243: The Thin Red Line

[Straz]

I feeled compelled to mention the care package glitch in MW2.
People who used it used to tell me that it was in the game, and thus a legitimate stragegy.
It got removed, and if the developers didn't see it as such, it mustn't have been as such.
Yet they still beleived in it, until it was removed.

 

[Booze Zombie]

If the system is "broken" simply because some players are luckier than others, then you people need to re-evaluate what makes something "broken" in the first place. Also, they're freaking hats. Come on, now.

People didn't want the hats because they did anything, they wanted them because they didn't have them.

If the hats were simply earned for skill like everything else, then there would be no issue, they'd be delightfully silly novelty items, nothing more.

 

[Osloq]

I for one am definitely in the exploits are cheating camp. I think the reasoning behind using an exploit and thinking it's kosher just because "the developers" haven't fixed it is deliberately ignorant. Skill at a game is defined by operating within the parameters put forward by the designers and achieving a good or great result. Using some loophole or bug to achieve the same result totally negates any accomplishment.

For a while I played at a serious level in CoD4 and while my clan maintained a strict policy on modding or exploiting bugs, it was a constant battle when coming into conflict with other clans who had no such inhibitions. In my opinion, the game suffers when people like that act in that sort of manner. That's not to say that exploiters aren't skilled players because in my experience it's generally the most talented who feel the need to improve their game and even a slight edge, such as being able to see through a wall or climb a building, can tip the balance when confronting a team of similar ability.

Using exploits to your advantage is comparable to committing a crime that hasn't got adequate punishment within the law because it's previously gone unabused or unnoticed. You can't then claim you didn't think it was wrong just because the law wasn't fully up to date and likewise you can't complain when you are punished above and beyond what has previously occurred. The problem is that the true authority which detains exploiting for personal benefit is the person's moral compass. Most people generally don't give a shit about the game or other people enough to actually take a look and think about what they're doing.

This was an interesting article and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it but I feel like I have to agree with your friend. As far as I'm concerned you did cheat.

 

[Kurt Horsting]

If it weren't for exploits, fighting games wouldn't have combos (canceling special moves, and links where bugs in the programing).

 

[nmaster64]

Honestly, I think the situation with TF2's hats was one of the most poorly handled "cheating" situations ever. Valve never took 2 seconds to just say, "hey, that's not cool". Players tried to open a dialog and they refused. Only when the hammer came down did they affirm their position.

In completely clear-cut cases of cheating or exploiting that may be one thing, but there were a lot of people who thought there was nothing wrong with having a program just idle you on a server. And that's Valve's own fault, because they set a complete double standard by obviously not having a problem with all the achievement and idle servers that parade the server list.

So the guy who booted TF2 and jumped on an achievement server was REWARDED, but the guy who loaded a little console window that simulated the same thing was punished. That in my mind is a bit insane. Or at the least, unprofessional and just plain childish. The war that sparked after that event, the community divided by that little halo, forced me to leave TF2. I haven't really returned since...

Companies really need to stop with the silent treatment and start being very open with their gamers. If someone asks, "is this bad, can I do this?" Then it's a really simple answer.

Yes or no.

 

[insanelich]

TF2 is so much better now that everyone who would leave over something as insignificant as the Halo issue has left.

Again, idling is allowed and continues to this day. Using external programs to send fake info to Steam servers is NOT allowed, and was punished.

 

[mikekearn]

I have no problem in exploiting as many glitches and game loopholes as I can - in a single player game. When it's just me versus the game, and the game makes a mistake, I will ruthlessly take advantage of said mistake. I don't see the enemies stopping to see if I'm okay because I did something stupid like hit the wrong button and accidentally drop a grenade at my own feet.

However, in multiplayer games, I do my very best to not cheat. I test games to the limit, and try and combine weapons and tools in any new way I can think of, but if I realize that what I'm doing gives me a seriously unfair advantage or was never intended to work that way, I'll abandon it. There are several maps in Halo 3, for example, that I figured out how to get on top of. I stopped doing it when I realized no one else could hit me or see me at all - such a thing is obviously not how the game is intended to be played. Some of them are now impossible to do, because the devs saw what people were doing, and patched the game. Others are still possible, but I don't do it anyway, because I don't want to draw players' attention to a potential exploit.

EDIT: And I do want to say, I'm fully aware that I'm definitely cheating my way through single player games. I don't doubt that it's cheating, I'm just not bothered by it if it can't and doesn't affect anyone else. I don't even do it most of the time - just when my skill alone isn't helping me, and I don't feel like grinding to either get better or get the XP needed to level higher, depending on the nature of the game.

 

[Skratt]

Great article and I agree that devs should open a better dialogue with their player base. You can't give a child a toy and then start spanking them if they don't play with it the way you "intended". You need to first tell them what is or is not appropriate before implementing punishment. Of course players are not children and can tell the difference between appropriate and inappropriate but if the community says it is generally okay, why does it need to be patched and punished? You gave them the toy, let them play with it (or in the case of admins) police it as they see fit. The only exception to this would be an blatant bug in the code that gives those who exploit it an unfair advantage or allows them to skip content not intended to be skipped.

As for achievements, again it should be up to the players if they want to challenge themselves and get the big achievements. However, when you start adding things into the game that give those "achievement whores" a distinct advantage for doing nothing more than having more time to play the game, you create an imbalance that didn't otherwise exist.

Having achievements does not punish those who do not get them, but adding MMO style loot drops is like watching kids play quietly and nicely together and then giving one a cookie for spending more time on the swings than the other kids. It's a jerk move that seems to be grounded less in the "thank you for playing" and more in the "how can we stir things up" mentality.

Video games are interactive electronic toys. Why do we feel that we now need cookies in order to enjoy the toys we were previously fine with?

 

[fenrizz]

On TF2:
I am not a huge fan of TF2, I prefer CS.

But after buying the Orange Box I decided to give it a quick try.

It went something like this:

Oh cool, a spy. Gonna try that.
Oh nice, this is fun. Wait... Why does that guy have a different weapon?
Oh, I see, I can switch weapons. -Guess that is kind of cool.

Now let me see... No other weapons? That is odd, guess I'll google it and find out how to get them.

Unlock achievements. Ok.
*Checks achievements*

*Jaw drops*

But I only wanted to play for a little while... If I wanted to grind I would have logged on WoW instead... /sigh

Oh look, an achievement server!
Guess I can play this a little anyway. /cheer


tl;dr
TF2's unlocking does not appeal to me at all. I rarely play online shooters for long at a time, and I certainly don't want to have to grind to avoid being at a disadvantage.

 

[manaman]

The major reason I avoid online game play is spelled out and implied in this article. I no longer have the time or energy to devote to a game to remain competitive, and it is that competitiveness that drive most of the fun out of online play. After all how can I enjoy the game if I cannot stand up to even the lowlyist players at least some of the time.

Halo was likely the last game where I find myself with enough free time to become good at the game, and I was very good. Still, competitive play at a tournament brought to light a whole new issue. The level of play online was inconstant enough, and I was good enough, that I never had to learn and practice the glitches to be competitive. The vast majority of the people at the tournament seemed to be in the game less for fun then to win at all costs. They had learned all the maps inside out, learned all the glitches so they could be ready to use the allowed ones. My group had done little more then practice as a team, we knew the maps and for the most part we knew of the glitches, but had never practiced them. We still managed to place in the tournament, but the final rounds where brutal as it became more and more obvious that even the enormous amounts of playtime we had placed into the game we had little more then the baseline skills need to compete at that level, and quite possibly it was luck that had allowed us to continue as far as we did. The turning point for me came during some free time where we sat with a 15 year old kid and his friends and decimated them, practicing those glitches. Sometime during this session it occurred to me that I was no longer having fun with this game, and really what was the point in playing if I was not having fun.

 

[AncientYoungSon]

As an avid TF2 player, I prefer that players get their achievements from achievement servers and not screw around in real matches where players are actually trying to win games.

 

[ZeroDotZero]

Is EV Training in Pokemon cheating? I hope not, because I'd be a big cheat then.

 

[physicsnick]

Long time reader of the Escapist; I signed up to post this. I disagree with everything in the article.

Take the Left4Dead example you gave. If everyone just accepted breaking the door as a valid mechanic, then both teams would just do it to skip a relatively minor part of the campaign, and all would be fair again until they patch it. Instead, you go and whine and complain, making the game fun for no one.

In particular this was an extremely minor glitch because both teams could just do it. The problem is that at some point you decided you knew everything about the game, and so any new strategy that arose that throws off your game, you consider cheating. That's just not how competitive gameplay works. You're no different than people who complained that hiding in the closet waiting for the elevator is cheating. Competitive gaming is a constant learning process, and you should have just taken this loss and learned from it.

As far as your Team Fortress 2 complaints go, the reason it is possible to game this system in such a stupid way is that rewarding the amount of time spent playing (since that's fundamentally what it is) with in-game bonuses is a *HORRIBLE* game mechanic. I cannot stress enough how completely asinine the unlocking system is. I was really, really pissed off that they patched in that bullshit a few months after I bought the game. I was good at the game but I had a job and a girlfriend and just didn't have another 100 hours to pour into it, so it made me quit playing. This is the same reason I never bought CoD4, and I would not have bought TF2 either had I known they would pull this shit. Rewarding time spent playing is fundamentally broken, and turns good competitive players away from the game.

For the CoD4 clan player above, the reason you were getting beaten by these other clans is because they were better than you. You were hamstrung by your own self-imposed artificial rules that the game simply does not care about, and that's why you lost. A team with your mentality would never survive in any kind of tournament play. Video game tournaments do not have 'judges' who try to figure out whether you won 'honourably and ethically'. Only the score matters.

So no, it is not a thin red line at all. There is no line; in my opinion there should be no such thing as an exploit. There are hacks of course; any external tool you use to modify the game is obviously cheating (and I'd agree that activating the developer console falls in this camp of externally modifying the game). But without hacks, whatever the game lets you do is fair, and if it makes the game not fun, the onus is on the developers to fix it. The most important part for me is that you should be able to freely explore the limitations of the game uninhibited, not worrying about whether you will find something 'too good', not worrying about whether you will be banned for being curious and clever. This constant 'cheating' mentality breeds bad gamers, and stops people from learning the true depth of the game.

I'll go ahead and be the second person to mention sirlin.net . Read "Playing to Win" (a rebuttal of the main focus of this article) and "World of Warcraft Teaches the Wrong Things" (explaining why TF2's unlocking is so fundamentally broken).

 

[CyberKnight]

This reminds me of a discussion I had on another forum WRT Microsoft (temporarily) banning people using glitches in Modern Warfare 2 on the 360.

The closest thing I could name as a consensus from the supporters was, "The developer said it's not working as intended, it ruins the game, therefore the ban is justified."

Except I couldn't get a clear consensus on how this glitch is different from, say, the akimbo shotguns (unrealistic range and power made the game un-fun, it was against the developer's intent as they did "fix" it), Halo 2's B-X-R, Left 4 Dead's garage door, or any other glitch that doesn't result in a ban.

The real kicker was when I read a post about one of the Super Street Fighter 2 games, where the lead developer has said the character Akuma does not function as intended and is broken in his current state. Wouldn't that, by definition, say merely using the Akuma character is "exploiting a glitch"? Does that make it cheating? (It was banned from Evo Tournament play [http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=181540].)

And "rocket jumping" for some reason isn't considered "glitching" or "cheating", because even though it might not have been originally part of the game (whatever the first game it appeared in -- Quake? Unreal?), it's been around so long that, now, it is considered "just part of the game". Even though I've never learned to do it effectively. For me, it's still something that just can't be done. So if someone rocket-jumps away from me in a game and I can't get to them, it's because they've done something I can't in the game. Cheat? Glitch?

If Infinity Ward never fixed the "Javelin Glitch", how long would it have had to be in the game before it was no longer considered a "cheat/glitch" and "just part of the game"?

 

[KayinN]

Hello, I'm Michael "Kayin" O'Reilly, creator of I Wanna Be the Guy, and I am here to disagree!

Actually to be fair I think the article was actually okay and pretty non-bias. Some of the examples were pretty weak (Sequence breaking in L4D2 and boomers using the kill command are the only things that even really seemed possibly unfair). Still, I got a few things to say.

I was an idler for TF2. Grinding was too much work, and I don't find fun in receiving 'alternative options' the more I play. I want my options right away. I'll decide when I'm ready for them. Now, if I was playing MW2 or something I'd understand. The game packaged as a multiplayer games where you level up and get new unlocks. TF2 on the other hand started as one thing and became something else. Suddenly there were unlocks, and grinding and all sorts of BS. I liked the new content but could not understand why it was not available to everyone from the get go. So when idling became possible, I idled. Then I ran the idler program to save power and CPU cycles.

When my items were removed, I was pissed. Not so much because I was 'caught' for 'cheating'. They definitely had a case that it was cheating. So when I wrote an angry letter to Robin Walker, I did not complain that I was unfairly treated for cheating, I complained that they, and their amateurish unlock system drove me to cheat. The system was bad and myself, and many others cheated to avoid that undesirable part of the game. This should have been seen as a failure on their parts as game designers (I love Valve, but they seem prone to REALLY REALLY DUMB design decisions sometimes, like this or dynamic weapon pricing.)

What made matters worse is you could still use idle servers. The only difference between 'cheating' and 'not cheating' was cpu and memory usage.

Now I just grind for achievements though, because now the achievements are designed to be easily doable. They actually devalued achievements (not that I care at all, I think achievements are retarded, but I know some people love them) to support the unlock system. It's all bad and valve should feel bad. And they did, so they made the most useless crafting system ever which only encouraged people to idle more to make hats. GREAT.

Anyways, the other thing I wanted to say..... Developer Intent is bubkis.

As a developer, when you release a game, THATS IT. Thats what the player has to play. Unless you patch it, its over. Trying to figure out what the developer was intending is stupid for a number of reasons. There are probably a number of obviously fair tactics the developers didn't intend or think about. Players won't and shouldn't play in some sterile 'what would jesus-imeandeveloper do?' way. They figure out and exploit the nuances.

Games that are interesting are not interesting because the designers perfectly plotted every little detail of the game. That is umpossiblz. Instead, they make games interesting by creating environments where interesting nuances and details will emerge. Whether or not something is a glitch doesn't exactly matter. Glitches and exploits have often been legitimized in games by the developers, and obviously intended tactics have been removed because the developer went "My god, what was I thinking!"

I feeled compelled to mention the care package glitch in MW2.
People who used it used to tell me that it was in the game, and thus a legitimate stragegy.
It got removed, and if the developers didn't see it as such, it mustn't have been as such.
Yet they still beleived in it, until it was removed.

Well yeah, but are you saying that just because the developers removed it, that it wasn't legit? Legit stuff gets removed all the time from games by developers. Developers are not infallible. They jump at things that are harmless and miss things that are horrible and they do so because they are humans with bias perceptions like the right of us.

So while that glitch was in the game it was fair to people to say it was legit. But once the developer removes it, thats it. It doesn't matter if it was legit or not, you aren't able to do it so theres no more discussion. Developers may be fallible, but the game code is the final ruling on everything and if they change that, what can ya do?

95% of the time anything that even raises the question "Is this legitimate?" guarantees the answer "No." Human beings have a persistent habit of desperately trying to justify their behavior.

Quite the opposite in my experience. Unless it involves an external program, 95% of the time if people ask if it's legitimate, my answer is pretty much always 'yes, yes it is.' This isn't hard, since people gripe about EVERYTHING, and rarely on anything that is a significant problem. Maybe I'm a little bias here because I tend to play polished games. People who play MW2 online might have a different perspective. But REALLY? 95% no? Are you like.... a gaming Nun?

Anyways (and this is a little bit lateral to the discussion since this is single player) I'd like to say as someone who released a buggy game, as a developer, I LOVED seeing what people did with IWBTG. They'd find super obscure bugs and exploits that would make me just drop my jaw in amazement. Very few of these 'interesting' glitches got patched. I tired to remove stuff that made you invulnerable or made you teleport (though if you check youtube, I've clearly failed at that ), but tons of other little exploits that were beneficial to the player were legitimized by me often as features. Things like that are part of the 'lore' of a video game. Part of the texture of a game that people can talk about, find, and explore. Certain bugs, glitches and exploits very much add to the character of games, often beneficially.

Anyways, for me (lol sirlin.net again), the line is whats in the game. If the game is so broken with exploits that I can't have fun while playing my best, I don't blame the community, I blame the developers. Fuzzy rules just lead to people being mad and each other and fracturing communities.

I do think developers should be more willing to speak out. I would have appreciated it if Valve came by sooner to say "No, idling is dumb, knock it off", and then set to fix the problem. Communications can act as a stopgap solution before a REAL solution is implemented, but at the same time, depending on the exploit, that doesn't mean some people can't continue to safely perform it.

 

[katsabas]

For the CoD4 clan player above, the reason you were getting beaten by these other clans is because they were better than you. You were hamstrung by your own self-imposed artificial rules that the game simply does not care about, and that's why you lost. A team with your mentality would never survive in any kind of tournament play. Video game tournaments do not have 'judges' who try to figure out whether you won 'honourably and ethically'. Only the score matters.

So no, it is not a thin red line at all. There is no line; in my opinion there should be no such thing as an exploit. There are hacks of course; any external tool you use to modify the game is obviously cheating (and I'd agree that activating the developer console falls in this camp of externally modifying the game). But without hacks, whatever the game lets you do is fair, and if it makes the game not fun, the onus is on the developers to fix it. The most important part for me is that you should be able to freely explore the limitations of the game uninhibited, not worrying about whether you will find something 'too good', not worrying about whether you will be banned for being curious and clever. This constant 'cheating' mentality breeds bad gamers, and stops people from learning the true depth of the game.

Yeah, well, not everyone who plays MW wants to reach Championship level of skill. And while we are on it, if pro players are indeed playing as you reply they are, then the ones that promote fair play will just have to get better. Also, I bet a good percentage of MW players would SUCK at games like Braid and Wipeout HD.

About the line? Yeah, there is one. Proof? MW2 is full of overpowered equipment which I am not gonna get into at this point. I have seen players using glitches, left and right in this game. First it was the pillar in Underpass. Now, it is one of the exits to the underground tunnels in Wasteland. And even if that is fixed, we have the grenade launchers.

 

[KayinN]

Yeah, well, not everyone who plays MW wants to reach Championship level of skill. And while we are on it, if pro players are indeed playing as you reply they are, then the ones that promote fair play will just have to get better.

This is true, but those players aren't going to be playing clan matches. If you're getting into clan matches, it's to create a comparison of skill.

Also, I bet a good percentage of MW players would SUCK at games like Braid and Wipeout HD.

This seems like such an unnecessary and silly jab that doesn't seem to have a purpose in this discussion and probably isn't even true if you're talking about competitive players. Damn dirty cheating exploiters are the people most apt to figure out puzzles and the likes. I don't even know what the hell you're getting at.

About the line? Yeah, there is one. Proof? MW2 is full of overpowered equipment which I am not gonna get into at this point. I have seen players using glitches, left and right in this game. First it was the pillar in Underpass. Now, it is one of the exits to the underground tunnels in Wasteland. And even if that is fixed, we have the grenade launchers.

Thats not proof at all! In fact, thats like the OPPOSITE of truth. All that shit is going on -- where is the line? No one knows! Where do you draw it? Even if you draw it at glitches the game is STILL broken. Is the line before LEGITIMATE AND INTENDED TACTICS? My god, that'd be terrible! There is no line. The only thing to learn here is MW2 is really really stupid.

 

[katsabas]

This seems like such an unnecessary and silly jab that doesn't seem to have a purpose in this discussion and probably isn't even true if you're talking about competitive players. Damn dirty cheating exploiters are the people most apt to figure out puzzles and the likes. I don't even know what the hell you're getting at.

I am getting to the fact that due to the sheer number of shooters out there today, it is natural for someone to be adept to them. Try beating Zico in Wipeout HD or getting past Zone 75. Or even finish Braid. Those are games that require an amount of clairvoyance, detail and skill. Shooters teach you 3 things: shoot, kill, teabag.

Thats not proof at all! In fact, thats like the OPPOSITE of truth. All that shit is going on -- where is the line? No one knows! Where do you draw it? Even if you draw it at glitches the game is STILL broken. Is the line before LEGITIMATE AND INTENDED TACTICS? My god, that'd be terrible! There is no line. The only thing to learn here is MW2 is really really stupid.

How, exactly, is not proof? Have you seen any youtube videos about what I am actually referring to? There are quite a few of em. There is a difference between someone with a Care Package, Chopper Gunner, Nuke and someone with a UAV, Predator, Harrier Strike. If you cannot see the line, then hey, that's who you are. No matter.