Just a tip, if you’re selling a product don’t do this. It’s illegal and can result in all sorts of legal nastiness. It’s up to Blizzard to handle them, you’re just a merchant on their storefront.
I know it’s not efficient but there’s processes for this stuff for a reason. Don’t expose yourself legally because you thought you knew better.
you serious right now, or just trolling. you cant be serious right. kicking people out of a game you yourself are hosting isnt breaking any laws and legally binding contracts what so ever. Its a feature that has been around since back in sc1 and probably wc2, not to mention how many other games that have this ability. Seriously dank, lay off the dank its rotting your brain.
Kicking people out of games (not lobbies, the actual game) is not illegal. It can be seen as a violation of the Custom Games Acceptable Use Policy, but that clearly states “access” and “access” can be defined, in this case, as “ability to launch the map.” Unfortunately (for me) and fortunately (for this rule), this cannot be denied. Anything else and the goalpost can just be moved back and back again until it’s no longer logical.
Blizzard will not stop cheaters/toxic users, so I take it upon myself to deal with them for my community. There are no other processes for this, and there are no legal ramifications to such actions.
Thanks for the pep talk.
That’s not what was said. Re-read. They’re adding map-maker side ways to block users. If that user paid for the map then it’s a legal issue as their legal purchase is being blocked by an extra judicial action.
You can’t do that without 1) potentially getting in trouble with Blizzard and 2) opening yourself up to being sued.
Being a merchant is hard, I know and it’s exactly why you shouldn’t do it unless you’re prepared for the legal responsibilities that come with it.
That’s part of it but this mostly applies to paid for products. If it’s free then there’s no damages to sue over, really, bar extenuating circumstance.
The real issue is when you start doing that with paid products and that’s what I’m saying to be careful about because that opens you up to valid litigation. You don’t want that, getting sued sucks and that’s how you get sued.
Do things through the appropriate channels when it comes to paid products or you run the risk of getting burned bad.
Literally irrelevant. I’m not breaking any rules as written, I’m doing nothing that I can be sued over. Regardless of if someone bought the game or not, they can play ANY arcade game, and nothing can stop them from launching the map. That’s access, and that’s the only thing access is. Nobody is paying to be able to LAUNCH any map, that can’t be done. Please try out r/legaladvice, I’m sure you’d be great there.
Look, man, it’s this simple and it’s not up for debate; if someone pays for a product and you do this, you can be sued (and probably should be for trying to be more clever than you are).
If you aren’t selling the product then there’s no problem but the moment you start blocking people from their paid products because you don’t like them or any reason, really you’re up you know what creek without a paddle.
So instead of pushing back how about you learn how to properly be a merchant so you don’t get yourself into hot water. Or if that’s not for you then don’t sell products.
Like I said, being a merchant is hard and there’s a lot of legal responsibilities you’re beholden to as one. If a specific user is a problem, deal with Blizzard directly. Don’t screw yourself over by trying to circumvent systems in place.
Can you provide a single instance of a lawsuit that valve, riot, blizzard, or any other live-service game provider LOST because of a ban? Truly, if companies didn’t have the power to ban cheaters from competitive games, they’d be a wasteland. “the moment you start blocking people from their paid products because you don’t like them or any reason” oh man wait until you hear about this thing called a TOS/EULA, it basically means you don’t have any rights even if you spend money 
This tells me you have zero concept on licensing and contract law. You can write anything into a contract but it being enforceable is another issue.
I could explain it but you’re a 1 post alt account of a troll so why bother? Instead educate yourself before you talk to others.
A bot like this would be reading your screen and moving your mouse. Hilarious that people think that’s an “exploit”. As someone who happens to be an expert at exploits, being a software engineer and all, that’s not an exploit at all. It’s closer to a bot. It’s been awhile since I last checked but if I recall correctly they define a bot as anything that automatically collects data from the game and or interacts with the game automatically.
If reading the screen is “botting” then streamers are botters because streaming software reads the screen. If automatically clicking the “kick” button is “botting” then people who have a macro that writes “gl hf” and “gg” are also botters.
Generally the way I deal with grey area issues is the problem assessment. Rules exist to prevent problems. Problems are most noticeable when there are damages. If a problem doesn’t cause damages, it’s not really a problem, and it’s unlikely that anyone will notice or care. So if your behavior is indistinguishable from how a normal lobby operates, then I wouldn’t worry about it myself. Obviously this isn’t legal advice, this is just a rando dude on the internet theorycrafting, and you should really talk to a lawyer if you want actual legal advice.
A good example of a program that operates in a grey area is the program called Wine that allows you to run windows software on linux. What it does is that it intercepts windows API function calls and remaps them to posix functions. The reason this is a grey area is because actual hacks and exploits use a similar method of intercepting and modifying function calls. But because wine SOLVES a problem, rather than creating one, and likely results in Blizzard making more money than they would otherwise, I don’t think they care at all.
I’ve developed more game engines than I care to count and have nitpicked everything to perfection to prevent hacking. The hardest thing to prevent is maphacking. Most exploits can be prevented by sanitizing user inputs and validating all function parameters to keep them in sane values. Additionally, make sure all possible values for inputs are accounted for in the logic of a function that handles that input. You never have a case statement that doesn’t have a default statement, for example. Maphacking on the other hand requires radical changes to the game engine’s architecture to prevent, and requires a new form of crypto graphical information exchange between game clients. This is crazy complex compared to the alternative. It’s unlikely that RTS games will ever implement those methods because the complexity is quite a bit higher than your typical run of the mill video game programmer can handle. If you’ve never studied applied cryptography, and the related maths, it’s impossible to make it work. You’d need number theory, abstract algebra, and probability theory bare minimum.
one more reason wc3 is better for custom local maps once I download it I have it i can edit it I can host it on open bnet and no one can turn my map off lol.
Yeah, that’s a frustrating issue. A permanent lobby kick or even a short cooldown on rejoining would go a long way in stopping this kind of trolling. It’s disruptive, and hosts should have better tools to manage their lobbies. SC2 may be an older game, but keeping it playable and enjoyable shouldn’t be too much to ask.