Blizzard, piss off.
There. I said it. Frankly, I’m worried that if I say it again a bunch of WOW players will bust in to the building I’m in and attack me, but it needed to be said. Blizzard has started banning all players caught cheating at Starcraft II. Doesn’t sound bad, right? Look at that sentence again. Specifically the word “all” and the lack of the word “multiplayer” or “online”. Yeah. Blizzard has started banning any player caught cheating in the multiplayer OR SINGLE PLAYER modes on Starcraft II. Why would they do something so absolutely stupid?
Find out after the jump.
Goddamn achievements.
Blizzard has released a statement saying that “if a StarCraft II player is found to be cheating or using hacks or modifications in any form, then as outlined in our end user license agreement, that player can be permanently banned from the game. This means that the player will be permanently unable to log in to Battle.net to play StarCraft II with his or her account.”
I can understand banning online cheaters. Do that as fast as you can. Go to their houses, kidnap them and force them to dance for my amusement, the game-breaking bastards. But single player cheaters? REALLY? Their reasoning behind it is that progress in the single player campaign effects achievements, and those effect your online reputation. “But Alex, you hyper manly stud of a man, don’t you mean online STANDING?” I hear some of you asking as you shy away from the light trying not to burn your delicate skin. No. I don’t. The achievements have no tangible or solid effect on the online play, only on the way another player might think of you when they look at your profile. Because of this, players are getting banned from online play for cheating their way through the story, presumably to learn the gameplay mechanics better, or so they can finish it and get back to playing multiplayer. Now, I know that there are people out there who use the exploits and trainer programs to get achievements, and the following paragraph is for them.
Hey, asshole. Quit stroking your e-penis and get the hell over here. Do you really think having a bunch of achievements in Starcraft II makes you cool? Because it doesn’t. Not when you get them by cheating. It’s not like Team Fortress 2, where there are certain achievements with unlockable items linked to them. These are just for show. So quit being a douchebag and ruining shit for the rest of us. You’re only serving to make your already meaningless and empty shell of a life even more meaningless, empty and shell-like. Prick.
Sorry, needed to get that out of the way. Anyway, the basic point here is that Blizzard had a few options that they appeared to have ignored. If they have software that can detect a trainer, why not have that software disable all the achievements the player got with it? Or, better yet, why not give the player the option to turn off achievements at will, so you can ban the douchebags who are clearly only doing it for the achievements? These are both better ideas than banning people.