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“The biggest cheating scandal in Trackmania history”
Trackmaniais a series of racing games where the goal is to get the fastest time possible on various race tracks. Naturally, the game has a healthy competitive scene full of players trying to beat each other’s world records. But recently, Trackmania players “Wirtual” and “Donadigo” discovered a cheating scandal in this speedrunning community, where a number of players had been slowing down their games to make more precise movements to get faster times.
The Biggest Cheating Scandal in Trackmania HistoryWatch on YouTube
The Biggest Cheating Scandal in Trackmania History
To be counted on Trackmania’s speedrunning leaderboards, players must submit a replay file of their run (which the game automatically makes when you complete a run). These files also store a player’s exact inputs, and Donadigo created a tool that extracts those inputs and Displays them on screen, so you can see what buttons are being pressed when.
An example of the input tool. Those arrows at the top light up when a player clicks.
So, they kicked off a full investigation. Using Donadigo’s input tool to compare Riolu’s livestream Trackmania performance vs. the clips he’d made offline then submitted, they discovered the offline clips had an unnaturally high number of “spikes per second” (basically clicks per second). They found that another top player, “Techno”, had similar speedy clicks in his clips.
While Riolu hasn’t responded to the cheating allegations, Techno admitted that he cheated to keep up with Riolu, playing the game at 40% - 80% speed. Several other players reached out to Wirtual and Donadigo to admit they had cheated too. Having these proved examples of the slow-down hacks helped them catch more cheaters - and they’re confident that Riolu is amongst them.
There’s a lot more technical talk to all of this if you’re interested, which Wirtual touches on in his video. You can readtheir full reportin-depth stuff though, it’s an outstanding bit of research.
Wirtual is a big name in the Trackmania scene, and will actually be playing the game at speedrunning event Summer Games Done Quick in July, if fundraising targets are met. He won’t just be playing it normally, however, oh no -he’ll be running it blindfolded.
