Ninety percent of the rounds I play are clean and fun. Most
of
the time, I am playing against fair honest players who want to have
fun. Still, it would be remiss not to take a moment to
mention a
real problem confronting the community.
Hackers, cheaters, and glitchers ruin round after round. In
addition to that, we find ourselves dealing with all sorts of new
challenges in the gaming community. From glider to PB, lots
of problems, few solutions and a persistent loss of quality time.
Given
the recent admission by PB that its memory scanning subroutine had to
be checked for false text insertions into innocent players, it is clear
that the technical solutions to these problems have real limitations.
It would be foolish to think that PB can by profiling solve
this
problem. The question, moreover, is not one of rules and
regulations, but of ethics.
When will people finally grow up enough to play games?
Of
serious concern is the fact that resources continue to get misplaced
into these efforts, when little progress is in fact being made.
The level of cheating/hacking/glitching seems to remain
fairly
steady despite the fact that time, energy, and money is being invested
on so-called anti-cheat applications.
Allegations of cheating are
serious and can have serious consequences to the players that are
accused of cheating. Most people do not give a second thought
to
the damage the allegation alone can make. Elhackdorado, a
random
name which was created out of whim, was eventually retired because the
name alone was enough for some people to simply accuse without reason.
False accusations and careless accusations can be damaging.
I have attempted to collect some evidence of one episode
of alleged wall-glitching. Here's a little video I shot while
I
was playing on Fall of Berlin.
The time is noted as CST, but my server history shows it was
4/01/08 owing to differences in time zones. MaskedMakrel had
to enter upon the enemy uncap to shoot the video and was killed twice,
but I figured I had a better chance of shooting the film than the
enemies because they were getting killed whenever they got near the
wall. I did not shoot the enemies while in the uncap, I shot
the
film.
Anyway, I think at least 3 people were wall glitching, but I only named
two. This video also shows how hard it is to capture solid
cheating videos. The people named in it are called "suspects"
because the evidence I gathered is as firm as I could collect.
One thing which the video does not adequately capture were
the
accusations made by the other team. Even a representative
from
the featured server was saying that the cheaters would be reported and
wiped. Several players quit the round vowing to report the
wall
hackers. The round was terribly imbalanced.
People standing nearby might get confused as
being in the wall. So, this video also highlights the
problems of
false positives if you are not careful.
The other team was
complaining about wall hackers. The mini-map shots seem to
confirm
this. In addition, the player names appear at the ground
level
rather than at the level of the roof. All of this indicates
that
cheating has occurred.
One thing, which I want to make clear. The problem of
cheating is overstated. Very few players cheat.
Unfortunately, the few who do, make it very bad for the
people
who do not. Good players get accused of cheating when in fact
they are not. New players get frustrated and quit when they
get
owned by a cheater and stop playing the game.
The rules for reporting cheaters can be found here.
Nevertheless, great care should be taken when reporting cheaters.
As much as we hate cheaters, reporting them seems to be
paying
too much attention to them. A good case can be made that
reporting the cheaters is counterproductive. After all, if
someone has to use a program to play a game because they do not have
the patience to develop real skill, then enabling them to play is a
punishment worse than banning. What could be more empty than
babysitting an avatar you do not really control? The cheaters
life is their own worst punishment.
At least when I have a good round, it is because I have a good round.
When I have a bad round, I have a bad round.
At
the same time, there are
stories of people who have been falsely accused and had their stats
wiped for no good reason. Few people think carefully before
initiating vote
kicks against good players. I have seen people try to
initiate
vote kicks only for the purpose of getting rid of good opponents.
Often times, players forget that people can have stellar
rounds.
Not every great performance is a cheat. It takes
hundreds
of hours of play time to earn a brigadier general. EA
currently
does not have the ability to restore stats. Therefore, any
suspicion should be treated with great care.
People can spoof pids and name hack. Only EA and its
employees can make a determination as to who was glitching/hacking and
how. Therefore, even though something may appear to be an
open
and shut case, appearances can be deceiving. For these
reasons,
we prefer to call the people in our videos suspects. Even in
the
second video, which appears more clear, EA must exercise caution in
investigating the allegations and no one can assume the players named
are in fact the players identified. Cases of innocent
accounts
being hacked and attempts at spoof framing abound. An
investigation must be made.
The second
video appears more clear in what it reveals. There it seems
very clear
the players are wall glitching. The wall glitchers did not
make
particularly good defenders. Because they were in the box, I
was
able to run past them ghosted and blow consoles 1 and 2 after modifying
my play style. This is another reason people should try to
play
in a manner fairly consistent with the game's intent.
Some
of
the problems could be solved by design. In the case of the
second
video, I have opted to report the violators to EA to see what will
happen. Nevertheless, it is not productive to let EA/DICE off
for
their role in this matter. For example, the crate hacking has
been a well known design flaw for a while. The design flaw
does
not necessarily excuse players who choose to exploit it.
Nevertheless, there are problems within the game that create
poor
opportunities and the programmers should be held accountable for poor
implementation. Hopefully, the forthcoming patch will correct
some of these problems. At the same time, there is the
question
of
whether or not the appropriate remedy is to completely wipe someone's
stats. In many cases, it might be better to wipe their gains
for
that round and perhaps demote a rank, than perform a complete stat
wipe. Real progress will not be made until changes
prevent the players from accessing well known glitches for
years
after a title's
release. Combined with mature players and a supportive
community,
progress could be made. It might all be too much to hope for.
Finally, there are still some ambiguities in the TOS
and ROC that lead to conflicting interpretations. For
example, I
was recently kicked for moving a Titan "passed the first silo".
The question I asked was simple, do you measure this by the
"nose" or the "tail" of the titan. My point was that if you
were
to measure by the nose, then the rule should have been "up to" the
first silo. I moved it closer to the tail, but not beyond.
Owing to inaccuracies between the commander's map,
it is
impossible to be perfect in one's measurements. In any event,
no
clarification was provided, simply a swift quick for asking for
clarification of the rule. Notwithstanding that, the real
problem
stems from the fact that the rule is only necessary because Titan
movement causes lag. The programmers should fix the titan lag
issue. Again, we should not forget the role of design
failures in
these problems.
(As a personal note, the people in my video were
flagrant about their violations and, at least in the case of the second
video, chose poorly when they opted for a battlerecorded server.
I even warned them I would FRAP their play.
)
Again, the only real solution is for
people to grow up enough to play the game with some maturity.
It would be more useful for people to email Dice and ask for an
expansion pack and more customer support and fixes to the underlying
problems.
Click on the image below
to watch the movies:
