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Rockstar Creates 'Cheaters Pool' For Game Hackers
itwbennett writes "Rockstar Games announced yesterday in a newswire post that the company has created a 'cheater's pool' (sort of like the populating of Australia with criminals) where players who have hacked the game to give themselves advantages will only be able to play against other cheaters. Although, Ars Technica points out that players may actually prefer the 'special' world."
there's no idyllic haven for cheaters like the headline and summary imply. they put all the cheaters together and then see if they cheat again, and when they do they get the ban hammer. the only way to stay in the cheaters pool, and the game itself, is to stop cheating. even ars technica missed this important bit of info.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
I remember back in the early 2000s when I was playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault that I was using various exploits to wall hack and have no recoil. I also found a server that was permissive of cheating. Some of the most fun I had was on that server, since the best players there figured out how to exploit the cheats against the cheaters.
For instance, one person could draw attention through a wall while someone else came up from behind, effectively allowing you to use bait without ever endangering yourself. Or you could leverage the fact that everyone with wall hacks "pre-fires" at corners when they see enemies about to round them. Just run headlong at all corners and suddenly stop before turning them. The enemy will generally waste some ammo or will even need to reload, giving you a chance to engage them on your terms. You might even exploit the fact that the other player doesn't know how many walls are between the two of you to get them to leave themselves vulnerable. For instance, if you know they're aiming a rocket in your direction, put a wall between yourself and a window that they can see, pretend that you're crouched under the window, then stand up suddenly. As often as not, they'll launch the rocket prematurely, leaving you safe and them open for easy retaliation.
There's still a lot of room for fun, experimentation, and even skill when you have everyone on a level playing field, even if that field is different than the one most people are playing on.
Aimbots are actually FPS cheats, not RPG. They intercept data from the game in order to track the position of all players and obsticles, and the very instant that a valid shot can be made by the user's character they will supply the appropriate movement data to turn and fire with perfect mathematical precision. They were for a time the bane of Counterstrike - an aimbot-using player with was effectively invincible, as anyone who had a potential shot at him would be instantly killed by the aimbot. Many different anti-cheating measures were incorporated into CS in order to defeat the use of these aimbots.
Other helpful cheater programs included modifying the client to make all walls translucent, thus allowing the cheater to see enemies lurking in wait behind cover, and changing the field of view and control response so that any weapon could be used for sniping, even a pistol.