Tip.It Times - 26th June 2011

[Range_This11]

That is a pretty big "what-if" hypothetical. I would find it far more likely that a player who cheats to gain one item will realize how easy cheating is and continue to cheat to attain other items or levels. The "greater good" argument makes sense, but apply it to the real world. If a politician stole a million dollars to fund his or her campaign because he or she really wanted to make a difference but could not be asked to do the required work necessary to raise a million dollars, would we consider that to be acceptable? Absolutely not.

[Dire_Wolf]

@Ethic article

Your right that Ethic should be practised when you face "No big deal" scenarios.

 

As for cheating and macroing in Runescape? If you weren't busy with playing Runescape or talking on AIM perhaps you wouldn't had to cheat?

 

Many players use excessive amount of time to level up their character in a honest way and what do they get for that? Problems, problems and problems. Runescape is not life, and i gurantee you that there is many players who find Runescape an alternativ life. And there is differences between real life and a game. I give back stuff with big value to people. Why? Because i see into my own mind "How would i bet treated?(spellcheck last word). Just 3/4 dollar scenario that i MAY ignore (doubt it though).

 

Cheating and Macroing in Runescape is not the worst problem, Jagex being money greedy is. As member you pay Jagex for Runescape member content. So by paying your entitled to the content. So why show extraordinary respect for something your paying them to do? Give respect to Jagex when they give small updates to F2PS, when they listen to and credit players for their suggestions or when they focus on Runescape 100% a year.

 

I am indifferent about macros.

I find bug abuse very bad.

But the biggest problem is Jagex not carring

[kamykazee]

That is a pretty big "what-if" hypothetical. I would find it far more likely that a player who cheats to gain one item will realize how easy cheating is and continue to cheat to attain other items or levels. The "greater good" argument makes sense, but apply it to the real world. If a politician stole a million dollars to fund his or her campaign because he or she really wanted to make a difference but could not be asked to do the required work necessary to raise a million dollars, would we consider that to be acceptable? Absolutely not.

 

What if he/she actually DID turned out to make a difference? Would 1 million dollars be that costly if that politician did indeed turn out to be a man of quality?

 

I'll give you another example. While this isn't exactly cheating, it is related - pirating. Alot of people can't afford, for example, to pay 600$ to use Photoshop, hence they will get it from a torrent or whatever. Assume that some of them actually like doing it and turn out eventually doing it for a living - they will eventually end up buying it if they're really into it, hence giving the company a batch of loyal customers, correct?

On the other hand, the majority will fiddle around with photoshop for a little, make some stuff, get bored, put it away, move on. Has the company been harmed in any way because of this? I would say it has in fact gained benefit because that person might tell his/her friends about Photoshop, whom in terms might end up trying it, a percent of which might end up in the afore-mentioned category that buy it because they are really into it. Wouldn't that eventually turn out to be for the greater good? If they didn't have the means to get a pirated copy in the first place, the company would probably have a much more restricted customer base.

[Articultural]

@Ethic article

Your right that Ethic should be practised when you face "No big deal" scenarios.

 

As for cheating and macroing in Runescape? If you weren't busy with playing Runescape or talking on AIM perhaps you wouldn't had to cheat?

 

Many players use excessive amount of time to level up their character in a honest way and what do they get for that? Problems, problems and problems. Runescape is not life, and i gurantee you that there is many players who find Runescape an alternativ life. And there is differences between real life and a game. I give back stuff with big value to people. Why? Because i see into my own mind "How would i bet treated?(spellcheck last word). Just 3/4 dollar scenario that i MAY ignore (doubt it though).

 

Cheating and Macroing in Runescape is not the worst problem, Jagex being money greedy is. As member you pay Jagex for Runescape member content. So by paying your entitled to the content. So why show extraordinary respect for something your paying them to do? Give respect to Jagex when they give small updates to F2PS, when they listen to and credit players for their suggestions or when they focus on Runescape 100% a year.

 

I am indifferent about macros.

I find cheating a bad problem.

But the biggest problem is Jagex not carring

 

Macroing is cheating, how you can you indifferent about something and find it a 'bad problem'?

[Range_This11]

That is a pretty big "what-if" hypothetical. I would find it far more likely that a player who cheats to gain one item will realize how easy cheating is and continue to cheat to attain other items or levels. The "greater good" argument makes sense, but apply it to the real world. If a politician stole a million dollars to fund his or her campaign because he or she really wanted to make a difference but could not be asked to do the required work necessary to raise a million dollars, would we consider that to be acceptable? Absolutely not.

 

What if he/she actually DID turned out to make a difference? Would 1 million dollars be that costly if that politician did indeed turn out to be a man of quality?

If it is okay for one politician to cheat on fundraising, then it would have to be okay for all politicians to do so and we all know that most politicians are not interested in pursuing the greater good. Cheating is dishonest and dishonesty does not belong anywhere near "the greater good".

[kamykazee]

If it is okay for one politician to cheat on fundraising, then it would have to be okay for all politicians to do so

 

You see, that is where we need to define where we draw the line; We would need to define whom this person may be (there must be one person like this out of a whole 7 billion, mustnt there?) and if he truly posses qualities and would bring benefits which would merit allowing such 'cheating', in order for the greater good.

Judging by the statement you made, we could formulate something similar in the likes 'If we let one person into University then we have to let all who applied in', which clearly doesn't happen, atleast here.

 

I won't make any more replies on this since we have derailed too much lol.

[Master_Smither]

Great articles this week. Completely agreed with the Ethics article :). We had a discussion similiar to this on another macroing thread, but I don't remember which one (there are so many).

[Dire_Wolf]

Macroing is cheating, how you can you indifferent about something and find it a 'bad problem'?

Ok, then i will rephrase. I am indifferent about cheating, but find bug abuse very bad. There you go :thumbup:

[Schizzo]

Nice tip.it times again!

 

I really like the article about Runescape in it's first year, fun to read people actually dropped their partyhats. And of course 5 people in all runescape having a rune platebody!:o

[sees_all1]

One more story to share that I couldn't tie in the article nicely, this one was more recent at my university.

 

Pretty much most engineering majors have to take a class in programming. The languages of choice are Matlab, and then C. Since there are so many students taking this class (probably about 600-800 at once under one professor), everything has to be standardized to be fair. In order to do that, assignments are standardized (i.e. everyone get the same assignments). The professor also tends to reuse assignments. You can see the problem here. You have a large volume of students year after year taking the same class and doing the same assignments.

 

The first day of class, the professor warns everyone that they have algorithms put in place to detect cheating, and your best bet is to do the assignments yourself (where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, JaGEx's macro "detection" software). Anyhow, the professor warns everyone and continually repeats it throughout the first week - if you cheat, you will be caught, you will fail the course, you will be sent to the dean of students with a recommendation that they kick you out.

 

Some students take it seriously, others are skeptical. Still others shrug it off, thinking that there's no way they can tell. When the C programming section of the course starts again, the professor warns everyone once again. If you cheat, you will be caught, you will be kicked out of school. At this point in time, no one has yet to be kicked out, so the cheaters were probably laughing it off. It wasn't until our second programming assignment was graded that a strange thing happened. About 10% of the lecture hall was strangely absent.

 

The professor then went on to make an announcement, and told us that about 50 students were flunked from the course on the grounds of cheating, and that nearly every one of them were going to be kicked out of the university. The professor wasn't bluffing, he did have software in place to catch cheaters, and he did catch them.

 

You may be thinking this wasn't a scenario that directly affected me - but you'd be wrong. As it turns out, that professor graded to a curve, and all these students that were dismissed weren't counted into the curve. That meant that the 5% of the students that were likely to flunk the course anyway, and the other 5% that were likely to do par were out as well. That made it all the more difficult to rise against the rest of the class (those that knew what they were doing).

 

So yeah, heads up. If a computer science professor tells you they have software that detects cheating, they probably do.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

...So yeah, heads up. If a computer science professor tells you they have software that detects cheating, they probably do.

 

Depends on the professor. I've tutored CS before, and some of the professors, while experts in procedural languages, wouldn't know where to begin coding something like that.

 

But for the most part, interesting tale. Computer Science and Software Engineering is definitely one of those areas in which ethics plays a huge role. If you're not ethical, you're typically out of a job (or off the campus).

[sees_all1]

The way he described a "percent match" leads me to believe his algorithm was simple... something along the lines of it stripped the comments out of the programs, obfuscated the code, then diffed it against what everyone else turned it.

Could even be simpler with bracket matching. It doesn't have to be perfect, just close enough to highlight similar ones.

[Salad]

First article was very interesting, and gives a different aspect on botting and cheating in general, not just in Runescape.

 

I enjoyed it a lot.

[Range_This11]

If it is okay for one politician to cheat on fundraising, then it would have to be okay for all politicians to do so

 

You see, that is where we need to define where we draw the line; We would need to define whom this person may be (there must be one person like this out of a whole 7 billion, mustnt there?) and if he truly posses qualities and would bring benefits which would merit allowing such 'cheating', in order for the greater good.

Judging by the statement you made, we could formulate something similar in the likes 'If we let one person into University then we have to let all who applied in', which clearly doesn't happen, atleast here.

 

I won't make any more replies on this since we have derailed too much lol.

Acceptance to (most) Universities is based on merit. The cheating/ethical situation does not really apply.

[SwreeTak]

Another good edition of the Times. I agree completely with the ethics article. As the authour states in this article, one of the biggest problem is that so many people doesn't care about bots. I can admit that sometimes I skip reporting bots, because they're simply too many or because I have already reported the same bot over 9000 times before (it feels like that anyway). But we can't give up the fight against the bots. We need to keep reporting and need to keep taking this discussion. It's great to see that the Times shine light upon this. Good work!

[Articultural]

Macroing is cheating, how you can you indifferent about something and find it a 'bad problem'?

Ok, then i will rephrase. I am indifferent about cheating, but find bug abuse very bad. There you go :thumbup:

 

Bug abuse is cheating too.

[FatalP3rfection]

This was a very interesting read, however "ethics" in the real wold are much different than what they teach you in school. Here is an example of what I mean.

 

I was eating lunch during school and I spotted a 10$ bill on the floor. I quickly jumped up to run over and snatch it before anyone else had a chance to see it was there. I made a quick decision in my mind to turn it over to the vice principal who was supervising the lunch, because it was the right thing to do. So I gave it to her and she announced that someone had found some money on the floor and if it was your's come to me and claim it. Well, to make a long story short no one claimed it and she kept the $10...

 

Therefore, when I spy some loose change or a stray dollar on the floor, I take it and keep it. Sure it may not be the right thing to do, it is better then being screwed by someone who you think would do the right thing.

[MUSKETEER]

For me ethics is best understood when you stand it on its head. The less important the rule is, the more important it is to follow it. The more important the rule is, the more important it is to know when to break it. That's the hardest part about ethics. Walking off with ten cents extra change is so simple. So it takes focus and determination not to do it. Knowing when to break a major law takes extraordinary courage and wisdom. Those who operated the Underground Railroad. Those who hid Jews from Nazis. Those who sat in the white sections of buses and restaurants. Those who occupied Tienamin Square. Trouble-makers, rabble rousers, insurrectionists, traitors. Be one.

[Owned_Nex]

Nice article, but I have to disagree with the conclusion drawn from the examples of three bug abuses(the penguin glitch, the dungeoneering runecrafting glitch, the mu glitch). It is not the length of time that causes attention and care from the general population, it is the magnitude of the act. The penguin glitch wasn't just a bot that ran for 1000 days without getting caught. It was about people getting levels 1000x faster. For those gained hundreds of points, levels were basically instant. With the Dungoneering Glitch, RC exp was much faster. Again, it wasn't just a bot that could run for 100 days without getting banned, it was the EXP rate. Lastly, the mu glitch was simply astronomical compared to everyday botters. The ability to log people out allowed people such as Pkers and Stakers to make immense amounts of money. This in turn was directly stealing from the banks of legitimate players. Obviously this would intice a response stronger than a level 3 sorcerer's garden bot.

Bottom line, 1000x exp for one hour>1000 hours of botting. Not the time, but magnitude.

[sees_all1]

Nice article, but I have to disagree with the conclusion drawn from the examples of three bug abuses(the penguin glitch, the dungeoneering runecrafting glitch, the mu glitch). It is not the length of time that causes attention and care from the general population, it is the magnitude of the act. The penguin glitch wasn't just a bot that ran for 1000 days without getting caught. It was about people getting levels 1000x faster. For those gained hundreds of points, levels were basically instant. With the Dungoneering Glitch, RC exp was much faster. Again, it wasn't just a bot that could run for 100 days without getting banned, it was the EXP rate. Lastly, the mu glitch was simply astronomical compared to everyday botters. The ability to log people out allowed people such as Pkers and Stakers to make immense amounts of money. This in turn was directly stealing from the banks of legitimate players. Obviously this would intice a response stronger than a level 3 sorcerer's garden bot.

Bottom line, 1000x exp for one hour>1000 hours of botting. Not the time, but magnitude.

In my opinion, the only difference between a bug abuser and a macroer is the length of time they break the rules. One might be scandalous for a weekend (they'll burn bright in full view of everyone), while the other is a common occurrence (they'll smolder for weeks on end).

I'm not sure we disagree?

[jaklumen]

Re: #1 "They Shaped My View on Ethics":

 

I'm simply impressed that sees_all1 listed examples of his own of cheating, both in Runescape and day-to-day life (such as school). (+1 on top of that, as I see he has listed other examples of his own in this thread.) I haven't met many, especially online, that are willing to do that. More often, I find people either trying to hide such things, or they will rationalize it away. "It's a game" of course is the most common rationalization for the RS examples.

 

For that, I believe this is a stellar article. I'll spare you any thoughts I have on principles, because I've seen it argued dozens upon scores upon hundreds of times on the Internet. If I was to dissect everything I've come across on that, I could write you all a doctoral dissertation on just that subject alone. I invite you to breathe a sigh of relief that I'm not interested in subjecting you to that boredom, especially the parts about the etymology of the words moral and ethic and how therefore claims that the two are different have no basis in what they originally meant or how they came to be used.

 

Re: #3 "Does RuneScape Have a Pro-Melee Bias? Part 3":

 

Actually, I had to go back to Part 2 (I'm behind on the articles at the moment), and found it odd that there was no mention of the sling or the salamander, which came to mind reading part 3. Yes, Jagex has a long way to go, but I think those two weapons were worth mentioning on how the gap has been bridged so far.

 

I admit that the sling is seen as a puny noob range weapon. The thing is, however, it requires no ammunition: the premise is that the player is gathering rocks and debris for projectiles. I see lower-end players training with a sling a lot more now, such as at cows, where before it would have been a bow and arrow or maybe a crossbow. The assertion that Range requires money/time for ammunition to begin training it just isn't so anymore.

 

The salamander (along with the chinchompa) I'm fairly sure came along because a Jagex developer thought that the statement "if every noob had what he wanted, they'd be running around with flamethrowers and grenades" (or something to that effect) was terribly funny and inspirational. While any ranged weapon can be used point blank, or close quarters, that is, the salamander was designed specifically for such (although I think it can reach through fences).

 

I'm an oddball player and for a time, I got very bored with melee training. The salamander was a great choice fighting monsters that could not be fought behind an obstacle. It was also good for situations that required changing combat styles, although I agree the Scorch style, which trains Strength, is pretty useless. So I used a black salamander to finish "While Guthix Sleeps", particularly against the Balance Elemental, although it was amusing to see how high it could hit with a godlike boost after touching the Stone of Jas. Although I went back to training melee with new weapons that suitably amused me (Guthan's Infestation set effect, the animation of the abyssal whip, etc.), I still enjoy training with salamanders from time to time.

 

Other than that, well, online RPG games have had a melee bias for a long time, all the way back to the old text muds. I do like ranged and magic combat in fantasy games, probably more so in Runescape-- but this bias does easily predate Jagex's game and I think it will be some time before this is significantly changed. (Just so you know, I'm not interested in World of Warcraft examples.)

[assanaut]

Sadly, I never go on the Tip.It site anymore due to the increasing knowledge base and ease of access RuneScape.Wikia provides, but I do go to this site for 3 reasons:

1: The Armor compare feature

2: The calculators

3: The Tip.It Times

I have never posted in the Tip.It forums, but I feel like sharing how well written the Tip.It times articles are written! I can compare myself to the writers of these perpetually pleasing yet pragmatic and philosophical stories/ arguments presented.

 

In "They Shaped My View on Ethics," it was a down to Earth examination and comparison of ethics in both RuneScape and the real world, something I thought was long abandoned by players.

 

In "Does RuneScape Have a Pro-Melee Bias?" (at the time of this writing, it is currently an unfinished work, with Part 4 due soon), was a surprisingly knowledgeable amalgamation of factoids, history, and meticulous calculations that only someone truthfully dedicated to to this site/ game would ever perform for the benefit of a simple article. I knew of the egregious imbalance in the combat triangle, but the writer Necromagus helped shine a light to the problem that had me really thinking about my combat choices in RuneScape.

 

In "Underhand Methods Always Fail," I thought I was alone in the sea of gullible RuneScape players that were liking the MLP. I felt betrayed by JaGeX because my loyalty has been with them for 5 years and all they have to give me is a meager amount of "Loyalty Points" that practically spits in my face for the money and time I have spent loyally playing their game while trying to coax me into spending more money for "stylish costumes." The array of unlockables is disappointing and just sickening; especially when JaGeX released the brand new auras ONLY OBTAINABLE FROM MLP! Sure there are throw-away auras like Odd-Ball and Friend in Need, but the auras Reverence, Sure-Footed, and Jack of Trades are broken! They allow another player to receive an in-game advantage that can only be obtainable by spending real world money (AKA: Real World Trading, a growing threat to RuneScape that JaGeX has tried to counter for years just to abandon it all in favor of making more money at the expense of the thing making their money: RuneScape! I feel that RuneScape is slowly but surely devolving into Club Penguin or any game produced by Zynga! After reading Crocefisso's article, I felt that I was not the only one thinking that JaGeX is on a slippery slope to being a gaming industry simply fueled by avarice instead of the intention to entertain.

 

I think your articles are very well thought-out and well-written, Tip.It Time Team, and I will continue to read your amazing and insightful articles in the future, as well as add a fourth reason to go to your website:

4: Post on the forums

[Tim]

My INSTANT thought to the first article:

 

[hide][/hide]

 

Basically what RS is slowly turning into.

[Rock Hard]

For me ethics is best understood when you stand it on its head. The less important the rule is, the more important it is to follow it. The more important the rule is, the more important it is to know when to break it. That's the hardest part about ethics. Walking off with ten cents extra change is so simple. So it takes focus and determination not to do it. Knowing when to break a major law takes extraordinary courage and wisdom. Those who operated the Underground Railroad. Those who hid Jews from Nazis. Those who sat in the white sections of buses and restaurants. Those who occupied Tienamin Square. Trouble-makers, rabble rousers, insurrectionists, traitors. Be one.

 

What a great first post. Don't agree with everything you said, but you said it very well.

[Viv]

This was a very interesting read, however "ethics" in the real wold are much different than what they teach you in school. Here is an example of what I mean.

 

I was eating lunch during school and I spotted a 10$ bill on the floor. I quickly jumped up to run over and snatch it before anyone else had a chance to see it was there. I made a quick decision in my mind to turn it over to the vice principal who was supervising the lunch, because it was the right thing to do. So I gave it to her and she announced that someone had found some money on the floor and if it was your's come to me and claim it. Well, to make a long story short no one claimed it and she kept the $10...

 

Therefore, when I spy some loose change or a stray dollar on the floor, I take it and keep it. Sure it may not be the right thing to do, it is better then being screwed by someone who you think would do the right thing.

Unless you saw who dropped it or the money was in an envelope cash really really doesnt have an owner...anyone can just claim "i lost 10 dollars" so its harder. Its different with things like notebooks , wallets, bookbags, keys ect.. or if you know who or had an idea of who lost it then you should have alot of guilt taking it....with the "quickly jumped up to run over and snatch it" kinda looks bad on your part and sounds more than just "finding" like if you were walking in the hallway .