Of Videogames and Visualisations

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Cheating through Graphics

I play Wolfenstein Enemy Territory a fair bit, and I hate cheats. Getting fragged by a good player is one thing, but when their shooting becomes all too accurate it's a bit suspect. That's not to say I reckon all accurate shooters are using "hax" but perhaps they've tweaked the game's cvars to the extreme so that aiming becomes easier. Punkbuster should pick up on any illegal cvar tampering but alas, I wonder if any get through.

On the topic of modifying cvars to aim better, how about cvars that change the graphics of the game. For example, getting rid of foliage off trees so that you can see players on the other side. I don't know if this is one of Punkbuster's disallowed tweaks, but it got me thinking that a fair amount of hax and tweaks for games involve the visual aspect of the game. Players who can see their victims before their victims see them are at an obvious advantage. There's plenty of other tweaks like adding highlighting for enemy players, so you're less likely to shoot your own team, etc. It would be good if Punkbuster weren't necessary, and if the games were programmed in such a way as the only information available to players was the stuff they should see, and nothing more. No extra graphics, no graphics about things you're not really supposed to see. I'm not sure about the technical side of things, and whether the current state of affairs is down to the way games and graphics are intertwined. I'll have to find out.

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