CHEATERS - kill, crush, annihilate, destroy, torture, eliminate!!!

[Avenging Warrior]

Ok, as you may have gathered from the subject, I'm a bit pissed off. I logged on to Shogun, joined a game, hoped for a good battle and all, opponent seemed to be courteous and everything. It was a 1000 koku battle, and I wanted to see what it would be like. After deployment, battle starts, and I see a huge horde of nodachi, monks, etc. (all honor 2) charging straight at me. Now, if the game wasn't competitive, I would have tried to do something, but since it was, I responded in kind and hit ESC. Now, I won't say who it was, but I'd like to mention the fact that the player was in clan FEAR (according to the name, at least - [Something]OfFear.) I'm not blaming the whole clan but I am curious about their policy towards this sort of thing.
We all know that this wasn't the first report of cheating (with some koku cheat, apparently), and it's not the last. ESCapers are one thing, but this is even worse. Can something be done about this? Or does anybody care?

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Life has no meaning. Do not concern yourself with it.

[Rob]

OK, first of all, do you have log files to prove this? AFAIK your log files (stored in Shogun\logfiles) should record that amount of koku spent by both players. This will reflect the amount spent, and will show if more koku was spent than the correct maximum amount.

If you do post the log file, please remove the name first. AFAIK there is a policy within the Shogun community of not naming suspected cheats.

As you said, the accused person had a name which ended in 'OfFear'. From my experience, the Fearful Ways clan is very honourable and would not tolerate cheating amongst their ranks. You should take this to the clan directly if the log files confirm that cheating took place.

It is still possible you made a mistake... Ashigaru look a lot like monks at a distance and if the army was in Mori colours then some other unit may have looked like No-Dachi.... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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Honour to Clan Akai Ken

[Tachikaze]

Pardon my ignorance, but how can you tell the honor level of an opponent's units during a game?

[Rob]

Unit honour can be seen by the number of standards (flags) being carried by the unit.

0 honour has one large flag.
1 honour has one large flag and one small one.
etc.

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Honour to Clan Akai Ken

[solypsist]

it amazes me, Avenging Warrior how no one else on this forum has ever thought to post this complaint before, ever! This only seems to happen to you -and often! You're telling me that you've played some games and on almost every occasion your opponent has done this to you? Yet I've played many many - and the Fear Clan have racked up hundreds themselves and yet the fact that this has failed to happen to any of us is just a coincidence?
Stop lying and making a big issue out of something that seesm to not exist unless you say it does.
If there really is such widespread cheating on koku, then I'm sure the veteran users on here will prove otherwise. But so far, no one of any worth has mentioned this.

[Obake]

OK Guys,

I won't recuse myself as moderator of this thread, even though I am now a member of Fearful Ways. I hope that all of you know me well enough by now to know that I would act with impartiality on this issue.

First off......AW, I understand your being pissed, I would be too in your situation, but quite frankly, I'm glad that you didn't remember exactly who it was. You know the rules of the Forum well enough to know that the posting of names will not be tolerated, and I would have had to kill the thread. Thanks for helping me avoid that snake-pit!

That having been said, the Clan has never and WILL never tolerate cheats within our midsts. We even have a forum dedicated to discussions of this type regarding clan members, or anyone else who cheats. Just click the link on my signature line and you will be taken there. If you have any problems that need resolution with ANY member of the clan, you WILL be responded to!

As far as Koku cheating goes, Magyar has incontrovertible evidence that the cheat does exist in the form of screen shots and the log file indicating that his opponent spent in excess of 10,000 koku in a 5k battle! I have no doubt that CA/DT is doing whatever they can to resolve this issue, but I don't know what the status of it is.

This is an issue that we all care about AW, and you know that!

I would ask you the same questions that Rob asked, were you able to take any screen shots before you escaped, and did you keep a logfile. If you did, and they verify your contention, I would be happy to have you forward them to me so that the Clan can take action. As Rob says, we are honorable and will not tolerate cheaters!

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FearObake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif
I am the ghost of your fears.
Got a compliment or concern about a Fearful Ways member? Let us know about it HERE (http://pub24.ezboard.com/bfearfulways)

[The Black Ship]

Just because a person has "OfFear" in their name does not mean they are a fear!!!

PShhhheww,

sorry about the yelling but I think you get my point! We have one known imposter out there, and as our clan's rep grows I'm sure we'll have more...I was going to give a suspect but nevermind!

You suspect anyone cheating in our clan please post about it at our forum, we'll be objective, but have proof! Blasting our rep over the Dojo's not the way http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif

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Niger Navis Navis Sesquiculus ShipOfFear

[This message has been edited by The Black Ship (edited 11-28-2000).]

[Magyar Khan]

the following solutions might help

make screenshots

use my logfilereader to read the file fast

type: help me Karin So at the chatroom. and if she is in u will see that it helped. But be sure u want to unleash her powers....

i know the fears, it must be an imposter....

but again read the logfile

[Rob]

It is important not to jump to conclusions here. We don't even know for certain that any cheating has taken place!

Avenging Warrior, you would probably be best taking this to the Fears forum (at their website, the address is in Obake's signature). They will investigate it thoroughly because I'm sure they do not enjoy having their reputation tarnished by these kinds of accusations.

As I said before, don't give names here. It's the surest way of starting a never-ending flame war.

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Honour to Clan Akai Ken

[This message has been edited by Rob (edited 11-28-2000).]

[Zen Blade]

Magyar, others...

perhaps you should explain to everyone how to use/get the logfile reader or take a screenshot or the other methods for proving cheating.

I know the logfile reader is your creation Mag, but the screenshot.... is that something+F3??

-Zen Blade

------------------
Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil
Last of the RSG

[Rob]

Screenshot is F2

But screenshots in themselves are not conclusive proof... the screenshot could come from any battle.

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Honour to Clan Akai Ken

[Avenging Warrior]

why do I always do this to myself... why...

First of all, those of you who know me should know by now that whenever I'm pissed (especially if I admit to it in the beginning of the message), you shouldn't take me too seriously. Second, as I said in my message, I'm not judging the whole clan by one person's actions. I also said (but perhaps didn't make it clear enough) that I'm not 100% sure that this person is in Fearful Ways, I just thought so because the name suggested it. And by the way, Obake, I do remember the name of the player exactly, I just didn't post it here because I know your policy on that by now.
Solypsist, drink less alchohol, that's all I can say to you. This is my first encounter with a cheater, and many others (such as Magyar) reported these things before me. I'm not even going to comment on the rest of your statements. Not to imply anything, but a question comes to mind: are YOU one of the cheaters?
I don't want this to become a flame war, but if it comes to that, I won't hesitate to pull out my trusty flamethrower. But I hope that we're more mature than that.
Ok, now here's your ticket to flame the hell out of me: for some reason, there is no log file for that battle. And I didn't take a screenshot because, well, I thought the log file would be enough. (oh, and by the way, I was sure what units those were - I pointed to them and it told me - lots of No-Dachi and monks, not that it matters at this point)

Ok, let's recap today's activities: I got an entire clan on my ass, I've possibly insulted Magyar Khan (read the "how to beat my mongols" thread), I've accused a person of cheating and raised hell on the forum without any proof... I think that's enough for today. (And I'm not even going to mention the things that happend in real life, some of which were actually important)
Ever have one of those days when you just wish you died?

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Life has no meaning. Do not concern yourself with it.

[Tachikaze]

Can I just cut in here and say thanks to Rob for the info on the #-of-banners-indicates-honor-bit? I used 9 honor muskets once, and you would have thought I would have noticed!

Now, back to our regularly-scheduled anti-cheat thread.

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A murky puddle becomes clear when it is still.

[leoknite]

ok there are many reasons here I know some of the fears better then there clan mates do. Sometimes rushers in fear can spread their forces out make them look large.
You could have mistaken the flags for another unit, it happens. Anyway rushing is not a cheat it is cheap gwahahah.

[ShaiHulud]

I was in the Game room recently when the Fears there were incensed about the play of a particular person and can say this about the Fears: If anything can be judged by one's fury over a lack of honor in game, then the Fears are lily-white.

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[solypsist]

take it easy, AW.
the fact that you're from Crooklyn makes it all very clear now.

from now on, I'll just ignore your posts and replies.

[Methabaron]

Solypsist

Quote it amazes me, Avenging Warrior how no one else on this forum has ever thought to post this complaint before, ever! This only seems to happen to you[/QUOTE]

Simply not true.

Magy has shown hard evidence of this exact same exemple only worst. He had to fight with a guy using 9 or 10 units of HC of honour 9 as I remember (correct me Magy if Im wrong). He also had the log files and you could see the cheat there in the koku spent...

Of course Magy could have mofified the screenshot with a very good image editor or simply create a custom battle and make up the 2 different armies then take a screen shot. He also could have modified the log files aswell.

Bottom line is screnshots and log files could have been modified but it seems pretty good evidence (although not totally definitive) that someone else at least(Magy)got the same cheat that Avenging is telling.

Metha



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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

[solypsist]

maybe. hey I'll be right back with all sorts of crazy stuff you can find on MP, including elephants!
but the point is, why would EA even have such a cheat in the first place? It's not like this is Doom or something, the 1st player game is almost totally cheat-free!
maybe there is a cheat, but nonetheless you have to admit it is ratehr strange that one guy claims to fall victim to this repeatedly whilst no one else (aside from Magyar-once) has ever had it happen to them.
my sense is that AW seems to think this cheat exists, and by making enough noise about it, he'll somehow come about it (if it does exist, and it might) just by being persistent. his posts certainly don't seem to have much value otherwise.




[This message has been edited by solypsist (edited 11-29-2000).]

well well well, i happened to have the pleasure of seeing the koku cheat in action, and yes it is out there and real. I'm not sure how exactly it works, but I have a few ideas/suspicions. And I believe one of them is correct, I'm kinda familiar with the theory of it, but I can't prove it simply because it requires some rather advanced tweaks and knowledge that remains out of my reach for now. THAT would also explain why the koku cheat remains so rare so far.

Anyways, I'm looking for a screenshot as we speak, unfortunately this one happened before the time of log files, so i don't have one.

But then again, I'm not sure if I'm "of any worth" (as someone mentioned, lol) http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif or credibility here, so take it as is.

BRB with the pic...

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the great lord
http://www.geocities.com/vinyljock/monn_t.gif jd

[This message has been edited by JayDee Daidoji (edited 11-29-2000).]

ok here we go:

it was a 3 on 3 battle, everybody had 5'000 koku available (well, most of us).
The shot isn't as good as it could be, but the cheater was on my team and i had to turn back and march to get closer, by the time i got there the host was quitting. Not to mention that the red was supposed to take shots right head on, unfortunately that turned out as a no show

1. whole screen, i just covered the message
(no need to see who it was + the comment contained a certain objectionable expression...know what i mean, we have kids around http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif )

http://www.geocities.com/vinyljock/evan_cheat.jpg


2. for your convenience, i enlarged the important area http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

http://www.geocities.com/vinyljock/evan_zoom.jpg

btw if this one is too wide and makes this thread annoying (i
e. horrizontal scrolling required) i'll prolly change it in a while...

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the great lord http://www.geocities.com/vinyljock/monn_t.gif jd

[This message has been edited by JayDee Daidoji (edited 11-29-2000).]

[This message has been edited by JayDee Daidoji (edited 11-29-2000).]

[solypsist]

awesome.

(unless of course it happens to you).

welp, okay. someone proved it. but what i wrote on my last message (before JayDee) has some truth to it.

i guess the deal is this: if your score really matters to you, play host. and then if you see an obvious cheater, hit the esc and get the name for future reference.

[Avenging Warrior]

Ok, solypsist, once again I'd like to remind you that the stuff you're on isn't good for your health. This is the first time (or at least the first time in a damn long while) that I complained about this cheat, and this was the first time I actually (possibly) encountered the cheat. Now, for the sake of not starting a flame war, I'll hold out on... any other comments I have towards you.

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Life has no meaning. Do not concern yourself with it.

[Rob]

The koku cheat DOES exist and we have proof of it. I absolutely do not contest this evidence. What worries me is the bitching that always seems to occur when these subjects come up. Being a naturally trusting person, I don't believe anyone here is involved in cheating, so I would suggest that our anger is best reserved for the cheaters and not for each other.

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Honour to Clan Akai Ken

[Erado San]

Well, for what it's worth,

I know that this kind of cheating can always be done. Also, I know that it can't be stopped easily.

I think that there may be a way to block the cheaters. But it requires more knowledge about how the actual cheat is made. I'll contact CA about it and see if there's something that can be done. But, on the down side, it will only invite the cheater to work around that block as well.

My opinion on the cheaters?
http://cgi.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/anym/behead.gif or http://cgi.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/anym/hanged.gif or http://cgi.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/anym/pyth.gif


[This message has been edited by Erado San (edited 11-29-2000).]

[ShadowKill]

well THE SHOGUN kust made a post go read it and see what he said about cheating

[CaptiveGirl]

Excuse me but I just found out about this post... let me talk.

This is CaptiveGirl for those of you who do not know me... former names CaptiveGirl and CaptiveGirlOfChaos.. im with Fear now since my fiance BladeOfFear is one of the founders.

I sat there with Blade and he EVEN helped me pick the army... It was 1000 koku... totomi... autumn weather.. I HAVE THE LOG FILE OF THE ARMY!!!!! It was:

2 nodachi --- honour 0
1 nodachi -- honour 1
9 ashi -- honour 0

take a look in the game... and NEVER EVER accuse some one of that serious of an offence again without doing your research! Doing that just shows ignorance. I mean christ... if you had a koku cheat and decided to use it (like an idiot) wouldnt you have HONOUR 9 UNITS?!?!?! Think about it!! Thank you and have a wonderful day.

CaptiveGirlOfFear

PS I am accepting apologies for this at all times even though you decided to leave me nameless (but in the battle search any newb could find that i was the only fear that played you lately). In my opinion one is needed.

[Rob]

Like I said earlier, Ashigaru look a lot like monks from a distance http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Everyone, this argument could run forever. Log files can be altered by anyone with a point to prove, one way or the other. Even screenshots can be falsified. There will not be definitive proof of what happened here. If apologies are to be made then it is for the people involved to sort it out amongst themselves.

Perhaps in future it would be best to give NO DETAILS WHATSOEVER about someone you accuse of cheating. I personally did a battle search to find out who Avenging Warrior had fought, merely to satsify my own curiosity. Giving out details can tarnish the reputation of perfectly innocent players, and since there is no 100% reliable means of proving any accusation it's best not to give details of suspected cheaters.

The koku cheat IS real, it IS out there and people ARE using it. But rushing to accuse people doesn't get us anywhere.

One final point though: If I was a smart cheater, I wouldn't use honour 9 units when honour 2 ones would do the job just as well.

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Honour to Clan Akai Ken

[Avenging Warrior]

Ok, I'd like to confirm the fact that I'm a total jackass. But then again, if you know me, you know that for a fact by now. I was having a bad day, was already pissed off by the time I sat down to play Shogun, and therefore was quick to jump to conclusions. Maybe I just had to blow off some steam, I don't know. I apologize to CaptiveGirl and the Fearful Ways clan, hope there are no hard feelings. Feel free to flame me, I deserved it this time.

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Life has no meaning. Do not concern yourself with it.

[ElmarkOFear]

Dang Avenging,
Now I have to recall all of my really ugly geisha i was sending your way. DOH! I will never get rid of them now!
If anyone has a problem with any of the Fears please go to our forum and post it there. We have worked hard to build a reputation for fairness and fun and take seriously accusations of cheating. I have run across the koku cheat as well in a 4 v 4 5000 koku each game, where one of the participants had 16 units of 9 honor monks! Actually it was quite the sight to see all those flags bearing down on me and my partners little honor 1 and 2 troops! LOL Sorta wonder how the little buggers fought while carrying all those flags! hehe I do believe that as of late, there have been many new players coming to Shogun that use the esc. often, but luckily the koku cheat is not used very often. There is also a cheat out there that I have seen that makes one unit capable of routing a whole army. I have only seen that once before as well. All of my other many losses are due to my lack of skill (My troops have a shoe contract with NIKE cause they run so fast off the map!) hehe Take care Avenging and feel free to rout my men anytime! Elmarko of Fearful Ways

[Magyar Khan]

i am sure the cheat excists, and i noticed that if u flame him hard enough in the chatroom he will leave and -maybe- come back with an other name. the cheats are too obvious if they use it.

i even got a strange ICQ message......
---------------------------------------
ok
the programs used to 'create' the memory tampering that results in
impossible armies are,
programm1 and programm2,
note programm1 comes in 2 flavours
one for editing windows startup, and one for editing active process memory
spaces.
programm2 requires no programming knowledge BUT is very slow.
programm1 can be mastered easily - comprehensive help files.
and can safely run in the background while Shogun running.
Pass on to developers?
--------------------------------

which i did pass on to CA!

no news so far....

[This message has been edited by Magyar Khan (edited 11-30-2000).]

[Avenging Warrior]

Just for curiousity and research, I was looking for a Shogun multiplayer trainer the other day. I (thankfully) didn't find anything, although I did find a very nice (well, depends on your point of view) single player trainer.
But what I've seen (or at least heard of) done in other games, is that any outside changes cause the game to go out of sync and crash.

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Life has no meaning. Do not concern yourself with it.

[Erado San]

Guys, may I suggest not naming the apps used for hacking cheats here? Might put strange ideas into all sorts of peeples heads...

[Shimazu Tokugawa]

Elmark,
I encountered the routing cheat few weaks ago when some guy routed my four remaining honor 4 monks plus one honor 6 YS Taisho with his one little honor2 SA - go figure.

And talking about new players, the ESCapers and Rushers sure have a revival recently.

Strength and Honor!

Humbley,

ST

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"Strength and Honor for Clan Kenchikuka"

[This message has been edited by Shimazu Tokugawa (edited 11-30-2000).]

[Avenging Warrior]

I'm not sure if I encountered that one... my army (or what's left of it) often flees in cowardice; most of the time it's because they're in a meat grinder or are going against a lot of muskets, but sometimes I see almost full units of high honor monks suddenly break and run (along with the rest of my army). Hard to tell with this sort of thing...

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Life has no meaning. Do not concern yourself with it.

[Methabaron]

Hey if you ask me (dont need to bother really) I'll say make all the hacks and trainers, cheater codes etc etc as public as possible... The sooner everybody start using them and destroying the game, the sooner the developers will have to correct it to avoid people deserting the game.

I am very much serious. This is the only effective way to make developers act fast.

Metha

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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

[Erado San]

Metha, that's BS.

< Edited to keep people from straying on the wong path... >

In short, there is not a single protection that you could make that can not be worked around.

[This message has been edited by Erado San (edited 11-30-2000).]

[Methabaron]

BS, maybe you are right. But then why there are other online games that are cheat proof????. I'm not sure how they do that and I have to admit I dont know anything about program codes http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif but in some games I've played online cheating was made impossible with some sort of game version control by which any modified version of the game code will be detected and you would have the "version mismatch" error. Somehow some programmers made impossoble to modify the original code without changing the version of the game.

If cheat proof games do exist I still dont see why this one has to be an exception and the best way to get to that point is opening pandora's box.

Metha

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"It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own."

[This message has been edited by Methabaron (edited 11-30-2000).]

[solypsist]

there is no such thing as a cheat proof game.

[Rob]

I personally don't think details of the program should be made available, since this will only increase cheating.

You say that by increasing cheating you increase pressure on developers. That's like saying giving everyone cancer will bring us closer to finding a cure. It just doesn't make sense. Remember, if cheating increases, WE suffer, not the developers. They could wipe their hands of Shogun now and focus all of their efforts on other projects. Increasing cheating helps nobody but the cheats, and it hurts ordinary players.

I have edited this message to remove technical details which could be used to help potential cheaters.

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Honour to Clan Akai Ken

[This message has been edited by Rob (edited 11-30-2000).]

!!!
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD STOP EXPLAINING THE STUFF IN PUBLIC, IT'S BAD ENOUGH ALREADY
!!!

now seriously, might be better to refrain from it, I would even suggest magyar/erado/rob to edit their messages...

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the great lord
http://www.geocities.com/vinyljock/monn_t.gif jd

[This message has been edited by JayDee Daidoji (edited 11-30-2000).]

[This message has been edited by JayDee Daidoji (edited 11-30-2000).]

[Rob]

OK, I think we've all gotten a little carried away with showing off our technical knowledge, myself included.

I think this thread has gone as far as it needs to. I will e-mail Richie with the details I have. I am confident that this can and will be fixed in a future patch. Without saying too much, from the nature of this hack, it should be preventable or at least made substantially more difficult for hackers.

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Honour to Clan Akai Ken

thanks

my point is we know how it works, CA knows, and we can try to stop it. Besides the real cheaters there's too many wannabes who would like to learn more about this. Plus even some who would like to just 'try' it could possibly (and easily) start to like the easy way out... know what i mean... There's prolly a bunch of people already frantically searching the net for hacking related stuff. And I definitely don't want to encourage that.

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the great lord http://www.geocities.com/vinyljock/monn_t.gif jd

[Didz]

I believe the system which does this is used quite widely where it is important to ensure that files/programs have not been tampered with.

Basically, an algorythmn is used to calculate a number based upon the content of the file (all digital characters have numeric values) and the result is encrypted into the program or stored in the file header.

When the program is run or the file read the algorythymn is calculated again and the result matched to the encrypted value.

If the anything has been altered the result will be different and you know the file has been tampered with.

It's certainly not rocket science though obviously the extra processing does slow down program initiation by a few seconds.

Personally, I think the Koku cheat is more widerspread use than we imagine. I have certainly had a number of MP games where the opposing army has seemed somewhat larger than I would have expected. I suspect that it is only the few players who are going over the top with their expliotation of this cheat that are drawing attention to it.

[Magyar Khan]

we do need the online campaign thing and play just with guys we know. let newbies have there own campaign and prove their honourability before the join us

[Avenging Warrior]

You're just asking for a flaming on that one, Magy... good idea though, I agree.

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Life has no meaning. Do not concern yourself with it.

[FearOrBeSori]

Anyway I would like to say that strangely enough I have encountered no conmfirmed cheaters. I have run across some suspicious games, I remember one particularly with Elm but nothing confirmed. I see escpers to be a bigger problem than koku cheaters anyway. However this being 2 and half months since i started playing Shogun online (yea me!) and that I have only played 425 comp games may account for why I have not seen the koku cheat yet. My guys are running right behind Elm's anyway so I hardly notice lol. By the way i think closed Bnet for Diablo has been pretty successful in terms of being cheat proof. Oh yea if any member of the Shogun community believes that a Fearfulways member has cheated plz go to our website http://www.fearfulways.webcanny.net/ so u can see if that player is indeed a member of our clan and post ur complaint under the complaints in our Forum. We do not tolerate cheating and will look into and take care of the matter promptly. I have noticed recently that there are two mimics of my name running around, I care not to post them, but it goes to show that it is not beyond ppl to copy a Fear name. Dunno why they would want to be a sorry Sori. It is much better to be a scary Amp lol! Remember there is one FearOrBeSori So and he has a cow waiting for ya! Lates - Sori

PS ugh so much editing to day i need sleep.
[This message has been edited by FearOrBeSori (edited 12-01-2000).]

[This message has been edited by FearOrBeSori (edited 12-01-2000).]

[This message has been edited by FearOrBeSori (edited 12-01-2000).]

[Methabaron]

Hey Rob,

Quote You say that by increasing cheating you increase pressure on developers. That's like saying giving everyone cancer will bring us closer to finding a cure. Remember, if cheating increases, WE suffer, not the developers. [/QUOTE]

I do not really want to go further into this since most of you have already your opinion formed but the cancer exemple has nothing to do with this. The only thing that will make the developers work harder is if they loose clients, community or market or if they see any sales potential in it. By bringing the defects of a given product to light you can not but improve the quality of it by making everybody aware of the problem. I would think twice before buying/using any product I know is faulty unless the designers correct the problem. How are they going to correct it if they do not have any kind of pressure to do it??, you think they are going to correct it otherwise?... as starters they just said that the koku cheat will not be adressed in the next patch. Bet you bottom dollar that we will have to "insist" many times before they actually do it. I prefer to sacrify the short term enjoyment of the game and make the developers work harder in an issue as important as cheating by making cheats be brought to light. Else we risk not seeing this problem adressed ever. I still think they will only adress this when they see that cheating DIRECTLY affects their sales and/or community. And by hiding it you are getting just the opposite effect. In other words, the more you hide it the later the issue will be adressed. It is a simple market law actually.

But if they have no pressure now maybe it is just because the cheat is not as bad as we think and only a few use it so the community as a whole is negligeably affected. In this case I would not bother at all to cry for help because there is no major emergency, simple.

Didz,

Quote Basically, an algorythmn is used to calculate a number based upon the content of the file (all digital characters have numeric values) and the result is encrypted into the program or stored in the file header.
When the program is run or the file read the algorythymn is calculated again and the result matched to the encrypted value.
If the anything has been altered the result will be different and you know the file has been tampered with.[/QUOTE]

I am no programming expert at all, but this is similar to what I was talking about. I would agree that possibly there is no such thing as a cheat proof game but some games I've played that use a similar system to what Didz describes (or some other way to detect version) have almost never reported cheating as major community killer concern.

Metha


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"It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own."

[This message has been edited by Methabaron (edited 12-03-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Methabaron (edited 12-03-2000).]