1 Like Those are the ones they can spot.
The game is broken from its core. I pity those who are still playing this game, even paying money for items.
Blizzard bans 'several thousand' Diablo III users
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Developer removes players found to be using botting programs; future patch to allow users to report bad behavior in-game.
Blizzard Entertainment has banned "several thousand" Diablo III players founding to be using botting hacks, the company said in the game's official forums.
"In addition to undermining the spirit of fair play, botting, hacking, and other forms of cheating can also cause technical problems with the game as well as contribute to performance issues with the Battle.net service," a Blizzard community manager said.
The Blizzard representative reiterated that it is the studio's goal to foster a stable, safe, and enjoyable online environment for legitimate players. Blizzard will continue to monitor play and will "take action as needed."
For now, Blizzard said players who witness such botting hacks should report the malfeasance by emailing the company at hacks@Blizzard.com. In the future, however, this will be easier. An upcoming Diablo III patch will add the ability for players to report this behavior directly through the game client, Blizzard said.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
253 comments
1 Like 
1 Like Diablo fans waited ten years for this game and what did we get nothing like the first two. I will not wait for another game from Blizzard. I rember when Battle Net first came on the scene there were problem with players cheating then.
5 Like Remember when you used to invite 2 or 3 of your mates over to your house, have them bring their PCs, get in some snacks, some booze. Hook up a switch to all the PCs and then go to that shiny TC/ICP option in Diablo / Diablo 2? Yeah I remember that... those were the days...
Shame the gaming industry no longer wants you to do that. They want you always online so you're always in contact with your friends. But in doing so you lose the ability to really connect with them in a game.
1 Like @Ayato_Kamina_1 i remember me and 5 others used play dota overnight 3 v 3.. those were the days
3 Like Blizzard should be careful in banning the players, the few they have banned might have been the only ones who dont want to throw it in the trash, which it rightfully deserves.
my bro in law is a huge Diablo fan, and for years he would tell me he couldn't wait for Diablo 3. A month after release, he wasn't playing it anymore.
@huerito323 I was a massive Diablo fan too. Diablo 3 was just pathetic. The story was plain and cliche, the character customisation and skill system was rudimentary (and even took a step back from the one they had in previous games) The graphics looked WoW-ified instead of the dark and sombre graphics from previous games...
Overall a massive disappointment, which also turned out to be one of the most lucrative games in history... tragic really that they get away with such work and get rewarded for it.
When you end the campaign you don't know what to do, you can keep leveling all the classes until lvl 50 and 100 of paragon but will be a repetitive and repetitive game. The crafting system and auction aren't that great several players wanted to become rich with one weapon, so talking about economics the game fails, the game failed with the RL money auction store and honestly the game isn't going to change, the people hacked it because they believed that they will sell lots of weapons and armors and you will get some dollars but that idea failed.
@PipeBigboss not defending this game but anyone who play alot of diablo especially diablo2 (which my record on D2 is staying up for 53 hours straight farming) these type of games story really doesn't matter at all it's all about the grind and items and then maybe pvp
3 Like @ravenkiller @PipeBigboss You're right, Raven, but there's something in this game. The grind just isn't as fun in Diablo 3. Everyone I know stopped playing in under two months. Star Craft 2 also. I don't know, maybe Blizzard milked World of Warcraft for too long, but they're just another generic company name now. "Blizzard" used to be an identity that was held as the standard. It's so sad.
1 Like @rann89 @ravenkiller @PipeBigboss Indeed, Blizzard games just don't have the magic they used to. Most likely because of the different developers in control now. After Activision bought out Blizzard, the development team responsible for a lot of early Blizzard games, including Diablo II, left. They now run Runic Games.
7 Like Yeah D3 was a hugely, massively, enormously, epically bad sequel. What a shame too cause i was super hyped for this game. I did play it through till the last difficulty but by then i was way way way over it and the ah ruined the game as well as the stupidly crap, wow frankenstein hybrid of an item system. Anyway i dont even know anyone who plays this shit now so yeah massive fail on blizzards behalf. Oh just finished HOTS campaign lol it was fun but the story was terribly terrible.
@squidbilly22 If your against the game that much THEN JUST DON'T PLAY THE GAME. If the game is worth playing it is worth paying for. If something about it makes it not worth paying for then clearly it isn't good enough to waste your time playing. Piracy is never the right option. (Unless you live somewhere in the world where you have absolutely no access to the game and couldn't purchase it if you wanted to)
4 Like @Celiria_Rose @squidbilly22 Therein lies the conundrum. Even I would admit that many of todays games are awesome and totally worth playing. But the overly strict DRM ruins it completely.
I would have bought Diablo 3 in a heartbeat if i didn't have to be always online and always monitered.
I had to skip out on many games in fact that i would have loved to play because of that reason.
@LE5LO @rocca_fella911 @mischiefmeerkat @Celiria_Rose @squidbilly22 Look at the sales of both games... both had terrible terrible launches, but both have sold ridiculous amounts of units... unfortunately, such results will probably amount to them continuing this AODRM pursuit, much to the consumer's detriment.
@rocca_fella911 @mischiefmeerkat @Celiria_Rose @squidbilly22 Keep the semantics in mind guys, the new buzz word isn't DRM, it's 'always online'. Publishers like EA agree with us that DRM is bad, but they're spinning the PR that 'always online' is a good thing. Bottom line, it's not and we all know it, it's time for Activision and EA to admit they've screwed single player gamers on both Diablo III and SimCity and will never do it again.
@mischiefmeerkat @Celiria_Rose @squidbilly22
DRM is the devil, I'm a hardcore Sim city fan and that new one, DRM destroyed that franchise and i was actually going to pay for it, not be a asspirate
1 Like @Celiria_Rose @squidbilly22 ,,,exactly,i live in a remote location,very poor int only avail..back away from your PC stop yelling and let me have my opinion ,or to put it like you would get off my nuts and step away from the fridge you troll.
6 Like Even though it's a bit of a old news by now, I prefer Torchlight 2 still, hell even the first Torchlight over THAT.
For anyone going through Diablo withdrawal who may have somehow not heard of the new free indie game Path Of Exile, go check it out now! 100% free, only cosmetic and extended stach microtransactions (although the game thus far has so much to do and is better then most full featured releases, you will feel justified spending a few dollars.)
The game is everything D3 should have been and is already quite popular.
If anyone wants someone to play with feel free to add Nutellaa to your friends list.
@MeMichael182 just started playing when open beta started and have to say I'm very impressed and only at lvl 27, the complexity of game is ever bit of what d3 should have been. Come from a person with over 300hrs on d3
8 Like Diablo 3 made the horrible mistake of trying to monetize the time players spent on the game and turned this title into a steaming pile of unmentionable trash. I warned my friends long before it came out what it would be. That the always online and real money auction house was going to destroy the game experience. They did not believe me and bought the game anyway.
The irony here is within two months Every one of those people told me that I had been right and Diablo 3 was one of the worst purchase decisions they had made. That they greatly regretted purchasing it - that it really IS a steaming pile.
I feel sorry for anyone still playing this piece of trash.
8 Like One friend even offered to give me his account to play through the game. I told him that even if he bought me my own copy I would not play it. Nor would I play even if the company gave me an account for free. I refuse to be part of promoting a game which so blatantly stomps on its customers for money.
Blizzard needs to apologize to their customers for their outrageous business practices that destroyed this game series. They stood on the shoulders of two great games (diablo 1 & 2) and they tried to turn it into a grand endless money making scheme to the point where they destroyed what made the first two great. And they did it at the expense of the gaming public.
@zenstrata So much drama in the comment. get over it. there are other options to play like POE, torchlight etc. In any case it is not as trash of a game as people are making it to be.
Not trying to defend the game as I also stopped playing long time ago but it was fun while it lasted.
There is nothing wrong in making money. All companies exist to make money but I do think that the game could have been lot better. But I guess it is what it is. they also know this. Jay wilson is gone and I am sure if they plan on making next Diablo, they wont make same mistakes.
Get over it.
Ok, while I think this is good in general, it is too little way, way, way too late.
Partially why D3 was such a failure to many, was because bots ruined it, the whole economy was screwed up by botters overloading it with farmed gold etc.
Mind, I never liked the whole idea of AH/RMAH, but that was basically completely destroyed by letting botters/farmers/etc run riot. I think someone said back then, that Blizzard actually allowed them to do so, to boost the economy and to make more money from gold sells and whatnot.
I don't even see the point anymore to be perfectly honest. With D3 damage has already been done. I personally gave it a decent shot, levelling all the classes to high enough levels and about 3 months playing. Now, I just can't see myself going back to it. No appeal whatsoever, unlike D2 had for example.
1 Like I still play D3 once in a while. Mostly for the laser beams, oddly enough. I don't see many people online. Some story sections literally have zero players.
1 Like @DiscGuru101 Lol, maybe they've banned too many people.
Seriously though the problem now a days is there is too many other good games to play so we all end up with ADD and cant concentrate on one game for too long. Im guilty of this, I play the single player campaigns test out the multiplayer and have a blast and move on to the next latest and greatest game release.
all i know is i still have a stuttering problem with D3, I have a 3770k 32gigs of ram and a 7970GHz edition so I know i have the requirements, did everything I could find to fix it in forums and still having some problems. Just started playing path of exile and im really liking it, might come back to D3 when an expansion comes out. And for wow I tried it back in the day it was ok but I felt like I was cheating myself out of money if I didnt play it a lot, plus I like GW2 I would rather just pay for a game once thank you
Also I didn't really like PoE. The combat is slow and kind of weak as are the active skills. The crafting system is sweet though. Torchlight 2 is better than PoE I like the skills and combat more but it's kind of childish and get's boring after awhile, although modding is awesome idea. Haven't played D3 yet but I will when the price goes down or buy it for my ps4. I play all my PC games at a friends cause my PC sucks lol
1) POE - Just wondering how much you have played it. Just saying because it is very slow to start with but later on becomes fast paced and a lot of action. Also becomes very hard.
2) TL2 - I also like the game and the action is fast but I still prefer POE over it as it is more gritty and harder. Not to mention a lot of different builds to try.
3) Unlike others, I will surely recommend playing D3 once the prices drops. It is not really that bad of a game. Worth leveling a character or two to get flavor of the game.
3 Like @Sharebear420 DRM is Digital Rights Management. It's a way of "fighting" piracy. Blizzard requires you to login at least once per 30 days to verify your account. If you didn't do this, you couldn't play it online and you couldn't get achievements. In some cases, it won't even let you play the game.
Personally I think this is almost as bad as EA's (but not quite THAT bad) form of anti-piracy. People will always figure out how to hack games and pirate them. There is no reason to punish honest customers (i.e., those that buy the games, like me) in an effort to get at pirates.
There are some facts that people need to realize, especially developers:
1. People will always pirate and will always find a way to pirate it! It's like saying you're going to stop all crime. You cannot do that realistically, no matter how extreme of a measure you take.
2. Most people who pirate the games, end up buying it eventually. Several studies have been done (Google them) and in most cases, 60%+ of the pirates eventually bought the item. This also applies to music and film.
3. Pirated games are great forms of free advertisement. The more publicity a game gets, the more people are aware of its existence. Remember that most pirates end up buying the game and the more pirates you have, the more copies of that game that will be sold eventually.
@asjflask @Sharebear420 It is as bad. What is the difference here then, if comparing the two?
They both are exactly the same, no point trying to make Blizzard sound any better than the "evil" EA.
I do, however, agree completely about what you say about piracy.
Anti-piracy never works.
It only hurts paying customer and puts extra cost on the products as well, which are also paid by the legit customer.
Piracy will always exist, no matter what the industry does.
They will never learn.
1 Like people still play that DRM filled nightmare?
it's amazing no yet sued shizzard
@thequickshooter Technically, you cannot sue them over this. They have not violated any laws. While I agree that some forms of DRM are necessary, there are some that just plain go overboard with it (EA is the best example).
I don't play Diablo III and have never played any of the other Diablo's. I'm quite happy with Torchlight II though. It is a great game, has great graphics and gameplay, and for a game that's less than $20 you can't beat it. It's a fairly new game so check it out.
6 Like Honestly, the drop rate is so incredibly low that it encourages this type of behavior. Either you have to pay extra money at their auction house, or never get the equipment you want.
12 Like Why would anyone care about blizzard's games anymore? They rip off the players with every release now. The new star craft likely to be just as disappointing as the last one. Blizzard used to be a golden developers 10 years ago or more really when they realeased the early star craft and diablo games. Those made owning a pc well worth it and you didn't need a powerful system yet looked amazing anyways.
Developers these days are ruining gaming now they want to make a bunch of free to play games which all suck, fewer and fewer gamers actively use the mics to participate in the fun of the game and work as a team while still joking around with each other. It's made the Halo games stale now.
I only play games with single player modes anymore mp gaming has gotten out of hand.
3 Like Aren't the bots the only ones playing? Ba-zing... Path of Exile is free... Where you pay to LOOK cooler NOT play better... D3 released to us without PvP was a huge thing for me.
1 Like People still talk about this game? It was really such as let down in so many different areas, failing to keep balance, listening to players like Kripp didn't help either. Overall, perhaps one of the biggest let downs for ARPG players. Path of Exile isn't much better, it suffers from its own grand designs and has really stupid boss battle designs, oh and Kripp is also wrecking that game too =P
2 Like @FriendBear Maybe D3 let me down so much that I'm delusional, but I think PoE is a beacon of hope. Surprised they did that much with way less money/time than blizzard (obviously). I do hope the money finds its way to them because it seems promising... I do agree about the boss battles in PoE though, no doubt
@CeasdRedemption @FriendBear I think for PoE to succeed, they really need to do some redesigning especially on certain boss fights like Mervail and Piety - especially Mervail who is literally like a brick wall for many players and since that boss fight is so early in the game, many players will just not even bother to continue playing after running into that and dying often since the mechanics of that boss fight are really poorly created.
Not to mention, the entire skill trees are very confusing for a lot unseasoned Arpg players, because of the skill tree - balancing the game will be exceptionally difficulty for the team after all, for the game to really succeed - all specs/builds needs to be fully viable and right now, it is painfully obvious it's not like that at the moment.
@FriendBear @CeasdRedemption For mervail just get cold resistance rings and its a cake.
But yet in any case the boss design is poor. I mean gear should be a necessary thing to some extent but skill should be able to dominate the game.
For example, many bosses become a wall if you dont have right gear or gems. It should be more skill dependent but that's just me.
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