Lurker Lounge now a hack site

[Bolty]

On the other hand, it seems their forum policy is now to not allow ANY link, whatsoever outside their own site. Amazed?

Jarulf, dii.net has always been extremely reluctant to recognize any other sites, much less link to them. Is it any wonder that linking to other sites is discouraged in the forums?

The basic issue is that someone there (no names shall be provided) views webmastering fan sites as a competition. What the hell we're competing over is something I've never figured out, but that's just me. It's definitely not like we're making money off this stuff (who knows, maybe they are). And the Lurker Lounge does NOT compete with anyone. Quite the contrary, I like to think I helped sites such as the Amazon Basin get popular - not that I take credit for that, they're popular because they run a damn good site, not because I plugged it - but early on I was pointing people there quite often.

I think "community" is a dirty word at Dii.net, and always has been. As far as I know, they are the only Diablo II site that runs that way. Even PlanetDiablo, which many would automatically think of as part of the evil empire of Gamespy's "clone" sites, is much more community-oriented than Dii.net. Heck, they host the Phrozen Keep, a site that has really brought the mod community together more than any other Diablo site before. Dii.net simply pretends that they are the only site out there.

Again, this is not the thinking of all webmasters, past and present, at the site. This is the attitude of one of them in particular, so I have always considered myself at odds with that person. It is a difference in ideologies - I think that one is interested only in site popularity and making money, whereas I am interested in neither.

I find myself always amazed when people email me questions like "can I link to this site in your forum?" My flabbergasted response is, "heck, of course you can, linking to all non-cheating sites is welcome." And they seem shocked by that, revealing they're coming over from Dii.net where such things are not allowed. I can't imagine myself posting at a site with such a policy, but to each their own.

This attitude has never affected my desire to link to/promote Dii.net. They run a great site, even if I disagree with their policies. If I feel that Lounge readers will benefit and increase their Diablo knowledge from reading material posted there, I will link to it. They are free to run their site as they please.

-Bolty

[Bolty]

At times I've been a bit taken aback by some things here.  But I have to admit that people like Pete do act like a dose of chlorine in the gene pool.  :P

Right now, I like the metaphor that the LL is an ecology of ideas - in some ways, a harsh, Darwinian one.  That's what makes it so valuable - the strongest/best ideas survive.  I don't know if that's what Bolty originally intended, but it's an interesting result.

Hehe, Celtic, as if I have any real control on what gets posted here. :)

If I were a psychology major in college, I know I'd love to do long-term studies on how online communities develop and react to events. Your thinking of the forum as a "harsh, Darwinian one" does seem to apply to most online communities. But they come about that way on their own, I think. I have always tried to be as hands-off as possible on the LL forums, trying to strike that impossible balance of keeping the peace, keeping trolls out, and personal participation. After all, it's a lot harder to maintain an unbiased attitude on conversations you're involved in personally.

I try to guide the forum in the sense that the material posted on the site attracts a certain kind of poster while driving other kinds of posters away. After all, if you are not interested in formulae and strategy guides, you probably wouldn't be reading here, so that naturally rules out certain populations in general. The less focused a website is, the less focused (and thus, greater in size) its readership is. The concept is that if I run a site based on strategy, tactics, and mechanics, one that discourages cheating heavily and attempts to have a more intellectual bent on gaming, people who are interested in that will show up while those who aren't, won't. Then I (and the mods) just have to take care of the exceptions. Which I think we do a pretty good job of, although not everyone would agree.

Those who have been here a long time noted how sharply the readership went up at certain times, such as the LoD beta. I realize now (all too late) that it was because of a number of things, some of which were mistakes on my part - I reduced the focus of the site from one dealing with strategy to do more general coverage of the beta test. This brought in more readers who weren't visiting here for the "right" reasons. My thinking was that the site could be a discussion board for its regulars to discuss the beta and their thoughts; instead, I hadn't counted on how many NEW people would show up for that coverage. Not that this was so bad - after the beta ended and the insanity died out, a number of great posters who had not been here before the beta remained to become good community members. But was that worth having to nuke 10+ threads a day?

-Bolty

[Conner Macleod]

Well, bottom line. First Iraq, next Dii.net.

I'm happy to see Bolty is on board there. LMAO! Let the outright carpet-flaming of Dii.net begin!

While Dii.net is not an evil empire or anything, it's filled with the lamest of the lamest posts and the most mindless drivel you can find. Read any of my posts and then downgrade them by a factor of 20 and you have a Dii.net post! Easy formula, try to keep up.

I also point my finger at any of the mods over there (except Worgus, who does a bangbuster job with the MP). It used to be an interesting site, but they are completely out of touch. The mods seem to think they are the end all be all of Diablo. And as for a community, I would call it a Communistity. The gang at the top are always correct, and their policies are based on a whim or a time of the month. There is nothing to be learned at Dii.net about this game that is at all meaningful.

My case in point. I was perusing the "Community Forum" and someone asked for help with Shopbot. Not only was this a truly illegit post that has no place on their site but was also a thread that was 30 replies long, with a few posts instructing the original poster as to how to get the most benefit out of it. Only 2 or 3 flamed the guy, and the rest were assisting him! A few posts mentioned that it should be deleted, but I guess the moderators over there are too busy basking in the glow of their power that they overlooked it or something. Truly lame.

A site like that should change it's slogan from the "Un-Official Site" to the "Un-Official Hacker Helpers Site".

As for them ripping off that Hacker article of 3-4 weeks ago, I wouldn't put it beneath the mods there or anything, they are trying hard to skirt the Blizz rules so they can be in their good graces. They can't attract anyone to Flux's annoying rants and such, so why not post hacks? Well, that job is taken, join another forum. Top things I would suggest to Mods of Dii.net:

1) Learn how a hack works
2) Learn about the various hacks
3) You must be 110% stupid not to know what is shopbottable or not. I mean comeon - ban all .08 items and not ban Cruel Zerkers, Hydras, and Ward Bows? WTF?
4) Learn how that last dupe hack worked. 120 gems max for a trade? OK, that's as dumb as bricks. Ban something that couldn't be duped. Let's exercise our moronically given power a little.
5) Read Lurker Lounge to learn how the game works. Do it between coffee breaks or something, because you guys obviously don't know the game at all. Call us hackers when we are kicking your butt with legit items.

This is my rant, I truly hate that site's forum side, but their Marketplace is a good place to get rich.

[WarBlade]

Those who have been here a long time noted how sharply the readership went up at certain times, such as the LoD beta.  I realize now (all too late) that it was because of a number of things, some of which were mistakes on my part - I reduced the focus of the site from one dealing with strategy to do more general coverage of the beta test.  This brought in more readers who weren't visiting here for the "right" reasons.  My thinking was that the site could be a discussion board for its regulars to discuss the beta and their thoughts; instead, I hadn't counted on how many NEW people would show up for that coverage.  Not that this was so bad - after the beta ended and the insanity died out, a number of great posters who had not been here before the beta remained to become good community members.  But was that worth having to nuke 10+ threads a day?

*emphatic wave*

Well that's arguable, because the result was . . . well . . . me. :huh:

[Jarulf]

Well, one of the things that cought my eyes the most was Ellys "musing" were she seems to feel that there is some sort of conspiracy just because some posted about (complaining, explaning, whatever) links geting censored. She posted things like "...but I smell a grinding axe" and "I'm going to ignore that nagging feeling and hope I'm just reading the situation wrong and there's no silly business going on" and later "turning nasty". Seems quite paranoid I would say, that everything is just the dirty work of other websites or something or that people want to hurt them. No wonder that lead to ideas that there should be no links allowed. And you see similary things over and over as soon as there is the slightest complain or some "issue" appear. *sigh*

[BanditAngel]

*waves at WarBlade*
I think I actually showed up a BIT before the beta, but the beta is what really drew me in to the discussion.

And then I vanished when the forum started corrupting whole threads - nice new software seems to have shown up a while back, however (okay, I visited a couple times since the new forums popped up...)

And would someone care to elaborate on the history between here and dii.net, since the first request for elaboration seems to have fallen on deaf ears? :)

[Jarulf]

And would someone care to elaborate on the history between here and dii.net, since the first request for elaboration seems to have fallen on deaf ears? :)

I am not aware of anything special myself, at least not anything open between the sites. Sure, some people that post mostly here or at diabloii.net might have had something, I really don't know, but no the sites in themselves, at least not openly.

[Baranor]

Since they suffered from a lot of links to hack sites as well as links that advertised for alternative realms set up by private players on their own servers (and why not) dii.net deceided since they claim to be the (un)official fansite, they should try and maintain good standards with Blizzard. Hence they forbode remote linking.

One of the dumbest things ever if you ask me :)

Greetings

Barry

[Bolty]

Seems quite paranoid I would say, that everything is just the dirty work of other websites or something or that people want to hurt them. No wonder that lead to ideas that there should be no links allowed.

Well again, if you tend to think of websites as competing, you would wind up feeling that way. You would consider links to other sites as a "drain" on your readership. B) Thus, anyone linking to such sites is part of a conspiracy to bring your site down.

Ouch.

-Bolty

[Roland]

Lowest common denominator. ;) The herd moves at the slowest (or dumbest) speed of any of its members.

[lemekim]

Mmmm... History... I probably gave wrong impression with my initial statement... But I can give some stories regarding diabloii.net that relate to Lurker Lounge in one aspect or the other to give an idea of what kind of history I witnessed...

Well, there was always more of an "underground tension" than flat out outbreaks so to speak, which sometimes manifested itself in posts. When diablo2 just came out, this was not much of an issue... Diabloii.net was already quite a big site by then, one of the biggest, but still was far from fulfilling its claim to be the unofficial diablo2 site. Lurker lounge was a sort of inner circle, where the people "in the know" met.

Some Diabloii.net posters might say that lurkers were somewhat condescending to them, but it's not really true. There are many good posters on diabloii.net, and many lurkers still are friends with them. But there were also lots of other posters... Quite a bit of data found by diabloii.net posters was simply wrong, and any data coming from that site was judged as something to be double checked. So it is no wonder when someone from diabloii.net came into lounge and made some statements, they were double-checked and cross-examined first. This upset some people, making them label LL as “elitist”. Then there were newcomers to diablo, who usually got response to their questions on diabloii.net right away, but for some reason (like answering same question 100 times) people here did not want to answer a simple question (the answer to which can be found by looking at Arreat Summit or simply looking on a previous page). This became the spring that all the underground feelings of dislike fed from.

As time went by, this really did not change, at least until D2LOD beta. One might remember the report of "Brian Weissman", self-proclaimed professional gamer, which people in LL ripped to shreds. Brian found beta too hard for his freshly converted chars, and wrote a piece on it, which summed up some of the opinions of the diabloii.net posters (beta is too hard compared to classic). Lurkers disagreed, and some flames were started.

After that, it really became more of individual people getting upset by one party or the other, and seeking support in the other place. Someone would get banned or upset with diabloii.net, and they would seek approval on LL, and vice versa. One example that comes to mind was when a certain forum moderator was stripped of mod post and banned simply because that person happened to moderate a forum from another diablo 2 site. Of course, it was condemned by people here, but there was nothing that anyone could do.

Of course, people got upset with LL too, and sought approval at diabloii.net. One such episode happened with THE first maphack. The story about this distant predecessor of maphack goes like this:
One of the modifications for diablo2 allowed to see monsters locations as red X'es on the minimap. Apparently the modification was not much different from diablo itself, since one time someone accidentally left the modification on while entering battle.net, and to his surprise he still saw the red X'es. it seems that this was used in secret by the Hardcore community until the mentioned people stepped forward and asked Lurkers and other places (diabloii.net) what they felt about this. Again, the Lurker Lounge pretty much condemned the soon-to-be-maphack, which drew a surprised response from the poster. His similar post on diabloii.net drew approvement and positive comments. Some tense posts where thrown, and some feelings shown.

There were many other little spats that amounted to some lurkers getting hurt, as well as diabloii.net people getting hurt. I might be a little biased here, but one of the bigger ones occurred when diabloii.net pretty much cleansed the entire PvP forum of it's most knowledgeable posters in favor of the forum being more appealing forum to the newcomers. This seems to be somewhat ironic, since the PvP forum is the only forum that cannot be viewed by newcomers until a moderator approves them, which maybe up to several days after registration.

The story basically goes that one of the most knowledgeable, polite and honest pvp posters from Europe got banned from marketplace because he honestly said that in the socketed item he was trading one of the jewels MIGHT be a 40% enhanced damage/15 IAS, that he traded for a long time ago and was not a duped one. Since in marketplace all 40enh/15ias jewels are banned, even his mentioning of the possibility got him immediately banned. Some of you are familiar with the moderation of the mentioned marketplace, so I won't talk about it.

Anyway, because this got him somewhat mad, he got into a spat with the European Trade forum moderator. In turn, the mod went out of his way to make him change his signature, which linked to a European PvP league site. Since diabloii.net doesn't even remotely have anything like a PvP league, this drew a lot of questions and comments from everyone supporting this person. This upset Elly/Gaile, and they appointed a new moderator to PvP forum, who was a European Trade Moderator; although not the same person, but a friend of the moderator who did get into argument, and he promised to straighten out PVP forum with iron fist. He also showed lack of pretty much any PvP knowledge, which usually helps when moderating a forum created for it.

After some truly unnecessary bans (one person got banned because they mentioned that they used 1.08 version Vampire Gaze - but heck, I know some Lurkers have one too), a lot of flames were started, more bans and accusations, and previous moderators resigned (Except the newly appointed European trade one). PVP posters requested their guides back, which of course were not given back. Many flames, mutual insults and thread locks later (at one point, any thread that even mentioned subject of guides got locked), people simply got fed up with "I own this site I can do anything". Jarulf was there, as well as some other lurkers. Strange to see lurkers come to defense of the PvP posters... But Elly/Gaile did not let the community opinion sway them. In the end result, about 90% of all the posters in the forum picked up and created their own new forums and even a new site.

There are other stories that you will hear, such as some listed above, and this newest twist about banning links as well. Heck, someone might correct me on what I said, I mostly wrote this down by memory. Sure, I still think there are great posters at diabloii.net. But if you got a feeling that I have a general dislike for diabloii.net - its actually mostly directed at the owners and some moderators of the site. Right now might be fine times for them - but when 1.10 comes out and all those guides will have to be reworked, where will all those people who made them be? Surely not writing new guides forum diabloii.net.

[Archon_Wing]

Ah, I didn't want to say this, but something tells me I have to spit out my biases perspective of this story.

Being a formerly frequent member of diabloii.net, I would have to admit I would be annoyed at people sterotyping all people who were to post at that site. Yes, there are fools, racists, and idiots of every flavor. There are people who would flame you for making a joke. (ie. I found an etheral Windforce!!!!!!1111) Now, most people would realize that this is impossible and pass it off as a joke, if poorly constructed one. But others would overreact, (You are a ** moron! Blah....blah blah) Kudos to those who can find the two letter osbscenty ;)

I find that kind of silly, because, well if one were to decide intelligence were based strictly on computer game knowledge is kinda well... not smart.

So yea, we have humorless children who bash others for not agreeing with others. One fellow, Apocalypse Demon, mentioned above, would bash anyone who did not agree with him. He actualy went into a thread titled "a prayer for our fellow soldiers" to bash religon. one thing to have a belief, another to bash others. And yea, I just saw that and I'm really... irritated.

But that aside, their are an actual amount of decent posters. You should check the Off-Topic Forum now and then, and you'll realize where the IQ source of the forum went.

And there's a slightly looser basis on cheating. Many posters do use the aformentioned maphack, and we have 4253209543 flame wars there. If you were to accuse one that they were cheating, 10 people would tell you to get a life. :angry: Indeed, the defensiveness of cheaters shows.

And while I have nothing personal against the adminstrators of the site (it's pretty nice), I seriously disagree with their way of conflict resolution. No, I am not banned. But I have seen people banned for less-than-bannable reasons while many rude flamers are not banned. There "It's our site, so shut up" policy is counterproductive. I mean, if you were to ban everyone who disagree with you, there would be no site left. Yes, they can hold their ground. It is there house. But don't expect to feed your guests leftovers and expect them to be grateful :)

Also, some of the moderators are rather shady characters. ( Some have some form of ego trip, that would scare some of you, and others have banned people for asking about why other people were banned. One mod, just recently, trolled another forum. Not sure if I have a personal vendetta against this person, but he was always rude and disrespectful, using his "post counts" to discredit n00bs, and made general spam and all of a sudden he was moderrator! Before my head explodes, I'll go on.

Alas, some moderators, some very knowledgable and nice mods, have resigned in frustration. No names here.

So yea, diabloii.net is a great site, but there are a lot of immature folks out there, and sometimes one feels like babysitting. As a result, some guests are uneasy and tension errupts causing general discomfort for all. :(

And that's why I'm here. Because the people at the Lounge are less mean (although sometimes I find some things to be mean said) and are in general more mature. :)

[Jarulf]

This seems to be somewhat ironic, since the PvP forum is the only forum that cannot be viewed by newcomers until a moderator approves them, which maybe up to several days after registration.

You sure? As far as I know, there has never been any such forums there. Nor have I ever had to be approved or anything.

[Jarulf]

Seems Elly has changed her mind in regard to hosted Guides. She will appearantly now remove them (or some at least) if the original author so requests. At last I would say!

http://forums.rpgforums.net/showthread.php...ht&pagenumber=3

So if anyone does not read the site any more (like for being banned) or know anyone. It might be a good thing to check it out.

[lemekim]

You sure? As far as I know, there has never been any such forums there. Nor have I ever had to be approved or anything.

It's easy to check... Log out of their forums, then try browsing them. While you will be able to get to all other forums, once you enter the pvp forum, all you will see is the announcement post. Essenstially this locks you out of the forum, until a moderator approves you. :huh:

[Archon_Wing]

Seems Elly has changed her mind in regard to hosted Guides. She will appearantly now remove them (or some at least) if the original author so requests. At last I would say!

http://forums.rpgforums.net/showthread.php...ht&pagenumber=3

So if anyone does not read the site any more (like for being banned) or know anyone. It might be a good thing to check it out.

That link doesn't work, it says I don't have permission to view that page. And I can view all other posts normally. :unsure:

[Raven]

Well on a Non Diablo related matter I'd like to post my experiances with the DII.Net group of websites. I found out that they had a policy of banning ppl for posting links to other sites, after they banned me for doing just that. I had just picked up Warcraft 3 and was doing the rounds of all the different warcraft sites on the net. I became involved in the WarcraftIII.Net forums and made the mistake of posting a link to another site in order to help other members on that forum. I was banned, no warning email, no PM, just out and out banned. I contacted them to try and figure out what I had done wrong and was ignored. I then went through their site policy with a fine tooth comb and came across the no link rule and realised that this must have been why.

The sad thing was, I was only being helpful. Someone had asked a question on the Newcomers Forum about guides for New players. I had found a least 2 good guides directed towards new players on two different sites, and posted the links so that the authors would be properly credited. For this I was banned. Given that I was polite, never flamed or swore, and was only trying to be helpful, I was stunned to say the least.

Oh well I'm back into Diablo now, and theres no way I'm going to post on D2.net or any of their other sites. If only other Blizzard games had high quality sites such as LL I'd feel more attached to the community.

[Jarulf]

Seems Elly has changed her mind in regard to hosted Guides. She will appearantly now remove them (or some at least) if the original author so requests. At last I would say!

http://forums.rpgforums.net/showthread.php...ht&pagenumber=3

So if anyone does not read the site any more (like for being banned) or know anyone. It might be a good thing to check it out.

That link doesn't work, it says I don't have permission to view that page. And I can view all other posts normally. :unsure:

Strange indeed. WOnder what they did to it. To bad I did not save the post. Oh well, perhaps she changed her mind, what do I know. Seems the whole thread is gone!!!!

[Logic_X]

If that's the one in the necro forum there (which i notice is now missing the post I'm thinking of) they musta just deleted it while I was posting here....cause it was there before I came to LL to post for the night (yes...i post on quite a few d2 forums....dii.net and LL are just a few of them) -- and now it's not (I went 3 pages into history - not there...).

Heh....i'm seriously suprised I wasn't banned because of that thread .... guess it's because I made that rather crappy FAQ heh.....there's erroneous info in it and i know it (just too lazy to go through with a fine tooth comb lately).....I'll never put my real guides in there (I'll just point people at my homepage link when i get all my guides up there heh....they don't seem to have a problem with that).

Only reason I go there anymore is to help the newbies....even if i have to type out a 3 page explanation of how poison nova is actually applicable :P.

BTW....the recent crackdown if anyone wonders, started with a moderator trying to get Cryptic to post his pvp necro guide (even though there has been a lot of blocking of url's....they are cracking down a LOT in the necro forums and statistics forums) - which Cryptic refused to put on the boards (thus preventing dii.net the right to post it on their site).

Hopefully I'll be able to help some of the people here out :). (I only did just recently actually join the LL....I was a lurker for a while from the university's computers heh)

[Jarulf]

If that's the one in the necro forum there

NO, I think it was either community forum or general styrategy. The thread was named "Hey" I think. I usually found it by searching for the word copyright and I think the first link was from such a search since the link tells to highlight that word.