Abuse Cases and Subversion Identify at least 4 potentials for abuse and subversi
ID: 3846572 • Letter: A
Question
Abuse Cases and Subversion
Identify at least 4 potentials for abuse and subversion in the following game. Describe in detail how you think the abuse or subversion might play out.
Game Title: Entity Hunt (Flash or PC version)
Game Goal: To hunt and destroy an entity as a team in a Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO). Each player connects to a server and joins a team. The team hunts the entity together while avoiding other dangerous creatures.
Design Decision 1: Each time a player plays, they are required to join a new team. The server will deliver pre-canned game hunts for teams to conquer. This saves processing time so that the server does not have to generate new game hunts for each new team.
Design Decision 2: Members are vulnerable to entities, other creatures, and other team members if hurt in battle.
Design Decision 3: The game will download a map of the game environment to the client at the beginning of the game while the splash screen is being displayed. This saves time during the game so that the game client does not have to do this during the game. The map contains locations of various items in the game. However, they are not visible in the game screen since they exist only in the game cache (c:program filesEntityHuntcache).
Design Decision 4: Points are awarded for completing hunts unhurt (max points) or alive but hurt (some points). Zero points are awarded for being killed on a hunt. Players are ranked and can attain “prizes” for their individual rankings.
Explanation / Answer
1. Since the server delivers pre-canned game hunts, the game hunts will start getting repeated after some time. Over a period of time, players who play frequently will have strategy to conquer game hunts that they have conquered before also. This would mean that new players will be at a disadvantage and frequent players will have much more advantage.
2. The game cache can be accessed outside of the game and thus someone can access and modify the downloaded maps. This can be abusive and can be used to manipulate the game. Even opponent team players can hack into other players file location and manipulate the maps to disrupt the opponent and win the game.
3. Each time a player has to join a new team which means there may be coordination issues with teams that consist mostly of new members and teams that have been playing continuously for a long time. Existing teams whose members have been playing for a long time will be familiar with each others technique and playing style, and thus will have some strategy. However, for teams with new members, it is difficult to work together as a team.
4. Online game play can be subject to network problems and lag between each players actions. This can be of disadvantage. It can lead to confusions and players may face difficulty in coordinated moves as a team.