Mandatory Authenticators?

[daviddoran]

This will be great. It will greatly reduce, if not kill off account hacking, which will cut off the supply of gold sellers, which will drive the $USD price of gold up, which will cause less people to buy it, which will mean less overall gold in the wow economy, which will deflate prices, making life easier for everyone, reducing the need to buy gold in the first place...

All that will be left for gold sellers is to employ old school gold farmers who do it the old fashioned way, grinding mats for stuff, playing the AH, etc.

I always thought that gold sellers first did it that way, then moved towards botting to reduce expenses for labor, then started hacking, cause it took less time to get more gold.

[-silencer-]

Blizzard, wake the fuck up.

They created a login system where account names used to be unknown to one where the account name IS likely the player's email address! Once you know a player's login name (email address), either brute force the password or get a password reset through the email address.

I hate the "battle.net" login Blizz went to. So much so that I created a new email account *solely* for the purpose of logging into WoW. I really liked that no one would ever know my account names, and now no one will know my WoW email address. Unfortunately, so many players didn't think of the security issue here, and they used their main email address as their battle.net login. No more hidden account name!

I don't want a mandatory authenticator as I've taken the proper precautions to never need one. Keyloggers used by WoW hackers? Stop downloading shit on your computer that could be affected by WoW-specific keyloggers, or stop responding to emails from "www.blizzard-manage.com" emails asking to check your account standing.. usually emails with horribly-written English grammar. DUH!

[Aenar]

I'm all for mandatory authenticators. It won't cure all hacked accounts, but it will destroy the gold-sellers current economy. End-Users might be upset at the beginning, but after a few months most will adjust (with others screaming "I QUIT!" and still come back). Logging into an account from a friends house or other location will throw people for a loop unless they have the authenticator with them.


I'm also for Blizzard banning customers caught purchasing gold with real cash. I understand the fact that some people don't have time to earn in-game gold... but it just seems like cheating the system (and other people feel the same about us multiboxers). If a player doesn't have the time to earn gold/play the game... why should they have a method to obtain large masses of gold imo (just to blow on collectable pets & such).


Either way, the old fashion Chinese gold farmer will crop up in some other way like in-game /whispers & /trade to sell epics in large quantity. What I don't get... all the recent wow account hacks have had authenticators attached to them to lock out the original user. Where are all these authenticators coming from? To attach to an account, you have to enter the serial number on the back or such. If an organized group of hackers buys authenticators in bulk I don't see why Blizzard couldn't start tracking that (and even banning lot-numbers). At least there's tracks to be followed, however difficult it may appear.