Is anticheat worthless these days?

[claire]

Distinct from those types, however, is claire, who runs a sizable number of Q2 servers, and who ain't no dummy. So I'll have to ask him what he meant by, "it was a neat idea...but handicapped the game."

Not sure if he might have been referring to the exclusionary nature of some servers which elected to run with globally forced AC; or maybe something more along the lines that bothers me, which is that I've wanted to make some various tweaks and improvements to r1q2 over recent years, but there seems to be no point in doing so, as there's no clear path to getting such changes AC-approved. So r1q2 is effectively stagnant instead of continuing to evolve. Anyway, that would be my beef -- I dunno if it's claire's.

Both of those things are indeed what I was referring to.

AC works very well when it's used, but using it is getting harder and harder. In the US there really aren't any servers with anticheat forced (ac=2), except for the ts-tournament servers. Look farther and you'll see a lot of Euro servers with it forced. When Island55 retired the digitalfrag servers, I put up replacements and purposely didn't force AC so they would be more accessible. The more people playing this game the better. The difficulty comes when you introduce newer or updated clients. R1Q2 is a great piece of software. But it's old. Q2Pro is also a great piece of software and happens to be more up-to-date. It has more features, it's more configurable, it runs better on my laptop. For those reasons I run Q2Pro. But current versions of Q2Pro are not AC-approved and therefore will not load the DLL, hence my AC status at the top of the this thread.

Requiring a player to use older software when there is something else available that works better for them just to use AC is handicapping them. So what I chose to do, and I'm sure many others are too, is use the client that works better for me and not bother with AC.

I've heard (and this might not be accurate anymore) that the anticheat.dll library doesn't work with Windows 8. Maybe this isn't an issue anymore, I don't know I have Windows 7 on my laptop.

Nobody write perfect code. Last year a bug in the regex code for q2admin came to light that could be used to crash the server. No big deal, update some code, recompile, back in business. If no new clients/updates are being AC-approved anymore, adding features or fixing bugs is very tough to keep a valid AC system going. Again, handicapping.

Then there is the fact that AC is a windows-only animal.  I happen to use windows on my main computer currently. I also happen to be a big linux user, but since there is no linux library that isn't an option. What about the poor Apple users? The only way to play for these users is to not use anticheat. Handicapping...

[LedZep]

What about the poor Apple users? The only way to play for these users is to not use anticheat. Handicapping...

LOL Apple. Go play garage band or reversi or whatever else it is that they play.

[AmpLiF1eR]

when I see screenshots of many quake2 players, I see bright yellow and green neon skins without textures and also the weapons are ugly painted with bright colors to see them fast. bright red grenades etc. They use Anticheat and have a big advantage vs a 'stock' setup because they have a very high visibility and this isnt detected. I think more than 50% of the (old) players are doing this.

How to compete against them without making the game ugly ? Using Q2pro!

Q2pro has the feature to keep it 'stock' but using gl_modulate_world "1" and gl_modulate_entities "99" for example, so items and (original) skins are brighter but the map stays dark as intended. This way , I can have higher visibility as well but without making the game ugly and keep it original and nice.
But Q2pro is not anticheat compatible.

R1Q2 can achieve the same according to others by doing the 'gl_modulate' trick (binding a key to gl_modulate 1 and a key to gl_modulate 99, when the level starts, you choose '99' and when the level is over, you choose 1 before the new map loads and when it has loaded, you choose 99 again) because it only has effect on players and items and not on the map without a vid_restart command.
But with this trick, you can't use dynamic lightning or everything starts to flicker so you need to disable it so you can't use the (old) effects to their full potential, so in the end, it lacks this feature if you want to use all effects.

To make a long story short, q2pro is much better and doesnt have AC support (anymore).
Also , if AC is not forced, what's the benefit of it ? Just to 'proove' to others that you're not cheating ?

R1ch is not equal to Quake2 so why does he 'own' everything around it (AC and masterlist) ?
The masterlist for example (q2servers.com) is dominated by a guy called mio from q2.rlogin.dk by cheating his 16 (fake) players 24/7 (when joining, it's full of bots with player names to fool you), so it's always nr.1 on top to attract players this way, others like coolnet playing fair has no chance this way.
He's running a lithium mod which is a very small scene trying to survive, so when another one tries to make an alternative server, nobody joins when they see '0/20' on this list because of that fake server which offers '16/32' (fake) players, so the only thing others can do is follow his example and fake also. (besides, that server overwrites your config.cfg and forces downloads, even when disabled). Even when others play fair by adding 'bots' to the server name and calling the bots playing bot1, bot2 etc., he grabs all players because he gives the bots real names and have hidden the menu so people dont know how to chase so you wont notice the bots that fast. he's intentionally faking to the community and others with servers, like me (see http://quake2-lithium.ml/my-servers/ ) have no chance at all because of him fooling everyone.

I had complained about it against R1CH on IRC and he removed the server and told me that servers need to add 'bots' to the server name and play fair.
Later on, the server was back and I asked him on Twitter why he was back while the guy didn't react on his demands, he told me that people would complain either way and that he would stop 'blacklisting' a server and that he didnt care anymore.
Well, the only guy that had spoken about this issue was me, myself and I (twitter and irc) and nobody else that I'm aware off.
R1CH, if you are in charge of Quake2 with AC and masterlist, you need to take responsibility or just leave the game alone, you can't just say I don't care and handicap the game.
So if you ask q2.rlogin.dk to play fair and add 'bots' to his name and he doesn't react, you should remove it from your list, take responsibility man.

Also, please add Q2Pro to the whitelist or stop using AC at all.

my 2 cents...

EDIT: fine, if he's allowed to attract players by cheating, I'm gonna do the same

[LedZep]

Q2pro has the feature to keep it 'stock' but using gl_modulate_world "1" and gl_modulate_entities "99" for example, so items and (original) skins are brighter but the map stays dark as intended. This way , I can have higher visibility as well but without making the game ugly and keep it original and nice.
But Q2pro is not anticheat compatible.

Q2Pro has an old anticheat compatible version.
Also, in R1Q2 and 320, if you set gl_modulate to a low number, vid restart, then set it to a ridiculous value without doing a vid_restart after, the entities are full bright, whereas the lightmap didn't reload with the bright shit and thus looks normal. You need to do this every time the map changes and such, however..

[Muerte]

I was 'wonder' why q2pro 'working better' then r1q2 and there is simple explanation:

cl_packetdup
    Number of backup movement commands client includes in each new packet, directly impacts upload rate. Unless connected using Q2PRO protocol, hardcoded value of 2 backups per packet is used. Default value is 1.

Players with q2pro simply flooding servers sending 3 packets making to ppl with higher ping and weak connection impossible to play (shooting in wrong place where they 'see' q2pro player who actualy is not there)

imo great help 2ppl with bad (packet-loss connections)
packetdup (server side command)
cl_packetdup (client side command)

become main 'cheat' for q2pro users

only other diff in q2pro and r1q2 (all other 'features' in q2pro can be fixed with packs) is colored cross by health

[claire]

R1CH, if you are in charge of Quake2 with AC and masterlist, you need to take responsibility or just leave the game alone, you can't just say I don't care and handicap the game.
So if you ask q2.rlogin.dk to play fair and add 'bots' to his name and he doesn't react, you should remove it from your list, take responsibility man.

I couldn't disagree with you more.

R1CH doesn't maintain a list of "good" or "approved" servers, he runs the masterserver. So any server that has "set public 1" in their config gets listed. That's how the game was designed and how it should work. R1CH should not be blacklisting or filtering out any public servers just because they misrepresent themselves or aren't setup the way you think they should be. I put up a server in Italy because there wasn't any in that area but it has connectivity issues with the master server somewhere (not sure which end), so it is never listed and therefore never gets any play. Sucks.

So a server has bots on it all named after legit players. You might be fooled by this once, but after that who cares if it's at the top of the list?

[Muerte]

AC works very well when it's used, but using it is getting harder and harder.

Requiring a player to use older software when there is something else available that works better for them just to use AC is handicapping them. So what I chose to do, and I'm sure many others are too, is use the client that works better for me and not bother with AC.

While you still played in 'q2sandbox' some wise mans (experienced players and admins with help of Rich) saved quake2 scene implementing anticheat

Nowadays when European quake2 scene (its not actually 'scene' its weekend warriors 'league' of retired players) official represent newbee players and admins ofc they will implement own 'opinion' about anticheat and what them 'suits' and what is 'work better' on own hardware...

Pahtetic abuse of 'power' is when main admin play in official league on non aproved AC client and brag about it

[claire]

Players with q2pro simply flooding servers sending 3 packets making to ppl with higher ping and weak connection impossible to play (shooting in wrong place where they 'see' q2pro player who actualy is not there)

imo great help 2ppl with bad (packet-loss connections)
packetdup (server side command)
cl_packetdup (client side command)

become main 'cheat' for q2pro users

only other diff in q2pro and r1q2 (all other 'features' in q2pro can be fixed with packs) is colored cross by health

This reminds me of when I was back in college around 1999. People would constantly talk shit because I had a mid-20s ping while everyone else had 50+ because I was on a college OC3 connection. They would say that it wasn't fair because all the packets would fall into my connection because it was so big. Like the server is tossing datagrams into a big pool and who ever had the biggest "pipe" got more of them. It just doesn't work like that.

Packetdup is a great feature to help people with lossy connections. If a client enables cl_packetdup then duplicate packets go between that client and the server. It has nothing to do with other clients.  Below is a graph of the packets per second of my germany2 TDM server. It shows a 4v4 game with a bunch of specs. I believe the server was full at the peak with 20 players connected (not sure how many are using protocol 36 vs 35 though):



That's only 1000pps incoming even if every player started sending dups, a server should be able to handle that with no problems what so ever. Look at the outgoing, it's only around 100pps. So I have a very hard time believing that packetdup used on a server will suddenly make it unplayable for other players. Maybe it does, I'd have to look at the code to see how it actually works, but I doubt it.

[claire]

Pahtetic abuse of 'power' is when main admin play in official league on non aproved AC client and brag about it

 

What power? For the same reasons I've already stated we (all the EDL admins: Ceba, IsBjorn, K1ru and myself) decided not to force AC. I'd rather have more players playing more games than excluding the non-windows players or forcing people to use clients from 2006. Poor division 4, having to put up with my non-ac-using butt...

[AmpLiF1eR]

That's how the game was designed and how it should work. R1CH should not be blacklisting or filtering out any public servers just because they misrepresent themselves or aren't setup the way you think they should be.

Well, fakeplayers to fill player slots is not how the game was designed and is not how it should work either in my opinion. I don't call it misrepresenting, I call it cheating unless you're honest about the fact that those slots represent bots, like everyone does.
I do agree about the fact that it's not his job to check how a server is setup because it's not his business, but in my eyes, this is cheating.

That server on top is the "only" server cheating this way, have you seen others ? I haven't seen any other doing the same because they all use 'bots' in their name if they fill slots unnaturally.

edit: On top of this all, this server FORCES you to download skins/models (when using r1q2), even when you have configured your client to NOT download it. Someone also complained that the server changed his binds in his config.cfg (I use autoexec for almost everything so I don't notice these things).
In my eyes , this classifies his server as malicious! Gonna we allow everything today like this behaviour (but keep defending other things like anticheat) ?

have a nice day.

EDIT: fine, if he's allowed to attract players by cheating, I'm gonna do the same

[Whirlingdervish]

I'm not sure why people keep saying things as if they blame r1ch for q2pro no longer supporting anticheat.

The guy who writes the code for q2pro is the one who made that decision, not r1ch.

He chose to stop supporting it, with many of the same stated reasons (most of them nonsensical) that most people who bash AC use. I'm pretty sure I even remember him parroting some paranoid baloney along the lines of "oh its a backdoor or could be or something" ala vapid/zebor.

I don't really care enough to look but I'd bet it's in a thread on this forum.


edit: Had a second and I found it:


THIS is why q2pro is not supported by anticheat:

http://forum.tastyspleen.net/quake/index.php?topic=19315.msg191241#msg191241

There were q2 clients in the past with pretty graphics, and I don't recall them having anywhere near the popular following that q2pro does. Take EGL for instance: It makes q2 look gorgeous and predates q2pro by yeeears. It supports AC and has very few users.

As I recall Q2pro itself didn't even have many users until it stopped supporting AC and started giving people an excuse. APRQ2 was the main choice, up until that point, of people who wanted a client with prettier graphics. APR also supports AC, and has very few users now.

Anyone notice the trend?

[quadz]

Anyone notice the trend?

What form might the analysis take if we sought to eliminate confirmation bias?

  "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."
    -- Richard Feynman



Personally I'd prefer to be using q2pro because of its demo-editing features; others prefer its in-game server browser; etc.

I continue to stick with r1q2 out of a sense of duty: my feeling is admins should "eat their own dogfood" with respect to anticheat.

But if I weren't admin, I'd have swapped clients some years ago.

[cse]

AC is not worthless, but based on its current state and general consensus on this thread, players should not be judged/penalised for not using it.

The current problems with AC:
- won't work with latest versions of newer clients like Q2PRO
- only works on Windows (though rumoured to not work on Windows 8?)
- potential lack of updates to ensure new bots/hacks are catered for
- concerns about AC server being able to gain unauthorized access to files/directories on a client's machine
- paranoia/mistrust/false accusations between players who use AC and players who don't (*cough* Alpha )

Personally, I'm OK with all of the above limitations, and since R1Q2 does everything I need, I've stuck with the R1Q2+AC combination. As a bonus, AC gives me some level of credibility if I am suspected of cheating and also lets me join AC forced servers, but I personally don't see the benefit in forcing AC in its current state on all players. Except maybe forcing it on a suspicious player/troublemaker with specific/known IP (and subnet ranges to a lesser extent, but unfortunately some legitimate players may be caught out by this).

That said, Q2PRO is a great client and I do use it for viewing demos as it is far superior to R1Q2 in that regard. I'll happily switch completely over to Q2PRO (and sacrifice AC) if the need ever arises to run Quake 2 on Linux/Mac, or if I find an essential Q2PRO feature that is not in R1Q2.

[Muerte]

Packetdup is a great feature to help people with lossy connections. If a client enables cl_packetdup then duplicate packets go between that client and the server. It has nothing to do with other clients.

You missing in your math 2 key commands in q2pro

cl_maxpackets //    Number of packets client sends per second. 0 means no particular limit. Unless connected using Q2PRO protocol, this variable is ignored and packets are sent in sync with client physics frame rate, controlled with ‘cl_maxfps’ variable. Default value is 30.

cl_packetdup  //    Number of backup movement commands client includes in each new packet, directly impacts upload rate. Unless connected using Q2PRO protocol, hardcoded value of 2 backups per packet is used. Default value is 1.

[sm4ckd4b]

its to late to try and save this old hacked game. i would like to see one server focused on busting cheaters..or a server for r1q2 clients only...and on that server if you cant load anticheats you cant join! http://forum.tastyspleen.net/quake/Smileys/default/forceac.gif