[Hannover]

Greetings fellow MOHAA players,

I've been thinking of ways to reduce the number of cheaters and team killers in MOHAA and all FPS games. To my knowledge, I have not had the displeasure of playing against a cheater. Yes, I've had the odd fellow who took 2 1/2 MG clips to kill, but for the most part my main trouble is with poor sports who cannot lose without spewing profanity laced vitriol, and those who cannot win without gloating. Additionally, the age-old spectre of team killing is alive and well in MOHAA. I am amazed how often games with friendly fire enabled degenerate into a full-fledged deathmatch. The facade of the FPS avatar seems to bring out the worst in a lot of people.

Poor sports aside, I am sure we can all agree that cheating exists in MOHAA. Many of you guys have documented that you've seen it happen or that certain players have admitted to cheating. This comes as no surprise, as the Quake engines have always been open to various exploits, and I have no doubt that other game engines are vulnerable in varying degrees.

I've read through many forum posts from here and abroad in an effort to find and collate your ideas related to curtailing cheating.

Currently, the only sure way to achieve a game free of cheaters and team killers is to set up your own server, password protect it, and invite only trusted players and/or friends. Most games I play on public servers seem to be devoid of cheaters and team killers, but there is no guarantee that a cheater will not join at some point during play.

As others have stated, it may be next to impossible to prevent cheating in an online FPS of this sort, but it would be nice if developers placed anti-cheating measures a bit higher on their list of requirements higher than say, transitional movies that you skip after the first or second viewing. Ideally, this commitment to anti-cheating measures would be implemented at the beginning of the development life-cycle, not added in an ad hoc fashion.

So what are we to do about cheating and team killing in future games? Let's throw some ideas around. Maybe someone out there will listen. After all, a game relatively devoid of cheaters and team killers could enjoy a much longer life - and reap a larger financial reward - than games with less vigilance.

Here's some of my ideas. I have to admit they may seem a bit draconian, but:

As stated above, developers must take anti cheating measures seriously. Maybe they already do. I dunno.

Adopt the "pay-to-play" model: Charge $20 for the game. This $20 fee buys you the game engine, a single player adventure (maybe), and a multiplayer component. The multiplayer component included in the $20 fee allows only LAN multiplayer and limited bot support so that you could practice on the multiplayer maps. The $20 fee includes a code/voucher to allow you to play for *at least* one month for free. After the free period, you have to start paying $5-$10 or so a month to continue playing online. I know you guys know the routine....Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Warbirds, etc.

Wait, I am not done!

When logging on to play online, everyone will first have to be authenticated by a master server, and then farmed out to various servers across the net. So, you can set up a net server at your house, but players cannot join that server until they are first validated by the master server. Nothing space-age here. The idea is that you *must* have an active, paid account in order to play online. Each time you log on to play, regardless of your screen name, you play with a unique ID that never changes. You'd be able to play from a buddy's house as long as you log on using your proper logon ID and password.

Now that the master server knows who you are at all times, you can be held accountable. If player X is a wart on the ass of progress and starts to kill buddies for no reason, complaints are filed against him in a RTCW fashion. All complaints lodged against player X's account are fed to the master server at varying intervals throught the day, or possibly even at the end of each game. Once complaints reach a certain level, the master server sends a warning via e-mail or in-game message to the offending player. If the player continues to be a jerk, the master server kicks and bans them from the server on which they are team killing.

If the madness continues, the player could face longer bans, or eventual account suspension.

But how do we detect cheaters if it's so easy for clients to cheat? Well, either more of what is going on client-side will have to go server-side (a scary thought), or we'll have to depend on players to file "suspected cheater" reports against players they feel are cheating (another scary thought). I have absolutely no faith that my fellow gamers would not abuse this. I think lots of us here have been accused of cheating by the "guy with 4 kills in the last 30 minutes" - the guy who shot you 4 times with the sniper rifle, or so he claims. With the hatred surrounding a few of the weapons in the game, I can imagine someone spamming "suspected cheater" complaints against you simply because you're killing them with a weapon that in their eyes is "cheap and takes no skill to use."

Maybe developers *can* find a way to detect cheats once they are uncovered, and maybe players trying to use these cheats could be automatically flagged when they try to join a game. Players that attempt to cheat on a server could be moved to spectator mode, while a message is sent to the master server of the attempted cheat (there's one mark against your account, bub!). Additionally, a message could be sent to those who are playing that "player x tried to cheat and has been moved to spectator." Heh.

Didn't someone say there is a client-side anti-cheat untility for Counterstrike?

In addition to its duties of authentication and complaint logging, the master server could also keep track of player stats. A web site could publish these stats. Maybe, just like this message board, you could get promoted to a new rank as you get more kills.

Really, it would be like any FPS stat logger. You'd be able to see players with the best kill-to-death ratio, the players with the most suicides, etc. There are many possibilities here.

I got World War 2 Online for Christmas. It keeps track of stats, but despite all my efforts, I have not developed a liking for this game. The graphics are of dubious quality, and it's not my idea of fun to have to walk 30 minutes to get to the action. 7-8 minutes, maybe, but that's another story.

I know there are many downsides to my ideas. The master server could/would go down. People could abuse complaint filing privileges. It might take developers a long time to incorporate detection methods for newly discovered cheats. It would take time and money to maintain the master server farm. I'm sure you guys will come up with a million other negatives!

The bottom line is that it would be great if cheaters and team killers could be held accountable, but we as gamers cannot do this without cooperation and effort from the developers.

Hannover