From the Dark Side...

[GameWizard]

Re: From the Dark Side...

I stand by my deleted comments. Hackers/Cheaters are the lowest of scum in the gaming community. The fact that they dont want to enjoy the game like everyone else and ruin the gaming experience for everyone else just shows how pathetic they are as human beings.

You can believe what you want, but you have to grow to understand and accept it. Cheating will be part of any game community.

[DakotaDoc64]

Re: From the Dark Side...

I have to side with the TBF2 staff on putting this up. Anyone saying this post is "supporting hacking" or "saying it's right" is a fool. Yes, there are some morons out there that hack with the only intent but to make people angry, it's a fact of online gaming, and if you haven't accepted it by now, you, again, are a fool and very naive.

Hacking is sadly a part of online gaming; hacking was much worse when the now much hated Punk Buster did not exist. However, I categorize this with dancing with the devil. Not saying EA = God in this comparison, far from it. But there was some useful information here. I just had to hold my nose while I was wading through the text "From the Dark Side".

Now, I have to admit it's not like I have never been to his web site to try and figure out how to detect his hacks and punish those that lack skills and use them, along with wasting good money on this crap.

[Wreck0]

Re: From the Dark Side...

I used to have the numbers on the amount of hackers who actually get hired by big name companies like AT&T or Norton due to their honed skills. Hell, there was a case about 6 years ago where a kid hacked into some government mainframe and now he works for the Pentagon.

Before you bash these people, maybe you should view it in a different light, considering 95% of you have never encountered someone who hacked, come to the understanding that these people probably have some serious skills on the computer.

Should they be praised? No. Should they be the butt of baseless jokes? No. They should be seen as what they are. It's just like the title says, "From the Dark Side". You've all seen Star Wars. Doesn't the Dark side have skills too?

The dark side in Star Wars doesn't try to take the moral high ground with mushy-headed contradictory rationalization. They just admit they're bad, and take what they want. The interviewee tried to justify his cheating without addressing how he reduces the enjoyment of those who believe a fair game is the most enjoyable game of all. And to top it all off he seems to believe fair is good for some games (Brood Wars), but fails to apply that feeling to BF2. That's far more disturbing than a simple "yeah I cheat, so what's it to ya?".

[sknight]

Re: From the Dark Side...

The dark side in Star Wars doesn't try to take the moral high ground with mushy-headed contradictory rationalization. They just admit they're bad, and take what they want. The interviewee tried to justify his cheating without addressing how he reduces the enjoyment of those who believe a fair game is the most enjoyable game of all. And to top it all off he seems to believe fair is good for some games (Brood Wars), but fails to apply that feeling to BF2. That's far more disturbing than a simple "yeah I cheat, so what's it to ya?".

Well yeah....he's a sleezeball.

Our only hope is that this will lead to making anti-cheat methods stronger. Similar to how security breaches in companies somehow force the company to eventually become more secure.

Edit: to add something useful to my post.

[MeNoPausE]

Re: From the Dark Side...

Another way that cheats can destroy an entire gaming community is that the more hackers you encounter, the more you become suspicious of regular glitches in the game and lag that make you think more people are hacking then there really are. Thats why you see people on servers constantly whining "HAX!" and this definately diminishes community sizes after awhile. It just gets annoying to think everyone is cheating you or to be called a haxor cause someones isp hiccupped.

As far as posting this interview, you have to realize there is no such thing as bad press. By posting this interview you are educating many but at the same time giving him props and building his street cred. We will probably see Maz around the scene for a long time to come and I garuantee this helped him, more than it helped us. But def. an interesting read.

[Sir. SashDaMan]

Re: From the Dark Side...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but no where does it actually specify who he really is, and where he is from. If anything, I'm not advertising anything directly. You don't see any glorification or links posted to hacks.

I know who he is and where he is from :)

[Green_Player]

Re: From the Dark Side...

Yah I didn't want to complain but because it is on the front page and it is from a cheater I will.
Dicitonary.com Bookmark it and add it as an extension to firefox, so whenever you are typing you can type the word in the search box in FF for dictionary.com and check it all in 5 seconds; it helps in the long run and you'll get enjoyment out of it..

There are the birds.
Their friends are coming over tonight.

* Their = possessive pronoun: They got their books.
* There = that place: My house is over there. (This is a place word, and so
it contains the word here.)
* They're = contraction for they are: They're making dinner. (Pronouns
have
apostrophes only when two words are being shortened into one.)


Here is a little help to everybody and the submitter of this article to check out

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_spelhomo.html

Anyways good job on the interview anyways. Now what might be interesting would be to have the best selected follow-up questions by the community.

Agreed, anyone know how to spell here? Oh wait, we are talking about a video game. A video game? Really, cause I swear people were talking about religion or something sacred. This is ridiculous!

p.s. hacking is bad

[Jake]

Re: From the Dark Side...

Interesting Read.

[DakotaDoc64]

Re: From the Dark Side...

It's the sign of a good interview if you can get a sparked debate or controversy from it :)

I personally found it to be an interesting interview. Obviously, it is a perspective that is completely opposed to my own, which is likely what made it interesting. I don't think I'll ever understand the personalities that would rather break than create though.

Some folks say that the sign of a truely great online game is how many fan sites, mods and cheaters it creates. Which makes BF2 pretty damn great!

Thanks for the interesting read, GW.

You have a point that I cannot dispute. However there is a lot of room for improvement.

[Fastmover]

Re: From the Dark Side...

To be honest I dont agree with cheating nor does my team, nor do we engage in it.However some of the info he does provide sheds some light on a couple things. Its pointless to get riled up about this guy...we all know cheats and hacks are out there...ppl use them...but anytime someone wants to brag about it and post about it on a website someewhere it just gives the non cheating community a little more info about how to police thier servers. I may not like the guy personally but (if his info is accurate and he ain't just blowing smoke) u have to respect the fact he does stand by what he does and he is actually giving us an insight into cheating and hacking.

[Wreck0]

Re: From the Dark Side...

u have to respect the fact he does stand by what he does and he is actually giving us an insight into cheating and hacking.

Nah, I don't have to respect that. Besides, he doesn't stand by what he says. He says cheating in BF2 = ok for some reason, cheating in Brood Wars = unholy for some reason. Seems pretty wishy washy to me.

[troybob]

Re: From the Dark Side...

You can believe what you want, but you have to grow to understand and accept it. Cheating will be part of any game community.

how does being derogetory help your point?

Absolute rubbish, alright, what is your source on that? Enlighten us.

Here's your enlightenment, you CAN'T prove it. No one is going to send a registration form in from a game purchase saying they bought the game because "I got caught cheating with my old CD key".

So who's this "expert" and you to say that it's a fact?

That's why its rubbish. It's simply a bad guess that is stated as fact when there is no fact behind it.

Still the logic follows that if they're CD key gets banned for cheating - they probably would've planned for that and have been using a false CD key.

But i guess we have to grow up and see it your way because we're all too feeble minded?

A great service you do for us all Gamewizard.

[GameWizard]

Re: From the Dark Side...

The term is "derogatory", and I'm not attempting to belittle the idea, I'm simply stating a fact that you can't seem to understand.

You're right, I can't prove it, because I don't have facts and paperwork. However, the only thing you can do if you want to come to a conclusion is weigh out both sides and look at which one makes more sense. The two sides provided here is yours which consists of pure profanity and absolutely no experience in this field.

Now, provided we already know that the person under discussion has a high position in the cheating community, I can assume he has a lot of experience with cheats and other cheaters. That said, who do you think I'm going to believe, someone with a basis of proof, or someone with no basis of proof?

So if anything, he may be wrong, but that doesn't make you any more right.

[|DKP|SmackDaddy]

Re: From the Dark Side...

But one thing is for sure.. GameWizard couldnt possibly be wrong, after all, he is a Teenage Moderator on BF2 with all kinds of real life experience. And great spell checking abilities! WOOOT!

[troybob]

Re: From the Dark Side...

ok so lets assume that cheating is good because if people get caught they have to buy the game again. Go ea.

Either way - that's not my main argument.

That still doesn't explain why a community site would post an interview on the front page of the site about a cheater and his views on cheating.

Now you can sit there and make assumptions on my "experience". I still don't give a crap about how this guy runs his cheating orginization. It's the same reason people (in western countries like ours) don't publish videos of Al Queda and their "message".

There's a thing called freedom of speech. There is also a thing called responsibility.

I think you dropped the ball on this one gamewizard. Nothing shames this site more than having such blatant (i'm sorry - did i spell that wrong too?) disgregard for the sanctitiy of BF2 and the thousands of honest players out there.

Your encouraging something that no site should - cheating. You can't convince me of anything else. It's not educational. It's not enlightening. It's a message from the enemy that you are allowing him to carry.

Again - a nice service you are doing for the community. Not sure how this is supposed to solve the "omg 4r a h@xor" arguments because now people will think it's more prevelent.

What exactly is the point of this interview? Who approached who? What do you want to accomplish with letting us know that there are such people out there?

You can tell me how much I need to "grow" and assume i don't have "experience" in the field (i guess you know me well eh?), but the fact is, I've been involved in the gaming community for (probably) longer than you. You can make any assumption you want. Maybe it's you that needs to grow and take responsibility. Thats what happens when you have the power to show things to an entire community - you have responsibilities.

But one thing is for sure.. GameWizard couldnt possibly be wrong, after all, he is an Teenage Moderator on BF2 with all kinds of real life experience. And great spell checking abilities! WOOOT!

better watch out dude - your post will get deleted. I mean you didn't curse - but what do you think this is? A forum?