One of the most blatant things I've learned during my time at F|A, is a few things about the mentality of cheaters.

Now, it may seem obvious but to investigate and find the evidence still makes me feel like Columbo.

The fact is, cheaters love showing off to newbies. They target the BEGINNERS / NOOBS 4EVA / NEWBIES titled servers. How do I know this? Read on.

I have banned almost an equal amount of cheaters on our F|A BEGINNERS XPS server, than I have on all our other servers put together - and Jay3 (Beginners) is not my most played server.

The bans I have made on Jay3 at least double the amount of bans I have made on any other single server. This says a lot without further scrutiny.. But I will go further with my theory.

Cheaters are usually people who feel inadequate amongst the pro's. So where are they going to look most 'pro' with their new cheats? Amongst newbies of course!

And furthermore, they will not often play with the pro's using a cheat, because the pro's know what is possible, and what isn't, without a cheat. If a pro is getting his ass handed to him on a plate by someone with absolutely no XP on the server - they're going to look suspicious, obviously. So they stay away from people they think will know the difference. They lurk mostly on beginner servers where people will just think they're pro..

I would hazard a guess that they mostly avoid recruiting servers too (although I have not tested this theory as I spend very little time in our RECRUITING XPS server) - due to the nature of a recruiting server, it stands to reason that admins will definitely be present, and that they will likely be caught.

So that's lesson #1 on Cheater mentality.. But this doesn't mean all the cheaters follow this pattern. Many know how to evade bans, and don't care about being caught, or who they show off to. Many just want to be a pain in the ass, for attention.

I hope you enjoy the theory. I hope also that this wasn't too tiresome for my first blog!