Superman uses strings to fly.

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Special
05-12-2003, 04:31
As children everything seemed wonderful, mystical, surreal. Ask any 5-year-old, they'll believe that it's still possible to fly. Robots? Yeah, they transform. You can even pilot them after you get certification. No no, that's not an airplane up there, that's a UFO... Wonderment is something we all begin to miss as we grow older. Suddenly we are thrown into a world of responsibility, bills, and tax forms -- real life. When you've come home from another long boring day of work at your mundane job you've had for years now, you think back to the days where you could erect armies of toy soldiers fighting off the evil forces of your arch nemesis. Cobra Commander had nothing on you.

There's a magical quality to childhood that we all remember, but can't seem to muster up enough -- well, childhood -- to bring it back. Sometimes I force myself to see things as a kid would, but frankly, it's kind of hard. The power of children is their imagination. Everything becomes a game to them. As grown ups we lose the power of imagination. Nothing's a game anymore. It's all just work, work, work from now until we die. Not fun, is it?

We use an outlet for this imaginative deficiency, and that outlet is computer games. Whether you are a mage slaying dragons, a soldier in World War II, or a buxom blonde bombshell with a huge rack playing volleyball, games are the way we grown-ups escape reality. An ability to whisk away players to otherworlds while relieving the stress of everyday life, what else can we ask for? In these game worlds, things seem mystical again. That feeling of magic has returned: Throwing fireballs from your hands, killing a few hundred enemies with your minigun, and piloting spaceships in far off galaxies, you're back to being that kid with a wild imagination. You're suddenly enveloped in a huge elaborate illusion, an illusion you don't want to stop because it's so fun.

But in some cases illusions are ruined. Sometimes you can see the strings holding Superman up when he flies through the Grand Canyon. You snap out of that moment and begin to realize he's just an actor. He's not really flying, he's in front of a bluescreen. Superman isn't so cool anymore. Cheats have the same effect on games. The instant there is doubt in a player's eyes, the magic is gone in a flash. You snap out of the mystical illusion you had of a Superman, and realize that he needs strings to fly.

It's a saddening sight these days. Anytime anybody makes a nice play, there has to be at least one player who screams "CHEATZ!!!" in the chat screen. It reminded me of a time when I first began to play. I joined a server with Dangerous Crossing as the map. I made my way to the inventory station, gearing up with my repair pack and extra grenades. I guarded my base from the outside, so that I could kill any incoming cappers. I was pretty successful, fending off enemies with my blaster. Suddenly a speck appeared high in the sky. "A scout?" I asked myself. "Wait, Dangerous Crossing has no vehicle pads..." The speck grew increasingly larger. I looked closely as that speck became a blob, which then became a male armor. "How in the heck..." The player landed on top of the base, and dropped down to grab the flag. (Nobody at that time did that. It was a common approach to use a shield pack and walk through the flag stand to grab it, hoping your shield pack would keep you alive as the turtle turrets pounded you.) He popped back up through where he dropped down. He lightly jetted up, and skiied down the hill, and flew off faster than anybody I had ever seen at the time. I fired a few blaster shots at him as he sped away at insane speeds, and decided I couldn't hit him. I activated my repair pack to repair myself as I convinced myself I wanted to be like Fallen|KI one day. It was great... No, it was magical.

Cheats destroy the innocence of any game. There no longer exists mystical players. They become subject of ridicule: "You use autoaim!" "You're using flag finder!" Players begin to live in a world of doubt. They become the cynical adults they loathed becoming. Their childlike imagination is mocked, because they can do nothing else but question what they see. Imagine if I were a newbie in this day and age with rampant cheats? Imagine if I saw another Fallen|KI? Do you think I would really think he was just a great player, or maybe that he was using some cheat to help him grab the flag and jet off?

I don't want to see Superman's strings. I'd rather try to fly like him.

Sojourn
05-12-2003, 04:37
Summary: Superman doesn't use strings to fly. He uses a jet-pack.

R@ND0M
05-12-2003, 04:42
An invisible jetpack, w/o strings.

Sojourn
05-12-2003, 04:47
That was very well written, Eric. I enjoyed that.

Magus
05-12-2003, 04:54
i had fun chu, thanks.

-Mag

Somec
05-12-2003, 05:05
strings...



like grappling hooks?

Deceptikon
05-12-2003, 05:36
y u use big words :(

Data
05-12-2003, 10:15
Special on his soapbox again, eh? :p

Void|deadjawa
05-12-2003, 11:52
This is why client side scripting should be barred from T:V. Cheating is far more important than the color of some elitist bastard's hud.

If there were no possible cheats, then we could all trust each other.

Yogi
05-12-2003, 12:02
Hey Special, want to submit this, and future well written articles, as a Soapbox?

Shinigami
05-12-2003, 13:02
This is why client side scripting should be barred from T:V. Cheating is far more important than the color of some elitist bastard's hud.

If there were no possible cheats, then we could all trust each other.

I like scripting, but I can easily live without it. However, do you honestly believe that allowing no client side scripting will stop cheating? Or rather that scripting is the cause of cheats?

Data
05-12-2003, 14:18
Hey Special, want to submit this, and future well written articles, as a Soapbox?

:D

Special
05-12-2003, 14:21
Hey Special, want to submit this, and future well written articles, as a Soapbox?

Hey Yogi,

No thanks. These articles I write are just thoughts I have that I like sharing with others who have similar interests. I wanna keep it limited to the ones who read ToT. Thanks anyways.

Special
05-12-2003, 14:22
y u use big words :(

cuz im not a autobott lol

get it cuz your a deceptikon lol

Special
05-12-2003, 14:24
This is why client side scripting should be barred from T:V. Cheating is far more important than the color of some elitist bastard's hud.

If there were no possible cheats, then we could all trust each other.

I can't really name any client-side scripts that I would consider cheating. The whole idea behind 'cheating' is having something others cannot do as well. Hacking an .exe is exactly that.

Special
05-12-2003, 14:27
Special on his soapbox again, eh? :p

ill show u a soapbox u dang android

Got Haggis?
05-12-2003, 15:25
An invisible jetpack, w/o strings.

that's Wonder Woman.

Zoolooman
05-12-2003, 16:30
I'll note that Unreal Tech is the closest to cheat free engine on the market. :X

It has nine cheats in mass release.

Nine.

And half of them don't even work thanks to patches by Epic...

And none of the working ones are even aimbots anymore.

Sir Lucius
05-12-2003, 17:01
I'll bet more people read ToT than they read the soapbox :x

Yogi
05-12-2003, 17:23
I'll bet more people read ToT than they read the soapbox :x

As a soap box article it'd be posted in the soapbox with a forum link and a news post