Recently, several pro-gamers have been claiming that there are maphack users on battlenet. And 2 days ago, Soulkey, KSL season 2 winner, received a replay from his fan that contains an obvious maphack play:
- If you start watching at 6:35, you will see that the supposedly maphack user sends his probe to the corner of his opponent's base to warp gateways on 4-player map. What is even more suspicious is that the maphacker(?)'s probe suddenly stops and move backward near the opponent's base when the opponent player sends his probe to near his entrance to warp a pylon. As the clip linked above shows at the end, the maphack user was ranked #13 on ladder, suggesting that even high-level players are using maphack.
Here is another evidence: https://www.ygosu.com/community/st1/211598 - Just today, a user uploaded a replay on Korean Starcraft community website that shows another evidence of the existence of maphack.
I do not think it is prevalent on battle-net yet but I hope the admin can take necessary measures because a disease like this doesn't take long before spreading out like wildfire. I remember back 1.16 era, it was virtually impossible to play games on official battle-net servers because 7 out 10 times, I would face a maphack player (I actually experimented with sharing vision and seeing if the other player notices or not). I sincerely hope this doesn't happen to remastered now that we no longer have havens such as fish server anymore.
If this is true this is really bad for the automated matchmaking system, Blizzard really needs to address this. Those are my personal thoughts. I can't imagine this would make it to offline play but it absolutely affects ladder play if it goes mainstream. Which means that really private servers will probably become more prominent if Blizzard cannot stop this type of BS....History repeating itself.
that maphacker played against effort yesterday night. did not even bother to send a scouting probe and yet build 2 cannons right before lings appraoch his wall. lowish ~200 apm and has 0 game sense in mid/lategame apart from reacting to whatever his maphack showed him what effort is gonna do. outclassed and ragequitted eventually. sad individual really.
On March 05 2019 14:18 GGzerG wrote: If this is true this is really bad for the automated matchmaking system, Blizzard really needs to address this. Those are my personal thoughts. I can't imagine this would make it to offline play but it absolutely affects ladder play if it goes mainstream. Which means that really private servers will probably become more prominent if Blizzard cannot stop this type of BS....History repeating itself.
their anticheat is useless and they never bother to update it effectively in either bw or sc2 for a decade, why would they even start now.
On March 05 2019 14:23 ggsimida wrote: that maphacker played against effort yesterday night. did not even bother to send a scouting probe and yet build 2 cannons right before lings appraoch his wall. lowish ~200 apm and has 0 game sense in mid/lategame apart from reacting to whatever his maphack showed him what effort is gonna do. outclassed and ragequitted eventually. sad individual really.
On March 05 2019 14:18 GGzerG wrote: If this is true this is really bad for the automated matchmaking system, Blizzard really needs to address this. Those are my personal thoughts. I can't imagine this would make it to offline play but it absolutely affects ladder play if it goes mainstream. Which means that really private servers will probably become more prominent if Blizzard cannot stop this type of BS....History repeating itself.
their anticheat is useless and they never bother to update it effectively in either bw or sc2 for a decade, why would they even start now.
A maphacker is such a vile and pathetic creature, it even loathes itself. That's why it doesn't even go through the pretense of scouting to try and blend in. It wants to be found out because its existence otherwise is so agonizingly lonely. Can you imagine beating Jaedong in a 1v1 and not being able to show the replay to anyone, because the first question would be oh, how did you know to double stargate if you never scouted? And it's not like Jaedong cares he lost to a maphacker. So empty and pointless and lonely. They're just waiting to be unmasked, because that's the satisfaction, the attention, oh I really scammed all of you you thought I was playing a stand-up game but I could see your units.
Arghhhh, it's bloodydaunting enough for folks like me who played Brood War as a kid casually and only got exposed to high-level play later via Starcraft 2 playing against longtime vets, never mind if there are maphackers afoot.
On March 05 2019 20:04 AntiHack wrote: Show nested quote +
Let's go back to fish... oh wait
Fish must have been the only hack free server on the internet
On March 05 2019 14:18 GGzerG wrote:
If this is true this is really bad for the automated matchmaking system, Blizzard really needs to address this. Those are my personal thoughts. I can't imagine this would make it to offline play but it absolutely affects ladder play if it goes mainstream. Which means that really private servers will probably become more prominent if Blizzard cannot stop this type of BS....History repeating itself.
Why do you say blizzard in particular? How many companies have won the game against cheater/hacker?
Because Blizzard is infamous for doing Ban waves and juristically engaging cheat/bot developers instead of trying to steadily rid their games of cheaters by enforcing their warden system. It´s likely the more feasible option for them. Do nothing, let the cheaters become invested into the game they r playing, wait 6 months, ban all of them, watch how they buy new keys because they r still hooked, and let them rinse and repeat, Politics really. There are profits to be made, even from cheaters.
On March 05 2019 22:51 oBlade wrote: A maphacker is such a vile and pathetic creature, it even loathes itself. That's why it doesn't even go through the pretense of scouting to try and blend in. It wants to be found out because its existence otherwise is so agonizingly lonely. Can you imagine beating Jaedong in a 1v1 and not being able to show the replay to anyone, because the first question would be oh, how did you know to double stargate if you never scouted? And it's not like Jaedong cares he lost to a maphacker. So empty and pointless and lonely. They're just waiting to be unmasked, because that's the satisfaction, the attention, oh I really scammed all of you you thought I was playing a stand-up game but I could see your units.
If any maphacker would see your post here, their mission would be complete. People cheat because it gives them a sense of power and nothing pleases that desire more then the anger of their victims.
I will refrain from any negativity and insulting these scumbags, because that isn't going to help. I only suggest that we start a list of known hackers somewhere (TL thread?) and keep it updated so we can simply ostracize these scum without giving them too much attention. That seems like a win/win to me.
Ideally, Blizzard will be the ones to come up with a solution, but it never hurts to prepare for the worst.
On March 05 2019 14:23 ggsimida wrote: that maphacker played against effort yesterday night. did not even bother to send a scouting probe and yet build 2 cannons right before lings appraoch his wall. lowish ~200 apm and has 0 game sense in mid/lategame apart from reacting to whatever his maphack showed him what effort is gonna do. outclassed and ragequitted eventually. sad individual really.
On March 05 2019 14:18 GGzerG wrote: If this is true this is really bad for the automated matchmaking system, Blizzard really needs to address this. Those are my personal thoughts. I can't imagine this would make it to offline play but it absolutely affects ladder play if it goes mainstream. Which means that really private servers will probably become more prominent if Blizzard cannot stop this type of BS....History repeating itself.
their anticheat is useless and they never bother to update it effectively in either bw or sc2 for a decade, why would they even start now.
Let's go back to fish... oh wait
Fish gave you antihack, along with all the malware and other bullshit associated with their software.
There you go! A money hack on b.net. This game was on ladder. Played in December. My friend showed me this replay.
This is hardly a hack. This was played on UMS settings so it was just a rigged map. If you don't know the guy, never play 1v1 on ums settings or ask him beforehand to switch the first player slot in the lobby with you.
But regarding the OP it is pretty sad that maphacks are popping up again.
On D2 blizzard is leaving the game to cheaters for a long time. Rarely they do some ban wave, most of the time they just let it all go to hacks and it does ruin the game in many ways (there are still many players despite the bad situation cause the game is one of their best). Back in the day they did deal with bots and ban much more often, but nowadays they're mostly letting this half rot, make some minimalistic community communication on a general classic forum, and reply to nobody despite many reports and requests to make the ladder legit again. Expect absolutely nothing good from blizzard, but if it comes, well done.
Just because I'm talking about D2? Thx for your shitty empty comment. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more ppl playing D2 today than D3, but that's irrelevant. Why are you on a forum about Starcraft 1 ? WTF. Well, because it's a good game, doesn't even matter that it's much better than Starcraft 2. geez.......
(I even think there are many more players on D2 than BW nowadays...)
It's very hard to create and update a good anti-cheat tool, especially if the hacker is an experienced professional. Luckily, the amount of cheaters in SC:BW is low compared to f.e shooters/mmorpgs because it's not quite as enjoyable and finding someone with map hack is quite easy due to replays.
I think a good way to prevent this is to improve the "report" feature so people who hack / lag the game easily can get reported and reviewed by some admin and deleted (similar to how report worked in iccup. It was very convenient).
On March 06 2019 03:47 A.Alm wrote: It's very hard to create and update a good anti-cheat tool, especially if the hacker is an experienced professional. Luckily, the amount of cheaters in SC:BW is low compared to f.e shooters/mmorpgs because it's not quite as enjoyable and finding someone with map hack is quite easy due to replays.
I think a good way to prevent this is to improve the "report" feature so people who hack / lag the game easily can get reported and reviewed by some admin and deleted (similar to how report worked in iccup. It was very convenient).
Agreed, i often read that argument before. But you need manpower to do that and im doubtful blizzard wants to employ a bunch of people just to review ladder complaints. On third party servers it was done always by volunteers.
On March 06 2019 03:30 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Just because I'm talking about D2? Thx for your shitty empty comment. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more ppl playing D2 today than D3, but that's irrelevant. Why are you on a forum about Starcraft 1 ? WTF. Well, because it's a good game, doesn't even matter that it's much better than Starcraft 2. geez.......
Yeah, lets talk about that 19 year old game and how it actually does not have hack/bot/cheat control. Unlike games like Path of Exile, right? Or check out DotA 2: Apparently scripting is having a good time. You are also using all the cool kids blizzard bashes. Damn you cool
On March 06 2019 03:47 A.Alm wrote: It's very hard to create and update a good anti-cheat tool, especially if the hacker is an experienced professional. Luckily, the amount of cheaters in SC:BW is low compared to f.e shooters/mmorpgs because it's not quite as enjoyable and finding someone with map hack is quite easy due to replays.
I think a good way to prevent this is to improve the "report" feature so people who hack / lag the game easily can get reported and reviewed by some admin and deleted (similar to how report worked in iccup. It was very convenient).
Agreed, i often read that argument before. But you need manpower to do that and im doubtful blizzard wants to employ a bunch of people just to review ladder complaints. On third party servers it was done always by volunteers.
Yeah, good point. It is quite time consuming.
ProMeTheus112, can't you play offline/VLAN with your buddies in D2 and skip all the online duping of cash and hackers? that's what do atleast and it's fun but im a big noob on D2 tho hehe
similar in sc:bw, if u got a few buddies/clan u can ignore ladder entirely. This is f.e impossible in mmorpgs, or csgo if u dont have a huge clan etc. Soo comparitively i think we're pretty blessed
On March 06 2019 02:39 GunSlinger wrote: I will refrain from any negativity and insulting these scumbags, because that isn't going to help. I only suggest that we start a list of known hackers somewhere (TL thread?) and keep it updated so we can simply ostracize these scum without giving them too much attention. That seems like a win/win to me.
Ideally, Blizzard will be the ones to come up with a solution, but it never hurts to prepare for the worst.
Both actively playing in leagues now or during the last few months. Favorit even playing in a Blizzard sponsored event lol. You can call BW in Korea Esports but foreign BW is more like a game of R.I.S.K at 2am after 0.5l of vodka, there is not much integrity. It's not like clan leaders or for example bwcl organizers are unaware who these people are either.
On March 06 2019 05:00 A.Alm wrote:ProMeTheus112, can't you play offline/VLAN with your buddies in D2 and skip all the online duping of cash and hackers? that's what do atleast and it's fun but im a big noob on D2 tho hehe
Well i know some D2 folks move on to single player, but the loss of the multiplayer experience is real ofc. However, there is actually a good private server that popped up kinda recently which is apparently very good and bot free (Path of Diablo). It seems its population is about 10% of battle.net, but still healthy enough to get some good coop and maybe pvp (?) including on hardcore. I may well play there later in the meantime playing other stuff still love D2. Playing more single player or closed multiplayer may surely be interesting but I have too much to play I'm interested in ladder/trading/coop environment of multiplayer server.
On March 06 2019 02:39 GunSlinger wrote: I will refrain from any negativity and insulting these scumbags, because that isn't going to help. I only suggest that we start a list of known hackers somewhere (TL thread?) and keep it updated so we can simply ostracize these scum without giving them too much attention. That seems like a win/win to me.
Ideally, Blizzard will be the ones to come up with a solution, but it never hurts to prepare for the worst.
Both actively playing in leagues now or during the last few months. Favorit even playing in a Blizzard sponsored event lol. You can call BW in Korea Esports but foreign BW is more like a game of R.I.S.K at 2am after 0.5l of vodka, there is not much integrity. It's not like clan leaders or for example bwcl organizers are unaware who these people are either.
Simply creating lists can be quite dangerous, as long as it's simply members naming people and then having them added. Although I'm quite aware of Favorit's past, I'm not to keen on keeping grudges too long either. I think new chances are in place. And I reckon I feel SCR is somewhat of a clean slate, almost regardless of past.
But I'm getting a bit beside the main point I want to make.
If we are to make a list, then that would have to be a list sanctioned by a trusted group of people. Large enough to have their opinions bear weight, but not too large. The members should also have a fairly high level of understanding of the game, in order to properly interpret the various signs to look for and such. And I think the sooner we establish something like this, the better.
Various criteria would have to be altered through experience. For instance, I'd much rather have Qikz as a judge due to his integrity, than many players with a much higher understanding of the game, but whose integrity I question. And the exact process of handling a case would also have to be discussed. However, I know there was a cooperation between WGTour, TL.net etc. during the Days of Oblivion. I'm sure there's still someone around who remembers from then, whose experience/knowledge could be applied to the landscape of our community today?
Bottom line - as long as we don't have an anti-hack tool, we need other methods. One of those is simply checking and analyzing replays. But to give that any validity, we need a proper organ handling it.
As a second tool, we have the opportunity to record games. I reckon it'd be extremly hard to organize all clans and players participating to record every single game. However, as a compromise, we could have the option to force players under suspicion to record their games and send it to the clan league admins. What would justify being under suspicion would of course also have to be discussed. I feel it's best to have as similar guidelines overall as possible, even though I reckon different clan leagues are likely to handle it differently.
It's really sad that it's happening. And as someone mentioned, it's unlikely that it'll get fixed soon enough. And if it does, I reckon it'd have to be at the expense of 2v2 ladder or other functions we're highly anticipating.
In which case, I feel it's important to get on the ball as quickly as possible, set something up, and make sure that it will not infest our clan leagues, or individual tournaments.
On March 06 2019 06:58 Incomplete..ReV wrote: Bottom line - as long as we don't have an anti-hack tool, we need other methods. One of those is simply checking and analyzing replays. But to give that any validity, we need a proper organ handling it.
As a second tool, we have the opportunity to record games. I reckon it'd be extremly hard to organize all clans and players participating to record every single game. However, as a compromise, we could have the option to force players under suspicion to record their games and send it to the clan league admins. What would justify being under suspicion would of course also have to be discussed. I feel it's best to have as similar guidelines overall as possible, even though I reckon different clan leagues are likely to handle it differently.
I remember having to upload replays for reporting match played on clan leagues and such. Seems like a good way to do things. For ladder pretty much need report handling.
well it was only a matter of time before hacks were made for remastered, looks like obvious proof that they're in circulation now, at least in korea. i assume its going to be a major issue if more players use these programs, i have no faith in blizzard at this point to regulate fair play, we have no report system or anything of that sort. could be some even rougher times ahead in remastered ladder
How many ladder games are played each day across all servers? It should be possible to have an artificial intelligence go through all the replays, and have it flag players with a high frequency of suspicious actions for human inspection.
Will probably be costly to develop and implement though.
On March 07 2019 01:10 wimpwimpwimp wrote: How many ladder games are played each day across all servers? It should be possible to have an artificial intelligence go through all the replays, and have it flag players with a high frequency of suspicious actions for human inspection.
Will probably be costly to develop and implement though.
Just maybe some complex algorithm. It's so much AI talk around, it's not necessary to have such thing to do antihacking job.
What is needed is two way communication with the StarCraft community and to maintain development. Blizzard showed us many times they are not capable of such commitment.
On March 05 2019 23:33 Incomplete..ReV wrote: Guess I will have to make all my players record their CW games to avoid false accusations!
This is the worst harm. Doesn't take long for regular folks to develop "hacker" as a go to when losing to raw skill. Because here you don't even have a hacker, just regular people emotionally involved enough to throw "innocent until proven guilty" out the window.
One note: some of this "proof" may not indicate hacking.
If a streamer is involved, it's straightforward to get the same effect without any hacks at all. I know the replays linked to above didn't indicate streamers, but I wanted to point this out.
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.
On March 07 2019 03:30 Matt Sherman wrote: We take cheating very seriously and are investigating the recent reports.
That's good to hear Matt. At the same time it is a bit unspecific i feel. I think i echo many concerned players sentiments when asking these questions:
- What kind of anti-hack protection software is currently beeing used on bnet? Without giving too specific information, can you explain the coding, search routines in place etc..?
-How often is said software updated, when was it updated last?
How many developers/other employees currentky work spefically in tge SC:R counter-abuse team? Is there such a team?
Do you plan to implement a “report function“ as has been discussed in here, if yes: when, if not: why.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 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?
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.
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.
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.
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
SC:R is pretty much abandonware at this point. More and more hacks will creep up and the official ladder will go the same way it did on original battle.net in Brood War. Will be interesting to see if Koreans come up with their own private server, go back to 1.16.1 or maybe we'll hopefully all end up on Shieldbattery.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/gpx6KNo.jpg)
