What is right and what is wrong to do in Diablo II

[Dalfaldor]

This is morality question. I want to play fair in Diablo II. What I can do and what is "no no!"

In short examination it is very simple. Play clean Diablo II alone, without installing any other programs, that affect it, and you will be 100% legit in Single Player. Do the same with friends on a realm -- you will be 100% legit Battle.net player.

After better examination you may find several controversial issues. I mean playing and trading in public games.

Issue #1. Say for example, I would be playing alone in Battle.net for a while and found Good Crown of Ages in my quest Ball drop. Then I would come in public game "Trading HC" and sold it for Enigma from a person, whom I see in the first time in my life. Legal? (Assuming we don’t know that the Jah and Ber came from known duper.)

Issue #2. (This is imagination again as well as all other issues here. I don’t do this in real.) I was playing my Barb and was lucky at my Hell Hellforge and got Ist! I entered public "Europe Hardcore" channel, and posted "Need IK Arm Offer Ist". Then I got unidentified set Sacred Armor for my Ist. Legal? (Assuming we don't know that this IK armor was found by Bot and stashed unidentified)

Issue #3. I entered a Normal difficulty public game "Mule Parking" with my fresh level 1 character and found unidentified set ring on a floor in the middle of Rogue's Encampment. My Id scroll said that it is Angelic Ring and I saved it until level 12. Legal? (Assuming we don't know that this ring was found by Map Hack user, who did Andariel quest, accidentally grabbed the ring, then dropped it near stash since he realized that he need nether Angelic no Cathan's stuff.)

Issue #4. I created a new char then entered a public game "Act 1 For All". There I found a uber twinked character who owned everything. I did nothing but leached experience and helped him with Might Aura. Legal? (Assuming we don't know that he is Map Hack, Bot, Dupe and multi-CD-key user.)

Share your thought, please, and tell me if I forgot anything.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

You forgot plenty...
Here's a big one: Joining any baal run, letting a sorc port for you - almost every sorc will be using MH. Not sure if this is still the case after the recent banning, but in general.

How about exploits? Many people argue one man's exploit is another's feature. Some are more blatant than others, but where is the line drawn? For instance the marrow bug from 1.10, eth bug from 1.09, and others like those two were widely used, a current example would be the bug with eth armours to boost the defence... compare these to the 99 skill angelic bug, dupe methods that don't involve 3rd party programs, account theft via creating same name on different realm, tppk, etc... At what point does an exploit stop becoming arguably a feature and start becoming cheating?

Then there's running 2 characters at the same time - can be done without 3rd party programs easily, but at the same time the tos says to not create/maintain more than one connection to b.net at a time.

What about muling? I don't want to start that particular arguement again, but it can be argued that muling is against the intent of the game's designers, and that can be construed as cheating. And if muling is found to be legit on b.net, would the use of a 3rd party program such as atma to accomplish it on sp still be considered cheating?

There's plenty more... I made a rather long thread on it a couple years ago... basically it's up to you to draw the line where you feel like it, so long as you aren't using hacks on closed realms don't worry too much about it, just go with what feels right to you - if you go too far people aren't likely to be your friend, but mostly they're fairly tolerant so long as you aren't blatantly cheating.

Edit: Just read your other post, I thought you might be concerned over what other people thought of your habits... it looks more like you're concerned over the habits of others. I maintain that you should just go with what feels right to you, but instead of going to far one way and having others not want to play with you you might want to consider not going too far the other way if you want to play with other people. Playing in a game with someone using possibly duped runes in an Enigma isn't really going to ruin your playing experience as much as cutting off all contact with anyone who ever trades would.

[McCain123]

I personally don´t have a problem with one of these four, for the following reasons.

1) Finding a CoA means, that you either did thousands of mf-runs or were increadible lucky. You can´t say for sure, that the runes in the enigma were earned in a non legal way, aswell as the enigma owner can´t be sure that your CoA is legal. Trading is part of the game and restrincing yourself here will reduce your fun at the game.

2) Same here as in 1.

3) Come on, a green ring? O.K. I get your point, but as in the first two points you can´t be sure that this was earned non legal. I sometimes pick up crappy items aswell and throw them away in town and I play without third party programs.

4) You will loose a funny part of the game if you get rushed and I avoid it often, but sometimes you just want to try out a strange build and not everyone doing you the favour of a rush is a cheater.

[Dalfaldor]

OK. I understand.

Let me ask some more questions, please.

My friend is a very old Bot user. He also uses Map Hack since the time it was invented. (BTW he is very nice, this is why we are friends. We make a kind of bet. If I could make a good character without any cheat, he will drop everything he has in "Free 4 All" game and will never cheat again).
He like to clean Bot finds in games like "Act 1 New" games. He checks what Bot found and drops unneeded items on ground, e. c. +1 Arcaine's, 10% MF Tal belts, poor MF Chances, low dexterity Ravens, etc.

You mean that it is legit to take such items for free?

I just checked ATMA Drop calculator. With 500% MF Pindelskin has 1:22 421 chance to drop Crown of Ages. Isual has 1:585 297 chance to drop Jah. So in theory legit Enigma should be as rare as 100 CoA. But as far as I know middle Enigma is about equal to middle CoA on market. I am sure everyone know why. Still legit?

Another example. Player X is building a legit HC ladder untwinked char. Player Y is SC non-ladder old time duper and has 10 accounts, full of SoJs. They don’t know each other. However Player Y start to sell his dupped SoJs to make DC walk. At the same time Player X is playing Hell difficulty on a server with the same IP address, He is good Zealer and when Player Y will sell enough SoJs, Player X finds Diablo Clone and gets "legit" Annihilus. Still legit? Even when he got it for selling duped SoJs?
Trust me, it is possible. Europe realm has only 79 servers IIRC, each of them runs all kinds of Diablo II games. I got several Diablo Clones for knowing the right IP and how to find the right IP. Read this guide: http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=223863
Personally I think that this technique is illegal because it involves 2 third party programs: IRC client to know the right IP and "netstat" program to find it.

[Baranor]

Hello Mr. Pointless! Meet Mr. Discussion!

[McCain123]

Hello Mr. Pointless! Meet Mr. Discussion!
:grin:

Baranor has a point here. If you want to be sure, that all your items are 100% legit, play single player. As far as playing in bnet goes, don´t use third party programes and follow your own limitations.

[PhatTrumpet]

Discussions like this seem to come and go with the seasons. This one appears to be more about the concept of "legit" than the concept of "morals" (see the recently closed TPPK thread for a discussion on morals).

The fact of the matter is that in order to play completely legit on closed bnet, you really have to go out of your way and deny yourself of many of the benefits of online play. Most people don't think they should have to go out of their way to have fun with a computer game, so they play with potential botters/maphackers and trade for potentially duped/botted gear. Their justification is that you can't know for sure whether that item/person is legit or not when in actuality there's at least a 95% chance it/he/she isn't legit. Somewhat of a weak excuse, but I can't say I blame them (I've gotten a bit lazy myself, doing a few trades on d2sjp and getting an Ohm for my Sorc's CtA). Even this site has given in and allowed the trading of duped runes.

Like Mousey said, it's ultimately about the standards you choose to hold yourself to and how you enjoy playing the game.

As for the DClone thing, I brought this up a while back just to see what people thought of it. The general concensus is that Blizzard implemented the SOJ selling concept knowing that people would sell duped SOJs, and maybe even dupe SOJs for the sole purpose of selling them to vendors. In a sense they're saying, "We know duping goes on and there's not much we can do about it, so let's make a game feature to get rid of some of the dupes." Again, in order to completely avoid benefitting from dupes in this instance you would essentially have to deny yourself of ever having an Annihilus charm.

[Dalfaldor]

Still I am not sure. Is there at least raw definition what is cheat and what is not?

Just don’t use third party programs, right? :)

The rest is OK. Point?

[McCain123]

Just don’t use third party programs, right? :)

The rest is OK. Point?

From my point of view: Yes.
From the point of the view of the majority on this board: Yes.

Some will have more strict limitations to themselves.

[PhatTrumpet]

Still I am not sure. Is there at least raw definition what is cheat and what is not?
Read the rules (http://www.battle.net/tou.shtml).

[waflob]

Personally I think that this technique is illegal because it involves 2 third party programs: IRC client to know the right IP and "netstat" program to find it.
This really is going too far (imvho). Netstat is delivered with the operating system, ffs ! It doesn't have anything to do with the game. If you're going to go at it like that, then where do you draw the line ? Not using a decent modern mouse, because it requires a driver program to make it work ?!?!?! Ditto graphic card ?!?!?!

DelBoy (who is 2 cents poorer now)

[MoUsE_WiZ]

I just checked ATMA Drop calculator. With 500% MF Pindelskin has 1:22 421 chance to drop Crown of Ages. Isual has 1:585 297 chance to drop Jah. So in theory legit Enigma should be as rare as 100 CoA. But as far as I know middle Enigma is about equal to middle CoA on market. I am sure everyone know why. Still legit?

Actually this one is justifiable as legit for a few reasons:
1) cubing runes - Jah isn't as rare as that 1:X any more, but CoA still is.
2) Jah in enigma < Jah - there are uses for Jah other than Enigma, once a rune is put into a runeword it DOES lose value (with exceptions being runewords where the important stat varies significantly, eg 6 BO CTA)
3) It is not practical to trade an HR if you use a value such as 100:1, and many people who would legitimately find an HR would rather have a few pieces of good gear than an enigma, so they trade it for what they can get

Proof of the above was shown fairly early in the current ladder season on useast before dupes started showing up (or at least when dupes were rare enough that you could tell yourself they weren't dupes without being incredibly naive). I don't believe an Enigma at that point was as low as CoA, but that isn't really my point... if it cost 30 ists to build your Enigma, and 9 ists to buy a CoA, then 3x CoA would be ~= Enigma (as the enigma loses value once it stops being Jah+Ber). Yeah, duped runes do lower the price of runewords, but not by nearly as much as your 100:1 would imply. I personally still avoid them because that's what's fun for me, I also consider trading for/using duped runes to be cheating, just not to an extent that I'm going to worry much about.

Edit: The dclone issue - if netstat and irc are 3rd party programs, so is using this website as a resource to share other information about the game.

[Dalfaldor]

Thanks for the clarifications, all! You helped me a lot.

If one plays without cheats, finds Items 1 and trades it for Item 2, it is not important where Item 2 came from, is it?

If Player 1 plays without cheats and team with Player 2, it is not important how Player 2 played before, unless he is using a cheat in this game, right?

[Baranor]

Depends on your POV... I never trade with anyone on bnet, apart for crap items not worth duping or even keeping unless you're a poor sob. Expensive items? Either my friends have them, or I don't trade for them. My friends are people that have been on battlenet with me since 2002 or earlier, whom I know I can trust.

[PhatTrumpet]

Thanks for the clarifications, all! You helped me a lot.

If one plays without cheats, finds Items 1 and trades it for Item 2, it is not important where Item 2 came from, is it?

If Player 1 plays without cheats and team with Player 2, it is not important how Player 2 played before, unless he is using a cheat in this game, right?
For the last time, we're not going to tell you how to play the game just as much as we're not going to tell you how to live your life... or how religious you should be, or whether you should participate in pre-marital sex, or underage drinking, or cow tipping. You're free to make your own choices. Freedom is a great thing. Use it; enjoy it; appreciate it.

[Hp_Sauce]

Freedom is a great thing. Use it; enjoy it; appreciate it.

Don't abuse it though! Or you might be one of the 30,000 people banned next time! :wink3:

-hps

[schyler]

I agree...online gaming will never be legit again....people are left to fend for their own morals. I only wish I had realized this back when the first bot came out for text based MMORGs :cry: If I had known the days of legitness where winding down I would have played more often and enjoyed games while they were still clean.

[Kilmin]

:grin:

Baranor has a point here. If you want to be sure, that all your items are 100% legit, play single player. As far as playing in bnet goes, don´t use third party programes and follow your own limitations.
Or you could become friends with Xey if he still played and trade with him, he is a master legit player.

[Hp_Sauce]

Or you could become friends with Xey if he still played and trade with him, he is a master legit player.

You're sure the runes he had in the enigma's he had on his poison necro, and on his zerk barb were legit?

I mean, I love xey as much as the next guy... but still.

-hps

[MoUsE_WiZ]

After the infinity Xey stopped caring so much is what I hear.

[PhatTrumpet]

You're sure the runes he had in the enigma's he had on his poison necro, and on his zerk barb were legit?
Add Wind Druid to that list.

[Still-Xey-Lover]

As passionate as you are about this game, it's still only a game. Don't think about stuff like that too much and just have fun with it. :smiley: