Cheating in online games: Encyclopedia II - Cheating in online games - Implementation of Cheats

Cheating in online games - Implementation of Cheats

There are many facets of cheating in online games which make the creation of a system to stop cheating very difficult.

"Never trust the client" is a common maxim among multiplayer game developers that summarizes in their opinion the case of client-servers. It argues that programmers should assume that information sent to the client game will be known by that player, regardless of whether or not the player should know that information. For example, the server might tell a client in a First Person Shooter that a player is hiding behind a door and cannot be seen, but a wallhack cheat can reveal the player. Similarly, data from the client might indicate that the client teleported from one side of the map to another for some reason (possibly a change made to the game's data). The server is responsible for sending only the necessary information and for maintaining the game's continuity. (See "Efficiency versus absence of cheating" below for the drawbacks.)

Cheating in online games - The game software

Many cheats in today's games are changes to the game software, although many game companies have policies which forbid the modification of such code. While the software (for most games) is distributed in binary-only versions and encrypted to make it harder, reverse engineering is always possible. Also many of the data files for the games can be edited without editing the main program and thereby circumvent protections in the software.

Wallhacks and maphacks often function by modifying the software. Other cheats can analyze or change the game's state in RAM, such as some aimbots and programs that give infinite ammo or health.

Cheating in online games - The hardware

Turning up the brightness on the monitor or using specific graphic cards with drivers that allows you to look through walls ("wallhack") are examples of using hardware tricks to get an advantage. These are frequently impossible to track with software, but they also have limited effect.

Cheating in online games - Packet tampering

Some cheats completely circumvent the protection of the software by running in real-time and changing the game data while in transmission from the server to the client. Many aimbots, in first-person shooters use tricks like this. Some newer games encrypt the network data, but this uses up computer resources that could be used to make a faster-running or better game instead.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Implementation of Cheats", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki