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

[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!  :)