Mp cheaters are ruining the game.

[Powzone]

...you can mark a player as cheater via warzone multiplayer frontend...

This reminds me of some options given in XBOX Live, to mark players as too agressive or not sporty and autamitcally blocking that player to play with you. The problem with this would be that sometimes an innocent player will end up on that list.

IMO using a client/server system with registration per email, would be a bad idea. I think it will scare off new players and possibly keep the community small. Even if it works with Flyff...

The commandline parser would be the only true option. Just one thing makes my head ache a bit. When the host uses a mod or better said the "LOW-Limits" mod (only needed by the host), nobody will be able to join, if the command line isn't exactly the same.
To prevent this, maybe a change could be made to the Lobby screen adding an extra line to each host, showing the commandline parameters and your own shown in the background of the the screen like the version information on the lower right. Or even better:
A green and red light at the host + the cmd line, showing if you can join or not.

Just some quick thoughts...

[Andreas XXL]

I think it is impossible to prevent cheating with code.

If you build the best anti cheating tool possible, the cheater will find the code delete it and has a cheat version again.
This is very easy in a open source project. But all comercial projects have the same problem.
Cheaters decompile the code and rebuild the whole game stucture and build a cheat version.
If you have informations on the computer of users, it is possible for them to get this informations to use it for cheating.


The only way of prevent cheating is to run the whole game on a server and only send the calculated pictures as video stream to the players. But you need a very good internet connection and much serverpower for it. And you get a new problem with the reaction time to user input because the input needs to be send to the server.

There is not a single (popular) game out there without cheating.

[-Kosh-]

That is pretty much true.
They have basic cheat detection in the next release from what it looks like but that can be circumvented as well.

[truckspin]

hello,

a bigger problem are those people who call anyone a cheater who plays much better than they do, even when they have no idea. I am not one of the top 10 players, and still get accused of cheating in every second game.

Such people also confuse synchronisation issues with cheats. For example it happens very often that a unit under fire takes no damage or repairs itself because it is somewhere entirely different from another perspective.

I find these people much more annoying than the real cheaters, who usually lose anyway, and if they don't it's still a nicer challenge than playing against the AI (which also cheats) or unskilled players.

Anyway, I encountered two super-super-super-weird things that I can't explain. I think they are not cheats, they just indicate that something went ... very very wrong:

1. Some people can build super-advanced things like fortresses even in T1 immediately after the game started. Their units circle around irrationally, they never reply in chat, and ALL of their buildings have only about 5 % health without ever getting damaged. WTF IS UP WITH THAT? It happens in about every 30th game.
2. Sometimes ALL players, including the host and myself, have about 40 pre-designed units which are pretty advanced and very strange. This includes T3 units, and the factories can build them even when the tech has not been researched yet. WTF IS UP WITH THAT? Nobody knows. A mod on ONE of the clients maybe? It happens in about every 35th game.

They are probably not cheats, but since I have no idea what they are I can't ask this where it belongs.

Reproduce? Simple, play about 100 huge games and you'll encounter both several times.

[smallfly]

Sometimes ALL players, including the host and myself, have about 40 pre-designed units which are pretty advanced and very strange. This includes T3 units, and the factories can build them even when the tech has not been researched yet. WTF IS UP WITH THAT? Nobody knows. A mod on ONE of the clients maybe? It happens in about every 35th game.[/list]

Although i havent played more than 20 games all together, i also experienced that about 3 times. I clicked the design dialog and saw that predesigned units. What happens here?!

To not lose the thread, i get back to the cheating issue:

I know that there is always a way to circumvent anti-cheats-techniques, but we should really build in some very basic anti-cheat-functions like an energy checker, that checks if the sum of generated energy, as well as the sum of used energy are possible or if they are just cheated.

Today i made some changes to the source code, compiled it and joined a multiplayer game online. I hoped for a brake down of my system, because i enabled god mode, increased the rate of power generation, increased the output speed of all factories, as well as the build speed of the trucks. All works fine. And this is sh*t. Now that I know this, i can't be sure, that all the versions out there are cheat-free. I mean, the versions used to join a multiplayer game. IT IS TOO EASY TO CHEAT!!

My idea: The subversion online respository should not have all files needed to compile a online working copy of wz. That should be file like

"neededforonlinematches.c" that includes some important code. only the people that release the newest playable versions of wz (the webmaster of this homepage?) should have this file to compile the game.

ALL other people can compile the game too, but cannot join online multiplayer games, because the file i mentioned contains for example the ip address of the wz host.

How do you like that idea?

[-Kosh-]

To not lose the thread, i get back to the cheating issue:

I know that there is always a way to circumvent anti-cheats-techniques, but we should really build in some very basic anti-cheat-functions like an energy checker, that checks if the sum of generated energy, as well as the sum of used energy are possible or if they are just cheated.

Today i made some changes to the source code, compiled it and joined a multiplayer game online. I hoped for a brake down of my system, because i enabled god mode, increased the rate of power generation, increased the output speed of all factories, as well as the build speed of the trucks. All works fine. And this is sh*t. Now that I know this, i can't be sure, that all the versions out there are cheat-free. I mean, the versions used to join a multiplayer game. IT IS TOO EASY TO CHEAT!!

My idea: The subversion online respository should not have all files needed to compile a online working copy of wz. That should be file like

"neededforonlinematches.c" that includes some important code. only the people that release the newest playable versions of wz (the webmaster of this homepage?) should have this file to compile the game.

ALL other people can compile the game too, but cannot join online multiplayer games, because the file i mentioned contains for example the ip address of the wz host.

How do you like that idea?

That will not go over with the open source concept. It is required to have everything open and available to anyone who wants it.

The power code in warzone is f'ing screwy. There is no reliable way to track power without some major changes.

The only solution is to move from p2p to server based which would cut down cheats to only 10%. Hell, that damn f'ing trainer that was released on these boards caused more damage to warzone MP games.

[Zarel]

We could just rearrange the memory, so all the existing trainers wouldn't work anymore...

[-Kosh-]

We could just rearrange the memory, so all the existing trainers wouldn't work anymore...

In a cross-platform compliant way? I do not think so. Even if the devs were to do such a thing, it would be f'ing easy to make a new one by looking at the changes in the source code.

[Zarel]

In a cross-platform compliant way? I do not think so. Even if the devs were to do such a thing, it would be f'ing easy to make a new one by looking at the changes in the source code.

True, but it would make it harder on the cheaters to have to download a new cheat engine every release, etc.

[smallfly]

We could implement some cryptic c++ code. I mean some unreadable code like

i >> 2 * 4 ^ dwd : if 21 ? 21 ... (nonsense code in this case, but you know what i mean)

We put this code in a function called:

getPlayerCheatingStatus(playerID id)
{
wjdwjd 2 239 234 -.+ +2323 2+*23 (cryptic code)
return 2323 1 +d wdd 3+3d 3342 (return a string that works like a password; only if server gets exactly this password when sending a query to a player everything is fine; if a player doesnt return this password, the player automatically gets kicked; the return line must contain more than just a normal string of course, otherwise it would be too easy to circumvent it, it has to be made tricky)
}

I dont think that cheaters take 50 hours to understand the tricky function.

[Avestron]

It would be interesting if certain important files on the player's drive were to be calculated as a part of WZ's regular function. This is saved into a particular file within a particular folder and is recalculated several times on the players' side. A hosting player will expect theses files to match perfectly (including version number) and will auto-boot players detected not to be in compliance. Since files are essentially turned into strings within a much smaller file the process should be almost instantaneous.

Just cheap ideas.

[Timmie]

isn't there a way. to let the clients automaticly use the rules of te host.

so that, if the host would have rebuild his version with godpower and stuff.
all the clients got this god stuff.


if a cheater uses these kind of cheats they wouldnt work since he automaticly uses the rules of the host.

[zschopf1]

Not to get off topic but I'm trying to figure out how to even edit the source codes or even open the files, do I need the Developer package or something? I'm trying to work on making a different style with the game for a College class. But I wasn't sure what I needed to begin working on it.. I'm also supposed to create a simulation and test it on different platforms. v.v On top of that learn what gets hacked or likely and see if I can fix it. Which means I can post my progress if any of the devs want to help. I can give credit too for the help.

[smallfly]

Not to get off topic (...)

But you got off topic! Please post your question in a new thread. (as a short hint: look at the development pages of this website)

[Zarel]

We could implement some cryptic c++ code. I mean some unreadable code like

i >> 2 * 4 ^ dwd : if 21 ? 21 ... (nonsense code in this case, but you know what i mean)

We put this code in a function called:

getPlayerCheatingStatus(playerID id)
{
wjdwjd 2 239 234 -.+ +2323 2+*23 (cryptic code)
return 2323 1 +d wdd 3+3d 3342 (return a string that works like a password; only if server gets exactly this password when sending a query to a player everything is fine; if a player doesnt return this password, the player automatically gets kicked; the return line must contain more than just a normal string of course, otherwise it would be too easy to circumvent it, it has to be made tricky)
}

I dont think that cheaters take 50 hours to understand the tricky function.

What you're describing is obfuscation, and it really doesn't work. I don't think the cheaters are reading code; they're just using debuggers.