Online game firms have gotten very artistic in terms of punishing cheaters, from reducing their parachutes’ strings in Name of Responsibility to blowing them up in Grand Theft Auto On-line. However Valve simply set a brand new benchmark for trolling gamers: sending them permabans wrapped up like Christmas presents.
The seasonal savagery was found by professional Dota 2 participant and streamer Mason “mason” Venne. He opened the Dota 2 consumer to see what seemed like a shock present from Valve. When he opened it, nevertheless, the sport revealed a “extremely poisonous lump of coal” that immediately permabanned him for “smurfing,” aka taking part in on a secondary account to bypass the sport’s skill-based matchmaking guidelines.
“What?” Venne shouted after the present was revealed. “I acquired banned?” A message appeared on-screen notifying him he was blocked from queuing for matches. Right here’s the second clipped from his latest Twitch stream (by way of Polygon):
Valve alluded to one thing like this in Dota 2’s latest Frostivus 2023 replace. “There’s no sense denying it,” the corporate wrote. “King Kringle is aware of. He’s checked your conduct rating twice, and he’s coming together with his ban hammer to pulverize the smurf accounts of all of the naughty girls and boys, earlier than handing out penalties to their related predominant accounts.”
Smurfing is a standard apply in aggressive multiplayer video games wherein expert gamers open contemporary accounts for the chance to dunk on lower-level gamers. It’s enjoyable and entertaining for livestreams, until you’re on the receiving finish, or when you’re Valve and making an attempt to take care of the integrity and equity of your second-most-popular on-line sport. In September, earlier than this newest wave, the corporate revealed it banned 90,000 cheaters for indulging within the apply.
A contemporary batch of alleged Dota 2 cheaters have been discovering out that the ban hammer is again. The sport’s subreddit is stuffed with folks getting hit without warning lumps of poisonous coal. Whereas many followers are having fun with the chaos, some thus-afflicted gamers are begging for his or her accounts again. Venne is one in every of them.
“I’ve performed Dota for 13 years,” he wrote. “ I’ve by no means as soon as cheated, by no means abused a bug, by no means abused any type of MMR tips.” However the professional did admit to briefly shopping for a bootleg third-party “conduct booster” to enhance his rating for in-game communication and staying optimistic and cordial. That’s an enormous no-no.
“I’ve by no means in my 13 years of taking part in Dota 2 ever completed something like this, and once I realized it felt unsuitable and was the unsuitable method to go about issues, I finished it, sadly you may’t undo a mistake you made,” he wrote. “I’m asking for a second likelihood, as a result of I’ll by no means do something like this once more, and I by no means have up to now.”
‘Tis the season for forgiveness. We’ll discover out simply how beneficiant Valve is feeling.