Anyone ever cheat on an online game?

The Game Room
41

In the MMOFPS PlanetSide, my friend and I discovered that his Top-of-the-line Dell laptop would run the game faster, LITERALLY, in the online game world. This had something to do with the laptop being able to throttle the clock speed depending on whether you were running on battery power or plugged in (I guess it would clock down to conserve battery power). Planetside’s netcode didn’t take this into account, so if you had the laptop plugged in (which he did), all of your actions in-game were going about 30% faster than everyone else.

We figured this out because the ‘countdown’ timers in the game would count down faster than real seconds. For a while before we knew whats up, we just thought we were that good. Being able to do everything 30% faster had TONS of fun applications:

There was a suit of armor in the game called Infiltration armor. You had predator-like invisiblity, could move quickly, but were more vulnerable damage wise than any other kind of armor. You also had limited gun/inventory space. Many people would get this armor, and using ‘implants’ in game, use speed boosts for sprints and another implant that increased knifing damage. It was fun being a killy ninja, but tricky since you died fast if detected.

With the exploit we discovered, you could be a Killy Invisible Ninja…on steroids. We would go to huge gun battles, and the two of us would rip through the enemy battle lines. Since so many people were getting shot/blown up, noticing you got knifed by an invisible guy doesn’t raise much attention (it was the primary counter to snipers, who liked to sit still and not look over their shoulder much :smiley: ). We could rack up a LOT of kills. similarly, being in an aircraft allowed you to chase down the same model aircraft (since you’re 30% faster), outrun homing missiles, and spray projectiles like mad.

Since the vehicles moved faster, we could do Dukes of Hazzard-like maneuvers with tanks. In areas where you were particularly vulnerable (underwater, where only knife works and you WALK at a snails pace) it was a tremendous advantage.

Quickly enough, Sony online entertainment found the exploit and corrected it, but we never got in trouble because we were careful about how we used it, and the game had such huge gunfights it was difficult to tell if you died from an exploit or were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

42

Well, yeah, that’s what I’d use a glitch for. Whether I’m adding points, lives, or whatever, the glitch is only worthwhile if I benefit from it in some way.

A few comments.

  1. I am not a gamer, and I don’t understand much of this “world” you live in. However, I’m assuming that there is an on-line community provided by the manufacturer that exist for the sole purpose of identifying “glitches”, and telling the user community the consequences of usage. If this is the case, then I guess banning is appropriate. If it is also in the user agreement, then that’s the rules you’ve agreed to play by, so you risk banning. Again, I guess this is fair.

Is there a rule that insists you click on a link that takes you to the latest discovered “glitches” or anything else that you should be aware of before beginning the day’s play? I would think that once the decision is made that using the glitch is detrimental to use and takes away from the intended user experience, a conformation popup should appear to make the user confirm that they’ve read and understood the latest problem and to not exploit it. Is this what happens, or is the user responsible for knowing where to look and read everyday to see if what they are doing is ok?

  1. If the “honor system” isn’t followed by even a small number of gamers, those folks have an advantage that they shouldn’t have. But if they discover the glitch before it becomes well known, have they done something wrong if they exploit it?

  2. I honestly don’t understand where you folks find the time and energy to play these on-line games. I am also grateful that I’ve never been exposed to them or even tried one. I’d hate to think that I’d get sucked into it, but apparently many people do, and have a good time doing it. It sounds like virtual crack to me, and I’m not interested in becoming hooked on that. :slight_smile:

  3. Does the game itself provide an on-line discussion group, where things like this are posted? Or is the gaming community supposed to start something like this up on their own?

43
  1. Glitches are obvious 90% of the time. Seriously, if you find a part of the map you aren’t supposed to, or suddenly you’re running the game 30% faster, you’ll know. Most exploits are found by people deliberately trying to find them.

2+3) It’s like rigging a World Series game to make money off the bets. It’s like putting an aftermarket part on your car in a race where they’re banned. You just don’t do it. I know gamer culture is confusing to you, but I could find a similar metaphor in any of your hobbies. If you’re not going to take it seriously then you’ll never understand why people hate exploits. You say 'if they discover the glitch before it becomes well known, have they done something wrong if they exploit it’? I know these are two totally different levels, but if someone found a glitch in the ATM software and used it to steal money, of course it’d be wrong. Hell, people use exploits in Adobe Reader to make your computer run certain code, giving you a vrius, and no one would say that was okay.

  1. Most games have an official forum, but the juicy stuff is always on outside forums. This is why I usually don’t play online games - if you go off only the info the game gives you you’re missing out on a lot of things. But people go to forums to find exploits way more often than they accidentally discover exploits in-game.
44

Nothing like that, if a glitch falls into the grey area sometimes there will be a notification, but oftentimes you’re expected to know better. Because of this, most glitches that aren’t glaringly, obviously evil aren’t insta-bans, if the chat logs back up that you legitimately didn’t know and it falls under a heavy grey area then you’ll probably get a warning, but you’ll get the full punishment for repeat offenses.

It depends. If you’re doing something obviously damaging, like stealing player’s items when there’s not supposed to be a way to steal in game, or cloning your money, that’s pretty obviously wrong and you’re going to get the full punishment. If you exploit a new glitch that increases your stats by 20 by putting spells on in a highly specific order, then it’s fair game until stated otherwise (and usually fair game until it’s fixed). Its not a strict binary.

45

In my experience with online games, limited mostly to shooters, if you are using some kind of third party program, that is usually a death penalty offence that gets you permabanned.

If, however, you are doing something cheesey, but available to anyone with the game, they will often give you a warning and try to close the loophole.

46

I have played EVE Online for a long time now. Some of the exploits have been epic.

The Developer’s rule? If your are exploiting a bug you get punished and they are the one and only arbiter (well, you can petition for the punishment to be reviewed by other staff members).

Usually it is obvious and players know full well they are exploiting a bug. In one case people were able to run factories (crafting basically) without using inputs. They got away with it for a long time but when the developer wised up they banned the lot of them and removed all their stuff.

In another case there was an insanely lucrative trade run that took little effort. That was fine. The NPCs were selling for “X” in one place and buying for “Y” in another. Players were free to take advantage (which the Devs closed when they found out because it was unbalancing).

At the end of the day cheating is whatever the Devs deem it to be. They are fair and careful about it but mistakes happen. Best advice to a player is if it seems too good to be true it probably is and you shouldn’t do it…or think long and hard about it first.

47

But trade runs are supposed to be part of the game, aren’t they? Players are expected to look for situations where the NPCs sell for a low price in one place and buy for a high price in another. Calling that an exploit is like saying that merchants in the age of sail were exploiting a bug by running the Triangle Trade. Sure, the devs were free to decide that that one was a little too easy/valuable, but until they did, the folks who used it were playing the game right, not wrong.

Or consider Incubus’ example of his friend’s top-of-the-line computer running the game faster. Even after he discovered that, what was he supposed to do, buy another, slower computer just for running that game? Or to consider kushiel’s analogy about using a banned part in a car race: You can bet that when the new part has just been invented and before the race authorities have gotten around to officially banning it, everyone who has access to that new part is going to use it.

48

In the case of the trade run no one got in trouble. The Devs removed it because it was unbalancing. Players used legitimate tactics to jump-bridge (like a teleport) their cargo ship so the players avoided the danger of transport, could finish in a few minutes and make astounding profits. Again, the players were not in trouble for anything but the Devs decided it was not in the interests of the game so removed that.

If your PC runs fast it is simple for game designers to limit game speed in the program. I recall running Wing Commander on a new PC many moons ago. The game was absurdly, impossibly fast. There was a patch which limited the game so it ran at a normal pace. If you have an inordinately slow PC well, that is your own lookout. Designers put minimum specs up which they game should run at fine. If you do not meet those that is your problem.

Not sure I follow the last example.

49

Most of these exploits people are talking about would be simple for game designers to fix. But for whatever reason, they often don’t fix them, and even when they do, it takes a while.

50

Me neither. I don’t get the point. You can’t get any sense of achievement when you cheat.

51

To me it’s kind of like going to a trophy store and buying a bunch of trophies, putting them up in your room and telling yourself that you won them all.

52

I used to cheat all the time. Got banned on the WON (world opponent network, this network operated servers for the half life engine). Reason? Trolling. I was 15 and it was fun being a dick. Still kinda is.

53

Reviving this thread because the marketing staff at Hasbro just announced that There’s Now a Monopoly Made Specifically for Cheating, coming this fall. This reads like an Onion spoof but appears to be true:

54

only online game I cheated in was diablo one …

When I looked up the game on the then new gamefaqs (I was stuck on the offline game) the sticky guide for new online players specifically listed on where to get the infamous “Raymond’s trainer” because of the griefers

See with that program you could save your character and reload it when you died and lost all your stuff … It had other anti player killing safeguards too like if you were attacked it would boot the attacker …you could also copy everyone elses weapons and find out that no one used the in game weapons they made their own

After getting robbed for the 4th time and screwed over by party members I gave in … and yes I copied gold and duped weapons …

But my favorite thing was these one jerks were messing up a dungeon I created So I used the trainers uber hack…the ability to spawn lord diablo anywhere in the dungeon …

believe me those dickheads didn’t care for the end boss showing up on floor 20 …they were slaughtered and lost a lot of stuff when I closed the instance …when they bitched about it in the chat they received a stone cold in the Antarctic reception since they were known dicks…

55

The only game I remember cheating on was an iPhone app. And it ruined a fun game for me. :frowning:

I’ll explain. There is (was?) a game called Trivia Crack. You play it online with other players. It’s like Trivial Pursuit where you get trivia questions that fall under various categories (science, history, pop culture, etc.) and you try to beat other players.

I’ve always been good at trivia, I was even on a “Knowledge Bowl” team in high school where you’d compete in a Jeopardy-like game against other schools. This kind of game was right up my alley. And I was pretty good.

I can’t remember the details because it was years ago, but I think you had a time limit to answer a question. I used to play the game on the train to/from work since it was a good time-killer. Once I was playing and in the middle of a question I lost my internet connection (the train sometimes hit dead spots with no cell data signal). I realized that when I had no connection the timer would count to zero but not time out, giving me all the time I wanted to answer. Then if you reconnected the answer would register.

Having all the time you want to answer questions was a ridiculous advantage. Once I knew I could do it the game was ruined. If I cheated any win felt hollow. And if I didn’t, it felt like I was intentionally limiting myself. And it was so frustrating when I ran out of time and barely lost knowing I could have won if I wanted to.

Anyway I only played for another week before quitting the game for good. I wish I’d never have found that glitch. :frowning:

56

I’ve never cheated in an online game, ever. Even though I’ve been playing online games since Delta Force 2, Counterstrike and Battlezone 2 (yeah, plenty of opportunity). It just ruins it for everyone and I don’t want to be a part of it. If I notice someone cheating, I leave the game, even if they are on my team. Its annoying. I actually prefer someone glitching or outright cheating than those people who destroy their own teams assets. I remember it in Battlefield 1942 and it still continues to this day, especially on consoles when no admin is ever present or able to kick properly.

I miss Delta Force… Nothing beat the feeling of playing Team DM and having each team on a side of a hill or range, using their m203 grenade launchers as makeshift mortars and the feeling of amazement when one of them hit somebody… Magical.

Also, Punkbuster never, ever worked.:mad:

57

DF2 was my first shooter too! Good times. I still like Novalogic’s (RIP) version of CTF better than how it’s normally implemented in FPS.

I’ve also never cheated at an online game for the same reasons as everybody else, no sense of satisfaction. I play games to enjoy the competition. I want to win, sure, but I’d rather it be a good game. This ain’t for money or fame, there is barely any pride there. It’s just for fun. If you suck, find a different game or get better (or accept you suck and just do your best).

58

Kinda-sorta. It all depends on what someone calls “cheating”, and I debated it with folks back then and people’s opinions differed.
This was back in the days of Counter-Strike betas, around beta 1.6 or 1.8 (I don’t remember) and I was learning how to code, what scripts were etc… I always sucked at “short, controlled bursts” in games because I adrenaline-panic easily when I don’t expect a player to show up ; so I made myself a handful of scripts that would only fire 3 or 5 bullets per press of the mouse button. I reasoned that 1) anyone can do it, no server bans it 2) it’s a real feature on the weapons used in the game IRL and that feature exists precisely because it helps people like me and 3) it doesn’t break the game or allows me to do something other players can’t do or give myself unfair advantages over them.
Most of my friends didn’t mind, but a couple were adamant that since I was using tech to shore up a gaming skill I didn’t have (and they did), that was cheating on the level of using an aimbot. I still disagree, but hey :).

There was another “cheat” I dabbled in for a time, which was replacing the game’s client-side scenery textures with plain white/grey ; which made players easier to see at range ; but it was also super ugly and tiring on the eyes so I didn’t use that very much.

59

I am so glad to hear that someone else was in on that game!:smiley: It was the best, before consoles got in on the multiplayer and before it became a big thing. It was like this cool novelty escape from the world like no other, and it was such a well-made game for the time it came out. It was fantastic, the next version, Land Warrior… not so much, the guns looked really plastic and it just wasn’t the same. I miss Novalogic games, Especially the F-16/MiG29 Combo pack I got… Joint Operations was good too, like the precursor to the modern Battlefield games…

Cheers!

60

Interestingly, there’s a form of cheating now called “stream sniping.” Folks will broadcast their game play live on a stream (TwitchTV or similar), and if you’re watching their channel while they play, you know where they are and what they’re doing. I’ve been playing World of Tanks as of late, and an opposing artillery player was live streaming their play. A player on my team was watching and called out where they were, and where they were aiming. Not something I would make the effort to do, but with someone calling out info in the game chat I didn’t ignore it either.