Easy Cheat Protection

[smallfly]

There is an easy way to protect the game from oil cheats/trainers: Just dont display the real oil amount but an amount +/- 10 units. That way you cannot type the amount into a trainer and the memory position cannot be found.

The standard amount of 1300 units in the beginning should (of course) be set to an amount of 1300 +/- 10 units (randomized each start).

Simple but very effective.

The network code of wz2100 doesnt allow full anti-cheat protection. But stuff like the one I suggested is only enough to lower the number of cheaters about 95%, since its getting f***ing hard to cheat And its really easy to implement. What do you think?

//edit: of course this could lead to deltas between the oil amounts of the diffent players in the beginning of the game. but nobody will care about someone having 1302 units of oil while the opponent has 1303 units

[lav_coyote25]

cheating is cheating. people will do it no matter what... thing is they only cheat themselves out of a great game... and once your labeled a cheater - it takes a very long time for the community to forgive if the community forgives at all...

[Per]

And how would this stop people who change the source code and compile their own clients with cheats built-in?

Cheating will be harder when master is released, since cheating there will cause out of sync issues.

[NoQ]

Per: i don't yet know how to compile this game on windows. Cross-compiling turned out to be a lot easier. Assuming all other windows users have the same feeling, and assuming users of all OSes cheat equally, this could reduce cheating ~3x times, according to the OS poll.

Lol, really, making it a bit harder is a funny idea.

of course this could lead to deltas between the oil amounts of the diffent players in the beginning of the game

No it won't, cause you're advising to change only visible amount, not real amount. When a player has less then 20 oils, the string gets hard to identify anyway, so it can be shown as is.

Well, i didn't really like the idea, and there are many reasons for it (primarily, "it is ugly"). So i just wanted to say i understand it (:

[medusa]

And how would this stop people who change the source code and compile their own clients with cheats built-in?

Cheating will be harder when master is released, since cheating there will cause out of sync issues.

does it automatically recover from those sync issues or do you get a the host has quit message?

[Zarel]

And how would this stop people who change the source code and compile their own clients with cheats built-in?

It wouldn't. Fortunately, few cheaters know how to do that.

Cheating will be harder when master is released, since cheating there will cause out of sync issues.

From what I understand, master is far from being released (it hasn't even been branched yet). This change might be simple enough to implement in 2.3.x.

[Per]

So let's say we add such a ridiculous anti-cheat measure, and the next day someone releases a modified copy of the latest release with cheats built-in for everyone to download. The end result? Wasted time, added bugs, more complicated codebase, and just as much cheating as before.

This is not the way.

[medusa]

all ideas get flushed down the tubes and again with the condescending answers.

[lav_coyote25]

all ideas get flushed down the tubes and again with the condescending answers.

so have you coded the solution yet and provided it for testing??? if not... then your post is just so much ... noise.

[Zarel]

So let's say we add such a ridiculous anti-cheat measure, and the next day someone releases a modified copy of the latest release with cheats built-in for everyone to download.

The end result? Wasted time, added bugs, more complicated codebase, and just as much cheating as before.

Let's also say tomorrow the sun explodes.

What I'm trying to illustrate here is that "let's say" is rather useless unless you have reason to believe such a scenario is actually likely.

Implicit in your "let's say" are two assumptions:
1. Someone will publicly release a modified copy of the latest release with built-in cheats.
2. Nearly everyone who currently cheats will download this modified copy.

I believe the first assumption is relatively unlikely, but for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume it does happen.

Your number two assumption is false. This is why software has DRM at all. Even if it's broken, the DRM still stops a significant portion of pirates (the lazy portion).

More importantly, the barrier to entry is much higher.

Currently, the barrier to entry is: Anyone who has cheat engine software, and knows how to use it. This is can be done without ever searching for Warzone cheats, or understanding C, or being able to compile a program. Or: anyone who looks for instructions for using cheat engine software.

The new barrier to entry is: Anyone who knows how to both write C and compile software, or how to find a pre-built cheating version of it. This is a significantly increased barrier to entry.

[Per]

1. Cheat versions of the game has already been circulated somewhat publicly. Posts on this very forum have been deleted over it.

2. If you can google to find and manage to run a program that scans memory for a rapidly changing number then changes it, then surely you can also google for a version for warzone that has cheats and run it.

3. This will only apply to 2.3 in any case. Attempting to run such a 'trainer' on master will cause the game to desync, so that will not be so interesting.

[stiv]

But we know with great certainty that the sun *will* explode. And we know historically, that cheating has been a problem in every game where you either have access to the source code or can edit the binaries.

Raising the barrier keeps out both the honest and the lazy, but given the amount of time that people have devoted being jerks suggests that being forced to compile the game or download it from the interwebs is not a particularly high barrier. Per's argument is basically a cost/benefit analysis that recognizes we get little bang for that buck.

[2point7182818]

The easiest way to combat cheating would be to release a stable version with deterministic netcode, even if one sacrifices other anticipated features.

[Omnivore]

The easiest and most reliable way to combat cheating is social engineering... iow play people you know (even from an irc community).

There is *no* possible anti-cheat involving a trusted client as part of the solution. Peer to peer games are trusted client. This is an old argument, almost older than me. If you truly need a cheat free game vs strangers, you must use client server and then you must be very careful. That is a ton of work but anything between that and nothing not only provides no solution but just confuscates the codebase and introduces bugs for zero gain.

[lav_coyote25]

The easiest way to combat cheating would be to release a stable version with deterministic netcode, even if one sacrifices other anticipated features.

actually how about we sacrifice those that say to sacrifice... i think that would be an awesome way to spend a weekend... you volunteering to become the first??? just asking...