4 ms·

Not playing with cheaters is a better solution imo. The code defines the rules of the game. Change it in any way and you're playing a different game.

jMyles 10y ago
> The code defines the rules of the game. You can just as easily say, "the packets sent to the client determine the knowledge the player may have." And if these two are in conflict, it makes much more sense to defer to the latter, which is a firm, organic, physical concept, then the former, which is plastic and can be changed trivially in a text editor.
- EamonnMR 10y ago
  A game is played with consent from all parties. Cheating at a game with a small community is like cheating at a board game. Everyone is going to know.
  - jMyles 10y ago
    I'm making a different point: this conduct isn't cheating. The player has the ability to know all that it sent to the client. Choosing to know it is not cheating. If the player decides to take notes, say, on graph paper, about the map so that she is able to have a clearer picture of it, is that cheating? If not, then how is doing it in software any different? If "the rules" dictate that the player not know something, then the app needs to not send that player that thing.
    - Cpoll 10y ago
      By your logic, wall-hacks (changing the wall texture to be transparent in FPSes) isn't cheating? Macros that allow you to perform actions that are physically impossible for a human to perform isn't cheating? Exploiting a glitch that causes your opponent to disconnect from the game isn't cheating? Consulting a chess engine (unbeatable AI) on your phone when playing chess with someone isn't cheating? Also, moving pieces in a boardgame when your opponent isn't looking probably isn't cheating either? > If "the rules" dictate that the player not know something, then the app needs to not send that player that thing. I agree in theory, but it's not always possible - latency is a major limitation in keeping everything on the server-side.
      - jMyles 10y ago
        > By your logic, wall-hacks (changing the wall texture to be transparent in FPSes) isn't cheating? It seems that the philosophy here is constrained by the (real or perceived) connectivity issues surrounding the withholding of knowledge other than that which the player is allowed to know. Obviously these need to be overcome. I can imagine knowledge coming in encrypted "chunks," with keys issued only for those chunks within a player's proper domain. I can also imagine other solutions. But transposing an unrelated theory of mind ("the code of the version I'm playing constitute the rules for you") seems untenable, inorganic, and in arguably insufficient defined in the first place. So yes, I don't think that, in this strict sense of how knowledge translates to cheating, that wall hacks are cheating. > Exploiting a glitch that causes your opponent to disconnect from the game isn't cheating? It seems to me that the moral responsibility here is on the author(s) - they have slighted the player by instructing, via their code, their disconnection from the game at an improper time. > Macros that allow you to perform actions that are physically impossible for a human to perform isn't cheating? > Consulting a chess engine (unbeatable AI) on your phone when playing chess with someone isn't cheating? At some level, there needs to be a dose of reality in this conversation. If I'm playing chess against you, across the table, at a coffee shop somewhere, and you are surreptitiously glancing at your contact lens HUD, playing essentially on behalf of an AI, then I guess you are not being very nice or honest to me. This is an interpersonal affront, but it's hard for me to gauge what it means in terms of sport. On the other hand, if I'm playing chess against an cloaked and anonymous adversary, it might as well be the smartest computer on the planet. And I will lose. Computers beat humans at some games. That's the reality. It makes more sense for those of us who wish to continue to evolve here at this moment at the end of time to play games that humans are good at. And there are plenty of games at which humans will continue to trounce computers for the foreseeable future. > Also, moving pieces in a boardgame when your opponent isn't looking probably isn't cheating either? This analogy is way off vis a vis the current topic. It's more like a card game in which I show you my cards and then ask you to forget that you saw them - this is what you are saying my client must do in order to provide a fair experience for you. > I agree in theory, but it's not always possible - latency is a major limitation in keeping everything on the server-side. Right, and so some concessions must be made. Here I agree. But once you acknowledge this, I think you also have to give up some of the moral high-horsery that comes with casting judgment about cheating on other players.
    - esrauch 10y ago
      To be fair, these types of necessarily clientside restrictions as "rules" exist in many popular games: Starcraft 1 and Warcraft 3 for example had a limit on the number of units you could select / command at once: there is absolutely no technological way for the server to enforce such a restriction if clients can be modified, but its a deliberate game rules restriction. It sounds like your understanding is "the game is the server sends and receives packets: the goal is for the server to say that you win" which would be a view mischaracterizes almost all player's expectations: if you just wrote a client that has AI playing that only uses the info a player has that would also be very clearly cheating even if it only acts on information that players could act on.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

jMyles 10y ago

> The code defines the rules of the game. You can just as easily say, "the packets sent to the client determine the knowledge the player may have." And if these two are in conflict, it makes much more sense to defer to the latter, which is a firm, organic, physical concept, then the former, which is plastic and can be changed trivially in a text editor.

EamonnMR 10y ago
A game is played with consent from all parties. Cheating at a game with a small community is like cheating at a board game. Everyone is going to know.
- jMyles 10y ago
  I'm making a different point: this conduct isn't cheating. The player has the ability to know all that it sent to the client. Choosing to know it is not cheating. If the player decides to take notes, say, on graph paper, about the map so that she is able to have a clearer picture of it, is that cheating? If not, then how is doing it in software any different? If "the rules" dictate that the player not know something, then the app needs to not send that player that thing.
  - Cpoll 10y ago
    By your logic, wall-hacks (changing the wall texture to be transparent in FPSes) isn't cheating? Macros that allow you to perform actions that are physically impossible for a human to perform isn't cheating? Exploiting a glitch that causes your opponent to disconnect from the game isn't cheating? Consulting a chess engine (unbeatable AI) on your phone when playing chess with someone isn't cheating? Also, moving pieces in a boardgame when your opponent isn't looking probably isn't cheating either? > If "the rules" dictate that the player not know something, then the app needs to not send that player that thing. I agree in theory, but it's not always possible - latency is a major limitation in keeping everything on the server-side.
    - jMyles 10y ago
      > By your logic, wall-hacks (changing the wall texture to be transparent in FPSes) isn't cheating? It seems that the philosophy here is constrained by the (real or perceived) connectivity issues surrounding the withholding of knowledge other than that which the player is allowed to know. Obviously these need to be overcome. I can imagine knowledge coming in encrypted "chunks," with keys issued only for those chunks within a player's proper domain. I can also imagine other solutions. But transposing an unrelated theory of mind ("the code of the version I'm playing constitute the rules for you") seems untenable, inorganic, and in arguably insufficient defined in the first place. So yes, I don't think that, in this strict sense of how knowledge translates to cheating, that wall hacks are cheating. > Exploiting a glitch that causes your opponent to disconnect from the game isn't cheating? It seems to me that the moral responsibility here is on the author(s) - they have slighted the player by instructing, via their code, their disconnection from the game at an improper time. > Macros that allow you to perform actions that are physically impossible for a human to perform isn't cheating? > Consulting a chess engine (unbeatable AI) on your phone when playing chess with someone isn't cheating? At some level, there needs to be a dose of reality in this conversation. If I'm playing chess against you, across the table, at a coffee shop somewhere, and you are surreptitiously glancing at your contact lens HUD, playing essentially on behalf of an AI, then I guess you are not being very nice or honest to me. This is an interpersonal affront, but it's hard for me to gauge what it means in terms of sport. On the other hand, if I'm playing chess against an cloaked and anonymous adversary, it might as well be the smartest computer on the planet. And I will lose. Computers beat humans at some games. That's the reality. It makes more sense for those of us who wish to continue to evolve here at this moment at the end of time to play games that humans are good at. And there are plenty of games at which humans will continue to trounce computers for the foreseeable future. > Also, moving pieces in a boardgame when your opponent isn't looking probably isn't cheating either? This analogy is way off vis a vis the current topic. It's more like a card game in which I show you my cards and then ask you to forget that you saw them - this is what you are saying my client must do in order to provide a fair experience for you. > I agree in theory, but it's not always possible - latency is a major limitation in keeping everything on the server-side. Right, and so some concessions must be made. Here I agree. But once you acknowledge this, I think you also have to give up some of the moral high-horsery that comes with casting judgment about cheating on other players.
  - esrauch 10y ago
    To be fair, these types of necessarily clientside restrictions as "rules" exist in many popular games: Starcraft 1 and Warcraft 3 for example had a limit on the number of units you could select / command at once: there is absolutely no technological way for the server to enforce such a restriction if clients can be modified, but its a deliberate game rules restriction. It sounds like your understanding is "the game is the server sends and receives packets: the goal is for the server to say that you win" which would be a view mischaracterizes almost all player's expectations: if you just wrote a client that has AI playing that only uses the info a player has that would also be very clearly cheating even if it only acts on information that players could act on.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]