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N-Control Avenger
This video speaks for itself.
b9Mw5mAqUKQ
I just want to point out one thing. I never even consciously thought about the fact that playing an fps with a gamepad you have to remove your thumb from the aiming analog stick to press any of the face buttons. More than any of my other complaints about gampad vs keyboard and mouse, this is even more dramatic. I can't believe I overlooked it.
b9Mw5mAqUKQ
I just want to point out one thing. I never even consciously thought about the fact that playing an fps with a gamepad you have to remove your thumb from the aiming analog stick to press any of the face buttons. More than any of my other complaints about gampad vs keyboard and mouse, this is even more dramatic. I can't believe I overlooked it.
Comments
Seriously, dude, how fucking desperate are you about this Gamepad vs Keyboard and mouse thing?
And how is this different to all the Gaming mice and Gaming keyboards that claim to have ludicrously(and indeed, often pointlessly) high performance to improve your game? Or those things that look like you've taped a half of a keyboard to a wrist brace, so you can embarrass yourself with even greater efficiency?
You know why they sell things like this? Because there are a lot of people out there who will buy stupid shit they think lets them improve without any large amount of effort. Look at any sport, there's shit out just like this. Hell, even just in getting fit in the first place, there's stupid shit like this. Case in point - Power-balance bracelets and the like, for one particularly good example - Which I've seen marketed to gamers of all stripes(along with pretty much every sport going, and even just for improving day to day life), claiming it improves reaction times and steadies the hand, by interacting with the body's bioelectric field. In reality, it's just a .02 cent silicone wristband with a .05 cent hologram sticker on it, but they'll sell it to you at sixty bucks and claims it improves your game.
Congratulations, Scott - You've proved two things - That People are lazy and will buy stupid shit if they think it lets them improve without effort, and that you're really, really grasping at straws now.
Side note - anyone else notice how the marketing for this appears to be exactly like other sport related Bullshit? Customer testimonials, a vague description of how it works, no data, no evidence, and a few non-specific claims that it'll improve the way you play. Just switch out the buzz-words, and you could be selling damn near anything.
Check it out, you see this? I have a debilitating penis disease that makes me unable to have an erection, but anyway, this keyboard makes everything way faster. All it takes is a simple movement of the finger, faster than all the normal mainstream keyboards. All the buttons are now at my fingertips, and I am now currently the best at every videogame. Not only that, but claims about my sexuality have gone up by 20%!
I've actually looked into those things (I think that one specifically, even) for setting up shortcut keys for Photoshop and the like -- the problem's always been that they don't seem to make them for lefties.
Like I said - It's a product aimed towards people who are either unskilled, and need to get better, but don't want to spend the effort, or the ridiculous uber-l33t I'm-so-pro-d00dZ teenager and that sort of lot who don't care to practice, they just want to decimate the competition by any means necessary.
Though, it does kinda amuse me that they point out that this won't get you banned from X-box live, because it's undetectable - a pretty clear concession to the fact that - much like the powerbalance bracelets and their ilk - that if it actually did work as advertised, then it would pretty clearly be cheating.
If this device actually makes a big difference, then that's great, and everyone who cares about being competitive should have one. Otherwise, who cares?
Though, the Powerbalance example is a little more clear cut on that front - it's an external device that purports to enhance performance to the point where it would be unfair to the players without them(if it worked), much in the manner of steroids and the like, and thus, using it during the game would be cheating. Just the same as using weighted gloves in boxing would be cheating, or using Spiked shoulder pads and helmets in Gridiron would be cheating, or shoving your horse full of drugs would be cheating.
Edit - This remind me of an article I read about Employing a goalie who was so morbidly obese, he made it practically impossible to successfully shoot goals in Ice Hockey. The general consensus is "If you managed to do it, You'd get your ass kicked by the fans, and pretty much no team would play against you that season, if the ruling body didn't flat out tell you to fuck off to Weight Watchers, even if it's not explicitly against the rules" - But hey, I think Scott would go for it. It's not against the rules, so that obviously means two things - That it's perfectly acceptable, and that Ice Hockey is Broken, and therefore a terrible game. I didn't say it was contradictory. I simply said that the idiots who buy this sort of thing because want to decimate the competition generally don't care to put in the effort to practice, they want a magic solution. Because let's face it, 99.999% Percent of people who would be buying this are not pros, and are not at any level of skill where even the slight difference this would provide is advantageous.
A side note:
I remember I had a great time exploiting in Left 4 Dead; my best memory of the game is throwing objects at human allies in the elevator while shouting "TANK!" on the microphone, making them fall through the floor and die, and then still winning the level without them (Granted, this didn't happen every time).
To some this might seem like a good reason to ban people for using exploits, but to those people I say the issue here was griefing and not exploiting.
Here, let me follow your argument through to the logical conclusion for you in the most simple fashion possible. One does not have perfect knowledge, nor does any group or organisation. Therefore, it isn't possible to explicitly outlaw everything, therefore there is no point to having rules to any game or sport in the first place - since you've essentially made any every rule unenforceable, and therefore, the game unplayable. Sure, you can do a TSA, and outlaw what they've already done, but they will just think of something else. By your plan, I could win the Olympics, taking gold in every event, by the simple matter of killing every other Olympian. Great plan, this. I'm going to be a world champion of everything, ever. Sure, I'll be a very lonely one, with just killing anyone who is any sort of competition, but hey, whatever it takes that isn't explicitly ruled against, right? I'm pretty sure I can come up with enough Rube Goldberg Plots of ever deepening complexity that I could kill off pretty much everyone I'd need to.
Here's what I consider to be the de facto standard of video gaming rules: You may utilize the output video and sound signals of the game in any way you like in order to produce an input signal of any nature you choose. I'd call it the "black box" rule - up to a certain point, the software and hardware must be treated as a black box to which you have no access, even though it might be possible to do so. Evidently, the boundary of this "black box" must stop at some point outside of the human brain, because one cannot be denied access to one's brain. The logical thing to do is to define the black box as the game's software, and restrict I/O to the video and sound outputs, and the input signals accepted by the game.
From a quick glance at the Wikipedia article on aimbots, "color aimbots" are fine, while graphics driver-based aimbots, client hook-based aimbots and StoogeBot are not. I suspect that any aimbot that actually uses the video output signal is very rarely better than an average player, and likely has nothing on a good one.
Macros and scripted inputs are another controversial area, but I don't see a problem with them either.
As for what is cheating, cheating is defined as breaking the rules of a game. For a board game, the rules are in the rule book, plus any errata. For a video game, the rules are the code of the game. Patches are basically errata, because they change the code. As long as you do not modify the code of a game, you are not cheating. If there's an exploit, then they better patch that. If you have a different input device, that's just fine.
Maybe if you enter a tournament they might add extra rules, such as mandating the use of default controllers. If you break that rule, you might not be cheating at the game, but you are cheating in the tournament.
Many many years ago someone setup a robot that plays Quake. It uses a webcam to look at the screen and robotic systems to control the mouse and keyboard. How is this cheating? Was it cheating when the can of Vanilla Coke played in the Yugi-Oh CCG tournament?
If you don't break the rules of the game, you aren't cheating. As EA Sports use to say, "If it's in the game, it's in the game."
I'd consider all of these to be cheating.
What happens if there is rain during a game of baseball? They delay or reschedule. What about in the NCAA when they play a game, and then after the fact they determine that a player on the field was ineligible? They strike the game from the records. It doesn't count. It's rare, but if in golf they determine that the greens were not conditioned properly, then a round or hole might not count. A game is only valid when played under conditions acceptable to the game in question. If those conditions are not there, then the game gets a big old asterisk, or just doesn't count.
If there is a shit ton of lag, that's not cheating, it's the same as a rain delay. If you SYN flood someone, that's basically the same as controlling the weather to make it rain on a baseball game. If you are to hack the game server or modify data in memory, then that's the same as interference. What if a fan runs on the field and kicks a trips a player as they run around the bases? It's an outside influence coming in a screwing up the game. Video games tend not to actually have rules for interference, because it doesn't happen in tournaments, and it unenforceable outside of tournaments. I think the default for all games is basically that in the case of interference, you mulligan if possible. If a do-over is not possible, then the game gets a huge asterisk and doesn't count.
Think of a game of Chess. What if someone in a chess tournament was wearing an ear-piece and getting help from outside sources? It's cheating at the tournament because almost every tournament will have a rule against that. But is it cheating at chess? No, it's not cheating at chess. The rules of chess don't say anything about talking to other people. The rules of chess only take into account the white player, the black player, the chess board, and the chess pieces. Anything else is outside the scope of the game of chess.
Every game is assumed to be in isolation from the rest of the world, like a virtual machine on a computer. If anything outside the scope of the rules of a game comes into the game, then that is interference, and it could invalidate that instance of the game.
What if we are playing a game of Puerto Rico, and I blast some really loud music. Am I cheating at Puerto Rico? No, I'm not breaking any rules. But the music is something outside the context of the game that is interfering with the game. Therefore, it is valid to argue that that instance of the game does not count on account of interference.
Edit: Also on a keyboard I have to constantly move my fingers away from wasd to do almost anything, choose weapon, reload, do an action, crouch (depending little on ones configuration).
When video games have leaderboards, and they do not handle these situations properly, this can be considered cheating in context of the leaderboard.
However, in most instances, there is a better interpretation. If one of the players in a game intentionally causes or induces interference with intent to end or invalidate the game, that can be assumed the equivalent of forfeiting. For example, if someone flips over the board in a game of Risk. That's not cheating, it's interference. But it is assumed that the person who flipped it over has forfeited. If the person who flipped it over was not a player, and was not in cahoots with any player, then the game is just invalidated.