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Maybe the death of WOW???
dougmysticey
Member Posts: 1,176
So there are lots of threads about which game will be the WOW killer and I think we all agree, for the most part, there won't be one.
Could it be though that it is WOW account hackers and Phishers that will bring down the mighty MMO giant? I am getting spammed like crazy and getting notices of changes to my, now unused, WOW account. It is getting so bad for me that at least on a weekly basis I am forwarding a new one of these to WOW support to try and help them stop the bleeding.
I have not played in about a year and based on this stuff I won't be. Think about all those people that have responded to these thinking they are legit only to find they are not. The questions start to rise about CC info and other personal info gathered by Blizzard.
If this continues to escelate could it be the things that kills this giant of a game, just as they are readying for the big expansion? I hope not, I hate for any MMO to get nailed and want them all to be raving successes. If Blizzard does not solve this though.....who knows.
Comments
I get phishing emails from several MMO's, not just WoW.
It's really a shame what the MMO communities have become. Make no mistake, the people that are hacking and stealing stuff to sell for gold are players. Part of our community.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Really? Which other ones? I at least try most MMOs and the only one that I have gotten spammed by Phishers and hackers so far is WOW.
I would be curious to know what other MMOs suffer from this.
Neh, phishing and hackers wont kill WoW. That being said it would be nice to see the problem become so big that it makes it to real life News, which would force Blizzard to make changes to their security measures.
The WoW hackers have gotten pretty brazen and sophisticated. I was in Stormwind a few days ago and hacker was using a fly hack to animate about 30 level 1 warlocks in mid air. The characters would fly around and spell out ads for a gold selling website. They have been spelling stuff out on the ground for ages but this was the first time I'd seen it in mid air.
This.
I am currently playing Aion and was recently looking for a new guild.
I contacted more than 10 possible guilds asking if it was a problem if I bought gold openly. Only one of the prospective guilds said I would be asked to leave.
Most of them said it's okay, lots of the people here buy gold.
I actually agree with the OP. I fear that cheating in all its guises could eventually be the death of online gaming. I hope not, but would not be surprised.
I get Aion emails every other day as well. Just flag the entire bunch of emails as junk/spam to get rid of it . Always look at the full headers of the email to ascertain if it comes from Blizzard/any other company if you are unsure. Typically false email are using hotmail or gmail accounts. Quite often there's a small"typo" in the address they use for Blizzard as well.
As for the question if this will be WoW's undoing.The only thing that can kill WoW is the on/off switch of the servers when Blizzard decides it's been enough and they shutdown those machines .
[quote]This.
I am currently playing Aion and was recently looking for a new guild.
I contacted more than 10 possible guilds asking if it was a problem if I bought gold openly. Only one of the prospective guilds said I would be asked to leave.
Most of them said it's okay, lots of the people here buy gold.
I actually agree with the OP. I fear that cheating in all its guises could eventually be the death of online gaming. I hope not, but would not be surprised.
[/quote]
that is due to Aion's design as well though. It practically invites goldbuying/selling and botting . To combat this practice effectively you'd first have to take away a large chunk of the incentive to buy gold . Just mass banning accounts will never work because you're not tackling the underlying cause of the practice then . Aion devs have refused to do that for a very long time even though betatesters ( including yours truly ) were warning them it would be botheaven . They only started to make changes after a lot of folks had already quit the game in disgust .
It is very common with Aion.
Even though most viruses/trojans/worms are coded for computers running with Windows, Microsoft still has a clear lead over operating systems.
World of Warcraft is only a target because it is a leader (and by a long shot mind you) in popularity.
Oh and doomsayers have been pointing out WoW-killers one game after another since 2003 :-)
Whatever game has a large population will be targeted by hackers and gold sellers. The more players they have the more they will be targeted.
the only thing that can kill WoW, is WoW itself. I know when they brought out that spectral mount and made over $2million in the space of 72 hours i think it was, that i wondered if this was a attempt to test out a cash shop for in the future, well if it was then it succeeded massively. I also think that if they don't continue to do updates to content, especially raid content that there subscription numbers will fall off as well.
Bottom line, the only thing that can kill WoW is WoW itself in the form of an implosion lol
You're posting about something that is not new to MMOs, nor new to WoW. As was said, whenever something is intensely popular, it will become targeted. Windows itself is highly targeted due to having a large market share.
I don't understand how spam email from suspicious sources has an effect on how gamers enjoy WoW. The only thing to kill WoW is Blizzard.
I'd say that WoW would have to work pretty hard at self-destruction to actually achieve it.
I think the bigger adversary is simply time. All things must pass.
Eh... I have had my account since the game has been started as well as using a friends account and I have never had a problem with this so called "hacking".... I dont even get phishing emails. I have used 3 party programs out the wazoo and still havent had any problems.... I know some people get it really stragely and I wouldnt call them stupid or naive but *shrug* maybe it is a blizz problem.
I get ones for Aion and WoW pop up in my junk box every once in awhile, just last week being the most recent, and other than a week when WoW released I don't play either game lol. Makes me wonder hwo they got my email..
Coming from someone who didn't like the game very much, I still find this "WoW-killer" topic in general kind of silly. The only thing that will cause such a popular game to "die" is when the servers finally go offline, which will have to happen some day, but even then there will still be plenty of private servers up and running for years to come, so it will never actually die.
It's the game of choice for many, they enjoy and love it, when people are so pationate about something it will always be around, and no one game, spammers, hackers, or anything could change that. Wish some people would just accept that and let it be, they are just hating for the sake of hating (not talking about this thread exactly, but the topic in general).
Why would anyone not play a Blizzard game just because it gets more account hackers, which is ONLY because of the game's population/popularity? I don't blame Blizzard I blame the scumbags with no moral grounding who do this stuff and think its "ok". The greedy bastards who let the love of money run their lives.
Only time will kill WoW. The word "kill" is also very subjective.... I doubt WoW will ever completely die, at least not within the next 10 years. Look at EQ and UO, people still play those, even if the populations are small.
As for games... I think the only MMO that could seriously effect WoW's population will be the next Blizzard MMO. Though that is just speculation, and if Blizzard is smart, they might just target a different audience. They could then pull an SOE and make a bundle sub for like $20 / month and you get subs for both games... and WoW would live on even longer.
In the entertainment industry, that possibility that a David vs Goliath event could ever occur is inconceivable. Oh, and for those of you who couldn't figure it out... WoW is Goliath, and hes got David jelly between his toes.
I played WoW for over three years only to lose my battle.net account during the merger to a authenticator hack.
The fear of that happening again after putting so much time in a game almost had me not buy Blizzards SC2 game.
If it wasn't for the speedy customer service and my accounts return i would have never gotten to play this amazing rts.
I can see why people are worried and the hacking could hurt sales.
Hackers are some smart messed up pieces of shit. Blizzard is very popular and these guys make quite a bit of money to hack accounts and sell gold with them.
It sucks that gamers need to worry about crap like this.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
why does everyone think every time the universe queefs a game has to die.
Well, we need SOMETHING to offer up as the sacrificial lamb so that the universal queef will retreat before everyone dies from the stench.
The only thing thats going to kill WoW is going to be WoW 2... or maybe Starcraft Universe (if that ever happens) ... There have been scammers spammers and hackers since WoW started and it ain't dead yet. The spammers aren't nearly as bad as they were in the hay day of whisper spam. I had to play DnD most of the time just to keep it at bay.
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It isn't going to be the death of wow, maybe just make it more money off of compromised accounts. Some people I know didn't even bother to try to get their account back, they let the people take it, and just bought a new one because they didn't know how to deal with blizzard support. It won't die by this or any other means unless WoW 2 comes out, or blizzard shuts down the game.
I saw that last week on Malorne. I didn't know what it was until I saw it spell the website. I'd never seen anything like it before.