If massively multi-player online gaming falls apart it won't be from business or creative factors. The blood will be on our hands. We continue to clamor for "bigger, better," but we are asking for the wrong development focus. Why? Because cheating by the participants is the greatest single threat to the continued success and growth of the online market.

Case in Point. Last weekend a squadron mate sent me a film of a YAK 3 climbing at over 400+ mph through 41,000 feet to 45,000 feet. The aircraft then nosed over to the vertical and achieved 650+ mph terminal velocity to 3,000 feet where it amazingly transitioned to a vertical climb, gradually bleeding off airspeed to an altitude of 22,000 feet. That's quite a feat, err, cheat.

For comparison, the intended flight model supports a YAK 3 that will struggle to 39,000+ feet in a 20-minute, excruciating climb and will only sustain that altitude with a 30-degree angle of attack at 160 mph.

The miracle performance was brought about via a memory-editing program that was obtained from a public URL that specializes in 'cracking and hacking any DOS or Windows-based game'. The game parameter that was adjusted was MaxThrottle (from 100 to 250). The performance was astounding...so astounding that the perpetrator would certainly be caught and burned at the stake. Right?

Skip to Scene 2: the Problem

In the case above the violation was obvious, but the reality is more like this. First, most perpetrators would never use 250 for MaxThrottle when 110 would serve quite nicely to provide the edge in velocity for an extension or a pursuit. Second, cheating is not acknowledged nor punished by the hosts that regulate the online experience.

The reality is that cheaters are clever enough to escape detection through subtlety and most publishers/online hosts lack the resources to effectively deal with cheaters in most situations. Then there's the specter of potential of litigation brought about by 'Little Johnny's Dad' who thinks that a deep-pockets game publisher should have saved his son the anguish of making a dishonorable choice. Let's skip the sad discussion of moral decay this time, shall we?

It's a (dis) belief system. When we go head to head with a human being we believe we are putting our skills, techniques, and experience to the test in a fair contest. When doubt about the fairness of the contest arises, the whole experience deflates for most people.

It certainly becomes an experience that most of us would hesitate to pay a monthly fee for. Where does that leave us? At this point in time we are left with a Mech that cannot be damaged, a bomber that can turn 720-degrees per second, a submarine with 200 torpedoes, or a Spitfire capable of 13,000+ kph.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Our first-person shooter comrades remind us that cheating is not new. They have been avoiding the problem for years by buying retail games and competing against only trusted colleagues on secure servers or driving their computers 400 miles to 'weekend congresses' where an unlucky cheater would face a potential thrashing (or worse) if caught cheating in such a setting.

Massively multi-player becomes a gigantic whale rotting on the beach in this context, since the disincentives don't exist to counter cheating. Sadly, it's a death that has nothing to do with a lack of business or creative acumen and everything to do with a lack of personal ethics.

It's past time for methods and processes to be developed to detect and correct cheaters and cheating from massively multi-player gaming. We should not ask for another 'enhancement' from our favorite publisher until this situation is addressed. Allow them to devote the time and resources needed to preserve the environment. If we don't, we'll be renting hotel ballrooms in order to find a fair fight, and massively multi-player, the ideal environment for on-line gaming, will have become a historical footnote in the book of the Internet.

  Dave raises an issue which has haunted many serious simulation fans, and continues to haunt them. If that were the only issue involved, the sky wouldn't be quite so dark. But there are others.

Another issue which is equally large is that not enough players in the online arenas take their gaming seriously (which is maybe an oxymoron.) For example, too many players in online combat arenas refuse to disengage from battle, where a good AI player would do so, or a real combat combat encounter would end.

But there are many other little issues, some of which were identified in a post in our forums recently. The major items were:

• 1. Little, no, or insufficient reward for preservation of the player pilot's "life," promoting "to-the-death" fighter tactics.
• 2. No modeling of the novice-to-veteran-to-elite skill growth of long-lived pilots.
• 3. Over-emphasis upon aircraft modeling as opposed to "pilot modeling" (all the Hardware but no Software). Players fly aircraft but do not "become" pilots - resulting in a lack of immersion.
• 4. No "personal" rewards for success.

Ok, you knew that already. So what's the point?

One solution is better single player games, and in fact I think we are nearing the break point in game development where single player games are offering great immersion and great fun. There are a number of key elements, so let me mention a few.

First, the artificial intelligence of virtual pilots (the old CCP, or "computer controlled pilot") has improved dramatically in the past two years. Various real-world behaviors are now modeled quite well, like target fixation, panic, fatigue, growth in skill, and even situational awareness.

With AI pilots now flying the same flight model as the player, and in some cases having to use the same control input as the player (ie. the stick, meaning that the AI pilot can overcontrol and spin, resulting in blackout, crashes etc. as in MiG Alley and the coming B17 II), single player gaming is far more satisfying than it used to be.

B17 II

Second, the environment is becoming much more immersive and active than it used to be. In DI's F/A 18E Super Hornet one no longer feels alone on the carrier deck, for example. With other aircraft queing on the CAT and aircraft directors everywhere, the world suddenly seems alive. And in many other current simulations, like Jane's F15, Microprose Falcon 4, Rowan's MiG Alley, there is so much chatter and so much to to do in coordinating your package that the feeling of "being there" is very real.

What was left to make the virtual experience more involving? It remained to create the space around the virtual actor himself. DI has taken a step in this direction in Super Hornet, but Wayward Design looks set to make the quantum leap in B17 II.

The idea of populating an aircraft with an entire crew is hardly new, but using motion capture to do that, and then allowing real humans to inhabit those virtual bodies, is new to the genre. In order to accomplish this, Wayward had to create an entire environment, in addition to using motion capture and animation techniques to create the various crew positions. In doing so they have combined role play and first person elements in a new simulation genre.

Now, the genius of this move is obvious, but the implications are perhaps not so obvious.

By creating a team on a single aircraft, the B17 Flying Fortress, Wayward has taken the virtual squadron model that sprang up with the Internet and gone the next step forward. Squadrons naturally accomplish some of the goals that make multiplayer gaming the most fun: they create community. But communities possess their own ethos. Try flying regularly in a squadron and pulling the kind of cheats Dave refers to. You'll find your wings clipped in short order.

Now try joining as a crewman in B17 II and not taking your position as rear gunner seriously. You can bet that your career will be short lived indeed!

My main thrust in this discussion was not that flying as a team in B17 or as a member of a virtual squadron will correct the worst evils of online combat gaming. I actually intended to argue that single player gaming is accomplishing new levels of immersion such that multiplayer gaming may lose the draw it once had.

But in the process I've remembered that there are many forces at work here, and the best of those forces seem to be gathering in a new direction: the creation of realistic online environments, whether for single player or multiplayer combat simulation gaming.

In the end, it will be the Internet gaming community that decides how compelling the new games really are. I suspect that for most of us massive multiplayer will remain only a limited attraction.

The real direction may be Internet squadrons, where there can be accountability and a sense of team identity, in turn giving all a stake in the success or failure of a mission or a campaign. But with the single player environment becoming more compelling with each passing month, single player gaming is likely to thrive for years to come.