Those "uber 1337 haxxors" finally get the chop

[Isolde]

I'm not entirely sure about what was going on with the PNF thing, but my understanding was that it was a series of accidents with regards to managing the accounts database and who it affected was more or less random. It didn't stem from any sort of anti-hack measure. It took a long time to sort out because it affected so many people, and much of it had to be fixed manually.

On the other hand, this mass "banning" is intentional and is targetted at users who show significant evidence of using cheats. However, as with anything, it is possible that mistakes were made. Which is why there's an avenue for people to submit their accounts so the evidence can be reviewed by hand. However, so far, it doesn't look like there were any unjustified bans.

Um, this shouldn't be taken as an attempt to get you to trust Blizzard though. It's mostly a company of extremely young and often rash programmers and artists who are mostly in it for the fun of it. So plenty of mistakes get made.

Regarding BnetD: we have a legal department and sometimes they do things. I've never considered them pirates (well the legal team maybe ;) ) though.

I understand that since no proof is given my statements can't be completely trusted. Actually, I think if someone I had a long association with came up to me and said, "It wasn't me, someone must've hacked my account", I'd accept what they said.

[FoxBat]

Thanks for an honest and civil post. :)

It's true that there would likely be some Basiners that are cheating, though I did think the number I've seen posting (about 15 long-standing members), and the fact that many of their accounts have been trashed, makes me wonder. What you pointed out would be the case among people in that community who had cheated at one point. But there are other possibilities. I don't think Isolde would lie, but considering all the errors that have cropped up in Blizzard's programming, I am not quick to believe that their methods are foolproof, and I don't even know what kind of program is a hack that they are being caught for. I can't get more info from Blizzard since this would allow a workaround to be discovered sooner, I can't get evidence from a basiner lying about their hacking history, nor can I get evidence of "absence of hacking" from a Basiner that hasn't. Isolde has instilled some skepticism towards some Basiners, but he won't be able to remove my skepticism towards Blizzard.

It's not a huge leap to start calling my sort of program a cheat, and in fact several people have. According to Blizzard's recent definition, it is a hack. If Blizzard starting banning people for using it because it behaved too similarly to something they thought malicious, well I'm not exactly going to start calling it a cheat. Maybe I'd have to move from the Lounge then. I'm curious where you get the confidence that a Blizzard ban does in fact mean a deserved ban, but you may have more info than I.

I dunno, I'm probably reading into some of the posts in this thread a sort of "blizzard can do no wrong in it's anti-cheat stance" that may not be there, but it's this possibility of an unthinking acceptance or blind trust, fueled by hatred of cheaters, that bothers me more than anything else.

[Dani]

PNF? Does this relate to the January wipe and then restore of the "less than 2/48 hrs" characters?
If so, I'd just like to grumble, that the restoration, not the wipe, managed to lose 13 characters of mine (player not found...ahh now I see it PNF). I juggled it with support for two months before I finally just gave up after asked to resubmit all 13 characters for the 4th friggin time.
Frankly I think the character reporting tool is inflexible and cumbersome. Why couldn't I just send a text email stating "realm, these accounts, and these chars"?

[Isolde]

Some would say that healthy sense of skepticism is a good thing.

I'm still working on the issue of the AB. However, your D2 Accelerator in its current form (or any previous form for that matter) will not trigger the hack detection. Nor does anyone at blizzard consider it to be a cheat. Now it *is* possilbe that by some fluke they are using some other tool which looks exactly like some other well known cheat. The chances of that are very low, but I'm in the process of investigating it. I do hope that that's what's going on -- it'll make me feel better if that's the case.

[FoxBat]

Where does all the sudden information, openness, and lack of legal disclaimers come from. Are you just breaking between 1.10 and the next project, or were you recently fired? :P

Joking aside, I really appreciate direct interaction like this, and the info you've been willing to leak to dissuade me from my undissuadable view. ;) It's one thing I've long applauded Bioware for, and would love to see it as a sign of better communication to come between Blizzard and it's fans. :)

[Roland]

But that doesn't mean I don't feel they did the right thing here. Is it possible legits got banned? Yes. Do I think many, if any got banned? No. At most, I'd say a handful of legits possibly got banned. But then, I can't say. Nor do I care to. I have no interest in speculating on such things.

I do not and will not ever trust Blizzard blindly, nor any other entity for that matter (the fact that it goes double for Blizzard is irrelevant). But that's how I am: I don't blindly trust anything. Blizzard has lost ALOT of ground in my eyes, but almost all of that is surrounding D2. For all the griping about Warcraft III, I think it's a wonderful game (and the expansion pack only multiplies this by 10), and I think they've done a WONDERFUL job with it. But, then, they're two different teams. One has to take that into consideration, as I do.

I'll hold my tongue from Blizzard bashing, as it has no place here, and I'm sick of saying it as much as everyone else is sick of hearing it. I hold a great deal of discontent for Blizzard; leave it at that. I think the recent bannings were due not only to hackers, but to legits as well who were promised "hack free Realms, and swift, severe punishment for any violations". Heh. Right... They really held the ball on that one. *rolls eyes* They're either trying to save face, or trying to save money, at this point. Personally, I think it's the latter. And, I think they're mostly banning D2 accounts because they're ALSO banning Warcraft III, their new pride & joy. It would look awful from a PR perspective if they banned War3 accounts for hacking, but not D2. And, the only reason they're banning War3 accounts, of course, is in preparation for its expansion. Right? ;) I don't pretend to know Blizzard, but the above scenario isn't far-fetched by any means. And I don't think it's wrong, in any way. But, like I said, I'm not here to trash Blizzard. So I won't. ;)

I'm glad Blizzard is finally taking some action. SERIOUS action. I still hold a great deal of skepticism over their motives, and what else may be in store, but regardless, I'm proud of them FINALLY taking a stance. I hope they CONTINUE to ban all cheaters, and hopefully wipe them out forever (but that's even more of a pipe-dream than 1.10 :P). Whether they do or not remains to be seen. We'll see. In any case, what's done is done. We can complain about it, question it, study it all we want. That's what we do here at the Lounge. But one thing is for certain: there ain't no changing it.

Personally, I don't give a flying rat's arse about D2 or the Realms. I'm set for life, so to speak, with my own private little sect of friends / community members, my mod, etc. I have Warcraft III, and all the rest of the old Blizzard games. D2 is a trashbin, as far as I'm concerned. They screwed it up big time, and no patch is going to change the stain left in my mouth on that one. But, like I said, it's in the past. I have the War3 expansion, and World of Warcraft to look forward to, and I'm MUCH more interested in the development of both of those than a few (thousand) account bannings in D2. I'm happy that they've done something, but it doesn't affect me one way or the other. Not now, anyway. Maybe it will if I ever return to D2 Realms, but until then, it don't affect me one bit. Besides, I like War3 expansion too much. :D It's just too good to put down. ;) And that's WITHOUT the great storyline I'm expecting from the retail version (as opposed to the beta). Oh... I'm getting all excited again. Off I go to play! :D

[Isolde]

I'm just usually too busy :) Working you know. Umm, and there should be legal disclaimers around everything I say. Just paste in TMs and ©s as appropriate.

Oh, and I'm not trying to dissuade you from anything (I wonder if the US interrogators use that line on their captured prisoners?). I just figured someone should speak up for the side that this isn't just some pick X random people to suddenly ban scenario -- which it most definitely isn't.

[Roland]

Um, this shouldn't be taken as an attempt to get you to trust Blizzard though.  It's mostly a company of extremely young and often rash programmers and artists who are mostly in it for the fun of it.  So plenty of mistakes get made.

Just wow.

That has got to be the single, truest statement ever said about Blizzard. I've always WANTED to say it, but I always held my tongue cause I didn't want to sound like a jerk. :D But that's it. That right there sums it up. Blizzard in a nutshell, if you will. ;)

And you're right: Blizzard is, essentially, nothing but a bunch of big kids. Which is probably why we ALL have such a love / hate relationship with them: they're gamers, like us, so we can relate to them. But, at the same time, they lack the professionalism that we, as consumers, demand of them. And, it's one of the biggest thorns in my side about Blizzard. Well, that and things like:

Player killing (commonly known as "pk") is an aspect of Diablo II that is fully intended and is an integral part of the game. The risk of your character being killed in the game adds an element of fear and danger that is part of the Diablo II storyline and overall game design.

But I digress. I just had to comment on your statement. It just hit home. The whole "Blizzard is a money-grubbing conglomeration bent on world-domination of the computer gaming market" bit always has to make me laugh. It's just pure BS. But, that Blizzard employees, namely the people who make the games, are just a little unrefined when it comes to their tasks... Well, hell, that's about as true as you can get! They make mistakes, plain and simple.

I'll keep the rest of my comments on that issue to myself. I don't want to Blizzard bash, any more than I have already in this post (which is too much already). ;) Just had to speak up on your comment. :)

[Roland]

...they can't ban Warcraft III players without touching Diablo II players. It would be two-faced, and Blizzard doesn't have enough "face" left to lose to such an act. By banning Warcraft III players from pretty much the get-go, they opened their own Pandora's Box: now they have to enforce at LEAST Diablo II, or suffer some VERY bad PR.

And, if you don't believe it, ask yourself: why now? After ALL this time that the game has been out, why NOW? This is just further compounded by the fact that ANY revenue they gain from sales off of D2 these days will NOT counter-balance the current, nor future, cost of maintaining D2.

And the final thing? Server costs. It's one small (or large, depending on how you look at it) step towards phasing out Diablo II support. I don't (yet) believe Blizzard would permanently stop supporting ANY of their games, as I don't think they're that horrible of a company (after all, they're "gamers too"; I think they'd take the loss of older game support about as well as we would, which is to say not very well at all). However, I do think that, by the time Warcraft III is as old as Diablo II is now (or, rather, by the time Diablo II is as old as Diablo is now), we'll be seeing ALOT more restrictions on Diablo II. Like, perhaps, the loss of Open support? Maybe restricted to only public channels? The list can go on.

Blizzard has said it a thousand times: D2 is old, and they need to make money. Simple as that. All the above points tie DIRECTLY into that mindset. I don't think the above points are the ONLY reason Blizzard did these bannings (remember: they're gamers too), but I think it was probably the weightier of the reasons. *shrugs* But, hey, I'm not Blizzard, and I don't know them. I'm just connecting the dots. Your picture may vary. :)

In any case, I'm glad they did it, and I hope they continue. I'm sure it'll be a big headache for them, but in the long run, it's for the best. And, I think they're smart enough to know that, and believe it.

[Isolde]

I don't think that the banning of D2 players has anything to do with W3, despite the timing. And it has nothing to do with server costs (we want as many people to play as possible, and didn't really forsee that bots were taking up as much of our server capacity as they evidently were).

Actually, detecting hacks takes a lot of time and there aren't enough people working on it, and all those people are really really busy.

And several mistakes made throughout the career of D2 made it that much harder to deal with hacks. We've spent a long long time just trying to deal with people maliciously attacking the servers just to see them go down.

Personally, I'd much rather see people migrate to newer games not because of lack of support but because the newer games are better. (oh you think i'm joking ;))

And open support is pretty cheap (since it's just chat). The reason D1 got restricted is because of its lack of security. Will D2 get restricted? Perhaps, but not because of server costs! Oh, and with regards to what I said about it being "just chat"... b.net is one of the largest chat services in the world, and it's running on an ancient architecture. All these things contribute to ummm... a lot of work for the people that have to support it.

[True Seeker]

Edited by me.

[Isolde]

I hope I didn't give the impression that I believed that Blizzard's infallible. Not even close. But at the same time, I don't think it's as horrible as a lot of people say (but I'll admit I'm very biased). And for the most part it isn't malicious either.

If you know of an innocent that was banned, you can pm me the account and realm and I'll look into it. Can't promise that they'll get their accounts restored, but I'll see what I find out.

{Edit} Was responding to True Seeker's post which is somehow not there any more.

[True Seeker]

Aye, I edited it out. In essense the post said:

1) The Basin is not the image they project.

2) Innocents were banned.

Based on what I know about the bannings and p-bot/MH, there is no way to ban people without resorting to looking for patterns. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I'm not holding my breath. I said the same thing when Iths first appeared and people were sure they'd be gone very soon. That was a few months after 1.09 came out, just to give a gauge on how long it's been.

To elaborate on the second point, I know of innocents who were banned and I know of people who are still botting. This shows me that Blizzard's methods were not as foolproof as have been stated.

I will PM you the info you requested once I get it all.

[Isolde]

Based on what I know about the bannings and p-bot/MH, there is no way to ban people without resorting to looking for patterns.

Ah. You're wrong. Not trying to be insulting here, but I wouldn't claim that we weren't looking for patterns if we were.

I said the same thing when Iths first appeared and people were sure they'd be gone very soon. That was a few months after 1.09 came out, just to give a gauge on how long it's been.

Iths are actually very easy to detect and fix. But it was decided that the fix could wait until 1.10. Unfortunately 1.10 has taken somewhat longer than was initially expected :(

I know of people who are still botting.

Yes, we know of people still hacking too. The reason why not more people were banned has something to do with the hack detection. But hopefully we'll get to them too ;)

[Isolde]

Based on what I know about the bannings and p-bot/MH, there is no way to ban people without resorting to looking for patterns.

Ah. You're wrong. Not trying to be insulting here, but I wouldn't claim that we weren't looking for behavior patterns if we were.

I said the same thing when Iths first appeared and people were sure they'd be gone very soon. That was a few months after 1.09 came out, just to give a gauge on how long it's been.

Iths are actually very easy to detect and fix. But it was decided that the fix could wait until 1.10. Unfortunately 1.10 has taken somewhat longer than was initially expected :(

I know of people who are still botting.

Yes, we know of people still hacking too. The reason why not more people were banned has something to do with the hack detection. But hopefully we'll get to them too ;)

[Roland]

As I said, I was just making an observation.

And you're right: several (MANY) mistakes have been made throughout the career of D2, not the least of which involving hacks, dupes, etc. Live and learn, right? Let's just hope Blizzard HAS learned. If not, they're gonna have a very short-lived career.

And then there are the server attacks, most of which we probably don't even hear about. I've no doubt they cause a heck of alot of problems, and probably ALOT more often than we ever hear about. Another sad fact: the bigger the target, the more people are gonna try and hit it (regardless of their skill).

I've no doubt detecting hacks is an arduous and lengthy process, and even moreso for passing judgement on just what was a hack, and what wasn't. But, such is the price of quality: if you're careless, or rash, or just plain ignorant, you'll screw up. And it will cost you, bigtime. Better for them to take their time and get it right, than rush it and get it wrong.

In any case, it's good to hear from someone on the inside. Despite how aggravating it can be to be hounded by fans, sometimes even the littlest bone can go a LONG way.

[Roland]

Unfortunately 1.10 has taken somewhat longer than was initially expected  :(

That's like saying the sun is warm. ;)

Hey, it's like I say (jokingly): Patch 1.10 is this year's April Fool's Joke. ;)

Of course, we all know why it's taking so long. Too few people are working on it, what with so many other projects to take care of. And, frankly, not only is that understandable, but to me, acceptable. Seeing the quality if work being done on The Frozen Throne has just been awe-inspiring. As much as I'd like to see that much talent and wisdom being applied elsewhere (*cough* the entirety of D2 since day one *cough*), I think it's best if they focus on ONE thing at a time. Somehow, I don't think young, rash, and focused come together in the same room very often. ;)

As for innocents being banned, it would surprise me if a handful were. But, only that: a handful. If it was really as many as some people seem to believe, we would have heard about it by now. You don't ban 131,000 accounts, and have even 5% of those be innocent without seeing a serious backlash / uproar. If there were that many innocents lost, we'd have known about it by now. I don't feel antipathy towards any innocents who were banned, but I don't feel any sympathy to those claiming they are innocent, either. Until such time that they prove they're not. One of the few times where I'll accept "guilty until proven innocent", simply because 99% of the time, that's the case.

[True Seeker]

Iths are actually very easy to detect and fix.  But it was decided that the fix could wait until 1.10.  Unfortunately 1.10 has taken somewhat longer than was initially expected :(

I'm sorry, but I find this very hard to believe. If they're so easy to fix, why not release a quick patch and save yourselves some customers? I can see waiting if 1.10 was to be a month or so late, but it's been over a year since 1.10 was first announced. I imagine were Blizzard to publicly state this, the customers they've lost due to disgust at the policing would quadruple overnight. I really can't believe this statement.

Also, and I'm asking this because I've just re-registered here and have never seen you post before, is there some way you could prove you're a Blizzard employee? Like if I told you my account name could you tell me the characters on it, or the name the cd-key that created it is registered to? I'm asking because your openness and candor is quite different from the replys I've seen from Blizzard before.

[Isolde]

I'm sorry, but I find this very hard to believe. If they're so easy to fix, why not release a quick patch and save yourselves some customers?

ok, you're gonna laugh (or perhaps cry), but I didn't really know about iths and hexes and such until about two months ago. There was some miscommunication between customer support and development on that one. and now, it's a pain to go back and patch 1.09 servers to delete iths now that everything is geared towards 1.10.

is there some way you could prove you're a Blizzard employee? Like if I told you my account name could you tell me the characters on it, or the name the cd-key that created it is registered to?

I don't have the account maintenance tools. But I think there's plenty of people who can vouch for me. Say Roland who happens to be posting right now, since I was the one that got him the D2C beta oh sometime in the dawn of history ;)

PS. I'm always pretty open and um candorous (? is that even a word ?). I just don't always have the time.

[True Seeker]

Roland-

I remember when LoD was being made people had the same attitude about it. Look what's happened. I for one have learned my lesson: it's not how it looks in development, it's how well it delivers.

As for the innocents thing, I can think of two reasons we haven't seen an uproar:

1) Amid the crying of all the botters and such that got banned, what's one more voice? Who's going to believe you're innocent when 129,999 other people are saying the same thing? From most of Blizzard's posts or responses on this issue, they don't believe there were innocents.

2) Had I been unjustly banned, that would have been it for me. Many, many people are either quitting or close to quitting due to boredom, disgust, whatever. This would be just the reason they need to finally walk out the door.