If you want a chance to properly flex those superpowered muscles of yours in either City of Heroes or City of Villains, you might find it useful to find out all the latest changes made to the Training Room Server. As expected, a host of bug fixes and gameplay enhancements were sneaked into the latest build of the test server. Check out the full list in our full article after the jump.

A lot of players often see the Ranger in NCsoft's Guild Wars as simply an auxiliary unit used to shutdown casters on an team. While this may be true in some (ok, most) cases, the class is versatile enough to also act as a pressure unit dealing good DPS to an entire party as well as a skirmisher to rapidly drop flag runners and other opponents. For more on this class, head on over to the full article.

With the large amount of player feedback for Pirates of the Burning Sea swamping the devs at Flying Lab Software, the team has decided to create an exclusive "strike team" dedicated to implemented the many user interface features planned out for the game. The team is comprised of some of the core members of the PotBS dev team and are very excited to bring to players all the featured content they have lined up.

For more details, check out the full article after the jump!

Six new screenshots from Auran Games' upcoming MMORPG title Fury have come our way via MMORPG.com. These screenshots show of more of the game's beautiful graphics, provided by the Unreal Engine 3. Check 'em out below.

   

Australian video game developer Auran has touted Fury as "the best PvP experience ever". One of the cool things that the game brings to the PvP arena is its unique spell and ability activation feature. The words "cooldown time" aren't found in the Fury vocabulary, and spell and abilities within the game activate instantly. Do we hear somebody saying "spell spam"?

Fury is currently in closed beta and is slated for an early October release.

Check out more screenshots behind the Full Article link!

A new anti-spam solution was recently implemented on the server side of Sony Online Entertainment's EverQuest II and it looks to be pretty efficient.

This new system reviews messages sent and flags those which have been identified as spam. All the flagged messages will not be sent to the players in their initial form, but in an abbreviated form with a tag saying "[Spam]" right before it.

Players will have the option to see the message in full by clicking on the [View] option right at the end of the message. Players can also choose to completely remove all traces of the identified spam by modifying their Chat Options and opting out of receiving the system message.

Of course a few spam messages will probably be getting through the system. If that happens, players can file a /report and /petition noting the person who sent the message so that the Customer Service department can take action on the spammer and further improve the filter. For an illustrated step by step guide, feel free to click on our read link. More updates as they happen.

We've covered quite a few details on how the Spam Prevention Tool works in World of Warcraft and how to maximize its use when reporting spammers. Blizzard Poster/ Forum Moderator Nethaera has posted a short FAQ with some details on the new Squelch feature included in the tool.

First and foremost, what happens when you report a player for spamming you? Well, Nethaera basically said that the player you reported is automatically squelched for the rest of your gaming session. This means that he/she will be ignored even when you change characters. A report will be sent to the GMs for review. Appropriate action will then be implemented depending on the situation.

Another feature that was discussed is using this to report mail spammers. Nethaera gave word that reporting these players is similar to the chat reporting. Just click on the"Report Spam" option and you will automatically ignore all mail from the said user. If multiple reports are given by different players, then all mail from the said player become temporarily invisible until the game masters have reviewed the case.

The spam reports are limited to five per player over a 24-hour period. In addition, it is only possible to send reports at a rate of one per minute. I assume this is to prevent the use of this tool as a denial of service weapon on WoW with spammers just flooding the accounts of the GMs with multiple reports. The same reporting restrictions apply, i.e. you will not be able to report any players on your friends, guild list or yourself.

That said, we encourage everyone to actively use this tool and help rid WoW of the common enemy we all face: spammers. After that we can go back to ganking each other. For now though, let's just keep "ganking" these spammers by sending in reports. Be sure to keep checking back here for more updates on World of Warcraft.

 

The spam protection tool in World of Warcraft Blizzard recently implemented has received mixed responses from players. While some say that it has been working very well, others claim that it hasn't worked for them and thus have decided to stick with the popular add-on SpamSentry.

Most users on the forum however were reserving their comments until a few weeks have passed. It's great that some players are willing to stop sending out negative comments until they've completely evaluated the tool. This streamlining of the spam reporting is already working now but we should expect to see major results in a couple of weeks. Of course, we have to consider that the spammers have been adopting and changing the modus-operandi to get their much-hated spam out so it might be longer.

Blizzard Poster/ Forum Moderator Drysc gave some information causing much cheering from those in the forums. He said that "Also, as of 2.1 trial accounts can no longer whisper others unless they have been whispered by that player first, or they are on that player's friends list. We obviously didn't want this information known before the patch was released."

Well, this move by Blizzard was called by one user as "laying the smackdown on spammers" and we agree with him. It's nice to see that Blizzard's been doing what they can to lessen the spam on World of Warcraft. Be sure to keep checking back for more news on World of Warcraft.

 

Spam is the enemy of every World of Warcraft player on any server. We have reported before that Blizzard has seen it fit to add some spam protection to their game and it has gotten a mixed response from players. Some have reported that it works well while others find that it's not very efficient.

Reporting spammers is rather simple. If the player is not on your friends or guild list, you can report a player for spamming by right clicking their name in the chat box and selecting the Report Spam option. Forum Moderator Blizzard Poster Drysc has given word that this tool should ONLY be used for spammers.

Do not use this option for other reasons such as people who send inappropriate comments, etc. He warns players that using the Report Spam for any other reason may result in your report "not being reported properly." If players wish to report any problems, they should still use the "normal reporting process."

Be responsible when using this tool. Hopefully, if enough people use it properly, spam can be minimized if not outright stopped. Be sure to check back here for more news on World of Warcraft.

Back in January, we reported that certain World of Warcraft players are exploiting a gold farming bug related to Jaina Proudmoore. We're not certain f the bug has been fixed already but what we know is that spamming inside the MMO video game is still very active and is currently causing problems.

Here's the thing: Drysc recently posted updated PTR notes that had new spam-prevention features. Message throttling will be activated making it impossible for WoW players to send large amounts of text at one time. Aside from this, the reporting abilities were also updated:

• Players will now be able to report chat and mail spam with the click of a button. A "Report Spam" option will now be available by right-clicking on a player’s name in a chat channel, whisper, or mail. Using this option will quickly and easily report the player to our in-game support department for review.
• When you report a player, he or she will automatically be added to your ignore list for your current session. You won't see any chat or mail from that player until you log out and back in.
• These tools function on a per-account basis, meaning that reporting one character on an account will ignore all chat text and mail from that entire account until you log off.
• You will not be able to report players on your friends list or in your guild.

But the thing is, these abilities require players first to receive spam from an account before they can ignore it. Some players argue that if Blizzard does intend to put an end to this, what it should have done is turn off whisper level ranges. Forum administrator Nethaera argues that these are not the entirety of what Blizzard has planned.

The above mentioned features, as well as other changes, with the upcoming Black Temple patch.

 

A lot of talk has been thrown around regarding the implementation of VoIP in Blizzard's World of Warcraft; VoIP (Voice Over IP) should allow users to communicate via headsets in the game. Ok, for those freaking out that it's already being done, I know that, but some WoW players are concerned on how exactly Blizzard is planning on integrating it with the game.

The benefits of VoIP cannot be understated in a raid. Just the ability to shout "I need a heal" and getting it done is worth using it. However, this brings another problem that is prevalent in the game: gold spammers. Some players have expressed fear that the addition of this feature will give gold spammers another way to spam players. Well, I don't think so. If Blizzard has the foresight to put a mute button, then you're pretty much safe. Another thing, if you party with a gold spammer, you can simply kick him out, job done.

Despite all the paranoid people blabbering about the dangers of VoIP the prevailing thought among most players is that this is good for the game. I personally think that adding this feature will definitely make life easier for everyone.