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MMORPG

online-gamerAfter reporting about the internet addiction clinic opening in the States in August it’s the turn of the Brits.

Yup – we are now the proud owners of our first rehab clinic targeting addicted gamers.

The Broadway Lodge, a residential rehabilitation unit in Weston-super-Mare, treats around 400 addicts a year for a range of issues and will adapt the Minnesota Method Twelve-Step programme, normally used to treat people addicted to drugs, drink and gambling, in order to treat gamers that exhibit similar behaviour.

Patients at the clinic will take part in group therapy, video sessions and therapeutic tasks including vacuuming and washing up – surely that’s more shock therapy for most hard-core gamers!!??!!

The Chief Exec of the centre, Brian Dudley, says that between 5-10% of the nation knows someone addicted to an online game.

Dudley believes that the rise and rise of online games such as World of Warcraft, which requires players to invest large amounts of time to progress, has triggered this new addiction.

The Telegraph reports: “Sufferers spend days at a time glued to their computer screens – going without food, sleep, or any social interaction. As a result they suffer malnutrition, relationship-breakdown and postural problems.”

With the recent release of Championship Manager, there are sure to be bleary-eyed, pale-skinned addicts across the country that don’t know what day it is. If this sounds like you, contact the centre now.

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lan-party-764022There’s been plenty of press regarding the health issues of gamers that spend most their waking lives playing these Massively Multiplayer Online games but here’s a new health scare.

The health of your secure details held on USB’s, external hard-drives and the like.

Microsoft has published a report pointing out that virus writers are getting hip to the fact that, with so many people hooked up to games such as WoW and Legend of Mir, this is an ideal way of transmitting virii.

The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report discovered that there has been a 156% increase in cases of the Taterf worm, which scans USB-sticks, external hard-drives and shared folders of infected PCs.

MMORPGamers are more at risk as the Taterf worm will slink around their computer looking for login details to subscription-based online games, this then opens a can-of-worms (sorry) as it can then grab personal details like the bank accounts used to pay for the game – these can then be sold on by basta….hackers to third-party mother-fu…. criminals.

The report says that this is a warning to gamers and those who operate gaming services: “Taterf’s impressive growth underscores the need for organisations to develop guidelines for removable drives and evaluate how connections are made to outside machines.”

So, like any group activity where you connect and share everything – stay protected out there! ;)

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zOMG! It’s……..ok

November 28, 2008 Click to read more →

Gaia Online released their first “casual MMO”, zOMG!, on open beta a couple of weeks ago apparently and I’ve just got round to having a quick tinker.
First I checked out the promo flick and this did whet my appetite.
The In-game screenshots were ok and promised a cute but playable game – it has to be good, it’s called zOMG! for a start!
The background of [...]

Warhammer Beta on Bit Torrent Officially!

August 13, 2008 Click to read more →

EA is using Torrents to distribute the Warhammer Online: The Reckoning beta to gamers.
Blizzard has been using BitTorrent for World of Warcraft patches for a while now so EA wont be the first company to embrace the protocol.
The beta has also made its way onto the likes of Pirate Bay.
Of course, without proper login credentials, you’ll be downloading over 9GB of [...]