Akjosch's Game blog

So the beta keys are back and I managed to grab one.

First impression: What the hell, Square Enix? I get why you use BitTorrent to distribute the client and its updates, but damn it, at least stop blocking alternative, better clients from your tracker. Seriously: Your implementation sucks a lot. At least, let us configure the max upload so we don't have to saturate our DSL lines and piss off everyone else in the family using the same network.

Well, some 20 hours later ... What, no Dwarves? Oh well, let's do some other nordic archetype then.

Welcome to Kashuan, Akjosch Akjoschson.

Damn, this is laggy here. Got to optimise first.

Damn it!

Monday, 2010-06-21, around 23:00 Teon server time (UTC+2), Silent Valley

So me (a level 79 Maestro) in Nightmare Heavy and with my trusty Basalt Battlehammer went to grind a bit in Silent Valley. I took our "little" 73 Bounty Hunter Amerleen (in shiney A-grade equipment) and our 78 Dominator Fluff (in Major Arcana robes and with an Arcana Mace) with me, since both are so seldom online when I am and I wanted to get them a bit of XP too.

Arriving at the deep end of the valley, we noticed a bunch of dead bodies lying around - most likely bots (people don't tend to waste time lying dead so long). Along comes DelianZ, an untagged Wind Rider in S80 equipment and thus easily outmatching every single one of us, with a nice red PKer name. Oh well, if he feels like PKing bots, or even other people, I don't mind. His and their problem. So we let him go ... until he attacked Fluff, at which point he dies. "Sorry, man." I PM him. "NP, I'll be back." he PMs back.

So I warn my party and we go on merrily slaughtering mobs left and right when I see him, still red, back on the horizon. He washes away his karma killing more mobs and comes back to us, attacking us again. So we start giving him a handful of Dwarven love right in his face. He uses Hide, then drops my golem and lands a lucky blow on Fluff, killing him, at which point it's just me with a bit of help from Amerleen against him.

He dies. Again.

I resurrect Fluff and we get ready to kill more mobs as a bunch of RedSky guys comes along and drops me for being flagged (way to make friends for your struggling alliance, scrubs!), ao I got back to the clan hall and restock on GCP pots. So I'm not there when Amerleen gets killed by DelianZ (yay, he managed to kill an A-grade Bounty Hunter, what a hero ...). Too bad, he'd probably just die a third time ...

End result: An S80 dagger goes in an area which he already outlevelled some time ago, attacks people a grade or two under his gear level, and only manages to get an "even". Way to fail.

This time around, it tries to lure you to a site in the NCSOLT.COM domain. Guess who it's registered to?

Domain Name ..................... ncsolt.com
Name Server ..................... ns1.superdns.org
                                  ns2.superdns.org
Registrant ID ................... hc765055622-cn
Registrant Name ................. nc solt
Registrant Organization ......... nc solt
Registrant Address .............. shenyangshenyang liaoning
Registrant City ................. shenyang
Registrant Province/State ....... Liaoning
Registrant Postal Code .......... 100009
Registrant Country Code ......... CN
Registrant Phone Number ......... +86.7916276996 -
Registrant Fax .................. +86.7916276996 -
Registrant Email ................ webmaster@ncsolt.com

Well, not NCSoft for sure. I doubt NCSoft uses cheap-o shared web hosting services in Hong Kong for their secure web site either. ;)

For those interested, the full text (obviously with faked links) is:

Greetings!
This is an automated notification regarding the recent change(s)

made to your Aion Account. NCSoft system scan to your account insecurity, in order not to affect the normal use of your account, please log NCSoft safety net to verify your account information, or else NCSoft will stop using your account's rights . Certification of Aion Account information site of NCSoft:
https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-bin/plaync_login.pl
NCSoft staff will verify your account information submitted in two days, please do not modify your account information during this time . It will not affect your game uptime.

Account security is solely the responsibility of the account holder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, NCSoft 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.

Please retain this e-mail for your reference. If you have any questions about the account information, please contact Support@NCSoft.com.

The Aion Team

The usual advice applies: Don't follow any links in officially-looking mails you didn't request, don't put your account information in there, don't visit such sites with JavaScript or any other scripting enabled and if you suspect you might have done any of it, change your account passwords from a known "clean" computer and make a through viirus and spyware scan of the computer you used just to be sure. If you don't have a "clean" computer, use a Linux-on-CD distribution like Knoppix - they don't require any installation at all and can't be that easy tampered with.

As a side note, I only get those mails to the mail address I used to register at Stratics and no-where else. Makes you wonder about their site security.

(This post should have gone online on Thursday, server/editor issues prevented that)

Well, a lot of people are. Quite some of them are looking in the wrong place - namely, on the Google search engine - and come up with a page which talks about the Facebook login, but isn't the login page itself. Some realise their mistake. Others ... not so much.

Read the comments. It's awesome.