OT: Blizzard Entertainment disabled around 20,000 accounts of cheaters

[geoschmo]

20,000!

So more people cheat at Online Warcraft than even play Online SEIV. Like 700 times more.

We really are a niche game.

Geoschmo

[Arkcon]

from the article
The Battle.net cheaters were using one of several "map hack" tools that removed the fog of war from Online matches, allowing wussy gamers to see what their opponent is doing at all times. This sort of hacking is apparently a lot easier to devise than more serious cheats, such as allowing for infinite mana Online. Nothing like that's appeared yet, fortunately—and, with luck, it'll stay that way.

Yeesh, just how important are bragging rights in Online games anyway. I can see someone posting it here --

"Bwa Ha Ha. My 50 Organic armor, phased shield XXII, Ultra Massive Mount Null Cannon (reload rate 1) Super Dreadnought took out your 4 Battleships. Ha. Ha. Loser. Loser."

I mean really, what's the point. Does anyone really care that much.

[sparhawk]

Yes, the reason to cheat is totally unclear for me.
What is the fun of playing a game and knowing that you win, because you cheat .
Why should you play: I play because I like the kick when I win, using all of my strategies etc.
and that I know that I'm "better" than my opponents. So cheating is totally fooling yourself with the idea that you are "better" than the rest. so why cheat??????

Like a game that I played via internet: Tribes2
It WAS a great game to play: different kinds of soldiers, can use vehicles etc.
But the game was killed after a couple of months due to cheating of players.

So this is my sollution: Game makers; don't put cheatcodes in games!!
(offcourse you still can HEX edit the game, but I think most of the cheating could be avoided if they won't include cheatcodes).

Just an opinion.

Sparhawk

[sachmo]

My theory is that it's not so much about the actual win as it is about the acceptance these people feel that they get. My question is...shouldn't they be getting that somewhere else?

[sp0rk]

It's not the cheaters that bug me so much as the guys that write the third party software in the first place. There may well have been 20,000 cheaters, but I'll bet they all used the same handfull of cheat programs.

They guys that make these programs are the ones really looking for the bragging rights amongst their own small group of peers, the programs get posted on cheat forum Boards and then your 20,000 idiots go out and give the creator some kind of ego trip.

You get the same situation in chat rooms with 'booters' and 'laggers'. When excite used the virtual places software there was a whole mini community of programmers devoted to finding and using any exploit in the servers they could find. They were organised and held classes in programming, pooling resources.

Of course, when an exploit was found a program was made, given a nice GUI with the creators name in full view and found it's way to the masses. Every time I got booted it wasn't the goon that pushed the button I got mad at, it was the goon that gave him the button to push in the first place.

[ September 13, 2002, 15:04: Message edited by: sp0rk ]

[Trajan]

The "Why cheat" discussion is always a painful one. I think any long-term on- and offline gamer has had the displeasure of dealing with the specter of cheating.

In every Online gaming experience (except this one) I have encountered cheating. What makes the major difference is how it is handled. The best experience was with the now defunct Starlance Mechcommander league, where the league administators moved quickly to eradicate any cheaters from the league.

The worse experience was either with Diablo or Starcraft. Both of those games had me running to other games within a few weeks as I found the cheating to be tooooooo pervasive.

Everquest is another example of a community where "Cheaters" are dealt with quickly. Though I have only seen a real cheat occur once and the individual was quickly Banned. Do I think others cheat in some format? Probably, though I don't really care anymore. Long-term EQ players have put it all behind them and are there socialize as much as they are to kill.

Anyhow, this (SEIVG) is by far one of the cleanest environments I have ever participated in.

Cheers!
Trajan

[Mylon]

I don't think people cheat to win as much as they cheat to "earn" prizes. I recall that there were some prizes given away to the people on the top of the Starcraft ladder, and while I'm not sure if this is the case with Warcraft III it's probaby similar.

I've actually been considering the cheat potential of SEIV a bit, just for curiosity's sake, but I _think_ it's pretty secure given how turns can be easily generated remotely, thus it really doesn't matter what the components say they do in the player's computer, it's what they say on the host computer that matters. At least, I hope this is how it works. The other issue that could become a problem is people opening up your empire. I'm not sure if they can submit your turn for you, but that omnipresent view would make things pretty difficult. This could be potentially corrected if the save files were split up and distributed to the indivudal empires instead of packaged together.

One important thing to remember about cheating is that if it is possible, it is safe to assume it will happen. Map hacks in RTS games can be very difficult to stop because at least two computers in the group need to be aware of where every unit is and their status to prevent cheating of another fashion (invincibility, free unit production, ect...), but a cheat-free option would require a "moderator" to act as the omnipresent view and distribute limited map information to the other players. Providing this service to everyone would be very expensive with some 100,000 games going on at a time, and trusting a player to be the host gives them the ability to cheat but limits the ability of the other players to do as such.

I've had my own experiences of cheating among even my own friends. Thankfully it was in single player games, but I never really could understand the practice of using "unintended features" of the game to make it less interesting. I remember in Rise of the Triad if you plugged in the god mode code, the character never stopped yawning.

[ September 13, 2002, 15:40: Message edited by: Mylon ]

[Jmenschenfresser]

If 20,000 people are cheating, the environment is so diluted that I'd call the 'cheat' a 'mod' rather than a 'cheat.' Not that it makes it any less pathetic.

***craft games blow anyway.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Mylon:
I remember in Rise of the Triad if you plugged in the god mode code, the character never stopped yawning.

LOL, I never knew that. Pretty cool of them to put that in, was that Apogee, I only played the demo -- good gameplay, but they did lose interest with the blocky graphics. At least it didn't give me motion sickness like Half-Life. Seriously, I can't play these types of games.

[Wardad]

Winning can be fun, losing can be depressing. People with no ethics may see cheating as another tool. After all the next guy is likely to be cheating.

Warchild has unlearned a lot, and teaches me things I do not want to know. He would play MOO in "GOD" mode with cheats and enjoy taunting the AIs.