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On August 01 2012 16:06 Megaman703 wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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On August 01 2012 20:48 Dumbledore wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2012 16:06 Megaman703 wrote: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. You should better have a look what was possible with mods on ladder.
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.
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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.
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Blazinghand
United States25546 Posts
On August 01 2012 20:55 Ahli wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2012 20:48 Dumbledore wrote:On August 01 2012 16:06 Megaman703 wrote: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. You should better have a look what was possible with mods on ladder.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.
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On August 02 2012 02:42 Blazinghand wrote:Show nested quote +On August 01 2012 20:55 Ahli wrote:On August 01 2012 20:48 Dumbledore wrote:On August 01 2012 16:06 Megaman703 wrote: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. You should better have a look what was possible with mods on ladder.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.
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Blazinghand
United States25546 Posts
On August 02 2012 03:16 Ahli wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2012 02:42 Blazinghand wrote:On August 01 2012 20:55 Ahli wrote:On August 01 2012 20:48 Dumbledore wrote:On August 01 2012 16:06 Megaman703 wrote: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. You should better have a look what was possible with mods on ladder.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.
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