As player Icki reported recently over at the World of Warcraft forums, there seems to be a serious bug with the Rogue class' shadowstep skill in the Test realms. The bug apparently enables rogues to literally shadowstep their way through different zones. More details on the bug are available in the full article.

Blizzard is sending out a warning to its players regarding a newly discovered exploit on Tempest Keep's Void Reaper boss. The said exploit enabled a raid group to kill Void Reaper in under a minute by mind-controlling a nearby Tempest-Smith NPC. The Tempest-Smith was then used to bomb-spam Void Reaper, who died after just 53 seconds. Far from a tall tale, this attempt has apparently been confirmed both at the forums and at the WorldofRaids forums where it was originally reported. WoW Europe's Tharfor discouraged players to follow the raiding guild's attempt lest they face the repercussions of their actions.

For those photograph-savvy MMORPG gamers participating in Blizzard's highly celebrated World of Warcraft, Thaddeus Loenbrough - esteemed Orcish photographer and Royal Photographic Society of Azeroth (RPSA) Founder - wants your best screenshots from the game to help promote and nurture the art of photography throughout the world of Azeroth.

This is the new promotion Blizzard has posted on its website for players who are interested on submitting original screenshots from their WoW experience. Bornakk, a Blizzard poster on the WoW forums has invited players to check out the new Screenshot Submission Form and contribute their most original screenshots for the site. This is in line with the new guides that Blizzard will be releasing in the future.

Images should be in JPEG format and must be less than two MB in size. It is also recommended that any interface and chat box text is turned off. If you wish to add any chat to the screenshots, it's better to use in-game chat bubbles rather than modifying any of the content using any image editors. You can check out the list of screenshot topics that they need the most on the submissions page. Blizzard also included a list of banned topics that would make inappropriate subjects for submission.

Aside from that, get that "Print Screen" trigger finger of yours ready and see if your screenshot is worthy to be included in the pages of the RPSA. Budding paparazzis can take a look at the Submission Screenshot Form through the via link below.

Please read the list of banned topics for screenshot submissions after the jump!

 

This news just in from Big Blue Blizzard, who have accepted that latency between client and server is too varied and has yet to be fully addressed: the casting latency trick that some expert mages have been using for some time now is confirmed acceptable by administrative standards.

Or so says macro community manager Slouken, who comments, "FYI, we're working on something for [patch] 2.3 to help make /stopcasting lag workarounds unnecessary." Adding another possible fix - and hopefully an effective one - to patch version 2.3's possible change list makes this significant news indeed.

The exploit was reportedly addressed to a game master before, who assured that such an exploit was completely fine in their books - as long as it doesn't utilize automation techniques. The trick required the use of instinctive estimation, a casting latency addon known as Quartz, and a small macro script. It allegedly increased mage's DPS directly by as much as 20%.

 

Unintentional mishaps aren't usually taken as exploitation per se, but where views differ a clear line has to be drawn. Here's one such example: Lith of World of Warcraft U.S. realm Dunemaul claimed to have received two PvP reward items using all his points that could only afford one of either.

And although he did admit to the folly caused by the severe lag at the Arena Season 2 vendor venue, he only did so after thinking about how Blizzard's policies against exploitation could wreak havoc on his future World of Warcraft experience. In the end, however, he did bring the issue forward to much of Blizzard's joy and gratitude and that is probably what matters most.

After all, Blizzard is certain that many others have received free gear and haven't come out as bravely - or as truthfully - as Lith has. Big Blue is currently looking into the issues and warns people not to report anyone as the exploit was entirely unintentional - on both Blizzard's and the players' sides.

"Honesty is the best policy," Honest Abe's ol' adage goes. We guess in this case it was honesty after carefully considering policy. Given that it happened in an MMO game makes the revelation a wonder in itself. Given that it happened in a popular MMO makes it a bigger wonder altogether. Kudos to ya, Lith.

Playing a large part in the World of Warcraft lore, Archimonde, is one of the more coveted bosses. So when it became known that he can be engaged through the instance in the Caverns of Time's Mount Hyjal, players and guilds quickly flocked to the area for fame and loot.

WoW-dedicated site MMO-Champion reported earlier today that Alliance guild Forte just killed the demon lord and warlock Archimonde. However, it wasn't a fair kill so to speak, because an exploit was used. One administrator for the said site assumes it's highly possible that Forte's not the first one as many loots from Hyjal have already been exposed.

When they said many, they really mean it as more than 40 loots have been listed. Most of which, of course, belonged to Archimonde but there are also others related to weapons and shields, plate, cloth, leather, and even mail. If you want to know more about these items, the Read link below should take you to MMO-Champion's page for loot table.

On a last note, there have been many changes as well to the Public Test Realm's patch notes and here are some of the more important ones:

• Soulstones: Soulstones can no longer be used on targets not in your party or raid. In addition, the soulstone buff will now be removed if the target or caster leaves the party or raid.
  
• Dodge Rating: Low level players now calculate dodge from dodge rating at the same rate as level 34 players.
• (Rogues) Sword Specialization: This ability now grants extra yellow attacks instead of extra white attacks. This change will make Sword Specialization no longer reset the weapon swing timer when it triggers off special attacks, and results in a net increase in damage dealt.
• (Warriors) Sword Specialization: This ability now grants extra yellow attacks instead of extra white attacks. It also grants rage based on the speed of your weapon. This change will make Sword Specialization no longer reset the weapon swing timer when it triggers off special attacks, and results in a net increase in damage dealt.
• Motes of Shadow now primarily drop from void creatures and have been removed from nearly all demons.
  
• Stackable items retrieved from mail will automatically stack in your inventory.
• You are now able to right click a player name to report them to GMs.

Who said Blizzard GMs can't have fun? Boubouille from MMO-Champion got some screenshots of the GMs wreaking havoc - err... having fun on the World of Warcraft Public Test Realm (PTR).

Included in the posse of GMs is Tseric (as an oversized peon in one of the screens), Drysc (as a Tauren Druid), Eyonix (as a Gnome from The Brothers McWeaksauce), and many others. They found a spot and summoned bosses left and right. We see El Pollo Grande - The Black Chicken of Death, Onyxia, the Lurker Below, Nefarian, Gruul, Magtheridon, Ragnaros, and Kel'Thuzad. There's also a video of the exploit, though it was a bit blurry.

It would seem that the GMs are getting more people interested to visit the PTR. We wonder though how the battlegrounds gear system check-slash-challenge Blizzard GMs turned out. Anyway, you can check out the screens and see if you can spot Tseric carrying a load of wood.

Check out the rest screenshots after the jump!

Yes, this is yet another news regarding the growingly rampant WoW accounts hacking. And unfortunately, you guys just might have to be paranoid a little bit more.

Roger Thompson, CTO of Exploit Prevention Labs, warns that the gangs are still "incredibly active, and it's a good exploit." By now, you should know the hackers' MO already. But if not, it's never too late to find out. Basically, these hackers infect those sites that WoW players usually visit with keylogging software. Now, the sites need not be WoW-related, but is frequented by avid gamers. With the software installed in the computers, the hackers are then able to spy on keystrokes, and ultimately, to steal WoW accounts from unsuspecting players.

As to why WoW accounts are the ones targeted, "The guys working out how to do it are WoW players. We're pretty sure we know who (most of them) are: a couple of Chinese college students, and it turns out they're interested in WoW." They also suspect a Russian gang to be in on it as well.

For their part, Blizzard has already addressed the problem by giving a shout out to the gamers via their official website. "[An] important means of protecting your account information is keeping your system up-to-date. For instance, installing the latest Windows security patch is a good way to avoid exploits designed to steal your login and password details."

The thing is, it's most likely that this pilferage of WoW accounts will remain in the community because the players themselves do tend to be lax regarding their software security. Apart from this is the fact that there is an existing market out there for the stolen goods. Says Symantec's senior manager for the security response team, "People are willing to buy on the black market. If players themselves were not willing to go outside the games to improve their characters, then there wouldn't be such a need."

So at the end of the day, this security problem is still -- er -- a problem. While there still are no clear-cut mechanisms on how the WoW community can actually police these hackers, as well as a well-founded check and balance mechanism to avert these kinds of incidents, each player would just have to be extra vigilant that these folks with malicious intents on your accounts don't tread on yours.

"The moral of the story is that if you patch, you're safe," concludes Thompson. "If not, be afraid, be very afraid. Complacency is the enemy."

A couple of days ago, Microsoft released a security advisory regarding animated cursors. In the report, they indicated that they are "investigating new public reports of attacks exploiting a vulnerability in the way Microsoft Windows handles animated cursor (.ani) files."

In answer to that, Blizzard poster Eyonix gave the following security advisory over at the World of Warcraft Forums:

Please be aware that a recently announced Microsoft Windows vulnerability was identified that if exploited could allow the execution of malicious code to affect a user’s machine by simply clicking on a web link. Players are urged to exercise caution when clicking on web links. It’s also important to note that even with all of the latest security updates, your system could still be vulnerable to this particular exploit until such a time when a patch is released.

We've all heard about the warnings about online games spawning hell on earth for your PC or is it the other way around? Practice caution boys and girls. We don't want to end up naked on the Interwebs, do we?

Besides just reporting about the latest happenings within the video game industry, we here at QJ also play a lot of video games for fun, and to just relax. Because of this, we really feel for gaming site Kotaku's Michael Fahey who has just fallen victim to one of the worst things that can happen to an online game. Apparently, his World of Warcraft (WoW) account has been hacked.

Fahey's character is called Rande and is on the Ysera server. After logging in last night, he found a "naked" Rande, who has been stripped of his armor and otherin-game items. Thinking that this could be just a bug, Fahey went directly to the server and looked up his character there. Amusingly, he learned that his mailbox and his in-game bank account have been wiped out as well.

We're guessing that what hit Fahey's account was the new keylogger exploit that we shared with you a couple of days ago. A keylogger, for those not quite familiar with it, is not actually inherently bad. It is a diagnostic tool that was originally intended to detect errors in computer systems. It captures a user's keystrokes - and that folks is an open invitation for hackers.

Anyway, the latest keylogger hides behind the HTML file name "tonydanza.a11net" and is spreading across the official WoW forums. Blizzard Entertainment, in the past, has issued a lot of safety precautions regarding this but the exploit continue to persist and spread. Fahey has already asked for some assistance and the Blizzard representatives promised to investigate the matter and help him recover his stuff.