All these answers are super interesting!
Well I cheat because I find it helpful to have the automation and ability to get what I want quicker, easier and with less trouble than if I were to spend lets say 6 months manually trying to reach the same goal I could reach in a week or so with the help of cheating programs...
Though with Flight Rising my experience was that people were after a more involved and complex Pet game/site than Neopets... So it was made and more people who were far more hardcore players began to play it before the lesser players caught on. So I guess it doesn't matter either way.
Infact, I myself haven't had an online pet game yet where I haven't ended up using at least a greasemonkey script...
Let me go though this one backwards:
Scripts ain't cheating, it's just fixing what the developers haven't implemented yet. FR in specific are very whiney, they changed their TOS over the that FR helper script for the AH. Jerks.
FR doesn't seem more hardcore to me, it feels like...better art with historical lore.
Trouble though, yeah. That makes sense, given the stuff about Kaylune below.
Cheating is a creative way for people to test the limits of a game. That can be really fun for some people with certain personalities. But probably the main reason we cheat, and of course, I don't speak for everyone -- convenience. What is the point of legitimately playing a game and trying to earn gold/points/money when someone who can cheat will earn 10x the amount you will, in less than half the time? We cheat online because we can. Humans would probably cheat real life more if they could get away with it.
In case you haven't noticed, I don't believe humans are inherently good or bad.
See, I tend to be of the opinion that the difficulty/hassle/need is what breeds cheating in real life. However, online petsites have the need removed, but much higher cheating (likely because it's easier). I'm wondering if the lack of consequences and ease basically makes it an upwards trend of cheating, or if equilibrium could be reached with a reduction in hassle
I wouldn't cheat on Kaylune. I love the site and want to see it grow. I don't know I guess I'm just too emotionally invested in the site and the community there.
I feel like this too. At first, I couldn't wait for a way to cheat there, but now I don't want to ruin my experience by using programs to do the stuff I do. I really like the community and most people are really fun to chat, so I wouldn't want to risk losing that.
That and I don't see much of a point in cheating when attaining money is so easy already.
So no hassle decreased cheating. It's easy enough to get the money for what you want/need. Versus in FR you have to spend hours to max out fairegrounds without cheating
To me, cheating is almost unnecessary there. Like, if you played the game as is, you can afford anything people are willing to sell.
Ignore what I just said. I got ninja'd
Nope, not going to ignore it, co-oberating evidence, yeah?