Cheating

In MMOs, cheating is often defined as doing some thing immoral or unethical with or in the game. In single-player games such as Warcraft III, cheat codes are more accepted, as they do not affect other players.

In World of Warcraft
Most people have different thresholds of what they consider cheating. The license agreement for most MMORPGs covers some types of cheating as a legal issue that has various related penalties.

Definitions
Most players consider buying items or large amounts of in-game money through means outside the game a form of cheating (this is also specifically and expressly forbidden in the World of Warcraft terms of service). Most also agree that using some sort of automated macro program to repeat some mundane but profitable task as a form of cheating.

Other types of cheating:
 * Using an exploit.
 * Using undocumented cheat codes for an advantage without an opponent's knowledge.
 * Altering game code to give an advantage.

Borderline cheating:
 * In single-player games, using cheat codes is sometimes not considered cheating, if used only to discover new content the player has neither the desire or time to get to the normal way.
 * Methods that involve taking advantage possible bugs in the game to bypass the normal method of doing something in the game. An example in World of Warcraft is a method of getting to Haleh in Winterspring to complete several quests that does not involve teleporting from the depths of a cave.

Why avoid it
The question that often gets asked: "What's wrong with cheating?" ...usually followed by: "It's only a game."

Some possible answers:
 * It can adversely affect other people's enjoyment of the game - for example, it unbalances the playing field which is especially heinous in the PvP environment.
 * It makes other players less friendly or helpful, because they start to think they might be helping someone who doesn't deserve it.
 * It gets you kicked out of the game and a risk of getting your Battle.net account banned.

In Warcraft III
See Warcraft III cheat codes.

In Warcraft II
See Warcraft II cheat codes.

In Warcraft I
See Warcraft I cheat codes.