Can you justify cheating in a poorly designed game?

[SaviorSelf]

I'm working on a research paper about cheating in video games, specifically FFXI, and I'm looking for input and opinions of others in community. I'm looking for any and all statements you'd like to make on the subject, and for the sake of research would like to gather some information.

Please respond with the following:
*Note that for name, you don't need to provide your real name, just put ign or some alias. For play-style, are you casual, hardcore, somewhere in between, crafter, adventurer, etc.
Name:
Age:
Location:
Play-style:
Average time spent playing:

Of course, the more the merrier so feel free to jump in, or if you're lurking and come across it, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Cheating is a pretty open ended definition in gaming. While we all could argue that windower is not 'cheating', but a program that provides features that enhance our own game play, it is still a third party program and again the ToS. Some could even argue that going to the wiki to look up information is cheating, because you're breaking the experience of the game being just you and itself.

Some general talking points:
What do you consider cheating in a video game?
Do you think a cheater is the same as a griefer? Why or why not?
If you could make a scale with one end being the worst kind of cheating, ranging to the not as bad cheating, where would you place things?
RMTing as cheating, either buying or selling.

I'll speak for myself and say without windower, I would not play FFXI at all. To me, the features in there such as scripts, plugins, etc. are all invaluable. How can you justify what you do?

P.S. For typical SE Forum satire, NO TROLLING!!!1!!1!!!

OP is a bit sloppy now, will continue to revise but just wanted to get the discussion going.

Some talking points I considered:
Salvage duping
AV wall of justice and other glitching involved.
Gil guping.
Windower.
Botting.
POS Hacking.

[Byrthnoth]

Do you want the replies in PMs?

[SaviorSelf]

Feel free to post here in order to keep a discussion going as what you may deem 'okay' others may be able to argue against it. If you want to PM, thats fine, and I would like to throw out some talking points into my later posts that will be anonymous if you wish to remain so.

inb4 this is advanced and stuff.

Spoiler: show

[NynJa]

I lie, I cheat, I steallllllllll

http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images...jpg?1286802494

[Guyverarmor]

We already knew that Nynja from back in old BG forums :D

[Sylvrdragon]

I used to be all up tight against cheaters and rmt and all that jazz, bit as I got older, I decided that rules for.sake of rules are ridiculous. Most rules and laws in RL have some basis in logic and make sense intuitively, but rules in a video game where nothing much of value at stake feel more like suggestions to me. Personally, I view adherence to rules as a cost/benefit calculation. If the benefit of breaking a rule outweighs the consequences and the chances of you facing those consequences, then I say that is a pretty weak rule. In an MMO, the consequences are usually no worse than getting banned, while the benefit is almost always saving time. I value my time highly enough to ignore many of the rules that would consume it.

I've bought gil.
I use Windower (with many plugins)
I use apradar.
I use LGM flag.
I use Clipper.
If I thought I needed it, I wouldn't hesitate to use bots.

Edit: sorry for typos and grammar. Posting from my phone.

Edit2: oh right...

Name: Chris
Age: 28
Location: Ohio, US.
Play style: Closer to hardcore than casual. I do things according to what I research without getting too deep into the math.
Playtime: ~6 hours a night average on nights I play. Probably 4-5 nights a week on average.

[Sonomaa]

I use windower because its not a cheat to have a proper windowed mode
I used the original mapradar thing when my maps were broken, I have modified dats for the maps in game to actually display the paths (looking at you y-jungles)
Dave
31
TN
was hardcore, now barely (for all games barely)
was 10+ hours daily

[Aurara]

I use windower/Arenz because i joined a shell and was basically required to(not required to in the sense i'd be kicked, but i'd fall behind on points and feel like a leech). I dont see windower as a cheat, Arenz i guess but i dont use it anymore, because i dont have a need to. I was never gung ho against botting, just wasnt offered to me.
Used LGM, and Scanzone as well

Jonah
18
Fairfield, CA
Medium/Hardcore(somewhere in the middle)
5-6 Hours Daily

[dejet]

Name: Doug; In game Dejet/Jeyman
Age:22
Location:Valley Stream, NY
Play Style:Hard core/casual as my days in FFXI came to a close
Time spent: at my peak 2~6 hours 5-7 days a week

spoiler for decent post size.

Spoiler: show

Iv cheated a lot in FFXI. Windower/fish botting/whatever. Only thing I never did was tele hack, always scared the hell out of me.

When I started out I played normal, about 2 years. Had little need to cheat(also played on PS2 so lol), gil was fine and for the most part my group of friends would always help me out in a bind.

As I aged, and more and more of my friends left I added things to the game to help out. Moved to PC, played using windower, Flee hacks, Z freeze/GMtool(used to move mules around zones I was to lazy to get things for; moon key/coffer keys/mage door whatever)

As I moved from spawned HNM(sky at the time only HNM zone) to kings I threw more stuff in(tod/spawn trackers) After joining a so called *leet* shell leaders came to me and asked about if I was willing to bot HNMs. I was more then happy to help my shell out(at the time JPs ran the show so we used that as a reason)

A few bots was nothing, I still did not see any real harm. And could care less; more gear for my friends/LS mates.

I went even more deep into bots after I started my own LS; small group that wanted HNM gear. I had at the time 3 accounts. Linked them and did a decent job with landing HNMs from even decent size groups. So I offered close friends/leaders the option to join in. Most OKed it a few fought but in time they saw it was a good thing.

I fished my way to 100, got an E-rod went 1/1000+ on gugs... 1/4XX on liks, my time was low as I went to college and gil was hard to come by for me. So i threw in a fish bot around this time. doing HW/making gil was nice and my reasoning was I worked my ass off to get to 100/my relic rod I might as well get use out of it.

I may have said things to others in the game, but the real reason was time spent. We have limited time, I might as well get the most out of it. Why stand in a zone for 4hours for a small shot when you can up your odds? that simple. Tia/khim/ceb and longer spawm mobs at times had holding groups for the better part of 2 days. Make their effort worth it.

Iv was in more then likely 5 major shells on two servers. None of them claimed they used bots, and most(even the one I started) stated you would be kicked if found to be botting/cheating. This was only in the rules to keep the shell looking good. Each shell had its leaders that OKed the use of bots for high ranking officers/friends. I stayed with each to the point where a leader(or all of them even once on vent) asked me if I was ok to bot.

fast edit: I never bought gill, the fact of paying just drove me nuts. Id much rather get a good bot that in the end could make me far more gil. Fish bot/claim bots. out claiming a person on a rare item was far better. In 4 hours it could do far more then buying gil. Id have to be bill gates or something to buy fake money....(based off time saved)

[Draylo]

How is the game poorly designed? I can see a poorly designed system for a particular area of end game, but the entire game?

[dejet]

How is the game poorly designed? I can see a poorly designed system for a particular area of end game, but the entire game?

id say it was for the HNM system. that was poorly designed lol. same with our reason to dupe. I got away from valefor before it hit so I was saved...

like half my Flist got hit with bans I would have been a part of it I think ~_~ lots of close friends. Then again I think they got hit the worst with the bans.

[Chun Liroy]

I used to be all up tight against cheaters and rmt and all that jazz, bit as I got older, I decided that rules for.sake of rules are ridiculous. Most rules and laws in RL have some basis in logic and make sense intuitively, but rules in a video game where nothing much of value at stake feel more like suggestions to me. Personally, I view adherence to rules as a cost/benefit calculation. If the benefit of breaking a rule outweighs the consequences and the chances of you facing those consequences, then I say that is a pretty weak rule. In an MMO, the consequences are usually no worse than getting banned, while the benefit is almost always saving time. I value my time highly enough to ignore many of the rules that would consume it.

To play a devil's advocate of sorts, you say that it the benefit outweights the consequences, where the benefit is saving time and the consequence is getting banned. In the same token, although you save time doing things in the game, the repercussion could be seen as wasting your time. The amount of time your put into your character would be lost because you got banned, so in this case, would it be worth it, comparatively?

[Draylo]

What is time in a MMO? What is the point of racing to be the best? I guess if you derive satisfaction from that and your "fun" but generally it doesn't really mean much.

[dejet]

To play a devil's advocate of sorts, you say that it the benefit outweights the consequences, where the benefit is saving time and the consequence is getting banned. In the same token, although you save time doing things in the game, the repercussion could be seen as wasting your time. The amount of time your put into your character would be lost because you got banned, so in this case, would it be worth it, comparatively?

The risk of being banned from a bot was so low it was not funny. I was jailed more times when I fished for real then when I fish bot. How you ask? Its the same, they never could tell if you where cheating. 3 accounts(trio boxing) all using claim bots. Linked with at times 4+ more members. Not one of us got banned for a bot. Thats how you can say its OK if its all based off time/risk.

hours saved/0 risk(outside you being an idiot and going afk with a bot) bots was all about being smart.

Even with SEs so called auto jailer, I could flee hack(never faster then a thf mind you) full zones. It did become a bit of a higher risk cheat as the *true sight* add on was released to more people.

[Chun Liroy]

The risk of being banned from a bot was so low it was not funny. I was jailed more times when I fished for real then when I fish bot. How you ask? Its the same, they never could tell if you where cheating. 3 accounts(trio boxing) all using claim bots. Linked with at times 4+ more members. Not one of us got banned for a bot. Thats how you can say its OK if its all based off time/risk.

hours saved/0 risk(outside you being an idiot and going afk with a bot)

Well I'm not even just talking about bots in general. To be honest I have and a couple friends have been banned for stupid reasons, none related to cheating (unless MPK is cheating, in my case). I would argue that SE has gotten extremely lax'd on cheating as time went on. People were banned left and right for botting a looooong time ago. Now it's not even worth it to them. Hell I tried to call a GM to talk to one 8 times the other day to ask a question. "I'm being MPKd" "Someone is pos hacking" would simply get an automated message, lol. Had to "be stuck"

[dejet]

Well I'm not even just talking about bots in general. To be honest I have and a couple friends have been banned for stupid reasons, none related to cheating (unless MPK is cheating, in my case). I would argue that SE has gotten extremely lax'd on cheating as time went on. People were banned left and right for botting a looooong time ago. Now it's not even worth it to them. Hell I tried to call a GM to talk to one 8 times the other day to ask a question. "I'm being MPKd" "Someone is pos hacking" would simply get an automated message, lol. Had to "be stuck"

My claim botting goes as far back as early CoP. You really had to be asking for it to get banned. I mean really; like talking in game. Outside that and AFKing you wont be banned. A GM might speak to you/pop up. But thats about it really.

[Chun Liroy]

You don't remember the plague of RMT POS hack botting? lol

[dejet]

Lol ill give you that. It's why I never tele hacked.

[Colenzo]

I did it all hombres, I did it for the lulz and the fact that it made the game more enjoyable. Feels good man. Game was slow as fuck back in 2005.

[shaddix]

Shaddix
26
Southeast
Hardcasual? Never did hnm
4-6 hours

I use windower and various plugins. Spellcast etc. I used to bot despot with app lol, though I still never got claim. I guess I consider the despot botting cheating but didn't give a shit because of how mad I would get from having a whole fucking ls of voke competing against us.


Windower etc is not cheating obviously as it is just rectifying issues the game should have solved itself.