Diablo Hackers Expose Fake Legendary Speedrun Following 2.2 Billion Randomized Dungeons

Speedrunning has always been a vibrant part of the Diablo gaming community, with players tirelessly competing to improve their times in various categories. Recently, a bombshell revelation has surfaced regarding one of the most legendary runs in the history of the original Diablo game: it has been deemed a fabrication.

For over ten years, the 3-minute and 12-second record set by Maciej “Groobo” Maselewski represented the pinnacle of individual playthroughs since Diablo’s 1996 debut. In this run, Groobo tackled the game as a Sorcerer, skillfully utilizing glitches and intricate gameplay techniques that many players deemed to be a flawless performance. Despite numerous attempts by fellow speedrunners striving to match or surpass his time, all fell short of this seemingly unbeatable record.

The Investigation Unveils Inconsistencies

As reported by ARS Technica, a thorough investigation conducted by the Diablo Mapgen team uncovered significant discrepancies in Groobo’s run. They noted that the structure of the game levels presented an odd configuration of adjacent upstairs and downstairs segments that drew their scrutiny.

Utilizing their custom-designed Diablo Mapgen Tool, the team reverse-engineered the game to analyze potential dungeon layouts within a specific seed. Come to find out, the game offers an astounding 2.2 billion possible combinations for legitimate dungeon generation, and Groobo’s unique map configuration did not appear among any of these possibilities.

This compelling evidence led to the conclusion that Groobo’s run might have been manipulated through editing various segments from different game versions, which is enough to disqualify it altogether.

Prominent speedrunner DwangoAC weighed in on the situation, stating, “It did harm. Groobo’s alleged cheating in 2009 completely stopped interest in speedrunning this category. No one tried, no one could.” This highlights the broader impact of the scandal on the community’s enthusiasm for this gaming category.

Consequently, Groobo’s record has now been officially removed from the Speed Demos Archive. However, it still holds the distinction of being recognized as a Guinness World Record for the ‘fastest completion of an RPG videogame’ as of this writing.

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