The Blizzard Authenticator - A rip off in itself

I saw an article on mmocrunch about world of warcraft authenticators. The little device that generates a second code needed to log in (you don't have the device, you can't log in, even if you've hacked the regular password). I wrote the following:


I am surprised how people are so excited to spend money on these if they are so necessary to play the game.

If it’s a necessary part of the game, why doesn’t it come with the game – or atleast after X amount of subscription time they send you one?

It’s like you guys rented a house, then your real excited to buy a lock and key for the front door – the house should come with one.

I mean, if the game didn't come with a password field at all and you 'only' had to pay $6.50 to get one, would you think that's great? No, you'd insist it should come with a password field. You'd say it's absolutely necessary to have one.

And yet you say the Blizz authenticator is absolutely necessary as well.

Table top roleplay - the quick encounter

If you've ever done table top roleplay, you know what is just a small skirmish can take up a long time at the gaming table.

But what if you had something like this - there's the option of just rolling to hit, and comparing that to a chart it shows how many shots you use and how much damage the bad guys do, before they are defeated or forced into retreat.

Okay, the important thing is that this is actually an opt in system - the way it's presented is that before combat begins, the GM might want to do it this way, but all the players have to want to do it as well, otherwise it goes to the traditional combat system.

That way if it takes a long time, it's because the players wanted it to take a long time!

Further info ~~~
The model for this version is that all players have to want to do the quick version. If even one player wants to go traditional, you do. This doesn't mean other players slope off to play Xbox - they play out the combat, because if one person votes to do it traditional, then that's what everyone does. The one person who votes that way aught to consider why they would take that option, given the strong effect it has. Or if they just take it for selfish reasons - well, I consider gaming to be like playing in a band...and bands don't hold together very long with people who only think of themselves.

Your Runes of Magic character motivations!

Are you on Siochain OR Macantacht server? If so, what's your Runes of Magic character motivation? Even if it's light hearted and a single sentence, that's fine! Even if your guys just a fighting guy, that counts!

Your characters motivation is important! So I'm paying 3k gold each!!! That's for 50 motivations total (I've only got so much gold!).

Leave your character name in your post (AND which server they are from), so I can mail you the gold. Or you can send me in game mail and point out which post was yours (send to 'Dreambroken', with a capital 'D'). You can post anonymously for this, that's fine. Only one entry per character per day.

I look forward to hearing your character motives!

Oh, and if motivations get a bit overly serious I might delete them here (but I'll send the gold anyway if it seemed a serious entry). There's one below that's a bit overly serious.

Make money online (suplemental income) review: Rewards Central

Okay, cutting straight to what's important (when considering a supplemental income)! How much money do you get each day with rewards central!?

3 points per quick survey per day (3 points is roughly 3 cents Australian)
2 points per advert web click from their site
2 points per bonus advert web click (there wasn't a bonus right when I started, but one came along shortly after)

So about 7 cents Australian a day. Think of it this way, if you had $1000 in the bank at 2.75% interest (which is what the commonwealth bank has at the moment on the netbank saver) gives you 7cents a day. Would you like to have $1000 more in your savings, giving interest? This is the equivalent of having interest from $1000, in terms of supplemental income.

http://www.rewardscentral.com.au/Join/Default.aspx?refer=scrollbreak

Now on top of that there have been around two reward e-mails per week from rewards central, which you get 5 points from (or you can choose to get entries into a $10,000 cash draw). So at around 10 points/cents a week it's more like a bit over 8 points/cents a day. And perhaps as we ride out the economic downturn, there will be more?

Also the adverts are nicely presented and kind of interesting (perhaps somewhat targeted, in other words). They also sometimes have a small treasure chest in them which has bonus rewards for the first 100 people to click it (top prize is $100 (not points, dollars!), second is $50, etc). Make sure you click on that first and foremost if you see one!! Otherwise you miss out! It's clearly their way of making you really look at e-mail, which seems a win/win way of doing it.

On top of that when you join you get 50 points/50 cents. If you fill out the whole profile, you get another 50 points/50 cents. Whether you want to give those details...well, even if you just join, it's 50 points!

And something that's important to me when I look up stuff; When can you cash out? At 3,300 points, which gives you $30. (and thats why I say each point is roughly worth a cent). You could also wait until you have 10,100 points for $100 dollars, which is a slightly better point conversion rate. Which might be worthwhile waiting for, if you see the details on their bank below.

http://www.rewardscentral.com.au/Join/Default.aspx?refer=scrollbreak

If your finding this info useful, please use the link above as it's a referal to my account :) Much obliged!

There's still more to it - there's an instant win game (you need to finish a quiz on the site to unlock this), where you can guess numbers each day and see if you win. With the best configuration (I think) you have a 1 in 2000 chance of winning 2000 points/$20 dollars! Not great odds, but it's free and a bit of a flutter, so it's a fun amusement!

What's quite interesting is the bank - you can deposit points in their bank for a month or up to six months, and it has returns that (as of this writing) start at 7.55 variable interest PA and go up from there based on time or points amount (600 points gets even better rates, 2000 even better). And the only way I've seen them vary is up (by .25 percent!)! So your not just sitting on points, waiting to get to 3,300, you can actually make them earn you even more per day on top of what your were earning before!! At rates which are better than what the banks are offering, too!

http://www.rewardscentral.com.au/Join/Default.aspx?refer=scrollbreak

And then there is, as far as I can tell, Rewards Centrals sister site, MyOpinions. Again you earn 50 points for signing up, 50 points for filling out the profile, and you can transfer these points to Rewards Central. I've gotten roughly two surveys every fortnight, which can earn you a bit over 100 points each AND around 10 competition entries - and even if you get screened out you get around 10 points and a competition entry. The competition is for $5000, which is drawn every three months or so, I think.

ALSO they have an instant win game you can play once per week. It lists your win history and I've gotten  about 50% five point/cent payouts and 50% ten point/cent payouts. You have a one in 49 chance of winning 500 points/roughly $5 with this game each week, which isn't bad odds given your not paying for a ticket to play (I think it's better odds than tattslotto, when I checked - it's certainly cheaper/free). Even if you don't win that, your winning five or ten cents, which might not sound like much but you are now five or ten cents ahead of where you were before! Even more supplemental income!

http://www.myopinions.com.au/join/default.aspx?refer=scrollbreak


So there's the referal, much obliged if you use it! :) I'm thinking of giving MyOpinions it's own review latter on, since it's tucked in at the end of the Rewards Central one here. But they link in together so well it needed to be mentioned right now!

So, those links again (oh yeah, this is a monetized post!) and have a good one! :)

http://www.rewardscentral.com.au/Join/Default.aspx?refer=scrollbreak

http://www.myopinions.com.au/join/default.aspx?refer=scrollbreak

Edit: After about a month and a bit I've made nearly 1,000 points, combining both rewards central and my opinion points.

And feel free to ask questions in the comments section!