Community Forums > Voobly Community > Other Games > Midtown Madness > Feedback & Comments: Midtown Madness 2 - Anti-Cheat v1.0
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Thanks.
- HoMeR
Info:
http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/3025
Bug Reporting:
http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/30256
Feedback & Suggestions:
http://www.voobly.com/forum/thread/30257
GameRanger has NAT. The only thing that I feel is better about GameRanger is it's NAT. GameRanger is safer because of it's NAT. You should finish the NAT on Voobly ASAP if you hope to recruit people from GameRanger or if you would like better bragging rights over GameRanger.
now everyone knows what you dont want them to use... gj skee.... ugh
should have said some of that privately to a mod
The bad:
As has already been mentioned, the way anti-cheat was implemented creates a major headache for people like me who have add-ons in their MM2 folder such as NYC, additional car colours, SF/London Racemod. etc. Anti-cheat would be less of a hassle and far more effective if it identified cheaters by scanning the contents of AR files (file signatures), rather than by merely looking at file names.
The ugly:
The dialog box that alerts of an unapproved .ar file in the MM2 directory caused my game window to minimize, and then become stuck in the minimized position even when relaunched. Rebooting fixed it. To give you an idea of my setup: I'm using Windows 7 with dual screens. One is a standard LCD monitor, the other is my TV. Having dual screens has created weirdness with MM2 in the past, as MM2 is an old game and there is no way to select which screen the main window opens on from within the game. When MM2 opens on my computer, both screens blink randomly for about 6 seconds, and it seems like the game is deciding which screen to open on before finally picking my TV (the correct one). If a window opens during this process, such as the anti-cheat alert, the game minimizes and gets stuck that way, even if I kill all instances of MM2 completely and run MM2's redetect video script. By the time I was able to reboot, the game I was trying to join was already in progress.
This would probably not be an issue if the alert was changed to a notification in the taskbar.
Overall:
This feature, in its current form, is not ready for primetime and should be considered a beta release at best. I hope that Voobly doesn't abandon this project or consider it completed as a lot of work still needs to be done. Most importantly, I'm not convinced that it will be an effective tool against cheaters. There are some individuals in this community who have been cheating for years, and in all likelihood they will continue to cheat by circumventing this system. It's well known that some MM2 players cheat by using modified system settings and speeder applications, none of which are blocked by anti-cheat.
I have been playing this game for 10 years, and have always tried to play fair, respect other players, and have fun. I don't accuse people of cheating in games unless it is blatantly obvious that they are, as cheating accusations make this game thoroughly unenjoyable for me. Accusations of cheating fly around all the time on MM2, and in a lot of cases they amount to sour grapes and have no factual basis. The way I see it, anti-cheat is an escalation of the witch hunt against "cheaters" and adds an unnecessary annoyance to legitimate players who are just trying to enjoy the game.
The hassle that anti-cheat creates outweigh the benefit. I'm worried that it will create divisions in our already-small community of players, especially if people like me decide that it isn't worth the hassle and stop joining games with this setting enabled.
I apologize for the long post and hope that we can have intelligent discussion on this issue.
The anti-cheat already looks at CRC signatures for the goldenfile list. So, the goldenfile list feature of the anti-cheat does not just look at AR file names.
What I was suggesting in my post is for cheats to be identified in a more intelligent way. Rather than just cheating any file that is not on the "Golden List" as a cheat, only files that alter the performance of cars or of the game should be considered cheats.
If we stick with the current system, at the very least, it would be much better if cheaters were identified before launch (not after launch) and given a full list of the .ar files that they need to remove. Not just one at a time. This would make things much easier and eliminate the need for players to remove .AR files in a crunch before the game starts. Players who have disallowed .AR files should simply be prevented from launching.
I'll try to reply as much as I can, following some supporting comments afterwards.
This would probably not be an issue if the alert was changed to a notification in the taskbar.
If there is another way to notify the user of this notification, it will be looked after in the next release, or as you said, system should scan the file before the game launches.
We have played this game for more than a decade without any sense of security and protection from cheaters, we've had fights, we've had very good games and we basically assumed those games to be fair and square, we didn't have any guarantee if everyone was 'clean' at those times. Now is the time when we can actually say and prove with factual evidence that sufficient (if not all) security is provided to have a protected and competitive game - why not enjoy that certain aspect of the whole experience?
Ofcourse improvements are needed, required, and should be pointed out all the time, but appreciation of the system should also be given after a decade worth of no support & protection from such things.
To be honest, I was really angry by my initial encounter with anti-cheat, as the host of the game didn't indicate that she had enabled it, I didn't know that it had been released, and I had to do a lot of configuration changes to make it work properly. I didn't actually get to play as a result of this.
Now that I'm aware of the limitations, it should be easier for me to avoid receiving anti-cheat alerts by maintaining a "clean" MM2 folder. I'll probably just write a simple script that adds and removes the relevant .ar files to the MM2 folder as needed, which should make things easier for me.
Some of the things I mentioned are still important to me though. Especially:
1. Adding a feature that informs "cheaters" that they will not be able to join the game before the host launches.
2. Changing anti-cheat alert so that a list of all unapproved .ar files found on the user's system are listed in one place. The list could even be written to a separate log file, as long as the alert explains where to look for it.
3. Expand the golden list so that commonly-used .ar modifications, such as additional cities, are allowed. I don't expect every possible add-on and car to be added, as this would require a massive list and would mostly be a waste of time. However, it would be great if the most popular stuff could be added.
I will submit some suggestions for the golden list soon.