Those "uber 1337 haxxors" finally get the chop

[Jarulf]

Seriously, Geoff can be very nice as well. Yes, he is special, but not always in a bad way as people want to make it sound.

[Roland]

I've had plenty of dealings with ol' GF, and he can be alright alot of the times. I don't particularly care for his attitude, which sadly is a reflection of at least part of his personality, but I don't think he's a bad guy. He's just a little too rough around the edges for my taste: fires off at the mouth without taking too much consideration into the consequences of it, you know?

*chuckles* He strikes me as the type to be the first in line at a bar fight. ;) All kidding aside though, I just like ribbing GF. I don't think he's a saint, and I do have minor issue with his actions sometimes, but it's truly a non-issue. Besides, he doesn't care what I say. ;) Why should he?

And, in defense of him, if you had to deal with the amount of crud he does on a daily basis, you'd be a little on edge too. ;) Self-control or not, I know I'd WANT to say some of the things he does. ;) Just my personal belief that it's better to hold your tongue. But, like I said, that doesn't make GF bad. Not at all. Just not someone I'd want to cross, if only for saving myself the headache of having to listen to him. ;)

Alright, I got to stop joking. :) Blizzard's gonna hound my arse and beat me to death if I don't. :D

[cheezz]

Better than good.

We've all heard of trickle down economics, so would this be considered trickle down jagoffs?

[TaMeOlta]

Am I the only one having flashbacks from the last time we had 'distinguished guests ' from Blizzard .... and the immense mile long threads that followed ? :P (I'm thinking of GF / Sirian debates though ) :blink:

I , myself , get a good feeling (this isn't 'brown nosing' no matter what you think :P ) when someone takes the time to come forward and investigate / show concern about their software . Especially over a game we've been playing for what ? About 2 1/2 years for D2 , about 5 for D1 ? I can't recall exact times these have been released , I know I've been playin since the first Warcraft hit the shelves .

I enjoy reading the complaints from the real 'Hack' users on the Blizzard Forums, thats when they show their true colors .

[Wapptor]

Isolde,

I am now trusting that you are a blizzard employee, and if that is true, I think blizzard is focusing on good things, but not necessarily the right things. If it were up to myself (and it is not), I would rather see every account containing an Ith, bugged, zephyr, occy ring etc type item dissapear, than just see the pindlebots going away. Why? Because pindle-bots can only find legit items, they give people an advantage, but with time, and patience and some nice mf gear, I can find anything that they can. Ith's and their brethren are not the same. No matter how many mephisto or pindle-runs I myself do, I will never find an Ith, an occulus Soj, etc etc. And even if I did I wouldnt want to use it. So being a legit player condemns me, since all I can use is legit stuff, which is all lesser than hacked items, this in itself I think is the most unfair aspect of diablo 2. In a sense, especially for duelers, it almost promotes not being legit. I would suggest that you and your colleagues attempt to fix hacked/bugged items A.S.A.P, because no matter how many items someone has, if they are legit, the playing field is leveled a lot.

-Wapptor

[Roland]

If they hadn't focused so heavily on Pindlebots, you'd still be waiting in line to create a game for half an hour. And, the servers would be lagged to hell even worse than normal. Somehow, I think the stability of the Realms takes precedence over the economy. After all, what good is an economy if there's no servers to host it on?

Blizzard, for whatever reason, is finally starting to do the right thing. Regardless of whether you feel it should have come first, or third, or seventieth, they're taking steps in the right direction. So long as they continue in that direction, sooner or later they'll hit the rest. Don't worry about the order in which things go; worry about whether they go at all.

BTW - Not a flame. Just commentary.

[Isolde]

Thanks. You're all much too kind :)

[True Seeker]

You know, even with lines of 700+ I never had much problem creating or joining games. My average wait time was less than 30 seconds, and I can live with that. Botting has been around almost as long as Iths, and outside of a few instances they haven't cause as much havoc on the servers (game creation related) as most people proclaim.

I'm still a bit dumbfounded about the fact that Blizzard has had a way to detect and delete Iths and hasn't done so. I would imagine were you to poll b.net, the deletion of Iths and other bugged items would be one of the top 3 things people want to happen. The continued existance of them is a sign to many people, right, wrong, or indifferent, that Blizzard doesn't deliver on its promises. One instance of bannings won't change that, nor should it. Do you remember when 1.06 came out and massive amounts of dupes were deleted, how people were suddenly supportive of Blizzard again? 3 patches and almost 2 years later the realms are more messed up than ever. In my mind, the recent events are a case of "too little, too late". I'd like to give Blizzard the benifit of the doubt about 1.10, but I forsee it being like LoD- exciting and refreshing for the first month or so, but in the end it won't live up the the press releases.

*Disclaimer* You may ask yourself, "Why is he still playing? If he's so fed up with Blizzard and D2 why doesn't he quit?" To be honest, I'm asking myself the same questions now. I'm having a hard time finding a reason to log on anymore. Also, I did not lose my accounts in the recent purgings. This is not the source of my bitterness. Finally, none of this is a specific attack on any one person, and certainly not directed at Isolde. The fact that he posts at a Diablo fansite speaks volumes about Blizzard's devotion to their games and their good intentions, but as the saying goes, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions".

[Whiggles]

Am I the only one having flashbacks from the last time we had 'distinguished guests ' from Blizzard .... and the immense mile long threads that followed ? :P (I'm thinking of GF / Sirian debates though )  :blink:

Wasn't it Sirian vs. Max Schaefer? I remember those threads -- wish I'd saved them. They were quite amusing as well as very revealing.

[WarBlade]

Wasn't it Sirian vs. Max Schaefer? I remember those threads -- wish I'd saved them. They were quite amusing as well as very revealing.

Weren't the Sirian/Max Shaefer dialogs a transcript of email-based discussion though? ;)

[Grumpy]

"The actions Blizzard have taken here to deter cheating are nothing short of tremendous. "

This is laughable.

Over a year for 1.10, hacks and cheats everywhere. Minimal response to cheats, hacks, dupes, bugged equipment etc. They did nothing for 1 1/2 years, they waited until the game was nearly completely ruined, then did a clean sweep.

I have all my accounts. I hold no personal grudge.

I think of this action as too little too late. The game is dead. Many many good people long quit because the game had become unplayable.

I find it extremely difficult to believe the stories coming out of Blizzard.

I also believe that blizzard employess personally profited from hacks, cheats, dupes.

I have about ZERO respect for what I have seen from Blizzard over the past 3 years. I will exercize my only right as a consumer: I will not spend any additional money to enjoy their products. I will encourage those I know to do the same.

[HunkyDory]

I , myself , get a good feeling (this isn't 'brown nosing' no matter what you think :P )  when someone takes the time to come forward and investigate / show concern about  their software . Especially over a game we've been playing for what ? About 2 1/2 years for D2 , about 5 for D1 ? I can't recall exact times these have been released , I know I've been playin since the first Warcraft hit the shelves .

I don't get a particular good feeling about it.

Though it is nice to chat with some people that are involved with the company it says nothing about how they deal or rather not deal with customers.

Let me recall ah yes, a certain number of emails sent by me which were unanswered though they contained information that could have been useful to them.

Oh well, I guess I am not "brown-nosing" either with this post.

Just my two Eurocents, TameOlta, no offense to you.

regards, Hunky

edit: I forgot at times this game is looking like a battlefield. What happened to playing the game?

[FenrisWulf]

Originally posted by Grumpy
I will exercize my only right as a consumer: I will not spend any additional money to enjoy their products.

Well, it's not like you were spending any additional money in the first place to enjoy this product, thanks to the completely free-of-charge battle.net. :P

[Deorwine]

Isolde, there's a couple of perfectly legitimate actions that apparently look[ed] to BNET servers as an attempt to cheat. E.g., for some time talking to Cain in Act 4 without having Mephisto's Soulstone in the inventory would result in an immediate drop with "Realm Down" message for 15-30 minutes (this is fixed now).

Another example: when refreshing my characters, I pretty often get dropped just for entering and leaving games in a rapid succession, and then would see "Realm Down" for some time.

There's also plenty of actions that reliably get you dropped when using Mac OsX client (TP'ing to town, moving between acts, etc).

Given that, I'm a bit sceptical about the statement that the hack detection has 0% false-positive rate.

[Isolde]

None of those things were used to determine which accounts to close.

One of the main reasons why we've had so many problems with those sorts of issues was because they were emergency patches to the server due to their being used as a server attack to bring down the entire realm. Thus the fix was often very broad and would be relatively untested. However, we understood that such measures weren't foolproof and no permanent action was taken against the people caught by it. Usually just enough so that the servers could remain operational until the exact problem could be examined more closely.

Also, I should clarify my statement regarding 0% false positives: the method used is itself *extremely* unlikely to fail. That doesn't mean that there couldn't have been some human error involved. Of course nothing is completely certain, and my response was mostly in response to FoxBat's contention that (hmm I forget the exact number but I think it was around 5%) a fairly substantial number of legit people were getting being falsely banned. I'm sorry if that came off as arrogant -- it was sort of a heat of the moment response.

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Hunky Dory,

"Elric what happened to the Charter members?"

Umm... different forum software works in different ways? That's my guess. If Bolty reads this, he may be able to provide a reasonable answer: I'm afraid that's the best I can provide.

[HunkyDory]

Hail Hunky Dory,

"Elric what happened to the Charter members?"

Umm... different forum software works in different ways? That's my guess. If Bolty reads this, he may be able to provide a reasonable answer: I'm afraid that's the best I can provide.

Hail Elric, fellow LL member and always ready to do battle and aid fellow adventurers...

(This is the longest I did so far) :lol:

It is not really an issue just wondered what happened.

Thanks for clarifying things to me.

Regards, Hunky

[Brista]

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 :)

[Isolde]

So much said, and I completely agree with you.

I didn't in my original post make any sort of distinction between Amazon Basin members and Amazon Basin community members, and I'm sorry if any misunderstanding was caused by my not making that clear.

I too wouldn't allow something like an accusation of a cheat of this nature come between a friend and me. And I don't think that if some of your members secretly cheat that it in any way impacts the rest of you.

Re: D2 Accelerator -- unfortunately we can't take an official position on this for a variety of reasons. Really sorry about that.

[CelticHound]

Isolde, I, too, want to say thanks for you presence in this thread.

Though I often take the role of devil's advocate, I do appreciate what Blizzard is doing here. (OTOH, I also think it's a sensible business move for the company to make while gearing up to release a MMORPG.)

-- CH

(Edit add: I meant that Blizzard's realm clean up was a sensible business move. "Hack free" is a marketing tool for selling an MMORPG. I apologize if what I wrote above seems to imply that Isolde's presence in this thread was a corporate move. -- CH)