The spiteful pre-NGE SWG vets, whom were spiteful long before the NGE, will never let anyone forget SOE's involvement in that little fiasco even though SOE themselves have said it was a bad idea. Most console gamers laugh at Sony's PS3 due to its originally high price point and the fact that so many multiplatform titles continue to release shoddy ports on the console, but with their multi-thousand dollar rigs, twenty-four inch gaming monitors, ligh up keyboards, and surround sound speakers, PC gamers are a privaleged lot, and if you mess up one time ,you earn their enmity for life.
I generally like and I trust SOE, as within the span of about six months in WoW, my account was hacked four times. Mythic charged me about 47 subscription fees in a single month while back, and my Rift account was hacked into less than two months after the game was launched. Coincidently, my account was never hacked into nor did I ever experience any billing issues with SOE, and I was a station access subscriber for years.
indeed.
we can all forget now that the NGE was patched with almost no warning, that it was practicaly unplayable, that many of us had long-term non-refundable subscriptions, that SOE had just sold an expansion which we all believed was for the CU, that it took YEARS for the NGE to remove half of its bugs and issues, that we got scammed, lied to, and ignored when we pleaded for a roll-back, that professions that took years to achieve were removed overnight....
we can forget all that because they said it was A BAD IDEA. 2 years after the NGE was patched in and in face of clear evidence of mass exodous smedley goes on record and admits it was a BAD IDEA.
I can now rest easy and join you in distrusting Blizzard for failing to explain to you how to protect your data and trust SOE for a "minor" incident where 24.000.000 accounts were stolen from under their noses.
Look, I realize there's little else than gaming to fill the lives of most people here, but such a thing really shouldn't be a big deal anymore, considering the NGE happened like 6 years ago. You know, I was none too happy when they started creating all that solo content in EQ2, eventually relagating all group content to instanced dungeons, so I voted with my wallet and quit the game. I did not get on every single MMORPG forum I could find and proceed to blast SOE for the NGE every time someone brought up the name of that company, which while I'm not accusing you of doing so, I see that happen quite frequently. The SWG fans always were a volatile bunch though, constantly whining and flaming one another on the message boards when they did not get their way, even staging a protest in the middle of a spaceport that led SOE to shut down servers. It's not the reasoning that's bad. It's the sophomoric, childish, and pathetic ways in which many SWG veterans expressed their anger.
Sony isn't the only company that's ever had a security breach. Though I hope this is a wakeup call for the company that causes them to pay way more attention to internet security, we're all to quick to forgive and forget the fact that Microsoft had a similar though smaller issue in 2007. I personally don't feel like anyone's credit cards are in danger as I feel this is nothing more than a reprisal from the whiny anonymous brats who didn't like the fact that GeoHot got sued. Lastly, I do get tired of people who say getting hacked is a result of failing to "protect your data," especially in the face of such an issue as this which I did not classify as minor. It's quite possible for people to get information from any "secure" databae if they want it bad enough, and strangely, my WoW account was never hacked until WoW's switch to battle.net. Laughably, in the face of the increase in reported account hacks (just read some forum posts), Blizzard starts charging people for an authenticator to help block hackers. This leads me to think that if they're making money off players wanting to protect themselves from account hackers, what motivation do they have to take a more active step in protecting their data? At least Rift allows people to download their authenticator for free.
Originally posted by SuperXero89 It's quite possible for people to get information from any "secure" databae if they want it bad enough, and strangely, my WoW account was never hacked until WoW's switch to battle.net. Laughably, in the face of the increase in reported account hacks (just read some forum posts), Blizzard starts charging people for an authenticator to help block hackers. This leads me to think that if they're making money off players wanting to protect themselves from account hackers, what motivation do they have to take a more active step in protecting their data? At least Rift allows people to download their authenticator for free.
Blizzard has been offering FREE download authenticators for years.
If you are going to offer such critical conclustions you may want to do a little research first. 30 seconds on a search engine could have given you all the information you needed.
As for your stance about SOE, you are right. SOE isn't the only company to have a security breach. However, like I said above, this isn't just a freak occurance shit storm SOE has gotten itself into. It is just one more screw up from this company to pile on top of a small mountain of mistakes, mismanagement and arrogance.
Notice how some people are pissed, some are not, but almost no one seems surprised that this happened and it was SOE at the helm of this problem? Think about that...
The spiteful pre-NGE SWG vets, whom were spiteful long before the NGE, will never let anyone forget SOE's involvement in that little fiasco even though SOE themselves have said it was a bad idea. Most console gamers laugh at Sony's PS3 due to its originally high price point and the fact that so many multiplatform titles continue to release shoddy ports on the console, but with their multi-thousand dollar rigs, twenty-four inch gaming monitors, ligh up keyboards, and surround sound speakers, PC gamers are a privaleged lot, and if you mess up one time ,you earn their enmity for life.
I generally like and I trust SOE, as within the span of about six months in WoW, my account was hacked four times. Mythic charged me about 47 subscription fees in a single month while back, and my Rift account was hacked into less than two months after the game was launched. Coincidently, my account was never hacked into nor did I ever experience any billing issues with SOE, and I was a station access subscriber for years.
indeed.
we can all forget now that the NGE was patched with almost no warning, that it was practicaly unplayable, that many of us had long-term non-refundable subscriptions, that SOE had just sold an expansion which we all believed was for the CU, that it took YEARS for the NGE to remove half of its bugs and issues, that we got scammed, lied to, and ignored when we pleaded for a roll-back, that professions that took years to achieve were removed overnight....
we can forget all that because they said it was A BAD IDEA. 2 years after the NGE was patched in and in face of clear evidence of mass exodous smedley goes on record and admits it was a BAD IDEA.
I can now rest easy and join you in distrusting Blizzard for failing to explain to you how to protect your data and trust SOE for a "minor" incident where 24.000.000 accounts were stolen from under their noses.
Look, I realize there's little else than gaming to fill the lives of most people here, but such a thing really shouldn't be a big deal anymore, considering the NGE happened like 6 years ago. You know, I was none too happy when they started creating all that solo content in EQ2, eventually relagating all group content to instanced dungeons, so I voted with my wallet and quit the game. I did not get on every single MMORPG forum I could find and proceed to blast SOE for the NGE every time someone brought up the name of that company, which while I'm not accusing you of doing so, I see that happen quite frequently. The SWG fans always were a volatile bunch though, constantly whining and flaming one another on the message boards when they did not get their way, even staging a protest in the middle of a spaceport that led SOE to shut down servers. It's not the reasoning that's bad. It's the sophomoric, childish, and pathetic ways in which many SWG veterans expressed their anger.
its not a big deal any more. at least for most.
check the veteran forums here or any other SWG forum on any site and you wont see much discussion on the NGE debacle.
but naturally it surfaces every time (and SOE makes sure its often) SOE is involved in a new scandal.
its only natural and human and expecting people not to dig up their history every time SOE comes up is not realistic. it happens with everything and everyone - especially if its yet another disgrace.
Only SOE can redeem itself and burry the past by making ammends. but they havent. they still follow the same path using the same dodgy practices and when something like this blows on their faces, there is nothing but reproach to throw at them.
Originally posted by SuperXero89 It's quite possible for people to get information from any "secure" databae if they want it bad enough, and strangely, my WoW account was never hacked until WoW's switch to battle.net. Laughably, in the face of the increase in reported account hacks (just read some forum posts), Blizzard starts charging people for an authenticator to help block hackers. This leads me to think that if they're making money off players wanting to protect themselves from account hackers, what motivation do they have to take a more active step in protecting their data? At least Rift allows people to download their authenticator for free.
Blizzard has been offering FREE download authenticators for years.
If you are going to offer such critical conclustions you may want to do a little research first. 30 seconds on a search engine could have given you all the information you needed.
As for your stance about SOE, you are right. SOE isn't the only company to have a security breach. However, like I said above, this isn't just a freak occurance shit storm SOE has gotten itself into. It is just one more screw up from this company to pile on top of a small mountain of mistakes, mismanagement and arrogance.
Notice how some people are pissed, some are not, but almost no one seems surprised that this happened and it was SOE at the helm of this problem? Think about that...
Exactly,
Every time SOE hits the news, 95% of the time it is NEGATIVE! Plain and simple!
I can hardly think of any other company in the whole wide world that manages to hit the news negatively 95% of the time.
Think about out and let that little factor sink in a bit.
Karma's a bitch. It's only going to get worse for them. Especially, SOE. I just wish that i hadn't wasted my money on DCUO. I should have kept my back turned after SWG.
At the risk of sounding like I'm defending Sony, which I'm not, I'm fairly sure that most anyone that's been on the internet for more than a month already has all their personal information out there where anyone with a bit of know how can get it.
That said, there's a special level in hell for the management at Sony.
The question is what upper management will get fired over this and could it be the end for Smedster?
Also makes me wonder if the hackers were looking for the Pre-CU code for SWG lol...
During his testimony, Spafford claimed that Sony was well aware of the security holes in the PlayStation Network, asserting that PSN was using old software that was "unpatched and had no firewall installed." He also noted that these security issues were brought to the table in a Sony-moderated forum, but no action was taken as a result.
If these claims are true, Sony is in for an even bigger world of hurt, and this situation could escalate into something not even a complimentary Batman mask can rectify.
Originally posted by TUX426 Originally posted by SaintViktorThey'll never been the same anymore. I don't see how anyone could trust them now after what has happened. As a customer would you give them your creit card number again knowing what just happened ? I know I wouldn't. Sorry but I'm not a glutton for punishment.
Sure they will.The day these services come back online, people will clamor to the PSN/SOE networks and gleefully plug in their new 16 digit number so they can collect their Batman mask.However...litigation might sink em. But that's years away.
I won't. I just resub's to Station Pass in March and was playing SWG and EQ2, with a brief tour in VG.
I am no fan of SOE. I am a fan of some of their MMOs. I really enjoy some of them.
As soon as the SWG servers go back up I will log in and pull my harvesters and houses. My characters in both MMOs will then get deleted. I will uninstall all SOE software from the computers in my home.
I enjoy SWG for it's old features (those that are left) and EQ2 but it's too dangerous to trust SOE with anything ever again as far as I am concerned. Never again will I play any game/mmo/mmorpg/console game of Sony/SOE/PSN.
In a way I feel bad for SOE's employees... but a Corporation can not get careless with personal info and expect to not pay a huge price for that carelessness.
Good luck with personal identity damage control over the next 30 years everyone.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!" ............... "I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. " __Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__ ...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
I'm unable to summon any tears for $OE, you reap what you sow.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
------ Playing MMO's since my first which was Ultima online, then Anarchy online. and so on.. Now a days im very critical before i ewen bother downloading a Free to play mmo.
Wait, What? We're supposed to feel bad for one of the most evil corporate entities around? Look at their history. They think their customers are criminals.
What an interesting alternate reality you live in where anything that has anything to do with videogames can be described as "evil".
Leaving aside the fact that suing people who make videogame mod chips is PRETTY FAR DOWN the list of "bad acts" (you know - compared to poisoning the air and water, raping the global financial system, fixing prices on core commodities, building chemical weapons and selling them to the highest bidder, etc), the fact is, the folks Sony sues arent their "customers" - they ARE criminals.
Stealing IP, or creating hardware to facilitate stealing IP, to the VAST majority of normal humans (read - not nerd ragers for whom XBox vs PS3 is an "important issue") looks a LOT like criminal behavior.
Wait, What? We're supposed to feel bad for one of the most evil corporate entities around? Look at their history. They think their customers are criminals.
What an interesting alternate reality you live in where anything that has anything to do with videogames can be described as "evil".
Leaving aside the fact that suing people who make videogame mod chips is PRETTY FAR DOWN the list of "bad acts" (you know - compared to poisoning the air and water, raping the global financial system, fixing prices on core commodities, building chemical weapons and selling them to the highest bidder, etc), the fact is, the folks Sony sues arent their "customers" - they ARE criminals.
Stealing IP, or creating hardware to facilitate stealing IP, to the VAST majority of normal humans (read - not nerd ragers for whom XBox vs PS3 is an "important issue") looks a LOT like criminal behavior.
You people give Anonymous way too much credit!
You really think some kids that performed a couple of DDoS attacks against some corporate websites are behind the Greatest Data Theft in history ?
This is done by a well organised cybercriminal organisation who were just lying in the wait till the right moment to do it and then have these kids from Anonymous get the blame for it, because they were putting out threats towards Sony. And everyone falls for it.
Those kids from Anonymous most probably do not even know what they would want to do with all this data, not to mention the shitstorm it would unleash upon them, they probably wouldn't even dare to even undertake such an act.
organised cybercrime organisations exactly know what to do with this kind of data and have the right connections and they can make a fortune on it, by just selling it to Spam organisations alone. And themselves they will use it for Phishing and Identity theft practices.
That is why people really need to take this debacle a lot more serious!
There is a good reason why SOE came out so quickly this week with a compensation programme for Identity Theft protection and Credit monitoring for those affected!
As we can pretty much guarantee, seeing the scope of the breach and the amount and kind of data that has been stolen, that it has ended up in the hands of people you really don't want it to be!
One thing is true, people do not think clearly when they think about SoE.
NGE everyone blames SoE, yet no one ever blames the half of SWG that wanted the game changed the most, the half that had the most control over the game. SoE took the fall for Lucas Arts for sure, at least aprtially.
SoE is said to not listen to the customers, yet i see an awful lot of changes to their games directly based off what players wanted. Specifically those changes people say 'killed EQ' were changes the community begged for (such as easier travel to meet up with your friends).
The RMT gets a lot of hate, however SoE has been doing it for years now and it has never remotely come close to a 'pay to win' scenario. Nothing sold in cash shops in eq or eq2 gives you an advantage.
Their customer service sucks, another complaint. As with any other MMO on the market the customer service ranges from good to bad. the only two companies Ive really dealt with customer service are blizzard and sony, and sony was faster and more willing to resolve my issues. But everyones mileage may vary on that. Basically MMO service is six of one, half dozen of another when comparing two companies.
Yes, SoE has made some bad decisions. Yes, they deserve a lot fo blame for at least how the NGE was handled. Yes, Smedley says stuff that turns out to be not true, and msotly due to bad communication amongst different people at SoE. the company definitely has issues. EQ1 and EQ2 have been showered with support in terms of content over the years. No one can say that SoE hasnt supported these games and its clear that they do spend money on them. But after fixing Vanguard (oh and they did fix it, its actually great now when it was pitiful at launch) they pulled all support for it and left it to die.
But its not like they are 'more evil' than anyone else.
Oh, Blizzard is to be commended on their latest charity RMT. If I was playing WoW right now I would buy the pet just for that reason. But lets face it, Blizzard's other RMT exploits are 100% cash grabs. They are already sitting on money because the glacial development pace for the game shows that they need to hire more people, but don't. they release an expansion slowly over the course of two years (which makes sense in some ways) and make it look like you are getting free updates. But they rely way too much on repetition of content being content. even when they 'added' mid level content for the first time in 6 years, at was recycling old content. hey, 2 new dungeons! Oh wait, recycled content. I understanmd the point of too much content too fast, but WoW is not remotely near that point. Right now this game has no content for max levels outside of repeating instances of some kind or doing stuff trivial for your level. Not acceptable for a company with nearly limitless resources
Oh yeah, SoE lies to people. So do other companies. Blizzard had said theyd never allow PvE -> PvP transfer for instance. Somewher ealong the line they figured 'hey, were robbing ourselves of money' and instated it. There wasnt a big outcry for it, people fully understood the reason. But they did that instead of something like player/guild housing that people actually want but wont make them extra money. Or there development of the battle.net/facebook type system that took an enormous public outrage for them to put it on hold. but they thought it would be a good diea? Maybe they did, I still think it was done for money but I have no proof of that. but then I ahve no proof that SoE does a lot fo the stuff they are blamed for.
And yes, Im dumping on blizzard but I am familiar with them more so than most other companies. So lets look at their security now. yes, yes you can get a free authenticator on mobile phones, all well and good. Yes, its fairly cheap to get them to send you one while they inexplicably havent packaged one with a store bought copy. But overall they get brownie points for authenticator. Here is their big fail though: Ina agme PLAGUED by accounts being 'hacked' they FORCED...yes FORCED people to change 1/2 of their login information to the email address they signed up for the account with. What? Yes, some people have multiple accounts set up and dont use their main email account for WoW, but many people, especially 6 years ago, never dreamed that it would actually be the way they signed into the game. Why on earth make this change which has undoubtedly led to some hackings. I cant think of one good reason for this change. yes, yes...they wanted to link battle.net accounts across multiple games. but why use the email address as a login? Sure use it as name of battlenet account but why cant you choose your log in name as something unique? like it was all along...
Knowing Blizzard takes short cuts like this doesnt make me feel any safer having my info witht hem than SoE. In fact Blizzard has multiple chefs in the kitchen now with Activision, which makes things even scarier.
Also with security...why isnt Trion demonized for their security flaw? yes, not as bad as SoE's because people only hacked the accounts but still. People have already forgotten about this.
Fact is all companies are in it for money. All probably cut corners, and I wouldnt bet SoE isnt the only one with a security hole that is known but not fixed. Its easy to jump on one name though. Hey, Blockbuster was notorious for being 'greedy' and out to screw people with their policies (that were all clearly posted) and Netflix comes along and everyone raves about netflix. Irony is, you can argue Netflix trests its customers worse than Blockbuster. Taking longer to mail out their most frequent customers movies. Giving newer customers movies first to make a good impression. raising prices because of streaming and addign a cheap streaming only option, but not allowing people who didnt want to stream a mail only option at the old price. But hey, thats not as bad as telling someone they owe when their movie is returned late, then actually charging them as you said you would, right? Reality is often different from consumer perception.
IT is true that people do forget pretty quickly about things. EVE online is doing fine but back in the day they put out a patch that literally wiped out people computers. At the time i would have certainly deleted EVE online form my computer for safety however i started playing 2 years after that and it didnt effect my choice to play the game........i think the same thing will happen to SOE. THey will take a pretty big initial hit but people wont care in a year.
Playing: PO, EVE Waiting for: WoD Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
IT is true that people do forget pretty quickly about things. EVE online is doing fine but back in the day they put out a patch that literally wiped out people computers. At the time i would have certainly deleted EVE online form my computer for safety however i started playing 2 years after that and it didnt effect my choice to play the game........i think the same thing will happen to SOE. THey will take a pretty big initial hit but people wont care in a year.
If things get real ugly (which more and more seems it's gonna be), SOE won't even be around anymore in a year.
They just recently had to lay off over 200 people and close three whole studios!
And now they are most probably going to be down for a whole month (maybe even longer), take a huge financial hit on compensation programmes for Identity theft and credit monitoring for all those people affected.
And then we are not even talking about all the lawsuits that is going to be thrown at them, due to already pretty much proven negligence.
You can't even remote compare a bad patch of EVE Online from years ago to the Greatest Data Theft in history! Are you serious?
What i dont know about this particular situation is this:
Since both PSN and SoE are actually different entities was this actually their fault or the parent company's fault? I don't know the answer to this, but when someone says 'Sony' that doesnt mean 'SoE'.
IT is true that people do forget pretty quickly about things. EVE online is doing fine but back in the day they put out a patch that literally wiped out people computers. At the time i would have certainly deleted EVE online form my computer for safety however i started playing 2 years after that and it didnt effect my choice to play the game........i think the same thing will happen to SOE. THey will take a pretty big initial hit but people wont care in a year.
My prediction is people won't care about it 1 month after services come up. You can bet gamers will take advantage of the free month + each day it's down offered by SOE. Gamers are fickle, don't think all these threats of quitting and "never again" will really get carried through. When people can login for free, they're going to login for free and enjoy their time.
Just remember how many times after SWG NGE people swore to not touch SOE products again, yet they trickled back over time. After EQ's GoD expansion, many said they would not touch EQ again. Yet timelocked progression servers launched 2 months ago were jam packed of people who said they would never touch EQ again.
The people that'll have greater animosity towards SOE would be foreign individuals that had their cc/bank account #'s stolen. For U.S. customers, a lot of the information hackers got are readily available online. Many of which are information people offered themselves through social networking sites like facebook, youtube, forums, gaming sites, etc.. I predict U.S. customers to be logging in and enjoying their 1+ month of free subscription time right as the servers come back up.
IT is true that people do forget pretty quickly about things. EVE online is doing fine but back in the day they put out a patch that literally wiped out people computers. At the time i would have certainly deleted EVE online form my computer for safety however i started playing 2 years after that and it didnt effect my choice to play the game........i think the same thing will happen to SOE. THey will take a pretty big initial hit but people wont care in a year.
My prediction is people won't care about it 1 month after services come up. You can bet gamers will take advantage of the free month + each day it's down offered by SOE. Gamers are fickle, don't think all these threats of quitting and "never again" will really get carried through. When people can login for free, they're going to login for free and enjoy their time.
Just remember how many times after SWG NGE people swore to not touch SOE products again, yet they trickled back over time. After EQ's GoD expansion, many said they would not touch EQ again. Yet timelocked progression servers launched 2 months ago were jam packed of people who said they would never touch EQ again.
The people that'll have greater animosity towards SOE would be foreign individuals that had their cc/bank account #'s stolen. For U.S. customers, a lot of the information hackers got are readily available online. Many of which are information people offered themselves through social networking sites like facebook, youtube, forums, gaming sites, etc.. I predict U.S. customers to be logging in and enjoying their 1+ month of free subscription time right as the servers come back up.
Yeah you are absolutely right!
People are readily handing out ther full names, full address, gender, phone numbers, email addresses, login/account names, hashed passwords, answers to security questions on Social Media.
Are you for real?? As don't you worry, above information has also been stolen of U.S. customers.
Comments
Look, I realize there's little else than gaming to fill the lives of most people here, but such a thing really shouldn't be a big deal anymore, considering the NGE happened like 6 years ago. You know, I was none too happy when they started creating all that solo content in EQ2, eventually relagating all group content to instanced dungeons, so I voted with my wallet and quit the game. I did not get on every single MMORPG forum I could find and proceed to blast SOE for the NGE every time someone brought up the name of that company, which while I'm not accusing you of doing so, I see that happen quite frequently. The SWG fans always were a volatile bunch though, constantly whining and flaming one another on the message boards when they did not get their way, even staging a protest in the middle of a spaceport that led SOE to shut down servers. It's not the reasoning that's bad. It's the sophomoric, childish, and pathetic ways in which many SWG veterans expressed their anger.
Sony isn't the only company that's ever had a security breach. Though I hope this is a wakeup call for the company that causes them to pay way more attention to internet security, we're all to quick to forgive and forget the fact that Microsoft had a similar though smaller issue in 2007. I personally don't feel like anyone's credit cards are in danger as I feel this is nothing more than a reprisal from the whiny anonymous brats who didn't like the fact that GeoHot got sued. Lastly, I do get tired of people who say getting hacked is a result of failing to "protect your data," especially in the face of such an issue as this which I did not classify as minor. It's quite possible for people to get information from any "secure" databae if they want it bad enough, and strangely, my WoW account was never hacked until WoW's switch to battle.net. Laughably, in the face of the increase in reported account hacks (just read some forum posts), Blizzard starts charging people for an authenticator to help block hackers. This leads me to think that if they're making money off players wanting to protect themselves from account hackers, what motivation do they have to take a more active step in protecting their data? At least Rift allows people to download their authenticator for free.
Blizzard has been offering FREE download authenticators for years.
If you are going to offer such critical conclustions you may want to do a little research first. 30 seconds on a search engine could have given you all the information you needed.
As for your stance about SOE, you are right. SOE isn't the only company to have a security breach. However, like I said above, this isn't just a freak occurance shit storm SOE has gotten itself into. It is just one more screw up from this company to pile on top of a small mountain of mistakes, mismanagement and arrogance.
Notice how some people are pissed, some are not, but almost no one seems surprised that this happened and it was SOE at the helm of this problem? Think about that...
its not a big deal any more. at least for most.
check the veteran forums here or any other SWG forum on any site and you wont see much discussion on the NGE debacle.
but naturally it surfaces every time (and SOE makes sure its often) SOE is involved in a new scandal.
its only natural and human and expecting people not to dig up their history every time SOE comes up is not realistic. it happens with everything and everyone - especially if its yet another disgrace.
Only SOE can redeem itself and burry the past by making ammends. but they havent. they still follow the same path using the same dodgy practices and when something like this blows on their faces, there is nothing but reproach to throw at them.
Exactly,
Every time SOE hits the news, 95% of the time it is NEGATIVE! Plain and simple!
I can hardly think of any other company in the whole wide world that manages to hit the news negatively 95% of the time.
Think about out and let that little factor sink in a bit.
Karma's a bitch. It's only going to get worse for them. Especially, SOE. I just wish that i hadn't wasted my money on DCUO. I should have kept my back turned after SWG.
Oh Sony, is there anything left to save?
If these companies safeguard customer financial information with as much care as they do their trade secrets, this would not have happened.
This.
RELAX!@!! BREATHE!!!
Bohica Smedley!!! Bohica
According to testimony, they knew about the weaknesses in security.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/05/05/expert-says-sony-knew-of-psn-security-weakness/
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
well, well, well...
I'm leaning towards "they deserved it".
For all the greedy things that they have done to their customers. For all of the neglect and blatant lies. This was Karma finally catching up to them.
The question is what upper management will get fired over this and could it be the end for Smedster?
Also makes me wonder if the hackers were looking for the Pre-CU code for SWG lol...
The PlayStation Network outage plot thickens. In today's hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Sony executive vice president Kaz Hirai refused to testify. One who did testify, however, wasUS Public Policy Council of the Association for Computing Machinery head Gene Spafford, and did he ever have some words for Sony.
During his testimony, Spafford claimed that Sony was well aware of the security holes in the PlayStation Network, asserting that PSN was using old software that was "unpatched and had no firewall installed." He also noted that these security issues were brought to the table in a Sony-moderated forum, but no action was taken as a result.
If these claims are true, Sony is in for an even bigger world of hurt, and this situation could escalate into something not even a complimentary Batman mask can rectify.
In related news, TG Daily reports that New York's Attorney General has subpoenaed Sony over the data breach and what "representations" were made to its customers in regard to the security of their information.
__________________________________________
Bye bye Sony!
Bye bye SOE!
They are going to get sued to death, the more and more disgusting details crawl out of this huge can of worms.
I won't. I just resub's to Station Pass in March and was playing SWG and EQ2, with a brief tour in VG.
I am no fan of SOE. I am a fan of some of their MMOs. I really enjoy some of them.
As soon as the SWG servers go back up I will log in and pull my harvesters and houses. My characters in both MMOs will then get deleted. I will uninstall all SOE software from the computers in my home.
I enjoy SWG for it's old features (those that are left) and EQ2 but it's too dangerous to trust SOE with anything ever again as far as I am concerned. Never again will I play any game/mmo/mmorpg/console game of Sony/SOE/PSN.
In a way I feel bad for SOE's employees... but a Corporation can not get careless with personal info and expect to not pay a huge price for that carelessness.
Good luck with personal identity damage control over the next 30 years everyone.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!"
...............
"I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. "
__Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__
...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
I'm unable to summon any tears for $OE, you reap what you sow.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
hahahaha-... FTW..
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Playing MMO's since my first which was Ultima online, then Anarchy online. and so on..
Now a days im very critical before i ewen bother downloading a Free to play mmo.
What an interesting alternate reality you live in where anything that has anything to do with videogames can be described as "evil".
Leaving aside the fact that suing people who make videogame mod chips is PRETTY FAR DOWN the list of "bad acts" (you know - compared to poisoning the air and water, raping the global financial system, fixing prices on core commodities, building chemical weapons and selling them to the highest bidder, etc), the fact is, the folks Sony sues arent their "customers" - they ARE criminals.
Stealing IP, or creating hardware to facilitate stealing IP, to the VAST majority of normal humans (read - not nerd ragers for whom XBox vs PS3 is an "important issue") looks a LOT like criminal behavior.
You people give Anonymous way too much credit!
You really think some kids that performed a couple of DDoS attacks against some corporate websites are behind the Greatest Data Theft in history ?
This is done by a well organised cybercriminal organisation who were just lying in the wait till the right moment to do it and then have these kids from Anonymous get the blame for it, because they were putting out threats towards Sony. And everyone falls for it.
Those kids from Anonymous most probably do not even know what they would want to do with all this data, not to mention the shitstorm it would unleash upon them, they probably wouldn't even dare to even undertake such an act.
organised cybercrime organisations exactly know what to do with this kind of data and have the right connections and they can make a fortune on it, by just selling it to Spam organisations alone. And themselves they will use it for Phishing and Identity theft practices.
That is why people really need to take this debacle a lot more serious!
There is a good reason why SOE came out so quickly this week with a compensation programme for Identity Theft protection and Credit monitoring for those affected!
As we can pretty much guarantee, seeing the scope of the breach and the amount and kind of data that has been stolen, that it has ended up in the hands of people you really don't want it to be!
One thing is true, people do not think clearly when they think about SoE.
NGE everyone blames SoE, yet no one ever blames the half of SWG that wanted the game changed the most, the half that had the most control over the game. SoE took the fall for Lucas Arts for sure, at least aprtially.
SoE is said to not listen to the customers, yet i see an awful lot of changes to their games directly based off what players wanted. Specifically those changes people say 'killed EQ' were changes the community begged for (such as easier travel to meet up with your friends).
The RMT gets a lot of hate, however SoE has been doing it for years now and it has never remotely come close to a 'pay to win' scenario. Nothing sold in cash shops in eq or eq2 gives you an advantage.
Their customer service sucks, another complaint. As with any other MMO on the market the customer service ranges from good to bad. the only two companies Ive really dealt with customer service are blizzard and sony, and sony was faster and more willing to resolve my issues. But everyones mileage may vary on that. Basically MMO service is six of one, half dozen of another when comparing two companies.
Yes, SoE has made some bad decisions. Yes, they deserve a lot fo blame for at least how the NGE was handled. Yes, Smedley says stuff that turns out to be not true, and msotly due to bad communication amongst different people at SoE. the company definitely has issues. EQ1 and EQ2 have been showered with support in terms of content over the years. No one can say that SoE hasnt supported these games and its clear that they do spend money on them. But after fixing Vanguard (oh and they did fix it, its actually great now when it was pitiful at launch) they pulled all support for it and left it to die.
But its not like they are 'more evil' than anyone else.
Oh, Blizzard is to be commended on their latest charity RMT. If I was playing WoW right now I would buy the pet just for that reason. But lets face it, Blizzard's other RMT exploits are 100% cash grabs. They are already sitting on money because the glacial development pace for the game shows that they need to hire more people, but don't. they release an expansion slowly over the course of two years (which makes sense in some ways) and make it look like you are getting free updates. But they rely way too much on repetition of content being content. even when they 'added' mid level content for the first time in 6 years, at was recycling old content. hey, 2 new dungeons! Oh wait, recycled content. I understanmd the point of too much content too fast, but WoW is not remotely near that point. Right now this game has no content for max levels outside of repeating instances of some kind or doing stuff trivial for your level. Not acceptable for a company with nearly limitless resources
Oh yeah, SoE lies to people. So do other companies. Blizzard had said theyd never allow PvE -> PvP transfer for instance. Somewher ealong the line they figured 'hey, were robbing ourselves of money' and instated it. There wasnt a big outcry for it, people fully understood the reason. But they did that instead of something like player/guild housing that people actually want but wont make them extra money. Or there development of the battle.net/facebook type system that took an enormous public outrage for them to put it on hold. but they thought it would be a good diea? Maybe they did, I still think it was done for money but I have no proof of that. but then I ahve no proof that SoE does a lot fo the stuff they are blamed for.
And yes, Im dumping on blizzard but I am familiar with them more so than most other companies. So lets look at their security now. yes, yes you can get a free authenticator on mobile phones, all well and good. Yes, its fairly cheap to get them to send you one while they inexplicably havent packaged one with a store bought copy. But overall they get brownie points for authenticator. Here is their big fail though: Ina agme PLAGUED by accounts being 'hacked' they FORCED...yes FORCED people to change 1/2 of their login information to the email address they signed up for the account with. What? Yes, some people have multiple accounts set up and dont use their main email account for WoW, but many people, especially 6 years ago, never dreamed that it would actually be the way they signed into the game. Why on earth make this change which has undoubtedly led to some hackings. I cant think of one good reason for this change. yes, yes...they wanted to link battle.net accounts across multiple games. but why use the email address as a login? Sure use it as name of battlenet account but why cant you choose your log in name as something unique? like it was all along...
Knowing Blizzard takes short cuts like this doesnt make me feel any safer having my info witht hem than SoE. In fact Blizzard has multiple chefs in the kitchen now with Activision, which makes things even scarier.
Also with security...why isnt Trion demonized for their security flaw? yes, not as bad as SoE's because people only hacked the accounts but still. People have already forgotten about this.
Fact is all companies are in it for money. All probably cut corners, and I wouldnt bet SoE isnt the only one with a security hole that is known but not fixed. Its easy to jump on one name though. Hey, Blockbuster was notorious for being 'greedy' and out to screw people with their policies (that were all clearly posted) and Netflix comes along and everyone raves about netflix. Irony is, you can argue Netflix trests its customers worse than Blockbuster. Taking longer to mail out their most frequent customers movies. Giving newer customers movies first to make a good impression. raising prices because of streaming and addign a cheap streaming only option, but not allowing people who didnt want to stream a mail only option at the old price. But hey, thats not as bad as telling someone they owe when their movie is returned late, then actually charging them as you said you would, right? Reality is often different from consumer perception.
IT is true that people do forget pretty quickly about things. EVE online is doing fine but back in the day they put out a patch that literally wiped out people computers. At the time i would have certainly deleted EVE online form my computer for safety however i started playing 2 years after that and it didnt effect my choice to play the game........i think the same thing will happen to SOE. THey will take a pretty big initial hit but people wont care in a year.
Playing: PO, EVE
Waiting for: WoD
Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO
Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
If things get real ugly (which more and more seems it's gonna be), SOE won't even be around anymore in a year.
They just recently had to lay off over 200 people and close three whole studios!
And now they are most probably going to be down for a whole month (maybe even longer), take a huge financial hit on compensation programmes for Identity theft and credit monitoring for all those people affected.
And then we are not even talking about all the lawsuits that is going to be thrown at them, due to already pretty much proven negligence.
You can't even remote compare a bad patch of EVE Online from years ago to the Greatest Data Theft in history! Are you serious?
What i dont know about this particular situation is this:
Since both PSN and SoE are actually different entities was this actually their fault or the parent company's fault? I don't know the answer to this, but when someone says 'Sony' that doesnt mean 'SoE'.
My prediction is people won't care about it 1 month after services come up. You can bet gamers will take advantage of the free month + each day it's down offered by SOE. Gamers are fickle, don't think all these threats of quitting and "never again" will really get carried through. When people can login for free, they're going to login for free and enjoy their time.
Just remember how many times after SWG NGE people swore to not touch SOE products again, yet they trickled back over time. After EQ's GoD expansion, many said they would not touch EQ again. Yet timelocked progression servers launched 2 months ago were jam packed of people who said they would never touch EQ again.
The people that'll have greater animosity towards SOE would be foreign individuals that had their cc/bank account #'s stolen. For U.S. customers, a lot of the information hackers got are readily available online. Many of which are information people offered themselves through social networking sites like facebook, youtube, forums, gaming sites, etc.. I predict U.S. customers to be logging in and enjoying their 1+ month of free subscription time right as the servers come back up.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Yeah you are absolutely right!
People are readily handing out ther full names, full address, gender, phone numbers, email addresses, login/account names, hashed passwords, answers to security questions on Social Media.
Are you for real?? As don't you worry, above information has also been stolen of U.S. customers.
Please refrain from baiting each other into personal arguments guys. Thanks!