Hardware Ban for Botters/Cheaters/Exploiters

How does hardware ban work?
And how would such a ban be effective against virtual machines?

That ideal world, comparable to the hope of a world without wars in term of probability to happen, would just get rid of a part of the botting issue. Those same players that go to the item shops also use bots to level their characters so they can have high level characters for dueling, wich is the only part of the game they enjoy.

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I take it as the same thing as the war on drugs, if people just stopped buying drugs well that ends that now doesn’t it. Problem is those bot owners are going to advertise and try thier hardest to get people addicted, just like a drug peddler does. So blaming the weak minded people who just can’t stop them selves from buying diablo 2 stuff is true, but it’s really not thier fault, any more than it is a drug addicts fault for not being able to maintain a job, and get over their addiction.

So look at it this way, it would be like a alcoholic walking into a store where all they did was come at them with hey Wana buy beer, it’s on sale, want liquor it’s over here 10 for the price of one only this week. Then saying it’s the alcoholics fault for not being able to resit the alcohol.

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Exactly, it won’t happen.

The bots aren’t going away, they provide a service. I hate bots, because they cheapen my trade value when I find something good. But don’t imagine that the playerbase deserves an environment free from the vice of bots when we as a community enable it on an hourly basis.

Of course it is.

The stealing’s purpose is to profit. And if it wasn’t the industry would die off. All the email, phone, etc scams that we hear people falling for wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves.

But that’s unfortunately not the case. it’s very, very profitable.

Virtual machines still use the same hardware. The thing with making it specific to cpu+gpu instead of just “hardware” is hardware uses the whole computer system. So they could buy a cheap 10$ part and it would change it the id. Cpu and gpu are extremely expensive so it would be harder. There is also some workarounds but not that easy to use.

Another thing is off that cpu+gpu they can run multiple accounts at once. Nothing will get rid of it 100% but banning more often and doing hardware specific cpu+gpu would make it harder and a hastle for them.

The main thing is blizzard could do many things to deter it but its easier to do the minimum because then they make the most money. Instead they ban them once a year so they buy new cd keys etc instead of once a week where they probably wouldn’t rebuy them.

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Well if they force you to have to run the game, that kills virtual machines. It isn’t cost effective to run gpu server virtual machines. The only way that would work is if you could bot with out opening up the gui or game.

So look at Microsoft they did a good job of stopping windows 10 from being pirated, and blizzard could do the same.

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Well, clientless bots are the big deal in d2 botting. Hundreds of “insances” running in one same computer without opening the game, just mimicking the game interaction with the servers.

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Also, I would just like to point out that for me personally, Diablo 2 has never been about “damage”.

I know a lot of people play Diablo for different reasons, and some people, especially in the wake of MOBAs and MMOs, love to see big numbers and min/max builds til the cows come home. That’s fine, and I like that too, but nothing replaces the feeling of a good loot drop. It makes me feel like Smeagol getting his hands on the ring of power.

Going to a third party site and paying actual money cheapens that experience to the point where it sours even in my mind, let alone on my character. Maybe I’m an odd one.

The real reason I play Diablo 2. The loot I find, not buy.

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I too love the shiny SoJ’s, I’d spend weeks just grinding for them legally. The problem is many people don’t buy items. They do it because they don’t like grinding. I bet majority of botters are just running second or third accounts for their mains and either selling to other people or using other ways like illegal forums d2jsp comes to mind.

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Nope your not alone, it’s also why people get so angry when they see others doing it in a online game, because it would be like duping the ring of power 10000 times totally ruining everything.

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Again:

It is only profitable as far as bizz is not efficient enough banning them before they earn back the money they invested and the profit they need to make the activity effort worth it.

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I’m hoping this is the reason why we lost TCP/IP connections, because they can more efficiently ban bots.

Without being able to study the packet protocol etc. it should be much more difficult for a bot user to safely design a work around. Whereas if they could communicate with one another, they could devise ways to fudge interactions with Bnet as well.

But what’s more likely is they just found massive security holes that are insurmountable.

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Why would they ban the hardware if they can just ban the software/key and make a hell of a lot more money, like they did in the past?

A hardware ban is not viable because you can sell the hardware and other people potentially cannot play games anymore. Way more important than how to ban is how to detect bots.
If they would finally implement plausibility algorithms, to figue suspicious behavior and frequently ask for telephone number confirmation for accounts, it would greatly reduce the amount of bots.
Combine that with frequent banning and you’re good.

They probably wont even do that. They’ll wait 6-12 months to make sure the cheaters rebuy the game. If they do it often the cheaters wont rebuy it often which is good for us but bad for them according to their “research”

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Lol hardware bans.

Comically amusing that you think blizzard would even have the infrastructure to do this.

Considering they’re a multibillion dollar empire and used to do them for overwatch at the beginning im sure they do.

Lololol

I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale too if you believe that.

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You can jump off that bridge I bet and still live if you believe me go try it out

Any sort of ban is simple to get around. Even a banned account should one really want to. But, in that case, it is easier to merely create a new one, which is better for sales figures, and repurchase.

Hardware bans are a bad idea even if they’re laughable simply because person 1 could get a refurb device which has, without their knowledge, been banned. This is completely unprovable without an entire hardware inventory which is also an invasion of privacy to a degree, thereby necessitating a whole new EULA and TOU… and lawsuits.

So, umm, that leaves IP bans? Ineffective.

Don’t ban. Block how these “hacks” work. They’ll evolve. Grow with them. That is how cybersecurity works.