Day: November 12, 2008

My go-round with cybercrime

Posted on by Nimgimli

This post isn’t game related.

Monday I got our monthly bank statement from our “extra” checking account. I was horrified to find over $200 in charges to iTunes on it. Since this isn’t our main account, there wasn’t much money in it, but the Overdraft Protection had kicked in and now we were in the red. A quick check showed our ATM cards were all where they were supposed to be, so I immediately called the bank (Citizen’s Bank).

The very unhelpful person I spoke to couldn’t do much for me. She claimed she couldn’t deactivate the cards or in any way ‘freeze’ the account so more damage couldn’t be done. I’d have to go to a physical bank to do that. She did offer to start the paperwork on an affidavit to file a fraud report. Said that it would arrive for me to sign in 7-10 business days, and after I signed it and returned it an investigation would get underway.

After I hung up with her, I contacted Apple. They were even less helpful. There was nothing they could do, said I should speak to my credit card company (even though the charges weren’t on a credit card) and/or file a report with the police.

A bit of googling revealed that iTunes fraud is really, really common. And no, I don’t have an iTunes account connected to that checking account.

Tuesday, the banks were closed, so I had to wait until this morning to speak to someone, wondering all the time if even more funds were being sucked out of my account. Once I got there, the Customer Service rep started digging into the details of the situation. She discovered that it was Angela’s ATM card number that had been used (wouldn’t it be nice if our bank statements showed this info?) so Angela had to meet me at the bank to sign the affidavit. The rep did all the paperwork, canceled the card, got the signature and told us it’d take about 10 business days to get reimbursed.

I was chatting with her while waiting for Angela to arrive, and she told me that “most” of the claims that she saw were related to iTunes purchases. And that indeed, Apple wasn’t the least bit interested in helping consumers, or the banks apparently. Now this is 1 rep speaking, so you have to take it as hearsay. But I didn’t leave feeling warm and fuzzy about Apple or iTunes.

I feel a little better now. We still have to cover the overdraft until we get reimbursed, which is annoying but not crippling. I just wanted to share my experience and encourage you all to keep an eye on your credit card and banking statements and make sure nothing fishy is happening.

Honestly I have stacks of statements from this account that I never opened since we so rarely use it; I’m not even sure why I opened this month’s. But you can be sure I’ll be checking all my accounts every month, and probably checking them online once a week to boot. We don’t know how/when the info got stolen, though we’re going to do some checking. The last transaction Angela made with her card was to her hosting provider, and that was in the middle of October. Before then she hadn’t used the card in months. I don’t want to name names until I know for sure, but I suspect her provider has a security hole in their system.

Left 4 Dead demo review

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last night I downloaded the Left 4 Dead demo off of XBox Live. This is a game I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. I tried playing it solo, since realistically that’s how I’d be playing it if I bought the game. Scheduling 4 friends to get together to play a game online is pretty much impossible at this stage of my life. Too many wife/kid/girlfriend issues in my social circles.

As a single player game, Left 4 Dead looks great, really sets a great tone and… gets boring really fast. The first ten minutes is amazing as hordes of zombies come charging at you and your 3 NPC friends and you mow them down. The zombies are like aggressive cockroaches, as they come flooding out of a sewer opening or the doorway of a darkened warehouse.

The AI is great. They’ll get you out of trouble and even offer you extra gear (without you asking for it). They’ll call out items laying around and special zombies incoming. They’re skilled too. On my first scorecard I, ahem, ranked last in everything but damage taken, where I came in first. At the same time, they don’t make the game feel easy. You really do need four capable fighters to survive.

On the other hand, you spend a lot of time in dark buildings. Really dark. Bottom of a cave dark. Your flashlight will light up an area about the size of a basketball. There’s no reflective light in the rooms, no ambient light from the flashlights of the other 3 members of your team. Suddenly your XBox Experience is like looking through a pinhole. Yes, it adds to the tension but it quickly becomes really tedious not being able to see. You can get lost in a small bathroom; that’s how small the beam is.

Outside is more fun but I soon started getting the Hellgate: London effect. Block after block of ruined buildings got monotonous really fast. Swarm after swarm of zombies, ditto. Granted the demo is only one level, but it just didn’t hold my interest for very long. And while the idea of getting attacked from all sides constantly is interesting, in practice it felt a bit like a chore, having to constantly turn around and look behind, look up, look down, look to each side (the shoulder buttons do insta-turn you, to be fair). I can see how this could be really compelling for some gamers, but for me it just felt like a lot of work.

I’m guessing multiplayer with friends would be a *lot* more fun, so if that’s how you plan to play it, definitely check out the demo. But I can’t see spending $60 to play this game single player (and to be fair I don’t think Valve has ever pitched as a single player game).

EDIT:
Aaron at Anyway Games had a much different and more positive reaction to the demo. Check out what he has to say: Left 4 Dead Demo

Getting ready for Moria

Posted on by Nimgimli

I installed the Mines of Moria expansion for Lord of the Rings Online tonight (you can download and install the files ahead of time so you’ll be ready for launch) and then fired the game up to make sure everything was working properly.

And promptly got sucked in.

One of the drawbacks of Warhammer being a massive RvR game is that the graphics can’t be as lush as they can be with a primarily PvE game. When the whole intend is to have 100 player characters on screen at once, you have to keep a close eye on your level of detail.

Thing is, in my time away from LOTRO I’d forgotten how great it looks, so it was a pleasant treat indeed; like having a brand new game in a way! I took some pics to try and share with you, though some of this stuff doesn’t translate well to static screens. But look at this Orc to the right. Can you see the level of detail in his face? That’s one angry ugly!! (As always, click the image to get a bigger, or at least clearer, version.) Most of the mobs have a ton of detail, though often you’ll never enjoy it until you’re much higher level than they are and can take the time to really look at them. 🙂

This one, well, I need to work on my timing. Aethgar is a duel-wielder and he’s about to make a move where he slashes horizontally with both weapons, but sadly it just looks like he’s trying to hug himself. But can you make out the rain coming down, the drops hitting the water? See how the target rings are distorted by the water the combatants are standing in? What I can’t capture in a screenshot are the flashes of lightning that turn everything almost white for an instance, or the rumblings of thunder. And I should definitely have turned the camera up to get some sky shots. LOTRO has great skies.

And what kind of armor is Aethgar wearing? Well, what you see is his “social clothing.” This particular number I got as a gift for registering at mmorpg.com (I think). You can opt to display your real armor or your social stuff. This means everyone can really have a unique look without sacrificing their stats.

None of this is unique to LOTRO, but I’d been away long enough that it was just really pleasing to experience it again. And there are definitely things that bug me about LOTRO, like the lack of autofacing in combat, and the fact that quest items take up inventory slots. But being re-delighted with the game makes giving up Warhammer for a while a bit less painful. Now I wonder how I’ll react to going back to EQ2!!