Cheating - Multiplayer Gaming's Achilles' heel?

[SSGWarHog]

THIS IS FAIRLY LONG SO GET SOME COFFEE, SODA OR BEER AND READ THIS ALL, THIS WILL ANSWER ALOT OF QUESTIONS.

Article Info
Cheating - Multiplayer Gaming's Achilles' heel?
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Created:
May 17, 2003
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By:
Asher Moses
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Category:
Games & Entertainment
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Summary:
Cheating is bad for you, but then again, so is chocolate. Doesn't stop anyone from doing it, and justifying it. It just isn't much fun if you don't know when someone is doing it to you, or if you have your own code of honor when you're gaming. We take a look at some of the more common cheats in games.

Introduction

Let's face it. Games are a lot more competitive than they used to be back in the days of Commander Keen and the original Quake. The rise of multiplayer gaming has seen many developers focusing substantially on multiplayer features in their flagship titles, and the ever-improving state of broadband Internet has facilitated a much more enjoyable online gaming experience. Lag is now rarely an issue and many are able to obtain an online experience similar to that provided via a LAN (Local Area Network) - as far as pings are concerned, anyway. In either case, the bottom line is that multiplayer gaming, especially in the online arena, has become much more enjoyable as games and technology have advanced, and the elimination of lag issues has allowed players to take a much more competitive stance while online. After all, what's the point of multiplayer gaming if not to compete with humans, rather than the monotonous and highly predictable pre-programmed bots?

There are hundreds of thousands of gamers fragging online at any one time, and with the more popular games it often takes quite a while before you are even able to join a server. This immense popularity has also led to an increase in the overall competitiveness of the community, as the general skill level of those playing has risen greatly over time. With such a high level of competition, it's only natural for us to try and overcome this added difficulty, whether it be by practicing for many hours a day, or even upgrading our PCs to ensure maximum frame rates. Even away from the PC, similar events take place all the time. When you were a child and mum asked you to tidy your room, did you neatly fold each t-shirt and pair of underwear before carefully placing it into your dresser? Or did you sneakily sweep every scrap under your bed so you could get back to whatever it is you were doing before you were ever so rudely interrupted? Thought so! However, these acts were ultimately only harming yourself and thus, weren't that big a deal. It's when cheating moves to the multiplayer arena that it starts becoming an issue.

Cheating in games is certainly not a new concept. Games as far back as Doom have featured pre-programmed cheats (added by the developer himself) to allow those that are stuck to move through the game with reduced difficulty. We've seen a whole gamut of cheats ranging from no clipping mode (see-through walls) to all weapons, to unlimited ammo and even invincibility. However, these were all cheats for the single player game, and it wasn't until relatively recently that cheats of the same nature were introduced to multiplayer gaming, as well. This is a significant issue because, unlike single player cheating where you're only affecting your own gaming experience, multiplayer cheating affects everyone playing in the server with you at the same time.

Cheating is now close to destroying entire gaming communities (Counter-Strike anyone?), and it's gotten to a point where developers are having to spend a large portion of their research and development time creating barriers against the individuals who program and utilize such cheats.

It's clear that cheating is a significant issue in the multiplayer gaming community, however, there are thankfully a number of ways to spot and prevent cheats before things go pear-shaped. Interested? Read on.

What is a cheat?

The first question that must be answered is: What constitutes cheating? Dictionary.com defines cheating as "To violate rules deliberately, as in a game." So, in the context of multiplayer gaming, we can define cheating as modifying game configuration files so that you have an unfair advantage over your opponents. That said, please note that this does not include modifying your character or weapon skins, as long as the models themselves don't change. For example, in some of the earlier versions of Counter-Strike, it was possible to modify in-game models as you saw fit, allowing you to enlarge enemy body parts, including the head, in order to see them from behind walls and boxes. Thankfully, this issue was soon rectified when the developers modified the game's code to ensure that you cannot join a server with anything but the default models. So, to recap, you're able to slightly modify the game's original code without actually cheating, however, as soon as you gain an unfair advantage over your opponents, that's when you're breaking the rules.

How do cheats work?

There are a number of different types of cheats available, each modifying game configuration files in a slightly different manner.

Client Hook - This is the most common method of cheating in current games, and works by loading up a 'client loader' when the game is executed, and inserting numerous lines of code into memory, thus allowing the game to be manipulated in a number of different ways directly from its memory. Most auto-aim and wallhack cheats use this method, due to the fact that until recently it has been quite difficult to detect. That said, we're pleased to report that in recent months many developers have released a number of anti-cheat solutions for client hook hacks, sending the creators of such programs back to the drawing board once again. However, it doesn't take long before skilled coders figure out how to get around even the most extensive anti-cheat measures.

OpenGL Hack - OpenGL hacks, which obviously only work in OpenGL-based games such as Quake III Arena, modify the OpenGL driver so that it draws textures differently. For example, an OpenGL wallhack can modify the driver so that it draws Quake III Arena wall textures transparently, and so on.

Hard-Coded Hack - These hacks are the simplest of the lot, and involve replacing the game DLL and Config files with modified ones. This was the main type of cheat used in the earlier versions of games such as Counter-Strike, however, these cheats were easily eliminated by the implementation of specific file sizes and the searching of config files for known hacks when connecting to a server.

And the accusations come rolling in...

Sadly, due to the fact that cheaters have become so common in the multiplayer arena, on many occasions innocent players are being accused of cheating when they are really just playing well or having a lucky day. Continous chants of "OMG HAX!!" can be quite frustrating for legitimate gamers, and although it's easy to prove your innocence at a LAN, it's unfortunately near-impossible to do so online. Not only do we now have trigger-happy players, but this has resulted in server admins becoming much less tolerant as well, banning those accused of cheating without much investigation at all. But who can blame them?

The copious amount of cheating accusations make it difficult to pick the legitimate players from the cheats, and many server admins take the stance that "it's better to have two or three legitimate players wrongfully banned than it is to have another hundred cheaters walk free." This is understandable and it's ultimately the actions of the cheaters that are ruining the experience for everyone. However, you can help to avoid innocent players being banned by making sure that you are 100% certain that someone is cheating before accusing them. The following section should aid you in making a much more informed judgment.



What types of cheats are out there?

Name any multiplayer-enabled game you own and it's almost certain that there has been some sort of cheat developed for it, whether it's a first-person shooter (FPS), a real-time strategy (RTS) or even a role-playing game (RPG). Just so you are aware of exactly what these cheats enable players to do and thus, what to look for while playing, below is a list of the most popular multiplayer games, which includes an explanation of the cheats available for each.

Note: We have not listed every cheat ever available for each of the games mentioned, as that would be a waste of both your and our time. Instead, we have only listed the cheats that are still in use today or that have not yet been patched by game developers. Many popular games, such as Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, have either not had cheats developed for them yet, or have had most of their flaws patched. These games were not included either.

Half-Life: Counter-Strike

Wallhack - Wallhacking, perhaps the most common cheat in Counter-Strike, allows players to see others through walls and other objects, giving them the advantage of pinpointing the exact location of an enemy and removing all elements of surprise as well as enabling you to easily shoot them through crates, doors and even thick concrete walls. There are various types of wallhack (e.g. full transparency and partial transparency), however, both ultimately give the same results. It's relatively easy to spot someone who's wallhacking, as they will usually blatantly shoot people through thick concrete walls and hit spot on with just about every bullet - something that is normally impossible to do unless you see them run into the position.



Auto-aim - Auto-aim, also known as "aimbot," is the most blatant form of cheating available. This cheat automatically moves your crosshair onto an enemy, eliminating any need for aiming whatsoever. Furthermore, an aimbot can be set to automatically position the crosshair at a body part of your choosing and will even shoot for you as well. Auto-aim can be quite hard to detect if used intelligently, as players could have auto-aim turned on but not have the computer aiming at the head or shooting automatically. However, if you see someone who consistently hits every shot, usually in the same position, or if their crosshair instantly moves from enemy-to-enemy, you most likely have an aimbot on your hands.



Anti-grenade - Put simply, the anti-grenade cheat makes players immune to both flashbang and smoke grenades. For the uninformed, flashbangs let off a bright spark which blinds both enemies and teammates for a number of seconds, and smoke grenades release a cloud of smoke, only partially blinding players but lasting for a longer period of time. When enabled, this cheat makes players immune to both types of grenades, and you'll know when someone is using it if they get five flashbangs thrown in their face and are still able to accurately fire at targets despite this.

Player Information - This cheat is very similar to the wallhack, however, rather than making walls transparent, the player information hack displays health, weapon and ammunition data above both enemy and teammate models, which can be seen even when players are hidden behind objects such as walls and doors. This allows you to pick your fights as well as pinpoint the enemy's position. Detecting this cheat is similar to the way in which you'd detect a wallhacker.

Glowing Player Models - This is a relatively simple cheat that makes all enemy player models glow a color of your choosing, making them much easier targets. Players using this cheat are almost impossible to spot unless it is used in conjunction with a wallhack/ aimbot.

OGC - Avid Counter-Strike players will have most likely heard the word OGC bandied around chat rooms numerous times in the past. OGC is a client-hook hack that bundles all of the above cheats into one convenient package, and is the most potent cheat currently available for the game. However, it is also the most easily detected for obvious reasons.

Quake III Arena

Wallhack - The Quake 3 wallhack is an Open GL hack that makes all walls fully transparent. This is used to the same effect as the Counter-Strike wallhack, however, many have found that it's actually more of a hindrance than an advantage because, due to the nature of the cheat and Quake 3 itself, players find themselves running into walls very often or falling from ledges to their death. Thus, a Quake 3 wallhacker is easy to detect.

Auto-aim - The auto-aim cheat in Quake 3 follows the same basic principles as the Counter-Strike aimbot, however, it is arguably much more severe due to the fact that mastering aiming with the rocket launcher and railgun in Quake 3 will make you an unstoppable force, no matter how good the opponent is. A Quake 3 aimbot is also very hard to spot, due to the fact that it's near-impossible to tell the difference between a skilled player and a cheat.

OGC - The same group that brought you OGC for Counter-Strike have ported the cheat over to Quake 3. Thus, both versions are virtually identical in the way they operate.
Battlefield 1942

Wallhack - See Counter-Strike Player Information



Speed hack - Battlefield 1942 unfortunately features a number of deadly hacks, one of the most potent being the speed hack. This cheat doubles your firing rate, halves reload time and even speeds up vehicles. Fortunately, this is very easy do detect for obvious reasons and thus, is quite rare.

Fog hack - Fog hack simply removes all fog from the map, making it much easier to target enemies, especially for snipers, giving them an increased range of attack. Although near-impossible to spot while you're actually playing, spectators are able to catch someone using fog hack in an instant.

Accuracy hack - The Battlefield 1942 accuracy hack virtually halves recoil, giving players a much better chance of hitting their targets. This cheat is quite difficult to detect as it's hard to differentiate a good player from someone using accuracy hack. However, server admins spectating a match should be able to do so fairly quickly.

What to do when you've found a cheat

Now that you know what each of the cheats do, it will be significantly easier to pick them out when you see them in use. In the event that you do catch someone in the act, if possible, the first and most important thing you should do is record a demo of the player responsible, so that you have irrefutable evidence to back up your claims. A number of the games listed above feature the ability to record in-game demos for later use. Warcraft III/ Starcraft's method is by far the most convenient, as it automatically records every match played and gives you the option to "Save Replay" at the end of each match.

Counter-Strike also allows you to record demos. This is done by bringing down the console (Press the "~' key) and typing "record demoname." Remember to type "stop" when the demo has been completed. Unfortunately, Counter-Strike's demo recording method is not as comprehensive as that of Warcraft III/ Starcraft, as it only records the action from the player's "point of view," meaning that the only time you can record a cheater is in spectator mode once you're dead. Completed demos are stored in the Counter-Strike directory. As for Quake 3 and games based around the Q3 engine, demos can be recorded in the same way as Counter-Strike.

Once you're done playing, hit the "Save Replay" button in the lower right-hand corner of the screen to store the demo on your hard disk.

Counter-Strike's method of recording a demo. Slightly more advanced than WarCraft III's, but still quite simple nonetheless

Once you have a demo recorded, email it off to the server admin (an address should be listed on the host's website) with the file and hope that they will do something about it. Don't forget to include any other available information that uniquely identifies a player, such as their WONID in Counter-Strike (type "status" in the console) or their IP address. This will aid the server admin in ensuring that he/ she can find and ban the correct user.

Some games unfortunately do not possess the ability to record demos. In these cases, you can either take a screenshot (which is sufficient for cheats such as the lag and disconnect hack), or kindly ask the server admin to keep an eye on the player/s as well as issue a general warning.

As far as offline gaming is concerned (on a LAN), there are nowhere near as many people who will dare to enable even the most insignificant cheat, as the players they're competing with are only a matter of meters away, meaning that a punch in the face is likely to result. If you catch someone cheating on a LAN, depending on the type of person you are, you can either inform the server admin, ask the cheater to kindly leave the server, or finally, for those with little tolerance, unplug his /her PC from the power source and throw it out the nearest window.

The War On Terro...uhhh, Cheaters

As mentioned earlier, both developers and third-party programmers have taken concerted measures in ridding the multiplayer community of cheaters, and so far they seem to have been quite successful. Blizzard, developers of Warcraft III, Starcraft and many other popular titles, have the advantage that most of their multiplayer-enabled games are played through their Battle.Net service, which requires each player to log in to the service joining a server. Depending on the severity of the incident, if someone is caught cheating on Battle.Net, Blizzard will either delete their whole account, or ban their CD key for three months. Furthermore, when Blizzard releases patches for its games (which must be downloaded if you'd like to connect to a server), they often include files which automatically detect any third party cheat programs that have been installed. If any are detected, the Battle.Net account is either suspended or completely removed.

In fact, Blizzard has really cracked down on cheaters as of late, banning over 14,000 Battle.Net accounts of users who've had a map hack installed on their PC: "Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment claimed the gamers were using a hack that enabled them to see into their opponents' territories, giving them a huge advantage in Internet combat. The company reacted by banning the cheaters from online tournament play for two weeks and resetting their accounts, wiping out win-loss records that can take months to assemble."

Third-party software developers such as PunkBuster and United Admins have been hard at work for years, developing counter-measures for non-Blizzard multiplayer games. The difference between this method and Blizzard's method is that their software must first be installed on both the client and server computers, and needs to be executed before a client can enter the server. These little programs run silently in the background and, if cheats are detected, a specific message will be sent to the server and you'll be banned. No questions asked.

It's up to the server admin to decide on which counter-measure to use, however, the main ones currently in use are Punkbuster and Cheating-Death (now managed by United Admins). Although some of the older games require you to download and install the software yourself, there are many upcoming games that feature built-in Punkbuster support, such as the sequel to Return To Castle Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory, and America's Army. Punkbuster currently supports the following titles:

Soldier of Fortune II
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Quake III Arena
Enemy Territory
America's Army
Although this doesn't seem like much, you can expect many more titles to be added to the list in the near future. Cheating-Death, on the other hand, was developed solely for Half-Life and its mods, and it does a very good job of preventing cheaters from ruining your online experience. Playing on a server that supports either of these anti-cheat measures is the best way of ensuring that all players are on a level playing field.

The Cheaters Have Their Say
Before we conclude, it's important to recognize that there are really two main types of cheaters out there - those that deliberately cheat on public servers to irritate others, and those that cheat amongst themselves because they enjoy it and like to compete against each other. While we have no respect for the former, we commend the latter for realizing that what they are doing disadvantages and frustrates regular players, as well as appreciate their courtesy of only playing only on specified cheat servers and among others with similar mindsets. When asked for their motives behind cheating on public servers, g0d, leader of the most well-known cheating clan on the Internet, [myg0t], stated that he does it because "it's fun". He also states that he enjoys "ruining tk'ing and cheating and raging people." On the other hand, "General Jap", leader of another prominent cheating clan, [JAPS], is completely opposed to myg0t's practices - "we cheat to beat other cheaters scorewise to be the "best cheaters", "they [myg0t] are a disgrace to the cheating community".

As you can see, not all cheaters are driven by the desire to degrade other gamers' multiplayer experiences, and it's only the blatant, disruptive ones that are destroying the gaming community as a whole.

Summing It Up

It's clear that cheating is a significant issue in both the online and offline multiplayer gaming communities. However, it's also clear that developers and third-party programmers are going to great lengths to keep cheats out of our games, and you can be sure to see a much higher grade of cheat protection being integrated into many upcoming titles. That said, it's unlikely that there'll ever be a way of completely eliminating cheating, as intelligent coders will always find a way to get around even the most stringent counter-measures. However, what these increased anti-cheating measures will do is greatly minimize the amount of cheats we do see, which should help to make our gaming experiences cheat-free... at least 90%+ of the time.

[BADDOG]

A very interesting and informative article mate!


Regards

[Nev]

agree, good article

[Stu]

Well that was long but ure right, cheating is bad 4 ya. Don't start!

[Cy*ja]

I think I have seen 3 definite cheaters since the release of BHD. Ya'll make it seem like they're in every server lol. Face it, some peeps are better than others, hence you get rolled, and then cry cheat.

[Steve]

read something very similar before.
interesting to read.

i still cant decide if making ppl aware of cheating is a good thing or not.

if no one mentioned it at all then surely there would be less?
i didnt even know what a trainer was until i saw a trainer forum on df3.net :/

[RËVØ£ÛTÎØѫź¹»]

I still think cheating shouldnt be possible in ANY games, although it is apart of the gaming world. And I agree , cheaters should get "The Churn" ehh skinbag lol