Author Topic: How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?  (Read 3838 times)

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phatzoid

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #15 on: February 04, 2005, 09:13:28 pm »
Well our engine lisence cost just under $10k which gives us the ability to develop new titles with it which have to be registered with our engine provider for their records.

There are other costs dependant on the target market, which for Arcade only titles is considerably less compared to the PC game market, (one of the reasons we have not moved into this market yet).

Im not particularly interested in current cheats for current games per say, but I am interested in the whole process. I can not agree with you more, regarding finding the holes before shipping a title, instead of expecting an AC to plug them all up, which is more forgivable for small firms like pterodon, but when companies like EA fail to do this I am frankly appalled. As well as the fact that huge organisations, like government bodies, are as open to these exploits as the games industry, although this poses more of a problem than some guy running around in your game with some super ability.

To aquire AC's as you say, may well be free, certainly to the public but in most cases some level of funding must come from the developers, outsourcing this to an established firm would seem the direction that most take...

As I mention my own programming experience is pretty wide, but when it comes to this side, exploiting flaws, I must say I have limited knowledge outside of the average persons understanding. However should we find ourselves in a position where this is a factor we need to understand I suspect we would follow the common path of outsourcing to someone who does. Obviously establishing a good level of communication between the parties would be our first priority, to look at what should be tied up before handing a project over to the AC contractor. I suspect this is the first place many developers stubble over and failing here can result to more exploitable 'holes', thus creating more exploits.

I think other community related problems arrise when developers are tight lipped about these flaws which breeds discord within the titles developing community, legit players or exploit players. Both communities are as valid as each other and IMHO a more open approach to both would improve them no-end.

I don't pretend to share the ethos of the exploit community but that is not to say that I don't understand it. This kind of grey area can get a little murky with some players sitting on the fence... but all the same these communities are what keep your title in circlation... anyway I digress... :roll:  :?

Maybe if developers actually worked along side communities like TKC they could learn from each other, and in turn create an environment where players from either camp can decide where they want to play, how they want to play etc...

There are some games as you know that run international leagues, plagued with reports of cheating or other types of exploit. Yet if a better relationship with the exploit community had been developed, places like TKC could have helped provide a exploit free environment, or at least a closer to legit one. I remember years ago playing Diablo, from Blizzard, and I remember that their own server list had 2 zones, one for exploiters and one for legit (although not perfect if I recall), but at least they were working towards this goal. Yet the current consensus from developers seems to be one of denial, or at least to turn a blind eye until some new AC update can be released.... These are just conclusions based on ovservations I have made over the last 8 years as a small time games developer, and a long time as a game player. :D

ZOldDude

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #16 on: February 04, 2005, 10:01:26 pm »
Well as far as VC goes it has been said that TKC was the LARGEST and BEST beta tester for this game.....it found all the bugs!

We just never made them all public.

Some things are just not "fun" for people or would just kill the game outright.

I still am called "The Unknown Player" by some of the company boys even tho that was in fact my buddy from NZ Rob H......he's living just down the road from me and works 12-14 hours a day playing video games and trying his best to crash them.
He gets paid to do this.
Right now he is on project for Sony.

With consol games they have to be correct when they goto market....forget a "patch".

By the way I started a program here that works with NATO to review game demos from ladder contests for cheats.....no TKC software ever changes hands.
All the "he/they cheat" yells in North American came to a total halt out of fear of being busted. The simple fact that TKC would act as an outside reviewer was all that was needed (I never had to even look at a demo!).

This did alot to change the "evil image" of TKC at least in the largest possible sales market in the world....yet those in other countrys still have major issue with TKC and/or my posting name.
Oh well....thats why I test all the new stuff in the Pterodon public server LOL!


I am going to move this tread to a more proper area of the forums as it really has nothing to do with this section......

*While we crash and burn, small, low tech, agrarian societies such as the Hmong in the mountains of Laos will continue on without so much as blinking an eye.*

[TKC]thejoker

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #17 on: February 05, 2005, 08:55:44 pm »
If everything was made server side and the packets were seriously encrypted there wouldnt be alot of cheaters in games.

phatzoid

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #18 on: February 05, 2005, 08:58:19 pm »
That would be my thinking also. I guess the trick is to make the encrytion and decryption mothod fast enough that it would not effect server response times etc...

[TKC]thejoker

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #19 on: February 05, 2005, 09:01:20 pm »
Yea, it will take cheaters a while to decrypt the pakets, find which one they want, figure out what to change it to, encrypt it again to see if it works, put it into a trainer and release it to public. By that time you have already released a new patch so they need to do it all over again which will annoy them so they will give up.

phatzoid

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #20 on: February 05, 2005, 09:04:59 pm »
especially if the encrytion key could be updated, if this was done weekly, a simple enough automation, this would make creation of exploits a pointless task. Something that I have never understood is why has this not been implemented? My only guess is the response time...

[TKC]thejoker

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #21 on: February 05, 2005, 09:06:33 pm »
Probably is because of response times, since not everywere can get internet speeds as fast as Sweden or Japan. But as the whole world gets really fast speeds for cheaper then this should be implemented (if it isnt some game developers need slapped)

phatzoid

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #22 on: February 05, 2005, 09:10:54 pm »
Obviously holes in external things, such as DirectX, can still lead to exploits but considering these games usually have a screen shot function, I am surprised that a simple random screen capture system is not implemented. I mean if a server was gathering random screen shots from all players this would create a reasonable deterent against those D3D holes... ok that still leaves a gap for non-visiual aids like aimbots and speed hacks etc, but its such a simple step....

When you start looking at this from the other end of the spectrum its easy to see that blocking every hole is almost impossible, but there are things that could be done...often very simple....IMHO

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #23 on: February 06, 2005, 12:03:59 am »
Crypting things stops nothing.
If the GAME can understand what is "said" then the what makes you think cyrpting is really worth the bother?
The answere is just sitting right there in the games folders or a a reg entry for anyone to look at.

SS can and have been scripted to filter as needed also.

Words of wisdom: "A lock will only keep an honest person out."

*While we crash and burn, small, low tech, agrarian societies such as the Hmong in the mountains of Laos will continue on without so much as blinking an eye.*

TheHeckler!

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #24 on: February 06, 2005, 06:50:34 am »
Quote from: [TKC]thejoker
If everything was made server side and the packets were seriously encrypted there wouldnt be alot of cheaters in games.


This is blizzards answer to expliots and such in their games...so far it has proven quite effective, albeit not foolproof

[TKC]thejoker

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #25 on: February 09, 2005, 12:40:30 am »
Quote from: TheHeckler!
Quote from: [TKC]thejoker
If everything was made server side and the packets were seriously encrypted there wouldnt be alot of cheaters in games.


This is blizzards answer to expliots and such in their games...so far it has proven quite effective, albeit not foolproof


They are the guys who do diablo 2 correct? All MMORPG's are like this and there exists no trainers for any, shows it does work, all there are in mmorpgs are bugs which get fixed easy enough.

phatzoid

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #26 on: February 09, 2005, 12:48:18 am »
There is obviously somthing to be learned here.

The obvious question is why are FPS makers not taking the same route? Is this because for some reason its harder to implement? I presume that MMORPG's are not sharing packets as often as FPS, bcz there is less need to be synchronised with these types of games, maybe there is more room for the encryted packets.

As mentioned above it is always better to tie up these holes before final publication, but its certainly an interesting point.

Other things like CD-Key ban deterents, like I hear HL2 uses, (although thats speculation at the moment, having not played it myself). However these CD-Keys seem pretty easy to aquire so loosing your CD-Key bcz of being an exploiter may not be much of a deterent...

M. O.

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #27 on: February 09, 2005, 01:06:11 am »
If you download HL2 off the net, you don't even need a key ;)
You only have to create a new user if you've been banned.
Heckling is an art, and game hacking a science.

[TKC]thejoker

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #28 on: February 09, 2005, 01:06:53 am »
MMORPGs have ALOT more interacting to do than a FPS. Tens of thousands of people on the server a day leveling up and gathering and dropping items will require more pakets than a few hundered people a day on a server shooting and reloading and swapping guns. It is actually very weird that they dont do this yet. CD-keys are stupid IMO, what they need to verify is something on the game cd that cant in anyway be seen by anyone or copied or whatever, then when starting up the game it checks the CD for this file and if it isnt there, they simply arent able to play the game. As for banning using CD-keys, if they use the paket encryption bla bla bla then they shouldn't need to ban anyone for cheating.

ZOldDude

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How much would it cost to turn TKC into an anti-cheat group?
« Reply #29 on: February 09, 2005, 07:42:01 am »
Quote from: phatzoid

Other things like CD-Key ban deterents, like I hear HL2 uses, (although thats speculation at the moment, having not played it myself). However these CD-Keys seem pretty easy to aquire so loosing your CD-Key bcz of being an exploiter may not be much of a deterent...


Global Bans of this sort have many truly "evil" uses of the obvious explots.
One former high up in United Admim left after being craped upon for pointing out what MIGHT happen if a person set up a server (or was an Admin) was to collect IP's and then report a cheating ban after SMURFING the ID.

VAC....STEAM.....they piss you off just f*ck all thier online keys for life,in ALL of the companys games.

The whole idea is the wrong way to go and the "gota have an ID in VC2" idea has talked about on Peterodon .....yet I doubt that the truly brain dead understand the danger of such a system and will countinue  to fully suport and even push it.

In a matter of hours EVERY online key could be wiped from ever playing online ever again under some theory.

Everything has a balance.
The trick is to find the sweat spot withen function/price/useablity.


(this site needs a spell cheacker.....I am so old I forget)

*While we crash and burn, small, low tech, agrarian societies such as the Hmong in the mountains of Laos will continue on without so much as blinking an eye.*