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>Even people who don't care in the slightest about free software think anticheat is detestable. [[Citation Needed]]. Trying to play a multiplayer game that do

>Even people who don't care in the slightest about free software think anticheat is detestable. [[Citation Needed]]. Trying to play a multiplayer game that doesn't implement effective anticheat is miserable. The arms race is unfortunate but 100% understandable, and I wouldn't play any game that doesn't implement some form of it.

deleted 5y ago
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nighthawk454 5y ago
Bit of a false dichotomy. Detesting anticheat doesn't mean you support none (and therefore enjoy rampant cheating). More probably, the point here is most anticheats are very invasive and harmful to privacy, while also degrading game performance and often being ineffective at preventing cheaters.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  > More probably, the point here is most anticheats are very invasive and harmful to privacy, while also degrading game performance and often being ineffective at preventing cheaters. [Citation needed] at the last part. Of course they're not gonna prevent 100% of cheaters, but I have doubts that they don't do anything.
  - nighthawk454 5y ago
    i think you may have misread it. no one claimed any absolute (in)effectiveness. my point was the % of cheating they do prevent is sometimes not enough to sufficiently improve the user experience, despite the large privacy tradeoffs. for example, queue for ranked in R6 Siege... saying "citation needed" on repeat is kind of lazy. OP's point here was that anticheat - while necessary in practice - is particularly egregious at invading privacy and/or degrading the user's experience, which i think is fair to say goes against the free software ideal. the experience would certainly be worse without any anticheat, but that doesn't mean anticheat couldn't be better or isn't still very non-free.
vjk800 5y ago
This is due to how multiplayer in modern games is orchestrated. In the old days, you would play multiplayer with your friends and their friends on a private server or some kind of community server where cheaters could quickly be recognized and banned by the admins. Now this communal way of playing online games is largely gone and replaced by match making which makes multiplayer basically the same as playing against cleverer bots. Match making is more convenient, especially for lone players, and I don't think the change was done out of malice. Still, it feels like something was lost with the disappearance of private or semi-private community servers, easy policing of cheaters being one of those things.
- comex 5y ago
  Anticheat was still a thing in the old days, even when it was something the admins had to manually install (PunkBuster for some games, I think?) or at least not opt out of (VAC). So, at least at the time, many admins saw it as desirable despite their own existence.
  - shagie 5y ago
    I recall the signed netrek builds back when I was playing that. Sure, you could read the source - but only signed builds could run on certain servers.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Solving the community game problem doesn’t require Anticheat, just groups of people who organize and nominate admins. But that niche doesn’t pay for the development of the games. For a game to attract the amount of people required to finance AAA gamedev it needs console matchmaking (so people can enjoy it from the first minute), it might need to allow trustworthy competitive games bevause competitions are part of marketing. Being able to switch off the anticheats on private/community server that are policed by admins would work. But again it’s a pretty small niche.
- jdbernard 5y ago
  More and more it feels like one of the central problems of the modern technical is how to effectively scale trust. Anti-piracy: trying to address the lack or abuse of trust while scaling the sale of products because technology has radically reduced "manufacture" and distribution costs. Anti-cheat: trying to address the lack of abuse of trust while scaling game coordination because tech. has made massive interconnectivity possible Anti-cryptography: trying to address the lack or abuse of trust while scaling communication tools.

deleted 5y ago

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nighthawk454 5y ago

Bit of a false dichotomy. Detesting anticheat doesn't mean you support none (and therefore enjoy rampant cheating). More probably, the point here is most anticheats are very invasive and harmful to privacy, while also degrading game performance and often being ineffective at preventing cheaters.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
> More probably, the point here is most anticheats are very invasive and harmful to privacy, while also degrading game performance and often being ineffective at preventing cheaters. [Citation needed] at the last part. Of course they're not gonna prevent 100% of cheaters, but I have doubts that they don't do anything.
- nighthawk454 5y ago
  i think you may have misread it. no one claimed any absolute (in)effectiveness. my point was the % of cheating they do prevent is sometimes not enough to sufficiently improve the user experience, despite the large privacy tradeoffs. for example, queue for ranked in R6 Siege... saying "citation needed" on repeat is kind of lazy. OP's point here was that anticheat - while necessary in practice - is particularly egregious at invading privacy and/or degrading the user's experience, which i think is fair to say goes against the free software ideal. the experience would certainly be worse without any anticheat, but that doesn't mean anticheat couldn't be better or isn't still very non-free.

vjk800 5y ago

This is due to how multiplayer in modern games is orchestrated. In the old days, you would play multiplayer with your friends and their friends on a private server or some kind of community server where cheaters could quickly be recognized and banned by the admins. Now this communal way of playing online games is largely gone and replaced by match making which makes multiplayer basically the same as playing against cleverer bots. Match making is more convenient, especially for lone players, and I don't think the change was done out of malice. Still, it feels like something was lost with the disappearance of private or semi-private community servers, easy policing of cheaters being one of those things.

comex 5y ago
Anticheat was still a thing in the old days, even when it was something the admins had to manually install (PunkBuster for some games, I think?) or at least not opt out of (VAC). So, at least at the time, many admins saw it as desirable despite their own existence.
- shagie 5y ago
  I recall the signed netrek builds back when I was playing that. Sure, you could read the source - but only signed builds could run on certain servers.
alkonaut 5y ago
Solving the community game problem doesn’t require Anticheat, just groups of people who organize and nominate admins. But that niche doesn’t pay for the development of the games. For a game to attract the amount of people required to finance AAA gamedev it needs console matchmaking (so people can enjoy it from the first minute), it might need to allow trustworthy competitive games bevause competitions are part of marketing. Being able to switch off the anticheats on private/community server that are policed by admins would work. But again it’s a pretty small niche.
jdbernard 5y ago
More and more it feels like one of the central problems of the modern technical is how to effectively scale trust. Anti-piracy: trying to address the lack or abuse of trust while scaling the sale of products because technology has radically reduced "manufacture" and distribution costs. Anti-cheat: trying to address the lack of abuse of trust while scaling game coordination because tech. has made massive interconnectivity possible Anti-cryptography: trying to address the lack or abuse of trust while scaling communication tools.