Overwatch Cheaters Are Getting Wrecked By Blizzard

[Steven Bogos]

Overwatch Cheaters Are Getting Wrecked By Blizzard

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1326/1326359.jpg
Overwatch cheaters are discovering that even buying a new copy of the game won't save them from the banhammer.

When Blizzard said that it was taking a over a thousand accounts [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/167437-Blizzard-Taking-Zero-Tolerance-Stance-on-Overwatch-Cheaters] have already been permabanned.

If that's not enough, reports from cheaters themselves seem to suggest that even if you buy a new copy of the game, Blizzard will ban you again. Permabanned means permabanned - not just from Overwatch but from all Blizzard titles on your battle.net account.

PC Gamer reports that aggrieved posts on the forums of popular hack providers [https://embed.gyazo.com/13d15613f9321bad43462336678d0830.png] are recounting tales of teary-eyed cheaters down on their luck. "Got banned one day after the official release," one user recounts. "Thought I got detected for using RPM tools, because the game was crashing for it at that time.

"Bought the game again... didn't hack on it at all, just wanted to enjoy the game a bit. Two days later-banned again.

"Bought the game... again. But before doing that, I deleted Overwatch and launcher completely. Enjoyed it again without cheating only for a day."

To add insult to injury, NetEase actually went one step further and publicly revealed the usernames of everyone banned for cheating [http://bbs.ow.blizzard.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=523366&extra=page%3D1]. BigHardBlack#5339, I fucking knew it! Screw you and your impossible McCree aim.

The moral here is don't cheat. Don't talk about cheating. Don't even think about cheating.

Source: PC Gamer [http://www.pcgamer.com/overwatch-cheaters-are-having-a-hard-time/]

Permalink

 

[Elfgore]

I laughed way to damn hard that picture. That's the funniest shit I've seen all week.

OT: Good to see them actually make an effort about it. Some Youtubers I've watched have encountered a hacker about twice in the past week on GTA online, a game I think Rockstar I think said they'd be monitoring carefully. I'm talking adding in static items into the game and ruining races to straight up invincibility. Glad this game may remain hack free for a while longer.

 

[The Enquirer]

Provided there is a good appeal system if a ban isn't justified for whatever reason, holy shit, this is awesome.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

On one hand, fuck hackers. They're the reason I quit playing MW2 back in the day.

On the other hand, banning them again if they buy a new copy of the game is unnecessarily harsh. If they buy the game again, they should be caught cheating again before Blizz starts to autoban future purchases. If they learn their lesson the first time they lose access to their game, let them enjoy your product; save the account-wide bans and bans of future purchases for the repeat offenders.

Honestly, locking out all of their Battle.net games AND publically shaming the cheaters is kind of a dick move, as well.

 

[MeatMachine]

On the other hand, banning them again if they buy a new copy of the game is unnecessarily harsh. If they buy the game again, they should be caught cheating again before Blizz starts to autoban future purchases. If they learn their lesson the first time they lose access to their game, let them enjoy your product; save the account-wide bans and bans of future purchases for the repeat offenders.

Nope.

Grievers and trolls are one thing - people who break the game and cheat with external means have absolutely no business being forgiven by the players or the developers. They aren't out to have a good time ruining other peoples' fun; they take it another step further by not only making the game unenjoyable for everyone else, but absolutely unplayable.

My policy if I was in charge?
Have a report system in place to low-priority or temp-ban grievers, trolls, and harassers. They have to work their way up to go back to regular play, similar to DOTA 2.
People caught straight-up cheating are to be removed entirely, forever.

EDIT: It's not unreasonable to be forgiving of people who want to try out cheating, and learn their lesson the hard way assuming they never actually want to do it again - looking at LMAObox for TF2, however, it's clear that cheaters and hackers really only ever take a light punishment as a challenge to beat the system with a refined approach. With cheaters, there are simply too many repeat offenders that are adamantly determined to keep circumventing their punishment - in fact, that seems to be the main point of cheating for many of them. Salt the earth with bullshit, and find a way back in if caught.

 

[Metalrocks]

On one hand, fuck hackers. They're the reason I quit playing MW2 back in the day.

On the other hand, banning them again if they buy a new copy of the game is unnecessarily harsh. If they buy the game again, they should be caught cheating again before Blizz starts to autoban future purchases. If they learn their lesson the first time they lose access to their game, let them enjoy your product; save the account-wide bans and bans of future purchases for the repeat offenders.

Honestly, locking out all of their Battle.net games AND publically shaming the cheaters is kind of a dick move, as well.

i agree. no one wants top get banned. especially if its the entire battlenet game selection. certainly serves them right but buying the game again and actually not cheating and still getting banned, is a bit harsh.
otherwise, good on blizzard for actually taking action against them. wish more would do that.

 

[meirol]

Honestly, locking out all of their Battle.net games AND publically shaming the cheaters is kind of a dick move, as well.

Y'know what's kind of a dick move? Cheating.

 

[Davroth]

Honestly, locking out all of their Battle.net games AND publically shaming the cheaters is kind of a dick move, as well.

Y'know what's kind of a dick move? Cheating.

When did fighting dick moves with dick moves become an acceptable strategy?

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

Honestly, locking out all of their Battle.net games AND publically shaming the cheaters is kind of a dick move, as well.

Y'know what's kind of a dick move? Cheating.

When did fighting dick moves with dick moves become an acceptable strategy?

The public shaming is a step too far, but I wont lose any sleep over a hacker losing their account because they were in breach of the terms of use for a game/service. Just so long as false positives are able to contest their bans and get their accounts reactivated.

 

[Vanished]

On one hand, complete lockout of all games seems harsh, but on the other... if you know the penalty for getting caught is losing your entire account and subsequent accounts, would you still cheat? If yes, good riddance, if no well problem solved. It may seem harsh, but it's just a game. I'm sure they'll find something else to enjoy and perhaps it will encourage them to play on the developers terms.

 

[Timedraven 117]

I see no problem with this system, or the public shaming. For one who actually memorizes all the names of cheaters on the list? No one, because you'd have to be a literal one in a billion kind of person to have the ability to remember all of that.

Secondly, if its clearly stated in the rules: if you are caught cheating, and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were cheating for whatever reason, you will be permabanned from all Blizzard Entertainment online features, and be permanently blacklisted on all Blizzard Records.

If that is solidly stated, then you ignoring that or trying to challenge it by cheating firmly makes you too dumb to play. I don't give a shit if you just want to enjoy the game, you have proven to be a monster that deserves to be permanently segregated from the population until you move, get an entirely new account, and a different creditcard. Because if you cheat you're not just ruining the experience of others you are slowly and actively killing the game's community, don't cry like a baby for getting rightfully punished for ruining tens or even hundreds of other people's experience, in some nation's you'd be shot for doing just that.

 

[linkblade91]

To those who lost their accounts from cheating, I say: suck it. You deserve what you got.

 

[Karathos]

Cheater's justice, don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

These platforms have made it very clear you lose your ACCOUNT and not just the game if you get caught cheating. Steam, Battlenet, whatever. These folks gambled and lost, and I won't lose any sleep over being rid of people who get their jollies at the expense of other players fun.

In before a repeat exploiter gets banned too and complains Blizzard should fix the game ala The Division...

 

[Geisterkarle]

How do they know, that someone cheated already, if they bought a new game!?

 

[Jandau]

Yeah, it's harsh. I got an e-mail from Blizz about my permaban, and I never even played Overwatch...

Seriously, though, while I applaud the aggressive out-of-the-gate stance on cheating, from what I've read they might be going a bit too far. For one thing, banning people from ALL Blizz games is IMO definitely going too far. Yes, cheating is annoying and should be curtailed, but locking a person out of potential hundreds of dollars they might have spent, as well as all the hours put into those games... I'm sorry, but that's just too harsh. Perhaps if we were talking about repeat offenders, but the game hasn't be out long enough for there to be any repeat offenders.

Then there's the problem of false positives - people who weren't cheating, but were flagged for whatever reason by the automated system Blizz seems to use. Unless there's a comprehensive appeals system, this could get ugly...

Again, I don't condone cheating, but squishing an ant with a Thermobaric missile is more harm than good.

 

[Candidus]

How do they know, that someone cheated already, if they bought a new game!?

They can tell if your debit or credit card is the same or if the associated bank details used for verification (name and address) are the same.

Blizzard aren't punishing accounts, they are punishing individuals. So if you cheat, every edition of the game you ever buy, and every account you ever make that is uncovered as belonging to you-- a cheater known to them-- will be banned.

Personally, I love both this system of banning people for life from everything on the Bnet service, AND I love the tears of people who think it's too harsh. This is the biggest double-win.

 

[Geisterkarle]

How do they know, that someone cheated already, if they bought a new game!?

They can tell if your debit or credit card is the same or if the associated bank details used for verification (name and address) are the same.

They do what!?
Ok, I haven't played SC2 in a while and don't know what changed ... since when do I have to put my address somewhere to play a game? If this is a thing, this company is dead to me!

 

[Karathos]

Personally, I love both this system of banning people for life from everything on the Bnet service, AND I love the tears of people who think it's too harsh. This is the biggest double-win.

Agreed, finally a system that shows there's consequences. Why should there be leniency when ample warning has been given? Repeat offenders thrive and learn they can come to actually rely on a community's "understanding".

"Oh I promise I won't do it again". Yeah, you won't because you're permabanned.

 

[woodlandkammo]

I definitely like the consequences. But they had better have either a rock-solid, false-positive-proof system or a reasonable appeals system for this to go well.