The topic of cheating has come up in many different circles around the Diablo 3 community. I’ve seen people talking about it at DiabloFans, IncGamers and just about every other major D3 forum. The question originates from the fear of Diablo 3 turning into another Diablo 2. In the old Diablo duping and cheating was easy to do. Even I had downloaded a “trainer” at one point, loaded it up and changed my character’s stats.

To really evaluate cheating in Diablo 3, it’s a good idea to look back at old Blizzard games to see how well Blizzard prevented it in them. Diablo 2 is history, everyone knows that it was overran by various cheat programs, so we’ll go straight to WoW.

Cheating in WoW

There are basically 3 ways to cheat in WoW (or so I’ve gathered). You can use speed hacks to increase how fast you move. The idea is that your client controls where you are and then checks your position with the server. This allows players to farm faster to find more minerals or herbs. As far as I know and as many contest, this is still possible in WoW but risks you getting banned.

WoW has also been plagued with fish botters. These guys use third party programs to fish while they are not at their computer. This results in a completely automated way of making gold. Leave your computer on all day, send the resulting fish to your character and sell them. It might also be why fishing isn’t very profitable in WoW. Blizzard has taken some measures against these third party programs to reduce their use, but they have not eliminated them.

The third way in WoW was to run PvP bots that would earn you honor in battlegrounds like AV. This could be as simple as a macro program preventing you from going AFK or be as complex as an advanced third party program that controls your character. Either way the results was a way to earn automated honor to gear up your character. Blizzard has done next to nothing to prevent this.

You might consider a fourth way of cheating in WoW, which was to buy gold from gold farmers (other cheaters), with real money. This is basically legalized and regulated by Blizzard in Diablo 3.

Cheating in Diablo 3

Will players be able to speed hack in D3? So far there ARE reports of players using third party programs to bypass obstacles and potentially move quicker in D3. This is, reportedly, how a player got past the gates last week and discovered all the extra content in the beta. Has Blizzard done something to maintain the integrity of a character’s location in the Diablo world? Based on this evidence it seems like Blizzard isn’t doing enough (unless we assume this was a big publicity stunt by Blizzard) to completely suppress speed hackers.

How about botting in Diablo 3? There are already third party programs, mentioned above and others, that control and scrape information from the Diablo 3 client. There’s really no stopping this. We will see D3 bots. I just don’t see them being very effective. Considering random maps and complex playing mechanics it wont’ be easy to create something that can play without human interaction. However, considering gold is so easy to farm in some scenarios (see my Royal Crypts farming video) I’m sure botters will have some level of success.

Duping in Diablo 3

How about duping? This ruined the old Diablo games, will it ruin Diablo 3? I’m not sure about ruining it, but there have been at least 4 unique reports of duping in the beta. These are very prolific and not isolated reports. I have seen at least one strategy described myself and many players have seen numerous identical items posted at the same price on the auction house.

In the absents of these reports I would have said there is no way you could dupe in Diablo 3 due to the fact that duping was nonexistent in World of Warcraft. Blizzard has obviously overcame this fundamental problem… right? Honestly it doesn’t look like it. How do you dupe in Diablo 3? I don’t know, but one thing is for sure, the guys who figure it out first aren’t going to be sharing it.

If any of the reports are true, then duping is going to be a problem in Diablo 3. It won’t be as widespread as in past Diablo’s though since Blizzard will obviously be cracking down on this much more than in the past.

One last thing is to consider is the stakes will be much higher. If you get away with cheating you’ll make lots of real money. If you get in trouble, you risk losing a lot of real money. Cheating won’t be a ‘casual’ thing in D3 like it was in D2, that’s for sure.

What do you think? Will Diablo 3 botters, cheaters and dupers ruin D3?

Important: Many of the strategies and tips I share here were originally inspired by the people at the Diablo 3 Gold Secrets Forum. If you're serious about making the big bucks in Diablo 3, or just being the best players, you need to signup ASAP.