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Killing The Fun - Cheating In Online Games
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."
I thought the word for someone who didn't cheat was "n00b"
Jay | http://oldos.org
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.
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.
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. I never cared about looking 'uber'. I was a good player in my own right. I cheated just because I wanted to grief the mindless, shitball, cliquey clannie fuckheads that played that game. I *liked* the fact that they knew I was cheating.
Other people in my clan/grief group botted for other reasons. One guy just liked looking uber to noobz. Another just throught it was funny.
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?
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..
Simple solution... ever play Yahoo games? There are beginner, intermed and expert rooms to choose from. This might be something to consider in games. I find that the rooms are pretty honest in skill level. Sure, someone could troll the beginner rooms if they're good, but, from the Yahoo example, it doesn't happen (much). If you're #4 ranked, but in the beginner level, that's not much respect.
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?
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.
Cheaters are bad. But they are NOTHING compared to TKs.
At least cheaters you kick and they go cheat somewhere else. TKs keep coming back cause they enjoy it too damn much. Not to mention TKs have a sad history of coming back with different name.
At least cheaters are wanted by one team. TKs are hated by everybody. The team that win gets an unsatisfying victory. The team that lose gets abused.
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
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.
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