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A review of “Keyboard King”, a discussion of so-called “speed cheating” in regular TetriNET, and some other things Since the time of my TetriFAST review, some of the things I predicted have turned out right (albeit for only a short period of time), some of them wrong. TetriFAST did indeed ignite the scene in a new way, however, it has been the new and improved TetriNET2 that deservedly has caught the elite regular Tetris players’ attention. What is significant, though, is that TetriNET 1.13 still remains the most popular online Tetris client for a number of reasons. These have to do with low system demands, extensive support through dedicated UNIX servers, operating system support, etc. TetriNET 1.13 is a slow game with a delay between each piece of appr. 1 second. This makes the gameplay strategic rather than action-oriented in character. Some people have written hacks to remove the delay (the most important of these, of course, being TetriFAST), while others have utilized changing the piece delay as a cheat (TetriNET Pro, TClone, TSpeed). Still, one of the major obstacles of achieving speed in TetriNET has always been the speed of your keyboard. Since Windows TetriNET uses standard operating system keyboard settings, the controls are frustratingly slow for some players. This is where Keyboard King and other similar programs enter. What Keyboard King does is allowing the user to change the speed of his or her keyboard beyond the maximum speed possible by default in the operating system. I have tried it out and it works well, however, I do not plan to use it myself as I find it messes up my aim. Most new TetriNET players would probably be well advised to download it to see if it can help their game. Many people say that Keyboard King and other similar “hacks” are cheats. This, they are not. Using these or other utilities to speed up your keyboard falls under the part of “optimizing your software and hardware configuration” that I wrote of in my pure Tetris playing guide. Keyboard King does in no way change the piece delay in the game, in fact, it isn’t concerned with the game. Besides, anyone can change the repeat speed in Linux to anything they want if they are playing GTetriNET. Branding utilities for lesser endowed operating systems as cheats puts users of these operating systems at a disadvantage. Programs such as the infamous Counterstrike Speedcheat are true cheats because they fool the CPU clock making the game go at a much higher speed. Incidentally, this program could also be effective with TetriNET. However, changing the priority of the TetriNET process to “real-time” such as many elite NT users do are just another way of optimizing their playing environment, because all it does is give the game more CPU time. It does not compromise it. It stands to reason that a better computer will make playing a game easier. When I play TetriNET on a 486/33 I don’t expect the same responsiveness as when using a friend’s p-IV with a 21” monitor. This should come as a surprise to no-one. The real cheaters are those hiding this, sometimes crucial, information from other users – those pretending they aren’t using these utilities when in fact they are. This is clan HELLFIRE’s view on the subject. spindizzy/HELLFIRE, 09/03 |