Cheating in Multiplayer

[Zylythe]

We all know Warband is coming out soon, so I was just wondering. Shouldn't it contain an anti-hack/cheat program like nProtect Gameguard or something that acts as a rootkit making it difficult for cheaters to remove. I have examples of games that have decided not to protect themselves and have suffered the consequences:

Halo 1 = Aimbotting was universal, when Halo was finally updated to protect against these aimbots (the update improved the game and worked as well as it did before the update) the population dropped from around 5000-6000 on any given moment to 1000-2000 in 2 days. Of course people began whining about this update and how it stopped their bots from working (no technical problems or anything of that matter where submitted). There were no server problems, the game wasn't down or anything. The population still remains the same. http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cheating

Diablo 1 and 2 = people created trainers, item editors, etc until almost everybody played on battlenet with cheats. the population decreased dramatically for online play, more for diablo 1 than 2. ultimately its everywhere in both.

Counterstrike = well, its pretty obvious, aimbots, infinite ammo, and more. one reason why people rage so much other than sucking themselves.
http://www.ukterrorist.com/articles/cheating/

I understand that there will always be cheating however taking measures to stop it will definitely help it not become widespread. And i know that most of the games above are Rpg's and games with different genres, but Warband is going to function similar to an FPS where the player can join a game and play and maybe win items or must find items on the map; that's the reason why Halo is up there, because even though you don't have a permanent account with items or armor in it (which makes cheating pointless) there still will be cheaters.
I'd write down more games that have not taken proper precautions against cheaters but I think my point is clear. So as stated before, if there is not going to be any protection, I recommend having an anti-hack program, or (probably better) a root-kit-like anti-hack. So I hope Taleworlds looks into having anti-cheating if its not too late. 

I also hope Taleworlds implements a good chat system, because I'm seeing a lot of teenagers and immature people in these forums. And we all know what having massed teenagers in an any online video game means: profanity, flaming and raging. Not to be an age discriminator but most of the time, its true. 

 

[SellSword]

I bet the online version will have GameGuard or Antihack-protector, like many MMORPGs have too.
If there wont be one, game will be totally ruined.. and oh yeah

I also hope Taleworlds implements a good chat system, because I'm seeing a lot of teenagers and immature people in these forums. And we all know what having massed teenagers in an any online video game means: profanity, flaming and raging. Not to be an age discriminator but most of the time, its true. 

You've got that right, there are so much immature people in the forums lately.

 

[CountArtha]

There also needs to be some kind of filter for custom weapons and armor from the Item Editor orthe Module System.

 

[Orion]

There also needs to be some kind of filter for custom weapons and armor from the Item Editor orthe Module System.

That's an easy checksum. Just check the files on the server against the files on the client, and if they're the same then you're good to go. If they aren't, error message & close connection to client.

That would also make it rather simple for groups of people to organize a modded game. Simply mod the files server-side and distribute them.

 

[CrazyEyes]

If by "good chat system" you're implying "forced censorship", how about not.

The community is tight-woven enough such that if someone is caught hacking, their IP will be added to a global banlist, possibly on the Website/Community forum. Hell, I'll make the banlist if nobody else does. Anyway, someone writes this list of cheaters on a thread in the forum and you just copy/paste this set of IPs into wherever the config file for "who's banned" is once you have Warband. Eventually measures will be taken to patch the security breaches (because you can never prepare for them, ever). Or, you could just play on servers that have admins on nearly all the time, which is always the best solution.

 

[Zylythe]

i agree with orion, however that does not fix the risk of having (headshot or footshoot if poorly shielded) aimbots for crossbows/bows, or maybe a melee bot that targets the head all the time. the other problem i see is speeding, or using speed hacks but im not sure if they can be checked using Orions method. and i would imagine the good hackers will be able to bypass the checking method eventually so ultimately im all for an anti-hack/cheat rootkit that works with "Orions method", that would probably cause some problems with antiviruses with some users but overrall i think it would be worth it.

and for the chat system, i suppose you can call it "forced censorship" (sounds like a dictators laws) but i hope taleworlds implements a good one, not like the one for runescape in which saying "Fokker" will be changed to ****er, but reasonable censorship.

 

[AvaRice]

CrazyEyes is right. I don't foresee hacking to be as big a problem as some people are making it out to be, because

1) to be frank, M&B isn't as as popular as some of these other titles. A small online community will be more likely to self-monitor for hackers.

2) There is no long term (and if it were up to me, none at all)  reward for doing well in this game, so there really isn't much motivation for hacking.


If you want to worry about something that will be a legitimate concern, think about how people will respond to the inevitable lag issues on opposing sides. Yes, there will be complaints... plenty of them.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Halo 1 = Aimbotting was universal, when Halo was finally updated to protect against these aimbots (the update improved the game and worked as well as it did before the update) the population dropped from around 5000-6000 on any given moment to 1000-2000 in 2 days. Of course people began whining about this update and how it stopped their bots from working (no technical problems or anything of that matter where submitted). There were no server problems, the game wasn't down or anything. The population still remains the same. http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cheating

Aimbots would be useless in M&B, the projectiles are not instantaneous. In fact, they take quite a while to get there, which means that the aim bot must have some sort of leading system. All a person needs to do to throw it off is to straf left and right when approaching the archer, it's something that workers in games against humans already, unless you're playing a musket mod online, you're not going to need it. The people in M&B don't even move very fast.
As for some sort of aiming bot that can help you in a melee, it's not going to be very useful. Frankly, the dynamics of timing and readying a strike is very fluid, what will work at one time won't work at the next. If someone does make some sort of program that can school any human player, then that person deserves to be on the dev team.

Diablo 1 and 2 = people created trainers, item editors, etc until almost everybody played on battlenet with cheats. the population decreased dramatically for online play, more for diablo 1 than 2. ultimately its everywhere in both.

I understand that there will always be cheating however taking measures to stop it will definitely help it not become widespread. And i know that most of the games above are Rpg's and games with different genres, but Warband is going to function similar to an FPS where the player can join a game and play and maybe win items or must find items on the map; that's the reason why Halo is up there, because even though you don't have a permanent account with items or armor in it (which makes cheating pointless) there still will be cheaters.

The M&B engine will be very hard to cheat at ( I imagine), very high character stats won't exactly save you from a good player who knows what he/she's doing.

I also hope Taleworlds implements a good chat system, because I'm seeing a lot of teenagers and immature people in these forums. And we all know what having massed teenagers in an any online video game means: profanity, flaming and raging. Not to be an age discriminator but most of the time, its true.

The teenagers and children don't act their part fortunately, some of the personalities will surprise you of how young they actually are in comparison to their forum persona.
Besides, even though we're "immature" most of the people here do it with wit and class.

 

[Childe_Rolande]

If by "good chat system" you're implying "forced censorship", how about not.

The community is tight-woven enough such that if someone is caught hacking, their IP will be added to a global banlist, possibly on the Website/Community forum. Hell, I'll make the banlist if nobody else does. Anyway, someone writes this list of cheaters on a thread in the forum and you just copy/paste this set of IPs into wherever the config file for "who's banned" is once you have Warband. Eventually measures will be taken to patch the security breaches (because you can never prepare for them, ever). Or, you could just play on servers that have admins on nearly all the time, which is always the best solution.

I like to see admins in servers, and I do hope they create a decent chat system for Warband, as I'd definitely like to see familiar faces online.

 

[Alec{zacool}]

Just a simple system that disables a serial key when the use of it cheats.

It will teach people not to cheat.

 

[DamienZharkoff]

I bet the online version will have GameGuard or Antihack-protector, like many MMORPGs have too.
If there wont be one, game will be totally ruined.. and oh yeah

With gameguard you might aswell have no anti hack program XD

 

[Sushiman70]

Gameguard sucks, as does hackshield.

 

[FrisianDude]

Huh. I never considered that there were cheaters on Diablo II battle.net.

Anyway, yeah, I'd like some anti-cheat business.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

How about we just ban people we don't like and leave automatic cheat detecting programs out of it?

 

[Childe_Rolande]

That sounds good. 

 

[Archonsod]

i agree with orion, however that does not fix the risk of having (headshot or footshoot if poorly shielded) aimbots for crossbows/bows, or maybe a melee bot that targets the head all the time.

Wouldn't work. Projectile accuracy is as much dependent on the weapon as it is where you point the mouse, and since their projectiles are tracked individually even with perfect accuracy you're lucky to hit the same place twice without moving the mouse. Melee would be redundant, if you want to hit the head it's incredibly easy to do so simply by keeping the view pointed at the sky. Doesn't make much difference, beyond not being able to see what the opponent is doing.

the other problem i see is speeding, or using speed hacks but im not sure if they can be checked using Orions method. and i would imagine the good hackers will be able to bypass the checking method eventually

Speed is taken from the character's agility minus encumbrance, so unless they hack the server and modify the character files before hand it's going to be a mite hard to implement.

Plus the copy protection will shut the game down if it detects any kind of alteration of it's memory space.

so ultimately im all for an anti-hack/cheat rootkit that works with "Orions method", that would probably cause some problems with antiviruses with some users but overrall i think it would be worth it.

Not really. I'm not going to install a rootkit on the off chance someone decides to cheat in multiplayer, particularly not when far less extreme methods, such as not playing with that person, are available.

How about we just ban people we don't like and leave automatic cheat detecting programs out of it?

Until we know whether the servers are central or player hosted it's a bit pointless speculating towards either.

 

[Zylythe]

great bots aren't as hard as everyone thinks they are to make, but its true that on mount and blade it would be significantly harder to make. it can be a pain to make it perfect but an accurate leader bot one would be useful for people moving side to side, though it wouldnt be perfect, it would increase your chances of a headshot at long range where archery is hardest, (think mounted, no side to side movement there), and for the melee hitter, i would imagine you wouldn't always hit EVERY enemy in the head with a melee weapon? especially if they're mounted. i forgot to mention wall hacks could be made to see behind walls and stuff, but i doubt anyone will make that, that'll make the game look hideous.

as for cheating, this is my list of beliefs of why m&b isnt played by a lot of people and will be after it goes online.

1. Lack of advertisement (none expected)
2. poor reviews
3. Sandbox version of Native gets people bored quickly without trying mods
and maybe a few others.

but we all know what happens when an online game has large amounts of players, people will look for hacks or create them. 

Once mount and blade goes online there will be tons of new players coming.
because unfortunately most of today's people dont value Single player games as much as they did 15 years ago while they value multiplayer games more, so Multiplayer will definitely attract hundreds if not thousands of more players over time, most likely people from Oblivion who will come here to play a similar version except ONLINE.

and jeez people, im not saying all teenagers are immature jerks, as a matter of fact i think you guys completely ignored what i said before

"a lot of teenagers and immature people in these forums."

thanks to Swadius who made my point clearer by saying that "some of the personalities will surprise you of how young they actually are in comparison to their forum persona". And most people are calm on forums, in game is much different though, you have to admit.

note the other half of the sentence, immature people in these forums, not just teenagers. And for anyone who plays Call of duty 4, or battlefield 2 most of the time the guy who's spamming profanity is a teenager or some 25 year old stoner.

Archonsod: yeh speeding wouldnt work but i dont think it alters any space in the game. i would imagine if mount and blade did have an anti-cheat rootkit, i would probably expect you must have it before going online, or you can remove it from your system files, but its a rootkit so that would be a bit of a pain. as for bots, once again it wouldnt be perfect but even a basic color aimbot could work better than a human player at long distances and if i remember correctly all aimbots dont tamper or alter the game files, correct me if im wrong.

also Swadius all aimbots, or good aimbots at least have a leading system.


forgive me if i sound too defensive, its in my nature.

 

[Cloud Breaker]

@person above

So many of what you said is so wrong that we can't even start to correct them.

 

[Archonsod]

it can be a pain to make it perfect but an accurate leader bot one would be useful for people moving side to side, though it wouldnt be perfect, it would increase your chances of a headshot at long range where archery is hardest

Leading wouldn't help either. The key thing is, the reticle only indicates the general direction the projectile will be fired in. Once it's left the launcher, it's on it's own. Predictive archery has been looked at before; in order to get it working at anything approaching a reasonable level of accuracy you'd need another machine to do the crunching. It's not like Counter Strike where the bullet flies in a relatively straight line; you'd need to take into account the projectile's firing arc, which is different for each weapon, the reticule size and character's accuracy and the movement of the target. Once you've figured all that out, you then have to compensate for the inherent accuracy rating of the launcher and somehow predict the random numbers being generated by M&B to figure out how 'on target' the projectile will be.
Only way to really cheat with archery is to increase the velocity of the projectile so it's possible to fire in a straight line. It would also boost damage as an added bonus. Again though, you'd need to modify the actual item files which would likely require server access, and even assuming you managed it every player using that bow would gain the same benefit. At that point, you may as well call it a mod and be done with it

i would imagine you wouldn't always hit EVERY enemy in the head with a melee weapon?

What is the benefit of hitting them in the head with a melee weapon was more the point ...

i forgot to mention wall hacks could be made to see behind walls and stuff, but i doubt anyone will make that, that'll make the game look hideous.

Given the minimap reports the position of every troop, I'm not sure why you'd need to bother.

if i remember correctly all aimbots dont tamper or alter the game files, correct me if im wrong.

Be a bit hard for it to actually work in the game without it modifying the file at some point. Like I said though, even with perfect accuracy you can shoot two arrows at a shop sign and have both hit at different points even without moving the mouse.

 

[DamienZharkoff]

@person above

So many of what you said is so wrong that we can't even start to correct them.

Well he was right about this game getting nothing but poor reviews.