There are beasts out there that are far worse than a simple macro auto-pilot program, a la Glider. In the FPS community, beasts like the notorious aim bot, capable of auto-targeting your enemies in a game of shooting skill, exist to ruin everyone's fun. And when you cross your MMORTS with the battles of an FPS... well you start getting people using the latter program.
Global Agenda finally has one such program out for it, and yes, it does work. Snipers are accurately killing people from across the map, assaults are using chainguns that never miss, and all other types of havoc are being let loose. However, we don't recommend that you use any of these programs, unless you want to be targeted by Hi-Rez Studios.
Hi-Rez is actively targeting players who run these programs, sending out lifetime bans to those they catch. Yep, that's right, no warning, just a nice lifetime ban. We caught up with Todd Harris to briefly ask him about what the company was doing in light of this whole aimbot situation.
"Cheating is relatively rare within Global Agenda," executive producer Todd Harris told Massively. "However, as within any competitive shooter, some players are trying to cheat their way to success. Fortunately, since we run centrally managed servers, we can identify and react quickly compared to other online shooters that rely on community managed servers such that a cheater could simply hop to a new server. With our monitoring and stat collection we detect cheaters and reward them with a lifetime ban. We've already implemented an initial batch of bans and we'll continue to have a zero tolerance policy for cheating."
So there you have it. Don't cheat on centralized servers, unless, of course, you don't want to play.
Reader Comments (23)
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 1:41PM Angelworks said
I remember when I was like 15 playing around with stoogebot on Quake (gives you an idea how long these tools have been around) - that was in 94-95?
I'm honestly surprised that Global Agenda in this insecure :(.
Reply
I'm honestly surprised that Global Agenda in this insecure :(.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 1:44PM Anatidae said
This sounds like a tough battle. When I play MW:2 I assume that aiming bots are not used due to the InfinatyWard on the game. Although, I suspect that there are probably bots out there. Somtimes watching the kill cam reveals either a bot or a player with ungodly aiming skill (possible I suppose).
But other than scanning the computer memory for applications that might be cheating - it seems overly possible to advance the aiming bot application to be slightly sloppy in some cases and more precise in others in order to confuse the server data into thinking it is just a skilled player.
With the macro applications being so advanced as to act like a human player, even providing responses to questions to an extent, it seems the work to fool an auto-aim app would be harder to find.
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But other than scanning the computer memory for applications that might be cheating - it seems overly possible to advance the aiming bot application to be slightly sloppy in some cases and more precise in others in order to confuse the server data into thinking it is just a skilled player.
With the macro applications being so advanced as to act like a human player, even providing responses to questions to an extent, it seems the work to fool an auto-aim app would be harder to find.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 2:21PM Angelworks said
Just search youtube for MW2 multihack - you'll find that there's plenty of cheats out there.
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Posted: Feb 24th 2010 5:14PM Anatidae said
Christ. I just did that. Ugh. Now I wish there was a spectator mode.
There should be a tool where you can flag a player to not play with. So you won't join a game they are in. AND they can't join a game you are in. Well, maybe they can, but if 2 or more players have that flagged player listed then they can't.
Well.. I dunno. It seems that hack prevention does not work too well eh?
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There should be a tool where you can flag a player to not play with. So you won't join a game they are in. AND they can't join a game you are in. Well, maybe they can, but if 2 or more players have that flagged player listed then they can't.
Well.. I dunno. It seems that hack prevention does not work too well eh?
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 1:50PM J Brad Hicks said
In before the inevitable tide of pro-cheating people who'll insist that cheaters are paying the same monthly fee that everybody else is paying and are entitled to play the game however they want, that "everybody" is cheating, and that when Global Agenda is done banning the cheaters there won't be anybody left to play their game, so everybody is going back to some (mostly fictional, mostly hypothetical) game that doesn't crack down on cheaters.
Hooray for Global Agenda. I guess somebody else DID take CCP's advice and HTFU.
Reply
Hooray for Global Agenda. I guess somebody else DID take CCP's advice and HTFU.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 2:06PM Dblade said
Depends how widespread the practice is, TBH. In FFXI they don't ban the HNM shells that constantly use bots, because it became entrenched. in GA it would depend on how many people currently use them versus population as a whole.
If it's an issue enough for massively to pick up on it, it might be more serious, and a HTFU wont really work.
Reply
If it's an issue enough for massively to pick up on it, it might be more serious, and a HTFU wont really work.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 2:05PM (Unverified) said
Well, this news just moved me away from getting the game. Shame, but not going to play with cheaters in an online game. Go cheat in your single player games.
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Posted: Feb 24th 2010 2:36PM Tanek said
In that case, it seems the news would move you *toward* the game rather than away from it. (Of course, that would depend on how effective they are at catching the cheats, I suppose.)
There are probably going to be people who cheat (with varying degrees of success) in any and every online game. The differences will be in how those cheaters/exploiters/etc are handled.
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There are probably going to be people who cheat (with varying degrees of success) in any and every online game. The differences will be in how those cheaters/exploiters/etc are handled.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 5:59PM (Unverified) said
Sorry to be a buzzkill but with that attitude you just eliminated every online game there is.
I'm all for banning cheaters but only as long as they have a solid system that either doesn't make any mistakes or allows for withdrawing bans if it turns out there was a mistake.
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I'm all for banning cheaters but only as long as they have a solid system that either doesn't make any mistakes or allows for withdrawing bans if it turns out there was a mistake.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 2:11PM Psychotic Storm said
I wouldn't say its relatively rare, on the contrary the last few days, but its good to see its been dealt with.
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Posted: Feb 24th 2010 2:13PM Samael said
And that is how it should be. I wish every company out there gave a LT ban to anyone who cheats. It ruins games for proper gamers.
If you have been banned and feel that it was a mistake, then you should be able to appeal it. Other than that, I have zero tolerance for anyone that cheats.
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If you have been banned and feel that it was a mistake, then you should be able to appeal it. Other than that, I have zero tolerance for anyone that cheats.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 2:33PM (Unverified) said
And what about the inevitable in-game currency buyers? The cheaters by economic supremacy? What's being done about them?
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Posted: Feb 24th 2010 2:52PM (Unverified) said
There's really not much you can "cheat" with via credits in GA - the game isn't really gear based; if people wanted to pay real money for credits that are
mostly just useful for cosmetic items... Sure
why not.
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mostly just useful for cosmetic items... Sure
why not.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 2:41PM (Unverified) said
The news of HiRez reacting fast and instantly banning people that use aimbots turns you off from the game? Have you never played a shooter? There will always be aimbots no matter what precautions they can take.
The point is how fast and how strong they reacted which makes the game one of best.
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The point is how fast and how strong they reacted which makes the game one of best.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 3:01PM Anticrawl said
Back in my mudding days I use to write scripts or multilayered triggers that would act and respond to most anything and combine them with some speedwalking commands and if/than timed commands that ran on a loop I could fool most into thinking I was at the computer.
Though this however wasn't intended for cheating but for leading and offering my services to big groups for zone runs. Usually I'd make a little scratch on the side but I could solo areas with much greater rewards. It also greatly helped with classic MUDs like Age of Chaos where people advance through zones with such speed it takes a master mudder just to keep up with what the fuck is going on. Who would have thought such a concept would have been taken from those old text based games and applied so annoyingly in modern 3D games.
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Though this however wasn't intended for cheating but for leading and offering my services to big groups for zone runs. Usually I'd make a little scratch on the side but I could solo areas with much greater rewards. It also greatly helped with classic MUDs like Age of Chaos where people advance through zones with such speed it takes a master mudder just to keep up with what the fuck is going on. Who would have thought such a concept would have been taken from those old text based games and applied so annoyingly in modern 3D games.
Posted: Feb 24th 2010 5:20PM Graill440 said
These types of folks need to be perma banned, ip's blocked and cc's banned and a fraud claim levied against them, that way the cc company will inform the owner of the card, just in case these ingrates think they will be getting away with a simple slap on the wrist.
Another reason for having home address and phone numbers available on mouseover of your avatar..............the world would be a much more interesting place.
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Another reason for having home address and phone numbers available on mouseover of your avatar..............the world would be a much more interesting place.
Posted: Feb 25th 2010 8:54AM Psychotic Storm said
Good, because if you ever say something normal that someone finds it borderline insulting and has a few nuts loose he should definitely be able to find you.
Privacy exist for many reasons, please understand that it should remain that way.
Reply
Privacy exist for many reasons, please understand that it should remain that way.
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