Posted by from MMO Champion
The State of PvP: Unavailable Rewards, Mass Reports, Boosting, Exploits & Bugs

PvP in The War Within has been received positively by the community; however, there appear to be several unresolved issues. In this post, we highlight unobtainable rewards, exploits, and other player concerns affecting the PvP experience.

Unavailable Rewards

Solo Shuffle Medic: The War Within and Battleground Blitz Medic: The War Within were introduced in this expansion to encourage healers to queue for solo PvP modes. Both achievements are currently marked unobtainable, which is likely an oversight from when all Feats of Strength for Season 1 were flagged the same way. As a result, the associated toy pennants are also unavailable at the moment.

These achievements can be tracked with the following script:

/run C_ContentTracking.ToggleTracking(2,40792,2)

/run C_ContentTracking.ToggleTracking(2,40795,2)

tbody>tr" data-default-sort-slug="name" data-default-sort-order="asc"> Name Reward
Solo Shuffle Medic: The War Within Win 100 Solo Shuffle rounds as a Healer at or above Rival I during The War Within.
Reward: Unbound Legend's Pennant

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the how-about-that department: Major scholarly databases have removed dozens of academic journals after researchers discovered they had been purchased by questionable companies and transformed into predatory publications. A January 2025 study identified 36 legitimate journals acquired by recently formed firms with no publishing experience, who then dramatically increased publication fees and output while lowering quality standards.

According to information scientist Alberto Martin-Martin from the University of Granada, publishers are being offered up to hundreds of thousands of euros per journal title. Once acquired, journals typically introduce or raise article-processing charges while churning out papers often outside the publication's original scope. Scopus has delisted all 36 identified journals, and Web of Science removed 11 of 17 affected titles from its index. "As there has been significant change (different ownership), there is no guarantee that review quality is at the same level as the original journals," an Elsevier spokesperson told Nature.

Posted by Kenneth Shepard from Kotaku
If you’re a long-time fan of something, one of the only ways to recapture playing, viewing, or reading it for the first time is to experience it vicariously through newcomers. That’s what The Last of Us fans got to do last night in season two’s second episode, as millions of viewers who never played the games saw one…

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Posted by Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
After years of rumors, leaks, and speculation, Bethesda has finally confirmed the worst-kept video game industry secret of 2025. Yes, we are getting an Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster.

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the stranger-things department: The FBI says it is unable to find records related to its purchase of a series of hacking tools, despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on them and those purchases initially being included in a public U.S. government procurement database before being quietly scrubbed from the internet. From a report: The news highlights the secrecy the FBI maintains around its use of hacking tools. The agency has previously used classified technology in ordinary criminal investigations, pushed back against demands to provide details of hacking operations to defendants, and purchased technology from surveillance vendors.

"Potentially responsive records were identified during the search," a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request I sent about a specific hacking tool contract says. "However, we were advised that they were not in their expected locations. An additional search for the missing records also met with unsuccessful results. Since we were unable to review the records, we were unable to determine if they were responsive to your request." In other words, the FBI says it identified related records, then couldn't actually find them when it went looking.

Posted by Randall Munroe from XKCD
'Wow, that must be why you swallow so many of them per year!' 'No, that's spiders. You swallow WAY more ants.'

Posted by Ethan Gach from Kotaku
The first time I ever set hands on a PlayStation 2, it was a rental from Blockbuster. It came in a big black suitcase. I played The Bouncer all weekend. It was fantastic. The practice of lending out entire video game consoles did not last very long, but it’s recently become a hit in Japan again. Fans are reportedly…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: Over 100 mid-market software companies are caught in a dangerous "squeeze" between AI-native startups and tech giants, according to a new AlixPartners study released Monday. The consulting firm warns many face "threats to their survival over the next 24 months" as generative AI fundamentally reshapes enterprise software.

The squeeze reflects a dramatic shift: AI agents are evolving from mere assistants to becoming applications themselves, potentially rendering traditional SaaS architecture obsolete. High-growth companies in this sector plummeted from 57% in 2023 to 39% in 2024, with further decline expected. Customer stickiness is also deteriorating, with median net dollar retention falling from 120% in 2021 to 108% in Q3 2024.

Posted by Black Convoy from TFW2005


Thanks to 2005 Boards member and UK residents renkencen and Blitz. we can report that the Transformers Legacy United Wave 5 Deluxe is out in the UK This a repack and re-release of the original Legacy Evolution Tarn from 2023- Itt was spotted at Smyth’s stores in North Wales and Bristol. We hope his wave partner Ramjet (repack) will show up soon. Happy hunting!

The post Transformers Legacy United Wave 5 Deluxe Out In The UK appeared first on Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.

Posted by Mahalia Otshudy from Kotaku
Ryan Coogler’s film, Sinners, has received nothing but love since its release last Friday, April 18th. The film is laced with symbolism and hidden meanings that you might miss on the first watch. You can even read our story on The Root about hidden meanings you might have missed in the film.

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Posted by John Walker from Kotaku
One of the stranger moments of my career was reviewing a game, giving it a four-page review and a well-deserved score of 89 percent in the then-massively-selling UK PC Gamer magazine, and then the game not coming out for another eight months. That was just one example of the nightmares Psychonauts—Double Fine’s…

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Posted by Kenneth Shepard from Kotaku
When Danganronpa creator Kazutaka Kodaka and Zero Escape director Kotaro Uchikoshi joined forces to found Too Kyo Games in 2017, I was curious to see just what the two legends of so-called “death games” would create together. But although the team has put out several games in just under a decade, none of them have…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: Global alcohol consumption has entered what appears to be a permanent decline, with total volume peaking at 25.4 billion liters in 2016 and falling approximately 13% since then, according to data from market research firm IWSR.

Per-capita consumption has dropped dramatically from 5 liters of pure alcohol per adult annually in 2013 to 3.9 liters in 2023. Wine production, which reached its maximum of 37.5 million metric tons in 1979, has already decreased by 27%. Beer production peaked more recently in 2016 at 190 million tons and has since declined 2.6%.

Industry experts attribute this shift to changing generational habits, with younger consumers preferring event-driven drinking rather than habitual consumption. The proliferation of non-alcoholic alternatives, increased marijuana availability, and health consciousness accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic have further driven moderation trends.

Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the what-if department: In February tech journalist Nicholas Carr published Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart.

A University of Virginia academic journal says the book "appraises the past and present" of information technology while issuing "a warning about its future." And specifically Carr argues that the government ignored historic precedents by not regulating the early internet sometime in the 1990s.

But as he goes on to remind us, the early 1990s were also when the triumphalism of America's Cold War victory, combined with the utopianism of Silicon Valley, convinced a generation of decision-makers that "an unfettered market seemed the best guarantor of growth and prosperity" and "defending the public interest now meant little more than expanding consumer choice." So rather than try to anticipate the dangers and excesses of commercialized digital media, Congress gave it free rein in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which, as Carr explains,

"...erased the legal and ethical distinction between interpersonal communication and broadcast communications that had governed media in the twentieth century. When Google introduced its Gmail service in 2004, it announced, with an almost imperial air of entitlement, that it would scan the contents of all messages and use the resulting data for any purpose it wanted. Our new mailman would read all our mail."

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Posted by from MMO Champion
Noblegarden 2025

Noblegarden has returned to Azeroth once again, bringing all of the goodies from previous years, as well as some new ones.

New in 2025

Khaz Algar celebrates Noblegarden with festive decorations and a new egg hunt for hidden Brightly Colored Egg.

The stack count for Brightly Colored Egg has been increased to 18.

New festive weapon transmogs are available for 100 Noblegarden Chocolate:

Faded Floral Staff - Staff

Orchid Bow-quet - Bow

Paradise's Violet Axe - One-Hand Axe

Pristine Floral Stalk - Polearm

Violet Floral Edge - Dagger



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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the RIP department: Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, the Vatican said Monday. The pontiff, who was Bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church, became pope in 2013 after his predecessor Benedict XVI resigned. On February 14, the Pope was admitted to hospital for bronchitis treatment. From a report: Born in 1936, Francis was the first pope from South America. His papacy was marked by his championing of those escaping war and hunger, as well as those in poverty, earning him the moniker the "People's Pope." In 2016, he washed the feet of refugees from different religions at an asylum centre outside Rome in a "gesture of humility and service."

He also made his views known on a wide range of issues, from climate change to wealth inequality and the role of women in the Catholic Church.

Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the to-the-moon department: Chad Anderson is the founder/managing partner of the early-stage VC Space Capital (and an investor in SpaceX, along with dozens of other space companies). Space Capital produces quarterly reports on the space economy, and he says today, unlike 2021, "the froth is gone. But so is the hype. What's left is a more grounded — and investable — space economy."

On Yahoo Finance he shares several of the report's insights — including the emergence of "investable opportunities across defense-oriented startups in space domain awareness, AI-driven command systems, and hardened infrastructure."

The same geopolitical instability that's undermining public markets is driving national urgency around space resilience. China's simulated space "dogfights" prompted the US Department of Defense to double down on orbital supremacy, with the proposed "Golden Dome" missile shield potentially unleashing a new wave of federal spending...

Defense tech is on fire, but commercial location-based services and logistics are freezing over. Companies like Shield AI and Saronic raised monster rounds, while others are relying on bridge financings to stay afloat...

Q1 also saw a breakout quarter for geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI). Software developer Niantic launched a spatial computing platform. SkyWatch partnered with GIS software supplier Esri. Planet Labs collaborated with Anthropic. And Xona Space Systems inked a deal with Trimble to boost precision GPS. This is the next leg of the space economy, where massive volumes of satellite data is finally made useful through machine learning, semantic indexing, and real-time analytics.

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Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the not-like-us department: With more companies requiring workers to return to an office five days a week, "Anxiety is rising for some of the millions of people who identify as neurodivergent," writes the Washington Post.

They raise the possibility that "strict office mandates have the potential to deter neurodivergent people who may approach problems differently," the article notes — affecting peoiple "whose brains function differently, such as with ADHD, autism or dyslexia."

While many neurodivergent people excel in an office, others struggle with sensory issues, an inability to focus and exhaustion, workers say... About a fifth of U.S. adults self-identify as neurodivergent, with a majority saying they always or usually feel that their brain works differently, according to a recent survey by research and analytics firm YouGov. They cite issues such as starting tasks before finishing others, being overwhelmed by social situations and struggling to focus...

Some neurodivergent workers discovered success working remotely during the pandemic and don't feel comfortable disclosing their diagnoses due to fear of and prior instances of discrimination. Sometimes being one of the few remote workers makes it easier to be forgotten.... Neurodivergent workers who spoke about their office struggles say even part-time remote work can be a game changer. They also wish leaders would seek input from them and trust them to get their work done.

Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the admission-impossible department: While college applicants are often required to write a personal essay for their applications, political scientist/author/academic Yascha Mounk argues that's "a deeply unfair way to select students for top colleges, one that is much more biased against the poor than standardized tests."

The college essay wrongly encourages students to cast themselves as victims, to exaggerate the adversity they've faced, and to turn genuinely upsetting experiences into the focal point of their self-understanding. The college essay, dear reader, should be banned and banished and burned to the ground.

There are many tangible, "objective" reasons to oppose making personal statements a key part of the admissions process. Perhaps the most obvious is that they have always been the easiest part of the system to game. While rich parents can hire SAT tutors they can't sit the standardized test in the stead of their offspring; they can, however, easily write the admissions essay for their kid or hire a "college consultant" who "works with" the applicant to "improve" that essay. Even if rich parents don't cheat in those ways, their class position gives rich kids a huge advantage in the exercise... [W]riting a good admissions essay is to a large extent an exercise in demonstrating one's good taste — and the ability to do so has always depended on being fluent in the unspoken norms of an elite community...

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Posted by Black Convoy from TFW2005


Via Killerbody Weibo we have our first images of the new Movie Rediscovery Project MRP-02 Transformers 2007 Frenzy & MRP-03 Revenge Of The Fallen Wheelie figures. This is a pretty detailed, movie accurate and poseable figures which follow the previous KGBO x Killerbody Dark Of The Moon Scalpel. The are likely to feature LED lights and sound effects too. Additional details are yet to be revealed, but via Baidu user Skysre we have images of samples of each toy which have been revealed at an event in China. See the first promotional images after the jump and then sound » Continue Reading.

The post KGBO x Killerbody Movie Rediscovery Project MRP-02 Transformers 2007 Frenzy & MRP-03 Revenge Of The Fallen Wheelie appeared first on Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.