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World of Warcraft Is Spyware!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 72 / 110
Date: October 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I recently performed a rather long reversing session on a piece of software written by Blizzard Entertainment, yes - the ones who made Warcraft, and World of Warcraft (which has 4.5 million+ players now, apparently). This software is known as the 'warden client' - its written like shellcode in that it's position independant. It is downloaded on the fly from Blizzard's servers, and it runs about every 15 seconds. It is one of the most interesting pieces of spyware to date, because it is designed only to verify compliance with a EULA/TOS. Here is what it does, about every 15 seconds, to about 4.5 million people (500,000 of which are logged on at any given time):

The warden dumps all the DLL's using a ToolHelp API call. It reads information from every DLL loaded in the 'world of warcraft' executable process space. No big deal.

The warden then uses the GetWindowTextA function to read the window text in the titlebar of every window. These are windows that are not in the WoW process, but any program running on your computer. Now a Big Deal.

I watched the warden sniff down the email addresses of people I was communicating with on MSN, the URL of several websites that I had open at the time, and the names of all my running programs, including those that were minimized or in the toolbar. These strings can easily contain social security numbers or credit card numbers, for example, if I have Microsoft Excel or Quickbooks open w/ my personal finances at the time.

Once these strings are obtained, they are passed through a hashing function and compared against a list of 'banning hashes' - if you match something in their list, I suspect you will get banned. For example, if you have a window titled 'WoW!Inmate' - regardless of what that window really does, it could result in a ban. If you can't believe it, make a dummy window that does nothing at all and name it this, then start WoW. It certainly will result in warden reporting you as a cheater. I really believe that reading these window titles violates privacy, considering window titles contain alot of personal data. But, we already know Blizzard Entertainment is fierce from a legal perspective. Look at what they have done to people who tried to make BNetD, freecraft, or third party WoW servers.

Next, warden opens every process running on your computer. When each program is opened, warden then calls ReadProcessMemory and reads a series of addresses - usually in the 0x0040xxxx or 0x0041xxxx range - this is the range that most executable programs on windows will place their code. Warden reads about 10-20 bytes for each test, and again hashes this and compares against a list of banning hashes. These tests are clearly designed to detect known 3rd party programs, such as wowglider and friends. Every process is read from in this way. I watched warden open my email program, and even my PGP key manager. Again, I feel this is a fairly severe violation of privacy, but what can you do? It would be very easy to devise a test where the warden clearly reads confidential or personal information without regard.

This behavior places the warden client squarely in the category of spyware. What is interesting about this is that it might be the first use of spyware to verify compliance with a EULA. I cannot imagine that such practices will be legal in the future, but right now in terms of law, this is the wild wild west. You can't blame Blizz for trying, as well as any other company, but this practice will have to stop if we have any hope of privacy. Agree w/ botting or game cheaters or not, this is a much larger issue called 'privacy' and Blizz has no right to be opening my excel or PGP programs, for whatever reason.

not for the casual gamer anymore

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 63 / 70
Date: January 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

In 2004, this game was advertised as 'being for the casual gamer' but also having content in which the 'hardcore gamer' could strive for. Anyone who did not have 14 hours a day to sit and play video games could have a lot of fun with this game in both PvE (player versus environment - you against the computer's monsters) or PvP (player versus player - players going head to head against one another). Originally the content was meant to be such that 'casual gamers could experience the full richness of the game and hardcore gamers would get a little bit extra out of the game, but the differences would be small.' On levels 1 - 59, this remains the case. However, upon reaching level 60 (which doesn't take anywhere near as long as other games, but is still a lengthy journey), the story completely changes. Hardcore gamers are rewarded with items which allow them to kill another player with just 1 swing / magic spell / shot, and armor that makes them so powerful that fighting them becomes like 'fighting a tank with a toothpick.' The developers of this game have effectively stopped releasing content for the "casual gamers" one year ago - and now spend the majority of their time catering to the "hardcore" players - which by the way, accounts for approximately 8% of their player base.

Levels 1 - 59 can go solo or fight in 5 man groups fighting quests or doing instances (dungeons in which only members of their party can enter) to get items or to level up. At level 60, to get the "hardcore" items which allow superior status, one must join 40 person "raids" (a raid is a combined coordinated collection of 2 or more groups, in this case, 8 groups) to fight the "hardcore" instances - which can take 6 - 14 hours ... or more.

World of Warcraft is a game that brought the masses in by its appeal from casual gamers and the differences that set it apart from EverQuest, whose end-game content also required very long "raids".

A recent New York Times article author recently described "casual" (generally non-raiding) gamers as being 'lazy, having no skill and not having partying (grouping) skill', to which the lead designer of the content of World of Warcraft effectively agreed.

Be warned about this "raid or die" mentality before you make the purchase of World of Warcraft.

Next - don't think that if you purchase the game that you will be able to play with your friends or family members. Blizzard's success with World of Warcraft has brought them far more subscribers than they bargained for, leaving them with game servers that have filled up to the max, leaving players with large amounts of lag and *long* waits to even log into the game. Blizzard's "queue" system sets a maximum number of players on each server, so if you try to log on at peak times when the server has reached its maximum number of players, you may have to wait - up to 2 hours - to play. To attempt to solve this problem, they have instituted a ban on all new character creations on certain servers for people who do not already have a character on that certain server (so if you don't already have a character on say, server "Dalaran", then you can't make a new character, you have to pick another server). If all of your friends or family are already playing on one of those servers, then you are out of luck. You will be playing all alone on a server in which you know nobody while the people you wanted to group with are on another server. Blizzard has been tightlipped about as to whether or not this new 'character creation ban' will be temporary or permanent. Thousands of people have bought this game since mid-December of 2005 and have been extremely irate by this issue. If someone bought this game under the assumption that he or she would be able to play online with friends and that person can't - that person ned not expect a refund from Blizzard. Their reply to this - "Working as intended. Cancel your account if you don't like it."

Combine this horrible customer service with the fact that almost all the servers have queue lines, many of them even during non-peak hours. Servers with huge loads of players experience unreasonable amounts of lag which hinders even basic movement throughout the game, much less talking to quest givers, getting loot from dead monsters and any other trivial task attempted to be undertaken. One thing that will really make any gamer mad is to be running through the forest, be lagged so badly as that it appears nothing around you is moving, then for the game to catch up 3 minutes later and you find yourself dead from monsters you couldn't see. This customer service has left many fans and players of World of Warcraft with their heads spinning, wondering where their $15 monthly subsciption fee goes.

This game was absolutely wonderful a year ago, and the content from levels 1 - 59, and the first few hours of level 60 is marvelous. The casual gamer can have lots of fun getting up to level 60, but once level 60 is attained, very little content exists for the "casual" gamer. This game is beautiful, has wonderful sounds / music, fun action and even requires thinking on the most basic "hack and slash" warrior by using abilities which must be planned and strategized versus just using one or two buttons for every fight. However, word has it that all the initial designers have long since left, leaving new designers which have changed the direction of the game.

My rating for World of Warcraft would be 5 for fun and 5 overall were it not for the terrible customer service, horrible server structure, new character creation ban and complete lack of end game 'non-raiding' content (it feels really bad to put many many hours of online play into a character only to have to abandon it simply because there is nothing else to do if you aren't a hardcore raider gamer). However, there is no fun at all when you have to wait 1 to 2 hours looking at a computer screen that says "Position in queue: 952. Estimated wait time: 1 hour 43 minutes" only to come back 10 minutes later to see the "Estimated wait time" at "1 hour 44 minutes." Some queues have even gotten up into the 1500s.

Please consider this before buying this product or referring this to a friend. Please go to the World of Warcraft website and look at their "general" forums. Then make a decision.

Virtual Drudgery

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 43 / 51
Date: June 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Loved this game until I hit 60, then it all fell apart.

This game requires that you make it the number one priority of your life. It's also true that you don't have to, but you won't have fun when you hit 60. As a casual gamer, I found post-60 to be depressing.

The battlegrounds suck, and on the server I played on, be prepared to wait at least an hour before you can even get in.

The rank system is a joke, and be prepared to spend at least a couple hours every night to maintain your current rank (if you don't play pvp you'll drop rank so it takes time in the bg's to even maintain the current rank you have).

Guilds are a joke. If you don't belong to a high-end raid guild then be prepared to join one, unless you want slaughtered by someone with epic gear/weapons. Be prepared for elitism, a $ $ kissing, and for your gameplay to be dictated by a guild leader with a god complex. Also be prepared to spend 3-4 hours a night at the very, very, minimum to satisfy your guild. You also have to get DKP points to even be eligable to go on a raid, so you're enslaved to your guild (otherwise there isn't any point being in it, and the point of being in a guild is to get top end items).

PvP is a joke. If you join a PvP server and go into contested territory (which is something you will find yourself in the majority of the time) be prepared to get ganked by higher levels alot. Stranglethorn Vale anyone?

The Community is a joke. This is by far the worst community I've ever seen. If you're new and ask any question, or if you're a vet and ask any question, be prepared to suffer the consequences. The elites of WoW were born with knowledge of how to play this game encrypted into their DNA, and anyone who dares ask a question is a "noob". Oh and learn your acronyms!!!!

You also have thousands who stand around and don't want to group, and those that do usually bail after THEY complete what THEY have to do. This game is full of self-absorbed, greedy, little babies.

Grinding sums this game up perfectly. All you do is grind, grind xp, grind honor, grind faction, grind for gear, grind your life away. With all the time this game requires to learn a virtual skill, you could pick up a real life skill and be somewhat proficient at it, or at least to a good start. Whatever you practice at 3 hours a day, most every day, you'll become good at, and it's a real-life, tangible skill.

But the bottom line is that this game REQUIRES you to spend hours a week, to the detriment of your love life (unless you can't get one), your job, and your social life. Don't get hooked, pass on this one.

As Frustrating and Addictive as Online Gambling

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 36 / 73
Date: November 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing WoW for some time now, and just today realised how I've wasted valuable time from my life. WoW seemed awesome at first, but after a while, the effect wears off & you realise that the quests are incredibly repetative, spending most of the time travelling from town to town, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

To quote someone on the Gamespot Forum, there are three types of quests in this game:

1) Go kill stuff
2) Go kill stuff and bring stuff back
3) Go see someone and bring stuff back

The community is the main reason why I stopped playing, who are really an arrogant and stuck-up lot. Sadly, it probably was not this way at the game's launch, but as certain players spent 20+ hours a day playing, neglecting their jobs, spouses (if they ever had one in the first place), many put themselves on a pedestal and refused to help or even acknowledge new players (branding them as "noobs," a strange and deragatory insult.) For players just starting out, the chat is filled with WoW language, which is incredibly overwhelming and difficult to decipher for the newcomer. What I find personally entertaining is the Role-Playing server, in which characters must speak only in the role of their character, e.g. orcs say things like "Me want to smash you!" and elves, "I shall smite thee!" The most ridiculous aspect of this whole scenario is that if one speaks out of character, or speaks of any non-game related subject, he is approached by the game police, or GM for short, promptly warned and then banned from WoW if the infractions continue. So, while the game is somewhat entertaining at first, it's the community that ultimately take the fun out of the game. In all seriousness folks, games life Half-Life 2, Quake 4, and even Age of Empires III offer a fun diversion, not an addictive and ultimately frustrating experience.

Hidden Costs

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 27 / 150
Date: February 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

PARENTS BEWARE-when you buy this game you are unaware that in order to play it the way it was intended, (according to all the kids that have it) you need to subscribe to a service for $15.00 @ month to play with others. Nowhere in the descriptive elements of the game was this stated; if it had been, the game would not have been purchased as a Christmas present. I feel cheated and duped. Your kid may want it, but do you want to pay a monthly fee for him to play it-CAVEAT EMPTOR! Buyer beware.

Ex-Hardcore wants time wasted back

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 46 / 58
Date: April 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

So I played this game religiously when it came out, and over time even leveled 3 level 60 characters, and as sad as that is, it gets worse. When you do reach the highest level in the game, yif you dont want to fight other players with ridiculous gear that can kill you in one or two hits you have to join a guild of 40+ players who can get together sometime during the week (yes all 40+) and go to a dungeon for 5-12 hours. I did this forever, I played a priest and after raiding a place called Molten Core about 15 times and getting two items that were just 'ok' I had to call it quits, anyone with a life can see that virtual items are NOT worth the 90+ hours spent to get them, do yourself a favor and go read a BOOK!

It isnt as easy to get into a guild as you think either, if you don't personally know people in game and are 'cool' with them then you basically have to kiss their rear to join, and most guild's entry requirements remind me of a job application, here's a sample:

How many hours do you play a week? Are you available Mon-Fri and Sat if needed between 5pm-3am PST? Are you willing to change your character to fit the guild's needs? So on and so forth.

Basically, you have to be an elitist jerk to enjoy this game at the top end, otherwise your left in the dust.

Fun, easy to level. At level 60 you better have 40 hrs/week.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 52 / 62
Date: May 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game starts with the premise that the casual gamer can advance relatively easily and in a fun, meaningful way. You can, even as a casual gamer, reach the current level cap of 60 (Will be 70 when the expansion comes out later this year). The quests are fun and grouping is fun. The scenery is wonderful and the animations are quite good as well.

All of that changes at level 60.

Thanks to the game designers Jeff Kaplan and Alex Asfrasiabi, 2 ex-EQ1 hardcore guild raiders, this game shifts into overdrive at level 60. These two 16hr/day EQ1 idiots have managed to turn this game into a HUGE timesink raidfest at level 60. To put it mildly: If you don't have a hardcore raiding guild and aren't willing to put in anywhere from 4-6 hours nightly EVERY night, you'll be sitting around the capitol cities with your fingers up your rear doing absolutely NOTHING. Let me state that again: If you don't have 30-60 hours per week at level 60 to put into this game, you will be running the same low level instanced dungeons over and over...and over..and over..and over..and over..and over..and over again.

They keep adding content but for whom? You guessed it: The hardcore elite. There is a ton of content that you, if you are a casual gamer, will never see. Nice of them to introduce new dungeons, bosses, loot etc that 80%+ of the playerbase won't see, eh?

Thanks Jeff! Thanks Alex ASSfrasiabi!

Horrible PVP,Dull Character Development but SHINY

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 58
Date: November 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I really expected more. Buyer beware, there's a lot of hype to this game, a lot of it is unfounded. The Blizzard Fan Boy army is large, so as an expierenced mmorpg player, I'll give you the straight poop.

This is a very shallow game. Everything has been done before by other mmo's, most of the time even better. It's point and click. Combat is dull. Grouping is pointless as the quest sytem makes it possible to solo through large portions of the game. The much lauded quest system isn't that great. Deliver this here, kill 20 of that, yada yada yada. I would have at least expected the quest system to be on par with City of Heroes, sadly it's not. It's not uncommon to find six, seven, or even more people camping spawns to kill x number of baddies. If you like running around waiting for something to spawn, you'll love this game.

Character custimization is dismal. You have a handfull of choices to make regarding the appearance of your character. If you and a friend both want to play together, and you don't choose the same race, you'll often be on opposite sides of a continent, with no convenient way to reach each other. Not that there's any real point to grouping anyway.

The servers so far seem mostly stable with very little lag, but this is only the beta, so I expect it to be much worse on the release date.

There aren't a lot of class choices. The game across the board only offers a little over a handfull of classes. Skill custimization is minimal, going off a a tier based tree type system.

Don't really have too much to say. Just take everything you read with a grain of salt. Including this.

Too easy , too much sugar

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 75
Date: January 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing MMOG since 97 - UOL , EQ , AC , AC 2 , DAoC , AO , SWG , WWIIOL , EQ2 , NWN ... you name it .
Besides every off line RPG there ever was - from Ultima 2 to Morrowind

I knew already before buying WoW that I would not like this game but have wanted to make the experience anyway .
The game box wandered to the garbage bin as expected yesterday after 1 month of playing .

The griefs are so many that I will only take the most importants .

1)
The biggest grief is that the game is too easy .
There is no challenge , I can solo whatever I want .
Dying is not a problem (Ah ? Wasn't this thing supposed to be an RPG ?) , levelling is not a problem , winning any fight is not a problem , being stupid is not a problem , being asocial is not a problem .
Nothing is a problem .
Ok I have nothing against games being designed for very young kids , but I happen to not to be one .
I want my RPGs challenging , leveling difficult without being unfeasible , a minimum of thinking required , I am not afraid of failing from time to time .
WoW is failing here - it treats the players like somebody mentally handicapped , unable to face a challenge , unable to support the least frustration .
Yet it's because the things are sometimes difficult that overcoming them creates a very strong feeling of happiness .
Of course the DOSE of difficulty is important - 100 % leads to discouragement but 0 % is ridiculous .

2)
Low life duration .
I suppose that in some 6 months , everybody will have done about everything in this game .
What then ?
Garbage bin ? Then I won 5 months .

3)
No cooperation .
Playing this game or playing a single player off line game is about the same .
WoW somehow missed the M from Multiplayer part .
Well , yes there is still this (stupid) PvP part that I guess could be called Multiplayer .
But then there are better games if it was PvP I was interested in .

4)
Really s...y , ugly graphics and colors .
It is surely a matter of taste but there is a part of immersion and credibility involved with playing RPGs .
Nobody can get an immersion feeling with a world that looks like a cartoon with colors that come from some bad LSD trip .
Not to speak about credibility .

So has WoW no merits ?

No there is at least one .
WoW is to MMORPG what Harry Potter is to fantasy litterature .
Harry Potter is a (very) bad litterature in general and subpar fantasy at best .
However it's easy to read and a good introduction for kids who without that would probably finish like most people by reading 1 or 2 books a year .
So there is a hope that beginning by the easy part , they would come to appreciate later some more difficult reading .

Same with WoW .
It's the best way to get introduced in an easy way to RPGs and MMOG for those who are little if at all familiar with it .
Once they ate this huge sugar cake , they might begin to appreciate some more subtle meals later .

The first single player MMORPG

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 56
Date: October 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Don't like groups? Hate groups? Love the thought of thousands of people inhabiting a fanstasy realm who ignore each other as often as possible? This is the game for you. Blizzard has done precisely what I feared: made a massively mulitplayer game for the battle.net Diablo kiddies. Within a week you'll max your level all by your self. You don't need them, they don't need you. Great concept Blizzard. (PS, you're graphics are already outdated and your art is the most laughable garbage ever foisted upon the world of online gaming.)

It's the most ironic thing. The "hardcore" EQ guilds are championing WoW and trashing EQ2 right and left. Yet, it's WoW that has ended up catering to the casual gamer and EQ2 that actually offers a challenging road to the end game. In World of Warcraft, the type of EQ player who managed to fully equip with Time gear is not going to be distinguishable from your average Sims player. Nothing wrong with allowing the casual gamer to have lots to do but there MUST be game content which demands dedication and skill. When everyone can do and see everything with little effort, games die.

Grats on your kiddy game Blizzard. People who like a challenge will be playing EQ2 once they realize the difference.

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