This is sort of a follow on from my original cheating post. This post concentrates on boosting, and the gaming community attitude towards it.
As a PS3 player of Modern Warfare 2 I have no personal experience of boosting. But just as I’ve never been to China, I am in no doubt that it exists.
Boosting Flavours
There are two types of boosting. You have the title/emblem/camo boosters, and prestige boosters. There is a difference between how each goes about their “business”, but they are essentially doing the same thing – cheating. If a player gains something while abusing in-game mechanics then it is cheating. That’s the way it is, and that is how it always has been. From tenth prestige to a spinnning nuke emblem, if you didn’t earn them, then you didn’t earn them.
Icon Boosters
The first category of boosters (title/emblem/camo boosters) can usually be found in Free For All, or Friendly Fire/Ricochet game types. In FFA they’ll normally be nuke boosting, although trading headshots for camo is also prevalent. The main problem is that calling in a nuke you didn’t earn spoils the game for every other legitimate player. Trading headhots or some other type of kill to unlock an attachment or camo is just as bad – if not worse. Ocassionally you’ll also find boosters in other game types, the most prevalent is Riot Shield boosting where one person equips the riot shield in order to get a load of points from taking damage. They will usually be in collusion with at least one other person in the lobby. In a Friendly Fire/Ricochet game type it doesn’t even matter if their cohort is on the other team! Big deal? Well no. While they are playing with each other your team is at least one man down! In both examples the boosters are spoiling the game experience for the people who are actually trying to play the game properly. Not cool.
Prestige Boosters
And then you have the prestige boosters. I don’t think there is much of this on the PS3, but on the Xbox360…. well it seems that booster lobbies are much sought after and lucrative to the so called JTaggers. What happens is that a person gets hold of a modded Xbox360, alters the game code, invites people in – usually for a fee and then bish bash bosh you’re tenth prestige in minutes. Why should that be a problem? It’s just a title right? Well no. Being tenth prestige means you have a total of 15 classes available to you, ten customisable and all weapons and attachments. That puts them at a major advantage over the legitimate players. Plus using a modded Xbox and/or altering game code completely against the Terms and Conditions of use.
Forums Encouraging Cheating
But the biggest disappointment to me is the likes of this (link) on CodNation.net. Here we have a site that is all things Call of Duty. But as far as I’m concerned they are not only condoning boosting, but actively encouraging it with the new “Boosting/Modded Lobbies” section. That’s just completely out of order. They should be doing all they can to discourage cheating. What’s even more pathetic are the types of responses they have there:
if anyone knows someone that does 10th lobbies for free please message me i have been scammed over 10 times and have lost almost 60 dollars. message my xbox live gamertag or have them message me on my gamertag. my gamertag is ******. please help me out
….scammed over 10 times? Boo hoo hoo! Don’t cheat, don’t get burned.
be very very careful. its really easy to get ripped off in doing this. i even scammed a few kids before so i could change my name hehe, and im not the smartest. make sure you know that they can do it before you even think of sending them points
….I’m speechless. Cheats and thieves all in one spot!? Where’s Sandy Ravage!
Yet, on the same site there are people up in arms about nuke boosting…. the mind boggles. I’ve made my last post on CodNation.net – I’m not going to condone cheating by participating in a site that encourages it. It’s one thing to have a section that discusses cheating in order to make people aware of what to look for – but this goes beyond the pale!
Obviously there are plenty of sites and forums out there dedicated to cheating – which is another kettle of stinking fish. But I thought that CodNation was reputable.
Is Boosting Ever Acceptable?
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of boosting is when, if at all, it is acceptable. The one example that springs to mind is WoodysGamertag. He bought a PS3 in order to enable him to play with his subscribers and then mentioned about boosting in order to gain the weapons and perks he had unlocked on the Xbox360. It takes time to level up and unlock stuff so in Woody’s case, and if he was only doing it to play with his subscribers then that is acceptable to me – if you disagree then let me know why in the comments. I’m having enough trouble finding the time to level up on one console, it would be an impossibility to try it on two! However, his decision may come back to bite him on the bum due to his foray into the MLG/GB scene (Major League Gaming and Game Battles) as part of their rules state:
B. Cheating
2. We have a zero tolerance policy for cheating. Teams caught cheating, “glitching”, or abusing in-game mechanics in any way will be removed from GameBattles.
I’m pretty sure that boosting comes under the heading of abusing in-game mechanics. But that could only relate to what happens during play.
Like I said in my first post on this subject, cheating is like masturbation. It’s something that you should only really do when you’re on your own. No matter how you dress it up, or justify it, you’re still a wanker.
Peas and loaves.
Find me on PSN – evaDlivE
evaDlivE Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.