Ownership, if not for EULAs

[eldaec]

 

This thread just called, it wants to be spared the pain and to die quickly.

[LC]

Speaking of cheating, apparently Blizzard broke out their Mighty Banhammer of the Eagle and smote a whole bunch of botters very recently.

The official boards are aflame with the usual "I got banned but I never used bot_program_65! Fix this Blizz!"...of which quite a few (as expected) end up backpeddling to "I only used it once! Okay, a couple of times. Okay, so I bot for dreamfoil 24/7"

They did ban the wrong people this time. I'm sure they don't really care who gets banned though. The majority of WoW players are like crack addicts, and will hock their (parents') wedding ring(s) to buy a new copy.

[Nebu]

People realize that diku clones are largely timesinks and use second party software to get to the "fun".  News at 11.

[Strazos]

If I lost my the character I put all that time into, I would certainly NOT be paying another $30+ to start over.

[geldonyetich]

There's a certain subtle distinction that most people miss when it comes to cheating.

If you're by yourself and you're cheating then that's fine.  All you're really missing is the game experience as the developers intended it, and instead you're getting to all that rich and juicy content right away. 

If you're in a multiplayer environment, however, everybody's expecting to play fairly.  I know that some people think that online games are just a big ol sandbox in which all the kids can do whatever they're want.  They're not.  The developer should put in the necessary blocks to stop people from cheating, but players often come up with things they don't consider, so everybody's on the honor system.  The result is that this is a game in which either everybody agrees it's okay to cheat or nobody should.

What's the harm in cheating?  Well, I could probably write several paragraphs about that, but sufice to say that everybody's interconnected in an online game, even if you can't see those connections, and cheating affects non-cheating players game experience negatively.

However, I've argued this point into the ground time and time again.  Some people simply cannot or will not believe this.   The only thing you can do is ban cheaters when you see them ignoring the majority's wishes, because clearly there will always be people who believe it is within their right take liberties with the concept of a shared game environment.

Honestly, sometimes I'm not too surprised when I see cheating happening in some MMORPGs.  Such long treadmills can push otherwise sane people to think, "Screw this.  I'm cheating, I'm getting to that content these greedy bastard developers have been keeping me from weeks longer than necessary, and if I get banned then good riddence."  It's an irresponsible choice in that it hurts other players game experience to witness that their fantasy world has leaks, but I can nonetheless see why people would be pushed to do it.  Wallhackers in FPS don't have the same excuse - learn some skillz, you wusses.

[Sky]

I don't know, Geldon. I have the same reaction to dikumills, but it tends to go, "Screw this. I'm outta here." Why stay and cheat? It's a sign of a shitty game design and you shouldn't waste time when there is so much gaming goodness out there. Or, you know, other things.

[Merusk]

Length or depth of the game is not directly tied to people's urge to cheat.  There's folks who look for cheats for fucking minesweeper & solitare.

Some people just don't like being bound by any kind of rules and only want the "I win."  Wether that's getting an actual "You Win" screen or "ding-gratz max-level & uberpower."