Microsoft, Blizzard Crack Down On Piracy, Cheating 150
Microsoft has confirmed that they've been wielding the banhammer lately over modifications to the Xbox 360 which allow players to run pirated games. Xbox Live's Major Nelson said the action would also void the warranty on the offending console, and that Microsoft will "continue to employ and bolster anti-piracy security measures to counter piracy in the gaming industry and improve security in the Xbox LIVE community." Meanwhile, Blizzard dealt with 350,000 of their own problem users on Battle.net, saying simply that they wouldn't tolerate cheating. This is likely one of many steps to clean up the system before it gets revamped for use with StarCraft II.
Re:Is this really news? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, I really appreciate Blizzards hard work to ban all the cheaters, it would suck if they didn't cared. (And the same actually goes for farmers in WoW if they ruin the game experience for everyone else.)
An opposit would be Nintendo there they don't seem to implement some sort of cheating test (for instance control which bricks come in tetris and see if they fit in the location the game claim they fit in tetris, or that you can really walk where the client claim, or that it have the amount of resources, and so on and so on.)
Their lame trust of the client because they know the game can't be modified (unless there was flashcarts ..) has led to videos on youtube there people play for instance Tetris DS vs someone who only get 4x1 bricks .. Talk about a ruined experience. They could just had sent an array of say 20 bricks at a time and see if the current game state allowed position such a brick in the position claimed.
Anyway, hurray for Blizzard trying to make online gaming an enjoyable experience. If only there was some way to vote for ban of a player in random team games in WC3 or such if they team kill / just leave the game / ..
Re:So Microsoft... (Score:5, Informative)
I would imagine one of the simplest ways to test is load a piece of software encoded for each console region. If they all run, it's modded.
Re:Is this really news? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty sure that PS3 has the region free games and the Xbox still has nasty region coding on its games :(
Re:So Microsoft... (Score:5, Informative)
I've got the HBC on my Wii and it's great. It even looks like an official (to some extent) thing because of it's (visual) quality.
Re:Is this really news? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes and no. Some 360 games are region-coded, some aren't. Just like with Blu-ray movies, oddly enough.
Re:Is this really news? (Score:3, Informative)
$50 ? More like 70 euros around here. Which is almost 90 bucks and further validates your point.
ELF = Executabe and Linkable Format (Score:4, Informative)
Turns out it's Executable Loader File.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELF [wikipedia.org] says it's "Executabe and Linkable Format".
It was the first time I had come across .elf files and thought it was a specific extension.
Ever noticed .orc or .hmn? How about .dwf, .hbt or .gnm? .kbld, .trgldt, .bhldr, .drgn or .nvsblstlkr? ;)
And don't you start a flame war between a GNOME pyrotechnician and firebreathing KDE dragon, okay? :P