question on cheating

[vector]

What is there to prevent OR detect someone who loads your multiplayer game, plays it and uses it to detect hidden ships/units. Then they delete the file from the email folder, then reloads the email game back into the folder a 2nd time and plays the game normally (but now knows where all your units are)

[SeaMonkey]

Nothing can prevent cheating, one way or another, where's there's a will, there's a way.

Best advice I can give you is, "Get over It". This is suppose to be fun, if it causes you unneeded anxiety, play the AI.

[Blashy]

If you mean pbem, to load your turn he needs your password.

But a player can redo his own pbem turn over and over by deleting it from the pbem folder. Nothing to prevent that.

[Yogi]

If it happens, just pretend that it was like when the American's were able to figure out the Japanese secret code. :eek:

Still would be madening of course, but you could claim somme sort of historic results. :mad:

[Freeboy]

The answer is in a hard or secure mode ala decisive battlews, where it locks the game play turn by turn, no cheating there short of coding, one player actualy broke that and was caught in a tourny, "man" rule do not cheat

[arado234]

If someone needs to win that bad to me they have a problem.Remember its just agame.Its supposed to be fun.But your right some people will cheat & you cant do much about it.

[Konigs]

Ditto on all the above, cheating is for losers. By the way, you should have seen the public hanging put on by the group here when SC2 first came out, I would rather play and loose(learn), than be be put on a public trial then hung in public also.

[Retributar]

There will alway's be someone who will search for a way to cheat, so just keep track as best you can as to what is happening in your game, if something seem's off or wrong, bring it to the attention of the Discussion Group here, and then hopefully a fix or circumvent can be arrived at to re-right the perceived problem!.

[vector]

Thanks for all the posts. Seems to me the way some people responded DO cheat and thinks it's ok. I guess the couter measure is to remove the fog of war and level the playing field.

[ChrisND]

Who was it that was caught? How did he do it? Sounds like a good story.

[SeaMonkey]

Sorry vector...you are out of line. I don't think anyone posting here cheats in HtH SC. I take offense if this is what you're implying.

Take Retributar's advice, let us know, let them defend themselves in this forum, and if they are, hang'em out to dry.

To be more specific, I think these gentlemen were offering you a way to rationalize that problem in hopes that it may contribute to the quality of your gameplaying life.

[Liam]

Cheat all you like, if you must you're likely not learning the latest strategies and you'll eventually lose, you can only review bits of FOW you will still lose 9 out of 10 games vs a better skilled player and a guy with no intregity will lose 9 out of 10 times to a better player

[TaoJah]

There are ways to prevent cheating IMHO.

For instance : give every game a unique ID, like a timestamp and a registration key.

Then when a player loads that particular game, there is a place in a game-file (or in his registry or whereever) with the game ID from the mail and a counter that is set to "1". When he reloads, it's set to "2" and so on.

Then send the counter back to the person that send the game and he can see if you reloaded.

[Retributar]

Good Thinking TaoJah!, we need more idea's like that!.

[n0kn0k]

Originally posted by TaoJah:

There are ways to prevent cheating IMHO.

For instance : give every game a unique ID, like a timestamp and a registration key.

Then when a player loads that particular game, there is a place in a game-file (or in his registry or whereever) with the game ID from the mail and a counter that is set to "1". When he reloads, it's set to "2" and so on.

Then send the counter back to the person that send the game and he can see if you reloaded.

What's there to prevent him to load the game on a different pc/laptop again?

The only way to really prevent reloading is a serverside solution that stores the savegames. Reloading might still be possible then incase of a crash or something. But it will be indicated to the opponent by the server.

[vector]

Taojah- Thank you. That was the advice I was looking for, not something like "get over it."

When you say unique ID do you mean just change the file name every time? I'm not sure how that will prevent a reload from their email file? What do you mean?

How do you make a timestamp and registration key? Can you lay out a step by step guide. I'm sure everyone would benefit from this.

As for the rest, I would never accuse somebody of cheating unless I had ironclad proof. Just not a cool thing to do. That is why I started this string. To see if there was a way to get that proof or prevent cheating from happening.

As far as the story goes; it makes you wonder if you are playing somebody and they NEVER accidentally run into your hidden units. No ships, no land units, ever, even if you are setting traps for them. Also, if they are bold enough to run right into unprotected cities you know they can't see. It is risky because as you all know if you try to move onto a protected spot on a hidden unit you take massive damage.

So, they stop by the edge of a protected city when you have a hidden unit to uncover it 100% of the time, but they run right into it 100% of the time when it is unprotected. Same goes for hidden ships.

Ok, before I get hate mail. 1. Yes, they could be that skilled 2. Yes, I could be that unskilled 3. Yes, they could be that lucky.

Got it, save your breath.

Twice is a coincidence three + times is a suspicious trend. I don't care how many years you been playing this game. Nobody plays flawlessly I don't care who you are.

[Blashy]

Best thing is play without FoW .

[Konigs]

Opened my eyes some, I seem to hit those units take that damage. Also need to realize that alot of good players like to use long range aircraft to get excellent view of battle field, I've learned this the hard way.

I do like the idea of counter or something, would like to know hwo to do this and then get Terif to make it a Panzerliga rule or maybe Hubert can install it to the game so it can't be modified.

[vector]

I should have posted, but I did count the range of their long range aircraft and these cities were out of site range. I knew where their aircraft were due to their air attacks on previous turns. That is one of the things that caused me to start to wonder.

[Konigs]

That sucks, pretty crappy, I feel what you are saying and do not like it, I do not fill I have experienced this yet, hopefully I won't.

[waltero]

Nobody likes getting Cheesed in any game! Some of the best players out there are cheesers.

And nobody likes being called a Cheater!

Make your own rules.

Play only TCP/IP or no FOW on all PBEM games or play, just to have fun.

You telling me you can't beat a cheater?

Would you rather Holler and scream Cheater! Cheater!! or would you like to just play the game (knowing you are just killing time anyway) and try to win?

Don't play the AI it cheats too!

No quitting no yelling no crying, just play the game.

Have fun

[Retributar]

I offer an idea!, if someone is cheating, i would like to have an in-built security programme in the game that hopefully could detect some of the nefarious cheater activities!.

So when the opposing player get's his next turn to do, he will at first get a message indicating what the specific infraction is, as well as this is all taking place, Clint-Eastwood's "Hang Them High!" movie music would kick in and a 'Hangmans-Noose' would appear on the screen!.

The offending player could then be brought to justice!.

[SidiusPOA]

Ok guys i have heared so many things about the cheaters and ways to protect your self or reveil them.

As a lot mentioned there are not a lot of things you can do about it. You can only protect your self in some degree.

If a turn comes from your email there is nothing you can do about it. Becasue he ca ndownload again and again the file and have what ever counter back to zero. So even if you have a counter that counts how many times the turn is loaded into the game and send this data to the reply turn . If someone will download it from his outlook or mail program the counter will always be at zero.

The only way would be to send the turn with the aid of the program, but this wil lcause a lot of aggravation to a lot of people. Another way is to send the turns only through a forum or a private part of a page. This way you will have the counter in the file and the pages will count also how many times the file have been downloaded.

It is also a lame way but you will know when someone have downloaded a file and how many times. and also how many times a specific turn have been loaded to the game.

Also i came a cross a small bug.

I have not played with another player yet but what i have seen with the AI is this.

some time i play a turn at my office computer. so the need to ALT + TAB is offen.

When i return to the game i some times can see some traces of a movement in the sea. like the bitmaps distorts for a while but yo ucan se a clear path of "something" moving. this happens when the game is white and tries to reconstruct the game bitmaps.

So why don't also the rest of players check on it as well.

Christos Sideris

[TaoJah]

Originally posted by vector:

Taojah- Thank you. That was the advice I was looking for, not something like "get over it."

When you say unique ID do you mean just change the file name every time? I'm not sure how that will prevent a reload from their email file? What do you mean?

How do you make a timestamp and registration key? Can you lay out a step by step guide. I'm sure everyone would benefit from this.

What I meant was that Hubert Crater could add something like this to the game. There is no way that players like you and me could prevent cheating. He could add a feature that checks this.

It's just an idea, I am not sure that cheating is such a big problem that Hubert Crater would invest time in a feature like this.

And to the other poster : it could be made so that you can not load a game on another computer then the one qhere you played your first turn.

[Desert Dave]

TJ,

You've been around awhile now,

You've seen Hubert Cater

Post up, what?

20, 40 - 60 times already?

Can you not notice how his name is spelled? :confused:

EVERYONE prefers that their NAME,

Which is the only one they'll have,

Most likely,

Is not only spelled properly,

But pronounced correctly, yes?

You wouldn't like it if folks

Took to calling you... Dow Jones, eh?

________________________

Insofar as "cheating" goes,

I would say this... folks who cheat,

In a game,

In various aspects of life,

On their mistress or their wife,

For ill-begotten fortune

Or silly-begotten fame,

Well,

They are only cheating themselves,

That's apparent, ain't it?

Let 'em.

Live & die with it,

In their heart,

Rubbing soil into their soul,

So?

Don't play 'em anymore,

IF YOU ARE CERTAIN of it.

Else,

I myself wouldn't do like rambo jr

And commence calling folks "cowards"

When he doesn't know for surely sure, nah,

Just goes by some anecdotal accusations,

And them ain't worth nuthin' much, mostly.