Important Message

You are browsing the archived Lancers Reactor forums. You cannot register or login.
The content may be outdated and links may not be functional.


To get the latest in Freelancer news, mods, modding and downloads, go to
The-Starport

Player Killing...A part of the game

Want help in running a persistent server? Want to setup a gaming session? Look no further!

Nog

Post Tue Apr 15, 2003 6:19 pm

I agree with Godlike: Lets not go down the Road to Flameage. However:

Ahh so it was you Mad Dog who says he has more experience than me.

To that let me say this: YOU are a BETA TESTER, I am a game DEVELOPER. I am Also a game REVIEWER. 9 times out of 10 I've seen a build of a game before it's existance has even been publically announced. Claiming you have more experience than anyone only makes you look foolish.
Considering the bug list I came up with on the very first time I played the released version of Freelancer (I can't believe they released the first revision of the game engine. Can we say rushed?) I would say that D.A. needs a better testing team. This is, of couse, assuming that all the bugs in my list were not found before Freelancer was released.

Your behavior will only cause a flurry of patches to come out of D.A. that will serve nothing than to cause potential new players to not want to buy the game because they have to download patches every week.

Also, if any of those patches require a major game engine update, you can kiss all your savegames and player accounts goodbye. Why? Because the new game engine will be uncompatible with the old savegames. If this happens, I'll make sure that everyone knows who to hunt in Elite. The problem with people like you is that you ruin the game for others. There is a whole slew of people out there who want to do nothing but duel, and they're good players. I spent all yesterday morning in O.A. on Elite fighting w/ them. Why don't you go after those? Ahh yes, you might lose then. We can't have that now!

I would say that NEO has a lot to worry about. When the right moment comes, I will attack, and you will lose much more than your pride. You want to fight me? Do it alone and with Honor. Come to where I am at and announce your intentions. So you win! So what? I do not really care.
The truth is that you are afraid of losing, so you could not even fight me alone when I was in a much weaker ship than yours. And that is why I went out of my way to ensure that shooting me was no fun. I, personally, would rather lose in a fair fight than win with overwhelming firepower. It's called, being a good sport.
Something all that "Experience" did not teach you about.

Post Tue Apr 15, 2003 7:50 pm

Everywhere I go the same thing, the debate is PKing right is there and it's always a flame war...

Pking is ok but not in the way many people abuse it. PK is player KILLING, Pk is obviously the end of PVP, Player vs Player. Players when using PvP duel each other and in the end one player is defeated/killed so he is Pked. Most people blindly call PMing, Player Murdering or griefing... PvP or PKing, it's not. Pking is the End of PVP. PMing or Griefing whatever it is called is when out of nowhere a mismatched situation where one person has no hope appears and can repeat itself causing much frustration.

PMers deserve no mercy since they are out to ruin other people's (who may be sensitive in some way or something) experince for there own "pleasure". People forget, dueling, PVP and to the end PK is ok it can be fun as it's a pretty fair situation you have agreed upon. PMing is not and PMers forget it's another person on the receiving end, that person has feelings and emotions just like you.

-~-~-~-~
There is no Silicon Heaven[! But where do all the calculators go ?

You could no more evade my wrath... than you could your own shadow[!

Nog

Post Tue Apr 15, 2003 9:28 pm

I agree fully there and I wish everyone did. I'm just trying to stop the inevitable storm of game patching that players like Tasiin will force D.A. to do.

As it stands, pretty much every existing bug in the game can be patched with only minor engine enhancements. But if Base campers and other like players persist, that will force D.A. to totally change the way Docking and Launching is handled within the game, forcing the script cues to be totally retimed. This will result in the loss of all savegemes and multiplayer accounts saved by the 1.0 engine.

Cheaters in the game could force D.A. to integrate Punk Busters into the engine. Forcing D.A.'s next game to be even pricier then the $54 American that is already the MSR price for Freelancer.

Post Tue Apr 15, 2003 10:21 pm

I picked this up for the standard £35...

Hmmmm how had is it for a SERVER (No humans) to detect these hackers/modders ?

-~-~-~-~
There is no Silicon Heaven[! But where do all the calculators go ?

You could no more evade my wrath... than you could your own shadow[!

Nog

Post Tue Apr 15, 2003 10:46 pm

35 British pounds equals about 65 American dollars if I remember correctly.

In that case your standard pricing is complete rapage of your money, especially since the game standard has been $45 American for the last year or so (= about 27 pounds british)

Punk Busters is a code that is designed to defeat cheaters automatically. I call it a code because in order for it to work, the using company must write a part of it into their game engine. The rest must be installed by the user. Games using Punk Busters usually force install it because the Punk Buster code will not allow the game to run online without it.

The upside to this is that no one has successfully defeated Punk Busters....Yet.

Post Tue Apr 15, 2003 10:59 pm

Yeah the UK Rips us pretty badly for prices but I didn't think it was that much! 0_o!

I would have suggested a modified FADE like thing.
FADE is owned by Codemasters and was first used on Operation Flashpoint.
Basicly it degrades a pirated game... perhaps it could degrade a cheaters accout ?

Know any good servers to play on ? Is there a list anywhere ?

-~-~-~-~
There is no Silicon Heaven[! But where do all the calculators go ?

You could no more evade my wrath... than you could your own shadow[!

Nog

Post Tue Apr 15, 2003 11:33 pm

FADE was designed to prevent Piracy. Only problems is that the pirates defeated in less than a month after it's public release. That is actually a record for copy protection. Such schemes usually are good for about a week before they are cracked.

Punk Busters is designed specifically to defeat cheating. So far it has yet to be cracked, but it has only existed for about a year and a half.

The best way to defeat piracy is to keep product pricing at or below the pricing median (about $45 American). Most piracy groups will not crack a reasonably priced game for it's first 6 months of release and games priced well below the Median level will often be left alone for years (EG: Quake 3 was only $40 on it's release and a permenantly working crack was not attempted for 2 years, but Freelancer was cracked before it ever hit the stores because of it being so high priced $54. With Warcraft 3 it was even worse. Pirates created a version of the beta that is not only working with the released version, but also contains a proxy in the cracked code disguising a user when playing on line. The message is clear Overprice a game and expect the pirates to swoop in immediately. Odd that it takes a criminal to protect the users from corporate greed.

Post Wed Apr 16, 2003 1:10 am

**The upside to this is that no one has successfully defeated Punk Busters**

Are you refering to the PunkBuster Client software that started with Half-life:CounterStrike? If so, then that phrase is wrong. PB has been defeated again and again. New versions would come out(all hacks died),but then new hacks were out in a matter of weeks. Then Valve stopped support for PB(not sure if they still are been out of CS for a while now). Bottom line is Nothing is absolute or unbeatable. Just as, "No cheat is undectable, theres always a counter-cheat on the horizon". This is not a flame in anyway FYI. Peace out

Post Wed Apr 16, 2003 11:55 am

Many people claim that MAPHACK for Diablo II is undetectable since it is a Server-Side thing, I as one of the dieing TL-type players,Total Legit, maintain it can be but Blizzard won't say a word. Perhaps companies should hire some crackers... and Warcraft3 is overated, PC GAMER UK give it away free when you subscribe.

-~-~-~-~
There is no Silicon Heaven[! But where do all the calculators go ?

You could no more evade my wrath... than you could your own shadow[!

Nog

Post Wed Apr 16, 2003 3:34 pm

namel3ss: THAT version HAS been defeated. Of that statement you are right. But the version in Counterstrike is a beta. The release version (Currently coded into the Quake3 engine) has yet to be defeated on a persistant basis. If a cheater makes it into the server, it's usually seconds before Punk Busters figures out that the data transfer is being manipulated and kicks/bans the offender.

The reason the CS version is beatable is that the Half Life engine does not contain the PB code inside, so PB cannot monitor activity inside the server, only the packet transfer. In Quake3, PB knows the rules of the game, so if something amis happens, even if PB did not see the cheat, PB knows something is wrong and does its job. (IE: Railguns do 100 damage in Q3A, 300 if quaded. So if someone takes, say, 650 damage from a railgun, Punkbusters knows that it is impossible to do and kicks the player who fired the shot) That is why the release version has not been defeated.... Yet! Note that in Q3A, punkbusters code is layered on top of the engines native anti-cheat coding, thus providing double protection, and that could be a factor in PB success in the Q3A engine.

There is not a single company out there that is more obsessed in ensuring that gamers have a quality product than id is. They are to gaming code what a crackhead is to shag carpeting. They will pick and prod untill they find exactly what they are looking for and damn any consequenses. The last Q3A patch implemented PB in the code. That was about 6 months ago. There has been no word of any problems with PB or id would have dropped Doom3 developement temporarily and created a new patch. They halted RTCW at least a dozen times to work on Q3A, and that long after other companies would have called it quits on the engine. Knowing id's reputation, if PB was being defeated in Q3A on any regular basis, we would be seeing a new Q3A patch very soon. Despite the fact that Q3A is 4 years old.

There is no cheat prevention sceme that is 100% undefeatable. (Note that I said, "has not been defeated YET".) That's just the nature of binary manipulation. If you can't find a hole, you can create one.
But right now, the PB code is the best cheat prevention out there if it purchased and implemented into the game code as instructed by the company.

Post Thu Apr 17, 2003 4:48 am

Nog:
Punk Buster in Q3 can only be defeated for 10minutes.
How I wont say.., cause i dispise cheating(it destroyed CS for me)
Its those 10 minutes that can ruin a honest players day.
I've sumitted hacks to many Game developers in the past..this is still the best way to combat them. Pb does help tho dont get me wrong, I love pb not because it is flawless, but becasue they TRY :-)

Heltak: It can be detected Through game data transmited to blizzard(such as: The autoscroll feature in maphack. repeated casting off screen and repeated clicking on monsters on the other sides of wall, that you could not normally seen. It just took blizzard a little time to figure it out.

Nog

Post Thu Apr 17, 2003 6:01 pm

Yeah, PB does take time to react. I believe this is more due to the server machine being so heavily occupied (Quake engine dedicated servers are known to be massive resource hogs) than any problems on PB's part.

Yes, at least PB is an honest effort. That is the best feature. Well, that and the fact that it is free of charge for the gamers.

Post Thu Apr 17, 2003 6:58 pm


4: I always give the player the chance to defend himself.


You mean the chance to F1 out of the server? It's happened to me. And I will admit, I have used it one time. To get away from a very angry player who thought he was getting some DIAMONDBACKS :p

Post Thu Apr 17, 2003 7:15 pm


Godlike Entity - there are only a couple of rules in elite one of them is no pking in liberty i have never seen NEO guys breaking rules and killing someone over and over again is not against the rules



Phoenix_UK - I spent the best part of 3/4 of an hour letting my 3 yr old son bash my keyboard as i was being spawn camped by a well known squadron...



Stinger - If I hear of this going on in the Elite server, I'll ban the lot of 'em (the whole squadron) in a heartbeat and not think twice about it. I've spoken with the main faction tenants about this extended camping in the past. If I am in game and I actually see this going on, then expect a public humiliation to ensue.



The quotes speak for themselves.

Post Thu Apr 17, 2003 7:20 pm

Duh I knew Maphack could be detected. And anyway new versions let you see inventory's. I meant Client side when I said Maphack was Server :/

-~-~-~-~
There is no Silicon Heaven[! But where do all the calculators go ?

You could no more evade my wrath... than you could your own shadow[!

Return to Freelancer Multiplayer Forum