Blizzard Sends Cease-And-Desists To Diablo 2: Resurrected Modders

Image: Blizzard

Several mods for last month’s Diablo II: Risen alpha test were recently taken offline following a wave of cease and desist letters. One creator says Blizzard even went so far as to send a private investigator to his home to serve the warning in person.

Blizzard “Technical alpha” for Diablo II: Resurrected – a content-limited, invitation-only solo experience that lasted just a few days – practically required to be pushed, pushed and datamined. And modders were forced to produce tools shortly after the alpha went live in April that allowed users to unlock classes that were not playable in the first version, play the game offline. without invitation to technical alpha, to play the game after the end of the test period, and even access multiplayer through unofficial servers.

“My tool, D2ROffline, was originally designed to simply bypass the integrity checks that are part of the anti-cheat to prevent patching the client”, Belgian programmer Ferib Hellscream Kotaku said. “I ended up sharing it with a few friends and other modders so they didn’t have to go through all the hassle I had to go through. Unfortunately, someone leaked my tool, and before I knew it people started trading my tool for cash. So I ended up opening the project in open source.

In a blog post deleted since April 12 (still readable on Archive.org) titled “Inviting Myself to The Diablo II: Resurrected Closed Alpha”, Ferib explained the process of bypassing the game’s anti-cheat system, facilitated by the fact that the alpha files were easily accessible on Blizzard’s servers without invitation. After a few hours of porting a previous World of Warcraft anti-cheat bypass he had written, which opened the door to modifying the alpha code, D2ROffline was born. Ferib eventually made multiplayer work and hosted a small private server that allowed other adventurers to join his game. Traffic reports seen by Kotaku show that the project’s GitHub page received over 100,000 visitors in just a few days.

Ferib’s work on the Diablo II: Resurrected hack paved the way for several mods, the most notable being D2RModding. Released by a developer named Shalzuth on April 19, D2RModding blew up the alpha version, unlocking previously unplayable classes and making widespread modification of Diablo II: Resurrected files possible for anyone looking to customize the game.

Both projects have been, perhaps inevitably, affected by cease and desist letters over the past two weeks. Shalzuth, who lives in the US, received his through a private investigator hired by Blizzard to make the delivery, an obvious bullying tactic that Shalzuth nonetheless ignored in my conversation with him.

“I understand that any big company would do this, to help protect them,” Shalzuth told Kotaku. “I had friends for brunch so they had a blast [private investigator] knock on my door. He said people would hire him from time to time to find people and serve papers or legal documents, asked for a picture of me holding the documents, and then he was on his way. It was quick and cordial overall.

“At this point, I’m not worried as long as I comply and continue to comply with what Blizzard wants,” he added.

The consequences for Ferib and Shalzuth are both immediate and long term, starting with the removal of the projects from their respective websites. Separately, Ferib removed a handful of YouTube videos regarding his tools, as well as previous work regarding World of Warcraft, while Shalzuth shut down the Diablo II: Resurrected channel on his Discord server.

“We recognize that a big part of Diablo II’s longevity is the modding community and we appreciate their enthusiasm for the game,” a Blizzard representative told Kotaku via email. “Classic Diablo II and its mods will continue to exist and we will do our best to continue to support mods for Diablo II: Resurrected as well. That said, some mods are atypical and pose security threats to our games. has always been a top priority for us and programs that could pose major safety concerns will not be tolerated. ”

As to whether Ferib intends to continue modifying the remaster when it is officially released later this year, he said a cease-and-desist condition was to halt all developments related to the Remaster entirely. Activision Blizzard games. Shalzuth, on the other hand, understood that he only needed to avoid violating Blizzard’s EULA and copyright in the future to prevent Baal’s eye from falling on him again.

“Definitely, as far as Blizzard allows,” Shalzuth said when asked if he plans to modify Diablo II: Resurrected after launch. “They plan to have real mod support going forward, and if there are any gaps in their modding toolset, I plan to fill those gaps with custom tools for the community.”