Petoholics Anonymous

So many things, so little time

// October 26th, 2009 // 12 Comments » // Gripe, Random Stuff

As an aside, I finally got around to adding a favicon to the site (the little image that you see the address bar when you visit this site). Also, I figured out how to customize the default avatar so for anyone who doesn’t have their own Gravatar, you now get one of Petoholics’ mascot Twitch! (shown on the left)

On to other things, it seems I have no shortage of things to do in relation to this blog and WoW. I have to write the next part of the Valraen and Ticalos story, the next installment of Saraku’s history, and I really should provide more background on Niqora and Anuniaq in the least. Zulrea and Machalor could also use some RP love one of these days… I also have posts to write about raiding and other events that have happened recently. Oh, and more Adventurers of Kazi and Saraku.

In WoW, Saraku needs to return to help save some of his kin (AKA do the Netherwing dailies) and also get Crusader status so he can sport the Argent Charger (or the Warhorse, I haven’t decided yet). There’s also so much gear to get for both Saraku and Niqora, although Saraku needs it more. I also need to decide which character to level next. Anuniaq has been sitting at level 42 for a long time now, but Zulrea is 33-ish and I have to admit that I want to learn how to play a shammy. Blasphemous, I know, perhaps I should alternate between hunters and non-hunters for leveling? Although I’m not going to rush through the levels like I did with Saraku; I’m going to take a much more relaxed pace this time.

Oh, did I also mention that Bloodriver has been running old world and BC raids all last week and is continuing all this week as well? This is a ton of content that I’ve never seen and that I would really like to see so I’ve been trying to attend as many of them as I possibly can. AQ-40 is one epic raid by the way, which Kazi described on his blog (I’m the one surfing on top of the red bug).

And now for something completely different, I just want to ramble on a bit about something I’ve been silently lamenting about. Maybe it’s just my imagination but it seems that everyone else has someone they know outside of WoW that actually plays with them. They either have a significant other, a friend, or a family member that they can spend time with in-game. I have had people in the past to play with…but they never seem to stick around. The first time I saw WoW with my own two eyes was when my brother started a trial account. My roommate (who has been mentioned before as Mr. Paladin) was the one who finally got me to try it out, but when I rolled my first ever character (night elf druid), he already had a level 40-something human pally so I was left to my own devices. Mr. Paladin’s brother and my brother had full accounts by this time so we tried a couple times to make leveling groups together. That’s when all three of them quit the game at basically the same time and I was left with a bunch of unloved alts. I leveled by myself for the longest time until my brother decided to come back to WoW on a new Refer-A-Friend account. I excitedly rolled a druid to level to his paladin…which worked for about 15 levels. Then he started logging on so infrequently that I’ve all but given up on him as a leveling partner. Not long after that I was fortunate enough to meet a local WoW player who I became fast friends with. We talked about leveling some characters together and even managed to team up for a couple weeks…before he quit WoW too.

/sigh

I mean, is there something I’m doing wrong here? Do I have some digital version of bad breath or BO that’s driving people away? I don’t even roll new characters anymore when someone asks me to because what’s the point if they’re going to be abandoned anyways? I’m fine with playing by myself for the most part but I would be one happy gamer if I could find a leveling partner willing to stick with me for more than a handful of levels.

Oh well. Que Sera, Sera.

Farming: the other profession

// August 10th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Gripe

I had a conversation that made me /facepalm the other night, one that would have been worthy of WoW Bash if I had remembered to take a screenshot. Note this is not long after patch 3.2 came out.

Random level 40-ish druid: nice mount
Me (on Niqora and riding around on her black war wolf): Thank you
Druid: can i hav sum gold 4 mount?
Me: Sorry, you’ll have to go farming just like I did
Druid: ok
Druid: were do i lern farming?
Me: (insert facepalm here) Farming is where you go and kill lots of mobs for items that you can sell on the auction house
Druid: ok thanx

I’m all for making this game easier for new people but is this really the way to do? You know what I’d like to see? A mentoring program. I’ve seen it before in another MMO and I think WoW should have one. Just give higher-levels an incentive to do it and they’d be all over it. Hell, I do it for free right now, just because I like teaching people about the game.

Stay tuned for my next lesson where I attempt to teach these people how to spell properly. It’s an up-hill battle but I’m going to try my hardest!

Well, I guess it was bound to happen eventually

// July 13th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Gripe, Random Stuff

An account in our guild got hacked. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t happened to be an officer account. >.<

They took almost everything out of the guild bank (4 mostly full tabs worth) and whatever gold was in there (at least 3500). And for some strange reason, they kicked a member out of the guild.

I have to say that after I found out, the next few hours were very stressful for me. I couldn’t kick the hacked character out of the guild because they were the same rank as me and I couldn’t get a hold of our guild leader either (I must have phoned the poor guy a dozen times in a panic). Mostly I stood around Dalaran on Niqora, unwilling to log off because I wanted to make sure that I was there if anything else happened. The hacker had full power to kick everyone but the officers and the guild leader from Bloodriver. I’m glad he never did because I think I would have just broken down in frustration.

Lucky for me, I had my guildies to pick up my mood. We started joking around and doing some instance runs because that’s what we would do on a normal day. One of them even submitted a ticket to point out the comprimised account and to start getting our items back into the guild bank. By the time the guild leader came on and kicked the hacked character out of the guild, we were all in a better mood than before.

What happened really REALLY sucked and I never want it to happen again. But it made me realize yet again how luck I am to be in a guild with great people. I’m not going to dwell on the past, I’m going to do whatever I can to make things right again. Congratulations hacker, you got our items and gold. But we’re gonna get it back and we’ll be laughing while you’re sitting all by your lonesome self, stealing like the lowly crook you are and being venomously hated by scores of people. You won the battle, we won the war.

At least I’m not the only one

// July 8th, 2009 // No Comments » // Gripe, Random Stuff

The Guild blog got hijacked by those spammers too. The issue seems to be old Wordpress files that have been hanging around from previous versions and never got updated because…well, they’re not used any more. So if you have a self-hosted Wordpress blog that has been updated from an older version, check your files. Wiping all the Wordpress files and starting with a fresh install might be a good idea.

In closing, I only have this to say…bastard spammers.

Scum of the internet

// June 18th, 2009 // 9 Comments » // Gripe, Random Stuff

So, I’m sure you’re all wondering what has happened to the Petoholics theme and where all the posts and pages disappeared to. The answer is pretty simple and yet surprisingly infuriating…spammers hacked my blog.

Thankfully they didn’t upload any viruses or anything. Instead they seemed content with filling every page with spam links for “that little blue pill” and god knows what else. They even hid it so the only way you could see it is looking at the source code. At first I thought they had only gotten to this blog. Then I realized that they had put their crap on every single PHP file in the wolfdragon.net domain. Anyone who has visited my old site knows that it had over 200 PHP pages.

How did they do it? Your guess is as good as mine. It could have been anything from backdoors in Wordpress or its plugins, some old unsecure script located on one of those 200+ pages that I haven’t touched for years, or even my webhost being comprimised. After a bit of searching, I discovered that other people have had similar problems particularly with hacked Wordpress themes. So far I have yet to see one that knows how it was done in the first place. Instead they talk about how to deal with the impact.

Why did they do it? Google “wow name generator”. My PANDA generator is second from the top. I was getting 700-800 hits a day from that position. The spammers decided they wanted to piggyback off my hard work and they somehow found a way to do it. They just wanted to get their stupid spam out there, regardless of who they hurt in the process.

What happens now? I tried at first to just delete their code from my blog, not realizing at the time that they had gotten to all those other pages. I got rid of some out of date plugins, changed my password, basically tried every security trick I could find. I hoped I had succeeded. The next day it was back again and that’s when I discovered it wasn’t just Petoholics Anonymous that had been affected. I figured the best thing to do would be to start anew, wiping the slate clean of their s**t. So I downloaded every file to my computer, backed up every database, and then deleted everything from my server. As for Petoholics, I will work on getting every blog post and page up here again, hopefully all the comments too. I don’t know how long it will take because I want to go over every inch with a fine toothed comb. The last thing I want is a repeat of this nightmare.

The side of me you’re all seeing right now is the practical side, the part that’s dealing with the problem at hand. What you aren’t seeing is the very angry, “I’m going to hunt down and hurt these spammer” side. My guildmates talk about how they know I’m mad when I start swearing. Imagine me using the vilest curses I know in every second breath. The part that hurts the most surprisingly? They defiled the part of my old site that showcases Blacky, my dear black lab that passed away two year ago. And I know they don’t give a rat’s a** about it. That…that demands retribution that I can’t give because the spammers are spineless cowards. All I can do clean up the mess and make things right again.

So if you’re a blogger (which I know a lot of you are), take my situation and learn from it. Be diligent about your blog, check your security on a regular basis and keep things up to date. Please don’t let this happen to you.

~Faeldray