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Massively writers trying to play Lord of the Rings Online this Saturday morning stumbled into a mess that's apparently been going on most of the day; upon trying to log into the game, the following error appears: "The SSL certificate appears to be expired. Please ensure your system clock is set to the correct time and try again. [ERROR 80001]" Investigating the LotRO forums has uncovered an official thread from CM Tarrant resassuring players that Turbine's NetOps team is looking into it.

Meanwhile, players have already solved the issue. If you want to get into the game, just set your computer's clock back to January 1st. The complication there is that daily quests might then be tweaked out, and so further recommendations state you should set your computer's date and time to the correct values at the character select screen. Essentially, set the clock back to log in, and then reset once you're past the loader. Turbine assures this issue will be resolved soon, and we can't imagine this seemingly minor error will continue much longer.

Update: And resolved it was, at around 2pm ET. Sapience wants everyone to be sure to set their computers for the correct time if you used that as a cheap workaround. That should ensure the SSL error doesn't show up for you.

The last several days have brought us some news of a rather significant exploit in the sci-fi MMO EVE Online. The game boasts a dynamic virtual economy which is in many ways integral to the game itself. (Inter Stellar Kredits, or ISK, is the currency upon which EVE Online's economy is based.) When rumor broke of a multi-trillion ISK exploit in the game, it raised a few eyebrows. However, when CCP Games themselves confirmed it and announced they would launch an investigation into the matter, it became more serious, as reflected by the economic impact on the market in the game. (Remember kids, internet spaceships are serious business... EVE tends to have more drama than the average massively multiplayer online game.)

CCP Games provided an update on the investigation today, stating that 178 starbases were discovered exploiting the issue and have been destroyed. This is the first time they've been willing or able to put a solid number on how extensive the exploit was, in terms of the scope of the operation. CCP stated: "We have also banned all those we have found directly involved and all accounts we have found to be connected to those players. The investigation is still under way and will take a while to conclude." Also part of the investigation is the Internal Affairs aspect, which some players have been following. CCP Games reports that they haven't found links between any of their own staff (or the Council of Stellar Management, for that matter) and the starbase exploit. See the official announcement from the EVE developers for more details on how the investigation is progressing.

Fans of Warhammer Online will have noted a great deal of patching over the past few weeks. In fact, even the patches needed some patching. Some major issues Mythic Entertainment has been working to fix are the frequent crashes-to-desktop and other lockups players have been reporting. The latest word from Mythic's Mark Jacobs is that the client crashes have been drastically reduced, down by 75% (in North America). In fact, client crashes are now at their lowest point ever, either in development or since Warhammer Online went live, Jacobs said.

But he wasn't writing to the Warhammer Online player base just to talk about patches and crash fixes. Jacobs also announced a holiday gift for all WAR players that doesn't involve dwarves and debauchery. Warhammer Online players now enjoy an experience bonus, as of December 18th. Jacobs stated Mythic decided to increase the rest experience multiplier bonus, while "...reducing the time that it takes you to earn rested xp while logged out of the game, especially in Tiers 3 and 4. This will result in players' time to level being approximately 10% faster in Tier 2 and 20% faster in Tiers 3 and 4." Jacobs didn't state how long this revved up leveling curve will last, but stated it would be for "a few weeks."

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	WAR has gone 1.1! Check out our full coverage of the 1.1a patch, along with our interviews exploring upcoming content and the open RvR changes. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC4 is the fifth release in the 1.22 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). Mostly this version seems to be about final polish.

This edition has two more crash fixes, assorted tune-ups to defective UI elements, a small bundle of localization fixes and some almost completely impenetrable alterations to the thread watchdog (however it does now default to being off). We're not expecting an RC5 before this goes live - unless something outstandingly broken crops up. Full release notes for this version are after the jump.

The Telegraph (UK) is reporting that a number of exploits have surfaces for Sony's virtual-environment multiplayer matchmaker and social space, Home, presently in open beta. Not all of them are technically exploits, but they'd certainly qualify as hacks -- using Apache and DNS trickery to fool the Home client into loading different content for local display than what was originally intended, for example.

The Telegraph says there are far more severe hacks, however, such as downloading, uploading or deleting any file to or from the Home server itself. That stopped us cold right there, and is a surprising revelation considering the usual effort that goes into any console offering. Our sister site PS3 Fanboy picked up the rumors initially. We're wondering if the Telegraph is just running on those fumes, or if they've obtained additional verification.

Perhaps the routine of downloadable updates and console hard-drives made developers lazy and short-circuited previously rigorous QA procedures. We'll be interested to see which.

Massively has been watching the issue of a significant starbase exploit in EVE Online, through which some players reaped vast financial rewards, as it went from rumor to confirmation from the developers themselves. Unlike your average run-of-the-mill exploit in most massively multiplayer online games, the exploit in question has had a significant impact on EVE's virtual economy -- the backbone of the game itself. All players in EVE interact in one vast galaxy, and their actions in the sandbox can create ripples felt by their fellow players, which has certainly been the case in this past week.

EVE Online's developer CCP Games has opted to hold off on responding to most press inquiries for comment on the issue, having issued a statement on the matter and then focusing on the investigation and a weekend meeting with EVE's player-elected community representatives, the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). The minutes from that meeting are now available, and several of EVE's developers took part in the discussion: namely CCP's Lead Economist Dr. EyjoG (Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson) and CCP Arkanon -- who heads up the company's Internal Affairs division, which investigates the CCP Games staff themselves, hopefully ensuring that no CCP employee can abuse their influence over the game.

Read on for Massively's highlights of the state of affairs in EVE Online, in the wake of the starbase exploit.

Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC3 is the fourth release in the 1.22 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). As usual, we have a bunch of assorted fixes and crash fixes in this edition.

This edition has five more crash fixes, some tweaks to the watchdog code (because it wasn't crashing when it should) and assorted tweaks. The Planning tab has been removed from Group Information, because it basically just never worked properly.

This looks like it might be the last release before 1.22 becomes the official viewer, unless something is reported that stops the show. Full release notes for this version are after the jump.

An exploit in EVE Online has come to light that may have some major repercussions for the game. Massively does not have solid confirmation on the details (and allegations as the case may be), as this has just come to light. The exploit was publicized on a third party EVE forum called Scrapheap Challenge, on Wednesday, December 10th. If this isn't a hoax or an exaggerated account of events, how serious an exploit might this be? Very serious, if the details listed prove to be accurate... The exploit was really a bug related to a network of player owned stations (POS) paired with a moon mining operation, which yielded far too much valuable material far too quickly. Four years and an estimated 2.5 to 3 trillion ISK later, the exploit was found and patched, and the offender(s) banned. Given the claimed amount of ISK involved, it's serious enough to potentially have an impact on the game's economy.

The individual who posted the details of this exploit remains anonymous, and has only identified him or herself as "anotherone", but tells a story of how the exploit came to be: "I would like to tell you a short EVE story. Today all of my EVE Online accounts were banned. I was sure this day would come. What surprises me is that it took CCP this long to catch up with me. Even though they knew about it." It's that last sentence that is sparking so much response from the playerbase -- anotherone asserts that this issue was actually petitioned to CCP Games back in 2004, and subsequently ignored.

Read on for more details on this economic drama.

Some of Turbine's servers for Lord of the Rings Online Online have been undergoing issues, apparently stemming from unduly high loads on Saturday evening. At least that's when everything seemed to start going wrong. Initially, it was just the usual lag effects, then zones began to freeze on some servers, and the game suffered some minor rollbacks of as much as ten or fifteen minutes after an unexpected crash or emergency reboot.

Several servers were affected (the busiest ones, we're guessing), but the worst affected is Brandywine. Brandywine's South Bree zone broke entirely -- no doors could be traversed, and parts of the town were just plain missing -- necessitating an emergency shutdown of the server. Turbine has been laboring to restore systems, and Brandywine should be coming up around about now. Elendilmir and Landroval servers will be down for an hour from 11AM US ET for emergency maintenance.

Be warned, that it might be a rocky day in Eriador and Rhovanion -- and it isn't all the work of the Witch King and Sauron this time.

In a bid to make us all feel slightly uncomfortable while at the same time explaining the source of the Warhammer Online RvR contribution issue that players recently uncovered, Paul Barnett has posted a new video. The reason we say that the video makes a person slightly uncomfortable is because, well, we've just never seen a developer being wrist-slapped in person before. It's one of those wild things that we all assume happens, but are never privy too. Although really, you can feel the video's mix of "funny ha-ha" and "you're a twit" as you watch it.

So it's all mostly on the humorous side with Barnett starting off by explaining that a tiny piece of crazy code originally intended for Public Quests was supposedly removed from the game prior to ship. It turns out that wasn't true, and the code found its way into the RvR influence system only to muck up the whole game from it's cozy new home. Unfortunately, Mythic is only able to say that the patch fix is coming "soon" and leave us hanging until then -- hopefully "then" and "soon" end up being sometime this month.

Still, good on Mythic for owning up to the mistake It would've been easy enough for them to just fix the code quietly and move on, but they decided to be honest and upfront with the community instead. You can find Paul's video after the break, or catch Lum's lengthier breakdown of the video on Broken Toys.

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	Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

After "widespread griefing of players by other players using a game exploit," Turbine decided to finally take down the Shroud raid in Dungeon and Dragons Online to prevent further use of this exploit. This level 17 raid was introduced with Module 6 and through the bug, allowed a single cleric to deny other party members completion and the part 4 chests.

Although community reaction to the shutdown is mixed, as is expected, Turbine says the raid's issue will be fixed and the Shroud will be reopened on the next patch, which could come as early as next week.

Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC2 is the third release in the 1.22 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). As usual, we have a bunch of assorted fixes and crash fixes in this edition.

This edition has five crash fixes, additional debugging to isolate the causes of graphics driver crashes, some fixes for PPC systems, and some more attempts to get object selection/cursor positioning right for edge-cases. More details after the jump.

Mythic Entertainment has announced some recent Warhammer Online hot fixes they've made regarding the Heavy Metal live event, which entails the completion of daily tasks for the chance to gain early access to the two new classes being introduced to the game. Despite the excitement some had about being able to play a Knight of the Blazing Sun or a Black Guard early through goal completion in the Heavy Metal event, there have been some issues and complaints that WAR players have been reporting -- particularly in regards to unfinished tasks and scenario launch rates at Reikland Factory.

Warhammer Online community coordinator James Nichols made an announcement about what Mythic is doing to address these concerns:

• By popular request, players will now be able to complete previous daily tasks for the Heavy Metal event. A task will continue to unlock each day and remain open until the end of the event allowing players to complete all the tasks at their convenience. Please Note: If you notice an apparent loss of credit for any previous days you have already completed simply exit the game entirely and log back in to correct this issue.

• Reikland Factory: Improvements have been made to potentially increase the rate at which the scenario launches.

How have your own experiences with WAR's Heavy Metal live event been?

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	Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

The Second Life viewer dev team has been working furiously away for some time now, and you may be forgiven for wondering where the fruits of that labor are. It has, after all, been some time since we've seen a new viewer other than emergency security fixes.

There are lots of little things in this viewer, mostly bug-fixes. What is particularly peculiar is that whispering seems to be back. Whisper was a short-range chat option that was discarded from the Second Life viewer back in 2005 due to it being confusing both conceptually and in the user-interface. Whispering has a 10 metre range and while it has been a deprecated script function for years is still available to scripted objects.

EVE Online's latest expansion Quantum Rise brought some new features for the industry crowd, and a few enhancements aimed at PvP pilots as well. But some of the broad changes they've made to the game mechanics have triggered lag, and lots of it, which CCP Games is hoping to combat with the help of the players themselves. CCP Tanis says, "We take this issue very seriously and as a result, our engineering team has been in high-gear working on fixing the problem and we think we are close, but we need your help."

The help CCP Games is looking for requires relatively little from players, aside from logging into the Singularity test server and entering the fray, blasting each other apart in battleships. The Wednesday tests were already underway when we got word of this, but they're looking to get a large group of pilots (200 or more) for the Thursday fleet engagements on Singularity. The test will take place on Thursday at 11:00 GMT, and another is tentatively slated for 15:00, dependent upon what CCP learns from the previous fights. CCP Tanis lays out how players can get involved: