310: Sometimes, I'm a Cheater
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You know, that is one thing I won't do, is cheat at minecraft. It feel like it defeats the purpose of the "game" if you can just fly above the monsters, have the proper ores appear when you want them. I like building a look out tower, and having to mine forever to get the stone and stumbling on some gold or iron or whatever while doing with it and thinking what can I do with that.
But doom I will totally cheat at.
But doom I will totally cheat at.
Hrm... well if you'll pardon me for saying so, I believe this Saint Augustine fellow to be full of shite.
After all, let's look at how well "perfect abstinance" has worked for the pirests of the catholic church...
Completely repressing any given desire, habit or guilty pleasure will simply cause someone to fall off the wagon in a dramatic fashion further down the track.
After all, let's look at how well "perfect abstinance" has worked for the pirests of the catholic church...
Completely repressing any given desire, habit or guilty pleasure will simply cause someone to fall off the wagon in a dramatic fashion further down the track.
For a good many priests, it works fine. But history is rife with folks who game systems or find routes around rules. The contemporary rash of clerical indescretions notwithstanding.[footnote]The Church's demand of celebacy from the priesthood has been a long-recognized issue, though one the church has refused to change, even in the present era, when the seminary schools are scant of new initiates. Medival eras simply ignored the issue, turning the convents essentially into brothels for the clergy.[/footnote] But Augustine's point was about how we will turn to one of numerous indulgences as a coping mechanism so easily. It's easier to be a teetotaler than it is to drink, but not so much as to self medicate.leviadragon99 said:
For a personal example, I cannot trust myself to gamble responsibly, so I abstain entirely.
238U
EDIT: Important word.
i never cheat on my first run. it just ruins the fun for me. after that i sometimes use cheats, mostly to create situations that would otherwise be impossible. its all mostly due to lack of easily usable game editing tool. i dont find it fun to play with unlimited health or unlimited resources in strategy. it just takes the challenge off. but i dont mind if people cheat in singleplayer, to each his own.
however i cant accept multiplayer cheating. yes i tried it, but went back to no cheating. its more fun that way. i dont take pleasure going with god mode killing 11 year old kids that scream in their microphones.
however i cant accept multiplayer cheating. yes i tried it, but went back to no cheating. its more fun that way. i dont take pleasure going with god mode killing 11 year old kids that scream in their microphones.
I'll be honest, I turn god mode on when I play Oblivion. *ducks incoming barrage* I tried to play it the normal way, I even beat it on my X-box version, but then I discovered that I turned on godmode I could get through the Oblivion gates (where I'd tend to get lost and die lots and lots of times) painlessly. Suddenly, a game which I'd only kinda sorta liked became much more fun. I don't really feel guilty about it, god mode was the first time I'd even attempted doing the thief quest line. It gave me time to get used to the bow and arrow, and I stopped needing to scavenge for inventory space.
I plan on trying my hand at Skyrim without the cheats, but if it doesn't work out you can bet your bottom dollar that it's coming back on.
(I also liked it better with mods.)
I plan on trying my hand at Skyrim without the cheats, but if it doesn't work out you can bet your bottom dollar that it's coming back on.
(I also liked it better with mods.)
My rule is...
If I'm stuck to the point where frustration has robbed me of my fun and I don't see myself becoming unstuck soon, then it's okay for me to use a guide.
Yes, I understand that games are meant to challenge and that games can be artful and more than just "fun entertainment."
But, whether they are artful or mindless fun, casual rides or demanding challenges, I play games for enjoyment. If I'm a point where I am simply not enjoying myself, I'm more than willing to use a guide, even if it is cheating. As an additional note, it takes me a while to get to that point, so I rarely turn to a guide for help.
If I'm stuck to the point where frustration has robbed me of my fun and I don't see myself becoming unstuck soon, then it's okay for me to use a guide.
Yes, I understand that games are meant to challenge and that games can be artful and more than just "fun entertainment."
But, whether they are artful or mindless fun, casual rides or demanding challenges, I play games for enjoyment. If I'm a point where I am simply not enjoying myself, I'm more than willing to use a guide, even if it is cheating. As an additional note, it takes me a while to get to that point, so I rarely turn to a guide for help.
I have the line of "single player=cheat as much as you like". I used to buy games that even when 'learning' were difficult. Either they were needlessly complex or I was playing like I had ten thumbs all moving as one but the game itself had a rather intriguing story.Dastardly said:
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain had some truly difficult and complex mechanics. There was armours to find, weapons to gather, blood pools to drink from to increase your health but it was a huge game and the travelling was arduous even when you got the various form powers to quick-fly to certain spots or run really fast as a werewolf. But the story had me hooked from even a brief rental of the game: a young nobleman, murdered on his travels and turned into a creature of the night to seek revenge only he gets drawn into the magi-political happenings of the Circle of Nine, guardians of the land who've been tainted after the wife of one member, who we later find was the old Guardian of Balance, had been murdered in her sleep and the madness had spread to the others and corrupted the land. So Kain's revenge trip suddenly becomes a quest to save the world while understanding his new place in it. Then he finds that he is the new Guardian of Balance and has to choose his fate once he has restored the pillars. Had I not cheated I would've given up after the first dungeon because it really was a lesson in pain and frustration.
Then there's Saints Row 2 where cheating to give unlimited ammo, health, etc helped overcome my ten-thumbedness and allowed me to progress through each of the campaigns and finish the story. Being an invincible supercriminal was pretty much the mindset that you're going for in this game. Sure, I may have missed the challenge of getting there but it was suitably long and the story was engaging enough to keep me interested not to mention the costume creator which made repeated runthroughs different. My first run was with a suitably dark-skinned beauty who carried and authority to her walk and the second was with my cockney rogue who sported a goatee (as close to how I looked at the time) and just really brought his own madness to the fray. While the story was the same for both, the way they came out was different enough to keep it fresh.
And there was Guardian Heroes on the Saturn which a friend and I used to play way back and we'd activate the debug menu to play the multiplayer and single-player, making use of all the characters to fight (we once had a six-man tramp beatup that lasted hours because they were all level 99 and did pathetic damage to each other). We had limited time to play together so it was a time-saver and allowed us to finish the campaign in a few nights. Well I say finish because it was my first experience with branching story paths. At the end of each mission there was often choices you could make which would change the path that you took and even the ending you got to see.
These days my time is even more limited so cheating in single-player to get to the end is often preferable or it's justified because I get to experience the ending of the game first-hand rather than through someone's journal or a video on Youtube. Although I cheat less because the games are designed more to the home audience with checkpoints, difficulty settings, control adjustment menus or trying something different with the way a 'game' is supposed to play like with Portal where you never actually shoot anything except portals.
Not that I don't still cheat but it can sometimes help validate a purchase.
remnant_phoenix has it right, cheating is only acceptable ( to me atleast) when youre up the creek without a paddle, you know, That creek, the one that smells.....
Cheating is always bad. It's never the right thing to do.
Luckily you can't cheat in single-player games. It's only cheating if you're playing by different rules then the other players.
In cards you cheat if the rest of the players play by the rule "You play with the cards you're dealt." while you play by the rule "You play with the cards you're dealt or the ones hidden in your sleeve.".
In single player games you're always playing by the same rules as all the other players as the only other player is you. Whatever you do, even if you enable god-mode, you're not cheating in a single-player game. You're just changing the rules with the consent of all players involved. That's not cheating.
In order to cheat there has to be someone else involved. Someone to cheat. You can't cheat a game, you can only cheat other players. So that requires multiplayer games. And cheating in multiplayer games, like all other cheating, is wrong.
So unless you were screwing one of your mates over I'm sorry, but you're not a cheater. You were just changing the rules with consent of all involved.
Luckily you can't cheat in single-player games. It's only cheating if you're playing by different rules then the other players.
In cards you cheat if the rest of the players play by the rule "You play with the cards you're dealt." while you play by the rule "You play with the cards you're dealt or the ones hidden in your sleeve.".
In single player games you're always playing by the same rules as all the other players as the only other player is you. Whatever you do, even if you enable god-mode, you're not cheating in a single-player game. You're just changing the rules with the consent of all players involved. That's not cheating.
In order to cheat there has to be someone else involved. Someone to cheat. You can't cheat a game, you can only cheat other players. So that requires multiplayer games. And cheating in multiplayer games, like all other cheating, is wrong.
So unless you were screwing one of your mates over I'm sorry, but you're not a cheater. You were just changing the rules with consent of all involved.
(Single player stuff) Cheating skill-based games is cheating yourself out of the experience. Usually I cheat past parts that are either too tedious (most of any RPG) or are in danger of ruining my experience with the game via ragequit (starting from a continue in Gradius V).
So long as you can admit and justify why you cheated, it's all good.
So long as you can admit and justify why you cheated, it's all good.
This article reminded me of the classical side-scrolling adventure of Hercules, where cheat-codes were actually the game's save system and were entered by rotating six or seven jars with different images painted on them a with the help of Megara as your lovely assistant 
Well walkthrough/achievement guides are fine, it's just like asking your friend whose already finished how you do this bit. Outright cheatcodes though, i'm not sure how they benefit a game, I'll admit i had the 5 or 6 sheets of cheatcodes for san andreas and they made the game damn fun to play but that was a huge sandbox with a pretty thin story. For a story driven game like Mass effect cheats would just ruin it by making the challenge worthless.
Another thing for cheating is boosting. My brother is notorious on WoW for getting friends to boost him up to a decent level before he plays on his own. For me that defeats the whole point of the game, sure it's a grind-fest but if i'm paying £10 a month i actually want to play the game, not rush to the end.
Another thing for cheating is boosting. My brother is notorious on WoW for getting friends to boost him up to a decent level before he plays on his own. For me that defeats the whole point of the game, sure it's a grind-fest but if i'm paying £10 a month i actually want to play the game, not rush to the end.
Yeah I don't see how doing something which will just cut short the game that you paid for will be a good thing.
I used to use cheats all the damn time, Age of Empires I would start a game after pre-ordering 20 big daddys to my fortress and having more gold then the Roman Empire. However this was when I was about 10. Eventually over time I realised how crappy using cheats made me feel, that one of my best skills, gaming, was something that I needed to use cheats to be better at.
Now i've never used cheats in a multiplayer setting, I wouldn't even think of it. At the end of the day I enjoy the challenge of beating people. I think we can agree that any multiplayer cheats are wrong.
No cheats on your first playthrough is a great way to go though. After finishing San Andreas (this is more when i'm 13 now) I would spawn in plenty of harriers and go flying over the military base to have some dogfights over Las Vegas That was great. I'm proud of myself that I finished the game the whole way through (95% in total) without having to cheat.
I guess it depends what you're looking to take out from games. If you're looking for the satisfaction that you beat that one level you've been stuck on for months then don't cheat and remember that time in the future when things look hard. If you are totally alien to your games and don't care about any of the story or the characters, you just joined to watch stuff blow up (ala Gary's Mod) then by all means, you moneywasting miscreant!
(Last time I looked at a guide was yesterday, early quest in Dragon Age: Awakening had me run into a woman who had become a ghoul and Anders said "we're too late" so I was checking if it was possible to save her)
I used to use cheats all the damn time, Age of Empires I would start a game after pre-ordering 20 big daddys to my fortress and having more gold then the Roman Empire. However this was when I was about 10. Eventually over time I realised how crappy using cheats made me feel, that one of my best skills, gaming, was something that I needed to use cheats to be better at.
Now i've never used cheats in a multiplayer setting, I wouldn't even think of it. At the end of the day I enjoy the challenge of beating people. I think we can agree that any multiplayer cheats are wrong.
No cheats on your first playthrough is a great way to go though. After finishing San Andreas (this is more when i'm 13 now
) I would spawn in plenty of harriers and go flying over the military base to have some dogfights over Las Vegas That was great. I'm proud of myself that I finished the game the whole way through (95% in total) without having to cheat. I guess it depends what you're looking to take out from games. If you're looking for the satisfaction that you beat that one level you've been stuck on for months then don't cheat and remember that time in the future when things look hard. If you are totally alien to your games and don't care about any of the story or the characters, you just joined to watch stuff blow up (ala Gary's Mod) then by all means, you moneywasting miscreant!
(Last time I looked at a guide was yesterday, early quest in Dragon Age: Awakening had me run into a woman who had become a ghoul and Anders said "we're too late" so I was checking if it was possible to save her)