Here's a little task for you. Think back as far into your earliest playing memories, back to when shrubmod seemed 'the place to be', when 5XP from a stolen uniform was otherwise known as a godsend, and when your screen flashed red on the many occasions before death's imminent arrival. 
Yes, there are you, fulfilling your role as a 'noob player' on a 'noob' public server, probably playing fueldump. And when you are playing, pardon, dying, the thought hits you. It's like a revalation. It has to be true! What if, just what if... no, you were sure he couldn't kill you from there. Fellas, we have a cheat on the server.
It isn't as if the whole cheating thing is kept a secret from the average joe booting up the game for the first time. People might argue, well, ET is free, it will attract first-time and softcore players who might never have played a FPS-style game before, especially not in multiplayer mode. But no, from the very earliest introduction and installation of the game you are bombarded with a PunkBuster message, which comes accross a bit like someone too full of themselves, shouting at you that, Hi, I'm here to save your life from all those nasty 'punks' that cheat and so you must worship me. Regardless of your take on the whole PB issue, people in ET are very much aware of the existance of cheaters. It becomes a fairly handy excuse too, and may be brought out in force once the whole fps lag and low mouse batteries explanations seem to be running thin. I think it should be said at this point that the vast majority of people who play ET are clean, and play the game for fun, not to get kicks out of killing people without even seeing their targets first. But. And what a but it is. For so long the whole topic of cheating seemed to be one that many just turned a blind eye to, rather than risking reputation or whatever it is ET players think they get by playing a videogame. Yet with an increasing number of people coming forward with what they see as proof of players' guilt, we have to ask ourselves the question: just how deep-rooted has this problem become?
So then. A highly topical, not to mention controversial aspect of ET has been thrust into the spotlight on an ever increasing basis. Ever since (and I hate to bring this example up for the gazillionth time) the whole razz sharade, the trickling stream has never looked back as the torrent of cheating accusations, whether unfounded or not, have continued to pour in, in a location where they can be given relatively high attention for a single community. Do we believe them or not? Maybe some and not other. And then what?
I'll take a little detour with you for a second now. I'm going to tell you something which bugs me about all the big leagues, judge this as you will: the problem is consistency. You have someone like razz who was banned, ok, fair enough, but there are players out there, who are proven hackers, and the admins aren't batting an eyelid. Now don't get me wrong, the admins do a fantastic job without getting paid, giving up their own free time to make sure the ET scene continues to run smoothly. Put simply, there wouldn't be much life round these parts without dedicated admins - and I'm not talking about xfire. But herein lies the problem. Negative things in life just generally tend to grab the attention, as opposed to the positives which are given a quick smile, to be quickly forgotten. And so admins can do all the good in the world, but once they screw up, you know the hounds have been released. You don't need to have a doctorate in clairvoyancy to see where this one is headed. Consistancy is the name of the game my brother, and without it I'm afraid I'm perfectly entitled to whine my little e-head off about it. People claim to be concerned about cheating, they all seem to agree that the culture of cheating should be stamped out, yet the people ultimately responsible and able to move in that direction, for making that happen, don't take any action. The reason I mention the recent influx of cheating accusations is this. Namely, it serves as a very easy place for me to jump onto the two other issues I want to talk about, before you all fall asleep or post your 'too long comments.
"This wouldn't have been allowed to happen in the early days". This lovely sentence comes from our very own Mr. h34dsh0t, and is sadly, tragically flawed. Like the fog of war descending, it seems the popular conception of our history has become somewhat murky and impure as time has passed. Let us travel back a few years, to the days of a certain castle. Does no one remember the outrage expressed when the new-style configs, which form the basis of todays configs, were introduced? Imagine one day being able to play the equivalent of a picmip 10+ setting, then being told that, sorry, but you're not allowed to do that anymore. And it took the CALs, the CBs a relatively long time to do this too, part of the reason so much resistance was encountered. This causes two main events of note to take place. The first is that a clear statement was made regarding the stance of taking the game to extremes (the essense of cheating), and the second was that many of those who did not take too kindly to suddenly being owned with their new configs split away and sought out ways to achieve what they had been playing with - legally - for a significant amount of time. And you have the same situation today. Whilst you might not have the same spark from config changes, people still recognise the ability they have to gain a significant advantage over others, in a way that is gaining in stealth and the ability to conceal the crime, such is the nature of cheating and the anti-cheat measures. However, returning to our nostalgic RTCW period, I invite you to listen well to boog's words, as he scores a round 100% in the Castle Wolfenstein history test: "In the begin[ing] of ET, the situation wasn't different as now, but less people who whined/cared and knew about this problem or some who just denied it!". That's right, our naive little gamer friend just pulling their MP40's trigger for the first time really didn't see the importance in the situation at all, with the consensus being that the configs alone were enough to deal with the problem - if there was one anyway? - and that was that, thank you very much. Don't believe me? Read this and see if you change your mind. Yet no action was taken.
The second issue is the interesting one. With so much exposure being given to cheating, especially recently, it seems that for really the first time, everyone is thinking about the problem. I bet you've already asked yourself at one time or other: "just how many people cheat anyway?". As previously mentioned, hacks and cheats are becoming so easily concealable that often the only clues to their existance masquerade in the user's inability to hide their scent. You know, as sad as this sounds, a whole clan could cheat, and if they hid it well enough, you'd never know. Progress is being made by those sensible enough to see the value in specific cheaters and in particular cheat makers, with organisations such as the tv/web based up-and-coming prizefight.co.uk recruiting imfamous cheaters (in their case an imfamous q3 cheater who I forget the name of) with a goal of using their knowledge and experience to tackle cheats from a cheaters perspective. But if there is one thing for sure it is this: no matter how many people cheat or at what level, what remains the problem is the whole issue of action and attitude, with people often turning a blind eye or consolling with themselves with the supposed fact that everything used to be rosy and it's omfg lame admins ruining things now. Well no, the situation is the same as it always has been, and if you think the problem is going to go away by updating punkbuster, blaming each other and sending a new config in to solve the woes, well, perhaps its time to think again.
Yes, there are you, fulfilling your role as a 'noob player' on a 'noob' public server, probably playing fueldump. And when you are playing, pardon, dying, the thought hits you. It's like a revalation. It has to be true! What if, just what if... no, you were sure he couldn't kill you from there. Fellas, we have a cheat on the server. It isn't as if the whole cheating thing is kept a secret from the average joe booting up the game for the first time. People might argue, well, ET is free, it will attract first-time and softcore players who might never have played a FPS-style game before, especially not in multiplayer mode. But no, from the very earliest introduction and installation of the game you are bombarded with a PunkBuster message, which comes accross a bit like someone too full of themselves, shouting at you that, Hi, I'm here to save your life from all those nasty 'punks' that cheat and so you must worship me. Regardless of your take on the whole PB issue, people in ET are very much aware of the existance of cheaters. It becomes a fairly handy excuse too, and may be brought out in force once the whole fps lag and low mouse batteries explanations seem to be running thin. I think it should be said at this point that the vast majority of people who play ET are clean, and play the game for fun, not to get kicks out of killing people without even seeing their targets first. But. And what a but it is. For so long the whole topic of cheating seemed to be one that many just turned a blind eye to, rather than risking reputation or whatever it is ET players think they get by playing a videogame. Yet with an increasing number of people coming forward with what they see as proof of players' guilt, we have to ask ourselves the question: just how deep-rooted has this problem become?
So then. A highly topical, not to mention controversial aspect of ET has been thrust into the spotlight on an ever increasing basis. Ever since (and I hate to bring this example up for the gazillionth time) the whole razz sharade, the trickling stream has never looked back as the torrent of cheating accusations, whether unfounded or not, have continued to pour in, in a location where they can be given relatively high attention for a single community. Do we believe them or not? Maybe some and not other. And then what?
I'll take a little detour with you for a second now. I'm going to tell you something which bugs me about all the big leagues, judge this as you will: the problem is consistency. You have someone like razz who was banned, ok, fair enough, but there are players out there, who are proven hackers, and the admins aren't batting an eyelid. Now don't get me wrong, the admins do a fantastic job without getting paid, giving up their own free time to make sure the ET scene continues to run smoothly. Put simply, there wouldn't be much life round these parts without dedicated admins - and I'm not talking about xfire. But herein lies the problem. Negative things in life just generally tend to grab the attention, as opposed to the positives which are given a quick smile, to be quickly forgotten. And so admins can do all the good in the world, but once they screw up, you know the hounds have been released. You don't need to have a doctorate in clairvoyancy to see where this one is headed. Consistancy is the name of the game my brother, and without it I'm afraid I'm perfectly entitled to whine my little e-head off about it. People claim to be concerned about cheating, they all seem to agree that the culture of cheating should be stamped out, yet the people ultimately responsible and able to move in that direction, for making that happen, don't take any action. The reason I mention the recent influx of cheating accusations is this. Namely, it serves as a very easy place for me to jump onto the two other issues I want to talk about, before you all fall asleep or post your 'too long comments.
"This wouldn't have been allowed to happen in the early days". This lovely sentence comes from our very own Mr. h34dsh0t, and is sadly, tragically flawed. Like the fog of war descending, it seems the popular conception of our history has become somewhat murky and impure as time has passed. Let us travel back a few years, to the days of a certain castle. Does no one remember the outrage expressed when the new-style configs, which form the basis of todays configs, were introduced? Imagine one day being able to play the equivalent of a picmip 10+ setting, then being told that, sorry, but you're not allowed to do that anymore. And it took the CALs, the CBs a relatively long time to do this too, part of the reason so much resistance was encountered. This causes two main events of note to take place. The first is that a clear statement was made regarding the stance of taking the game to extremes (the essense of cheating), and the second was that many of those who did not take too kindly to suddenly being owned with their new configs split away and sought out ways to achieve what they had been playing with - legally - for a significant amount of time. And you have the same situation today. Whilst you might not have the same spark from config changes, people still recognise the ability they have to gain a significant advantage over others, in a way that is gaining in stealth and the ability to conceal the crime, such is the nature of cheating and the anti-cheat measures. However, returning to our nostalgic RTCW period, I invite you to listen well to boog's words, as he scores a round 100% in the Castle Wolfenstein history test: "In the begin[ing] of ET, the situation wasn't different as now, but less people who whined/cared and knew about this problem or some who just denied it!". That's right, our naive little gamer friend just pulling their MP40's trigger for the first time really didn't see the importance in the situation at all, with the consensus being that the configs alone were enough to deal with the problem - if there was one anyway? - and that was that, thank you very much. Don't believe me? Read this and see if you change your mind. Yet no action was taken.
The second issue is the interesting one. With so much exposure being given to cheating, especially recently, it seems that for really the first time, everyone is thinking about the problem. I bet you've already asked yourself at one time or other: "just how many people cheat anyway?". As previously mentioned, hacks and cheats are becoming so easily concealable that often the only clues to their existance masquerade in the user's inability to hide their scent. You know, as sad as this sounds, a whole clan could cheat, and if they hid it well enough, you'd never know. Progress is being made by those sensible enough to see the value in specific cheaters and in particular cheat makers, with organisations such as the tv/web based up-and-coming prizefight.co.uk recruiting imfamous cheaters (in their case an imfamous q3 cheater who I forget the name of) with a goal of using their knowledge and experience to tackle cheats from a cheaters perspective. But if there is one thing for sure it is this: no matter how many people cheat or at what level, what remains the problem is the whole issue of action and attitude, with people often turning a blind eye or consolling with themselves with the supposed fact that everything used to be rosy and it's omfg lame admins ruining things now. Well no, the situation is the same as it always has been, and if you think the problem is going to go away by updating punkbuster, blaming each other and sending a new config in to solve the woes, well, perhaps its time to think again.
