Cheating in Multiplayer Games

millertime3250 writes "Tom's Hardware is running an interesting article on cheating in multiplayer games. In an issues that has gained increasing notority, it is a great read for those Counter-Strike players and others alike. It defines the different types of cheats like Client Hook, OpenGL Hack, and Hard-Coded Hack, and cheating's effect on gaming."

Comments

Nothing new said, but...

[rzbx]

There really isn't anything new in this article that hasn't been said before. He at least puts up a basic outline of some of the more popular games out there and the most used cheats. If you want more in depth articles covering the topic then check out the various websites affiliated with the game such as the official site, fan sites, anti-cheat sites, and various gaming sites. Good read none-the-less for those not familiar with game cheats.

cs anti cheats

[Meeble]

our cs server now has an anti cheat that the admin developed. It runs locally on your machine and checks your hard drive for common cheat files, it will also take screenshots of your game running and ftp them to an ftp server. IT also checks the md5 hash as you play. It's found a lot of h4x's already

you can check it out at www.wnygames.com - it's similar to creeping death imho, but more tailored to the server we play on.

Where's the fun at?

[Goalie_Ca]

Cheating has ruined multiplayer games for me. It's extremely frustrating to be constantly spawn killed and the likes. Before i quit playing cs i went on a hunt for cheat free servers. Even the most up to date servers with the latest anti-cheat technology was two steps behind. Even at organized tournaments people constantly cheat. The cheats may be more discreet but they're still used all the time.

On one server in particular i suspected three clanners of cheating but the admin told me that it was rock solid. I later returned with an aim-bot/wall-hack and showed him how false his sense of protection actually was. All i did was a quick search on google and downloaded the first thing that popped up.

What really confuses me is why people cheat in the first place. Those who use aimbots are really lame. Where's the fun if you don't even have to click. All you gotta do is face the cross-hairs in the general direction and it does it all for you. Wouldn't you get bored real quickly? I really don't see anything amusing about it all except that you guys like to open your mouth and talk about how 1337 you are when in fact you're nothing but a bunch of little pathetic script kiddies.

What i really hate is the fact that every game is prone to cheaters. Even when playing chess online some people resort to using computer programs to help them out. How lame is it to run gnu chess in the background?

Re:Where's the fun at?

[Minna Kirai]

There certainly are cheats for RTCW, and the sequel.

In fact, one of the best cheats for an FPS is "wallhacking". You install a modified graphics driver that negates the Z value of drawn objects.

That way, distant things appear in front of nearby ones, instead of the reverse. So you can prepare to fire at an enemy before he's even in view. (Especially powerful with indirect weapons, like a rocket launcher with large explosions)

I've seen screenshots of Z-inversion wallhacking in RTCW:ET, but don't remember where they went. Here's one screenshot of a related hack: the alpha-blended trick, where the video driver is modified to make everything translucent.

Cheating based on videodrivers can effect many different games- anything where seeing more clearly could be an advantage.

Nothing new..

[Azureflare]

Wow they talk about this like this is new to multiplayer gaming. (Also, I take issue with what he says about no clipping; it didn't make seethrough walls, it made it so that walls didn't block you anymore, at least in the original doom...idspispopd or something? Ha, it's been so long.) Cheating multiplayer was really big when Diablo came out; I could remember the cheating idiots who would destroy multiplayer games. In fact, cheaters are what ruined the multiplayer diablo experience for me. Starcraft as well. (Both games I actually bought BTW!)

I haven't played counter-strike, but it seems like the same types of people are at it again... I don't know, they always barge in and ruin perfectly innocent games. Cheating really does take out all the fun in multiplayer and even singleplayer videogames. That's why, you play with who you trust!

The only way to do THAT is to make friends...and know them well. A third party isn't going to be able to determine if someone will be a good friend for you or not.

My problem is I could never find anyone who was as obsessed as I was with videogames (Descent II was fun over modem, I got to kick my friend's ass all the time =P)

A great resource

[legomad]

For this kinda info is the forum at www.gamehacking.com

Actually they discourage multiplayer hacks, but otherwsise there is just about any info on the subject you may want.

Minesweeper

[spinlocked]

I've heard rumors of touch-screens being used to make headshots.

As a recovering minesweeper addict, a habit I picked up before I discovered UNIX during the windows 3.11 days - and no, GNOME mines won't cut it, I'm starting to twitch.

I already have a pretty good best score (76 on expert, though these days I have trouble getting below 100), a touchscreen coupled with a keyboard binding for both mouse buttons, would be a distinctly unfair advantage! Hmm. :)

New Games, Old Attitudes..

[evilcyber]

This has already played out before..
Who remembers Netrek?
There were several clients to choose from to play the game. The trick? On major servers, you just had to use a blessed binary. Special permission to use RSA, and have developers responsible massivly cut down on ``borgs''.
If a developer was found to be producing clients that cheat, his key was yanked from the master server that all the game servers fed off of, and it revoked every client in the field.
Go Team Beer!

Cheating Death - anticheat for HL

[AmVidia HQ]

Cheating-Death (C-D) is an anti-cheat system which includes both a server and client. Unlike HLGuard, which is a server-side only anti-cheat, C-D offers more protection by blocking the cheats themselves before the player joins the server.

While in optional mode, players are checked for a running C-D client and will rename the player if they don't have C-D currently installed and running. For optimal protection against cheaters, servers can be configured to only allow players running the C-D client.

Unfortunately, the C-D anti-cheat system is incompatible with VAC secured MODs. As of v2.2.0, C-D can work with VAC supported MODs as long as VAC is disabled. Otherwise, C-D will shutdown if VAC is detected.

Re:The game architecture is part of the problem

[FryGuy1013]

One issue, as I see it, is the architecture of the game servers themselves. Half-Life, for example, feeds information about the location of all players on the entire map to the client. You can add all the signing and checking of client side binaries that you want, but someone is going to figure out a way to creatively intercept that data if it is there. This is completely wrong. It only sends information for players located inside the "visible" portals (i.e. before culling of the true non-visible ones). Try going into the console of a singleplayer game (not lan) and typing "gl_wireframe 2" and notice how far into the map you can see. This is how much data it sends for players as well. Not the entire map by any means.

And the problem is not in the CPU (client side at least) to have players not visible on the screen at the moment not sent. If anything, it _increases_ CPU usage to have this. Latency is the issue. If you are going around a corner and you don't know anything about whats on the other side, and you peek around it, it will take say 100-200ms to get this information, resulting in a very bad experience.

Not to mention your advice seems to only help for wallhacking problems. Your client has to know what's visible on your screen, and what's on your screen can be aimed at. More perfectly with the assistance of a cheat even.

Re:The game architecture is part of the problem

[Xistic]

"Half-Life, for example, feeds information about the location of all players on the entire map to the client."

That's no quite true. The server sends to the client all the players that they could possibly see but none of the players that you couldn't possibly see. Based on the vis data of the map the server figures out a "gray area" between where you can definatly see someone and definately not. This is when it starts sending data.

I have been on a server that had an anti cheat hack that cause you to be sent data for clients that you could only DEFINATLY see. This, of course had the nasty side effect that when you walked around a corner people just appeared out of nowhere. This causes big problems for high pingers, but then, all wall hacks were worthless.

"While it would be more work on the CPU to make the game engine instantly draw a character on-screen from no previous information"

It already does this , but it happens normally before you can ever see them.

Xistic

Re:Is radar cheating? And what to do about it...

[rainwalker]

Those people who use radar cheats (such as Excalubur or Odin's Eye) have to be very careful, because Mythic actively trolls for them. If you are out PvE'ing (killing 'monsters' for experience), they will have invisible, high level monsters that show up as some highly desirable kill (either for experience or good item drops). If you run around chasing an invisible monster that noone else can see or even tell exists, it's a pretty good bet that you are going to get your ass banned. They do the same thing with invisible enemy players. If you chase around a person (or group) that normal people can't see, it tends to incur the wrath of CSR's. From what I'm told, this works fairly well at keeping the population of cheaters down.

Doubt it'll work.

[TheLink]

You forget most of these people cheat to:
1) Break the rules.
2) Annoy other people.

In a server where cheats are allowed, it's hard for them to do 1 or 2 so they don't get any satisfaction.

These are the sort of people who'd glue a soccer ball to their foot, and think they're being smart.

Where's the line between cheating and not cheating

[swanton]

Wallhacks and aimbots are actually very easy for hardcore gamers to detect. People who can aim well are not necessarily cheating. It's the people who can aim but not move who are obviously cheating. Moving in quake is an art. If you know how to flick and roll your mouse while jumping you can reach amazing places and speeds.

I think the more interesting online cheating question is where you draw the line between cheating and not cheating. Built into quake there is an FOV command which gives you a fish-eye view allowing you to see more of the world at one time. This is a huge advantage that most players do not know about. Is it cheating? GL_PICMIP 99 will erase all textures from the world allowing for much better visibility. Cheating or smart configuration? Quad timers? Faster computers?

Blatant cheats are easy to detect. Subtle and slight advantages that may or may not be cheating are the real problem.