My StarCraft II beta code came through a few months ago so I decided to log in to my Battle.net account to add the code.  As I tried to log in, the site unexpectedly asked me for an authenticator code.  Blizzard authenticators are devices that are associated with a Battle.net account that produce a code that you have to type in to the web site in order to log in – you may use a similar device for logging in to your online bank account.  As I hadn’t associated an authenticator I was very confused.

I rang Blizzard Europe and discovered that my account had been hacked and that the hackers had associated their own authenticator with my account, preventing me from accessing it.  After they were happy with my identity, they removed the authenticator from my account and advised I associate my own.  They then also advised me that one of my US accounts had been banned and that I had to ring Blizzard US to explain the situation.

To protect my account from further security problems, I decided to download the official Blizzard Mobile Authenticator to my iPhone and used that.  Problem solved, right?

Nope… There has since been a software update for this little iPhone application that has caused it to wipe it’s settings.  This has basically once again left me locked out of my account.  I’ve tried contacting Blizzard Europe by e-mail but I’ve had no response yet.  I’ve tried by telephone and they’re so busy that they’re not even accepting new calls in to their queuing system!

The most annoying thing of all is that the login name for Battle.net accounts are e-mail addresses.  So if you tend to use the same password for various things, such as forums, and someone gets hold of that data then they can look at your e-mail address and the password you used and just use that info to log in to your Battle.net account.

If I can’t rely on the authenticator to work properly then the best idea is going to be to change the password to something I don’t use for anything else at all, and also make it relatively complex since the username doesn’t need to be guessed at all!

Dear <username>,

You have been issued a temporary ban by one of our moderators.

Category: Free Servers
Span: 11/02/2009 – 11/08/2009 23:59:59 [7 days]
Reason: Discussing or advertising unofficial servers or emulators for MMOs is not permitted on the MMORPG.com forums. These servers are against the ToS of the original game, and violate the intellectual propriety rights of the game’s publisher and developer.

This temporary ban was generated from the following post on our discussion forum:

Thread: Wanted: ability to turn back time
Below is the content of the post:

————————————————
[snip]

————————————————

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3188255#3188255

Note: If the thread or post has been deleted you will not be able to view it. The above link might not work.

Thank you,

The Staff
MMORPG.COM

If you believe you received this in error or would like more information please respond to this message or send an email with the details to community@mmorpg.com

The forum post I responded to said this…

Is [sic] SWG: Pre-CU was as “amazing” as people say it was… there would be an emulator by now and private servers running it.

I have a very strong theory that SWG Pre-Cu was NOT this amazingly perfect MMORPG that ushered in the golden age.

My post was this…

http://www.swgemu.com/

This has been in development for a long time.  Reverse-engineering a game that doesn’t exist any more has obvious added difficulties.  Personally I don’t think I’ll ever play on one of these emulators simply because I don’t think the quality will be there when it comes to support and hardware costs… then again support in SWG was always a bit LOL.  IIRC 1 week response time on tickets was considered fairly good at the time.

Your “very strong” theory (way to self-promo btw) is of course correct.  SWG was never a perfect game.  It was riddled with bugs from silly harvester animations not working to more serious problems like bugs in the skill trees and jedi defense stats not doing what they said on the tin.  It also had a terrible lack of content but because it was a sandbox, players could always find something to do.  It was also ridiculously incomplete at launch and they brought in stuff like animal mounts long before vehicles which wasn’t very Star Wars like.

However… it was hands down the best sandbox game I’ve played and I am one of those sad people that try them all and usually end up disappointed.  SWG needed fixing but it was unique and had a good community.  SOE could have spent a fraction of the cost of the rebranding to fix the problems and they would have had an absolute winner.  Instead they tried to make it more like WoW, somehow missing the obvious in that if SWG players wanted to play WoW then they already would.

Sorry but imo it is one of the worst MMO crimes of all time and I’m glad SOE felt the burn of their customer base leaving in droves afterwards.  It was a punishment they deserved… that said, if they brought back Pre-CU (or even pre-NGE), I think we’d all return in droves.   Bitter but grateful.  There is currently no game out there that is even remotely close to what SWG was.

As you can see I wasn’t trolling, acting childish or blatantly making a pain of myself.  I was just taking part in a discussion that had already been started by someone else.  I think mmorg.com were wrong to ban me over this.  They could have given me a warning or just edited my post to remove the link if they didn’t like it.  I e-mailed them back with my opinion on their actions which I’ve copied below.

Dear MMORPG.com,

I thought I was taking part in an intelligent discussion on a forum that encouraged it.

I didn’t even know there was a rule for that. A warning would have been much more appropriate since it was obviously innocent and blatantly not advertising if you read the content of my post – I even said that I would not use a 3rd party server for concerns on service levels.

My terms of service with a game that I no longer play are between Sony Online Entertainment and myself. They are none of your god-damn business and they are most certainly not law – Not in the US and not in my country. Even if you were somehow responsible for enforcing SOE’s terms of service, you’ll quite clearly find I’ve not broken them as no game company would have the audacity to try and ban freedom of speech on a 3rd party web site.

Bollocks to you and your moderator. Please upgrade my ban to a permanent one so I’m not tempted to try and engage in any other discussions on your site. What a ridiculous rule that is. When Darkfall was trying to release, you were all slagging it off so much I’m surprised they didn’t sue you for liable as you most certainly DID have a serious impact on how potential customers viewed their game, and yet I can’t innocently mention a 3rd party emulator in a discussion that was already about it? Hypocrisy!

Stick your censorship right up your arses.

Rob.

To the Members of the California State Assembly:

I am returning Assembly Bill 1176 without my signature.

For some time now I have lamented the fact that major issues are overlooked while many
unnecessary bills come to me for consideration. Water reform, prison reform, and health
care are major issues my Administration has brought to the table, but the Legislature just
kicks the can down the alley.

Yet another legislative year has come and gone without the major reforms Californians
overwhelmingly deserve. In light of this, and after careful consideration, I believe it is
unnecessary to sign this measure at this time.

Sincerely,

Arnold Schwarzenegger

In order to do so they’ve decided to send me a code in the mail.  No problem.  I’ll just wait for the mail and put the code in to their website when I get it…  Right?

So I’m waiting.  It’s now October 29th and my funds are still frozen for that business.  The clock is ticking as it won’t be able to pay it’s suppliers soon unless PayPal restore the access or it’s bailed out by Director’s funds while they dick around.  As it turns out, the reason it’s taking so long is that despite me living in the UK, my business being based in the UK, and the PayPal account being managed by PayPal UK, they’ve decided to send the letter from Nebraska, USA.  Presumably surface mail too from the looks of it.  Seriously wtf?

I wonder how much interest they make on all their customers funds when they pull that little scam…

Time to look at other payment processors while that little bit of paper floats across the Atlantic methinks!

Let’s compare this with somewhere that really suffers from a water shortage like…hmm… Cyprus!  The average annual rainfall for the entire island (including the mountains) is 500mm.  In Cyprus I could expect to pay around €30 a quarter, or €10 a month which is about £8.80 a month.  So 10 times cheaper really and although the stuff does also fall out of the sky there, there’s so little of it that they have to import it from other countries.

But let’s forget about other countries, and just look at the United Kingdom.  Recently on the news they were making a fuss about the average water bill rising to over £300 a year! £300?  I’d kill to have my bill lowered from £964.28 to £300!

I’ve rang up United Utilities and they’ve told me they won’t remove my water meter and let me pay a standard rate.  They’ve told me I’m not allowed to remove it myself either.  There’s no choice of alternative supplier and if I don’t pay the bill then they’ll cut off my water.  They operate more like a Mafia.

They’re not even good at what they do.  A few hot days in summer and they’ll declare a drought thanks to leaky pipes.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment but as usual our justice system has let everyone down and made a mockery of everyone that died, their families, and the people of the U.K. and also the people of the U.S. who deserved justice for all the citizens that they lost. This man deserved no compassion from anyone.

Once again, I’m ashamed to be British as the international spotlight focuses on us. We just don’t seem to have the balls to do what needs to be done with criminals and terrorists. Letting him die in prison wouldn’t make us as bad as him. If we were as bad as him then we would have murdered 270 of this terrorist’s innocent friends and family as well as Megrahi himself. Instead all we needed to do in order for justice to be done was keep him in prison until he died and we couldn’t even manage that without some do-gooder with a minority opinion interfering.

We need to stop trying to sympathize with criminals and terrorists and quickly come to the realization that there really is good and evil in the world. Someone that murders 270 innocents is indeed an evil person no matter what his race or religion. We should not try to understand and sympathize with monsters.