Poll: Hacking in Online Multiplayer Games

[Hurr Durr Derp]

As a strong advocate of the "if it's in the game, it's legal"-mindset, I protest against lumping exploits and hacks together.

Exploits are simply parts of the game that the developers didn't foresee, and are part of any game like it or not.

Hacking means altering the game using external means, which is blatant cheating and, in multiplayer games, a disgusting practice.

 

[Jazzyluv2]

first of naive people who have never competed in a multiplayer game will never understand the use of glitches in fair play, cause they don't understand the concept of fair play.

Games in the real world are rules, that is all they are, a series of rules, and with these rules, we get a couple things.

1. objective/ IE: how to win or get points
2. limits/ IE: where you can go, where you can't go, and what you are allowed to do
3. standards/ IE: how many players

and what forms from this is a game that can be played between people
_____________________________________________________

now in the video game the world is the rules, you are only limited as much as the world

only one thing is defined and that is objective

1. objective/ IE: how to win
2. limits/ IE: doesn't even exist

_____________________________________________________

Read a little bit about game design and maybe compete a little bit on a high level in a game with an actual skilled community(counter strike, quake (1 , 3 or live), starcraft, street fighter, guilty gear) and you will notice that the game is still playable even with such apparent abusing of glitches, and not just that, some of them are even BETTER, with the glitches.

 

[MiserableOldGit]

That's the exact same rationale that a lot of these glitchers would try to give me. Here's the problem your logic, doing these things makes other players angry and ruins the fun for them unless they play by your rules. And your rules are not explained in any instruction manual, strategy guide or tutorial.

The only "rules" a game is played by is defined by the way it can be played. I couldn't care less if "other players get angry" or "it ruins their fun", they can do it as much as everyone else.

The problem with your logic is that there's always someone unable or just uninterested in doing something well... Rocketjumps? Strafing? Camping? Performing tricks or wall-gliding, sniping from a certain spot or using nades effectively etc.? Nah, can't do it, too hard/don't like it so it's "glitching"... because I can't noone should be able to.

As long as something is possible in a game its fair game, if something is deemed damaging or obstructing/spoiling gameplay there's something called "Patches" and its the developers job to fix it not some player(s) that think they're the moral police.

That argument makes me think of a man farting in a crowded lift before declaring its not a problem because he doesnt mind the smell, and that anyone who does have a problem should start gassing off too...

The difference between exploiting a glitch, and say, learning to snipe or rocket jump, is that the former is cheap, easy, and says your only interested in winning, while the latter is a tactic that requires skill and practice-such tactics invariably work across a range of games, and so are known by all within a short period of playing.
Ultimately, its down to what your looking for- a challenging, fun experience, or an exercise in rules-lawyering designed solely to get your name at the top of a list at the end. Back when multiplayer was solely a LAN or splitscreen experience, we had house rules like not shooting someone when they're out of ammo or don't have a gun, and the games were much more fun for it. This 'win by any means necersary' approach is just crass and childish
I'm not making moral judgements, I just don't want to spend my free time engaging in something that looks like half a dozen hungry mutts fighting over a small scrap of meat. If you do that's your business-it'd just be nice if you did it with other dogs rather than wrecking the experience for the rest of us.

 

[Idlemessiah]

I very rarely cheat. I never hack cause I don't see the fun in it at all and I only exploit glitches if I stumble across one, it's not like I go out of my way to find them.

This is because I see cheating as passively admitting that you suck so much at the game that you need hacks to be any good.

It's like entering the Olympic 100m sprint knowing you have no chance of winning but somehow smuggling a Lamborghini onto the track when the officials aren't looking.

 

[Ranorak]

I was always under the impression you play for fun. And perhaps for good sportsmanship.
Guess you can slap that big old Naïve sticker on me, but hey, at least I know I won all battles by skill, and not by reading on a wiki that Level X has a spot that doesn't clip so you can freely shoot without being shot.

 

[Jazzyluv2]

That's the exact same rationale that a lot of these glitchers would try to give me. Here's the problem your logic, doing these things makes other players angry and ruins the fun for them unless they play by your rules. And your rules are not explained in any instruction manual, strategy guide or tutorial.

The only "rules" a game is played by is defined by the way it can be played. I couldn't care less if "other players get angry" or "it ruins their fun", they can do it as much as everyone else.

The problem with your logic is that there's always someone unable or just uninterested in doing something well... Rocketjumps? Strafing? Camping? Performing tricks or wall-gliding, sniping from a certain spot or using nades effectively etc.? Nah, can't do it, too hard/don't like it so it's "glitching"... because I can't noone should be able to.

As long as something is possible in a game its fair game, if something is deemed damaging or obstructing/spoiling gameplay there's something called "Patches" and its the developers job to fix it not some player(s) that think they're the moral police.

The difference between exploiting a glitch, and say, learning to snipe or rocket jump, is that the former is cheap, easy, and says your only interested in winning, while the latter is a tactic that requires skill and practice-such tactics invariably work across a range of games, and so are known by all within a short period of playing.
Ultimately, its down to what your looking for- a challenging, fun experience, or an exercise in rules-lawyering designed solely to get your name at the top of a list at the end. Back when multiplayer was solely a LAN or splitscreen experience, we had house rules like not shooting someone when they're out of ammo or don't have a gun, and the games were much more fun for it. This 'win by any means necersary' approach is just crass and childish
I'm not making moral judgements, I just don't want to spend my free time engaging in something that looks like half a dozen hungry mutts fighting over a small scrap of meat. If you do that's your business-it'd just be nice if you did it with other dogs rather than wrecking the experience for the rest of us.

glitches are not all easy, tell that to those that mutalisk micro in starcraft.

tell that to those that bunny jump in quakeworld(its not easy)

tell that to those who strafejump in quakelive

what about infinite's in fighting games, most infinite's are hard as fuck and damn near impossible to set yourself up on.

glitches can be amazingly advanced. as long as they can be countered, in some way, even by themselves, then they are ok.

Usually its just noobies that don't truly see the hard or good glitches, cause they were never good enough to even see them in the first place, much less use them

 

[MiserableOldGit]

That's the exact same rationale that a lot of these glitchers would try to give me. Here's the problem your logic, doing these things makes other players angry and ruins the fun for them unless they play by your rules. And your rules are not explained in any instruction manual, strategy guide or tutorial.

The only "rules" a game is played by is defined by the way it can be played. I couldn't care less if "other players get angry" or "it ruins their fun", they can do it as much as everyone else.

The problem with your logic is that there's always someone unable or just uninterested in doing something well... Rocketjumps? Strafing? Camping? Performing tricks or wall-gliding, sniping from a certain spot or using nades effectively etc.? Nah, can't do it, too hard/don't like it so it's "glitching"... because I can't noone should be able to.

As long as something is possible in a game its fair game, if something is deemed damaging or obstructing/spoiling gameplay there's something called "Patches" and its the developers job to fix it not some player(s) that think they're the moral police.

The difference between exploiting a glitch, and say, learning to snipe or rocket jump, is that the former is cheap, easy, and says your only interested in winning, while the latter is a tactic that requires skill and practice-such tactics invariably work across a range of games, and so are known by all within a short period of playing.
Ultimately, its down to what your looking for- a challenging, fun experience, or an exercise in rules-lawyering designed solely to get your name at the top of a list at the end. Back when multiplayer was solely a LAN or splitscreen experience, we had house rules like not shooting someone when they're out of ammo or don't have a gun, and the games were much more fun for it. This 'win by any means necersary' approach is just crass and childish
I'm not making moral judgements, I just don't want to spend my free time engaging in something that looks like half a dozen hungry mutts fighting over a small scrap of meat. If you do that's your business-it'd just be nice if you did it with other dogs rather than wrecking the experience for the rest of us.

glitches are not all easy, tell that to those that mutalisk micro in starcraft.

tell that to those that bunny jump in quakeworld(its not easy)

tell that to those who strafejump in quakelive

what about infinite's in fighting games, most infinite's are hard as fuck and damn near impossible to set yourself up on.

glitches can be amazingly advanced. as long as they can be countered, in some way, even by themselves, then they are ok.

Usually its just noobies that don't truly see the hard or good glitches, cause they were never good enough to even see them in the first place, much less use them

Oh well, on the strength of the handful of anecdotal evidence you've presented, I retract my statement-you've answered all my points wonderfully, and I now see that glitching is in fact really difficult, and its actualy the crap players that are unable to do it. To seal the deal you got the phrases 'fag' and 'noob' in there (even if you did edit the fag out). Its all so clear now...

 

[GodofDisaster]

I've used a few cheats in single player, after I've beaten the game.

But I've never once used hacks in an online multiplayer game.

 

[Talshere]

In this age of constant post release patches, there really is no excuse for glitches anyway. The community finds them out and really after that it should be a few weeks tops before someone gets there finger out and fixes the damn things.

The failure of a dev to fix blatant and broken issues with the game is just plane last and smacks of a developer I dont think Ill be buying games from anymore.

 

[Arion banki]

I hate playing with or against players that are using some kind of hack or exploit. If you are with them the game is too easy and lacks any challenge or fun. If you are against them then you wont be around for to long you'll be losing a lot.

What irks me the most that if you win because of a hack what exactly is gained by that. I suppose it's the same mindset that likes playing fps games in god mode.

 

[Lt. Dragunov]

i never cheat or glitch in games, its a poor way way to win and it shows you have no skill at the game what so ever. Case i point, MW2 on the ps3 has alot of people useing glitches, infinity ward thinks they are fixing them all but everytime one gets fixed another glitch pops up, ie. the infinite sprint (allows you to sprint even while aiming and firing), bullet swaping (lets you swap bullets with your guns, ie. a M4A1 with barret 50. cal bullets),spam spawing ( lets you spawn in the oppisite team's spawn) and the all so very stupid silver bullets (one hit kill bullets even through the pain killer perk). Those are just a few that I'v suffered from in MW2 and the main reason why I have stoped playing such a good game.

 

[Jennacide]

Can't tolerate it. The main reason I stopped playing both L4D and L4D2, because of the rampant mat-hacking. (An easily pulled wallhack that can't be prevented) And regardless of what some people will try and claim, exploiting is still cheating. You gonna rationalize that the Javelin suicide in MW2 wasn't stupidly unfair and game breaking? Or the Dead Ringer Spy exploit in TF2? At least those got patched, but so many other games still have gamebreaking exploits making them no fun to play online.

 

[Tharwen]

Uh... I once used an aimbot on Halo, but it didn't really work and I then realised that I hate hackers anyway, so it all turned out well

 

[Jazzyluv2]

That's the exact same rationale that a lot of these glitchers would try to give me. Here's the problem your logic, doing these things makes other players angry and ruins the fun for them unless they play by your rules. And your rules are not explained in any instruction manual, strategy guide or tutorial.

The only "rules" a game is played by is defined by the way it can be played. I couldn't care less if "other players get angry" or "it ruins their fun", they can do it as much as everyone else.

The problem with your logic is that there's always someone unable or just uninterested in doing something well... Rocketjumps? Strafing? Camping? Performing tricks or wall-gliding, sniping from a certain spot or using nades effectively etc.? Nah, can't do it, too hard/don't like it so it's "glitching"... because I can't noone should be able to.

As long as something is possible in a game its fair game, if something is deemed damaging or obstructing/spoiling gameplay there's something called "Patches" and its the developers job to fix it not some player(s) that think they're the moral police.

The difference between exploiting a glitch, and say, learning to snipe or rocket jump, is that the former is cheap, easy, and says your only interested in winning, while the latter is a tactic that requires skill and practice-such tactics invariably work across a range of games, and so are known by all within a short period of playing.
Ultimately, its down to what your looking for- a challenging, fun experience, or an exercise in rules-lawyering designed solely to get your name at the top of a list at the end. Back when multiplayer was solely a LAN or splitscreen experience, we had house rules like not shooting someone when they're out of ammo or don't have a gun, and the games were much more fun for it. This 'win by any means necersary' approach is just crass and childish
I'm not making moral judgements, I just don't want to spend my free time engaging in something that looks like half a dozen hungry mutts fighting over a small scrap of meat. If you do that's your business-it'd just be nice if you did it with other dogs rather than wrecking the experience for the rest of us.

glitches are not all easy, tell that to those that mutalisk micro in starcraft.

tell that to those that bunny jump in quakeworld(its not easy)

tell that to those who strafejump in quakelive

what about infinite's in fighting games, most infinite's are hard as fuck and damn near impossible to set yourself up on.

glitches can be amazingly advanced. as long as they can be countered, in some way, even by themselves, then they are ok.

Usually its just noobies that don't truly see the hard or good glitches, cause they were never good enough to even see them in the first place, much less use them

Oh well, on the strength of the handful of anecdotal evidence you've presented, I retract my statement-you've answered all my points wonderfully, and I now see that glitching is in fact really difficult, and its actualy the crap players that are unable to do it. To seal the deal you got the phrases 'fag' and 'noob' in there (even if you did edit the fag out). Its all so clear now...

Any kind of game you create with enough people will create a competitive community of some sort(weather it has any sway over the main stream community doesn't matter too much)

some glitches are easy and stupid, but don't blame players for using them in a bloody pub, they are just trying to win, and to some people, actually quite a lot of people winning is fun, regardless of how they do it.

house rules should not apply to a community.

Also, maybe googling the glitches i listed is a good way to figure out if i am full of shit or not

games should always be fun, if your not enjoying the game, then do something else, don't get on the community that are essentially playing a different game.

Also another thing/ there is an objective in most games/ did you forget about that objective

quake= get most frags

starcraft= destroy all the opponents buildings

team fortress 2= capture all the points

shouldn't you be playing to get to the winning objective?

 

[MiserableOldGit]

That's the exact same rationale that a lot of these glitchers would try to give me. Here's the problem your logic, doing these things makes other players angry and ruins the fun for them unless they play by your rules. And your rules are not explained in any instruction manual, strategy guide or tutorial.

The only "rules" a game is played by is defined by the way it can be played. I couldn't care less if "other players get angry" or "it ruins their fun", they can do it as much as everyone else.

The problem with your logic is that there's always someone unable or just uninterested in doing something well... Rocketjumps? Strafing? Camping? Performing tricks or wall-gliding, sniping from a certain spot or using nades effectively etc.? Nah, can't do it, too hard/don't like it so it's "glitching"... because I can't noone should be able to.

As long as something is possible in a game its fair game, if something is deemed damaging or obstructing/spoiling gameplay there's something called "Patches" and its the developers job to fix it not some player(s) that think they're the moral police.

The difference between exploiting a glitch, and say, learning to snipe or rocket jump, is that the former is cheap, easy, and says your only interested in winning, while the latter is a tactic that requires skill and practice-such tactics invariably work across a range of games, and so are known by all within a short period of playing.
Ultimately, its down to what your looking for- a challenging, fun experience, or an exercise in rules-lawyering designed solely to get your name at the top of a list at the end. Back when multiplayer was solely a LAN or splitscreen experience, we had house rules like not shooting someone when they're out of ammo or don't have a gun, and the games were much more fun for it. This 'win by any means necersary' approach is just crass and childish
I'm not making moral judgements, I just don't want to spend my free time engaging in something that looks like half a dozen hungry mutts fighting over a small scrap of meat. If you do that's your business-it'd just be nice if you did it with other dogs rather than wrecking the experience for the rest of us.

glitches are not all easy, tell that to those that mutalisk micro in starcraft.

tell that to those that bunny jump in quakeworld(its not easy)

tell that to those who strafejump in quakelive

what about infinite's in fighting games, most infinite's are hard as fuck and damn near impossible to set yourself up on.

glitches can be amazingly advanced. as long as they can be countered, in some way, even by themselves, then they are ok.

Usually its just noobies that don't truly see the hard or good glitches, cause they were never good enough to even see them in the first place, much less use them

Oh well, on the strength of the handful of anecdotal evidence you've presented, I retract my statement-you've answered all my points wonderfully, and I now see that glitching is in fact really difficult, and its actualy the crap players that are unable to do it. To seal the deal you got the phrases 'fag' and 'noob' in there (even if you did edit the fag out). Its all so clear now...

Any kind of game you create with enough people will create a competitive community of some sort(weather it has any sway over the main stream community doesn't matter too much)

some glitches are easy and stupid, but don't blame players for using them in a bloody pub, they are just trying to win, and to some people, actually quite a lot of people winning is fun, regardless of how they do it.

house rules should not apply to a community.

Also, maybe googling the glitches i listed is a good way to figure out if i am full of shit or not

games should always be fun, if your not enjoying the game, then do something else, don't get on the community that are essentially playing a different game.

Also another thing/ there is an objective in most games/ did you forget about that objective

quake= get most frags

starcraft= destroy all the opponents buildings

team fortress 2= capture all the points

shouldn't you be playing to get to the winning objective?

I didnt say you were full of shit- I kind of assumed you would know what anecdotal meant, and why it is valueless in such a discussion (accurate or not).
I wasnt suggesting my personal house rules should be adopted by the gaming community-that is clearly ludicrous and impractical. I was pointing out that sportsmanship can add to the game.
Yes, you do play to win, but, to make an even more fundamental point, why do you want to win? I'll give you an extreme example to highlight a point (please, for the love of god, understand this) - imagine you found a glitch in a game where if you say, get up onto a high girder no one else knows about, and it automatically kills everyone on the map. This might be an amusing thing to discover and show people once or twice, but would you use it as a regular tactic to achieve victory? Personaly I would say no, as the victory, though assured, would be hollow. I would physically gain nothing from it, and wouldnt enjoy myself. Some people would use it to death, and the game would cease to be a game, instead becoming a mindless dash for a single point on the map. Do you see my point? No? Ah forget it-heres a rocket launcher, I saw some hapless fool over there with a pistol, go show him how great you are...

 

[daemon37]

A glitch in gaming is an unintended way of being able to do something or doing it in a way you are not supposed to, both rocket jumping, strafing and several other tactics like C4 jumping etc. were exactly that and made it in other games afterwards. Exploiting is the act of using said glitches.

I couldn't care less if you agree or not, its the way most of those games are played or evolved... either they're patched up removing something like that or it is all allowed tactics. You're free to disagree or stop playing those games but if you do you'll get a bullet in the face like everyone else and not put on a "special needs" program.

Gunz: The Duel: Take this one for example, a game in which "glitches" as you call em are part of the main mechanics and competitive matches. You could climb walls by using a sword, pressing forward and sideways and slashing everytime then switching to another weapon, back and repeat. Also you can switch between weps very quickly to shoot an aimed bullet off in the blink of an eye and be off. Surely not the way it was intended to be played...

I've never played this game so I have no idea what I'm watching. I couldn't tell you if there is anything I would consider cheating in it.

Quake 3: One of the perfect examples of where perfect strafing, rocket jumps and aim are the goal of the game, I'm sure it wasn't intended to be played exactly as that/it wasn't what the developers had in mind when it came out.

I was never that heavily into Quake 2 or 3, but it seems odd to think of strafing, jumping or aiming as cheating.

Jedi Knight 2/3: Another game where exact jumps/strafing, the usage of force and wall gliding (had to actually face the wall at only a certain degree down-sideways and press a combinations of buttons including holding jump and up) became part of the actual gameplay, not to the extremes in this video as that wasn't much possible in a 5v5 match and the guy is alone, but it gets my point across hopefully.

I remember this game somewhat, it was full of little problems. I didn't know you could jump off the walls like that though. I guess I would call that a glitch, since I know quite a bit about Star Wars and I have never heard of Jedi being able to do that kind of stuff.

Left 4 Dead: If you're skiled you can use the Infected for a lot of stuff, including insta-death moves by pulling someone out of the elevator right before it closes (takes about 1sec to do and has to be timed exactly right), pulling someone off a building or like here the proper use of the "hunter"-class for all kinds of stuff and perfect max-dmg pounces, this is a fanmap built for improving the hunter-skills.

I've played a LOT of L4D and L4D2, and I don't think insta-death moves are glitching at all. It just makes logical sense that if I pounce someone near a ledge, or charge them through a window, they should fall to their death. It may seem cheap or underhanded, but it is definitely a part of the game, not a glitch.

As for the content of the video, anyone who is somewhat skilled at playing the hunter can wall-jump a bit. But the degree of wall-jumping and the kind of wall-jumps shown in the video seem pretty glitchy. It just doesn't seem right for a hunter to be able to scale a wall by continuously jumping off of a single surface (instead of bouncing back and forth between to adjacent surfaces).

Tribes 2: A game where you could drop out of a vehicle, do a big jetpack jump and immediately land in another vehicle or play together with one of your teammates, where you could exchange flags in mid-air, drive over ppl etc. and had many different kinds of crazy tactics. "Unfair"? "Not the way it was meant to be played?" Maybe, but it makes for ultimate teamplay.

Also... none of this is as easy as it looks...

Again, I've never really played this game but the video does not appear to show cheating of any sort. Getting into/out of vehicles, while flying through the air with the greatest of ease seems like a lot of fun. Of course if I was a noob I would probably be upset if someone used it against me. Not because they're cheating, but because they're too good.

I think my overall response to your statements here is that what is or isn't cheating is not the same for all games. Both real-world logic, and the logic of that particular game needs to be taken into account to decide if a glitch is "cheating" or not. For example, does it make sense in Team Fortress 2 that a character should be able to propell themselves high into the air by detonating an explosive beneath their feet? Yeah, sure. Explosives don't do as much damage as they do in the real world, and they have a high knock-back quality. On the other hand, does it make sense in Metal Gear Online that a soldier can play dead while in his spawn point, but in reality he is actually somewhere else on the map, completely invisible and invulnerable, and killing your teammates. No sir, not at all.

 

[daemon37]

Also another thing/ there is an objective in most games/ did you forget about that objective

quake= get most frags

starcraft= destroy all the opponents buildings

team fortress 2= capture all the points

shouldn't you be playing to get to the winning objective?

The primary objective of all games is to have fun. As for the criteria for winning, each game is different. For example, you can win most shooters by killing the enemy more than he kills you. Yet, regardless of whether you are winning or losing, never forget the primary objective or you might end up like this kid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmARzyrWSag&feature=related (WARNING: LOST OF EXPLICIT LANGUAGE IN THIS VIDEO)

 

[Discrodia]

Hacking and exploiting has a tendency to kill all the fun in a game. In campaign (particularly in the days of yore, when almost every game was tougher than a Space Marine on roller skates) cheats were the main way to get the most out of a game. I, for one, loved cheating in Turok Evolution (I still remember the universal cheat after six years [FMNFB]) because it allowed for great mayhem-causing fun.

Now, in the world of Call of Duty MW2, every week there's a new exploit or hack that ruins everyone's fun and makes the multiplayer of the game annoying beyond belief. I might have given up console multiplayer gaming had it not been for AvP (Even if it's a bit rough around the edges, no killsteak rewards or crap like that. Hell, they don't even show your number of deaths during the match) simply because these days, with the whole Ranks-Killstreaks-Unlocks style of multiplayer, everyone wants to get to the top as fast as possible. Which encourages cheating, exploiting, and hacking more than any olde style harder-than-adamantium fight-off-ninja-army-with-pistol game.

So, because I'm feeling vengeful, I blame Infinity Ward for starting this depressing trend of needing to be 'teh bestest' at multiplayer and as a result pretty much leading all the 'cool kids' to hack and exploit with every other second of their lives.