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This is a list of online multiplayer games, and the known online multiplayer cheats that can occur on them.
Because Aliens vs. Predator 2 uses the Lithtech netcode, it is vulnerable to same hacks and cheats as other Lithtech engine multiplayer games (such as No One Lives Forever). Because of this, hacks and cheats in the online multiplayer experience are somewhat common, but most are fairly obvious and easy to recognize.
- Flying Players: This hack allows the cheater's character to "fly" around the map, as though they had the noclip cheat on. This allows them to move at a greater rate of speed and reach inaccessible areas from which it can be difficult to attack them from.
Because Counter-Strike uses the Half-Life engine's netcode, it is vulnerable to the same hacks and cheats as Half-life. The Counter-Strike team is largely dependent on Valve Software to address such issues through patches to the Half-Life engine. Because of the immense popularity of Counter-Strike, attempts to hack it are prevalent, but this is counter-balanced by the fact that watchdogs and close scrutiny of the netcode are also prevalent. As a result, hacks may be encountered in the online player experience, but they are relatively uncommon on public servers.
- Buffer Overflow Exploit: This was a Half-Life engine exploit, a form of wallhack that allowed the cheater to create transparent walls by overflowing their graphics card zbuffer using a built-in Half-Life engine command-line code. Because it was so simple to implement and required no seperate client-loader program or alteration of the game's code, it was a particularly widespread and pernicious cheat (although its full extent can never be known due to its relatively subtle nature). Valve addressed the issue in a patch for Half-Life, and this particular wallhack no longer is an issue for servers using the post-patch engine.
- Christmas Tree Characters: In this cheat, the cheater alters the character models stored in his computer so that their skin is an extremely bright color, and they have extremely long spikes sticking out of them (causing them to look like walking Christmas trees rather than humans). Only the cheater sees the altered models, because only the files on his computer have been altered. Although not as effective as a wallhack, this cheat nonetheless allows the cheater to spot enemies attempting to hide in the dark, as well as spot them through walls (since the spikes clip through any wall the altered model stands next to). This issue has been addressed in updated versions of the game, which do not allow you to enter play without anything other than the game's default models.
- Playing with Gravity: In the Half-Life engine, the host server has control over the status of the game, including such factors as friction and gravity. A malicious server administrator can alter these factors to harm his opponents. He can reverse gravity so that the enemy team is sent flying hundreds of feet into the air, then restore it so that they crash down to Earth and die. He can also alter the floor friction so that enemy players either slip several dozen feet with each step, or are frozen in place. Because these alterations are extremely obvious and affect all characters (including those on the admin's own team), it is not particularly effective for the purposes of cheating, and is fairly uncommon (although an admin can use it to punish the players on his server if they annoy him).
Halo (PC Version)
Halo's netcode is completely server-side (as opposed to the Quake engine's client-side netcode), which makes hacks and cheats extremely difficult to implement. The "game rules" are stored entirely on the host's computer, rather than being stored on each player's computer as in a client-side netcode game. As a result, online cheating in Halo (or at least those cheats blantant enough to be obvious) is almost non-existent, and there is controversy as to whether or not any cheats or hacks exist at all. There are, however, exploits within the game engine itself which can be utilized, and the game's host can alter the netcode to give himself an added advantage.
- Extra Weapon Damage: This is a server-side hack in which the game's host alters the damage that the weapon he is holding can do, for example creating a plasma rifle that kills with one shot. This cheat can go undetected, as it can be relatively subtle as well as due to the commonly held mythos that "there are no cheats in Halo" that causes many players killed by it to dismiss it as simply bad luck on their part. However, since it can only be initiated by an administrator of the host computer, it is relatively uncommon.
- Lag Jumping: With this exploit, when the cheater is threatened (i.e. fired upon or about to be run over by a vehicle) they deliberately cause themselves to lag. As a result, their on-screen avatar will blink in-and-out of the game world and appear to teleport several feet, making them difficult to hit.
- Wall jumping: On the map "Danger Canyon", two opposing teams start on opposite sides of a canyo. Behind each team's base is a large wall. If one player stands next to the wall and has a teammate slam into them at high speed with a vehicle, that player is propelled through the wall and emerges on the opposite side, at the wall behind the enemy team's base. This allows the exploit user to skip the canyon entirely, creating a shortcut to the enemy team's flag. Because this exploit is clearly outside what the map designers intended, most players consider it a cheat even though no alternation to the game code is required to use it.
XBox Live is not impervious to cheats, as these instances demonstrate.
- Lag Kill Cheat: This is an XBox Live modem exploit that allows a cheater to cause all other players to go into standby mode while the cheater remains active within the game. As a result, everyone else in the gameworld is frozen in place (with their televisions displaying a loading screen), while the cheater is free to run around killing players or stealing their flags. Bungie has addressed this exploit and threatened to terminate the accounts of any players who utilize it. Fortunately, it is extremely obvious when it is used.
The Lithtech engine uses a client-size netcode, making it vulnerable to hacks and cheats. Coupled with the relatively small number of players online at any given time, and cheating is relatively common in the online play experience.
- Rapid fire hack: This is a hack that alters the cheater's slow-firing weapons so that instead they fire rapidly. This allows the cheater to fire powerful weapons (such as the rocket launcher or rocket pistol) at a high rate of speed without the need to take a few seconds to reload after each shot.
Iron Storm
- Speed hack: This hack allows the cheater to move several times faster than a regular player.
- Play as a Sark: This was an exploit in the initial release of the game, in which the cheater could altered the game files to allow himself to play as a Sark character. The Sarks were major enemies from the end of the single-player game, and in the multiplayer game they were significantly more powerful than the normal human characters that online players were supposed to be limited to. This exploit was addressed in a patch that altered the code of the Sark characters in multiplayer so that they weren't more powerful than the regular human characters. Servers running using the post-patch engine no longer encounter this exploit.
See Also
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