I posted a little rant a few days ago that got some excellent responses from people. I got quite a number of emails back. Here they are, for your reading pleasure. (If I've posted your email here and you would prefer I not mention your addy just let me know and I'll remove it.) Some excellent points made below. :) Thanks for writing guys!

Read the original article here.

mojo32@home.com

I first want to start off that i am in no way defending cheaters, I think they are all a bunch of llama's and should be banned from gaming communties in general.

However, cheaters have provided a valueable service to the general community in my opinion. Some ppl may say, wtf could a cheater do thats positive for the CS community??

Simple, skill. Cheaters force fair players to get better, cause if they don't they get waxxed by the cheaters. So while Player A is on a server using a cheat to kill everyone, players B,C,and D are forced to play better to eliminate him. Thus Players B,C, and D are getting better at the game(increased awareness, better aiming, better map tactics) while Player A is relying on his invis cheat to not be noticed. So cheats inevitablely force other players to get better while they themselves are not improving but more handicaping themselves due to this reliance on a cheat they have formed.

So say a tournament pops up for cash prizes or whatever. who has the advantage? not the cheats, they wont even be able to compete cause they have handicapped themselves while forcing thier fellow gamers skill to improve. Who walks away with that 40k cash prize? NOT THE CHEAT.

Cheaters ultimately destroy thier own gaming skillz while furthering others which in its own way is benificial to the rest of us. yes cheaters suck, but hey, whats better than repeatedly killing the guy using an invis cheat while u flame him for not only losing to u, but losing while using a cheat.

Safrus

tobsmolck@gmx.de

Hi Marauder,

First of all: Merry X-Mas to you.

I played a lot of CS last year, and seen many cheats, and it annoys me. If they are too dumb to beat me or others playing normal, then they should either train like others or just buzz off and play solitaire.

But i sometimes think the programmers want some players to cheat, so that their game is always in the discussion, as a sort of commercials. Cause in theory i think cheat- stopping is quite simple: Just allow standardmodels and let the Server check if all models are standard or not.

By this way nearly 90% of the cheats are not possible any longer. But does any company implement it? No. That is why i think they are using the cheats for product placement ("Look, so many play game xxx. I must play that game, too...") Just my 2$ on that topic, Tobs alias Victim

r.kuenz@gmx.de

Greetings Marauder!

I have just read your great Column about that cheating little Bitches, and i love it! You speak just out of my soul(and probalply out of the soules of every honest gamer). In times like today its just horrible - when you cant tell a cheater from an honest player (beside those skin cheats...) And it really annoys me, if someone calls me a cheater just because i'm a good player... :( Hard times for us all. I was thinking about quitting online gaming serveral times but i just couldn't let it be... *g* And besides that - i think i play well enough to beat those filthy aimbot and autoshoot using bitches back where they came from! (at least in Counter-Strike)

Well - i know exactly how you are feeling! But i won't let those little Losers ruin the fun for me... Just keep on fighting, never give up, never surrender! ;)

Best Regards [WKS]P~Nut

meinolf.toelle@netsurf.de

Amen, brother, amen........

Roque.ScoR@t-online.de

who the hell sends hatemails for this article????

its bloody right, what u say.

u know, there are a lot of progs, where the invisibility-cheaters are shown as "lsd"-models (those rainbow types), but what i want, and what in my oppinion is the only way to prevent people from cheatin, is a prog where those cheaters are marked with such big arrows, or where they get an "anti-aimbot", will say they simply dont hit u, or all other players are able to hit them much more easy (amibot for non-cheaters)! i think that'll be very funny if the cheaters have a 2:30 score instead of a 20:2 score

. -[ADSL]-RoqueScor

wgod@hotmail.com

I'm just glad to hear that there are real people out there that like to lpay the game as opposed to solely win the game....I always thought i was damn good until istarted playing couterstrike regularly where it seemed like my avg. just went to shit and I started hearing rumors about cheaters...When I finally got my hands on a copy of aimbot I thought I had reached the end of the world.. Get yer message out brotha' cuz they surely be some folk that need to be hearin whatchoo gots to tell....peace the real DUBYA

micronoid_m@hotmail.com

When someone on A half-life server is just starting out or having A hard time, I actually let them run if they are in A fire fight with me and decide to retreat. I give em A chance cause it wasn't fun when I was just starting out. Usually I'm in the first if not second place on half-life so it's purely my choice [they aint gettin away cause I suck or nuthin like dat ;) ] And guess what... I PLAY FOR FUN, not necessarily for highest score. And to me that means everyone having fun. I've very fast and adaptive reflexes so I could be 1st if I sweated over it, every time. But I don't want to give anyone the violating feeling I had when I first started out and was everybody's '1 free frag point'. so I've more taken A guardian point in servers lately. I've heard that on Ultima Online some people become mayors when they have made their body like A god. They do other things. I like to give myself a challenge when I'm the best or 'Training' to others: I play sloppily and when they do good at that then I gradually play a little sharper. Its actually quite fun for me and them too I bet as they aren't facing a 'no win' situation and have a challenge that adapts to them. But when someone comes onto the server using a flaw in the map or just over using 1 weapon , I tell them how it's unfair to everyone else. Mostly they give a lame excuse ( like "but it's possible so I have the right") and start swearing heavily so I attack them 100%. (oh btw I STILL have not and don't use any cheating from map flaw, weapon, or anything else) And I still match skill with them.

When it's map flaw or the like, I've noticed that people really suck when I actually find A way to diffuse or stop their cheat, like they have relied on it and have no skill (even when I haven't learned A game real good yet, if I find a way to counter them (and not by more cheating, btw)) I'm not too familiar with the programs cheats, just using map flaw or weapon overadvantage and such.

And as for half-life, I ask really skilled people why they keep playing to win if they are always winning and virtually unkillable, why they don't goto A mod for A new challenge. They just want to win, even if it doesn't mean anything anymore cause they've been playing for years and are virtually perfect. like they fear being just another player in the field in some unfamiliar realm. Personally if I'm too good at something, I try other mods. I'm 'BRAVER' than that ;p

lzamudio@qwest.net

Hey...I bet your getting an assload of flame mail...and good mail. Cheating sucks. Any game with cheaters will ultimately suck until all cheaters are hunted down and beaten.

Tweaker

dave6412@coxx.rr.com

i couldnt agree more than with your article on cheating. i am a TRIBES player (and a hell extremly good player at that), and even when given the choice of cheating, i simply refuse. it makes you feel REAL good when a llama or a cheater gets on a server and you can kick the crap out of them even with cheats on

(such as in the mod of renegades 2.0, an item called a satchel charge was like a deployable grenade launcher could be stuck in corners but killed instantly. normally, the explosion from the charge should kill the satchel, but llamas stick them in corners, and up high, so that the explosion doesnt do a thing to the satchel and you can keep killing. Luckilly, its been addressed by enabling u to only use one shot)

i have been accused of cheating however, because i can get air snipe shots with a sniper rifle/rail gun in the renegades mod. yeah, they try kicking me, or spamming the server, but i get around them at times.

excellent article

t!gger

Trokair2000@hotmail.com

Well after reading your "Little post on cheating" i stumbled across you ranting and raving about starsiege tribes which to my knowledge has 0 cheats. i have been playing that game since tis release, and i tell you tehre eitehr bugs/mods you are playing. Ultra renegades mod you can buy 100's of health kits and use them cause its a gay mod. The beacon thing you talkeda bout its supposed to make you to hit a traget a line goes up in the air you clikc on the arrow at the top of it and it goes as good as it can to the location of the beacon. The mine skins you were also going nutsa about, That isnt a cheat Dynamix let you do that and since they can dodge turets it isnt that hard to do. Autoaim.cs doesnt exsits, looked for it 4 a year to see if the rumors were true it isnt. The "Evil" turret bug ur refering to isnt a cheat its part of the Renegades mod where you put turets in forcfiled so there HARDER to kill. the only "Cheat" in that one was the falg but there are scripts that autoway point you to hel yopur flag carrier and to find the enemy flag carrier but the enmy one you have to see his arrow first, i use that and i would know. So please get your information before calling things cheats.

time.2die@3web.net

gj man, stick it to those cheatin fuckaz.keep up the good work.

-=FMJ=-

samjabr@hotmail.com

Hi, Good article. I agree with almost everything escpecially losing my fucking mind at CS sometimes. Here's the one and only solution I use when i spot cheaters. I tell everyone on the server to go to cshacked.com or csheaters, pcgamehacks .etc...

Before you think I'm retarded, I am curious why a smart cookie like Gooseman is such a dumbfuck? Why doesn't he just lock the models to eliminate half of the cheats?

If everyone knows where to get the cheats at least it levels the playing ground. Realistically what will happen is that either no one will play CS anymore which will run off the lamas anyway or Gooseman and Valve might decide to actually FIX THIS GOING DOWN THE SHITTER MOD.

If you want to do CS a service just list all the cheats sites, not just the anti cheats sites. When Valve sees the max CS players drop by 80% then they might give enough of a shit to either finish TF2 or fix this fucking mod.

Incidentally, none of the new mods(firearms,Wasteland) are impervious to the same cheats. If they find actual solutions for CS they will most likely be applicable to the others

Peace BRO

Sam

jack.belder@symaptico.ca

i red part of your article and am also pissed of at people that take the fun out of playing. This is why I have made a clan for Starcraft Broodwar called Bounty Hunters and basically people email us and tell us cheaters names and then their name gets posted on the web site. Then people from the clan that reconize the name kill that bastard in the middle of a game. we are just starting out but we hope to be in every game to help rid the gaming world of cheaters.

fps_nut@yahoo.com

Hey There! Awesome article! I agree.

I do want to point out this site: http://www.gameaddicts.org

They have been around for the longest time, and the admin there is as angry as you about cheating. They post all cheaters info public, has a great rant on the bot page, and has a group of known admins and silent admins just to keep their server clean of scum. Take a look, this guy has been pissed since Q2 :) Good work!

A FPS Nut

sl83@optonline.net

(Now this guy went out of his way. I was most impressed! :)

Starsiege Tribes is another excellent and popular game that has a sorid history of cheating in some very inventive ways. Happy mines, giant flags, and the legendary "autoaim.cs" (I purloined a copy finally, but it doesn't actually seem to work. :)

Starsiege Tribes has a solid history of cheating? Granted there were some bug abuses. SOME, which were fixed rather rapidly. Tribes is one game where the developers went the extra step to make sure client side cheating was near impossible.

If you understand anything about Tribes and the way the game works, you would know that there is no such thing as autoaim.cs It is a myth, and anyone who accuses someone of using it is just trying to make up for their lack of skill by crying "Cheater!".

The model cheats had been patched up with a CRC check within the week of them being widespread.

I could never figure out how guys could catch me when I was running around near the edges of the map with the flag, hiding. Suddenly someone would pop over a hill and cap me, seemingly knowing just where I was. (For those of you heathens out there who have never played Tribes, the maps are usually several kilometers by several kilometers. The chances of just stumbling on the flag carrier are pretty low when he's off the beaten path hiding somewhere.)

Not exactly. Sensors, help, and the fact that the flag can only be in the mission area kind of limits where you hide. Any decent player will find you withint 2 minutes.

Turns out there's a cheat that makes the flag that's on your back 60' tall. The damned thing sticks out over everything. If the cheater is within 400 meters of your position he can spot you inside buildings, behind hills, whatever. Another cheat allows people to buy hundreds of health boosting kits. Normally this should just increase your health to maximum and stop. But due to a bug in Tribes, it actually continues to increase your health for several minutes. So unless you take a hit that instantly kills you, you survive and regenerate your health. Over and over again making you virtually unkillable.

*cough* This was patched up a while ago, and wasn't exactly effective because you had to keep your energy below max in order to keep your health rising. Basically, you had to keep shooting yourself.

Another little thing I consider cheap as hell is some of the skins that people use to give themselves an advantage. Always wondered why I couldn't hit a few of my buddies with mines, grenades, and why they never got caught by a turret. Watching their screens during a LAN party I came to the realization they'd loaded new skins for those objects. They were not a dull gold colour and stood out amazingly well against any surface. No wonder my defensive mines and turrets never worked. Another cute cheat puts a big flashing icon over mines and turrets.

By the time people were using these, it really didn't make a difference. What with 6 heavies flying into your base at mach 5 and mortar spamming everything. Turrets and mines are useless no matter what.

The "evil" turret bug allowed people to make their deployable turrets invulnerable.

This was fixed, but yes it was evil.

The invisible beacon cheat is also rather amusing. It allows you to plant target beacons before a game on a map. When you play on that map, you have all the important targets beaconed and easy to hit with mortars. No one else can see the beacons and they're indestructible.

Invisible beacon cheat? Plant target beacons before a game on a map. Not exactly. It was a combination of script/GUI code that had pre-listed coordinates of the maps and certain objects. When you played a map, a beacon file was read and then a key was pressed to toggle the GUI beacons on and off.

Luckily for those of us who are honest Tribes players Dynamix has been excellent about patching the bugs that people are abusing. Regrettably, that probably creates delays in Tribes 2 and other projects they are working on, which pisses me off.

No more work by the dev team is being done on Tribes 1 until Tribes 2 is finished.

There's also help at the server side for those bugs that Dynamix hasn't been able to fix. Ex. Heavies flying scouts etc. (While we are on the topic, I also hate little pukes like "No Fix" who attack servers and crash them just for fun. It's very expensive in both time and money to run a server, and you don't get compensated for it generally. Piss off and stop trying to wreck our community.) The BWAdmin mod fixes many of these bugs, and is highly recommended for server admins.

Although NoFiX was an ass at first. He stopped his attacks at the request of Dynamix, and also helped them GREATLY with fixing this bug for Tribes 2. He went through with them all the little details as to what vulnerabilities he has exposed, and he NEVER gave the code that he wrote to anyone else besides Dynamix employees.

I suppose that is all. Feel free to comment/flame/screech/etc etc