Very interesting read, but completely unsurprising.

Reddit post here, followed up with a confirmation from the CEO of Lewt.com (a major D2 item seller).

tl;dr version for these posts; Duping exploits in Diablo 2 are still very common, Blizzard knows about it, ignores it for years without patching, hacks@blizzard.com is useless, Blizzard programmers have been intentionally adding new duping exploits, and the Blizzard employees involved with this are suspected to be profiting significantly from it.

The solution to fixing exploits and hacks is really just posting it on as many different sites as possible, and try to get as many players using the exploit as possible. Destroying an economy and ruining everyones game playing experience is one really good way to finally get Blizzard to act.

Alright, so by now you're aware that Diablo 3 has been designed with a new type of client/server security system and with methods of exploit detection.

I've also updated the Unrealized Reality of Diablo 3 post with an example showing what happens to areas that haven't been randomly generated yet, and how model editing (for the purposes of world crafting exploitation) is not possible in Diablo 3. Well.. there is sort of a way to still do it, but it's rather annoying and relies on a certain measure of random generation by the server. Plus, Diablo's Warden system will be checking for file modifications.

Anyways, F&F beta players are discovering that the client is doing a lot of little combat tricks in order to keep the flow of combat and mask latency issues. Unlike WOW, which is more turn based in hit and damage calculations, Diablo 3 seems to be taking some liberties with client side damage calculations. Maybe this is just part of the beta test and things will change when it goes live? Who knows.

There are more details here that help explain.

F&F sources have it that Blizzard are using a new method of client/server communication that provides a secure and tamper-proof method of using the local client to handle its own calculations, while sending the data to the server for verification.

This is really good news for hackers.. it's something different, interesting, and a new challenge with some hefty financial rewards. :)

Even during bad latency, combat damage and related calculations are still being calculated on the client end so combat action and fighting appears seamless (and enemies can die) even with terrible latency.

This means that there's a client element involved, and if there is, it can be manipulated or exploited. For example, injecting swing count or damage numbers in the packet stream to increase DPS.

If I was designing the game, the approach that I would use would be a "forward thinking algorithm" where all of your combat damage is already pre-calculated several steps ahead by the server. This could be very easily done in all MMOs to reduce latency, and it's the approach I would take to improve client speed and response time (it's actually more of an illusionary effect) while simultaneously retaining security of data.

For example, you know how the D3 server streams map data to the client as territory is explored? Well, it could also be streaming (pre)randomly generated combat damage data to the client in preparation for all upcoming damage. Say, for example, 100 hits in advance of the actual combat. Even if your connection is experiencing heavy lag, both the client and server knows what damage and identical outcomes to all future combat will be. This way, the data can't be manipulated locally else it will fail security checks.

If this is true, it might also mean that drops are randomly calculated in advance too. :)

It's very clever, but it opens up some new challenges for Blizzard. For one, it means that future hit data would be pre-cached somewhere in memory (so players could essentially determine future damage and make adjustments to exploit it). Knowing future rolls would also allow a player to "reset" the stream to get better loot, but I doubt they would allow this.

That's if "future data" is actually streamed; no one has investigated this yet to confirm. However, if damage IS calculated by the client without a simultaneous server check (maybe there's one within a set period of time?), then latency hacks to adjust DPS will definitely be possible.

Can't wait until someone digs deeper into the client server packet stream. Maybe that D3 Emulator team might discover the truth during their investigation. :)

Funny how people are completely convinced that since World of Warcraft has been around for 7 years, that there isn't anything left to exploit and all of the holes have been plugged. :)

What's even scarier, though, are the people who believe that "hacks" and "duping" have never happened in WOW. I see these arguments on forums all the time.. and it's very depressing each and very time. (Duping is still a common problem in WOW, and it's going to happen in Diablo 3 too.)

Anyways.. apparently, MMR exploits in World of Warcraft are still around. I don't really follow WOW anymore and I just learned about this by accident. I thought it was worth mentioning..

In fact, I can't remember a time when there HASN'T been a Match Making exploit available in WOW. These types of exploits have been around since Arenas were first launched. More details here on Reddit, and here's a link to the exploit. Users are trying to get as many people to know about the exploit as possible, so that Blizzard will do something about it.

The GCD hack was always my favorite though.

I will be creating some blogposts about gold/cash making in Diablo 3. The new RMT system really interests me, so I'll be jumping right into that. It will be easier once the game comes out, of course, but for now I already know of some sneaky (and currently unpublished) methods. Most of them will be legitimate methods of gold farming and I haven't decided yet whether to create the more shady guides. :)

But first, there's something I need to get off my chest.

If anyone ever says that World of Warcraft has never had duping or that Diablo 3 will never have duplication exploits because WoW has never had them; I am sorry, but you are completely wrong.

Anyone who believes this is;

* Misinformed and they believed it without question
* or, they don't know for sure but go with the flow
* or, they only read official Blizzard press releases and didn't read other WoW news sites
* or, they never read the forums
* or, they know it happened but they drank the blue kool-aid, pushed it into the back of their memories, will only say positive things about Blizzard, and will try to convince everyone else in their beliefs.

Diablo 3 will have dupe exploits and tricks as well, I have no doubt in my mind. Item duping, gold duping, point duping, or stat duping (e.g. stacking of stats).. users will always find a way.

Blizzard has a great team of programmers but a lot of these exploits slip by. They have a limited quantity of QA Testers, and besides, they are tasked with testing the gameplay, quests, and bugs that appear in normal gaming sessions for the casual player. They don't sit there with WPE trying to exploit the game.

Exploits are discovered over a long period of time and after thousands of players have played the game and stretched the variety of gameplay in ever which direction.

Unfortunately, most gamers believe "Diablo = Serverside = no Dupes/Hacks". I am completely shocked by the amount of players who believe this. Wikipedia and even wowwiki even have "duping" articles because they're so common. Please, question everything.

If anyone every does tell you that "wow duping never happened", just send them a link back here. Below are some examples of item duplication exploits and tricks that have taken place on the official World of Warcraft realms.

* From 2004-2005 [LINK 1] [LINK 2]

a. Player 1 hands player 2 a large amount of gold
b. Player 1 goes into the instance. If the bug works, he/she will get kicked back out after a delay.
c. Player 1 will have the original amount of gold he had before he traded and player 2 will still have the traded gold he received as well.
d. Rince and Repeat

* They extended maintenance in late July to fix the dupe exploit that had been around since beta. [LINK]
* After this issue was fixed, players found out another method by fearing players (or mind controlling them) into bugged instances and duped items and gold again. This method still worked in TBC.
* From 2004-2008 [LINK 1] [LINK 2]
Trade equipment with another player, make a character with an inappropriate name to have it reported and reset or con a GM. Policy exploitation could also be used by claiming hacks, and having the account reset. All items/gold duped.
* From 2004-2010 Trade gold/items with another player, have the character rolled back to the state before the trade by entering bugged instances, realm reset exploits, or GM request.
* 2004-2009 Duplication and control of disenchants by filling up bag slots, cancelling, and trading items.
* 2004-2010 Recharging items with limited charges by re stacking items with newer timers.
* 2007 Guild Bank rollbacks.
* 2008 Rolling BG instability issue, causing players to DC and rollback (trade items first).
* 2004-2006 Auction House duping. Players were duping nexus crystals mostly, but any item could be duped. You would place multiple items in the Auction House as quickly as possible. As soon as the first item expires, you cancel the rest of our auctions. You would get back all of the cancelled items (20 crystals) and you would also get back the "expired items" (19 crystals.) That's 39 Nexus crystals duped from 20 posted.
* 2004-2005 Warsong Badge Dupe [LINK]
* 2010 The loot bag duping trick for infinite Justice Points [LINK]
* 2010-2011 Non-combat pet dupe exploit.
* 2011 Daily quest duping by exploiting the time zones of shared instance servers to reset timer.

And remember.. these are just the ones that made it public because they were so exhaustively exploited. How many dupe exploits are there that only a couple, very cautious, people know about?

You've probably already read this blog article entitled "Stop Supporting Broken Games". It's in regards to Bethesda's pattern of releasing games that are incomplete or crippled with bugs.

As a gamer you should expect a completed game when you purchase it. A final, working product is not something to be created with patching. There is no excuse for this pattern of disrespect to gamers.

I realize that Bethesda is not the sole perpetrator of these kinds of acts. But Bethesda also shows a repeated history of abuse with no plans as far as I can tell to change the course of their development process. They stand as a testament to the broken game release -> patch -> repatch cycle.

I agree with it and it's something that I personally do myself. I never buy a game on the first day and I will usually wait until the first or second major patch before I consider purchasing it. The trick is to ignore the hype (of new releases) and build up a game queue that you still need to play first before moving onto something new. There are many players doing this already, but like the blog said - there should be a lot more. Enough to the point where it forces game developers to strengthen their Quality Assurance process and ensure that "complete games" are released. It will never happen (consumers are impulsive and businesses are cheap), but it's a nice idea.

I've seen this "repeated history of abuse" before though and it's even worse with another big-name corporation. =]

When I was in the World of Warcraft closed beta, the bugs and issues were terrible. Constant crashes, application hangs (requiring frequent reboots), server instability and resets, server lag and latency problems, screen tearing and video bugs like what you've seen in FNV, and incompatibilities with many system builds, operating systems, video/audio cards. The game was unplayable by many.. that is unless they were technically skilled and had a few different computer systems available. The game was awesome but the bugs were absolutely crippling. I believed that Blizzard would fix the worst of the bugs before the RETAIL release, but they didn't.. they released WoW incomplete and still with the bugs that were present in the beta for MONTHS.

So, right now there are players complaining about Bethesda bugs that take a week (or a couple weeks) to fix. But imagine if critical issues and crippling bugs took MONTHS and even YEARS to fix? What if each "patch" would fix some small issues, but cause even MORE problems? Blizzard did it and they still do it.

To make matters even worse, Blizzard's online games are PERMANENT. With single-player games, there are issues that you can fix yourself, methods to continue progress that might have been lost, unofficial patches, or temporary workarounds available. But with Blizzard's online games, you can't fix the issues yourself and any changes made to your account are permanent.

Since time is considered a commodity, bugs in online games are significantly more damaging.

In 2009, Blizzard announced that they were tracking approx. 180,000 bugs in WoW. Keep in mind that these were the "official" bugs on record that they were troubleshooting. Their bug tracker would have a different definition and scope then that of other companies.. unofficially, there are probably 10 times that number but it would all depend on what you classify as a "bug".

So right now FNV has one serious graphics related bug, game saving issues, and quest related bugs. Blizzard games have also had those same issues (not specifically "game saving", but they've had WoW/Diablo character resets that could not be recovered) but they have ALSO:

- melted video cards and destroyed gaming PCs (that severe bug was actually discovered during February beta testing and remained in the retail) which took 7 months for a non-Blizzard workaround to be released
- allowed an insane DPS exploit (Global Cooldown Hack) for 6 years
- WoW & SC2 corrupted video (1-2 years for WoW, 1 month for SC2)
- random PC resets & application hangs for 2 years
- random server crashes, severe client drops (to the point where a user couldn't play for weeks at a time and there was no time reimbursement), latency issues for 2 years
- unfair PVP due to mass cheating and exploitation
- WoW duping bugs that destroyed economies for 7 months (and then there are bots = 6 years of damage)
- the infamous "Corrupted Blood" incident which resulted in several server restarts, populations being wiped out, Blizzard quarantines, players unable to play (1 month to fix)-
- the similar WOTLK zombie plague (1 week to fix - was it really intended?)

.. the list just goes on and on. Most recently, there was the "cogwheel issue", BG/Dungeon crashes, stuck on loading screens, broken Glyphs, valuable recipes randomly deleted, the Hallows Eve event issue, and players who join an in-progress BG do not receive honor or the daily reward (this has been going on for a month now). And there are also INTENDED changes that have completely ruined a player's gameplay experience and/or increased the amount of time they play the game.

It just never ends.. with each new patch comes brand new issues and sometimes very severe bugs.

A Blizzard fanboy will be quick to point out the EULA to me however. The excuse is that we're not really entitled to anything, we're not a special snowflake, Blizzard can do whatever they want to our PC or our time and they're not responsible for what happens to our PCs. Does that make it alright though? What does it say about a company that makes it clear in their contract that they don't stand by their products or their services?

I do what I can though. When there are major game-breaking bugs, I simply cancel my subscription and wait until things improve before I continue playing. Blizzard never knows this though. I don't think they would really care either.. history has shown that Blizzard takes their time in fixing game-breaking issues or severe bugs. That's the beauty of a monthly subscription based model.. they still have my money even though I only played for the first week before giving up and they know I'll be back.

In an earlier post, I had mentioned "crazy Gold Making exploits" were also being heavily utilized (other than Remote AH bots) since the 4.0.1 patch but didn't provide any examples.

Well, here they are. These exploits have been working since the 4.0.1 initial patch, but they probably won't be working after today (there will be a lot of hot fixes I'm assuming).

#1 Argent Tournament Pets & Infinite Champion Seals

The Champion's Purse from the Argent Tournament can also be looted for infinite Champion Seals in the same manner as the Unlimited Justice Points exploit. It is currently being exploited heavily to purchase and sell Argent Pets for 700-2000G a piece (post cross-faction to make more gold). You just open the bag, grab the Seals only, leave the gold alone, reset the bag contents (several methods as mentioned previously), and loot the Champion Seals again.

#2 Karazhan Exalted Rings & Infinite Void Crystals

Those special Quest rings you can get outside of the Kara instance can now be disenchanted into Void Crystals. Just D/E the ring, talk to her again and tell her you "lost your ring" and she'll give you a new one. You can also create a macro to talk to the NPC, D/E the ring, talk to her again.

Previously those special Kara rings could not be disenchanted or sold. But, I think it was a mistake since Blizzard made a change so that PVP gear could be sold or disenchanted now (I'm assuming it's an intended change.) I'm not sure if the earlier rings (ie, Friendly, Honored, etc) can be disenchanted as well however.

#3 PvP Gear - New Intended Changes?

It appears that all unused PVP gear can now (finally) be disenchanted or sold. So if you just want to make gold, or you're discarding older PVP gear, you no longer have to destroy the items and can now make some profit from them. From what I can tell by disenchanting results, you'll be making roughly 1G for every 1 Honor Point you spend. But, it's all server dependent (ie, D/E mat prices).

* Moved from my previous post "A whole lot of cheating going on.."

Blizzard's gaze is currently upon those Battle.net (SC2) hack developers, but much like Sauron's gaze - it shifts frequently. I'm expecting the same swift and decisive actions on these recent WoW cheaters in the same manner. These exploits and cheats completely DESTROY the gold markets, fairness, and ruin the enjoyment and participation of a competitive online experience (just like what Blizzard claimed in their lawsuit.)

"When users of the Hacks download, install, and use the Hacks, they copy StarCraft II copyrighted content into their computer's RAM in excess of the scope of their limited license, as set forth in the EULA and ToU, and create derivative works of StarCraft II."

"The harm to Blizzard from Defendants' conduct is immediate, massive and irreparable."

"By distributing the Hacks to the public, Defendants cause serious harm to the value of StarCraft II. Among other things, Defendants irreparably harm the ability of Blizzard's legitimate customers (i.e. those who purchase and use unmodified games) to enjoy and participate in the competitive online experience. That, in turn, causes users to grow dissatisfied with the game, lose interest in the game, and communicate that dissatisfaction, thereby resulting in lost sales of the game or 'add-on' packs and expansions thereto."

So if Blizzard actually believes this statement to be true, they'll definitely action this exploitive behavior within a week minimum. If they don't stand by their beliefs, however, they'll probably just hotfix the issue, leave the players alone, and then ban them much later when it suits their purpose.

After all, these exploits are truly game breaking and completely destroying the economy (while also ruining a legitimate player's experience.) So, I'm really interested to see how quickly they'll action this, especially after preaching about SC2 cheaters and the serious harm they have caused to the value of their games and their legitimate customers.

How long will it take to action? SC2 cheaters were banned on Oct 1 and then Blizzard launched their lawsuit by Oct 16. Will Blizzard fix this customer-impacting issue and practice what they preach, or will they instead use this as a strategy to improve revenue? It will be a good example of whether they stand by their "stated beliefs" or not.

The Global Cooldown (GDC) Hack also comes to mind. This has been exploited for not just days, weeks, or months but rather YEARS. Even in the most recent Ladder Arena Tournaments it has been estimated that almost 3/4 of all players have cheated using the GCD hack and obtained their Gladiator titles unfairly. Blizzard banned very few people and there are probably tens-of-thousands (if not hundreds-of-thousands) of players who have used the GDC hack without any fear or action by Blizzard.

It's scary to think of all of the cheaters out there. From all of the various official announcements, Blizzard has banned millions of players for online cheating. MILLIONS! I wouldn't be surprised if 50% of all online players have knowingly cheated or have exploited bugs.

On a side note,

Their new lawsuit actually worries me a bit. I don't care that Blizzard is going after cheaters and the developers of these applications (like BnetD), but I am concerned about the repercussions. If successful, it will set a legal precedent that single-player or multi-player cheats or addons/mods (even when acceptable) would be completely illegal. Virus scanners, operating systems, performance apps, tools for impaired users, etc all fit within Blizzard's classification, and it would make it very easy for them to be able to sue any software developer or users of these tools (harsh charges, prison time, etc). Blizzard probably wouldn't do that of course (bad for PR), but the case would be available for other (less savory lawyers) to reference and many people could suffer badly as a result.

The thing is, Blizzard claims that these hacks cause irreparable harm. But that's not actually true: the harm CAN be repaired by hotfixes, patches, player bans, and resetting Ladders & Seasons - all of which they already do quite frequently. All of the players cheating to get Honor Gear for example will lose it all next season.

Blizzard also knew about the map hack tool the minute it was released (they even stated that they were following it's initial development), and there have always been tons of Starcraft 1 maphacks available. Warden uses hash values to determine whether a user is running a Maphack or not, so SC2 could have easily prevented users from even launching SC2 if a hack was running. It was easily detected by Warden, and they could have done something about it right away - but instead they waited months to ban the users, allowed them to cheat, and it seemed like they wanted "damage" to occur so that they could sue the developers on purpose. They've done insta-bans before, why did they wait so long for "damages" to occur? Was it on purpose for a planned lawsuit?

Blizzard was already going to sue SC2 hackers, but then they suddenly decided to drop the charges. If I, for example, was interested only in profits from court settlements, I would wait until significant damages were incurred so that I could sue for a larger amount of money. That's what the patent trolls do too.. they wait until businesses become successful before they sue. Patent Trolls are not interested in protecting their Intellectual Property, but rather the revenue they can generate from settlements. Based on what I've seen, it seems that these lawsuits are just another alternative revenue stream for Blizzard, and there's little emphasis on actually protecting the legit players (although public statements make it look like users are their top priority). If there were concerns for the legit players, users would be prevented from even launching SC2 (or other Blizzard games) if they have a maphack running. Hash files are very unique signatures too, so Warden would not be triggered by a false positive.

With all of the balancing issues, client issues, crashes, melting video cards, account thefts, and bugs (all of which were complained about for months during PTR/beta, but were STILL released live) wouldn't Blizzard themselves actually be causing even more irreparable harm to their players?

Anyhow - I've been tracking a lot of players on my own server who have been cheating like crazy. Still no ban as of today, even though many of them have probably accumulated 15,000 to 30,000 JPs in one day without running any raids. Yeah, definitely suspicious having all brand new high-level raid gear without having run any raids.

With the new 4.0.1 patch came a whole ton of bugs, exploits and opportunities. =]

We're talking infinite Justice Points exploits, unlimited Honor Points, crazy Gold Making exploits, and Remote Auction House exploitation.

Most of them are easily detectable by Blizzard and these exploits have worked for the past 5 days - but players haven't been banned yet. I'm interested to see how long it will take Blizzard to crack down on these cheaters and exploiters. As mentioned in a previous post, if Blizzard is having concerns regarding Cataclysm (or worried about financial figures) they'll have a ban wave in Q4 (ending Dec 31). Otherwise, they'll save up the ban wave until Q1 next year (Jan/Feb/Mar) so that they can pad their revenue numbers even higher.

Here are some of the many cheats & exploits going on:

1. Infinite Justice Points Exploit

Containers that used to drop Emblems of Frost now drop Justice Points, however they are bugged and you can loot them over and over. 1000-1500 Justice Points in under 10 minutes is easily possible.

Here are the specific items, and you needed to have the ones from before the 4.0.1 patch. I'm not sure if NEW drops work as well.

For the [Sack of Frosty Treasures] for example: just open the bag, pull out JPs, enter Blasted Lands portal, pull out again, keep going back and forth. Each time you go through the portal it resets the JP contents. Don't loot all though, just the JPs.

[Brewfest Kegs] work too and provide 24 Justice Points each time. You can also logout and log back in again, and the items reset. It doesn't work with all zoning methods, however you can use the Undercity/Silvermoon Translocator to also reset the bag contents. There are other ways too.

2. Infinite Justice Points Exploit #2

You can kill the end boss of Hellfire Ramparts over-and-over for Justice Points. He's not supposed to drop them by the way. =] Clear the Heroic Instance to the last boss, kill his guards and he'll dismount, kill Vazruden only (not the Drake), jump off the bridge and exit the portal. Go back in, kill him again. Each kill gives 250 rep and 5 Justice Points.

Apparently, a couple other 70 Heroics are bugged as well. Anzu (Raven Lord Mount) doesn't need to be summoned anymore, so anyone can farm the mount without a Druid present. I hear that it's working on some realms, but not others - so I don't know if it's intentional or not.

3. Remote Auction House

A bunch of new web-based Remote AH bot applications have hit the market (the developers are profiting from it, just like the SC2 hack developers), and I'm seeing them in use on my own server. It makes Glyph selling fairly difficult.

One individual in particular that exploits heavily (he's logged in 24/7 making transactions - cancelling auctions and undercutting automatically) is actually the GM of one of the biggest PVE guilds on my server. He's fully geared in 277 and the guild is well progressed. For the past week though, he hasn't been raiding but rather running a bot to exploit Glyph sales. Players using Quick Auctions 3 (Auction Profit Master) is easily noticeable, but his activities are obviously automated. I chatted with a member of his guild, and apparently they're aware of his "exploits" and how he shares his account with others for heavy raiding which is why the account is logged in so much.

In regards to the other exploits, I'll post some more once I get confirmation from other players. Some methods involve gold making related to the 4.0.1 Undocumented Changes (ie, how everyone can get Wrath gear for honor now which can be sold back.) They removing Tailoring Specializations FYI, and apparently some other Profession Specializations might be impacted currently (Blizzard might be removing them later) such as LW Elemental, Blacksmithing, Alchemy Transmutation nerfs, etc.

*UPDATE:

I'm moving the lengthy SC2 hacks post (that was originally in this post) to a new entry to keep this post short.

I've also confirmed that other loot bags are bugged as well, some of them have been hot-fixed however.

Here are more bags that also provide infinite amounts of Justice Points and can be reset:

[Cache of the Ley-Guardian]
[Large Sack of Ulduar Spoils]
[Sack of Ulduar Spoils]
[Stachel of Spoils]
[Large Satchel of Spoils]

Since Halaa has been very quiet since the WOTLK release, it can be very difficult these days to farm PVP Tokens. If you have a friend on the opposite faction, it definitely makes things easier to collect the 2 Talbuk mounts or PVP rewards.

But if you have no support, there's still a way you can collect PVP tokens all by yourself. It's just a little bit more time consuming then doing it with a friend too.

You need two characters on your PVP/PVE account, one from each faction. Remember, you can only collect PVP Tokens if the player you're killing gives you honor.

Here's how you do it:

1. Remove all gear from the toon you want to kill.
2. Bring both of your characters (Horde and Alliance) to a certain location. You can park on the GY or on the bridge, as long as you're within the vicinity of Halaa you'll get the tokens.
3. Open up two copies of WOW.EXE (you can open up as many as you want from one install folder FYI)
4. On one WoW window, just login and position them where your other toon logged out.
5. Alt-tab to your other WoW Window and login again.
6. Play your other character and kill your naked toon. (The naked toon will still stay logged in for about 30 seconds or so.)

A 58 DK for example can kill a naked 80 pretty quickly, so don't worry about your other toon disappearing. You'll get a PVP token and about 150 honor for killing yourself. =]

Now, the more expensive Talbuk mount costs 100 Battle Tokens (plus some Research tokens too) so you'll need to do this 100 times - you'll also end up with about 11500 honor in the end. This will take a few hours, but it is possible to solo. Since most of your time will be spent logging back in again, I would recommend copying-and-pasting your password each time (login name is saved).

You don't need to close out each window, just keep alt-tabbing back-and-forth and logging back in with the same 2 windows.

This also works for the other PVP tokens in Outlands, as well as the daily quests in WOTLK that require player kills (e.g. Ice Crown, Grizzly Hills, etc.)

And, you can use this method for obtaining the following achievements:

[City Defender]
[Make Love, Not Warcraft]
[That Takes Class]
[Wrath of the Alliance] or [Wrath of the Horde]

This technique has been around a while and I even wrote about it back on MMOWNED a few years ago. It's very useful for self-buffing your characters or de-buffing them (like during the Valentine's event where you need to remove "Broken Heart" from your own toons.) But, not many people are aware that it can be used for PVP tokens/rewards/achievements.

What's nice about this "exploit" is that it's even approved by Blizzard too. :)


You can mage port your own characters too, but it requires a 3rd party in order to invite the second toon. It beats paying for ports though. =]

Interesting Note: While we're on the subject of creating parties, you can also create your own Raid group without asking for help. Just play Wintergrasp until the end, and you'll stay in the Raid after everyone leaves (if you leave WG early though, you will be auto-removed from the raid group). Then you can head to ZG or solo any other raid you want.

The Next Level

If you're a hardcore (and patient) player, there's also a way to get two of your opposing factions into the same Battleground too. =]

This is especially useful for soloing the harder-to-get PVP achievements like [Wrecking Ball] and [The Grim Reaper]. All you gotta do is park your two (equally leveled) toons at a special low-traffic location, like Snowfall GY, strip them down, and kill them over-and-over until you get the achievements.

It's very difficult to get two characters into the same BG, and it used to be a LOT easier when you could select the BG number. But, here's how you can do it now in AV:

1. Queue up for a BG on one character, once you join the raid, jump to the other WoW window, login and queue up with your other toon. After a while, the first toon will appear as "disconnected" but will not be dropped from the raid. If it's very early in the morning and there aren't many players on, there will be a (small) chance that you'll join the same AV as your other character.

2. Queue up for AV on one character, and as soon as one player quits (report them all AFK and wish for the best), jump over to your other window and queue up for AV. Hopefully, that toon will join the same AV.

This works well if you've ever joined AV matches in the past when both sides are unequally matches during certain periods of the day. If you notice a lot of open slots after the raid is created, there's a probability to get both of your single-account toons into the same AV.

Keep in mind, that this is very hard to do, but once you get in with both toons - you can just jump back-and-forth between your characters (WoW windows), get the kills and achievements all in one AV match.

Of course, this is all much easier if you have a friend from the opposing faction to help you out. =]

The new Troll event is broken on most realms, and more are following.

The Operation Gnomeregan event on the Alliance side is also bugged on most realms in a very similar fashion. All it really takes is a player to aggro the mob and lure it outside of it's "comfort zone" - so you don't have to kite it far. (Right outside the village walls on Horde side for example)

This was a huge issue on the Beta/Testing Realms, but Blizzard decided to release it to the Live Realms anyways.. go figure.

"Jun'Do The Traitor" becomes immune to all forms of attacks around 50% HP. What's nice about this, though, is that you can just stand there and level up all of your weapon skills on an 80 Elite with no risk of damage. =]


You can get your [Master of Arms] and [Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich] achievements on this boss right now. Every once in a while, melee players will get thrown back by his AOE attack, but just move forwards a bit and continue attacking. Wand casters and other long range attackers can just sit back and leave their PC idle to skill up.

Blizzard Support's official solution to this bug is to "simply drag him back through the burning village." Well, that's all and good.. except for the fact that he's aggroing the NPCs and he's immune to all attacks/taunts/spells/etc. Some great QA work was done on these quests.

Below is where his approximate location is (silver arrow) by the way. I noticed that a lot of players were still hanging around the landing zone waiting for the event to start. =]


To increase skill levels more quickly, put Auto-Attack as a button, generate a little lag, and keep clicking (macros don't work unfortunately). You'll attack about 20-40% faster depending on your lag.

Also, throw on all of your haste gear, bring fast weapon types, and stock up on plenty of ammo for your guns/crossbows/etc. Shaman support is also nice for increasing melee haste.

You can get the [Knuckle Sandwich] achievement by reaching 400/400 Unarmed, and with only 3 other weapon types reaching 400/400, you'll also receive the [Master of Arms] achievement.

Get it while it's hot! Blizzard will be fixing it soon.

It didn't take long for the "open source PSJailBreak" to make it's appearance. 12 days in fact.

The original PSJailbreak was being sold for $170, the cloned one (x3jailbreak) was selling for $30, and now you only need to pay $20 for a USB development board and copy over the software. Or if you wait a little longer you can just use your jailbroken iPhone, iPod, and even a TI-84 calculator or jailbreak your PS3. As mentioned before though, you'll see some significant drops in vendor prices (once they're allowed to start selling the original Jailbreak again.) =]

It only plays homebrew at the moment, and the "pirate feature" (ability to boot ISO files) is temporarily disabled.

Exophase has more details on the new open-source implementation called PSGroove. As mentioned though, right now a programmable USB flash chip is required (Teensy USB dev board) but other methods will be made available in the near future.

This is actually a little bit of history which I'd like to preserve on the blog.

Back in late January 2009, Blizzard's advertisements were accidentally swapped out with Gold Seller ads. (Links: wow.com, cgenetwork.com, 1up.com)


Other than this one incident, I recall that it happened a few times actually: on BNet Forums, WoW Forums, and the waiting room of Diablo 2.

But in each case, most (if not all) news instances started to "disappear" and people later forgot. It didn't help though that threads were locked, forum entries were deleted, and Blizzard told sites to remove the news either.

So it's difficult finding information on these accidents now and it's something that Blizzard would prefer that you forget. =]

Reading over the forums, you'll see that Blizzard employees and players alike will all insist that "Blizzard has NEVER been breached. They've never been hacked. They have security measures in place that make them foolproof and 100% protected."

(Note: I never understood that logic so I simply chalk it up to "Blizzard Indoctrination". It's funny because if a game developer creates games that melt video cards and are full of bugs, cheats, issues that take years to fix, exploits, and can easily be hacked and exploited.. why would anything else they create be so different?)

Although employees insist that "To this date Blizzard has never been breached", in an earlier post I listed many cases of Blizzard database breaches, how Blizzard employee accounts have been compromised (and used to spread keyloggers on official forums), and other hacking activities. When the Blizzard employee accounts were compromised, Blizzard sent notifications to websites to remove the information ("Reputation Management"). And those were just the breaches that made public headlines! Who really knows how many breaches there have been?

Some of these are just accidents and "glitches" while others are major security breaches.

This has been going on for years, but it's obvious that it has been forgotten by most. That's why preservation is so important. =]

As mentioned in previous posts, Blizzard bans players at a rate of 100k per month. It's probably closer to 60k now, though, due to diminishing subscription numbers.

For the longest time though, they were making a profit of approx. $12 million dollars per month just by banning players. (The cost of new subscription, old subscription, WoW license + expansion packs.)

It's a pretty big chunk too. Banning players apparently amounts to approx. 10-15% of Activision Blizzard's Quarterly Net Income!

Not only that, but on the "books" it gives the appearance that they have 2 players when, in fact, they only have 1 player. This doubles their "Active Subscription" numbers to please the shareholders and improve customer confidence. Banning players is just another "alternative revenue stream" really. And, they'll be making even more money (per banned player) when Cataclysm comes out.

"But if a player get's banned, why then is it so easy for them to start back up again? They're probably highly technical right? They use new PCs, new MAC IDs (or spoofing software), employ proxy servers to mask their IP addresses, change their accounts around, right??"

Well, no actually. Let me explain.

Blizzard collects a TON of uniquely identifying and personal information about you.

Let's review the WoW Client and associated Warden system.

Warden, as you know, is a polymorphic (hidden) application that hides on your system and constantly changes it's code to remain hidden and obscure it's activities. It collects a ton of information from your PC and forwards it all to Blizzard.

If you weren't aware of this, here's some information to bring you up to speed:

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/privacy.html
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html
http://www.wow.com/2007/11/15/blizzards-new-warden-and-our-privacy/
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/10/new-gaming-feature-spyware
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=127684

According to Blizzard, the purpose of the software is:

- to make sure you can play the game without fear of hacks or keyloggers
- to protect your account from being compromised
- check for hacks and bots to prevent cheating
- survey for future games so that developers can better understand our systems. "During each survey period, we obtain information regarding the CPU, RAM, operating system, video, audio, HD/CD/DVD, and network connection you use to connect to World of Warcraft." (Link)

There's a ton of information that Warden collects. It includes, but certainly not limited to:

- IP Address
- PC Name
- User Names / Logged in User Name
- MAC Address
- OS Version, Patches installed
- Browser Version
- Software Installed
- Website URLs open at the time of the scan
- Documents on desktop, or documents open at the time of scan
- Accesses every process and program running on the PC
- Sniffs email addresses
- Webpage favorites and bookmarks

How serious is Blizzard in stopping this type of activity?

Even though they have the information available to completely ban cheaters for good, or at least make it extremely difficult for them to create a new account, they don't.

Blizzard collects a ton of unique information about your PC constantly but they only ban the ACCOUNTS and nothing else.

To be clear:

- Blizzard does NOT ban by IP Address (they know if it's static).
- Blizzard does NOT ban by MAC Address (very easy to do, highly effective).
- Blizzard does NOT ban by user name, address, credit card information or any other unique info.

This means that if you're a horrible cheating exploiting speed-hacking PVP bastard, and someone catches you and reports you, all you have to do is simply create a new account and power-level your toons back up to 80 within a week. That's it. Feel free to put it on your old credit card too, Blizzard doesn't care.

How serious is Blizzard in protecting the user?

Warden is also supposed to protect your account from key loggers and trojan horses, not just detect cheaters and botters.

I installed 3 common WoW keylogging applications (on a testbed PC of course), Warden did not detect them or warn me at all when logging into the servers. I suppose it's possible that Warden's account protection features haven't been updated in 5 years.. after all, most of their efforts seem concentrated on trying to detect cheaters and botters (and build up a list of "Players To Be Banned").

Warden has been so ineffective in protecting users that Blizzard had to release the Authenticator token. It wouldn't take much though to get Warden to detect keyloggers and actually protect users, but that would cut into their Authenticator sales.

All of these facts point to a single truth: Blizzard is serious about detecting cheaters, but not serious about protecting the user. They want the return business after all. :)

Warden 2.0

In an earlier post, I had said:

"And because they can introduce the services any time they want, they only have to release them if they are showing poor performance for that quarter."

Coincidentally, Warden 2.0 was released on June 23, 2010 in the middle of the quarter when their profits were the lowest they've seen in 21 months.

There was a huge BLITZ on banning accounts, Blizzard got some good PR and gave the impression that they're making WoW safer for players and stopping hacks, but nothing has really changed at all. Banned players have re-activated their accounts and Blizzard received a massive spike in profits from the "returning players."

It's just like when police have "blitzes" themselves.. speeding blitz, unsafe vehicle blitz, sex trafficking blitz, drug blitz, etc. It's only effective that one time, there's never any follow up or consistency, and it's really just to rebuild confidence and address complaints. Nothing ever changes though. If Blizzard was serious about protecting honest users, bans would be permanent and based on the person not the account.

Warden 2.0 is a very clever alternative revenue stream for Blizzard.

Even though they can create new accounts at any time, botters, hackers, cheaters will always need to employ new methods to avoid detection however. Mostly because it's inconvenient when they get caught and they have to start from scratch. They never have any worries about not being able to play again.. it's just a renewed investment of time.

It's under Blizzard's best interest though to keep detection algorithms up to date however. The more players they can ban, the more reactivations there will be, and the more profit they reap. =]

tl;dr; Warden is an ineffective anti-cheating method by design and is employed as a means to reap profit.

You may start seeing some automating scripting software (paid or free) for Blizzard's web-based and mobile Auction House (Link) sometime in the near future.

Apparently, there's really no security protection in place other than Blizzard limiting the number of transactions per day (200). Blizzard is probably analyzing basic utilization trends to try and find automated activities but it won't be very successful. It can easily be defeated, however, by properly scheduling the script and using multiple accounts on different proxy servers.

A couple of my contacts in the "gold-exploitation" communities are saying that it's an excellent way to make gold, particularly Neutral AH sniping. They have been experimenting with a custom made AutoIT script and since there are no measures in place to detect scripting software, they're not too worried about getting caught. They've been stretching their search schedules to see how far they can push the bots without being detected, while also trying to emulate "real player" interactions (e.g. checking the AH, refreshing prices at random intervals, posting fake auctions, buying cheap stuff, etc.) They've been making about 50-100k gold per day, and they don't even have to be sitting at the PC. Far more efficient then boring grinding and other farming strategies. =]

It's pretty easy to create an AutoIT script too and at $3 per month for the Remote AH, it's definitely worth the investment considering that these guys alone are selling $150-$300 per day in gold (their estimates for the past week.) That amount is equivalent to a well-paying full time job ($50-100k per year) and that's only on two realms.. imagine if they expanded to multiple servers? They just wanted to say, "Thank you Blizzard for making gold exploitation so easy and safe!"

Of course, as competition increases their (the exploiters) profits will go down - but even then, there are still very few people even now that use automated scripts within the game to manipulate the AH system.

With the AH system now accessible through a web interface (rather than inside a moving/changing 3D world), it's so much easier to create scripts and bots with faster reaction time and without worry of detection.

In an earlier post, it was discovered that Blizzard was making quite a significant profit from banned players (botting & exploits). It looks like they have just introduced another new service that makes cheating activities even more accessible and allows them to make even MORE profit from cheaters.

Even if they get discovered and banned, even better! Their game subscription and Remote AH subscription expires at the end of the month - so they get to keep that revenue plus the amount made when they purchase a new account during that same time frame.

(Note: Depending on the response rate of the web-based AH versus the in-game AH, there might be opportunity for some interesting exploitation. So you might start seeing some new AH strategies popping up..)

If you're a honest player, though, here a couple tips that can keep you from being cheated by this new system:

• When you post auctions, set the price correctly the first time. Double-check before submitting! If you enter the wrong price, it can be sniped before you can retract it.
• If you're using the Neutral AH to transfer items from account-to-account, buy them out IMMEDIATELY. Do not wait for more than 20 seconds otherwise you're at risk of having your items taken. Even 20 seconds is a generous time frame.

Something very interesting just happened to me. And coincidentally enough, this also fits in with the ongoing Blizzard Series.

Back in 2006, I created a highly unusual and unique Gmail account that was used strictly for one of my WoW accounts (I own many). I didn't want any spam sent to the account, hence the reason for it's length and unique name.

Think something like: kaba23.blaaey.sphlnxtoo.blzzmain@gmail.com (This isn't the actual email address.)

The only place the email account name was ever "shared" was on my WoW Account. That was the entire purpose for the email address actually, for WoW only. The email address is not public, never used, and highly unique.

I should note that it's been 4 years now and I have never received even a single spam message on the Gmail account.

So here's what happened:

• I requested an automated password change from Battle.net (couldn't remember the WoW Login password).

• I logged into the Gmail account to reset the BNet password.

• I reactivated the old WoW account (which hasn't been active in 2.5 years mind you).

• Although I haven't received any spam messages in 4 years, I suddenly received one from a WoW Spammer approximately 3 hours after activating my WoW Account. I was shocked.

• This was all done from a very secure (and virtualized) PC and this is actually the very first WoW Spam message I've ever received on any of my Gmail accounts.

How on earth did they find me?

Is it possible that my email address was leaked by Blizzard (well, someone from Blizzard)? And why did I receive a spam message so quickly? Did I happen to request a password change at just the right time when transactions were being monitored?

One of the primary defenses that Blizzard supporters use (when questioned about internal account theft) is that GM/CS Forum Reps/etc do not ask for passwords, and that they do not have access to passwords and can only reset them.

I always get a chuckle whenever they use this defense.. mostly because their only exposure is to GMs/Support and they have no idea what goes on behind the curtain. GMs may not have access to passwords through their ugly-homegrown-support-interface, but they sure can see your email addresses or ask for them. Targeted WoW Account Phishing sure is a lot easier when you have a database of actual WoW users!

Sure, there are "security measures in place" for GMs/Support Users, but that same policy does not apply to the IT team, administrators, the policy creators, the CEO, and database admins who have raw access to account and billing information.

Are passwords actually encrypted at the database end? Consider this: the more complicated the encryption and security measures, the more time it takes to approve your password/account and login. How quickly can you login on a slow day? Also, certain email traffic isn't encrypted.. so it would be quite easy for an internal employee to sniff SMTP traffic for email addresses or intercept password reset URLs. Packet sniffing is monitored internally by the way, but there are always ways to avoid detection or at least capture. Some interesting things to think about.

On a related note, while digging through old Blizzard communications I came across some old work related to encryption that may interest you. A work colleague and I used to frequently discuss this topic and strategize new security methodologies. Right now he's doing some neat stuff that you should check out. Back around 2004-2005, I was on the hunt for a talented PHP coder to construct a web app built around a reputation system, where users could earn points much like Reddit. But, I wanted the points system to act as currency so that the users could trade or exchange the digital currency for merchandise. Security of the data was really important, and the site would need to reach a critical mass of users before ever being feasible however. Long story short, because it had to be decentralized, there was no way we would be able to do it through a website. We would need to potentially encrypt data amongst thousands of users so that records would be set in stone and ensure security of the points. Trust was paramount. I never ended up building the site, but a few months ago, he starting making some progress on the app thanks to some new stuff in peer-to-peer tech. He hacked some code together and has been working on an idea that we always wanted to do. It's like a P2P cash application and he explained in more detail here (it's only a few pages, and not a long read). If this interests you, you can download the latest 0.20 version here. Please note that this is still very early in development and buggy. But it's very cool to see this old idea some to fruition.

It's also interesting to note (while I'm on the subject of encryption and passwords) is that the reason GMs and Customer Support make a point that they'll "never ask for your account password" is because they already have FULL access to your account without your knowledge or permission. (As if your permission really matters though.)

It's actually quite common for a GM to login to your account to test issues, see if mods are interfering with your gameplay, or to fix problems while you're offline. So, if someone from Blizzard ever tells you that their employees don't have access to your account, that's completely untrue. They can login to and access it whenever they want.

Shortly after the Starcraft 2 Digital Download was made available by Blizzard, it was allegedly cracked by "vernam7" from the StarCrack team. You can check out the details on the Nibbits.com forum.


He says he can install the game and play all Single Player campaigns (cannot connect to B.Net obviously.)

Unfortunately, he's not allowing anyone access to the crack until the official release date (07-27).

This has resulted in a lot of anger and seething frustration amongst the Nibbits.com forum members, while others are applauding vernam7 for his choice not to release the crack.

Chances are that someone else will crack it before 07-27, someone always does. Although I'm not condoning this (I'm buying on 07-27 myself), please demonstrate precaution and be very careful what you download out there, there are plenty of people that will be releasing malicious code and keyloggers in the guise of a Starcraft 2 Retail Crack. Because of the mass anticipation, lots of people will be installing without confirming it's authenticity first. =]


A little background on vernam7:

He's the creator of the "sc2ALLin1 (Current Version: v9.9.0) Offline Starcraft 2 Beta Launcher/Tool". It's a user friendly launcher tool that allows you to play the SC2 beta offline, without CD-keys, load skirmish battles and watch replays. If you are in the beta, it also allows you to play WAN and downloads updates manually. He has been called a trusted member of the SC2 cracking scene by the Nibbits forum community, so there's a good chance that he has indeed cracked the digital download. Guess we'll find out on 07/27 though, or if it was all one giant crack-tease.

What's funny though, is that he really wanted to tell everyone that he cracked the Retail version but had no intention of giving it to anyone. We live in a society of instant gratification and self-entitlement, and he must have realized how the community would have reacted. It looks like he's getting a little upset and just wants everyone to drop the subject now though. =]



Forum User "Duke" writes:

For those that are waiting to pay for the retail version, here's a link to the Official Digital Download.

It's a 7GB installation package by the way.

If Blizzard was smart, though, they would have made the digital download a large (but incomplete) component of the total package and left critical files absent that would be downloaded as "updates" when the time comes. So, it would be possible to "crack the installer" to start the install the software, but it would still need to be download critical components of the package (ie, to decrypt the .MPQE files) or download key game-related files (without which, the game could not run at all.) Or maybe even a combination of both, so if the .MPQE files were decrypted, it would have been a complete waste of time since everything is time-locked at the server end anyways. (Unless they can patch the retail back together using beta files.)

Update (07/16/10)

Looks like a couple other individuals have also claimed to have cracked the Digital Download version of Starcraft 2. I'm waiting for confirmation (they say it's very simple process, but there's no automated executable at the moment.) However, they might be referring to just cracking the install package. The scene groups haven't started working on the crack yet. Meanwhile, Vernam7 is being criticized on the Nibbits & Darkblizz forums for not releasing the crack, but has provided basic instructions on what he did to crack the retail version.

Update (07/19/10)

Vernam7 has created a forum to discuss questions related to the SC2 retail crack, unfortunately most of his time seems to be spent deleting troll posts. Link: http://sc2.nibbits.com/forums/29/view/907/about-starcraft-ii-retail-crack

Yesterday, he wrote: "soon an anonymous user will upload a retail crack......."

Update (07/20/10)

Has now been two days since Vernam7 promised that an "anonymous user" would release the retail crack. If he could elaborate on what "soon" means, that might be helpful.

Update (07/22/10)

Vernam7 has been "cleaning house" on all of the Starcraft 2 forums, and removing various posts related to his crack and promises. It appears that hundreds of forum posts have suddenly gone missing. How very disappointing..


I'm guessing what probably happened was that he simply changed the appearance of the installer (.xml edit) and believed he had suddenly made progress in "cracking" the game. He got so excited, he posted his news to everyone on the forums before fulling testing. But then he realized shortly after words that he still couldn't install the game, and because he had already posted the news (and got everyone excited) and didn't want to disappoint his fans or apologize - so he simply claimed "ethical reasons" not to release the crack. Funny how someone's personal ethics are so easily malleable: it's ethical to hack one version of SC2, but not another version. =]

As Nu would say, "This is my belief! At least for now..."

Update (07/26/10)

Still no word from Vernam7, not that it matters now that the Retail DVD is out. It's really too bad - I had such high hopes that Vernam7 was indeed telling the truth about the digital download crack. But since he hasn't been able to provide a shred of evidence to back up his claim, it doesn't appear that is original statement was accurate.

Just a note to comment posters, please don't attach Retail Authentication codes or links to the new retail crack. I'm just reporting on Vernam7's claims, because it's interesting news. 

But, I already have my SC2 pre-order and didn't want any pirated material in this post. =]
Vernam7 is currently testing a means of using the SC2ALLIN1 tool with the retail DVD (ie, tricking the beta launcher into loading the retail maps.) It's not a crack for the digital download as promised, but for those that are comfortable with registry tweaks, it might make it possible to play some of the map files that come with the retail DVD. Save function may or may not work, it still requires testing - and other than that, you're pretty much just loading map files like the beta launcher so you're not really doing the proper single player campaigns. Now that the retail DVD is out though, you should see a proper crack for it from the scene groups.

Another update:

He's currently writing in the forums that there is no launcher nor any crack for the retail yet. 

He's working on creating one right now. So.. if he's starting to make a crack now (that he finally has the retail), I guess that confirms that his announcement made almost 2 weeks ago was indeed false.

Update (07/27/10)


It's not exactly clear whether this will fully unlock SC2 Digital Download or if it just allows skirmish play. However, he did mention a full automatic crack being worked on over the next few days.

Another update: The manual crack is now available on his webpage (for enGB only, the rest will be released after he gets some sleep) and there's a lot of excitement (e.g. "Ha! Told you he could do it!" etc.), but I really hope it's not the executables from the Retail DVD. He promised a crack for the Digital Download that he already had as is. Sil3nt-de4th has been posting a link to Vernam7's crack on various torrent webpages, so you'll see plenty of links to the crack in the wild.

(Funny Note: Silentdeath has been accused many times on the forums for being Vernam7's alias. Not sure if there's any truth to that though. There's always been a lot of drama on the Nibbits forum for some reason..)

So anyways, if anyone can test the manual crack and confirm, please let me know if it fully unlocked your Digital Download - allowing full Campaign play, with cinematics and Save/Load features. (Not a "Guest" account, or simply a map/skirmish launcher like the current SC2ALLIN1 Beta launcher.) I'm sure others would like to know..

Confirmed: Save/Load and other critical features are not working as of yet. He'll be working on it later.

Yet another cleanup of the forum posts is being done. All of the "bad" posts are being removed (ie, features not working, crashes, can't quit, etc.) and all of the "good" posts are being kept. Vernam7's crack is now on several torrent webpages, however some other individuals are taking credit for the crack. So, exercise caution if you download from torrent webpages, they're not the original and may contain malicious code.

Update (07/28/10)

The "final crack" has been released on the Nibbits forum (there's a link since they removed the file from the forum so that they're not hosting the file anymore). All languages are supported and save/load are supposed to work using a work-around launcher to get into the campaign missions. No word on a scene release of the Retail DVD. It's too bad the Digital Download was never actually cracked back when it first came out.. it required the boxed retail package to come out before anyone really attempted cracking the software.

Update (07/28/10)

The RELOADED crack is now out, it opens up full offline functionality of the software (e.g. save/load, quitting the game, campaigns, cutscenes, map editor, multilanguage, etc.) So, no more worries about registry tweaks and crashing/bugs from the modified beta launcher.

Summary

So, it looks like my guess has been confirmed. The original Digital Download was never actually cracked by Vernam7, he simply bypassed some install menu items by editing unencrypted .MPQ files to show a different display. Vernam7 later confirmed on the forums that he didn't actually start work on the crack until he received the real Starcraft 2 Retail Box which he pre-ordered and received the day before 07-27 (which is when he _really_ started work on the crack.) He utilized his existing beta launcher and tricked it into thinking the retail package was still the beta software, allowing him to launch campaign maps.

Another interest note. In his "I have ethics" post, he stated that he would never give out any spoilers (screenshots, etc). However, he started posting on the forums that he would Private Message select Nibbits users with spoilers. Talk about contradictory. The "select users" were obviously excited, thinking that he had provided them "secret information" from the game - but it was actually data pulled from the official SC2 Manual that was stored in the unencrypted .MPQ file and from the online SC2 Cinematics on Youtube. ALL of the ingame SC2 cinematics were available on YouTube on July 24 by the user "christos75". Let's just say there were a LOT of big spoilers. He later had to pull all of the videos because of a possible DMCA complaint.


.. and so ends the history of Vernam7's crack. A wonderful tale of a troll who kept everyone on the edge of their seats for almost 2 weeks waiting for some form of confirmation, and when a semi-functional-tricked-out-beta-launcher was finally released, it was ultimately stolen and taken credit by another individual calling his group "LIBERTY".

This (now boring) period of history shall now be forgotten in the dim recesses of time.