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

[Enkidu88]

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?

I think your missing my point, Blizzard itself and its actions aren't bad on the surface. Its probably done with the best of intentions. However, as I've stated this is going to set a very dangerous legal precedent. The EULA is now more than a simple message you have to click past, its now enforceable and that is in no way good for us, the consumer of these games.

I've not looked at the trainer nor do I own Starcraft II, and maybe they do the same things, but in my experience trainers usually unlock cheat options that standard cheat codes don't. Maybe Starcraft II is the exception. My point was that Blizzard had other, less draconian methods at it's disposal, there were other options that could have been explored rather than a mass suspension of everyone who used a trainer. Most people probably didn't care about the achievements, and cheated just out of habit.

In the end, it's not Blizzard's actions that have me concerned, so much as what those actions have set in motion.

 

[HellsingerAngel]

-snip-

Mr Funk, I bring you this:

Just like to shed some further light on this issue...

Instant Cooldowns(built-in), Unlock Research(built-in), Unlimited Credits(built-in), Minerals(built-in), Gas(built-in), Troops(built-in), Kill Enemy Resources(map editor), Reveal Map(built-in), Instant Build(built-in), Instant Units(built-in), God Mode(built-in), Super Damage(built-in), Unlimited Unit Energy(built-in), Heal Unit/Structures(built-in), Drain Unit/Structures(map editor), Add Kills(map editor), Save/Load Position (Teleport)(built-in), Speed up/Slow Down Units(map editor), Increase/Decrease Fire Rate(map editor), Increase/Decrease Unit Range(map editor), Instant Control of Entire Map(map editor), Control Enemy Units(map editor), Increase/Decrease Mission Timer(map editor).

So everything here can be done within the parameters Blizzard has set. I see no reason to fuss about not using trainers. BUT WAIT! There's more to this an meets the eye...

Made exclusively for Cheat Happens. WRITTEN FOR THE PATCHED (1.1.0.16561) RETAIL VERSION OF THE GAME. May not work with all versions. Read the included readme file with Notepad for important instructions on using the trainer. This trainer features customizable hotkeys. SINGLE PLAYER OFFLINE USE ONLY. USE AT OWN RISK.

So they had a warning up, on Spetember 28th (the release date of this trainer) to not use it online, which is exactly what these people are getting their B.Net accounts banned for. They even had warnings on the August 24th update. This is not news to cheathappens.com people. They're willingly lying to the community about this entire fiasco, trying to place blame on Blizzard for banning people using their programs. Why, you may ask?

Ultimate Trainer 1.1.1.16605 UNLIMITED MEMBERS ONLY!

To fill their own pockets. These trainers are usable only by paying customers to the cheathappens.com site. This is causing frustration within the player base that have paid good money for a product that is recognised as illegal to be online with. So what does cheathappens.com do? Why, point the finger at Blizzard, of course! Anything to muddle the heart of the matter so that people keep paying for their service for other titles. This website recognizes the dangers, they know that work arounds and proper ways to use said trainers without attaching it to your B.Net acocunt, but feel that just blaming Blizzard is easier because then they don't get the flak for something they did wrong.

The article first posted in this thread is a down right lie, as they're telling people they've been banned from playing the single-player game! This isn't true, as that's what Guest sign-in is there for: to circumvent having to register online and not having to authenticate your actions to Battle.Net. Overall, cheathappens.com seems to be the bad guy here and have gotten away with it thus far because the other side happens to be a large corperation. People, get your facts straight and stand up for the one who's in the right here! Support Blizzard like you know you should, because they are morally correct. They've done what needed to be done in the face of cheaters within the online community and cheathappens.com is lying about it.

I only hope more people look into an issue before raising hell for it.

 

[NLS]

I like how Cheat Happens states that Blizzard is only after the player's money, as if they weren't sucking out money from players themselves.

 

[Enkidu88]

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.

And when another company decides to take the same route but doesn't offer an offline mode what then? They can point to Blizzard doing the exact same thing and claim they're just following market trends. That's the real problem here, they've set a precedent, and if it ever goes to court, a precedent that's going to take a lot of time and money to overturn.

 

[cerebus23]

eh remove and lock the achievements if people are cheating them in single player. problem solved if they are cheating to unlock them, i mean sc2 on hard in the campaign map gets stupidly hard early on with the AI getting max level nuker titan units and junk in the missions and your stuck with unupgraded noob junk you can send 30 units after one of their super groups and get your ass handed to you. and if you do kill one titan thing then another shows up.....real fun that difficulty.

i am sure if some of us that are not gods of the sp campaign and cannot beat some missions on normal or hard or insanity difficulty then we are going to get slaughtered online most of the time no matter what worthless achievements we have on our game profile.

only fine line here is that blizzards cheats disable achievements and trainers i would assume do not. so fix that problem and say if you want to use 3rd party cheat well fine but your going to lose your achievements permanently on your account, and send them a list of blizs own cheats while they are sending out emails to warn people,

banning them tho is silly and uncalled for it is overreacting when there are easier solutions. and after this 2 week ban then if they cheat again what is is it a month? after than 6 months? i mean common.

 

[Ranorak]

unlike Xbox (as far as I know) The SC2 pictures DO have a use in the game itself.

If I'm queueing up a random match, the first thing I see is their selected picture.
If this is a impressive "You had X amounts of wins" I'll play differently. It's the first impression you give and thus shouldn't be cheated for.

 

[Dr. Dice Lord]

Suspend the cheaters, or just (please) ban them. Its all the same to me. Even if its "Just singleplayer" they're ruining the game for those of us who actually put in the hours and effort to unlock the achievements.

Play fair or don't play.

 

[Rack]

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.

Like the rest of this thread, total bullshit. Blizzard can, have and did take away the single player offline version from everyone because hey, they're assholes like that and people playing their single player game offline relinquishes far too much control for them. Considering it's virtually impossible to play offline and the "guest" mode is highly misleading if it's meant to be the principle method of playing single player oin your own god damn game and seriously anyone who does give a crap over what picture appears next to their name deserves a slap in the face this is totally outrageous behaviour. But then hey, Blizzard did buy a ton of advertising on this site.

 

[Daft Ghosty]

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 answered that in both my posts. It's is blizzards problem they made a mistake to give rewards for online play, in the single player game. So their answer to people who cheat, and receive the achievements is to suspend the person, for the single player activity. Their solution to provide a guest log on is not a solution for a poorly thought out achievement system. It feels tact on at the end.

So no blizzard should not shrug its shoulders, but it should have been smarter in putting this system into place. If their solution from day one was to punish people for doing this in the single player, then they made a very poor choice as a company, when they had many other options open to them. All they have done is set up a situation that paints them in a bad light.

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.

Some of what I said above applies here as well. They set up the situation that allowed this to happen. As for warned people this would happen. Um I do not visit Blizzards web site, I do not read their emails, and I could care less in visiting their message boards. When I purchase a game I do not even crack open the player manual. I put the disk in the drive install the game, and begin playing. My reason for playing online at the time was the hope that I wouldn't have to keep the disk in the drive, as I was playing the game back and forth on my main pc, and my laptop. If I'd been unable to log in because of this, it would have been a surprise and would have ended with me snapping my game disk in half, and mailing it back to them with a letter telling them to stick the broke pieces somewhere useful around their anus, and that they wouldn't see another dollar from me. As it happened I beat the game and something later on involving blizzard ended in pretty much the same thing, minus the broken disk, and the whole shove the pieces into an area around anus.

I understand where you are coming from. I agree that if people are doing this to gain in the MP game then something should be done, its unfortunate that blizzard allowed this to happen at all. What I don't like is that blizzard allowed this to be a problem in the first place. It just feeds into the way I see things with them. They have grown really large off of wow, and now they don't think, they just react.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

he wasn't cheating the single player game, he was cheating the multiplayer, blizzard hosted, achievement metagame

 

[VanityGirl]

Here's a better question for those of you crying FOUL.

Why would you buy a game that you just HAVE to cheat in?
Before you quote that one line, read my whole post.

I can understand playing the game all the way through, then using some cheats to dick around with, but in SCII your single play ahcievements tie into your online rank. Why not just use the play offline mode (Guest) and use cheats there?

I logged onto WoW today and updated my account and under the Terms of Use (which NO ONE bothers to read) it clearly says "any use of third party software is not allowed and is punishable by suspension or ban". So why even bother cheating?

People who say that "we're paying customers and they're taking away our money". No, YOU are taking away your own money. If you thought you'd cheat your way to get achievements and everything then it is your own fault that you were suspended or banned.

This is very similar to what happened in Modern Warfare 2. Many of the people who were caught with glitched 10th prestige ranks were immediately BANNED from xbox live. This was their own fault. Honestly, it sucked to be a person who was working hard for their rank and to see other people with (obviously) glitched ranks. It made my achievements in the game feel unimpressive and actually ruined the game expeirence for me.


So do I think a suspension or banning was justified? Hell yes I do.

 

[linwolf]

For me Blizzard is in the wrong here. If someone is playing cards and cheats at poker be mad at them, but if they cheat at Solitaire it's completely there own decision.

 

[John Funk]

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.

Like the rest of this thread, total bullshit. Blizzard can, have and did take away the single player offline version from everyone because hey, they're assholes like that and people playing their single player game offline relinquishes far too much control for them. Considering it's virtually impossible to play offline and the "guest" mode is highly misleading if it's meant to be the principle method of playing single player oin your own god damn game and seriously anyone who does give a crap over what picture appears next to their name deserves a slap in the face this is totally outrageous behaviour. But then hey, Blizzard did buy a ton of advertising on this site.

First: Chill the hell out. You can argue without being a dick.

Second: I just logged into my offline Guest profile just fine.

 

[Hawgh]

Considering that there are already official cheats available, I have difficulty sympathising with the righteous fury of the suspendees. It smacks a little bit of upset that they were caught with their fingers in the jar.

 

[Tehlanna TPX]

Way too much QQ in this thread.

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?

I think your missing my point, Blizzard itself and its actions aren't bad on the surface. Its probably done with the best of intentions. However, as I've stated this is going to set a very dangerous legal precedent. The EULA is now more than a simple message you have to click past, its now enforceable and that is in no way good for us, the consumer of these games.

I've not looked at the trainer nor do I own Starcraft II, and maybe they do the same things, but in my experience trainers usually unlock cheat options that standard cheat codes don't. Maybe Starcraft II is the exception. My point was that Blizzard had other, less draconian methods at it's disposal, there were other options that could have been explored rather than a mass suspension of everyone who used a trainer. Most people probably didn't care about the achievements, and cheated just out of habit.

In the end, it's not Blizzard's actions that have me concerned, so much as what those actions have set in motion.

God forbid the EULA be enforceable! What is so draconian about enforcing the contract, which is essentially agreed upon the moment you accept the conditions required to use Battle.net?

OT: There is way too much panic going on in this thread, and its rather repugnant. If you're going to cheat, stick to offline mode. People who actually work for their achievements, as silly and frivolous as a fucking portrait may be, deserve to take pride in it without knowing some lazy sob can just pay someone to get it for him. Cheaters were warned. Enough said.

And if I see one more "ZOMG ACTIVISION IS TEH NEW HITLER" esque statement (with or without Kotick) I think I will scream. You people are worse than the sheep that watch Fox News sometimes, I swear.

 

[MurderousToaster]

I love the uproar over Blizzard enforcing the rules they set out, and the cheaters agreed to upon buying the game. They signed the EULA, they face the consequences. It seems like people believe that the EULA is purely superficial. It actually helps to at least have a little skim over it before you click accept, you know.

 

[Rack]

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.

Like the rest of this thread, total bullshit. Blizzard can, have and did take away the single player offline version from everyone because hey, they're assholes like that and people playing their single player game offline relinquishes far too much control for them. Considering it's virtually impossible to play offline and the "guest" mode is highly misleading if it's meant to be the principle method of playing single player in your own god damn game and seriously anyone who does give a crap over what picture appears next to their name deserves a slap in the face this is totally outrageous behaviour. But then hey, Blizzard did buy a ton of advertising on this site.

First: Chill the hell out. You can argue without being a dick.

Second: I just logged into my offline Guest profile just fine.

You can log in to your offline Guest profile just fine when you're online. When you're offline, no such luck, it's locked out. I already know this because My SC2 disc effectively got turned into a coaster from this little trick. The whole thing of single player games only being available when the servers are up and you have a good connection and the company on the other end wants you to rankles me. Companies getting free passes for treating their customers like dirt rankles me. Single player gaming being ruined by achievements rankles me. Biased reporting rankles me.

Between all this I wonder if Blizzards villainy is actually constrained by Activision, they seem to be pioneers of terrible customer service.

 

[Enkidu88]

God forbid the EULA be enforceable! What is so draconian about enforcing the contract, which is essentially agreed upon the moment you accept the conditions required to use Battle.net?

You really don't have a problem with the EULA? An agreement which has you sign away rights as a consumer, a contract you don't even see until after you make purchase. Really? You want to go down that road, allowing a company to have free reign as to how you use a game in the privacy of your own home?

 

[Kinguendo]

Hmm, I am at odds who to side with... while I have always hated cheaters, Bliazzard have annoyed me most recently having said to me TWICE that my account has been hacked and when I asked them to delete it they asked me to jump through all these hoops... even though they JUST told me my account had been hacked themselves and it was just a trial account.

BLAST! Even if I were to side with the cheaters it wouldnt be because they are cheating so... by default I am on Blizzards side. (Still, fuck you Blizzard!)

 

[T-Bone24]

Well this just levels the playing field. Blizzard must have found out that I was buying the game soon and, rightly so, wanted to make sure that I would be the greatest.