next »

[VomitOnLino]

Now, first of all I want to state, that I think, cheaters are probably a fact of life--and I don't see much use discussing their motivations and/or the arrays of their various highly-probable problems.

Cheating single-player/AI
I don't really care about this kind of cheating, actually quite to the contrary it may enhance the experience for some people--take Doom, or other shareware classics and it doesn't affect anyone but the cheater. Helping him to pass previously unsurmountable odds, or giving a feeling of power-- usually enriching his/her experience.

Cheating competitively
Now like I stated before, I deem most of this as a fact of life. But even so I'd like to discuss the implications it has for your game development. And on the other side of the coin-- for your enjoyment, both playing and developing games.

Now I'm kind of 50/50 myself, as I just don't see myself policing something that I gave away for free. Or... writing my games in such a paranoid/secure manner that I'd probably get a game done every 10 years--if I am lucky.

Now, what other options does one realistically have? And aren't you yourself, as the 'creator', not likely to be over-thinking the issue of impeded enjoyment through cheating?

[muddyshoes]

 If you're designing a competitive multi-player game then the possibility of cheating is something you have to consider if you want your game to be a success. Sure, you wouldn't want to spend forever trying to harden your client at the expense of time on the game itself (much as the same argument would be made for anti-piracy measures), but if MP is the focus then it needs some serious consideration.

 Presumably you'd accept that cheating via exploits of the underlying design is in the creator's realm of responsibility, so that leaves the element that would cheat via botting or multiple accounts or whatever is applicable to your game. For any cheat you want to (in order of preference):

 * Stop it happening in the first place.
 * Detect it happening automatically if possible.
 * Be able to do something about it if found.

 If you really want to punt the hard thinking about possible cheats then the bare minimum I think you need to sort out is the last bit. How you can do that depends on your game set-up. If players have accounts, then you want to be able to ban the account. If the game runs on private servers then you want to make sure there are appropriate admin capabilities on those server. You can think about vote-kicks and vote-bans if you want to be admin-less.

[shig]

it doesn't affect anyone but the cheater. Helping him to pass previously unsurmountable odds, or giving a feeling of power-- usually enriching his/her experience.

Unless you are playing the game in a completely casual manner, this only cheapens the experience.

[dontkickpenguins]

it doesn't affect anyone but the cheater. Helping him to pass previously unsurmountable odds, or giving a feeling of power-- usually enriching his/her experience.

Unless you are playing the game in a completely casual manner, this only cheapens the experience.

It cheapens (or removes) the experience of overcoming a skill based challenge but that's not the only thing people play games for.

[s0]

it doesn't affect anyone but the cheater. Helping him to pass previously unsurmountable odds, or giving a feeling of power-- usually enriching his/her experience.

Unless you are playing the game in a completely casual manner, this only cheapens the experience.

I personally don't cheat in single player games either (and obviously multiplayer as well), but I think everyone should play games the way they want to.

[Seth]

I don't think there's anything wrong with encouraging certain types of play for your single player games, for example encouraging permadeath and in roguelikes or accepting whatever it is happened in Animal Crossing without hitting the reset button and trying again (it was truly annoying, however, if your power went out while playing the game). 

[Brother Android]

it doesn't affect anyone but the cheater. Helping him to pass previously unsurmountable odds, or giving a feeling of power-- usually enriching his/her experience.

Unless you are playing the game in a completely casual manner, this only cheapens the experience.

I personally don't cheat in single player games either (and obviously multiplayer as well), but I think everyone should play games the way they want to.

I agree with this (I mean, games are for fun, right? So, whatever's fun to you seems a valid way to play), except that in multiplayer games cheating isn't cool, because it infringes on other people's right to play the game the way they want to.

[shig]

It cheapens (or removes) the experience of overcoming a skill based challenge

Wich means it's only a good idea if you want to play the game in a completely casual way.

I personally don't cheat in single player games either (and obviously multiplayer as well), but I think everyone should play games the way they want to.

This sentence implies that I think otherwise, and that couldn't be any more wrong.

[Ben_Hurr]

it doesn't affect anyone but the cheater. Helping him to pass previously unsurmountable odds, or giving a feeling of power-- usually enriching his/her experience.

Unless you are playing the game in a completely casual manner, this only cheapens the experience.

Are you insinuating that I should not put the equivilent of IDDQD and IDKFA in something I make?
For shame.

[dontkickpenguins]

It cheapens (or removes) the experience of overcoming a skill based

Wich means it's only a good idea if you want to play the game in a completely casual way.

Yeah.

I don't think there's really that much to say on the subject tbh. Cheaters in single player games are just playing in a different way to non-cheater whereas cheating in a multiplayer game are affecting other peoples experience of the game in a negative way. I'm not sure that there is much more to say really.

[SirNiko]

I think you also need to define "cheating". There's a difference between getting 99 lives by turtle bouncing in SMB and unlocking Big Head Mode in Goldeneye via code and using a game genie to get infinite hearts in zelda.

For the most part I'm anti-cheat, but if somebody wants to unlock all the levels in Super Meat Boy because they suck at platformers I'm okay with that.

The only thing that bugs me is puzzle games and hints. Like, for example, Blocks with Letters On has hints in each level, which you can only use sparingly (you get 10 hints for 20 levels). While strictly speaking that's cheating, it feels more like a resource to me than looking up a solution. It's hard to tell when hinting is cheating and when it's spoiling the puzzle.

Does using the free unlock tickets in Smash Bros. Brawl / Kirby Air Ride count as cheating or not? If I use it to unlock a really hard objective without playing it, or if I just use it to get around the bullshit 'play the game x hours' unlock does it make any difference?

Food for thought.

[Contrary]

I like to cheat after I've beaten a game to do crazy stuff.

[shig]

Are you insinuating that I should not put the equivilent of IDDQD and IDKFA in something I make?

No 

[VomitOnLino]

I think you also need to define "cheating". There's a difference between getting 99 lives by turtle bouncing in SMB and unlocking Big Head Mode in Goldeneye via code and using a game genie to get infinite hearts in zelda.

For the most part I'm anti-cheat, but if somebody wants to unlock all the levels in Super Meat Boy because they suck at platformers I'm okay with that.

The only thing that bugs me is puzzle games and hints. Like, for example, Blocks with Letters On has hints in each level, which you can only use sparingly (you get 10 hints for 20 levels). While strictly speaking that's cheating, it feels more like a resource to me than looking up a solution. It's hard to tell when hinting is cheating and when it's spoiling the puzzle.

Does using the free unlock tickets in Smash Bros. Brawl / Kirby Air Ride count as cheating or not? If I use it to unlock a really hard objective without playing it, or if I just use it to get around the bullshit 'play the game x hours' unlock does it make any difference?

Food for thought.

Good point, and yes I think there's two kinds of cheating. The creative kind of bending the games rules using nothing but the tools that the game provides.

And the other is basically just breaking into the game either by pre-defined back-doors (IDDQD) or just through the means of external programs or add-ons.

The former has given me a surprising amount of headache, simply because you have to realize it's hard to lock your game's features and mechanics down against people using it in ways you'd never even imagined to.
On one hand the ingenuity both amazes and inspires me, on the other hand it's a pain in the ass for those not in the know.

[Akari]

I like to cheat after I've beaten a game to do crazy stuff.

Same for me - I always try to beat everything fairly the first time around, then later on I might return to it to try out all kinds of crazy things that you can do cheats. For example, playing Crysis on the hardest difficulty with a modified suit that basically never runs out of energy - lots of fun.

[Ben_Hurr]

I like to cheat after I've beaten a game to do crazy stuff.

Same for me - I always try to beat everything fairly the first time around, then later on I might return to it to try out all kinds of crazy things that you can do cheats. For example, playing Crysis on the hardest difficulty with a modified suit that basically never runs out of energy - lots of fun.

At this point I expect a cheat that makes all your sides units invincible in any RTS game I play, if only because it provides hours of amusement when you play a custom game against the AI. 

[Paint by Numbers]

I play DOOM and shit with tons of cheats on, because I like killing demons and exploring ancient 90s FPS environments just as much as I like facing up to the challenge of killing demons. The idea that cheats "cheapen" single-player experiences is just silly to me.

[shig]

That's because you are not playing for the challenge.

[Paint by Numbers]

Yup, that's what I said.

[Ben_Hurr]

If I wanted challenge I'd play Nightmare mode.

Cheats aren't even allowed!