MMO’s+and+Cheating

Cheaters beware-your MMO’s are being watched!

http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/news/2007/11/mmo_cheats

If you like making cheats or using cheats in your games, you better watch out, game makers are starting to use security and fraud-detection software once only used in the banking industry to find and prosecute cheat makers and users.

Some cheats just try to enhance their character or status, but there's also real-world money to be made selling in-world objects like armor, real estate or currency.

There is even discussion of prosecution for some of the cheating offences. What do you think about gaming software using programs such as the //Streambase// technology discussed in the article listed above?

Do you think that there really is a problem that requires such action? __-__ Cory C.

As an avid online-gamer myself, I've seen quite a few cheaters in action, not to mention used a couple myself. And I must say, this is one of the most ingenious methods of stopping cheaters I've heard of in awhile...at least, those cheaters who do not know how to cover their tracks. Seeing as how these programs only pick up on something that's way over the norm, a smart cheater could, for example, give him self a small amount of currency every day (no more than what the hardcore farmers could gain) untill he has amassed a large fortune. Of course, it would not be nearly as quick as giving himself all that currency at once, but in the end he still gets it done and sells it on ebay.

They will definitely have to change up programs like Streambase quite a bit to catch the true cheaters, the ones who know how to not get caught.