It's practically impossible to write a full-scale, online MMO without some bugs appearing in the code, but there are tools available to provide a safety net for developers and prevent cheats from exploiting weaknesses, says David Whatley, President and CEO, Simutronics Corp.
Simutronics' Hero Engine --an MMO development tool-- uses statistical analysis tools developed by Streambase to detect cheats in MMO games.
"These tools allow developers to create expectancy transactions [models of how players normally behave in a particular game situation]. If players cheat, the software can recognise a deviation from the norm and flags," says Whatley, who quickly demonstrated this functionality with me at the Hero Engine booth at Austin GDC.
In one scenario, a player with 20,000 kills raises a flag because the standard number of kills per player is in the low hundreds.
"Because it can recognize anamolies, we can quickly tell when a player is cheating," says Whatley, who believes that statistical analysis is the "number 1, best way" for MMO developers to fight back against cheats.
