League of Legends players banned for exploit
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Riot Games bans players from its freemium action real-time strategy game for cheating.
League of Legends developer Riot Games has booted a number of players caught taking advantage of an exploit in the popular online title.
Posting on the official League of Legends Community page, Riot's community manager told players that the developer had identified the exploit, fixed it, and tracked down all of the players who had taken advantage of it in the game.
"If you've been playing online games for any length of time, you probably know that most games eventually have to deal with scum-of-the-earth cheaters that enjoy ruining your experience," the community manager posted. "That's bull****, and we're not going to allow it. I'm happy to report that the immediate fix has been implemented, and we'll be restarting all regions this evening to add some redundancy, which will prevent similar exploits in the future. We've identified all of the players that have been using this exploit, and we're going to be taking firm action against their accounts."
The exploit--known as the "mastery exploit"--allowed players to add more skill points than would otherwise be allowed, giving them the ability to cast spells consecutively, without any cooldown time.
Riot also declared that it is currently discussing methods to increase its monitoring of the game, to ensure future exploits are dealt with efficiently.
"We have comprehensive logs and data that allow us to see precisely who did what; and also who was negatively affected by this malicious behaviour. This kind of stuff is unacceptable, and will never be tolerated by Riot Games."
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.
161 comments
Bet you ten bucks that the people blaming this on Riot are people who got banned. You shouldn't of cheated :)
@Briantb_2008 Its not hacking, and the article calls it an Exploit... That is very similar to a glitch, but i assume they are calling on the fact gamers are using it to thier benefit and it was unintended by the Devs. Im glad they took such an action to remind folks (perhaps like yourself!) that its NOT ok. :P
4 Like "If you've been playing online games for any length of time, you probably know that most games eventually have to deal with scum-of-the-earth cheaters that enjoy ruining your experience. That's bull****, and we're not going to allow it."
I like this guy.
2 Like If its a hack, they deserve ban but if its a glitch no ban. Artical wasn't very specific on what those users did.
Slow news day huh? I mean, don't get me wrong, kudos for banning cheaters...but how does this deserve it's own article?
This sort of things happens on a weekly basis in many online games. Not sure what makes this specific case news-worthy.
Laura Parker, +1 for writting yet another stupid article on LoL. I love the game and all but these articles are stupid. There are so many games with hacks and exploits you act as if this is a first. Then the articles on "solo mid" and "solo top" are so pointless.
1 Like Cheat engine literally hacks in-ram values of running programs. This is NOT a bug or a glitch - Some of you really need to get a clue
1 Like they make these guys seem like criminals. it's a little too extreme. how about calling yourself a scum for not fixing the bug. you expect everyone to be ideal little perfect angels. we are humans and we take advantage of everything if the opportunity is given. so yes it's not good they cheated but you can't blame them because it is your who should thank them due to learned bug that was revealed through their hard work of trying to cheat.
@Max_160 I don't agree.I don't think I've ever really seen a cheater in LoL, but I've played enough Counter Strike (that is about 1 out of 10 games or so I believe?) and CoD to know how it feels, when your personal score is being deminished because somebody's been cheating.
And as for the human nature part, I'd say there's a difference between cheating and fairly exploiding an opportunity.I just seems a bit contradictory, that you're saying that humans exploit everything if the opportunity is given, when you're also saying that you thought it wrong to cheat. Especially when you used the word "we". As in including yourself.
I don't believe every person would resort to cheating. Not even if the probability of detection/punishment was 100%. I believe that more people would do it, but I believe that the majority would be honest enough to enjoy the sport.
@saadred They have already said that they stand by the score they gave it. At the time when they reviewed the game for what you got when you bought the game it was worth that. They said that the game has come a long ways since then and while the game does deserve more now, it deserved what it got then also.
you rereview one game you have to rereview them all to be fair. Every game these days is improved after release with patches.
they should get it right the first time.... now it's way to fashionable to release a broken POS game and then 3 months later patch it.... so people who buy it early at full price get screwed.
Note: i'm not saying LOL is A POS I have never played it.
Nice to see some devs taking cheating seriously. blizzard/dice could learn from this, especially in games like bf3 and sc2 where hackers can stay at the top of the ladderboard for weeks/months. oftentimes they just getting a slap on the wrist or a temp ban or stat wipe. screw that, ban their accounts. LOL is free! they didnt even have to track down everyone, yet they did.
2 Like @hampton2003 Actually starcraft sued the makers of the hacks for a Sh$tload of money... And they permaban anyone who cheats... If you send them the replay and they see a hack... They permaban...Please get your facts straight before saying something...
Glad to hear they're taking action against cheaters. Now, how about some interesting new content?
Fundamentally, MOBAs haven't changed in a long time and the entire genre is pretty stale. I enjoyed LoL for a couple of months, but after a 100-200 matches, it's still the same game you figured out how to play after 20 matches.
1 Like I'm glad a company has the balls to say " NO F*** you!! F*** you in the A**!!!!!" It's refreshing to see a company with an opinion besides, "well we would like to ask that you not cheat, and we will trust the gamers themselves!"
2 Like Let the cheaters whine about how unfair this is. While those of us who play the game AS INTENDED and obey the rules get to continue to play a fun game as how it should be played.
I'm not sad for those who exploited the game. Bye bye.
1 Like So does this mean that I'm actually good at LoL and I was only losing because of cheaters? heh
Glad to hear that Riot is banning these people. They aren't mature enough for competition and shouldn't be playing with anyone until they grow up. it takes a particular kind of loser to be able to knowingly cheat at a game and feel good about it. It's just a way to boost their already damaged ego. Think about how deeply you have to lie to yourself and believe it so somehow manage to feel like you're good at something after you knowingly cheat. I dunno. I'm all for throwing in a cheat code after you beat a game just to have fun and mess around, but an online multiplayer game where the other people don't know you're cheating... Riot definitely did the right thing.
i do not like this game. i say that because my cusions like to play it all the time its so so . more like warcraft i guess but seem it would be boring after a while. no open world or anyting like that.
Well is it the cheater's fault for using an exploit or Riot games for releasing a buggy update that allowed it? I mean, Riot is known for rushing patches and leaving in huge bugs.
@csward Yes it is the cheaters' fault for exploiting anything. Yes, Riot needs to do a better job with their bugs. However, not saying you are, but to say a cheater is free of any guilt because the game's system is imperfect is just stupid. No systems are perfect. Perfect doesn't even exist in reality. It's just like our law. You can't expect to exploit the justice system without expecting any repercussion. Maybe in movies, and maybe there are some rare cases...but you get the gist.
1 Like Come h*** or high water we can't be having the scum of the earth casting spells consecutively, good on ya riot games.../endsarcasm
4 Like If you knowingly cheat or break rules, and go out of your way to do so, you should be banned. If you refuse to acknowledge the rules of participation then you aren't legitimately competing anyways.
You aren't necessarily scum of the earth, but you don't deserve an unfair advantage that no one else, and you shouldn't be allowed to get off with a slap on the wrist. I think Riot should throw the book at you as hard and heavily as they can. It's not like these rules are hard to follow or that people accidentally made this mistake.
1 Like Hahahahaha , it's good to know that I can play LoL vs normal people , I remember how a lot of games got really boring because they didn't care about banning cheaters.I just wish this was a video , because I asked to hear Laura (tempertress) accent again. :P
4 Like "scum-of-the-earth"? Really? I hate cheaters as much as anybody, but how seriously do these people take this game! I would consider people such as KKK members or child molestors "scum of the earth," not game cheaters. Also, this article never says how this exploit was obtained. If it's just a problem in the game that you don't have to hack the game to access, then it's the developer's problem, not the players.
@Strategygamer22 haha you must be new to the internet, LOL is taken very seriously especially at higher levels and with good reason when one bad mistake can cost you the match and the game is already immensely complicated
@Strategygamer22 "but how seriously do these people take this game!" Like they get paid too LOL
@Demipimp @Strategygamer22 Some people do get paid to LoL :) Check out the prize pool for this season.
4 Like This is not a typical "exploit", it's a bona fide hack. It used a hex editing program and everything. No one could have done this without knowing they were cheating.
Even if it could have been done due to a glitch in the code a la Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age, the people who would have been the worst offenders were likely players who had played this game for a long time. At that point, you should know how the system is supposed to work and REPORT BUGS not ABUSE THEM.
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