An explanation of cheating in Doom2 Deathmatch
 
 

First, a definition of cheating..

 

   Any modification not normally available in Doom2 that provides an advantage to one player over another with regard to:

(1) humanly-executable player movement,
(2) visual abilities,
(3) audio abilities,
(4) player aim abilities, or
(5) mechanisms to locate the opponent,

and furthermore, these changes are put into effect in a game against another player who either

(1) does not agree to, or
(2) is unaware that the change has been implemented

is cheating.

Modifactions to sound and graphics to help a hearing or visually impaired player compensate for his or her disability are not considered cheats.

        This page has been written to provide a means by which we honest players can keep our  netparties, modem games,  - and most importantly our tournaments -, free from the effects of those who would choose to cheat in Doom2. It relates primarily to the classic, DOSmode Doom2.exe; the usefulness of these cheats on the various Doom ports has not been examined (other kinds of cheats are reported to exist for these Doom ports, but we are not exploring them here).

          There is a dilemma with writing an explanation of cheating, and that is that the few people who would like to cheat may attempt to use such explanation as a means to learn or invent cheating mechanisms for their own use. After much thought and observation of recent events, I have come to believe that this problem is outweighed by the impact that some of these cheats can have on tournaments, especially ones where prizes with cash value are awarded to the winners. Should any one of these cheats be used in a LAN tournament, this use is detectable and proveable, with no question as to the validity of the determination, as long as the matches are recorded. When the information on how to easily detect and prove the use of these cheats is made widespread, the few people who would take this information and use it to cheat will be only be able to participate in non-recorded, non-tournament, basically frivolous gameplay. This information will also empower us to recognize those among us, past and present, who are true "Doom Gods".

          This page includes explanations of several cheat methods, downloads of utilities that can be used to analyze .lmp files (Deathmatch recordings) to decisively prove whether certain cheat use occured or did not occur, and downloadable .lmp files which may show various cheats in use.
 
 

DOS Doom2 Deathmatch cheats with explanations
in order of severity
(click on the name of the cheat to read the full explanation)

Name of Cheat	Observable on monitor or speakers in-game?	Detectability through analysis of recordings?	Effectiveness**
Doom2 1.9 autoaim or "aimbot"	At times	Easy to prove	Extremely High
Map Editing	Obvious visibility	Almost no evidence	Extremely High
SR-50 Automation	No	Easy to prove	High
No-Red	Obvious visibility	Almost no evidence	Medium
Bright	Obvious visibility	Almost no evidence	Medium
Sprite editing	Obvious visibility	Almost no evidence	Medium
Sound Editing	Obvious	Almost no evidence	Medium
Red Dot	Obvious visibility	No	Low or None

** Effectiveness refers to the degree to which the cheat could
effect the result of a match between two very high skilled players.