Cheating in online games

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Cheating in online games are activities that modify the game experience to give one player an advantage over another player(s); depending on the game, different activities constitute cheating and it is often a matter of consensus opinion as to which particular activity or activities actually constitute cheating. Clive Thompson writes[1] that "Johann Huizinga, one of the first big philosophers of ludology -- the study of play -- defined cheating as when you pretend to obey the rules of the game but secretly subvert them to gain advantage over another player."

Cheating reportedly exists in all multiplayer online games but is difficult to prove[2]. The Internet provides players opportunity, means and methodology -- through anonymity and resources -- necessary to cheat in online games; however, darknets also provide access to cheat tools and methods.

Contents

[edit] Types of cheats

[edit] User settings

Typically, a player can change settings within a game to suit their preference, play-style and/or system; these alterations are considered cheating in certain circumstances. For example, changing the keyboard layout to make it easier to use is an accepted practice and not considered cheating; however, changing player models and/or textures, increasing the field-of-view, turning off or limiting particle effects, modifying the brightness and/or gamma are considered cheating when set to extremes.

[edit] Exploits

Main article: Exploit (online gaming)

Exploiting is the application of an unintended use or bug that gives the player an advantage. Not all gamers view exploits as cheating, some view it as another skill because certain exploits take a significant amount of time to find and/or dexterity/timing to use. Example dexterity/timing exploits include bunny hopping and texture-climbing in Quake. Even an official part of the series such as "skiing" in Tribes is considered an exploit by some. However, exploits are considered cheating when they have an unbalancing effect, are used in an unintended manner or not intended to be feature.

[edit] Ghosting

Most games allow other participants to observe the game as it is played from a variety of perspectives; depending on the game, perspectives allow an observer a map overview or attach a "camera" to the movement of a specific player. In doing so, the observer can communicate with an accomplice using a secondary communication methodology (in-game private message, 3rd-party or even off-line) to inform friendly players of traps or the position of opponents; an observer can be an active player, using a separate computer, connection and account.

[edit] Binding

Binding involves binding the "fire" command to the mouse wheel or any other key or combination of keys that allow a player to shoot faster (generally with weapons that fire at the speed that the user clicks) when compared to the default "fire" key configuration. This is a subset of the user setting cheat.

[edit] Aimbotting and Triggerbot

Main article: Aimbot

An aimbot (sometimes called "auto-aim") is a type of computer game bot used in multiplayer first-person shooter games to provide varying levels of target acquisition assistance to the player. While most common in first person shooter games, they exist in other game types and are often used in combination with a TriggerBot, which shoots automatically when an opponent appears within the field-of-view of the player. Some TriggerBots are blatant while others attempt to hide the fact they are being used through a number of methods.

[edit] Wallhacking

Wallhacking allows the player to see through solid or opaque objects and/or manipulate or remove textures. When used in conjunction with an aimbot certain wallhacks allow the player to shoot through solid objects. A subset of the wallhack known as WhiteWalls removes the color/texture from objects in the surrounding environment, providing distinct contrast to the opposition's character models, which remain colored/textured. (See ESP for the evolution of the WallHack.)

[edit] ESP

Extrasensory perception (ESP) in video games displays contextual information such as the health, name, equipment, position and/or orientation of other participants as navigation/directional markers. In military parlance, this is known as Battlefield Visualization and part of a larger trend toward Information Dominance.

[edit] Sharing

Sharing is when multiple people share an online game (mainly MMORPGs) character. Common reasons are to gain an 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 Maplestory, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft or Jagex's Runescape forbid it.

[edit] Spinbots

Spinbots are a special type of hack, which not many people will ever encounter. They are used by few players. Spinbots are an odd hack, because they actually cause the player using them to have a harder time playing. Spinbots work by altering your game program in a manner so that you play on a rotated screen (upside down, sideways, diagonal, etc.)

Spinbots in fps can cause the player model to spin at a extremely fast rate causing a disturbance to the hitboxes and a distraction to other players. Because this is not just a hack that does something for you, this hacks the game engine; the player using it can see as normal from his/her screen and can sometimes leave it on by accident indicating they are hacking as it is a option in many "multi-hacks".

[edit] 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 is considered immoral, as the opponent of the cheater may not have their "win" recorded. Some games implement some kind of disconnection penalty, usually by recording the disconnect as a loss, or loss of experience points as in Halo 3.

[edit] Stacking

This kind of cheating often involves altering game settings or team lineups in order to give one or more teams an unfair advantage over the other(s). One example includes filling a team with only skilled or known players and pitting them against another team of lesser skill. 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.

[edit] Farming

In games where achievements are available via defeating a number of a particular class, players may arrange to win/lose against one another in order to obtain the achievements without having to play the game linearly. This is also known as stat-padding.

[edit] Implementation of cheats

There are many facets of cheating in online games which make the creation of a system to stop cheating very difficult. In the client-server model, the server is responsible for sending a client only necessary information and maintaining game continuity. (See "Efficiency versus security" below for drawbacks.) In the peer-to-peer gaming model, clients run equal code but are still subject to most of the same type of cheats found in client-server multiplayer model; however, the peer-to-peer multiplayer model has depreciated in favor of client-server with the wider adoption of high-speed networks.

"Never trust the client" is a common maxim among game developers that summarizes their opinion regarding the client-server multiplayer gaming model. It argues that programmers should assume information sent to the client will be known by the player regardless of whether or not the player should know that information. For example, the server might notify a client in a first person shooter that another player is hiding behind a door and cannot be seen, but a wallhack cheat would reveal the other player. Conversely, 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).

[edit] The game software

Many cheats in today's games are implemented by modifying the game software, although many game companies have EULAs which forbid modification. While game software distributed in binary-only versions makes it harder to modify code, reverse engineering is always possible. Also many of the data files for games can be edited without editing the main program and thereby circumvent protections implemented in 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 is software that are actually legitimate 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.

[edit] System Software

Rather than modifying the game (which the game may detect), cheats can choose to modify the underlying system software. An example of this is modifying graphics drivers to ignore depth checking, and draw all objects on the screen (A primitive wallhack). The advantage of these is they are harder to detect, as there are very large number of possible drivers.

[edit] Packet tampering

The protection of game software can be circumvented by manipulating data in real-time while in transit from the client to the server or vice versa. This manipulation can be performed on the client machine itself or via an external communication proxy. Some aimbots in first-person shooters incorporate this methodology. Newer games encrypt network data to prevent such manipulation at the expense of client computing resources that could be directed to make a faster, more immersive gaming experience.

[edit] 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 games such as Half-Life, Quake, or World of Warcraft. A few examples of anti-cheat software are DMW Anticheat, GameGuard, PunkBuster, VAC, or Warden (software).

Some "Cheats" are exploitations of bugs in the game, these are usually fixed via a patch to the game that removes the bug.

Some companies select to ban suspected cheaters from their games. When this is done by blacklisting the game's serial key, the player is often effectively prevented from playing online the game they purchased. Many game developers are known to have banned players, though the actual number of players banned is usually not revealed.

[edit] 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. There is 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. The server can also choose to send part of the world state, which is a trade-off between security and efficiency.

[edit] References

  1. ^ What Type of Game Cheater Are You?
  2. ^ How to Hurt the Hackers: "The Scoop on Internet Cheating and How You Can Combat It"

Hoglund, Greg. Exploiting Online Games. 2008. Pearson Education

[edit] External links