Anyone else spot any other weirdness that could rule these out as fakes?

Thanks, Dan!

Another patch has gone up on the PTR, bringing new visions of a possible future for World of Warcraft players. We've read a lot of patch notes in our time, agonized over what nerfs might be coming to our class, and waited with great anticipation new features and dungeons. Once we even saw how to write patch notes of our own!

So now, imagine if you will, that you have the golden opportunity to design a future WoW patch, creatively entitled "Patch 2.U." You are now the temporary chief of the Blizzard Development team. You sit in your throne room and dictate what the contents of the next patch will be!... But only for about 5 minutes -- then you have to step down from your throne and put the chief's hat on the next person in line. Then that person gets to dictate the patch notes, making any changes they see fit.

Let's say you can choose 5 items for your own personal patch notes here; what changes or new features would be most important to you? If you see any changes from commenters above you which you absolutely can't abide, feel free to change them back. This will probably give us an example of the absolute chaos this game would be if players were actually in charge, but it could be pretty interesting. Be sure to check out the "Guide to Writing Fake Patch Notes," and then... patch away!

[Patch note funnies by Penny Arcade!]

Know why I love you guys? Because when you go too long without hearing new information about the next patch and expansion, you just go out there and make it up.

This video says it's by Fanatik, who you may remember has leaked some info about upcoming content before. This purports to be a video of the next expansion, situated in Northrend-- except that it's completely and totally fake. Some parts are better than others-- the last cinematic is ripped straight out of WC3, but the main screen looks OK, at least until you realize that it too is chopped together from the previous Warcraft game. Boubouille has a list over at MMO Champion of where everything in the video comes from, and it's all completely fake-- Fanatik didn't even create it.

Still, it would be nice to hear some official word from Blizzard about what's coming next, wouldn't it? Until then (probably around Blizzcon, if my instincts are correct), I guess we'll have to make do with this.

There are a few constants in World of Warcraft. Mages will pull aggro. People in the forums will complain about every class, build, area, and profession. And as patches draw closer, people will make fake patch notes. So normally I wouldn't even bother posting something like this (unless it was unusually entertaining). However, as our pal Boubouille points out, this particular set of fakes came out three days ago, and contains the names to the new Darkmoon cards. Those names were just posted today by Ommra (check out line 39 in the original of these patch notes, and compare to today's Blue Notes). Coincidence? Shenanigans? Probably something like that. But just in case, here's some patch notes that may or may not be real.

Again, there's no particular reason to think these are real aside from the fact that they seem to have had the names of the new Darkmoon cards early. Grain of salt, and all that. And if they are real, I will be very disappointed, because they contain a substantial Paladin healing nerf: Illumination cut to 50%. Illumination is a Paladin Holy talent that, for five points, gives a 100% chance to get a mana refund on heal crits. It's a big part of the reason why pallies are such efficient healers. While I agree that there are some discrepancies between Priest and Paladin healing at the moment, I do not think the solution is to nerf Paladins; buffing Priests would be far better in my book (and most Paladins would agree with me, I think).

To be sure, the patch notes do have some Priest changes, but they're along the typical lines of how Blizz has been dealing with Priests: give us tricks we really, really don't want and won't use (lolwell), and then keep buffing them to try to make us use them. Of course, they never buff them enough to make them actually good (with the exception of the 5% spirit boost on Improved Death Spirit of Redemption), so the net result is buffs to talents and skills we never use. This time around it's a mana cost reduction (33%) to Binding Heal and unspecified improvements to Circle of Terrible Healing. Sorry Blizz, still not going to use them. GG though. Well, notes after the cut at any rate. Even if these are fake, they're still somewhat interesting.