Blizzard Bans Speed Hackers from WoW 186
Voodoo Extreme has the world that Blizzard has already banned several accounts for Speed Hacking, a type of cheat that allows a character to move far faster than it should. From the article: "Those individuals who were caught using the speed hack have been banned from the game and have had their accounts closed. We must stress once again that we are opposed to hacking and cheating of any kind and are dedicated to maintaining a fair environment in our games." Adios, punks
Hope they had definite proof... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hope they had definite proof... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hope they had definite proof... (Score:2)
Not everyone pays for everything...I would love to play WoW but with no source of income, I can't afford it. You can't make assumptions about someone's situation over the Internet.
Re:Hope they had definite proof... (Score:2)
Online games of all stripes can suck your life away. I discovered this by playing MUDs and through the first beta test cycle of Asheron's Call. After that, I swore
Re:Hope they had definite proof... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hope they had definite proof... (Score:3, Informative)
The agreement was they wouldn't upload information about the person without their consent.
Reading the current EULA for WoW it would seem that consent is given by clicking accept.
Of course now you're into the undecided realm of click EULA's.
Re:Hope they had definite proof... (Score:2)
Re:Hope they had definite proof... (Score:4, Insightful)
However, on the Internet, nothing is ideal, and lag is a major thing to account for. One must also care about the server load. Sure, it's possible to make a client adhering to the above demands, however:
a) it would not be playable, with the possible exception of a high-speed LAN - where ping times are low and bandwidth is high
b) the server load will skyrocket with the number of active players
Therefore, some tradeoffs must be added - such as making the client render the world, handling some tasks (such as basic movement prediction and interpolation, for laggy environments - this is what causes "rubber bounding" in laggy times)
Re:Hope they had definite proof... (Score:2)
That takes things to the extreme. The server needs to validate communications between it and the clients. It should run a sanity check to see if the commands from the client are reasonable. But having the server render the image would be a huge waste of resources. Instead, it should have a language that it can use to tell the client to render objects based on server commands. Similar to the way Citrix, RDP, and X do.
this is what ca
Apart from moving around faster... (Score:2)
Article doesnt say.
Re:Apart from moving around faster... (Score:5, Informative)
Wait... (Score:2, Funny)
Or master ambushers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Apart from moving around faster... (Score:3, Funny)
Especially when they start bunnyhopping... god I hate that...
Oh I get it now. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh I get it now. (Score:3, Funny)
These 'damn kids' get their kicks by making their gnome avatars perform goofy animated dances on command. Speed hacks is pretty much it.
Maybe now people will trust Blizzard... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I expect that instead they'll just take it as evidence that World of Warcraft is easily hacked and use that as a reason why they refuse to play.
But I'm glad Blizzard is announcing this, rather than the approach a certain other MMORPG [playonline.com] took of saying "oh, there's nothing wrong, there are no bots anymore, we took care of them all" despite groups of players who seem not to mind doing the same thing repeatedly 24/7 and never respond when you try and talk with them...
Re:Maybe now people will trust Blizzard... (Score:2)
Re:Maybe now people will trust Blizzard... (Score:2, Informative)
Reactive = banning people after they've been reported.
My understanding is that Blizzard is actively looking for cheaters - taking the proactive approach, as opposed making other players report them, which is the reactive approach.
Re:Maybe now people will trust Blizzard... (Score:2)
Pro-active, in my mind, would be to build in anti-cheats, or to strongly remind folks that any cheating will result in a ban without compensation. Banning someone after they cheat is reactive.
Re:Maybe now people will trust Blizzard... (Score:2)
"Hey, Fred, the magic 8 ball seems to think that evil hackers are going to find a bug on line 278 in menu.c - better fix it right away!"
In this context, the only reasonable definition of being proactive with regard to cheaters means keeping an eye out foir them, rather than waiting to h
I said almost the same thing (Score:2)
Re:Maybe now people will trust Blizzard... (Score:2)
Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
And they were not faking a Gryphon flight while on the ground, they were faking lag to the client making the server lag-o-port them great distances. This is using a method posted on the BlizzHackers website forums.
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
Small abuse is so easy (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:4, Interesting)
In reality, collision-detection and movement logic is better handled on the client side. Nobody wants a 150ms delay between when they push the "forward" key and when they start to move. And the computational cost of doing terrain collision on the server for 5000+ players is prohibitive.
The only thing that Blizzard can do is monitor for data anomolies, such as position updates that are an impossible distance apart for the given time interval. And that is probably how they are catching speed hackers.
stupid lame cheaters (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:stupid lame cheaters (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:stupid lame cheaters (Score:5, Insightful)
All online games I've played have an element that cares more about winning than playing. If they can find a shortcut to winning they'll do it.
Re:stupid lame cheaters (Score:2)
The worst thing are those half cheating, scriptable moves that can never be banned. Like auto-lie-down when near enemies. Or using adrenalines and refilling on med packs and ammo all in one motion. These are the worst people to play against.
Re:stupid lame cheaters (Score:2)
I don't really understand how you're supposed to win in an online game. The game is persistent, and there is no ultimate goal.
Re:stupid lame cheaters (Score:2)
THAT is not the bad part (Score:5, Insightful)
What scares me is when I wonder what that kind of people do in real life -- and how many are in my social groups. :-(
Shudder...
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure what this says about our lawyers today. But I don't think it's good.
Ewen
PS: My score was negative. And I'm not a lawyer. Those two things are not completely unrelated.
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:3, Interesting)
Was there any punishment for cheating? If not, it was allowed.
And, yes, that is a cynical attitude. Please read about game theory, prisoners dilemma, etc.
(Dawkins' "The selfish gene" is really good. It'll change your view of the world.)
What I find problematic is when you are dishonest with people that trust you. That you have a "social contract" with and you know they will get very angry if they find out that you cheat. I.e. "real" betrayal.
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:2, Interesting)
But that was pretty much my point. Here you have a class of people that are supposedly going to be the next generation of highly trusted people (ie, lawyers taking care of people's property, money, etc). And they're cheating to get a few meaningless points in a trivial game. Because they can.
Perhaps it was too much to expect that no one in the class even saw a problem with people the public are supposed to trust just cheating because they can.
I've since adj
It's only cheating when you're caught... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think my perspective changed when I realized that losing well had social benefits.
I suppose a realization like that is much harder to make online.
I'm sure most of the cheaters would rationa
Not all lawyers are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
It is just that 99% of them give the others a bad name.
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:2)
1/2 a :-)
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:2)
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:2)
Ok, what about finding that if you led a mob down a certain path that it got stuck behind rocks out of melee range and you could spell it to death with zero risk ? (The Overthere - Everquest)
What about finding that you could should mobs with bleed shots and run out of their range before they fired back, repeat until they die ? (SWG)
Is this cheating? Is this morally rupugnent?
It certainly reduces the challenge of the game.
From my perspective unless you are using an external program to manipulate the pa
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:2)
Instead consider e.g. the cheating a few years ago in Counterstrike and all the people that quit playing that game. Not all the cheaters where kids.
(See my other comments for more.)
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:2)
In real life, those are the folks that lie or exaggerate on FEMA grants or insurance claims. We had a lot of that in Florida after the recent hurricanes. They don't care that it hurts everyone else if they get ahead a little bit.
Re:THAT is not the bad part (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't hang around Ebay much? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You don't hang around Ebay much? (Score:2)
Re:You don't hang around Ebay much? (Score:2)
Blizzard answered that problem with the concept of soulbound items. There are some items that you get that only you can use from the moment you pick them up. There are other items that you get, that only you can use if you decide to use them. This is how most high level items work.
I'm not even sure if you can sell characters themselves... You'd almost have to sell your whole user account, which is kinda dumb.
Re:stupid lame cheaters (Score:5, Insightful)
Because with companies like IGE [ige.com] that buy and sell accounts and virtual currency/items, effectively creating real-world exchange rates for virtual money, people can make real profits off of cheats, exploits or techniques that improve their efficiency relative to the rest of the players.
Re:stupid lame cheaters (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, but the sellers might well be banned, too:
From the "Terms Of Use" for WoW:
Section 7. Selling of Items
Remember, at the outset of these Terms of Use, where we discussed how you were "licensed" the right to use World of Warcraft, and that your license was "limited"? Well, here is one of the more important areas where these license limitations come into effect. Note that Blizzard Entertainment either owns, or has exclusively licensed, all of the content which appears in World of Warcraft. Therefo
Re:stupid lame cheaters (Score:3, Funny)
May not be a problem for much longer (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:May not be a problem for much longer (Score:5, Insightful)
easy solution, if one had infinite network bandwith and speed, would be to make the clients as dumb terminals as possible - with all possible game logic on the servers - so that you would be able to trust the data coming from the client blindly, simply because the client would be only sending stuff like 'button a pressed'.
Re:May not be a problem for much longer (Score:2)
Re:May not be a problem for much longer (Score:2)
Bandwidth be damned (Score:2)
The "server" room in this example would also be hotter than a thousand suns. Also, the subscription cost would be more on the order of 100 a month rather than 15.
So, yeah, get used to dealing with people hacking things client side.
Re:Bandwidth be damned (Score:2)
It works great and does not require a very fat pipe.
You can feasibly play it on a 128 kbit line, althought its bandwidth slider can be pushed up to 1 mbit.
Re:Bandwidth be damned (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bandwidth be damned (Score:2)
The way I read the parents post, bandwidth being equal, a p4 with a ati 9x00 and a gig of ram would have the same quality of expe
Re:Bandwidth be damned (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, the DATA RESOURCES are streamed from the server. The game is still rendered on your client, and your keystrokes are still handled locally. The only major architectural difference between Second Life and WoW is that one comes on CDs ahead of time, and one gets downloaded in the background.
Re:Bandwidth be damned (Score:3, Insightful)
At least that's what they said circa 1960. Think about how much more powerfull todays desktop pc's are over 1970's mainframes. I've got a 64bit processor with more cache memory than many mainframes had total in the early days.
So right now, yes the server cluster that could handle that for just a few dozen users would probably need a small nuclear reactor and put out more heat than a small ci
Re:May not be a problem for much longer (Score:2)
maybe you could send the triangles the player sees with texture info already on the client though within reasonable limits.
Re:May not be a problem for much longer (Score:4, Insightful)
The only real solution to stop hacking is to run _everything_ on the server and only let the client render what he sees. The only thing that can not be stopped using that method is bots.
Re:May not be a problem for much longer (Score:5, Funny)
"F4llenAng3l has entered the store. You may buy:
A ring - 54 GP
A Fire Arrow Quiver - 68 GP
F4llenAng3l has selected to buy a ring. Please type the text from the image below to complete the purchase, to ensure that you are not a script."
Suggestion ;-) (Score:2)
Re:May not be a problem for much longer (Score:2)
Personally, I think random hash checks every 5 minutes would go a long way towards catching hackers.
Re:May not be a problem for much longer (Score:2)
Re:May not be a problem for much longer (Score:2, Insightful)
not to be a smart ass, but: (Score:4, Funny)
Re:not to be a smart ass, but: (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, six months down the road, if Blizzard is still banning people for cheating, then it's probably not worthy of another
Of course, considering that new developments don't actually have to occur for a story to be revisited on
Re:not to be a smart ass, but: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:not to be a smart ass, but: (Score:2)
I dunno about you guys, but I read /. to get new information.
You must be extremely new here.
Re:not to be a smart ass, but: (Score:2)
because ... (Score:2)
This kind of exploit was common in the first generation of MMORPGs, we had overlaid maps that show the movement, and threat level of all NPCs & PCs, invisible or otherwise in DAOC, movement cheats in EQ1 iirc, tradskill bots in EQ & SWG.
Blizzard is pitching itself against the second generation MMOPRGs (of which EQ2 is the first) and it is interesting that it should fall into the same traps as the previous generation. Part of my decision to play EQ2 was the fact that Sony/Verant have had years of ex
Cheating eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
What about macros/bots? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about macros/bots? (Score:3, Informative)
So they've identified the problem, and taken immediate action
Re:What about macros/bots? (Score:2)
And how do they detect the bots?
Re:What about macros/bots? (Score:2)
fairly impossible to detect such macros, you could even add some randomisation to the scripts so the keystrokes wouldn't be millisecond perfect.
so the ONLY way to combat such scripts is to have the tasks be so that you need to make creative choices to get through them. in other words, they shouldn't have tasks that give you money as reward for doing something very boring and repetitive.
it's just basic logic to come up with this stuff. yet, re
Re:What about macros/bots? (Score:2)
Wait.. We're discussing 'cheating' in 'stupid flash games for stupid marketing campaigns' :-) ?
How the speed hack was fixed in UO (Score:2, Insightful)
So using the speed hack for example, if some took a step the server would have to send an acknowledgement back to the client that the move was accepted. There was a small buffer to compensate for lag. This worked well except when you bumped into a dymanic object during high periods of lag in which case you would see yourself walk through the object only to get "bounced back" bec
Lets hope they do a better job preventing hacks (Score:2)
That said I think there is a lot greater risk hacking in WoW than in Starcraft. In SC if you hack and your key is banned, you can play on alternate servers. As far as I know there is no Alternate network to connect to for WoW.
Ban and lose. Understand and win (Score:2)
It wouldn't really be the case that the games designers are short sighted would it?
It wouldn't really be the case that some people have almost zero real imagination?
Just like the OSS movement, I would really love to see at least one game where we could contribute things which made the game better for all. In other words, better AI (please please) better anything. All it takes is to allocate a few worlds as a sa
Re:Ban and lose. Understand and win (Score:2)
Its a just punshiment I belive (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who cares if somebody speedhacks? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know you have a problem with people start using invincible hacks to save themselves from getting damaged. But instead of fixing the problem, Blizzard banned anybody who cheated. Good job listening to your customers, Blizzard.
Re:Who cares if somebody speedhacks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who cares if somebody speedhacks? (Score:2)
Re:Who cares if somebody speedhacks? (Score:2)
I'm commenting on the players who cheat to fix a problem they see in the game.
Unfortunatly it went right over your head.
And I stopped watching MTV when they cancelled Sifl & Olly.
Re:Who cares if somebody speedhacks? (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Who cares if somebody speedhacks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Incase you miss the point, which you probably will... it's against the rules (ie: LAWS) set down by Blizzard. When you install WoW, you are agreeing to play by the rules/obey the laws that Blizzard has put down for the game.
Understand now?
Re:Who cares if somebody speedhacks? (Score:4, Interesting)
2) Speedhack means that someone can beat you to every single important monster/chest/whatever.
3) Customers want a button they can click to win the game. Should Blizzard provide it?
Re:Who cares if somebody speedhacks? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Diablo (Score:2)
There's still a decently-sized "legit" Diablo community that hangs out in private channels and only plays passworded games with other known-legit payers.
Harrrm... (Score:2)
I love how everything is centered, and there's ads on top of each page of the 7 page review.
So the game is perfect, aside from your unrealistic desires for ultra-realistic (but pointless) physics and water effects.
Yawn.
Your music has guts though (viola? double bass?). Keep it up.