Blizzard Deletes 112,000 Diablo II Accounts

pixelblur writes "An update over at fan site DiabloII.Net points out that Blizzard has deleted 112,000 Battle.net accounts for Diablo II." The official post from the Battle.net team in part reads: "Numerous.. ..accounts were tied to the use of a hack or cheat program while playing Diablo II on Battle.net. In keeping with our aggressive stance against cheating, we have permanently closed over 112,000 of these accounts and documented the CD keys with which they were used." This clean-up comes ahead of the forthcoming 1.10 patch for the seminal title.

Comments

112,000 ??!!

[water-and-sewer]

That is one *hell* of a lot of cheaters. Way to go guys.

Re:112,000 ??!!

[KDan]

You're assuming a 1-1 mapping between accounts and people. Many people have a lot of accounts - especially if they use cheats or tradehacks and such. So divide that by at least 10, probably more. Still a large number, but not so huge.

Daniel

My account has been frozen!!!!!

[engineerdude]

OHHHH MANNNNN! What am I going to do with those virtual Bracelets of Arganoth I bought off ebay for $500?????? Farewell my NPC love.....til we meet again on a 1.10 patched server....

Why just infrequent account purges?

[HalfFlat]

I still can't see why they couldn't have gone through and deleted duplicated or 'bugged' items on the servers automatically. Give each item a unique id; every night check to see if the unique id turns up in more than one inventory; delete all but one.

The fact that they haven't conjures up various conspiracy theories, or (in my opinion the more likely option) demonstrates that they really don't care that much about the problem despite their press releases.

Further, the two years without a patch, despite the myriad insecurities brought to light, gives further evidence of a lack of caring. Again, despite their PR face. While this new 1.10 patch which will rejuvenate the game and all will be most welcome (presuming it ever comes), this in no way precluded security fix patches in the interim.

Patching and server-side item clean-ups would have been much more effective and much more welcome than the rare and irregular account purging that they seem to engage in instead.

Re:Why just infrequent account purges?

[Nagatzhul]

I think the last major patch was in December. That hardly qualifies as two years. Also, a patch came out with the expansion.

If you play on Battlenet much, it downloads them automatically before you connect (Yeah, a "duh" I know, but this is someone who thinks it has been two years since the last patch.).

Re:Why just infrequent account purges?

[Dark Nexus]

Umm........ v1.07, the expansion release version, is only about 2 years old RIGHT NOW. There have been 2 major revisions since, and a larger number of minor revisions.

Re:Why just infrequent account purges?

[Babbster]

The fact that they haven't conjures up various conspiracy theories, or (in my opinion the more likely option) demonstrates that they really don't care that much about the problem despite their press releases.

Further, the two years without a patch, despite the myriad insecurities brought to light, gives further evidence of a lack of caring.

Forgive me for asking, but why SHOULD they care? Diablo 2 has been out for three years and the expansion has been out for two.

Now, I'll examine whether or not they do indeed care:

Since the game's release, people have been able to play through the entire game easily offline (in other words, no significant bugs that prevent such), they've been able to do matchmaking on battle.net AND they've even been able to play games hosted on battle.net servers. During that time, they've also been provided with new special items, enhancement and correction of unbalanced skills and repair of the serious playability bugs that existed. Even more relevant, Blizzard is STILL trying to address the problem of cheaters as is clearly evidenced by THIS STORY.

In short, Blizzard cares more about Diablo 2, a product over two years old that is now being sold at discounted prices, than most companies care about games in their first month of release. More importantly, they're demonstrating that they care about the people who are still playing by getting rid of cheaters and providing better customer care than some of the companies running MMORPGs which you actually have to pay monthly fees to play.

Even shorter: You're wrong.

Re:Why just infrequent account purges?

[HalfFlat]

Forgive me for asking, but why SHOULD they care? Diablo 2 has been out for three years and the expansion has been out for two.

Nothing to forgive ... of course they're not obliged to care (though it'd be nice of course.) If they don't care, but claim that they do in press releases, then it is a bit hypocritical, which is generally regarded as a bad thing.

Regarding the rest of your comment though, Blizzard really haven't done much at all for the game since since 2001. While they claim to be addressing the problem of cheaters, this claim is belied by their actions. To reiterate: very occasional account purges are not a very effective way of dealing with the problems of Battle Net.

With the exception of the new features in the 1.10 patch, Blizzard do seem to have done the bare minimum possible to keep Diablo II running on Battle Net. Given they're still selling the game, making a profit on it etc. while touting the secure on-line play as a feature, it really does seem reasonable that they should be obliged to do exactly that. Again, while it would be nice if they did more, this is all we can really expect. Oh, save they they did promise regular new runewords, craft recipes and the like that never did eventuate.

The 1.10 patch stuff though, I concede, has been taking resources that Blizzard didn't have to commit. Until the recent round of QA testing, it seems they've had one employee working on it for the last 18 months. In absolute terms this is a non-trivial amount of money, but it does sort of pale in comparision to the ongoing profits Blizzard are making in new sales. No judgement from me here on this issue.

In short: if they cared as much as they claimed to, there would be regular patching of security problems with the game, and the cloned and bugged wreckage of the online economy would never have been an issue. They would have also followed through on their promises of game maintenance (eg, runewords etc.) Conclusion: they're less committed than they claim.

Ebay

[moc.tfosorcimgllib]

What ever happens to locked out copies sold on e-bay?

Map-Hack

[KDan]

They're being a bit silly there. From playing occasionally, I can vouch that about 1/2 of the people who still play Diablo 2 (so much time after it was first released) use maphack as a convenience. And I think that most of these will simply stop playing if maphack is disabled. So one of two things. Either:

1) They're trying to scare people, cause they can't really do shit to detect maphack actually, or
2) They don't want to support D2 anymore and are trying to chase away all those people who still play to decrease the load on their servers (and hence how much it costs to maintain them)

But if 2) is correct, then why are they bothering to release so many new features in 1.10? Which leaves possibility 1), or even possibility 3) (they're just stupid).

Daniel

Re:Map-Hack

[thumperward]

I've never used Maphack. Then again, I don't play until I reach level 99 or rely on trading for duplicated Uniques, like "1/2 of the people who still play Diablo 2".

Maphack may be benign but it's still a lame cheat. I've been PKed exactly once outside of a duel in several hundred hours of Realm play, so I don't buy that it's necessary. Good riddance to several hundred thousand maphacking Burizons if they leave because they actually have to guess what their companions are wearing.

- Chris

Re:Map-Hack

[brettw]

And I think that most of these will simply stop playing if maphack is disabled.

You're kidding, right? I can't believe anybody who is still playing D2 after all this time would quit over maphack. There are two big reasons I can think of that people use maphack:

1. Trying to see what other's equipment is. Come on, is this really that important?
2. Speeding up Mephisto/Baal Runs. Assuming anybody really does this that much anymore, it will be nerfed during the next patch anyway, as they've stated they will be trying to discourage the farming of certain bosses.

I got the impression that they can't disable it, just detect it. This post is a threat saying that people will be banned in the future if it is detected. Did people leave in droves the last time accounts were deleted? Perhaps some, but there are still a lot of people interested. I'm looking forward to the patch myself. I wish they would do more against hacks and cheats but I'm glad they're still working on a patch for this old game as its still better than any of the new games I've tried to play lately.

Obligatory...

[BMonger]

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if 112,000 voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Re:Good

[malakai]

What's even more funny about this reply is his signature:

...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.? - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)

So, who's speaking up for the 112k accounts that just got terminated? You think Blizzard was 100% accurate in numbers that massive? Some poor little kid just lost 4 months of hard earned levels/items.

mmmm... smell that hypocrisy...

-malakai

Awesome

[lh0628]

This is great news for any loyal legitimate D2 gamers. Being one myself, it's very frustrating dealing with all the dupe/hack/bot activities going on on BattleNet. After 4 or 5 yeras of release, DiabloII can still climb up to the top TEN game sale per week. That shows how good the game is. And Blizzard is still releasing patches after patches showing that they do still care about us gamers fans.

Re:Good

[SoVeryWrong]

Battle.net is Free
They already have the money from the sale of the game, there isn't any lost revenue.