[X] My Assistant

[Commander Wymsy]

Yes, after the couple of threads made in the Ranting Zone about it, I want an actual debate about cheating in Pokémon games. Basically, we will be answering and arguing amongst these points:

• Is cheating good or bad, or is it mixed depending on the situation?
• Why do you think people cheat?
• Does exploiting glitches count as cheating, or does it depend on what exactly the glitch does?
• What do you think of people who trade hacked Pokémon?
• What do you think of people who do not cheat themselves but will still accept hacked Pokémon from others knowing full well the Pokémon are hacked?
• What do you think of the people who use Pokémon created by things like Pokésav to battle others?
• What is your stance on cloned Pokémon?
• Do you think that cloned Pokémon devalue certain types of Pokémon (shinies, event Pokémon, etc.)?

And now I'll answer all of them myself...

1. I believe that, depending on the situation, cheating can be either good or bad. There are people who scam others with hacks, yes, but not every cheater does that. Cheating for items or for event Pokémon (and other trivial things which don't affect anybody but the person cheating), is fine in my opinion. Hacking Pokémon and passing them off as real, or making illegal (impossible movesets, 999 stats, etc.) Pokémon and fighting people with them and not telling is bad. Basically, I only think cheating is bad if it negatively affects somebody else.

2. I think people cheat mostly for items, Pokésav made Pokémon and event Pokémon. There are, however, people who cheat for illegal Pokémon (again, impossible movesets, 999 stats, etc.) just because they don't feel like making a legal Pokémon on Pokésav or raising their own to beat the game and/or fight others.

3. I don't really think that exploiting a glitch counts as cheating. In some cases, the glitch in question is really just a completely moronic programming mistake. Things like being able to surf through the Elite 4 doors in early Japanese versions of D/P and Missingno. appearing on R/B are examples of that. For those who don't know, Missingno. appears because that infamous stretch of half-land half-water on Cinnabar (and at Seafoam) have no Pokémon set to appear there. When you talk to the old man and watch him catch the Weedle, the game stores your name in data slot for what wild Pokémon appear so that it may recall it later. The characters in your name correspond to certain Pokémon in the game, which is why you have high-leveled Pokémon appearing. The marker at the end of your name makes Missingno. appear. Basically, all of that could have been avoided had they actually made sure that they set something to appear on those spots at Cinnabar and Seafoam. Much like how they could have avoided people getting to Shaymin and Darkrai in early Japanese D/P games had they made sure that you couldn't surf through the Elite 4 doors. They are incredibly stupid and simple mistakes. Things like Pokémon cloning glitches, however, are a bit more complex and are more like real glitches than they are just silly mistakes.

4. I think that so long as the person trading the hacks tells people that they are hacked, then there is nothing wrong with what they're doing. It's your choice if you choose to accept the hack or not. However, people who scam other people with hacks are lying scum and give good cheaters a bad name.

5. If they don't mind the hacks, then don't lecture them. Let them use the Pokémon they want and trade with whomever they want. Odds are it doesn't affect you in the slightest.

6. I say, so what? If they're making legal Pokémon, why should it matter? Most of the people who do that are mostly only into the battling aspect of the games anyways. And some people don't have the time to breed for a perfect or near-perfect Pokémon but still want to be able to battle. Once again though, people who hack illegal Pokémon and fight people with them need to learn some real strategy and fight others like a real trainer.

7. Let them clone. They're exact copies of the originals. Some people only clone a little, whilst others do mass cloning. All in all, cloning is fine by me. However, I believe that trading somebody a clone when they say that they don't want one is wrong. It's like trading hacked Pokémon to a person who doesn't want one.

8. Probably on a small scale, it does devalue shiny Pokémon a bit. But for event Pokémon (only counting the ones you actually get from going to the event here, not from Pokésav or hacking the event item) there only ends up being a limited amount of them. Many people can't get to these events, and if they don't mind the clones, why lecture them?

Anyhow, go nuts everybody. I'll most likely reply to some posts made here.