Update 3: Valve has issued a statement regarding today’s issues.

“Steam is back up and running without any known issues,” a Valve spokesperson told GameSpot. “As a result of a configuration change earlier today, a caching issue allowed some users to randomly see pages generated for other users for a period of less than an hour. This issue has since been resolved. We believe no unauthorized actions were allowed on accounts beyond the viewing of cached page information and no additional action is required by users.”

Update 2: Steam appears to be back online, and the issues have seemingly been resolved. Valve has still yet to release any kind of official statement regarding today’s incident.

Update: It now looks as if the Steam store may be down; numerous users, myself included, are unable to access it and are receiving an error when attempting to do so.

Also, while it’s still unclear what’s going on, Steam tracking website Steam Database has suggested this is all due to a caching issue. That said, the site recommends not attempting to remove your credit card, PayPal account, or anything of the sort. Whether that is indeed the best course of action remains to be seen, as Valve has still yet to officially comment on the situation.

Original Story: Steam is running into something of a catastrophe right now, giving players across the world access to other people’s accounts. It’s not yet clear how this is happening, but it’s a doozy.

Various players across the world are logging into their Steam clients to find that their homepage has changed to Russian or another random language. When they check the “account info” section of Steam, they find that they have access to another user’s account, complete with e-mail addresses, buying history, and other private information.

Going to Steam’s website will also grant you access to a random user’s account.

Based on some rudimentary testing I’ve done on my own Steam client, it seems like trying to view purchase histories and licenses will bounce around other random accounts, too, which is fun…

The account that my client accessed is using Steam Guard, the tool Valve provides to help prevent unauthorized account access. So clearly that hasn’t helped.

We’ve reached out to Valve for more information and will keep updating you guys as we learn more.

Until then, join us laughing at this, cos we all know it’s about right…

Steam support right now pic.twitter.com/QZ8fozpPMD

— Lucas Moura (@DrTeflon) December 25, 2015

 
Teehee… Damn hackers…
Merry Christmas all!

Paul Kubit, Sr Game Designer for World of Warcraft, dropped a ton info about how Professions will work in Legion.

One huge reveal is there will actually be Profession questlines.

Here’s a run down of everything he talked about:

– Goal – Giving you more stuff to do
Example: you log in on sunday and want to relax by doing professions so we’re going to change recipe acquisition.

– You won’t just log into this expac and learn every recipe you need from a trainer.
We want you out in the world to go on adventures to find recipes.

Example: Tailor starts quest in Dalaran, trainer asks you to go find cloth. It fails, find a new person to help you make it work! Rest of the quest line deals with learning stuff from a Nightborne who also learns from YOU about Dalaran.

Example: Mining – you learn from characters on how to mine more efficiently.

New ore: Ley Ore

– Mining and Herb nodes are SHARED in Legion. Druids won’t steal your nodes!

– Moving recipes out in the world
– Profession questlines, which will teach how to use new materials and deal with other issues and consequences from the questline
– Gathering nodes in Legion will Finally be shared
– Recipes will have ranks Ranks

– Tradeskill UI update
– Can set recipes to a favorites list
– Learned/unlearned tab
– Unlearned gives details about how to get those recipes
– Obliterum – dust or ash which is used to make crafted things into more powerful items
– Obtain Obliterum by taking them to a special forge to destroy crafted items

– Crafted items are special
– – All high level jewelcrafter Necks have guaranteed gem slot & class specific buffs
– – Engineer helms shoot bullets because they are made of gun parts
– – Minor glyphs are usable items, used to augment spells themselves no limit on how many you can use

– Major glyphs will be removed from the game
– Archaeologists have an expansion length quest line
– Cooking will be able to cook bacon and Nomi will show-up to teach new recipies
– Fishing will feel like a an adventure
– First Aid will have all new content related to it to make it an adventure

What do you think of the changes?  Let us know int eh comments below!

Matt Doss, Lead Game Designer, took us into all the crazy things we have to look forward to with Items and Transmog including a complete revamp of how Transmog works and your past work on characters will be rewarded even if you didn’t still have the items when Transmog became a thing.

Legendary World drops
– From anywhere
– – Power remains relevant throughout the expansion
– – Unique effects
– – Will be a lot of them for all various kinds of classes/specs
– – Not fully random drops
– Every item can be scaled up to the level of the best items in the game
– Duplicate personal loot will be trade-able

Transmog
– Help clean up bank and inventory
– Expand customization
– Collection!
– – As soon as an item is bound the appearance is unlocked in your wardrobe
– – Don’t have to keep the item
– Account Wide
– Can see what skins you don’t have yet
– Added outfits
– Can link outfits to other players
– When you log in every bound item in bank, bags, void storage will be added
– Will unlock every item from quests even items not chosen
– Can save different outfits per spec
– Can hide slots per outfit, including hiding shoulders
– Can hide shoulders
– Can transmog weapon enchants, tabards, and shirts

Let us know what you think about the changes in the comments below!

This past weekend, I was privileged to play an interesting new indie title named Mushroom 11.

When I watched the trailer of the game, I was instantly interested in the unique mechanic in controlling your ‘character.’ Of course the design of the character you control is absolutely worth mentioning. You play as an amorphic green blob, with no name that I was able to discern. I had no issue with the lack of description or simplicity of the character model, in fact, I applaud it. Mushroom 11’s tutorial instantly begins to show you how to control your blob, and the game becomes completely about the game’s mechanics.

The mechanics of the game appear shockingly simple, you essentially use the 2 mouse buttons to delete parts of your blob to move it. Except when you delete blocks, the blob replaces these blocks randomly out of different sides of itself where the level allows. The mouse gives you 2 types of control: a large sweeping deletion type, and a fine tuned deletion tool. The large sweeping tool, bound to the left mouse button, allows for rapid movement and easy size reduction. The fine tune deletion tool makes it much easier to delete smaller portions of your blob which becomes essential for some of the tougher puzzles as the levels progress.

During the hour I spent playing this game, I easily encompassed the tutorial and enough levels to start to need several tries to clear an area. I was even able to conquer 2 boss fights. It is definitely fair to say the game has a steep learning curve. Rather than being frustrated while playing, and failing several times, I started to see the brilliance in the game. It is the first game where I found myself not having direct control on my character and it’s movement through the game. We are allowed only indirect control, and it’s an absolutely fresh and fantastic idea for a game mechanic. I find myself more and more interested to see how the game will show me to stretch, bend, curve, and express the flexibility of my little blob through the future levels. With the modest price tag, this game is an absolute steal for hours of mind-bending gameplay.

A Solid 9/10

The only reason it’s not a 10 is because I really like a story and it has none. But Otherwise, this is an amazing game!

Windows 10 might have been provided free of charge to all who already had a licenced copy of Windows 7 or 8.1, but it seems that Microsoft might be looking at other ways to make money from the new OS.

The build 10565 of Windows 10 shows that Microsoft is beginning to experiment with placing advertisements for apps in the operation system. It’s somewhat discreet right now, being placed in the Start menu (even if in a prominent place under your most used apps list) and providing an option to turn it off but there’s no guarantee it will stay that way. To be fair, there’s also no guarantee that they won’t remove the adverts after a while either.

Given that Windows 10 tracks your data and interests as well, it’s probably likely that the suggestions will be somewhat related to what you already use. Although given past uses of ‘suggested’ content we’d be interested in… it could also just be a queue of things that we really are not interested in.

It remains to be seen whether or not this feature will stay in this form or if it will be expanded upon in some way. At least for now you can turn it off if you want to, but if you can stand it keep it on. After all, all companies need to make money somehow and one little ad won’t be too bad.