So.... I guess theres a dupe out /madface

[Taem]

So I just start playing in USWEST and see my friend log on when I start typing him a messege. Suddenly... CONNECTION INTERRUPTED followed by REALM DOWN. What the *$!@ I say to myself, being the second time this would of happened today (the first time was when I was muling to myself and I guess I left and entered the game too quickly and got realm down for 10-15 minutes... lost items and was VERY UNHAPPY!). I try to log on west again but to no avail. So I try east... same thing. Hummm, I say to myself. So I delete my b.net cache, Save folder for corrupt characters, and log hoping this will solve the problem... nope!

I then log onto Europe and its not down... yet. Everyone in the channel I'm in is from west and east.. every single person. All submit the realms are down because of the latest duping hack. Go figure... not exactly new news with battle.net. I then check various forums around the net and would you believe it... a new dupe IS out. Grrr.... And I really wanted to play tonight too, but atlas the world does not revolve around me. I hope these dupers get what they deserve! At least I'll start working on my paladin guide again (been over a month because I've been playing Diablo on all my free time instead...).

[Brista]

Europe has been unplayable all day. I'm quite sure they working hard to address recent duping methods, and good luck to them too

I'm in drum-banging mood again so I'm going to repost what I just wrote on the AB, with the usual apologies for cross-posting:

They have always worked pretty hard behind the scenes on technical solutions. Their tech team are actually pretty amazing, I think

Which does make me grind my teeth at times

It's as if we had a police force that was superb at solving burglaries and implementing new locks, etc each time someone was burgled. But to the burglars they may as well have a go anyway because even while the police discover them time and time again they never go to jail (get CD-Key banned) and almost never lose the proceeds of the robberies (get account banned)

Now that isn't entirely fair, as of April this year they started to approach this issue with real teeth but by then there was a significant minority who felt that cheating prospers because they had left it rather late

This is because there was a long period when duping and maphack were widely talked about and often freely accessible with no perception of punishment

So I actually feel rather sorry for the Tech team who I think do a fantastic job.

Now is the time for the management and legal arm to put a bit of support behind them

CD Key bans make complete sense

If you CD Key ban cheats you have the following effects
- some of the "sheep" turn honest. Perhaps forever. It kind of sucks to play a game for months and get banned and lose everything
- many of the "sheep" go out and buy the game again for a new CD Key. Huzzah, more income, give the Tech team a raise!
- some of the "sheep" leave forever vowing to never buy a Blizzard product. They go and haunt some other company's product. They are replaced by legit people who decide that D2 is worth playing again now that there aren't lots of cheats around
- some of the hardcore cheats, the semi-pros who hack Diablo 24/7 instead of working, decide to throw in the towel. These people have been interviewed, there was one on Diabloii.net not so long ago and generally their getting fed up is a response to how hard it is to make money doing what they do
- and the hardcore cheats who don't throw in the towel turn their attention to working out how to play free rather than how to dupe which significantly slows down their progress or they buy an extra copy and at least some of that money comes back

Now the chances of some spoiled 13 year old convincing his parents to sue Blizzard for banning him are pretty remote. The chance of a lawyer not advising them to drop the case and buy the kid another toy, then charging $500 are very remote. And the chances of a judge not laughing such a hypothetical case out of court are nil

Cmon Blizzard, do the smart thing!  :)

[ShadowHM]

Blizzard bashing is easy. It is also tedious to read.

Those who wish to cheat are more numerous by a factor of thousands to one than the Blizzard employees. And they are an inventive lot too.

Thanks, Brista (once again) for writing coherent, constructive and thoughtful posts. :)

[kandrathe]

These people have been interviewed, there was one on Diabloii.net not so long ago and generally their getting fed up is a response to how hard it is to make money doing what they do

That is the best news. If Blizzard could focus on steps they could take to make e-bay sales of DII items, and characters unprofitable, that would go along way in removing the impetus for cheating amongst thousands of the cheating "sheep".

Some of my thoughts on that are; More realms to further fracture the economies (for now), and recycling the ladder in reasonable time periods (like as soon as the first player gets to lvl 99 -- they are the winner and we start over.)

Contributing to the problem, but something I doubt they could do anything about now was the introduction of uber unique items, being so much more powerful than rares. Unique items, are ... well not that unique it seems and so while it was statistically impossible for the v1.09 realms to contain the number of SOJs or Windforces on them, it was also impossible to determine which were legit. With rares it is pretty uncommon for two rares to have identical names and stats. If you did a realm wipe of a particular rare item it would be very unlikely to affect anyone other than the cheaters. So my long winded recommendation would be to nerf uniques some, and improve the way that rares are generated (for hell drops) such that a rare *may* be better than any unique item in the game. Again, though, I see 1.10 as possibly the last big change to LOD, so this would never get implemented and so there will continue to be a demand and a market for uber uniques.

[Taem]

Whoops... I guess that did sound like a gripe. My bad. It was more of a general complaint about my day, not towards Blizzard, but the way I wrote it sounded, to be frank, like a wanker. I was trying to explain that the realms were down due to a new duping method, and while explaining how I found this out, I conveyed my feelings of frustration, which people mistakenly took towards Blizzard, when in fact its towards the dupers. I have no problems with Blizzard what so ever and rejoice that they still support this wonderful game after so many years when they could of left it for dead as a zero-income resource. My hats off too you, Blizzard, for your quick apprehensive reaction of the situation.

Sincerely,

MEAT

[Guest]

If Blizzard could focus on steps they could take to make e-bay sales of DII items, and characters unprofitable, that would go along way in removing the impetus for cheating amongst thousands of the cheating "sheep".

I heard it a long time ago and I've got no idea if it's true, but for another MMORPG (erh..Everquest?), selling in-game items for money was made illegal.

Edit > Another as in I'm thinking I'm in an Ultima Online forum. :unsure:


MEAT: The general lack of spacing (hah, I'm that educated, I don't even know the correct word) and the slight offensive and rambling nature made it W'y.

[Brista]

Whoops... I guess that did sound like a gripe.

I didn't post because I thought you were whinging, I put it there because I thought a lot about what I wanted to say in a similar thread elsewhere :)

[Brista]

I heard it a long time ago and I've got no idea if it's true, but for another MMORPG (erh..Everquest?), selling in-game items for money was made illegal.

Not entirely

Sony convinced E-Bay not to stock Everquest items. There are plenty of other places on the web to buy this stuff

I don't know how they police it in game - I haven't played for ages. It's a pay per month game and those are a lot more responsive to players abusing the product so I imagine anyone vaguely sensible keeps such transactions quiet

[Archon_Wing]

Yes, because Blizzard forgot to hit the "eliminate all hacks and exploits" button today. ;)

Although I wish I had the "spill hot boiling water on hackers" button because it lagged reaaaallly bad.