|
As you may or may not know, map hacking was one of the main ingredients that led to the death of the BroodWar ladder. By 2004, the system was so polluted with bots and cheaters that it was completely empty. As time went on, alternate ladders sprung up to fill the gaping void in competitive play, but the Blizzard ladder remained a farce.
Now here we are, almost a decade later, with a brand new ladder and a fresh start. However the recent drama surrounding both Spades and HRGZack has brought hacking in the SC2 community to the surface of public awareness. Though it may have always been present, the past few weeks have proved that it is certainly a problem not being solved by Blizzards current system.
While the Warden program of logging users and banning them in waves does have its benefits, it attacks the behavioral problem of hacking in a retroactive fashion, using negative reinforcement to prevent it in the future. As it stands right now a hacker knows that when they cheat they run the risk of being banned, but they also know that the ban might come in as long as 6 months. So, essentially, that hacker rationalizes his/her behavior by thinking that they "pay 10 dollars a month to cheat" - and that's even assuming that they are flagged and banned by the Warden system at the end of that period.
When the 6 months are up, and IF the user is indeed banned, all he/she has to do is stroll down to GameStop and pick up a new copy, knowing that this $60 will buy them at least another few months of cheating. Is $10 or $15 a month a steep penalty for cheating in a competitive online video game? Maybe, but for someone who cheats for fun, more than likely not.
Another implicit problem with this "wave ban" system is that it is giving regular players tacit permission to start cheating on the ladder. A perfect example of this is the recent HRGZack story; a player who cheated his way up the ladder and eventually into a free vacation at MLG. Yea the information did surface, and he was thankfully banned, but all of this negative attention has surely illustrated a glaring problem concerning the Warden system: that this player went on cheating for multiple seasons while maintaining his rank in GrandMaster league with absolutely no consequences.
In fact, not only were there no consequences, but he was rewarded with airfare, a hotel, and tickets to one of the most popular SC2 events in the community. Of course he was caught, but how many others haven't been? Hearing that this player went on cheating for multiple seasons, in the most exclusive league no less, makes thousands of people wonder the same question: "what if?".
So now an idea starts to grow that lots of people are cheating on ladder. Every time a DT walks into a Turret, or pack of Muta fly into a group of Thors, the player will assume that it was caused by his opponent using a hack. In fact, the paranoia will become so widespread that people will either stop laddering, or feel the need to use a cheat of their own so as they are not at an inherent disadvantage. This is a self-perpetuating cycle that will eventually lead to the downfall of the SC2 ladder, just as it did in BroodWar.
The bottom line is that Warden is not doing a good enough job at preventing cheating on the SC2 ladder. So what is the solution? I don't know for sure, but I have an idea.
You are the solution; the players. The honest numbers on Battlenet far outnumber the hacking numbers. If Blizzard turned every honest ladder player into a detective, I think the whole idea of hacking without repercussion would fall to the wayside.
You, as the player, need to be reporting and flagging every single person that you HONESTLY believe to be cheating. No, not the guy who cheesed you and talked about your mother and called you a noob, but the player who starts producing Marauders at the 20:00 minute mark just as you tech switch to an Ultralisk Cavern, or the player who heads off your Medivacs in the middle of the map with his Blink Stalkers. You need to watch the replay and asses the suspicious moves objectively, and then, and only then, if that player is indeed truly doing things to indicate a hack, report them to Blizzard.
Now this is where Blizzard needs to step into the picture and take action.....even more so than they currently are. Yea, of course we all know that today we can report people as we see fit, but does that report actually do anything? Seemingly no.
Blizzard needs to assign a team of employees to filter though these thousands of reports a day. I'm talking like 10-20 people dedicated to going through each individual replay reported, all day every day - this is their sole job at the Blizzard Corporation. And when this Blizzard hack-detection team sees a reported player who does actually look like he was hacking, they add his name to a list and wait for additional reports to come in with him named as the culprit (and believe me, they will come in...). When, perhaps, three or five strikes are levied against this player, a ban is implemented and the players account is frozen.
The advantage to this new system over the Warden system is the inconsistency of the banning. The hacker never knows when the ban will come. There is no "wave". There is no time to update to the latest version of the hack that Warden can't detect, and there is no time to rake in a few more paychecks to fund that next copy of SC2. Can you imagine a hacker being banned in a "mass wave" by Warden, going out to pick up a copy of SC2 that next day, and then having his new account banned 3 days later? Suddenly, instead of paying $10 a month to hack, he is paying $20 a day. Will it be worth the cost anymore? I doubt it.
Another advantage of this new system is that the hacking player will be forced to at least attempt to hide their cheating. 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. A SC2 hacker today doesn't care if they are flagged as a hacker because they know the ban is coming for them off in the distance, regardless of whether they hide it or not. Their mentality is "have fun while you can".
But in my proposed system, every player that clearly sees you are hacking and reports you could potentially add one more strike to your account. Playing as an obvious cheater now has it's draw-backs. If you, as the hacker, play 3 games one day, are reported by all 3 players and then are verfied as a cheater by the Blizzard team, your newly acquired account (that cost you $60) is now worthless.
So now you have to try to hide your cheating in the way that Spades did. You can't send out your Stalkers to intercept an incoming drop, and you can't preemptively prepare for Cloaked Banshees without at least pretending you scouted. Hacking won't be easy anymore, and obviously, it will be a lot less fun.
On a side note, yes I do realize that hiring 10 or 20 people a year at a $30,000 salary would be quite the expense, but Blizzard will have to measure that number against the number of game sales they lose to other competing games as hacking gets out of control in SC2, just as it did in BroodWar. And no, there will be no alternative KESPA or ICCUP ladders popping up like there were in BroodWar because Blizzard has total rights to the entirety of SC2. If the ladder fails here, the game dies.
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.
Another suggestion to add to this would be to implement some sort of incentive system for the player base. Maybe some sort of special avatar or profile for people who successfully contributed to the banning of a hacker, or some other form of public recognition that would make people take the time and effort to honestly evaluate whether a player is cheating or not. Conversely, a player who is constantly sending erroneous reports to Blizzard for inspection should be punished accordingly.
Obviously the specifics can be tweaked here and there but I think that this has a good foundation, and more importantly, I think the current Warden system is not doing a good enough job in thwarting the nascent of mass cheating in SC2.
|
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.
|
Nice read, +1
Yet i think the real solution is to give the client the information needed, if you have <= 1k DSL it should be absolutely fine, the only hacks that would then still be viable are the micro-hacks which are blatantly obvious.
|
The only real potential practical solution to the hacking problem would be a private server like iccup. I don't see that happening any time soon
|
I think we should just accept the cheaters on the ladder. At least accept the fact that they will get banned eventually but not as fast as we would like.
Cheaters on LANs are unacceptable. We should work on something so that invites to proven cheaters can be revoked, maybe even prize money taken back from all tournaments up to 2 years, even if it was impossible to cheat there. But I guess we need some sort of syndicate for that, and we aren't there yet.
|
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.
This is ridiculous and an emotional response to an unfulfilled (and unrealistic) expectation. Blizzard has always done their bannings en masse (with the pros and cons well documented).
Cheating is lame and needs to be taken care of, but this sort of knee-jerk reaction isn't needed. I've also been on the receiving end of (presumably) self-righteous (but sorely misguided, or more sore from losing) players making threats and hurling insults to try and excuse their own lacking play.
|
With the amount of publicity hacking has gotten over the last month or two Blizzard is sure to have heard about it. They do a great job with listening to top level players and organizations, and if it becomes something that the top players need to see changed, then it will happen.
The difference between now and Brood War was the legitimacy of Starcraft as an e-Sport. Not only was it not nearly as big in N.A. as it is now, Blizzard just wasn't aware of the consequences of losing their ladder.
|
Interesting thoughts and +1 of course.
Now to be honest, I think that Blizzard won't go into this kind of system for 2 reasons.
First it would be aknowledging their "mistake" or at least, the uncapability of their system, which we know they never do.
Second because the investement on the Warden system didn't generate the expected returns yet and considering their recent policy, there not likely to "waste" money on stuff they consider to be already covered.
|
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?).
|
There are always cheaters on the ladder. I used to rage on it. Now I just move on.
|
Russian Federation383 Posts
blizzards spits on us and you're trying to change something... well, trying is good!
|
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.
They get thousands if not ten thousands reports per week and you are really angry they don't instantly ban a person that you spam report?
|
On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?).
People love to hate on LoL but that is actually quite a brilliant way to crowdsource.
|
What about a new ladder? I have a huge lack of technical expertise but if it happened in BW why not now?
Imagine all the active laddering moving to a place where hacks are actively monitored and scanned, the map pool is competitive and responsive to the community. Sounds awfully nice to me.
|
On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?).
LoL is also a free game and has a lot of flexibility with their ability to punish people.
I agree there should be a means to punish certain things, that's what the reporting was intended to do to begin with.
To be honest, I have my skepticism about the whole "ban in waves" even occurring. Almost feels like the reporting is there purely to function as a placebo button, to keep people content, while at the same time avoiding any conflict with a paying customer (meaning never actually punishing anyone).
That's pure speculation of course, simply that I've never heard of anyone actually getting banned or punished via this. Only thing I've heard was the announcement of future, stricter, possible punishments... and that one guy that got dropped to bronze.
|
also with warden they ban innocent people that only want to change mpq, for other reason(like sound, image ecc...)
|
On June 08 2012 19:53 MrCash wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?). LoL is also a free game and has a lot of flexibility with their ability to punish people. I agree there should be a means to punish certain things, that's what the reporting was intended to do to begin with. To be honest, I have my skepticism about the whole "ban in waves" even occurring. Almost feels like the reporting is there purely to function as a placebo button, to keep people content, while at the same time avoiding any conflict with a paying customer (meaning never actually punishing anyone). That's pure speculation of course, simply that I've never heard of anyone actually getting banned or punished via this. Only thing I've heard was the announcement of future, stricter, possible punishments... and that one guy that got dropped to bronze.
You might want to check out that GM hacker thread here as well, since said GM hacker now is in bronze.
Blizzard works on it but they got so much work and investigation you cannot expect it to get done fast.
Something like a report function can be very abusive if you don't properly investigate.
|
Read as far as "players as detectives": No, I am not going to waste my time policing the fucking ladder. Blizzard's job, period. I don't fucking care how they do it. I am completely up for a yearly 100 € deposit to allow me to play on the ladder and risk losing it if I get too many reports of being a hacker (by players who played against me). Just an automated system like that would be completely ok.
|
Fuck it, I'm up for a 1000€ deposit and risk losing it.
|
On June 08 2012 19:53 SimDawg wrote:
What about a new ladder? I have a huge lack of technical expertise but if it happened in BW why not now?
Imagine all the active laddering moving to a place where hacks are actively monitored and scanned, the map pool is competitive and responsive to the community. Sounds awfully nice to me.
An alternate ladder is completely out of the question, just like LAN. Blizzard was very careful about how they set up the legal boundaries of SC2 and made sure that they would be in total control for the life of the game. Like I said above, if the ladder fails here, the game dies with it.
|
On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?).
The Lol Tribunal is not really about cheaters. It is about to punish players who leave the game early go afk or insult other players. It is there to punish not acceptable behaviour. Not everyone can partizipate only players who reached level 30.
|
I am somewhat skeptical of any system which largely requires player input - I just don't think everyone is rational enough to be objective about their own games. For example, a few weeks ago (before all this went down) I played someone on ladder who called me a hacker and spent the entire game abusing me, all because my scouting drone killed his scv building a barracks, in his base, at the start. Things like me going to kill his third, after I scouted it with a mutalisk (and it was beyond the normal time to take it anyway) were for him, evidence that I hack. He made it very clear he was going to report me and send my IP to an anti-hacker group to fuck up my computer - or something. Now, this guy was clearly sociopathic and an idiot, but under this proposed system it would only take me running in to two more such people on ladder to have my account suspended, when I have never hacked in my life.
|
Until something is done, I encourage you to scroll through the hackers last matches list and PM the people they've played against.
I've been doing that after watching the replay. I'm in diamond so normally they are quite bad at using map hack. I also only PM people when I'm 100% sure. Normally it's when they, in multiple occasions, look at your main and all expansions(even ones they havn't scouted) through the fog of war.
I've also noticed that if you're in a huge lead versus most maphackers, they end up dropping out of the game instead of playing through it all.
PM'ing them will(hopefully) help until a good change comes along.
PS: very well written. Thanks for the good read OP! ^_^
|
Do you really think Blizzard will support a game which has no monthly fees like WoW ? Even for WoW they do nothing against bot. I will not talk about Diablo II. :-)
Blizzard only cares when you buy the game, and maybe about the marketing of the product too.
Your solution seems nice, like hippies' dreams during the 60-70's.
If you want to avoid hackers, find a community, play custom against your friends etc. If you want to be serious about what you say you would send a mail or an online petition to blizzard.
Good luck in your lost croisade.
|
On June 08 2012 19:56 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:53 MrCash wrote:On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?). LoL is also a free game and has a lot of flexibility with their ability to punish people. I agree there should be a means to punish certain things, that's what the reporting was intended to do to begin with. To be honest, I have my skepticism about the whole "ban in waves" even occurring. Almost feels like the reporting is there purely to function as a placebo button, to keep people content, while at the same time avoiding any conflict with a paying customer (meaning never actually punishing anyone). That's pure speculation of course, simply that I've never heard of anyone actually getting banned or punished via this. Only thing I've heard was the announcement of future, stricter, possible punishments... and that one guy that got dropped to bronze. You might want to check out that GM hacker thread here as well, since said GM hacker now is in bronze. Blizzard works on it but they got so much work and investigation you cannot expect it to get done fast. Something like a report function can be very abusive if you don't properly investigate.
I agree absolutely, same can be applied to the whole LoL system of banning as well.
Ultimately, the company running the game is responsible for making proper precaution and decision.
My perspective, at this time, being that in two years, I've literally never heard of this actually happening to anyone.
The reporting is not all that different from the LoL system anyway, minus the tribunal, which is basically way to save on labor by the company (pretty clever move).
I understand it's an additional expense, but it feels like if there is someone responsible for authorizing bans in Blizzard, it's one person, with a full time position and other responsibilities, who is expected to do this one day a month or even season. Also, due to his other responsibilities, can easily dismiss or postpone the "ban cycle" until the next month/season.
Again, this is simply how this whole thing feels.
I've only encountered people who I felt were hacking two or three times and don't really care that much, there will be petty and weak people everywhere in life who try to cheat and I don't expect a higher authority to get rid of them for me every time. However, clearly a lot of people do care and to be fair, it is becoming an important industry issue with eSports growing by the day.
|
On June 08 2012 19:58 TENTHST wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:53 SimDawg wrote:
What about a new ladder? I have a huge lack of technical expertise but if it happened in BW why not now?
Imagine all the active laddering moving to a place where hacks are actively monitored and scanned, the map pool is competitive and responsive to the community. Sounds awfully nice to me. An alternate ladder is completely out of the question, just like LAN. Blizzard was very careful about how they set up the legal boundaries of SC2 and made sure that they would be in total control for the life of the game. Like I said above, if the ladder fails here, the game dies with it.
Just out of curiosity, is it a thing that is technically prohibited, like LAN, or is it a legal issue? Because technically people don't need to interface with Bliz or profit off the new ladder.
|
|
|
On June 08 2012 20:05 SimDawg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:58 TENTHST wrote:On June 08 2012 19:53 SimDawg wrote:
What about a new ladder? I have a huge lack of technical expertise but if it happened in BW why not now?
Imagine all the active laddering moving to a place where hacks are actively monitored and scanned, the map pool is competitive and responsive to the community. Sounds awfully nice to me. An alternate ladder is completely out of the question, just like LAN. Blizzard was very careful about how they set up the legal boundaries of SC2 and made sure that they would be in total control for the life of the game. Like I said above, if the ladder fails here, the game dies with it. Just out of curiosity, is it a thing that is technically prohibited, like LAN, or is it a legal issue? Because technically people don't need to interface with Bliz or profit off the new ladder.
An alternate ladder is more of a massive structural expense more than anything. Setting that up would require investments into programming and additional servers. I don't see any "control" loss or any operational conflicts for blizzard. Other than running a extra ladder, whatever that entails.
While implementing LAN would cost additional programming expense, originally and now, it remains an issue of losing sales. Much like WC3, where programs like Hamachi made it possible to play LAN games world-wide over the internet. You can imagine how much lost sales this can easily create.
|
Blizzard definitely has to do something about this, because their ladder IS the game right now. People lose the interest in playing in the ladder and the game dies. However I don't necessarily agree that it's something solely in Blizzard's hands.
I think they should make some kind of middle-man system, where players have their own place to discuss if someone is hacking through replay analysis. Players would only be able to discuss on the specific "thread" if they had downloaded and went through the whole replay. If enough players vote on the issue (let's say 50) and there's a good percentage of players that think the guy is guilty (let's say 75%), then the complaint is formally and automatically passed on to a Blizzard employee, that analyses the evidence himself and punishes the player accordingly.
What this does is it solves the logistics problem of having a huge team of employees dealing with every single complaint, while streamlining and automatizing the banning process, making it easier and quicker to ban a hacker.
|
On June 08 2012 20:09 MrCash wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 20:05 SimDawg wrote:On June 08 2012 19:58 TENTHST wrote:On June 08 2012 19:53 SimDawg wrote:
What about a new ladder? I have a huge lack of technical expertise but if it happened in BW why not now?
Imagine all the active laddering moving to a place where hacks are actively monitored and scanned, the map pool is competitive and responsive to the community. Sounds awfully nice to me. An alternate ladder is completely out of the question, just like LAN. Blizzard was very careful about how they set up the legal boundaries of SC2 and made sure that they would be in total control for the life of the game. Like I said above, if the ladder fails here, the game dies with it. Just out of curiosity, is it a thing that is technically prohibited, like LAN, or is it a legal issue? Because technically people don't need to interface with Bliz or profit off the new ladder. An alternate ladder is more of a massive structural expense more than anything. Setting that up would require investments into programming and additional servers. I don't see any "control" loss or any operational conflicts for blizzard. Other than running a extra ladder, whatever that entails. While implementing LAN would cost additional programming expense, originally and now, it remains an issue of losing sales. Much like WC3, where programs like Hamachi made it possible to play LAN games world-wide over the internet. You can imagine how much lost sales this can easily create.
Right, don't mean to beat a horse everyone is telling me is dead, but its impossible for someone to code a LAN mode for SC2 in his spare time, right?
My question is more...is it possible for someone/people to code an alternate ladder in their spare time? Or is it going to be technically impossible to code without Blizzard's help?
|
On June 08 2012 20:00 Uracil wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?). The Lol Tribunal is not really about cheaters. It is about to punish players who leave the game early go afk or insult other players. It is there to punish not acceptable behaviour. Not everyone can partizipate only players who reached level 30.
Yes I know that, I'm just talking about the concept.
I'll explain more in detail what I mean :
The goal in sc2 would be to filter between the good reports (where the guy has a legitimate suspicion about his opponent) and the bad ones (where the guy is just angry to have lost).
They could implement something like a system on bnet where you can upload your replay(s) and your comments about it. Then people at the trial could watch the replay(s), maybe with the timestamp of the comment directly in the replay. Of course you would have to hide all names to the jury to keep the fairness and maybe limit this feature to master and up, and set a limit to a trial/week.
Then this judgement would be passed to Blizzard employees and based on that they could concentrate on the ones with the highest suspicion of cheating and have a fairly good idea of where to look at.
|
In an RTS with this many units you are currently bound to stick with the current multiplayer synchronization which has the gamestate on each machine and only sends the input and such to the server.
HoN, LoL, DotA etc. won't have peaks were there may be multiple thousand units within the game, Starcraft 2 does. And good internet connectivity is still a big issue in a darn lot countries.
|
On June 08 2012 20:10 howLiN wrote:
Blizzard definitely has to do something about this, because their ladder IS the game right now. People lose the interest in playing in the ladder and the game dies. However I don't necessarily agree that it's something solely in Blizzard's hands.
I think they should make some kind of middle-man system, where players have their own place to discuss if someone is hacking through replay analysis. Players would only be able to discuss on the specific "thread" if they had downloaded and went through the whole replay. If enough players vote on the issue (let's say 50) and there's a good percentage of players that think the guy is guilty (let's say 75%), then the complaint is formally and automatically passed on to a Blizzard employee, that analyses the evidence himself and punishes the player accordingly.
What this does is it solves the logistics problem of having a huge team of employees dealing with every single complaint, while streamlining and automatizing the banning process, making it easier and quicker to ban a hacker.
Yea this is the kind of thing I was talking about. Good idea.
|
Blizzard should take a look on how DotA2 fixed hacking, it´s impossible to map hack for example.
|
On June 08 2012 20:10 howLiN wrote:
Blizzard definitely has to do something about this, because their ladder IS the game right now. People lose the interest in playing in the ladder and the game dies. However I don't necessarily agree that it's something solely in Blizzard's hands.
I think they should make some kind of middle-man system, where players have their own place to discuss if someone is hacking through replay analysis. Players would only be able to discuss on the specific "thread" if they had downloaded and went through the whole replay. If enough players vote on the issue (let's say 50) and there's a good percentage of players that think the guy is guilty (let's say 75%), then the complaint is formally and automatically passed on to a Blizzard employee, that analyses the evidence himself and punishes the player accordingly.
What this does is it solves the logistics problem of having a huge team of employees dealing with every single complaint, while streamlining and automatizing the banning process, making it easier and quicker to ban a hacker.
People look at this in a really funny way I think.
Blizzard is not charging us monthly fees. You bought the game, you played single player and also have multi-player.
I bought Max Payne 3, played campaign, and multi-player is an extra perk, that I honestly don't care much for and overall am still very happy with my purchase.
Comparably, SC2 has given me an amazing campaign experience, plus an unparalleled multi-player experience, no other game can replace that for me right now.
Compared to Max Payne 3, SC2 has yielded 30x the return for the cost.
I agree with you, as well as many others in this thread, in the thing I want and would like blizzard to do, I simply find it funny how entitled everyone sounds to these perks.
Blizzard wants to improve the game as well, they are making quite a bit of money from people simply maintaining interest in the game and it being an eSport. So I'm also not saying we should be kissing their feet in gratitude for working on this.
Just want people to be a bit more realistic with their expectations is all.
Edit: And to clarify, this post being one of the better, more realistic expectations.
|
On June 08 2012 20:17 MrCash wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 20:10 howLiN wrote:
Blizzard definitely has to do something about this, because their ladder IS the game right now. People lose the interest in playing in the ladder and the game dies. However I don't necessarily agree that it's something solely in Blizzard's hands.
I think they should make some kind of middle-man system, where players have their own place to discuss if someone is hacking through replay analysis. Players would only be able to discuss on the specific "thread" if they had downloaded and went through the whole replay. If enough players vote on the issue (let's say 50) and there's a good percentage of players that think the guy is guilty (let's say 75%), then the complaint is formally and automatically passed on to a Blizzard employee, that analyses the evidence himself and punishes the player accordingly.
What this does is it solves the logistics problem of having a huge team of employees dealing with every single complaint, while streamlining and automatizing the banning process, making it easier and quicker to ban a hacker. People look at this in a really funny way I think. Blizzard is not charging us monthly fees. You bought the game, you played single player and also have multi-player. I bought Max Payne 3, played campaign, and multi-player is an extra perk, that I honestly don't care much for and overall am still very happy with my purchase. Comparably, SC2 has given me an amazing campaign experience, plus an unparalleled multi-player experience, no other game can replace that for me right now. Compared to Max Payne 3, SC2 has yielded 30x the return for the cost. I agree with you, as well as many others in this thread, in the thing I want and would like blizzard to do, I simply find it funny how entitled everyone sounds to these perks. Blizzard wants to improve the game as well, they are making quite a bit of money from people simply maintaining interest in the game and it being an eSport. So I'm also not saying we should be kissing their feet in gratitude for working on this. Just want people to be a bit more realistic with their expectations is all. And to clarify, this post being one of the better. more realistic expectations.
I just don't want what happened in BroodWar to happen again in SC2. 5 years after release, the BW ladder was totally unplayable.
It's a good thing that ICCUP popped up, or else BW would have died long ago. Unfortunately, Blizzard owns all the rights to SC2, making an alternate ladder completely impossible.
|
On June 08 2012 20:17 MrCash wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 20:10 howLiN wrote:
Blizzard definitely has to do something about this, because their ladder IS the game right now. People lose the interest in playing in the ladder and the game dies. However I don't necessarily agree that it's something solely in Blizzard's hands.
I think they should make some kind of middle-man system, where players have their own place to discuss if someone is hacking through replay analysis. Players would only be able to discuss on the specific "thread" if they had downloaded and went through the whole replay. If enough players vote on the issue (let's say 50) and there's a good percentage of players that think the guy is guilty (let's say 75%), then the complaint is formally and automatically passed on to a Blizzard employee, that analyses the evidence himself and punishes the player accordingly.
What this does is it solves the logistics problem of having a huge team of employees dealing with every single complaint, while streamlining and automatizing the banning process, making it easier and quicker to ban a hacker. People look at this in a really funny way I think. Blizzard is not charging us monthly fees. You bought the game, you played single player and also have multi-player. I bought Max Payne 3, played campaign, and multi-player is an extra perk, that I honestly don't care much for and overall am still very happy with my purchase. Comparably, SC2 has given me an amazing campaign experience, plus an unparalleled multi-player experience, no other game can replace that for me right now. Compared to Max Payne 3, SC2 has yielded 30x the return for the cost. I agree with you, as well as many others in this thread, in the thing I want and would like blizzard to do, I simply find it funny how entitled everyone sounds to these perks. Blizzard wants to improve the game as well, they are making quite a bit of money from people simply maintaining interest in the game and it being an eSport. So I'm also not saying we should be kissing their feet in gratitude for working on this. Just want people to be a bit more realistic with their expectations is all.
I'm not demanding that to Blizzard, I'm just describing a way that the problem may be solved. And what I said about ladder being the sole reason the majority of people play this game, I don't think it's that far off. Ladder has a big weight to everyone that plays Starcraft, and any problem that may arise in it is more serious than problems in other areas of the game. Ultimately, it's ladder that draws people into the game, and it's the system that I feel Blizzard needs to be more protective about.
|
|
|
It is my honest opinion that Blizzard does not give a fuck about hackers, so what they ban one now and again and that guy goes and buys another copy of sc2 to start hacking on again. Guess what, blizzard just made money. If hackers were instabanned then the hackers would just stop playing and choose another game to hack, meaning that blizzard would not profit from them again. Leaving it the way it is, where it barely effects the pro-scene which is the only tiny bit of sc2 that bliz actually gives even half a shit about means dolla dolla.
|
On June 08 2012 20:12 SimDawg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 20:09 MrCash wrote:On June 08 2012 20:05 SimDawg wrote:On June 08 2012 19:58 TENTHST wrote:On June 08 2012 19:53 SimDawg wrote:
What about a new ladder? I have a huge lack of technical expertise but if it happened in BW why not now?
Imagine all the active laddering moving to a place where hacks are actively monitored and scanned, the map pool is competitive and responsive to the community. Sounds awfully nice to me. An alternate ladder is completely out of the question, just like LAN. Blizzard was very careful about how they set up the legal boundaries of SC2 and made sure that they would be in total control for the life of the game. Like I said above, if the ladder fails here, the game dies with it. Just out of curiosity, is it a thing that is technically prohibited, like LAN, or is it a legal issue? Because technically people don't need to interface with Bliz or profit off the new ladder. An alternate ladder is more of a massive structural expense more than anything. Setting that up would require investments into programming and additional servers. I don't see any "control" loss or any operational conflicts for blizzard. Other than running a extra ladder, whatever that entails. While implementing LAN would cost additional programming expense, originally and now, it remains an issue of losing sales. Much like WC3, where programs like Hamachi made it possible to play LAN games world-wide over the internet. You can imagine how much lost sales this can easily create. Right, don't mean to beat a horse everyone is telling me is dead, but its impossible for someone to code a LAN mode for SC2 in his spare time, right? My question is more...is it possible for someone/people to code an alternate ladder in their spare time? Or is it going to be technically impossible to code without Blizzard's help?
Even if it's possible to code a separate ladder, who is going to pay to run all those servers?
I would guess it is, I've seen crazier things done before.
The ladder isn't stored on your computer and it's not a pure Peer-to-peer connection and play.
To change the game that much probably is not possible, but I'm certainly not interested in looking through the code to figure that out.
|
10-20 people is too much blizzard won't do it, maybe 1-2 people at most.
|
On June 08 2012 20:19 TENTHST wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 20:17 MrCash wrote:On June 08 2012 20:10 howLiN wrote:
Blizzard definitely has to do something about this, because their ladder IS the game right now. People lose the interest in playing in the ladder and the game dies. However I don't necessarily agree that it's something solely in Blizzard's hands.
I think they should make some kind of middle-man system, where players have their own place to discuss if someone is hacking through replay analysis. Players would only be able to discuss on the specific "thread" if they had downloaded and went through the whole replay. If enough players vote on the issue (let's say 50) and there's a good percentage of players that think the guy is guilty (let's say 75%), then the complaint is formally and automatically passed on to a Blizzard employee, that analyses the evidence himself and punishes the player accordingly.
What this does is it solves the logistics problem of having a huge team of employees dealing with every single complaint, while streamlining and automatizing the banning process, making it easier and quicker to ban a hacker. People look at this in a really funny way I think. Blizzard is not charging us monthly fees. You bought the game, you played single player and also have multi-player. I bought Max Payne 3, played campaign, and multi-player is an extra perk, that I honestly don't care much for and overall am still very happy with my purchase. Comparably, SC2 has given me an amazing campaign experience, plus an unparalleled multi-player experience, no other game can replace that for me right now. Compared to Max Payne 3, SC2 has yielded 30x the return for the cost. I agree with you, as well as many others in this thread, in the thing I want and would like blizzard to do, I simply find it funny how entitled everyone sounds to these perks. Blizzard wants to improve the game as well, they are making quite a bit of money from people simply maintaining interest in the game and it being an eSport. So I'm also not saying we should be kissing their feet in gratitude for working on this. Just want people to be a bit more realistic with their expectations is all. And to clarify, this post being one of the better. more realistic expectations. I just don't want what happened in BroodWar to happen again in SC2. 5 years after release, the BW ladder was totally unplayable. It's a good thing that ICCUP popped up, or else BW would have died long ago. Unfortunately, Blizzard owns all the rights to SC2, making an alternate ladder completely impossible.
What does that mean? Would someone mind explaining this to me.
Did blizzard not own BW? Was ICCUP a rouge system existing despite Blizzard's disapproval?
Seems like the difference to SC2 isn't so much that blizzard doesn't allow alternate ladder, but rather it's much harder to set up something like that.
|
On June 08 2012 20:25 MrCash wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 20:19 TENTHST wrote:On June 08 2012 20:17 MrCash wrote:On June 08 2012 20:10 howLiN wrote:
Blizzard definitely has to do something about this, because their ladder IS the game right now. People lose the interest in playing in the ladder and the game dies. However I don't necessarily agree that it's something solely in Blizzard's hands.
I think they should make some kind of middle-man system, where players have their own place to discuss if someone is hacking through replay analysis. Players would only be able to discuss on the specific "thread" if they had downloaded and went through the whole replay. If enough players vote on the issue (let's say 50) and there's a good percentage of players that think the guy is guilty (let's say 75%), then the complaint is formally and automatically passed on to a Blizzard employee, that analyses the evidence himself and punishes the player accordingly.
What this does is it solves the logistics problem of having a huge team of employees dealing with every single complaint, while streamlining and automatizing the banning process, making it easier and quicker to ban a hacker. People look at this in a really funny way I think. Blizzard is not charging us monthly fees. You bought the game, you played single player and also have multi-player. I bought Max Payne 3, played campaign, and multi-player is an extra perk, that I honestly don't care much for and overall am still very happy with my purchase. Comparably, SC2 has given me an amazing campaign experience, plus an unparalleled multi-player experience, no other game can replace that for me right now. Compared to Max Payne 3, SC2 has yielded 30x the return for the cost. I agree with you, as well as many others in this thread, in the thing I want and would like blizzard to do, I simply find it funny how entitled everyone sounds to these perks. Blizzard wants to improve the game as well, they are making quite a bit of money from people simply maintaining interest in the game and it being an eSport. So I'm also not saying we should be kissing their feet in gratitude for working on this. Just want people to be a bit more realistic with their expectations is all. And to clarify, this post being one of the better. more realistic expectations. I just don't want what happened in BroodWar to happen again in SC2. 5 years after release, the BW ladder was totally unplayable. It's a good thing that ICCUP popped up, or else BW would have died long ago. Unfortunately, Blizzard owns all the rights to SC2, making an alternate ladder completely impossible. What does that mean? Would someone mind explaining this to me. Did blizzard not own BW? Was ICCUP a rouge system existing despite Blizzard's disapproval? Seems like the difference to SC2 isn't so much that blizzard doesn't allow alternate ladder, but rather it's much harder to set up something like that.
Blizzard didnt really care to be exact (i think). But they do with sc2 and will never allow an alternate ladder.
|
On June 08 2012 20:25 MrCash wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 20:19 TENTHST wrote:On June 08 2012 20:17 MrCash wrote:On June 08 2012 20:10 howLiN wrote:
Blizzard definitely has to do something about this, because their ladder IS the game right now. People lose the interest in playing in the ladder and the game dies. However I don't necessarily agree that it's something solely in Blizzard's hands.
I think they should make some kind of middle-man system, where players have their own place to discuss if someone is hacking through replay analysis. Players would only be able to discuss on the specific "thread" if they had downloaded and went through the whole replay. If enough players vote on the issue (let's say 50) and there's a good percentage of players that think the guy is guilty (let's say 75%), then the complaint is formally and automatically passed on to a Blizzard employee, that analyses the evidence himself and punishes the player accordingly.
What this does is it solves the logistics problem of having a huge team of employees dealing with every single complaint, while streamlining and automatizing the banning process, making it easier and quicker to ban a hacker. People look at this in a really funny way I think. Blizzard is not charging us monthly fees. You bought the game, you played single player and also have multi-player. I bought Max Payne 3, played campaign, and multi-player is an extra perk, that I honestly don't care much for and overall am still very happy with my purchase. Comparably, SC2 has given me an amazing campaign experience, plus an unparalleled multi-player experience, no other game can replace that for me right now. Compared to Max Payne 3, SC2 has yielded 30x the return for the cost. I agree with you, as well as many others in this thread, in the thing I want and would like blizzard to do, I simply find it funny how entitled everyone sounds to these perks. Blizzard wants to improve the game as well, they are making quite a bit of money from people simply maintaining interest in the game and it being an eSport. So I'm also not saying we should be kissing their feet in gratitude for working on this. Just want people to be a bit more realistic with their expectations is all. And to clarify, this post being one of the better. more realistic expectations. I just don't want what happened in BroodWar to happen again in SC2. 5 years after release, the BW ladder was totally unplayable. It's a good thing that ICCUP popped up, or else BW would have died long ago. Unfortunately, Blizzard owns all the rights to SC2, making an alternate ladder completely impossible. What does that mean? Would someone mind explaining this to me. Did blizzard not own BW? Was ICCUP a rouge system existing despite Blizzard's disapproval? Seems like the difference to SC2 isn't so much that blizzard doesn't allow alternate ladder, but rather it's much harder to set up something like that.
I don't know the exact details of it, but someone reverse engineered battle.net legally. I remember that even around 2000-2001 this reverse engineered bnet was downloadable and you could make your own private server with it.
This is what I was talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PvPGN
|
thinking that blizz will step up or that making everyone a hack detective is a good idea is just naive. blizz doesnt care about hacks and warden doesnt work for shit which has been known forever. all they care about is that you shell out 60$ for HoTS and im pretty sure you will. only way to change anything about it is not buy hots.
|
a robust anti cheat system with weekly updates should also do the work.
|
On June 08 2012 20:25 MrCash wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 20:19 TENTHST wrote:On June 08 2012 20:17 MrCash wrote:On June 08 2012 20:10 howLiN wrote:
Blizzard definitely has to do something about this, because their ladder IS the game right now. People lose the interest in playing in the ladder and the game dies. However I don't necessarily agree that it's something solely in Blizzard's hands.
I think they should make some kind of middle-man system, where players have their own place to discuss if someone is hacking through replay analysis. Players would only be able to discuss on the specific "thread" if they had downloaded and went through the whole replay. If enough players vote on the issue (let's say 50) and there's a good percentage of players that think the guy is guilty (let's say 75%), then the complaint is formally and automatically passed on to a Blizzard employee, that analyses the evidence himself and punishes the player accordingly.
What this does is it solves the logistics problem of having a huge team of employees dealing with every single complaint, while streamlining and automatizing the banning process, making it easier and quicker to ban a hacker. People look at this in a really funny way I think. Blizzard is not charging us monthly fees. You bought the game, you played single player and also have multi-player. I bought Max Payne 3, played campaign, and multi-player is an extra perk, that I honestly don't care much for and overall am still very happy with my purchase. Comparably, SC2 has given me an amazing campaign experience, plus an unparalleled multi-player experience, no other game can replace that for me right now. Compared to Max Payne 3, SC2 has yielded 30x the return for the cost. I agree with you, as well as many others in this thread, in the thing I want and would like blizzard to do, I simply find it funny how entitled everyone sounds to these perks. Blizzard wants to improve the game as well, they are making quite a bit of money from people simply maintaining interest in the game and it being an eSport. So I'm also not saying we should be kissing their feet in gratitude for working on this. Just want people to be a bit more realistic with their expectations is all. And to clarify, this post being one of the better. more realistic expectations. I just don't want what happened in BroodWar to happen again in SC2. 5 years after release, the BW ladder was totally unplayable. It's a good thing that ICCUP popped up, or else BW would have died long ago. Unfortunately, Blizzard owns all the rights to SC2, making an alternate ladder completely impossible. What does that mean? Would someone mind explaining this to me. Did blizzard not own BW? Was ICCUP a rouge system existing despite Blizzard's disapproval? Seems like the difference to SC2 isn't so much that blizzard doesn't allow alternate ladder, but rather it's much harder to set up something like that.
No, the issue is that Blizzard doesn't allow an alternate ladder. There was a private Starcraft 2 ladder a while back, but Blizz shut it down.
http://www.flashmasons.com/article.php?op=view&what=16
|
I'm sure they are working on it but I don't believe for a second that hacking will be as wide spread as you think just because this isn't BW, you can't make multiple accounts with one cd key. We are in a different era, if hackers really want to throw down $60 every time they get banned then so be it, I know blizzard is doing all they can and what can we do that we haven't been doing before? We're reporting them when we see it, and we're letting the community know when we see it, what else more do you want? Like I said, I think the $60 is a big reason why there will only be a few douche bags who cheat just to get in GM. And if it turns out they spend $30-40 to keep cheating in HotS then they are wasting their time, it's too easy to spot a hacker and it gets you no where, yea it sucks people are getting free plane tickets but what are they going to do but look like a fool?
I mean, how many people do you really think are cheating in bronze/silver/gold? that's the majority of the player base and I just can't see hacking being a big problem in the lower leagues when they probably wouldn't spend money to get a 2nd account in the first place.
|
I think the problem is that there isn't a proper and efficient channel to report hacks to Blizzard. The "report who you think it's hacking" system doesn't work.
|
The problem is relying on Blizzard to do anything. They're too large a company to really care about this crap. They'll get around to it in a year. Look at global play/resume from replay. All bundled into the expansion, conveniently.
We'll probably have to wait for LotV for hacking detection, or we have to figure out a way to do it ourselves.
|
I made a post about the technical aspect of it in the other thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=14979289
Your whole post just skips the entire issue and seems to mostly assume it will exist anyway but its really not true. Btw ICCUP is probably not the best example because while some nice tricks were found to identify hackers, i believe private hacks were still completely viable, it's just pointless (especially as the nature of BW meant a good player would overcome the hack advantages).
|
On June 08 2012 19:54 Garmer wrote:
also with warden they ban innocent people that only want to change mpq, for other reason(like sound, image ecc...)
I've never seen any evidence that they have banned people for this.
|
As you may or may not know, map hacking was one of the main ingredients that led to the death of the BroodWar ladder
Not a main ingredient use in the cake more likely it's just the icing of the cake there are much more great factors that were involved in the death of bw ladder and map hacking wasn't one of them.
|
I agree that something needs to be done. Not sure what that is, I have done the tribunal in LoL and believe it to be a great system (because of the reward) but not sure how that would work for sc2 (replays take longer to look at and no set possible reward that everyone wants). I do believe there is a part to the community working to out hackers but I also think it is more so on blizzard to do a part. We need people to not only report hackers but (not how the spades thing was handled) also compile evidence and present it to the community. I know TL is working on their response to the whole spades and how they think it should be handled in the forums (I am greatly interested as to how they think it should be handled). So we shall see but thank you for taking the time to think through it, we need to be a part of the solution.
~YourFriend
|
I think people make a bigger deal about cheating than they should. I mean, are ladder points really THAT important to you? It's not like the guy is really proving anything by beating you, so just ignore the game and hit find match again, no one's judging your ability because you lost to a cheater.
|
Russian Federation396 Posts
my friend had maphack and he was in silver league, he got banned like 2-3weeks after, and i doubt any1 ever even reported him
|
Russian Federation396 Posts
On June 08 2012 21:19 Sawamura wrote:Show nested quote +As you may or may not know, map hacking was one of the main ingredients that led to the death of the BroodWar ladder Not a main ingredient use in the cake more likely it's just the icing of the cake there are much more great factors that were involved in the death of bw ladder and map hacking wasn't one of them.
did u play the bw ladder?
it died because of many reasons, such as non lan lat, poor point system, bad map pool, maphacking and many more
maphacking wasnt the icing, it was definitely the eggs in the creation of it.
|
A player tribunal sounds nice until you consider that some players have no idea what they're talking about and could be involved. There's also the whole mob justice thing. And I can't see Blizzard employing new people really and even if they did it would be 1-3, and nowhere near 10 or 20.
One idea I kinda like is a "pro council" organised by Blizzard. They pick a group of pros from volunteers (and refresh this list of pros every now and then) and pay them a small amount to analyse each player who has a case against them from reports. They could pay less than they pay for a full time employee, and it also has the benefit of supporting ESPORTS. It not a glamorous way of earning money and it's likely going to be boring, but it seems possible and things like the CatZ/Illusion/TT1 stream seem to suggest that pros are happy to spend a fair bit of time analyzing their peers if cheating might be involved.
EDIT: As a separate point, though, I don't think hacking is that widespread and I think people are getting into a bit of a frenzy about it because there have been a few high profile cases recently. It would be interesting to find out how many there are, but I don't think it's realistically possible.
|
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.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.
|
oh reminds me of these random please mag a screen shot now and send it to us asap in some online games, before they had proper detection for things like this.
Hackers are pretty swiftly exposed atm, the issue though is that online tournaments seem to not care. But at the end that will lead to the end of online tournaments, as no one watches the cheat leagues anymore.
|
I dont know if you was around in W3 / WoW times, but Blizzard always banns in big waves, not one by one
|
There have been other posts similar to this that have been closed. But none of them have been as well thought out as this one. I can see that you really put effort into thinking about the problem and your proposal for a solution.
With that said we can speculate all we want on what we think the correct answer is, and how Activision should go about handling people who hack their game. Instead of proposing solutions and what we think they should be doing, we need to think of a ways that we can effectively communicate to Activision that we think want them to do more. Our voices need to be heard in a way that will make Blizzard do something.
So if you post on the official forums. Don’t post what you think they should do. Post asking them to do something.
Email them and let them know you think they need to do more.
Tweet at them and let them know they need to do more.
Post on their facebook page that they need to do more.
If you want something to be done, you have to let them know it. They do not go to forums to figure out what the solution needs to be. They do however monitor social media and react to it. They will ultimately come up with a plan to increase the integrity of the ladder, not you. But you have to be as loud as possible to make them make a change. My mother always said, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. As a community, let’s let them know.
|
1. Hire/Steal R1CH
2. Celebrate hack-free battle.net within 48 hours
|
On June 08 2012 19:23 TENTHST wrote:
As you may or may not know, map hacking was one of the main ingredients that led to the death of the BroodWar ladder.
Lol , totally disagree from the first sentence.
The one and only reason brood war ladder died was because the speed was locked at 'fast' instead of fastest which was the speed played on 99.99999% of other games on bnet.By the time blizz patched that other ladders had already popped up which allowed games to be played on fastest.
Anyway personally i think the hacking problem is overhyped , it's far easier to ban accounts now than it was back in 1998 and the repercussions are also greater.
|
On June 08 2012 20:01 Gros Bill wrote:
Do you really think Blizzard will support a game which has no monthly fees like WoW ? Even for WoW they do nothing against bot. I will not talk about Diablo II. :-)
Blizzard only cares when you buy the game, and maybe about the marketing of the product too.
Your solution seems nice, like hippies' dreams during the 60-70's.
If you want to avoid hackers, find a community, play custom against your friends etc. If you want to be serious about what you say you would send a mail or an online petition to blizzard.
Good luck in your lost croisade.
As much as Blizzard has dropped the ball on things, I do believe they are concerned about their long term reputation. If they start giving up on non-subscription games people will see where their priorities are and may not end up buying any of their future releases.
|
On June 08 2012 20:09 SpeCtor wrote:
IP bans?
It's a pay game.
if the proof is good, I think this is a good choice
|
On June 08 2012 22:30 Chakoi wrote:It's a pay game. if the proof is good, I think this is a good choice
This is impossible. Most people have a dynamic IP, so they can easily change their IP. Only the range of their IP keeps the same. But everyone living in one area or having the same internet provider have the same IP range so they can't ban the whole range.
|
when blizzard say tehy wait to ban more its just bad for GM's if you ban them after 6 month they say "ok fuck game" and cheat in another rts or shooter, but in this 6 month they hurt the communty, the game and esport !
|
On June 08 2012 22:33 roym899 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 22:30 Chakoi wrote:On June 08 2012 20:09 SpeCtor wrote:
IP bans? It's a pay game. if the proof is good, I think this is a good choice This is impossible. Most people have a dynamic IP, so they can easily change their IP. Only the range of their IP keeps the same. But everyone living in one area or having the same internet provider have the same IP range so they can't ban the whole range.
The can just permanent ban the account and just keep doing that making them force to buy a new game/acc if they want to play.
Just keep this going until they can figure a new method out to keep these cheaters out
|
I think its a bit silly(as well as unrealistic) to think blizzard would hire 20 people to go through every game that gets reported. It would probably be best if Blizzard implements some sort of anti-hack system, as well as some sort of automatic way to detect funky business on a replay. It would definitely require some maintenance, but it would make the process more efficient. Since I assume this hacks a fairly well know, checking for the majority of them: like this long screen locks, clicking on building without vision, etc... it should be impossible to implement.
If cheater had to buy new accounts when they get caught, at least it would pay for the people working to stop them.
|
On June 08 2012 22:33 roym899 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 22:30 Chakoi wrote:On June 08 2012 20:09 SpeCtor wrote:
IP bans? It's a pay game. if the proof is good, I think this is a good choice This is impossible. Most people have a dynamic IP, so they can easily change their IP. Only the range of their IP keeps the same. But everyone living in one area or having the same internet provider have the same IP range so they can't ban the whole range.
Most people have a dynamic IP?
I don't know how it is in Germany but in France it has been static IP since a long time ago (like, since ADSL began spreading).
|
Fact being this isn't making any new players want to play the game...
It's going to cause more trouble.. as more is using it
|
On June 08 2012 22:42 Chakoi wrote:
Fact being this isn't making any new players want to play the game...
It's going to cause more trouble.. as more is using it
I doubt it's affecting this at all, I doubt there are any maphackers in bronze - plat, and if they are, it would hardly help them at that point in the game (except for things like 2gate proxies and cannon rushes on 4player maps etc. etc.)
|
On June 08 2012 22:43 FairForever wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 22:42 Chakoi wrote:
Fact being this isn't making any new players want to play the game...
It's going to cause more trouble.. as more is using it I doubt it's affecting this at all, I doubt there are any maphackers in bronze - plat, and if they are, it would hardly help them at that point in the game (except for things like 2gate proxies and cannon rushes on 4player maps etc. etc.)
It's that it's giving an impression the company doesn't care for their games letting cheaters roam around everywhere
It'll influence others and more to use the cheat probably as the ones are not getting punished "What can go wrong"
They won't sell as many new sc2 due to the rumour there is lots of cheaters in the game.
Would you pay for a game where there are cheaters everywhere.
|
Blizzard has NEVER been able to effectively get rid of botters/maphackers, etc. Warden is terrible and there are always ways to get around it. They've also never been able to get rid of chat spammers in Diablo/WoW. They won't even hire some high school kid to work for $12/hour to moderate chat.
What makes you think that they'll somehow come up with a way to ban SC2 map/resource/or whatever else hacks? Warden probably can't detect them (and if it can, more will be made that won't be detected) and they are certainly not going to start hiring people to review replays for possible map hacking.
It's a battle they don't care to fight.
|
I really think some sort of data mining system could be implemented to detect hacks in a more automated manner. Certainly this is the case for blink hacks, auto-split, perfect injects, etc. The bottom line is that Blizzard could be doingmore than they are now. It's shameful that don't because it detracts from the quality of the product they create, and you would think they would be doing everything they can to ensure that the Blizzard name is only stamped on high quality products.
Sadly, if they can't even fix EPM and APM being reversed in their fucking replays for months, I don't have much faith in their ability to implement more effective anti-hack measures. Guess they are more concerned with profits than putting out high quality products.
|
People still don't seem to get the idea that blizzard doesn't really "want" or even need to stop hacker, the only time they might change there mind about it is when there is an actual competition in the genre, but until than they only need to worry about people being able to play and pros having a balance game.
As long as you ignore hacking and say no one is hacking and the ones who did it get banned every 2 months... you are better of as a company than:
1. hiring a few people as anti hack team ( that might cost around 10 to 100k $ a month if you want them to work full time and not ban "innocents" due to bias/not knowing the game well enough/cuz a friend asked them to .. or at least it requires cooperation with non battle net websites which they are strictly against )
2. Banning people in high master/gm only, which would require little to no time
Both of those however, nr 2 especially, will likely increase the number of people that are less willing to buy the game/expansion due to the fact that they are AWARE of hacking.
Atm blizzard approach of do nothing, bs the "masses" and pay nothing is the best in terms of cost efficiency and number of lost sales due to hacking.
High master and gm aren't full of hackers, id say less than 2% of the players are hackers... that not such a "bad" thing.
When someone like Spades or another pro is cough hacking they can be simply witch hunted via tl and reddit and the issue is dealt with that way.
The argument of private hacks(aka ones that are good and can't be detected so easily ) becoming "big" in the next few years is a valid one but i would assume they will take a step back with every expansion due to the team updating the basic anti hack we have/changes in the game/net code ( im actually not fucking sure how hack works... so if an expansion does to influence it at all i am sorry, but i am kinda retarded in terms of softwares ).
And you have to consider that in 3 to 4 years when the last expansion is released and the private server technology is perfected we will likely have an off battle net competitive ladder that we can play and admins that can manually ban hackers.
|
I reckon custom ladders will be implemented by the time LOTV rolls around...I remember blizzard was discussing the possibilities of it in the beginning of beta, it would be so smart of them to sell the ability to set up custom leagues/ladders/tournaments within the client as a micro-transaction. This would also give you the ability to use a 3rd party program that everyone in your league has to run, which connects you to a anti-hack network, where people can verify 1. you are logged onto the network so that 2. you cant use hacks.
|
On June 08 2012 22:55 Doodsmack wrote:
I really think some sort of data mining system could be implemented to detect hacks in a more automated manner. Certainly this is the case for blink hacks, auto-split, perfect injects, etc. The bottom line is that Blizzard could be doingmore than they are now. It's shameful that don't because it detracts from the quality of the product they create, and you would think they would be doing everything they can to ensure that the Blizzard name is only stamped on high quality products.
Sadly, if they can't even fix EPM and APM being reversed in their fucking replays for months, I don't have much faith in their ability to implement more effective anti-hack measures. Guess they are more concerned with profits than putting out high quality products.
1.5 fixes this.
The fact that they haven't been after this at all shows that this is probably gonna fuck up battle.net long term. HOTS beta/release will give us all a small break though as chances are most of there hacks won't work in those games. Hacking/cheating is a problem in any online game ever. Some developers actively bann people and care a lot, others don't give a shit. In sc1 this lead to iccup, at this point I just hope the community will come up with anti-hack tools, given that blizzard doesn't bann cheaters actively they probably won't bann anti-hack tool users either. I don't think we can really rely on blizzard, instead of having a big thread bitching at how terribly blizzard is someone should just program there own piece of software, or maybe we just need our own battle.net server again.
|
I think they will be more aware of this problem and atm is us the community having to point out the cheaters and they will ban them. We just have to catch as many as we can keep it going. Permanent ban should be the way to do it.
Nothing else we can do until blizzard updates us
|
On June 08 2012 23:05 Chakoi wrote:
I think they will be more aware of this problem and atm is us the community having to point out the cheaters and they will ban them. We just have to catch as many as we can keep it going. Permanent ban should be the way to do it.
Nothing else we can do until blizzard updates us
This assumes that they have an automatic way to detect these programs, which they likely don't. Warden isn't some mystical catch-all way to find botters/maphackers/etc. They certainly aren't going to hire people to review replays.
|
But they may think of something genius
Who knows. We'll have to do as much as we can
|
Focusing solely on GM would have a reasonably large impact on masters for free. It would also add prestige to the GM rank.
|
People who find out about HRGZack should get a job from blizzard obviously right now the people that works in Blizzard arent doing their job right.
|
I would say anytime you find a hack don't just report them, go through their match history and tell everyone who's online to watch their replay and report them.
|
The only problem with saying the ultimate solution is the player base is that it's, well, kinda false. You could say the solution to Diablo III including offline play would have been the players voicing their angry opinions, but Blizzard is magically immune to this sort of thing; everyone still buys their games, and at the end of the day the games are really fun. The way I see it, the most successful community effort to force Blizzard to introduce change would be the implementation in HotS for resuming games from replays. Some average Joe came along and made a program that did just that, leaving Blizzard no excuse. Similarly if enough people speak out about hackers and expose an embarrassing flaw on Blizzard's part, perhaps with a valid solution, we could force Blizzard to take action in a more effective manner than the Warden system.
Or not, because come on, it's Blizzard. And at the end of the day as long as they're selling, they don't really give a damn.
|
Not going to happen. Manpower costs a ton of money. Unless there is explicit monetary interest, e.g. WoW subscription or D3 RMAH, they won't do it. Hackers are a minority. Blizzard only needs to do so much to keep the problem small enough for a certain period of time, until the next iteration of their IP cycle comes through.
|
On June 08 2012 23:34 Doodsmack wrote:
I would say anytime you find a hack don't just report them, go through their match history and tell everyone who's online to watch their replay and report them.
I would look out very much doing it this way. The thing here is people don't just report when they are 100% sure its hacking but also when they THINK said person is hacking or even when someone looks suspicious.
So instead of 1 wrong report you got way more which might result in banning someone cause 1 person saids against all his friends he is hacking while it isn't true.
|
On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?).
A very good idea. If the OP really thinks Blizz will ever dedicate 15-20 people to catching hackers, he is living in wonderland, where he has nothing else than care bears as his friends.
|
On June 08 2012 23:36 Areon wrote:
The only problem with saying the ultimate solution is the player base is that it's, well, kinda false. You could say the solution to Diablo III including offline play would have been the players voicing their angry opinions, but Blizzard is magically immune to this sort of thing; everyone still buys their games, and at the end of the day the games are really fun. The way I see it, the most successful community effort to force Blizzard to introduce change would be the implementation in HotS for resuming games from replays. Some average Joe came along and made a program that did just that, leaving Blizzard no excuse. Similarly if enough people speak out about hackers and expose an embarrassing flaw on Blizzard's part, perhaps with a valid solution, we could force Blizzard to take action in a more effective manner than the Warden system.
Or not, because come on, it's Blizzard. And at the end of the day as long as they're selling, they don't really give a damn.
TheSuperCow is no average Joe. He is a visionary. :D
|
On June 08 2012 23:39 rotegirte wrote:
Not going to happen. Manpower costs a ton of money. Unless there is explicit monetary interest, e.g. WoW subscription or D3 RMAH, they won't do it. Hackers are a minority. Blizzard only needs to do so much to keep the problem small enough for a certain period of time, until the next iteration of their IP cycle comes through.
This is exactly why we need to loudly communicate to Blizzard there is a problem.
If there is a strang demand on their forums, to their twitter, or on their facebook pages for fixing a major problem with their game they would have to. That type of negative social media backlash will ultimately come back and hurt the company's reputation, and thus future sales.
The way to fix the problem is to get mad, and let Blizzard know you are mad about hacking. They will be put into a position where they will have to spend more resources to fix it.
Posting what you think Blizzard should do does nothing.
Posting what you think we should do to make blizzard do something is constructive.
|
On June 08 2012 23:50 Smancer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 23:39 rotegirte wrote:
Not going to happen. Manpower costs a ton of money. Unless there is explicit monetary interest, e.g. WoW subscription or D3 RMAH, they won't do it. Hackers are a minority. Blizzard only needs to do so much to keep the problem small enough for a certain period of time, until the next iteration of their IP cycle comes through. This is exactly why we need to loudly communicate to Blizzard there is a problem. If there is a strang demand on their forums, to their twitter, or on their facebook pages for fixing a major problem with their game they would have to. That type of negative social media backlash will ultimately come back and hurt the company's reputation, and thus future sales. The way to fix the problem is to get mad, and let Blizzard know you are mad about hacking. They will be put into a position where they will have to spend more resources to fix it. Posting what you think Blizzard should do does nothing. Posting what you think we should do to make blizzard do something is constructive.
Not really, because ultimately, most of us will buy HotS regardless. So they will have little incentive to do so. Every major gaming company gets into massive shitstorm on a monthly basis, but we still buy their crap, just look at EA.
|
On June 08 2012 19:57 Kontys wrote:
Read as far as "players as detectives": No, I am not going to waste my time policing the fucking ladder. Blizzard's job, period. I don't fucking care how they do it.
Quoted for truth.
On June 08 2012 20:20 howLiN wrote:
And what I said about ladder being the sole reason the majority of people play this game, I don't think it's that far off. Ladder has a big weight to everyone that plays Starcraft, and any problem that may arise in it is more serious than problems in other areas of the game. Ultimately, it's ladder that draws people into the game, and it's the system that I feel Blizzard needs to be more protective about.
Your assumption wouldn't be nearly as clear cut had Blizzard handled custom games properly. Proof? See WC3.
|
Team liquid should form an independent tribunal and juging over players suspected of cheating.
We just have to find out there real names and kill them with terror death squads.
People will stop cheating if they know that their life is on the line.
Joke aside this only works if there is some sort of punishment that really hurts.
|
WHY CHEAT??
This is going to affect the future of people who want to go pro
|
i don't really care if people on ladder cheat. as long as their MMR is accurate to their skill level when using hacks, it means i still have an even chance of winning against them, regardless of their hacks. theoretically, even with hacks they will have reached their plateau of their skill level at some point. sure, a little frustrating to lose to them but if they were truly unbeatable then they won't be at my MMR.
|
PunkBuster, Valve's anti-cheat system, Warden. All are easily exploitable, one easier then the other. I think Warden is one of the better ones out there (much better then let's say Punkbuster) but even then, it's still not amazing. It's just like a anti-virus where Blizzard has to update it everytime a new hack comes to surface, analyzing the hack itself and then closing the holes. No matter how good you are, people are going to be able to hack it.
|
On June 08 2012 19:32 ExO_ wrote:
The only real potential practical solution to the hacking problem would be a private server like iccup. I don't see that happening any time soon
When we are at it, can we also run SC2 on a WC3 Bnet-Interface? :D
|
On June 09 2012 00:14 Seiniyta wrote:
PunkBuster, Valve's anti-cheat system, Warden. All are easily exploitable, one easier then the other. I think Warden is one of the better ones out there (much better then let's say Punkbuster) but even then, it's still not amazing. It's just like a anti-virus where Blizzard has to update it everytime a new hack comes to surface, analyzing the hack itself and then closing the holes. No matter how good you are, people are going to be able to hack it.
This is exactly it. All the jaded fan reaction and calling them a greedy corporation that doesn't care is completely unfounded and I don't understand why Blizzard fans get this way constantly.
Expecting Blizzard to keep their game hack-free is an unfair expectation.
|
Great post. But I think it would make the 10-20 people team's lives easier by just focusing Diamond League - Grandmaster League because people in lower leagues tend to do random things anyways and the amount of players in Platinum and below are astronomically high compared to Diamond - Grandmaster League combined.
Also one thing to keep the reporting system valid can be done by limiting the amount of incident report a player can submit to 1 per day so that they are not able to spam the system.
Also, the qualification of those 10-20 people should be high master's league and above so that their knowledge about the game is sufficient enough to determine and give a verdict.
What do you guys think?
|
As soon as I read "blizzard needs" I stopped reading. Posts like these are great, but until I read a blizzard released statement, there isn't really a good reason for taking the time to go through replays and send them to a company that can't/won't take appropriate and timely measures to fix it.
|
A lot of people in this thread are making the assumption that Blizzard doesn't care that their higher scene is polluted by hackers, when I think that's not true, especially lately. The WCS is an enormous effort in the direction of popularizing SC2 as a competitive game, pushing the biggest prize pool in a year except maybe the GSL, while flying players to every phase of the tournament. It's because they want WCS to happen that they won't do Blizzcon this year, something unheard of. They're adding "esports" sections to their websites, promoting tournaments both in-game and in splash pages, and picking people from ladder to compete in their championships. They obviously care about competitive Starcraft and they obviously care about their ladder system as a measurement tool. They're just not very efficient at dealing with hackers.
|
It is unlikely that Blizzard will invest on a team of hack detectors. Perhaps what we should do is to have a forum with strict rules and regulations where people posts replays and the members of the forum analyse them. If enough members decide that it's a hack, then the replay gets sent to Blizzard. This way the community does part of the job. We will act as filters, so that the work can be more manageable for Blizzard. If we can get enough people interested in doing this, even in a casual bases, it should be doable. Perhaps not every replay will get attention, but a good number will, and then a good number of hackers will get eliminated. Any thoughts?
|
We're no assuming they don't care.
We just care about the game
|
why can't blizzard do what garena does regarding maphack?
|
On June 09 2012 00:42 sharky246 wrote:
why can't blizzard do what garena does regarding maphack?
They are doing just that. You can maphack on garena, I've done it plenty of times when public dota games was infested with maphackers. You can't simply not maphack, when every other person is doing it.
|
Your purposal is admirable but not practical. Too much work needed from the community, not gonna happen.
What bugs me though is that how come there are no people who work against hack-makers? I think that most of the programmers that make hacks do it for fun and the challenge, why are there no people who oppose them and for the same reason.
Surely it is even more challenging to fight hacks than to make them, on the programming level?
|
Brings me back to the days of cs 1.6 , where everytime anyone dropped a 20 bomb they were automatically blantant wallhackers.
Sad to see, really.
|
they rather ban people for verbal abuse than maphacking ~
T_T
|
On June 09 2012 01:12 teddyoojo wrote:
they rather ban people for verbal abuse than maphacking ~
T_T
Seems legit. :DD
|
Name one Blizzard game that's not filled with hacks and bots.
|
On June 09 2012 01:41 valaki wrote:
Name one Blizzard game that's not filled with hacks and bots.
IIRC, warcraft 2 doesnt have hackers and bots
|
On June 08 2012 19:32 ExO_ wrote:
The only real potential practical solution to the hacking problem would be a private server like iccup. I don't see that happening any time soon
This. It is the only practical solution. Blizzard can only implement automated systems, which can be exploited. ICCUP had an active volunteer community that could have real people review for hacking.
|
On June 09 2012 01:49 sharky246 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2012 01:41 valaki wrote:
Name one Blizzard game that's not filled with hacks and bots. IIRC, warcraft 2 doesnt have hackers and bots
haha!
All this sounds good. I hope they add an appeals system though, just to be sure legit luck doesn't result in a ban.
I think Blizzard is still trying to deal with the increased responsibility coming from removing LAN  and having everyone play online. Unanticipated costs and all that.
|
On June 08 2012 20:45 emc wrote:
I'm sure they are working on it but I don't believe for a second that hacking will be as wide spread as you think just because this isn't BW, you can't make multiple accounts with one cd key. We are in a different era, if hackers really want to throw down $60 every time they get banned then so be it, I know blizzard is doing all they can and what can we do that we haven't been doing before? We're reporting them when we see it, and we're letting the community know when we see it, what else more do you want? Like I said, I think the $60 is a big reason why there will only be a few douche bags who cheat just to get in GM. And if it turns out they spend $30-40 to keep cheating in HotS then they are wasting their time, it's too easy to spot a hacker and it gets you no where, yea it sucks people are getting free plane tickets but what are they going to do but look like a fool?
I mean, how many people do you really think are cheating in bronze/silver/gold? that's the majority of the player base and I just can't see hacking being a big problem in the lower leagues when they probably wouldn't spend money to get a 2nd account in the first place.
If I am honest, Im okey for being hacked if a hacker losses 60 dollars everytime they get baned 
|
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.
This ^^
I've come across numerous people I believe to be maphacking and a handful of which I am certain they are using maphacks. I have reported and sent replays of them hacking and added them on my friends list. Two of them I reported over a month ago and still they log on with no ban.
I have a feeling if Blizzard doesnt act soon there wont be much of a game left if this sort of cheating keeps up and its sad to see.
|
I honestly would not be surprised to see Legacy of the Swarm come with a new anti-hack system. They need to save some new features for the expansions, afterall...
|
While I applaud your ideas they aren't really realistic as you admit. Blizzard isn't going to hire a whole team to work on hacking as hacking doesn't affect their bottom line. People have already bought the game.
The only way to fix this is in software. Similar to the methods Apple uses to close the holes used for jailbreaking, Blizzard needs to close the holes used to maphack. There are various methods to do this but the end result would end up being something like Punkbuster or VAC. There has to be some method to detect local programs accessing the SC2 memory/cache to stop this fully.
Hopefully this is being planned. Maybe we can even start a petition. Either way, something like this is going to be much more attainable than pushing for hiring an anti-hacking team indefinitely.
|
ICCup will one day be born again and oh boy i can't wait. ICCup was so fun
|
This kind of brings up the question: "Just how rampant is cheating or hacking throughout the playerbase?"
I mean are we talking D2 level of saturation or are we talking fish server of BW level of saturation? The answer would heavily affect anyone interested in legitimately getting better at sc2 since they'd be literally playing every single game at a serious disadvantage to someone who while they might be far worse, simply can see everything you're doing.
|
The problem with turning players into detectives is that most people are not qualified to tell if someone is a maphacker. There are a lot of things that people do that can seem like hacking. For example, in FPS games I get kicked/banned for "wallhacking", but in reality it's just that when I go behind cover, I keep facing the direction that my enemies are, so it looks like I could be looking at them through the wall. In RTS, players with good game sense can look suspicious in the same way. To make it worse, if a person just lost to another, they are not an objective party assessing the player.
|
I hope this doesn't cause a series of misguided vigilantism in reporting players who don't really maphack.
At the highest level of play on ladder (GM/high master) this kind of action may be possible, but this is not really viable in any other leagues. Most people will just report players who bm, cheese, and as OP said "blindly make marauders at 20:00 min mark vs ultra cavern."
Players who plays in high master/GM who suspects cheating should review the replays carefully and report if deemed necessary, but players below that level of play should abstain from doing so.
|
The map hacking in sc2 takes a backseat to the potential downfall of diablo 3 due to the economic flaws with the game, and the chinese farmer botting problem. I'm not saying map hacking in sc2 should be ignored at any point, because I do believe that it is important to uphold fair play across all the games, but the problem creeping up in Diablo 3 right now could mean the end of their latest release, and more pissed off people than you can imagine
SO that's where I am assuming most of their efforts are leaning towards at this moment in time, and rightfully so.
|
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.
I reported him 1 week ago as well, as did a couple other people I know of...
|
There are hackers, that is for sure, but I think this is getting blown a little bit out of proportion. I mean, ladder is in no way broken because of hackers, and if there are that many hackers than they're really really bad at it - like Spades.
|
Being a mid-diamond player, I honestly dont really even care about the map hackers in masters and grand masters. It doesnt effect me whatsoever. Look at the stream sniping "problem". Were is all of the hype around that now? Dont forget, people are still using that to their advantage. So if map hackers scare away a pro from streaming, well so will sniping. So it doesnt matter, either way I still dont get to watch.
The pro scene on the surface, in terms of competition, doesnt seem to be affected. When do you ever hear of a real professional sc2 player say that they get more out of the ladder than playing customs with their team or other teams? I never do. Yes, it is annoying. Yes it takes away from the game and the players as a whole. But it isnt a big enough deal to where it will effect what is most popular in the competitive scene.
When a known map hacker shows up to one of these tournaments that we all watch, they will get flamed into the ground. Probably to the point where they cant actually play in the tournament, or concentrate on their matches. They will lose, they will never show up again. They will go back to map hacking on the irrelevant ladder.
Omg I said it! Thats right, the ladder doesnt matter! Before stream sniping, before an outbreak of map hackers, people were being annoyed just by the way people PLAY on the ladder, without cheating! I hear pro's say on their stream all the time "i dont really care about the ladder. People just cheese or do something stupid that isnt part of the metagame, and I dont get real practice from that".
|
Asking blizzard to hire 10-20 employees to sit around checking reported replays for suspicion of cheating is entirely unrealistic. Not only would it be financially absurd for them to do, but it would start shitstorms. If you use a program like warden to.determine someone is hacking, you can be 100% sure and not be at risk when you ban. However, if you do it based on the perception of an employee, you need the employee to be well trained and you still run the risk of false bans which can end up being hugely detrimental to the integrity of their company.
No, the only viable option in my mind is a third party hack detection program like on iccup in brood war that nlizzard themselves cannot use due to illegality/copyright infringement on other running programs, and this would require a separate ladder (just like in bw), which this time around blizzard.will not allow. Thus I am sad to say that unless blizzard develops a brilliant new antihack system there is no viable solution (legally at least) and ladder will run rampant with cheaters and eventually die as you have suggested.
|
On June 08 2012 19:52 EtherealDeath wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?). People love to hate on LoL but that is actually quite a brilliant way to crowdsource.
People like to hate on LoL because it is popular and "mainstream" for a video game.
Riot really is the best company in terms of how they treat their player base. Much better than Blizzard of late. I think companies should look to Riot as a role model for how company-player relations should be played out.
As for the cheaters, there is really nothing we can truly do. It is a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless.
|
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.
|
Of course hacking will never stop. The idea of digitally 'cheating' is an age old technology. Ever since the birth of the email (or before that?) people have found ways to illegally and/or maliciously take advantage of other people or other technologies. Computer security isnt an idea, it is an industry. While people moan and whine about how this guy can see your buildings without scouting, they are ignoring the effort made to protect what really matters: your information.
People who get hacked always claim that it happens out of nowhere, and for no reason whatsoever, just to put a worse image on the companies. When in reality, it was more likely the users' fault to begin with.
Give blizzard time to take care of the things that really matter, and then they will get to your petty maphacker issues. Also, blizzard is aware of this problem by now. You can discuss it, blacklist people, thats all well and good, but dont think that you had a stroke of genious and know something that they dont.
|
On June 09 2012 03:52 Demonhunter04 wrote:
The problem with turning players into detectives is that most people are not qualified to tell if someone is a maphacker. There are a lot of things that people do that can seem like hacking. For example, in FPS games I get kicked/banned for "wallhacking", but in reality it's just that when I go behind cover, I keep facing the direction that my enemies are, so it looks like I could be looking at them through the wall. In RTS, players with good game sense can look suspicious in the same way. To make it worse, if a person just lost to another, they are not an objective party assessing the player.
That's why Blizzard needs to do its own review and eventually rank players on how reliable their reports are. They could build up a list of players whose reports they can trust and focus most of their efforts on reviewing their reports.
|
On June 09 2012 05:41 hypercube wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2012 03:52 Demonhunter04 wrote:
The problem with turning players into detectives is that most people are not qualified to tell if someone is a maphacker. There are a lot of things that people do that can seem like hacking. For example, in FPS games I get kicked/banned for "wallhacking", but in reality it's just that when I go behind cover, I keep facing the direction that my enemies are, so it looks like I could be looking at them through the wall. In RTS, players with good game sense can look suspicious in the same way. To make it worse, if a person just lost to another, they are not an objective party assessing the player. That's why Blizzard needs to do its own review and eventually rank players on how reliable their reports are. They could build up a list of players whose reports they can trust and focus most of their efforts on reviewing their reports.
You can almost never trust the word of another player or anyone else in the community outside of blizzard or other gaming companies. There are just too many people that, while they have the right intentions and may be correct sometimes, they are also often too ignorant of what is really fact and what is fiction. When I played WoW, i never sent in a bogus report just because I didnt like a player, but even if my suspicions about bots were spot on, I could never actually prove that they were doing it, and blizzard knows this. I could just be another 1 of millions of trolls that send bogus shit in every day.
It's the same with sc2. You can report people for map hacking, but even if their replay looks suspicious, if blizzard's software cannot detect any 3rd party entity running with the game, they have no grounds to punish that player.
|
On June 09 2012 04:35 Holytornados wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:52 EtherealDeath wrote:On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?). People love to hate on LoL but that is actually quite a brilliant way to crowdsource. People like to hate on LoL because it is popular and "mainstream" for a video game. Riot really is the best company in terms of how they treat their player base. Much better than Blizzard of late. I think companies should look to Riot as a role model for how company-player relations should be played out. As for the cheaters, there is really nothing we can truly do. It is a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless.
that maybe true but Riot is retarded at balancing their game in the slightest manner at all and the rate they release heros but thats aside point.
|
I wanted to play SC2 alot. Like practice but if this is the case... DOTA 2 it is :/ lol
|
Maybe there should be some sort of counter-hack devised by a group of tech experts that would allow players to be able to determine whether their opponent is hacking? No idea if its possible or not, but I was thinking you always hear about people breaking into systems and bypassing security. Why can't there be a group of people that can find ways to more pro-actively protect players against hackers by going above and beyond Blizzard's standard security measures? I know it probably wouldn't be allowed by Blizzard, but as a last resort (if hacking becomes rampant) that would be our only hope.
Anyway, if hacking becomes a more serious problem, and people make enough noise (and I'm sure they will!), I'm confident Blizzard can find a way to create a new and improved Warden system that will set the hackers back to square one.
|
On June 08 2012 19:52 EtherealDeath wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?). People love to hate on LoL but that is actually quite a brilliant way to crowdsource.
LoL's tribunal is completely useless.
Riot really is the best company in terms of how they treat their player base.
lol, really?
|
On June 09 2012 04:35 Holytornados wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2012 19:52 EtherealDeath wrote:On June 08 2012 19:42 Roggay wrote:
LoL has a system where everyone can judge cases of people being reported (for a lot of things, mainly feeding or bm) at a "tribunal" and you gain a small reward for every case where you were right (I think the cases approved by the majority are then passed to a riot employee who validates the judgement or not).
Altho im not quite sure how it works (never done it myself), the idea is a great one and could prevent a lot of unnecessary work from Blizzard. They just need to find appropriate reward for the people doing that (cosmetics?). People love to hate on LoL but that is actually quite a brilliant way to crowdsource. Riot really is the best company in terms of how they treat their player base.
yeah, tell that the observer mode for example
|
I agree, Blizzard must become more proactive at identifying and perma banning hackers...the BNET ladder system format is so well done that it'd be a shame to see it fall apart because of more and more hackers
|
yea but every time blizz does a ban wave and cancels accounts then they force people to buy another copy = more moniez! lol
|
On June 09 2012 08:54 LimeNade wrote:
yea but every time blizz does a ban wave and cancels accounts then they force people to buy another copy = more moniez! lol
True dat
Or they don't buy a copy and we have just killed a hacker woooot
Also if they had HotS they will re have to buy that WOOOO MORE MONEY
|
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.
|
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.
|
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..
|
Blizzard just wants the hackers to regularly buy more copies.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
I swear 110% they're aware...
hopefully...
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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".
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
