[T:V] The answer to cheats

We know cheating is still possible, the goal is to make them have to re-hack it all the fucking time, and since nobody wants to hack that much just so they can cheat and still have a high possibilty of getting caught, they wont bother.

so please, enough with the 'omg they can still hack it you idiot'. We know this, it's inherent, and that's why we autoupdate and make them rehack it.

-end

Except that if all the patch does is change some code to make them have to rehack, and everything else works the same, all they have to do is bypass the update. And this will only be valid during the height of the game's popularity. Do you honestly think they'll keep doing it until it is as dead as T1 is?

Shrug, it's all we can do. The thing about retards with no lives is that they are usually lazy, and they will find better things to hack.

And if they put up their shit on a website, all the better, because then we can search for the known cheats.

It's more reasonable for a hacker to hack something and give it to the dev team, because he'll probably recieve some kind of reward.

And yes, after the autoupdates stop, we'll rely, again, on things like zAdmin and Fstat's anti-cheat features.

trew_soulga is wrong. Half-life and it's mods are STILL being hacked to this day. People do not give up.. face it.. someone FINALLY created a working autoaim for tribes1(would have been out long ago if tribes was as popular as cs).
No hack for TV should ever be as severe as HL hacks are. Sure you could see through walls(but why would you need to?), sure you could make autoaim, but only the sniper rifle would be more accurate than a highly skilled player. No fog should be useless so what else is there?

they can rename the function any number of ways and completely embed/encrypt it.

you must live in happy fun java land :)

Shrug, it's all we can do. The thing about retards with no lives is that they are usually lazy, and they will find better things to hack.

And if they put up their shit on a website, all the better, because then we can search for the known cheats.

It's more reasonable for a hacker to hack something and give it to the dev team, because he'll probably recieve some kind of reward.

And yes, after the autoupdates stop, we'll rely, again, on things like zAdmin and Fstat's anti-cheat features.

actually they do it cuz theyre told it cant be done. dss hackers are a good example of this, most of em dont even watch much tv.

:rofl: :lol: I just love how it's jailhouse rules(EVERYONE is INNOCENT). :lies: :rofl:

And it continues.

Are you really this ignorant to cheats and the hacking culture Trew_Soulja?

And it continues.

Are you really this ignorant to cheats and the hacking culture Trew_Soulja?


So what should we do? Nothing because the "hacking culture" just won't stop?

I'm sick and tired of playing games with morons who rely on cheats because their natural ability and awareness is just above that of a downs syndrome kid.

I realize stopping cheats is near impossible, if someone is motivated and ingenious enough, they will figure something out. We've seen this happen in pretty much any and every game released. That doesn't mean that we stop working on trying to figure something out.

At least Trew is trying to think of something, regardless of how nieve you think it might be. Stop flaming and maybe help out with some suggestions. :p

Sure i'm pretty ignorant of the hacking culture, why would i be knowledgeable? I'm not a hacker.

But i do know that though there are many gamers who are also hackers and vice versa, there is a difference between the gaming community and the hacking community. The goal is to try to make it so annoying, tedious, and time-consuming to continually hack the game that we eliminate the weekend hackers from trying to hack the game. If as a by-product we emplore the hardcore hackers to hack the game, well then maybe they'll see the value in giving their results to the dev team to a) give themselves an even greater challenge after an update is made b) gain exactly the recognition they were looking for when the dev team says 'latest update brought to you by ZeroCool', or c) get some money from Sierra to hack games and give them the results.

Mostly, the screenshot system would be a fairly easy way to install a sort of security system that will catch the average gamer who thinks he can get away with cheating. Coupled with the demo feature and demo rules, i still think it will go a long ways to catch cheaters with minimal investment - especially if they have a server-side demo recording feature.

Your suggestion was worth exploring, but I think in 5 pages it's been pretty much put to rest. It's rather funny seeing you bring it back up.

1.) 3 client-side screenshots would prove little, if anything, beyond a few graphical hacks. Maybe the existence of nofog. Whoopty Doo.

2.) Screen captures create unecessary load on the system. It may be negligible, it may not. Obviously it would need testing, but you can't predict how every machine will handle it.

3.) Likewise, transferring those screenshots to the server requires bandwidth. You want to create lag for ALL players, during a MATCH, to catch a handful of cheaters? Funny.

4.) You suggested increasing the JPEG compression to lower the file size and simultaneously attack the system load and bandwidth problems. You realize JPEG compression significantly lowers image quality... right? How do you expect to catch cheaters from screenshots ruined by heavy compression artifacts?

5.) You make claims that this would be "easy to implement", and yet you present no real programming solutions for doing it, and admitted to not having a fucking clue about the hacking culture that so ravenously persues cheats.

6.) You take it even a step FURTHER and suggest server-side demo recording. As if the server didn't have enough work to do running the damn game, you want it to collect random screenshots for secure storage AND RECORD DEMOS. Jesus Christ...

7.) And who's gonna monitor this shit anyway? You think server admins have no lives? (OK, some of them don't.) Don't even get me started on asking Sierra to look at thousands of screenshots and server demos for potential cheats. I'm sure they do plenty of that already.

Do I need to continue, or is this a fair summary of how bad your idea is?

Edit: Oh yeah. I didn't even TOUCH on how easy this would be to bypass. Easier, perhaps, than creating a NOCD hack. Maybe even through some creative firewall manipulation?

the screenshot stuffz is gewd. (imho of course)

the screenshot stuffz is gewd. (imho of course)
Hush you. :hrm:

No one way will fix it, it's fairly obvious. A combination or a few different methods would be the best way to do it IMO.

And its sad but true, anyone who is dedicated enough to make a cheat will make it work as long as he/she is playing the game. I see it as a challenge. Its a cycle:

Devs: OUR GAME IS UNHACKABLE
"Hackers": Oh yeah?
Devs: PATCH #1
"Hackers": Oh yeah?
Devs: PATCH #2
"Hackers": Oh yeah?

The problem is the devs will stop patching long before people stop making cheats. Just replace patch with any sort of anti cheat measure. Will it keep the game free of cheats for a long time? Yes. Will a developer supported crusade against cheats win out in the end? No. The community will need to do its part, demos required from matches, admin mods like Fstat and zadmin etc.

in the end, those who take competition too seriously are ones to blame (you know, when game gets 'old')

theres a way, its complicated yet possible, its automatic, and it has to be an integrated feature of the engine.

and anyone who thinks the screenshot idea would work has never written a line of code in their life.

theres a way, its complicated yet possible, its automatic, and it has to be an integrated feature of the engine.

and anyone who thinks the screenshot idea would work has never written a line of cheating code in their life.

FIXED!@ and true

Your suggestion was worth exploring, but I think in 5 pages it's been pretty much put to rest. It's rather funny seeing you bring it back up.

1.) 3 client-side screenshots would prove little, if anything, beyond a few graphical hacks. Maybe the existence of nofog. Whoopty Doo.

2.) Screen captures create unecessary load on the system. It may be negligible, it may not. Obviously it would need testing, but you can't predict how every machine will handle it.

3.) Likewise, transferring those screenshots to the server requires bandwidth. You want to create lag for ALL players, during a MATCH, to catch a handful of cheaters? Funny.

4.) You suggested increasing the JPEG compression to lower the file size and simultaneously attack the system load and bandwidth problems. You realize JPEG compression significantly lowers image quality... right? How do you expect to catch cheaters from screenshots ruined by heavy compression artifacts?

5.) You make claims that this would be "easy to implement", and yet you present no real programming solutions for doing it, and admitted to not having a fucking clue about the hacking culture that so ravenously persues cheats.

6.) You take it even a step FURTHER and suggest server-side demo recording. As if the server didn't have enough work to do running the damn game, you want it to collect random screenshots for secure storage AND RECORD DEMOS. Jesus Christ...

7.) And who's gonna monitor this shit anyway? You think server admins have no lives? (OK, some of them don't.) Don't even get me started on asking Sierra to look at thousands of screenshots and server demos for potential cheats. I'm sure they do plenty of that already.

Do I need to continue, or is this a fair summary of how bad your idea is?

Edit: Oh yeah. I didn't even TOUCH on how easy this would be to bypass. Easier, perhaps, than creating a NOCD hack. Maybe even through some creative firewall manipulation?


i love it when they make them numbered so i can tear them apart one by one

1) yes, i already mentioned that this would be in combination with other anticheats, yet still, client-side SS's offer evidence towards every single element of HappyMod except nofog and happyflag. That includes happy invs/packs/items/sniper. Yet one can still USE nofog as long as they dont snipe beyond the visible distance.

On top of that they can still have happy inventories and pulses so that the enemy never gets an inv or pulse sensor out, and with happy packs and mines and turrets they can see enemies (with packs) and mines & turrets around corners (basically a cheap wallhack). HappyMod was and probably is one of the most frrequently used cheats around in T1 today.

2) "it may be negligable, it may not, but you cant predict how every machine will handle it" - i'm optimistically already mentioned that the minimum required CPU will be able to handle it such that it is negligable.

3) I already mentioned that the screenshots would be uploaded either between maps or upon disconnection. That wouldnt hinder anything during the match. Also, i already mentioned that most servers have basically unlimited bandwidth anyways, and i also said that uploading the SS's would be an optional feature toggleable on a per-player basis. So you could watch the ones you suspected of cheating and ignore the ones you thought were cool.

4) i already mentioned that you obviously dont need high quality images to tell that someone is cheating. Look at the screenshot that RedSpider posted. You dont need high quality, zoomable images to see that there are some huge square smiley faces there. Other cheats are similar when they're visible through screenshots.

5) i said it would be a relatively easy (as in less work/time) task to impliment some preventative code NOW than it would be to do fix-it code later. It's kind of hard to dispute that, which you didnt do, you just said i didnt provide any code. Sorry i'm not publicy posting code that might stop cheating. a) im not a programmer b) fucking duh

6) uh, the server has to process what everyone does anyway, it's part of the whole "hey we're playing a multiplayer game online with other humans!" thing - they have to transmit what the players are doing. A demo is simply writing this to a readable file. Most things that servers transfer are stored into a cache anyway, making it readable really isn't asking much.

And i'm not saying demo every single player i'm saying demo whichever players you choose. You are assuming im saying OMG DEMO EVERYONE EVERY MATCH THEY EVER PLAY. No, who the fuck wants to see the z0rz play Starfleet? No, they'd rather see Reckless play BMF, so THEN i'd record shag and kidney thief's demos.

7) I already mentioned that this would be observed by a) those who are curious and b) the admins who have to do demo disputes anyway. I never ever said that server admins and ladder admins were required to monitor this shit.




Really i dont know how easy it is to hack various types of programs. All i know is that bigger programs are typically harder to hack and that encrypted programs are harder to hack. Based on this i said the following "if we update it and re-encrypt it it will be harder to hack," and, "if we put it within the larger game program instead of a seperate entity it will be harder to hack". Correct me if i'm wrong here.



Before you go trying to sound smart and all self-righteous in attempts to gain e-penis size please read the thread and do some thinking about the implications.

I hate to get all worked up but that's what peopld do when they're drunk.

'nite

as ZP said, the way it works in starcraft/warcraft is excelent. They monitor the players over time and only ban the most rampant cheaters. The people having cheated a few times just get their account removed.

cheating one time is cheating one time too many

accidents do happen, and I think its fair to give the people who've cheated once the benifit of the doubt. Disabling their CD-KEY is a quite harsh action.