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Blizzard Bans Speed Hackers from WoW

Posted by Zonk on from the and-the-cycle-begins dept.

Voodoo Extreme has the world that Blizzard has already banned several accounts for Speed Hacking, a type of cheat that allows a character to move far faster than it should. From the article: "Those individuals who were caught using the speed hack have been banned from the game and have had their accounts closed. We must stress once again that we are opposed to hacking and cheating of any kind and are dedicated to maintaining a fair environment in our games." Adios, punks

4 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Hope they had definite proof... by Sancho · · Score: 5, Informative

    Generally speed hacks work by sending packets in such a way as to simulate periods of extreme latency between the client and the server. This leads to a bit of a bad fork for Blizzard...The two most likely ways that they banned people were checking for constant extreme latency (which could occur) in which case they may have banned people who were not cheating, or they tested for programs running on the user's machine, which is a slippery road towards privacy invasion.

  2. Actually... by ironwill96 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Several people used FRAPS to record people that were using SpeedHacks in the game. So they were not banning people who had not visibly evidenced this behavior several times and been reported by users.

    And they were not faking a Gryphon flight while on the ground, they were faking lag to the client making the server lag-o-port them great distances. This is using a method posted on the BlizzHackers website forums.

    --
    "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
    1. Re:Actually... by NeMon'ess · · Score: 4, Informative

      No they made a calculated choice. In most OLRPGs, getting attacked while having lag is lethal. It's very frustrating for the dead player. In WOW, when lag happens, the player can run away and they're untouchable. NPCs, monsters, and players freeze in place or stop appearing. When the lag ends, the client sends the player's new position to the server. The server effectively teleports the player to the reported position. A bystander at the new position would see a player just appear there. This has created a cheat, in that when lag happens it's possible to run past high-level enemies who might be guarding treasure. I think Blizzard made the right choice considering how much I've hated getting lag killed in the past.

  3. Re:Apart from moving around faster... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, speed hackers are impossible to kill. If they get in trouble, they run, and you'll never catch them.