4 ms·

What should they do instead to combat hacks?

matheusmoreira 6y ago
Server-side measures such as network analysis. Statistical models of player performance. Trust-based online gaming models where people play only with their trusted friends instead of random people. Alternatively, nothing. From a computing freedom point of view, cheating is a form of playful hacking. The game is running on our computers, we should be able to alter it if we want.
- Hikikomori 6y ago
  Does nothing against client side only hacks like wallhack, aimbot, esp, etc. So we shouldn't have competitive online gaming at all?
  - zodiakzz 6y ago
    Why are wallhacks even possible? Maybe they're not even trying to design the game securely. That information (who's behind an object) shoudn't be available. In web development it's a critical vulnerability to be able to snoop on other user's activity.
    - Hikikomori 6y ago
      Because online games have latency and jitter, if your client isn't aware of a player before it walks around a corner you'll get a very annoying pop-in effect as the player "appears" small distance from the corner. I believe SCUM is a game that have this. This kind of culling is also quite resource intensive on the server for games that have many players, large maps or complex geometry. CSGO has partly implemented this, your client only gets information through some walls and objects, so you cannot see a player on the other side of the map. But it has quite simple maps and is overall not a complex game.
Filligree 6y ago
Run on consoles only. Keep PCs for productive work and single-player games.
- anoncake 6y ago
  Not everyone wants to buy another computer, wasting money, space and resources.
marcodiego 6y ago
Out of the top of my head: - Blockchain to validate ownership of items. - Distributed processing of events among player instances to eliminate cheating. This may add latency, but will be small if used for validation only. - Automatically grouping players by skill, so that skilled bots will not fight less skilled humans.
- Hikikomori 6y ago
  Of course, we need a blockchain. Duping hasn't been much of a problem in online games for some time, its solved without blockchains. Many games already does this on the server side with client side prediction. But this does nothing for aimbot, wallhacks or other strictly client side hacks. Bots? Competetive games typically have matchmaking, doesn't do anything against cheaters. None of these works for most competitive games, especially fps.
ekianjo 6y ago
Why do we need to combat hacks? Just play with your friends online instead of trusting that random people on the Internet are going to play fair.
- Hikikomori 6y ago
  So no competitive online gaming then?
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    Yes, competitive online gaming is the root of all evil rootkits that need to run on one's system. Frankly for the small minority of gamers who are involved in esports we are compromising a hell of a lot of computers out there.

Server-side measures such as network analysis. Statistical models of player performance. Trust-based online gaming models where people play only with their trusted friends instead of random people. Alternatively, nothing. From a computing freedom point of view, cheating is a form of playful hacking. The game is running on our computers, we should be able to alter it if we want.

Hikikomori 6y ago
Does nothing against client side only hacks like wallhack, aimbot, esp, etc. So we shouldn't have competitive online gaming at all?
- zodiakzz 6y ago
  Why are wallhacks even possible? Maybe they're not even trying to design the game securely. That information (who's behind an object) shoudn't be available. In web development it's a critical vulnerability to be able to snoop on other user's activity.
  - Hikikomori 6y ago
    Because online games have latency and jitter, if your client isn't aware of a player before it walks around a corner you'll get a very annoying pop-in effect as the player "appears" small distance from the corner. I believe SCUM is a game that have this. This kind of culling is also quite resource intensive on the server for games that have many players, large maps or complex geometry. CSGO has partly implemented this, your client only gets information through some walls and objects, so you cannot see a player on the other side of the map. But it has quite simple maps and is overall not a complex game.

Filligree 6y ago

Run on consoles only. Keep PCs for productive work and single-player games.

anoncake 6y ago
Not everyone wants to buy another computer, wasting money, space and resources.

marcodiego 6y ago

Out of the top of my head: - Blockchain to validate ownership of items. - Distributed processing of events among player instances to eliminate cheating. This may add latency, but will be small if used for validation only. - Automatically grouping players by skill, so that skilled bots will not fight less skilled humans.

Hikikomori 6y ago
Of course, we need a blockchain. Duping hasn't been much of a problem in online games for some time, its solved without blockchains. Many games already does this on the server side with client side prediction. But this does nothing for aimbot, wallhacks or other strictly client side hacks. Bots? Competetive games typically have matchmaking, doesn't do anything against cheaters. None of these works for most competitive games, especially fps.

ekianjo 6y ago

Why do we need to combat hacks? Just play with your friends online instead of trusting that random people on the Internet are going to play fair.

Hikikomori 6y ago
So no competitive online gaming then?
- ekianjo 6y ago
  Yes, competitive online gaming is the root of all evil rootkits that need to run on one's system. Frankly for the small minority of gamers who are involved in esports we are compromising a hell of a lot of computers out there.