I've tested some time ago patch 1.5.0 "Arcade Beta", and it's not just an interface patch. It reworks game client with new streaming system, that check EVERY ingame file, including renamed and overlaped files.
You can just change brightness of SC2 logo in the Battle.Net UI, bring modified texture file back to MPQ-archive and it will redownload again. There are no more way to add custom backgrounds for Battle.Net, no more Stronger Team Color mod, no more BroodWar sounds, etc etc.
I will be glad, if it's wrong and there will be a way to add new backgrounds and new resources into game without modifying original resources or any other way to customize some ingame stuff.
But with patch 1.5.0 after game launcher it will lock modified file (renamed or not, no matter) and start redownload it.
^ same happens with any modified file. Also method with creating new enGB.sc2assets or base.sc2assets, created in "LibertyMulti.sc2mod" folder, no longer works.
As you can see, if file was broken or modified (for example you're deleted one DDS-texture file), instead of redownloading 2 gb sized MPQ-file, it skips entire file (that is unmodified) and starts redownload only modified part of MPQ file (at screenshot it starts redownload from 272 mb to 295 mb, and not all 295 mb from zero)
You can test it now, launch SC2 Arcade Beta 1.5.0, open any MPQ file, go to Texture folder (inside MPQ file) and just change small DDS-texture (change brightness or saturation for example, modify it in any way) and bring it back to MPQ-file, where you get it from. After launcher it will redownload file and lock modified one. Same system was implemented in Diablo 3 game client, where you can't change ingame language via renaming files (like koKR to enGB), because with that it will redownload files too. Glad they added Global Play function, that will be in HotS too.
But...
But there are a good side of that game client revamp. PROBABLY less cheaters, maphackers, drophackers and other heretics. I don't know how their cheats works, but probably (I'm just guessing) some of them used same ways to alter game resources, like Stronger Team Color mod/BW sounds/Bnet backgrounds/etc. So after patch 1.5.0 come out, probably many cheats and hacks will be broken too.
P.S.
Again, here are just my assumptions based on small tests in Arcade-Beta 1.5.0. I will be VERY glad, if I'm wrong and it will be still possible to do some ingame customization.
Diablo 3 has the same protection. I tried to swap the MPQ/assets file the same way I would with SC2 (pre-1.5 of course) to play Korean sounds and performs the check on game start up and downloads the correct file.
I can see both sides of the coin for this I wish some of these features like background skins, units sounds and strong colors were already prebuilt in though.
The only good thing to come of this is no more color mods! Unless it blocks hacking somehow, but even then, i doubt it would prevent hacks longer than warden did.
I was seriously so close to getting around to swapping my sc2 sounds to BW sounds. Thats a real bummer.
I'm hopeful that Blizzard will re-introduce methods for things like color mod or maybe custom backgrounds. They're features that the community likes and (I hope) shouldn't pose problems to the potential counter-hacking their methodology brings.
noooo, i can only tolerate playing with bw sounds haha. this is really unfortunate. BW sounds and music seriously add so much to the game, nostalgia or otherwise it makes playing so much nicer!
lol. Knowing how Blizzard works, Stronger Team Color will not work anymore (which I find actually very useful, makes it easier for me to see units and shit) and meanwhile people will still be able to hack.
They should be focusing more on making a good AH for the game instead of worrying about banning stupid shit like better colors in-game and backrounds. Way to fuck up your priorities...
On July 25 2012 13:08 Enki wrote: lol. Knowing how Blizzard works, Stronger Team Color will not work anymore (which I find actually very useful, makes it easier for me to see units and shit) and meanwhile people will still be able to hack.
They should be focusing more on making a good AH for the game instead of worrying about banning stupid shit like better colors in-game and backrounds. Way to fuck up your priorities...
I don't think they set out to ban them, it's more just an unfortunate side effect of allowing the client to be streamed in piece by piece.
Good detective work, I'm glad someone brought it up because the strong colors mod is definitely useful to people with colorblindness, you should post it on the battle.net forums.
Well, Browder and Kim have said that they support Stronger Color Mod, so it's not like this change is specifically to remove modding because they think it's a problem.
They're just trying to streamline the install process and reduce disk space, and inadvertently it kills little community projects like that. If someone can figure out how to patch the files without causing it to re-download, I'm sure they wouldn't have a problem with it, but with how hashing works I'm sure that would be fairly difficult.
On July 25 2012 12:41 Plexa wrote: I can see both sides of the coin for this I wish some of these features like background skins, units sounds and strong colors were already prebuilt in though.
What's the other side of the coin? Sorry, not a developer
On July 25 2012 12:41 Plexa wrote: I can see both sides of the coin for this I wish some of these features like background skins, units sounds and strong colors were already prebuilt in though.
What's the other side of the coin? Sorry, not a developer
More control on what people do probably. Including hack if we're lucky.
Good detective work, I'm glad someone brought it up because the strong colors mod is definitely useful to people with colorblindness, you should post it on the battle.net forums.
General Arcade Beta Discussion
They're temporary or forever banning people, who is posting on their forums any stuff or information about any MPQ modifying, including Stronger Team color mod, BW sounds, customized backgrounds, etc, and any other non-cheating customization.
If you want, you can repost (I don't have US account, I'm at EU), but don't refer to me, just copypast my post under your name and your thread. If you want.
Good detective work, I'm glad someone brought it up because the strong colors mod is definitely useful to people with colorblindness, you should post it on the battle.net forums.
General Arcade Beta Discussion
They're temporary or forever banning people, who is posting on their forums any stuff or information about any MPQ modifying, including Stronger Team color mod, BW sounds, customized backgrounds, etc, and any other non-cheating customization.
If you want, you can repost (I don't have US account, I'm at EU), but don't refer to me, just copypast my post under your name and your thread. If you want.
I was able to search for a number of threads that were about it but the authors weren't banned, but I guess it's best not to chance it. The reply would likely be the same though, that the modification of game files is not allowed under the ToS so don't do it.
Blizzard's whole design philosophy of late is a major turnoff. I just can't stand them as a company to continue to support something that I love (starcraft and the competitive gaming community).
It's pretty clear this wasn't the intent behind the patch, it's just an unfortunate side-effect. If enough people tell Blizzard that they want to be able to do this, they might just implement some way to do it for HotS. So keep asking for it, but do it politely without hate!
I'd rather have no modding than hacks. Odds are this won't shut down all hacks, but it'll sure make it harder and give blizzard more ways to track and stop the existing ones.
It's my understanding that depending on exactly how blizzard have decided to change the STC implementation this patch as they have done every patch (between adding the SC2Asset file and manually editing the MPQ's), we may still be able to use the STC mod. If they left it as it has been for a while now in that only an SC2Asset file was needed for the STC to work, then we aren't actually editing any existing files at all, but simply adding a file.
From what I know of hacking this won't stop very much hacking at all. Maybe if a file was editing to make DTs visible instead of invisible? Other than that I can't think of this as being very good at stopping hacks at all as normally hacks work by injecting code into the starcraft exe rather than editing existing files.
^Yeah I think he's right that this won't do anything to stop the hacks. My very primitive understanding is that they operate external to SC2. Would be nice to hear someone knowledgeable speak about it, though.
On July 25 2012 12:30 Existor wrote: PROBABLY less cheaters, maphackers, drophackers and other heretics. I don't know how their cheats works, but probably (I'm just guessing) some of them used same ways to alter game resources, like Stronger Team Color mod/BW sounds/Bnet backgrounds/etc. So after patch 1.5.0 come out, probably many cheats and hacks will be broken too.
Only mods like STC will be affected. This won't affect maphacks or other similar hacks. They don't need to modify any gamefiles. Depending on their implentation they may need to read it, but that's it. Most of these hacks work with the game memory and need to be updated when blizzard updates the "StarCraft II.exe" or any relevant "*.dll" file. After an update the memory addresses of function calls (and so on) change, so their hack need to refer to the new location.
On July 25 2012 12:55 paintfive wrote: Can't blizz do mini-patches often to make hack mackers have to update their code everyday?
I don't think we will see more frequent updates to the executable, thought that may increase the work for hack developers, it will be even more work for blizzard. (that's just how software development works)
Note: Of course if someone writes an bypass for the streaming, STC and other mods would work again.
On July 25 2012 12:30 Existor wrote: PROBABLY less cheaters, maphackers, drophackers and other heretics. I don't know how their cheats works, but probably (I'm just guessing) some of them used same ways to alter game resources, like Stronger Team Color mod/BW sounds/Bnet backgrounds/etc. So after patch 1.5.0 come out, probably many cheats and hacks will be broken too.
Only mods like STC will be affected. This won't affect maphacks or other similar hacks. They don't need to modify any gamefiles. Depending on their implentation they may need to read it, but that's it. Most of these hacks work with the game memory and need to be updated when blizzard updates the "StarCraft II.exe" or any relevant "*.dll" file. After an update the memory addresses of function calls (and so on) change, so their hack need to refer to the new location.
On July 25 2012 12:55 paintfive wrote: Can't blizz do mini-patches often to make hack mackers have to update their code everyday?
I don't think we will see more frequent updates to the executable, thought that may increase the work for hack developers, it will be even more work for blizzard. (that's just how software development works)
On July 25 2012 12:30 Existor wrote: PROBABLY less cheaters, maphackers, drophackers and other heretics. I don't know how their cheats works, but probably (I'm just guessing) some of them used same ways to alter game resources, like Stronger Team Color mod/BW sounds/Bnet backgrounds/etc. So after patch 1.5.0 come out, probably many cheats and hacks will be broken too.
Only mods like STC will be affected. This won't affect maphacks or other similar hacks. They don't need to modify any gamefiles. Depending on their implentation they may need to read it, but that's it. Most of these hacks work with the game memory and need to be updated when blizzard updates the "StarCraft II.exe" or any relevant "*.dll" file. After an update the memory addresses of function calls (and so on) change, so their hack need to refer to the new location.
On July 25 2012 12:30 Existor wrote: PROBABLY less cheaters, maphackers, drophackers and other heretics. I don't know how their cheats works, but probably (I'm just guessing) some of them used same ways to alter game resources, like Stronger Team Color mod/BW sounds/Bnet backgrounds/etc. So after patch 1.5.0 come out, probably many cheats and hacks will be broken too.
Only mods like STC will be affected. This won't affect maphacks or other similar hacks. They don't need to modify any gamefiles. Depending on their implentation they may need to read it, but that's it. Most of these hacks work with the game memory and need to be updated when blizzard updates the "StarCraft II.exe" or any relevant "*.dll" file. After an update the memory addresses of function calls (and so on) change, so their hack need to refer to the new location.
On July 25 2012 12:55 paintfive wrote: Can't blizz do mini-patches often to make hack mackers have to update their code everyday?
I don't think we will see more frequent updates to the executable, thought that may increase the work for hack developers, it will be even more work for blizzard. (that's just how software development works)
So what could be done?
You mean to stop hacks? Well it's not part of this discussion, so let me keep this short. Blizzard is pursuing hack developers with legal methods, that's the best they can do. Thought I think they really should step up their client protection, but it's only a cat and mouse game as long there is enough money to gain with hack development.
@skeldark I never said anything about the time frame needed to update the hack, 5 minutes is a bit short thought, it depends on what was changed. So yes, good developers will have their new version ready most of the time in less than an half hour. But it will take Blizzard at least a few hours to put the new client version through quality control and release it. (I assume QC exists )
Wait hold on. If I already have Korean sounds changed on my English client (which are unaffected by patches, normally) does this mean that this patch is going to reset those AND modding files? Or just lock them as they are now, so I would be stuck with Korean sounds? I'd much rather be stuck with Korean sounds than without ^.^
On July 25 2012 12:43 Diamond wrote: "We support and love the color mod!"
Kills it without a replacement. Solid logic.
You know, I'll really really miss my BW sounds, but they're just for memory's sake. The color mod, though? People need that. I... I hope this isn't real. ;_;
Couldn't blizzard simply remap all the memory addresses that are used for each value randomly to prevent hacking? I imagine that shouldn't be that hard to do when compiling but without the source code you would have to manually find all of the relevant addresses out (which hackers do). But if they change often then that is rather useless.
The next anti modding step. Kinda sad that most companies and an increasing number of users/players are against mods or dont care about it. Some of the greatest games of these days were mods or sequels/remakes of old mods.
I think too many people assume this is done to stop modding. The reason this is done is for the streaming thing when people first install the game, it checks what files you have and don't have and automatically installs/fixes what you need. This is an unfortunate side effect; when it checks to see what you have it sees that one of the files isn't written correctly and fixes it. Blizzard isn't doing this to fuck over people modding. I know several others have said this already, but it needed to be repeated as people were still acting like they were trying to kill mods.
Hopefully blizzard will add in ways for us to change the UI. Give us the option of a brighter/darker team color in the UI, let us change the background and such with user uploaded files. Maybe this will encourage them to make everything better without modding files. Or maybe they'll say fuck it and we'll be out of luck, we can only ask they provide support and hope they listen.
If this ends up being true, and blizzard doesn't implement their own stronger team color...
I will be very sad.
What an absurdly obnoxious thing to do when in reality I seriously doubt it will deny hackers/cheaters at all. Cheat programs read from the game data, they don't change the game files themselves (or they'd be ridiculously easy to detect by warden).
Zerg v Zerg is just ridiuclous sometimes, for both the players and viewers. Black roaches vs black roaches, green banelings vs green banelings. Half the time I have no idea what the fuck is going on.
can you make a little summary for us who doesnt understand your language? is it just file modifying restrictions thus reducing the chance of hacks but also prevent some useful personalisations?
On July 25 2012 17:40 -orb- wrote: If this ends up being true, and blizzard doesn't implement their own stronger team color...
I will be very sad.
What an absurdly obnoxious thing to do when in reality I seriously doubt it will deny hackers/cheaters at all. Cheat programs read from the game data, they don't change the game files themselves (or they'd be ridiculously easy to detect by warden).
QFT, any cheatprogram that changes the MPQ files is the worst cheating program in the world.
On July 25 2012 17:41 Nekovivie wrote: We need stronger team colours as default
Zerg v Zerg is just ridiuclous sometimes, for both the players and viewers. Black roaches vs black roaches, green banelings vs green banelings. Half the time I have no idea what the fuck is going on.
The new team colour health bar option helps a little bit, unfortunately it doesn't respect the team colour/hostility colour toggle so if you're red/green colour blind you're still in trouble.
On July 25 2012 19:04 tribulator wrote: I hope this doesn't fuck up relocalization as well... don't want to have 3 different installs on my system just to play on a separate region.
Even if it does it'll likely only be a short term problem, they already said they're adding the region switching options like Diablo 3 has around the time HotS launches. I would also imagine that using re-localizer and changing language packs, as long as they match the server you're trying to connect to it will be able to verify them as long as everything else is the same.
On July 25 2012 17:41 Nekovivie wrote: We need stronger team colours as default
Zerg v Zerg is just ridiuclous sometimes, for both the players and viewers. Black roaches vs black roaches, green banelings vs green banelings. Half the time I have no idea what the fuck is going on.
The new team colour health bar option helps a little bit, unfortunately it doesn't respect the team colour/hostility colour toggle so if you're red/green colour blind you're still in trouble.
On July 25 2012 19:04 tribulator wrote: I hope this doesn't fuck up relocalization as well... don't want to have 3 different installs on my system just to play on a separate region.
Even if it does it'll likely only be a short term problem, they already said they're adding the region switching options like Diablo 3 has around the time HotS launches. I would also imagine that using re-localizer and changing language packs, as long as they match the server you're trying to connect to it will be able to verify them as long as everything else is the same.
On July 25 2012 19:12 LGSaxon wrote: If we have to sacrifice mods and editing ability for better protection from maphackers, drophackers and cheaters I am all for it.
Hackers are unlikely to be slowed by this at all, as others have mentioned, not many hacks edit the game files because it's too easy to detect, they're more likely to read straight from in-game memory, the bigger reason this is being added is just for the streaming support so you don't have to download the whole client before you start playing.
On July 25 2012 12:43 AndAgain wrote: At least Orb casts will be watchable for me.
+1
I really dont understand why people use stronger colour mod. I never had a problem with reading colours between armies (you use mostly minimap anyway) and this mod makes game look awful.
On July 25 2012 12:43 AndAgain wrote: At least Orb casts will be watchable for me.
+1
I really dont understand why people use stronger colour mod. I never had a problem with reading colours between armies (you use mostly minimap anyway) and this mod makes game look awful.
Well, we don't know the whole story yet. If this helps keeping hacking away, then good.
I do think that we need some sort of "freedom" in editing pictures inside the game, like background images for the main menu etc. I would love it if it was integrated with Starcraft 2.
On July 25 2012 12:43 AndAgain wrote: At least Orb casts will be watchable for me.
+1
I really dont understand why people use stronger colour mod. I never had a problem with reading colours between armies (you use mostly minimap anyway) and this mod makes game look awful.
Well he's colorblind, that's why he uses it.
Oh that explains everything. Then it is indeed sad news. There are some games with modes for colourblind people. I guess Blizzard should implement options like that in SC2 now.
This won't prevent hacking unfortunately. Usually hacking is done via some sort of Code or Dll injection. These acttions don't modify the filesystem in any way. Btw: Hacking by modifying the filesystem should be impossible with 1.4 already. To hack a game you always have to modify some sort of binaries. Usually multiplayergames force these binaries to be pure across the board. Havn't tested that with starcraft though, but it's really the standart first tstep to prevent basic hacking. To sum everything up: I can be wrong, but I highly doubt that this will prevent any hackings, since hacking using the filesystem should already be impossible, and this change doesn't prevent codeinjections by any means.
On July 25 2012 19:12 LGSaxon wrote: If we have to sacrifice mods and editing ability for better protection from maphackers, drophackers and cheaters I am all for it.
....
No functional map hack, public or private, does ANYTHING to mpq files. This has NOTHING to do with hacking. Either that, or Blizzard has severely misjudged what a maphack actually does, but I highly doubt it.
Since when do hackers need MPQ Modification to run their cheats? Everything is done from the Mem if im not completely mistaken. On topic: I really hope they build in the Colormod...
On July 25 2012 12:43 AndAgain wrote: At least Orb casts will be watchable for me.
+1
I really dont understand why people use stronger colour mod. I never had a problem with reading colours between armies (you use mostly minimap anyway) and this mod makes game look awful.
as a player it doesnt make sense but in casts it ehlps especially if players have similar coulours(roach roach battles, bane battles, etc etc
If it does anything to alleviate some of the hacking issues then I'm sorry guys, but Stronger Unit Color, broodwar sounds, custom backgrounds, whatever just have to go.
If it doesn't, then that sucks. Regardless all of this stuff should be available in game. I don't see any reason Blizzard doesn't have the option to add in game overlays, for instance. The ability to replace a small portion of the game with a simple image would be extremely useful, for instance.
This is a good change from Blizzard. Finally some evidence that they are doing something to prevent map hackers. This of course isn't the nail in the coffin but every added change towards a more secure client is welcome.
Seriously, why so many people think this will help maphacks? Maphacks alter the game data in memory, after the game is started, after the check is made by the launcher. Other hacks use probably similar methods.
Thats a shame the community created some cool things like background skins and strong colors. I for one thought having the ability to make your game client look unique was a great one. Maybe legacy of the void hmmm. I hope this prevents hacking.
On July 25 2012 20:08 makkesk8 wrote: not any stronger team colors anymore
I quit sc2 seriously.. hard to see those colors for me
Hahhaha omg i loled so hard... How people can really write they gonna quit sc2 because of one mod..
Dustin and David say many times in interviews that STC is good thing , and they dont have anything against this MOD .. so why all you people thing they gonna block it now? Maby they gonna add this to game menu .. , maby they allow it.. WE DONT KNOW !! but blizzard haters already cry , and complain..
I'm going to miss stronger colors, but not all that much. I'm not really surprised by this change, Blizzard has done this in other games of theirs as well. We can just hope that for HotS they add in something similar. That was really the only mod that improved quality of life in sc2.
On July 25 2012 20:08 makkesk8 wrote: not any stronger team colors anymore
I quit sc2 seriously.. hard to see those colors for me
Hahhaha omg i loled so hard... How people can really write they gonna quit sc2 because of one mod..
Dustin and David say many times in interviews that STC is good thing , and they dont have anything against this MOD .. so why all you people thing they gonna block it now? Maby they gonna add this to game menu .. , maby they allow it.. WE DONT KNOW !! but blizzard haters already cry , and complain..
Wow, you surely don't know what you are talking about, right? Given that patch may happen next week, they surely won't just 'add this to game menu', and for now it's broken. And there is no sign at all that's gonna change.
On July 25 2012 20:08 makkesk8 wrote: not any stronger team colors anymore
I quit sc2 seriously.. hard to see those colors for me
Hahhaha omg i loled so hard... How people can really write they gonna quit sc2 because of one mod..
Dustin and David say many times in interviews that STC is good thing , and they dont have anything against this MOD .. so why all you people thing they gonna block it now? Maby they gonna add this to game menu .. , maby they allow it.. WE DONT KNOW !! but blizzard haters already cry , and complain..
Ever heard of color blind people? No stronger team colors can be a real problem for them.
It doesn't prevent hacking. The change doesn't even touch hacking in any way. MH is entirely RAM, it doesn't modify or care about the game texture files and whatnot.
Only cheating this could prevent is if someone changes textures or crap like that in a way for them to gain an advantage in game. But I don't know why you'd bother, might just go full-on maphack then.
On July 25 2012 21:46 ilmeeni wrote: It doesn't prevent hacking. The change doesn't even touch hacking in any way. MH is entirely RAM, it doesn't modify or care about the game texture files and whatnot.
Only cheating this could prevent is if someone changes textures or crap like that in a way for them to gain an advantage in game. But I don't know why you'd bother, might just go full-on maphack then.
i think blink on spots where u dont have vision like ramps and stuff change your in game files . and i think they might fix that
On July 25 2012 20:08 makkesk8 wrote: not any stronger team colors anymore
I quit sc2 seriously.. hard to see those colors for me
Hahhaha omg i loled so hard... How people can really write they gonna quit sc2 because of one mod..
Dustin and David say many times in interviews that STC is good thing , and they dont have anything against this MOD .. so why all you people thing they gonna block it now? Maby they gonna add this to game menu .. , maby they allow it.. WE DONT KNOW !! but blizzard haters already cry , and complain..
Ever heard of color blind people? No stronger team colors can be a real problem for them.
Yes i know some people have this problems.. Like Ret i think.. , but they play game at the same lv before that mod so.. ?
On July 25 2012 21:46 ilmeeni wrote: It doesn't prevent hacking. The change doesn't even touch hacking in any way. MH is entirely RAM, it doesn't modify or care about the game texture files and whatnot.
Only cheating this could prevent is if someone changes textures or crap like that in a way for them to gain an advantage in game. But I don't know why you'd bother, might just go full-on maphack then.
you are right. no hacker is bothering to tinker with game files directly. it's easily detectable
On July 25 2012 21:46 ilmeeni wrote: It doesn't prevent hacking. The change doesn't even touch hacking in any way. MH is entirely RAM, it doesn't modify or care about the game texture files and whatnot.
Only cheating this could prevent is if someone changes textures or crap like that in a way for them to gain an advantage in game. But I don't know why you'd bother, might just go full-on maphack then.
From the patch notes, it sounded like the performance changes were related to memory management.
So, at a minimum, this will slow down the map hackers that use the RAM reading method.
I'm going to make my own assumption. This will do nothing to curtail cheating, except for those few people that use cloak texture replacers to see DTs and whatnot. If that even still works.
I'm going to make another assumption. Blizzard will sell us DLC to customize the game exactly how we've already pioneered.
Kinda seeing this as a bad choice. It'll kill all the nice customizations people put into their games... gonna miss my White-Ra on my ladder screen... T_T
On July 25 2012 21:46 ilmeeni wrote: It doesn't prevent hacking. The change doesn't even touch hacking in any way. MH is entirely RAM, it doesn't modify or care about the game texture files and whatnot.
Only cheating this could prevent is if someone changes textures or crap like that in a way for them to gain an advantage in game. But I don't know why you'd bother, might just go full-on maphack then.
From the patch notes, it sounded like the performance changes were related to memory management.
So, at a minimum, this will slow down the map hackers that use the RAM reading method.
Care to point out exactly where it says so? I skimmed through the patch notes and searched for "performance" and "memory", and nothing sounded like that. I may have missed it, though.
Even if it did say somewhere they are making performance changes to memory management, that's a huuuuuge assumption to make that it would somehow slow down hackers. How does better performance correlate to slower _anything_, it makes absolutely no sense.
On July 25 2012 20:08 makkesk8 wrote: not any stronger team colors anymore
I quit sc2 seriously.. hard to see those colors for me
Hahhaha omg i loled so hard... How people can really write they gonna quit sc2 because of one mod..
Dustin and David say many times in interviews that STC is good thing , and they dont have anything against this MOD .. so why all you people thing they gonna block it now? Maby they gonna add this to game menu .. , maby they allow it.. WE DONT KNOW !! but blizzard haters already cry , and complain..
Ever heard of color blind people? No stronger team colors can be a real problem for them.
Yes i know some people have this problems.. Like Ret i think.. , but they play game at the same lv before that mod so.. ?
Color blindness GREATLY vary from person to person..(afaik dont quote me on it plz D: )
You guys don't give Blizzard enough credit. They are removing your ability to use community-built projects, so they can implement these same ideas into the expansion and make you pay for these features. Pretty brilliant if you ask me. People shouldn't have been able to create content that doesn't come attached to a Blizzard collection basket in the first place.
This is will not do anything to stop hackers. What it does do, however, is stop legitimate mods and customization. Current hackers today (i.e. map hackers) do not even edit any files. They use external programs that inject into the game after it's been launched, not before. Warden is useless in WoW, Diablo, and Starcraft. Until they fix it, hackers will still be around.
On July 25 2012 22:35 Sea_Food wrote: Wait, does this also mean no client relocalisizers? As in patch 1,1.5 it will be impossibe to play on kr server with english client or vice versa?
They say they're adding a Global Play feature in HOTS.
Doesn't SC2 hacks work with RAM and injection processes... ? Because with Warden around, it would be really retarded to modify any game files. This patch doesn't look like a bad news for hacking. Blizzard already have a solution that deals with hacking and redownloading modified game files doesn't feel like Warden modus operandi.
On July 25 2012 12:46 desarrisc wrote: So does this block hacking or no? Has anyone got the opportunity to test this?
Rrright. Lots of people jumping in on TL screaming "I can't get my cheats to work though I payed for them more than I did for the game itself". Sorry cant see that happening.
On July 25 2012 23:23 nkr wrote: as long as it fights cheaters, I'm all for it
what makes you people think it fights cheaters? I don't understand.
Fanboys want to think the best of their company. Blizzard should update their art with the stronger team colors or at least make it an option if they're killing mods.
step in the right direction for now - i don't care about enhanced team colors when the option to prevent hacking means no messing around with the files. This is a sport and a very competitive game, i totally support this move
it may not prevent all hacks but it'll definitely prevent some, and for that reason i think it's worth it
hopefully blizzard will either put an option for STC built into SC2 or just tell the integrity checker to ignore the current mod files if they're present. that wouldn't be much effort on their part but would create a lot of good will and happy colour-blind people
as for korean sounds, or english menus on korean server, we'll be able to do these things when they add langauge options and cross region play around the time HotS comes out, so we need not mourn for them
the only thing i think this will completely stop (in terms of mods) is custom backgrounds. which, lets be honest, you spend about 1 second looking at anyway so it's not a big deal
Boy a lot of people here sure know very little about how reverse engineering and client modification works. (pro tip: this update won't stop hackers at all.)
On July 26 2012 00:01 -UMADIMSTYLIN- wrote: This is such a silly question, but can someone explain to me "stronger team colors" lol, sorry :D
There was a mod that made the colors in the game brighter and more vibrant, search for it you will find. It looks real good though I never did the mod.
On July 25 2012 23:23 nkr wrote: as long as it fights cheaters, I'm all for it
what makes you people think it fights cheaters? I don't understand.
what makes you think it doesn't? Unless you're a programmer who can back up your claims, let people think what they want
todays hacks don't give two flying fucks about game files cuz they're all external and modifies memory, most hacks are overlays, they don't even touch the game client, they detect it.
It's most likely that the change is not related to hacking. This sort of thing happens with major interface changes. Though it's pretty bad news for people who relied on color mods.
Fucking Warcraft 3 hacks didn't even need to edit any official files, why the hell do they think this is going to do anything but destroy tons of legit mods?
Hell, I can't even imagine why they would do this, it's clearly not going to do anything against hackers, maybe a failsafe against corrupted data or something? But to shove in a failsafe at the cost of being able to mod the game, considering there's a ton of mod folders, I'm guessing they actually wanted people to mod this shit.
I can understand why they'd do it even if it doesn't stop "hacks" because it's the slippery slope argument. It's only a matter of time before you have high templars and ghost glowing neon pink or something in the army composition, if some people aren't doing that already. So as usual people using it for eye candy lose out because of players who exploit it for an advantage. Blizzard can't tell the difference so all they can do is prevent it. Browder likes the mod so hopefully there will be an option in the future. A Color Blind mode in options would be good PR, like that control scheme activision did for that kid playing call of duty with his mouth, normad or something.
I have no problem with this whatsoever, altough I can see the issue for colourblinds (orb comes to mind for some reason), Hopefully they'll make stronger team colour an official mod you can change in options or smth.
I apologise for being stupid. But if I understand this. this means any file that you changed personally will be a cause for a redownload.. Meaning .. Can we stil download replays?
1) Since Blizzard didn't say anything about it stopping hacks and as other people have pointed out hacks don't rely on SC2 file editing, I don't understand why after 8 pages people are still talking about hacks. Exploits, maybe. Hacks, no. IIRC WoW was pretty lax on model editing initially as well, but when people started modding various PvP elements so that they stood out more and when a couple guilds creatively modded a wall or floor so that they could skip content Blizzard brought the hammer down on modding. Since someone at Blizzard did say that they liked stronger colors at one point I'm inclined to believe that this is either a beta only thing, or done to fix an exploit that Blizzard discovered with file editting.
Speaking of stronger colors and the couple posts about DLC / charging us for it .. What is that even based on? In previous games (WoW) Blizzard took community interface AddOns like Scrolling Combat Text, Outfitter, etc and implemented them into the game. For free. I haven't seen anything with SC2 to indicate that Blizzard is planning on charging us for anything.
There were 2 ways Blizzard announced that they could monetize SC2. The map shop and paid name changes. Other people said that the campaign being divided into 3 parts was a way for Blizzard to just be money hungry and take more of our money. Realstically though we're over 2 years into the game and neither paid name changes or the map shop are implemented yet - and we haven't even started the beta for the first expansion yet. So where is the greed?
I'm all for calling a company on bullshit when bullshit happens, but lets not get our panties in a twist quite yet. At this point the only thing we can/should do is let Blizzard know that we want stronger colors to stay.
On July 26 2012 01:25 Varanice wrote: I apologise for being stupid. But if I understand this. this means any file that you changed personally will be a cause for a redownload.. Meaning .. Can we stil download replays?
On July 26 2012 01:25 Varanice wrote: I apologise for being stupid. But if I understand this. this means any file that you changed personally will be a cause for a redownload.. Meaning .. Can we stil download replays?
Yes you can still download and watch replays. It just means that if certain sc2 files are changed or damaged, that the client will re-download it.
Actual hackers can bypass this sort of a thing pretty easily.
Mostly it's a bad thing because it mostly hurts the harmless customization whereas hackers can still bypass it. However if there were some exploits that this fixes I can understand doing it.
Hard to not rant about casuals in here who take the ladder too seriously (it's their fault anyway and Blizzard for making the Ladder good enough, so people didn't build up a replacement). Don't really care about the Hardcore cheating that won't be stopped by this. Easy to spot, easy to leave the game next time, if everyone would do it we could rename GM into HL, GM lost its value anyway. But all the soft cheats that will often fall under the radar as superior skill will vanish. But i think it will drive away some creative minds and this really hurts a game.
The DLC comments are funny though, if you do those more often you might trigger Blizzard to start doing it. Not that selling expansions is almost the same if you ignore the difference in price and quality.
i fkn hate casters who use that stronger team colours bull crap.. SC2 is not meant to look like some kiddie game with glowing pink and orange fairy banelings dancing all over the place
We have to fight this shit, this is ONE thing Blizzard liked! They said "We're glad about stronger team color" and they also liked the replay mod which allowed you to join into replays!
Common guys, don't give shit up let's tell them we want this in our games because it's bullshit.
Wait wait, does it ban your account if its changed? or does it just change the file.???
On July 26 2012 01:25 MVega wrote: There were 2 ways Blizzard announced that they could monetize SC2. The map shop and paid name changes. Other people said that the campaign being divided into 3 parts was a way for Blizzard to just be money hungry and take more of our money. Realstically though we're over 2 years into the game and neither paid name changes or the map shop are implemented yet - and we haven't even started the beta for the first expansion yet. So where is the greed?
I'm all for calling a company on bullshit when bullshit happens, but lets not get our panties in a twist quite yet. At this point the only thing we can/should do is let Blizzard know that we want stronger colors to stay.
I really don't see this as Blizzard's motivation for these changes. Starcraft already yields good revenue for them. The revenue from map sales and name change would be a fart in the wind compared to what they already bring in. The proscene is the way they monetized the game with royalties, advertising and rights fees. They don't need to monetize the game any more than they have and I don't think they have any interest in that.
The best thing for them to build the game as far as net profit from SC2 is concerned is just growing the scene and the brand. Imagine the revenue on royalties they would make if they landed a major TV cable contract or something along those lines. If sc2 got numbers similar to any of the major pro leagues in north american Blizzard's profit would skyrocket. That's what they are looking for, not chump change from selling a map or name.
People go support the EU battle.net thread. http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/4940469033 Tell blizzard you want stronger team colors to stay! and someone should make a US thread if there is non allready!
This might actually be able to be changed guys, actually go post on the forums! if thousands of posters pop up they'll really start thinking this over, they liked team colors etc... FIGHT THE CHANGE! : D
Fuck you blizzard. I am red-green colorblind and have been playing around with those mpq files trying to get a playable game for myself so I don't need to randomly click to place buildings and actually enjoy the gameplay. People have been asking for color mods since the beginning (remember, colorblind people represent 10% of men, i.e. close to 10% of people who play this game) without a response. How can something so incredibly simple and constantly requested go for so long without being done?
I was just starting to enjoy playing again because I could actually see what was going on. One more example that shows that they really don't listen or care about their users.
Quick edit: I couldn't care less that they're stopping modding, as long as they actually implement things people ask for.
too bad, that all the work into custom mods... well you know
sucks for anyone that did anything recently, and now they can't use it soon =/ oh well, it was in the sc2 terms anyways, that you can't (or not supposed to, or w/e) change/modify stuff, i guess
Hmm if this does prevent some level of hacking, then awesome . This will stop all internal hacks then...? At least until hackers find out how to unlock this or whatever or somehow get around it? I wonder if it'll stop external hacks too then or not.
On July 26 2012 19:04 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: too bad, that all the work into custom mods... well you know
sucks for anyone that did anything recently, and now they can't use it soon =/ oh well, it was in the sc2 terms anyways, that you can't (or not supposed to, or w/e) change/modify stuff, i guess
Hmm if this does prevent some level of hacking, then awesome . This will stop all internal hacks then...? At least until hackers find out how to unlock this or whatever or somehow get around it? I wonder if it'll stop external hacks too then or not.
This will stop very few hacks, I'm afraid. Basically, the stuff the game uses is loaded into the RAM of your computer, which is quickly read and written to by the game. Maphacks and production tab hacks don't read the MPQs or interact with them directly, but instead read your computer RAM, find the game data that's on it (and constantly being updated while you play) and reads that, finding out what your RAM knows-- the state of the game, what your opponent has, etc. It then operates a UI-like overlay (think about a stream overlay, for example) that's external to Sc2. Very few, if any hacks read MPQs directly.
It's likely this behavior is unintentional on blizzard's part, probably something they used for the PTR or just updating files more easily. They are in favor of the team color mod, as we know.
On July 25 2012 12:41 Plexa wrote: I can see both sides of the coin for this I wish some of these features like background skins, units sounds and strong colors were already prebuilt in though.
Still 2 more expansions! Lots will happen in that time!
I'm going to miss my awesome BW overlords and my Dragoon sounds... If this prevents any hacks and cheats that's cool but I feel like it probably doesn't do much for that.
I don't think it will do anything to the most popular hacks, since those are external to SC2. They don't modifiy any file, they just manipulate memory offsets (vocabulary may be not exact). Maybe they identified something that could be abused with modding MPQs or something..
On July 26 2012 19:04 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: too bad, that all the work into custom mods... well you know
sucks for anyone that did anything recently, and now they can't use it soon =/ oh well, it was in the sc2 terms anyways, that you can't (or not supposed to, or w/e) change/modify stuff, i guess
Hmm if this does prevent some level of hacking, then awesome . This will stop all internal hacks then...? At least until hackers find out how to unlock this or whatever or somehow get around it? I wonder if it'll stop external hacks too then or not.
This will stop very few hacks, I'm afraid. Basically, the stuff the game uses is loaded into the RAM of your computer, which is quickly read and written to by the game. Maphacks and production tab hacks don't read the MPQs or interact with them directly, but instead read your computer RAM, find the game data that's on it (and constantly being updated while you play) and reads that, finding out what your RAM knows-- the state of the game, what your opponent has, etc. It then operates a UI-like overlay (think about a stream overlay, for example) that's external to Sc2. Very few, if any hacks read MPQs directly.
It's likely this behavior is unintentional on blizzard's part, probably something they used for the PTR or just updating files more easily. They are in favor of the team color mod, as we know.
Oh kk, so maybe it will be different once it's out.
Damnit I need the stronger team colors mod, I am Color blind and without it, it makes ZvZ a real pain in the ass... I think Orb and a lot of other people use this MOD because they are color blind too, come on Blizzard...Damnit..
Actually this will just fuck with cool community mods, and not affect hackers one bit. Why the hell is this happening anyways, what was the urgent need for this?
What blizzard needs to do is release a modding tool for the public that is permitted by blizzard that doesn't directly modify game files, but directly effects sounds etc in your ladder games. See: Valve.
Whats the big deal with hackers anyway? You play em, they beat you one game and you get on with your life. If it effects tourneys then people need to start being more strict on hackers and never let them compete in a tourney again.
i would suspect this has more to do with opening regions soon and keeping client versions consistant more than anything else.
if it really came down to minor visual customization vs. patching methods that aid in unfair modifations, i don't think you can even really defend modifiying a few pictures while everyone else suffers. if this does actually end up being an effort to improve the deterrence of hacking, i applaud whoever made the decision to take one for the team.
On July 27 2012 06:24 SuperSloth wrote: Whats the big deal with hackers anyway? You play em, they beat you one game and you get on with your life. If it effects tourneys then people need to start being more strict on hackers and never let them compete in a tourney again.
Because if you let them run rampant every single game on ladder you play will be a hacker. It endangers the validity of Sc2 as an esport.
If they are to disable the possibility to use stronger team color mod, then they should also do like LoL and put a colorblind mod in the options. I don't want my PvPs to go back to misclicking the wrong units 50% of the time because they are hard to differentiate... Otherwise, if it can really disable hacking once and for all (which I doubt a lot), I am all for it.
On July 27 2012 06:24 SuperSloth wrote: Whats the big deal with hackers anyway? You play em, they beat you one game and you get on with your life. If it effects tourneys then people need to start being more strict on hackers and never let them compete in a tourney again.
Because if you let them run rampant every single game on ladder you play will be a hacker. It endangers the validity of Sc2 as an esport.
I hope you realize that threads like these endangers the validity of StarCraft more than anything. It's just sad to see the amount of "hate" Blizzard is getting, especially from a supposedly mature community such as Teamliquid.net. I'd expect to see this kind of prejudgemental behaviour on Reddit or on minor community sites but this is rediculous, thread after thread and they won't stop because if you think about it for just five minutes, you'll come to realize that there's no way Blizzard will ever cater to everyone.
Can say with confidence that this will in no way cut down on the amount of hackers. There might have been the odd 0.001% of players who use altered models in the MPQ to make stealthed units easier to see etc, but this has zero effect on maphacks or drophacks. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to support this change, and we really need Blizzard to know that. We never caused any harm with our mods, yet we seem to be a bigger target to them than the real hackers. Of course, we can't say for sure that this is final until 1.5 is out, but if it's what it looks like, then this is pretty pathetic and all the time Existor, Pzea and myself have spent giving back to this community with our mods will have been completely wasted. The only benefit I can think of coming out of this for us is the Repair.exe being more efficient, but 99% of the time, people who use the Repair.exe are people who installed mods incorrectly.
On July 26 2012 19:40 NeMeSiS3 wrote: Blizzard... Making a habit of shitting on the community one year at a time
Didn't comments like these used to be banned? I rly hope a mod cleans this thread up soon.
I'm sorry, this forum is still about having opinions right? Each year had a significant shit on from Blizzard the biggest ones, "no lan because of hacks" which actually didn't ban out because modded lans and people illegally downloading the game did happen and no name change. 2011 updates on the outdated bnet 0.2 never came, we have to pay for features that were in Brood War in HoTS and then finally 2012 this. (oh and Diablo 3). I could be alone on this, but I'm getting rather tired of having to pay for old features... If starcraft 2 wasn't the best designed RTS game (outside of BW) than it would have been thrashed so hard for being such a poorly designed UI that it may have completely flopped entirely...
I suppose after playing Blizzard products since it's beginning it may frustrate me more than the average person to see how heavily it has declined in recent years.
On July 27 2012 07:02 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Couldn't the community just make a list of files for Blizzard to include in some kind of exception list during the check?
On July 26 2012 19:40 NeMeSiS3 wrote: Blizzard... Making a habit of shitting on the community one year at a time
Didn't comments like these used to be banned? I rly hope a mod cleans this thread up soon.
I'm sorry, this forum is still about having opinions right? Each year had a significant shit on from Blizzard the biggest ones, "no lan because of hacks" which actually didn't ban out because modded lans and people illegally downloading the game did happen and no name change. 2011 updates on the outdated bnet 0.2 never came, we have to pay for features that were in Brood War in HoTS and then finally 2012 this. (oh and Diablo 3). I could be alone on this, but I'm getting rather tired of having to pay for old features... If starcraft 2 wasn't the best designed RTS game (outside of BW) than it would have been thrashed so hard for being such a poorly designed UI that it may have completely flopped entirely...
I suppose after playing Blizzard products since it's beginning it may frustrate me more than the average person to see how heavily it has declined in recent years.
Those would be good arguments if they weren't false.
On July 27 2012 07:08 Roxor9999 wrote: Those would be good arguments if they weren't false.
Quality post and factual check.
No lan certainly reduced piracy and allows them to be in control so that that kespa shit will never happen again and all the features in hots will also be in wol. Happy now?
On July 26 2012 19:40 NeMeSiS3 wrote: Blizzard... Making a habit of shitting on the community one year at a time
Didn't comments like these used to be banned? I rly hope a mod cleans this thread up soon.
I'm sorry, this forum is still about having opinions right? Each year had a significant shit on from Blizzard the biggest ones, "no lan because of hacks" which actually didn't ban out because modded lans and people illegally downloading the game did happen and no name change. 2011 updates on the outdated bnet 0.2 never came, we have to pay for features that were in Brood War in HoTS and then finally 2012 this. (oh and Diablo 3). I could be alone on this, but I'm getting rather tired of having to pay for old features... If starcraft 2 wasn't the best designed RTS game (outside of BW) than it would have been thrashed so hard for being such a poorly designed UI that it may have completely flopped entirely...
I suppose after playing Blizzard products since it's beginning it may frustrate me more than the average person to see how heavily it has declined in recent years.
Those would be good arguments if they weren't false.
Which parts are false? The UI is extremely poorly designed, the interface is behind a decade old game. They removed cross server play and watchable replays because "they didn't think people would care" and hell, they almost didn't bring in chat channels... There are lan mods and people have downloaded and palyed the game illegally. I'm missing what part I said that was false.
Can't say this really bothers me. I might even support it. Modding SC2's always been sketchy territory, as in existing harmless mods are probably officially not allowed yet Blizzard's chosen to ignore them rather than create controversy. If there's going to be modding I'd rather it be officially supported, or they could just implement some stuff themselves if it makes sense.
I will quit playing this game and not buy HoTS if can no longer use Stronger Team Colors. The Zerg versus Zerg matchup is simply impossible without it.
On July 27 2012 08:37 Cire wrote: I will quit playing this game and not buy HoTS if can no longer use Stronger Team Colors. The Zerg versus Zerg matchup is simply impossible without it.
On July 27 2012 07:02 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Couldn't the community just make a list of files for Blizzard to include in some kind of exception list during the check?
Then what's the point of the check?
It was a shot in the dark. But if the check is to monitor for malicous alteration to the game and maintain its stability, allowing for official exceptions to benign community support mods could be a partial solution. I would like a more openly moddable game yet with has few malicous programs and hacks as possible, but this is just a work around to throw out there.
On July 27 2012 07:02 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Couldn't the community just make a list of files for Blizzard to include in some kind of exception list during the check?
Then what's the point of the check?
It was a shot in the dark. But if the check is to monitor for malicous alteration to the game and maintain its stability, allowing for official exceptions to benign community support mods could be a partial solution. I would like a more openly moddable game yet with has few malicous programs and hacks as possible, but this is just a work around to throw out there.
and again, no hacker in their right mind would put a finger on an always-online game's files. there is already a measure in place against that: warden.
Does Diablo 3 have hacks running in order to abuse the Real Money Auction house? If this is true, we would likely be getting a similar system as that game.
On July 27 2012 07:02 Torpedo.Vegas wrote: Couldn't the community just make a list of files for Blizzard to include in some kind of exception list during the check?
Then what's the point of the check?
It was a shot in the dark. But if the check is to monitor for malicous alteration to the game and maintain its stability, allowing for official exceptions to benign community support mods could be a partial solution. I would like a more openly moddable game yet with has few malicous programs and hacks as possible, but this is just a work around to throw out there.
and again, no hacker in their right mind would put a finger on an always-online game's files. there is already a measure in place against that: warden.
I've said it once and I'll say it again: Even now, the modern production and army tab hacks don't dick around with the MPQs (which is pointless, difficult to do in the first place, and likely to arouse suspicion from warden)-- instead, they read the physical memory (RAM) to see what's written there, and display that stuff as an overlay. I can't possibly imagine how a hack could be better or more efficient by reading the MPQ files or writing to them... any hack that does anything useful interacts with the physical memory.
On July 27 2012 12:50 emc wrote: they need to give and take, if they take away our ability to mod, then they need to give us a way to customize our game within their client.
I am sure they will enable a colour blind option if not in WoL then in HotS.
They said that it was an oversight and loved the stronger colours mod for what it did.
It is high time that Blizzard make mods for custom games available for download directly in the client, much like maps are. And also make them applicable to any map you pick for a custom game, so we do not have to upload map+mod combinations for different maps. Ever since SC2 started and the editor had that 'mod' file type in addition to 'map', I assumed this was the idea... not sure why it was not done from the start. I haven't actually checked out the arcade beta thing btw, is that part of what it changes?
And also a certain category of mods that only change interface/visuals/sounds etc, perhaps after some official review process, should be allowed in ladder games, and for just one player not all players in the match. You should get an indication if your opponent is using some such mods, and maybe even the option to download and use it yourself, after the game or even before the match starts.
Mods that change the interface outside of a match can also be made possible with an official tool instead of mpq editors.
On July 26 2012 01:38 jimbob615 wrote: i fkn hate casters who use that stronger team colours bull crap.. SC2 is not meant to look like some kiddie game with glowing pink and orange fairy banelings dancing all over the place
That is your opinion which you are entitled to. The issue at hand here is having a CHOICE. I for one really enjoy STC mod. This change will do very little at all to stop the hackers that are harming the game. It will hurt the community and take away small customization that some people enjoy.
On July 27 2012 06:24 SuperSloth wrote: Whats the big deal with hackers anyway? You play em, they beat you one game and you get on with your life. If it effects tourneys then people need to start being more strict on hackers and never let them compete in a tourney again.
Because if you let them run rampant every single game on ladder you play will be a hacker. It endangers the validity of Sc2 as an esport.
I hope you realize that threads like these endangers the validity of StarCraft more than anything. It's just sad to see the amount of "hate" Blizzard is getting, especially from a supposedly mature community such as Teamliquid.net. I'd expect to see this kind of prejudgemental behaviour on Reddit or on minor community sites but this is rediculous, thread after thread and they won't stop because if you think about it for just five minutes, you'll come to realize that there's no way Blizzard will ever cater to everyone.
Agreed.
I havent seen any gaming community more pissed off over cosmetic game changes than this one. I mean did you see the patch note thread for patch 1.5? Blizzard rolls out with all these UI changes and a revamped custom game system and the first comments are "...no queen range nerf?" or "No balance changes?." Proof that its impossible to make the SCII community happy about anything. Everyone whines that the custom game system sucks and the UI is "holding people back." So Blizzard goes and changes a bunch of stuff and now a bunch of people are butthurt because they removed the ability for you to make stronger team colors or put a picture of Jaedong as your welcome screen.
On July 27 2012 06:24 SuperSloth wrote: Whats the big deal with hackers anyway? You play em, they beat you one game and you get on with your life. If it effects tourneys then people need to start being more strict on hackers and never let them compete in a tourney again.
Because if you let them run rampant every single game on ladder you play will be a hacker. It endangers the validity of Sc2 as an esport.
I hope you realize that threads like these endangers the validity of StarCraft more than anything. It's just sad to see the amount of "hate" Blizzard is getting, especially from a supposedly mature community such as Teamliquid.net. I'd expect to see this kind of prejudgemental behaviour on Reddit or on minor community sites but this is rediculous, thread after thread and they won't stop because if you think about it for just five minutes, you'll come to realize that there's no way Blizzard will ever cater to everyone.
Agreed.
I havent seen any gaming community more pissed off over cosmetic game changes than this one. I mean did you see the patch note thread for patch 1.5? Blizzard rolls out with all these UI changes and a revamped custom game system and the first comments are "...no queen range nerf?" or "No balance changes?." Proof that its impossible to make the SCII community happy about anything. Everyone whines that the custom game system sucks and the UI is "holding people back." So Blizzard goes and changes a bunch of stuff and now a bunch of people are butthurt because they removed the ability for you to make stronger team colors or put a picture of Jaedong as your welcome screen.
I mean seriously?
Those changes are great and they would probably get more praise if they didnt throw in little stuff like this in a somewhat sneaky fashion. It puts a unnecessary cloud over what should be a bright patch.
I'm shocked to see how easily people are willing to give up modding. This is terrible news as well as a saddening move from Blizzard. It's suffocating the community and with it, the game.
On July 28 2012 17:34 DeCoder wrote: I'm shocked to see how easily people are willing to give up modding. This is terrible news as well as a saddening move from Blizzard. It's suffocating the community and with it, the game.
I don't even understand why game developers try to prevent modding: it increases the longevity of the game and makes players happier usually. If someone creates a stronger team colors mod to help colorblind people, that's a little bit of development Blizzard doesn't need to do themselves anymore.
Generally speaking, I don't really like the trend towards no LAN, no modding, no offline play etc, we keep losing autonomy over our play experiences.
I want all the people who are against stronger team colors mod to understand that the reason a lot of people use this mod, is because they are color blind, take this into consideration before just posting that you think it looks stupid and too colorful or bright, it looks a lot different to someone who suffers from color blindness, like myself.
On July 28 2012 19:44 spooch wrote: Booo-hooo who cares if you wont be able to customize that crap if the whole game experience and battle net structure will change for better
Because limiting freedom to the bare minimum is the only way to secure a better bnet structure? Got it.
On July 28 2012 19:44 spooch wrote: Booo-hooo who cares if you wont be able to customize that crap if the whole game experience and battle net structure will change for better
Because limiting freedom to the bare minimum is the only way to secure a better bnet structure. Got it.
Modding has no effect on the Battle.net structure.
On July 28 2012 19:44 spooch wrote: Booo-hooo who cares if you wont be able to customize that crap if the whole game experience and battle net structure will change for better
Because limiting freedom to the bare minimum is the only way to secure a better bnet structure. Got it.
Modding has no effect on the Battle.net structure.
On July 28 2012 19:44 spooch wrote: Booo-hooo who cares if you wont be able to customize that crap if the whole game experience and battle net structure will change for better
Because limiting freedom to the bare minimum is the only way to secure a better bnet structure. Got it.
Modding has no effect on the Battle.net structure.
On July 28 2012 19:44 spooch wrote: Booo-hooo who cares if you wont be able to customize that crap if the whole game experience and battle net structure will change for better
Because limiting freedom to the bare minimum is the only way to secure a better bnet structure. Got it.
Modding has no effect on the Battle.net structure.
You don't say...
If you are aware, then why do say so, lol
I was being sarcastic, mocking the dudes logic who posted before me. Clearly a 1 post user, just trying to piss people off who are already upset.
On July 27 2012 06:24 SuperSloth wrote: Whats the big deal with hackers anyway? You play em, they beat you one game and you get on with your life. If it effects tourneys then people need to start being more strict on hackers and never let them compete in a tourney again.
Because if you let them run rampant every single game on ladder you play will be a hacker. It endangers the validity of Sc2 as an esport.
I hope you realize that threads like these endangers the validity of StarCraft more than anything. It's just sad to see the amount of "hate" Blizzard is getting, especially from a supposedly mature community such as Teamliquid.net. I'd expect to see this kind of prejudgemental behaviour on Reddit or on minor community sites but this is rediculous, thread after thread and they won't stop because if you think about it for just five minutes, you'll come to realize that there's no way Blizzard will ever cater to everyone.
Agreed.
I havent seen any gaming community more pissed off over cosmetic game changes than this one. I mean did you see the patch note thread for patch 1.5? Blizzard rolls out with all these UI changes and a revamped custom game system and the first comments are "...no queen range nerf?" or "No balance changes?." Proof that its impossible to make the SCII community happy about anything. Everyone whines that the custom game system sucks and the UI is "holding people back." So Blizzard goes and changes a bunch of stuff and now a bunch of people are butthurt because they removed the ability for you to make stronger team colors or put a picture of Jaedong as your welcome screen.
I mean seriously?
Iam a noob and i dont care about balance, but the new UI is only slightly better. We will see how it works out with custom games when it ran for a while.
Im so so happy about this. I was beggining to stop watching tournaments after STC mod put me off of TSL so maybe now I'll get back to watching and playing sc2.
Modding is not only STC mod, it's not stops hacking, and there are a lot good small mods (ovrmind voices, other zerg voices, new skins for standart unit models, Medium Team Color mod (less strong than STC), new battle.net image and animated backgrounds (replaces blue hydralisk to infestor or tychus to nice medic, or ugly battlecruiser to nice char planet or dropship from early sc2 builds), BW sounds (some sc2 sounds are weak), new loading screens, etc etc
So you have no mind what you're talking about if you're supporting modding shutdown
On July 31 2012 06:10 Lobotomist wrote: Nooooooooooooooo. Stronger team color is the only way I can tell the difference between banelings in ZvZ. I really really hope this isn't the case.
? The banelings that you control are yours. The ones you can't control that are head to your mineral lines are the enemy banelings. I hope this helps.
On July 25 2012 12:41 Netsky wrote: Diablo 3 has the same protection. I tried to swap the MPQ/assets file the same way I would with SC2 (pre-1.5 of course) to play Korean sounds and performs the check on game start up and downloads the correct file.
I remember how that prevented anyone from hacking on Diablo 3. It's a good thing that combined with launch day issues and a terrible story didn't ruin the most anticipated Blizzard game since SC2.
Did the patch change anything about the gameplay? Stim and combat shields now cost 150 minerals 150 gas with concussive shells being 100 minerals 100 gas. Is this a bug? or a patch?
On August 01 2012 09:14 Windz03 wrote: Did the patch change anything about the gameplay? Stim and combat shields now cost 150 minerals 150 gas with concussive shells being 100 minerals 100 gas. Is this a bug? or a patch?
It went un-noted in the patch notes, it's just a bug and only for custom games. Ladder is unaffected.
On July 25 2012 12:30 Existor wrote: I've tested some time ago patch 1.5.0 "Arcade Beta", and it's not just an interface patch. It reworks game client with new streaming system, that check EVERY ingame file, including renamed and overlaped files.
This is so fucking annoying. I used to be able to delete the campaigns folder and save 4+ GB...now I can't.
A blue post from Blizzard recently went up talking about how they're looking into officially supporting mod features in the future even though they acknowledge that the patch breaks the current unofficial modding system.
I wanted to hop on to speak to this issue a bit, as it’s certainly something our team cares a good deal about. As some of you may know, we’ve been preparing a big update to StarCraft II (patch 1.5) that will introduce a number of welcomed features to the client -- one of which is the ability for us to stream content updates to the game. This will allow for quicker access to a play session (removing the need to wait for patches to fully complete) and remove the need to repair your client files, as they’ll be constantly kept up to date automatically.
One of the unfortunate side effects of streaming is that mods that alter the StarCraft II archive files will no longer function, including color-clarity mods, custom Battle.net background mods, and more. Although these types of archive modifications go against our EULA and can also be used to spread malicious viruses or Trojans, we do understand the merit of many of these features. With the color-clarity issue specifically we actually have a few people on the team who are affected by color-blindness.
The development team is looking into options now to support color clarity and customized backgrounds as well as some of the other mod features. We believe that in the long run, it's best for us to provide an option like stronger team colors within the game, as opposed to an externally modded solution that we can't explicitly support.
We’ll keep the community updated on our progress and appreciate your continued feedback.
On August 01 2012 11:31 0neder wrote: Sadly control > user experience for Blizzard these days. Wish they were more like Valve 'the community can take this and run with it.'
Right on the money. Everything is about control to them.
I can no longer play with korean sounds by replacing the enUS.sc2assets file with the korean one anymore. It just redownloads the english one and replaces it every time.
On August 01 2012 14:50 Leeto wrote: I can no longer play with korean sounds by replacing the enUS.sc2assets file with the korean one anymore. It just redownloads the english one and replaces it every time.
So sad =(
It's tragic. I don't understand why blizz can't just implement this and give us a choice of languages for the units. How hard can that be, honestly?!
Wow who gives a fuck about waiting for patches to download. Go troll facebook for half a minute and it'll be done. The gained benefit is nowhere close to the cost of modding. That's a horrible excuse and they need to try harder.
On July 25 2012 12:30 Existor wrote: I've tested some time ago patch 1.5.0 "Arcade Beta", and it's not just an interface patch. It reworks game client with new streaming system, that check EVERY ingame file, including renamed and overlaped files.
This is so fucking annoying. I used to be able to delete the campaigns folder and save 4+ GB...now I can't.
the "fun" fact is that their shitty message tell you its clearing your game client to improve it and save you disk space blablabla... so honest with their messages, as always....
Blizz just wants 100 % control. Destroys all mods and replaces it with...NOTHING. They are "working" on a color mod (let's see when that gets out). It took TWO yrs to get the UI in a better shape, and still the Dota2 UI beats it by miles...
On August 01 2012 15:42 SoniC_eu wrote: Blizz just wants 100 % control. Destroys all mods and replaces it with...NOTHING. They are "working" on a color mod (let's see when that gets out). It took TWO yrs to get the UI in a better shape, and still the Dota2 UI beats it by miles...
Different games in different genres with release dates 2+ years apart.
The new MPQ's have a file inside them which goes by the name *region*-md5.lst
This file contains a few bytes at the start, followed by an md5 hash of each file inside the MPQ excluding the attributes and the listfile. However this file (from what I have currently tried) is encrypted, so hopefully someone will come through with the file specification and tell us all how to change those MD5 hashes.
The main problem with this is if the md5.lst file is hashed itself inside the game's executable. I'm working on trying to figure out this file
Edit:
Looking inside the s2-21029-22342-x86-Win-enUS file inside the /Temp/1.5Migration/Installer Tome 1.MPQ with an MPQ editor, it contains a few .lst files which are readable, and the one I was really looking into was installerpatch.lst, which contains a series of what looks like MD5 hashes of files, in unencrypted format.
On August 01 2012 15:42 SoniC_eu wrote: Blizz just wants 100 % control. Destroys all mods and replaces it with...NOTHING. They are "working" on a color mod (let's see when that gets out). It took TWO yrs to get the UI in a better shape, and still the Dota2 UI beats it by miles...
It's not really about control. They're struggling to find ways to curb the rampant hacking on ladder, so they just used an emergency blanket solution with unfortunate drawbacks.
If this works, then people will be happy and accept this as collateral damage.
On August 01 2012 15:42 SoniC_eu wrote: Blizz just wants 100 % control. Destroys all mods and replaces it with...NOTHING. They are "working" on a color mod (let's see when that gets out). It took TWO yrs to get the UI in a better shape, and still the Dota2 UI beats it by miles...
It's not really about control. They're struggling to find ways to curb the rampant hacking on ladder, so they just used an emergency blanket solution with unfortunate drawbacks.
If this works, then people will be happy and accept this as collateral damage.
This is not really to do with hacking, as hacking does not include modification of MPQ files, but more to improve their streaming service. You might not have noticed, but the new client does not include a repair tool. That tool is now launched at startup before the actual program, but for it to not be horrendously slow like before, they added hashes of each file inside the MPQ to the MPQ itself, which the rehash of the file is matched against.
On the one hand, it's really sad for the modding scence, on the other hand, I must say that every mod I've tried wasn't that big improvement of my gaming experience. I tried "stronger team colors", and even though it's nice to have neon banelings, most of the zerg buildings look like shit. I also can't really understand why I should use bw sounds in sc2, but I know that some people seem to have a need to customize their game.
Conclusion: Sad for the modders, irrelevant for me.
On August 01 2012 17:39 virpi wrote: On the one hand, it's really sad for the modding scence, on the other hand, I must say that every mod I've tried wasn't that big improvement of my gaming experience. I tried "stronger team colors", and even though it's nice to have neon banelings, most of the zerg buildings look like shit. I also can't really understand why I should use bw sounds in sc2, but I know that some people seem to have a need to customize their game.
Conclusion: Sad for the modders, irrelevant for me.
the cosmetic look is an extra benefit of STC...the main purpose imo was to be able to easily differentiate between units, especially in mirror matchups.
On August 01 2012 15:42 SoniC_eu wrote: Blizz just wants 100 % control. Destroys all mods and replaces it with...NOTHING. They are "working" on a color mod (let's see when that gets out). It took TWO yrs to get the UI in a better shape, and still the Dota2 UI beats it by miles...
It's not really about control. They're struggling to find ways to curb the rampant hacking on ladder, so they just used an emergency blanket solution with unfortunate drawbacks.
If this works, then people will be happy and accept this as collateral damage.
MPQ files doesn't have anything to do with hacking.
On August 01 2012 15:42 SoniC_eu wrote: Blizz just wants 100 % control. Destroys all mods and replaces it with...NOTHING. They are "working" on a color mod (let's see when that gets out). It took TWO yrs to get the UI in a better shape, and still the Dota2 UI beats it by miles...
It's not really about control. They're struggling to find ways to curb the rampant hacking on ladder, so they just used an emergency blanket solution with unfortunate drawbacks.
If this works, then people will be happy and accept this as collateral damage.
MPQ files doesn't have anything to do with hacking.
Modding can be exploited. Cloaked units? No problem to spot these with a simple mod. Nuke marker isn't easy to spot? No problem, make it bigger or better add a new model which shows the AoE range and a timer.
I posted a quote but it seems I missed it being posted already earlier .
Still on topic though, I'll miss my mods. I had the color mod, SC1 zerg music and some custom backgrounds. I hope Blizzard is actually serious about implementing these as the community manager on Battle.net has claimed.
On August 01 2012 15:42 SoniC_eu wrote: Blizz just wants 100 % control. Destroys all mods and replaces it with...NOTHING. They are "working" on a color mod (let's see when that gets out). It took TWO yrs to get the UI in a better shape, and still the Dota2 UI beats it by miles...
It's not really about control. They're struggling to find ways to curb the rampant hacking on ladder, so they just used an emergency blanket solution with unfortunate drawbacks.
If this works, then people will be happy and accept this as collateral damage.
MPQ files doesn't have anything to do with hacking.
Modding can be exploited. Cloaked units? No problem to spot these with a simple mod. Nuke marker isn't easy to spot? No problem, make it bigger or better add a new model which shows the AoE range and a timer.
Cloaked units AREN'T a problem to see, anyways-- maybe if you run on Low settings or are short-sighted, it's hard, but if you run on Medium or Higher textures, they basically look like big glass dudes wandering around. The Nuke dot thing is a problem, but honestly, this kind of hack isn't what's tearing up the ladder, the REAL hacks, the ones that are worth stopping, are the map and production tab hacks, neither of which have anything to do with the MPQ.
The fact of the matter is, blizzard has made a mistake and accidentally destroyed one of many people's favorite parts of starcraft, which is being able to see which units are yours, and has stopped a couple specific but also rather unuseful hacks. Not worth it.
I'm not colorblind, so this doesn't effect me, and my BW sound effects (god, the zergling sounds are so bad in Sc2 compared to BW) are gone, but really, I'll get by ok. I just feel bad for those who have lost their ability to play ZvZ, or in the case of more aggressive colorblindness, the game itself.
On August 01 2012 15:42 SoniC_eu wrote: Blizz just wants 100 % control. Destroys all mods and replaces it with...NOTHING. They are "working" on a color mod (let's see when that gets out). It took TWO yrs to get the UI in a better shape, and still the Dota2 UI beats it by miles...
It's not really about control. They're struggling to find ways to curb the rampant hacking on ladder, so they just used an emergency blanket solution with unfortunate drawbacks.
If this works, then people will be happy and accept this as collateral damage.
MPQ files doesn't have anything to do with hacking.
Modding can be exploited. Cloaked units? No problem to spot these with a simple mod. Nuke marker isn't easy to spot? No problem, make it bigger or better add a new model which shows the AoE range and a timer.
Cloaked units AREN'T a problem to see, anyways-- maybe if you run on Low settings or are short-sighted, it's hard, but if you run on Medium or Higher textures, they basically look like big glass dudes wandering around. The Nuke dot thing is a problem, but honestly, this kind of hack isn't what's tearing up the ladder, the REAL hacks, the ones that are worth stopping, are the map and production tab hacks, neither of which have anything to do with the MPQ.
Real hacks are a bigger problem, yes. But every way of cheating should be fixed, if that is possible. 1.5 won't stop the hacks, but it will stop a way of gaining an advantage without messing with the game more than other legit people do. I think it's an advantage, if you can always instantly notice every protoss observer in your screen because you made observer models to a glowing, flying blob. At lower skill levels it would be a huge advantage to deny protoss scouting my whole base or my whole army.
Just a few days ago someone complained here about the trees on a map because he lost to a protoss who was hiding a probe behind trees and he didn't notice the unit on the minimap. I think the thread was closed within a minute, but those problems exist for many players. He could just make the trees very small and wouldn't ever have a problem with that despite having the skill gained to notice units that aren't really visible on the main screen. I expect masters to have less problems with that. But that doesn't mean it's fair on the whole skill range existing on the ladder.
I don't think anyone cheated that way because mpq editing should be easily detectable, but it a problem. Blizzard might knew who had a modified mpq files with warden, but I don't think they would have checked which files were replaced.
What would you have thought when I would have posted that 2 years ago? It was possible all the time.
Modding the mpq is now gone, but Blizzard wants to find a way to support some modifications as seen in this blue post.
On August 01 2012 15:42 SoniC_eu wrote: Blizz just wants 100 % control. Destroys all mods and replaces it with...NOTHING. They are "working" on a color mod (let's see when that gets out). It took TWO yrs to get the UI in a better shape, and still the Dota2 UI beats it by miles...
It's not really about control. They're struggling to find ways to curb the rampant hacking on ladder, so they just used an emergency blanket solution with unfortunate drawbacks.
If this works, then people will be happy and accept this as collateral damage.
MPQ files doesn't have anything to do with hacking.
Modding can be exploited. Cloaked units? No problem to spot these with a simple mod. Nuke marker isn't easy to spot? No problem, make it bigger or better add a new model which shows the AoE range and a timer.
Cloaked units AREN'T a problem to see, anyways-- maybe if you run on Low settings or are short-sighted, it's hard, but if you run on Medium or Higher textures, they basically look like big glass dudes wandering around. The Nuke dot thing is a problem, but honestly, this kind of hack isn't what's tearing up the ladder, the REAL hacks, the ones that are worth stopping, are the map and production tab hacks, neither of which have anything to do with the MPQ.
Real hacks are a bigger problem, yes. But every way of cheating should be fixed, if that is possible. 1.5 won't stop the hacks, but it will stop a way of gaining an advantage without messing with the game more than other legit people do. I think it's an advantage, if you can always instantly notice every protoss observer in your screen because you made observer models to a glowing, flying blob. At lower skill levels it would be a huge advantage to deny protoss scouting my whole base or my whole army.
Just a few days ago someone complained here about the trees on a map because he lost to a protoss who was hiding a probe behind trees and he didn't notice the unit on the minimap. I think the thread was closed within a minute, but those problems exist for many players. He could just make the trees very small and wouldn't ever have a problem with that despite having the skill gained to notice units that aren't really visible on the main screen. I expect masters to have less problems with that. But that doesn't mean it's fair on the whole skill range existing on the ladder.
I don't think anyone cheated that way because mpq editing should be easily detectable, but it a problem. Blizzard might knew who had a modified mpq files with warden, but I don't think they would have checked which files were replaced.
What would you have thought when I would have posted that 2 years ago? It was possible all the time.
Modding the mpq is now gone, but Blizzard wants to find a way to support some modifications as seen in this blue post.
Oh, of course, Blizzard didn't MEAN to destroy the regular mods, such as color-blind helping mod and the background images, BW sounds, etc-- but that doesn't mean they didn't do it. In fact, even if Blizzard did this by accident (which I believe) and both means well and likes the idea of some of the mods they destroyed (which I also believe), AND plans at some point in the future to try to support the mods (which I also believe), the reality on the ground is that right now, the mods don't work.
I'm sure at some point there will be working color-blind friendly Sc2. It'll probably come from spoofing the status of the MPQs and using modified MPQ files long before it comes from Blizzard, because EVEN when Blizz is moving at full speed to implement something, it takes a long, long time to do. The truth is, intentions don't matter. All that matters is what happened. What happened is that Blizz just made the game experience incredibly bad for ~7% of its userbase unintentionally, and this will likely not be fixed by Blizzard in the near future.
Did Blizzard stop some sort of pretty unuseful, marginally helpful MPQ based exploits? Sure. But honestly, their system can still be fooled, and they weren't implementing Warden on the MPQ hacks to begin with, so I'm fairly sure that this change wasn't about hacks, but rather, about making updates and stuff easier, as well as replacing corrupt files.
The truth is that hackers ruin the game experience in two ways. First off, they hack on the ladder and screw up GM league. I explicitly leave out lower-league hackers, because any hacker in Master or below isn't pushing someone out of a vitally limited GM spot, and are rare enough to not really screw up game experience. Secondly, and this is much bigger, hackers ruin the game experience by making blizzard do dumb stuff, like get rid of lan, or require constantly being online in D3, etc.
So when you say Hackers ruin the ladder experience, I agree, but for different reasons. Their tools aren't hacks-- their tools are the heavy-handedness of the blizzard response.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tsBGb.jpg)
I wish some of these features like background skins, units sounds and strong colors were already prebuilt in though.
![[image loading]](http://sc2tv.ru/chat/trollface.gif)
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