?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

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smoooth
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by smoooth »

All good points. Maybe what I am thinking is more along the lines of a new league or standard style of play. One with binaries and standards. I think would make for a more interesting league where the playing field would be more equal across the board. I think you'd see more organized team play. Its an interesting concept.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by FiringSquad »

dexter wrote:FiringSquad: I have yet so see a jump that can't be done with anything less than 30FPS. ... As for people turning it on in matches before a jump? I've never seen that before.
The jump from the corner block to the upper-path (not the diagonal).
If I set energy-saver on, I can make it every time. With it off, my fps is about 140 and I can't make it, no matter how often I try.
If I see someone on this block stop moving for an instant, I assume they will then try to make this jump. Generally, I'm right.
I never have Energy-Saver on, as the screen flickers too much for me. I'm assuming that these people have a quick way of setting this option in order to make the jump.
dexter wrote:I'm not sure how much I like your send-config-to-server idea though.
I never intended that the file would be sent, rather the variable settings, probably as an XML file.
However, since I have no time to develop such a mod, and since it is unlikely to be accepted for inclusion in the standard client, I wouldn't worry about it.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by smoooth »

Fs,

I know the jump you are talking about and you are correct. It is a common hack used by people considered to be top players.

I like where you are going FS. However people will likely hack to send back their false config. Still the best option is to make binaries. If what constituion says is true... and binaries are legal we should really explore that option. If its legal to do, I would be willing to work on making binaries correcting some of these issues. Mind you we need to find out from the developers what we could or couldn't do. Just an idea right now would take much more research before it could be come an executable idea. Wed need to consult someone who knows more about the licensing of bzflag.

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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by snick »

Regarding the editing of configs. Similar situations arise in other games. In some
other games some config settings are considered illegal in competitive play. For
example, from a thread elsewhere:
http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/forums/thread/358333/
Is any of these config Illegal? Am I missing any legal cvars that should be
enforced? Please help I looked through them and I think they are okay
but it doesn't hurt if someone else took a look.
In some tournaments players are required to submit their config files before
play starts.

Now, I'm not going to say BZFlag is exactly the same as these other games. But
the BZFlag config file, like much else in this game, wasn't designed for the extremes
of competitive play we see at GU.

I would suggest we start off by assuming all settings are fine, and then discuss
settings on an individual basis if and when problems arise.
FiringSquad wrote:Well this topic certainly has been popular. :-)

I must say though, when I saw that turning "Energy Saver" on, which can be done
from the GUI, allowed you to make impossible jumps, I was disturbed (and disappointed).
Yes. It is a program quirk. Basically, you jump further and higher if your framerate
is lower. I'm not sure if the jump you referred to is impossible, but it is certainly a
lot harder to do at 60fps than 30fps.

Then again, you are more hittable at 30fps than 60fps due to another program bug.

And if you use a Mac client then some shots hit you that wouldn't hit you if you use
a Windows client, due to another program bug.

And so it goes on. It's exceedingly complicated.
Saturos wrote:Also, we should finally get one thing straight: There wont be a closed source GU binary client. Besides it being just too much work, there are legal issues involved because we dont want to break BZs license. So please get over the binary thingie, it just wont happen.
A partially closed binary client is possible because the LGPL license allows linking
to a closed source library. There is quite a bit you can do that way, but I cannot
disclose it here for obvious reasons.

Even aside from the foul play issue, there are bugs for which fixes exist but have
not been incorporated into the official clients. We could apply the fixes. We could
allow players to have an up-to-date client that allows a size 40 radar. There's a lot
that could be done that is positive, and I am willing to do some of this. Ultimately,
it is only a matter of willingness to act, I think. There are fewer insurmountable
technical barriers than one might presume.

If we are positive and push ahead, we can solve most of these problems. If not,
we will back here a year or two from now discussing the same old things again.

Let's be positive :)
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by smoooth »

Excellent post snick. I think we need to talk about what we want GU League BZFlag to be, or what we want another league to be before we can figure out how to get there.

Vision:
1) Make BZFlag as fair and equitable to all players of all knowledge levels.
2) Make standards for play such that all can compete fairly and equally.
3) Reduce opportunities for disadvantage and illegal play

These are basically the same ideas but I want to paint this picture -- If we can all agree on this premise than we can figure out the way to get there.

I am hoping most will think this is a reasonable vision -- and if it is where to next?

A binary distribution is what pops to mind and it seems there are some consensus that it may be a good way to reach this vision. Let's assume for a minute that it is.

What do we want to see in a binary distribution?

I imagine this is where we will get many differing opinions and we'll have to sort it out for sometime and take a final vote one day.

I am suggesting

-All config options available in the GUI
or
-A default config option for everyone which gives an exact radar size, shot length, etc.

also a server implemented verification tool confirms the client is legit..

some ideas

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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by Saturos »

FS and smooth, one doesnt need to adjust fps to do the corner jump. I can do it two times out of three with 60 fps. There are lots of people out there whose computers just dont produce more fps or who like to play with lower fps for various reasons. Implying that someone is "hacking" when you see him doing the corner-jump is -to say the least- apalling. Seriously... the jump is possible, even with fairly high fps, but it takes good timing. Thats why its difficult. I remember the times when skill was admired, not misjudged as "hax". I liked those times, you know?
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by snick »

Saturos wrote:FS and smooth, one doesnt need to adjust fps to do the corner jump. I can do it two times out of three with 60 fps. There are lots of people out there whose computers just dont produce more fps or who like to play with lower fps for various reasons. Implying that someone is "hacking" when you see him doing the corner-jump is -to say the least- apalling. Seriously... the jump is possible, even with fairly high fps, but it takes good timing.
I can do it with rubbish timing with my 30 fps. No skill at all, really :)

But I don't play at 30 fps because of that. After all, it's a lot easier
to get shot at 30 fps and it's more common to be shot at than have to
make that jump. No, the problem for me is that without the energy
saver on I get 1400-1600fps, which has some bizarre effects and is a
complete waste of electrons. Even at 40-50fps something strange is
happening with the mouse. It just doesn't feel right. It feels laggy. I
don't know why. Others have noticed this, too.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by gentle giant »

Just a quick question. Everyone knows im jittery and sometimes laggy, DO NOT COMMENT ON HOW TO FIX IT, I AM DOING EXACTLY WHAT I NEED TO DO. But my question is, what is the legal limit for fps. I am sure it is 30 fps but im not sure. And, would it be better to have a fps of 20, and jitter of 40? Or fps of 30 and jitter of 60? Ive been playing around with it and when i get my fps higher, people do not want to play against me with all my jitter, but below 30 is illegal right? Just wanna make sure so i dont get banned for hacking.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by dereliction of duty »

Saturos wrote:I remember the times when skill was admired, not misjudged as "hax". I liked those times, you know?
***sigh***
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by blast »

BZFlag 3.0.0 will limit the maximum FPS to 200, even if the energy saver is turned off. It also has a smarter physics system, so a different in FPS might not have as large of an effect as it does in 2.0.x. Therefore, please test with the latest development code before you start suggesting ways to "fix" the game. You might find that something is already fixed or that a different issue occurs now instead.

Also, you will probably never see a binary-only league, because said league will lose the support of the project (including access to our services, such as global authentication). You wouldn't solve the real problem anyway, and it would be extremely trivial to bypass (probably could be done in a matter of minutes or hours depending on how you do it).
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by smoooth »

Blast,

Perhaps upgrading to 3.0 is the way to go. I was not aware that it is ready or available. When will it be? The reason we had moved on because I was under the impression that it wasn't ready and may never be.

We don't want to lose the support of the project. We appreciate all the hard work everyone has put into the game. We don't want to harm that. However if it doesn't cause much headache and we had the support of those "in-charge" it would be something the players might be interested in seeing.

I disagree that providing a binary wouldn't solve some problems. Sure it could be circumvented. Everything can be circumvented. However it will deter a good many as opposed to having an open edittable text file config and other open source options. Which is great btw. No one is saying open source isnt wonderful. Just for those trying to make rigid competition in a league that has been plagued by so many haxors and cheats. Clearly the level of haxing would be reduced with a binary release with authentic verification methods. Once again, won't solve all problems but may reduce many.

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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by blast »

It is not released yet. But that doesn't mean you can't try it, as everything is in our version control system (SVN). So checkout a copy of the code and build it. There are at least a couple servers that update and rebuild nightly, so you can try it out. You could also run a local server just so that you can tweak settings.

And no, closed-source won't solve the problems you are listing. A client could be modified to just send the information from your closed-source binary. It would be trivial and it would take more effort to implement the system than it would take to get around it. So it's a net loss: first, you would lose support of the project, and would likely see the league die. And second, you would waste time.

The real solution to the problem of cheating is to mitigate what kinds of cheats are possible. That is not something you will achieve with a cheap fix like a "checksum", but by making the server smart enough to determine if someone's actions are valid. This has been rehashed over and over and over and it always comes down to people trying to solve the problem based on the concept of how a closed-source application works. It might work for commercial games, but even those have people that cheat. What you are trying to do will not solve any long term problems. Simple as that.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by snick »

blast wrote:And no, closed-source won't solve the problems you are listing. A client could be modified to just send the information from your closed-source binary. It would be trivial and it would take more effort to implement the system than it would take to get around it.
That's massively underestimating the difficulty of reverse-engineering binaries.

It's orders of magnitude more difficult than altering a line of source here or there.

You'd be lucky to find anyone with the necessary skillset and motivation in the
tiny BZFlag community. I'm not saying they don't exist. But they're not likely to.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by blast »

snick wrote:You'd be lucky to find anyone with the necessary skillset and motivation in the
tiny BZFlag community. I'm not saying they don't exist. But they're not likely to.
And you're going to find someone with the skillset and motivation to write this in the first place?
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by snick »

blast wrote:
snick wrote:You'd be lucky to find anyone with the necessary skillset and motivation in the
tiny BZFlag community. I'm not saying they don't exist. But they're not likely to.
And you're going to find someone with the skillset and motivation to write this in the first place?
I have the skillset. I had the motivation. Not sure if I do anymore. It's
been depleted by trying to persuade people who oppose it.

I also spent some time fixing some bugs. E.g., the massive hit zone
bug. I still have the fix if you want it. I struggled to capture people's
interest before. So perhaps it's not wanted. Hard to say.

That's OK with me, btw. I found it interesting to solve the bug. It was
a nice diversion. But I'm not going to waste a lot of time and energy
trying to convince people it's what they need if they don't want it.

If the devs want hit zones that are correctly calculated, if the gu admins
want a better client, it can be done. It's not that hard. If not, that is their
choice also. You know what I think is right, but it is for others to decide.
I may not agree with them, but they have my respect for being fundamentally
decent people.

Mostly, lol ;)

( Sorry, couldn't resist that. The silly gene runs strong in our family )
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by smoooth »

Blast,

You may be right but I was thinking more along the lines of what snick was saying in that finding the skill set to manipulate a binary may be a much smaller group of people. I'd take my chances of that. Backengineering a binary would take some time and significant effort as opposed to making a one line code change. But sure it's completely possible. One thing you are over looking though is the ability to monitor the play and over time if it looks like cheaters may have compromised the code, you change it. I believe cheaters will stand out signficantly once you level the playing field. I think it's much less likely you see one guy with a +50 score every single time he plays. If a cheater is suspected then we can make a new binary with new verification method and release it. This may be impractical, I don't know. Perhaps 3.0 is the solution. Just a thought.

Why hasn't GU switched the version 3.0 if it is available? Anyone know?

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Last edited by smoooth on Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:57 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by blast »

Did you ever submit the patch to sourceforge? And what version did you base it on?
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

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blast wrote:And no, closed-source won't solve the problems you are listing. A client could be modified to just send the information from your closed-source binary. It would be trivial and it would take more effort to implement the system than it would take to get around it. So it's a net loss: first, you would lose support of the project, and would likely see the league die. And second, you would waste time.
I'm totally with snick on the difficulties of reverse engineering binaries. I've had to do it on occasion and it's far from trivial, especially with highly optimised binaries. Plus, the code can be written in a way to make it next to impossible. Anyway, having a clean binary running parallel will not circumvent this authentication method, because the clean binary would have to show a death while your client would show survival. But this is getting a little too technical and the point is mute if we "would lose support of the project, and would likely see the league die".

I'm not sure why a closed-source binary client-authentication plug-in would be such a problem.
Could you tell me briefly why it would be so bad?

What I'm imagining, is a down-loadable client-side plug-in that would allow you to join a specific server. The client would inform the plug-in of every server communication (to & from) and would ask the plug-in for a response upon an authentication query (which would happen at spawn-time and randomly thereafter).
There would not be much extra code for the released client & server, which would work without the plug-in but would be prevented from joining the authenticated servers.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by blast »

Why not spend your time making a good solution instead of just trying to hide the problem? The game wasn't designed for Internet play. It still makes many assumptions that might only be valid on a LAN (such as being able to go punch someone of they cheat). Fixing that would be a much better long term solution. Make the server smarter.

Also, you wouldn't necessarily have to reverse engineer the binary itself, just the network protocol. You could just fake the right messages.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by smoooth »

Blast,

You are correct that fixing it on the server side is the long term solution. We just don't know how long it will take for that solution to become readily available. It was my understanding that 3.0 is essentially at a standstill and has been for a long time, with no end in sight. Which is fine; I don't have time to program that difficult solution either. Until then, perhaps look at a temporary easy fix. Why not let a few attempt a temporary solution why the larger final solution (3.0) is being developed.

If you do it right it will be hard to "fake" the messages without the binary client. Once again it will take a good bit of time and effort to hax the binary. Technical challenge would reduce the occurances.

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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by FiringSquad »

blast wrote:Also, you wouldn't necessarily have to reverse engineer the binary itself, just the network protocol. You could just fake the right messages.
Again, too technical for this topic, but I can't resist. :)

The messages will not be as simple as Q. Are you valid? A. Yes
More like Q.If I said tomatoOWEUYRH what would you say? A. ASDLJLIUWUYLEIH<>MLAIUPIWEOPI@#)*$&@IJLIDY
It would actually be easier to reverse engineer the binaries. The answers would be seeded by a random key sent by the server at spawn-time and valid responses would never be repeated since they would be altered based on previous communications.

And that's just for starters. :twisted:
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by dexter »

OK smoooth, you think that 'leveling' the playing field will make cheaters stand out? How is the playing field not fair at the moment? Everyone knows how to edit their configs! And have you thought about the people who are just very good at this game and can still get 50+ points? Without cheating?

The reason we don't all use the 2.99.x client/server is because it is IN DEVELOPMENT. That means that devs add and remove stuff on a daily basis. You'd have to ask people to compile their own version every week or so, in order for it to be a 'fair playing field', as you call it. Or ask the devs to make binaries every week. Not happening.

blast: I think snick is referring to this: http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=13608

Why don't the people who think a big reformation is so necessary take the time and present us with concrete solutions? It's easy going on and on about what's bad and what could be done in theory, yet nobody has actually said "here's exactly what we should do". This hypothetical stuff isn't helping anyone. Funny smoooth, how are you asking all this stuff to happen and requesting so many new features, when you say you don't have the time. What makes you think somebody else does?
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by joevano »

Also 2.99.x is not "playable" (as you would define it) as yet. It would not hold up in match play, that is certain.
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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by smoooth »

Dexter,

We are trying to determine what is need and how to go about the solution. Once we do that we can commit time to making a solution. You have to go about things in the right process. Ask for permission first, find what is need, and create a solution. I am not going to make a solution before I know that it is "ok" or what is needed. When I say I don't have time, I mean in regard to basically rewriting the entire game such that the code is in server space instead of the client. That is a complete rewrite of the game, as I'm sure the developers would tell you. I might on other hand have time to make a few tweaks and binary releases. Much easier.

The argument is essentially over about the config files stuff. We have moved on to how to make the playing field for equal all around. Standardization and binary clients.

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Re: ?, thru, what? wtf? etc.

Post by snick »

dexter wrote:blast: I think snick is referring to this: http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=13608
Thanks, dexter. That's not actually it, though. This is the link:

http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=13649

I fixed the bug months ago.

Note: it's not a small error. In the test tanks @30fps were more than 2 times
as likely to be hit as tanks @240fps. Of course, this is a test scenario. In real
matchplay it could be different. But still..
blast wrote:Did you ever submit the patch to sourceforge?
No. I spoke to the devs on irc. Very little interest was expressed in the fix, so
I didn't submit it.
blast wrote:And what version did you base it on?
Both the 2.0.x and 2.99 latest svn. The bug was present in both.
Last edited by snick on Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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