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Like I said above, if the ladder fails here, the game dies with it.
The ladder has failed, and the game is going to die, unless blizzard solves this problem. Simply reporting players is never going to do anything. What about they players who have super good game sense? Do they get banned for leaving a thor in their mineral line when your muta rushing? Blizzards failures with battlenet "2.0" have crippled the game from the start. I dont want to QQ to hard here, but its not the hackers fault that blizzard put out a shitty product. The hackers are just exploiting holes, they didnt put them there.
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With Blizzard owning the entirety of SC2, and presumably they are not going to have an unofficial ladder; I find it very hard to believe they would ignore the hacking problem, or let it go on for too much longer.
90% of the issues that are important, and are well known/felt are usually fixed ASAP.
And ASAP for Blizzard might be slow, but to even think they aren't looking into it, and trying to prevent another Broodwar ladder implosion is daft. Warden worked great, not so much anymore, it's obvious they need a new system to detect and deal with hackers, I can bet my life they're working on it.
Worst comes to worst: The Official ladder fails, and Blizzard is forced to let something like "iCCup" start up again.
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Canada1197 Posts
In a day and age where technology trumps man power, this is a stupid idea. Why not hire two or three engineers that can make an Anti-Hack program? These engineers can go to the hacking websites, download the newest hacks and patch them.
Rather than paying 50 people a $30k salary, pay 3 people a $60K salary..
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Blizzard just wants the hackers to regularly buy more copies.
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On June 08 2012 19:28 Bellazuk wrote: Reported RedZ top 8 masters over like 3 times 1 week ago, blatant hacking proofs, sent blizzard mail with 5+ replays and guess what ? He ins't banned yet. Blizzard don't take this as seriously as they should. Sadly, so don't expect that much from them.
He is a piece of shit. He admits to hacking openly.
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On June 08 2012 22:06 TrippSC2 wrote:This is a good read. I think the key point to take away from this is that the ban waves need to be more frequent and at odd intervals to discourage hacking. I don't think having an Anti-Hack task force is the solution. However, I wanted to point out something minor that isn't entirely correct. Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:23 TENTHST wrote: Right now we have a system where people hack BLATANTLY because the only safeguard in place is a program designed to register anomalies in the MPQ and ban in a wave. This isn't how hacks work or how Warden works. Most hacks don't touch MPQs. Speaking as someone who has hacked and programmed bots in D2, the Warden makes note of open processes and identifies them and any process that hooks into the Blizzard game. However, this process is telegraphed, so to speak. Most hacks in the D2 days (and I'm assuming in SC2) had an auto-shutoff when Warden scanning was detected (which isn't constant, sometimes Warden is active and sometimes not). What this means is that the hackers are usually one step ahead of Blizzard and that it is unreasonable to expect Blizzard to "do better". At least at the time that I used hacks with D2, Warden was the best anti-cheat method yet to be produced and it was still very exploitable. There was even discussion in hacking communities about using the Kernel layer to hide from Warden detection, but I got out of that scene before any of that came to a conclusion.
Sorry but even though you sound more qualified than me (i don't code but know a fair bit about reverse engineering), i don't see how it's the case... especially when SC2 constantly updates so often.What about keep switching the memory locations, encryption of certain parts of memory with server side private key (or use something like a temporary unique client side key system based on a hardware footprint or something), duplicates of the real memory locations to throw people off the correct trail, more effort to analyze bot timing patterns in input hacks.
If Warden does only what you say no wonder it's useless, i guess the result of entirely seperate development from the game.
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Nice post, I'll be sure to analize the replay of people who seem to magically have everything they need at the right time in the right place.
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On June 09 2012 09:57 spancho wrote:The ladder has failed, and the game is going to die, unless blizzard solves this problem. Simply reporting players is never going to do anything. What about they players who have super good game sense? Do they get banned for leaving a thor in their mineral line when your muta rushing? Blizzards failures with battlenet "2.0" have crippled the game from the start. I dont want to QQ to hard here, but its not the hackers fault that blizzard put out a shitty product. The hackers are just exploiting holes, they didnt put them there.
By this logic just about every game company ever has failed in this department though. It's not just Blizzard. For everything they do, for every maphack that they break through Warden or whatever, a couple more pop up within a week. Maphacks are something that's just something we have to deal with as RTS gamers unfortunately. The people that create the maphacks are some highly motivated individuals. Oddly enough despite not being motivated enough to play legitimately cheaters seem to be highly motivated individuals as well - They're present in every competitive multiplayer game that I can think of actually.
I'm not saying Bnet 2.0 doesn't have it's shortcomings, it definitely does, but this isn't really one of them. I think one of the reasons why it feels like Blizzard is doing less than they used to in terms of banning cheaters is that they don't give us an update every time they ban a huge amount of cheaters anymore.
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On June 09 2012 04:50 Plethora wrote: Here's the thing. If ultimately, at the end of the day, hacking is limited to ~5% or less of the total games played I and I think most of the community would be happy with that. I'd say its reasonable to say that 1 game in 20 is "not fair" in some gameplay unrelated way as it is even if you don't count hacking. Playing on ladder I occasionally get a free win from a disconnect, people have computer issues, crashes happen, etc. It is what it is, and I think if Warden or whatever program they want to use limits hacking to that sort of percentage then great, more power to them. I think its unrealistic to think that hacking will ever be non-existent.
All that said, I think Blizzard's actual committment to eSports will be tested in two ways going forward. Firstly, hacking. If grandmaster level players are found to be hacking regularly and WINNING MONEY by cheating, then eSports (and very importantly) Blizzard's brand will be damanged. Make no mistake, Blizzard would lose money if professional SC2 becomes associated with hacking. Your average gold leaguer hacking his way up to platinum... well no one really cares ultimately. But if you have people cheating when the stakes actually matter in real world terms. Well that's a problem and Blizzard must address it or say goodbye to some very real money of their own.
Just to finish my thought even though its outside the realm of this thread, I think the second test to Blizzard's long term committment to eSports will be LAN, but not in the way people here think of it. LAN that your average user can use from home will never happen. However, Blizzard should be thinking about adding the ability for big tournaments (see MLG, Dreamhack, etc.) to have Blizzard reps on site with a bank of computers hosting a mini-server (which the unaltered client could log into), thereby allowing a tournament venue to be self contained and not require outside internet access. In light of the deal with CBSi... can you imagine if MLG Raliegh, for example, had been broadcasted live on CBS? That, to me, would be unacceptable if you want to have your "sport" considered to be legitimate by the masses, and that is the sort of thing Blizzard will have to deal with down the road, especially as eSports continues to grow into the mainstream.
The idea of having an onsite server would be great. I worry about whether there is enough revenue coming in from outside and whether drops are truly that big of a problem that that would warrant it. It's easy to complain that drops impact the game, and they do. Without knowing how expensive servers are, I don't the marginal improvement in connection would be worth the cost (again conjecture).
As for live on CBS, live on CBS will pay far more in terms of commercials than online streaming, so you can deal with that situation when it arises.
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I swear 110% they're aware...
hopefully...
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On June 09 2012 21:26 MVega wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2012 09:57 spancho wrote:Like I said above, if the ladder fails here, the game dies with it. The ladder has failed, and the game is going to die, unless blizzard solves this problem. Simply reporting players is never going to do anything. What about they players who have super good game sense? Do they get banned for leaving a thor in their mineral line when your muta rushing? Blizzards failures with battlenet "2.0" have crippled the game from the start. I dont want to QQ to hard here, but its not the hackers fault that blizzard put out a shitty product. The hackers are just exploiting holes, they didnt put them there. By this logic just about every game company ever has failed in this department though. It's not just Blizzard. For everything they do, for every maphack that they break through Warden or whatever, a couple more pop up within a week. Maphacks are something that's just something we have to deal with as RTS gamers unfortunately. The people that create the maphacks are some highly motivated individuals. Oddly enough despite not being motivated enough to play legitimately cheaters seem to be highly motivated individuals as well - They're present in every competitive multiplayer game that I can think of actually. I'm not saying Bnet 2.0 doesn't have it's shortcomings, it definitely does, but this isn't really one of them. I think one of the reasons why it feels like Blizzard is doing less than they used to in terms of banning cheaters is that they don't give us an update every time they ban a huge amount of cheaters anymore.
Well, first of all, I agree with you and I think it would be a good idea if Blizzard made their map hack punishment a little more public - perhaps even listed the names of the players it banned in the most recent wave.
And, I agree that this isnt a problem....YET. However, having watched the dynamic of maphacking in Broodwar makes me very concerned for the future of SC2. If maphacker-paranoia starts on the SC2 ladder, it will be a self perpetuating cycle that will create the exact environment that existed in the latter years of Broodwar ladder.
The MapHack makers are motivated becuase there is a market for them. There is a market for them because people can use them for months at a time with no consequence. People can use them for months at a time because the Warden system is so delayed in its punishment for maphacking.
As I said before, this just comes down to an issue of cost. If you make it too expensive to map hack (i.e. having to buy a new copy of the game every 2 weeks), then the problem will resolve itself.
The wave ban system from Warden does not do its job quickly enough.
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I understand that this problem is big and situation where someone cheats you is just stupid, but those measures that adviced but by topicstarter will just dont work. After Spades episode I started to look for maphack for myself just to see how its like and what functionality it gives behind showing whole map without fog. (Relax, I used it on reserved account for 2 days just to see how it works and stopped doing it, cos i hate cheaters). I used 1 simple that only gives map vision and observer tabs (production, army stats etc.) And here's some thoughts why those advices wont work. 1. You dont actualy need to look at your opponents base. I played zerg and I dont need to look at opponents base or at the place where his army standing (near his natural or 3rd). I can see all on minimap if he moves out and by looking on the production tab I will see what units you're doing. Theres no reason for me to look on opponents base so noone will see that i'm maphacking. My screen wont suspiciously freezze. I can send lings on xelnagas and be absolute safe. Production tab helps SO DAMN MUCH. No surprise 2 starport cloack banshees, no 6-10 pools when i go hatch first, no 2 rax, no 2 gates, no canon rushes, no proxy 2 stargates and you wont have any evidence that your opponent hacked. And being diam player I was beating masters with absolute clean replay (no suspicious moves) but having BIG, HUGE advantage. 2. At some moment, sooner or later there will be trolls that wont have any maphack but will look at opponents black base just for fun so if you'll see replay you'll start yelling that he maphacked but they didnt. Actualy I'd be one of that trolls, because game gives opportunity to look at unscouted places and calling only by that reason a hacker is not 100% fair, only 99% or even bit less. I understand that no progamer will look at unscouted place but at at gold-diam people can just by mistake or whatever.
Its up to Blizzard to make game that no maphack can be build or if they built then immediate patch comes that can recognize that maphack is loaded. All other methods just wont work. I mean, they can find some hackers (maybe even most of them) but I bet that there will be some innocent victims so those methods will be just bad.
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On June 09 2012 21:26 MVega wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2012 09:57 spancho wrote:Like I said above, if the ladder fails here, the game dies with it. The ladder has failed, and the game is going to die, unless blizzard solves this problem. Simply reporting players is never going to do anything. What about they players who have super good game sense? Do they get banned for leaving a thor in their mineral line when your muta rushing? Blizzards failures with battlenet "2.0" have crippled the game from the start. I dont want to QQ to hard here, but its not the hackers fault that blizzard put out a shitty product. The hackers are just exploiting holes, they didnt put them there. By this logic just about every game company ever has failed in this department though. It's not just Blizzard. For everything they do, for every maphack that they break through Warden or whatever, a couple more pop up within a week. Maphacks are something that's just something we have to deal with as RTS gamers unfortunately. The people that create the maphacks are some highly motivated individuals. Oddly enough despite not being motivated enough to play legitimately cheaters seem to be highly motivated individuals as well - They're present in every competitive multiplayer game that I can think of actually. This is simply not true. The only reason that maphacks are possible in SC2 is because it's coded with the "oldfashioned" system of sending all information to each client, including things happening under the fow. Other games like Dota 2 and LoL only send information about units that are visible, therefore maphacks are impossible. Obviously it would require a lot of effort to change the system at this point but that's why it should have been designed properly from the start.
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On June 14 2012 20:19 OTIX wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2012 21:26 MVega wrote:On June 09 2012 09:57 spancho wrote:Like I said above, if the ladder fails here, the game dies with it. The ladder has failed, and the game is going to die, unless blizzard solves this problem. Simply reporting players is never going to do anything. What about they players who have super good game sense? Do they get banned for leaving a thor in their mineral line when your muta rushing? Blizzards failures with battlenet "2.0" have crippled the game from the start. I dont want to QQ to hard here, but its not the hackers fault that blizzard put out a shitty product. The hackers are just exploiting holes, they didnt put them there. By this logic just about every game company ever has failed in this department though. It's not just Blizzard. For everything they do, for every maphack that they break through Warden or whatever, a couple more pop up within a week. Maphacks are something that's just something we have to deal with as RTS gamers unfortunately. The people that create the maphacks are some highly motivated individuals. Oddly enough despite not being motivated enough to play legitimately cheaters seem to be highly motivated individuals as well - They're present in every competitive multiplayer game that I can think of actually. This is simply not true. The only reason that maphacks are possible in SC2 is because it's coded with the "oldfashioned" system of sending all information to each client, including things happening under the fow. Other games like Dota 2 and LoL only send information about units that are visible, therefore maphacks are impossible. Obviously it would require a lot of effort to change the system at this point but that's why it should have been designed properly from the start. This is ignorant, sorry, and it's been debunked by people who know what they're talking about so often in these discussions that it's getting a bit annoying to keep seeing people simply declaring that they know better than Blizzard how to code an RTS game. There are very good technical reasons that MOBA games can send only information on visible units and still be performant. It's not a question of effort, it's a question of whether you want to play a game in which it's possible to scan a mass Zergling on Zergling battle in a 4v4 (to take an extreme example) instead of one in which there are five invisible enemy units and a couple dozen monsters. In the instant that the scan is performed, you have to transmit to the Terran player every unit's position, health, current commands, and any other status effects associated with every single unit. The game has to either have very significant latency to account for such spikes, or it will lag for every player until all that information has been transmitted. Also, unless you want to have the players' computers responsible for informing each other of where all their units are (an obvious vulnerability), you have to be actually running the game simulation on a battle.net server, which drastically reduces the number of games that can be played at the same time.
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On June 14 2012 20:19 OTIX wrote: This is simply not true. The only reason that maphacks are possible in SC2 is because it's coded with the "oldfashioned" system of sending all information to each client, including things happening under the fow. Other games like Dota 2 and LoL only send information about units that are visible, therefore maphacks are impossible. Obviously it would require a lot of effort to change the system at this point but that's why it should have been designed properly from the start.
Well this is true but its not possible in sc2 ... even in Dota2 / HoN or LoL its workling barely ... sometimes heros or creeps appear for splitsecond on the wrong place on the minimap etc. imagine this with 200+ zerg units ... have fun :D
And i think custom Ladders are possible in sc2 but not build in the game. Like an programm with an ladder system that automatic match u with same lvl enemys.
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On June 08 2012 19:23 TENTHST wrote: I also think that this Blizzard Corporation team of map-hack detectives should focus exclusively on Master and GrandMaster League. Not that the lower leagues aren't worth the time, but you will have a lot less false-reporting if you exclude the leagues that think that a player with 3 Void Rays at the 10-minute mark is using a money hack. Not only would this cut down on the volume of reported players, but also the laddering hacker would inevitably rise through the leagues as he continued to win and eventually find himself in Master League, under the watchful eye of the Blizzard Hack Detection Team.
So your logic is to say it's ok to hack your way into masters but be careful when you get to it? May I remind you that players below Master league are in the majority and if there is a "hack free zone" all the way up to the highest of leagues this players wouldn't enjoy playing and the game would suffer and possibly die out as that players would just go and play something else...I know I would. Hacking needs to be stopped at all levels, don't kid yourself.
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With this amount of debate about the issue going on, I expect to see even more 1-base turtling terrans who take gas and let me see only one barracks and a handful marines accuse me of hacking because I'm not terribly surprised by their cloaked banshees.
In principle OP is right, but I doubt people on ladder will be very diligent about weighing the evidence before reporting someone, which makes the task harder for Blizzard. Too many people equal "I lose" with "something's wrong".
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This is a really good read, but posting this on TL will have no effect.
And of course Blizzard is aware, it's not that they're not trying to do their job, it's just that they cannot update Warden everyday. I can ensure you, if they patched the game right now, hacks would be updated within the next hour and ready for "safe" use again.
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