User:GGLOL1600/Cheating in online games

Cheating in online games is the subversion of the rules or mechanics of online video games to gain an unfair advantage over other players, generally with the use of third-party software. What constitutes cheating is dependent on the game in question, its rules, and consensus opinion as to whether a particular activity is considered to be cheating.

Cheating is present in most multiplayer online games, but it is difficult to measure. Various methods of cheating in online games can take the form of software assistance, such as scripts and bots, and various forms of unsporting play taking advantage of exploits within the game. The Internet and darknets can provide players with the methodology necessary to cheat in online games, with software often available for purchase.

As methods of cheating have advanced, video game publishers have similarly increased methods of anti-cheating, but are still limited in their effectiveness. Punishments for cheaters also have various forms, with legal measures also being taken against those who create or use cheats. While some countries include laws that prohibit and punish cheating, video game companies have a history of citing copyright infringement in lawsuits against cheaters.

Aimbots and triggerbots
An aimbot or autoaim is a type of computer game bot most commonly used in first-person shooter games to provide varying levels of automated target acquisition and calibration to the player. They are sometimes used along with a triggerbot, which automatically shoots when an opponent appears within the field-of-view or aiming reticule of the player.

Aimbotting relies on each players' client computer receiving information about all other players, whether they are visible from the player's position or not. Targeting is a matter of determining the location of any opponent relative to the player's location and pointing the player's weapon at the target. This targeting works regardless of whether the opponent is behind walls or too far away to be seen directly.

Some servers allow inactive players to spectate, watching the game from the viewpoints of the active players. Recording of gameplay actions is also often possible. If someone was using a targeting aimbot, the bot would be obvious to the spectator as unnatural exact position tracking. Some aimbots and triggerbots attempt to hide from spectators the fact they are being used through a number of methods, such as delaying firing to hide the fact it shoots the instant an opponent is in the cheater's crosshair. Some Triggerbot programs can be easily toggled on and off using the mouse or keyboard.

Cheat suites may incorporate these in addition to other features, including adjustments to extrasensory perception (ESP), move speed, ammo count, and player radar. Neophytes may colloquially define these suites as aimbot programs.

Artificial lag/lag switch
In the peer-to-peer gaming model, lagging is what happens when the stream of data between one or more players gets slowed or interrupted, causing movement to stutter and making opponents appear to behave erratically. By using a lag switch, a player is able to disrupt uploads from the client to the server, while their own client queues up the actions performed. The goal is to gain advantage over another player without reciprocation; opponents slow down or stop moving, allowing the lag switch user to easily outmaneuver them. From the opponent's perspective, the player using the device may appear to be teleporting, invisible or invincible, while the opponents suffer delayed animations and fast-forwarded game play, delivered in bursts. Some gaming communities refer to this method as "tapping" which refers to the users "tapping" on and off their internet connection to create the lag.

The term "lag switch" encompasses many methods of disrupting the network communication between a client and its server. One method is by attaching a physical device, called a hardware lag switch, to a standard Ethernet cable. By flipping the switch on and off, the physical connection between the client and the server is disrupted. The designers of video game console hardware have started to introduce built-in protection against lag switches in the form of voltage detectors, which detect a change in voltage when the switch is flipped. Some manufacturers have taken counter measures to bypass or trick this detector.[better source needed] This can also be achieved by simply unplugging the Ethernet cord going to the client, causing a disruption in the player's internet connection. Other methods, called a software or wireless lag switch, involve using a computer program. In this method, the cheater runs an application on a computer connected to the same network as the client. The application hogs the network bandwidth, disrupting the communication between the client and its server. However, one cannot do this for an unlimited amount of time. At some point, if no traffic is being received, most game clients and/or game servers will decide that the connection has been lost and will remove the player from the game. In some P2P games, it can result in all players lagging or being disconnected from the game.

More advanced methods are firewall or router rules that apply bandwidth shaping and network latency, a cheat is able to adjust limits on both bandwidth and latency to stay relevant to a P2P network yet have considerable advantage over other players.

Look-ahead
Look-ahead cheating is a method of cheating within a peer-to-peer multiplayer gaming architecture where the cheating client gains an unfair advantage by delaying their actions to see what other players do before announcing its own action.

A client can cheat using this method by acting as if it is suffering from high latency; the outgoing packet is forged by attaching a time-stamp that is prior to the actual moment the packet is sent, thereby fooling other clients into thinking that the action was sent at the correct time, but was delayed in arrival. A partial solution is the lockstep protocol.

World-hacking
World-hacking (often known as wall hacking) is a method or third-party program that enables a user to exploit bugs and to view more of a level than intended by the developer.

A common aspect of real-time strategy games is the player's partial limitation or complete inability to see beyond the visibility range of individual game objects that are under their ownership (typically units and structures); this concept is controlled by a mechanism known as the fog of war. World-hacking usually enables the user to bypass this mechanism, either by removing it entirely and/or by rendering objects through the fog that would not normally be visible. In multiplayer modes, this allows for a distinct advantage against the other players who are subject to the intended settings. The advantage gained can be substantial, especially for the average real-time strategy games that rely on the rock paper scissors dynamic to balance out individual objects' varying strengths and weaknesses.

World-hacking may also allow a player to see through solid or opaque objects and/or manipulate or remove textures, to know in advance when an opponent is about to come into targeting range from an occluded area. This can be done by making wall textures transparent, or modifying the game maps to insert polygonal holes into otherwise solid walls. This variation is commonly known as a "wallhack" since it basically allows to the player to see enemies through walls.

World-hacking relies on the fact that an FPS server usually sends raw positional information for all players in the game, and leaves it up to the client's 3D renderer to hide opponents behind walls, in plant foliage, or in dark shadows. If the game map rendering could be turned off completely, all players could be seen moving around in what appears to be empty space. Complete map hiding offers no advantage to a cheater as they would be unable to navigate the invisible map pathways and obstacles. However, if only certain surfaces are made transparent or removed, this leaves just enough of an outline of the world to allow the cheater still to navigate it easily.

Asus released wireframe display drivers in 2001 that enabled players to use wallhacks, announcing the settings as "special weapons" that users could employ in multiplayer games. In a poll by the Online Gamers Association, 90% of its members were against the release of the drivers.

Silent-Aim
Silent-Aim is a method or third-party program that allows a user to manipulate the size of hitboxes in an FPS game. Usually, a cheat would make the hitbox larger, so shots register more often. Usually, this is hard to detect with the naked eye because often times the mouse/cursor movements still look natural, so it looks as if no software is being used.

Anti-cheats
Anti-cheats are intended to detect cheating softwares on computers. These softwares deter cheating and can ban accounts that are caught with these softwares open on their computer. Anti-Cheats are automated, and will automatically ban accounts that it detects that are using cheats. Creating anti-cheats can be very difficult for game developers because most modern sophisticated cheats operate at ring-0, which gives the most privileges. However, it is often invasive for programs to run at ring 0. Despite that, cheat developers don't have to worry about security because of the nature of cheats, since it in itself is breaking terms of services. However, game developers have to be cautious, because it can be very detrimental if their anti-cheat software was found to be malicious. Anti-cheats are prevalent in almost every online game, some notable examples being Riot Vanguard, which operates in ring 0, which works very well but is often said to be very taxing and invasive on one's computer.

Famous Cheating Examples
One famous example of cheating was in 2014 when "KQLY" of LDLC CS:GO was caught cheating in a tournament. It became very famous in the community because he was caught with a jump shot, which is supposed to be very inaccurate when it comes to most FPS titles, especially CS:GO. After the incident, before he got caught, KQLY moved to Titan, which was a very respectable organization, so upon this incident the organization's reputation was tarnished.

Another famous cheating example in a tournament was on August 20, 2014 between North American teams iBUYPOWER and NetcodeGuides.com when iBUYPOWER intentionally lost a tournament match in CS:GO. IBUYPOWER was expected to win this match, as they were much better than the enemy team. However, in the actual match, they were making odd strategies, and evidently not trying their hardest. They even perplexed the casters, questioning what was going on. They intentionally lost the game because they were promised profit, more than the actual match winnings. This is because bets were placed against the team, so they were offered profit if they lost. All of those involved (players, betters) were given permanent bans, except one of the players "Skadoodle" who was not on board with the idea at the start, and refused to accept payment at the end.

Legal measures
In recent years, countries including South Korea and China have criminalized the sale or use of cheats in video games. In South Korea, cheaters ^^add date could be punished with up to 5 years in jail or fines exceeding $40,000. The presence of cheaters in online games may push away the legitimate playerbase and reduce overall profits in the industry, leading to game developers working with legislative bodies or enforcement agencies.

Historically, some game companies have also filed suit against individuals or commercial entities that have created and sold cheating tools in video games as a means to curb their use. In April 2013, coder DrUnKeN ChEeTaH was sued by Nexon America for operating GameAnarchy, a popular subscription based cheat provider for Combat Arms, and lost, Nexon being awarded $1.4M in damages. In January 2017, Riot Games successfully sued the LeagueSharp service, which offered a subscription-based hacking service for Riot's League of Legends, with a $10 million award to be paid to Riot. Blizzard Entertainment sued Bossland GMBH for distributing software hacks for several of its games, and was awarded $8.5 million in damages. Epic Games, producers of the battle royale game Fortnite have sued two cheaters partnered with AddictedCheats, who offer cheating services for a variety of online games.

Often, game company lawsuits against cheaters or cheat providers cite copyright infringement as the reason for the lawsuit. While some argue against the merit of this claim, grounds for copyright infringement include damaging the company's intellectual property, affecting the experience of other users, and circumventing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which could be applied to video games.