What every participant of a large MMO project should know

Ordinary programmers usually know all this perfectly. But the managerial staff often believes that it is not necessary to understand the game economy, client-server architecture and the psychology of the gaming community. After all, there is a cool team of specialists who will take care of everything.
The result is obvious: it is difficult to remember at least one large MMO-project, released over the past two years, which would have avoided a standard set of rakes. It seems that the MMO-industry is not able to learn from their mistakes.
So, a list of questions that everyone should know the answers to, from a top manager to a technical support employee of a large MMO project.

Game protection

1. What is a gaming bot? What is the difference between clickers, inbox bots and outgame bots?
2. Suppose that all accounts where a bot has ever been launched get into the ban with a probability of 100%, and even before they have time to throw off their resources. Does this mean that bots are now unprofitable?
3. What is dupe, what is it connected with and how are they protected from it?
4. What is package spoofing? Why should any data from the client be checked by the server, including the coordinates of the objects, skill rollbacks and item identifiers?
5. What is gaming radar? Why is it impossible to transfer information to the game client that should not be shown to the player?
6. What is a fly hack, speed hack, wall hack? Why even checking packages on a server is often not able to handle them?
7. What is brute? How to avoid mass hacking of game accounts with the help of brut?
8. Test task number 1 . AutoIt and some “model” game client are launched . What is AutoIt? Write a simple clicker that can kill mobs.
9. Test task No. 2 (of increased complexity) : The Cheat Engine and the “model” game client are launched . What is the Cheat Engine? What are offsets and why are cheaters looking for them? Find a chain of offsets for the player's nickname.
10. Name at least one international cheat resource and at least three major cheat resources of the runet. Explain why if you are doing a truly large project, there must be a person on your team who regularly views these resources.
11. Who are gold sellers? Name at least one large gold-selling Runet resource. If your project is f2p, and you sell game currency for real, will it protect your game from gold sellers?

Holes in igromehanika

1. What is overflow? Having reviewed the 5 game concepts offered to you, show which of these games will suffer from overflow and why.
2. What is twinking? Having considered the 5 game concepts offered to you, indicate those of them, where the twin drivers will get a tremendous advantage over the others.
3. What is levelcap? Why it is impossible to release a game where there is nothing to do on the map, hoping to create additional content while the players are swinging?
4. Imagine a game built on the opposition of several races. Could it happen that most experienced players will go for the same race, which as a result will get an overwhelming advantage? Is it possible to protect against this?
5. Suppose that for each minute of the online player accrues game currency, experience, or even some valuable resource. Explain why such an idea ultimately leads to an increase in the load on the server, but does not affect the time spent by the players in the game.
6. What is a multi window (multiinstans)? Having reviewed the 5 game concepts offered to you, indicate those where the multi-points will get an overwhelming advantage.

Gaming economy

1. When players do quests and kill mobs, they get items and money for it. Since there are many players and mobs are constantly beaten, the money supply and the mass of items in the game are constantly increasing. How can hyperinflation be avoided?
2. Imagine the situation: the game suffers from the dominance of bots. Bots farm game currency, causing inflation. Suggest at least three ways to eliminate inflation without touching the bots.

Work with the community

1. Why is it extremely undesirable to launch the game servers at the start of the project on Friday evening, and on weekends too?
2. What to do if a player in violation of the rules of the forum posted on the forum of your game description of the game bug with detailed instructions? (The variant “theme in the basket, the author in the ban” is immediately viewed as a sign of the manager’s incompetence).
3. If there are bugs in your game that are fixed for at least a week, but some of the players are already aware of it, then it’s better to pretend that everything is in order, and video with bugs is a fake or publicly acknowledge their presence, promising -to rectify the situation? List the advantages and disadvantages of both options.
4. Why do moderators and community managers need to be recruited not after the launch of the project, but before the start of the PTA? Name at least two large game projects where you did not do it, and tell us what it eventually led to.
5. Do you consider it normal, if there are only two posts from the administration and 200 posts from gold sellers on the game forum in the “communication with developers” section of 800 pages of messages from players? If not, what would you do to change this situation?
6. Situation: the overwhelming majority of players are confident that the administration of the project shelters gold sellers for a certain percentage of profits. What miscalculations of the project team could lead to the formation of such unflattering opinion among the community?
7. Despite the availability of technical support, players will persistently post requests for help on the forum. What can it be connected with and how would you change this situation? (The option “give out bans to everyone who does this” is immediately viewed as a sign of incompetentness).
8. If the players say that the drop from the bosses is cut down 10 times compared with the previous month (which is not true), how would you stop such rumors? The option "write on the forum that this is not true" is considered a sign of incompetence, because nobody will believe such a post anyway (admins hide, etc.).
9. Suppose a player wants to complain about a bot. Do you consider it normal, if for this you have to shoot a 10-minute video, shake it without fail in mp4 1024x768 without sound and send it to Technical Support, the response time of which is no more than a day? What do you think should be the ideal way to leave a complaint against a bot so that the vast majority of players use it?
10. Suppose your project has been successfully launched, the servers are full, and the traffic has been loaded. Does this mean that you can relax, do not give any more interviews, dismiss the community managers and stop posting any news, except those prepared in advance and put in cron?

Philosophical (correct answers depend on the specific company)

1. If the reputation of your company does not affect its income, is it worth worrying about it - are these additional expenses?
2. Should the company's internal kitchen be tightly closed from the players so that they do not know the characteristics of the iron on which the game is spinning, or the names of those responsible for the project, or (all the more) the general atmosphere within the project team?
3. About your project or, even worse, about your company, or even about you personally, they wrote on Lurka. Do I need to immediately flee to the court and send a complaint to Roskomnadzor demanding to immediately block the villains?
4. Does the behavior of your employees look like the behavior of Russian deputies and high-ranking officials? Do players love your company as much as the State Duma?