Blizzard Gives Single Player StarCraft 2 Cheaters a Time-Out, Opens Can of Worms [UPDATED]

[EqualNOpposite]

I'll side with Blizzard too. Aren't there SP cheats built into the game already?

 

[shintakie10]

However, you won't ever be prevented from playing your purchased game, you'll always be able to put your disc in your banned console and play the vanilla, un-patched single player game.

...which is different from this scenario how?

The "Play as Guest" button. Click it sometime. Blizzard can't ever take the offline singleplayer away from you.

Really? I didn't know that because I don't play SCII, the impression I got from reading some people's reaction to this was that Blizzard broke into their house, stole their game disc and then ran over their dog on the way out.

The people who had that reaction are either terrible misinformed or intentionally misrepresentin the facts in order to make their argument seem valid.

 

[Magnalian]

Ooh, so it's only a time-out? That's ok then. Making it completely impossible for people to play the game they spent 60 bucks on would be going a little far, though.

 

[Nalesnik]

Essentially, all this crying comes off as people complaining about something they haven't taken the trouble to understand.

The way SC2 is set up, the major incentive reward (other than victory for victory's sake) is the different portraits you can unlock for your account. So that when someone sees you, they go "ooh, he's won 500 games as Zerg" or "ooh, he's done all the super-hard achievements on the super-hardest difficulty." If Blizzard has any vested interest in preserving the integrity of its system, as Microsoft does with its gamerscore, for instance - and it DOES - then it needs to take action on people who cheat it. Otherwise the people who earn said rewards fairly end up feeling like, "Well why did I try to do this when I could have just cheated?"

I disagree. Personally I couldnt give less of a crap about what people think when they face me online (the few times I bother to play online). The achievements are for personal pleasure only. When I managed to kill 4 hatcheries on hard in a particular map in SC2 I was proud for my own sake, and felt good. But who cares what others think? I have actually had a friend of mine play some 1vs1 on my account so I could get a zergling portrait (as they are my favorite unit ever), and I think playing 1vs1 is the definition of boring/stress/not fun.

I could completely sympathize if people cheat in online matches vs people. Ban em. Permanently imo. And I could completely sympathize if your achievement score vs AI had ANY impact whatsoever on multiplayer, gave you better units, cheaper upgrades or SOMETHING, but it doesnt. So this to me, feels like police brutality (and for gods sake I know police brutality is a more serious matter so dont call me out on the comparison anyone........). Its a stupid and unnecessary move imo.

Okay, so you don't personally care about achievements (but you do care about unit portraits).

What about the people who do care? Can you really say that 100% of Blizzard's playerbase doesn't care about the prestige they get? If I really want to get Portrait X which is done by earning achievements A, B and C, and I work my ass off to do that so I can get Portrait X ... and then I find out that people can just CHEAT to get my same reward, and Blizzard does nothing about it - isn't that a bit of a slap in the face to me?

If Blizzard has any interest in preserving the integrity of its reward/incentive system, it needs to make sure it's legitimate. Because just because you don't care about your gamerscore/portraits/achievement score, that doesn't mean that nobody does.

Very true, but the "integrity" of the achievement's/portraits system is already broken. People have already found out a way to legitimately game the system to get easy-peasy achievements/portraits/wins. In 1v1, just worker rush all your games as random, after 6000 games you'll get all the solo portraits, and 3000 wins. It's even easier to game the team games, just join and immediately leave all 4v4 games, if your team wins, you get a win on your account also even tho you contribute absolutely nothing to the win. 6000 games later you just gained all the team game portraits. Thanks to these people, portraits don't really mean a whole lot.

 

[Irridium]

Microsoft has banned/suspended people for cheating their gamerscore before. Just recently, Bungie did something similar in Halo Reach [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103985-Bungie-Turns-15-000-Halo-Reach-Cheaters-Into-Noobs] - yes it was multiplayer, but it was essentially the same thing (they were attempting to game the system for cosmetic/prestige rewards).

Yes they have, but in most cases Microsoft simply wiped their achievements clean and prevented them from earning them back. However quite a few people were banned, but only in the more severe cases of it.

Bungie wiped the cheater's credits clean and put a credit ban on them. The cheaters could still play online(unless they used the cheats in matchmaking, in which case they were banned).

In both cases, most of the people affected could still play online.

 

[Jamash]

However, you won't ever be prevented from playing your purchased game, you'll always be able to put your disc in your banned console and play the vanilla, un-patched single player game.

...which is different from this scenario how?

The "Play as Guest" button. Click it sometime. Blizzard can't ever take the offline singleplayer away from you.

Really? I didn't know that because I don't play SCII, the impression I got from reading some people's reaction to this was that Blizzard broke into their house, stole their game disc and then ran over their dog on the way out.

The people who had that reaction are either terrible misinformed or intentionally misrepresentin the facts in order to make their argument seem valid.

I think the latter may be true, to be honest I only read first couple of pages of nerd rage on the Cheat Happens forum before I became bored and stopped deriving pleasure from other people's misfortune.

 

[Enkidu88]

Essentially, all this crying comes off as people complaining about something they haven't taken the trouble to understand.

If I may be allowed to disagree, I think perhaps you haven't taken the trouble to understand the wider ranging implications here. As you yourself wrote in the headline, Blizzard's opened a whole new can of worms. A can which every other game company will be wanting to bait their own lines with if this thing goes on without at least some kind of debate. This is the first time that I can think of that a company has actually enforced the basic no-cheating clause of the EULA.

Blizzard might be in the right here, maybe people were just farming achievements but then again maybe they assumed, like I probably would have, that they simply assumed the game would disable achievements when using a trainer. I use trainers in Empire TW, Napoleon TW, X-3, and I don't get any achievements on Steam. Steam can manage to do that with games from various different companies, but Blizzard can't achieve the same goal on their own game on their own servers? Really, that's beyond their ability?

But whether or not Blizzard is in the right here is irrelevant, the problem here is that this could set a precedent in other games by other companies. More and more games require the user to be online, or to have their stats uploaded to common servers, and if they too start banning trainers than eventually one of them won't have cheat codes installed into the game. Cheat Happens has apparently created a successful business in the realm of cheating, that suggests to me that perhaps cheaters are a larger demographic of the gaming population than anyone would like to admit. Preventing singleplayer cheating, in the privacy of our own homes, would likely harm the bottom line of the industry. Or someone is eventually going to challenge the EULA, which is going to result in a very long and costly legal battle. Either way, the industry loses money and I'd much rather see that money put toward making better games, not fighting their way out of the corner they've boxed themselves into.

 

[Exort]

Well how many other companies have banned people due to cheating in single player? Apart from the current situation, I'm going to bet on "none".

No, but many company already sue people that make cheats in single player with not online achievement like this case.

 

[Daft Ghosty]

The achievements are only in the online environment. If you play the game offline, you get no achievements.

The fact that they were intentionally playing online with these hacks active is evidence in itself. You can claim "Oh, but maybe they didn't KNOW about the in-game cheats," but that's immensely unlikely.

I didn't play as a guest either. When I installed the game I connectedd with my blizzard account along with my Wow aact. When doing so I personally wasn't thinking that I'm going to get me some achievements.. woo hoo! =) That isn't to say other people weren't doing it for that reason, which again brings up my point from my first post again. That if Blizzard is going to include achievements that affect online game play they should be rewards from playing online against other people, and not from the single player game. It should not matter what achievements you made in single player, when going online. They mean squat when playing against live people. For me single player achievements are for one purpose only. For personal reward to feel like you hit a goal. But in game play types that I don't like playing, RTS being one them, I could care less. For games like that I'm playing for the story and nothing else.

I come down on the rough side as Blizzard has really been breaking out the jack spade boot as of late, and it has ticked me off enough that I canceled my wow acct of 4 years, and have stopped purchasing any more of their games. It's not a single instance like this, but the fact they over react and punish paying customers. I pay them money for a service, and I have no problem in stop giving them money when they make me unhappy. I know it will be a long time before they are taken down a notch, but they are losing sight of where they came from. I don't like this kind of mindless banning from from any company.

 

[shintakie10]

Very true, but the "integrity" of the achievement's/portraits system is already broken. People have already found out a way to legitimately game the system to get easy-peasy achievements/portraits/wins. In 1v1, just worker rush all your games as random, after 6000 games you'll get all the solo portraits, and 3000 wins. It's even easier to game the team games, just join and immediately leave all 4v4 games, if your team wins, you get a win on your account also even tho you contribute absolutely nothing to the win. 6000 games later you just gained all the team game portraits. Thanks to these people, portraits don't really mean a whole lot.

Considerin Blizzard has stated they're workin on fixes for the 4v4 leavers issue thats a moot point (believe they've said a fix is actually goin to be in 1.2 actually). Its possible that with that fix they'll also retroactively take away any portraits gained illegitimately, but thats just speculation on my part.

As for worker rushes, I kinda have trouble believin that'd work...like...ever and if it did, it'd have a god awful win percentage simple because you'll lose far more times than you'll win. I'd give kudos to people who were willin to waste hours of their lives failin over and over again with an absolutely god awful plan if I werent so disgusted by it.

 

[John Funk]

Essentially, all this crying comes off as people complaining about something they haven't taken the trouble to understand.

If I may be allowed to disagree, I think perhaps you haven't taken the trouble to understand the wider ranging implications here. As you yourself wrote in the headline, Blizzard's opened a whole new can of worms. A can which every other game company will be wanting to bait their own lines with if this thing goes on without at least some kind of debate. This is the first time that I can think of that a company has actually enforced the basic no-cheating clause of the EULA.

Blizzard might be in the right here, maybe people were just farming achievements but then again maybe they assumed, like I probably would have, that they simply assumed the game would disable achievements when using a trainer. I use trainers in Empire TW, Napoleon TW, X-3, and I don't get any achievements on Steam. Steam can manage to do that with games from various different companies, but Blizzard can't achieve the same goal on their own game on their own servers? Really, that's beyond their ability?

But whether or not Blizzard is in the right here is irrelevant, the problem here is that this could set a precedent in other games by other companies. More and more games require the user to be online, or to have their stats uploaded to common servers, and if they too start banning trainers than eventually one of them won't have cheat codes installed into the game. Cheat Happens has apparently created a successful business in the realm of cheating, that suggests to me that perhaps cheaters are a larger demographic of the gaming population than anyone would like to admit. Preventing singleplayer cheating, in the privacy of our own homes, would likely harm the bottom line of the industry. Or someone is eventually going to challenge the EULA, which is going to result in a very long and costly legal battle. Either way, the industry loses money and I'd much rather see that money put toward making better games, not fighting their way out of the corner they've boxed themselves into.

In this case, the trainer is specifically designed to let you use cheats while not disabling achievements. Do you really think that if someone wanted to make a trainer that would let you cheat in those games while still letting you gain Steam achievements, they wouldn't be able to? I'd guess that there's simply no market for it, as Steam achievements aren't tied so strongly into multiplayer prestige as the SC2 achievements are.

If you want to use a trainer or hack the game, then you use it in the offline mode. If you are specifically cheating with the express purpose of getting these achievements to mess with Blizzard's prestige/incentives, then they are in their right to smack you down.

I didn't play as a guest either. When I installed the game I connectedd with my blizzard account along with my Wow aact. When doing so I personally wasn't thinking that I'm going to get me some achievements.. woo hoo! =) That isn't to say other people weren't doing it for that reason, which again brings up my point from my first post again. That if Blizzard is going to include achievements that affect online game play they should be rewards from playing online against other people, and not from the single player game. It should not matter what achievements you made in single player, when going online. They mean squat when playing against live people. For me single player achievements are for one purpose only. For personal reward to feel like you hit a goal. But in game play types that I don't like playing, RTS being one them, I could care less. For games like that I'm playing for the story and nothing else.

Okay, great. So YOU don't care about achievements. What about Blizzard's paying customers that do, and who now see people able to cheat to easily get what they had to work hard for? Should Blizzard just shrug its shoulders and say "hey, your loss?" No, that's absurd.

I come down on the rough side as Blizzard has really been breaking out the jack spade boot as of late, and it has ticked me off enough that I canceled my wow acct of 4 years, and have stopped purchasing any more of their games. It's not a single instance like this, but the fact they over react and punish paying customers. I pay them money for a service, and I have no problem in stop giving them money when they make me unhappy. I know it will be a long time before they are taken down a notch, but they are losing sight of where they came from. I don't like this kind of mindless banning from from any company.

How is a two-week suspension for breaking their rules - when they'd explicitly warned people beforehand - overreacting? It's a "don't do this again." Perfectly reasonable.

 

[direkiller]

2.) This isn't even a permanent ban. It's a two-week suspension.

Blizzard?s actions have left many Cheat Happens users with a suspension or much worse, a lifetime ban, it also has many wondering - is it legal?

Apparently they did lifetime ban some ppl but the trainers do work in multiplayer(according to the same article) so i don't know the details behind there banning(if they abused the trainers online pvp or have done outer things to breach the EULA)
or it may just be cheat happens is trying to exaggerate here and are lying

two week ban im fine with it got the point across theirs no long term effects to the people and it discourages people from using 3rd party programs to cheat the reward system. If the perma beaned users deserved it good for blizzard.

 

[Nalesnik]

Very true, but the "integrity" of the achievement's/portraits system is already broken. People have already found out a way to legitimately game the system to get easy-peasy achievements/portraits/wins. In 1v1, just worker rush all your games as random, after 6000 games you'll get all the solo portraits, and 3000 wins. It's even easier to game the team games, just join and immediately leave all 4v4 games, if your team wins, you get a win on your account also even tho you contribute absolutely nothing to the win. 6000 games later you just gained all the team game portraits. Thanks to these people, portraits don't really mean a whole lot.

Considerin Blizzard has stated they're workin on fixes for the 4v4 leavers issue thats a moot point (believe they've said a fix is actually goin to be in 1.2 actually). Its possible that with that fix they'll also retroactively take away any portraits gained illegitimately, but thats just speculation on my part.

As for worker rushes, I kinda have trouble believin that'd work...like...ever and if it did, it'd have a god awful win percentage simple because you'll lose far more times than you'll win. I'd give kudos to people who were willin to waste hours of their lives failin over and over again with an absolutely god awful plan if I werent so disgusted by it.

It's not a moot point, because Blizzard will definitely not retroactively take away portraits. What if someone gamed the system for 1500 wins, but got the other 1500 in "straight-up, standard" matches? Will they only take away half of their portraits away? I don't see any reasonable way that they could do this. Also technically, Blizzard can't punish these players, because they technically did nothing wrong, they did nothing that's against the EULA.

Worker rushers work half the time in bronze league: exhibit A: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/966826/1/Pennoyer/
xD Yes, he admitted to working rushing his way to the top. Pretty funny stuff.

 

[Enkidu88]

In this case, the trainer is specifically designed to let you use cheats while not disabling achievements. Do you really think that if someone wanted to make a trainer that would let you cheat in those games while still letting you gain Steam achievements, they wouldn't be able to? I'd guess that there's simply no market for it, as Steam achievements aren't tied so strongly into multiplayer prestige as the SC2 achievements are.

If you want to use a trainer or hack the game, then you use it in the offline mode. If you are specifically cheating with the express purpose of getting these achievements to mess with Blizzard's prestige/incentives, then they are in their right to smack you down.

While you're correct that Blizzard has the right to maintain the integrity of its achievements, I'm still more concerned about the overarching ramifications of their ability ban people from a singleplayer game. This gives the EULA some very serious teeth, teeth that it once lacked specifically because it was unenforceable. Unfortunately now with so many games aiming for a persistent singleplayer online environment, its more easily enforced. If this decision is allowed to stand, as it seems it will given it's overwhelming support, there is the very real possibility of other companies following suit.

Eventually one of them is going to ban singleplayer cheaters on games that have no offline mode, games that have a Ubisoft-esque Assassins creed DRM system. That's what worries me, this is like DRM taken to it's logical, and horrifying, conclusion. Now you can't play the game offline, and you can't even cheat in singleplayer.

Though I suppose none of that is Blizzard's concern, and perhaps this action will remain an isolated incident. But I don't think we should simply dismiss this as a "Well they had it coming" incident as this could have wide ranging implications to all games, since they all share a similar EULA system. Giving the EULA an actual pair of dangerous fangs is not at all advisable. The EULA was fine when it was a toothless puppy at the start of an game installation, an unenforceable edict with questionable legal merit. But now it's become an entirely different animal, one that Blizzard is about to let off the leash.

I think a more conciliatory attitude on the part of Blizzard would have been more advisable, have the program detect if it's being tampered with and disable achievements. Obviously they have this ability. Sure, people will still try and cheat themselves more achievements, but then ban them. Hell partner up with Cheat Happens, say that their trainer is the only one acceptable. I think you'd be surprised how many people wouldn't immediately go hunting for new cracks to get achievements.

 

[Requx]

I love blizzard, but I hate activision...I'm so split although I dont really enjoy cheaters in my games anyways so Im fine with it.

 

[Kebabco]

I'm really surprised at the users here all agreeing with Blizzard's course of action. Does no one here care about the legal precedent it sets for use of a product that is legally yours? I should be able to do anything I want with a product i legally bought (that even a law i think).

If Blizzard extends the EULA so that you have to give up your full name and address if you want to play, would you still like it?
If Blizzard extends the EULA so you can only play it during the odd days of the month, would you still like it?
If Blizzard extends the EULA so you can only play the game if you're sitting buttnaked infront of your desktop with a webcam feed directly to Bobby Kotick so he can jerk of on you get zergrushedpwned?

NO! Fuck Blizzard. My product, my choice.

 

[SpecklePattern]

Using trainers to get achievements is sad.

Paying for trainers to get achievements is even more sad.

Getting banned for using trainers you had to pay for to get achievements would be sad, if it weren't so pathetic.

Totally agree with this. Just a two weeks punishment is quite kind for that player.

 

[John Funk]

In this case, the trainer is specifically designed to let you use cheats while not disabling achievements. Do you really think that if someone wanted to make a trainer that would let you cheat in those games while still letting you gain Steam achievements, they wouldn't be able to? I'd guess that there's simply no market for it, as Steam achievements aren't tied so strongly into multiplayer prestige as the SC2 achievements are.

If you want to use a trainer or hack the game, then you use it in the offline mode. If you are specifically cheating with the express purpose of getting these achievements to mess with Blizzard's prestige/incentives, then they are in their right to smack you down.

While you're correct that Blizzard has the right to maintain the integrity of its achievements, I'm still more concerned about the overarching ramifications of their ability ban people from a singleplayer game. This gives the EULA some very serious teeth, teeth that it once lacked specifically because it was unenforceable. Unfortunately now with so many games aiming for a persistent singleplayer online environment, its more easily enforced. If this decision is allowed to stand, as it seems it will given it's overwhelming support, there is the very real possibility of other companies following suit.

Eventually one of them is going to ban singleplayer cheaters on games that have no offline mode, games that have a Ubisoft-esque Assassins creed DRM system. That's what worries me, this is like DRM taken to it's logical, and horrifying, conclusion. Now you can't play the game offline, and you can't even cheat in singleplayer.

Though I suppose none of that is Blizzard's concern, and perhaps this action will remain an isolated incident. But I don't think we should simply dismiss this as a "Well they had it coming" incident as this could have wide ranging implications to all games, since they all share a similar EULA system. Giving the EULA an actual pair of dangerous fangs is not at all advisable. The EULA was fine when it was a toothless puppy at the start of an game installation, an unenforceable edict with questionable legal merit. But now it's become an entirely different animal, one that Blizzard is about to let off the leash.

I think a more conciliatory attitude on the part of Blizzard would have been more advisable, have the program detect if it's being tampered with and disable achievements. Obviously they have this ability. Sure, people will still try and cheat themselves more achievements, but then ban them. Hell partner up with Cheat Happens, say that their trainer is the only one acceptable. I think you'd be surprised how many people wouldn't immediately go hunting for new cracks to get achievements.

But Blizzard isn't taking away the single-player game. You can still play the single-player game just fine via the offline Guest mode. You just can't log in, get achievements, or play multiplayer - the social part of the game. And it's just a temporary suspension, not a ban.

I'm kind of puzzled by your suggestion that they work with a third party to allow a trainer that disables achievements. SC2 already has built-in cheat codes that will disable achievements when used. The only difference between the CheatHappens trainer and the Blizzard-provided cheat codes is that... the trainer doesn't disable achievements.

Why would you partner with someone to do something you're already doing yourself?

 

[tzimize]

Essentially, all this crying comes off as people complaining about something they haven't taken the trouble to understand.

The way SC2 is set up, the major incentive reward (other than victory for victory's sake) is the different portraits you can unlock for your account. So that when someone sees you, they go "ooh, he's won 500 games as Zerg" or "ooh, he's done all the super-hard achievements on the super-hardest difficulty." If Blizzard has any vested interest in preserving the integrity of its system, as Microsoft does with its gamerscore, for instance - and it DOES - then it needs to take action on people who cheat it. Otherwise the people who earn said rewards fairly end up feeling like, "Well why did I try to do this when I could have just cheated?"

I disagree. Personally I couldnt give less of a crap about what people think when they face me online (the few times I bother to play online). The achievements are for personal pleasure only. When I managed to kill 4 hatcheries on hard in a particular map in SC2 I was proud for my own sake, and felt good. But who cares what others think? I have actually had a friend of mine play some 1vs1 on my account so I could get a zergling portrait (as they are my favorite unit ever), and I think playing 1vs1 is the definition of boring/stress/not fun.

I could completely sympathize if people cheat in online matches vs people. Ban em. Permanently imo. And I could completely sympathize if your achievement score vs AI had ANY impact whatsoever on multiplayer, gave you better units, cheaper upgrades or SOMETHING, but it doesnt. So this to me, feels like police brutality (and for gods sake I know police brutality is a more serious matter so dont call me out on the comparison anyone........). Its a stupid and unnecessary move imo.

Okay, so you don't personally care about achievements (but you do care about unit portraits).

What about the people who do care? Can you really say that 100% of Blizzard's playerbase doesn't care about the prestige they get? If I really want to get Portrait X which is done by earning achievements A, B and C, and I work my ass off to do that so I can get Portrait X ... and then I find out that people can just CHEAT to get my same reward, and Blizzard does nothing about it - isn't that a bit of a slap in the face to me?

If Blizzard has any interest in preserving the integrity of its reward/incentive system, it needs to make sure it's legitimate. Because just because you don't care about your gamerscore/portraits/achievement score, that doesn't mean that nobody does.

True of course, but I still mean its a bullshit move to ban players (even for a day) for cheating in singleplayer. Even if a gazillion players cheat brutal difficulty that doesnt make your REAL achievement any less awesome? They cheated!

I get the same feeling from this as showing off raid epix in wow. It seems some of the players do it simply to rub it in other peoples face. "oooh, look what I have and you dont, nananananana" which to me seems not only childish, but also sad. There is not a single epic I've earned that has been for the sake of showing off, and there is not a single achievement I have earned in SC2 that has been for showing off. Its all about me baby Bugger other people.

If some people cheat those achievements still doesnt nullify the achievements of anyone doing them legitimately, if they did, then we can talk about bannable offense. Will a brutal campaign achiev be as rare if people cheat it? No. But so what? You know that you did it for real, isnt that enough?

And yes, I do care about unit portraits, but thats simply because the default ones are awful (probably on purpose) and that I love zerglings. I dont get the zergling portrait to show off in multiplayer, I get it (or rather get a friend of mine to earn it for me) because it pleases me to look at when I log on. Zerglings are cool.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

I'm really surprised at the users here all agreeing with Blizzard's course of action. Does no one here care about the legal precedent it sets for use of a product that is legally yours? I should be able to do anything I want with a product i legally bought (that even a law i think).

If Blizzard extends the EULA so that you have to give up your full name and address if you want to play, would you still like it?
If Blizzard extends the EULA so you can only play it during the odd days of the month, would you still like it?
If Blizzard extends the EULA so you can only play the game if you're sitting buttnaked infront of your desktop with a webcam feed directly to Bobby Kotick so he can jerk of on you get zergrushedpwned?

NO! Fuck Blizzard. My product, my choice.

Use of a product (StarCraft 2, the singleplayer campaign) =/= use of a service (Blizzard's Battle.net)

Blizzard is not taking away your right to play StarCraft 2 offline in any way you see fit. Hack the hell out of it if you want.

Blizzard can block you from the service it provides if you don't follow its rules. Which they did.