Ive noticed that the average BYONDer has (in my oppinion) a really bad attitude when it comes to bug abuse in games and in general.
It seems that most people belive that if the bug is in the game then its their right to abuse it. I hear many people turn around when busted cheating by fellow players and say "Its in the game so we are allowed to do it".
The sad part is that in a lot of games it isnt actually considered cheating. In games with leveling systems its considered "training" to abuse bugs.
"Im level 97", "Wow, how did you get that high?", "Shopkeeper training*". *Shopkeeper training = A made up bug where you attack the shopkeepers and get the defualt 10 exp every time you attack.
In many games when these bugs are fixed the owners actually recive complaints (and threats from power gamers).
Anyway, whats your oppinion?
ID:153635
 Jul 19 2003, 4:29 pm
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Jul 19 2003, 5:06 pm
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Goku72
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I too feel this way. For instance, in my game (DBZ Orientated) there's a gravitron in it, there's a bug in it that it doesn't drain HP. And, people THEN complain that the settings don't give enough experience. And they threaten to not play my game anymore if I change it. I'd rather have people like that NOT play my games, all they do is make an unpleasant gaming experience for other players.
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Goku72 wrote:
I too feel this way. For instance, in my game (DBZ Orientated) there's a gravitron in it, there's a bug in it that it doesn't drain HP. And, people THEN complain that the settings don't give enough experience. And they threaten to not play my game anymore if I change it. I'd rather have people like that NOT play my games, all they do is make an unpleasant gaming experience for other players. Yeah and they whine about one thing then when you change that they whine about it again and again! I HATE PEOPLE like that! | |
Anyway, whats your oppinion? This is why MMO games suck. The loudest people are those who whine and complain about things not being fair and these people end up getting thier way. So I generally stay away from this genre. The best thing to do is just keep fixing bugs and ignore the morons. | |
I agree. The average online gamer has a very poor moral compass when it comes to the games they play.
To compensate for this, I generally include a bug reporting system which will entail actual rewards for the player. For example, I read the bug log and JoeSchmoe has reported the shop keeper bug (10xp per attack, no dangers), then I'm likely to hand out 50-100 xp to that player, or more, for being honest. Or, I might allow them a custom item (within reason). In short, I try to give people a reason to report bugs instead of abuse them. It doesn't always work, but it does help as far as I've seen. | |
This isn't just a BYOND phenomena.....!
In ANY game, players will find ways to cheat, and abuse them. Cheat codes, game hacks, loopholes in game design. There will always be that kind of player, offline or online, nomatter the game type. Even Civilization allows you to cheat with a neat little menu. The question is how you can deal with it, really :) On my MUD, I use a system of form reports. When you enter the 'bug' command, you are prompted to fill out a form, detailing when the bug happened, what triggered it, if it is a bug of serious nature (i.e. caused the MUD to freeze/crash), what you were doing when it happened, etc. I don't "reward" players per se, although that would probably do fine to motivate some. Usually players report bugs anyways, because that bug might be ruining the fun of the game for them, because others are abusing it. | |
Alathon wrote:
This isn't just a BYOND phenomena.....! Hence the reference to 'average online gamer' as opposed to 'average BYONDer' :P The rewards I give out are generally on par with completing an average quest for that character's level/power/etc. Now, this is only if the bug is real. And, it also depends on how serious the bug is. I wouldn't give out as much exp or as good an item for the 'bob the troll stopped dropping x loot, which was always dropped before' as I would for the bug 'players attack bob the troll and get sent to limbo for some strange reason'. Limbo being 0,0,0. While I agree that players tend to use bug reports for the reason you mentioned, I've found that a little extra incentive can go a long way. That is, as long as it isn't overpowering and unbalancing. That's why I keep it around what they could normally get for a quest at their level. Heck, some extra money on occasion (not a lot, mind you) seems to keep people happy, even though it really isn't much (ie: avg money level is 100K, you get 300) It really is up to the administrator. I've been an Imp for some muds that rewarded, and for some that didn't. It can be argued that one shouldn't reward others for doing what they should do. I just like saying 'thank you' to those who do it when most don't :) | |
sapphiremagus wrote:
It really is up to the administrator. I've been an Imp for some muds that rewarded, and for some that didn't. It can be argued that one shouldn't reward others for doing what they should do. I just like saying 'thank you' to those who do it when most don't :) The problem arises with players whining, really. You give a reward for something that was there before, but isn't now. It's the same as if you spawn a monster once in a game's timeline, that gives out some unique weapon / armor. You'll get others whining that 'why didnt you announce it', or 'I wasnt online, thats not fair'. Of course there will always be people whining like that, and it isn't a proper logic to follow, because games arent static, but hey... I guess its up to the individual really. I haven't considered giving rewards for bugs found, but mayby its an idea I ought to consider. | |
Alathon wrote:
I guess its up to the individual really. I haven't considered giving rewards for bugs found, but mayby its an idea I ought to consider. It's like "the carrot and the stick"; you punish evil players, and publically reward good players. The evil players would normally rebel against being punished and behave even worse, but when they see other people being rewarded publically for doing good things, it might motivate them to be good; or at least less evil. Won't work for everyone, but it helps. =) | |
This extends well beyond BYOND, as well as well beyond simply cheating. The bottom line is that a good (or bad, rather) portion of gamers consists of immature kids and a few older people who never grew out of acting like immature kids. If you have a game where you can attack and kill other players, for example, then players will kill each other--it doesn't matter if killing each other isn't actually the goal of the game, or if they get no reward for killing each other, or even if they're actually penalized (but still allowed) to kill each other. People are jerks; the only way to insulate a game from them is to exclude a lot of people.
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*nods* I agree with the other posts that this is a online game phenomina as opposed to just a byond-centric thing.
However, there is one thing you need to remember when you ponder this topic. Most online games are produced by large companies who's only real intrest is the bottom line. The developers themselves may want to make a solid game, but the companies they work for want profit. Take everquest for example. One of the biggest online rpgs out there atm (altho I use the term RPG very very loosely these days). It used to be that everything that was introduced into the game had to conform with "The Vision(tm)". The vision was a set of rules not only to keep the game from getting to simple, but also to make it semi-workable for role-playing. Everyone who plays EQ can point out exactly where the Vision died, even if they didnt know when it happened to begin with. Ever since it died the developers in charge of eq have made each successive expansion take away parts that were nessicary in the vision. Now insted of traveling across a vast game world feeling as if it was a great journey to get somewhere, you can click your mouse twice and you're there. In Byond we are not constrained by the whole profit thing. These peoeple arent paying you, or if they are they're paying you because they like YOUR game. (Remember, Its 'Build YOUR Own Net Dream', not "Listen to the whiners and make a crappy game" ... byond sounds cooler then LTTWAMACG IMHO). So build a game that you're happy with. Strive to make it fit up to your ideals for it, and you'll gather a much stronger fan-base for it. People that will enjoy joining in your dream, rather then attacking a shopkeeper so they can get some number that means nothing. ^_^ Just my thoughts tho *shrug* Its the players that really make the game. If it wasnt for my friends in EQ I wouldnt be playing that anymore either ^_~ *L* Elorien | |
Yeah, I know its not just on BYOND, but BYOND really seems to magnify the problem. People dont even attempt to hide or disguse what they are doing.
Its probably just the massive ammount of Alpha/Beta games all in one place causing players to cheat/be jerks so much they get rid of what ever morals they had. | |
Elorien wrote:
Ever since it died the developers in charge of eq have made each successive expansion take away parts that were nessicary in the vision. Now insted of traveling across a vast game world feeling as if it was a great journey to get somewhere, you can click your mouse twice and you're there. I played EQ for a few years, and most people I knew considered "The Vision" to be something that stifled evolving to higher quality game play, and they found things like enforced travel time to be enjoyment killers. It's interesting and fun to have long travel time, for instance, the first few times you cross the world. But after a while the point of being in such a game is getting together with your friends...and when people have babies (in real life) and bedtimes and the like, taking an hour or more to be able to get together is a real enjoyment killer, and frequently means "Guess I won't play EQ tonight cause I only have two hours and by the time we work out something to do and travel there and something goes wrong and I have to do corpse retrieval I'll only get a few minutes of play." Very much compounded when corpse retrieval might take as much as several hours (depending on what you are doing) and some people just don't have several hours at a stretch. It's tough, but at all times a designer has to balance what decisions are critical for maintaining the feel of the game against things that just plain remove the fun from it. | |
Free text MUDs are pretty bad for cheating and exploits, too.
I think it stems from the fact that you have anonymity on BYOND (and over telnet, of course). MMORPGs require you to pay for an account on a commercial server, and people who get caught cheating get seriously sanctioned. In a free text MUD (or on BYOND) the worst you can do is ban them from ever joining your game, and even then that's not bulletproof. I had a big argument about a year ago with people over at Shrapnel Games about a particular exploit in Space Empires IV. The game allows you to build a single training centre per planet -- so, the ever-crafty players discovered that you can build multiple training centres in any sector that has moons. These people claimed that the game allowed you to do it, and thus it wasn't an exploit. (How the heck does an area with populated moons teach people how to fight better than an ordinary sector with only a single populated planet?) It went back and forth for a bit. Eventually I just got fed up and stopped visiting that forum. There's no convincing wargamers about the concept of "fairness", after all. | |
In some games, abusing bugs is the only way to make things interesting, and fun. I personally don't mind so much as long as the results of bug abuse aren't hurting other players. (Look, I found a bug that lets me make a super mega ultra kill-anyone-in-one-hit sword! Lets go PKing!) I sometimes found it entertaining when, back in that good ol' era when I could actually host games and thereby had a reason to build them, people found odd little bugs that would let them get into places I hadn't meant for them to get into.
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I think Final Fantasy games had the best solution to this problem. The first time you explored the world, you usually did it on foot, then you might gain a boat that would make travel from place to place a little easier and fast, as well as opening up new areas to explore. After that, you usually get an air ship, which makes it possible to travel anywhere rather quickly. And most sensable games have items that let you teleport around, although you may have to earn them. (I'm fond of items that let you mark a location and teleport back to it whenever you want.)
But then, a good game would have to make travel fun or exciting to begin with. ...And this really has nothing to do with the original topic. | |
DarkView wrote:
Yeah, I know its not just on BYOND, but BYOND really seems to magnify the problem. People dont even attempt to hide or disguse what they are doing. Well look at it this way. You're a cheater, and you buy a $50 game from the store that you can play online. You play for a while, then discover a way to cheat. But you're afraid that if you get spotted cheating, you'll be banned from the server and won't be allowed to play online anymore. Are you going to be public about cheating? Probably not. Now take it to BYOND. You log into a BYOND game, and play for a little while, then discover a way to cheat. Maybe you can make friends with the admin/GM and get away with it, or maybe you'll get spotted and get banned for it. So what, BYOND games are a dime a dozen. If you get banned from one, log into another and find a way to cheat in that one instead. If you're really despirate, you could just make a new key. But then, everyone else is cheating anyway, so who's going to care if you do it too. | |
sapphiremagus wrote:
I agree. The average online gamer has a very poor moral compass when it comes to the games they play. In single player games, the players are usually given a hefty advantage over any enemies the game provides, even though the game may try to hide it. So people who play single player games eventually get used to having the advantage, and they like being able to kick the computer's butt. But when they start playing online games, everyone is equal and they have no advantage. That can be really frustrating. So when people see a chance to gain an advantage over the other players (the enemy), it takes away the frustration and returns that feeling that you get from whooping enemies in single-player games. At least for that one player. All the other players just get more frustrated. | |
I suppose that I'm 'tainted' from all my pen & paper RPG playing. At least in those, for the most part, all the players work as a team.
No one player is better than another, but they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Also, the players tend to have an advantage over their 'enemies' in general. Take D&D 3rd edition, or even the new 3.5 edition. Your basic, most generic, and often used level 1 encounter is a group of four goblins. Four. The average player group consists of between 2 and 6 players. Two players are fine, they should be able to take the goblins no problem, assuming they are combat oriented classes. Anything above that and it's a cake walk, as long as you have one combat oriented character in the group. This continues all the way through the level ladder, with PCs able to take on encounters one or two levels higher than they are. I believe that if you continue this system into an online format, it would work fine. A level 1 combat player character is perfectly suited for a level 1 monster encounter. More PCs enables them to tackle bigger monsters and get more experience. The players still have an advantage over the NPCs, but not over each other. Granted, this means little for a PK-addicted player, but otherwise 'levels' the playing field. With player on player combat, they all have strengths and weaknesses. A wizard is going to generally suck at close combat but will give a combat character hell as he comes in. A fireball does wonders to discourage charging. Unfortunately, the sad fact of the matter is that there are people who will cheat if given half a chance. I agree with (Foomer?) that general bugs can be amusing. It's the bugs that affect game play and give players extreme advantages that need to be squashed immediately. Minor bugs warrant attention, but not actions against abusers. I'm not going to mute/jail/whatever a player because he found a hidey-hole that I thought I had locked away from the general public. As long as it does nothing more than give him/her a hiding place, who cares? I'll fix it when I have time, and s/he won't have access anymore. Anyway, I'm done spewing my philosophical opinions on gameplay balance and administration. | |