Constant Bugs and Hacks Destroyed the Game s Credibility

Constant Bugs and "Hacks" Destroyed the Game's Credibility

Since day one of MMP games , a small percentage of players have made it their business to find and exploit bugs in the game code. They are very good at finding these bugs; they can and do find every bug in a game's code. Some players have even gone so far as to hack the frontend or backend of a game, although this is rare.

UC was no exception. Bugs not only cropped up; they tended to be persistent. It was rare but not unknown for players to find ways to move resources from one campaign to a completely different one. This happened often enough that a warning about it was put in UC 's player code of conduct.

During one early campaign (it might even have been one of the Beta test campaigns ), it was discovered that a player had found a bug that allowed him to create an unlimited number of one type of military unit on any planet he controlled. Thankfully, like most such cheaters, he was stupid and created far more than his resources would have allowed, so he was discovered quickly. The UC programmers handled this one creatively; rather than just ban the player, the programmers created and launched some very large fleets to all his planets and destroyed them, and then the programmers publicized the event as a warning to others.

As another example, check out this notice in the rules for the most recent Master's Tournament for UC :

Battle Algorithm Abuse

There is still a known bug that can affect battle outcomes when fleets are configured in particular ways. Players who take advantage of this anomaly know what they are doing, since there is little other purpose for configuring fleets in this manner. This strategy will not be permitted in the Master's Tournament. All battles will be monitored and offenders will be penalized or disqualified. This policy was enacted in the Alliance Game and virtually all such abuse came to an end, so let's hope there will be no need to enforce any penalties in the Master's game.

This particular bug has plagued UC since it was made available to the public. While VR-1's developers tried to manually monitor and stop it, that's a lot of work ”and isn't that what a computer is for, anyway?

The persistence of these bugs and exploits, and the fact that some players in every campaign were abusing them, made it impossible for the reasonable and responsible player to truly enjoy the game.