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Raptorblaze
August 21st, 2013, 03:33 PM
It is with great regret that we must announce our actions in response to Blizzard's entire lack of thought recently. Many of you may know of the "spawning" feature recently implemented by Blizzard. This feature was designed in such a way that it opened up a massive loophole in the way the game filters players from various custom maps. Specifically for our circumstances, it allows players to entirely bypass our ability to ban them from the map and has resulted in a massive increase in hackers ruining games. Doing this requires use of multiple Starcraft 2 Clients, and we have found no viable way of stopping it at the source. Due to this issue, henceforth all accounts with IDs from 1-S2-1-4950000 and up on NA, and 2-S2-1-4150000 and up on EU are banned, and must be specifically whitelisted before they can access the map.

Some of you may notice that a ban of this type is against the ToS for publishing maps on Battle.net. We know, and are hoping for a response from Blizzard so that we can actually have a discussion with them about the issue. Thus far we have been entirely ignored when voicing our concerns.

Let me be clear, there are only three options here: Blanket Ban, Blizzard fixing the problem, or shutting down SC2 Mafia.

Thank you,
Raptorblaze
Staff Supervisor
SC2Mafia.com

Finding your ID: There is a list displayed at the beginning of every mafia game prior to bans being activated, find your name and it's the number next to it in the format #-S2-#-########

Requesting a Whitelisting: http://www.sc2mafia.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/247-Point-Restoration-amp-White-List-Requests

J
August 21st, 2013, 03:38 PM
Well, holy shit. Looks like I came back for the first time in months at a crisis moment o.O

AppleyNO
August 21st, 2013, 04:07 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTlYyxvwOJE

If your ID falls on or after 4950000 NA/4150000 EU contact us as soon as possible so we can whitelist you.

Titus
August 21st, 2013, 04:16 PM
Please edit Raptorblaze's post with instructions on how to find your ID.

Slaol
August 21st, 2013, 04:33 PM
Open a game or replay. It is the number next to your name at the start. It is also next to your name at the end of the game.

Titus
August 21st, 2013, 05:16 PM
I am aware of this. I was asking for the newbies. Thanks for the neg rep whoever did that.

ika
August 21st, 2013, 08:23 PM
i feel like this should be stickied as well

HerrZynisch
August 21st, 2013, 08:51 PM
i feel like this should be stickied as well

It's only really important until blizzard does/says something, but chances are it will explode very soon once the morning hits.

ika
August 21st, 2013, 08:52 PM
It's only really important until blizzard does/says something, but chances are it will explode very soon once the morning hits.

its important for players that do want to play though with a new non-spawned account

jebediah26
August 21st, 2013, 10:28 PM
Ban everyone?

Seems legit!

RLVG
August 21st, 2013, 10:48 PM
If this message is seen, I seriously hope that Blizz will also take in consideration to all our other complaints that we've met in the Arcade.

AppleyNO
August 21st, 2013, 11:26 PM
Ban everyone?

Seems legit!
Thats why its the Nuclear Option

WHITE BOY SLIM AYO
August 22nd, 2013, 12:25 AM
Raptor is such a boss.

Are accounts that are over 1-S2-1-4700000 NA and 2-S2-1-4150000 EU only spawning accounts? Or do they include newer accounts as well? I have a couple of SC2 accounts that I sometimes play mafia on. Newer accounts will first have to get unbanned before they can play the game? That sucks, hopefully Blizzard can do something about it.

EDIT: Just read and re-read IKA's post.

Apocist
August 22nd, 2013, 12:31 AM
This is going to make normal players pissed as well. It will be harder to start full games.

WHITE BOY SLIM AYO
August 22nd, 2013, 12:35 AM
Just curious, how are you attempting to contact Blizzard? Through their forums? Or their complaint option that they have on their website? Is it possible to call these guys and get a answer without them reiterating what you read on ToS?

I kinda have a feeling that it would be better if they ignored it, because I don't think they'll be very negotiable. Community wouldn't grow though.

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 01:41 AM
To answer questions:
- It will ban any new accounts at all, we did some minor work to determine where the current new accounts were being generated.
- We attempted to contact Blizzard through the normal support channels, they referred us to the forums (apparently their support and development divisions are 100% seperated, and only the way to get ahold or notify the devs of the problem is via posting on the forums...WHAT?!) and our posts were ignored.
- @jebediah, we literally tried dozens of other methods before coming to this conclusion, it's been going on for over a month.
- @Titus I'll explain how to find IDs in an edit I guess, but that's not really the issue. We WANT people to complain to blizzard.
- There is absolutely no reliable way for us to tell starter accounts (the ones we actually want to ban) apart from any other account once they've been spawned in.
- If this does not work, we will shut down the map entirely. It will no longer be playable because there is absolutely no way for us to moderate the player base, and we have data that shows when moderation stops (i.e. we stop processing the reports) it causes a measured drop in play time.

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 01:48 AM
Also stickying this is kind of pointless considering this is the news section and there is rarely more than one topic open at a time.

Mugy
August 22nd, 2013, 02:52 AM
Stickying makes it even less noticeable, as it's stuck up there with a bunch of really ancient threads.

Voss
August 22nd, 2013, 03:03 AM
what's the point of shutting it down? our forums will be fine, the good playerbase will drop out but the map will still be accessible.

WHITE BOY SLIM AYO
August 22nd, 2013, 04:03 AM
Damn, if this map gets shut down I'll officially retire from Starcraft.

My fingers have been hurting a lot lately whenever I play Starcraft 1v1 games, which is sad because I was so fucking passionate about the game and I use to be a Warcraft 3 pro-gamer. All of my nerd friends either play WoW or quit Starcraft to play LoL.

This map is like the only thing that is keeping me from uninstalling Starcraft and realizing my sad truth: that I will never be good at this game.

I guess I can try going outside.

Nick
August 22nd, 2013, 04:07 AM
Please post it in Blizzard forum instead.

ika
August 22nd, 2013, 07:38 AM
Please post it in Blizzard forum instead.


- We attempted to contact Blizzard through the normal support channels, they referred us to the forums (apparently their support and development divisions are 100% seperated, and only the way to get ahold or notify the devs of the problem is via posting on the forums...WHAT?!) and our posts were ignored.

they will notice soon enough and will have to deal with it

Helz
August 22nd, 2013, 08:11 AM
I would ask that some kind of 'official white list topic' be started with barney style guidelines on the report content..

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 08:46 AM
I would ask that some kind of 'official white list topic' be started with barney style guidelines on the report content..

I'll make one in Mafia Disc for the time being

Cryptonic
August 22nd, 2013, 09:41 AM
I sent a PM, but might as well post it here for others, too.

After being approved for whitelist, how long before it takes affect on battle.net?

creedkingsx
August 22nd, 2013, 09:44 AM
I sent a PM, but might as well post it here for others, too.

After being approved for whitelist, how long before it takes affect on battle.net?

To my current assumption, the following update, which occurs about once a week.

incrysis
August 22nd, 2013, 09:48 AM
How can you get the ID if the game crashes too fast to get it?

creedkingsx
August 22nd, 2013, 09:49 AM
How can you get the ID if the game crashes too fast to get it?

It will provide a a replay that you can view it in. Further information can be found here: http://www.sc2mafia.com/forum/showthread.php/22533-Whitelist

incrysis
August 22nd, 2013, 09:59 AM
Where do I post the replay to get on whitelist? other thread was closed

Cryptonic
August 22nd, 2013, 10:00 AM
Where do I post the replay to get on whitelist? other thread was closed

http://www.sc2mafia.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/271-White-List

creedkingsx
August 22nd, 2013, 10:00 AM
Where do I post the replay to get on whitelist? other thread was closed
There will be a Post New Thread option on the bottom left. It's a red button

Dr. Cheis
August 22nd, 2013, 10:33 AM
So were it possible, your intention would be to disallow all starter edition accounts from playing the game? That seems to directly go against the purpose of starter edition accounts and spawning. A better solution, should Blizzard be willing to cooperate, would be to somehow identify the standard edition that parties with the starter edition account, so you can ban them both.

Also, can you provide a link to the SC2 forums where you made the post? I couldn't find it and would like to participate in the official discussion there.

creedkingsx
August 22nd, 2013, 10:45 AM
So were it possible, your intention would be to disallow all starter edition accounts from playing the game? That seems to directly go against the purpose of starter edition accounts and spawning. A better solution, should Blizzard be willing to cooperate, would be to somehow identify the standard edition that parties with the starter edition account, so you can ban them both.

Also, can you provide a link to the SC2 forums where you made the post? I couldn't find it and would like to participate in the official discussion there.

We would love for Blizzard to allow us a better solution.

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 10:49 AM
So were it possible, your intention would be to disallow all starter edition accounts from playing the game? That seems to directly go against the purpose of starter edition accounts and spawning. A better solution, should Blizzard be willing to cooperate, would be to somehow identify the standard edition that parties with the starter edition account, so you can ban them both.

Also, can you provide a link to the SC2 forums where you made the post? I couldn't find it and would like to participate in the official discussion there.

The problem is that people can make AN INFINITE NUMBER OF STARTER ACCOUNTS. It is literally just as difficult to make a starter account as it is to make another smurf account on the site. And banning their mains don't matter. The problem is they can party a starter with their main, spawning it up to WoL or HotS, and then play on the starter when their main gets banned.

What blizzard needs to do is require starter accounts to be directly linked to a real SC2 account or something along those lines.

Dr. Cheis
August 22nd, 2013, 11:16 AM
As I understand it, starter accounts only have access to non-featured Arcade games while in a party with a retail account. If there were a method of detecting which retain account a starter account is Spawned with, then the two of them could be banned together. Making a new starter account wouldn't help because the retail account it tries to join with would be banned.

OFC this capability doesn't exist yet. But I would consider it an appropriate solution from Blizzard.


Also, link to battle.net forum post plz?

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 11:25 AM
Here's one post I made in the location specified by blizz support with the information specified (neither me nor the support team wanted me to post HOW they were doing it to prevent spread)
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9377378124#1
Here's a post I made in the scripting section while we were trying to figure out how to ban starter players
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9377258048#1

There were also several phone conversations and ticket conversations when I was discussing it with support. Including getting one support team member in trouble because they closed the ticket and told me "We only handle World of Warcraft Issues, this is not the place for Star Craft 2 Issues" in the Blizzard ticket system in the Starcraft 2 section....

Riogho
August 22nd, 2013, 11:30 AM
OH SO THIS IS WHY I CANT GET A GAME TO START WITH MORE THAN 10 PEOPLE.

Yeah the hacked game 1/5th of the time was definitely worth it.

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 11:31 AM
OH SO THIS IS WHY I CANT GET A GAME TO START WITH MORE THAN 10 PEOPLE.

Yeah the hacked game 1/5th of the time was definitely worth it.

Report to Blizzard. Only way this will get fixed.

fighder
August 22nd, 2013, 01:01 PM
When you said the whitelist will be updated weekly, which day will be that be? or is it random?

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 01:22 PM
When you said the whitelist will be updated weekly, which day will be that be? or is it random?

I try to push for it on the weekends but it all depends on DR's personal schedule. We also might change precisely where the mass ban cut off point is so a lot of you may notice improvement soon.

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 02:42 PM
The cut off for NA was raised. Less unintended people should experience the issue now.

Helz
August 22nd, 2013, 02:48 PM
I try to push for it on the weekends but it all depends on DR's personal schedule. We also might change precisely where the mass ban cut off point is so a lot of you may notice improvement soon.

Is there a way we can all get coordinated in pushing blizzard in this direction? I feel that if we work as a community and use our collective pull in a united effort we will have more luck.

I can say that I will push my 30 members as well as the other developers (And hopefully their communities) that I support to get on this bandwagon.

I think the worst thing we can do in this situation is be complacent and stick with 'OMFG blizzard' spams in this thread.

Dr. Cheis
August 22nd, 2013, 07:53 PM
Are you allowing starter accounts to be included in the whitelist if they appear to be legitimate non-hacking players?

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 08:11 PM
Are you allowing starter accounts to be included in the whitelist if they appear to be legitimate non-hacking players?

No.

Raptorblaze
August 22nd, 2013, 08:11 PM
Is there a way we can all get coordinated in pushing blizzard in this direction? I feel that if we work as a community and use our collective pull in a united effort we will have more luck.

I can say that I will push my 30 members as well as the other developers (And hopefully their communities) that I support to get on this bandwagon.

I think the worst thing we can do in this situation is be complacent and stick with 'OMFG blizzard' spams in this thread.

Ideally DR should make the thread on the battle.net forums, but I'm open to other suggestions about organizing this.

Helz
August 22nd, 2013, 10:38 PM
I feel that we should emphasize the impact this has on our community and use our member base to push how many players this will affect. Lobbying players that are parts of other starcraft communities to push the agenda in their communities as well to make this an 'Arcade wide' issue instead of simply a 'mafia community' issue. Then unifying on a blizzard topic with simple posts from players showing that they support this and that they feel it is a significant issue for them.

We could further push the issue on a separate section for map developers expressing how this just takes power away from people that want to make good arcade games for SC. This way the feedback blizzard gets is both from existing community's as well as their potential for future communities.



Other option-
We could push to get blizzard to allow developers to request for their maps to not be allowed for players with that account type. (This makes it their problem)

Admiral
August 23rd, 2013, 01:54 AM
I feel that we should emphasize the impact this has on our community and use our member base to push how many players this will affect. Lobbying players that are parts of other starcraft communities to push the agenda in their communities as well to make this an 'Arcade wide' issue instead of simply a 'mafia community' issue. Then unifying on a blizzard topic with simple posts from players showing that they support this and that they feel it is a significant issue for them.

We could further push the issue on a separate section for map developers expressing how this just takes power away from people that want to make good arcade games for SC. This way the feedback blizzard gets is both from existing community's as well as their potential for future communities.



Other option-
We could push to get blizzard to allow developers to request for their maps to not be allowed for players with that account type. (This makes it their problem)

Just about everyone would opt for it, negating the purpose of the spawn.

Raptorblaze
August 23rd, 2013, 07:04 AM
Just about everyone would opt for it, negating the purpose of the spawn.

Spawning: Good concept, terrible implementation.

Cryptonic
August 23rd, 2013, 07:20 AM
We should just change platforms lol

Voss
August 23rd, 2013, 12:03 PM
We should just change platforms lol

yes.

Dr. Cheis
August 23rd, 2013, 01:18 PM
I find it very doubtful that Blizzard will include an option to block all Starter accounts from playing an Arcade game. They wouldn't have created Spawning if they wanted that to be possible.

If on the other hand, Blizzard would take it upon themselves to ban players who hack Mafia games (and Arcade in general), allowing in Starter accounts wouldn't be so much of a problem.

(Ideally they would also provide an option to disable lag screen chat, removing the need for Mafia staff to ban players for in-game cheating.)

Mugy
August 23rd, 2013, 04:48 PM
Starcraft has its advantages. It's a paid game(or at least it's supposed to be, excluding the spawning concept). It makes our bans worthwhile and harder to evade. Changing your IP won't work because you still need to pay.
So Steam is the way to go right? I don't think it's gonna work; when you have a paid game, you get a smaller playerbase that grows a lot slower too. Starcraft fixes that problem by providing us with the playerbase of the already popular melee aspect.

I don't know about any other options.

Cryptonic
August 23rd, 2013, 04:56 PM
Starcraft has its advantages. It's a paid game(or at least it's supposed to be, excluding the spawning concept). It makes our bans worthwhile and harder to evade. Changing your IP won't work because you still need to pay.
So Steam is the way to go right? I don't think it's gonna work; when you have a paid game, you get a smaller playerbase that grows a lot slower too. Starcraft fixes that problem by providing us with the playerbase of the already popular melee aspect.

I don't know about any other options.

free-to-play chat only based game. no fancy graphics or shit at first would work. then could start a fund raiser/kickstarter to pay for the time to put in non-essential extras (like characters & models).

Mugy
August 23rd, 2013, 04:57 PM
free-to-play chat only based game. no fancy graphics or shit at first would work. then could start a fund raiser/kickstarter to pay for the time to put in non-essential extras (like characters & models).

In comes burnteskimo.

oops_ur_dead
August 23rd, 2013, 06:20 PM
In comes burnteskimo.

One solution is to tie the game to the forums. Someone can only play if their forum account has a certain number of posts and has been registered for a certain amount of time. People who don't want to do that can pay a nominal fee to circumvent it (on the order of $2).

Slaol
August 23rd, 2013, 06:36 PM
We should use VIP for this requirements. 30 Rep, member for 90 days, and 500 posts (possibly bringing down posts to 100/200)
R&D is accessible by VIPs and Donors, thus the people that would be available to actually play would have access to the "serious" forum for it's discussion.

Helz
August 23rd, 2013, 09:16 PM
I don't feel this a solution at all. The forum version of the game is totally different from the sc version in so many ways. The forum takes days or weeks to play a game while in SC it takes an hour tops. The SC game has animations and pretty buttons while the forum game takes an imagination. And honestly- Without the SC backbone of this forum why wouldn't players go to a similar forum that is much more active in FM games? I feel that this would be the death of this community. We need new players coming to the forums to keep the community alive. No online community can withstand time without growth to counter the loss that naturally comes from people moving on given time. Not to mention bans and personal issues.

Creating a free-to-play steam game gives us the same problems as we have with the starter accounts. We would be limited to IP bans and that is easy enough to break.

The 'Town of Salem' option was good but did not get funded.

With Dark Reverent focused on Starcraft Universe I really doubt he will want to focus on drawing up a game from scratch.

Apocist
August 24th, 2013, 01:25 AM
One solution is to tie the game to the forums. Someone can only play if their forum account has a certain number of posts and has been registered for a certain amount of time. People who don't want to do that can pay a nominal fee to circumvent it (on the order of $2).
May I announce?

fred
August 24th, 2013, 05:03 AM
With Dark Reverent focused on Starcraft Universe I really doubt he will want to focus on drawing up a game from scratch.

You underestimate the power that money holds on Rev. He'll do just about anything for money.

Killerd33
August 24th, 2013, 12:58 PM
well heres hoping to blizzard to actually doing something about this problem otherwise a great game will be missed but i wont hold my breath if something actually is done about it good but it will probably be just ignored

sixsixsix
August 26th, 2013, 01:49 AM
you shouldnt care less raptor about what blizzard did, its their problem. and their mistake. untill blizzard actually fixes this do what you have to do, as long as its with justice

honeslty their TOS expired according the the law when they changed this particular feature. sp if their being assholes just sue them and its guaranteed win.

Dagaen
August 26th, 2013, 02:43 PM
I know it would be great if only verified players could play, but registering on forum etc. would kill this game. Sc2mafia is an Arcade game and 90% of players don't even know about this forum. Try to force them to go here and they just go play something else instead.

I don't know Galaxy Editor but I doubt it has option to make fragile data encrypted, so cheaters in public games will always be there. We also have Skype which allows to cheat on every possible platform. It's a war we cannot win, we can only hope that most public gamers won't care. More experienced guys always have inhouses.

GL Raptor, hopefully one day Blizzard will help us fight the hackers.

Dr. Cheis
August 27th, 2013, 09:22 AM
If this game switches platforms, I won't follow it. I'd expect you would lose around 80% or more of your players.

Cryptonic
August 27th, 2013, 09:43 AM
If this game switches platforms, I won't follow it. I'd expect you would lose around 80% or more of your players.

LOL you're too stubborn. And it won't be around 80%, because people WILL cave and follow. Also, we will gain more players from the online Mafia community that don't partake in SC2Mafia games, so the influx will more than likely make up for any loss from changing platforms.

What is your reason for not following it?

Helz
August 27th, 2013, 12:31 PM
I can say I would play less. I really support another platform but the SC2 mafia game is part of the whole battle.net experience. I have contacts there from 15 years ago playing Diablo 1 as a kid. Sometimes I play mafia over and over and others I throw in a game between some Barcraft or Gladiator or even some 1v1/2v2 action.

Going solo will be rough because it will mean finding dedicated players to come to the game just for mafia instead of having a huge pool of players that find the game through their shared interest of the arcade. No matter what this will mean a huge cut in players unless we push to tap other communities like Kongregate and such..

Admiral
August 28th, 2013, 04:32 PM
^ Is Barcraft back?

Helz
August 28th, 2013, 04:41 PM
^ Is Barcraft back?

Yes. Modders won his Lawsuit and the game is back with new game modes and features. Most of the original players still make up the community for Barcraft and Modders now has cash prizes for league winners. As before it is still lacking players to some extent.. If you want more information on it PM me here or on SC2.

-Edit

Modders is the Dev for the game btw..

Killerd33
September 1st, 2013, 04:13 AM
^ Is Barcraft back?


i didnt even know it was gone barely played it enough to notice

Aldaris
January 21st, 2014, 04:55 PM
Out of curiosity, what does the message for people with high account numbers look like? My worry now is that people may complain that they can't play the popular mod.

Elixir
January 21st, 2014, 05:07 PM
This isn't in the game right now.

We're watching 2.1 to see what happens first.

Aldaris
January 21st, 2014, 06:06 PM
Well, just so you know, a new account named Caylara joined one of my games. ^_^

fred
January 21st, 2014, 06:38 PM
We are WELL aware of the current issues. We're weighing our options.

Bruno
January 22nd, 2014, 09:50 AM
What a fucking joke. Are you serious?

It's simple : have the fucking Keepers do the jobs they were hired for. Doing this only alienates an already dying community.

Great fucking thinking, you and Blizzard must be popping the same pills.

Slaol
January 22nd, 2014, 11:04 AM
What a fucking joke. Are you serious?

It's simple : have the fucking Keepers do the jobs they were hired for. Doing this only alienates an already dying community.

Great fucking thinking, you and Blizzard must be popping the same pills.

This set of keepers is more on point with maintaining the reports consistently than any batch I've seen. That doesn't mean the tools we have against hackers and cheaters can be used effectively (like at all) if the people we are trying to punish can immediately create more accounts and act like nothing happened.

Basically we have gone from Manning to Brady.

http://www.totalprosports.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Manning-VS-Brady-GIF.gif

Gerik
January 22nd, 2014, 11:12 AM
This set of keepers is more on point with maintaining the reports consistently than any batch I've seen. That doesn't mean the tools we have against hackers and cheaters can be used effectively (like at all) if the people we are trying to punish can immediately create more accounts and act like nothing happened.

Basically we have gone from Manning to Brady.

http://www.totalprosports.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Manning-VS-Brady-GIF.gif

Or the tactful response.

AppleyNO
January 22nd, 2014, 12:00 PM
What a fucking joke. Are you serious?

It's simple : have the fucking Keepers do the jobs they were hired for. Doing this only alienates an already dying community.

Great fucking thinking, you and Blizzard must be popping the same pills.
Starter Accounts can play = Banned members going around our lists.

If we ban new accounts preemptively, we can stop these banned members from doing that. This wouldn't affect old players at all, so I don't understand why we would alienate them. The only downside is that we stop our playerbase from growing.

But not gaining a few new players(Not people who already have SC2 and don't play Mafia, but Post 2.1 New players) VS letting our entire game fall apart because of a few members seems like an easy choice to me.

Of course this was already outlined in the OP.


Specifically for our circumstances, it allows players to entirely bypass our ability to ban them from the map and has resulted in a massive increase in hackers ruining games.

...

Let me be clear, there are only three options here: Blanket Ban, Blizzard fixing the problem, or shutting down SC2 Mafia.

The_Watcher
January 23rd, 2014, 02:53 AM
Option 1 and 3 are the same.

Raptorblaze
January 23rd, 2014, 01:07 PM
Option 1 and 3 are the same.

Actually we had the blanket ban in place for awhile and there wasn't a noticeable decrease. The majority of players are older members.

AltFFour
February 7th, 2014, 11:39 PM
So all the accounts below 1-S2-1-49500000 can still access the game right? I'm a bit of a scrub and some days I hate it.