Cheating is a big deal in the MMO industry, and as everyone knows, Blizzard recently flipped the switch when it comes to their real-money transfer auction house so they’re on the wire when it comes to protecting the value of virtual items. Diablo II is an excellent example of what happens when hackers and cheaters can duplicate items and produce a great deal of virtual items into a market that considers them valuable.
In an article on SiliconANGLE, I went into a discussion of Blizzard’s newest approach which is to strike down anyone caught cheating in any manner. This comes on after Blizzard has banned over a thousand people in almost 24 hours after the launch of the AH; and further there are rumors right now of several duplication hacks persistent in the game (note: I haven’t had a chance to substantiate any of these.)
However, it seems likely there will appear a duplication bug. With the presence of the RMT AH this sort of thing will inflate the in-game economy and devalue virtual items so Blizzard will probably be quick to come down on perpetrators as well as the code itself to stop this.
In fact, right now Blizzard requires people who use the RMT to use Authenticators; however, this will not stop duplicate hackers from producing, and then laundering their items through numerous toons to finally get to the one that produces the money via the RMT if we expect to see a money-mob arise from the money making aspect of Diablo III.
Link, via SiliconANGLE
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