[Trajan]

Gentlemen,

RANT ON
Having played games Online now for far too long (20 years? -- starting with compuserve on an apple) I have encountered cheating in every game. Whether it was a 1st person shooter like Tribes or Everquest (*Everquest is a HUGE discussion in and of itself), a strategy game like Mechcommander or StarCraft, or an edventure game like Diablo I have always found cheaters.

Some of those games had a fantastic and enthusiastic player community that stomped down hard on cheating. The best example of a player community IMHO was the StarLance Mechcommander league. There were instances of players and whole teams cheating, yet the retributive actions taken by the player-body and adminstration of the league cleaned up the problem player(s) quite nicely. (I miss Starlance - it was very good - in its time.)

Starcraft and Diablo were games that had rampant cheating and I soon left them in frustration and anger.

Some folks might make the general statement that all cheating is done by 13-16 year old puberty ridden boys. However, I have seen instances older (age 40+) established players, male and female, taking advantage of an exploit or hack in a game or league system.

Cheating is always sad, and I find that I have become fairly inured to it. If it ruins the gaming experience for me or my team, then I leave the game behind and find a new one.

RANT OFF

<~sigh~>

Cheers!
Trajan