Trusted Communities

[Ronald_Reagan]

For some of you, this might not be anything new. However, I would think most have never seen this before.

Trusted Communities

This article by Wouter (unfamiliar with the name? Look here under Special thanks) discusses the trust (cheating) problems with online multiplayer games, especially open source games like Cube and Cube2.

Most of these ideas will probably never see light in the AC world, however what he talked about with Decentralized trust is really interesting and I want to see how it works. The only thing I could think that would prevent it from working well is community structure. Most of the people you find in game are newbies who probably have next to no idea about what the trust system is. And then there is a small group or regularly occurring players, and then a smaller sub-group of people found on these forums and IRCs. The balance of newbies and people who would actually use this system is too heavily weighted towards newbies. Still, I'd be interested to see if something similar has found its home in a different game (or community).

[DES|Anderson]

I believe this could work, just the ability to establish the identity of a rogue player based uppon his/her interactions with others is interesting. I am not sure about the scoring, that for me would make it kind of like a popularity contest and there have been several cheats who everyone thought was a great guy and then turned out to be a cheating ass.

Until very recently I believed that very experienced players were able to tell when someone was cheating, recent events however have changed my mind I can see that even the most experienced can be sure enough to call someone as a cheat and yet it not be the case. I suspect that others would be influenced by the calls of popular or very experienced players maybe leadiing to incorrect scoring of a player.

However the identity part I am definately in favour of, the only drawback I can see is that we loose the amusement factor of the "it was my brother posts".

[Habluka]

It probably would never be used anyway, but I really don't see the point in having IDs be unique for the clients since with that, you can easily get away with being a complete douche like I am most of the time while being able to essentially completely reset all of the negative "trust" shit people may have incredibly easily. Why not just keep blacklists and what not? I have a feeling this would end up being even less effective than Brahma's anti-cheat stuff.

Edit: also, I think something like this would be more appropriate here since it doesn't actually directly deal with blacklists/whitelists and what not.

[1Cap]

Trusted Communities

Very interesting system.
I also put the following... Understand the sequence:
-A official CLAN must be administered for 2 players known and trusted by the community.
-Administrators of the clan are fully responsible for their members Clan members :).
-A player with TAG caught using cheater makes your clan (tag) be banned from MasterServer 4 three months. If a clan has a second player caught by cheater the clan is banned from the game. The tag is then BL.
-With each clan that takes care of its players. A "tag" is representative of honor. Players are the responsibility of the clan.

-A new clan needs 3 months, being evaluated, to become official.
It ends with the creation of new clans each day.

-If a player wants to join a clan and participate in championships, he must become reliable. No clan will recruit players doubtful.

-We can create servers to clans only.(Special servers - trusted ones)
To connect to the server, only players of the official clans.

-Then we'd servers for beginners (there cheaters here) and others servers to 'professional' players(4 example).

My opinion is to strengthen the structure of clans. And let the owner take care of the clan members.
Certainly, with one case of cheater 100% proven, the clan will be punished as I described above.

Plus and very important:
The head of the clan (owner) must be authorized (know) by the community. He should be known by the game administrators, the game developers, the community moderators and responsible for BL. So:
This share increases the strength and unity of all.
I will not describe here the pros and cons for not staying long. Just think about it.

[Ronald_Reagan]

Edit: also, I think something like this would be more appropriate here since it doesn't actually directly deal with blacklists/whitelists and what not.

The article talks about prevention of cheating in multiplayer games, a blacklist is another method for doing this. It could go either way really.

-Then we'd servers for beginners (there cheaters here) and others servers to 'professional' players(4 example).

Just using this system will probably make something like this. I think this is one of the better parts of the system. It might make challenging pubs (everyone references hi-skill) come back (possibly).

[Alien]

the client requests Master Server for GUID, Master Server generates GUID, Master Server saves GUID to database, Master Server sends GUID to client, client saves GUID to cfg file

(limit from one IP, by name, MAC, ...)

the server in predefined intervals contacts Master Server and requests the list of GUIDs, if GUID age is in required interval,server saves GUID to cfg file

(list can be compared with blacklist, whitelist, additional conditions ...)

the client wants to connect to "trusted" server, client requests server for client_id, server checks its cfg file if GUID is inside, client is connected or disconnected

The trust is built by time. For example 6 months for GUID. ;)

[MorganKell]

Very interesting system.
I also put the following... Understand the sequence:
-A official CLAN must be administered for 2 players known and trusted by the community.
-Administrators of the clan are fully responsible for their members Clan members :).
-A player with TAG caught using cheater makes your clan (tag) be banned from MasterServer 4 three months. If a clan has a second player caught by cheater the clan is banned from the game. The tag is then BL.
-With each clan that takes care of its players. A "tag" is representative of honor. Players are the responsibility of the clan.

I agree with the first dash. Half and half agree with the second dash. Disagree completely with the third. My English isn't good enough to read the fourth. No offense. :).

Its hard to catch hackers these days and as Anderson said, even vets are having a hard time catching them. By the time someone with suspicions is able to prove them, and by the time they have solid proof to take to a clan leader, the hack could already be in a clan. You're telling me that we should then ban the clan for 3 months just because it took that long to get proof? Everyone is innocent till proven guilty. To flip that and use it the other way is unfair for players when it's not their fault catching hackers is so hard in the first place. Say the clan leader is new. He or she has just become "official" and they're kicking some major butt. They recruit a new member. They check him out three ways from Sunday. Dotted their I's and crossed their T's. After much checking they admitted him to the clan. A while later proof is given that the player is actually a cheater. Being honest hardcore clan leaders they kick him out. They write up a post apologizing to all for letting him in and kicking his ass out the door. You're then going to tell me their Tag needs to be banned for 3 months?! I'd suggest something more like this...

First Offense* :: If immediate action is taken then a warning and the stigma of having let a hacker into their ranks will suffice.

Second Offense :: 3 Month ban of the tag in all official competition. Not from the Masterserver.

Third Offense :: 6 Month ban of the tag from the Masterserver.

As long as a clan is willing and able to catch and remove cheats as they find them then they shouldn't be punished but in fact rewarded. Everyone makes mistakes. Hell I've let a hack into KH before. Soon as we found out we kicked him and moved on.

*Multiple First Offenses could be allowed say to a minimum of 2? 2 chances for mistakes in recruiting then afterwards it's up the scale of Ban Land.

-A new clan needs 3 months, being evaluated, to become official.
It ends with the creation of new clans each day.

This sounds like a good idea. It may need a few tweaks and some clarification but should be alright.

[Edward]

-A official CLAN must be administered for 2 players known and trusted by the community.

Why? Many well known clans now have been created by unknown people (who became well known). It is not a bad thing imo. Everybody can create a clan with his friends and improve in clan matches. And there is not only one AC community. There is several AC communities (mappers, pubs,tosok, gemas, "pros", forums ...). So which one?

-A player with TAG caught using cheater makes your clan (tag) be banned from MasterServer 4 three months. If a clan has a second player caught by cheater the clan is banned from the game. The tag is then BL.

Wait, and what if the cheater is kicked from the clan. Seems fair enough to me. We are not responsible for other people using hack but we are responsible for letting people play with hacks.

-If a player wants to join a clan and participate in championships, he must become reliable. No clan will recruit players doubtful.

Reliable? Yes but according to who. I dont think we should judge someone on mere intent. For exemple people said fury was hacking and didnt trust him. For me the demo was clean. You were talking about racism toward brasil. I think it would lead us to that.

-We can create servers to clans only.(Special servers - trusted ones)
To connect to the server, only players of the official clans.

There are already match private servers : uk, hlin, fd, rc, one ...

[[SODA]___ME___]

I think we could use some better tools to deal with hacks and such. I would think the first step would be to have verified identities (linked to a client and player name combo so any change would make it an unverified player). To be verified would require some hours played and not being banned or kicked for certain reasons by other verified players. The same can apply for verified admins, ones who know the difference between bad pj/ping and a speedhack and correctly report hacks. I know there will be issues with some players using multiple computers and/or multiple names (maybe an alternate identity or something) and the way to deal with this is to donate money or beer and pizza to the dev team! You could also extend this a bit, say the admin is verified, he could use a /BanHackerYesIamAbsolutelySureItsHacking command that auto reports relevant info to the blacklist reports or to verified moderators ( another step above admins) that could blacklist the player from master server.

This leaves unverified, the constant name changers or those who don't play often, or those who have fallen from verified ranks due to hacks or poor judgement. Perhaps the hacks should have to wear an x next to their name after the 3 month vacation to show that they may not be trusted, maybe only the verified admins should see this.

There are many options if you think about it and any option would require the master server to handle the database of info, client verification, and server requests, cause if it can be abused then someone (server owners or clients) will try, I trust jamz more than any other player/name/IP out there.

[Jg99]

1. Better Anticheat that auto reports to mastrserver

[Habluka]

1. Better Anticheat that auto reports to mastrserver

and this guy had to come fuck up the thread...

Anyway, we're discussing things other than having an anti-cheat that automatically reports. If you aren't going to be providing discussion about what Wouter presented in his article, please just stay out of this. To discuss having a better anti-cheat, I suggest you either find a thread where it will be more relevant or make your own for us all to ignore.

If you really have your mind set on talking about it here, how about you try to make it relevant to the conversation rather than just posting a fragment of a sentence.

It's because of shit like this that everyone hates you.

[Boomhauer]

I like the concept. In theory it's nice. But in reality I am not sure this would work completely. But maybe partially. I have no idea if this is possible.. but is there a way to implicate IRC into AC so that each player has to authenticate via authserv in order to access the "official" servers? Leave multiple other servers open for the random newbs to congregate. This way we can at least partially control the population.. This is better than a password protected server IMO, because it's individual authorization, and passwords are sometimes given to those we don't want to have them.

[shad-99]

the client requests Master Server for GUID, Master Server generates GUID, Master Server saves GUID to database, Master Server sends GUID to client, client saves GUID to cfg file

(limit from one IP, by name, MAC, ...)

the server in predefined intervals contacts Master Server and requests the list of GUIDs, if GUID age is in required interval,server saves GUID to cfg file

(list can be compared with blacklist, whitelist, additional conditions ...)

the client wants to connect to "trusted" server, client requests server for client_id, server checks its cfg file if GUID is inside, client is connected or disconnected

The trust is built by time. For example 6 months for GUID. ;)

-Best i've ever read! -I agree fully with u Alien! I was into that before.. -Hope they ever listening and implement some action against this huge issue of cheating.

There was also a old cod server application called serverwatch once maybe that would inspire people to do some useful coding and prevent cheating on AC more.. Google cod serverwatch or something and read more about it. :)