The story on the BBC… (it finally hit mainstream news this week), but the REALLY interesting quote I think is this:

Research by security firm Symantec suggests that the raw value of a WoW account is now higher than a credit card and its associated verification data.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Cursor hackers target WoW players

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So, it’s going to take as long to level between 60-70 in The Burning Crusade as it does from 1-60? Apparently that statement, being bandied about World of Warcraft forums and in-game chat was a little off the mark, as one server in Europe already has a level 70 character. A gnome mage by the name of Gawell of the Millenium guild on Europe’s Archimonde server hit level new level cap a mere 28 hours after the expansion launched. A Frenchman, the player and his guild planned out the leveling rush step by step, rotating party members in and out based on where and what they were fighting.

There’s an interview up with the player on the World of Raids forums, where he goes into a little detail regarding the planning behind the accomplishment. While at first I was ready to jump on the “he has no life” bandwagon, the more I think about it the more I admire the planning and dedication the 40 man guild put into the project. Michael Fahey

First Level 70 WoW Character - Kotaku

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“Three Mages form a PuG only to discover they share the ‘follow yonder star and drop off phat l00t’ quest.”

Terra Nova: |\| 4 + ! \/ 1 7 ‘/ Sillyness

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Originally I found the story on Terra Nova. Crazy man. Crazy.

Reports are coming in from the field - ASCN have engaged their doomsday device against a BoB fleet.Initial reports state that, unfortunately, the weapon was not fired upon the correct cynosaural field, and subsequently, destroyed many of ASCN’s own support.We anxiously await the next..

EVE Online | EVE Insider | Forums | 208

Dont miss this blow by blow…

The link at the bottom are the forums.

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Wow.. cool. Is it the end of the world for Second Life? Is this the first hack? Its the first one I’ve heard of. Pretty crazy one tho.

A “griefer” — person who disrupts video-games — is attacking the online world Second Life with self-replicating “grey goo” that is melting down the Second Life servers. “Grey goo” is shorthand for an apocalyptic nano-gone-wrong scenario wherein nanoassemblers replicate so profligately that they reduce the world to lurry.

4:55pm PST: There was a slight delay to our rolling restart while we continued our investigation. The rolling restart should begin soon, if you are currently in-world you will get a warning before your region is restarted - allowing you to teleport to another region. We hope to have logins open again very soon. Thanks again for everyone’s patience during this issue.

4:35pm PST: As part of our effort to counter the recent grey goo attacks, we’re currently doing a rolling restart of the grid to help clean it out, this means each region will be restarted over the course of the next few hours. thanks again for your patience.

4:15pm PST: We are still in the process of investigating the grid-wide griefing attacks, as such we have momentarily disabled scripts and “money transfers to objects” as well on the entire grid. We apologize for this and thank for your patience. As soon as I have more information, I will pass it along.

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

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Yes, it’s true there’s a whole episode dedicated to this game. And the good news is that it’s airing this upcoming week 10/04/06 so you won’t have to wait long. Until then you can check out this short teaser.

Man.. The Burning Crusade has be all excited. I just can’t wait to get in there and play. And I play ALOT of WoW now.

If you missed the You Tube Tours of the Burning Crusade, they are gone now, Blizz had them tossed out, but wow.. they looked so beautiful. If nothing else, Blizzard has done a great job of slow rolling information out, so that by the time it launches, people will have already been drooling over it.

Beyond the Dark Portal lies the shattered realm of Outland, the broken remains of the orcs’ homeworld, Draenor. Among the ruins of this world, the survivors of the cataclysm are trying to rebuild, and in other parts of Outland, life continues to thrive. Those brave enough to make the journey through the Dark Portal will find new allies, new enemies, and limitless adventure beyond an untamed horizon.

Click on any region in the map to learn more about that zone’s faction bases, dungeons, and neutral cities waiting to be discovered in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - Map of Outland

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The game has raised the bar for MMOG products, particularly in terms of revenue generation. However, there are some fundamental misconceptions about the game that are particularly problematic. In the end, it is a great game that has perhaps recalibrated investor expectations for MMOG products beyond what makes sense. There is a lot of supposedly new talk about the “World of Warcraft model”. To longtime industry observers, this talk is more retro (or even tired) than it is revolutionary. We have heard this tune before, only where the lyrics once featured EverQuest, now they sing World of Warcraft. Still, WoW developer Blizzard Entertainment obviously did something right and it only seems natural to ask what it was. It is only after understanding how Blizzard made WoW a success that companies can ask such questions as: is that success duplicable and if so is our particular company in a position to duplicate that success?

Next Generation - Is It Possible to Surpass World of Warcraft?

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When is lying illegal?

That’s a fundamental question in any system of laws. If you and I agree that you’ll give me a dollar, and in return I’ll give you two back later, we have a contract. If I skip town, I have committed a crime: fraud. It’s the most basic of crimes, and simply boils down to lying. Of course, there are a thousand ways to lie and be nothing more than a cad. If I tell you I’m a lousy pool player, we bet a dollar on a game, and it turns out I’m better than you, you’re a sucker, I’m a con artist, and there’s been no crime. Yes, I misrepresented myself, but it was a matter of judgment, not fact.

And there are plenty of cases where lying is a sanctioned risk. If we play a poker tournament — a legally constructed one, regulated by our fine system of government — it’s not only acceptable to lie, it’s expected. The card player who fails to lie effectively will almost always lose. It’s a condition of the game.

Consider if you will, Eve Online.

Last, week, Dentara Rast — a character in CCP’s Eve Online massively multiplayer online world — pulled off an impressive stunt. He ran a classic Ponzi scheme and walked off with 700 billion ISK (in game money, and quite a lot of it). Normally, this kind of in-game bravado would generate nothing but a confuse stare from someone not deep inside the Eve universe, and little more than scandal-of-the-week titillation and subsequent yawns there. But I believe this case is more interesting than that.

I believe Dentara Rast committed fraud.
I believe he owes the IRS a lot of money.

Admittedly these are bold statements likely stuffed with straw, but they have deep implications, and bear argument.

612 Lawns | Gamers With Jobs

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