While collusion might increase your odds, it won't give you god-like powers in the game, which is why hacks, file modifications, and aiming proxies are popular. This type of cheating frequently involves altering the software or the data files in some way, such as changing the enemies appearance so that they glow a bright color or become visible through walls. Proxy servers have also been used to insert instructions into the data stream going to the game server, giving cheaters superhuman aim. In many cases hacks are the result of reverse engineering the game, and end up being circulated on the Internet.
Bugs and exploits that were overlooked when the game was developed can also cause serious problems. If users find some way to crash the server, or cause severe latency, for example, you can bet it will become a poor sport's last line of defense when they find themselves facing a loss. It's the high-tech equivalent of knocking over the Monopoly board.
Occasionally, a radical adjustment to your system settings, like turning up the brightness or gamma on your monitor, can result in a small advantage. This is relatively rare, however, and tends to make the game look horrible, which is enough to discourage most people.
I should also mention that many accusations of cheating prove to be unwarranted. Almost everyone who is very accomplished at a skill-based game has been falsely accused of cheating at one time or another.
Who Can You Trust?
Downloading a hack for a game and installing it on your system is a lot riskier than it used to be. The fact is, hacks have become notorious for spreading a malicious assortment of viruses, trojans, and spyware. Quite often the hacks don't work as advertised, the author attempts to charge money for them, and they infect your machine with a trojan in an attempt to steal account information.
In researching this article, I found several alleged hacks for games, including World of Warcraft and Battlefield 2 (with Punkbuster), which turned out to be nothing more than phishing scams. To make a long story short, there is no honor among cheaters. It is ironic, however, that a cheater's worst enemy may wind up being... other cheaters!
Fighting for Fair Play
The good news is that cheating has become significantly more difficult in recent years. Not only have game developers found better ways to secure their products, third-party software has also made large advances in sniffing out and banning cheaters. These efforts include Valve Anti-cheat (VAC), Cheating Death, HLGuard, and the ever-popular Punkbuster. As well as performing automatic checks for known cheats, some of these programs give server admininstrators powerful tools with which to investigate suspected cheaters. This can mean finding out what software a person is running in addition to the game, and even the capability to grab screenshots from the suspects machine.
Of course, despite advancements on the side of fair play, the war against cheaters is an ongoing battle. Some hackers see anti-cheat mechanisms as a challenge, and they will go to great lengths to compromise the anti-cheat software as well as the game. When a new way to beat the system becomes known, programs are updated to combat the problem. Sometimes a cheat will work for only a few days before an effective countermeasure is put in place.
Be aware that there is a small price to pay for fair play in terms of privacy. The user agreements attached to most MMORPGs these days give the game operators quite a bit of freedom to determine what suspect players are up to, and tools like Punkbuster are capable of probing your system pretty thoroughly. Generally, the people doing the investigating are trustworthy and interested only in maintaining the integrity of the game, but the potential for abuse is there. Most gamers consider this risk acceptable, but it's always wise to keep any really sensitive information on your computer encrypted.
At the end of the day, it's a lot more satisfying to win while following the rules than it is to win using some cheap hack or exploit, so if you're here looking for ways to cheat in online games, I hope I've given you some reasons to reconsider.
