MOGS

A reminder to WoW Players

So today I received a famous WoW account scam email… I want to share this with everyone and how to avoid falling for this bullshit. To any scammers out there.. FUCK OFF!
—————————————————————————————
from Blizzard Entertainment
reply-to noreply@blizzard.com
to hayden@mogs.com
date Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 9:30 PM
subject Blizzard Account Administration — Account Security
mailed-by hotmail.com ****** HERE is our first clue, check all headers, mail from Blizzard will not be Hotmail.com******
hide details 9:30 PM (20 hours ago)
Greetings!
This is an automated notification regarding the recent change(s) made to your World of Warcraft account.
Your password has recently been modified through the Password Recovery website.

*** If you made this password change, please disregard this notification.
However, if you did NOT make changes to your password, we recommend you Login verify your password:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com *****HERE this is a working link in the email, right click any links that refer to Blizzard/ Wow and copy the link, then paste it in a txt file, you will see something much different than worldofwarcraft.com*****
If you are unable to successfully verify your password using the automated system, please contact Billing & Account Services at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499) Mon-Fri, 8am-8pm Pacific Time or at billing@blizzard.com.

Account security is solely the responsibility of the account holder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives typically must lock the account.
In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

Regards,

The World of Warcraft Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment

Global Agenda

Hi-Rez Studios is releasing a new MMO called Global Agenda. A new fps style mmo taking place in the year 2155. You will take control of a customizable “agent” which you will traverse the globe fighting your way to take control of it. Global Agenda looks to have fast paced combat with base raids consisting of a 60 vs. 60 matches.

The game is coming out Feb 1, 2010 and is one to keep on your mmo radar, looking to be a more solid Tabula Rasa-like game.

http://www.globalagendagame.com/TheGame_Description.html

-Jon

14 Percent of US Households are Gaming Online

The NPD reported this week that 14% of US households currently have a subscription to an online gaming service. Spending on these subscriptions rose 7 percent this year as well, to $115 per capita. These numbers are even more impressive when you consider that only 76 percent of US homes have an internet subscription. Furthermore, subscriptions to traditional forms of media, such as newspapers and magizines, each fell 2 percent compared to last year.
In light of concerns that the recession would cause a reduction in spending on online services, the fact is, the market is actually steadily going. This is because consumers are looking at the relative worth of their gaming subscription, and what they are receiving for their money. In an ecomony where you pay $10 for an hour and half movie, $60 for a new PS3 or XBOX360 game, or $50 for a date or night out with your friends, it only makes sense to pony up $15 a month for the amount of content and enjoyable evenings you get out of an MMO. If anything, it actually helps to act as insurance against excessive spending on the aforementioned items, I would know.

Star Trek Online Episode Missions

Cryptic just announced Star Trek Online will be released February 2nd, 2010. Cryptic also announced that there will be episode missions, where you would be playing through an episode of the tv series. Each episode will build upon the Start Trek storyline and challenge your abilities as a tactician. There will be three ’seasons’ at launch, with 14 episodes per season. While the three seasons available at launch will have common themes, and many episodes are related to one another, there are only a few episodes with prerequisites to meet before you can play through them. Episodes generally last between 45 and 90 minutes and are designed with transition in mind. In many classic Star Trek episodes, the characters were never on one set very long. In the game, you’ll find yourself moving between different maps, both on the ground and in space, to blend literal movement with plot development. This game is definitely one to look out for, and I can’t wait till February to join the Star Trek Universe.

http://startrekonline.com/screenshots?img=77

-Jon
Mogs.com

SWG Entertainer/Trader GCW Banner Suggestion

I’ve been thinking about what to do about the GCW banners for a ranking Entertainer or Trader. Why not make it so that anyone of the same faction gets double the buff from Entertainers, I’m not talking about duration either. It would help those that have no 5 piece set. Sure it would make those of that do stronger but that’s just part of the game.

For the Trader profession its a bit more difficult, for a Domestics Trader why not make their GCW banners give double the buff of the food/drink that a person has. This would also give a boost to the economy due to the fact that people would be more inclined to get the best foods that they can. For a Weaponsmith, Droid engineer, and Armorsmith the banners could give a Trader prof specific buff, like say 5% bonus to armor or weapon damage. A structures traders GCW banner could give a bonus to armor protections, maybe another 5% bonus.

This all in turn would give people a reason to play their crafters in space to get GCW or even try their hands at ground combat with Traders. If crafters and entertainers will (finally) play an active role in the GCW with the GCW update then the rewards obtained from GCW ranks should also be updated to include these professions.

Fallen Earth Released

Another post-apocalyptic MMO released! Huzzah! Let’s cut to the chase. Good character customization, clean and crisp graphics, six weapon slots, and it has PVP. I haven’t yet got my hands on this but it appears to have a Fallout 3 feel to it. It’s scoring high ratings from users, with there just being one main issue. You need a fairly high end PC to run this game smoothly. Check out the trailer below and others, or Zombie Bill Murray will eat your brains.

Christian

Plants vs. Zombies

I’m going on two months without playing WoW, and I have been looking for a new game. After reading reviews on a couple of sites, I stumbled on Plants vs. Zombies this $20 game from Popcap.com is strange in concept but a ton of fun to play. I played the trial on Friday then ended up purchasing the game minutes after the trial ended to play more. The game is a “tower defense” game, where wave after wave of zombies attempt to cross your lawn, pool, or even the roof of your house in hopes to eat your brains. It’s up to you to plant a garden using the 6×9 tile grid to plant various plants with different attacks, abilities and defenses as fast, and strategic as you can given the number of seed slots (different kinds of plants you have) for the level. For those who aren’t familiar with tower defense games, from either various flash games or Warcraft 3 custom tower defenses, this game has a small learning curve so almost anyone can learn (my 8 yr. old cousin had a blast with the game). With 49 different kinds of plants from gatling gun Pea shooters to giant piranha plants, and 26 different zombies that vary from the basic mindless zombie, to scuba-divers, zamboni drivers, and “gigantaur” there’s always something new in every level in the adventure mode to keep the game moving. The adventure mode is only 5 worlds long and takes about 4-5 hours to play through, but it’s all building up to prepare you for everything else the game has in store. After completing the adventure mode the first time around, you can play through it again with an added twist and a harder difficulty. Aside from the adventure mode, there’s a ton of fun mini-games, puzzle games, survival modes, and even a zen garden to keep the game changing with new and unique challenges to complete. Once you complete the survival mode challenges, you are presented with survival mode endless, where you try to see how many waves of zombies your defense can handle. First starting with 1-5 zombies per wave in the first levels, building up to hundreds of zombies per wave towards lvl 40. I’ve only made it to wave 42 on my first attempt, hoping to make it to wave 100 by the end of the week. Before I forget to mention it, one thing this game has that many take for granted, is a great soundtrack to keep you immersed in the game.  I’ve found myself lost in the folds of planting my garden, fending off waves of zombies, zoned into the music into the late hours of the night. Besides my normal video game binge, this game isn’t  a huge time commitment, levels take anywhere from 10-20 minutes to complete and you can pause it at any time to go do whatever you have to do.

On my zombie kick from this game, my favorite shirt site ended printing a shirt that fits the theme of the game on Saturday and I was the first to purchase it that night within .087seconds of it going up for the day’s sales: http://shirt.woot.com/friends.aspx?k=9633.

I recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a game that is cheap, has a lot of strategy, and isn’t a huge time commitment.

SWG Customization

This week I’m going to show you what can be done in SWG to customize your city and your gameplay experience.

These are some screenshots of a cool setup someone did with his city.

The ability to create custom content in SWG is really cool and you can’t do anything like it in any other game. Come and play everyone!

Mark

SWG PIMP

Terror in Santa Barbara

This has nothing to do with gaming… This has to do with one of the most beautiful places in the United States, Santa Barbara California. I once lived there in Isla Vista on Del Playa, for any of you that have been there you know what’s up! Santa Barbara brings everything I enjoy into one place, there is no need to ever leave the Santa Barbara area. You have fresh fish from the harbor, great wineries and organic farms over the Santa Ynez mountain range, a skate park on the beach and multiple good surf breaks. On top of this you have easy access to the Channel Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Islands_of_California). So Santa Barbara has a special place in my heart for sure and also my cousins both live there. So the night of November 13th I got a call from my cousin saying he was watching flames burn just blocks from his house. This fire was called the “Tea Fire”, it was getting headlines for a day on all the major news networks… Anyway good news his house was fine and also I got some images from that night… This is pretty scary shit!

A picture from the water off Santa Barbara of Tea Fire

Now here is that same picture during the day, minus the fire…

Santa Barbara fireless

For any of you that have been effected by this or know people that have our best wishes go out to you. If you are interested in helping with donations or in other ways there is a great amount of info found here at the Independent, a local SB paper (http://www.independent.com/news/2008/nov/18/tea-fire-and-sympathy/).