Multiplayer Cheating and What to do about It

Now Streaming PB Bans!

So I was recently playing a current favorite of mine online, Battlefield Bad Company 2. I say 'recently' although it was actually some weeks back. Regardless of time, the point is that there had been a recent update to the PunkBuster software at the time.

I chose a low ping server like always with PB enabled and logged in and basically just began my usual evening of mayhem and explosions and all the goodness that is a combat simulation game. About a minute into the game a message splashed across the screen, this server was streaming PBbans. Meaning the server had just kicked someone for having detected that their client was using a hack to gain an unfair advantage.

I sat back for a moment and chuckled to myself, the turkey deserved it and I was pleased that the message was splashed across the screen for all of the other players to see. Then, almost before I could refocus my attention on the task at hand of destroying objective alpha, another ban streamed across my screen. Wow, two cheaters caught within a minute. I thought that was pretty cool too. Twenty minutes and a dozen bans later and it wasn't so cool. In fact, it was detracting from the game itself because it was difficult to see and aim with a constant barrage of text across the view space.

Destroy the competition!! For the low price of..

This got me to thinking, how many people are there actually cheating out there? In a little under a half an hour I had watched nearly fully half of the players on one server banned for cheating. I wasn't gathering statistics so I thought to go look online for some. There just isn't that much documentation statistically on this problem. In fact when I googled Bad Company Cheats, instead of seeing a list of blogs or articles addressing the problem, I was actually introduced to pages of ecommerce sites SELLING the cheats.

Wow, really? an entire industry built on the concept of dishonest gaming? I tried to dig a little further, but most of my research ended in deadends simply stating that 'cheating' is difficult to prove. In large part because, every time someone develops a detection method, a new hack is engineered. Somewhat the way the virus writers go back and forth with the antivirus software developers. We do know that Blizzard recently banned 320,000 Battlenet accounts citing that these people were in violation of ToS and that includes using hacked client software or software intended to give those individuals an unfair advantage.

Why do people cheat? I don't know exactly. It seems to be for bragging rights, many of the games have online 'ladder' systems now. That and the anonymity of the internet and difficulty in proving a hack means that individual can gloat around a perceived dominance in a particular game. Surely its mostly about ego, and perhaps in some cases there might be prize money at stake.

So why do I care?

Ok, so why should a game designer care if people cheat? This is a tough one to answer. Personally I feel that every company is responsible to try to make a profit. Simply, a business can't take care of its employees or its customer if it is going broke. Well what if most of your customers want to cheat? Is that ok? My gut tells me 'no', but for reasons other than business. If the business is founded around people as a core resource then surely we want to engage people on a positive level? And maybe that's something that can't be measured.

In an article last month on GamaSutra, Ernest Adams refers to a presentation by Zhan Ye, the president of GameVision as he describes some of the factors driving the success of his MMOs.

"Let rich people organize family clans, hire poor people, lead them to fight with other clans, and reward them. Think about who those rich people are in the real world -- business owners and factory owners. They manage and lead hundreds of people in the real world and are used to the leadership role. In the F2P world, they still want that feeling. We just offer them that in the game, naturally. "

This hardly seems fun to me, however people are willing to pay for it. However, I think its fairly safe to assume that encouraging people to behave a certain way because they will pay you for it isn't necessarily a good business to be in. Hence the correlation between some of the early MMOs and 'crack'.

But its just a game, no harm no foul

So its just a game, who cares right? Well yes and no. You can tell great deal about a society by how they play their games. Consider ancient civilizations like the Romans or Mayans and some of the violence associated with their games and what those things meant. Surely they were symptoms of a problem, but more than that they were also a driving factor in the morality and human interaction that took place in those societies.

Games are very relevant to all aspects of society and human development in this way.

So what is a designer to do?

I don't have all the answers, but the idea comes to mind that the game designers need to be proactive in creating a community which is interested in PLAYING the games. Not unleashing automation to play the games for them. Punk Buster is a good tool and tools like it should be required and used for online ranking systems. But even PB can't be expected to keep up with everything.

Having done some research, it seems that many of the 'mods' break when new game versions are patched or updated simply because the server is attempting to validate the client files as legitimate. Can this be leveraged more? The day following the most recent patch of BC2 my K/D rating shot up to 18:1 and was consistent across a half dozen servers. Within a week that rating diminishes to 2:1. I can't help but think this wasn't an accident.

What if there was a daily client build process with quality control procedures and rollback/failover present and automated? Would this kind of thinking help? Instead of forcing ourselves to come up with new detection methods, force the people writing hacks to continually update their own software. I don't know.

If we take this 'high road', it means that as designers we are responsible on some level for attempting to create a positive or healthy sense of 'game', even if it just so happens the point is to gib each other beyond identification in a virtual world.

I think I'm ok with that.

Killing Floor, that other zombie shooter

Killing Floor delivers what one might expect from a game referring to itself as 'survival horror'.

Zombies? Check.

Lovely big guns? Check.

What about Story? See 'zombies and guns.'
















So where is the campaign and what are perks?

So having those expectations in mind, I loaded the game. There was no intro cinematic and I was dropped right into the game screens. At this point I'm not really sure what to expect, but I notice my menu options and one stands out called, 'profile and achievements'. I'm wondering what kind of a 'profile' does one have in a zombie shooter?'.

I was pleasantly surprised to see something akin to other modern shooters, I have some kind of perk options and character customization. The character models don't offer much to choose from however, and If you want more, you can pay for a few additional downloadable models.

What are perks? At first I can't tell, but over time I deduced that this was a way of simply choosing what in game bonuses I would like to have on a given map. It took me awhile to understand the mechanics here because the in game help is very weak.


I made the mistake of starting my first game with the 'berserker' perk. Based on the description, the berserker is a specialist in melee combat. Unfortunately no one warned me that everyone starts with only a knife and a 9mm pistol. Let me be clear that it is ill advised to take on a zombie horde with a knife.

So I proceeded to load the 'single player' game. The screens take me to a map selection menu. I find this curious because I'm expecting to see some kind of campaign settings. Instead there only seems to be an option to choose a map similar to what one would expect of a more sandbox or a death match game.

Where am I? and Where are the Guns?

Ok so that seemed simple enough. I'm loaded into the game, I have my perk chosen and I'm ready to go 'berserk'.
The graphics aren't bad but they seem dated, the designers relied on some really nice texture mapping to make up for the less advanced lighting and shaders from an older Unreal engine.

I'm in some kind of hospital or something, there are large double doors and the occasional room with what looks like an operating table. I seem to only have a knife and a pistol, and there appears to be a counter timing the next 'wave'. I decide that perhaps I should look around for weapons, but it isn't long before waves of zombies start piling onto me. I also discover very quickly that I'm much better off with the pistol trying to keep the hordes of attackers at range instead of engaging them close up with the knife.

As you can imagine, this ends badly for my in game avatar and he winds up as so much zombie chow.

The good news is that there is some mysterious voice who speaks in my head and wants to sell me weapons if only I would stop dying. Judging by her speech I can deduce that perhaps I'm in England?

Oh, you meant COOPERATIVE Survival Horror!

So where did I go wrong? I have to be honest, I'm not sure. I resist the urge to search online for a guide. Is this what 'survival horror' means? I'm not sure, so I take another look at the box which clearly reads: 'co-op survival horror'. How could I have missed this?

I decide to take another stab, but this time I go all out and go online. Understanding now what weapons I'll be starting with, I choose the 'sharpshooter' perk. This gives several bonuses with the 9mm pistol I'll be carrying at the start. I read that the sharpshooter 'levels' by making headshots.

It doesn't take me long to find a low ping server labeled as 'beginners'. I join the game, and my strategy changes significantly. There are a couple of other players present and before long I'm taking down waves of zombies with my 9mm like a pro. The headshots are particularly satisfying as the zombie heads seem to burst like a melon. I think I'm actually starting to have fun at this point.

All the little things I had questions about, the players are more than happy to answer. Some of the weapons even had a 3rd mouse button option (how was I to know that?). It is also alot easier to fight waves of zombies if someone has your back. For instance, players can weld doors shut while someone else covers a corridor from attackers.

Another gimmick of the game is a built in 'bullet time' mode that seems to activate periodically during heavy firefighting. It seems largely random and never lasts more than a few seconds. Distracting at first, it actually gives you an opportunity to take in some of the gibs as they occur. At the very least you can chuckle at the voice acting on very low speed. This is a feature that probably would have benefited more from a newer graphics engine as you really have a time to take in visuals and animations as they are happening.

Weapons matter here!

So we cleared the first wave, and that mysterious saucy Brit woman is enticing me to her shop again. There's a particle effect and arrow in game directing me toward her but I have a limited amount of time to get in and look around.

At this point I realize that as I've been killing zombies, I've been amassing a small cash reserve as well. I can use this for new weapons. As a sharpshooter I choose a pair of hand cannons and a lever action rifle.

Each of the items has an icon next to it indicating which perk generally benefits from its use. I'm also given the option to change perks now before the next 'wave' of zombies.

I have to draw a comparison here with Left 4 Dead. The biggest problem I had with Left 4 Dead were that my weapons meant little, I simply had to choose whatever could put the most lead in front of me.

This is not the case in Killing Floor. Each weapon has strengths and weaknesses and they all create a slightly different 'feel' of play. To further this experience, the perks are tied to the weapon types and the weapon graphics are well above Left 4 Dead's simple models. These weapons have working actions and a good deal of detail so you really get a 'feel' for them.

The hunting shotgun for instance is a simple breach loading double barreled shotgun. This might seem inferior to the pump action, however the double barrel packs a serious punch and the alternate fire can use both barrels at once creating a wall of destruction in front of the player. If used correctly, this can give them adequate time to reload.

That's It?

After a few waves of mindless zombies, we are tasked with killing the 'Patriarch'. A really big nasty boss with cloaking abilities. I've got to say that the patriarch feels fairly anti climactic. He's hard to kill and once dead, your reward is that you get to start the process over on a new map without weapons again.

Conclusions

In some ways, Killing Floor suffers some of the same problems as Left 4 Dead. The 'content' simply isn't there. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep playing, although the alternative perks probably give this game more replayability than L4D.

The maps themselves would also do better to incorporate a more 3d or leveled approach in their design. Some of the zombies have the ability to move over walls but we rarely get to see this. The game is 3d but much of the game play feels 'flat', like a modern Wolfenstein. It could benefit greatly if there was more opportunity for attackers to come from above or below or if players could jump to higher ground more often. The good news is, there are some well thought out 3rd party maps available online that address just this.

The biggest problem for the game I think though comes in its presentation. I simply isn't polished. I had to go online to read about the back story. There was no starting tutorial, no intro cinematics, and no 'high scores' or special screens at the end of a wave. It may turn players away before they've had an opportunity to see some of the good game play it has to offer.

As for game play I think it exceeds its contemporary L4D. I can overlook the older engine, and the 'flat' maps because so much detail was spent on the weapons. Face it, in a zombie shooter you are going to spend alot of time using a weapon and not doing or thinking about much else.

For what it promises, Killing Floor is a good game. The lack of content leaves the single player experience lacking, this game really should be played in coop to fully appreciate it. It could also be so much better if the levels had more vertical considerations and if they had spent more effort on the new player experience.

Killing Floor is a copyright of © 2009, 2010 Tripwire Interactive, LLC