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Killing The Fun - Cheating In Online Games

Posted by simoniker on from the i-aimbot-joo dept.

Thanks to the San Jose Mercury News for its story discussing the ever-present problem of cheating in online games. One of the issues discussed is cheating on Xbox Live using Action Replay-like devices, with a Microsoft spokesperson suggesting: "We didn't go into this with the idea that no one's ever going to be able to exploit this... But we absolutely take this stuff seriously and are taking action on it every day." However, noted FPS player Dennis 'Thresh' Fong laments an unfortunate side effect for the dextrous: "Because there is this perception that everybody cheats, people that are good are not recognized for their skills. When I play online, I'm always accused of being a cheater."

28 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Cheating not only in online games... by gringo_john · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Cheating is something that is prevalent in many things in addition to online gaming.

    Take for example the olympics. The "arms race" to build the ultimate undetectable performance enhancing drugs closely mirrors the battle between online game cheaters and cheat detection.

    It's a sad fact that when the more there is at stake, the greater people will be willing to go in order to obtain a win.

  2. Did you ever think... by JavaLord · · Score: 5, Insightful

    However, noted FPS player Dennis 'Thresh' Fong laments an unfortunate side effect for the dextrous: "Because there is this perception that everybody cheats, people that are good are not recognized for their skills. When I play online, I'm always accused of being a cheater."

    Did you ever think people might cheat because they might not want to deal with the "dextrous" players who play 4-50 hours a week?

    Online gaming needs match making and player rankings built into their in game browsers.

    1. Re:Did you ever think... by Hanji · · Score: 3, Insightful

      PLEASE MOD PARENT UP.

      I think there are all too many people who would be casual game players, but who can't get into anything, because while they're trying to figure out what's going on, people like this dude NAIL them. I know I'm one of them.

      Don't tell us that we'll get better if we work at it - WE DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO. We want to be able to sit down and play with people at comparable skill levels and enjoy the game *now*, without having to devote our lives to learning to become uber-1337 at it.

      --
      A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
    2. Re:Did you ever think... by Idealius · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It wouldn't make any difference anyway. The cheaters would just create 6 bots instead of one to account for the 6 skill brackets.

      The whole beauty of online gaming is it's chaos. No blood, no foul. Just like life.

      Besides, a game is meant to be competitive. Cheaters have to do just as much work programming those bots as it takes to get good at the game. Not to mention they're caught, and kicked, often making the point moot.

      That doesn't solve Fong's unfortunate side effect, but it does make for some interesting online experiences.

      The things that happen through these machines are only an extension of our intentions. Tell me you've never heard of people sent to die in the deathchamber that were found to be innocent later?

    3. Re:Did you ever think... by eliza_effect · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's what single player if for. Or at least find a server that is at your skill level. Many people find it fun to challenge themselves, and there's no reason to throw that away so you can have an even playing field.

    4. Re:Did you ever think... by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "I think there are all too many people who would be casual game players, but who can't get into anything, because while they're trying to figure out what's going on, people like this dude NAIL them."

      I've seen my share of this. I've seen a lot of people cry "FAGGOT CAMPER!!". I know I've been the victim of that. Evidently, sitting on a sniper perch and sniping is against the unwritten rules when you become proficient at it. I have never ever once heard "Hey man, you're making this too hard for me. Could you please scale it back a bit so I can have a little fun here?" I promise you that if somebody approached me nicely about it instead of shouting obscenities at me, I would have altered my approach for everybody to have more fun.

      So is the problem that people get too good at it, or is the problem that nobody's taking the opportunity to just ask nicely?

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    5. Re:Did you ever think... by a+whoabot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "I think it's stupid to complain about campers, do you imagine that scene in the french village in Saving Private Ryan with the soldiers shouting "f*cking camper!"? Me neither."

      I don't get this. It's like you try to make some point of the fact that in something more important, or grand, or something, than a video game, stuff equivalent to "camping" happens. And because it's not called as "bad" there, then this invalidates, in some way, such a label for camping in these games. It's supposed to give perspective. But your reference is the happenings of a Hollywood movie. You reference it almost as one would an actual event. Wouldn't it make more sense just to refer to World War II snipers? Even the Normandy landings or something? How is a shitty movie any more perspective-giving than a shitty game?

      But don't mind me. Just your resident mass-media critic.

    6. Re:Did you ever think... by Hanji · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Single player is of a finite length. Multiplayer increases replay value HUGELY.

      As for finding a server of my skill level, that's what I'm asking for. In my experience, most game browsers make doing so waaaaay too hard.

      --
      A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
    7. Re:Did you ever think... by Divide+By+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Besides, a game is meant to be competitive.

      Competitive, yes, but not at the expense of being enjoyable.

      game (n.)
      1. An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime: party games; word games.

      A game is supposed to be FUN. I'm a casual Halo player, and when my friends and I get together to play split-screen or LAN Halo on the XBox, we have fun. When I play Counterstrike online, I get OWNED (or PWNED, or pwn3d), and it is NOT FUN. People much better than me make the game not fun, and it becomes an exercise in walking out, getting brained by some cat who spends his days playing Counterstrike, and waiting for the next round.

      You don't put a high school pitcher on the mound against the Yankees, you don't put a twenty-something who commutes to work and back in a stock car at Daytona, and you don't put a casual player on a public CS server. It's competitive in the sense that two parties are trying to acheive mutually exclusive goals, but it's nowhere near fair. There's no doubt as to the outcome, no fun for the loser and no sense of accomplishment for the winner.

      Thank you very much, but I'll play something else if I want to have fun, and I'll play Counterstrike if I need to feel inferior to a 14-year-old who doesn't do his homework. (A brash overgeneralization intended to illustrate a point; put down your flamethrowers.)

      --
      Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
    8. Re:Did you ever think... by PainKilleR-CE · · Score: 2, Insightful

      and playing against bots can quickly make up for the skill difference felt in multiplayer games, as you can learn the game without dealing with the excess crap that some players bring to the table.

      The two things that really improved my skill in FPS games were playing against Eraser bots in Q2, which I did for about 2 weeks before rejoining the multiplayer population, and joining my clan in TFC. In the 2 weeks playing against the bots my skill level rose an amount that it probably never would have against random pub players. In the time I spent with my clan, it rose even more quickly. The only real limits to an individual's skill in the game are their own physical and mental limitations related to playing the game (eyesight, ability to recognize objects on screen quickly, ability to use the mouse and keyboard accurately, etc) and the skill of the players around them. Initially, you need opponents of nearly equivalent skill to learn the game's basics and get a feel for how things are done, but eventually there is something to learn from almost any opponent, and playing with or against a far more skilled player becomes much more helpful.

      That being said, Counterstrike and similar games don't lend well to a trial-and-error style of learning, due to the heavy penalty on death. Additionally, cheating has an impact on the whole cycle, as you end up learning the limitations and behaviors of a player that is cheating, or the bot that player is using, which only really helps against others using the same cheats in the same manner.

      --
      -PainKilleR-[CE]
  3. Take it as a compliment by Toxygen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, if you're so good at a game that you're consistently being accused of being a cheater, just laugh it off and say to yourself "damn, I'm good". Don't get me wrong, it sucks to have people not trust you, but in the end YOU know the truth, so how much should you really care about some insecure loser's paranoid opinion?

    1. Re:Take it as a compliment by dFaust · · Score: 4, Insightful
      While your concept is nice, it just doesn't work out that way. Perhaps you've never been accused of cheating (when you weren't). It's not simply one person who happens to say, "Cheater". It's repeated rants full of explitives. Games are supposed to be fun! How fun can a game be when the entire time you're being called a cock-sucking pussy fuck cheater?? Seriously. Even by people on your own team.

      But that's only the beginning. Some games allow players to be even more proactive... ie: voting. Believe me, when you're playing fair and square and every few minutes a vote comes up to kick and/or ban you from the server..... not my idea of fun. Especially if you actually DO get kicked. Talk about killing the mood.

      Yeah, it's flattering in a way. But it gets old FAST.

  4. Re:Why? by JavaLord · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is it so easy to cheating at online fps games? Can some of you l33t h4x0rz put some effort into cheating in online casinos.

    Because Online Casino's aren't open source, and don't encourage modding of their games. Have you ever seen Roulette-"Counter Strike edition"?

    FPS games would be much more secure if they weren't so open and didn't allow for modding. I know the open source advocates here are going to scream about how open source is more secure, but it isn't when it comes to games because some things in games can not be patched aftermarket.

  5. Re:Why? by Aliencow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, they'd be more secure if they were 100% server based like Casinos are. It's not like the outcome of the spin is determined on your pc. However, due to lag reasons, your PC has to know where everyone is even though you shouldn't see them..

  6. Technological solution by El · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Cheating being possible at all is a side effect of having the client know too much about the game state -- the position of other players, collision detection, etc. This is presumably done in an attempt to work around the lag introduced by the network. This means only real-time games are susceptible to cheating; turn based or casino type games cannot be cheated in. It also means that faster networks should enable game makes to validate inputs and make more of the decisions on the server side, thus making cheating obsolete even in FPS games. Until then, anything you do to stop cheaters is just a temporary stop-gap in a never ending arms race.

    --

    "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

    1. Re:Technological solution by Eivind · · Score: 4, Insightful
      This is only partly true. *some*, perhaps even *most* cheats are a result of the fact that, as you say, with common game-designs the client knows a lot more than it *should* tell the player. And so by changing the client to disclose it, you gain an advantage.

      Typical examples include cheats that let you see trough walls, or cheats that give you a wider field of view.

      But that's not the *entire* problem. There's a few more classes of cheats. And those cannot be eliminated by the server only telling the client stuff that the player should see;

      Aimbots. You see (and should see) the enemy on the screen. Some program helps you aim so that you hit better than you otherwise would. If you always hit 100%, it could conceivably be detected, but the problem is that the aimbot can be adjusted to be *precisely* as good as the server will allow anyone to be.

      You mention casinos, card-games and turn-based games. Those can be cheated (well, it's up to you if you count it a cheat, but atleast it'll give one player an unfair advantage over the other players) for example by having a program count cards for you. It's quite a big advantage in for example online bridge to *always* know *exactly* which cards have been played and which remains. Good players will remember some of it, but a program will remember all 100%.

      Then there's the problem of behind-the-scenes communications. To stick with the bridge-example, two players on a team have a *humongous* advantage if they can tell each others, somehow, what cards they have. With online gaming, this is obviously as simple as IM.

      Or let's say online poker. Let's say it's implemented with Schneiers cryptographically secure poker-system, so that no client can cheat. But, the thing you don't know is that the three other guys at the table are really friends, and communicating over IM. They'll tell eachothers who has the best hand, and the others will fold. Essentially, you're playing against a player who gets three hands every round, and can choose the best one to play with. You will loose. There is nothing the game-client can do to prevent this. Even if it *somehow* blocked all other ip-communications, the others could be sitting in the same room and communicating by talking, or they could be sending eachothers sms or any of a 100 other possibilities.

      You're rigth that telling the client less will reduce or eliminate *some* types of cheats. You are wrong however in claiming that this is the only reason cheating is possible at all.

  7. thinking all the time by August_zero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But that isn't a reason to cheat is it? How many "casual" gamers do you think cheat? If I had to make up numbers, I would guess that most of the cheaters, hell I would guess a vast majority of them play the game in question as much as the ubber-1337 players do. There is this tendency for people to assume that people that cheat suck or have no skills and that is why they cheat, I think this is just something we tell ourselves when we lose to a cheater ("if he wasn't cheating I would own him!") People that cheat are people that either don't want to lose, or they are doing it just to ruin the game experience of others. I would be very surprised if you could find me a below average player that uses a couple of cheats to level the playing field.

    I see what you are saying, but I am not sure that there is really any relevance to the subject at hand here, I mean I don't think its fair that I own a crappy car, but does that mean you could empathize with me if I robbed a bank to buy a better one?

    --
    On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
    1. Re:thinking all the time by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Where do you get off making blanket statements that you have absolutely no insight into?

      "People that cheat are people that either don't want to lose, or they are doing it just to ruin the game experience of others. I would be very surprised if you could find me a below average player that uses a couple of cheats to level the playing field."

      Ok, prepare to be very surprised. I've used cheats to level the playing field with games I'm not good at. So does my little brother. Why? Well, because I'm simply a better gamer than him. That is why we enjoy games where you can set a handicap of some sort.

      To answer your first question, it IS a reason to cheat. People say that cheating at all is completely unacceptable. Kant would love these people. Fact is, cheating becomes acceptable to me if it enables me to enjoy my game that I purchased. I know it sounds selfish, but I honestly do not give two flying fucks about the gaming experience of the other people on the server, and I'm sure more than a couple feel the same.

      The solution, like parent said was to create matchmaking services so that people have the option of playing against people their skill level. It won't completely solve the problem, but it would certainly help. Punkbuster also has helped things. If you want to be able to play with cheats, play on a non-punkbuster server, otherwise get onto one where its enabled and feel much more confident that nobody is cheating (it isn't PERFECT).

      Seriously, try to understand that people may share other views than you. To try to pigeon hole them all based on no real first-hand experience on your part is foolish.

      --
      Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
  8. Re:Why? by slittle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He implies no such thing. He said your machine knows where they are even if you can't see them. ie. your machine knows more than it's telling you, therefore you can cheat by accessing this data.

    What is implied from this is that the server should deny or delay to the client any data it doesn't absolutely need. There are many problems with this of course, but they can be dealt with..

    --
    Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
  9. Re:Aimbot Author here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I cheated just because I wanted to grief the mindless, shitball, cliquey clannie fuckheads that played that game.

    And you know what those guys think of you now? That you're a mindless, shitball, cliquey clannie fuckhead. Way to feel superior, moron.

  10. So an aimbot evens the field?? by Kelmenson · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Don't tell us that we'll get better if we work at it - WE DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO. We want to be able to sit down and play with people at comparable skill levels and enjoy the game *now*, without having to devote our lives to learning to become uber-1337 at it.
    None of the cheats out there "even the field"... They don't improve your aim; they make it impossible to miss. How is that enjoying the game? The only enjoyment the cheaters get is in annoying the other players of the game.

    Its not like the cheats are a handicap where you can give yourself 30% extra life or money or something... They are all or none.

    1. Re:So an aimbot evens the field?? by PainKilleR-CE · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Its not like the cheats are a handicap where you can give yourself 30% extra life or money or something...

      I've seen aimbots that actually have scales for setting the hit percentage (because it makes it harder for people to realize you're cheating). That being said, though, it's AIM, not life, money, armour, ammo, guns, whatever. If you can't AIM, why are you trying to play multiplayer? You'd think that people would figure out they can't aim before they got to the point of trying to play with/against other people.

      A better point would be something like seeing through walls or the radars that track where everyone is. It's not really levelling the playing field, it's just giving you more information than the other players have, and taking certain elements (sneaking, hiding, etc) out of the game.

      --
      -PainKilleR-[CE]
    2. Re:So an aimbot evens the field?? by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In counterstrike, there are plenty of cheats that 'even the playing field'.

      Off the top of my head:

      Fullbright (add an insanely bright light where the players origin is, removing any shadows making it easier to see anything)

      Skinhacks (make all cts blue and all terrorists red, use is obvious).

      Soundpakcs (replace default sounds with more distinguishable noises, for example giant 'OUCH' sounds when someone gets hit, making it easier to tell if you hit someone through a wall)

      Whitewalls (remove all textures, making players contrast better).

      No Recoil ( compensate for gun recoil making it easier for newbies to spray)

      Its not all wallhacks and aimbots. For the record, I don't cheat (I'll be at CPL this summer), nor do I have any respect for anyone who does even if it is just to even the playing field.

      --
      Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
  11. Cheaters are sick. by gumpish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As someone who released the first aimbot for unreal tournament, and coded a few different cheats I can tell you why I, cheated. To grief people.

    So in other words, you're a sociopath. You derive pleasure from antagonizing others in a way that leaves them no recourse.

    Let me guess - pulling the wings off of flies and burning ants with a magnifying glass are among your cherished childhood memories. Maybe you had "fun" with firecrackers and the family pet?

    I'd hate to run afoul of Godwin's Law, but the senseless sadism exhibited by cheaters seems like it would fit right into some sort of guard/prisoner dynamic.

  12. Find some people you trust... by Shazow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Back in the days of Diablo (1), one of the most cheated-in games ever, a few of my close friends from school decided to limit our gameplay amongst ourselves so we wont be affected by the cheating going on in the "real world". We managed to enjoy the game a great deal, none of us cheated. It's based on trust, really. If you can find a few people that you trust and play with them, it increases the enjoyment of the game enormously.

    Same goes for first person shooters or any other game. Find yourself a clan with trustworthy members, and play.

    Just because everyone else cheats, doesn't mean you have to expose yourself to their damnation.

    - shazow

  13. winners never cheat by ddsoul · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Cheats can be quite effective, especially to police those that DO cheat. Back in the ol' CS days, on my friend's server we had always suspected this one guy who frequented his server of cheating. Needless to say I found one of these "wall hacks" to monitor his actions and the way he played (just from ghosting around and observing through walls.)

    It was quite effective to watch as he was able to predict exactly where everyone was (ie shooting through doors or being rather hesitant when going up or down the sewers..etc etc, I think if cheating is such an issue, there could be designated "Watchers" who get the ability to see through walls and observe, just there to monitor the play like referees at a sporting event. Fighting fire against fire so to speak.

    But from what I remember anti-cheat software (is punkbuster still around??) has really progressed in the past few years, I guess the same can be said about cheaters tho.

    --
    *604x
  14. Social Psychology At Work by Mongoose+Disciple · · Score: 2, Insightful

    At its heart, I think this and similar issues (such as baseball and steroids, which I believe someone brought up above) are really just a reflection of our culture.

    Somewhere along the line there's been a paradigm shift, and maybe it occured so gradually that no one noticed it was happening at the time. Winning has become more important than anything; this is a generally accepted value.

    It may seem like splitting hairs, but I think at some point, the cultural value was more that you wanted to be the best (at whatever). Winning wasn't the goal, per se; it was just the natural consequences of being the best. Somehow that middle step of excelling has been lost, has become a vague ???? not unlike a failed dot.com business plan. Once upon a time working hard and becoming good at your chosen endeavor filled that gap, now whatever means that seems most expedient (including cheating) is permitted to suffice.

    How or why that happened, I couldn't say.

  15. Re:Simple Solution... by Dragoon412 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Gunbound has a feature like that, now, where there are a couple newbie servers, and a bunch of other intermediate to advanced servers (advanced players are usually referred to as pros).

    The newbie servers are always packed, with most of the games being full of so-called pr00bs; advanced players who continually recreate their accounts to circumvent the rank limitations in the newbie servers. They're only there to grief newbies, and you'd be amazed how often a bunch of those dipshits are sitting there, on the newbie server, calling everyone n00b.

    Hell, my very first game in Gunbound, I was taken down in a matter of seconds by one of those damned pr00bs using a boomer from across the map.

    Having match-making services to pair up players of similar skill levels is cool and all, but it's not particularly effective if it's not enforced in some way.