UKTerrorist

Counter-Strike and cheating.....

In the very early days of CS there was only the hardcore group of players who had given up TFC and decided to hear this mod out. Most of the players were LPB's and there were few servers. As a CS newbie back then I was an HPB and was to be honest, crap.

The thought never popped into my head to accuse any of the other players of cheating. Even though they had a 40 ping and I was lagging away at 350 I just moaned about the unfair teams if anything. Whether or not those players I encountered were cheating will be a mystery because there were a fair share of cheats and exploits back then. gm_ilovefanny the round restarter etc. I would bet that people also knew about gl_zmax back then too.

Nevertheless when cheats were probably at their HIGHEST no one complained. People just had fun and enjoyed this exciting new modification. With each beta it got better and still the accusations of cheating remained low. Around beta 5 I think gl_zmax (see through walls) became known and that started the ball rolling. gl_zmax wasn't widely used, but the majority of regular players at least knew about it. I for one used it on a few occasions, but not in clan matches for *SD* I might add.

At beta 5 CS was arguably at its prime. It was one big hype show. All the online / off-line gaming magazines had nothing but praise for the mod and the coverage was astounding. Apart from gl_zmax, people were on the whole too busy playing the game than worrying about "cheats".

Then all of a sudden the spike model cheat popped up. This cheat involved changing the player models with either huge blocks or standard players with spikes coming form all directions so you could see them coming around corners etc. There were variations including huge gun models so that the guns stuck out for miles. Pictures appeared on the CS forums and the game public was angry that this was happening. Beta 6 was released to a hungry gaming public with great expectation and bombed heavily. The whole game dynamics had been altered. New maps replaced old favorites, new game modes had major flaws and the run speed was cut in half and finally the gun aiming system was completely changed. The players were pissed off with this and CS to this day has never recovered.

Cheaters want attention, that is why they cheat. They may be crap players who need the extra edge, they may be bored with the current game or they may just want to have a laugh at the expense of others. But the fact remains they love the attention that cheating brings. With Counter-Strike being the most popular game at that moment the cheat creators were obviously drawn to it because they can get a far wider audience than by messing up Q3/UT and so on.

There are other factors I think have made CS the most hacked game ever. Being a mod it hasn't a professional group of coders working on it. Granted Barking Dog added a bit to the code in Beta 5, but the majority of the code was done by an amateur - Gooseman. The sheer amount of bugs made it so easy to exploit. Also the fact that it is based on the old Quake engine doesn't help, as I understand the source code for this has been released so the hackers/exploiters have the opportunity to get deeper into the game.

Shortly after the release of Beta 6 the cheats came out in force. The now infamous fortresscheats released a working wallhack. The spiked model cheaters made a revenge and dozens of other console scripts and cheats were widely available. Examples are the team change script, lambert, walk cheat... I could go on. These cheats put a dent in the credibility of Counter-Strike and then when various clanbase clans were caught cheating whole clans have been accused of cheating, simply because of their success.

Version 6.5 then came along with the joke netcode and a whole new set of "fixer uppers" to stop the cheats...or so they thought. Welcome the Proxies. Proxy programs, that is programs that operate from a separate .exe and change packets sent to the server, bypassing HL (forgive me if I get the technicalities of this incorrect) were created to do various things. There was the proxy for enabling spiked models, one for stopping smoke grenades and then there was the infamous headshot bot.

Until very recently if anyone was being called a cheat it would be a "headshot bot/script/proxy" cheat. I have tried a couple of the more widely available proxies and they are shite...they don't work at all. Without a doubt though I reckon there are a few proper headshot proxy programs about but not shared by anyone but the creaters friends. Just like with any game mod there is always going to be a few people who have cracked the code or found the exploit that enables them to do this. Of course they would never release it. Why? Because if it is released everyone will be aware of it and it will be patched. By keeping quiet they can use the cheat without "detection" even on "pure" servers with proxy scanners. I doubt that any highly rated clans have access to these because the admins would detect the constant high quality of the players and more likely the fact that all the top rated clans play at LAN parties. And obviously no one can cheat at those. There is also the high likelyhood that the knowledge of these cheats would be leaked.

So, I have pointed out the cheats of the past, and why I think there are so many cheats now. But one thing that astounds me is that the top clans still get accused of cheating. I'm going to take an example that I know all the facts about, my clan 4Kings / B!TCH. I have been with 4Kings to 2 LAN events and played on PC's provided by the event, one didn't even allow us access to our configs. Yet at both, serious accusations of cheating were made and at one even the admins had to check through the entire server logs to prove our innocence. But WHY do Counter-Strike players get accused of cheating so frequently? Again there are a few possible reasons for this in my eyes.

The simple fact is the huge number of cheats that have plagued Counter-Strike in its past and present have hurt the mod. When you shoot your enemy for the 3rd time in a row they get pissed off, I feel the same way when it happens to me. I just take a moment to try and calm down and move on. But others even highly experienced players say "cheater!!!" and the other players listen, and due to the shady past of CS and the fact they have most probably been screwed bye cheater before they stick up for them. To be honest I have called other players cheaters in my ignorance, [marine]b0b for example. This just goes to show that even experienced players do worry about cheating because of the points discussed above.

One final reason for people being called cheats is the "random" value of Counter-Strike. With instant headshot deaths even a newbie can wipe out 2 pro clanners with his TMP. There is nothing more infuriating than being wasted by a lucky shot from someone not even aiming for you, but you just have a take a deep breath and chill.

To conclude, I feel that in the majority of cases the person being accused of cheating on a server is probably not doing anything wrong. He could be playing better than you or just be having a good day, but because of the number of cheats, bugs and exploits that have made up Counter-Strike's past you feel inclined to go for the easy excuse for your death. Not skill, not luck but cheating.

Oh and bunnyhopping is NOT a script by the way.