Slashdot Mirror
Entire Cities In World of Warcraft Dead, Hack Suspected
hypnosec writes "Entire cities in the World of Warcraft have been destroyed with no one spared, not even the NPCs. About 13:00 GMT, forums on WOW started getting the first comments from users regarding players and NPCs dying on the Ragnaros-EU realm in Orgrimmar. Users of the online game started reporting that Draenor had a similar sight to offer. Some of the other realms where this was reported include Tarren Mill, and Twisting Nether."
Also at Joystiq, and (with more screenshots) at WCCF Tech, which reports that "it appears the damage is most severe in World of Warcraft European servers."
sounds like a first world problem
And nothing of value was lost.
G A L A C T U S ! ! !
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
OH THE HORDEMANITY
This is horrible! Please tell us this won't affect Colleen Lachowicz's campaign for the Senate!
#DeleteChrome
That's not a game, that's a job, a very shitty one.
...of Warcraft.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
News for Nerds. Nothing that matters.
We must find the chosen one and deliver to him the Sword of a Thousand Truths.
did someone take the wrong pill...?
Let's just hope the Chosen Four will again rise, wielding the Sword of a Thousand Truths, to save the World of Warcraft!
...that they have a good backup system in place. I'd hate to face the wrath of *one* user who lost his character.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"I felt a great disturbance in the 'Craft, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were forced to come out of their parent's basement. I fear something productive has happend"
neeet! Not a fan of hackers, but if WoW had a way of doing this then sooner of later it would happen.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
worse than virtual pandemic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you're on /. and don't know what NPC is, or how to find out, you're probably not the target audience here.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Blizzard reports the exploit being used has been hotfixed.
I immediately thought of a funny comment, view the thread, and... no point really. So I do something even worse, comment about comments! - HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
It's not like they were alive to begin with,
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
If you're on /. and don't know what NPC is, or how to find out, you're probably not the target audience here.
If you're on /. and don't like answering peoples' questions, even when it would have taken you less time to type than the snide remark you chose, you're probably the target audience here.
Did anyone notice if a large bearded guy skipped thru the city? And will anyone band together and go into the forest to kill 1 hp creatures until they can level up to defeat the city slayer?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Seriously, how does Blizzard, with Warden watching the client PC, forget that the client and ANYTHING coming in from the outside internet is coming from a possible enemy. - HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
Goddamn you, Leroy!!!!! XD
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
It was a troll reply to a troll question... thus very much deserved.
Besides, I agree 100% that if you neither know what an NPC is nor how to look it up on Google or Wikipedia, the story is largely irrelevant to you. Then again I would even wonder why "news for nerds" is even interesting for somebody like that?
Apparently someone discovered a way to do an instant "kill everything" attack and published it. Enough players then used it to kill everything in entire cities. Management has announced that they are doing "rolling restarts" on each realm today. It's not clear if characters will be re-animated, or what.
Properly, once they fix the bug that allowed a "kill everything" attack, they should resolve the matter in-game. Send in disaster recovery crews with healers, security, carts to haul away the dead...
Non-player character. Basically the program-driven characters in the game. Usually vendors and quest givers. Back in the old days before all of the battlefields, we'd state impromptu raids on enemy cities and kill NPCs just for the fun of it. Of course, I was so low level I was just a spectator.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Yours was even more helpful to the OP. We're all such a loving bunch of helpful people here at /.
NPC means it's a character which doesn't take up any room in the basement, and is more productive.
Non-player Character. In modern terms, a "bot".
If a character is "dead", it lost all its hit points. Since this is an online game with massive amounts of mutlitudes of players participating simultaneously, if many tens or even hundreds of thousands of characters lose all their hit points at once, well... that's the equivalent of a small city. Yes?
There was an unexpected server reboot this morning when I was in the game. Hadn't seen any unusual deaths, but perhaps Blizzard was applying an emergency patch.
If you're on /. and don't know what NPC is, or how to find out, you're probably not the target audience here.
If you're on /. and don't like answering peoples' questions, even when it would have taken you less time to type than the snide remark you chose, you're probably the target audience here.
A little definition is in order. A stupid question is one you could easily answer yourself in less time than it would take to request hand-holding you don't really need. A stupid question is rude because it is effectively a claim that someone else's time is worth far less than your own, and therefore they should serve you (as if you are some kind of king) and do your own minor legwork for you. That is absurd. I notice you did not submit to it yourself -- you did not answer the question either -- so whether you like it or not, your actions are in agreement with me.
... they deserve the snide remarks they receive. When you consider he could have Googled "NPC" in less time than it took to ask a stupid question, the remark was actually rather polite.
Stupid questions from literate adults who obviously have Internet (thus Google) access
Sorry if you are too soft to recognize the good that comes from not lowering the standards to suit the intellectually lazy. Intellectual laziness and the choice to knowingly embrace helplessness are character flaws. They are not supposed to be validated. They don't deserve it.
Now then, go ahead and launch your personal attacks and invective. That's what those of your emotionally-goverened, offense-driven mentality usually do when the following two conditions have been met: a) they cannot formulate an effective counter-point, and b) they are too haughty to admit when a good point has been made.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
A guildie found this and posted it on the guild forums:
http://youtu.be/B_vCFKuXrQo
Jenkins
An NPC is a Non-Plussed Character. How the cities are dead is that they have become the very embodiment of destruction, eliminating the life force of any who were present. If a city is 'dead' it means about the same as when a party is 'dead' -- There's no one worth mentioning is in attendance. They people didn't lose their game characters, just their "alive" status -- They can now play a sub-game designed to teach the meaning of life-after-death and why one would rather be reincarnated. Yes, the story is aimed at gamers, that's why it says games.slashdot.org in your address bar.
Note: If you didn't already know what the story meant... WoW, just WoW. Why would you even care?
Seriously?
NPCs - Non-player characters
GMT - Greenwich Mean Time
WOW - World of Warcraft
EU - European Union
WCCF - The name of some tech site with an article about it
Except the last, which is linked, those are all extremely common acronyms... The various names are arbitrary, but even as someone who doesn't play WOW I found it trivial to recognize that they were proper place names from context (or server names, realms, etc.). As for not knowing anything about WOW (9 million subscribers, 12M at peak), that's like not knowing a single Broadway Theatre show (12M tickets), or a single book on the New York Times Bestseller's list (excluding huge sellers like Harry Potter or 50 Shades of Grey).
Yes, because now all those girlfriends and elderly mothers that make up the majority of the WoW player-base some eight years later are going to need something to occupy themselves and will likely be coming for all of us to entertain them and spend "quality time" with them. :)
I had to look up what a NPC was. I'm on Slashdot but I don't game, at all. Believe it or not, this is a diverse group of people.
Dark Age of Camelot.... FOREVAH!
Sounds like somebody is butt hurt
Sounds like a Charles Stross novel. Did someone rob a bank in the game, too?
That is awesome - a Non-Plussed Character. This would be like someone who wanders through the world, not giving a fig for anything that is going on, mooching about, generally being relaxed and at ease with all they see. What a great idea.
A stupid question is rude because it is effectively a claim that someone else's time is worth far less than your own, and therefore they should serve you
I think you're looking far too much into this.
so whether you like it or not, your actions are in agreement with me.
No, you can't tell other people what they believe. That said, he did not reply to the original poster's comment with an insult; he replied to the insult. The comment he replied to asked no such questions, so that doesn't even apply there.
After speculating that the person responsible must be a real badass, police have released this composite sketch of what they think the culprit looks like...
A Real Badass
This space unintentionally left blank.
People are dying. Have you no shame?
players affected will run around like morons for the next few hours while blizzard does a restore
Google Dic via context menu tells me it means " Nonproliferation Center." Curiously enough writing about this may make some posters MAD.
Is there a Keanu Reeves character in this WoW thing? Will he see a glitch in the matrix if the city is reborn, complete with fake history? Maybe one of us should enter the new cities, tell them their world is not real, and offer them some colored pills?
A four digit Slashdot poster is probably quite the catch.
In Role Playing Game (RPG) parlance, an NPC is a Non-Player Character. Anything beyond the scenery and objects that is not directly controlled by a player, in other words. A 'city' is just that - an in-game hub of sorts, which, I think, is usually represented by a dedicated server in online games. Or the other way round. *shrug*.
Whether or not there's any actual role-playing going on in these online games is a different matter.
Look, no SIG!
What is an NPC? How are 'cities dead'? Should everybody know what esoteric abbreviations and meanings are? If a city is dead, does it mean people lost their game characters or something (I really don't know anything about this game). Maybe a better summary is in order or is this story aimed at the gamers in that game only?
Apparently you haven't heard of Google either.
I agree. Stuff that's popular sucks, except when thinking stuff that's popular sucks becomes so popular that it sucks to think that, in which case thinking that stuff that's popular sucks sucks until that becomes popular, when...
-- Using the preview button since 2005
+1. I LOL'd. Would LOL again.
Agent Smith. He pulls this kind of shit every so often. Just wait until he finds a way to bring The Lawgiver to the "real" world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs :)
You'd better believe it!
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
YHBT YHL HAND
See what happens when you let technology go wild? Never should have let iron working into the game. Should have banned everything except magic and sorcery.
YHBT YHL HAND. I eat bacon.
Maybe someone tried this exploit: 'At Klaus's suggestion, (Hailey) kills Steve's amazing character by saying his name, Agathor, backwards.'
NPC means non-player character.
I didn't know what it means either and had to look it up. I thought I'd let you know rather than spend time tearing you down like the other posters. We can't know it all, and just because we used computers doesn't mean that we all know this stuff.
Am I the only one thinking that a nude bomb would have been a better hack?
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
LFM NPC at AH last ones got pwned
Counterpoint: I find it incredible that you are able to live in a society. People ask questions about everything and anything all of the time and most people don't have a problem with it. Maybe it's because they don't have Google readily available, maybe they are making conversation or maybe they just don't expect you to be a complete dick about something that would take a few seconds to answer and, on a forum, could potentially be beneficial to multiple people.
BTW, nice try with the preemptive, catch-all deflection. The problem is people like you.
WTF does knowing what the term NPC means or how to look it up have to do with losing a little man in a video game?
Hey, I resemble that remark.
Virtual people are dying. Have you virtually no shame?
Someone obviously detonated the Cataclyst :)
Yes, and the first link result from a google search for "What is an NPC?" goes to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-player_character
When I get asked inane questions like that at work, it is very hard not to provide a lmgtfy.com link where the exact same question is entered and answered. I do actually find it abhorrent and pathetic when people take the time to post questions like that when they are so easily answered by a quick search. More complex or open-ended questions are one thing, but asking for simple definitions is pretty lame.
It means that hordes of WoW players will emerge from their caves into direct sunlight. Some not having seen it for years. They will lay waste to the surface of the planet, nearly wiping out mankind as we know it. Humanity will be saved when administrators restore their systems, attracting these zombie-like creatures back underground where they will remain for eternity.
but teabagger is already taken.
Dude.. what the fuck?
Teabagging is a beautiful thing that should not be associated with such negativity. Do you know how much trust it takes to lower your balls into another person's mouth? It's a wonderfully giving act.
STFU.
Send in disaster recovery crews with healers, security, carts to haul away the dead..
Somewhere in a Realm of WoW:
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I'm getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I don't want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I feel fine.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
The Dead Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, when's your next round?
The Dead Collector: Thursday.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I think I'll go for a walk.
Large Man with Dead Body: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[the Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the Body with his a whack of his club]
Large Man with Dead Body: Ah, thank you very much.
The Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Large Man with Dead Body: Right.
-- Monty Python And The Holy Grail
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
I've read arguments like yours for decades. I'll summarize what you are doing :
- Some person is an asshole.
- Being an asshole, they need to have their ego stroked as they believe they are God's gift to mankind and everyone should know about this.
- This asshole has no family or friends or coworkers that can stand him, so he needs to find a way to stroke his own ego.
- Said asshole lurks in a online forum until somebody asks a "stupid question". All humans ask stupid questions, some stupider than others. This provides him an opportunity to join the discussion and argue.
- The asshole launches a lengthy rant about the impropriety of stupid questions, maybe even having the audacity to reinterpret the stupid question as a personal insult against himself.
- The asshole can now feel smug and intellectually superior as people respond to his iron-clad argument and fail to make a compelling case against it. This is where the masturbatory ego-stroking takes place.
Looking at your previous posts I can see you regularly do this, and chime in on discussions just to be a dick and add nothing of value to the conversation. It's entirely possible you have no interest in science or technology or "News for Nerds" at all; the actual topics at this site are largely irrelevant to you.
Of course you wouldn't post as AC to do this kind of trolling, because your history of posts are akin to viewing an extensive porn collection, and it allows you to stroke your ego over and over. It's important that you have rich history of shitting on other people, because these little "victories" as a whole give your life meaning.
This sort of reminds me of the Southpark episodes about WoW. Hilarious.
No the problem is that Capt. Dick up there was modded Insightful for claiming that it was a waste of time for him to answer a dumb question but seemed fine with writing a dissertation length poorly constructed reply filled with poorly reasoned arguments. The online world is full of stupidity, thought so get used to it.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Oh no, I wasn't addressing the beautiful act of scrotal sharing, but the teabagging liberals who want to change the world to match their "conservative" views.
Learn to love Alaska
Ohhhh. Well I can understand that. Unfortunate misunderstanding.
Carry on.
Yep. We were around pre-dot-bomb, building our bank roll when things were easy and now we get to sit back and smugly watch all you kids slit each other's throats for gigs we used to take for granted. :)
I believe that yours answer is the only one that is actually informative, while not condescending. Good, there are some people on this site who are not assholes after all.
For the record, whoever is replying as an AC with 'you have been trolled' remarks has nothing to do with me, I do not play almost any computer games except some simple stuff, like chess.
I didn't care to find out what NPC was by searching, because AFAIC the story summary should be more useful than what it was here.
Thanks.
(oh, and interestingly enough, I don't believe that it's possible to take a karma from 'positive' to 'terrible' with just -2 moderation, so somebody with editor controls is having fun I take it? Thus my second account).
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Was your account hacked? This doesn't seem like something you would write, as it did not in any way praise ron paul or demonize barack obama.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Unfortunately that’s not what “nonplussed” means, even though it really seems like it should. It means “perplexed, confused, befuddled.”
An NPC is definitely not a bot. Bots are PCs being controlled by macros and/or programs.
The most common bot you see is one that queues for PVP battleground, but then just targets another friendly player and follows them around to soak up participation/victory points.
More sophisticated ones fly around the world gathering resources by actually being programmed with the location of resource node spawns and enough logic to be able to determine if they're present, click on them if so, then move to the next.
I went outside today. Yes, the real, actual outside.
The graphics were amazing.
Storyline sucked, though.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I am not sure why this was /. newsworthy, but I'll play along.
After the events of Theramore and Jaina becoming their leader, I would have fully expected something like this to happen, with Jaina at the forefront of the battle.
She and about a hundred of the Kirin Tor teleport to a city.
They lay waste to everything in sight.
They teleport home and claim ignorance of the events.
People were saying they wanted a pre-expansion event like the undead plague. This makes up for it; just as annoying.
You know, to be sure.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Yeah, you have fun with that. I don't do fat chicks.
But GMILF is still OK, right?
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Because it is a waste of time for him to answer it. It is also detrimental to the website and the forum as a whole to encourage such questions because it dilutes any interesting post people may make.
Compare to any other website where people hold your hand asking stupid questions, you have to wade through copious amounts of stupid questions that far outnumber any post with value. That's what sets /. apart, but it seems that has been going down hill in recent times.
Yes the online world is full of stupidity, does that mean you should ignore it and let it take over your website and devalue it to the ground (and then let them move onto the next cool website with a intelligent community because their site has post of value and then run that one into the ground in a never ending cycle?).
Sure it would have been faster for him to answer 1 stupid question, but then another will pop up, then another. His lengthy post was an attempt to stop future stupid questions not only from the poster he replied to, but everyone else who reads it who is unaware. If that's being a dick then at least it is hard love in an attempt to make the original poster more willing to learn stuff for himself via research instead of getting people to hold his hand to google 'lfg'. But honestly he is completely right in saying that it implies the original poster doesn't value other people's time and expects them to answer the question for him when he could have simply googled it himself and found the answer faster himself without even waiting for someone to reply.
If you really don't know anything about the game in question, why do you care? If you want to know, here
If you knew English you would be able to tell by the context that "Orgrimmar" and "Draenor" are names of places in a fictional online world. Please go back to school.
Hey, if they wanted to be interesting about it, maybe they're doing an unannounced world event. You know, something coming up for Halloween. Maybe all the NPCs will come back as undead, disrupting the world economy temporarily, and this was entirely intended as something to breathe life into the game again. Suddenly all the players in the area need to work together if they want to reverse whatever happened and NO FUCK IT LET'S JUST ADD PANDAS INSTEAD THAT'S INTERESTING ENOUGH
If you have nothing nice to say, seriously consider just saying nothing at all.
Well, as insightful as you appear to be, I have perused your posting history, Mr Anonymous Coward, and you have far more serious problems.
Compare to any other website where people hold your hand asking stupid questions, you have to wade through copious amounts of stupid questions that far outnumber any post with value.
I've been on boards where the community happily answers stupid questions, and on other boards where they yell about "USE THE SEARCH NOOB!"
I have seen no difference in the number of stupid questions at all. The only difference I have seen is that on the former there tends to be more useful information. Those boards are also much nicer places to "hang out".
My second account, since the first one you are replying to cannot be used for a while.
--
1. I don't play computer games except for chess maybe, an occasional game of Tetris.
2. This story is as much about some game as it is about a few other things, maybe you don't understand the concept of different perspectives, but not everybody has a one track mind.
This story is about a hack. This story is about some people losing something, maybe it's valuable, it's possible there is even monetary value attached to it, after all, people spend time, which a form of investment to build their 'cities' or whatever in that game.
Given the fact that there are many ways to look at it, and I didn't mention all of them, a better summary is in order.
As to various comments implying that I should google for it, no, I shouldn't. This info can be in a summary and I can expect to be able to understand what's in the summary without having to resort to search engines. If I cannot, then I can leave a comment saying that it's unreadable by people without specific knowledge on some terms.
Finally, you wouldn't know a 'target audience', if it was staring you in the face.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
I replied to a comment similar to yours, here, let me link to that reply for you.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
OP here from my second account, here is the reply to your useless comment.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
me thinks china is sent a message....
some people laugh at the characters in Big Bang Theory, others find them to be dreary reminders of too many people they know, and completely non-funny.
I find that Let Me Google That For You is a good website for responding to this sort of stupid question. It simultaneously provides them with the answer, shows them how easy it would be to look it up themselves, and shames and insults them for being unable or unwilling to do so. For example.
Great. So now that we know what NPC is, you had to bring up this "LOL" mention without even a smidgen of a hint as to what THAT might be.
The Google Dictionary Chrome extension and a right click is usually the level of commitment I put into these matters, unless it's something I'm really engaged in. I just thought it odd that it would return something in connection with nuclear weapons for me while I'm parsing some nerdy flamewar.
I remember NPCs from DandD; nice to see the term still kicking around. Yes, I'm that uninformed about online gaming.
Of course there are other factors, such as how big the site is.
Take this very wow story for example, scroll down all the post and rate what percentage of them are worth reading. Then go to reddit for example and find the same story (and the same story has been posted there multiple times mind you). Look at both the quantity and quality of the post there and compare.
Over there if you didn't post within the first hour or so of the post being published (and as opposed to being classified as hot) your comments will be instantly drowned out by the circle jerk of the same mundane comments over and over. Anyone with something interesting to add will most likely not be even seen simply because they weren't there to reply within and hour of the post being published. Sure their voting system of up/down-votes is intended to be 'for post that add discussion' (and thus redundant/duplicate post should be filtered out), but they don't enforce that. It ends up being 'oh i up-voted you because i agree with your opinion, I down-voted the other guy because I didn't like his controversial opinion.)
You can argue that the voting system on /. would do the same thing and you would be right. But who would want to wade through a huge amount of 0 score post to single out informative ones to boost up it's score, in addition to the fact that those voting points are a limited commodity in the first place.
The main reason /. is good is because it does a good job of filtering out low value comments. That includes encouraging the community not to make them (specifically low value comments). That way there is less reading needed to get all the good info relating to an article and thus you can read more articles in the limited time you have.
Final point is this is how the /. forums operates (other's are free to correct me if I'm wrong, I wont pretend to speak for the community as I only frequent the site every now and then.) The simplest fact is if you don't like it, then /.is not your target audience, and you are free to go to a different website to ask your mundane questions in whatever environment you choose. But there is a reason to like /. more than other sites. It's because it provides great information in the post that isn't as diluted, so it makes little sense to come because of that reason, then proceed to spoil what makes it good. But as I was saying, thats been going down hill from what little I've seen as of late.
It's now what he asked, it's how he asked it. It relates to an article here a few weeks ago about how rude people are online. We see it here all the time; one of my favourites is when someone disagrees with a statement and they say "Wrong. blah blah blah". Maybe it's because I'm Canadian, but to me that's a very rude way to respond, even when someone has their facts wrong. Again, it's not what you're saying, but how you're saying it that gets people's back up.
in WoW and expediently started to crush some orc and troll skulls.
What isn't valuable to you might be to someone else and vice versa and really what would be the point of a public forum if you start censoring people. You want a searchable repository of knowledge? Go start a wiki.
Interaction with other humans is greatly underrated by intolerant nerds who think we should replace it with Google searches. There's absolutely no reason why you should first look for things in Google instead of asking them in a forum, other than your personal opinion that it's the right thing to do.
Ignoring the question, or replying to it would've been far more tolerant ways to react to the post.
You sound like a robot, man. Chill out.
diegoT
like those in Undercity?
Well, next time there is an article about "computers" we'll be sure to explain what those are in the summary for you then.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Blizzard has acknowledged the hack and hotfixed the in-game exploit.
It was the only way to be sure,
Huh?
So it's almost exactly like "bemused", both in the definition and in the tendency of people to think it means something other than what it does.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
You could extrapolate that from context. But not knowing what an "NPC" is on a site subtitled "News for nerds" (exactly the type of person who would play an RPG) is kind of inexcusable.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Who cares its just horde citys...
Need I draw your attention to the Diablo III hacks, widely understood to be the result of information leakage from the clients in an open game and the server's failure to verify that the session ID provided by a client was actually issued to that client in the first place?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Been on slashdot for well over a decade and have played RPG's for longer than that (including WoW before it was an intenet only game), I have no idea what NPC stands for.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I just thought it odd that it would return something in connection with nuclear weapons for me while I'm parsing some nerdy flamewar.
It's probably the only other subject where phrases like "entire cities dead" feature prominently.
Visit the
what the fuck does WTF mean?
rewriting history since 2109
What the fuck is an AC? Air conditioning? Fucking acronyms! Don't tell me to google it you assholes! wah wah
Non-Player Character. How anyone can play RPGs and not know that I'm not sure.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
With that said, I'm going to put a pair of thongs on my feet to go down the road and munch on a couple of pasties.
What, strippers wear their thongs where? Ah, you call the things on the feet flip-flops or something. And why do they have baked goods on their nipples? Oh to hide them - but wait, why are you losers paying money to see strippers that show off less than you can see down at the local beach?
Look, how many times do we have to say it, do not use the generic knockoff of G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate.
I'll have you know that dwarf jokes are NPC!
I said - don't look Ethel!..., but it was too late..., she'd already looked.
but in REALITY, that's probably what Galactus would look like without any real power!!
nye-nye-ne-ne-nye
Somewhere a fat guy slowly takes a Dorito out of the bag and deliberately crunches it, while continuing to click on his keyboard with his other hand.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If you're on /. and don't know what NPC is, or how to find out, you're probably not the target audience here.
Stupid questions from literate adults who obviously have Internet (thus Google) access ... they deserve the snide remarks they receive.
There is never any excuse for snide remarks, that is just lack of maturity. And since Google has all the answers to everything, then by your logic all questions are stupid since they can all be answered on Google. Therefore all questions deserve snide responses. There is another point to asking oversimple quesiton which you have clearly missed. And that is to send a message to the editors. ie I didn't know what NPC meant either. I Googled it and found out, however I still would've posted the question (if it hadn't been already) as rhetoric to the editors that sometimes you need to not assume that everyone knows everything.
Yep. We were around pre-dot-bomb, building our bank roll when things were easy and now we get to sit back and smugly watch all you kids slit each other's throats for gigs we used to take for granted. :)
Hey grandpa, at least us n00bs can remember our login information.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Us six digit guys are pretty hot too,.
Been on slashdot for well over a decade and have played RPG's for longer than that (including WoW before it was an intenet only game), I have no idea what NPC stands for.
I know for sure the term was used at least as far back as AD&D 2e P&P. Perhaps back further. So are you trolling, ESL, don't RTFM, not as experienced as you claim, or what?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
What the fuck is an AC? Air conditioning? Fucking acronyms! Don't tell me to google it you assholes! wah wah
It has to do with magnets. And how they work.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
How do you kill that which has no life?
You post a lot of that ultra-insane libertard drivel that ends up being moderated to -1, because it's so inane that people can't possibly believe that you're serious and not trolling. No surprise then that your karma is in the shitter. The system is working exactly as it should.
There's absolutely no reason why you should first look for things in Google instead of asking them in a forum, other than your personal opinion that it's the right thing to do.
Actually, there is. The original poster is clearly at some sort of computing device. It is faster and easier for that person to look it up themselves rather than post on /. and then periodically check back in hoping that someone has answered their question.
Unless the person is trying to start some sort of conversation (which seems unlikely) then taking a simple straightforward question that is easily answered via Google and asking it on a web forum seems like a huge waste of time as well as intellectual laziness.
An NPC is definitely not a bot. Bots are PCs being controlled by macros and/or programs.
Well that depends on your definition of "Bot", if you chose to take the narrow view that a Bot is only a hacked computer that's part of a bot network, then yeah, you're right. But if take the more general definition of Bot (as in "short for robot"), then an NPC is a Bot.
Bots have been around on the internet much longer than Wow, as have NPCs.
Computer players have been called bots at least since Unreal and possibly before that too.
Who knows? I just repeat what I see in order to try and fit in.
Warrior 1: Somebody set up us the bomb.
NPC: Main screen turn on.
Hacker: All your city are belong to us.
Hacker: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Warrior 2: Move 'ZIG'.
Warrior 2: For great justice.
Ho Hum, the more things change, the more they remain the same.....
WoW before it was an intenet only game
should be a dead giveaway....
bickerdyke
You are an asshole, that's your problem. The kind of person that needs to be punched in the kisser repeatedly day after day until they learn to shut the fuck up. That's what I understand from this story and the thread. Again, when posting a story about esoteric stuff that applies to a tiny, irrelevant percentage of people, the summary should be made useful, which means it should be useful to a wider audience than just those who are actually interested in that thing, and this includes providing full names, maybe followed by abbreviations.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Yes, yes it does.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
And nothing of value was lost
What happened to Tradewars?
How do you play a rocket propelled grenade? I can sort of imagine playing the launcher as a didgeridoo, but not the grenade itself ...
How do you play a rocket propelled grenade?
I have no problems playing RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) and NPGs (non-propelled grenades).
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Generally speaking, in my gaming experience:
NPCs are computer controlled entities with a limited set of abilities, usually scripted. Mobs are a subset of this, the (fuzzy) distinction being that NPCs are generally passive to the player, whereas mobs can be hostile (often their only purpose).
Bots are computer controlled players; they can do everything a normal player can do (subject to AI limitations), and play the same role in-game as a normal player.
No it's those damn Democrats slaughtering entire villages with their evil socialist powers.
Ever notice how newspapers will refer to someone as "Prime Minister David Cameron" or in an article about Tom Cruise, manage to slip in "The Top Gun actor said today...", despite these things being very common knowledge? It's just good journalistic style to include these things. Yes, Googling (if that can give you an easily-recognisable-as-correct answer, which is not always the case) would have been preferable to asking, but he shouldn't have had to ask in the first place. Yes, I know, this is Slashdot, News for Nerds and all that, but us nerds aren't some homogenous mass with a hive mind. Maybe there should be an entrance exam before you're allowed a login.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's a percussion instrument. You hit it with a hammer and it makes a booming sound.
While not "important" in terms of perhaps feeding and housing a population, WoW is probably "just as important" as the sports games you crave, or the concerts you go to, or the television channel you watch. None of which I give a shit about. Perhaps the point I am trying to make is that WoW is an activity that several million people participate in every day. While you or I might not, I'm quite sure that several million people do, actually, give a shit. If you argue that it's "not important", I can argue that it's as important as anything else is. Because at the end of the day, we're all dead, we're all specks of dust floating in an endless universe. There is nothing on this planet that is "important". It just depends on your perspective.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
duh
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/cia-wikileaks-task-force-_n_800222.html
Don't make a joke on facebook in the UK about it, you might get arrested.
World Trade Federation.
This is what happens when Chuck Norris creates a WoW account...
here's a clue, for the utterly clueless
I don't believe that it's possible to take a karma from 'positive' to 'terrible' with just -2 moderation, so somebody with editor controls is having fun I take it?
Your karma was recently terrible on your "first" account, as a result of a trolling orgy you went on recently. It took you a while to get it back up, and likely sat on a hair trigger, as a result of
So as other people have said, the system worked as it is supposed to. Highly unlikely that someone was intentionally "having fun" with your account. Much more likely, you did this to yourself.
Thus my second account
How many more are there? If your second account achieves the karma it deserves what will you do then?
Seems like Richard, our friendly warlock from Looking For Group has paid a visit to WoW.
http://lfgcomic.com
"That which is dead can never die."
Maybe the Ironborn invaded?
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
It means what the fuck.
I met a WOW player once. I thought it was interesting and tried to catch it in my pokéball.
But it was angry, short tempered, had an ego complex like nothing I've seen except in some FPS players so I just left it and it's translucent skin to slip back into the shadows and commit to offering a bare minimum to society.
-- David
Interaction with other humans is greatly underrated by intolerant nerds who think we should replace it with Google searches. There's absolutely no reason why you should first look for things in Google instead of asking them in a forum, other than your personal opinion that it's the right thing to do.
How about because it's a waste of everyone's fucking time? I'm sorry that your time is so useless that you feel replying to a post of some dumbass asking the defintion of NPC is a good use of it.
Uh, you didn't get the point at all. It drags the whole discussion down and consumes a finite resource of patient responses long before any intelligent questions are asked. Is that what you most enjoy? Next you'll be telling us there's no reason not to piss in a public swimming pool other than the opinions of others who swim in the same water.
It's not nearly so much of an opinion as you make it out: it's a personal value concerning how the world works and effective use of our limited resource to combat the seemingly infinite stupidity of humans in groups. Belief in human freedom is not an opinion, it's a value, and values are often quite substantive, well considered, and integrated with a larger world view. Opinions can be any old bullshit.
But I agree, he continued to harangue pedantically until he sounded a bit robotic. Nevertheless, his value has social merit and yours is slack-ass lazy.
stupid question
There are none. Instead, there's plenty of inquisitive idiots.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Slashdot is not a community of the general public. We assume a certain level of shared understanding regarding computers, technology, gaming, etc. You fall outside that community in at least one area. You don't go to photography sites and ask "What does ISO stand for in this article? Why don't you define it when using it in article summaries?" do you?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
It was supposed to wait until 12/21
for crying out loud
I already defined you for what you are, so don't bother. /. is not a community in the first place, it's a forum, and unless there was a test to register in the forum, which asked specific questions, one of which was: do you waste time by playing with computer dolls, then there is no criteria by which you can define /. participants. There are in fact people here from all walks of life, from chemists, to physicists, to engineers, to managers, to CEOs, to musicians, to 15 y.o. girls (probably 1 or 2).
There isn't even a 'shared level of understanding regarding computers' here, technology is not only computers and gaming has nothing to do with understanding.
You know what I expect of /.? A minimum level of rationality and tolerance to others, that's all. AFAIC you lack both.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
You know what I expect of /.? A minimum level of rationality and tolerance to others, that's all
then what the fuck are you doing here? you are as rational as a brick wall and as tolerant towards others as a crocodile that's been poked too many times. you use this place as a forum for expressing your religious views and shoving your theology down the throats of everyone who will listen, then you bitch and whine (and start sock puppet accounts) when you get modded down for your offtopic and trolling writings.
Lots of Love
Allow me to define what you are: troll. That's why your "other account" is unusable due to mod points.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Been on slashdot for well over a decade and have played RPG's for longer than that (including WoW before it was an intenet only game), I have no idea what NPC stands for.
You played WoW, an MMRPG, before it was an internet only game? That is an interesting claim.
No, YOU are an entitled helpless reliant histrionic asshole. Go ask somebody to stroke you.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
I agree. What if half of the football stadiums burned down from a serial arsonist. Almost the whole, freaking country would loose their minds. And I would be sitting comfortably telling them, "It's just a game. It doesn't matter and is not really important to life in general".
your personal opinion that it's the right thing to do.
No, it's objectively the best thing to do.
Ignoring the question, or replying to it would've been far more tolerant ways to react to the post.
Explain to me why it is good for the society to keep enabling, supporting or even tolerating the retarded part thereof?
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Nonsense. My first account is unusable because /. is in fact full of your kind of people, intolerant, unintelligent, unable to maintain a conversation based on ideas rather than personalities.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
There is never any excuse for snide remarks, that is just lack of maturity.
I agree that there's no excuse for them because none is required. It's lack of maturity to be offended by them.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
The "prime minister" is a matter of etiquette, renderin unto Caesar etc. The "Top Gun actor" is avoidance of repetition (it plays the role of a pronoun) with style. Informativeness is not a goal here.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Bah! Some can't even understand the dictionary definition when given!
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Lots of love. As in "Grandpa died, LOL."
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
My first account is unusable because /. is in fact full of your kind of people, intolerant, unintelligent, unable to maintain a conversation based on ideas rather than personalities.
First of all the "your kind of people" argument is bullshit. People of political persuasions similar to your own are extremely common on slashdot, unless a large number of them are actually additional sock puppets of yours.
However, even more so, the intolerant argument wreaks of hypocrisy. I challenge you to show even one example where you were tolerant of someone of a religious persuasion different than your own. I will tell you right now that you will fail this challenge, because no such example exists. You are repeatedly trying to force people into your religion by insulting them and displaying your favorite mantras, regardless of whether they apply to the situation or are in any remote way supported by anything that any reasonable person would ever qualify as a fact.
You sir, are a troll. Even people who agree with your political positions don't like to talk with you because of the arrogance in your conversation that makes the entire cause look bad.
It's a percussion instrument. You hit it with a hammer and it makes a booming sound.
actually it's electronic and it makes a beeping sound and prevents you from expressing your ***BEEP*** self. ***BEEP*** It!! See!
Wall of text crits you for 500,000. You die.
It's funny that you say 'oh you want something different? Go to a different website!' when the whole thing that started it all was 'oh if mundane answers are what you're after then you're not /.'s target audience.'
It use to be /., news for nerds, stuff that matters. Not /. we'll be the proxies to Google stuff for you.
Would you seriously come to this website if all the post were 'hey I like your sites intellectual style, but I don't know what an npc is please tell me so I can wait longer for the answer than just using Google myself for the sake of conversation'' multiplied by 100 such questions for every article? If thats truly what you want, then I'll reiterate what has been said. You are not /.'s target audience, why would you insist /. change to be what you want it to be instead of going to a different website that better caters to your needs?
Granted this particular article is about a game so more post will be modded funny, but look at the informative ranked post. If you're interested in this story you'd be interested in the info there, since it adds information that matters that is missing such as 'you're char is only temporarily killed' and other instances in the game that's happened in the past that may have interest to you, what might have been the cause (and it's not uniformed guessing) and the fact that Blizzard has announced a hotfix. Also these types of post are generally not replies to questions. They are info someone who read it thought 'yeah I'll add this to the discussion because I feel it is missing and adds value' How many post would you have to wade through to get to that on other sites, let alone trust it's validity (as most other sites don't care about sources)? Now consider that this article is about a game, the site is more focused on tech and high level science articles (well use to be anyway).
Besides, I agree 100% that if you neither know what an NPC is nor how to look it up on Google or Wikipedia, the story is largely irrelevant to you. Then again I would even wonder why "news for nerds" is even interesting for somebody like that?
Yes, no true nerd would admit to not being obsessed with WoW.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I try to catch them but they're often interdiction/nullified and there's not much point.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Computers are news for nerds. A virtual world time sink for losers isn't.
I am a grown man. I work a real job, have real responsibilities and seek scientific knowledge. I don't have time for children's entertainment BS. Perhaps one day, when you are older, you'll have real ambitions and responsibilities of your own and then you'll be able to comprehend.
The "prime minister" is a matter of etiquette, renderin unto Caesar etc. The "Top Gun actor" is avoidance of repetition (it plays the role of a pronoun) with style. Informativeness is not a goal here.
No, it is always worth saying "Prime Minister David Cameron" in the same way you would say "Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt" "Chancellor George Osborne" or whatever.
Most people who aren't political wonks would not know at once that (making this up) when you referred to "John Johnson" you actually meant "the Green Party Candidate for Nuneaton in the 1979 general election". Even with current political figures, I bet if you asked most people in the UK who the current Shadow Secretary for the Environment was, they wouldn't know. (I certainly wouldn't).
Saying "the Top Gun actor" is a useful reminder that Tom Cruise did actually make popular films at one point, and is not just a crazed religious idiot.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A bad example on my part. You do also get it in the opening form "Top Gun actor Tom Cruise..." or "Chelsea midfielder Juan Mata" in the sports pages, despite it being a fairly good assumption that most people really interested in reading said sports pages would already know who he is.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Hey, I resent that remark.
As if you could look like a remark. It has 6 characters you know!
I agree. What if half of the football stadiums burned down from a serial arsonist. Almost the whole, freaking country would loose their minds. And I would be sitting comfortably telling them, "It's just a game. It doesn't matter and is not really important to life in general".
There's a huge difference! What you propose involves the actual loss of billions of dollars in property investment and a major impact on the sport in the US for some years due to loss of venues. What happened on WoW will require some overtime from the admin team to fix, resecure, and restore to pristine state from backups over a fairly short period of time.
So to better respond to the WoW hack: "Who cares, it's just an online game that they can restore from backups before you know it."
We differ with some very valid points, so it's not objective, sorry.
Because what you're calling retarded is human interaction. You might not enjoy it, but others do, and even more in times when face to face interaction is being replaced by forums, chat rooms, etc.
Also even assuming someone makes a stupid question, being aggressive our ironic about it is not the right kind of behaviour. The same message can be delivered without those elements.
diegoT
So Bush's Weapons of Mass Destruction have been found.
Dude, you just need to stop and end the trolling by these dweebs. You're obviously at a different intellectual level. You might as well be a kindergartner teacher trying to reason with its students.
You are being trolled. Rational people agree with you. You are forgetting that this is the only other rational person that happened to read this and bothered to reply.
Downmod this fucking troll fagget. GOes against group think. Does not belong here. He's anti-American, too. And black.
I'm thinking Trolling
I stand corrected. Forget what I said!
We differ with some very valid points, so it's not objective, sorry.
Now, now. Your assumption of validity is subjective, sorry. It's objectively better, because it's optimal: energy efficient, time efficient, transparent and pragmatic. And makes one look clever rather than dependent. Self-reliance FTW.
The same message can be delivered without those elements.
Nope. Irony, sarcasm, even vitriol is an implicit part of the message. It is intended (rational) rather than inadvertent (emotional).
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
. . . . the only way to win is not to play.
Did all the players and NPCs get resurrected as zombies?
If that's being a dick then at least it is hard love
Pun intended?
Hehe, until the next hurricane and we had no place to house all those refugees....
Funnier, than when the disease exploit hit.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Dude. Why even reply? Is it your 24/7 job to police the asking of stupid questions? Just let the deafening silence speak for itself.
Once again, you're assuming others share your viewpoint that less human interaction is better. Google searches don't make you a better person. Being kind with replies does make you a better person.
Still, it doesn't add anything good to the message, unless of course you're trying to transmit aggressiveness.
diegoT
Don't make a joke on facebook in the UK about it, you might get arrested.
I find your comment grossly offensive! It is causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety! Take yourself off down the nick, there's a good chap.
Give a shit!
I agree. What if half of the football stadiums burned down from a serial arsonist. Almost the whole, freaking country would loose their minds. And I would be sitting comfortably telling them, "It's just a game. It doesn't matter and is not really important to life in general".
Mob standing for Mobile Object I believe, indicates a major difference between NPCs and Mobs: NPCs are usually static in most MMOs. Sometimes they move or appear in multiple places based on the progress of a quest but generally speaking they don't move.
Mobs are usually things you encounter as you move through the world, they move about even if its just inside a specific area or within range of some centre point.
In most MMOs your gameplay often consists largely of talking to an NPC, getting a quest or mission, going to some other location, having to defeat various Mobs en route, looting some object or defeating some major Boss (a tough type of Mob to defeat), then returning to the original NPC to report your progress and receive a reward. Sometimes these can be strung together into a series of quests in which completing each stage sends you to a new NPC to get the instructions for the next stage etc.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
"How can you kill that which has no life?"
... Yeah! Six digits FTW!! ... uh, where's my coffee? I left it around here somewhere.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Yes, no true nerd *under the age of 30* would admit to not being obsessed with WoW.
There, FTFY.
Young whippersnappers. I used to play Adventure when it was one great huge FORTRAN loop with gotos between rooms. And Startrek when it involved printing out the short range and long range scans on the paper in your DECwriter - at 300 BPS. I got bored with games (prefer writing to playing) long before WoW. Last game I wrote (actually modified) was converting Asteroids to four dimensions on with planets and gravity. I recently found the printout I saved of the original source (in Tek 4052 BASIC). I'm thinking of rewriting it in PHP, just to see if I can. ;) Then maybe Erlang ...
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
NPC means it's a character which doesn't take up any room in the basement, and is more productive.
+1 Funny! :D
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/