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On July 17 2012 14:08 Glon wrote:
We can go on and on in circles about whether Hacking is "wrong" or not. Something that is technically illegal doesn't make it wrong. For example, it is illegal to 30 MPH on a 25. However, is it wrong? Of course not, in fact is widely considered "right." So, we must ask ourselves if leveling services are doing harm, and if so, to what level of harm they are causing. I think they are doing minimal harm, only really being noticeable in a few circumstantial cases. That is my 2 cents, and as a semi/full pro I would enjoy the extra $$ income.
Well i'm sorry to say but hacking is wrong I don't think that's debatable. Account leveling I think is retarded and don't know why people would ever pay for it, but it's not wrong.
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I think I figured out a valid reason for account leveling: advertising
When I get GM I'll sell my naming rights. Expect to see DrinkPepsi sometime soon on GM
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It's just the same debate as in WoW all over again, just that in WoW you actually got stuff from it (that you can potentially sell for a lot of money on ebay if you sold your account, so the people who would have been in the "GM" region but got pushed out by "pro" players actually lost something valuable), while in SC2 its just completely pointless to spend money to get into GM.
I see it as a form of money support for pro players and thats a good thing.
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this kind of leveling hurts people that are on the cusp of gm and try hard each season to get into gm just to miss the cut by a few people, when there are top players with multiple accounts in gm & these leveled accounts  its too bad
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On July 17 2012 15:00 Euronyme wrote:
No one has yet said anything to the argument 'blizzard tournament players are invited through ladder' except for 'ladder stupid stfu'
Because it's not the topic at hand? Hacking is just mentioned in the OP to give the argument about why we should care some (/any) strength. A bought account would still need to play regularly to move up the ranks. If it does play you'll either play the buyer (free ladder points) or Naama (annoying yes, but then I'm not a fan of his style). And if you play a hacker, so be it. Wasn't it Day[9] who said doing so actually made him a lot better?
Blizzard should do their best to combat hacking for online tourneys' sake and would hopefully have wisened up enough not to invite hackers to their own things by now, but that's a seperate topic.
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Honestly, you aren't much of a "pro" player if your team/sponsor/winnings cant support you. Should probably consider a day job. Don't mistake me, you don't need to be an all star, teams need B-Teamers for practice and such, and B-Teamers get a place to live, money, food, like a real job. But dont call yourself a professional player if you arent.
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On July 17 2012 13:07 Euronyme wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 07:37 Uracil wrote:On July 17 2012 07:07 Euronyme wrote:On July 17 2012 05:18 iAmJeffReY wrote:
I'm trying to avoid the rage out, but seriously, why does it matter. It's an icon. If your MMR is high enough, even at high masters you're considered GM. It's not a big deal.
I level names all the time for anyone that asks me to do it. I find it amazingly fun to just troll and try out new strats. There's no harm it in, what so ever.
The real question is why are you so butthurt that you made this thread? What happened to make you so angry to type out that thesis paper?
I don't understand the witch hunt over people leveling names. Nothing is really based off ladder, at all. So what, you didn't get GM this season because of people having leveled names. I think there are a bit too many white knights that care way too much about a video game ladder. It's a game, it's for fun. If someone wants to pay to have an icon, let them do it. It's probably really fun to the pros to actually have FUN and fuck around and troll people, and not be a try hard 24/7.
Hacking? That's a real issue. Account sharing, or leveling, I don't see a problem with it. Since ladder doesn't mean anything, and rank 1, and rank 99 are all the same -- no name nobodies nine times out of ten. That's actually BS. First of all. The ladder gets you invites to tournaments. Recently there was a hacker invited to Blizzard World Cup or whatever it was called, because he had high enough ladder rank. Yeah we're nerds who care about a video gamer ladder. We post on a fucking video game forum - of course we care about the ladder. This is exactly as bad as hacking, as it gets silver leaguers invites to Blizzard events. Why would you care about hackers but not account sharing? They result in the exact same things: Deligitimizing the ladder and getting the wrong people invited to big tournaments. I don't have no sympathy for a tournament organizer who is stupid enough to use the ladder as tool for invites. Do proper qualifiers and you will get the better players to your tournament. Blizzard will used their ladder because... It's their ladder. They want to promote the game and give incentive for pros to play in the public ladder. They don't care whether the players are 'better' or not. They make the tournaments to get publicity and more people to buy their games. Has blizzard ever had proper qualifiers? They'd had to set up some kind of huge lan for that, and that doesn't seem to be in their interest. They want an on stage performance and winner. Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 07:52 Toadvine wrote:On July 17 2012 07:07 Euronyme wrote:On July 17 2012 05:18 iAmJeffReY wrote:
I'm trying to avoid the rage out, but seriously, why does it matter. It's an icon. If your MMR is high enough, even at high masters you're considered GM. It's not a big deal.
I level names all the time for anyone that asks me to do it. I find it amazingly fun to just troll and try out new strats. There's no harm it in, what so ever.
The real question is why are you so butthurt that you made this thread? What happened to make you so angry to type out that thesis paper?
I don't understand the witch hunt over people leveling names. Nothing is really based off ladder, at all. So what, you didn't get GM this season because of people having leveled names. I think there are a bit too many white knights that care way too much about a video game ladder. It's a game, it's for fun. If someone wants to pay to have an icon, let them do it. It's probably really fun to the pros to actually have FUN and fuck around and troll people, and not be a try hard 24/7.
Hacking? That's a real issue. Account sharing, or leveling, I don't see a problem with it. Since ladder doesn't mean anything, and rank 1, and rank 99 are all the same -- no name nobodies nine times out of ten. That's actually BS. First of all. The ladder gets you invites to tournaments. Recently there was a hacker invited to Blizzard World Cup or whatever it was called, because he had high enough ladder rank. Yeah we're nerds who care about a video gamer ladder. We post on a fucking video game forum - of course we care about the ladder. This is exactly as bad as hacking, as it gets silver leaguers invites to Blizzard events. Why would you care about hackers but not account sharing? They result in the exact same things: Deligitimizing the ladder and getting the wrong people invited to big tournaments. That's just Blizzard being stupid as hell (as well as notoriously arbitrary with their invites - remember the Blizzcon roulette each year?). Any real tournament uses qualifiers. This could be a problem if people did this kind of thing in qualifiers, but it's really impractical for a variety of reasons, and also relatively easy to detect. And honestly, you have to be really fucking intentionally obtuse in order not to see the difference between this and hacking. Hacking is literally breaking the rules of the game, making it pointless and unfun. This is essentially the same as a pro smurfing, and winning because he's simply that much better than your average Masters player. Would it also be delegitimizing the ladder if Naama bought 20 NA accounts and got them all into GM, just for shits and giggles? Yeah they're stupid with their invites. Have I somehow implied that it's a system that I would use myself and is optimal? They still do it, and that's a fact. You seem to have some severe lack of literacy as you somehow managed to get my post to that hacking and power levling is the exact same thing. I said that the results are the same. Yes I think smurfing also is delegitimizing the ladder, though not to the same extent, as this actually brings even more problems to the tournament side of things.
The only Tournaments i can remember that used the ladder for invites were WCS USA and MLG for their online qualifiers for arena. All WCS in europe that i know of had qualifiers and when there were invites those were based on results in national leagues like EPS in Germany or Swedish Masters in Sweden. So it seems it is up to the organizations that run the WCS. MLG decided to use the ladder all other leagues decided against it.
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On July 17 2012 15:00 Euronyme wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 14:40 rd wrote:On July 17 2012 13:35 Euronyme wrote:On July 17 2012 13:28 rd wrote:On July 17 2012 13:10 FairForever wrote:On July 17 2012 12:35 rd wrote:On July 17 2012 12:08 Doodsmack wrote:
It's not just account sharing in general. I should actually note in the OP that it violates both the SC2 EULA and the Battle.Net TOU. 2(B) of the TOU states:
"You agree that you will not, under any circumstances exploit the Service, a Game or any part thereof for any commercial purpose, including without limitation...perform in-game services in exchange for payment outside the Game, e.g., power-leveling."
But to your point of no enforcement. Lack of enforcement does not justify a wrong. Lack of enforcement is because it's a ridiculous rule. They paid for their account. Let them do whatever the fuck they want to do with it. They should be able to maphack too? It's not their own account, technically Blizzard still owns it. Is there anything else you'd like to put into my mouth? Oh wow.. That's a bit of a serve, don't you think? If strawmans are serves, sure. I was thinking of it going something like this "arugment back and forth blablabla" "anything else you want to put in my mouth?" "my dick" Didn't happen though :'( Edit. From what I can tell pretty much everyone is just reading the OP and then post whatever comes to mind. Read the thread! No one has yet said anything to the argument 'blizzard tournament players are invited through ladder' except for 'ladder stupid stfu'
In response to blizzard inviting people through ladder. 1) the player who paid for service has to be active to stay on GM
2) If they are active then that means they have to play against other GM, do you think someone who paid for the service can hang with GM? They'll drop off from GM anyways. So again, it doesnt matter. Even if they somehow got into the tournament (highly unlikely)... they would just get mopped by legit players.
People who pays for powerlevel is dumb, but if pros can make a little extra money, well I think its helping Esports 
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On July 17 2012 16:56 BanditX wrote:
Honestly, you aren't much of a "pro" player if your team/sponsor/winnings cant support you. Should probably consider a day job. Don't mistake me, you don't need to be an all star, teams need B-Teamers for practice and such, and B-Teamers get a place to live, money, food, like a real job. But dont call yourself a professional player if you arent.
By that logic are the people who coach (idra, incontrol and w/o a doubt many others) no pro gamers either? Yeah, didn't really think that through, did you?
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On July 17 2012 16:45 aBstractx wrote:this kind of leveling hurts people that are on the cusp of gm and try hard each season to get into gm just to miss the cut by a few people, when there are top players with multiple accounts in gm & these leveled accounts its too bad
I think that people who are on the cusp of entering GM know that entering GM doesn't really matter at the moment anyways. Not saying it's not shitty, it is a little shitty, but not very shitty.
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On July 17 2012 16:54 schimmetje wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 15:00 Euronyme wrote:
No one has yet said anything to the argument 'blizzard tournament players are invited through ladder' except for 'ladder stupid stfu' Because it's not the topic at hand? Hacking is just mentioned in the OP to give the argument about why we should care some (/any) strength. A bought account would still need to play regularly to move up the ranks. If it does play you'll either play the buyer (free ladder points) or Naama (annoying yes, but then I'm not a fan of his style). And if you play a hacker, so be it. Wasn't it Day[9] who said doing so actually made him a lot better? Blizzard should do their best to combat hacking for online tourneys' sake and would hopefully have wisened up enough not to invite hackers to their own things by now, but that's a seperate topic.
That's not the point. The point is that the buyer would get an invite to a big tournament instead of an up and coming player. That's a problem. I don't see why people would think it's a big deal when a hacker gets an invite to a tournament, but if an account buyer would get it it's fine.
Why would the invite go to Naama (or whoever is levling)? I'd assume it would go to the owner's email address?
Blizzards takes things in their own pace, or lack thereof. There were cries for all the 'features' coming in HotS already in the beta.
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what was the point of this? Pros need 2 make money and this isnt hurting any1 directly if the guy's skill isnt gm he will get demoted out.
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Zurich15353 Posts
This reads like you are just out to get this skrillex guy again - like you did before in the hacking thread.
If this is indeed a wide spread phenomenon please PM me sufficient evidence, then I'll consider reopening the thread.
Edit: Thanks for the material.
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I've updated the OP with some more info that shows how widespread this could be as far as GM accounts go. While a lot of people have said in this thread that they don't think it's a big deal, I think if people knew just how many GM accounts may be leveled, they may change their minds. MillDragon was getting a steady stream of customers on his stream, I wouldn't be surprised if people like him are making decent money off it.
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On July 19 2012 08:22 Doodsmack wrote:
I've updated the OP with some more info that shows how widespread this could be as far as GM accounts go. While a lot of people have said in this thread that they don't think it's a big deal, I think if people knew just how many GM accounts may be leveled, they may change their minds. MillDragon was getting a steady stream of customers on his stream, I wouldn't be surprised if people like him are making decent money off it.
Question: If player A decides to get levelling from player B and gets to grandmasters (While his real skill level is mid gold), a couple of things could happens:
- He can never play on his account again, lest he lose his grandmaster placement (since he would never win a game), resulting in a loss of grandmaster status due to inactivity. This wouldn't effect the competitiveness of the ladder.
- He plays, but loses his games until he's in mid gold again. (Would only play a fraction of the playerbase on his way down, doubtful to play the same player twice). This would briefly effect the competitiveness of the ladder, though not in a meaningful way.
- Player B continues to play on his account just barely enough to keep him in grandmasters, which would make games competitive and not effect the competitiveness of ladder.
I doubt anyone playing would ever notice that maybe Player A got his accounted leveled during any of those scenarios. Likewise, the process of a player leveling the account wouldn't effect anyone either simply due to the fact that he's going to be playing to win. He'll beat people he's better than, and he'll eventually get to where it's competitive. I've leveled up an EU account from bronze (Because I was trying to learn terran, but terran's too hard) to masters; Does this make me a bad person to "compromise the integrity of the ladder"?
This was only skepticism regarding your second point. However I find the fact that you're connecting it to hacking.. impractical. Money comes from somewhere, I fail to see how this is any more "wrong" than donating to those developing hacks from your pocket.
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On July 16 2012 16:36 alderamin wrote:
It is ladder abuse and thus cheating. In the past the community has tried to ban people who ladder abuse and cheat from all tournaments for a period of time..
And Kespa even banned people for life. Of course Blizzard will ban those accounts too.
Agreed plain and simple ladder abuse. No reason to ever allow this sort of thing and I look down on those pro's doing this for people.
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On July 19 2012 08:40 InfCereal wrote:I find the fact that you're connecting it to hacking.. impractical. Money comes from somewhere, I fail to see how this is any more "wrong" than donating to those developing hacks from your pocket.
Why does it need to be more wrong? Even if they are equally wrong, it's still wrong. All the same, I would expect for any pro-gamer who is shown to have a connection with the hacker community to be disciplined appropriately.
Edit: I just realized that your quotation marks around "wrong" implies that you might not think donating money to the people making hacks is bad. I don't even know what to say to that.
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On July 17 2012 17:06 Forgottenfrog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 15:00 Euronyme wrote:On July 17 2012 14:40 rd wrote:On July 17 2012 13:35 Euronyme wrote:On July 17 2012 13:28 rd wrote:On July 17 2012 13:10 FairForever wrote:On July 17 2012 12:35 rd wrote:On July 17 2012 12:08 Doodsmack wrote:
It's not just account sharing in general. I should actually note in the OP that it violates both the SC2 EULA and the Battle.Net TOU. 2(B) of the TOU states:
"You agree that you will not, under any circumstances exploit the Service, a Game or any part thereof for any commercial purpose, including without limitation...perform in-game services in exchange for payment outside the Game, e.g., power-leveling."
But to your point of no enforcement. Lack of enforcement does not justify a wrong. Lack of enforcement is because it's a ridiculous rule. They paid for their account. Let them do whatever the fuck they want to do with it. They should be able to maphack too? It's not their own account, technically Blizzard still owns it. Is there anything else you'd like to put into my mouth? Oh wow.. That's a bit of a serve, don't you think? If strawmans are serves, sure. I was thinking of it going something like this "arugment back and forth blablabla" "anything else you want to put in my mouth?" "my dick" Didn't happen though :'( Edit. From what I can tell pretty much everyone is just reading the OP and then post whatever comes to mind. Read the thread! No one has yet said anything to the argument 'blizzard tournament players are invited through ladder' except for 'ladder stupid stfu' In response to blizzard inviting people through ladder. 1) the player who paid for service has to be active to stay on GM 2) If they are active then that means they have to play against other GM, do you think someone who paid for the service can hang with GM? They'll drop off from GM anyways. So again, it doesnt matter. Even if they somehow got into the tournament (highly unlikely)... they would just get mopped by legit players. People who pays for powerlevel is dumb, but if pros can make a little extra money, well I think its helping Esports
Once you're in GM your MMR can be at any level and you'll remain there. So if a Bronze player gets levelled to GM, they just have to lose enough games for them to be playing Bronze leaguers again (so that they can win and lower their bonus pool) and they will remain in GM. The only way to drop out of GM is if you aren't playing enough.
Edit: Or they can just continue to pay someone to play for them so they maintain a decent GM rank.
My main concern with this is that I constantly see GMs who are confirmed as having levelled or hacked in the Bnet strategy channels trying to talk noobs into paying for coaching.
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I have no idea why you would pay for account leveling, besides some idea that your name will become recognized or something.
Hacking is quite obviously wrong, and if you are using a hack to level someone's account, than you should be banned.
However, account leveling is completely fine in my eyes, regardless of what Blizzard says.
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I can't believe people are defending this bullshit. It is already said that foreigners don't practice enough.
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EPT
