COMMUNITY - FORUMS - GENERAL DISCUSSION
A Call to Arms: Stop Cheating Before it Begins

Several games that I loved have been rendered unplayable by rampant unchecked exploits, abuses, and cheats. Take Archeage for example. When alpha was announced in NA I signed up. I played almost every day from the morning the alpha server went live to the night that it shut down. That year was by far the best mmo game experience I have ever had. Archeage, up to that point, was my favorite mmo. Then the game launched and it was immediately inundated by gamers using cheats and exploits. The developers were either unable or unwilling to fix the bugs and stop the infestation before it completely broke the economy and ruined the world. I tried to remain optimistic and keep doing my thing, but cheating became so widespread that is sucked all of the fun out of the game. So I quit. Ark is another game I loved. I played many thousands of hours. But, again because the developer was unable or unwilling to fix known exploits I quit playing. It breaks my heart.

This is my greatest fear concerning the wonderful unique platform that Soulbound Studio’s is creating. The concept and ideas are beautiful and I am excited to play the game and become a part of the story as it unfolds. But, the gaming community has within its ranks more than a few men and women who are bent on destroying worlds. They have an insatiable drive to find bugs in the code or create scripts and 3rd party software that will give them an unfair advantage over other players. They have no qualms against then using this advantage to drain the living essence from the game and the community at large. Then, when the game is dead, they move on to another game and do it all over again.

This is something that the CoE community should be having regular discussions about. We are caught up in the fairy land of possibilities that lie before us. We are ignoring the horrible horde that is already standing at the Elyrian city gate. The developers should be as deeply concerned about this inevitable plague as they are about every other mainstay of the game’s creation. It should be a top priority not something put on the back shelf to be dealt with at a later date.

I’m calling out the architects of Elyria to get in front this situation. Announce in the forums what types of behaviors will be acceptable and what will not. Assume nothing. Define in the forums exactly what it means to dupe, exploit, or use unacceptable bots, scripts, or macros. Leave yourself sweeping authority to amend the rules and close loopholes whenever it is necessary. The hackers will incessantly be testing the boundaries and pushing back against the policies put forth.

Set forth penalties. Make the penalties harsh so you have the tools to completely root out the problem when it arises. Make it clear. Make it official. Do not go soft and do not bow down to social media pressure. This is your world!

Commit a sizable portion of your resources to protect what you are building. Just like any nation on Earth that hopes to remain free make a commitment to all of us that you will devote time and money to build up whatever forces you need to protect Elyria. Give your potential player base peace of mind. Then we will have the freedom to fantasize about the fantastic stories we hope to create within Elyria.


"There's a lesson here and I'm not going to be the one to figure it out." Rick Snachez

4/29/2019 4:11:01 AM #1

The entire community understands what you are saying, and has been discussing it for at least as long as I have been a member.


4/29/2019 4:15:30 AM #2

The biggest problem I see with cheaters, is the punishments they get. Of the few different MMOs I have played over the years. Some just get suspended for a few months. Normally laughing as it happens, like it stops anything. I do remember the case of some youtuber/twitch guy getting banned in WoW. To where his loyal white knights made a huge fuss until he was unbanned.

If the company has the balls to really ban people, all is fine. Which seeing how SBS deals with people. I doubt it's going to be a problem here.


4/29/2019 12:23:24 PM #3

Game developers should also remember to code movement controls for characters.

Game developers should also remember that they'll need servers for online games.

Tune in next Thursday for the next episode of "Game Development Tips for Seven Year Olds"

4/29/2019 3:40:31 PM #4

The entire community understands what you are saying, and has been discussing it for at least as long as I have been a member.

I did not meant to overstep. I understand I am not the only person with this concern. However, I didn't find much on the subject in the forums.

Tune in next Thursday for the next episode of "Game Development Tips for Seven Year Olds"

Sadly, it is all to common that adults need to be reminded of truths they should have learned and behaviors they should have implemented in their lives by the time they were 7 years old.

Nevertheless, I don't think dealing with the game killing epidemic of cheating in mmos is a problem that a 7 year old could solve.

Doing nothing is not a winning strategy. The same goes for waiting until the game launches and trying to play catch up. My intention was to spark a healthy conversation on the subject.


"There's a lesson here and I'm not going to be the one to figure it out." Rick Snachez

4/29/2019 3:41:03 PM #5

Maybe im naive or something, but for once im not to much worried about cheaters.

I hope all the uniqe features in CoE wont make it possible to cheat in the same way as in other games.

Survival, finite resourses, no autotargeting and "hands on crafting" really force everyone to actually play the game for real.

A cheat will really stand out (hopefully).


4/29/2019 4:06:35 PM #6

Posted By Daarco at 10:41 AM - Mon Apr 29 2019

Maybe im naive or something, but for once im not to much worried about cheaters.

I hope all the uniqe features in CoE wont make it possible to cheat in the same way as in other games.

Survival, finite resourses, no autotargeting and "hands on crafting" really force everyone to actually play the game for real.

A cheat will really stand out (hopefully).

I’m always worried about cheaters, and bullies, lol. They tend to appear anywhere there is an opportunity for chaos.

I have already posted about my fears for the game, and my hope for the game. Here’s hoping the hope becomes the reality!


4/29/2019 4:30:17 PM #7

Mainwhile tokens crash the website.


Count LizenÇace VeLeîjres of Mydra's Crossing, VII of the order of the IX.

Order of IX

4/29/2019 11:14:52 PM #8

It's not just in COE, cheating is widespread and rampant across every game genre, even more so in competitive environments such as COE is developing.

I am concerned how most of these smaller indie teams will fare in dealing with the cheating hordes as just like the OP said, nothing turns me off more than out of control hacking and exploiting.


You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry. JAMES 1:19 NLT

4/30/2019 2:59:02 AM #9

When Caspian said there is "magic" in the game and very few will posses it's powers. He was actually talking about cheaters and exploiters.

GG.


If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. -Robert Noyce

4/30/2019 3:01:47 AM #10

Definitely a concern for me. Runescape was a good example of terrible ways to try and stop bots and cheating, so let's hope they don't go down that road. I think the best way is to permaban IP's I know they can use a VPN or IP mixer or whatever, but at least it would deter a decent portion of cheaters. Another solution is to make a game and make sure no exploits exist, but that's definitely not going to happen.

The thing about cheating is a lot of the time people from poor countries do it because the in-game gold is worth more than working a minimum wage job. See Venezuela for example.


4/30/2019 3:03:07 AM #11

But....there isn't really any incentive to cheat in Elyria. Maybe in PVP but in general, there is no way to "win" the game. Everyone won't be racing to gain level 55 and rare armor either. I don't see much of a reason to cheat when the world is so dynamic and will always be changing.


NA-EAST

4/30/2019 3:39:29 AM #12

Posted By Mozh at 8:03 PM - Mon Apr 29 2019

But....there isn't really any incentive to cheat in Elyria. Maybe in PVP but in general, there is no way to "win" the game. Everyone won't be racing to gain level 55 and rare armor either. I don't see much of a reason to cheat when the world is so dynamic and will always be changing.

Every person will have their own motivation for playing. Some of those motivations will include being first to do something, becoming a king after starting out as a peasant, or depriving others of whatever their goals are. In pursuit of these goals, players will be tempted to use whatever means they can find to achieve them, even if those means are unintended by the designers. The use of unintended side effects to achieve goals is one definition of cheating.


4/30/2019 4:35:23 AM #13

Cheating will happen and there is nothing we can do about it. No anti cheat is perfect. CoE will attract a lot of attention if it can deliver. Gold sellers will make a killing, or attempt to anyways. Packet injection, speed hacks or teleportation will ensure they have lots of product to sell. If they can pull off even one of the basic cheats they will be rampant. The price they could charge for a finite resource will make them come back time and time again.

I just hope SBS will be able to hardware ban those caught. At the vary least it will stop your run of the mill hacker from making a return visit.


UDL

4/30/2019 6:33:43 AM #14

Posted By UDLAlkaline at 2:35 PM - Tue Apr 30 2019

Gold sellers will make a killing

That is one thing I'm looking forward to. Can you imagine, finding out there is a gold seller close by. Then raiding that person?! Freaking gold mine has been found.


4/30/2019 10:24:45 AM #15

Posted By Gunnlang at 02:33 AM - Tue Apr 30 2019

Posted By UDLAlkaline at 2:35 PM - Tue Apr 30 2019

Gold sellers will make a killing

That is one thing I'm looking forward to. Can you imagine, finding out there is a gold seller close by. Then raiding that person?! Freaking gold mine has been found.

Sounds good in theory but I've yet to find a game where that works well in practice.

For one, the same rules (dev or player) which protect you from being killed indiscriminately also protect them.

It can be challenging to determine and confirm who is cheating, especially when the game itself provides a means for players to bot built right in.

In the ArchAge example I recall there were housing bots who bid on available land parcels, which almost always could locate and outbid any human.

In other games bots actually travel underground between resource nodes, you can't even see them to kill them.

Nothing like having radar hacks so the enemy knows where you are so they can chose to fight or flee.

In EVE vast fleets of mining ships ply the vacant spaceways yet the minute a hunter fleet shows up the miners warp away to safety.

Worst of all IMO is dupers, who find a way to quickly replicate in game currency or finite resources using exploits they find in the code.

Recently in Fallout 76 dupers had gone so wild they were crashing servers because their overly full inventories of top end gear and mats were severely impacting the database servers supporting everything.

Cheaters have proven again and again to be ingenious, resourceful and they keep coming back, like a relentless horde.

I just hate them...


You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry. JAMES 1:19 NLT