Official forums for BZFlag.org

Due to the tremendous interest in the upcoming MoFo vs OpenLeague Tournament, a few players have voiced their concerns in private about cheating, seems its a bit more widespread than whats acknowledged on these here beloved forums.

So I spoke with our ever attentive and on-the-job devs, voiced my concerns about the issue. Seems theres a bit that can be done. We're going to be having this tournament on a custom build of bzfs/bzflag.

About an hour before each match... I'm not sure EXACTLY how it'll be done - maybe there will be a custom source, or there will be a .deb or an .rpm or custom binaries, or what - but there will be a few (read: multiple) modifications to the source, the insertion/deletion of a couple of libs (read: multiple) and a few featured added as well as taken away to ensure that NO ONE will be cheating.

Think of it as we'll be playing on "BZFlag: Tournament Edition 7/7/06"

Now, I'm not sure if the custom source/build will be ready in time for this evenings games, this might delay the tourney... but I'll be damned if I ain't gonna take every precaution I can against modded clients being used. This is supposed to be skill vs skill, not mod vs mod.

Any objections? Comments? Thought? Gripes? Let me hear 'em.

I hope to have a comment from teh devs shortly.

sounds great, match delay please

well it won't be "the devs" It will just be me.

What I am doing for ya all is making a "tournament edition" bzflag specificly for this event. It will be based on 2.0.9CVS code.

It wont' be before each match, probably once a week ( or less, as needed ).

The version will use closed source libs for the protocol and networking features, as well as disable a number of features that are commonly used in cheating ways. This will make it so that only clients and servers of this version will work with each other. The source for the molded portions of bzflag will be distributed per the LGPL but will not be compatible with the binaries ( allowable by the LGPL, since you can link to closed source libs ).

This build will only work for a week, and be distributed as binaries for windows, OSX, and a number of Linux variants. In this I would like to know what OS you all run so I can make sure I have binaries for everyone.

Now this isn't a 100% sure fire cheat protection. Given enough time/effort anyone could figure out what has been done, and make a mod client that can be used to cheat. but it will take time. Since this is for a limited event, the idea is, if you take the time to crack it, your not playing. Also since what is changed will change each time a new binary is made, the code will have to be recracked each time making it a pain.

The client binaries will also have a few features that have been abused taken out. such as.

No autopilot.
No client side bots.
No Pause.
No Screenshot unless you are an observer.

Mostly this is just to let everyone start on a level playing field and alleviate fears and acusations of cheating. I don't think anyone would dare cheat in this type of friendly match anyway.

If this works out well I would be willing to do these builds for other tournaments as needed.

sounds good, i hear we have already started though and the tourny is tied... should we just call it a warm up and start fresh with the new clients or push on?

i agree it should be about skill vs skill, since it is tied, i saw we start fresh with legit clients for everyone... just my 2cents

I vote we keep the matches already played, and just play the rest with the new build

oh snap, sorry jeff, if at all possible can i get a FC4 rpm ? if not a tarball will be ok as well.

thanks

there will be no source tarballs binary builds only.

my current plan is to do as many packages as I can, and then also just client bins for just the bzflag app for smaller downloads.

if everyone could please post what OS they use I am going to make sure I can build for each of them ( I hope noone is on solaris ).

Fedora Core 4
a lin binary should work just fine if you cant do an rpm build

Jeff whatever you build, we need a Fedora Core 2 Compatible BZFS binary. The Planet MoFo server runs it. Generally other versions of Fedora binaries and even some SuSE ones work too, but we'll need to test them.

Its really great that you are doing this. By the way, would it be possible to disable /give, /take, and /kill? ie: If its in a groupfile an admin still can't use it. I can't see a fair usage for them during matches.

Thanks Jeff,
Mac OS 10.3.9

I say keep the 5 matches so far too...

Very nice concept you developed there. Quite impressing!

Will you be able to join observer with a normal build? I wont be playing in the tourney but I'd like to watch a few games if I have the time. So either I can join with a regular 2.0.8 or I'd need a SuSE 9.3-build. Thanks!

Mac OS 10.4.6

I'm running with a PPC MAC OSX Tiger (10.4.7)

PS: i post my OS even if i guess there will be only a 10.3 ppc built

Linux but binary for x86_64 (AMD64) arch if possible

Windows XP

Kubuntu 6.06

...and one question & a thought... Will we have to recompile plugins? As fod the /give... I think the racetoseven plugin (which we intend to use) uses that function to reset the flags on match start, plus it resets the team scores. We can make do without the plugins, but its just one of those things we use a bit.

the API will not change, so plugins will still work

windows 2000pro

SportChick wrote:Windows XP

same here..

Any chance of this working for Gentoo? Kind of tough, since everything is compiled from source, but is someone building any binaries? I'd be happy to build them, but I'm not sure about the whole process. Would it be a simple build and just copy the appropriate /usr/local/bin files?

Gentoo amd64 for me

umm the point is that there is no source to build from, so that people can't build there own cheat clients. gentoo should be able to run a normal linux binary.

it's going to take me a bit longer to get them working. many people are helping out with ideas and access to build systems, but some RL stuff is taking away my time to make them.

Red Baron2 wrote:windows 2000pro

same..

Sure all these people are playing?

For me, it doesnt really matter which windowsversion you will compile for, any Win32 will do.

I'm gonna need one of those fancy builds for Ubuntu 6.06 i686

Longhair ? why do you need the client you are not in either league. Please don't waste Jeff's time he already has a lot of work to do