Take this with a fistful of salt, but one Diablo 3 gold farmer is alleging that, as of last week, there were 10,000 Diablo 3 accounts running automated scripts to illegitimately farm gold for sale. In an interview with one Markeedragon, the farmer claimed to personally manage 200 such accounts, netting himself a cool 60 million gold per hour. But if his numbers are to be believed, how many of these 10,000 accounts were sniffed out during Blizzard’s round of account suspensions yesterday?
The interview makes for some awkward viewing, as the gold farmer uses a laborious text-to-speech translator, gives half-answers and (ironically enough) criticises Blizzard’s lack of vigilance when it comes to catching gold farmers. There is some fascinating insight into the processes involved, however, such as the rapid speed with which farmers level characters to Inferno (around two days, he claims) before they automate them, leaving them active and collecting 24 hours a day.
Also described are the nefarious means by which most player accounts are compromised too, with hackers preying on players who use the same password across multiple sites. Accessing Battle.net logins in this caseis as straightforward as finding the Diablo fansite with the weakest security, a cautionary tale if ever there was one. Blizzard’s security, on the other hand, is “bullet-proof”, the farmer claims.
Diablo3Markets carries a full transcript of the interview. See if you can watch the whole thing before you sprint off to change your Habbo Hotel log-in details. And why notinstall a Battle.net authenticator, if you haven’t already? While you’re at it, your back windows aren’t very secure, have you thought about new locks? Perhaps some double glazing?