Online Cheating
 

A Recent episode with Splinter Cell: Pandora Tommorow has led me to question online gaming as a whole. Many in the gaming industry see online gaming as the future of the industry, the proverbial direction that its undoubtably heading in. Untill now I saw myself as on this boat. I can specifically recall myself saying the very same things.

But now..after playing many online console and computer games I find myself becoming a bit more sceptical. I know what your thinking "How can a network that connects thousands upon thousands of gamers together that would otherwise never play together be a bad thing ?" .And im not neccisarily saying its a "bad" thing. But lets concider the pros and cons..well..hell we all know the pros, thier obvious enough. Im here to focus on the cons

Lets take, for instance, perhaps the most driving force behind online gaming. That being...the ability to be able to say..that "Out of the 80,000 registered online gamers playing said game, im better than 50,000 of them ! Woot Woot !". Thats right..people love online gaming because it enables them to be more competative then ever. Both satisfying and crushing egos all over the globe. And heres where my doubts come in

Anyone who's logged on to X Box Live or played a game of Socom online knows that PEOPLE ARE CHEATERS !. If there's a way to gain an unfair advantage or pad the stats, there are plenty of croocked people out there that will take advantage of such opportunities. Now im not pointing out tha most obvious fact that many people have no dignity. The moral decline of civilization is a whole other story. My question to you is this. As more and more cheaters flood into online games...will it hamper the success of online gaming as a whole. Will the predicitons of online gaming grangure on consoles be shattered due to this epidemic of cheating ? I mean,..how can I be expected to put my time and effort into trying to become the best I can be online when a large precentage of the people ahead of me are almost certainly cheating to get an edge ? Should I return the favor and cheat myself ? Is there anything that can be done by developers to prevent online unfairness ?. What do you think ?

Online gaming is part of the future of gaming. I still don't see single player games leaving the picture. Not every RPG is going to be multiplayer (at least I hope not). And I'll still prefer my sports games that way. But adding online features to any game makes that game better. Especially win patches can now be downloaded for console games to fix bugs and other things.

As far as cheating goes...well I had huge problems with Socom I. But in Socom II I have had little experience with people who cheat. In fact I've only seen it happen twice where people used a device to cheat. Glitching is a problem but I would say the lag is a far worse problem. But I wouldn't say it ruins the game like in Socom I. I've had no problems with any other game.

I've always found cheating to be a waste of time unless the game is just utterly impossible to beat *cough*Contra*cough*. Cheating devices should be illegal... Anyone who cheats in a multiplayer game should be ashamed. But I don't see this hampering online gaming in any way. It's still growing rapidly and when more games like Socom, FFXI, and Halo come out it will grow even more.

As far as eliminating the cheating...well...that's impossible to do. No game is bug free. And there is always something new coming out that enables people to cheat.

Aye men to that brother. That game was insanely difficult. I have anger issues as it is..I dont need to play that game anymore

Yea, cheating online is pretty stupid in my opinion. I never played socom but I have played counterstrike since 1.0. Probably played some of the beta versions also, dont really remember. Anyway the game was pretty good and all and the main thing that kept me palying was that there was always someone out there better than me and I had to beat them. Out of a server of 32 people, I would be better than 2/3rds of them but the final third just handed my ass to me on a golden platter. I kept playing so I can manage to get on thier level and do the same to them. As you said, the competition was great.

But then around version 1.2ish cheating came around. I joined a server and over half the people were better than me. I was losing to kids that were like 10 (I could tell because of the way they sounded on the mic and how they always were like "hAAHGA omfg pwnagfe!!111!" whenever they got a frag) and there was a small chance that I won. It was pretty obvious that you were cheating and people get mad at you for it. There was no glory in cheating, no one acknowledged your high score, and sometimes you even get kicked. But people kept on cheating. It really sucked. Eventually if you was halfway decent people would kick you out of a game for cheating. I remember I got 3 headshots in a row and everyone was like "OMFG, cheater. Kick him.". Eventually the game wasnt much fun anymore and I just quit playing.

Cheaters mess up the game for everyone. I dont know why people do it, as I said there is no glory in it. I guess there will always be cheaters in life.

But game developers are having anti-cheat software built into thier games nowadays. Some even code so good its next to impossible to cheat. Once harddrives become more popular on consoles I can see anti-cheat software beign installed on future games.

THIS is why I was soo baffled when I heard that the next X Box wont include a hard drive. And I seriously doubt the next Nintendo system will either. And I assume that Sony will save money and do the same. They will most likely sell them seperately for a hundred bucks or so. But that will seriously slow the spread of hard drives. I suppose it all comes down to money...hard drives are expensive and they cant afford to give them away for free. Cant blame them..but I CAN bitch about it. Im an american after all..its my job :laugh:

That happens alot. But not 99% of the time. Trust me..in Socom thier used to be people who would hide INSIDE mountains and kill you. You couldnt even see them much less shoot back at them. But I do know what you mean

The actual event in Pandora that pissed me off was that in many games against high ranked opponents. They will cancel the game or quit the second before you beat them as to avoid taking a loss on thier record (If someones leaves no points are awarded PERIOD). I concider this cheating even though its not..technically. Its this sort of dishonorable bull shite that makes me fell that online gaming is devoid of respectable, honest people. I dont think enough is done to punish these kind of people