A blizzard of a lawsuit

Bot creation company Bossland (out of Zwickau, Germany) is having their metaphorical balls handed to them by Blizzard Entertainment. As it turns out, Blizzard was not as okay with them creating a cheat for the new game Overwatch as they had expected. You would think they would have seen this coming since it isn't the first time they've been sued by Blizzard for creating cheat bots.

That's right...

They've been sued before...
By the same people...
For the same reasons...

Bossland created "Buddy bots" that allowed users to cheat in Blizzard's games such as Diablo 3, World of Warcraft, and Heroes of the Storm.

But onto this CURRENT lawsuit...
The cheat bot created by Bossland is called Watchover Tyrant and it allows users to see when an enemy is near and what their health status is. Now, if you're thinking, "No big deal. I've played games like that before! It's a huge help!" Then stop, collaborate, and listen. Those games have that feature built into the gameplay. It is literally there to help you. This game does not. For the users that DON'T have the bot, it is an unfair advantage! This is an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). Anyone using this bot in game can run around sniping the lower level gamers without the bot. How fair is that?

It's not.

Not at all.

So Blizzard Entertainment are suing Bossland for copyright infringement and participating in unfair competition. Blizzard Entertainment claims in their complaint that they have lost, "millions or tens of millions of dollars in revenue, and to suffer irreparable damage to its goodwill and reputation."

They continued on to say, "Moreover, by releasing 'Overwatch Cheat' just days after the release of Overwatch, Defendants are attempting to destroy or irreparably harm that game before it even has had a chance to fully flourish."

Since the detection of the cheat bot, Blizzard has booted thousands of users. In response to this, Bossland not only did not apologize, but instead they stated only that they would tweak their bot to make it harder for Blizzard to detect.

WTF is that shit?

So Blizzard are looking for compensation for their monetary losses because they believe that Bossland has raked in millions of dollars selling this cheat-hack-asshole-bot.

Bossland is not fearful of the lawsuit because it was filed in California and they have no jurisdiction over their company. We will just have to wait and see if that's the way of it.

Karma is a fickle mistress, Bossland.... fickle indeed.

Source: Gamespot 1, Gamespot 2, TorrentFreak, Legal Complaint

WoW, Vanilla!

Now, it's no secret that Blizzard has effectively Brought the hammer down on the fan-run vanilla World of Warcraft server Nostalrius.






I know, I know...
But it apparently had to be done.

The big-wigs of Blizzard Entertainment offered to meet with the people that used to run Nostalrius.


And they actually followed through with it!
Now, you may be thinking that their meeting was something like this...

But according to the project manager of Nostalrius, Viper, Mike Morhaime (CEO) and Tom Chilton (game director of WoW) showed up to talk to them along with a lot of other members of the development team. They talked about a number of things, most not mentioned, but we know one thing for sure:

They discussed why WoW hasn't just launched their own legacy servers.
For those of you new to the world of ever-evolving-video-games, a Legacy System (or server in this case) is an old method, technology, computer system, or application program.

Viper explained:

“However, in order to generate the server (and the client), a complex build system is being used. It is not just about generating the ‘WoW.exe’ and ‘Server.exe’ files. The build process takes data, models, maps, etc. created by Blizzard and also generates client and server specific files. The client only has the information it needs and the server only has the information that it needs.”

“This means that before re-launching vanilla realms, all of the data needed for the build processes has to be gathered in one place with the code. Not all of this information was under a version control system. In the end, whichever of these parts were lost at any point, they will have to be recreated: this is likely to take a lot of resources through a long development process.”

So it seems that, for now, there aren't going to be any vanilla WoW servers for all of us avid fans. But, although Blizzard is keeping tight-lipped about whether they plan to eventually have their own vanilla WoW servers, the have stated that they plan to stay in touch with the Nostalrius crew and hope to work with them in the future!

Does this mean good, vanilla-y yumminess will be coming to us?

Who's to say?
It's a waiting and guessing game until further notice.



Source: Kotaku

It's High Nerf!

For fans of the new Blizzard Entertainment game Overwatch, this news may come as no surprise.

McCree, a character in the game, is seriously overpowered! He takes out tanks like they are fluffy little bunnies with his ultimate attack: High Noon.

He shouldn't be able to do that!
Well, you're right! The creators have spoken and expressed concerns over McCree's Cowboy-God-like power! They have suggested that a nerf is in the works.

For those who don't know what a nerf is:
(No.. not those foam guns/balls that you pretend to kill people you don't like with)

A Nerf is an addition or change to a video game that makes the game less desirable or effective.

This is good news for everyone fighting against McCree. 

It means that the game creators are metaphorically nerf-gunning him!

Suck it, McCree!

Some more good news for players is that D. Va, a seriously UNDERpowered character, has also been targeted by the creators. 

While they probably won't fix BOTH characters right away, it is good that they know there are problems and they are actively working to fix them! D.Va will most likely be put on the back-burner until McCree can calm the heck down!

artwork by Jester5728

In brighter (and less Nerf-y) news, Overwatch's "Competitive Play" mode will return by the end of this month!

SWEET! 

Not only is that news already PHENOMENAL...
But, with the return of "Competitive Play", comes:
a longer season

a more skill-based system without a safety net

and a dynamic queue for matchmaking

!!!!!!

Are you excited?

You should be excited!

I am excited!

Okay!

Now, remember:
Have fun out there and play nice!

No cheating, you guys!

Source: Polygon