I sat down to play Call of Duty 4 once, while a friend watched over my shoulder. He noticed I wasn’t having a hard time with it and he asked, jokingly, “What, is this on Easy mode or something.” I confirmed that yes, actually, I was playing on Easy Mode. He laughed for awhile and when he was done he had some negative things to say about playing on Easy Mode. His primary complaint was that challenge is what makes a video game interesting and that since Easy Mode isn’t challenging my abilities, I wasn’t getting anything out of the experience. I looked at him funny, asked him to stop talking (or he could leave), and went back to my game.

MMOs don’t have difficulty selectors. The closest they get are usually the “solo” classes, like the warlock in WoW, but really in MMO's gamers have had to give up something that we've had since before the days of "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, A, B, A, B, Start" - the cheat code.

MMO’s try to focus gameplay on what developers must think is the most compelling part of MMO’s; the massive amount of people playing. As if since 40,000 people are all playing the same game they should all be doing it together. What a crock of shit! I’d much rather have a solid single-player experience which I can compare with other player’s experience. I'd rather socialize when I want to and be excused from it when the people around me are not worth socializing with ("Wanna go harrass some noobs, ha ha? Want to help the Corp with a CTA? Wanna get on Vent and make funny nosies?!")

We, the cheaters, have decided to hell with your lack of vision, developers. I compeltely understand why cheats are not in multiplayer games like Call of Duty or Planetside - it would dramatically change the expierence if someone couldn't be killed, or couldn't miss. But what cost is associated with a cheat in an RPG? If you could hit a button and not die (to an NPC) what would the harm be? If you could buy anything you wanted, but didn't have to pay for it, why would that be a problem?

We already have players who are leveling FAR outside the expectations of developers. In WoW, there were level 80 players mere days, if not hours, after it was possible to be that level. Did that player understand the game better than anyone else? No; he just had time to devote to the game and a friend to help him.

The existance of cheats for games doesn't seem to have stopped people from playing Oblivion, or Fable 2. Somehow these games survive and even thrive, despite the ability for some people to play them in a way that the developer never intended.

Isn't that interesting?