controversy

TorrentFreak reported that Blizzard has filed a lawsuit against Germany-based cheating company Bossland (a company that Blizzard also sued over World of Warcraft "buddy bots") for an Overwatch cheating tool called "Watchover Tyrant."

"Defendants' sale and distribution of the Bossland Hacks in the United States has caused Blizzard to lose millions or tens of millions of dollars in revenue, and to suffer irreparable damage to its goodwill and reputation," Blizzard said in its complaint.

"Moreover, by releasing 'Overwatch Cheat' just days after the release of Overwatch, Defendants are attempting to destroy or irreparably harm that game before it even has had a chance to fully flourish," it added.

"Defendants not only know that their conduct is unlawful, but they engage in that conduct with the deliberate intent to harm Blizzard and its business," the developer said. "Blizzard is entitled to monetary damages, injunctive and other equitable relief, and punitive damages against Defendants,” the complaint reads."

Get the rest of the story, and read up on the lawsuit over at TorrentFreak.

Let's be clear, he tried to explain it, but that doesn't make it not a really, really dumb idea. This YouTube star is getting a lot of flack for his "social experiment" video that involved, according to him, comparing "radical Islamic terrorism" and "radical Christian terrorism". What does that mean, you ask? Apparently it involves having your friend dress up in a real crappy costume and half-heartedly yelling mispronounced Arabic phrases at people before running away. 

Just... just watch it for yourself:



Obviously, most people HATED it. People in the comments of the original video and on Twitter called him out for his terrible judgment.  




via @fouseyTUBE, @jenna_70, @caroline243027, @TeamSuperUK

I guess 'vagina bones' is a term that's been hanging around since 2011-2012. Of course we've got a running Urban Dictionary definition of it as well...

“The crease present where the thigh meets the abdomen in physical fit females. Often enhanced by the pelvic bone.

‘That girl is wearing her pants so low that her vagina bones are showing.'”

Assistant game director Ion Hazzikostas responded to a forum thread about expensive vendor items, and actively tried to dismantle the widespread belief that there exists a feeling of consensus in a world as massive and diversified as WoW's. He wrote:

"If I’d instead posted that we were going to reconsider and massively reduce the prices of the cosmetic items on this vendor, there would be other people feeling like their feedback was ignored.

It’s exceptionally rare that everyone wants the same thing,” he added. “And even then, there is a large silent majority that does not post on forums. If there were actual unanimity regarding a certain issue, we would change our design: For example, early on in Warlords, we changed Group Finder loot from Personal back to Need/Greed until we could iterate on Personal loot further, and the community overwhelmingly told us that was a dumb idea. The change was reverted within 2 days.”

He wrapped up his response by honing in on the value of tailoring different kinds of content to different groups, as opposed to just issuing one 'low common denominator' that lacks any real excitement, for anyone.

“If an awesome mount comes exclusively from PvP, the majority of players who don’t participate in PvP yet desire the mount would prefer that it were otherwise,” Hazzikostas explained. “If our goal were to please a majority, we would likely have to make a version of that mount also available through raiding, and one also available through outdoor questing and reputation, at the very least. But doing that would dilute the reward itself. Ultimately, the approach we take is usually to tailor different content and rewards that can feel special to different groups, rather than trying to come up with a lowest common denominator that isn’t special to anyone.”

Looks like Riot finally swung that Ban Hammer. A statement released by Riot:

"Hey all,

Instant Feedback catches the most unsportsmanlike players in League, but some people go out of their way to continue ruining games for the community. Because of a well-documented history of account bans for verbal abuse, intentional feeding, as well as account sharing/purchasing, evasion of sportsmanship systems, and player harassment, we will not allow Tyler1 to hold a League of Legends account, indefinitely. Any account definitively used by him will be banned immediately upon identification.

We know we’re not perfect, and this dragged on too long, but we want you to know when the rare player comes along who’s a genuine jerk, we’ve still got your back."

World of Warcraft's Executive Producer J. Allen Brack released the following statement via Eurogamer, as a response to the Nostalrius server closure:

"Failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard's rights. While Blizzard had looked into the possibility of working with unofficial servers, there was not a clear legal path to protect Blizzard’s IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server.We wanted to let you know that we’ve been closely following the Nostalrius discussion and we appreciate your constructive thoughts and suggestions, added Brack. Our silence on this subject definitely doesn’t reflect our level of engagement and passion around this topic. We hear you. Many of us across Blizzard and the WoW Dev team have been passionate players ever since classic WoW. In fact, I personally work at Blizzard because of my love for classic WoW.

We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WOW.

Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”. In essence that would turn off all leveling acceleration including character transfers, heirloom gear, character boosts, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, WoW Token, and access to cross realm zones, as well as group finder. We aren’t sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community and it’s still an open topic of discussion.

In closing, Brack made reference to the 235,000 signatures for the petition to reinstate the server, saying: "They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks."

What do you make of all this?

In case you could go for a trip down memory lane, we've provided the original video that depicts the final few minutes leading up to the server shutdown:



You can also check out the compilation of screenshots depicting the original massive pilgrimage staged by players in response to the Nostalrius server shutdown, over here.