I play Monopoly sometimes online and there seems to be alot of people using some sort of scripts that automatically roll and/or change the outcome of the game. How is this possible? Where are they getting these scripts from? I would love to have something rolling for me instead of me rolling for myself ; )
I’m not entirely clear what you’re asking. Would this be a way of cheating at the game, or just making it go a bit faster?
If you’re trying to save the hassle of having to mouse-click on a series of inconveniently-placed buttons, you could always dig out or download an old copy of Windows Recorder.
Faster. It’s not cheating because you have to roll either way.
I also would like you to explain to me how they are able to alter the outcome of a game (not with the dice rolling thing) with these scripts. Alot of people say there are some people using scripts to do that…that’s what I don’t understand…how can they use scripts to do that when the game is being played-not on their computer-but on the internet.
What I don’t understand is why people even bother to cheat at online games. What’s the point? Why play if you don’t actually want to… well, play?
I suppose it’s possible that there’s some weakness in the game that a script could exploit. I know that in Yahoo Graffiti, (a game that I really, really can’t understand cheating in) there was some bug where if you typed in an extremely long string of text, the game counted it as a correct answer. For some reason, mahjongg was frequently used as the word, so you’d see repeated guesses of something like “MAHJONG!!!” and they’d get the credit for the answer. Annoying.
You are talking about “bots.” These are programs designed to engage in preset computer input, as if the player were actually sitting at the keyboard and using it and the mouse, when in fact the player is off doing other things, or is there but letting the bot do the work for him faster and more accurately than he can.
To give an example, fairly well known from the online gaming world:
In Everquest 2, you make items by having “targeted” a particular type of manufacturing object, such as a stove, or a woodworking table. You select a recipe from your list of recipes and you click on a button that starts the process of creating the item you wish to make. You then wait while several dice rolls go by, resulting in the creation of an item; the quality of what you have created depends upon how skillfully you counter certain events that happen during the process, which you can do by pressing one of a number of keys. Then you do it again by pressing the “repeat” button on the screen with your mouse pointer.
A bot can do this for you. You program the bot to click on the appropriate place to start the item creation project. You then program the bot to repetitively click on the various countering spells, regardless of whether or not they are needed. Then, when the bot detects that the process is done, it clicks to “repeat.” Meanwhile, you go off and have coffee and read the morning newspaper.
This is frowned upon by the powers that be. It allows the player to obtain something he wouldn’t have obtained without the “work” of sitting at the keyboard and doing the boring clicking. It places as a limit upon the possibility of item creation only the time in the day the person has to work the bot. Then, these items flood the market, rewarding the player with income and depressing the price of the items for those who make them the “proper” way.
In the case of online Monopoly, a bot could simply roll the dice whenever it is the turn of the player, negating the need for the player to actually be there to supervise the play of the game. A sophisticated script could handle purchase of properties, payment of fines, etc.
I see. Well, I don’t see that as cheating, do you? If you agree that it’s not cheating, please tell me where I too can download one of these scripts.
It’s cheating. These scripts are usually used at sites where there is a chance to win money or other economic consideration (i.e., pogo.com). They are not permitted and your account will be banned if you’re caught using them.
Usually bots and advanced scripts are considered cheating. Of course it depends on the game, but I’d suspect for Monopoly it wouldn’t be looked on favorably. If there is any reward or ranking system at all then forget it, you’ll probably get banned for it (but I’m guessing).
There are exceptions though… Some of the old BBS style games, such as Tradewars, had communities of players that encouraged this sort of thing. Some online games, such as Team Fortress Classic (Half Life mod) encouraged some pretty complex scripting and it was considered a sign of an advanced player to have a carefully tweaked out set of key binds. For example, I had a sniper config that allowed for a 10-level zoom that was controlled with the scroll wheel on my mouse, which also adjusted mouse sensitivity to be appropriate for each level.
Of course when I switched to playing Counter-Strike later, any sort of scripting outside of purchase-scripts was strictly viewed as cheating. These days there are also much more sophisticated aiming bots and the like, so custom game scripts in online games have definitely fallen out of favor in most communities.