This will be my first post made on the Warzone 2100 forum. (Admin and mods Please read this through and read the P.S) However, it will not be a happy post for I'm starting to have troubles with the lack of Host administrative powers. And we know there are people who hack/cheat during the game.
I want to share with you my short story on addressing this problem, and hopefully come to a reasonable conclusion, for the more games that I start to play, the more that I find user abusing game play. Thus making Warzone, very unattractive to new users.
A Bit of background.
I'm running the latest stable version of WZ, under unbuntu Linux 10.10 64bit. Currently no longer a noob in this game. I can build very quickly, and have won game under 30 min of game play. I'm Looking for where the game keeps it's chat logs. (if it even has one), to better explain the problems that might be the issue with this game.
Today( at the time of me writing this post) I just got of a good game, or what suppose to be a good game. See I was playing on a 2v2 dual map. I was leading attacks and winning the game with my VLOTS; armed with plasma bombs.
My opponent knew his time was limited but decide to do turn the tables in the worst way possible. He Cheated.
There was a stream of text coming from the chat box.
He used some sort of hack to transport over Cannon Fortress all over the inside of my base!
The only thing I could do was to stop the game thus ending it.
I was very piss off because I though this was one of the few games out there that wasn't being cheated upon to heavily.
But this was hack number three. Other two hacks were some sort speed hacks.
However, the other thing that made me so mad was that there was nothing I can do about his hack-cheating. In fact, I can't kick him during game play(far as I know at this moment), and banning him isn't an option. Once more, he could just come back under a different name, and once again I would be the screaming victim.
So here are my suggestions.
My huge suggestion would be to simple give users(Hosting player) more Admin powers, make it hard for player to cheat in the game(Both with in coding, and Players being able to ID other player), and finally put guild lines or limit to the admin to prevent admin abuse.
When you do host a game, you'll notice that you'll be able to kick a player for any reason. If he or she comes back under a different name, they will be almost undetectably. Reason why, sometimes people kick each other over High ping levels, if you see that there seems to be a bunch of people coming into your game with High pings you can figure that it might be the same person. When you do start the game, and that person begins to cheat, then you'll have almost no way of knowing if the next person who joins in is that same cheater.
The solution is simple. Have the host be able to see that person IP,/ MAC address. Give the host the power to ban repeat offenders if just plan kicking them doesn't work. Also, you can set up some type of GUID(Global User Identification ). This could be randomly generated during the first time that the user runs the game. So in a way, when they come into a game, the host can know exactly who he/she is playing with.
To Limit ban abuse, just have it where the ban can only take place inside of the game, and only last for 24 hours. The clock would be an internal timer, so that there is no need to have some type of Internet server. And the timer would run in the host game, a simple log file will can keep track of the time when the game is not being played. Also, you can have it to where other player could know that this player was ban for some reason, and would have the option to either let him/her in or kick him/her on the spot.
I know this was a long post and that I'm sure asking a lot for the next development, however this problem of cheating must be addressed, and the solution of having a more powerful host would be the best solution. One even if you make the code to where you can't hack into the game, what's going to prevent the would be hacker for not trying to break through the new code?
Responsible admin are needed to keep enforcing the roles towards this game. Thus insuring that we keep building up our player count, and keeping things far for all people or different ranks, skills, and status (such as Noob, and intermediate, pro, and vets).
P.s To a note for the Admins and mod of this forum. if I have posted this information on the wrong side of the forum, please don't delete it, but more or less move it for me, to the right location. I'm new to this place, but have spent a little of my personal time on this post. Thank you can have a great day.
