anti-wallhacker-post

Yo warsowians!
Since warsow .7 BETA2 is released, I'd like to discuss with you about the decent amount of wallhackers we still have at this game and what to do with them..
I'd also like to ask the development team whether they can do something against the injectors that change the client into a 'hacker client'..
I've already seen some games where the servers do NOT allow the hackers to join the server, because something was changed on the gamefiles. Is it possible to include this server-side feature ? Would be awesome! Sounds like a lot of work, i know, but I think the time spent onto this kind of anti-hack-shield would be worth it!

Sincerely, someone

Never seen a cheater, then again duelers tend to respect themselves enough not to do such thing.. getting caught would be their end in this community :)

Anyway, to answer shortly: it's impossible to prevent hacks (as long as you're running anything on any common operating system, at least).

Companies with hundreds of developers throwing millions to anticheats cannot prevent cheaters, what do you think two-and-half developers working on their free time with absolutely zero experience or skills in anticheat technologies could do?

In theory there is absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent someone to corrupt their client for hacking purpose. Whatever is supposed to check the client is pure, can be as well corrupted to give a false result. Hacking can be made harder if the check is from 3rd party closed source heavily updated program but not impossible. Given game philosophy and the fact that this memory scanning 3rd party program can be (without exageration) perceived as potential spyware/malware, there is little future to that in an open source game that is warsow.

In addition, altho there is always suspicion and rumors, the truth is there is very few real hackers and there is at the moment sufficently low chance to meet one that you can play without worrying.

As crizis said, we also have some trust system. Good players get attention. One caught on obvious cheating would have trouble finding an opponent, and would probably end up quitting in a few weeks.
(updated 2012-06-13 15:58:37)

A game server can be made to require prior client authentication using the website account. We will ban accounts guilty of hacking, of course.

crizis wrote:
Never seen a cheater, then again duelers tend to respect themselves enough not to do such thing.. getting caught would be their end in this community :)

Anyway, to answer shortly: it's impossible to prevent hacks (as long as you're running anything on any common operating system, at least).

Companies with hundreds of developers throwing millions to anticheats cannot prevent cheaters, what do you think two-and-half developers working on their free time with absolutely zero experience or skills in anticheat technologies could do?

I haven't seen a single cheater in Warsow too but on the other hand I would not fully believe anybody. It doesn't matter if someone is #1 or dueler or even a developer - everybody is able to become a fool. (I know situation from other game where one of the best and most talented players cheated after 5-6 years of playing :|)

I think warsow years ago had anticheat called BattlEye why it's no longer in use?

Vic wrote:
A game server can be made to require prior client authentication using the website account. We will ban accounts guilty of hacking, of course.

You cannot be sure that someone is hacker until he will not do it very obvious. It's very problematic.

dont play instagib / pickup when its full of insta players :)

Soon someone will mention klacid in this thread

I think warsow years ago had anticheat called BattlEye why it's no longer in use?

Developer decided to go commercial with it.

the good thing is that a wallhack isn't this useful ... mostly you know where your enemy is or should be
even aimbots are useless cause a short callvote ban and the hacker is gone ... maybe that's the best thing of our "small" community cause if you hack you'll never gain respect again...

Zetter wrote:
the good thing is that a wallhack isn't this useful ... mostly you know where your enemy is or should be
even aimbots are useless cause a short callvote ban and the hacker is gone ... maybe that's the best thing of our "small" community cause if you hack you'll never gain respect again...

bullshit
most ppl who get caught just change their name and start playing/hacking again after a while and nobody cares

Instagib is the most played gametype daily, and maybe it has the majority of cheaters.

Actually, famous clans with own servers have cheaters on them. Who cares? Who admits in public?

Some complete noobs from one day to the other become major killers, even when they still move as noobs.

Funny are the lammers who camp and start following enemies through walls...

Ofc, pro cheaters won't do this. They join clans for protection.

Some just change nick when start being known. Small community, but great amount of new nicks every day.

Vic wrote:
A game server can be made to require prior client authentication using the website account. We will ban accounts guilty of hacking, of course.

very interesting post imo. how will the hackusations be submitted and handled however?

Just like in Quake Live - simple reporting button then demo or so got marked and proper people can judge.

Watching a demo with "r_showtris 1" can be proof of using wallhack, since even with the best effort you are forced to see thru walls using WH, and so that will be spotted.

Also, as acronim says, warsow is respect and sportmanship, so except some particular cases, the community is really careful about verifying and judging case by case.

This system is ok with a small community where more or less every player knows each other.
Problem will be if and when the community will become (hopefully) bigger.

Indeed most of "hackers" (how misused this word is nowadays, but that's another topic) are in the instagib community, that's for several reason:

- the instagib community is mostly (not all) kids who play the game withouth any knowledge about the philosophy behind it, so for them is not big deal to use hacks they don't know even what that hack do, most of them get viruses and malwares also.

- instagib requires different range of "emotions" compared to duel/tdm/bomb/ctf. when in non insta game you kill your opponent, the kill is made with lot of effort and tactic, you don't kill your enemy with just one shot. So that kill gives more sensation of "hard work" when you do it. In insta you need lot of precise aiming and speed reaction, and when you successfully land a kill you need to react faster, making you in a situation with high and low peak of "excitement". that excitement is a one long sensation during a duel/tdm/bomb/ctf. Long story short, it's easier to manage the instagib feeling if you don't really care about the pride and thus lacking of pride makes easier think that if you use cheats it doesn't matter so much.

there are indeed special cases in which those won't apply.

The best thing the community has made so far about cheaters is to isolate them, deny playing with them and spread the word (with demo and proof) of what that player have done, and that worked so far.

If you, dear someone, can think of a better proposition on how to prevent this, any idea you have will be appriciate in the community.

Regards

knooger wrote:
Just like in Quake Live - simple reporting button then demo or so got marked and proper people can judge.

This.

But people can be wrong - for example, I remember that klacid-wh drama in 0.5. Later it turned out that nobody has good proofs that he wallhacks, and the demos look legit too. He's just good aimer and good at using sounds. That comes from playing Quake games since q1.
So yes, he looks like he is wallhacking if you don't know better. But he doesn't. It's just skill.

But I'm sure there is a bunch of wallhackers in this community. The ones who use it surely know that they can't look too suspicious so they are capable of hiding it well. And if later someone accuses them of whing they can just say that "I'm just so skilled".
This makes busting hackers really hard, in some cases impossible.

The Klacid issue was, iirc, a map bug (map was in beta and had that door you could see thru) so no cheat or hack involved.
(updated 2012-06-15 10:57:25)

I REMEMBER THE KLACID THING!

DalaiLamer wrote:
The Klacid issue was, iirc, a map bug (map was in beta and had that door you could see thru) so no cheat or hack involved.

no that was MirrorMan

For you, crizis :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkOvc6HDVRY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paL-cYqcWbg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hSPxqeqyTA&feature=related
proof enough ? :D

proof enough ? :D

no
yes
yes

and also said this tangends almost only instagib and we all hope this situation will be better with login system (as u can ban the acc with all his names)