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How Cheaters Cheat at Halo 2
An anonymous reader writes "Built on a network that automatically bans gamers that have modified their Xbox, Xbox Live should be nearly cheat-proof. However, it's not, as anyone playing Halo 2 online already knows. How do cheaters on Xbox Live manage to artificially boost their rankings? What is Bridging? What is Standby? This article takes a look at what exactly is done when a cheater cheats, and what exactly Bungie is doing about it. It includes videos and some very funny letters from 13-year-olds that have been baned from matchmaking on Live and are desperately trying to worm their way back onto the system."
By being better than me. It's the only possible explanation. The bastards.
Or is that the substandard gameplay or horrible control scheme?
Really? I thought it was the 12 year olds screaming obscenities about my sexual orientation at painful volumes into my headset that made the game not fun to play.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
So, if one persons connection drops, he is the only person who can carry on playing the game? And they wonder why people cheat so much?
They run the games peer to peer, and wonder why people cheat so much? Surely even using a server to connect the clients, even if its not hosting the game could prevent alot of this
Someone give these guys a class on network security 101: NEVER TRUST THE CLIENT, EVER, WHOEVER THEY ARE, NO NOT EVEN YOUR MUM.
Come as you are, do what you must, be who you will.
If I cut off my internet or slow it down (I know that is possible) then how the fuck does that affect everyone else in the game?
This could only work if you happen to host the game. In PC multiplayer game the guy hosting it offcourse always has the least lag but surely anyone hosting a game that routinely drops out would very quickly be ranked down?
Anyway you pay for x-box live but still got to host your own games? Surely for the money MS should be hosting the games so everyone plays on a level playing field?
So my question is this. A does this only work for the guy hosting the game, B why does bungie not host the game for you C why doesn't bungie drop people who host games on a connection that drops out?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What these cheaters done understand is that the ranking is there to place you against players of even skill. by ranking up, they get placed against players of better skill. at that point they have to cheat keep the rank.
I was a average player. I could school all my real life friends, but they didn't have halo. I reached a rank where the matches were even and it was fun. I got a little better by getting the shotgun and hiding in the corner. It worked every time, until I moved up a rank. It never worked in that bracket, the players were better and knew the trick. I was at the loosing end even when i played like normal and eventualy droped back down to where I belonged.
They have it all wrong, they should drop rank to clean up on the less skiled players. Atleast they run in a circle and you dont have to risk the banhammer.
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
The linked article only talks about bridging+standby, which is one of the oldest and easiest to execute forms of cheating. It's also rather lacking on the technical side. Here's a quick rundown of what I know:
=== Network manipulation ===
Bridging One player on a team sets up their router/firewall so that their xbox can only communicate with bungie, XboxLive, and a specific other player on the team. This results in that other player being selected as the game server for every match.
Standby The bridged host can interrupt network traffic to some or all players in the game. Because they're the server, their game keeps running for several seconds while everyone else gets the "standby, reconnecting to game" screen.
Lagging Out The bridged host selectively manipulates network traffic to players in the game and observes the on-screen network quality indicator. After isolating the IP address of a player on the other team, they block network traffic to that player, causing them to "lag out" of the game. After reducing the other team to one or two players they're pretty much guaranteed a win.
Team Lagging Same as lagging out, but instead of blocking traffic, just increase network latency to players on the opposing team. Not as effective as other mechanisms but VERY hard for Bungie to spot.
=== Game manipulation ===
Mods The bridged host has map files are modified to give them an advantage. Examples:
spawnmods: player start points are modified to make the spawning player defenseless or unable to move.
weapon mods: auto-aim, rapid fire, increased damage, changed projectile type
other: vehicles where there shouldn't be, running faster than normal, jumping higher than normal
Superbouncing Makes it possible to reach extremely high areas in certain maps. Caused by a bug in the physics engine. === Ranking manipulation ===
Boosting a group of dishonest player teams with an otherwise-honest and/or unskilled player. The dishonest players carry the match, but the other player still gets the ranking benefit.
De-ranking A group of skilled players intentionally throws matches to decrease their rank. This results in matching against lesser skilled players, and is often used for boosting.
First reply! Yaaay!