As a recently relapsed World of Warcraft junkie I was surprised and disappointed to find out that apparently Blizzard uses something called a warden client keep its player base honest. A warden client is something that will run along with the game and check out the other processes running on your machine in order to make sure that you’re not running any known 3rd party applications used for cheating. It then sends that information back to Blizzard. Cheating is obviously a problem for any MMORPG and Blizzard definitely needs to find ways to reduce it but that seems a little excessive. As the article points out, that could technically be described as spyware, except for the fact that they granted themselves the right to do so in their EULA. (section 13A) I just knew those years of skimming EULA’s and clicking ok would get me eventually! Now, there are privacy protections in place (it only compares hashes) and apparently the client won’t send any information other than to raise a flag on the account for potential violations of the terms of service. And, apparently there’s something of a precendent for this in that the popular anti-cheating system Punkbuster operates in a similar fashion. I wasn’t aware of that but I don’t really find it comforting. I always thought anti-cheat systems just verified the integrity of the games executable files and resources, not actively scanned the state of your system. I’m fine with the former but the latter just creeps me out. At any rate, I think it’s kind of pointless since the determined cheaters and hackers will eventually find a way around it and sure enough they already have. So, what to do? I’m obviously not going to stop playing WoW because 1.) Blizzard seems to be a fairly non-evil entity and I trust them to a limited degree and 2.) WoW is the sweet sweet crack and I’m only taking the time for all of this exposition because I can’t currently sign in. I don’t like the idea of warden clients at all. However, that I agreed to it without knowing is worse. The fact that some lesser known games company could just as easily slip something like that (or even more expansive) into their EULA and run whatever else they wanted to along with their game is just disturbing. There’s got to be a better solution to shrink wrap software licenses than 20 pages of firstborn-signing-away EULAs that you usually can’t even read (and by read I mean skip over) until you’ve already run an executable.
Monthly Archive for October, 2005
Tonight Jolayne and I went to see the Violent Femmes play at the Madrid Theatre as part of the 25th anniversary celebration for The Pitch, KC’s local alt-weekly paper. We showed up pretty early, well before the doors opened, hoping to get a good seat in the Madrid’s awesome balcony. Due to getting there just as they were starting a second line for entry we managed to be one of the first people in. However, they had the balcony blocked off for more important people than us apparently and so we headed on to the main floor. That ended up being the best thing that could have happened though, as we were able to grab a spot right in front of the stage. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a show from up close, as these days we tend to try to find places to get a good view of shows while being able to sit down. It’s definitely more comfortable that way, but not always as engaging and this was definitely a good show to be front and center for. Watching the show it was hard to believe that the Femmes have been around for almost 25 years themselves because they still put on such an energetic show. We were standing just a few feet from Brian Ritchie and got to witness up close some bass solos that came dangerously close to being face-melting. Victor DeLorenzo is likely the most animated drummer you’ll ever see, opting to stand (and jump and flail) rather than sit as he attacks his minimalist drum kit. And of course there’s Gordon Gano’s instantly recognizable voice. As they were finishing the last song of their encore (”Kiss Off”), Brian threw his pick right at us. Actually there’s some debate about that and Jolayne’s probably right when she says that, technically, he tossed it to her. However, I immediately reached out to grab it as well and with our combined fumbling we almost lost it. Fortunately, and in spite of our efforts, it came to rest on Jolayne’s shoulder. So yeah, with an awesome show and a cool souvenir to boot it was was definitely a memorable evening.
It’s been good weekend for food. Last night Jolayne and I went to the American Royal BBQ over at the Kemper Arena. The American Royal itself is an annual month long rodeo/livestock event in Kansas City, but its first weekend is always a barbeque competition. We’d never been before, but this is only the second year they’ve had it set up to allow you to buy from the competitors. However, we were a little disappointed because we thought there would be a lot more sampling going on. We ended up not finding that many different places selling stuff and everything was generally pretty expensive. Some of the stuff we tried was pretty good, but it just wasn’t the BBQ paradise I had been expecting. We did get to see a nice fireworks show though.
Today was much more satisfying. We went to the Kansas City Chocolate Festival at Union Station. It took us about 20 minutes of waiting in line just to get inside and then after that we probably spent a total of an hour of so waiting in line to get to sample the chocolate from the different vendors but it was totally worth it. We got to try 4 different chocolate fountains and sample a bunch of other stuff as well, but we managed to get out of there with only one purchase (a bag of awesome truffles). The one place I wish we could have stopped but didn’t get a chance because the line was so long was the booth for Elbow Chocolates. He makes artisan chocolates that look completely amazing and there was one there made with single malt scotch that I really wanted to try. I think we may end up ordering some of those anyway. Hopefully the chocolate festival will become an annual event, and based on the massive crowd of people there I think there’s a good chance of that.
Elsewhere