This week we’re busting out some game news for our gaming podcast, as the usual. We’ve got some good community feedback that we’re tackling while also flashing back to The Guardian Legend and a bit of history on Hudson Soft. This weeks podcast news roundup includes:
- Bungie Punishes Halo Reach Gamers… 15,000 of Them
- Nintendogs blamed for dog mauling a 9 year old
- OnLive Service Now Free But Games Are Not
- Iwata claims 3DS game prices “not far off” from DS prices
This weeks question ‘o the week: What do you think of in-game exploits both physical exploits and software? Should gamers be punished for such a thing?
Some of the big announcements from Sony’s E3 Press Conference
@ Halo Reach bans:
Why doesn’t Bungie make sure that there are no possible ways (or at least no easy ways) to exploit the game?
I mean the players can at this point be considered testers 😛
@Nintendogs blamed for dog mauling a 9 year old:
Oh man … what happened to common sense? Why the heck do you need prints on the coffee cup to tell you that the coffee is hot?
@OnLive Service Now Free: that’s the beginning of the end. Just like subscription MMOs going free before being shut down.
OnLive won’t work. People interested in playing games have the appropriate rig to do that.
Another thing working against OnLive is the fact that it doesn’t guarantee they’ll always have the game you purchased. Basically, you “buy” a game on OnLive, play it for a while, and if you want to play it again, 3 years later, you won’t be able to.
It’s the beginning of the end.
@user comments: you forgot squid and Tristan!
@Question of the week:
No, gamers should not be punished (too hard) for exploits of a game. If the game developer didn’t manage to plug in all possible ways of hacking, it’s the developer’s fault.
Now the problem here is that there are exploits and there are exploits. There are “God” modes and then there are in game credits exploits. Question is, where do you draw the line and say “ok, this is our fault” or “you’re hacking!”.
I would say that if the exploit directly affects gameplay (like God mode in death match games) then that’s a hack. But I would not consider hacking some sort of ‘noclip’ glitch that would alow you to go through the geometry of the level in order to avoid a fight. The level designer should have tested the map for this kind of exploits.
@ QotW – I agree with Herr Alien. If a developer fails to appropriately test a product, they deserve to be exploited for it. However, I draw the line in this respect at simple game mechanics. I have been a priest in WOW raids who deliberately stayed back, out of the main fight so as not to get combat tagged. This meant that I could save a druid battle res by picking up the cannon fodder (or rogues as they are better known) from max range. This was never meant to happen.
There are also many games, including WOW, that have lots of enemy encounters you can skip by wall walking, remaining outside the range and awareness of the mobs.
I even remember Super Star Wars on the SNES. There was a gun powerup for killing a set number of enemies. This meant that you could hide in a safe spot and simply autofire on a spawn point, then go and watch a tv show. You’d come back 20 minutes later with a maxed out weapon.
The problem is the viral nature of the internet. Someone finds out about a glitch, exposes it, and it is around the world in seconds.
@ The previous Medal of Honor story – The “Taliban” name in multiplayer has been dropped due to pressure from fans.
Another topic (I don’t have time to link a new forum post) that I thought you’d like, is about Best Buy. Have you heard that in some stores, they are charging people $30 to upgrade the firmware! That’s as bad as one of the supermarkets in UK charging £35 for APB, when the game has all but shut down!
Nothing like making a profit out of people who are too stupid to know any better. I bet these people think their CD-ROM tray is a cup holder!
Exploits are a part of the game until they are fixed. If you exploited a path to get onto a ledge no one else can, to have an advantage in a first person shooter, then thats part of the game until it is fixed.
The only exploits that are punishable i think are network exploits and hardware exploits, such as disconnects, drop hacking other players, speed hacking, etc..
Any type of in-game exploits such as exploiting a mobs script, exploiting pathing to get to new terrain, or to trick mobs, is a part of the game and are not punishable. That is the fault of the company for letting those bugs slip in the game and players will/should be allowed to use these bugs until they are fixed.
Now in mmo’s with gold duping, i think this is maybe the only exception, no bans, but definitely a removal of gold duped.
Sorry, I missed this comment as it was in my pending approval queue, probably because it was your first post and the system doesn’t “trust” you yet. It should now 😉
@ QotW
I completely agree that developers/publishers should never ban people for ingame exploits. They need to patch their games pronto and take responsibility themselves. However I have no problems with dedicated server hosts enforcing their own rules regarding exploits as they normally have the rules available upon entering a server and explain the situation to offenders well before getting to the banning stage. This doesn’t stop a player playing their game, just on that particular server.
On a related not: Blizzard have decided to 1-up Bungie and have begun banning single player players of StarCraft 2 who have used game trainers.
Source: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/10/11/blizzard-bans-singleplayer-cheaters/1
That’s just wrong… and their justification is
“While single player games only appear to be you and a computer at first, your achievements and gamer score also carries weight and prestige for your online play”
When did the tacked on achievements become more important than someones enjoyment of their own SP game?
To clarify a bit better, gamerscore and achievements in SC2 serve only to unlock ingame avatars (with the majority only unlockable thru multiplayer achievements), and increase ones e-peen. They serve absolutly no purpose in matchmaking and ladder play.
Ohh well, that itch for possibly resubscribing to wow for cataclysm has certainly gone, so perhaps this has had a good ending for my bank balllance atleast.