I am currently playing Xsyon, a uber-niche sandbox MMO where unfortunately there are quite a few possible ways to cheat.
Despite what some losers - who like to generalise about others - seem to think I neither cheat nor feel the need. I assert that I've not knowingly cheated in any way at all even though I know I can.
If a game has too many cheats I don't join them. Even in RL, for example, I never enjoyed paint-balling as a pastime because it's a decent idea for a game mostly ruined by cheating.
Anyway, the saddest most pathetic thing I've read today is when some loser cheat kid (who is old enough to know better) tries to justify cheating in games by suggesting that all of us do it. Sorry dude, but there's no point trying to project your lame personality onto me. Try all the nonsense analogies you like, they have no resonance with me and I'm sorry for you that you fail so bad.
The only thing worse than player cheaters are developer cheaters (such as CCP). Things get especially bad if there is a single server population and therefore limited prizes or opportunities. If some developer is giving favors to his friends, those are advantages and resources being denied to the rest of the server population. Unfair gains dilute the economy and demean the whole idea of "sandbox" games.
LOL, sure bring up a 4+ year old incident by a single Dev that had negligible effect on anyone. Not really relevant but whatever.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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The only thing worse than player cheaters are developer cheaters (such as CCP). Things get especially bad if there is a single server population and therefore limited prizes or opportunities. If some developer is giving favors to his friends, those are advantages and resources being denied to the rest of the server population. Unfair gains dilute the economy and demean the whole idea of "sandbox" games.
LOL, sure bring up a 4+ year old incident by a single Dev that had negligible effect on anyone. Not really relevant but whatever.
But, it did happen. It was neither the first time or the last time something like this has happened in a game. It was an example. Unprofessional behavior by employees to benefit themselves is pretty common in the gaming industry.
I think the biggest single problem with the gaming industry is the standards we hold them to. We pay them for shoddy work, horrible customer support, and horrible QA. And what do the players that run to their defense spout? "It's only a game." It's a product. It's a service. People make a living doing it. Real money changes hands. Other software industries are not provided the same level of forgiveness. Why does the gaming industry get a free pass so often? They even provide services they don't really support or use other than mostly a placebo to make players think their input counts. Forums? Public Test Realms? Wasted time and money in most games anymore.
Think of your favorite business class piece of software and consider if your loyalty would change if it was treated like most mmorpgs.
Cheaters are so creative in rationalizing their behavior. I've heard it all before in many other game forums. But after all the bla bla bla bla and bullshit excuses, the end result is pretty much the same. They committed an act of selfishness without a care for how it would affect a fellow gamer or his community.
I'd love to see something like this in a game. the first time you're caught cheating they take your character and put it in a pink costume and every time you change into something else it'll turn into that pink costume, even if you strip naked (down to underware). The second time you're caught cheating they put a week bounty on your head and give the people who kill you some special loot. Every time you spawn you have that bounty on you and the pink costume. You can't kill anything, turn in any quests until in world chat you say "I'm sorry for being a pussy little, spinless cheater". If you're caught a third time you get the pink costume and bounty on you and when you die your account is banned.
Cheaters are so creative in rationalizing their behavior. I've heard it all before in many other game forums. But after all the bla bla bla bla and bullshit excuses, the end result is pretty much the same. They committed an act of selfishness without a care for how it would affect a fellow gamer or his community.
I like when they say they botted because it was boing to do it themselves.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Cheaters = lazy. It's always been astounding to me how much time and effort a cheater will put into finding a cheat, hack, macro, bot, script. Seriously, half the time just working through the quest, objective, event would have taken just as much time.
What's the old saying, "no one works as hard as a lazy one" ?
I think there is a huge difference between cheating and exploiting. Cheating to me implies that you used some type of special coding that goes around how the game was programmed to be played. Like bots, whether they be claiming bot tools, xp bots, farm bots, whatever that's cheating to me.
On the other hand exploits are a little different. To me exploits are something someone found to play the game thats easier. I remember one exploit in L2 way way back where you could fire your arrows through a fence and mobs couldn't attack you. That wasn't maliciously made like a bot, originally someone just happend to pass by and figure this out and then shared with some friends before it was fixed. I think there is a huge difference between the two.
The thing about using third party hacks is, they often only work by attaching themselves to the client side of the game. Many games, MMO's included, work by making the client side heavy in order to help reduce lag/rubberbanding.
Of course because the client side is so heavy and many games rely on the client side to provide accurate information to the server when it asks for it, people can hack the client side to 'slip things past the radar'.
Aside from hacks, exploiting a game mechanic that was made before assuming people will cheat is just plain wrong. However, a point must be made that if it wasn't for cheaters, many of these exploits wouldn't be fixed.
Sure the fixes may be heavy handed at times, but an exploit is a part of a mechanic that 'is not working as intended'. The only reason many fixes seem to be detrimental is because by the time they are fixed, people have become used to the mechanic being as 'open' as it was. Granted if it weren't for exploiters, those mechanics would still be more open and less restricted, therefore more usable as a whole, but you have to remember that developers have a lot of work to do.
Many ideas will seem very cool and worth putting in to a game, but developers often forget about the possibility of exploiters until the very first true testing phases, though the concept of exploiting will more than likely be on the backburner until later phases while balancing and glaring bugs get sorted. When those later phases come, developers rely on testers to be truthful when the hunt for bugs and exploits begins. The trouble is, a good portion of this comes through multiple closed beta testing, and many people just want to get in to those testing phases to 'demo' the game. Yes, sure, some will still throw out bug reports, but there are those instances where nasty exploits still make it in to release. Why? Is it because people missed those exploits? Or is it because people in closed beta and open beta let the exploit 'slip'.
Well, I don't know really. I'm not going to point fingers and scream about people not doing their job as testers (as many really don't), as that is a completely different topic... and one I could rant for weeks on.
The point is that there are two sides to the coin, and sometimes the 'cheaters' are needed to weed bugs out.
However, I must say, that if a game needs to be more client heavy, developers really should focus a good portion of time in to warding their codes from evil hax.
MMO's played: Ragnarok Online (For years), WoW (for a few weeks only), Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Eve, Allods, Shattered Galaxy, 9 Dragons, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Star Trek Online (Got someone ELSE to pay for it), Champions Online (Someone else paid), Dofus, Dragonica, LOTRO, DDO and more... A LOT more. I've played good AND bad. The bad didn't last long. :P
Zero tolerance to protect your product should be the way forward with issues sent to support if you feel you have been banned unfairly and if you are going to ban players/bots, at least do it in style: How botters get banned in Guild Wars
Totally agree with the way GW handles this, its funny as hell. But I must disagree with the concept of "zero tolerance". Zero Tolerance is just another way of saying zero judgement, and zero common sense. Look at how its applied in the public "educational" system for example. Rather than use some judgement/common sense(isn't that what these administrators are hired for in the first place?) they blow tiny infractions into matters for the police or expelling students.
The same applies in the game world. Lets expect some judgement/common sense, rather than a knee jerk, one size fits all response pattern. The mighty perma ban hammer of Doom, *should* be used in some cases, but only after some judgement/common sense is applied.
The thing about using third party hacks is, they often only work by attaching themselves to the client side of the game. Many games, MMO's included, work by making the client side heavy in order to help reduce lag/rubberbanding.
Of course because the client side is so heavy and many games rely on the client side to provide accurate information to the server when it asks for it, people can hack the client side to 'slip things past the radar'.
Aside from hacks, exploiting a game mechanic that was made before assuming people will cheat is just plain wrong. However, a point must be made that if it wasn't for cheaters, many of these exploits wouldn't be fixed.
Sure the fixes may be heavy handed at times, but an exploit is a part of a mechanic that 'is not working as intended'. The only reason many fixes seem to be detrimental is because by the time they are fixed, people have become used to the mechanic being as 'open' as it was. Granted if it weren't for exploiters, those mechanics would still be more open and less restricted, therefore more usable as a whole, but you have to remember that developers have a lot of work to do.
Many ideas will seem very cool and worth putting in to a game, but developers often forget about the possibility of exploiters until the very first true testing phases, though the concept of exploiting will more than likely be on the backburner until later phases while balancing and glaring bugs get sorted. When those later phases come, developers rely on testers to be truthful when the hunt for bugs and exploits begins. The trouble is, a good portion of this comes through multiple closed beta testing, and many people just want to get in to those testing phases to 'demo' the game. Yes, sure, some will still throw out bug reports, but there are those instances where nasty exploits still make it in to release. Why? Is it because people missed those exploits? Or is it because people in closed beta and open beta let the exploit 'slip'.
Well, I don't know really. I'm not going to point fingers and scream about people not doing their job as testers (as many really don't), as that is a completely different topic... and one I could rant for weeks on.
The point is that there are two sides to the coin, and sometimes the 'cheaters' are needed to weed bugs out.
However, I must say, that if a game needs to be more client heavy, developers really should focus a good portion of time in to warding their codes from evil hax.
Just as a side note, seeing as I can't edit it in *grumbles*, I don't use hax or exploit myself. What I meant by my second to last sentence is that when people don't bug report an exploit, sometimes cheaters (those who exploit the living hell out of that particular exploit) will bring it to light. Now, don't get me wrong, it isn't the cheaters themselves who do it (they're too busy using the exploits). It's the people who cry 'CHEATER!" en masse who bring it to light.
MMO's played: Ragnarok Online (For years), WoW (for a few weeks only), Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Eve, Allods, Shattered Galaxy, 9 Dragons, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Star Trek Online (Got someone ELSE to pay for it), Champions Online (Someone else paid), Dofus, Dragonica, LOTRO, DDO and more... A LOT more. I've played good AND bad. The bad didn't last long. :P
You are still failing to present any valid arguement on why you should be able to only abide by your own set of rules. Instead of a set of rules that are applied equally to all. If you aren't as good at something as someone else, that's how it is. It's called competition for a reason. Cheating is cheating. You are not what is causing you to win. It's artificial. It's fake. You are hollow. Your perception is also as fake and hollow as the "achievements" you have falsely gained from cheating. Try overcoming your own weaknesses with your own strengths.
Example:
If someone is faster than you, try to overcome that speed with strategy or knowing the patterns and tendacies of your opponents.
[edit] Even your link does not support your side:
"The idea does not necessarily imply that there is no objective truth"
There are very large differences between hacks and exploits, cheating is a generalization, and while i agree with the general emphasis of the article and never hack, i do look to exploit in game situations BECAUSE i view every game from a strategic and tactical perspective, and if you are clever why should you be punished? By this sense of the definition or the article in question, then would not everyone who has scoured the internet for raid content and dungeon progression be considered a cheater? Exploiting is one thing hacking or third party intrusion is another and if no one was allowed to know how a raid encounter was supposed to be done accept for those who are currently going through it then i would imagine very few people would have ever gotten very far in a game.
I remember gms banning a guild in early eq just because they figured out how to do a raid and take no damage from the boss by hiding behind some terrain, thats not cheating thats clever use of your environment, and unfair to have been punished for it
I started to support cheaters xD, it makes stupid ppl cry and thats what their kind deserves, especially the one raging and not being able to see beyond the obvious reasons
Disclaimer: I dont use cheat, 2 lazy to search for them and the install them, supporting them in the chat while cheaters rape everyone is enough to make stupid ppl rage too
Let's say it in that way: if games were fair and if the "lawful" pathway in a game was well done, people WOULD not cheat. That people cheat is in 90% of the cases a sign that something fundamental in the game was made against the natural feeling of people.
Everyone cheats. Every. Single. One. If a) you have the chance and b) you think you can get away with it.
These two snippets from your post seem to contradict. Unless you are saying that the way to make a "lawful" pathway in a game is to allow cheating, thereby making it not, technically, cheating.
Paging Dr. Escher. I need an asprin for the brain ouchies.
There's the best part. They cheat to gain advantage. I do not think I've ever seen a cheat that actually just fixed a problem in the game as much as it gave the user advantages so they would not have competition. So, if every single person was using the exact same cheats, they would no longer have the advantage and would be very upset about it. They do not want level ground.
Allow me to further define the exploitation of mechanics for gold duping and such to also not be legitimate, while this is technically not a hack it most certainly is a better definition of a in game exploit then say figuring out how to exploit a scenerio or the weaknesses of another players build, sometimes what people percieve as a exploit really isn't, but because they did not benefit or were not smart enough to notice it first they then lay down the cheater tag on someone, i have seen it many times. I have also seen people call out cheaters and in the same breath five seconds later start attempting to recreate it for themselves. I belive people have been taught by game companies unknowingly the wrong definition of what is and is not a exploit, dont walk with blinders on people, game companies have tremendous power over influencing your perception of things so unless you have access to the metrics or log data and can interpret what your seeing into what was actually designed then you don't know jack. Because I've walked up right behind people in pvp and killed them in broad day light and been accused of hacking when the reality is thier ping and fps were so bad as to them not seeing real time.
There are very large differences between hacks and exploits, cheating is a generalization, and while i agree with the general emphasis of the article and never hack, i do look to exploit in game situations BECAUSE i view every game from a strategic and tactical perspective, and if you are clever why should you be punished? By this sense of the definition or the article in question, then would not everyone who has scoured the internet for raid content and dungeon progression be considered a cheater? Exploiting is one thing hacking or third party intrusion is another and if no one was allowed to know how a raid encounter was supposed to be done accept for those who are currently going through it then i would imagine very few people would have ever gotten very far in a game.
I remember gms banning a guild in early eq just because they figured out how to do a raid and take no damage from the boss by hiding behind some terrain, thats not cheating thats clever use of your environment, and unfair to have been punished for it
Um, thats called terrain exploiting, and yeah it is cheating. Its the same as entering a code to make yourself invincible in a single player game. Its all numbers, regardless of what you see with your eyes. The entire system revolves around a series of numbers and codes working together to create the end result which you see on your screen.
Figuring out where there is a flaw in the code/design allowing a boss to get hung up on some terrain making yourself unreachable, is really no different than using a gameshark to alter the hex code in an old NES game to make you take now damage. That code you put into your gameshark came from someone finding out the X numbers relate to X event/person/stat/monster, and figured out how changing the values produce different effects. In the case of the boss & terrain glitch, its simply a matter of finding out where that fla win the code/design is and forcing the boss to follow a path that will get him hung up on the terrain.
Different methods, but same result. If it were reality, that boss would have found a way to get to them. But due to scripting limitations and preset rules, the boss simply followed its script. They knew it would, and took advantage of it not being able to get to them.
If you feel that isnt cheating, then i suppose you also think glitching to get under maps, inside walls, etc in an FPS game and being untouchable is also not cheating? How about shooting through walls that shouldnt be able to? Theyr ejust "clever use of your environment".
So, if every single person was using the exact same cheats, they would no longer have the advantage and would be very upset about it. They do not want level ground.
Behold!! the common human sense... believing that most cheaters are just using hacks to win because they dont like fair competition....
Common blind humans unable to see anything beyond the obvious and hating anyone that disrupts their ego boosting
And then u ask me why i support cheaters and cheer them up while stupid ppl are flaming me in teh chat xD
So, if every single person was using the exact same cheats, they would no longer have the advantage and would be very upset about it. They do not want level ground.
Behold!! the common human sense... believing that most cheaters are just using hacks to win because they dont like fair competition....
Common blind humans unable to see anything beyond the obvious and hating anyone that disrupts their ego boosting
And then u ask me why i support cheaters and cheer them up while stupid ppl are flaming me in teh chat xD
Then please explain why people cheat in games? Isn't the point of using a cheat to gain an unfair advantage or do something you are not "allowed" to do?
Also, I do not think most cheaters deserve the term hacker. They are mostly using progams made by others or exploiting the system using methods that others have found.
[edit] You sound like someone who just likes to see others suffer. Common term griefer. If everyone was using the same cheats, who would be raging? If you are the type that just likes to see people cry, my statement still stands. Using a cheat gives you an unfair advantage that you use to make that person rage. You could do the same without the cheat if you had the skill.[/edit]
Everyone cheats. Every. Single. One. If a) you have the chance and b) you think you can get away with it.
And you probably think if you don't get caught it's not cheating or some other lame excuse.
Not everyone cheats. In multiplayer games, I don't cheat. Ever. No matter how easy it is, no matter how punishment free it is. Single player games are my perogative to play however I want, but in multiplayer you have made an implied (if not implicit) agreement to NOT cheat. So if you do cheat in a multiplayer game, you are scum.
Yes, I've had lots of chances to cheat in various games. Yes, I'm sure I could have 'gotten away with it'. And still, I did NOT cheat.
Just because you lack honor and morals doesn't mean the rest of us do.
In the long ago ancient past (as far as mmos go) I quit Everquest the day a GM shouted to the world that anyone caught resting in a safe zone would be banned without warning. I was at that time resting in a safe zone with a buddy since we didn't want to drag our battered and bloodied characters across 3 zones to get to friendly territories where we could rest without getting attacked. It was standard to rest in the safe zones. Fighting from a safe zone was bannable, and rightly so, but resting in one was standard. I could have cheated. I could have followed the new, and in my opinion, insane ruling. No, I logged out and canceled my account. (Of course I'd had enough of insane GM declarations and actions by that time. Yes, I was one of the witnesses when that one GM was deathbinding and summoning all the PCs he could grab into the instadeath lava. Which, if you don't know EQ, means your character is permadead until a GM moves your bind point to a non-hazardous area.)
Heck, I've ranted/counter-ranted long enough. I'm off to better things. Preferably something without cheaters.
Um no that's poor game design, it's no different then what people do when they know the rotation of a bosses attacks or its pathing in a raid, it happends in wow every day, people read the raid notes and know the exact timers for his powers, where to stand and when, no matter how you slice it what it really boils down to is people who wish they had thought of something first, or somehow benefited without guilt, and since they are not they try and take the holier then thou moral high ground, do i" cheat" no, and i abhor those who hack and dupe, but i do look to take advantage of situations in game that development either missed completely, ignored, or were not clever enough to address, outwitting design is vastly different then floating gm style above a unreachable cliff face and raining down fireballs on a heroic mob solo
People know things about the.game they.are playing that they are not supposed to know, and regardless of what that might be, whether it is a bosses power rotation, or timers for that rotation or the map to the entire dungeon it is a.exploit the difference is they dont define their exploitation as cheating because they've been taught that is normal way to play the game, so the next time you get a nice heroic purple item ask yourself did you do it all on your own with no prior knowledge or is that fansite wiki still in your open browser to blame, who coached you, what youtube video did you watch, what third party addons are you using, hows that guild information thread coming along? These things all contribute to global exploitation of a game, so what differentiates that from being clever, stratigic and tactical when pursuing a advantage most over look or never think to try. I will never hack dupe or third party intrude, but your damn right i will exploit when i see a opening in the game allowing me a chance to be competative, more then the next guy. Because i would rather be.competative then merely accept things at face value and follow the crowd
Of course cheating affects everyone in the game. Thats why we do it, to feel the heady rush of superiority over our fellow players. This applies to almost all cheaters except the gold farmers, who are there for purely profit. Cheaters are really griefers who are too lazy to exploit players with mastery and skill instead of hacks, macro's, and bugs. I personally get much more of a thrill from griefing with skill, instead of easy exploits, but hey if your gonna do it, make it an art form.
The problem is, it isn't always clear what is a cheat and what isn't.
Let's take sports, for example. Is it cheating to foul the other team when you're behind late in the game, in order to stop the clock and get the ball back? If you're ahead late in the game, is it cheating to refuse to shoot until the shot clock has nearly run out? Is it cheating to foul an especially bad free throw shooter every time he touches the ball? In football, is it cheating to take a knee to run the clock out, rather than running a real play? In baseball, is it cheating when a manager goes out to the mount to talk for a while, as a way to stall and let a reliever warm up? Those are widely accepted parts of the game now, but they weren't always.
If you argue that those are within the well-established rules of the game, then what about some more loophole-ish things. A year or two ago, the University of Wisconsin football coach noticed that you could run a lot of time off the clock on a kickoff, in order to prevent the other team from getting the ball with enough time to do anything. The clock started as soon as the ball was kicked, so he had his players take off early and be 20 yards downfield by the time the ball was kicked. This meant a 5 yard penalty for offsides, but took several seconds off of the clock, and made it impossible for the other team to get much of a kick return. Do that a few times in a row to run the clock down to essentially zero, and then do a squib kick that is basically unreturnable, and maybe you give the other team the ball at midfield, but run out the clock. Was that cheating?
About 50 years ago, a major league baseball player noticed that the official rules didn't say that you had to go back to your base after a foul ball. So he waited until he was on third in a tie game, and a teammate hit a foul ball. Then he went and stood right next to the plate. When the umpire asked what he was doing, he said he was taking his lead off. As soon as the pitcher threw the ball, he stepped on the plate to score a run. Was that cheating?
Neither does the question of whether the rule is later changed settle the issue. A lot of rule changes are made because it is believed to make the game better.
A lot of games have issues with exploiting wonky AI to get mobs to do extraordinarily stupid things. For example, in Guild Wars, in Gate of Madness, Shiro won't run outside a particular circle. So a group can have a designated tank stand just inside the circle, and everyone else outside of it, and if the tank dies, Shiro will run away rather than proceeding to attack someone else. That surely isn't what ArenaNet had in mind when they designed the mission. But is it cheating? What about the tank/healer/damage dealer setup, where tanks grab all of the mobs, as is common to so many games? Is that cheating? It's bad game design, but it's intentional. Does it depend on having to guess what the game designers were thinking when they created a particular piece of content?
Now, while there is a gray area, there is also clear cut cheating. Duping bugs are cheating, for example, if used for anything beyond duplicating some trivial resources to figure out how it works and report it.
-----
I disagree that the problem with cheating is that the fix for it punishes the playerbase. The problem with abusing a duping bug is that you mess with the game economy. That the duping bug gets fixed later is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Ideally, a game company would figure out all of the possible ways to exploit game mechanics, and fix things so that anything that they regard as cheating can't be done. And they would do this before the beta starts, let alone release. That way, players could do anything that the game code allows without having to worry about whether it is cheating. Then again, ideally, we'd have world peace, too. Just because something is ideal doesn't mean it's practical.
Comments
I am currently playing Xsyon, a uber-niche sandbox MMO where unfortunately there are quite a few possible ways to cheat.
Despite what some losers - who like to generalise about others - seem to think I neither cheat nor feel the need. I assert that I've not knowingly cheated in any way at all even though I know I can.
If a game has too many cheats I don't join them. Even in RL, for example, I never enjoyed paint-balling as a pastime because it's a decent idea for a game mostly ruined by cheating.
Anyway, the saddest most pathetic thing I've read today is when some loser cheat kid (who is old enough to know better) tries to justify cheating in games by suggesting that all of us do it. Sorry dude, but there's no point trying to project your lame personality onto me. Try all the nonsense analogies you like, they have no resonance with me and I'm sorry for you that you fail so bad.
LOL, sure bring up a 4+ year old incident by a single Dev that had negligible effect on anyone. Not really relevant but whatever.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
LOL, sure bring up a 4+ year old incident by a single Dev that had negligible effect on anyone. Not really relevant but whatever.
But, it did happen. It was neither the first time or the last time something like this has happened in a game. It was an example. Unprofessional behavior by employees to benefit themselves is pretty common in the gaming industry.I think the biggest single problem with the gaming industry is the standards we hold them to. We pay them for shoddy work, horrible customer support, and horrible QA. And what do the players that run to their defense spout? "It's only a game." It's a product. It's a service. People make a living doing it. Real money changes hands. Other software industries are not provided the same level of forgiveness. Why does the gaming industry get a free pass so often? They even provide services they don't really support or use other than mostly a placebo to make players think their input counts. Forums? Public Test Realms? Wasted time and money in most games anymore.
Think of your favorite business class piece of software and consider if your loyalty would change if it was treated like most mmorpgs.
Cheaters are so creative in rationalizing their behavior. I've heard it all before in many other game forums. But after all the bla bla bla bla and bullshit excuses, the end result is pretty much the same. They committed an act of selfishness without a care for how it would affect a fellow gamer or his community.
I'd love to see something like this in a game. the first time you're caught cheating they take your character and put it in a pink costume and every time you change into something else it'll turn into that pink costume, even if you strip naked (down to underware). The second time you're caught cheating they put a week bounty on your head and give the people who kill you some special loot. Every time you spawn you have that bounty on you and the pink costume. You can't kill anything, turn in any quests until in world chat you say "I'm sorry for being a pussy little, spinless cheater". If you're caught a third time you get the pink costume and bounty on you and when you die your account is banned.
Just humiliate them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_tunnel
Enjoy the ride.
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I like when they say they botted because it was boing to do it themselves.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Cheaters = lazy. It's always been astounding to me how much time and effort a cheater will put into finding a cheat, hack, macro, bot, script. Seriously, half the time just working through the quest, objective, event would have taken just as much time.
What's the old saying, "no one works as hard as a lazy one" ?
Ashreal D'Synn - Shadowlover & Death's handmaiden
I think there is a huge difference between cheating and exploiting. Cheating to me implies that you used some type of special coding that goes around how the game was programmed to be played. Like bots, whether they be claiming bot tools, xp bots, farm bots, whatever that's cheating to me.
On the other hand exploits are a little different. To me exploits are something someone found to play the game thats easier. I remember one exploit in L2 way way back where you could fire your arrows through a fence and mobs couldn't attack you. That wasn't maliciously made like a bot, originally someone just happend to pass by and figure this out and then shared with some friends before it was fixed. I think there is a huge difference between the two.
Of course because the client side is so heavy and many games rely on the client side to provide accurate information to the server when it asks for it, people can hack the client side to 'slip things past the radar'.
Aside from hacks, exploiting a game mechanic that was made before assuming people will cheat is just plain wrong. However, a point must be made that if it wasn't for cheaters, many of these exploits wouldn't be fixed.
Sure the fixes may be heavy handed at times, but an exploit is a part of a mechanic that 'is not working as intended'. The only reason many fixes seem to be detrimental is because by the time they are fixed, people have become used to the mechanic being as 'open' as it was. Granted if it weren't for exploiters, those mechanics would still be more open and less restricted, therefore more usable as a whole, but you have to remember that developers have a lot of work to do.
Many ideas will seem very cool and worth putting in to a game, but developers often forget about the possibility of exploiters until the very first true testing phases, though the concept of exploiting will more than likely be on the backburner until later phases while balancing and glaring bugs get sorted. When those later phases come, developers rely on testers to be truthful when the hunt for bugs and exploits begins. The trouble is, a good portion of this comes through multiple closed beta testing, and many people just want to get in to those testing phases to 'demo' the game. Yes, sure, some will still throw out bug reports, but there are those instances where nasty exploits still make it in to release. Why? Is it because people missed those exploits? Or is it because people in closed beta and open beta let the exploit 'slip'.
Well, I don't know really. I'm not going to point fingers and scream about people not doing their job as testers (as many really don't), as that is a completely different topic... and one I could rant for weeks on.
The point is that there are two sides to the coin, and sometimes the 'cheaters' are needed to weed bugs out.
However, I must say, that if a game needs to be more client heavy, developers really should focus a good portion of time in to warding their codes from evil hax.
MMO's played: Ragnarok Online (For years), WoW (for a few weeks only), Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Eve, Allods, Shattered Galaxy, 9 Dragons, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Star Trek Online (Got someone ELSE to pay for it), Champions Online (Someone else paid), Dofus, Dragonica, LOTRO, DDO and more... A LOT more. I've played good AND bad. The bad didn't last long. :P
Totally agree with the way GW handles this, its funny as hell. But I must disagree with the concept of "zero tolerance". Zero Tolerance is just another way of saying zero judgement, and zero common sense. Look at how its applied in the public "educational" system for example. Rather than use some judgement/common sense(isn't that what these administrators are hired for in the first place?) they blow tiny infractions into matters for the police or expelling students.
The same applies in the game world. Lets expect some judgement/common sense, rather than a knee jerk, one size fits all response pattern. The mighty perma ban hammer of Doom, *should* be used in some cases, but only after some judgement/common sense is applied.
Just as a side note, seeing as I can't edit it in *grumbles*, I don't use hax or exploit myself. What I meant by my second to last sentence is that when people don't bug report an exploit, sometimes cheaters (those who exploit the living hell out of that particular exploit) will bring it to light. Now, don't get me wrong, it isn't the cheaters themselves who do it (they're too busy using the exploits). It's the people who cry 'CHEATER!" en masse who bring it to light.
MMO's played: Ragnarok Online (For years), WoW (for a few weeks only), Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Eve, Allods, Shattered Galaxy, 9 Dragons, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Star Trek Online (Got someone ELSE to pay for it), Champions Online (Someone else paid), Dofus, Dragonica, LOTRO, DDO and more... A LOT more. I've played good AND bad. The bad didn't last long. :P
You are still failing to present any valid arguement on why you should be able to only abide by your own set of rules. Instead of a set of rules that are applied equally to all. If you aren't as good at something as someone else, that's how it is. It's called competition for a reason. Cheating is cheating. You are not what is causing you to win. It's artificial. It's fake. You are hollow. Your perception is also as fake and hollow as the "achievements" you have falsely gained from cheating. Try overcoming your own weaknesses with your own strengths.
Example:
If someone is faster than you, try to overcome that speed with strategy or knowing the patterns and tendacies of your opponents.
[edit] Even your link does not support your side:
"The idea does not necessarily imply that there is no objective truth"
[/edit]
I remember gms banning a guild in early eq just because they figured out how to do a raid and take no damage from the boss by hiding behind some terrain, thats not cheating thats clever use of your environment, and unfair to have been punished for it
I started to support cheaters xD, it makes stupid ppl cry and thats what their kind deserves, especially the one raging and not being able to see beyond the obvious reasons
Disclaimer: I dont use cheat, 2 lazy to search for them and the install them, supporting them in the chat while cheaters rape everyone is enough to make stupid ppl rage too
There's the best part. They cheat to gain advantage. I do not think I've ever seen a cheat that actually just fixed a problem in the game as much as it gave the user advantages so they would not have competition. So, if every single person was using the exact same cheats, they would no longer have the advantage and would be very upset about it. They do not want level ground.
Um, thats called terrain exploiting, and yeah it is cheating. Its the same as entering a code to make yourself invincible in a single player game. Its all numbers, regardless of what you see with your eyes. The entire system revolves around a series of numbers and codes working together to create the end result which you see on your screen.
Figuring out where there is a flaw in the code/design allowing a boss to get hung up on some terrain making yourself unreachable, is really no different than using a gameshark to alter the hex code in an old NES game to make you take now damage. That code you put into your gameshark came from someone finding out the X numbers relate to X event/person/stat/monster, and figured out how changing the values produce different effects. In the case of the boss & terrain glitch, its simply a matter of finding out where that fla win the code/design is and forcing the boss to follow a path that will get him hung up on the terrain.
Different methods, but same result. If it were reality, that boss would have found a way to get to them. But due to scripting limitations and preset rules, the boss simply followed its script. They knew it would, and took advantage of it not being able to get to them.
If you feel that isnt cheating, then i suppose you also think glitching to get under maps, inside walls, etc in an FPS game and being untouchable is also not cheating? How about shooting through walls that shouldnt be able to? Theyr ejust "clever use of your environment".
Behold!! the common human sense... believing that most cheaters are just using hacks to win because they dont like fair competition....
Common blind humans unable to see anything beyond the obvious and hating anyone that disrupts their ego boosting
And then u ask me why i support cheaters and cheer them up while stupid ppl are flaming me in teh chat xD
Then please explain why people cheat in games? Isn't the point of using a cheat to gain an unfair advantage or do something you are not "allowed" to do?
Also, I do not think most cheaters deserve the term hacker. They are mostly using progams made by others or exploiting the system using methods that others have found.
[edit] You sound like someone who just likes to see others suffer. Common term griefer. If everyone was using the same cheats, who would be raging? If you are the type that just likes to see people cry, my statement still stands. Using a cheat gives you an unfair advantage that you use to make that person rage. You could do the same without the cheat if you had the skill.[/edit]
And you probably think if you don't get caught it's not cheating or some other lame excuse.
Not everyone cheats. In multiplayer games, I don't cheat. Ever. No matter how easy it is, no matter how punishment free it is. Single player games are my perogative to play however I want, but in multiplayer you have made an implied (if not implicit) agreement to NOT cheat. So if you do cheat in a multiplayer game, you are scum.
Yes, I've had lots of chances to cheat in various games. Yes, I'm sure I could have 'gotten away with it'. And still, I did NOT cheat.
Just because you lack honor and morals doesn't mean the rest of us do.
In the long ago ancient past (as far as mmos go) I quit Everquest the day a GM shouted to the world that anyone caught resting in a safe zone would be banned without warning. I was at that time resting in a safe zone with a buddy since we didn't want to drag our battered and bloodied characters across 3 zones to get to friendly territories where we could rest without getting attacked. It was standard to rest in the safe zones. Fighting from a safe zone was bannable, and rightly so, but resting in one was standard. I could have cheated. I could have followed the new, and in my opinion, insane ruling. No, I logged out and canceled my account. (Of course I'd had enough of insane GM declarations and actions by that time. Yes, I was one of the witnesses when that one GM was deathbinding and summoning all the PCs he could grab into the instadeath lava. Which, if you don't know EQ, means your character is permadead until a GM moves your bind point to a non-hazardous area.)
Heck, I've ranted/counter-ranted long enough. I'm off to better things. Preferably something without cheaters.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
Um no that's poor game design, it's no different then what people do when they know the rotation of a bosses attacks or its pathing in a raid, it happends in wow every day, people read the raid notes and know the exact timers for his powers, where to stand and when, no matter how you slice it what it really boils down to is people who wish they had thought of something first, or somehow benefited without guilt, and since they are not they try and take the holier then thou moral high ground, do i" cheat" no, and i abhor those who hack and dupe, but i do look to take advantage of situations in game that development either missed completely, ignored, or were not clever enough to address, outwitting design is vastly different then floating gm style above a unreachable cliff face and raining down fireballs on a heroic mob solo
Of course cheating affects everyone in the game. Thats why we do it, to feel the heady rush of superiority over our fellow players. This applies to almost all cheaters except the gold farmers, who are there for purely profit. Cheaters are really griefers who are too lazy to exploit players with mastery and skill instead of hacks, macro's, and bugs. I personally get much more of a thrill from griefing with skill, instead of easy exploits, but hey if your gonna do it, make it an art form.
The problem is, it isn't always clear what is a cheat and what isn't.
Let's take sports, for example. Is it cheating to foul the other team when you're behind late in the game, in order to stop the clock and get the ball back? If you're ahead late in the game, is it cheating to refuse to shoot until the shot clock has nearly run out? Is it cheating to foul an especially bad free throw shooter every time he touches the ball? In football, is it cheating to take a knee to run the clock out, rather than running a real play? In baseball, is it cheating when a manager goes out to the mount to talk for a while, as a way to stall and let a reliever warm up? Those are widely accepted parts of the game now, but they weren't always.
If you argue that those are within the well-established rules of the game, then what about some more loophole-ish things. A year or two ago, the University of Wisconsin football coach noticed that you could run a lot of time off the clock on a kickoff, in order to prevent the other team from getting the ball with enough time to do anything. The clock started as soon as the ball was kicked, so he had his players take off early and be 20 yards downfield by the time the ball was kicked. This meant a 5 yard penalty for offsides, but took several seconds off of the clock, and made it impossible for the other team to get much of a kick return. Do that a few times in a row to run the clock down to essentially zero, and then do a squib kick that is basically unreturnable, and maybe you give the other team the ball at midfield, but run out the clock. Was that cheating?
About 50 years ago, a major league baseball player noticed that the official rules didn't say that you had to go back to your base after a foul ball. So he waited until he was on third in a tie game, and a teammate hit a foul ball. Then he went and stood right next to the plate. When the umpire asked what he was doing, he said he was taking his lead off. As soon as the pitcher threw the ball, he stepped on the plate to score a run. Was that cheating?
Neither does the question of whether the rule is later changed settle the issue. A lot of rule changes are made because it is believed to make the game better.
A lot of games have issues with exploiting wonky AI to get mobs to do extraordinarily stupid things. For example, in Guild Wars, in Gate of Madness, Shiro won't run outside a particular circle. So a group can have a designated tank stand just inside the circle, and everyone else outside of it, and if the tank dies, Shiro will run away rather than proceeding to attack someone else. That surely isn't what ArenaNet had in mind when they designed the mission. But is it cheating? What about the tank/healer/damage dealer setup, where tanks grab all of the mobs, as is common to so many games? Is that cheating? It's bad game design, but it's intentional. Does it depend on having to guess what the game designers were thinking when they created a particular piece of content?
Now, while there is a gray area, there is also clear cut cheating. Duping bugs are cheating, for example, if used for anything beyond duplicating some trivial resources to figure out how it works and report it.
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I disagree that the problem with cheating is that the fix for it punishes the playerbase. The problem with abusing a duping bug is that you mess with the game economy. That the duping bug gets fixed later is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Ideally, a game company would figure out all of the possible ways to exploit game mechanics, and fix things so that anything that they regard as cheating can't be done. And they would do this before the beta starts, let alone release. That way, players could do anything that the game code allows without having to worry about whether it is cheating. Then again, ideally, we'd have world peace, too. Just because something is ideal doesn't mean it's practical.