cheating
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Thousands of players banned in Diablo 3
You read that right: Several thousand suspensions and bans have gone out to Diablo III players using account hacks or bots or otherwise cheating at the game. Zarhym (he who often shows up in monster form while I'm playing Diablo III) posted to the official forums to announce the action. Diablo® III Players Banned We recently issued a round of account suspensions and bans to several thousand Diablo® III players who were in violation of the Battle.net® Terms of Use for cheating and/or using botting or hacking programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair play that's essential to everyone's enjoyment of the game, botting, hacking, and other such exploitive behavior can contribute to stability and performance issues with the Battle.net service. As always, maintaining a stable, safe, and fun online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we'll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed. source Seems fairly straightforward to me -- don't cheat, won't get banned. With the move to require an authenticator for the Real-Money Auction House and now this, it is pretty clear Blizzard is taking Battle.net very seriously moving forward. Evil has returned! 1.2 million WoW players are getting Diablo III for free thanks to the Annual Pass. You can get prepared for the evil with WoW Insider's launch coverage. From the lore of Diablo, to the important blue posts and the basics of Diablo gameplay, we'll get you on the inside track for the return of evil.
Drama Mamas: The love triangle strikes again
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. The lovelorn player who's fallen in love with someone in an existing real-world relationship -- it's almost a cliché, it's so common. It would be all too easy for us to tut-tut with a gentle chuckle and a weary shake of the head, but the pain and confusion in these situations is never sharper or fresher than to those who find themselves there. The Drama Mamas have addressed this situation before, albeit from another perspective, although the form of the letter and our reply themselves unfortunately may have stolen some of the thunder of that previous message. We'd like to revisit that reply again this week -- but first, of course, this week's letter: Dear Drama Mamas, I have read your column for a long time and always read about people having their heartbroken and relationships ruined due to their cheating significant other. This time, I am the other woman. I have played WoW since release and have never been interested in anyone online. I've been on and off with the same man since then and the relationship (when it's happening) is fairly broken. We both aren't willing to put in the effort to fix it, so we just let it be. Recently, I've met the most amazing person I have ever known, through WoW. Lets make things more complicated! He's engaged, he lives with her, he loves her but feels he's not happy nor is she right for him.
How to kill a Skyrim dragon with a single arrow
Do you have the patience it takes to craft a mighty bow, capable of felling an elder dragon with a single strike? We ask because ... well, we'd love for you to take care of it for us. Here's our copy of Skyrim. Thanks![Thanks, Chris.]
Battlefield 3 dev hiring 'anti-cheat administrator' to stop the evildoers
Are you one of those guys in a helicopter hovering near spawn points in Battlefield 3 (say, an aircraft carrier), wantonly exploiting the game and infuriating players? You may not actually be cheating, but we still think you're the worst.That aside, Battlefield 3 developer DICE is apparently looking to address all cheaters, and not just that guy who ruins the game for everyone with his stupid, stupid helicopter, as the company has posted an ad for an "anti-cheat administrator." The move follows a recent redoubling of DICE's efforts to combat cheating in its latest game release.Said administrator will be tasked with a variety of responsibilities, many of which you'd expect a community liaison to handle, though the list is oddly missing "put up with staggering levels of infantile behavior from legal adults." Can you tell we don't like cheaters?
DICE promises vigilance against Battlefield 3 cheaters
Finding out that cheating has apparently become rampant in Battlefield 3's online multiplayer is somewhat of a travesty, considering how much some members of our staff play it. Neither of our main combatants have ever actually spotted a cheater (at least not in any verifiable way) while playing on Xbox 360, but the game's developer is nonetheless tracking down these nefarious rogues, issuing stat resets and outright bans to offending players across 360, PS3, and PC. The Stockholm, Sweden-based devs at EA DICE "recently banned another batch of several hundred confirmed cheaters," and are only stepping up their efforts all the more as time goes on. The first measure in this initiative will be an addition to Battlelog, one which allows players to report offenders via their online profiles, regardless of what platform they're playing on. With any luck, between the community and DICE, the contingent trying to ruin everyone's online experience will be stomped out quickly.
Ask Massively: No idea what's coming edition
I don't know what's going to happen next in the MMO industry. I have my guesses, sure, but unless I'm fairly certain, I just don't feel right putting them up here. I certainly would not have ever imagined a world where APB: Reloaded was successful, or one where Lineage II goes free-to-play, and until it was announced, I wouldn't dare dream of WildStar. Heck, half the time I'm not sure I understand what's going on at any given moment, much less several months down the line. This week's Ask Massively received several questions that require me to be more confident about my predictions than I actually am, but it does contain a question about the future of Aion and a question on the past, present, and future of cheating. If you've got a question you'd like to see answered in a future installment of the column, leave it in the comments below or send it along to ask@massively.com. Questions may be edited slightly for clarity and/or brevity.
The Daily Grind: When does a clever loophole become a bannable exploit?
Trouble has been brewing this week over a Star Wars: The Old Republic "exploit" in which people use seemingly legitimate (but perhaps unintended) game mechanics to tip the balance of the game in their favor. Of course, this is nothing new to veteran MMO players, who have seen hundreds, even thousands, of such loopholes and bugs spackled and patched since first MMO came online. Entire World of Warcraft guilds have been banned, however temporarily, for "exploiting" poorly coded raid AI, for example. I've always felt that it's the game company's responsibility to counter loopholes before anyone takes advantage of them; the onus should be on the developer, not the player, to set the rules of the game using hardcoded mechanics. The players can't be expected to suss out the game-designers' intent, after all. Other gamers believe that "exploiters" really ought to know better and deserve whatever punishments the game's GMs mete out. What do you think? When does a clever loophole become a bannable exploit? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
EverQuest to hackers: You've been served
In a suitably ominous speech on the EverQuest forums, Sony Online Entertainment's Piestro delivered a word of warning to the cheaters, hackers, and exploiters of Norrath: "Stop now." Piestro goes on to reveal that the team has been quietly performing some clandestine work that helps "[detect] cheaters quickly and accurately." This should be good news for fans of the old-school title who enjoy playing the game on a level field. Hackers, however, should back down at once, because -- as Piestro warns -- "there will be no second chances." Also, because cheating makes you a jerk.
The Daily Grind: Are alts and mules a form of cheating?
In response to Beau's recent Free For All column on the topic of botters and cheaters, reader Keith wrote in to suggest that there's another form of cheating much more common and pervasive: the use of alternate characters. In games like EVE Online or Star Wars Galaxies, which limit the number of characters players can create, extra accounts are manipulated to allow a single player access to more skills through alts ("skill mules"), more storage space ("bank mules" and "auction mules"), or more avenues for safe PvP scouting. But the problem occurs in alt-friendly games too, like World of Warcraft, where it's not uncommon to see someone five-boxing an entire team of Shamans, or Ultima Online, where it's standard practice for every player to have a "craft mule" who loads up on tradeskills (to the detriment of the player economy). What do you think? Are alts and mules just another form of cheating, one that allows players with excess character slots or extra accounts unfair advantages? Or are "slave" characters just a natural and necessary part of online gaming? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Do you feel companies do enough to fight bots?
They lurk in the dark corners of every MMO, sometimes farming gold, sometimes just taking care of tasks that actual players feel are too tedious to bother with. Bots have been a part of the MMO sphere for years now, and while games like RuneScape have recently brought them back to the foreground of attention, nothing has ever managed to push them completely out of the limelight. If you play an MMO, you have to work around them. Development teams, of course, regard bots as fundamental problems, and usually a great deal of time is devoted to trying to quash bots for farming or repetitive tasks. But do you feel enough is done to try and stop them? Do you believe they're a result of game systems that are designed for too much grind and not enough fun? Or do you think they're just another face of cheating and deserve no special attention? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: Are we cheating studios by not paying for free-to-play?
Here's an odd question that I've been chewing on lately: Is there something wrong if we extensively enjoy a free-to-play title that we do not, and are determined to never, pay for? I mean, sampling a F2P title is kind of like participating in a trial, but what about playing a F2P MMO for months or even years without paying? Is there something ethically or perhaps morally wrong about that, particularly since our playtime is funded by both the studio and the paying members out there? On one hand, we're invited to do so. Studios use F2P to lure us in on the chance that we'll become so invested that we'll be tempted to spend money to either support it or gain a better play experience for ourselves. The studios set the rules for free-to-play, and we operate within them. But on the other hand, I wonder if there comes a point when one can take so much advantage of a "free" service at someone else's expense that it gets tacky or just plain wrong. Do we become the unwelcome house guest who mooches but never gives back -- and never leaves? What do you think? Should we feel obligated to pay at least something if we've played a F2P MMO for a good length of time? Or am I totally off my rocker here? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
All Points Bulletin Reloaded blog post focuses on the "home stretch" to launch
Enforcers and criminals better listen up, because it's time for another All Points Bulletin Reloaded blog post. This one focuses on the open beta "home stretch," as the post's title refers to it. With the game's patch 1.5.3 hot off the press, the team is gearing up for patches 1.5.4 through 1.5.7, which are the last planned patches prior to the game's official launch. So what kind of issues have been spotted throughout the span of open beta, and what does the team hope to accomplish prior to the game's official release? Well, sit down and get comfy, because the team has put together quite a list, included after the jump.
GamersFirst kicks off APB's second open beta
In case you missed it, APB Reloaded's second beta phase kicked off yesterday. The version 1.5.2 update "contains the biggest changes to missions, matchmaking, skill rating, and district recommendation to date," according to the latest GamersFirst dev blog. Bjorn Book-Larsson has a few words of wisdom for residents of San Paro in terms of 15-minute patching-related disconnects. GamersFirst is working "round-the-clock" to isolate issues and come to terms with bugaboos that don't necessarily crop up prior to a large-scale player influx. The latest Reloaded dev diary also contains detailed info relative to all the matchmaking and threat level changes, as well as a bit about cheating statistics and upcoming Nvidia support. Finally, there's a blurb about future servers, and gamers in Russia, Hong Kong, and Australia can look forward to dedicated shards before long.
Avatar breaks out the banhammer for Perpetuum cheaters
Rut roh! It's banhammer time in Perpetuum, the sci-fi indie sandbox from Avatar Creations. The latest Avatar dev blog has the (sparse) details courtesy of Dev Calvin. Apparently some players availed themselves of a game exploit that allowed for significant gains in robots, equipment, and other commodities. It's not as innocent as it sounds, though, as the dev blog makes clear. "The method that was used can by no means [be] interpreted as intended gameplay. A lot of technical preparation and effort went into the experimentation and execution," Calvin writes. The ill-gotten gains have of course been removed, and Avatar has also permabanned the offending accounts, which sends a clear message as to the type of zero-tolerance policy toward cheating on display in the world of Nia. Check out the official Perpetuum website for more reading material.
APB Reloaded open beta coming May 18th
Mark your calendars, APB fans. May 18th is a big day in the history of the resurrected title since it marks the official start of open beta. Bjorn Book-Larsson broke the good news yesterday on the APB Reloaded blog, and he had a few other interesting nuggets to discuss as well. GamersFirst's character restoration service should make its first appearance today around 4:00 p.m. PDT, and APB veterans from the Realtime Worlds days will be able to reclaim their old avatars and customizations. If you're unsure if you qualify, check your inbox as GamersFirst will be sending out email notices to everyone with an available reclaim. Book-Larsson also talks briefly about some of the company's plans for dealing with cheaters. No details are given, of course, but GamersFirst is apparently very aware of all the attempted aimbotting going on thus far in the beta. Finally, there's a blurb concerning new item rollouts in the coming days, as well as some info relating to the game's payment interface. Head to the official APB Reloaded blog for more.
NYT uncovers the tawdry, seedy tale of the SEO games of J.C. Penney
The New York Times has run an incredibly detailed piece about a feat of Google search engine gaming which seems to have been done by or for JC Penney. We won't bore you with SEO basics -- we're pretty sure you've got those down already -- but suffice to say that The Times noticed that the retailer was at the top of Google's search results for many more terms than seemed possible or natural, so they started to do some digging. What they found was that thousands of links had been placed on what were essentially spam sites all over the web, resulting in the retailer ruling the Google juice for terms such as "little black dress," and even super generic ones like "rugs" and "bedding." This is one of the dreaded kinds of 'black hat' optimization that Google frowns upon, because it's so obviously cheating, and it's punishable by a massive sinking of the offending site's ranking in results (which is, of course, not the desired effect). JC Penney unsurprisingly denies knowing anything about it, and no evidence exists to suggest it was directly involved, so on Wednesday, Google began 'corrective action' to bring Penney's results back to planet earth. One example -- before the action was taken, JC Penney held the number one spot for the search term 'living room furniture,' and after it stood at number 68 -- is enough to show the awesome power Google holds over the results it delivers, but the story also serves to show how truly broken search is, as well as Google's seeming nonchalance about the issue. Hit up the source link for the full story.
Gameloft working to patch hacked Modern Combat
Gameloft's Modern Combat: Domination draws some heavy inspiration from another big FPS franchise. And ironically, it's facing the same problem as its higher-profile counterpart. Available exclusively via the PSN, Modern Combat has been struggling against cheats and hacks almost immediately since its release -- "a result of the PS3 jailbreak situation," a Gameloft representative told us. A YouTube video demonstrates how the game "is going to get f***d hard," as the poster describes it. Cheaters are able to enable a few tricks, including smokeless smoke grenades, bullet tracing, the ability to walk through walls and even "God Mode." A new patch, coming in a few weeks, will attempt to rectify the situation by implementing "anti-hacking protection," in addition to other tweaks. "We are confident this fix will eliminate hacking and add to the player experience on Modern Combat: Domination," the rep added. "The anti-hacking pretty much means that people using a modified code (including cheaters) won't be able to access the game." A full list of changes can be found after the break.
Sony: GT Academy round two ruined by cheaters, won't count
Sony's GT Academy competition, which was intended to provide the world's best Gran Turismo 5 players with a chance to win a spot as a real race driver using their virtual driving skills, has hit an ugly speed bump. The game's publisher has announced that the second round of the five-round tournament is being stricken from the records -- and the third round delayed -- because some participants were taking advantage of flaws in the game in order to achieve seemingly impossible lap times. Specifically, cheaters were able to cut corners on the Rome and Madrid courses without being penalized by the game for doing so. Rather than reward the cheaters or end the competition entirely, Sony has decided to allow everyone who participated in round two to proceed to round three. Developer Polyphony Digital says that it's working to fix any potential exploits before conducting the third round of races, but can't put an ETA on the completion of the patch. That being the case, the planned start of round three on February 14, 2011 has been delayed indefinitely. We're glad that the competition is (hopefully) being made fair for everyone, but have to admit that it would have been pretty funny to see one of the "winning" cheaters cutting corners on a real race track.
Google responds: Bing recycles search results, and we'd like it to stop
Google accused Microsoft of copying search results this morning, and the company's sticking to its guns: in response to Microsoft's firm denial -- "We do not copy Google's results" -- it's released another tiny batch of evidence to the contrary and a call for Microsoft to discontinue the practice for good. Mind you, Google search engineer Amit Singhal doesn't explicitly call out its competitor for "copying" results -- rather, "recycling" them through a clever combination of Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Bing Toolbar -- but the message is clear. Google wants you to view its search results as the originals, and doesn't really care how sincere Microsoft's flattery might be.
Google accuses Bing of 'cheating,' piggybacking off its search results (updated)
You could say Bing is taking a cue from its competition, but it seems to be more literally taking search results as well. Google Fellow Amit Singhal is claiming so much and has provided some amusing (if not totally clever) results from its "Bing Sting." Here's how it works: find a search term that returns no matches for either site, make a "honeypot" page manually appear for the term, then have about 20 Google employees make the search (and click the top link) using Internet Explorer with both Suggested Sites and the Bing Toolbar on. Within two weeks, Singhal claims, a handful (about 7 to 9) of the 100 or so "honeypot" results were popping up in Bing. Bizarre choices, too, like mbrzxpgjys, hiybbprqag, and indoswiftjobinproduction. So, is this "cheating," as Singhal specifically alleges? The experiment had to be run with Bing's toolbar and / or Suggested Search feature activated, which it explicitly says are used to collect data and improve services. And more popular search terms do return different results, It's not as if Microsoft is using non-public information, but is this an example of taking an unfair shortcut? That's a debate we imagine with rage for quite some time. Update: Microsoft's been sending out the following statement from Stefan Weitz, director of Bing: We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results. The overarching goal is to do a better job determining the intent of the search so we can provide the most relevant answer to a given query. Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites. That's pretty ambiguous, so ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley pressed for a followup and was flatly told "We do not copy Google's results." We're sure there's going to be a lot more analysis and discussion to come -- this ought to be fun.
