Well, I've taken some time to formulate my opinion on this matter and here it is. Some you may agree with and some you may not, but this is my stance. And I apologize in advance for the fact that this post is going to be very long and very messy. I have cut it down somewhat.
There are multiple sides to this issue. It's not just about cheating. It's about more.
Now, I'm not going to claim that Blizzard is selfish, greedy or totalitarian because, well, I'm not stupid.
I choose to look at this whole mess through both sides' eyes. They each make some very good points. For starters.....
In Blizzard's defense, they gave us cheat codes (which, hilariously enough, some players considered illegal when Blizzard said that cheating was against the EULA). These codes evidently disable achievements so that you can't earn them or their associated rewards once you've started cheating, unless you (ironically) use a certain cheat code to go back and start all over again at a certain point.
Yes, you aren't hurting anyone by cheating in single-player games and so normally you should be allowed to cheat and even use third-party software such as trainers, but then the fact that SC2 has displayable achievements written into the single-player campaign somewhat complicates the issue here.
The fact that some people used cheats to try and get certain portraits is just retarded.
Just be glad that Blizzard merely suspended trainer-users instead of banning them like multiplayer hackers.
Blizzard has a great record in the games industry. They've done a lot of good. I'm not going to tell you about it, you can go research it yourself.
However, when it comes to players who only play the single-player campaign, then I see no reason as to why they should be punished, even if they try deliberately to get achievements and portraits by cheating. And yes, some probably are like this. If they're not playing multi-player at all, then there's no harm in letting them do their thing, even if they do log on before they hit up the campaign.
In the defense of the other side, there are some very serious implications. Blizzard has suspended players for using trainers in the single-player campaign, fine, but they've also apparently provided us a way to play offline with the choice of using trainers if we so choose to. However, who's to say other game companies won't allow us to cheat in single-player? What happens if games get "always connected to the internet" DRM and they use this to prevent us from using trainers in single-player at all? That's just wrong on the principle that we as gamers have the right to make our single-player experiences fun at the expense of nobody else. If I'm not playing with anyone else, it's my product and I can do whatever I like with it on principle. And yes, I'm aware that Starcraft 2 is the product and Battle.net 2 is the service and there's a difference between the two. But while Blizzard may have done what I think is the correct, if a tad heavy-handed, method of punishment, there's a bit of a problem and that is the precedent that this sets for future developments within the games industry.
Honestly, in my eyes, how innocent a Starcraft 2 player is in this whole thing is not only dependent on whether or not he used trainers (which he hopefully didn't pay for lol), but also what his reasons behind using them were. In some cases, this isn't about cheating to get achievements, this is about cheating to get the most out of the game-play experience.
For someone like me who prefers to somewhat customize their single-player experience in order to get the most possible fun out of it at nobody else's expense, I think we as gamers have a right (yes, a right) to that in any single-player game. And I only ever use and display portraits and achievements that I earn the hard way. That's my principle. However, anyone who uses a trainer to get gold on all the Challenge missions just so he can proudly display the Spectre portrait can piss off. I've yet to get gold on the last four challenges and while the Spectre portrait looks pretty cool, I'm not using it until I get it the proper way. That should be every SC2 player's principle. But I wouldn't go so far as to sneer at someone who used a trainer in single-player, even if he deliberately farmed achievements and portraits, and tell him he should be banned for it. It's between him and Blizzard, not him and me.
Calm down, guys. The amount of raging over this is showing signs of getting out of hand. Let's remain civil, please?
There are multiple sides to this issue. It's not just about cheating. It's about more.
Now, I'm not going to claim that Blizzard is selfish, greedy or totalitarian because, well, I'm not stupid.
I choose to look at this whole mess through both sides' eyes. They each make some very good points. For starters.....
In Blizzard's defense, they gave us cheat codes (which, hilariously enough, some players considered illegal when Blizzard said that cheating was against the EULA). These codes evidently disable achievements so that you can't earn them or their associated rewards once you've started cheating, unless you (ironically) use a certain cheat code to go back and start all over again at a certain point.
Yes, you aren't hurting anyone by cheating in single-player games and so normally you should be allowed to cheat and even use third-party software such as trainers, but then the fact that SC2 has displayable achievements written into the single-player campaign somewhat complicates the issue here.
The fact that some people used cheats to try and get certain portraits is just retarded.
Just be glad that Blizzard merely suspended trainer-users instead of banning them like multiplayer hackers.
Blizzard has a great record in the games industry. They've done a lot of good. I'm not going to tell you about it, you can go research it yourself.
However, when it comes to players who only play the single-player campaign, then I see no reason as to why they should be punished, even if they try deliberately to get achievements and portraits by cheating. And yes, some probably are like this. If they're not playing multi-player at all, then there's no harm in letting them do their thing, even if they do log on before they hit up the campaign.
In the defense of the other side, there are some very serious implications. Blizzard has suspended players for using trainers in the single-player campaign, fine, but they've also apparently provided us a way to play offline with the choice of using trainers if we so choose to. However, who's to say other game companies won't allow us to cheat in single-player? What happens if games get "always connected to the internet" DRM and they use this to prevent us from using trainers in single-player at all? That's just wrong on the principle that we as gamers have the right to make our single-player experiences fun at the expense of nobody else. If I'm not playing with anyone else, it's my product and I can do whatever I like with it on principle. And yes, I'm aware that Starcraft 2 is the product and Battle.net 2 is the service and there's a difference between the two. But while Blizzard may have done what I think is the correct, if a tad heavy-handed, method of punishment, there's a bit of a problem and that is the precedent that this sets for future developments within the games industry.
Honestly, in my eyes, how innocent a Starcraft 2 player is in this whole thing is not only dependent on whether or not he used trainers (which he hopefully didn't pay for lol), but also what his reasons behind using them were. In some cases, this isn't about cheating to get achievements, this is about cheating to get the most out of the game-play experience.
For someone like me who prefers to somewhat customize their single-player experience in order to get the most possible fun out of it at nobody else's expense, I think we as gamers have a right (yes, a right) to that in any single-player game. And I only ever use and display portraits and achievements that I earn the hard way. That's my principle. However, anyone who uses a trainer to get gold on all the Challenge missions just so he can proudly display the Spectre portrait can piss off. I've yet to get gold on the last four challenges and while the Spectre portrait looks pretty cool, I'm not using it until I get it the proper way. That should be every SC2 player's principle. But I wouldn't go so far as to sneer at someone who used a trainer in single-player, even if he deliberately farmed achievements and portraits, and tell him he should be banned for it. It's between him and Blizzard, not him and me.
Calm down, guys. The amount of raging over this is showing signs of getting out of hand. Let's remain civil, please?
