6 ms·

This is like watching game speedrunners exploit glitches in the game to get a better time, and then hearing laypeople complain about it not being a "real" run.

This is like watching game speedrunners exploit glitches in the game to get a better time, and then hearing laypeople complain about it not being a "real" run. If it's all done within the context of the system, then it's fair. In game speedruns, the context is: "Beat this game as fast as possible with the following restrictions (no cheats, 100% completion not necessary, etc) using the provided input system." If I go to a casino, the context of playing a slot machine is: "Put real money into this machine and press buttons on it until you run out of money or leave." There aren't any implicit rules like, "some combination of button presses are not allowed". Let the player have his money, patch the bug and move on.

sliverstorm 14y ago
For speedruns, there's a philosophical divide- some people consider exploits to be cheating, thus it falls under the "no cheating" rule.
- lifeformed 14y ago
  I don't know any serious speedrunners who consider most exploits to be cheating. Something as simple as bunnyhopping is an exploit, yet you'd be laughed at if you tried to run Quake without doing so. True, there are some exploits which are truly degenerate, but they are specifically handled. Exploits in general are highly encouraged. Speedruns are listed in terms of the restrictions given: a specific difficulty, 100% vs any%, rules governing the timing, etc.
  - format 14y ago
    Skiing in Tribes was originally a bug, and it became an essential feature and set the franchise apart from other shooters. Exploits in speedrunning aren't often easy to do, and finding new applications for them are part of the challenge and can set one speedrunner ahead of another.
    - pyre 14y ago
      I remember seeing a speedrun of Half-Life where the player went through a wall (that you weren't supposed to go through), kept going (past all of the weird clipping visual nonesense), and finally came out in a different level (which IIRC wasn't even populated with enemies), and kept going through the game. That seems like cheating to me. Little glitches in the game mechanics are a little bit different.
      - cecilpl 14y ago
        The problem is that there's no bright line to be drawn between bunny hopping and glitching through a wall. It's a continuous spectrum of larger and larger glitches. Just out of curiosity, I assume you'd also consider abusing the "minus world" glitch in Super Mario Bros to be cheating, assuming it happened to let you finish the game faster? That glitch is nearly identical to the Half-Life case you described.
  - atesti 14y ago
    Bunnyhopping is allowed, but the problem was that for one Half Life run macros and authotkey was used to sequence things. Bunnyhopping using only mouse, keyboard or gamepad is okay
- CDRdude 14y ago
  I believe that the philosophical divide in the speedrunning community is actually between tool-assisted speedruns[1], and unassisted speedruns. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool-assisted_speedrun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool-assisted_speedrun
  - MostAwesomeDude 14y ago
    Most TAS communities have different categories for glitchy and non-glitchy runs. Take a look at http://tasvideos.org/ http://tasvideos.org/ for examples.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    There doesn't have to be only one divide.
sneak 14y ago
By the same argument, the context of using the internet is "send packets, receive replies". There aren't any implicit rules like "sending a specific field that is larger than expected (as to overrun a fixed-size buffer) is not allowed". (FWIW, I agree with you. It is impossible to forcibly break into a computer over the network.)
- lifeformed 14y ago
  The internet isn't a game though, so restrictions based on intentions is fair. I think games, especially those which elicit feelings of competition or a strong desire to win, are all about finding the discrepancies between the rules as they are intended and the rules as they are implemented. When you push those boundaries, you get the advanced techniques and high level play which makes competitive gaming so interesting.
  - sneak 14y ago
    > The internet isn't a game though, so restrictions based on intentions is fair. It is massively unfair to impose criminal liability upon people because they refuse to make assumptions about the intent of a programmer or sysadmin that they have never met or communicated with.
tolmasky 14y ago
In complete agreement. This is no different than me just coming up with a crummy game to begin with. Let's say I run a casino and accidentally set up a modified game of blackjack where the odds favor the customers instead of the house. Customers merely playing this game is "exploiting" a bug. Should I be able to sue them? (BTW a couple of months ago this happened with mis-shuffled decks) The premise of this game is to get people to risk their money, I can't whine when it backfires on me and I lose instead of them! I certainly don't get to sue the casino for exploiting my gambling addiction or the fact that I had a little too much to drink before my last bet. Look, let's be honest here: casinos are nothing more than legal (and sure, transparent) scams, plain and simple (at least when its house vs. customer and not customer vs. customer). The rules are systematically designed to drain you of your money while tricking you into thinking you might win. And I have absolutely no problem with that. I am a free market guy, and as far as I'm concerned gambling is voluntary. HOWEVER, if you are going to dedicate your business to literally ruining people's lives and profiting from their losses, then suck it up when you are too stupid and your con backfires on you. Don't get the law involved, and thus my taxpayer dollars, to save you from your unsuccessful grift. This is as absurd as an idiot running a faulty ponzi scheme and then suing his marks because they made money and he didn't.
- stevenwei 14y ago
  > Let's say I run a casino and accidentally set up a modified game of blackjack where the odds favor the customers instead of the house. There's a rather interesting story about this: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man-who-broke-atlantic-city/308900/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man-...
gfodor 14y ago
The catch with this case is that the game involved is overtly a simulation of a physical game, and the only purpose of the simulation is to increase the efficiency for the casino to let more players play a known physical game more quickly, not to change the nature of the game itself. You can make the case that places where the simulation diverges from the physical game were clearly unintended and should be obvious to players to be bugs, not part of the rules of the game, and hence unfair for gamers (or, likewise, casinos) to exploit since they were stepping beyond the bounds of fair play. I'm not sure how strong this argument is but it's clearly different than just saying it's like a speedrun. Just because the medium is virtual doesn't mean you aren't entering into a implicit contract to play by the rules of poker.
- caf 14y ago
  This kind of single player "video poker" has nothing to do with the rules of actual poker.
  - gfodor 14y ago
    Can you elaborate what you mean by "nothing?" Why do they call it video poker? The point is that insofar as the game replicates poker one can basically use that as a way to identify the difference between a "bug" and a "odd game rule."
    - pommefrites 14y ago
      Well, for one thing the "double up" option is not a part of standard poker. More conspicuously, physical poker involves a high degree of observation/manipulation/etc of human opponents and that is not a part of video poker.
      - gfodor 14y ago
        I understand but this is less than "nothing." Yes you remove the human element and change some betting rules but at its core video poker is a simulation of physical poker. The parent doesn't have much of a point other than being overly hyperbolic to discount the reality that there is certainly an argument that this was a bug and hack since the exploit sits clearly outside the realm of the game of poker.
diminoten 14y ago
That's interesting, because in most games the people who exploit bugs in a game are banned/removed/punished. It's standard practice in online games to punish those who use the game in an unintended but presented way (exploit bugs). David Sirlin has a chapter in his book "Playing To Win" entitled, "What Should be Banned?" It's about tounaments, but it may apply here as well: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html

sliverstorm 14y ago

For speedruns, there's a philosophical divide- some people consider exploits to be cheating, thus it falls under the "no cheating" rule.

lifeformed 14y ago
I don't know any serious speedrunners who consider most exploits to be cheating. Something as simple as bunnyhopping is an exploit, yet you'd be laughed at if you tried to run Quake without doing so. True, there are some exploits which are truly degenerate, but they are specifically handled. Exploits in general are highly encouraged. Speedruns are listed in terms of the restrictions given: a specific difficulty, 100% vs any%, rules governing the timing, etc.
- format 14y ago
  Skiing in Tribes was originally a bug, and it became an essential feature and set the franchise apart from other shooters. Exploits in speedrunning aren't often easy to do, and finding new applications for them are part of the challenge and can set one speedrunner ahead of another.
  - pyre 14y ago
    I remember seeing a speedrun of Half-Life where the player went through a wall (that you weren't supposed to go through), kept going (past all of the weird clipping visual nonesense), and finally came out in a different level (which IIRC wasn't even populated with enemies), and kept going through the game. That seems like cheating to me. Little glitches in the game mechanics are a little bit different.
    - cecilpl 14y ago
      The problem is that there's no bright line to be drawn between bunny hopping and glitching through a wall. It's a continuous spectrum of larger and larger glitches. Just out of curiosity, I assume you'd also consider abusing the "minus world" glitch in Super Mario Bros to be cheating, assuming it happened to let you finish the game faster? That glitch is nearly identical to the Half-Life case you described.
- atesti 14y ago
  Bunnyhopping is allowed, but the problem was that for one Half Life run macros and authotkey was used to sequence things. Bunnyhopping using only mouse, keyboard or gamepad is okay
CDRdude 14y ago
I believe that the philosophical divide in the speedrunning community is actually between tool-assisted speedruns[1], and unassisted speedruns. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool-assisted_speedrun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool-assisted_speedrun
- MostAwesomeDude 14y ago
  Most TAS communities have different categories for glitchy and non-glitchy runs. Take a look at http://tasvideos.org/ http://tasvideos.org/ for examples.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  There doesn't have to be only one divide.

sneak 14y ago

By the same argument, the context of using the internet is "send packets, receive replies". There aren't any implicit rules like "sending a specific field that is larger than expected (as to overrun a fixed-size buffer) is not allowed". (FWIW, I agree with you. It is impossible to forcibly break into a computer over the network.)

lifeformed 14y ago
The internet isn't a game though, so restrictions based on intentions is fair. I think games, especially those which elicit feelings of competition or a strong desire to win, are all about finding the discrepancies between the rules as they are intended and the rules as they are implemented. When you push those boundaries, you get the advanced techniques and high level play which makes competitive gaming so interesting.
- sneak 14y ago
  > The internet isn't a game though, so restrictions based on intentions is fair. It is massively unfair to impose criminal liability upon people because they refuse to make assumptions about the intent of a programmer or sysadmin that they have never met or communicated with.

tolmasky 14y ago

In complete agreement. This is no different than me just coming up with a crummy game to begin with. Let's say I run a casino and accidentally set up a modified game of blackjack where the odds favor the customers instead of the house. Customers merely playing this game is "exploiting" a bug. Should I be able to sue them? (BTW a couple of months ago this happened with mis-shuffled decks) The premise of this game is to get people to risk their money, I can't whine when it backfires on me and I lose instead of them! I certainly don't get to sue the casino for exploiting my gambling addiction or the fact that I had a little too much to drink before my last bet. Look, let's be honest here: casinos are nothing more than legal (and sure, transparent) scams, plain and simple (at least when its house vs. customer and not customer vs. customer). The rules are systematically designed to drain you of your money while tricking you into thinking you might win. And I have absolutely no problem with that. I am a free market guy, and as far as I'm concerned gambling is voluntary. HOWEVER, if you are going to dedicate your business to literally ruining people's lives and profiting from their losses, then suck it up when you are too stupid and your con backfires on you. Don't get the law involved, and thus my taxpayer dollars, to save you from your unsuccessful grift. This is as absurd as an idiot running a faulty ponzi scheme and then suing his marks because they made money and he didn't.

stevenwei 14y ago
> Let's say I run a casino and accidentally set up a modified game of blackjack where the odds favor the customers instead of the house. There's a rather interesting story about this: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man-who-broke-atlantic-city/308900/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man-...

gfodor 14y ago

The catch with this case is that the game involved is overtly a simulation of a physical game, and the only purpose of the simulation is to increase the efficiency for the casino to let more players play a known physical game more quickly, not to change the nature of the game itself. You can make the case that places where the simulation diverges from the physical game were clearly unintended and should be obvious to players to be bugs, not part of the rules of the game, and hence unfair for gamers (or, likewise, casinos) to exploit since they were stepping beyond the bounds of fair play. I'm not sure how strong this argument is but it's clearly different than just saying it's like a speedrun. Just because the medium is virtual doesn't mean you aren't entering into a implicit contract to play by the rules of poker.

caf 14y ago
This kind of single player "video poker" has nothing to do with the rules of actual poker.
- gfodor 14y ago
  Can you elaborate what you mean by "nothing?" Why do they call it video poker? The point is that insofar as the game replicates poker one can basically use that as a way to identify the difference between a "bug" and a "odd game rule."
  - pommefrites 14y ago
    Well, for one thing the "double up" option is not a part of standard poker. More conspicuously, physical poker involves a high degree of observation/manipulation/etc of human opponents and that is not a part of video poker.
    - gfodor 14y ago
      I understand but this is less than "nothing." Yes you remove the human element and change some betting rules but at its core video poker is a simulation of physical poker. The parent doesn't have much of a point other than being overly hyperbolic to discount the reality that there is certainly an argument that this was a bug and hack since the exploit sits clearly outside the realm of the game of poker.

diminoten 14y ago

That's interesting, because in most games the people who exploit bugs in a game are banned/removed/punished. It's standard practice in online games to punish those who use the game in an unintended but presented way (exploit bugs). David Sirlin has a chapter in his book "Playing To Win" entitled, "What Should be Banned?" It's about tounaments, but it may apply here as well: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html