Slashdot Mirror
More On Online Game Cheating
Build6 writes "The UK Guardian newspaper has an article on online cheating in games, with some fairly broad-ranging observations. These include ways to cheat, players who feel cheated by it, and an interview with someone who actually codes game cheats, in this case for Counter-Strike. He secretly gathers information from his users and claims: 'Did you know most cheaters come from France?'" We covered game cheating a few weeks ago, but this article focuses more on why coders would want to create cheating devices.
- Only inform each client of players visible to that client--prevents wall-hacks.
- Track the accuracy of each weapon. Not the shots, but the aiming of the weapon. There should be an expected variance that is a function of the relative velocity of two players. If the relative velocity is high, and the aim remains perfect, it's probably a cheater.
- Create a global anti-cheat list, which will be similar to the open-relay black-lists. If the game is purchased, and each copy comes with a unique ID, then a person who is caught cheating can be added to the blacklist. An admin should record a demo of the cheating, which can be reviewed and appealed.
- For a free game like America's Army, use the MAC address. Can still be spoofed, but not too easy.
There are other things that can be done, but are less desireable:- Prevent perfect accuracy. Make it so that a certian percentage of shots always miss, no matter how good the player is.
- Give each weapon "kick". If aim is perfect even with a kicking weapon, it's definitely a cheater.
- Each weapon reduces damage the more accurate you are with it.
These last three are less desireable. But simply doing a CRC for files on the system that enable cheating is not a good strategy.Like cheaters, publishers don't see the big picture. They prefer to see the selfish short-term game, to the detriment of the entire industry.
I think that the only viable solutions to online cheating are the same ones used in real life.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
-malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
My little brother's in law always get a new bunch of games, they download the cracks/cheats and win it in 2 days. I play the same game with months of enjoyment and win them on my own.
I wonder who really comes out ahead?
Hell I still haven't won Baldur's Gate! I guess I'll have lots of fun playing 30+ years of video games when I finally retire! Ultima III was the first game I beat as a kid and it took forever. Ultima III-V are probably my favorite games of all time. Crappy graphics, but great story/playability.
Are we no longer allowed to talk about an article if it hurts a country's nationalism?
-malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
"Evilhack", the main cheat for America's Army, for example, is freely available on the web. It makes all hostiles bright red, while computer-controlled "aimbots" ensure the player's gun never misses its targets. The undetectable program will even throw your M67 frag grenade for you if you accidentally hold it too long.
Ugh, no WONDER I get so many gaming morons asking why my Aol Instant Messenger Bot doesn't work for Counterstrike.
Must.... restrain.... anger....
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Groundskeeper Willy: "Ya cheese-eatin' surrender monkies!"
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
Damn those French! First they protest OUR war, now they cheat at OUR games! I say we make them drown in a pool of Freedom(R) Fries(TM)!
</patriot>
But isn't this the perfect application for DRM? Only a signed and trusted executables can be run while connected to game servers. I mean, I only have windows for playing games, so it's not like for me it would be a big deal. But then again I don't want to let all the evil in the door. I'm so conflicted.
Where are the congratulations for these cheat coders?
Some people are faster, fitter or quicker on the keys. The geeks found a way around that, that's what geeks do!
Some people are better at the games (through hard work, perserverance and natural ability). The geeks found a way to even the score. Well done.
Microwave ovens are cheats for cooking, cars are cheats for walking. You can still cook or walk if you choose too. There are whole communities of people who don't cheat.
Lets face it.
Most online cheaters are the same people that give hackers the name geeks. The online environment affords them a unique venue where they can hurt or spoil others fun, and generally take out their problems on others.
The online gaming environment preselctcts for these people and once they are part of it in much the same way a prison serves as dissemination point for criminal technique, the games serve to provide an avenue for the exchange of cheating techniques.
I doubt there ever will be a cheat free gaming environmnet. The primary reason is that the game companies don 't want to take the trouble to make it happen and too large a percentage of their gamers don't want it. After all if you provided a fair environment these people would all have to find somewhere else to be asses.
First, I don't think we can without reservation slam people for simply creating these hacks. We are back here to the old hacking chestnut; for some people theres the intellectual challenge. In many ways its ideal; theres an "armsrace" ongoing which pushes the standard, you can't as yet be jailed for it, and kudos is available in abundance from grateful users. I don't want to be an apologist for cheating (it drives me puce with rage when I encounter it) but there is the other side here that geeks might like to consider. What is a problem is the distribution and the actual use of these things against people playing by the rules. My favoured solution would actually be to sidestep technical issues, and cut to the motivation the kiddies have for using these cheats (which may not be the same as the coders; see above). On the onehand, the Griefers (ie. Trolls) are hard to stop. Hell, take away their aimbots and they'll just spam abuse on IRC or walkaway from unfinished games of Yahoo Literati or something. BUT, the main thing seems to be individual scoring in games, even though CS and BF1942 are team based games. Thus I think a simple solution (or at least experiment) would be to can the individual score screens and just keep posted team scores. It won't defeat the problem, but I suspect it might cause it to abate somwhat. /rant
[I have to be honest, the individual scoring thing is an annoyance to me, and seems to denature BF1942 even when everyone is presumably playing straight because it fails to reward tactical play (e.g., you might die 5 times and kill no-one, but if in doing that you've won ground/protected a flag/weakened the enemy etc. that may have been a more valuable contribution to have made than just fragging for the sake of it).] /rantoff
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Feel the need to h4xX0r t3h 4m3r1c@z 4rM33 to hide you lack of shootin' skills? I hereby put forward the motion that anybody caught cheating in that game has to go through basic training. Not so 1337 with a real gun, now are ya?
I know that when you a defending the Alaskan Pipeline, there is no sniper or fog. So either the report made up stuff, wasn't paying attention, or was being led on.
And cheating isn't as bad in Army Ops as they imply. Very rarely do I see something that is only explained by cheating in the game. Maybe someone wants to discredit it, so that gamers move on to a newer game?
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
I'm a cheater-coder like the article mentions, and a very advanced one at that. Most cheater-coders are just newbie programmers learning Visual Basic for the first time. Only a few, like me, are experts. We're reverse engineers - the same kind of person as crackers, but not involved in piracy. We learn the intricate details of how games work at the assembly level and make cheats based on this. We can be very dangerous, sometimes able to crash players' computers, but we're usually not like that! Many of us, like me, take our cheating experience and use it productively to make our own unauthorized game servers (remember bnetd?).
I really think that the policy of banning cheaters forever is counterproductive. Cheaters are paying customers, and are obsessed with the game they're cheating in. Rather than ban them, what should be done is to make their cheating impossible. If they get caught cheating, reset their stats or some other appropriate punishment - don't ban them! And most importantly, *fix the game*.
Melissa <3
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
People grief others because they can get away with it.
There will always be griefers. Even if they don't run cheat software, they can grief by (for example) disconnecting before the match is over, nullifying the result to maintain their league status.
But if you make it so they are accountable for their actions, you will reduce a lot of cheating. Make online play associated with a credit card number, and charge it $100 if there's hard evidence of cheating. Will little Johnny install that cheat if his dad's credit card might get charged $100? I doubt it.
And to the fuctard who thought that cheat-coders had 'legitimate' uses like creating unauthorized servers, go to next year's E3 and meet some of the game developers whose paycheck you're stealing.
What if people setup Communities.
you join a community, you play on those servers *ONLY* via password system or authorization system.
Then when you play with people, you get to know them, when you get to know them, you learn how good they are, and quite possibly you could have a feedback system. *So when you want to go from one community to another, you can prove that you are a good guy, by your ranking *social, and/or skillz*
You would surely see a drop in people being jackasses, and cheating. The problem is where do we start with it?
I've seen far too many lame people on "local" U.S. of A. servers to believe that France has the highest incidence of cheaters across the globe. At the very least, I don't see how they could be at the top of the list if you're talking about sheer quantity.
"Did you know most cheaters come from France?"
What else are they gonna do? Counter-Strike doesn't have a surrender key.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
In online security communities, it's quite widely accepted that "Full Disclosure" is the only way to go. If you publish a vulnerability in some vendors application, the vendor will be forced to deal with it. Why so? In essence, because their sales and reputation will suffer if they dont deal with problems.
In gaming, when a cheat is made public, why dont the vendors feel the same need to fix it before their reputation and sales suffer? Why dont they value the trust of their customers more? Maybe because gamers are so used to cheats that it don't even occur to them to blame the vendor...
It's not by any means impossible to prevent cheats, but it costs the vendors money and time. Until it's economically more sensible for them to do something about it, there will be no changes in the amount of cheating going on. As the gaming industry expands rapidly, we'll see more competition and choice for users. In a few years it might be possible that you simply skip buying a new hyped game, because you know that coming from this and that vendor it'll be full of holes. You rather go buying some other game. Until this is the situation, live with cheats.
I guess my point is, yell at the game developers. They are the ones who made it possible to cheat, they are the one responsible.
--Erik
www.darkfallonline.com
The next great MMORPG.
Make the server keep a record of how good you are. Then the game would by default suggest playing against people with a skill similar to your. The cheaters would probably all come out right on the top, and could compete among themselves if that makes them happy.
I see nothing wrong with cheating, if you're doing it on your own, or with people who agree. If you want to have a competition with 10 people to see who cheats better, then why not? Just don't spoil the fun for the rest.
I joined a game last night, and people were trading some of the rarest weapons in the game. Some weapons havn't even benn released yet so it's impossible to find them. Seeing how pso is the only game that you have to pay a monthly fee to play Sega/MS had better get there act togetther.
I noticed that the 'king of gamehackers' nickname is Joolz. What the? Thats my nick! Although I spell it Jools... (after one of the first dudes you get in Cannon Fodder). Its been my nick since '96, and now it has been despoiled! What a 24 hours. My car gets robbed last night (well the contents, not the vehicle), and now my online identity! However, since I suck big time at CS, no one ever accused me of cheating. (past tense = no longer a player, work takes up too much time tragically) But still, I love my nick. It was unique in Oz too.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy