New World’s seemingly endless parade of exploits had reawakened my wonder about who exactly buys a game only to try to break it for everyone and risk losing their money.
I’ve talked before about how the dawn of the genre felt a lot more like the Wild West, and cheating – what I would now consider cheating – was absolutely rampant. In early Ultima Online, you weren’t supposed to AFK macro skills, but I literally don’t know a single person who didn’t; everyone knew the trick to putting a paperweight on a key to macro Hiding or Spirit Speak while you were sleeping or in class. No one I knew was ever punished for it, so everyone went right on doing it. That’s mild, but it set the stage for far worse, and I’m not talking about plopping houses inside guard zones. I remember guildmates and enemies alike duping gold with chessboards and using ghost exploits to break into houses and trapping NPCs in homes to macro up their reputation. It was part of the culture of the game, a culture brought into the game from now-ancient team shooters where cheating and hacking were the rule rather than the exception, and I’m really glad I was able to break out of it.
New World shouldn’t have had that culture to start with, but here we are.
Have you ever exploited in an MMO? Is exploiting a mentality or culture you see commonly in your favorite MMOs?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
