Hacks now pervasive; no longer just speed hacks

[MobiusOne]

Guy by the name of **** on Furrypound server right now, 2:11 PM EST. Guy had three hacks at once. He has aimbot, fire rate (ramjet rifle was shooting with the fire rate of the assault rifle), ESP or whatever it was that let him see SBH players.

Hackers will destroy this game if nothing is done about them.

[PermaGrin]

Server moderation will be the best solution for most of this in the end. There is no way we can keep up with hacks/cheats existing or new for too long.

[iovandrake]

You could easily measure how fast someone is moving through areas of a map (you already have areas named for Q reporting and when checking on your team info). If someone movies through multiple areas way too fast they should automatically be kicked. That would stop speedhacks from running around in that fashion (which would at least hobble it as a useful hack). Aimbot would be easy to watch for in statistics too. If you make and then keep track of a statistic for all players on a server called Average Time Between Kills. If their ATBK is too high (test it with some really good snipers) then they should be kicked.

I'm a programmer myself. It's not hard to eliminate cheating if you establish standards for what is possible. Old renegade was lousy with hackers and servers were never very good at moderating them. It's too easy for people to say they did it with pure skill when it is obviously a hack.

"It was totally skill that I got an instant headshot on you soon as you came around that corner even though I had three other people on your team shooting at me and up in my face"

Yet when Renegade X first had public beta people were not sniping like on old Renegade. Very few people could manage a lot of the shots people on Renegade were pulling off and labling "skill". I thought that was interesting since they didn't have aimbots (or know which ones to use) yet. I can't wait until a majority of the kill whore snipers are hacking again and claiming it is skill...

[TigerXtrm]

It would already be a massive help if kick votes were actually easy to use and worked.

[Volcom]

Probably not a great idea to post the hack names on the forum.

[ehh]

i was on that server earlier, called him out and called him some mean words

he left lol

[Daedhart]

i was on that server earlier, called him out and called him some mean words

he left lol

So bad words can solve problems, my school teacher lied to me!

[xgamer888]

i was on that server earlier, called him out and called him some mean words

he left lol

I'll have to try that lol

[Valor]

These ridiculous hacks are starting to remind me of FinalRen from the old Renegade days.

We need a Renguard X.

[ehh]

4.0 pls

[R315r4z0r]

I'm not quite sure moderation is gonna be enough. There isn't anything stopping people from simply rejoining under a different nick/IP.

[Crab]

As long as the community is vigilant and actually participates in kick votes, I don't see it being that big of a problem.

It would get annoying to kick the same guy 10 times in a row, but we may have to live with that.

[Ailure]

Admin of TFP here, I apologize for any hackers that are on our servers, unfortunately they tend to come onto the server when most admins aren't around. I'll investigate ways that makes it easier for people to report troublemakers on the server.

I'm not quite sure moderation is gonna be enough. There isn't anything stopping people from simply rejoining under a different nick/IP.

You can enforce Steam login to be required from within the server settings, but admittedly all this does is forcing the hackers to register a new account for every ban you do, so they can keep up with if they have more patience than you. Plus it would lock out anyone not using Steam. Assuming the ban system does ban by steamid on steam logged in users, I admittedly hadn't checked.

[Volcom]

You should probably try to recruit some mods in other time zones.

[iran]

Can we get RenXGuard, I was playing yesterday with ehh and iTaLy and I was already being accused of cheating.

[Methanoid]

I'm not quite sure moderation is gonna be enough. There isn't anything stopping people from simply rejoining under a different nick/IP.

when i used to run a grp of clans i was server admin of our clans SOF/UT99/CS/RTCW/Q3 servers and some of those needed some work, not only modified anticheats but manual admin'ing of the servers, i think the hardest was CS, ppl not understanding how zeroping worked, the fact the client draws the shots b4 it talks to the server who then lands the shots different to client, resulting in the usual "wtf i headshot em" etc.

i think i temp cured the cs server issue using a weapon laser beam mod, teammates saw each others beams but not the enemy, spectators could see everyone, so me or another clanmate would spectate and watch suspected ppl, if their wpn beam was cutting thru scenery into ppls heads where they cant see them then we had a winner and dealt with them.

ut99/ut2k3 was hard as well, only had modified anticheat packages to help but totally defeated by external cheats as unrealscript couldnt interact with anything beyond itsself at the time.

doesnt help that aimbots have smooth move/aim so their harder to catch, no easy "spectate them and see them snap to target" etc, it really is a lot of work both for anticheat devs and server admins, at least on CS/etc you could ban/block their wonid/etc and never see them again, ut based games arent so lucky.

[Cyborg571]

Having put probably 2000+ hours into Renegade 2002, I can say from experience that the cheat situation didn't improve until BRenBot and scripts were modded to auto-detect damage / rate of fire / bighead hacks. Servers moderators and admins regularly became abusive when they came up against players who were "too good". My friend and I consistently had issues getting banned from big servers like The Pits because of abusive admins, and having to spend days contesting these bans in the server forums.

Eventually, we ended up getting some of the abusive mods statuses revoked ( http://www.n00bstories.com/image.view.php?id=1332381242 ), but I dread this same toxic server dictatorship finding another home in RenX.

[Soldieroffate]

Having put probably 2000+ hours into Renegade 2002, I can say from experience that the cheat situation didn't improve until BRenBot and scripts were modded to auto-detect damage / rate of fire / bighead hacks. Servers moderators and admins regularly became abusive when they came up against players who were "too good". My friend and I consistently had issues getting banned from big servers like The Pits because of abusive admins, and having to spend days contesting these bans in the server forums.

Eventually, we ended up getting some of the abusive mods statuses revoked ( http://www.n00bstories.com/image.view.php?id=1332381242 ), but I dread this same toxic server dictatorship finding another home in RenX.

Aye, I suppose I wasn't the only one that remembered times like this. Got a mod permaban me once just because I outgunned him in a soldier vs. soldier fight (that and he was known to go **** you to any player that killed him).

If anything, we need something like TiberianTech's 4.0 scripts. Those prevent players from even joining a game if any modifications are detected.

[Daedhart]

Having put probably 2000+ hours into Renegade 2002, I can say from experience that the cheat situation didn't improve until BRenBot and scripts were modded to auto-detect damage / rate of fire / bighead hacks. Servers moderators and admins regularly became abusive when they came up against players who were "too good". My friend and I consistently had issues getting banned from big servers like The Pits because of abusive admins, and having to spend days contesting these bans in the server forums.

Eventually, we ended up getting some of the abusive mods statuses revoked ( http://www.n00bstories.com/image.view.php?id=1332381242 ), but I dread this same toxic server dictatorship finding another home in RenX.

Aye, I suppose I wasn't the only one that remembered times like this. Got a mod permaban me once just because I outgunned him in a soldier vs. soldier fight (that and he was known to go **** you to any player that killed him).

If anything, we need something like TiberianTech's 4.0 scripts. Those prevent players from even joining a game if any modifications are detected.

Lets not assume all mods are douchebags. Im a mod and Id like to think of myself as non-douchebaggy. Youre going to find bad mods no matter where you go, its a fact of online gaming.

Im not arguing against an anti-cheat system, but I think the devs have much more pressing matters to attend to.

[omega79]

I doubt they have the time and ressources to develop an AC ...

they can fix a lot problems that hackers use to hook their cheats

they maybe can also provide some sort of serial (i.e. SteamID/hardwarehash) to ban the casual cheaters

but the rest is probably up to the community to develop an AC and to

moderate/administrate the server properly ...

i think thats how the situation is

[lazy5686]

Having put probably 2000+ hours into Renegade 2002, I can say from experience that the cheat situation didn't improve until BRenBot and scripts were modded to auto-detect damage / rate of fire / bighead hacks. Servers moderators and admins regularly became abusive when they came up against players who were "too good". My friend and I consistently had issues getting banned from big servers like The Pits because of abusive admins, and having to spend days contesting these bans in the server forums.

Eventually, we ended up getting some of the abusive mods statuses revoked ( http://www.n00bstories.com/image.view.php?id=1332381242 ), but I dread this same toxic server dictatorship finding another home in RenX.

Aye, I suppose I wasn't the only one that remembered times like this. Got a mod permaban me once just because I outgunned him in a soldier vs. soldier fight (that and he was known to go **** you to any player that killed him).

If anything, we need something like TiberianTech's 4.0 scripts. Those prevent players from even joining a game if any modifications are detected.

Rebdog developed a working triggerbot with scripts 4.0/4.1 and 0x90 bypassed the anticheat features a while ago. There are at least two other individuals working on their own cheats.

You can only do so much. For other server owners I would recommend creating an IP and Steam ID database if you don't already have something like that. It can help greatly in tracking the less internet savvy cheaters.

Jelly tries to get conclusive proof that someone is in fact cheating before we ban them. Every once in a while we do ban someone without 100% conclusive proof but we require a large majority of the moderator and admin team to approve it and generally debate among ourselves for several days . The last person we removed like this was Rebdog.

[RoundShades]

Anyone know what the rest of Unreal games do? I beleive most the others do moderation, then again most the others have a persistent name lock or an under-engine id associated with their build. Also, if IP ban was available, that would help too.

I am not sure if Unreal has any programs to run with server and do checks for line of sight or speed or weapon damage or unnatural aim speeds.

[supersample]

I already posted in the forums wondering if there would ever be renguard for this game and was just laughed at and told its not needed so yeah but hopefully well see it down the road

[Methanoid]

Anyone know what the rest of Unreal games do? I beleive most the others do moderation, then again most the others have a persistent name lock or an under-engine id associated with their build. Also, if IP ban was available, that would help too.

I am not sure if Unreal has any programs to run with server and do checks for line of sight or speed or weapon damage or unnatural aim speeds.

anticheats relying on unrealscript / ingame methods have historically been unable to detect or do anything about hacks external to the game, also bots/hacks made for 1 version of unreal tended to work on any other games using the same version of unreal engine because their basically the same.

[Maderas]

It's just something you have to learn to live with, unfortunately, especially with free games. My desire to play has been dampened the past week because I'm lucky to get in a couple matches before something fishy happens. I'm skeptical that so many people became natural headshot masters over the last 13 days. It's very noticeable compared to the first week of open beta.

I'm hoping that the developers will go with Steam at launch and can get VAC in game. It's better than nothing. And while I can appreciate that some people want a DRM free release, I don't think it's fair that everyone else should suffer with hacking because of that desire. I'd say the vast majority of PC gamers have Steam by now.

[Soldieroffate]

Lets not assume all mods are douchebags. Im a mod and Id like to think of myself as non-douchebaggy. Youre going to find bad mods no matter where you go, its a fact of online gaming.

Im not arguing against an anti-cheat system, but I think the devs have much more pressing matters to attend to.

Not saying all mods are bad but that one incident stuck out like a sore thumb. But ehh...when there's power, there will be those ready to exploit it. It's just human nature.

Yeah. I suppose they should iron out the kinks in the game first.

[HaTe]

I already posted in the forums wondering if there would ever be renguard for this game and was just laughed at and told its not needed so yeah but hopefully well see it down the road

Renguard is sort of a renegade community joke. Renegade veterans (and by veterans, I mean people who have played since long before RG and played long after as well) find it just a funny joke now. It never stopped many cheats - in fact, BIATCH, a serverside only anti-cheat detection method was more successful. The servers in renegade that used RG were just annoying to renegade veterans. The whole !forcerg command was ridiculous as well, and mods and players both abused the hell out of it.

So people were laughing at the renguard part, not the needing anti-cheat part. Currently, renegade has scripts 4.1, which provides far better anti-cheat than any other anti-cheat system for the game to date.

[Valor]

BIATCH only detects a cheat after it's been used. Someone with FinalRen could oneshot every enemy building before they got kicked. Renguard simply prevents that from happening in the first place.

Not saying Renguard is without its flaws though. I would often get kicked off by it for using an unauthorized program completely randomly.

[HaTe]

Biatch worked along side SSGM and autokicked players for using any cheat that was known to not have any possibility of false positives. Any false positive or "possible" cheat was logged and reported to admins immediately.

Renguard didn't do much. It stopped a couple annoying cheats for the time being, but all it ever was was a temporary solution. Scripts were the real cheat prevention.

[rytlock]

Server moderation will be the best solution for most of this in the end. There is no way we can keep up with hacks/cheats existing or new for too long.

yep

[iran]

Building damage is checked server-side in Renegade so RoF and damage hacks don't work on them.