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On March 07 2019 03:54 badpenny wrote: there is now a link in the blizzard forum thread linked in op to a blog that allegedly sells maphack
Be advised, that the folks commenting on that linked thread are reporting it as a scam.
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On March 07 2019 04:20 Matt Sherman wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2019 03:54 badpenny wrote: there is now a link in the blizzard forum thread linked in op to a blog that allegedly sells maphack Be advised, that the folks commenting on that linked thread are reporting it as a scam. I will, thank you for your response.
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History repeats itself indeed. Remember what destroyed the original Bnet ladder? It was laggy, hacking was rampant, and its social channels were a haven for racists, hate speech, and generally despicable people. Lag has gotten better, although it's still not ideal (it's as much a function of the playerbase as the netcode), and it's nice that Blizzard is at least acknowledging that maphacking may exist. Yet I have serious doubts about whether Remastered Bnet can continue to thrive now, especially with such a small team at their disposal. Currently, there are users with racial and homophobic slurs in their username, people unironically espousing ethnic cleansing and racial violence in BW general chat, many of whom are the same people who have been doing it since launch and who have been reported hundreds of times. Even if they're buying new keys to do it, they aren't getting banned fast enough, if at all. This is the easiest aspect of battlenet to fix - a simple check of a user's chatlog for banned words or phrases, and instituting the same for name creation - yet that is apparently not enough of a priority issue to warrant development time.
As previously stated by others, an anti-cheat tool is not only difficult and time-consuming to develop, but it must be continuously and aggressively updated as new hacks get developed to ensure proper detection. This requires orders of magnitude more effort than simple chat moderation features, and it would require Remastered to get way more attention and development time than Blizzard seems willing to devote to it.
The suggestion that players should just practice with friends to dodge maphacking is like suggesting they join a null chat channel to avoid the agitators. Is that really the ideal state of the game, where I have to join an empty channel to avoid rule-breaking chatters and join private lobbies with people I trust to avoid hackers? It's especially unacceptable when tournaments like BSL, with money on the line, rely on ladder ranking to determine who qualifies. Ladder tournaments like TSL were only viable because of ICCup's anti-hack. Of course, people still figured out how to abuse the system, but anti-hack added some notion of legitimacy which ladder currently lacks.
I don't think making a list of known hackers is a solution either, even though it may be of use to some people. It's too easy to smurf and hide on Bnet, although it may be of use if known hackers try to qualify for BSL or something. But individual replay analysis and other subjective reporting rarely result in official action. The only real solution is a constantly updated anti-hack program, and I hope the BW team can figure that out. The presence alone of unchecked hacking will shrink the playerbase even more, which is not something BW can afford at this point.
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The Dev team is too small to police hacking. Play Ranked at your own risk or just play people you know don't hack - there are several discords with various members of the community.
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On March 07 2019 03:17 Incomplete..ReV wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2019 01:56 [AS]Rattus wrote: bwchart detecting those hacks? i guess not but did anybody try yet? It did before and I think it was primarily two things we looked for; 1. Auto-split (all actions done at 5, which is like a split second) 2. Clicks on buildings or units that were outside of vision The auto-split could be turned off. And in time we couldn't use the clicks on buildings either, as the program was developed to hide those from BWchart. Not sure if it'll work now, though.
At some point it also registered, if a player didnt click on enemy units at all right? since everybody does it, and player who didnt were obviously cheaters.
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On March 07 2019 08:23 JakePlissken wrote: History repeats itself indeed. Remember what destroyed the original Bnet ladder? It was laggy, hacking was rampant, and its social channels were a haven for racists, hate speech, and generally despicable people. Lag has gotten better, although it's still not ideal (it's as much a function of the playerbase as the netcode), and it's nice that Blizzard is at least acknowledging that maphacking may exist. Yet I have serious doubts about whether Remastered Bnet can continue to thrive now, especially with such a small team at their disposal. Currently, there are users with racial and homophobic slurs in their username, people unironically espousing ethnic cleansing and racial violence in BW general chat, many of whom are the same people who have been doing it since launch and who have been reported hundreds of times. Even if they're buying new keys to do it, they aren't getting banned fast enough, if at all. This is the easiest aspect of battlenet to fix - a simple check of a user's chatlog for banned words or phrases, and instituting the same for name creation - yet that is apparently not enough of a priority issue to warrant development time.
As previously stated by others, an anti-cheat tool is not only difficult and time-consuming to develop, but it must be continuously and aggressively updated as new hacks get developed to ensure proper detection. This requires orders of magnitude more effort than simple chat moderation features, and it would require Remastered to get way more attention and development time than Blizzard seems willing to devote to it.
The suggestion that players should just practice with friends to dodge maphacking is like suggesting they join a null chat channel to avoid the agitators. Is that really the ideal state of the game, where I have to join an empty channel to avoid rule-breaking chatters and join private lobbies with people I trust to avoid hackers? It's especially unacceptable when tournaments like BSL, with money on the line, rely on ladder ranking to determine who qualifies. Ladder tournaments like TSL were only viable because of ICCup's anti-hack. Of course, people still figured out how to abuse the system, but anti-hack added some notion of legitimacy which ladder currently lacks.
I don't think making a list of known hackers is a solution either, even though it may be of use to some people. It's too easy to smurf and hide on Bnet, although it may be of use if known hackers try to qualify for BSL or something. But individual replay analysis and other subjective reporting rarely result in official action. The only real solution is a constantly updated anti-hack program, and I hope the BW team can figure that out. The presence alone of unchecked hacking will shrink the playerbase even more, which is not something BW can afford at this point.
blizzard isn't going to devote money for other features unless they can get something in return. businessmen will be businessmen. if they're going to put more money into BW community they need a way for us players to give them money. cosmetics aren't an option, since a lot of us focus on OG graphics, subscription for ranked play won't fly (who would pay for that), buying remastered is a 1 time thing, etc etc. if there's a way to generate money from SC playerbase then they should do that, and then BW will be more of a priority to them.
__maaybe__ skins for UI? but who wants to put money into that?
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Nice, now I can start playing Brood War again, because if I lose a game, I can just blame it on hacks.
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On March 07 2019 14:42 simple_george wrote: blizzard isn't going to devote money for other features unless they can get something in return.
That's partially what I'm saying; I didn't want to sound too pessimistic, but BW doesn't really lend itself to a paid model at all, and without money the problem isn't going to get fixed. If it ever gets to the point where hacks of any kind are readily available, there's basically no chance they'll be stopped on battlenet at all, no matter how bad it gets. Ladder and even custom melee games will be completely illegitimate.
For that matter, Brood War simply cannot survive without a populated and hack-free ladder system. That role was interchangeably filled by PGTour, ICCup, Fish, and now Remastered. If Remastered ladder is done for, then I guess diehard players will migrate back to ICCup (assuming of course that the new hacks are somehow blocked by ICCup's antique anti-hack client, which I sincerely doubt) and everyone else who isn't hacking will just quit. This is the same kind of runaway train that has destroyed dozens of similarly mismanaged online games, and that will be the story of Brood War as well.
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but aren't they kinda getting a subscription fee from korean PCbangs as long as people are playing BW?
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On March 07 2019 19:57 JakePlissken wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2019 14:42 simple_george wrote: blizzard isn't going to devote money for other features unless they can get something in return.
That's partially what I'm saying; I didn't want to sound too pessimistic, but BW doesn't really lend itself to a paid model at all, and without money the problem isn't going to get fixed. If it ever gets to the point where hacks of any kind are readily available, there's basically no chance they'll be stopped on battlenet at all, no matter how bad it gets. Ladder and even custom melee games will be completely illegitimate. For that matter, Brood War simply cannot survive without a populated and hack-free ladder system. That role was interchangeably filled by PGTour, ICCup, Fish, and now Remastered. If Remastered ladder is done for, then I guess diehard players will migrate back to ICCup (assuming of course that the new hacks are somehow blocked by ICCup's antique anti-hack client, which I sincerely doubt) and everyone else who isn't hacking will just quit. This is the same kind of runaway train that has destroyed dozens of similarly mismanaged online games, and that will be the story of Brood War as well.
On March 07 2019 03:30 Matt Sherman wrote: We take cheating very seriously and are investigating the recent reports.
Your wild speculation is pointless at best, harmful at worst... If a Blizzard employee is posting in this thread to let the community know that they are working on a solution, just relax with this "Oh, there isn't any money so Blizz is going to let BW die dur durrr." The 'story' of Broodwar is happening right now and you are part of it. Are you a hindrance or a help?
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On March 07 2019 08:23 JakePlissken wrote: his is the easiest aspect of battlenet to fix - a simple check of a user's chatlog for banned words or phrases, and instituting the same for name creation - yet that is apparently not enough of a priority issue to warrant development time.
This is no solution for a number of reasons, once you actually imagine what kind of implications that would be, aside from the technical issues that arise. First off, "insults" are determined by the receiving end of it, a "omfg you moron" is a prime and harmless example. You might be offended it in ladder if it is directed at you, but it also just might be a player talking to himself or directing it towards a close friend he might now in real life. Futhermore, you might need a huge cataloge with a huge number of words, considering that there are different languages with different char sets and the potential that stuff like Russians using swear words in non-cyrillic or Koreans insulting you with non-Hangul. Once you have that, you need the power and the finesse to filter out what's actually harmful and what's not. Not to mention that it takes away a lot of freedom of interaction that seems over the top to you, but it is more or less trash talking to others in different contexts. Or some clan names, that are puns and play-on-words, such as "rasierte Eier Dödel" (foreign clan, German for shaved ball dudes), which is fun to some, most won't care, and only few (hello Liquipedia) react as if the name itself would be some kind of - I really don't know and can only assume - plague that somehow transforms an innocent child into a sex offender or something.
I'm very much against censorships and filters, as I already find the censorship built in more than just ridiculous. Down the line, most keyboard warriors use the really bad slurs (really racist and homophobic termniology) to get attention they otherwise do not find in real life. If you acknowledge their overacting, which is in 99% of the cases not truely meant as racism, you give them an extra token of motivation to find new ways to break the rules or circumvent filters, which inevitably makes things worse for the silent majority. The internet was, is and always will be a culprit for teenagers trying to figure out how they can behave without any major repercussions to their real life. In that context the censor-filters are okay in a way, that I get that Blizzard wants to dodge legal actions, but it really should only cover the most basic bullshit, it's just stuff you have to live with. So the most effective thing to do is to ignore shit that objectively doesn't harm you and stay calm, really. There's no gain here. Whatsoever. Every action is just fuel to the fire, if it doesn't concern the most extreme cases (such as major bullying campaigns directed at one or few people over an extended period of time).
It's especially unacceptable when tournaments like BSL, with money on the line, rely on ladder ranking to determine who qualifies.
Even if there's an anti-hack in place, it doesn't mean that you do not have to check for other forms of abuse. Especially in ladder based tournaments and qualifications an anti-hack is a nice tool to have, but not a required one, as you can check reps. The best anti-hack is and always will be a team picking doubtful replays. Most map hackers have been caught when they did stupid and odd stuff along the lines, more or less in addition to AH-updates and other technical tricks to reveal their stupidity.
You never will have a truely cheat-free environment, for that you would need observers standing next to each player always and everywhere.
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On March 07 2019 04:20 Matt Sherman wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2019 03:54 badpenny wrote: there is now a link in the blizzard forum thread linked in op to a blog that allegedly sells maphack Be advised, that the folks commenting on that linked thread are reporting it as a scam.
to be fair, scamming maphackers sounds totaly fair to me xD
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On March 07 2019 03:30 Matt Sherman wrote: We take cheating very seriously and are investigating the recent reports.
i would like to dig this thread out again to ask, if there are any news you can share with us regarding the OP, Matt Sherman?
@Community: have there been any more recent, reliable, reports about maphacking or similar hacks lately?
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As long as they have a classic team, they should have like one programmer on duty just for continuous anti cheat development. Maybe they can have a cycle of giving a bounty to whoever can provide a maphack (including source code) that bypasses current protection, then updating protection so that the hack in question no longer works. I know that this would cost money, but they're apparently paying a few people at least to update StarCraft, for now. Every measure will eventually be cracked, but at least it keeps buying time, and putting sticks in to the wheels of the cheaters.
On the other hand, it also creates a more lucrative black market for hackers, because it allows them to keep selling newer, updated, hacking tools when old ones stop working. I'll take it though.
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You never will have a truely cheat-free environment, for that you would need observers standing next to each player always and everywhere.
Some online tournaments have required people to stream their games. In other RTS games, there have been cultures of having to upload screenshots on request. It was annoying as I got accused of cheating all of the gods damned time and had to spam lots of screenshot.
Of course, these measures aren't perfect as they're more effective in the actual tournament than on the ladder itself.
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played this guy on ladder, "Tarunbuffed", accout was deleted before i could check his profile.
at 12:00 he irradiates 6 lurkers at once which is stacked under overlord, without vision.
the only time he leaves his base with vessels is to irradiate before i get to close to his base, without vision
at one point he has over 1k apm, and 600 avg. in a 54min game
rep: https://repmastered.app/game/-jHe5TytZfeRk_NkbxLPyWN_tdoyF3cL2PB_8pFr1mE
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On August 22 2021 08:55 WhistlerR- wrote:played this guy on ladder, "Tarunbuffed", accout was deleted before i could check his profile. at 12:00 he irradiates 6 lurkers at once which is stacked under overlord, without vision. the only time he leaves his base with vessels is to irradiate before i get to close to his base, without vision at one point he has over 1k apm, and 600 avg. in a 54min game rep: https://repmastered.app/game/-jHe5TytZfeRk_NkbxLPyWN_tdoyF3cL2PB_8pFr1mE
Geez. I got maphacked on ladder today too. It was tvz and the dude didn’t even send out his starting overlord and just kept it in his base. Didn’t scout with ling or drone. First time his units came to me was his mutas and he went straight to my base. Would counter me every time I left my base even though he had no vision the entire time. He sent 0 overlords out and had no lings. Would build sunkens as soon as I would move out at all bases. He was a rank Zerg so it wasn’t just newb luck. Didn’t even try to hide hack by not sending overlord out. It was on polypoid so 4 player map
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On August 22 2021 08:55 WhistlerR- wrote:played this guy on ladder, "Tarunbuffed", accout was deleted before i could check his profile. at 12:00 he irradiates 6 lurkers at once which is stacked under overlord, without vision. the only time he leaves his base with vessels is to irradiate before i get to close to his base, without vision at one point he has over 1k apm, and 600 avg. in a 54min game rep: https://repmastered.app/game/-jHe5TytZfeRk_NkbxLPyWN_tdoyF3cL2PB_8pFr1mE
That multitask hack is pretty cool. Not so cool to face i guess.
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On August 22 2021 08:55 WhistlerR- wrote:played this guy on ladder, "Tarunbuffed", accout was deleted before i could check his profile. at 12:00 he irradiates 6 lurkers at once which is stacked under overlord, without vision. the only time he leaves his base with vessels is to irradiate before i get to close to his base, without vision at one point he has over 1k apm, and 600 avg. in a 54min game rep: https://repmastered.app/game/-jHe5TytZfeRk_NkbxLPyWN_tdoyF3cL2PB_8pFr1mE
Peak APM of 2700+, I guess not even JulyZerg can win this guy.
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