Is using warp zones cheating?

[Yasashii-kun]

I was wondering, if I use warp zones to get myself ahead a few levels in Mario games, is that cheating?

I mean technically you could make the argument that since warp zones are a part of the game, not something added on, it's ok to use. Then again, warp zones are hidden so they are not exactly regular features.

I can't make up my mind on this so I'd like to find out what the general opinion is.

[Zaladane]

I don't consider them to be so. Hell I've even used them to go back levels.

[Remus22]

To me, cheating implies that the people who made the game didn't intend you to use it at all/until certain conditions were met. If it's part of normal gameplay like that, I say fair game. But then again, I've been known to be extremely lenient on cheating, otherwise I'd never finish my backlog

[Drageuth]

Warp zones (especially in Mario games) can all be found by exploring the environment, which you should be doing anyways. Perfectly legit in my books. I consider "cheating" to be things that can't be uncovered during regular gameplay (things like IDDQD/IDKFA/IDSPISPOPD in DOOM would be considered cheating, for example).

My $0.02

[Prude]

No. I abuse warping so bad. I have to get the fuck out of there.

[treos]

no abusing glitches/bugs or hacking or using cheat devices like game shark (or the nowadays VERY rare button combination type codes, konami code anyone?) is cheating. using or exploiting something in the game as it was intended to be used like warp zones in old mario games is obviously fair play.

i really wish people would treat cheating in video games as lightly as they did a decade or so ago instead of acting like anything even resembling a cheat is taboo or something (yeah, this topic here falls under such a category imho). i mean, 1-2 decades ago people would use cheats in games all the time and there'd be no problem...unless it was one prone to corrupting or wiping save files, which has been known to happen at times

[Remus22]

no abusing glitches/bugs or hacking or using cheat devices like game shark (or the nowadays VERY rare button combination type codes, konami code anyone?) is cheating. using or exploiting something in the game as it was intended to be used like warp zones in old mario games is obviously fair play.

i really wish people would treat cheating in video games as lightly as they did a decade or so ago instead of acting like anything even resembling a cheat is taboo or something (yeah, this topic here falls under such a category imho). i mean, 1-2 decades ago people would use cheats in games all the time and there'd be no problem...unless it was one prone to corrupting or wiping save files, which has been known to happen at times

I'm a filthy, filthy cheater, and proud of it I've been known to use save edits on PS3 and 360 games, even.

Never for trophies or gamerscore though. That's just cheap.

[treos]

pfft save editing, easy enough with hex editing or something (could make cheat device codes a part of the game itself thus bypassing the need for said "devices" easily enough).

oh and i forgot to mention the favorite of countless people (myself included ), Cheat Engine

[ponury_indor]

No. Finding secret passages isn't cheating. They're like shortcuts in racing games.

[Takion Sun]

no abusing glitches/bugs or hacking or using cheat devices like game shark (or the nowadays VERY rare button combination type codes, konami code anyone?) is cheating. using or exploiting something in the game as it was intended to be used like warp zones in old mario games is obviously fair play.

i really wish people would treat cheating in video games as lightly as they did a decade or so ago instead of acting like anything even resembling a cheat is taboo or something (yeah, this topic here falls under such a category imho). i mean, 1-2 decades ago people would use cheats in games all the time and there'd be no problem...unless it was one prone to corrupting or wiping save files, which has been known to happen at times

Liking this post. We seemed to forget somewhere along the way that playing video games is supposed to be fun. I saw if you have more fun using the cheats, why not? Only place I would bar this would be multiplayer, unless everyone wanted to use it.

[MaslowK]

No. Finding secret passages isn't cheating. They're like shortcuts in racing games.

I agree; secrets found during the normal course of gameplay shouldn't be considered "cheats". A more grey area though would be just googling the secrets for their first playthroughs and not discovering the secrets themselves. One might consider that cheating but worse, they could easily be depriving themselves of the full experience by skipping around.