I Am A Cheater

TLDR alert! :D

I'm pretty vocal about the fact that I don't really give a fig newton who's cheating and who's not, as it rarely affects my game. I'm also pretty vocal about the fact that I think people spend too much of their time worrying about who is cheating, especially about the war loot exploit thing. That being said, it's also no secret that many people are very worked up over the subject, so regardless of my personal opinion, even I reached out and asked Zynga to do something about the problem.

The only time those dastardly Scrubbers annoy me is when they use the script to join operations, which they won't complete until the next time they happen to actually be at the computer and in the mood for some ops action. I get rid of those players because of how they affect my game and that of my friends. It sucks waiting on stalled operations.

The issue with Scrubber and the war loot is now common knowledge, but trouble with it has been brewing for a long time. One of my former friends and admins made the issue a personal crusade of his, and he was unhappy that I didn't 'support' him on the matter.

"Misty, . . .why don't you make a public statement that you believe in cheating and glitch exploits? We can pigeon-hole you next to MWLL then."

Ok then, I will, because I know he's not the only one who's wanted me to speak openly about similar topics.

You can try to pigeonhole me all you want, but as others have already found, making assumptions about me and my game made an ass out of them. That person is well aware that I didn't NOT support him, that it simply was not a personal issue of mine.We all have our issues with the game, and war loot exploits was not one of mine. That certainly doesn't mean I didn't recognize that there were others that shared his opinion.  Because I think people are too overwrought on the subject doesn't mean I approve of "glitch exploits". Me saying that people should spend less time b*tching about what others are doing and more time playing their own game does not translate to I "believe in" the war loot exploit.

I have always made it a habit to stay familiar with many of the scripts out there. I do use some scripts personally, and keep track of several other scripts for documentation and research purposes, as well as to answer the questions I frequently get asked about them. I am aware that this is against Zynga's TOS, but I don't consider this cheating. You'll never get Zynga to give blanket or specific approval of third party scripts, but I don't think even Zynga considers me to be a cheater. They've publicly said that they are aware that there are beneficial scripts.

In the years I've played Mafia Wars, I've gone through different levels of script usage. I remember back when I first discovered MWAP, I spent days fine-tuning and running it. Days at a time, sometimes. I've also done some underground script testing in the past. I'd guess those are probably my two biggest Mafia Wars transgressions - that I did at one time fully automate, and that I have used an underground script (don't ask 'cause I ain't tellin'. it was over a year ago anyway).

Automation is boring, though, because I generally like to be very involved in my game. Firstly, because I just really like playing Mafia Wars, and secondly, because I'm always posting about the game so I want to know what's going on. That's sorta the same reason I grew out of my E-ho phase. Doing the same thing over and over isn't as fun, and you give up a lot of variety in your game play because all your skill points went into energy and/or stamina.

That brings me to another area of "cheating" - multiple accounts. Oh yes, I have them, ::gasp:: My original account was all disorganized because I had no idea what I was doing when I first started playing Mafia Wars. So I made a new account, and as any of my friends and disappointed family can tell you, I started playing exclusively on the new account. Do I still have the original account? Yes, as I have all my friends and family there, but I remember to check the account maybe once a month, if that, and I can honestly say I never play Mafia Wars on that account for any reason.

I do have a "baby fighter" account, which I play with varying degrees of frequency. Since I'm trying to be completely honest, I also have various alt accounts which were and are sometimes still randomly accessed for testing or other purposes. They aren't played, and I usually only check them when I'm looking for a new feature that hasn't hit my account yet. Most of them were around before I ever played Mafia Wars, when they were used for similar purposes for another game I used to play called Knighthood.

My second account is the one where many of you first remember me from. The big level 5k+ E-ho. As I previously said, I eventually tired of the E-ho game path, and started over again almost a year ago. As most of my friends can attest, I no longer play the old E-ho account. I do sometimes access it for documentation purposes - it has 24k energy and 8k stamina, so it's great for drop rate studies.

I also dusted off the old account for the Death By Ice event. I'm told that some of the forum creepers wanted to know what my thoughts about the {ASS} debacle was, as it's no secret that I was originally an {ASS}. Oh I'll be happy to tell you - the whole situation seriously pissed me off. I was hugely annoyed that certain clan players decided that new redtag groups were "fake", alleging that the formation of such groups was an insult to the game. I disagree - I'm not in a clan, but I thought the idea of a group put together specifically to compete in the Death By Ice event sounded fun! I thought the Assassin-a-nators group name and tag were funny. I have no problem with people using Assassin-a-nator, and I use it some myself.

image from MWLootLady

It never occurred to me that other players would actually organize pages against the {ASS}es, that people would virtually lie to my face, and exaggerate about things that were being said and done. While a lot of people didn't like the {ASS} or similar groups for various reasons, the big hullabaloo was the machination of only a few instigators. I was so thoroughly disgusted with the behavior of other people that I just stopped playing. That was the first night of event. I was later told that I was removed from the group since I wasn't playing, and that was fine by me.

As to all the things that followed, I can't really speak specifically about them, as I wasn't involved in it. Setting up auto-healing minis wasn't an idea that occurred to me and likely isn't something I would have bothered with. I can understand why some people were upset about that point.

I'm sure I would have used Assassin-a-nator some, but as others have tried to prove and failed, I don't do a lot of automation. I do a lot of fighting manually, and also use Assassin-a-nator to run out my stamina, depending on my inclination. I don't leave scripts running overnight or even for extended periods of time, and I don't consider my moderate use of such scripts to be cheating. I don't really care how much or for what purpose other people are using scripts, as long as it doesn't affect me. And it usually doesn't.

So there you have it, all my dirty little secrets. Enjoy. I hope you're happy now.