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.
What superiority over another player? You didn't accomplish anything. The cheat/exploit/program did.
I like how you acknowledge the difference at the end of your post, but I don't understand why you'd cheat if you know the difference.
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.
It's a good point you make, however I think the OP was talking more about the obvious forms of cheating in game, not subtle the rule play examples such as the above. I'd liken the above in an MMO to be like "turtling" in a BG scenario, such as refusing to turn in a captured flag just to prolong the match. Not really cheating but not really a tactic in the intended spirit of the game design and I could see Dev's changing the rules to prevent it. (assuming there was some benefit to turtling)
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?
This could very well end up like one of those accepted tactics you mentioned above. Out of interest, what was the final ruling on the above tactic, did the NCAA ban it or let it stick?
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?
It's splitting hairs on the rules, and just like the famous "fumble forward" play that helped the Raiders win a playoff game 30 some years ago and was later banned by a rule change, I guess it's legal until the rules make it specifically illegal. In MMO's I'd call this similar to a positional exploit. No, not where you stay out of harms way because the NPC can't reach you, that's clearly cheating. I recall once in DAOC fighting from a ledge in a keep that was somewhat (but not terribly) difficult to get to. I got a tell from a GM telling me I was cheating and I'm like, what? Anyone can get up here without even too much trouble, but didn't matter, the rules had changed apparently and henceforth, that was deemed 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?
I recall this sort of issue came up in WOW regularly, guilds would discover ways to defeat boss mobs in manners never intended by Blizzard and they would usually be deemed as exploits and cease and desist orders were given and sometimes the offenders punished. I recall when Molten Core was first beaten Blizzz was unhappy and they beefed up the Ragnaros fight which everyone had to go back and figure out how to beat again.
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.
Well, I've heard the argument from the dupers, hey, if the Dev's didn't discover it, it must not be cheating. Its the wrong way to think of course, but they probably are using "gray area logic" when justifying it to themselves. I think people who use macro tools to win in PVP also do the same thing, but developers could employ mechanics to make macroing challenging and chose not to so yet again a gray area to players
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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.
Well, I think the OP was talking more about things such as why most modern MMORPG's have all their higher level gear as BOP instead of BOE. It was primarily to discourage gold buying/selling by preventing players from purchasing the gear instead of running the content themselves. Purchasing gear was not really a bad thing, IMO players should be able to, but this strongly fuels the gold farming market and so to keep this down to a tolerable level all legitimate players are punished by not being able to sell their extra dungeon acquired gear on the "free market".
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.
I agree, companies should find all the loopholes, and while its true that there are some gray areas, there are some times you just know what you are doing is wrong.
I recall playing Vanguard when it first launched. It had skills you leveled by playing, and I recall there was one stealth skill or something I found leveled up a point or two just by running across a certain spot on the map. Being inherently flawed I quickly ran back and forth a bunch of times and maxed the skill.
Then, in thinking about it, realized I had just exploited, something I personally deplore, so I reported myself and the location of the bug. The Dev's adjusted my character back to where it should have been and fixed the issue.
Unfortunately too many other folks find exploits like this, such as gold duping bugs and instead of reporting them, share them with their friends to the detriment of the game.
So in most cases cheaters know their doing wrong, and it clearly is detrimental to the other players and the game as a whole and that's what I think the OP was trying to get at.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"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
never mind that cheating,hacking,exploiting goes against the eula's and Tos's of games people who do these things show a lack of character and moral dignitude! how can you have pride in a thing that you had to cheat to accomplish? Ive also seen people say things like "if the devs dont want me to cheat then they should remove,fix,close the cheats from their game" . whatever happened to personal discipline and ethics. would you say the only reason you dont go around murdering people is because there are laws against it?
....hello?!?.
Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. Lao-Tze
its simple. players who cheat ruin the game for people who don't cheat. In some games cheating is actually fun. In MMOs people do it for fun at the expense of others. Too say that rules are meant to be broken is to say there shouldnt be rules in the first place. If there were no rules how would you cheat?
Game developers make rules so the game is structured and less chaotic. Honestly do you want someone so powerful in a game that he wipes the whole MMO server clean(instant death of enemy faction ) of his opponents in one key? No one would play that game because there is no skill involved. Cheating takes no skill and rules bring out the skill in you. It is quite pathetic to see that someone has to cheat just so they can rival the non-cheater.
When you come out and say everyone cheats that is a pretty brash statement. Trying to justify using an exploit with that line of reasoning is an exercise in futility.
I personally never cheat or exploit. I just don't understand how some people can justify using an exploit. The standard response "the game lets me do it" just shows they are an idiot without any thought process whatsoever.
I still shake my head at Wow players who use non standard characters in their names. They are basically violating the TOS and using an exploit to do it. Just shows complete lack of imagination in creating a name for your character. If you don't like the rules the game uses go play another game.
As a general rule, cheating/exploiting are defined by the games Dev's. One should not use such for obvious reasons. But attempts to claim that use of tactical information(such as mission intel in EVE, for example) are cheating, are short sighted and foolish. Few people in their right mind are going to risk hundreds of millions of ISK of ship and mods, without knowing the basic tactical details of a given mission(what enemy type/resists and such) are involved. Lets look at things case by case and use some judgement and common sense, rather than knee jerk reactions.
blah cheats, hacks,cracks,expoits etc. they all pretty welll erk me to the point to where i hit the "uninstall" button. There a saying in the army "your only cheatin yourself" , while this stands true in gamming they are cheating everyone they come in contact with. The prob is they dont care! And in my expierience the hacking is way bad in FPS games. I wont play most because of it. I'm playing World of Tanks now (have been since closed beta), and it's mainly streamed per say and server side. Theoriticly un-hackable....BUT... we all see ppl doing it.Not a huge prob. but still there. cheaters are like carck heads, they cant stop if they have to and they are ever persistant!
I hate RMT, its not what a monthly sub game should be about at all but as so many gamers have just accepted it and happily paid more money ontop of their subs so the industry has realised it as more income so it is understandable why RMT now exists, us as gamers only have ourselves to blame for it now existing in a more prevelant way now
As for exploiters, to me it makes no sense why anyone would play a game then exploit it rather than having fun playing a game as its intended, wheres the fun in killing another player if you have done something that means you are always going to win the fight
That's all nice and dandy but "zero-tolerance" is something easy to say but not always do let alone zero-tolerance would also get rid of those "dancing around the line" users. I think the biggest problem is simply the lack of both transparency and co-hesion between the player-base and developer; both sides feeling they "know" the issue and sometimes its irrelevant of the other sides feeling and perspective. Most of the "dancing around the line" issues would be resolved if developers and players found a common ground to work and talk together and issues regarding how exploits work and exist would too.
I think developers should really pay attention and accept the fact that players are actually willing to explain and say where exploits are and how they occur. But players also need to accept the fact that there isn't an "Easy Buttom" you can press and fix everything. Eve probably has the biggest advancements in these areas.
As for more serious offenders, there is less forthcoming knowledge from players but I think there is less investigation effort also by developers in finding out how and where they exist as well.
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.
yeh there was an exploit in Tabula Rasa early on that after getting killed you could use the /stuck command at the respawn point to instantly return to the spot where you died. I'll admit that I was using it as was everyone in my clan. it was just too useful. of course it was one of the first things they fixed, even before fixing the numerous other bugs which plagued the game
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.
yeh there was an exploit in Tabula Rasa early on that after getting killed you could use the /stuck command at the respawn point to instantly return to the spot where you died. I'll admit that I was using it as was everyone in my clan. it was just too useful. of course it was one of the first things they fixed, even before fixing the numerous other bugs which plagued the game
Are you suggesting that because everyone in your clan was using it, that makes it ok for you to use it?
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?"
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.
yeh there was an exploit in Tabula Rasa early on that after getting killed you could use the /stuck command at the respawn point to instantly return to the spot where you died. I'll admit that I was using it as was everyone in my clan. it was just too useful. of course it was one of the first things they fixed, even before fixing the numerous other bugs which plagued the game
Are you suggesting that because everyone in your clan was using it, that makes it ok for you to use it?
not suggesting anything but feel free to read into it anything u like Wayne
Everyone cheats. Every. Single. One. If a) you have the chance and b) you think you can get away with it.
i can only speak for myself, and i can say you are wrong here, i do not play online games to find out who has the better aimbot or anything like it, i play for the challange, and that challange is not my bot vs their bots.
if you think everyone cheats, that's a statement about yourself, and (imo) a pretty bad excuse
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Matter-of-fact, nearly every online game company offers very restrictive means, in which to bring these cheaters to justice. How come it is so hard to submit photos, video, etc.. then see these people banned the next day?
The community can police itself, if the company would take cheating seriously & give the community better, or more direct tools for catching them.
I for one, hope Battlefield 3 has a root kit & sniffer installed as per agreement when u buy the game. Cheaters are found out by their own computers & the game will just never run. Problem solved!
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
Everyone cheats. Every. Single. One. If a) you have the chance and b) you think you can get away with it.
How many of you have no single piece of music that did not technically legally come to your harddisc? How many can claim to have zero software that didn't get there despite some... rules? How many of you have never peeked into the neighbours book at a school test?
I know an aweful lot of people who completely disagree with you. Just because your circle of friends and family feel that everyone cheats, I know my circle of friends does not. I can say that unequivocally. You may not believe me because you've never met anyone like me, but I can say that people like me exist.
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.
yeh there was an exploit in Tabula Rasa early on that after getting killed you could use the /stuck command at the respawn point to instantly return to the spot where you died. I'll admit that I was using it as was everyone in my clan. it was just too useful. of course it was one of the first things they fixed, even before fixing the numerous other bugs which plagued the game
Are you suggesting that because everyone in your clan was using it, that makes it ok for you to use it?
not suggesting anything but feel free to read into it anything u like Wayne
It just sounded like you were trying to justify it rather than completely owning that you were cheating. It's a way of discounting what you are doing as a bad thing because everyone is doing it.
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?"
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
i'd like to see an MMO go one step farther..puplic executions of the player's character/s...
seriously would be pretty cool, there is an Anime called .hack// its about an MMO and i only saw a few episodes of it.one of the eps i saw, they had caught some one botting/hacking and they held a puplic execution of the players character in the main square of the main city.while i'm sure after the first couple of times it wouldn't be as big of a deal, it would put a face on the cheaters and show players that they are actively deleting the accounts of cheaters.
how many times have you seen botters and hackers in game for months, then just stop seeing them? did they FINALLY get that satisfying ban they deserved? or did they just get bored and quit? all games SAY they're handling the problem and taking out the trash but how many actually are? as i said something like this would really show customers they don't put up with that crap and action will be taken and would be alot of fun for everyone that put up with them hell leave the bigger offenders there a few days so we can throw some rotten fruit at them,before they get the "axe".
So I give you a friendly smile and wave at you and say: whatever you say, mateys. There aren't actual rules but more... guidlines. The bottom line is: EVERY set of rules favors some people and puts others at a disadvantage. There ARE no fair rules, because the very idea of rules is: all people are similar. Which, we know, they are not. Some people are nimble and fast, some are not; some have good planning capabilities, others don't. Abilities of people are VASTLY different. Hence the Kantian idea that rules must apply the same to every person is... absurd. Rules per se are always unfair. So rules are only a matter of perspective. You support them only if you benefit from them.
If other people forge rules that set me at a disadvantage, people must help themselves.
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. People would NOT BUY gold, if the ingame mechanics were fitting their natural playstyle. But it doesn't. It is so, because not all people are alike. Not all people feel the same. Not all have the same abilities. And hence all the same rules for all means injustice for some. If attaining gold was interesting enough, people WOULD not buy gold. So it is a sign of the flawed games more than anything else.
Everyone cheats. Every. Single. One. If a) you have the chance and b) you think you can get away with it.
How many of you have no single piece of music that did not technically legally come to your harddisc? How many can claim to have zero software that didn't get there despite some... rules? How many of you have never peeked into the neighbours book at a school test?
We are all cheaters once and then. I have just grown beyond the pretending phase. You know... all my life I was on the side of the lawful and the good. I played by the rules, I was as nice to everyone as I can... and someday I realized. People don't give a SHIT. NO ONE thanks you for being nice and goody good. NOBODY. People just use you if you are good and play by the book. And I just got sick and tired to be everybody's fool. There, that's the truth. I was good and I got NOTHING. I got a kick in the arse for being a goody lawful. So having more than half of my life done, I decided I want a piece of the cake. And to hell with nicety. I am just DONE with being nice and ending up having NOTHING. THere. THAT is the bitter truth about life. That is how life REALLY is. If you don't care that you get a part of the cake... nobody else will. Trust me. I tried. THe nice way just will end you as a fool who has nothing. I must know.
But in the immortal words of Colonel Jessep, I think most people can't handle the truth.
I have two bones to pick with this: First off the one in red. Yes I have had the chance to cheat in several different MMOs. I didn't and will not cheat. Cheating robs me of the game the way the designers intended it. Why would I pay $49.99 for a game then only use $30.00 of it? That is like paying $40.00 for gas then dumping $10.00 of it on the ground.
The second issue is in orange above. Every single song on my hard drive was purchassed (most of them via CD a few (about 1% of them) via MP3 download) as was every single piece of software installed on my wife's or my systems.
The part I agree with is highlighted in blue. Sucks don't it? So many people just don't care about others and will use them at every oppertunity. For my part, I choose not to be anyone's fool, I expect to be cr@pped on by others. However, I choose not to let them win by becoming a copy of them.
Ha .. it never fails in threads related to this topic.
You always have that one person, who splashs the thread with well written paragraphs on why exploiting and cheating isn't bad. They blame society, developers, and even their own ineptness as just cause. During their diatribe they still refuse to grab hold of their sack and plainly admit that they are exactly the type of person being called out in the topics subject. I even love the explanation that its alright because rules are inheritly unfair.
Ahhh ... the rebel hates to follow the rules, he rails against them.... All because :
They just arn't fair ( Speak aloud while crying )
Its poetic.
P.S -- I get thanked regularly in MMO's for not exploiting or cheating, specificly when a very visible few are. You shouldn't do it for thanks from other people. I get a keen sense of satisfaction knowing I play legitmately without the aid of Hacks or exploits, thats what makes it worthwhile. Its easy to be a dick ... its a bit tougher to be a good guy.
Then again .. honor means alot to me, something the targets of the topic know little about.
That doesn't apply here. Bottom line is, when you're playing an online multiplayer video game you're voluntarily participating in something someone else has created, controls, owns and decides the rules for. If you don't like his rules, it is your choice to either put up with rules you don't like or to not play it. There are many choices for online video games and many more choices for entertainment. There is absolutely no reason good enough to justify breaking the rules in an online video game.
Isabelle, You are seeking a "something" from the human race it can not give most of time, for it is not bred into the human race, at least not anymore. That something is honor.
Human's sometimes act with and display honor, yet it is the exception, not the rule. For the first few years of MMORPGs we saw a fair amount of this rare trait, but that was an anomaly that often occurs when humans first start a project.
You have made peace with RMT and cash shops, now make peace with cheating... for both are motivated by the exact same "something".
Greed.
Cheating is bad, even evil, but then Humans are evil by nature, by DNA. If we weren't we would not have to devote so many resources to criminal activity and war, *and* to controlling criminal activity and war, yes we play both ends. Even quality education of our youth does not stop much of the worst of "humanity" from surfacing daily.
Don't believe me? Ask the species we exterminated to extinction simply due to our own laziness, our greed, even when the other species offered no direct threat to our own. That's all the proof I need to know what I am as an organism.
There is no easy answer or solution except to choose for yourself how you will play the game, and hope others choose the same.... many will choose greed.
I am no longer surprised when Players in MMOs cheat, or gifted computer geeks hack, or when MMO Publishers screw over their customers or break their game's own EULA's and TOS's just to make a few more dollars/euros/etc..... it's all "Par for the Course".
Complaining about cheating is like complaining about cash shops, it's pointless. Save yourself from becoming a bitter and twisted person like me.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!" ............... "I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. " __Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__ ...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
Your reasoning has been used time and again by myriad people. "If only they made the game more the way I think it should be, I wouldn't have to cheat", and "the game forces you to cheat because of poor decisions the developers made" are two of the most common excuses given by cheaters to justify their behavior; painting themselves as "the victim" of some kind of unfair treatment... as though they were forced into participating in it in the first place.
It's a paper-thin, self-serving argument that carries no weight, what-so-ever.
Just like in every other case, your perspective in that regard is wrong. Plain and simple.
"Not liking the rules" in a video game is never an "okay" reason to cheat or otherwise break them. Ever.
Your characterization of rules as "merely guidelines" is also a crock, however much you might try to spin. When a developer says a given activity is prohibited in their game, and people are being banned or suspended when caught doing it... that's a *rule*. People aren't banned for not following "guidelines".
If you don't agree with the rules in a videogame, you find it "doesn't suit your personal desires as a gamer" and there's no way you could bring yourself to enjoy the game despite them.. then the proper course of action is to stop playing the game and move on to something that does better suit your sensibilities so you don't feel compelled to cheat.
That's it. End of discussion.
Your perspective is not original, it's not clever, it's not profound and it's not compelling, no matter how much you may believe it is. Your entire post is nothing but a string of lame excuses to excuse yourself for doing something you know is prohibited... just as the article points out.
Pointing out that people might cheat, steal or otherwise do "wrong things" does not justify the behavior either. As the saying goes, "you don't justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior".
Again, if you are playing a game that is at odds with what you prefer, then do the honest thing, and find another game that is more in line with your preferences. At least then you can enjoy the game, and won't even have to make excuses for it.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
People who are angry at cheaters are more mad because they can't figure out how to cheat themselves. Therefore they take it as an insult because they're being griefed by cheaters and they have no way to effectively counter it.
Cheaters are not as unstoppable as people make it out to be. Sure they can kill 20 people or so before they eventually die in FPS games, but it takes team work to focus fire the cheater and play their A game to take them out.
Not everyone who is accused of cheating is actually a cheater. In the FPS world there are really good players who just know all the workings of the game and the best guns to use in each situation and picking out the best weapon to counter their opponents weapons.
Cheaters strive for making people angry and rage on about it. It's their livelihood and they don't care who's feelings they hurt. The more tears they drink from their victims the more successful they become.
I think game developers should find better methods to detect cheaters but just by how the way software works and programming is in general there is no 100% way to detect every type of cheat that can be made. You have aimbots that read data from the client and server, hook string aimbots that search for specific data, pixel/color aimbots that run on the client only and intercept nothing from the server just reads pixels and aims to the pixel you want it to focus on. (hardest to detect bot and safest to use if you want to cheat, but the most pain to effectively use)
In addition I'm sure people find it a rush to get away with something thats not allowed and see how long they can go without being caught, after all we are human and everyone has their own kind of rush they desire.
People who are angry at cheaters are more mad because they can't figure out how to cheat themselves. Therefore they take it as an insult because they're being griefed by cheaters and they have no way to effectively counter it.
Cheaters are not as unstoppable as people make it out to be. Sure they can kill 20 people or so before they eventually die in FPS games, but it takes team work to focus fire the cheater and play their A game to take them out.
Not everyone who is accused of cheating is actually a cheater. In the FPS world there are really good players who just know all the workings of the game and the best guns to use in each situation and picking out the best weapon to counter their opponents weapons.
Cheaters strive for making people angry and rage on about it. It's their livelihood and they don't care who's feelings they hurt. The more tears they drink from their victims the more successful they become.
I think game developers should find better methods to detect cheaters but just by how the way software works and programming is in general there is no 100% way to detect every type of cheat that can be made. You have aimbots that read data from the client and server, hook string aimbots that search for specific data, pixel/color aimbots that run on the client only and intercept nothing from the server just reads pixels and aims to the pixel you want it to focus on. (hardest to detect bot and safest to use if you want to cheat, but the most pain to effectively use)
In addition I'm sure people find it a rush to get away with something thats not allowed and see how long they can go without being caught, after all we are human and everyone has their own kind of rush they desire.
People that do not cheat are not MAD that they can not cheat. A google search can fix that in a few minutes.
If you think about every one of those reasons, they are completely hollow. The person cheating is not what is making the person rage. The cheat is. The cheat does things that the cheater can not do with their own skill. It's a completely hollow "victory". So really, if your goal was to make people rage, you aren't directly responsible for it.
For all of the other excuses in the above posts, the ones about honor and such, it's all learned behavior. For some it comes more natural than others, but it's learned behavior. It can be changed. But, you won't get help from their parents or friends that influence them. It's horribly hard to open their eyes to what real challenges are vs cheating your way through them. People have become more obsessed with existing above their true self and are afraid to make mistakes at an alarming level. The world is all "look at me! look at me!" with sites that do nothing but cater to self indulgent people.
Gaming companies are also to blame because of greed. They don't want to lose a player's sub. They will even finally ban an account and let the same person start a new one as long as they are paying. The penalties are not deterring and they don't devote real resources to looking into the cases/reports. GMs are horribly overrworked and underpaid while being scared to do anything that will cost users. Look at the report queues. A lot are also undertrained. But, they are costing the company users in those that quit because people have been exploiting the same issues for actual YEARS. Farm bots that fly and run underground, or gold site spammers that fly in nofly zones are a very prevelant example. They've been told how they do it, but no server side check is still in place to prevent it. WoW has had this since Wrath that I can recall.
Third party anti cheat programs have never stopped people from cheating and never will. There are too many ways around them. It's evident when new aimbots are online the day after that software updates it's definitions. They have to fix the exploitable code in the game itself or add sanity checks to prevent it. Which, they never do.
[edit] I almost completely forgot something. You know what makes my day? Watching a cheater rage because they used a cheat to win and still got destroyed because they are horrible at a game. I mean, just knowing they sometimes wasted money to acquire a cheat and still got beat down. Then when they get banned for cheating on top of it and payed to play the game. Classic [/edit]
Comments
What superiority over another player? You didn't accomplish anything. The cheat/exploit/program did.
I like how you acknowledge the difference at the end of your post, but I don't understand why you'd cheat if you know the difference.
So this is what a modern day witch hunt ala forum posts looks like.
Cool. Burn the heretics!
editted for spelling failure.
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I agree, companies should find all the loopholes, and while its true that there are some gray areas, there are some times you just know what you are doing is wrong.
I recall playing Vanguard when it first launched. It had skills you leveled by playing, and I recall there was one stealth skill or something I found leveled up a point or two just by running across a certain spot on the map. Being inherently flawed I quickly ran back and forth a bunch of times and maxed the skill.
Then, in thinking about it, realized I had just exploited, something I personally deplore, so I reported myself and the location of the bug. The Dev's adjusted my character back to where it should have been and fixed the issue.
Unfortunately too many other folks find exploits like this, such as gold duping bugs and instead of reporting them, share them with their friends to the detriment of the game.
So in most cases cheaters know their doing wrong, and it clearly is detrimental to the other players and the game as a whole and that's what I think the OP was trying to get at.
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never mind that cheating,hacking,exploiting goes against the eula's and Tos's of games people who do these things show a lack of character and moral dignitude! how can you have pride in a thing that you had to cheat to accomplish? Ive also seen people say things like "if the devs dont want me to cheat then they should remove,fix,close the cheats from their game" . whatever happened to personal discipline and ethics. would you say the only reason you dont go around murdering people is because there are laws against it?
....hello?!?.
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Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
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its simple. players who cheat ruin the game for people who don't cheat. In some games cheating is actually fun. In MMOs people do it for fun at the expense of others. Too say that rules are meant to be broken is to say there shouldnt be rules in the first place. If there were no rules how would you cheat?
Game developers make rules so the game is structured and less chaotic. Honestly do you want someone so powerful in a game that he wipes the whole MMO server clean(instant death of enemy faction
) of his opponents in one key? No one would play that game because there is no skill involved. Cheating takes no skill and rules bring out the skill in you. It is quite pathetic to see that someone has to cheat just so they can rival the non-cheater.
-I am here to perform logic
When you come out and say everyone cheats that is a pretty brash statement. Trying to justify using an exploit with that line of reasoning is an exercise in futility.
I personally never cheat or exploit. I just don't understand how some people can justify using an exploit. The standard response "the game lets me do it" just shows they are an idiot without any thought process whatsoever.
I still shake my head at Wow players who use non standard characters in their names. They are basically violating the TOS and using an exploit to do it. Just shows complete lack of imagination in creating a name for your character. If you don't like the rules the game uses go play another game.
Well, obviously no one was expecting some type of Spanish Inquisistion... ^^
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uprjmoSMJ-o
As a general rule, cheating/exploiting are defined by the games Dev's. One should not use such for obvious reasons. But attempts to claim that use of tactical information(such as mission intel in EVE, for example) are cheating, are short sighted and foolish. Few people in their right mind are going to risk hundreds of millions of ISK of ship and mods, without knowing the basic tactical details of a given mission(what enemy type/resists and such) are involved. Lets look at things case by case and use some judgement and common sense, rather than knee jerk reactions.
blah cheats, hacks,cracks,expoits etc. they all pretty welll erk me to the point to where i hit the "uninstall" button. There a saying in the army "your only cheatin yourself" , while this stands true in gamming they are cheating everyone they come in contact with. The prob is they dont care! And in my expierience the hacking is way bad in FPS games. I wont play most because of it. I'm playing World of Tanks now (have been since closed beta), and it's mainly streamed per say and server side. Theoriticly un-hackable....BUT... we all see ppl doing it.Not a huge prob. but still there. cheaters are like carck heads, they cant stop if they have to and they are ever persistant!
I hate RMT, its not what a monthly sub game should be about at all but as so many gamers have just accepted it and happily paid more money ontop of their subs so the industry has realised it as more income so it is understandable why RMT now exists, us as gamers only have ourselves to blame for it now existing in a more prevelant way now
As for exploiters, to me it makes no sense why anyone would play a game then exploit it rather than having fun playing a game as its intended, wheres the fun in killing another player if you have done something that means you are always going to win the fight
That's all nice and dandy but "zero-tolerance" is something easy to say but not always do let alone zero-tolerance would also get rid of those "dancing around the line" users. I think the biggest problem is simply the lack of both transparency and co-hesion between the player-base and developer; both sides feeling they "know" the issue and sometimes its irrelevant of the other sides feeling and perspective. Most of the "dancing around the line" issues would be resolved if developers and players found a common ground to work and talk together and issues regarding how exploits work and exist would too.
I think developers should really pay attention and accept the fact that players are actually willing to explain and say where exploits are and how they occur. But players also need to accept the fact that there isn't an "Easy Buttom" you can press and fix everything. Eve probably has the biggest advancements in these areas.
As for more serious offenders, there is less forthcoming knowledge from players but I think there is less investigation effort also by developers in finding out how and where they exist as well.
yeh there was an exploit in Tabula Rasa early on that after getting killed you could use the /stuck command at the respawn point to instantly return to the spot where you died. I'll admit that I was using it as was everyone in my clan. it was just too useful. of course it was one of the first things they fixed, even before fixing the numerous other bugs which plagued the game
Are you suggesting that because everyone in your clan was using it, that makes it ok for you to use it?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
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?"
not suggesting anything but feel free to read into it anything u like Wayne
i can only speak for myself, and i can say you are wrong here, i do not play online games to find out who has the better aimbot or anything like it, i play for the challange, and that challange is not my bot vs their bots.
if you think everyone cheats, that's a statement about yourself, and (imo) a pretty bad excuse
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Any developer that allows cheating, is wrong.
Matter-of-fact, nearly every online game company offers very restrictive means, in which to bring these cheaters to justice. How come it is so hard to submit photos, video, etc.. then see these people banned the next day?
The community can police itself, if the company would take cheating seriously & give the community better, or more direct tools for catching them.
I for one, hope Battlefield 3 has a root kit & sniffer installed as per agreement when u buy the game. Cheaters are found out by their own computers & the game will just never run. Problem solved!
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
I know an aweful lot of people who completely disagree with you. Just because your circle of friends and family feel that everyone cheats, I know my circle of friends does not. I can say that unequivocally. You may not believe me because you've never met anyone like me, but I can say that people like me exist.
It just sounded like you were trying to justify it rather than completely owning that you were cheating. It's a way of discounting what you are doing as a bad thing because everyone is doing it.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
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?"
i'd like to see an MMO go one step farther..puplic executions of the player's character/s...
seriously would be pretty cool, there is an Anime called .hack// its about an MMO and i only saw a few episodes of it.one of the eps i saw, they had caught some one botting/hacking and they held a puplic execution of the players character in the main square of the main city.while i'm sure after the first couple of times it wouldn't be as big of a deal, it would put a face on the cheaters and show players that they are actively deleting the accounts of cheaters.
how many times have you seen botters and hackers in game for months, then just stop seeing them? did they FINALLY get that satisfying ban they deserved? or did they just get bored and quit? all games SAY they're handling the problem and taking out the trash but how many actually are? as i said something like this would really show customers they don't put up with that crap and action will be taken and would be alot of fun for everyone that put up with them
hell leave the bigger offenders there a few days so we can throw some rotten fruit at them,before they get the "axe".
I have two bones to pick with this: First off the one in red. Yes I have had the chance to cheat in several different MMOs. I didn't and will not cheat. Cheating robs me of the game the way the designers intended it. Why would I pay $49.99 for a game then only use $30.00 of it? That is like paying $40.00 for gas then dumping $10.00 of it on the ground.
The second issue is in orange above. Every single song on my hard drive was purchassed (most of them via CD a few (about 1% of them) via MP3 download) as was every single piece of software installed on my wife's or my systems.
The part I agree with is highlighted in blue. Sucks don't it? So many people just don't care about others and will use them at every oppertunity. For my part, I choose not to be anyone's fool, I expect to be cr@pped on by others. However, I choose not to let them win by becoming a copy of them.
Ha .. it never fails in threads related to this topic.
You always have that one person, who splashs the thread with well written paragraphs on why exploiting and cheating isn't bad. They blame society, developers, and even their own ineptness as just cause. During their diatribe they still refuse to grab hold of their sack and plainly admit that they are exactly the type of person being called out in the topics subject. I even love the explanation that its alright because rules are inheritly unfair.
Ahhh ... the rebel hates to follow the rules, he rails against them.... All because :
They just arn't fair ( Speak aloud while crying )
Its poetic.
P.S -- I get thanked regularly in MMO's for not exploiting or cheating, specificly when a very visible few are. You shouldn't do it for thanks from other people. I get a keen sense of satisfaction knowing I play legitmately without the aid of Hacks or exploits, thats what makes it worthwhile. Its easy to be a dick ... its a bit tougher to be a good guy.
Then again .. honor means alot to me, something the targets of the topic know little about.
That doesn't apply here. Bottom line is, when you're playing an online multiplayer video game you're voluntarily participating in something someone else has created, controls, owns and decides the rules for. If you don't like his rules, it is your choice to either put up with rules you don't like or to not play it. There are many choices for online video games and many more choices for entertainment. There is absolutely no reason good enough to justify breaking the rules in an online video game.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Isabelle, You are seeking a "something" from the human race it can not give most of time, for it is not bred into the human race, at least not anymore. That something is honor.
Human's sometimes act with and display honor, yet it is the exception, not the rule. For the first few years of MMORPGs we saw a fair amount of this rare trait, but that was an anomaly that often occurs when humans first start a project.
You have made peace with RMT and cash shops, now make peace with cheating... for both are motivated by the exact same "something".
Greed.
Cheating is bad, even evil, but then Humans are evil by nature, by DNA. If we weren't we would not have to devote so many resources to criminal activity and war, *and* to controlling criminal activity and war, yes we play both ends. Even quality education of our youth does not stop much of the worst of "humanity" from surfacing daily.
Don't believe me? Ask the species we exterminated to extinction simply due to our own laziness, our greed, even when the other species offered no direct threat to our own. That's all the proof I need to know what I am as an organism.
There is no easy answer or solution except to choose for yourself how you will play the game, and hope others choose the same.... many will choose greed.
I am no longer surprised when Players in MMOs cheat, or gifted computer geeks hack, or when MMO Publishers screw over their customers or break their game's own EULA's and TOS's just to make a few more dollars/euros/etc..... it's all "Par for the Course".
Complaining about cheating is like complaining about cash shops, it's pointless. Save yourself from becoming a bitter and twisted person like me.
I am the Player that wonders... "What the %#*& just happened?!"
...............
"I Believe... There should be NO financial connection or portals between the Real World and the Virtual in MMOs. "
__Ever Present Cockroach of the MMO Verses__
...scurrying to and fro... .munching on bits of garbage... always under foot...
Your reasoning has been used time and again by myriad people. "If only they made the game more the way I think it should be, I wouldn't have to cheat", and "the game forces you to cheat because of poor decisions the developers made" are two of the most common excuses given by cheaters to justify their behavior; painting themselves as "the victim" of some kind of unfair treatment... as though they were forced into participating in it in the first place.
It's a paper-thin, self-serving argument that carries no weight, what-so-ever.
Just like in every other case, your perspective in that regard is wrong. Plain and simple.
"Not liking the rules" in a video game is never an "okay" reason to cheat or otherwise break them. Ever.
Your characterization of rules as "merely guidelines" is also a crock, however much you might try to spin. When a developer says a given activity is prohibited in their game, and people are being banned or suspended when caught doing it... that's a *rule*. People aren't banned for not following "guidelines".
If you don't agree with the rules in a videogame, you find it "doesn't suit your personal desires as a gamer" and there's no way you could bring yourself to enjoy the game despite them.. then the proper course of action is to stop playing the game and move on to something that does better suit your sensibilities so you don't feel compelled to cheat.
That's it. End of discussion.
Your perspective is not original, it's not clever, it's not profound and it's not compelling, no matter how much you may believe it is. Your entire post is nothing but a string of lame excuses to excuse yourself for doing something you know is prohibited... just as the article points out.
Pointing out that people might cheat, steal or otherwise do "wrong things" does not justify the behavior either. As the saying goes, "you don't justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior".
Again, if you are playing a game that is at odds with what you prefer, then do the honest thing, and find another game that is more in line with your preferences. At least then you can enjoy the game, and won't even have to make excuses for it.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
People who are angry at cheaters are more mad because they can't figure out how to cheat themselves. Therefore they take it as an insult because they're being griefed by cheaters and they have no way to effectively counter it.
Cheaters are not as unstoppable as people make it out to be. Sure they can kill 20 people or so before they eventually die in FPS games, but it takes team work to focus fire the cheater and play their A game to take them out.
Not everyone who is accused of cheating is actually a cheater. In the FPS world there are really good players who just know all the workings of the game and the best guns to use in each situation and picking out the best weapon to counter their opponents weapons.
Cheaters strive for making people angry and rage on about it. It's their livelihood and they don't care who's feelings they hurt. The more tears they drink from their victims the more successful they become.
I think game developers should find better methods to detect cheaters but just by how the way software works and programming is in general there is no 100% way to detect every type of cheat that can be made. You have aimbots that read data from the client and server, hook string aimbots that search for specific data, pixel/color aimbots that run on the client only and intercept nothing from the server just reads pixels and aims to the pixel you want it to focus on. (hardest to detect bot and safest to use if you want to cheat, but the most pain to effectively use)
In addition I'm sure people find it a rush to get away with something thats not allowed and see how long they can go without being caught, after all we are human and everyone has their own kind of rush they desire.
People that do not cheat are not MAD that they can not cheat. A google search can fix that in a few minutes.
If you think about every one of those reasons, they are completely hollow. The person cheating is not what is making the person rage. The cheat is. The cheat does things that the cheater can not do with their own skill. It's a completely hollow "victory". So really, if your goal was to make people rage, you aren't directly responsible for it.
For all of the other excuses in the above posts, the ones about honor and such, it's all learned behavior. For some it comes more natural than others, but it's learned behavior. It can be changed. But, you won't get help from their parents or friends that influence them. It's horribly hard to open their eyes to what real challenges are vs cheating your way through them. People have become more obsessed with existing above their true self and are afraid to make mistakes at an alarming level. The world is all "look at me! look at me!" with sites that do nothing but cater to self indulgent people.
Gaming companies are also to blame because of greed. They don't want to lose a player's sub. They will even finally ban an account and let the same person start a new one as long as they are paying. The penalties are not deterring and they don't devote real resources to looking into the cases/reports. GMs are horribly overrworked and underpaid while being scared to do anything that will cost users. Look at the report queues. A lot are also undertrained. But, they are costing the company users in those that quit because people have been exploiting the same issues for actual YEARS. Farm bots that fly and run underground, or gold site spammers that fly in nofly zones are a very prevelant example. They've been told how they do it, but no server side check is still in place to prevent it. WoW has had this since Wrath that I can recall.
Third party anti cheat programs have never stopped people from cheating and never will. There are too many ways around them. It's evident when new aimbots are online the day after that software updates it's definitions. They have to fix the exploitable code in the game itself or add sanity checks to prevent it. Which, they never do.
[edit] I almost completely forgot something. You know what makes my day? Watching a cheater rage because they used a cheat to win and still got destroyed because they are horrible at a game. I mean, just knowing they sometimes wasted money to acquire a cheat and still got beat down. Then when they get banned for cheating on top of it and payed to play the game. Classic [/edit]