Veteran network programmer Glenn Fiedler says that The Division has some major flaws.
The Division is an open world third-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Massive and published by Ubisoft. The game was released for the Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4), Microsoft Xbox One and PC on March 8, and Ubisoft announced that the game has sold more copies on its first 24 hours of availability than any previous title in the company's history.
"The launch of The Division is a tremendous achievement for Ubisoft, and demonstrates our unrivaled capacity to create fantastic new game brands and transform them into entertainment blockbusters," said Yves Guillemot, CEO and co-founder of Ubisoft. "This is a momentous day for Ubisoft, but more importantly it marks the start of millions of players' enduring engagement in The Division's game world, which we are confident they will love."
However, it is very easy for gamers to use exploits and cheat in the game. This has resulted in many disappointed players.
Fiedler says that the programming of the game is flawed: the basic code was copied from the console versions to the PC, and the game developers did not make any modifications to the PC codes.
The Division, Fiedler suggests, is not designed like many similar games available on the market, which makes it easy for gamers to cheat. The Division could be using a trusted client network model, which may allow gamers to change specific game values to benefit themselves and affect other players.
However, if The Division used a server-authoritative network model, then any changes made by a gamer will only be implemented at the gamer's side and will not affect other players.
Fiedler hopes that The Division is not using a trusted client network model because it cannot be fixed, especially on PC. The game would have to be rewritten to fix the problem.
"Possibly on consoles provided they fix all lag switch timing exploits and disable players moving and shooting while lag switch usage is detected (trusted client on console exclusive games is actually more common than you would think...), but not on PC unless they completely rewrite most of their netcode and game code around a server-authoritative network model," said Fiedler.
Ubisoft has not revealed the sever model used by The Division, but the company maintains that using exploits is not acceptable and that it is working on the problem.
