PvP.net hacked; League of Legends Unsafe
At this time I am reporting that League of Legends’ PvP.net client was hacked.
Although some believe it to be a simple DDoS attack (crashing the servers), many players have experienced spam messages from the culprits within the game client.
As I report this, the PvP.net chat system has been brought down. Riot has yet to comment whether they are even responsible for its downtime, but one would guess it to be the case since messages included links which directed to various unsafe websites.
Some speculate that this is another lulzsec hacking, while others point out the mention of ‘NoS’ (a brazilian hacking group, if I remember right) in the spam messages. In my opinion, it is probably some random messing around while hacking is ‘the in thing to do’. Hell, it might even be a script-kiddy (or ‘skiddy’, a pseudo-hacker who uses tools and programs a real hacker created to mimic them); there’s a fair amount of resources floating around on the internet right now.
Many of Riot Games’ clients are worried and paranoid thanks to several of the messages mentioning (in an almost cryptic fashion) that an excess of people have been exposed to keyloggers.
One of the more interesting side-effects can be found on the League of Legends 5×5 rankings page. I do not recommend going to Riot’s website for the time being, but I did so myself out of suspicion and grabbed you all a screenshot of my discovery:
Oh aren't you just the special children!
It wasn’t hard to guess that they would hit the site rankings after considering past hacks against gaming websites. Hopefully very few others thought to check this page and, again, hopefully it’s clean.
Luckily this is occurring on the afternoon of the 4th of July for American clients, so at least they are guaranteed to have a better use for their time.
I will edit this article as/if the story develops, but for the time being I recommend that all League of Legends gamers avoid the Riot Games website and game client for at least a few hours.
Update 1: It seems that Riot was responsible for bringing down PvP.net.
“Summoners! We’ve had to temporarily disable our chat system due to technical difficulties. This means you can currently not see the online status of your friends, talk to them, or queue up with them. We realize how disruptive this is and we do apologize. We’ll have the chat system back up as soon as possible.” ZenonTheStoic
It’s difficult to manoeuvre around the Riot Games’ site at the moment. This announcement wasn’t even linked in the forums or on the main page, I had to stumble across it. Either the site has been hit decently or their offices are in a bit of disarray.
Update 2: Somebody using the handle ‘Neonir’, seemingly stolen from an already existing member of the League of Legends community, has claimed a level of responsibility for the hacking.
Attempts have been made by this person to market the tools used, but capable individuals have pointed out that the program was probably created by somebody else. It’s currently assumed that the individual is using a RAT (Remote Administration Tool) and is using keyloggers to grant himself access to victims’ computers.
Update 3: A posting by Pendragon
“Summoners!
As you are aware we recently had issues with our chat services. Rest assured that we have no reason to believe any billing information has been compromised. Any impacted accounts will be fully restored.
Please always exercise caution when visiting any third party websites.
We will keep you updated with additional information as it becomes available” -Pendragon
Final Word: If you didn’t access any websites linked to you through either PvP.net or the Riot Games website, you should be fine. If you are suspicious, run a scan using an anti-malware program to hunt down any threats.
There are 3 programs which I recommend: Malwarebytes, Spybot Search & Destroy and AVG AntiVirus. One of any of those 3 should do the job, though I encourage you to use anti-virus software at all times. If they come up clean and you are completely convinced that you have been hacked, turn off your internet connection and wait out a few days to discourage RAT access, update your scanners’ definitions and scan again.
PvP.net hacked; League of Legends UnsafeOverpowered Tactics A2: Bending the Laws
It’s been a little while since my last article; thanks to a combination of hectic days, weird internet problems and writer’s block. Today I found myself determined to put the fingers to the keyboard and come up with something interesting, so I decided to write about what would be considered a rather niche topic.
One of my most used pieces of gaming hardware is my Nintendo DSI. Finding a good game on a Nintendo hand-held nowadays can be a challenge; we don’t all want to know what Mama’s been cooking or randomly tap a screen at an animal like the world’s most negligent fish owner. One of the gems from the rough is a game called Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift.
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Surprisingly more playable.
It’s no secret that I really enjoyed (and still go back to enjoy) the original Final Fantasy Tactics. Tactics was a complicated, well-written and fun masterpiece. Unfortunately they made a sequel named ‘Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance’. Many people enjoyed the game, but almost anybody who had played the original found themselves outraged.
Tactics may have had rather simple graphics, but the story involved conspiracies, murders, heretics, religion, myths, lineage, war, demons… I could go on. The sequel was a game where you played as a child in a world where nobody dies and, to be frank, nothing interesting ever happens. They even introduced Judges, which even fans of FFT:A to this day cannot defend.
Judges were a good concept. They threw a spanner in the works of a player’s optimization, forcing you to think about different strategies, jobs and itemization. Unfortunately the concept was far overshadowed by a failure of implementation.
I am not even kidding you here: There are laws which forbid certain in-combat actions that are not affected by the several common status ailments that cause you to lose control of your character. Think about that. Yes, you would be punished if the computer told your berserked/confused/charmed character to break a law. Yes, if you did critically strike on a normal attack and by chance the attack knocked back a target, it was considered a ‘knockback’ and you would break that law. Yes, if there was a law limiting the damage you can deal with an action you could easily, accidentally critically strike and break the law.
Is it any surprise that Tactics A2 was so easily overlooked?
I love this game. It’s still a little childish, but at least stabbing somebody in the face kills them half the time. It’s also great that the main character isn’t a completely coddled child (he borders upon having a blood lust sometimes) and, the best part of all, the laws are a bit more refined and following the judge law is an optional choice in most missions. Follow the law and you get a little more loot, can resurrect allies mid-battle and maintain a privilege.
I heard that the story for the main character was supposed to be that he survived a plague which wiped out his whole town, but Nintendo considered it ‘too dark’ and the plot was instead granted as the back-story for another character named ‘Adelle’. Oh well, people make mistakes sometimes. All things considered, I’m just happy that his age is in the double digits.
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Now that you understand what’s to enjoy about this game, I’d like to announce a small series I will be doing about Tactics A2 which I’m calling ‘Overpowered Tactics A2′. For the first installment:
The Top 3 Ways to ‘Bend’ Judge Laws
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3- Traps, traps and more traps.
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Rangers are one of the more interesting job classes in Tactics A2, and they are unique to the Seeq race (brutish pig barbarians). They have 2 main features as a class: they are amazing at using items due to being capable of making them twice as effective (and can even reverse their effects, making a Remedy quite the hilarious offensive choice) and they lay traps; the same traps that plague you on the battlefield.
As soon as you lay a trap it’s effectively part of the scenery. You are no longer responsible for the trap and, funnily enough, you have to avoid stepping on it yourself. Due to this, you can run a Ranger or two around the battlefield dropping traps all over the map, killing off enemies with direct damage or charming them with the traps so that they kill each other.
Traps will bypass almost any law you can think of, even the limited damage laws, since according to the game you aren’t responsible for the damage. You still gain experience and items for killing the enemies, but essentially the Judge doesn’t care who laid what traps or what happens when they trigger.
This tactic is best employed by having a Viera (the bunny girl race) on field as a Sniper/White Mage, sneaking around resurrecting your Seeq Rangers should they die. If you can have all the non-Rangers invisible it’s a great advantage. Note that enemies are usually most tempted to attack from behind your characters. Use this to your advantage!
That's cold, mate.
2- Doom and Poison. Poiseidoom?
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Poison is just amazing in Tactics A2. Poison (or Regen) in this game do not have a limited duration. Poison all the enemies on map and watch as their health slowly and reliably ticks down by 10% per round. For best results, utilize the Blue Magic spell ‘Bad Breath’ (Only Humes can be Blue Mages) which can be learned very early in the game. Bad Breath will attempt to Silence, Blind and Poison enemies in a T-shaped area (cone), which is just fantastic. While Silence has a limited duration, the target won’t be able to cast healing spells while afflicted.
Need to kill something that’s healing, but can’t break a damage cap? Doom is your friend. Doom is one of the more difficult spells to cast on an enemy: not only does it usually only have a 40-50% chance to hit, but most of the effects which cause it require high-level weapons and often do damage simultaneously. Fortunately, Blue Mages once again come into play here, using the Blue Magic spell ‘Doom’ for a measly 8 mana from a fair distance away. The best part? Doom technically doesn’t do damage; it inflicts the KO status effect. You’re killing somebody without, as far as the game is concerned, even hurting them.
Avoid slowing or reducing the speed of your enemies when utilizing either of these status inflictions, since they both tick with each of the target’s turns rather than with what the game considers ’rounds’. Also note that inflicting a negative status effect on an enemy directly (without using a trap) is considered ‘harming’ them, and will still break laws which forbid harming specific targets.
I really hate the Judges.
1- An Opportunity to Counter!
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Reaction and Opportunity abilities are your friend. Unless a law specifically states that Reaction or Opportunity abilities are forbidden, they will never break laws.
Opportunity commands are pretty noticeable. Your unit’s turn will begin with it bracing and saying a quote “Time to take off the gloves” style, then an additional small menu will be available above the standard commands, listing which Opportunity ability it would use.
This ability will change if you move the unit into a different square. For example, standing by yourself will make the unit cast Protect/Shell on itself, standing near two or more allies will cast Haste on all of you and, more importantly, walking up to an enemy will allow you to strike it (or them, if more than one is adjacent to you) with a flurry of attacks. Flurry is best used dual-wielding, as you can potentially strike a single target 4 times and be completely safe from breaking the law.
As efficient as Opportunity commands are, the greatest method for bypassing laws is definitely Counter. While many Reaction abilities offer different effects (such as Strike Back dodging an attack then Countering) Counter is the most reliable, since it triggers off of almost any ability an enemy might cast, so long as it is in an adjacent square.
It just goes to show that even in the world of Ivalice, the Judge will let you go if you can justify self defense.
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I hope you’ve made use of the tips provided in this article, and thanks for reading.
Overpowered Tactics A2: Bending the LawsNukem has gone gold!
Duke’s gone gold! The game discs are being manufactured and shipped as we speak! [Source] [Source]
Gearbox making fun of itself.
You may remember my post a fair while back which mentioned that Duke Nukem: Forever was shaping up rather nicely. I’ve been looking forward to this game for a long time now. (You can view the older article here, though the page formatting has mixed things up a bit).
It’s scheduled for release on June 10th (June 14th for the USA). The game looks like it’s ridiculous fun, and why wouldn’t it be? Any game with over a decade of production behind is certain to have witty moments pouring out its ears.
If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the trailer [Warning: Harsh language]:
There’s another couple of videos you might want to see, but I’ll avoid clogging up your browsers. You can find an interview here, and a ‘mockumentary’ here.
The gamer in me is anticipating a probably-awesome experience, while my inner businessman just really wants to see the sales figures a week after it comes out; on the game, sunglasses and, of course, bubble gum. Even if the game turns out to be a failure (gameplay-wise, since we all know it’s going to sell) it’s still worth giving it a spot on your shelf just for the weird factor.
Nukem has gone gold!Sony Offline Entertainment
So the Sony Network is coming back online today, much to the joy of many gamers who utilize an internet connection on the PS3 or Sony’s online PC games (primarily MMOs), but information is scarce as to why it was down in the first place. Allow me to save you several hours of wading through the various stories, interviews, rumours and accusations that are floating around the internet.
This is the story of why (and how) Sony’s network went down for the better part of a month.
The whole saga began when two gamers known as George ‘GeoHot’ Hotz and Alexander ‘graf_chokolo’ Egorenkov succeeded at jailbreaking the security features on the Playstation 3. Such an accomplishment had the downside of making cheating in online play more commonplace, but it did also allow homebrew software to be utilized on the machine.
Sony was not impressed. They began a rather ruthless backlash campaign (particularly against GeoHot) using their influence and the legal system. The court case has been going on since January this year and is still unresolved, notably threatening GeoHot with a million-dollar Euro lawsuit. The monetary demands struck me as rather sadistic; that kind of suit would cripple most Europeans for the rest of their lives and, honestly, it seems as if they pulled the number straight out of their arses.
To add insult to injury; Sony had authorities raid his home and take possession of anything which might have been related to his work on the PS3. It just goes to show that in Europe “You never buy. You rent.”
Sony even went so far as subpeonaing information from Hotz’s various online connections, including Paypal account associated with him. Sony now has a list of IP addresses of people who they suspect have made the modifications to their systems.
Gamers have been modding their systems since consoles have existed and, as far as I am aware, every court case to deny such a right has sided with the consumer. It’s understandable that the gaming community responded with aggravation at Sony’s antics.
The organization of internet hackers ‘Anonymous’ took note, releasing a statement that is rather effectively summarized in this video:
Anonymous began a campaign to harass Sony, particularly targeting their websites. The whole operation was problematic for them; Anonymous’ main goal was to lay pressure on Sony and, as specified, NOT to grief the gamers who used their network.
In response to this, Sony hired a company named Prolexic and began mitigating the damage. Sites were crashing and rebooting constantly for the first few days while both the hackers and the security firm scrambled to gain the upper hand. Prolexic apparently succeeded in blocking off a range of IP addresses commonly used by Anonymous’ personnel (and many gamers, unfortunately) due to the experiences both parties have had with each other in the past.
Sony could have potentially dodged a bullet if they had just weathered the storm, but during this time they made a particularly big mistake; they gloated. Sony quipped that the attacks were of ‘medium strength’, were just an ‘annoyance to our network engineers’ and shrugged them off, stating they would just ‘get bored’ eventually.
Anonymous announced that they would stop the attacks to prevent harm to the innocent gamers, but a few days later Sony’s PSN network suffered a massive attack which flabbergasted their engineers. A statement was released quoting that the servers would be down for ‘a day or two’ which has since been revealed to have been made as pure P.R. [A course of action made to make a company, product or person more appealing to an audience or consumers], causing frustration for their gaming community.
“The fault lies with the executives who declared a war on hackers, laughed at the idea of people penetrating the fortress that once was Sony, whined incessantly about piracy, and kept hiring more lawyers when they really needed to hire good security experts. Alienating the hacker community is not a good idea” Hotz later stated.
Anonymous denied involvement in the attack, reinforcing their stance on not harming the players who used the Playstation Network.
Sony later released a notice that much of the information stored on their servers had been stolen, including some old credit card information. The servers stayed down and have been until today, with little word to the public regarding when they would return.
Whoever was responsible for this attack has apparently made a devastating job of it; Sony has been dumbfounded since it happened. Was it Anonymous, laying down propaganda to hide a more vindictive nature? Was it a rogue hacker, seeking to punish Sony for mocking Anonymous or the gaming community? Maybe it’s something more sinister, like an opportunistic dollar-seeker who just found the cover scandal too good to be true?
Either way; gamers aren’t the only ones suffering from this event. Retailers are reporting that the Playstation 3 is being traded in and sold at an alarming rate, up by 200% in a single month [Source]. Strangely enough, the PS3 is reporting a 13% increase in hardware sales during this time despite the PSN being offline [Source], though many are skeptical since their statement was released as a response to an NPD date report.
My opinion is: They are either lying, or they are including the sales of used systems in their report. Think about it. A 200% increase in trade-in probably results in some pretty cheap Playstation 3 consoles floating around in stores. Conversely, if you’ve been looking to buy a PS3 then this might be the time to do it; the PSN is coming back up soon and the consoles are probably on sale at many locations.
Sony announced a few days ago that it will be offering compensation to their MMO clients [Source], but many customers have already moved on, and the few remaining are frustrated about the lack of information presented to them. A common question is “Are they even still working on [Insert patch here]?”
Take what you will from the whole mess, but it’s safe to say that Sony has likely learned a valuable lesson.
Sony Offline EntertainmentConnection… Problem?
Everything went better than expected.
All 4 of my teammates connected within 3 minutes in and we won the game… but it was was one of those moments.
Connection… Problem?
