Cheating in online games

Cheating in online games are activities that modify the game experience to give one player an unfair advantage over the other players. Depending on the game, different activities constitute cheating, as it is often a matter of consensus opinion.

Cheating exists in all multiplayer online computer games. While there have always been cheat codes and other ways to make single player games easier, most developers attempt to prevent it in multiplayer games. With the release of the first popular Internet multiplayer games, cheating took on new dimensions. Previously it was rather easy to see if the other players cheated, as most games were played on local networks or consoles. The Internet changed that by increasing the popularity of multiplayer games, giving the players anonymity, and giving people an avenue to communicate cheats.

Types of cheats

User settings

Typically, a player can change settings within a game to make it suit their play style and system. These alterations are generally not cheating, except in extreme circumstances. Changing the keyboard layout to make it easier to use is usually accepted. However, issues such as changing in-game player models and textures, turning down particle effects to see through smoke, or modifying the brightness or gamma in order to make it easier to see in dark areas are sometimes considered borderline cheating. However, there are other servers of some games that encourage customization to this level.

Exploits

Usually included in this concept of cheating is the use of existing bugs or gameplay aspects unintended by the developers known as exploits. Gamers are divided as to whether all exploitation is cheating, though most consider exploits as cheats if they are particularly unfair. It is also difficult to classify some activities as exploits, because sometimes unintended features in games can make them much more fun to play, like bunny hopping in Quake, Wavedashing in Super Smash Bros. Melee or even an official part of the series such as "skiing" in Tribes. A common exploit in Unreal Tournament 2004 is using the shield gun in front of teleporters, which is often considered to be similar to spawn camping by most. However, most exploits are unbalancing to a multiplayer game, and are called cheats because they are based on mistakes by the developers. For example, duping ruins a synthetic economy in online role-playing games and is rarely intended, and therefore is usually called a cheat. Some exploitations of environments can create an imbalance in the PvP of an MMORPG, such as being able to stand where enemy players can not attack them but they can attack back with ranged moves, or being able to target players on an upper-level of a fortress but they cannot be attacked by melee players.

Divulging (Ghosting)

Most games allow other players to observe the game as it is played. Most games offer a variety of camera perspectives from which an observer may scan the map, the most frequently used being the free camera which allows the observer to hover all over the map on which the game is being played. In doing so, they can communicate with players via Teamspeak or by typing to inform active players about any traps they may run into or they may divulge the position of opponents, thus giving them an edge over the other team. Although the latter is not considered illegal, it is often frowned upon because it gives an unfair advantage to one team over another.

It must be noted, though, that in some games the observer camera perspective may be restricted to that of the observer's own team players' perspectives in first-person. That way, the observer can only see what his own team players see and cannot survey the map to inform his teammates of any information that may be valuable.

Disconnecting

In games where wins and losses are recorded on a player`s account, a player may disconnect from a game they have lost in order to prevent the loss from being recorded. A similar phenomenon is when someone running a server boots players who are beating them. Disconnecting can be accepted when there are multiple players in a game but if it is a one-on-one match it is considered immoral, as the opponent of the cheater will not have their "win" recorded. This is considered a major problem for Nintendo Wifi multiplayer games. Most games implement some kind of disconnection penalty, usually by recording the disconnect as a loss.

Rigging

This kind of cheating often involves altering game settings or team lineups in order to give one team an unfair advantage over the other. One example includes filling a team with only skilled or known players and pitting them against another team of lesser skill. This is known as 'stacking' the teams. Though this tactic is not illegal, it often upsets lesser-skilled players who feel that they aren't being given a fair chance. Less ethical rigging involves giving one team more advantages such as better weapons or equipment. Riggers can also abuse games with map editors by creating maps that give the advantage to a certain team in the game.

Ranking up (Boosting)

Some games involve a global leader board, where each player is ranked according to how they have done in a game. It is entirely possible to cheat your way up to a high place through fake accounting, which is when someone creates an alternative account to let a person planning on raising his rank win without trying to beat him. These free wins help them reach the top of the leader board without having to compete against other players.

Binding

Binding involves binding the "fire" command to the mouse wheel or any other key or combination of keys so that the player can shoot faster (generally with weapons that fire at the speed that the user clicks) than with the default key configuration. It's not cheating, but is often considered unsporting.

Sharing

Sharing is when multiple people share an online game (mainly MMORPG games) character. Common reasons for doing a sort of this is to gain a very unfair advantage by having higher online times, and being capable of having more manpower (for activities such as leveling or gaining experience). In some MMOs this is not seen as cheating although others such as Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft or Jagex's Runescape actively discourage it and if caught your subscriber account can be locked for violation of the EULA.

Implementation of cheats

There are many facets of cheating in online games which make the creation of a system to stop cheating very difficult.

"Never trust the client" is a common maxim among multiplayer game developers that summarizes in their opinion the case of client-servers. It argues that programmers should assume that information sent to the client game will be known by that player, regardless of whether or not the player should know that information. For example, the server might tell a client in a First Person Shooter that a player is hiding behind a door and cannot be seen, but a wallhack cheat can reveal the player. Similarly, data from the client might indicate that the client teleported from one side of the map to another for some reason (possibly a change made to the game's data). The server is responsible for sending only the necessary information and for maintaining the game's continuity. (See "Efficiency versus security" below for the drawbacks.)

The game software

Many cheats in today's games are changes to the game software, although many game companies have policies which forbid the modification of such code. While the software (for most games) is distributed in binary-only versions and encrypted to make it harder, reverse engineering is always possible. Also many of the data files for the games can be edited without editing the main program and thereby circumvent protections in the software.

Wallhacks and maphacks often function by modifying the software. Other cheats can analyze or change the game's state in RAM, such as some aimbots and programs that give infinite ammo or health (often called trainers). There are softwares that are actually legitmate programs during normal uses but they can fulfill the goals when used inside the game. Some examples of these programs include program accelerator and auto clicker.

The hardware

Turning up the brightness on the monitor or using specific graphic cards with drivers that allows you to look through walls ("wallhack") are examples of using hardware tricks to get an advantage. These are frequently impossible to track with software, but they also have limited effect.

Packet tampering

Some cheats completely circumvent the protection of the software by running in real-time and changing the game data while in transmission from the server to the client. Many aimbots in first-person shooters use tricks like this. Some newer games encrypt the network data, but this uses up computer resources that could be used to make a faster-running or better game instead.

Preventing cheats

Game developers and third party software developers have created technologies that attempt to prevent players from cheating. Anti-cheating software is most commonly used in popular first person shooters such as Half-Life and its various mods or Quake. A few examples of anti-cheat software are ProQuake Cheat-Free, Choac, DMW Anticheat, GameGuard, PunkBuster and Valve Software's VAC ("Valve Anti-Cheat").

Some "Cheats" are exploitations of bugs and glitches in the game, which may sometimes cause a game-breaking imbalance in either side of a PvP game. These are usually remedied easily by fixing the physics or spaces that can be exploited.

Some companies select to ban suspected cheaters from their servers. When this is done by blacklisting the game's serial key, the player is often effectively prevented from playing online the game they purchased. Blizzard Entertainment and Valve Software are known to have banned players, though the actual number of players is unknown. These companies also chose not to restrict these players to "cheating allowed" servers, even though it would be just as easy to implement, mirroring the dislike some took to cheating.

Sometimes the anti-cheating fervor leads to embarrassment, such as when Phil DeLuca, America's Army executive producer, drew parallels between cheating and Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and threatened FBI and Secret Service involvement. [1]

It might not be financially wise for a company to fight "cheaters" in its games. Alternate characters are frequently banned in free games but they bring in revenue just like normal players in games that require subscription fees. Gamers have speculated that this is the reason why "two boxing" is not a ban-able offense in major MMORPGs. Players are often less concerned about these circumstances because it might be debatable if the actions in question are a form of cheat.

It could be argued, however, that when a company does not take cheating seriously, they could very well be shortening the lifespan of their games because of the effects they can have on the game's economy. Regardless of one's perspective, the stance a company takes on cheating could have a significant impact on whether one will decide to purchase a game or not. For this reason, a game company is left to consider the cost of working towards stopping cheating vs the cost of ignoring cheats.

Efficiency versus security

The more of the game code that is run on the server, the fewer cheats are generally possible in the game, as the server's operator has control over what happens. However, a game server has limited bandwidth and limited resources, which makes it necessary to distribute code to the clients. It's a trade-off between lack of cheats and usability.

For example, a player is not supposed to know who is hiding behind a closed door. The server has to make a trade-off between calculating what the player can and cannot see. It can do this by sending only a part of the entire world state, which can result in client lag but makes wallhacks unlikely, or sending the player the entire world state, which is faster for the player but makes wallhacks more likely.

Cheating in MMORPGs

While persistent world online games, such as MUDs and MMORPGs, are often subject to the same sorts of mechanical weaknesses to cheating as other online games, as often as not cheating in such games are social cheats, in the form of confidence games. Many of these confidence tricks are based on old-fashioned real-life tricks, or take advantage of the greed or inexperience of new players.

These scams often take the form of uneven trades or outright bad-faith dealing in trades of in-game items. Players will misrepresent the value of their goods to new players, substitute lookalike worthless items for valuable ones, offer to improve items (by crafting raw materials or enhancing equipment) and then just walk away with the item to be improved, or use one of any other con games. Another trick that is used is to subsitute an item (that has the same icon, but lesser value) with the item that is agreed upon or shave off a 0 right before the other player accepts the trade.

Social engineering is often used to steal players' login information. Scammers will pose as the staff of the game, either in e-mail or in the game itself, and ask for the players' login information under any number of pretexts. Alternately, the scammer will offer cheating or automation services, or require that the player give their information as part of initiation into a (nonexistent) clan. Scammers can also pretend that they are leaving the game permanently, and wish to give their account away. When new victims come, the scammer tells the victims that they need to know what they should set their account's password to (to 'give' it to the victim). The victim might inadvertently suggest their own account password, since it is easy to remember, allowing the scammer to quickly log out and take over the victim's account. A common variation of this in RuneScape was the infamous "Jagex (The company who created RuneScape) blocks your password look *******" scam, where a player claims that if you type in your password it is filtered. In fact, the filter out marks are typed by the player, and when the target tries it, the player scamming them sees the password, tricks them into logging off, and changes the password, thus putting the scammer in control of the account. This scam was aimed at new players, who did not know that passwords are not filtered; in response to this however, Jagex have prevented players from speaking any sentence containing their password (i.e. everything they enter is blocked, not just the password). They also hope that this will encourage people who chose poor passwords, in particular commonly used words that are often used in conversation, to choose more secure passwords.

Another controversial issue in MMORPGs is farming, which involves acquisition of in-game money or items in order to sell it to users in exchange for real money. Farming can be done either by manual effort, or with external programs that effectively turn the player-character into a bot. Farming often affects in-game economies negatively, and as a result, most MMORPGs prohibit farming in their user agreements under the threat of account closure. This effectively puts farming under the category of cheating, though it is difficult to enforce due to the number of players and time investments required for an investigation.

In some games that have a claim system where only one group of people can fight a monster at a time, many types of exploits exist. Most of the time, the first person to take action against a monster in such a game holds the claim and until the monster goes unclaimed again (usually when the group fighting it dies, but not always), only the group can touch it. Programs exist that can claim a monster the moment it spawns. Other programs might involve using exploits to make a monster go unclaimed in the middle of battle so a different group can attempt to claim it or to directly change the claim to a different group. Games that involve such systems tend to breed a lot of discontent amongst rival groups, with accusations of monopolization and cheating being prevalent.

Some MMORPGs can be modified by third-party tampering with the client software, allowing wallhacking or other similar cheats. A highly-competitive World of Warcraft guild, Overrated, achieved some notoriety using such a method.

See also

• Banhammer
• Category:Anti-cheat software
• Cheat code
• Cheating
• List of gaming topics
• Online game
• Exploit (online gaming)

External links

• Aspects of Networking in Multiplayer Computer Games by J.Smed et al., The Electronic Library, volume 20, number 2, pages 87-97, 2002.
• TKC's Heckling FAQ covers the motivations and justifications seen from the cheaters' point of view. The Teamkill and Cheat Community (TKC), 2004.
• Counter-Hack.net Provides information on many aspects of cheating and anti-cheating in many online games. Counter-Hack.net, 1999.
• Dark Rising Web forum devoted to the discovery, exploitation and to a lesser extent the repair of vulnerabilities in online games. DarkRising.org, 2006.

runescape is a hard one to hack because it is mmorpg and they have very good firewalls so it makes it hard to hack acc or the systym although if you find a way plz tell me