Geekworld

The Diablo 3 Beta has been going for a while and a lot of players have been playing on the public test realm (excluding myself... *sigh*) and most importantly, Blizzard has been receiving feedback from the players.

Based on the feedback, Blizzard is going to make quite a few Systems changes, ranging from character attributes being dropped to items being removed.

I'm sure there are a lot of players who will be complaining about the changes, while many more will be supporting it. You just can't keep everyone happy.

What will make more people unhappy though, is that these changes will definitely push the rumoured March 2012 release date back even further. This is where Blizzard shines through of course. Never one to be pressured into releasing a buggy game and patching later (like other game companies), they prefer the game to be perfect when released.

As Jay Wilson, Blizzard's Game Director for Diablo 3 stated:

Our job isn't just to put out a game, it's to release the next Diablo game. No one will remember if the game is late, only if it's great.

And that is why Blizzard is the great games company they are.

Check the source link for a full list of systems that Blizzard are planning on changing.

Looks like Microsoft is starting to look after their independent game developers.

A few of the good things that have been announced:

• Maximum size limit has been increased to 500MB (up from the previous 150MB limit)
• Developers are now able to apply a price point of 80 MS Points ($1) to games smaller than 150MB. Previously, you could only apply the $1 price tag to games smaller than 50MB
• Also, the maximum number of titles than can be on the market at any given time, per developer, has been raised to 20, up from the previous 10

I'm not usually one for rumour mongering, but when the rumour involves my favourite console, I'll bite.

Rumour has it (always wanted to say that) that Microsoft is developing 2 different variations of their next generation console.

The one will be a slightly lower priced and lower performing settop box, mostly aimed at families looking at units for entertainment purposes, like streaming Netflix and watching DVD's and hopefully Blu-ray.

The other will of course be the monster gaming machine complete with (rumoured) full backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games. I can only hope that the last part is true.

When Sony tried full backwards compatibility with their PS3, only the first generation PS3 had full compatibility, mainly because the Emotion Engine chip that was present on the PS2, was embedded on the new hardware. Budget and manufacturing constraints forced Sony to remove the Emotion Engine, instead opting for software-based backwards compatibility. The new software based compatibility could not fully emulate the entire PS2 library of games. Finally, with the new PS3 Slim, Sony removed backwards compatibility completely.

I sincerely hope they don't call it the Xbox 720 though. I was telling my nephew just the other day that that would be a stupid name...

Anyway, hit up the source link for more rumour mongering goodness!

Passwords are one of those necessary evils that we have to live with in the information technology world. They are our first line of defense against simple hacks and dictionary attacks.

So what is a bad password?

SplashData has revelealed some information from their research of recent security breaches to reveal the list of 25 most used passwords.

I'm ashamed to say that during my IT career I have used one or two of these myself, especially when in a hurry. I don't use any of these anymore though, all my passwords are now strong passwords.

Check the source link for full list of bad passwords. If your password is on this list, I strongly suggest you change it now!

As a bonus, check xkcd's comic for a better and easier way of creating a strong password.