OT: Cheaters

[Atrocities]

Before you all go and freak out, I am not talking about SEIV or PBW. What I am talking about is other games.

I recently discovered that I am a naive fool when it comes to cheaters and games. In every game there will be those who cheat. It is when that game becomes so saturated by cheaters that one begins to understand that cheating has become the black market of the On line / Multiplayer universe.

Games such as Tribes, Counter Strike, BOTF, Quake 2, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and even Elite Force and SEIV have all fallen pray to these Lepers who love to cheat.

I just discovered, after nearly a month of game play, that the on line game Black Nova Traders, is a cesspool of cheating. It really sickens me to find out how naive I really am. To have been beaten by a cheater, and to have all my hard work stolen from me by a cheater just makes me want to find the server this game is one, and hack it. Then again, I have no hacking skills, so that in turn really angers me. Sorry, cheating happens, and it is an on line gaming way of life.

The sick thing is that no one seems to be able to stem the tide. The faster the game developers fix the exploits, the faster the hackers hack the game.

When Tribes became as bad as Counter Strike, I stopped playing it. The developers could care less, as they were interested in other issues such as fixing bugs. Commendable, but off target a bit. You see, once the word got out that CS was flooding and swamped by cheaters, no one played. So Sierra had to do something. They recently, Last month, released a new patch for HL to fix many of the known hacks. Well, new hacks are now popping up and the game is once again falling back into that quagmire that cheaters love so much.

Is there no light at the end of the tunnel? I think there is. I think that in time, developers will become so desperate to stop cheaters that they will make it a part of the gaming license that if the player is detected cheating, more than once, then their CD code, registered to them, will be Banned from all game servers for X amount of time. If cheating continues, it will become a permanent ban.

With the ever increasing anti-theft, owner verification programs, and smarter copy prevention systems becoming more and more aggressive, I can see a time when using a pirated copy of a game to play on line with will be a thing of the past.

People say it can not be done, or where there is a will, there is a way, but I say to that, your right. And those who develop these games will eventually find a method that will ensure that although the game can be hacked and copied, it can't be played on line.

In the end, cheaters will loose the incentive to cheat. Cheating is a self-destructive pattern that can only lead to one's loosing interest in a game. If you know you are always going to win, winning becomes less and less important. Once people know that you’re a cheater, who'll want to play with you?

I have learned my lesson about Black Nova Traders, and have stopped playing that game. If the cheaters are so fricking desperate to be top dawg in that game, then I say they can have it. Besides, the banner pop-ups were getting to become a major nuisance.

[geoschmo]

[rant]
When I hear stuff like this it makes me even more appreciative of Malfador that they do take the issue seriously and make an effort to fix those problems when they come up.

My pet theory about this kind of stuff is that these people aren't relly interested in winning or losing the game itself. The real game they are playing is against the developer, not against the people in the game where they are cheating. Many of them are amatuer programmers, or even professional ones but are stuck in unsatisfying jobs. They see the developer of the game doing the things they they want to do, and feel like they could do better if only...

a)They had more time
b)They had more money for startup
c)They weren't being held back
d)Life wasn't so unfair

blah, blah, blah.

It's really very sad actually. Instead of getting off their butts and making this "Awesome game" they have floating around in their heads and actually learning how the real world operates, they choose instead to show their skill at programing by destroying the hard work of others.[/rant]

Geoschmo

[Tenryu]

I don't play any PBW games because of the weenies that do this sort of crap. Same sort of shock and depressing wake-up call happened to me about 10 or years ago. It's pretty sicking, I saw the same sort of thing at university. Cheating seemed to be the 'cool' accepted norm.

Indeed, by now, I am convinced that honest, moral, upright behavior toward your fellow human being is the exception to the rule.

[Atrocities]

Indeed, by now, I am convinced that honest, moral, upright behavior toward your fellow human being is the exception to the rule.

That is really a depressing way to look at life my friend. I would have to say that the people I have met here at these forums have proven to be very nice people indeed. Always helpful and always willing to talk.

If what you say is accurate, and I am not agreeing or dissagreeing with you, then I would venture a guess that in "that" mind set, the game is all about money and power.

[tesco samoa]

Tenryu

most people are just wrapped up in there own world and it seems that they are that way. Careless perhaps but on the whole do not wish for harm to occur to others.

[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