Multiplayer cheating

[robotbob]

...is when

to chars attempt to trade\interact etc and are not players\bot (my bots have my IP), it just doesn't allow it

and gives a server message "You cannot trade between clients on the same IP".

 

...

 

you'd have todo if (blah.ip != blah2.ip && "Neither is a bot" so bot owners can restock wthout triggering a flag/warning...

 

althogh i would assume (and hope) they already have such things logged anyway when we trade...

 

Yes, I took account of that requirement.

I assume the IP is part of whatever struct is used to hold all the clients data. So I guess

the data is already there for such a look up. During a trade, trade_width and player ID is sent,

so do a compare at that moment.

 

Nothing that can be blocked via code should be left to the good will of the user and the hours of game management by moderation staff.

 

Granted, there will always be attempted workarounds. Bad language is

an example, the easiest and simple solution (word replacement) is easily broken, and thus is left to

the user to add new variations to those words in global filters. (An AI that solves all possibles (natural language parser, maybe NN based could do it, but complete overkill). An truly, bad language is about harassment and not really the words themselves, you can't block this no matter what.

 

So at best, we can only dissuade a

player by making violating the rules a complex task.

[frogimus]

IMO, this is a useless topic. No insult to the topic starter, I believe your intentions are in the right place.

 

The first rule in anything is RTFM. If you read the rules that are on-screen for x-seconds before you are allowed IG, then you should be aware that same-IP trading is a no-no. If you didn't, then boo-hoo.

 

For the numerous languages represented, it would be nice if there were literal translations made for each of them. And there are rule-abiding representatives from about every possible one that could help make the literal translations.

 

For the people that cheat on-purpose, there are simple means to bypass most everything suggested. And from the looks of the "bans" forum, the mod's have effective tools already.

 

My .02

[robotbob]

IMO, this is a useless topic. No insult to the topic starter, I believe your intentions are in the right place.

Did you read any other posts besides the first one?

 

[i cite my post] , please evaluate this suggestion.

 

And from the looks of the "bans" forum, the mod's have effective tools already.

 

Yes its called their time.

[frogimus]

Did you read any other posts besides the first one?

Every single one

[i cite my post] , please evaluate this suggestion.

1. involves an additional process to be performed per trade, which increases server load

2. can be easily circumvented via proxy/IP spoofing, unless the security check is elaborate, which puts even more load on server

And from the looks of the "bans" forum, the mod's have effective tools already.

Yes its called their time.

Which would be further taken by untangling the valid multi-clients that get caught by these filters

 

Now, my .02 has turned into .04 and I am removing myself from this discussion

[robotbob]

 

1. involves an additional process to be performed per trade, which increases server load

2. can be easily circumvented via proxy/IP spoofing, unless the security check is elaborate, which puts even more load on server

 

 

A single compare of data is very minor. A single if statement won't load it.

in 32 bit assembly ( I know we are talking C)

cmp eax, 0 (memory address instead of literal but for simplicity)

jne Label

 

Won't even equate to 1 millisecond.

 

Presuming the IP is part of the player data struct and isn't a "lookup" each trade.

 

Well I assume the server has blocked the ip ranges of the known proxies servers, and I think IP spoofing

is beyond the scope of the behavior we are trying to stop, and brings an another entirely different

topic on el client session security.

[agis29]

Actually i am against bans for illegal multi.

An empty storage for the cheater and a reseted char is a better punishment.

[sithicus]

Yes any feature in the client itself is pointless. Also, there are valid reasons (testing) that require multiple clients

and\or normal non interactions with chars (which is allowed).

 

With that said, the solution as I see it, (I have no idea how the server handles this), is when

to chars attempt to trade\interact etc and are not players\bot (my bots have my IP), it just doesn't allow it

and gives a server message "You cannot trade between clients on the same IP".

 

An IP could be used or a session guid|unique number instead. Granted each trade you get a

if (blah.ip != blah2.ip) , test on every interaction.

 

So I think the only solution is to prevent the activity at the server level from even being possible.

 

This seems like a good idea, but what if a bag is dropped. The bag should have an owner tag to it to make sure bag trading does not happen.

[robotbob]

Yes true. I didn't consider this method.

 

And afaik, bags have nothing associated with them that defines their owner (besides at time A, at coords x,y

playera drop a bag, then playerb....etc)

 

Well, besides limiting whether two chars can occupy the map, and or visual range.

 

I am not sure how one, besides a major change, this could be done

 

(Saying this entirely blind of the server source, Of which I have no idea)

[Ermabwed]

Families.

[Marr]

1.) this game is beta and somehow i have a feeling that the devs have enough other (more importend) things todo.

 

2.) this discussion leads to the evil zone called "closed source" so stop please...

 

3.) build all this little toys you can imagine in the client and i garantee you someone find a way to bypass them and make it public (and ebul closed source cant prevent this). that will happend extremly fast, because of the amount of players with a programming background, which is pretty high for this game imho.

[cho-yun]

Marr is right...

many games make it so you cant have 2 clients open on 1 PC.

Flyff, endless online, rappelz... the list goes on

 

but people have found hacks/cracks/ways to disable the reason it does what it does.

 

EG. Flyff: if you open 1 updater client, it wont allow you to open another. But once that has finshed you can open another client... do it do slow and you cant open it to the login

 

i found that out a year ago messing around...

 

the other eg is endless online, someone already said there's a crack to bypass the system

 

imo there's no way to stop multi playing other than banning... once cuaght the cocky person is doomed. If truely a family then picture of 2-# PCs and the family opening a EL client should surfice imo

[Looter]

i think this would be great, sure some people will find a way around it but i think this would stop most multiplayers and make like much much easier for mods. sure there is good legal reasons to have more than one client open but i think its more important to stop such a large number of cheats.

[jamincollins]

With that said, the solution as I see it, (I have no idea how the server handles this), is when

to chars attempt to trade\interact etc and are not players\bot (my bots have my IP), it just doesn't allow it

and gives a server message "You cannot trade between clients on the same IP".

 

An IP could be used or a session guid|unique number instead. Granted each trade you get a

if (blah.ip != blah2.ip) , test on every interaction.

 

So I think the only solution is to prevent the activity at the server level from even being possible.

[sarcasm]GREAT![/sarcasm]

 

What about my wife and daughter that play with me? Or the other families out there that play from a single IP? Or heaven forbid the group of players that like to be social and gather at one players house?

 

All of these are legal means of playing and all of these occur from the same IP. Again, this is a very bad idea.

[robotbob]

 

2.) this discussion leads to the evil zone called "closed source" so stop please...

 

 

Server code is.

[Marr]

 

2.) this discussion leads to the evil zone called "closed source" so stop please...

 

 

Server code is.

 

but i dont have to run the ebul server code on my machine to play the game :>

[robotbob]

Instead of everyone just say how this is a bad idea, how about a collective thought on a solution.

 

Or is it just something left to human moderation?

 

Personally I always lean toward a software solution

with software whenever possible. I try to automate everything down to the error reporting and updating

in anything I am contracted to write.

 

So how do we impair ( for those that scream, there is always a exploit so security should be ignored ...)

this issue without creating problems for families that play el?

 

So until we can write an Aislinn, I guess just leave it to the human one

[LabRat]

The moderators have experience in pattern recognition over numerous game sessions, something the server would have a hard time with if it was expected to run the game too.

 

The current system works adequately - if you break the rules that you agreed to before you started playing you face a ban. You are your own security software.

 

There are many ways to bypass software locks - patches (both code and binary modifications), proxy servers, remote computing are obvious ones that have been mentioned previously in this thread.

 

Including a dll with the client with custom functions may work, but wouldn't stop any experienced programmer for more than a couple of hours.

 

Should the server be the one responsible for your actions? Should the client? If I was to burgle your house should I blame the crowbar I used to force open your door because it empowered me to commit the crime? If so then nobody should be allowed to have the client or its source, and the server should be taken offline.

 

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and is a message that is shown every holiday season in this country with regards to visiting foreign countries. If the laws are available and readily accessible then it is your responsibility to learn and comprehend them. Obeying the law is optional due to free will, although disobeying them will bring the full weight of the law down on you.

 

The mods and gods are intelligent people and use their experience to spot potential breaches of game play. Let them do their job.

Edited August 5, 2007 by LabRat

[Llywar]

I am under the impression that playing multiple characters at once is legal as long as they don't interact at all. If that isn't true perhaps it should be made clear in the rules (forgive me if it is covered somewhere).

 

Anybody out to cheat would easily modify their client to remove any checks, or would just use vmware/etc to isolate individual clients. There really is no way to detect this - even with closed-source software it can be done undetectably (with more difficulty). Maybe with hardware TCPM it might be possible to detect, but let's not go there, please? Anybody who runs gentoo builds their own clients, so you can't even tuck away an easter-egg in the distributed binary.

 

It should be fairly effective to look for signs of cheating in the logs after the fact, and not try to catch it instantly. If somebody cheats from level 5->7 and gets a warning nobody is going to be put out. And by the time chars are high-level they should understand the rules - nobody is going to jeopardize a high-level char for the sake of a little muling if they know they're going to get caught.

 

And I'm guessing the current controls aren't all that manual. A simple log query would identify all same-IP trades. A slightly more complex one would catch any same-IP bag-trades. Most likely the admins have both in place already - and this is all a client-side solution would stop anyway.

 

I don't think that cheating is that big of a problem - or at least it is under effective control. And I'm sure the mods go easy on newbies that have only been playing a week.

[Aislinn]

I am under the impression that playing multiple characters at once is legal as long as they don't interact at all. If that isn't true perhaps it should be made clear in the rules (forgive me if it is covered somewhere).

5. Do not cheat.

Cheating in the game means using illegal clients, unregistered and/or unapproved bots, macroing, automating, scripting, exploiting bugs, muling, or any other form of illegal multi-playing*.

To use a bot, it must be registered and approved; it must adhere to the rules of the client's license and all your code must be open source. If you find a bug in the game, you must tell the owners of Eternal Lands immediately.

*Illegal multi-playing means using more than one character to help you gain benefits that using a single character would not. Illegal multi-playing includes but is not limited to: muling, deathbag sitting, pvp training, luring people to pk maps with one character while lying in wait with another. Also note that it is very difficult to be able to define each and every form of illegal multi-playing or cheating, so these matters will be reveiwed and punishments decided upon on a case by case basis.

 

1. NO same-owner IP trading. If caught, unless you can PROVE you are legitimate family/significant other, you WILL be punished. (This does not legitimize breaking the rest of these rules). Proof will be determined on a case by case basis. Abusing same IP trading and/or lying will result in severe consequences.

2. Middlemen are NOT allowed and do not make same IP trading legal between characters. (This includes getting somebody else to log on to one of your characters for the sole purpose of aquiring a different IP to make the trade)

3. Bag trading not allowed between same IP characters to bypass this rule.

4. We do not make exceptions for "well" leveled characters to be allowed to trade.

5. Owning multiple characters IS legal as long as they do not interact, and do not help each other.

6. Guild storages will be considered as bots, even if they are not run by a program. They must be declared and registered on the official list. They will follow all ingame rules AND all bot rules.

 

 

It should be fairly effective to look for signs of cheating in the logs after the fact, and not try to catch it instantly. If somebody cheats from level 5->7 and gets a warning nobody is going to be put out. And by the time chars are high-level they should understand the rules - nobody is going to jeopardize a high-level char for the sake of a little muling if they know they're going to get caught.

You must be kidding. High level characters are just as likely. Matter of fact, those are the ones who do the most damage.

 

 

And I'm guessing the current controls aren't all that manual. A simple log query would identify all same-IP trades. A slightly more complex one would catch any same-IP bag-trades. Most likely the admins have both in place already - and this is all a client-side solution would stop anyway.

Sure, just ask aisybot and learnerbot. How do you figure it's not manual? Somebody has to go digging through all those logs. Most cases are not "simple".

 

 

I don't think that cheating is that big of a problem - or at least it is under effective control. And I'm sure the mods go easy on newbies that have only been playing a week.

Sure it's a big problem. Why do you think the issue keeps coming up? Effective control? You don't even see them all in bans, and we can only handle the ones we find. I am sure there are lots more out there we just haven't gotten to yet.

[Orick]

 

Not sure, if Xwindows has a similar feature, but this way you will get rid of all those 4 year old kids who just create an army of alt chars and start cheating like hell.

 

Piper

 

HAAHAHAHHHAAAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHA........ lol yeah i agrea with Piper and Tsakonas on there ideas and have this one to add... if you want to multy play at the same time you should have to regester just as you have to regester a bot if you have one... and a patch can e-mailed to you, this will make it easer to trase the ones that are multi-playing for fun and those who do it to cheat

 

how ever doing both of thies i KNOW will not fix everything on Multyplayer cheathing but it will help cut out a lot of them

 

SirOrick MGoM

[Tsakonas]

I agree with Orick very good idea Orick.

The patch is a very good suggestion to find who is honest and play multi-character with the legal way and also will help the mods to find who are the cheaters who hide behind the honest players.

Nobody can say that is useless,nothing before test it.The logic says first we test something and them we see if it is useless or not.Without testing we dont know.What we will loose if we try it(one client for each pc and the idea of Orick.)Most the cheaters will loose from it the honest players have nothing to afraid.

[Nintenduh]

The 1 client per PC is not a good idea imho. There is nothing wrong with multiplaying as long as you follow the rules.

 

I certianly hope that this never gets tested.

[The_Piper]

The patch is a very good suggestion to find who is honest and play multi-character with the legal way and also will help the mods to find who are the cheaters who hide behind the honest players.

 

The problem with a patch is: when the first few will be send to players, they will be at once been found somewhere for free download.

 

2nd, for which operating system? EL provides a windows client, a mac client and a linux x86 client. A lot of linux users (must) compile their own client to make it run on their machine. We cant provide clients (and a patch) for every possible CPU linux runs on.

 

Piper

[senkrad]

This whole thread should be in the suggestions area of the forums as far as I can see.

 

The solutions provided will not reduce cheaters. Those who want to cheat believe there is an advantage to be gained by doing so. Where people see that an advatange can be gained they can go to surprising lengths to get that advanatage.

 

Banning would be much easier to administer than inventory/character wiping. If a mistake is made in a ban it can be corrected. To correct the wiping of a character of an innnocent player would require tracking more information than banning/unbanning of characters.

 

That all being said I think that it speaks very highly of EL players that they want to find ways to reduce the cheating that is happening.

 

I use two clients. Quite a lot actually, as I am online logged into EL upto 16 hours a day. I have stated this in other places however, considering the thread I thought I would mention it again.

 

I have not seen it in the forums but that does not mean it has not been discussed. I believe one modfication that would help would be to have a multilingual intro screen when running the game for the first time. This screen would only be to determine a language the player is fluent in to help in directing them to a suitable translation of the rules. All this would do is help them to find the rules when they start. Direct translations can be tricky without support from multilingual people.

 

ie

For the rules in english click here.

For the rules in french click here. << of course this would be in french not english.

For the rules in . . . << and the rest would be in the languages they refer too.

 

This might stop some unintentional cheating(those who cheat without realising it). However it also can lead to some users, who just click on anything, to miss the initial reading of the rules. The question then becomes will it help more than hinder.

 

I know that there is work underway to provide as much translation as possible for the game. This suggestion is only geared towards communicating the rules. The rest of the client would be whatever language the client was downloaded in or set too.

 

Don't know, but I think it would help.

 

I hope the moderators keep up their great work and that concerned players continue to try to improve a game they love so much.

Edited August 6, 2007 by senkrad

[Sir_Exeus]

most cheaters are trouble makers. if they cheat they probaly dont really like that game or they wouldn't cheat. make sense? and who wants cheaters anyway?