As we all know, one of the problems in the FPS community are the multitudes of lame people with 0 skill in playing but lots of skill in cheating.
These people cost the game company customers as word gets around that the game is "full of cheaters." People dont buy their software and the game company looses money. Therefore, game companies go to great pains to block cheaters with various code tricks but the fact that no open system is hack proof is undeniable. In the end, the cheaters usually have to be found by customer service. However, even when they are, they can only be banned from the server, allowing them to cheat elsewhere. I propose a soluttion to help this and combat piracy at the same time.
Now the solution takes a bit of reading but I ask you to read the whole thing before replying.
First of all, change the EULA to say that if they are caught cheating, their rights to the software are forfeitted and they can no longer use the software.
Second of all, make sure each game purchase has to be activated in a manner similar to windows XP activation. Once activated, the game is given an encrypted public key to use when connecting to the server. When the user joins a game, the code is sent to the server and it authenticates the user and allows the game to record their stats and so on. Furthermore, make a service that allows any private user hosting a server to authenticate against the server by forwarding the credentials of the user to Epic.
Now if someone is caught cheating, epic bans them from its servers by blocking the CD code. Authentication always fails and they cant get in. What is more, private server asmins can request blocks of certain CD codes in their authentication request. For example a server admin is convinced joe is cheating so he open up an interface and requests blocking Joe from the server. The Epic server records this preference and whenever an authentication code comes from Joe, it rejects the login with a message saying "Locally banned." The CD code is the user name and the authentication is encrypted and thus unhackable.
What would this accomplish ? It would provide a much more effective banning structure. IPs can be spoofed so banning based on IP is not an effective strategy. With this strategy, a user can be banned and if he is banned by Epic then his copy of the game is basically a pretty coaster to set his drink upon. Yes, he can go out and get another copy but at 50 bucks per game (and per ban), this could be expensive and he is likely to stop cheating eventually. Furthermore the EULA gives them legal grounds to do this.
Some might say that they could just play on private servers that dont authenticate. That is fine and most of us wouldnt care. We only care about blocking the cheaters from interacting with us. If they want to interract with each other, they can aimbot each other to death until hell freezes over.
These people cost the game company customers as word gets around that the game is "full of cheaters." People dont buy their software and the game company looses money. Therefore, game companies go to great pains to block cheaters with various code tricks but the fact that no open system is hack proof is undeniable. In the end, the cheaters usually have to be found by customer service. However, even when they are, they can only be banned from the server, allowing them to cheat elsewhere. I propose a soluttion to help this and combat piracy at the same time.
Now the solution takes a bit of reading but I ask you to read the whole thing before replying.
First of all, change the EULA to say that if they are caught cheating, their rights to the software are forfeitted and they can no longer use the software.
Second of all, make sure each game purchase has to be activated in a manner similar to windows XP activation. Once activated, the game is given an encrypted public key to use when connecting to the server. When the user joins a game, the code is sent to the server and it authenticates the user and allows the game to record their stats and so on. Furthermore, make a service that allows any private user hosting a server to authenticate against the server by forwarding the credentials of the user to Epic.
Now if someone is caught cheating, epic bans them from its servers by blocking the CD code. Authentication always fails and they cant get in. What is more, private server asmins can request blocks of certain CD codes in their authentication request. For example a server admin is convinced joe is cheating so he open up an interface and requests blocking Joe from the server. The Epic server records this preference and whenever an authentication code comes from Joe, it rejects the login with a message saying "Locally banned." The CD code is the user name and the authentication is encrypted and thus unhackable.
What would this accomplish ? It would provide a much more effective banning structure. IPs can be spoofed so banning based on IP is not an effective strategy. With this strategy, a user can be banned and if he is banned by Epic then his copy of the game is basically a pretty coaster to set his drink upon. Yes, he can go out and get another copy but at 50 bucks per game (and per ban), this could be expensive and he is likely to stop cheating eventually. Furthermore the EULA gives them legal grounds to do this.
Some might say that they could just play on private servers that dont authenticate. That is fine and most of us wouldnt care. We only care about blocking the cheaters from interacting with us. If they want to interract with each other, they can aimbot each other to death until hell freezes over.
Clan cheaters are the problem and they are already well hidden and difficult to detect. A simple trigger bot get past of all those checks with ease anyway.
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