Author Topic: OpenSource=Cheating???  (Read 1831 times)

XxSephirothxX

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OpenSource=Cheating???
« on: April 07, 2004, 09:04:49 pm »
Hi everbody, a noob here. ummm I was just wondering scince the game is open souce and all and i\'m all about open source. but how will cheating be handeled?? Becuase cheating takes away from a great game entirely. Just a curious fan. Thanks


XxSephirothxX
« Last Edit: April 07, 2004, 09:05:55 pm by XxSephirothxX »

Draklar

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« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2004, 09:16:41 pm »
uhh... there were some threads about this... From what I remember it will be handled and it all depends on code :P
oh and umm... welcome to the Yliakum... watch out for guy named Seperot :P
« Last Edit: April 07, 2004, 09:17:00 pm by Draklar »
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Carver

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« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2004, 09:17:00 pm »
Now, i am a noob, and i have not even tried to look at the source code.  but about cheating, it depends a lot on what you mean by cheating.  Since reading code is not an easy task especially code of the size that i\'m sure a game like this must have, so it would be very hard for a person to read through the code and figure out flaws or bugs, or other things that would give them a distinct advantage.

The other thing is that most of the changes that you can make to the client only affect you and your client.  being open source you can modify your client to do whatever you want, even so far as chaning your character model to something you made drew in a paint program.  But that doesn\'t affect the server or the rest of the players in the game.  when you look at your character you could make yourself see a movie star, but the rest of us will still only see your original character model.

Then, any other froms of cheating (such as accidently finding a bug that makes you incredably rich and exploiting it to become incredibly rich) really can\'t be stopped easily, that\'s why you have \"moderators\" or whatever you want to call them that try to find those cheaters and get them to stop.

But i doubt that being open source will cause cheating, but every game has people who find a bug or a loophole and exploit it if they ar able too.  and i don\'t know may people who can just look at lines of source code and figure out exactly what bugs they can exploit.

XxSephirothxX

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« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2004, 09:22:37 pm »
so if someone does find a flaw or something to make them rich or greatly skilled in some area are there going to be patches to fix that?? Thanks

Dameon

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« Reply #4 on: April 07, 2004, 09:24:33 pm »
There is always the possiblilty of cheating with any game. This may be more true for open source games, but it usually cannot be helped.

I am sure the devs have put thought into cheat prevention and have probably come up with some great ideas. But, some trust does have to be put in the community. That is really what is being formed in PS. Its not just a game, its a community of gamers who want to see a great open source game succeed.

AendarCallenlasse

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« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2004, 09:25:41 pm »
Cheat prevention will be handled server-side.  So it can\'t be exploited.

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XxSephirothxX

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« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2004, 09:29:27 pm »
Cool, thank you for answering my question was just curios I cant wait to get home and log on and see what the world looks like. Thanks

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Thardin

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« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2004, 09:34:37 pm »
Security through obscurity is no security...

What I mean with this: If a program\'s source code is protected, you could try to hide bugs by not leting people know they are there.

If the source code of a program is public everyone could examine the code and warn the developers of potential leaks, bugs etc. This makes the program more secure overall.

Every game can be exploited to some extent, but it is just less likely to happen with open source games (on the long term) than with games with a protected source code.

Draklar

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« Reply #8 on: April 07, 2004, 10:03:04 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by Dameon
But, some trust does have to be put in the community.

well I think we can forget about that...
especially after all that business that\'s happening here...
But Open Source can be very safe, aye?
I mean look at linux...
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hook

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« Reply #9 on: April 08, 2004, 08:28:37 am »
there was a lot of talk about cheating and how to prevent it and from what i heard PlaneShift will be pretty hard to cheat in :] ...most things are and will be handled by the server.

the biggest cheating in PS i\'ve seen was that someone altered the size of the crystals to find them easier, but that\'s going to be fixed in the next release AFAIK

in any case i think that in the long term PlaneShift (and other open-source games and programs) will be more secure to cheats and exploits then closed-sourced ones.
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slabertooch

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« Reply #10 on: April 08, 2004, 08:40:02 am »
I agree with Hook, Open source will prove to be more resistant to cheating just because the code is open.  For every cheater/exploiter out there that publishes a cheat a fix can be made by onother person with knowledge of the exploit.  Open source just makes it easier to fix the problem because Dev\'s don\'t neccessarily have to fix the problem.  For instance a gamer discovers an exploit in the code, takes it on himself to code a fix and posts it for the Devs to review, problem solved.  With propietary code this is much more difficult if not impossible.
I can see it now Hacking the  H@x0rs hacks.
 Ooooh gives me the tingles, cheaters will eventually cause their own extinction.
knowledge is power, but wisdom is a big stick with a bit of poo on the end.

Azasello

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« Reply #11 on: April 08, 2004, 03:54:39 pm »
I often read about radar tools in other MMMORPGs. most of them have been written by reverse engineering the game protocol (a difficult process which is NOT necessary in an open source game) and exploiting \"extra\" information that the server sends to the client.

what do I mean by \"extra\" information?
for example the server might be too lazy to do line-of-sight tests in all cases. so it might send position information for objects that a player can\'t see. if the object had been visible until a few seconds ago and might soon become visible again, it is an optimisation to safe a few line-of-sight tests. if a player is using a radar tool, then this can be fatal because he can see the object all the time.

this means that the network protocol has to be much more resitrictive in planeshift. this is good on the one hand, because it reduces traffic as a side effect. but it also means that the server has to do more calculations. i hope that the devs will or have already thought about some clever strategies to handle this.

I think this is the only way to really cheat by hacking the client. beside that, a hackable client can\'t be that bad. people can design their own user interfaces (for example if you think a ranger is hard to control with the standard interface, you might want to modify it. open source makes it possible!)
I don\'t know what the planeshift team\'s attitude is toward using modified clients. I think as long as people won\'t (can\'t) use this for cheating, it is a good thing. it\'s like having the choice which window manager to use, or which web browser.

hook

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« Reply #12 on: April 08, 2004, 04:06:58 pm »
Azasello,
 I think that you share your feelings towards hacking/moding the client with the devs. ...AFAIR the client will stay hackable/moddable ...but the part of it that might be used for cheating will be excluded from it ...noone minds if you tweak your interface the way you want it :]
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Vengeance

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« Reply #13 on: April 09, 2004, 06:53:45 am »
I think we have pretty good approaches defined and/or implemented for these problems.  I guess we\'ll see. :-)

Keitac2000

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« Reply #14 on: April 15, 2004, 04:36:26 am »
open source, personally means there will be less cheating imo.  as far as bug exploits, they will be fixed as they are found hopefully, especially if everyone able can help in fixing them.  as far as other cheats, i\'ve rarely found many cheats for a mmo that are really worth it.  really, how freggan useful is a wall hackin an mmo, and what guarentees that it will work a week down the line when 75 new bug fixes have come out?