The Amazon Basin
I am one of the people who post (and play) a lot there. Just as Blizzard is a group of game enthusiasts so too are we. We're not even professional
With 300+ members then it certainly is possible that people might be hypocritical. Ultimately though it's their loss if so.
Picture a game. You have maphack but you can't be seen to act on any of the information. You have an Ith but you can't be seen doing impossible damage so you can't play fast and kill everything. You make good friends and they trust you completely, letting you access their accounts to grab an item. You, of course, can't reciprocate
Doesn't that sound horrible?
As Roland mentioned earlier cheating spoils the play experience. I suspect it must be even less fun to do this at the AB than it is in public BNet games
And to some extent, although I am sad to hear of AB players potentially cheating the impact on our community is virtually nil
If a long-term friend of mine tells me tomorrow that they lost an account for cheating but were not guilty I'd just shrug and make a new character to play with them at level 1 on the Blood Moor. Just as if in real life a friend was accused by the police of a crime, even convicted, if they told me they were not guilty and I believed them it would not shake the friendship
As for the mechanics of living a lie on the internet it is, no doubt, as possible to do at the Basin as anywhere else. I pity anyone that sad
So what I would hope is that there have been genuine mistakes made. I do accept Isolde's assertion that one Basin player has been cheating using an "egregrious" hack. Egregrious means really bad. He would not say this if he was not 100% sure, imo. He knows the person and he knows the hack used. This is not a "might have been the Cain bug" situation
This is one out of quite a number of people who have complained
But equally we have no need of a witch hunt. If our friends tell us they weren't cheating we can and should be free to believe them. I appreciate Isolde's courtesy in not naming names here
Because ultimately in the AB games everyone seems honest, fun and friendly. That is not fake. That is the way these games are and any person who secretly cheats is having a far less pleasant time, I think, than someone who openly cheats on the public side.
Anyway, the ethos of the place is that people should not cheat and should not PK. If we were to catch a member doing this they would be banned from the Amazon Basin. That is I think all that could be asked of what is basically a bunch of gamers with a website, almost all of whom have met online
I do think we have the right to post, to preach if you like, against cheating and against non-consensual PKing. If someone secretly cheats it does not invalidate the position of the rest of us
Incidentally there is a distinction which Isolde may not have appreciated. An Amazon Basin Member is someone we completely trust. An Amazon Basin Community Member is someone we have not yet promoted (very often because they have simply been overlooked). We have a huge number of Community Members and some of them we don't know very well and wouldn't be able to vouch for
Isolde
Your frankness is hugely appreciated and I hope you perceive the warmth with which it is received here. Do please point this thread and these forums out to anyone else at the company interested in interacting with gamers. I think the Lounge is a particularly good place to get an intelligent discussion going (well and the AB too ;) ) but you already know this :)
Me or one of the others may be in touch about people who are now denied access. I appreciate that if you do look into something and feel that the ban is justified you won't restore access, just as I'm sure you'll appreciate that I may well continue to believe in my friend if this happens :)
Finally if you, or for that matter anyone else here, wants to give our games a try, please pop over. PM me if you would like some company :)
Lag Reducer
Very pleased to hear that this is OK. Could this information please be posted prominently, perhaps on the Blizzard D2 forums or on the Arreat Summit site? This is important information and it would be good to see it go up "officially" somewhere
The bans
I fully support the action taken. As for the timing I think it needed to be done before the new patch. I must say that as a deterrence I think it will be terrific
Sirian/Max Schaeffer dialogues
Preserved here:
http://sirian.warpcore.org/diablo2/protest.html
I think even those of us who don't agree with Max admired his thought and forthrightness very much indeed
Disclaimer
I am not an official of the AB, these are just my thoughts :)
I am one of the people who post (and play) a lot there. Just as Blizzard is a group of game enthusiasts so too are we. We're not even professional
With 300+ members then it certainly is possible that people might be hypocritical. Ultimately though it's their loss if so.
Picture a game. You have maphack but you can't be seen to act on any of the information. You have an Ith but you can't be seen doing impossible damage so you can't play fast and kill everything. You make good friends and they trust you completely, letting you access their accounts to grab an item. You, of course, can't reciprocate
Doesn't that sound horrible?
As Roland mentioned earlier cheating spoils the play experience. I suspect it must be even less fun to do this at the AB than it is in public BNet games
And to some extent, although I am sad to hear of AB players potentially cheating the impact on our community is virtually nil
If a long-term friend of mine tells me tomorrow that they lost an account for cheating but were not guilty I'd just shrug and make a new character to play with them at level 1 on the Blood Moor. Just as if in real life a friend was accused by the police of a crime, even convicted, if they told me they were not guilty and I believed them it would not shake the friendship
As for the mechanics of living a lie on the internet it is, no doubt, as possible to do at the Basin as anywhere else. I pity anyone that sad
So what I would hope is that there have been genuine mistakes made. I do accept Isolde's assertion that one Basin player has been cheating using an "egregrious" hack. Egregrious means really bad. He would not say this if he was not 100% sure, imo. He knows the person and he knows the hack used. This is not a "might have been the Cain bug" situation
This is one out of quite a number of people who have complained
But equally we have no need of a witch hunt. If our friends tell us they weren't cheating we can and should be free to believe them. I appreciate Isolde's courtesy in not naming names here
Because ultimately in the AB games everyone seems honest, fun and friendly. That is not fake. That is the way these games are and any person who secretly cheats is having a far less pleasant time, I think, than someone who openly cheats on the public side.
Anyway, the ethos of the place is that people should not cheat and should not PK. If we were to catch a member doing this they would be banned from the Amazon Basin. That is I think all that could be asked of what is basically a bunch of gamers with a website, almost all of whom have met online
I do think we have the right to post, to preach if you like, against cheating and against non-consensual PKing. If someone secretly cheats it does not invalidate the position of the rest of us
Incidentally there is a distinction which Isolde may not have appreciated. An Amazon Basin Member is someone we completely trust. An Amazon Basin Community Member is someone we have not yet promoted (very often because they have simply been overlooked). We have a huge number of Community Members and some of them we don't know very well and wouldn't be able to vouch for
Isolde
Your frankness is hugely appreciated and I hope you perceive the warmth with which it is received here. Do please point this thread and these forums out to anyone else at the company interested in interacting with gamers. I think the Lounge is a particularly good place to get an intelligent discussion going (well and the AB too ;) ) but you already know this :)
Me or one of the others may be in touch about people who are now denied access. I appreciate that if you do look into something and feel that the ban is justified you won't restore access, just as I'm sure you'll appreciate that I may well continue to believe in my friend if this happens :)
Finally if you, or for that matter anyone else here, wants to give our games a try, please pop over. PM me if you would like some company :)
Lag Reducer
Very pleased to hear that this is OK. Could this information please be posted prominently, perhaps on the Blizzard D2 forums or on the Arreat Summit site? This is important information and it would be good to see it go up "officially" somewhere
The bans
I fully support the action taken. As for the timing I think it needed to be done before the new patch. I must say that as a deterrence I think it will be terrific
Sirian/Max Schaeffer dialogues
Preserved here:
http://sirian.warpcore.org/diablo2/protest.html
I think even those of us who don't agree with Max admired his thought and forthrightness very much indeed
Disclaimer
I am not an official of the AB, these are just my thoughts :)