Headline RePLAY – 7.30.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Massive PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale leaks, Ubisoft plugs a security exploit in their PC games and gender in Minecraft.

A wave of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale leaks have flooded the internet, purportedly extracted from game data from the recently-released beta, which includes unrevealed characters, stages, items and more.

The data reveals unannounced characters like Dante (Devil May Cry), Evil Cole/Zeke/Nix (inFAMOUS), Sackboy (LittleBigPlanet), Spike (Ape Escape), Sir Daniel Fortesque (MediEvil), Sam (Metal Gear Rising) and Nariko (Heavenly Sword) to name a few.

For a complete list on the leaks, check out the compilation via the source link or the NeoGAF forums.

Of course, Sony declined to comment on the leaks stating how it doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation.

|Source: IGN

A massive security flaw recently uncovered in Ubisoft’s PC games’ “uPLay” application prompted the publisher to release a fix to address the issue.

The exploit specifically lies in the browser plugin that uPlay installs rather than the application itself, which comes with any installation of Ubisoft PC games. A list of Ubisoft games that are affected can be found via the source link below.

While Ubisoft has not publicly acknowledged the security flaw, uPlay has been updated to version 2.04, which states: “Fix addressing browser plugin. Plugin now only able to open uPLay application.”

|Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Markus “notch” Persson is not the lead developer for Minecraft anymore, but he reveals that the popular sandbox game’s protagonists are genderless despite being referred to simply as “Minecraft Guy.”

“If it wasn’t for the fact that that the default Minecraft character is referred to as “Minecraft Guy” and that I once jokingly answered “Steve?” when asked what his name was, Minecraft would be a game where gender isn’t a gameplay element,” said notch.

notch went on to explain how the main character model is to just represent a “Human Being,” neither male or female. “The blocky shape gives it a bit of a traditional masculine look,” notch noted, “but adding a separate female mesh would just make it worse by having one specific model for female Human Beings and male ones.

“That would force players to make a decision about gender in a game where gender doesn’t even exist.”

In regards to mobs and animals, notch explains that they are genderless, and they exhibit the “most prominent traits of both genders.” “Cows have horns and udders (even if I’ve later learned that there are some cows where the females do have horns),” he said, “and chicken/duck/whatevers have heads that look like roosters, but still lay eggs. For breeding, any animal can breed with any other animal of the same species.”

“Also, as a fun side fact, it means every character and animal in Minecraft are homosexual because there’s only one gender to choose from,” notch added. “Take THAT, homophobes!”  

|Source: notch

Headline RePLAY – 6.11.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: The producer of Street Fighter IV is back in action, Diablo III prepares for the Real-Money Auction House and League of Legends EU is the latest to be hit with a security breach.

Yoshinori Ono’s dedication to Capcom’s Street Fighter series is so legendary that it was instrumental in revving the franchise in 2008 with the release of Street Fighter IV—but was it the same devotion that arguably lead to his sudden illness and collapse in April?

In an interview with Eurogamer’s Simon Parkin, Ono recounts his journey from composer to producer, and his dogged persistence in proposing the fourth entry to Street Fighter to a reluctant company since the release of Street Fighter 3: Third Strike in 1999.  

“I was working on Onimusha 4 and during that time I repeatedly submitted my proposal for a new Street Fighter,” Ono recalled. “The company kept telling me: ‘It’s a dead franchise. It doesn’t make any money. We have series that make money like Resident Evil and Onimusha. Why bother with a dead franchise?”

Ultimately, Ono’s persistence paid off and he was given a small budget to create a prototype. Ono’s strategy was simple: “I had been asking all of the journalists to make noise about the series when out and about. I would always tell them that it was their responsibility to tell Capcom, not me as I don’t have the power. Journalists and fans have the power to move Capcom—not producers. With so many voices crying out for a Street Fighter game Capcom could no longer ignore it any more and so they gave the green light for a prototype and they asked me to create it.

“It’s a miracle that happened after a decade…”

Capcom was still not sold on the project, however. Fan demands may have forced the company’s hand, but Ono was constantly asked, “Ono-san, seriously why are you persisting with this? You are using so much money, budget and resources. Why don’t we use it on something else, something that will make money?”

“No one had the intention of selling it,” Ono concluded, “so I had virtually no help from other departments—they were reluctant, right up to the day of release.”

Ono’s dedication and his faith in the fans paid off in spades: Street Fighter IV was a huge success, single-handedly resurrecting the franchise.

And it probably overworked him into a hospital bed, but the producer vows that’s not enough to stop him.

“There have been rumors saying Ono is dead or retiring. None of that’s true. I want to support the next generation of fighting games. It’s my job. It’s my calling.”

|Source: Eurogamer

Diablo III’s long-disputed Real-Money Auction House is launching tomorrow, and in the wake of hacking reports that plagued the game’s release, Blizzard is requiring that players have an authenticator attached to their account in order to access the feature.

More specifically, players must have a physical or mobile Battle.net authenticator attached to their Battle.net accounts in order to use the RMAH. Players who already attached their account to Battle.net Balance, a feature that provides the option to buy and sell items on the RMAH, without an authenticator will continue to be able to do so—on the caveat that it is required to add to the balance in the future.

|Source: Blizzard

League of Legends EU is the latest to be hit by hackers, Riot Games reports that only personal player data in EU West and EU Nordic and East databases were accessed and “absolutely” no payment or billing information was compromised.

According to Riot, any personal data that was breached included e-mail addresses, encrypted account passwords, summoner [game ID] name and date of birth. The studio does note that for a “small number of players” first and last name might’ve been compromised along with encrypted security question and answer.

Riot does assure players that the security issue that hackers exploited was resolved, all EU West, EU Nordic and East players were notified via e-mail and that the investigation is still ongoing. Additionally, Riot has redirected teams to “quickly implement new security measures” to improve the safety of player data and will continue to “invest in security measures” like password hashing, data encryption, state of the art firewalls, SSL and security ninjas.

And lastly the company asks users to change their account passwords and offers steps on how to do so.

|Source: League of Legends

Headline RePLAY – 5.22.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: The Nintendo 3D hits another sales milestone, the Star Wars: The Old Republic team experience layoffs and Blizzard responds to Diablo III hacking claims.

As PlayStation Vita sales continue to drop in Japan, Nintendo 3DS sales continue to rise as it crossed the six million mark this week in domestic sales, according to retail tracker Enterbrain, Famitsu’s publisher.

From its debut on February 26, 2011 to May 20, 2012, the handheld sold a grand total of 6,017,206 units in Japan alone.

According to Andriasang and Media Create data, the Nintendo 3DS was also the fastest handheld ever to reach 5 million in sales.  

|Source: Famitsu via Andriasang

BioWare doctors Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka have confirmed layoffs with the Star Wars: The Old Republic’s development team today in a statement on the MMO’s official forums.

“Sadly, we are bidding farewell to some talented, passionate and exceptionally hard-working people who helped make SWTOR a reality,” said the BioWare doctors. “Impacting people’s lives this way is always very hard, but we’re ensuring the affected people are treated with dignity, fairness, and respect.”

Despite the layoffs, Dr. Zeschuk and Muzyka wanted to reassure fans that business will continue as usual with SWTOR. “We still have a very substantial development team working on supporting and growing the game, and we feel we are in a strong position, with your continued involvement and feedback, to continue to build Star Wars: The Old Republic as one of the most compelling and successful online experiences in the world today.”

|Source: SWTOR

In a coordinated effort to tackle the Diablo III hacking crisis, Blizzard has rejected allegations that hackers are bypassing authenticators and have devoted forum threads to aid players in buffing their Battle.net account security.

“We’ve been taking the situation extremely seriously from the start, and have done everything possible to verify how and in what circumstances these compromises are occurring,” said Blizzard Community Manager Micah “Bashiok” Whipple.

“Despite the claims and theories being made, we have yet to find any situations in which a person’s account was not compromised through traditional means of someone else logging into their account through the use of their password. While the authenticator isn’t a 100% guarantee of account security, we have yet to investigate a compromise report in which an authenticator was attached beforehand.”

In a separate thread dedicated to Battle.net account security, Community Manager Stephanie “Lylirra” Johnson explains that the rise of compromised accounts amidst the release of a new game is nothing new.

“Historically, the release of a new game—such as a World of Warcraft expansion—will result in an increase in reports of individual account compromises, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing now with Diablo III,” said Lylirra.  

“We know how frustrating it can be to become the victim of account theft, and as always, we’re dedicated to doing everything we can to help our players keep their Battle.net accounts safe—and we appreciate everyone who’s doing their part to help protect their accounts as well.”

|Source: Blizzard

Headline RePLAY – 3.29.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: The producer of the Street Fighter series steps down, hackers can steal credit card information from pre-owned Xbox 360’s and Dragon’s Crown is not cancelled.

Yoshinori Ono, the man responsible for Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter x Tekken, is stepping down as producer of the franchise in the wake of being hospitalized last week.

Ono apologized to fans on Twitter for causing concern about his welfare and wanted to thank them for all the get-well messages. The Street Fighter producer then announced that he’s stepping down “for a while,” and that an unannounced individual has taken up the reins of the franchise.

In the meantime, Ono is going to still provide support but will stay out of the “limelight” while he contemplates about the “new future of fighting games” and assured fans that he’ll try his best to “be back.”

*Source: @Yoshi_OnoChin

If you’re thinking about selling or giving away your Xbox 360, you might want to reconsider: researchers at Drexel University discovered that with just common tools, hackers and modders can access the console’s hard drive to steal credit card or personal information.  

“Microsoft does a great job of protecting their proprietary information,” Ashley Podhradsky, a researcher at Drexel University, told Kotaku in a phone interview. “But they don’t do a great job of protecting the user’s data.”

Podhradsky noted that even restoring the 360 to factory settings won’t completely remove all the data it contains. She said Microsoft was doing a “disservice” to customers by not protecting their personal data better.

Alongside Drexel University colleagues Rob D’Ovidio and Cindy Casey and Pat Engebretson from Dakota State University, Podhradsky bought a refurbished Xbox 360 from Microsoft last year to experiment on. The team downloaded a basic modding tool to use to crack the console, which gave them access to its files and folders and resultantly was able to identify and extract the original owner’s credit card information.

“A lot of them already know how to do all this,” said Podhradsky. “Anyone can freely download a lot of this software, essentially pick up a discarded game console, and have someone’s identity.”

To combat the danger of getting your personal information compromised, Podhradsky recommends detaching your 360’s hard drive, connecting it to your computer, and using a program like Darik’s Boot & Nuke to wipe everything. She cautions that reformatting won’t be enough.

“I think Microsoft has a longstanding pattern of this,” said Podhradsky. “When you go and reformat your computer, like a Windows system, it tells you that all of your data will be erased. In actuality that’s not accurate— the data is still available… so when Microsoft tells you that you’re resetting something, it’s not accurate.

“There’s a lot more that needs to be done.”

*Source: Kotaku

After Dragon’s Crown mysteriously disappeared from Amazon.com and GameInformer happened to receive reports that customers had their pre-orders cancelled, it’s no wonder why cancellation rumors began to run amuck.

In response to all the speculation, Vanillaware illustrator Shigatake leapt into the fray on Twitter to assure fans that the game is most definitely not cancelled. “I personally can’t say much, but I’ll just say, regarding Dragon’s Crown, although there lots of rumors and conjecture, it’s still in development. Please wait patiently for an official update.”

Dragon’s Crown was initially revealed at E3 2011 as a spring 2012 title, but news of the game has been scarce recently despite its rapidly approaching release date.

*Source: Andriasang