Blizzard Attacks StarCraft II Cheat Developers
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
Recommended Videos
"Blizzard recently made headlines for banning StarCraft II players that used third-party cheat modifications in single-player games."
They are suing people who made single player cheats ? This I think is fucked up. Multiplayer cheats are fair enough for a ban. But just ban them. If its an issue with "points" then take away points. This is why there are moderators. To sue someone who makes mods. Are you crazy? This sets the worst precedent for anything ever. This is super dangerous and scary.
This article smells pretty damn biased too.
Why is this now an issue? Remember wc3? Maphacks would only be banable in ranked matches. The mod community itself dealt with the problem, creating in game mechanisms to boot hackers.
Suing people who made single player hacks is not the blizzard I know and frankly I'm glad I haven't bought anything blizzard since the first wow expansion. Every new thing I hear is pretty much indicative of the company's once positive and expansive game philosophy being corrupted and flushed down the shitter.
R.I.P Blizzard, I hope someone brings the holy water to deal with this freak Activision-Blizzard zombie that has risen from your once sacred carcass.
Edit: You want to deal with the leaderboard problem? Make ranked single player required to authenticate through battle net, moderate that, and have a non ranked single player option. To tie the single player irreversibly to the multiplayer... what a stupid fucking thing to do.
They are suing people who made single player cheats ? This I think is fucked up. Multiplayer cheats are fair enough for a ban. But just ban them. If its an issue with "points" then take away points. This is why there are moderators. To sue someone who makes mods. Are you crazy? This sets the worst precedent for anything ever. This is super dangerous and scary.
This article smells pretty damn biased too.
Why is this now an issue? Remember wc3? Maphacks would only be banable in ranked matches. The mod community itself dealt with the problem, creating in game mechanisms to boot hackers.
Suing people who made single player hacks is not the blizzard I know and frankly I'm glad I haven't bought anything blizzard since the first wow expansion. Every new thing I hear is pretty much indicative of the company's once positive and expansive game philosophy being corrupted and flushed down the shitter.
R.I.P Blizzard, I hope someone brings the holy water to deal with this freak Activision-Blizzard zombie that has risen from your once sacred carcass.
Edit: You want to deal with the leaderboard problem? Make ranked single player required to authenticate through battle net, moderate that, and have a non ranked single player option. To tie the single player irreversibly to the multiplayer... what a stupid fucking thing to do.
The lawsuits deal with trainers and hooks created by 3rd party developers and then sold to players. The nature of them means that while they are intended for single player, they can also be used in multiplayer.Mikester1290 said:
What really annoys me in all of this, is all the hate on blizzard suddenly and the thought that its because of activision. Thats stupid. Anyone remember WoW Glider? Anyone remember the massive lawsuit that blizzard leveled at that guy? that was before activision.
Another thing, these are not the cheat codes of Age of Empires etc. Its hacks and memory editors that change values in the game, using external programs. Not simply hitting enter and typing a code.
Apologies are in order here for not parsing out enough the last statement as it wasn't directed at you but to the people jumping Blizzard for protecting their interests and comparing this to other forms of modding. I'm not on my own computer atm, and it keeps screwing with my posts so I have to copy/paste a lot and some things have been getting lost (edits mostly).Iscin said:
On the other side, I think this is Blizz putting its proverbial foot down and saying "Ok, you aren't listening to us. We've done this before, we've warned you." or "(We're) mad as hell and we're not going to take this anymore."
Pirates are harder to go after, but I'm sure if Blizz were able to find out just who pirated their games, they'd most likely go after them too. And I'd support them fully on that. I don't believe in pirating.
this is what you call a company protecting their product they are trying to sell.These companies are in this for money in the end, don't forget this
Back in the Diablo 1 days, there was a lot of talk about cheaters being able to turn into cows and shoot arrows out of their asses. There's quite a lot that cheater might want to do.Littlee300 said:
The first Diablo had a lot of cheating used simply to grief other players. I'm not just talking about killing a player (or rez-killing), but causing them to lose all their gear.
I really don't care what players do with their copy of the game, as long as it's offline.
Because blizzard are going after single player cheat engine makers too. They connected single player to online so they can say the cheats affect the "online experience" when really, its people being able to cheat and get achievements for it.SomethingAmazing said:
In other words, big whoop, we can get achi- WHY ARE YOU SUING ME FOR A COUPLE MILLION BLIZZARD?
I'm not really understanding how Blizzard has any justification suing a programmer for making hacks for Starcraft, single or multi player. The only way I can see it being justified is if they are charging for these hacks, then maybe, just maybe, Blizzard has a leg to stand on. This isn't like the WoW lawsuits, where you are dealing with hacking a paid service and the like (although I still find the decision against Glide to be more than a little questionable. All right, I find it outrageously stupid), this is a single player/multi player game that people aren't paying anything to access beyond the purchase of the initial game.
Go after the cheaters in multi-player, sure. But the programmers.... I don't see this having good results.
Go after the cheaters in multi-player, sure. But the programmers.... I don't see this having good results.
Might I remind you of what our Yahtzee once said about fanboys defending companies: They don't care.amaranth_dru said:
I think customers should be as critical of these companies as we can be. I for one bought my copy of Starcraft 2 and as it turns out (shockingly, right) I was one of the people who messed around with a trainer in skirmish. As it so happens I have not been banned, but then I wasn't active when this banning was going off (I took almost a two month break from Starcraft 2). This, to me anyway, suggests that Blizzard are targeting active (maybe even addicted?) players who are likely going to buy the game a second time when they get permabanned.
So maybe now you can understand why I for one am being so critical of Blizzard. Let me explain my personal ethics a little: trainers and even pirating I support on certain levels like in single player messing around and judging a game before you actually invest in buying it. However I am also against any form of cheating in games and pirating game indefinitely whilst never giving back to the creators.
So for all of those players Blizzard banned for trying to cheat in multi? Good on 'em! However this overblown religious pursuit of hammering down on users and programmers who didn't steal anything? Well... a bit unbalanced there. So frankly, bad Blizzard! Bad boy! And put that EULA down, it probably has diseases or something!
Lighten up and join the anti-corporations wagon, because no one else will tell them to bugger off with EULAs, lawsuits, DRM, overpriced DLC and shameless sequels. And remember: Vote with your wallet.
Ok I can see blizzard being able to kick them from the game, suing them for messing with intellectual property but:
By distributing the hacks to the public, defendants cause serious harm to the value of StarCraft II," Blizzard wrote in the suit. "Among other things, defendants irreparably harm the ability of Blizzard's legitimate customers (i.e. those who purchase and use unmodified games) to enjoy and participate in the competitive online experience. That, in turn, causes users to grow dissatisfied with the game, lose interest in the game, and communicate that dissatisfaction, thereby resulting in lost sales of the game or 'add-on' packs and expansions thereto."
Bad reviews, griefers, trolls all do the same thing. Wake me up when some company sues for one of those reasons. Otherwise I will be in some game.
By distributing the hacks to the public, defendants cause serious harm to the value of StarCraft II," Blizzard wrote in the suit. "Among other things, defendants irreparably harm the ability of Blizzard's legitimate customers (i.e. those who purchase and use unmodified games) to enjoy and participate in the competitive online experience. That, in turn, causes users to grow dissatisfied with the game, lose interest in the game, and communicate that dissatisfaction, thereby resulting in lost sales of the game or 'add-on' packs and expansions thereto."
Bad reviews, griefers, trolls all do the same thing. Wake me up when some company sues for one of those reasons. Otherwise I will be in some game.
I don't see how charging for the cheats makes a difference. It's not like they are selling modified copies of the game without paying for it in the first place. They are selling code to modify the (presumably legitimately bought) game. From what I understand, this is how the US courts see it. Nintendo tried to sue the makers of Game Genie, and failed:Royas said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc.
One of the critical differences when people cheat online is that they are playing on someone else's servers. They get to make the rules for those servers, and it's fair-game for them to say "cheaters and potty-mouths get banned".
Critical yes, especially when they are wholly in the wrong. In this case they're enforcing something that they said they would enforce. Keeping their word as it is. If I said I was having a party at my house and that you couldn't bring drugs to the party or you will be banned, and you show up to the party with drugs, keeping my word and throwing you out is what integrity is all about.Iscin said:
Perhaps. Also could be that they're not monitoring 24/7 and you slipped by. Also sounds a bit conspiracy theory-ish. But it is also a possibility.Iscin said:
The "evaluation copy" argument doesn't make it any less stealing. Thats just as bad as if I'd walked into {insert local gaming store here} and stole a copy of a game I didn't know if I wanted to buy, played it, then walked back into the store and handed them said copy and paid for it. Doesn't change the fact that it was stolen in the first place.Iscin said:
Didn't steal anything? They had to hack the source code to get those 3rd party programs to work which constitutes reverse engineering, which is something that's protected by law (and has been previously enforced). Yes they might be editing memory addresses in the RAM space, but they wouldn't have a damn clue how to do that unless they'd hacked the source which is a violation of copyright law since the game is *not* open-source.Iscin said:
I do vote with my wallet. And unfortunately pirates and hackers don't seem to understand that they are the reason companies jack up the DRM measures and other copy-protections which ends up costing the consumer more in the end. Half of these protective measures wouldn't exist if people weren't trying to find ways around paying for this stuff. I have problems with corporations at times, but I'm not about to deny them their right to protect their investments. If we deny corporations their right to protect their IP, we also deny ourselves the right to protect our own IP. Overpriced DLC? I've found most DLC to be pretty reasonably priced with notable exceptions. I also don't buy sequels that don't have meaning to me that look like a cash grab (I'm looking at you Guitar Hero/Rock Band).Iscin said:
And by extension every reviewer who gave a bad review of Starcraft 2 is now to be sued. Come on if your game is that good it will have a solid anti-cheat mechanism which will override any attempt to unfairly gain advantage against others in single or multi player, for example whilst not perfect the VAC system is great! It's unbiased and entirely automated and will only ban you if you ACTUALLY cheat.Flipscore said:
This is a case of fighting cheat programs with anti-cheat programs, not of suing everyone under false pretence of possible poor sales, which may or may not occur.
I absolutely love this. The online experience is negatively impacted by cheaters. This in turn damages the brand of the online game and its developer (as people get the perception that "it's full of cheaters and hackers and assholes".)
That's material economic damage. And when you do material economic damage, that's exactly what the court system is there to redress.
Put 'em in rags and cardboard boxes, Blizzard. And let their homeless, broken souls serve as a brutal example for the others. Fuck cheaters.
That's material economic damage. And when you do material economic damage, that's exactly what the court system is there to redress.
Put 'em in rags and cardboard boxes, Blizzard. And let their homeless, broken souls serve as a brutal example for the others. Fuck cheaters.