Blizzard aims to emulate Zynga, also permanently bans Linux users from playing Diablo 3 - offline and on

[Humodour]

http://www.cinemable...sers-48593.html

 

**** Blizzard. What a **** company they have become. Thanks Activision!

[Malcador]

Seems like that email to Zynga staff isn't that uncommon, could be wrong, but oh well. Give me a moment to muster up some intense outrage over this.

[Cantousent]

I don't know the specifics, but I'm a bit leary of Blizzard since Diablo 3. I don't begrudge folks enjoying the game and having fun, but there are so many things I don't like. First of all, being forced to play the game on a server just plain sucks, especially since it's billed just as much as a single player game as a multiplayer one. Also, the way it's become so openly MMORPGrified, complete with auction house, simply strikes me as weird and unwelcome. Finally, because it's on a server, I get the same crappy spam emails regarding my account. I'm frankly very close to canceling all of my games with Blizzard. I canceled my WoW account years ago and I haven't played Diablo 3 in months and I still get spam emails regarding shady account sales, cheating, and other breaches of the ToS. If I hadn't loved Diablo and Diablo 2 as much as I did, I would probably just write off Blizzard altogether. People complain about STEAM, but I have never had any problems with any one of my many many STEAM purchases as I've had with Blizzard's last two.

[Gorth]

Finally, because it's on a server, I get the same crappy spam emails regarding my account. I'm frankly very close to canceling all of my games with Blizzard. I canceled my WoW account years ago and I haven't played Diablo 3 in months and I still get spam emails regarding shady account sales, cheating, and other breaches of the ToS.

 

 

Sorry, but I just sent a handful of spam reports to spamcop with Chinese swindlers sending me emails about misuse of my Diablo III account. No, I've never seen Diablo III, I've never even played Diablo II, so it was a dead giveaway that it was scam mails. I wonder what interest Chinese scammers would have in stealing account info. Is Blizzard storing more information on their servers than they should?

[Cantousent]

Yeah, but think about that for a sec, Gorth. You don't have any Blizzard games, so you know it's spam. My wife reads that stuff and asks me about it because I *do* have Blizzard games. See, it's worse inasmuch as I could conceivably get email from Blizzard. In fact, since I change my passwords regularly, I *have* received official emails. I mean, it's pretty damned easy to see the difference, but it's still a pain in my backside.

[alanschu]

Doh, I wish I had seen it was a CinemaBlend link as I tend to not like their articles and the idea of giving them ad revenue of any kind pains me.

 

 

As for Blizzard, the letters to Zynga is a complete nothing. People with experience making games are getting laid off, and Blizzard is hiring. It seems like a sensible thing for a recruiter to do. It has nothing to with seeking to "emulate Zynga."

 

The Diablo III stuff is more interesting. Originally I thought that the bans were happening simply because people were Linux users, which is an indictment both of Krezack as well as Cinema Blend for their headlines.

 

The unfortunate thing about the Linux users is they admit they have no proof, so for me I step back and go "Is this any different than a Windows user getting falliciously caught cheating in their game?" The issue is more "at what point can a game developer unilaterally decide that the gamer broke the TOS enough to permanently exclude a gamer from using the game. It can happen with Valve and VAC and stuff like that as well.

 

I'm curious if the account was somehow compromised. I likely have a bias to thinking this, because my friend did have an account that was compromised back in 2007, as he wasn't allowed to login to World of Warcraft due to illegal activity. When he commented that he hadn't been playing the game since 2004, Blizzard basically said that the issue was closed and he had no further recourse (this is the **** move). Though he still went out and bought another copy of WoW (and made more secure passwords), he was left up **** creek because his account was banned.

 

My account was once compromised, though I was able to report it when it happened and Blizzard fully restored my account. This was in 2010 though, so I don't know what sort of differences they made in their policy, but in my friend's case he was SOL, whereas for me they basically said "We believe you, here's everything restored." (I actually benefitted greatly since they even restored the wealth acquired by the hacker, so I 1000+ more gold than when I stopped playing!)

 

Although, my account was never explicitly banned for any reason, which may affect their willingness to cooperate.

 

 

Of course, I clicked on the follow up link on CinemaBlend before realizing it was CinemaBlend, so after reading that article my desires to punch the writer in the face certainly reached typical CinemaBlend levels.

Edited October 26, 2012 by alanschu

[Gorth]

Yeah, but think about that for a sec, Gorth. You don't have any Blizzard games, so you know it's spam. My wife reads that stuff and asks me about it because I *do* have Blizzard games. See, it's worse inasmuch as I could conceivably get email from Blizzard. In fact, since I change my passwords regularly, I *have* received official emails. I mean, it's pretty damned easy to see the difference, but it's still a pain in my backside.

 

Fair point. Maybe people should have warning stickers on their monitor not to click email links

 

I.e. if Blizzard really wanted you to change your info, I would assumed they simply told you to go to your account page rather than provide a clickable link. If they actually do send links (and play into the hands of scammers by getting people used to it), they (Blizzard) deserve public spanking.

 

Edit to add quote because some people are fast posters and snatched my place in the queue...

[alanschu]

In my experience Blizzard is pretty careful about sending links.

[Cantousent]

I actually have had a positive view of Blizzard. WoW has long had problems with account hackers, but I tend to blame the hackers rather than Blizzard. I don't like Diablo 3 as much as I thought I would, which accounts for much of my current views. Nonetheless, it takes a real history, and a long one, before I'll write off a company. Blizzard comes up with a I game I simply lurve again, and we're good as gold.

 

I don't really have a horse in the Zynga race. I hope they get jobs and do good work.

[greylord]

Blizzard started with it's internet DRM of SCII...and when it got more odensome with D3...D3 probably became the last game I'll play from Blizz. They can have the MMORPG players (nothing wrong with them, that's just not my cup of tea) and cater to them. I'm not one of those, and it appears that has become Blizz's speciality these days instead. So until they start catering to my type again, they've finally been written off by me (SCII WAS excellent, but there was enough to bug me with their having to do SP instant action and be online that it started the downward trend).

 

I am not that cnoerned with whatever they do these days anymore.

[LadyCrimson]

CinemaBlend seems to have had a raging dislike against D3/Blizzard for a while now...I find their articles rather one-sided and thus a bit suspect, but not like I really know...

 

My position about Blizzard the company is about the same as greylord. They're no longer interested in making the type of game that I liked from them. Doesn't make them the devil, but it does mean it's likely I won't be buying another game from them....unless they do an abrupt switch around. Which I doubt.

[AGX-17]

Kind of ironic given Zynga's recent failings... Well, what do you expect from Bobby Kotick?

[melkathi]

Eh, customer support in the game industry has been suspect since everything moved to internet only. If you need to ask the person who's decision you have a problem with to please forward your complaint, then chances are they wont do it. Why risk it if they can just delete your ticket and move on? With a call center, not passing you up the ladder was less easy, as when you call again you'd get a random other person.

 

My experience with Blizzard has been limited but neutral (good experience with GMs, silly experience with techies). Then again I remember the ban of the GLTB (or in what order those letters go) guild, which was completly out of order.

I've had terrible experiences with other companies though.

Fantastic experiences with yet others.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the anti-cheating software mistook whatever linux users use to run windows games as illegal 3rd party software. Kinda like a false positive.

[pmp10]

What's exactly surprising about this?

Online-only game that has no official support for linux is not guaranteed to work.

[Lenonk]

The absurdity of the last comment notwithstanding, the rest of you guys seems to have some good questions and some interest in this.

 

Being the guy that the above linked Cinemablend article is about, I'd like to toss in my 2 cents here. First, I wasn't cheating. Period. No, I can't prove it, but I don't need to. I'll tell you guys the same thing I told Blizzard. I don't care if they lift the ban on my account or not. The fact of the matter is, I only played for a week and a half, and I only paid $10 for the D3 client at Toys R Us. I didn't lose that much.

 

The point is, I'd like to continue playing D3. I'll go buy another copy for $10 if necessary. I liked the game though. It was fun and mindless. Windows is not an option for me, as I don't own a copy. That being said, there are lots of people that play D3 on Linux. At least 30k that use the one distribution of Wine known as PlayOnLinux. Who knows how many there are total? 100k? I don't know, but I do know that it's a non-trivial number of people, and they're all running the risk of getting banned every day because Blizzard refuses to admit that there's a problem.

 

It might not even be their problem! Maybe Wine is doing something crazy. Regardless, they have publicly stated that running D3 on Linux will not get you banned, and they're wrong. I want to play the game again, with or without my old account, but I can't because I'm not going to take the chance of getting banned again. Maybe this time I'll have 200 hours in the game before they ban me. No, I don't think so.

 

The non-technical problem exists with Blizzard, period. They won't admit that there's a chance that Warden auto-banned some undeserving people. Maybe it's an issue with Warden; maybe it's not. Either way, they're hiding behind the premise that Warden is infallible. That's insanity, and anybody that passed a first year CS course in college knows it.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Lenonk

[Humodour]

I actually have had a positive view of Blizzard. WoW has long had problems with account hackers, but I tend to blame the hackers rather than Blizzard. I don't like Diablo 3 as much as I thought I would, which accounts for much of my current views. Nonetheless, it takes a real history, and a long one, before I'll write off a company. Blizzard comes up with a I game I simply lurve again, and we're good as gold.

 

I don't really have a horse in the Zynga race. I hope they get jobs and do good work.

 

Thing is, Diablo 3 tells us EXACTLY the direction Blizzard is taking their gaming division. Torchlight 2 tells us EXACTLY how badly Blizzard failed. I probably wouldn't despise Blizzard as much as I do if I hadn't been exposed to Torchlight 2 - although all Diablo 3 would still have left a very bad taste in my mouth.

 

But to me, hiring Zynga employees is extremely telling. Zynga isn't a gaming company. They're a highly manipulative advertising company. Blizzard has access to all the awesome minds of indie and non-indie game developers alike, but they're really chaffing at the bit to hire Zynga employees. Because Zynga's model of gaming has also become Blizzard's model of gaming.

 

Alanschu, you will have to forgive the CinemaBlend link. There are other sources of this news. I avoid journalists and companies I know are bad, but I've never been exposed to CinemaBlend before and thus have no prior knowledge of their level of editorial standard. I'd rather you didn't use this choice to insult me, though.

 

But this issue of Linux users playing D3 through WINE being banned has become so widespread (although only a fraction of WINE users) that it's very unlikely to be cheating. I originally wrote the first reports of it off as cheating myself, when it started happening shortly after D3's release many months back.

[greylord]

No comment on Bliz...loved them in the past. Now splitting ways since the games probably are not going to be my style, but no hard feelings towards them.

 

On the otherhand, have to say hands up and props for mentioning TL2. Loving that game all the way.

[Cantousent]

We have verification the password for the Diablo III account associated with this email address. verification password, please click the following link and follow the instructions:

 

Yeah, *another* email. The irony.

 

lol the swine!

Edited October 27, 2012 by Cantousent

[alanschu]

Alanschu, you will have to forgive the CinemaBlend link. There are other sources of this news. I avoid journalists and companies I know are bad, but I've never been exposed to CinemaBlend before and thus have no prior knowledge of their level of editorial standard. I'd rather you didn't use this choice to insult me, though.

 

I'm getting on your case for the absurd title of this thread, not for linking CinemaBlend.

 

Sure you don't need to come across as not biased, but your title is frankly just wrong. I came into this thread with the immediate belief that Blizzard is doing stuff that Zynga does (which isn't true based on anything you referenced... they are hiring people. You're just seeing what you want to see because you see two companies that you hate), and that Blizzard is banning Diablo 3 players for no other reason than because they are playing on Linux. Which isn't true either.

 

 

Want to create an accurate thread title, try:

"Blizzard is recruiting Zynga employees, and is wrongly banning Linux users due to false positives in their cheat detection software"

 

 

But to me, hiring Zynga employees is extremely telling. Zynga isn't a gaming company. They're a highly manipulative advertising company. Blizzard has access to all the awesome minds of indie and non-indie game developers alike, but they're really chaffing at the bit to hire Zynga employees. Because Zynga's model of gaming has also become Blizzard's model of gaming.

 

I loathe Zynga, and actually find it hilarious that their Market Capitalization is less than the value of their assets (which is typically considered the lower bound of the value of a public company). But as much as we may hate Zynga, they are people that have had some level of experience with actually releasing finished (no matter how crappy you or I may think they are) products in a social space.

Edited October 27, 2012 by alanschu

[Humodour]

I'm getting on your case for the absurd title of this thread, not for linking CinemaBlend.

 

Sure you don't need to come across as not biased, but your title is frankly just wrong. I came into this thread with the immediate belief that Blizzard is doing stuff that Zynga does (which isn't true based on anything you referenced... they are hiring people. You're just seeing what you want to see because you see two companies that you hate), and that Blizzard is banning Diablo 3 players for no other reason than because they are playing on Linux. Which isn't true either.

 

Yeah, I suppose you're right. But I was pissed off and in a rush to get to class so I typed the first thing that came to mind. Nothing more to it. I don't owe Blizzard any good press.

 

I used to absolutely love Blizzard. It's not like my hate was instant. It was caused by a slow and persistent erosion of consumer goodwill. So yeah, I see a company I justifiably hate and I go to work on them.

 

[Fighter]

Why does it matter to them if people use Linux?

[kirottu]

Why does it matter to them if people use Linux?

Want to create an accurate thread title, try:

"Blizzard is recruiting Zynga employees, and is wrongly banning Linux users due to false positives in their cheat detection software"

[Blarghagh]

Why does it matter to them if people use Linux?

 

Apparently Wine registers as some kind of exploit. Dunno why.

 

Also, I have all Blizzard games and have not ONCE gotten a spam e-mail about it. Ever. If you're getting them, you've probably shared something on the wrong place.

[NOK222]

Linux users should sue them.

[Cantousent]

Also, I have all Blizzard games and have not ONCE gotten a spam e-mail about it. Ever. If you're getting them, you've probably shared something on the wrong place.

Did you not read that Gorth hasn't had any of the games and still gets the spam emails? Look, I don't want to get into a fifty page spam war over this, but your personal experiences are useful in informing your views, but really don't reflect on a larger reality as a whole. I have different accounts for different things. I have a shared email account with my wife that gets household related things but also gets spam. I have a personal email account that is virtually spam free. I get spam emails regarding World of Warcraft and Diablo 3 on both accounts, even though the shared account has never had a Blizzard game associated with it at all. Moreover, TN, I've already said that I don't blame Blizzard for the spam emails and the hackers. On the other hand, since these guys seem pretty dogged and determined to spam me regarding Blizzard games, it's still part of a larger discussion as far as I'm concerned. So, you have all Blizzard games and have never had a spam email regarding them. Good for you. Blaming someone else for spam emails when he hasn't shared any information about them with others? Not good. After all, how did Gorth share information about accounts he's never had?

 

At any rate, I've had Blizzard account for two games for many years and, while I get spam emails regarding them, I have never had my accounts hacked in all that time. I must not be sharing particularly vital information.