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Blizzard bans a whopping 350,000 Battle.net'ers for hacks (neoseeker.com)

Blizzard's Banhammer beats your Diablo 2 and Starcraft hacks

Bale Fire | November 11, 2008 | News | PC Mac Blizzcon 2008 Company

Blizzard has apparently gone trigger happy with their ban hammers this season. Anyone who has taken Diablo 2 or Starcraft online knows there are a fair few people who cheat. (I myself encountering a another player in Diablo 2 who wouldn't die even when his health was drained five times over) Blizzard is fighting back now however banning over 350000 accounts between the two games. Along with over 7000 World of Warcraft players. I'd love to see their faces when they realize what's happened.

Microsoft isn't the only one swinging the account crushing banhammer just before the holiday rush. Blizzard has suspended an impressive 350,000 Battle.net accounts identified as using "third-party hacks" in both StarCraft and Diablo II. According to folks at Blizzard, this is on top of an additional 7,700 Warcraft III accounts getting the same treatment. We won't miss you, you cheating sons of bitches no postcards necessary. The full warning statement and explanation for banning follows.

News Story attached to:

Diablo II: The Lord of Destruction [Mac, PC]
Starcraft [Mac, PC]
Starcraft: Brood War [Mac, PC]
World of Warcraft: Blackwing Lair [PC]
World of WarCraft: The Burning Crusade [PC]
World of WarCraft: Wrath of The Lich King [PC]
World of Warcraft [PC]

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Comments

0 thumbs!
bobbonew | November 12, 2008

Well, haven't touched my Diablo 2 account in about a month or so. Hope I don't come back to any surprises I don't hack though so it shouldn't be a problem, I just hate it when rare/unique items randomly disappear.
- 0 thumbs!
  Final Blade | November 12, 2008
  
  _{I don't exactly play this game, but I understand what you mean.}
0 thumbs!
kik36 | November 12, 2008

Blizzard can definitely afford to be that forceful......good on them.
0 thumbs!
AznLiquid | November 12, 2008

I's great that Blizzard has started to close hacking accounts, BUT they are also closing accounts that are using Starcraft's Chaos Launcher and D2's equivalent, D2Loader. CL is a widely used anti-hack that can also change Battle.net's default latency to LAN mode, making units respond much faster. Even Korean pro-gamers have started using this. D2Loader helps reduce game crashing and CPU usage. So Blizzard, if you're going to ban people for using those programs, then please fix those issues with your games.
0 thumbs!
FinalFantasyFanaticc | November 12, 2008

Meh, Everyones used a maphack at least ONCE in Diablo 2.
0 thumbs!
kspiess | November 12, 2008

This move coming so late kind of makes me wonder if they will be doing this more (and permantely banning many more people) in ancticpation of Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 coming out (i.e ban people permenatly so they don't decide to stick with Starcraft 1 and Diablo 2.)
- 0 thumbs!
  AznLiquid | November 13, 2008
  
  Blizzard goes on banning sprees every couple of years or so. Back in 03-04, they banned around 250,000 accounts and I believe that was only counting SC.