01-09-2009, 05:42 AM
I was not trying to imply that the team-racing to 99 was in any way unfair, simply that when enough people adopted it, there was no point in my trying to keep up. Regardless of how early the team strategy was adopted, I have screenshots of myself <50 on the ladder from at least one of the resets, and not fair behind the leaders. But the most recent reset I played in, I was not even close, so it was no longer worth it for me to put forth the effort without involving a team of my own, which was at that point an impossibility. But that is neither here nor there.
Perhaps it is nostalgia. Perhaps my memory has become inaccurate due to the amount of time since the event. Whatever the case, I don't remember widespread duping until either just before or just after the release of LoD. I am fully willing to accept that it was there and I was oblivious, or simply do not remember. You are probably right on this point. Do we have an actual timeline for this? How long did it take for the cheats and exploits to come along?
I think this is our fundamental point of disagreement. There is no ideological reason that extreme security standards could not be put in place. In the case of Magic, at least on the local levels, on the lower level local tournaments, people are playing for peanuts. It's a hobby. But rules enforcement does exist. The same applies to virtual games. Just because there is nothing on the line does not imply that the system shouldn't be kept clean.
The crux of the issue is, as you've pointed out, money. I honestly don't know how much it costs Blizzard to run whatever kind of scan they run to ban 30,000 accounts every two or three years. I'd think that since they just ran one on a game that's seven (?) years old and no longer pulling in any real income, that it's relatively cheap. What do you think the state of the game would be if Blizzard ran a banscan once a week? I think a large portion of the cheaters are willing to suck it up and pay another thirty bucks every couple of years if their account gets banned, but how many would be willing to do so monthly or weekly? (And I'm not trying to imply that this would fix everything, simply that there are further extremities that Blizzard could have gone to which were not necessarily out of realistic possibility.)
Breaking down the problems with Diablo II, there are a couple of repeating paradigms that break the game for most of the 'legitimate' players. Botting, duping, and outright breaking items (IE, creating items that should not actually exist).
I'm not sure how to fix botting, particularly in a game that encourages bot-like behavior (killing one monster or set of monsters over and over, in exactly the same fashion, with very little variance, decision-making, or risk of death). Macros will almost always be able to be abused in games that have any kind of menial task. I think the only way to get rid of this facet of "gameplay" is to eliminate the redundancy that allows it to be effective, whether by added randomness or required player decisions (not just input, but actual decisions). The elimination of botting feels like more of a design philosophy than something implementable after the fact, depending, of course, on how invasive the parent company wants to get (which is usually extremely bad PR).
Other games have managed to stay relatively free of the other two for years. I'm not sure how well the parallels can be drawn based on coding, and I find it hard to say with 100% certainty anything about dupes, as if they were only present in small numbers, it is quite possible they would be entirely undetectable, but small numbers should not be felt by the virtual economy anyway. It IS possible for these things to be done. I'm not sure what the cost is. I'm sure someone at Blizzard performed some type of analysis and concluded that it simply wasn't worth it for the game in question, but at the end of the day, I think there is more of a decision to be made here than you're giving the system credit for. It IS possible to quash at least most of the exploitative play.
As I have not played very many online games, the only example I can point to is Guild Wars (which is riddled with its own problems, to be sure). I remember one brief duping exploit that was ruthlessly quashed without hours of its becoming public knowledge. Granted, the game is not based on the same item-hoarding mentality, but it sees its fair share of people whose goal seems to be the accumulation of as much (relatively meaningless) wealth as possible.
Back to the main point, it seems to be possible to keep an online game relatively clean. It's simply a matter of the parent company putting the money and man-hours into the system. The back end here is of course developing a good repertoire with the fans. I have seen firsthand that people will sink more money into a company that they feel will maintain their game better.
--me
Quote:Excuse my bluntness again, but how early is early? D2 classic online might have been 'clean' at the very early times, but IIRC there was dupes before LoD appeared. A Rare item called Carrion Wind or Carrion Song comes to mind. With LoD, the itamz changed (high runes) but the big cheat remains the same (duping). Edited: It was Carrion Song rare class gothic bow iirc.
Perhaps it is nostalgia. Perhaps my memory has become inaccurate due to the amount of time since the event. Whatever the case, I don't remember widespread duping until either just before or just after the release of LoD. I am fully willing to accept that it was there and I was oblivious, or simply do not remember. You are probably right on this point. Do we have an actual timeline for this? How long did it take for the cheats and exploits to come along?
Quote:A revolving door policy is probably the only way bliz could choose, or anyone else in their shoes for that matter. At the end of the day D2 is not a casino, and B.net is not a real life tournament that happens in meatspace. It's a video game that can be played on-line, with virtual risks and rewards.
I think this is our fundamental point of disagreement. There is no ideological reason that extreme security standards could not be put in place. In the case of Magic, at least on the local levels, on the lower level local tournaments, people are playing for peanuts. It's a hobby. But rules enforcement does exist. The same applies to virtual games. Just because there is nothing on the line does not imply that the system shouldn't be kept clean.
The crux of the issue is, as you've pointed out, money. I honestly don't know how much it costs Blizzard to run whatever kind of scan they run to ban 30,000 accounts every two or three years. I'd think that since they just ran one on a game that's seven (?) years old and no longer pulling in any real income, that it's relatively cheap. What do you think the state of the game would be if Blizzard ran a banscan once a week? I think a large portion of the cheaters are willing to suck it up and pay another thirty bucks every couple of years if their account gets banned, but how many would be willing to do so monthly or weekly? (And I'm not trying to imply that this would fix everything, simply that there are further extremities that Blizzard could have gone to which were not necessarily out of realistic possibility.)
Breaking down the problems with Diablo II, there are a couple of repeating paradigms that break the game for most of the 'legitimate' players. Botting, duping, and outright breaking items (IE, creating items that should not actually exist).
I'm not sure how to fix botting, particularly in a game that encourages bot-like behavior (killing one monster or set of monsters over and over, in exactly the same fashion, with very little variance, decision-making, or risk of death). Macros will almost always be able to be abused in games that have any kind of menial task. I think the only way to get rid of this facet of "gameplay" is to eliminate the redundancy that allows it to be effective, whether by added randomness or required player decisions (not just input, but actual decisions). The elimination of botting feels like more of a design philosophy than something implementable after the fact, depending, of course, on how invasive the parent company wants to get (which is usually extremely bad PR).
Other games have managed to stay relatively free of the other two for years. I'm not sure how well the parallels can be drawn based on coding, and I find it hard to say with 100% certainty anything about dupes, as if they were only present in small numbers, it is quite possible they would be entirely undetectable, but small numbers should not be felt by the virtual economy anyway. It IS possible for these things to be done. I'm not sure what the cost is. I'm sure someone at Blizzard performed some type of analysis and concluded that it simply wasn't worth it for the game in question, but at the end of the day, I think there is more of a decision to be made here than you're giving the system credit for. It IS possible to quash at least most of the exploitative play.
As I have not played very many online games, the only example I can point to is Guild Wars (which is riddled with its own problems, to be sure). I remember one brief duping exploit that was ruthlessly quashed without hours of its becoming public knowledge. Granted, the game is not based on the same item-hoarding mentality, but it sees its fair share of people whose goal seems to be the accumulation of as much (relatively meaningless) wealth as possible.
Back to the main point, it seems to be possible to keep an online game relatively clean. It's simply a matter of the parent company putting the money and man-hours into the system. The back end here is of course developing a good repertoire with the fans. I have seen firsthand that people will sink more money into a company that they feel will maintain their game better.
--me