StarCraft 2 Cheat Codes Officially Revealed

Black Sheep Wall

The Gathering!!

No Secret Cow Level reference? FOR SHAME Blizzard!

Well congrats Blizzard, you caught up with how everyone else has been doing it for almost a decade.

You know they've had cheat codes in every game to date except for WoW and maybe Diablo right?

My life for Aiur!!

wth? i got these codes from gamefaqs four months ago

Like Ramar said, but somehow it seems some companies sometimes unlearn what has been done by other companies for years.

Anybody recall Half-Life 2 godmode; noclip, etc; they don't give you achievements, but it can be a lot of fun to browse the scenery in ways you otherwise couldn't.

So wait, Blizzard originally forgot to design StarCraft II to properly handle its own cheat codes? Sounds like a colossal failure of thought. I really hope that's not been the case. In either way, even allowing the media to THINK that players would be banned for cheating in single-player is troublesome. Worse so that, given the draconian DRM the game uses, banning a player means effectively bricking their copy of the game, which is patently illegal under the First Sale Doctrine. That's the same sort of thing Amazon got in trouble for earlier with deleting customer's Kindle books; EULAs cannot change that.

As for how everyone else has been doing it, it's been MORE than a decade; I recall the first Descent Freespace game, which has been out for near 13 years, (March 1998) doing a similar thing: using any cheat code on a mission would let you get to the end of it, but the mission debriefing would decry you as a cheater, and refuse to let you advance; you had to re-do the mission. And even earlier, the original Descent game, (Feb 1995, ~16 years ago) would let you play through with cheats... But your score would be automatically locked at zero as soon as you used one.

Perhaps 6 years of nothing but WoW HAS drained their ability to think of anything but. Or, more likely, it's that not only does Bobby Kotick (CEO of Activision-Blizzard) doesn't play THEIR OWN games, perhaps he doesn't play any games at all, and hence has absolutely zero understanding of the subject whatsoever.

What's really funny is that people still don't understand this. This is the same line that Blizzard's been running the whole time. From what I understand they haven't changed positions, they haven't made a mistake in the game. They created cheat codes in the game just like they've done for years. Those are fine to use. They've said that over and over again.
What they don't want is third party hacks, cheats, etc. being used because, in theory (if not in practice), that allows a player to earn achievements with an unfair advantage over other players. Since the game is tied to online play and, therefore, global rankings, if those kinds of cheats were allowed, there would be no possible way to accurately determine player rankings.
What Blizzard has done, makes sense. What's unfortunate, is that people jump to conclusions and then promote hype and hysteria rather then evaluating what actually has been said. Read, think, then speak.

Any info on how many S2 copies were sold so far?

hell of a band

Blizzard has been doing cheats like this since at least 1998, and they've never gotten you banned. I don't understand what your referring to.

And did you think your comment even added anything? ...Aside from demonstrating that you didn't bother to read anything, and sit there smug thinking yourself clever, of course.

Yeheey. My son will surely love this. thanks.

glitteringprizes Oh wait, wrong Blizzard game. How about allyourbasearebelongtous

For one, I'd note that your constant stream of insults is, at best, skirting the rules of conduct for these comments... You CAN be civil, no? If you'd actually read around, rather than reading through your Blizzard-tinted glasses, you'd know well enough I certainly aren't some "moron." Whether I'm a threat to your fanatical Blizzard fanboyism has no bearing on my intellect, while I'd note you can't even use proper grammar. ("hacks... is not allowed"?)

Secondly, if you'd actually bothered to read my comment, I allowed for multiple things Blizzard could have done, including those in the "Heil Kotick!" crowd like yourself. I DID say that the mere fact that Blizzard ALLOWED the press to stay circulating confused rumors for so long is a major failure on their part. A far more professional company, (like, say, Microsoft) would have immediately raised the alarm as soon as they say something like this, and made sure that any false ideas were THOROUGHLY debunked.

The fact that we have an article like this on Tom's so long after the fact demonstrates a PR failure on Blizzard's part. No matter how much a "true fan" you may be, that doesn't change the facts: Blizzard could've handled this whole situation FAR better than they did. You can be a fanboy and claim that Blizzard does everything perfectly, vote me down (like the other rabid pro-Kotick fanboys) to prove your loyalty, but that doesn't stop you from being incorrect.

lol, umm, fyi, it has been like this SINCE LAUNCH!

the cheats have been available, and they have disabled your achievement earning ability while you use them.

its simply the customer service reps who are n00bs.

poweroverwhelming

You should also realize that if Blizzard only tries to market StarCraft II to those loyal fans that have been camping their forums daily, then the game is bound to fail. The problem here is that for the vast majority of the gaming world that DOESN'T make up the hardcore Blizzard fandom, they rely on sources vastly more mainstream than forums to get their news. Since, IIRC, Blizzard's forums require you submit proof you already own a copy of a Blizzard game to join, that makes it not a very good source for those who want to learn things about a game before potentially buying it.

Not reaching out to correct media mistakes is one of the oldest PR screw-ups in the book. It doesn't matter if some will know that the rumors are false: what matters is that for those on the outside, they'll take them as true, and Blizzard did a poor job of stepping in to stop this from happening. It's something they should've fired their head of PR over. Undoubtedly at least some people were scared away from buying a copy of the game (or at least buying it so soon) due to all the controversy heard. This is a sensitive subject that a company needs to appear clear and decisive on... And Blizzard let things appear far more cloudy than that.



You'd trust (or "thrust" I suppose) journalists because they're not supposed to have a conflict of interest. It's a well-known fact that a company will lie if necessary to make themselves look good in any situation. An example that pops to mind was the Xbox 360's infamous RROD scandal: for months, Microsoft denied it, and claimed it was all due to user mishandling; they knew they were lying, but they were hoping they could get away with it.

For those loyal fans that only listened to Microsoft, that's the only story they would've heard until they changed their tune... And hence they would've been taken entirely by surprise by it. Similar tales go for countless other product-makers. A strong parallel comes with the iPhone 4: Apple blaming users for their own design failures, before finally acknowledging the problem.

In both cases, those that trusted the media over the corporation with a vested interest in making themselves look good knew what was really happening far before the loyal fans had the news broken to them. So it's no surprise that the same logic gets applied here: Activision-Blizzard has a vested interest in making sure they look good, even if Bobby Kotick seems to be very good at doing the opposite. Hence, it's logical to not put them above telling some white lies.

lol, cheat codes that you'll know will disable your progress

its like blizzard are going to shoot you, and you have two options:
1| you choose where they can shoot you and get on to another looser
2| you take the gun and shoot yourself, mind you if you try to shoot them, the gun'll take your head off with the guns slide accelerating towards you

operationcwal - build that thing already!

And in other news...

A SC2 deathmatch.

Smochina vs nottheking.

Place your bets.

I like Jaynestown - Firefly reference FTW.

ophelia

"sometimes players need God Mode or Instant Victory"

Uh, no they don't. Only crappy players need cheats. I have often wondered why they put them in games at all. All I can come up with it, they need simple ways to test in-game changes without having to play a full game, and they leave the cheats in for poor players who just cannot get the job done without cheating. At least they have disables achievements for those who use the cheats. Good on them.

One last thing. Someone said this: "You should also realize that if Blizzard only tries to market StarCraft II to those loyal fans that have been camping their forums daily, then the game is bound to fail"

Sorry to burst your bubble, but since pretty much all the Blizzard games have been huge successes including Warcraft (not WoW), Diablo 1 & 2, and Star Craft, I highly doubt this game will fail even if Blizzard just depended on their fans to purchase it. Much like Apple can count on the iZombies to purchase anything they make, Blizzard can count on their fans to keep them in the black.