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I do play online games for a long time now. And what really strange for me is cheats that exist in online games. They do exist - in wow it was at least movement speed, in aion it is attack speed, in lineage 2 it was an overbuff. Almost all of them had ability to dupe items.

As a web developer we have a first security rule - never trust user input. Why do online game trust client input?

Is it too expensive to verify all user inputs, but server has all the required information about everything that happens in game. Why can't it verify even statistically if something was fair or not?

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Mostly for speed. If the server had to check every single thing about the client, games would lag a lot, some to the point of being unplayable, that's why many fps's have lag compensation. – Mr Smooth Nov 29 '11 at 7:48
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Hi @Sly. Unfortunately, I have to vote to close your question, as we don't allow questions that ask "Why do the developers do X?" on the site. Since we don't have the expertise to answer these definitively, we can only speculate. These questions are based on soliciting discussion, which we don't allow, as we are a Q&A site. Please check out the FAQ if you have any more questions about what may be asked here. – FAE Nov 29 '11 at 12:52
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This is a very unclear question which doesn't apply to many gamers. If you relly want to know the answer, i would suggest asking it on Game Dev SE – RedRiderX Nov 29 '11 at 12:56

closed as not constructive by Mr Smooth, mordi2k, Doozer Blake, FAE, Ronan Forman Nov 29 '11 at 12:53

As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, see the FAQ for guidance.

1 Answer

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Cheats are not user input. Many of them write in memory controlled by the game. Defending against it is then a hard.

Server controlled introduces a heavy load on the server (has to check every client) and can effect experience in a bad way such as lag.

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yes, but who prevents statistics verification? – Sly Nov 29 '11 at 7:48

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