plugging up free cheating.

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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by safemode »

It looks like everything from yesterday was lost. Maybe the day before too. (28,29)
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by MC707 »

Awww man! I can't believe this! Are backups made or something like that? I posted quite a bunch these days because I had time... but now I have to go back to work. I seem to be able to access the board index at times if I use vtunnel.com, but checking the forums directly still show the "General error". :|
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by safemode »

backup was last made on the 25th. It looks like this removed data from the 28th and 29th. I had some rather large (usually they are anyway) posts as well. I was hoping firefox cached that data like they do for immediate history in forms but no, it was too long ago.

we wont know exactly how bad this is until www2 can be made aware and get into the server directly and see what's going on.

I'm not sure if the error still exists from my home connection. I checked the ban'd ip lists and such and mine isn't on there, so there is no reason why it would block that one but let my work one in.

Something is definitely not right, and i'm not sure if i'm leaning towards a hack or backend issue yet.

I have opened a thread on the subject in the administravia section.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by energyman76b »

why is 'cheating' even considered a problem?

Somebody is fed up and wants some money or ships you can't buy - so what? Does he hurt anybody else? No.

And after restarting the game for the Xth time because of a glitch, bug or because that 'follow that guy' mission was too hard - it really sucks to spent several hours of playing just to get away from the Lama. That can really destroy the fun.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by energyman76b »

MC707 wrote:
parkel wrote:This thing called "free cheating" actually might help a little in this game.
Sorry to interfere halfway through this whole cheat or no cheat thing.

I'll ask this question first.
What is the point of encoding a save-game file when you know that there are decoders (programs) out there?
And what's the point of stopping cheating in an open-source game?
Then you did not read the thread. Do it and you will understand.
I read the thread and see no point why cheating in single user mode is bad.

If someone wants cheating - why not? Without it, fun is gone anyway.
If someone does not want cheating, he does not cheat.

Either way, taking away easy cheats does nothing good - and ruins the game for people who need the cheat to get back on the 'its fun track' after something was messed up. Like - you had a great fleet of super sweet ships with .4 - and can't use the savegames with .5 without running into trouble. To get all the stuff back is hard enough even without the money.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by MC707 »

energyman76b wrote:why is 'cheating' even considered a problem?
Read the rest of the post, read the thread.
energyman76b wrote:Somebody is fed up and wants some money or ships you can't buy - so what? Does he hurt anybody else? No.
Why is he fed up? Because he can't play? Many players don't give a damn about learning some binds, learning some background info about the universe they are navigating. Learing about how ships behave with each upgrade, learn what numbers mean when they look at the ship stats. Easy, no problem. Just buy the most expensive upgrades. Meh just open the save file, add a bunch of zeros and boom goes the dinamite.

Hurts no one? He hurts himself and the project (in a way) by killing his time playing VS. Read further.
energyman76b wrote:And after restarting the game for the Xth time because of a glitch, bug or because that 'follow that guy' mission was too hard - it really sucks to spent several hours of playing just to get away from the Lama. That can really destroy the fun.
Bugs are not a justification. You are addressing problems by cheating because of bugs. You should address answers by correcting the bugs. Hell, who knows how many bugs are circumvented by cheating and not reported.

Anti cheat can be implemented when glitches/bugs are nearly completely gone, but not when the game stops being 'too hard.' If you can't play because you can't memorize some key binds or because you wanted that 1'000'000 bounty but your ship could not blast an Agasicles even if you tried X times.
energyman76b wrote:I read the thread and see no point why cheating in single user mode is bad.
You did not read the thread. Read below.
energyman76b wrote:If someone wants cheating - why not? Without it, fun is gone anyway.
THAT is exactly the whole point. WITH it, the fun is gone. By cheating, what are they gaining? It can't possibly be fun to always win, it must get boring rather quickly.
energyman76b wrote:If someone does not want cheating, he does not cheat.
Wrong. If a player - any player in fact - stumbles upon a considerable challenge they know cannot beat, whilst they KNOW they have the key to a bank vault limited only by how many times they can press the '0' button, they WILL use it. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you have that power put in front of your nose, you are not going to ignore it.
energyman76b wrote:Either way, taking away easy cheats does nothing good - and ruins the game for people who need the cheat to get back on the 'its fun track' after something was messed up. Like - you had a great fleet of super sweet ships with .4 - and can't use the savegames with .5 without running into trouble. To get all the stuff back is hard enough even without the money.
They ruin the game by going back to 'its fun track' for a few hours, then killing every little insect that dares challenge them, and finally killing the 'fun track' they intended to recreate and repair in the first place, only to exit VS (if not uninstall it) and go for the next game.

Deus had a point about using cheats for development purposes (which I discussed already in this very same thread, and unfortunately lost some posts), but to use it to circumvent bugs and/or game difficulties is simply not a pretext.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by energyman76b »

MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:why is 'cheating' even considered a problem?
Read the rest of the post, read the thread.
I have - as stated before. And I consider your arguments as bogus at best.

MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:Somebody is fed up and wants some money or ships you can't buy - so what? Does he hurt anybody else? No.
Why is he fed up? Because he can't play? Many players don't give a damn about learning some binds, learning some background info about the universe they are navigating. Learing about how ships behave with each upgrade, learn what numbers mean when they look at the ship stats. Easy, no problem. Just buy the most expensive upgrades. Meh just open the save file, add a bunch of zeros and boom goes the dinamite.
I have given examples. You obviously don't follow your own advise.
But think for a moment about it. For some reason a player is bored out of his mind - because hauling cargo is boring and tidious. 5minutes of nothing for eacht trip and you need 40 trips to buy the ship that enables you to have some fun - the way you want.

Now you take the possibility away. Result: a player who does not waste his time anymore. His cheat would have enabled him to have fun. Now he can't have fun anymore.
This has nothing to do with 'not wanting to learn' and everything with 'making money is god damn slow and since there is no career mode killing people won't get you anything either'.
MC707 wrote: Hurts no one? He hurts himself and the project (in a way) by killing his time playing VS. Read further.
wrong. He does not hurt himself. He makes it possible for himself to enjoy the game. And how does he hurt the project?
Hint: he doesn't.

I give you another hint. Look at my subscription date. I 'cheat' - because I have that god damn Serenity-Atlantis trip so many times that I start to scream in anger when I have to restart at 0 with the next big release.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:And after restarting the game for the Xth time because of a glitch, bug or because that 'follow that guy' mission was too hard - it really sucks to spent several hours of playing just to get away from the Lama. That can really destroy the fun.
Bugs are not a justification. You are addressing problems by cheating because of bugs. You should address answers by correcting the bugs. Hell, who knows how many bugs are circumvented by cheating and not reported.
Some bugs can not be fixed - think about that. Like no save way going from 0.4 to 0.5 or svn. You have to restart. Another 'bug' is just time. If you have played the game as many times as I did, you just don't want to deal with a crappy lama or plowshare or even mule AGAIN. The first 20 times was really bad enough. I still report bugs if I hit them - which would be lost if I stop playing because the game bores me to hell.

Another example:
I played all the ships a user can buy. Now I want to fly a Tesla! Or Kahan! It would bring back the fun - impossible without cheating. No fun, no reason to play. Player lost.
MC707 wrote: Anti cheat can be implemented when glitches/bugs are nearly completely gone, but not when the game stops being 'too hard.' If you can't play because you can't memorize some key binds or because you wanted that 1'000'000 bounty but your ship could not blast an Agasicles even if you tried X times.
oh boy. You are seriously mixing up stuff. Bogus argument to the max.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:I read the thread and see no point why cheating in single user mode is bad.
You did not read the thread. Read below.
oh, I read it. I know your kind of people very well 'cheating takes away my fun. So it must be bad. Everybody should follow my lead'.

You are the kind of person destroying others people fun. You are the kind of person thinking that his mindset is the only valid one.

You don't want cheats - fine, don't cheat. But don't force your will unto others.
Thank you.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:If someone wants cheating - why not? Without it, fun is gone anyway.
THAT is exactly the whole point. WITH it, the fun is gone. By cheating, what are they gaining? It can't possibly be fun to always win, it must get boring rather quickly.
your fun. Not mine. There are a lot of good reasons to cheat - and not one has anything to do with 'winning' and everything with 'how do I keep this game that I am playing for years now interessting'.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:If someone does not want cheating, he does not cheat.
Wrong. If a player - any player in fact - stumbles upon a considerable challenge they know cannot beat, whilst they KNOW they have the key to a bank vault limited only by how many times they can press the '0' button, they WILL use it. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you have that power put in front of your nose, you are not going to ignore it.
and here we are 'cheating makes it bad for me, so it is bad. I demand my will being imposed'.
Grow up. Please.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:Either way, taking away easy cheats does nothing good - and ruins the game for people who need the cheat to get back on the 'its fun track' after something was messed up. Like - you had a great fleet of super sweet ships with .4 - and can't use the savegames with .5 without running into trouble. To get all the stuff back is hard enough even without the money.
They ruin the game by going back to 'its fun track' for a few hours, then killing every little insect that dares challenge them, and finally killing the 'fun track' they intended to recreate and repair in the first place, only to exit VS (if not uninstall it) and go for the next game.

Deus had a point about using cheats for development purposes (which I discussed already in this very same thread, and unfortunately lost some posts), but to use it to circumvent bugs and/or game difficulties is simply not a pretext.

here you show that you don't even know the game you are talking about. Getting back a Goddard - for example - does not take some hours. It takes days of play time - that results in weeks lost. Worse - loose a turrent and you need a new ship.

And evewn if you have a super sweet Tesla - there are enough opportunities to get your ass handed. Believe me, I saw them.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by MC707 »

energyman76b wrote:I have given examples. You obviously don't follow your own advise.
But think for a moment about it. For some reason a player is bored out of his mind - because hauling cargo is boring and tidious. 5minutes of nothing for eacht trip and you need 40 trips to buy the ship that enables you to have some fun - the way you want.

Now you take the possibility away. Result: a player who does not waste his time anymore. His cheat would have enabled him to have fun. Now he can't have fun anymore.
This has nothing to do with 'not wanting to learn' and everything with 'making money is god damn slow and since there is no career mode killing people won't get you anything either'.
Just because you think hauling stuff is boring and tedious doesn't mean others think like that. This game IS about that if you didn't realize it, after all.

I thought you played this game recently? There ARE missions which give you money for killing people.
energyman76b wrote:wrong. He does not hurt himself. He makes it possible for himself to enjoy the game. And how does he hurt the project?
Hint: he doesn't.
Wrong. He will finish the game in a blink, how does that make it possible for himself to enjoy the game? He hurts the project. He feels the game has nothing else to offer and goes away. Another lost player.
energyman76b wrote:I give you another hint. Look at my subscription date. I 'cheat' - because I have that god damn Serenity-Atlantis trip so many times that I start to scream in anger when I have to restart at 0 with the next big release.
Give you a hint: read my post, slowly and getting the info. "Anti cheat can be implemented when glitches/bugs are nearly completely gone". In the meantime, you can cheat your way from new version to new version. After all, this is not a finished game and is not expected to have the most recent version to be compatible with the one 4 years ago.
energyman76b wrote:Some bugs can not be fixed - think about that. Like no save way going from 0.4 to 0.5 or svn. You have to restart. Another 'bug' is just time. If you have played the game as many times as I did, you just don't want to deal with a crappy lama or plowshare or even mule AGAIN. The first 20 times was really bad enough. I still report bugs if I hit them - which would be lost if I stop playing because the game bores me to hell.
Heh time a bug. Again, the 'game' is not a complete game. Does 0.5.0 give you an idea? What we are mostly doing currently is beta testing, if you didn't realize it. Alpha or beta status for releases that are not stable enough for general or practical deployment and are intended for testing or internal use only.
energyman76b wrote:Another example:
I played all the ships a user can buy. Now I want to fly a Tesla! Or Kahan! It would bring back the fun - impossible without cheating. No fun, no reason to play. Player lost.
Why did you play with all the ships a user can buy? Because you cheated in the first place. Oh lets fly a Tesla and pwn any enemy that faces us. It will become boring within minutes. After you have played with all NPS's, what do you have left? NOTHING. THATS the point you can't seem to get.
energyman76b wrote:
MC707 wrote: Anti cheat can be implemented when glitches/bugs are nearly completely gone, but not when the game stops being 'too hard.' If you can't play because you can't memorize some key binds or because you wanted that 1'000'000 bounty but your ship could not blast an Agasicles even if you tried X times.
oh boy. You are seriously mixing up stuff. Bogus argument to the max.
Is that your argument against mine? You seriously have nothing else left to say.
energyman76b wrote:oh, I read it. I know your kind of people very well 'cheating takes away my fun. So it must be bad. Everybody should follow my lead'.

You are the kind of person destroying others people fun. You are the kind of person thinking that his mindset is the only valid one.

You don't want cheats - fine, don't cheat. But don't force your will unto others.
Thank you.
You are embarrasing yourself. I never said cheating takes away MY fun. I never said everybody should follow my lead. Just because I can think and give arguments to defend my point of view doesn't mean I think only my mindset is valid. I do not destroy others' fun. Maybe I destroy YOUR fun, but not others'. Just because YOU think this game is boring to hell, while only by being indestructible in a fully stocked 1000G ship makes this game is fun, doesn't mean this game isn't fun and doesn't mean other people think this game is fun. If you want to finish VS in a day, do it. But many other people DO enjoy buying a new ship with money received with their own efforts.
energyman76b wrote:your fun. Not mine. There are a lot of good reasons to cheat - and not one has anything to do with 'winning' and everything with 'how do I keep this game that I am playing for years now interessting'.
There are a lot of good reasons to cheat? What are they? Hmm I thought I had the bogus arguments. Backup your words if you have anything else to say.
energyman76b wrote:and here we are 'cheating makes it bad for me, so it is bad. I demand my will being imposed'.
Grow up. Please.
Powerful argument. Is that the best you have to say against my argument? Why do I even bother. -_-
energyman76b wrote:here you show that you don't even know the game you are talking about. Getting back a Goddard - for example - does not take some hours. It takes days of play time - that results in weeks lost. Worse - loose a turrent and you need a new ship.
Here you show you don't even know the game you are talking about. Getting back a Goddard takes seconds. Just load the last game. Lost the Goddard's turret? Load. Getting a new Goddard with cheats takes roughly minutes. Killing the fun like that takes hours. Nothing that makes you lose weeks.

Oh and BTW, its 'lose', not 'loose'.
energyman76b wrote:And evewn if you have a super sweet Tesla - there are enough opportunities to get your ass handed. Believe me, I saw them.
Yes that's it. You get your ass whooped by a capship? No problem, just hack yourself a biggie capship and avenge yourself. Then no one can touch you, yet again.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by energyman76b »

MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:I have given examples. You obviously don't follow your own advise.
But think for a moment about it. For some reason a player is bored out of his mind - because hauling cargo is boring and tidious. 5minutes of nothing for eacht trip and you need 40 trips to buy the ship that enables you to have some fun - the way you want.

Now you take the possibility away. Result: a player who does not waste his time anymore. His cheat would have enabled him to have fun. Now he can't have fun anymore.
This has nothing to do with 'not wanting to learn' and everything with 'making money is god damn slow and since there is no career mode killing people won't get you anything either'.
Just because you think hauling stuff is boring and tedious doesn't mean others think like that. This game IS about that if you didn't realize it, after all.
exactly - and because some people like it it is not taken away. but way taking cheating away? Some people like it.

So your argument here pretty much backfired and made all your arguments against cheating null and void.
MC707 wrote: I thought you played this game recently? There ARE missions which give you money for killing people.
yes, and the money hardly pays for the amunition. If your ship gets damaged you are SOL.

MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:wrong. He does not hurt himself. He makes it possible for himself to enjoy the game. And how does he hurt the project?
Hint: he doesn't.
Wrong. He will finish the game in a blink, how does that make it possible for himself to enjoy the game? He hurts the project. He feels the game has nothing else to offer and goes away. Another lost player.
have you ever played the game? You can not 'finish' it. There is no end. Another bogus arguement from you.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:I give you another hint. Look at my subscription date. I 'cheat' - because I have that god damn Serenity-Atlantis trip so many times that I start to scream in anger when I have to restart at 0 with the next big release.
Give you a hint: read my post, slowly and getting the info. "Anti cheat can be implemented when glitches/bugs are nearly completely gone". In the meantime, you can cheat your way from new version to new version. After all, this is not a finished game and is not expected to have the most recent version to be compatible with the one 4 years ago.
you don't even try to understand. I read your 'Arguments' and consider them bogus.

You think that because cheating takes away your fun that is true for everybody else:
HINT: it isn't.
Another HINT: cheating is one thing that keeps the game being interessting for some people.

So to push your POV down everybodies throat you are taking away fun for some people. Is that justified?

Answer that - is it justified to take away something you don't even have to care about that is the basis of fun for others?

If you really think that 'yes' is a valid answer you have a lot of problems.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:Some bugs can not be fixed - think about that. Like no save way going from 0.4 to 0.5 or svn. You have to restart. Another 'bug' is just time. If you have played the game as many times as I did, you just don't want to deal with a crappy lama or plowshare or even mule AGAIN. The first 20 times was really bad enough. I still report bugs if I hit them - which would be lost if I stop playing because the game bores me to hell.
Heh time a bug. Again, the 'game' is not a complete game. Does 0.5.0 give you an idea? What we are mostly doing currently is beta testing, if you didn't realize it. Alpha or beta status for releases that are not stable enough for general or practical deployment and are intended for testing or internal use only.
another bogus argument.

go here:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/
look at the right side, on the top:
Get Vega Strike
Latest Stable: 0.5.0
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:Another example:
I played all the ships a user can buy. Now I want to fly a Tesla! Or Kahan! It would bring back the fun - impossible without cheating. No fun, no reason to play. Player lost.
Why did you play with all the ships a user can buy? Because you cheated in the first place.
lol - no. I didn't.

I have started 'cheating' - I call it 'fun enhancement' after I played the game to death.
MC707 wrote: Oh lets fly a Tesla and pwn any enemy that faces us. It will become boring within minutes. After you have played with all NPS's, what do you have left? NOTHING. THATS the point you can't seem to get.
wrong again. Have you even played the game seriously? Not even flying a capship makes you invulnerable. Believe me.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:
MC707 wrote: Anti cheat can be implemented when glitches/bugs are nearly completely gone, but not when the game stops being 'too hard.' If you can't play because you can't memorize some key binds or because you wanted that 1'000'000 bounty but your ship could not blast an Agasicles even if you tried X times.
oh boy. You are seriously mixing up stuff. Bogus argument to the max.
Is that your argument against mine? You seriously have nothing else left to say.
.
you are masturbating about the 'player is not willing to learn how to play game, so he cheats' the whole thread.

THAT ARGUMENT IS BOUGS. People don't cheat because they don't know the keybindings. They cheat to have more fun. You don't even try to understand that. Instead you are posting CRAP like that above.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:oh, I read it. I know your kind of people very well 'cheating takes away my fun. So it must be bad. Everybody should follow my lead'.

You are the kind of person destroying others people fun. You are the kind of person thinking that his mindset is the only valid one.

You don't want cheats - fine, don't cheat. But don't force your will unto others.
Thank you.
You are embarrasing yourself. I never said cheating takes away MY fun. I never said everybody should follow my lead. Just because I can think and give arguments to defend my point of view doesn't mean I think only my mindset is valid. I do not destroy others' fun. Maybe I destroy YOUR fun, but not others'. Just because YOU think this game is boring to hell, while only by being indestructible in a fully stocked 1000G ship makes this game is fun, doesn't mean this game isn't fun and doesn't mean other people think this game is fun. If you want to finish VS in a day, do it. But many other people DO enjoy buying a new ship with money received with their own efforts.
wrong. The whole thread, you are arguing that cheating takes away fun and must be banned. You don't even know what you wrote yourself?

And where did I wrote about an 'indestructible' ship? A goddard is not 'indestructible' nor are a Kahan or Tesla. And if somebody really wants such a god-mode ship because that is the way he has fun - how DARE you to say that is wrong? Why do you want to take that away from him?

Nobody is forced to cheat. You don't want to, you don't do it. But don't argue that someones fun should be taken away just because you don't like it.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:your fun. Not mine. There are a lot of good reasons to cheat - and not one has anything to do with 'winning' and everything with 'how do I keep this game that I am playing for years now interessting'.
There are a lot of good reasons to cheat? What are they? Hmm I thought I had the bogus arguments. Backup your words if you have anything else to say.
I have listed them in my posting. You obviously did not read it. Do you even follow your own advice? Because it seriously doesn't look like you do.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:and here we are 'cheating makes it bad for me, so it is bad. I demand my will being imposed'.
Grow up. Please.
Powerful argument. Is that the best you have to say against my argument? Why do I even bother. -_-
.
well, it is YOUR argument. >ou do nothing but complaining that cheating takes away fun. Why? Because it takes away your fun? And you want it banned. But other people's fun is not impaired by cheating but increased. You are trying to force your little mindset down their throats.

Why do I even bother typing this? You haven't read my posting seriously and you obviously haven't thought about it for one second. Instead you are repeating the same bullshit on and on.
All you want to is everybody playing the way YOU WANT THEM TO DO. And that is WRONG.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:here you show that you don't even know the game you are talking about. Getting back a Goddard - for example - does not take some hours. It takes days of play time - that results in weeks lost. Worse - loose a turrent and you need a new ship.
Here you show you don't even know the game you are talking about. Getting back a Goddard takes seconds. Just load the last game. Lost the Goddard's turret? Load. Getting a new Goddard with cheats takes roughly minutes. Killing the fun like that takes hours. Nothing that makes you lose weeks.
and loosing everything you did in the last 4h. Yeah, great idea. Have you another stupid hint?
MC707 wrote: Oh and BTW, its 'lose', not 'loose'.
thank you so much. The next time you made a spelling mistake in German I will remember and correct you too.
MC707 wrote:
energyman76b wrote:And evewn if you have a super sweet Tesla - there are enough opportunities to get your ass handed. Believe me, I saw them.
Yes that's it. You get your ass whooped by a capship? No problem, just hack yourself a biggie capship and avenge yourself. Then no one can touch you, yet again.
[/quote]

Wrong again. You seriously have never played the game seriously. There is no capship needed to get your ass handed in a Tesla or Kahan. But hey, why stop talking about stuff you know nothing about? It might undermine your weak arguments even more.

Arguments? Why do I use plural? You only have one argument. And that is 'I don't want you to have fun your way. I want you to play the way I demand'.

That is your argument.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by MC707 »

energyman76b wrote:yes, and the money hardly pays for the amunition. If your ship gets damaged you are SOL.
WTF are you playing 0.2.0 or something like that? I quickly got to a point in which I got 100-200K per bounty, and even got offers for 1000K bounties!
I had energy weapons which didn't consume ammunition and had dumbfires which are a punch for the buck! I even got to repair my ship and don't sweat a buck WTF?
energyman76b wrote:have you ever played the game? You can not 'finish' it. There is no end. Another bogus arguement from you.
Yet another stupid comment. I know there is no 'end', but there is a point where you simply have nothing else to do, you have trillions, an unbeatable ship (YES there are unbeatable ships, you just have to be intelligent enough to manage to not get into a heavily populated enemy territory), and nothing else that can gain you money that compares to the money you currently have. At that point the game becomes boring and it 'ends'.
energyman76b wrote:you don't even try to understand. I read your 'Arguments' and consider them bogus.

You think that because cheating takes away your fun that is true for everybody else:
HINT: it isn't.
Another HINT: cheating is one thing that keeps the game being interessting for some people.

So to push your POV down everybodies throat you are taking away fun for some people. Is that justified?

Answer that - is it justified to take away something you don't even have to care about that is the basis of fun for others?

If you really think that 'yes' is a valid answer you have a lot of problems.
Bleeping Subjective. You think because cheating is fun for you that is true for everybody else? Don't talk for everybody else, that is subjective backup for your words.

Again, you said my 'arguments' are bogus. Then again, you did not read my posts. Securing the save game DOES NOT mean it cannot be hacked. It just takes that possibility away from non-technical users! To play the game 20 times you seem to have too much free time. Why not spend some minutes with a litte hex editor or whatever tool?
energyman76b wrote:another bogus argument.

go here:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/
look at the right side, on the top:
Get Vega Strike
Latest Stable: 0.5.0
Heh yet again. Because it is stable it DOES NOT mean it is a COMPLETED GAME. It still needs things to be added and bugs to be squashed. Bogus bogus

energyman76b wrote:lol - no. I didn't.

I have started 'cheating' - I call it 'fun enhancement' after I played the game to death.
Played the game to death? I think I heard it was Boring as Hell? How could you have played a game as boring as hell, to death? Bogus bogus

energyman76b wrote:wrong again. Have you even played the game seriously? Not even flying a capship makes you invulnerable. Believe me.
Have you played a recent version of the game seriously? I used a clydesdale which was weak as hell because I was confused and sold every upgrade except the strongest from each category. No one touched me the entire time I used it, I even destroyed an Agasicles and survived. I can't imagine doing it with another, bigger and stronger capship.

energyman76b wrote:you are masturbating about the 'player is not willing to learn how to play game, so he cheats' the whole thread.

THAT ARGUMENT IS BOUGS. People don't cheat because they don't know the keybindings. They cheat to have more fun. You don't even try to understand that. Instead you are posting CRAP like that above.
You are losing it. You might masturbate while looking online forums, but I do have a GF.

You do not seem to get things. The GAME should be fun, without cheats. If the game is not fun by itself THEN WE ARE NOT DOING A GOOD JOB. We are here to make the game more fun, every single user that contributes a little grain of sand helps doing so, but the only thing you do is complain and whine at what a 'bad game' this is, and how we need cheats to make it fun. Lets see, have you seen how many OLD games are still alive, with an active community that has played the games to death and still play it WITHOUT CHEATING? Let me give you an idea. Halo and its sequels, many quake engine using games, the Unreal series, many Unreal engine using games, hell I could go on forever.

energyman76b wrote:And where did I wrote about an 'indestructible' ship? A goddard is not 'indestructible' nor are a Kahan or Tesla. And if somebody really wants such a god-mode ship because that is the way he has fun - how DARE you to say that is wrong? Why do you want to take that away from him?

Nobody is forced to cheat. You don't want to, you don't do it. But don't argue that someones fun should be taken away just because you don't like it.
There ARE indestructible ships. I already said it, you just have to be sufficiently intelligent to not get into deep enemy territory where they have all the backup hell can give them. Having such a god mode will be fun for an hour or two but it will eventually end easily.
energyman76b wrote:well, it is YOUR argument. >ou do nothing but complaining that cheating takes away fun. Why? Because it takes away your fun? And you want it banned. But other people's fun is not impaired by cheating but increased. You are trying to force your little mindset down their throats.

Why do I even bother typing this? You haven't read my posting seriously and you obviously haven't thought about it for one second. Instead you are repeating the same bullshit on and on.
All you want to is everybody playing the way YOU WANT THEM TO DO. And that is WRONG.
You are not reading, I will not keep typing. It DOES NOT TAKE AWAY MY FUN. IT TAKES YOURS, YOURS, YOURS. You have a little closed mind which can only think one thing and not think about others damnit
energyman76b wrote:and loosing everything you did in the last 4h. Yeah, great idea. Have you another stupid hint?
Save EVERYTHING each FOUR HOURS? Great idea, any other stupid hint/trick?
energyman76b wrote:thank you so much. The next time you made a spelling mistake in German I will remember and correct you too.
English is my second language. Yet it is better than many native english speakers. This is not relevant though so never mind this.
energyman76b wrote:Wrong again. You seriously have never played the game seriously. There is no capship needed to get your ass handed in a Tesla or Kahan. But hey, why stop talking about stuff you know nothing about? It might undermine your weak arguments even more.

Arguments? Why do I use plural? You only have one argument. And that is 'I don't want you to have fun your way. I want you to play the way I demand'.

That is your argument.
YOU have only one argument. What is it? "I don't want you to take away cheating because you take MY fun away. I want you to play the way I demand.

I will repeat myself some posts away in this thread, since you didn't read them. If safemode will plan on balancing gameplay, then he should think on this because balancing gameplay will have no effect if cheating is so friggin EASY. Maybe on people who truly ignore cheating, fine. But cheaters will have it their way around safemode's balancing.

This discussion is going nowhere. Your little closed head cannot get any point and you want to command your will to ruin others' experience. You employ insults and offenses, showing how intelligent your 'arguments' are and how much you know about gaming, ethics, and debates.

I will no longer answer your posts, I don't have the time nor the patience for immature kids like you. I shall wait for safemode, ace123 and any other relevant admin/dev to make decitions, I have no authority here in the end. I have made my points, given out my ideas, and settled possible outcomes. If they accept doing this, then good for the project. If not, then so be it. I do not care, I seriously don't. I don't have time to prove every kid what I am saying, if the project doesn't use my advise then the project shall suffer from it. If the game ends up being 'funner' with cheating, then so be it. I do not get paid, not even get thanks for what I do (with the exception of some people), why should I waste my resources like this. All I do and every small thing I have contributed is because I love this project and all the effort and time that has been put without expecting anything in return. In the end, I will help with audio, some 3D video if I have time, help the MP area of the project, help the forums and people in any way I can and help maintaining the wiki.

Back to work. Good bye and good riddance.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by safemode »

In the end, i think this should be treated as if it were a programming api. There are intended api's and unintended ones. When people start using the unintended ones to do things that the intended ones do, perhaps because it's a bit easier at that moment, you begin building a dependency problem. Not only do you become dependent on doing things the wrong way, but now the developers of the api are in a bind because they may be improving the correct api, and want to alter the unintended one, but doing so would break all that work that people are doing on the unintended api. In the end, it's best to break the habit of using the unintended one, and to force users of the api to use the correct one. It's better for the users of the api, and it allows the developers to work within the bounds that they are setting without un-intended consequences.

Save games serve 1 purpose and 1 purpose only, to save the current state of the game to be re-loaded at a later date by the game. At no point is it intended for the user to be involved in editing the save game, or even being able to read it and make sense of it. At no point is the save game a means of debugging. While it may be easy to use it for such things, shortcuts cannot and should not be depended on existing - they're not an intended api in this case.

For everything that's been mentioned as being legitimate uses of the savegame for various things, we have python mission scripts and such that can be used to create the requested game state.

As for cheating, it's the cheater's priority to figure out how to cheat a system, it's not the developers priority to make cheating possible or stable. And while i dont think we ever intend on getting actively anti-cheating (a losing battle in the end), there is some degree where we should push the difficulty in cheating such that it's not brain dead easy in order to facilitate some of the more difficult aspects of the game.


And dont cry about savegames not being compatible between major version changes. This is a pre-1.0 project. Expect that to happen a lot. We dont pick version numbers out of a hat at random, it's less than 1.0 for a reason. We try to keep it to an absolute minimum, but it's inevitable.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by TBeholder »

Why ever bother?
First, even if someone will voluntarily spoil the fun for himself, well, whose problem it is?
Second, even if it's a goal in and of itself, there should be some way to edit savegames at will anyway, at least for debugging purpose. So you'll make it a bit obscure, then you'll make it even more obscure, then you'll write savegame editor (already feel like doing something pointless?). Then what? Going to put it on SVN? Or hoard it? :mrgreen: And let others write it off the VS source and possibly add extra bugs? Which in the end, by those knowing your attitude, will be submitted to you without a note that save was edited at some time before? :lol:
Looks like it's... errrr... definitely not the best your idea ever.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by parkel »

i think...
this has gone a little out-of-hand...

because of what i 1st replied to MC707? :o

but.. nvm about that already..

i have to add on to this.. or i wont feel good. not at all.

@energyman76b

1: there is this thing called a decoder, as well as an encoder. encode the file, ppl decode it. so u can still hack whenever u like.
2: as for savegames not being compatible, just HACK IT FOR NOW - hack it while you still can.
3: i dont think they are ever going to remove this thing called hacking in an open-source game?
4: u are taking things too seriously here. wads wrong with not being able to destroy some capship?
5: even if cargo trading takes long and u seriously get bored/sick of it already, no one's spoiling ur fun by hacking.
6: ur fun = ur OWN fun. not my fun or MC707's fun or even safemode's fun. NO. IT'S URS AND URS ALONE.
7: if u ship gets damaged, its not gameover yet. DON'T BITE MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW!
8: why not: go make ur own game, hack it as much as u want and come back here to tell/show off about it.
9: and about what i wrote and what u quote: what i meant - read the bloody 1st, 2nd and 3rd lines u idiot.
10: yep. i got bored of hacking up to 99,999,999 and i restarted (i keep pwning everyone. no point.)
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by energyman76b »

calling me an idiot?

nice way for a discussion.

MAy point still stands: cheating is not a problem. If it spoils your fun, don't do it. But don't take it away for people who see it as an important part of having fun - at all.

You demand to take away a feature - just because you don't like it instead of just ignoring it. Sounds pretty ignorant.

And you are calling others idiot?

Kettle, pot, black?
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by safemode »

Hacking the savegame is not a feature. It's not it's intended purpose either. You should not and cannot count on the format, layout, or readability of the file, it's not meant for you to do anything with. If you want to cheat, you will still be able to do so, it just wont be so stupid easy.

The point behind doing it is to make it less stupid easy, because while it's not ruining the game for other people, it's ruining the game for the person who goes that route and that hurts longterm playability with people in the project. We want people to play the game, become interested in it and maybe *shock* actually contribute in some way to the project. They're much less likely to do that if they aren't playing the game.

In the end this is a moot topic of discussion. This is not a "feature" nor is it in any way shape or form a file that the user should expect to be able to manipulate or read or understand. It can take any form we find convenient for the game to process and it should be expected to be incompatible between major versions as game states from one iteration of the program to a much changed one can lead to numerous logical bugs / inconsistancies and incompatibilities.

If you want to manipulate your game state to hack things, use the mission file system, that's what it's there for. Maybe if we had the cheaters going the correct way about hacking how the game works, we'd actually have campaigns and articulate missions by now, instead of a multitude of users who spend 5 minutes and stop at figuring out what line they have to change in the savegame to make playing the game utterly pointless in the first place.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by TBeholder »

safemode wrote:If you want to manipulate your game state to hack things, use the mission file system, that's what it's there for. Maybe if we had the cheaters going the correct way about hacking how the game works, we'd actually have campaigns and articulate missions by now, instead of a multitude of users who spend 5 minutes and stop at figuring out what line they have to change in the savegame to make playing the game utterly pointless in the first place.
Quite a good point. As long as mission state files and saved state files are edited the same way, it would ensure that:
1) no one will cry bug any more because of manually-broken data and
2) those interested will get some practice with mission-editor on the way.
So, once there's an editor, just gzip it all, why not - after all it will need less disk throughput... Otherwise, the whole "anti-cheating" mess seems to be pointless war on non-existent problem which can possibly create real problems and draw efforts away from existing ones. Come on, there's lots of things really necessary for the engine - like better handling of subunits, or unified transfer/repair control, or ship mission control (for shuttles and interceptors) - and all this would noticeably push VS toward 1.0 instead of just making point of it being 0.x still. :wink:
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by athomic1 »

Okay, I'm going to jump in on this one more time.

I already said once, please don't do this. Don't start encrypting save games just because some poor, misguided soul might screw around with his own files. I like having a little window on the internals. Sure, it's not the best one, certainly not The Right One, but it's a nice and easy one for a quick glance, and I'd rather not have it slammed in my face just because someone might "cheat" with it. That's their problem, not mine, and if I do decide to mess around with it, what business is it of yours? They're my saved games, my freakin' files! Let me read 'em, already!
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by safemode »

athomic1 wrote:Okay, I'm going to jump in on this one more time.

I already said once, please don't do this. Don't start encrypting save games just because some poor, misguided soul might screw around with his own files. I like having a little window on the internals. Sure, it's not the best one, certainly not The Right One, but it's a nice and easy one for a quick glance, and I'd rather not have it slammed in my face just because someone might "cheat" with it. That's their problem, not mine, and if I do decide to mess around with it, what business is it of yours? They're my saved games, my freakin' files! Let me read 'em, already!
Actually, it's the game's files. But nobody is stopping you from playing around with any part of the source or the files it generates. If you want to hack and use the game in ways not intended, then that's your prerogative. It's not our responsibility to make sure we dont step on anyone's toes who are using things they shouldn't be for reasons that aren't the intended ones for various files and or programming api's. So no, it's not their problem, and not ours, it's your problem if you want to play with the savegame file in a way other than how it's intended, which is to say, it's not intended to be edited by you at all.

We already discussed why it's a concern to us how the savegame files are being abused, on various levels. Read back in the thread if you're still clueless as to why this is even a topic. Or better yet, i'll just describe them in order of importance.

1. It circumvents the mission/campaign api that is sorely unused. We have a powerful and extendable python api for setting the game state and overriding functions in the game to give any number of behaviors or values for things. Any reason one would give to edit the savegame file can be more appropriately done here.

2. It reduces the number of users who play the game long term, as once cheating is accomplished as easily as if we had a trainer load up and ask them what they want to start the game with, any sense of balance in the game is lost. A game without limits and without a sense of balance is fun for about 10 minutes. We want people to actually experience the game, and by making cheating a little more cumbersome than simply opening notepad and changing a line of text, we'll remove the casual cheating hole many get stuck in and never get out of. It's not about eliminating cheating or making it very hard, it's just making it hard enough to make it too much to fall back on as a crutch whenever the game gets a little difficult.

3. It's existence encourages the use of savegames as an user api into altering the game state, which it's not supposed to be. Continual dependence on this could put the legitimate api's into jeopardy and cause a lot of confusion when people edit their savegames across versions and the expected outcome is not the same. The meaning of the savegame and it's values should not and can not be depended on being consistent across major versions, and crying that a savegame doesn't load across certain versions where large changes have occurred will go ignored. Think of it as a totally different game. I'm talking something like 0.4.x's save game not working in 0.5.x and such. When VS goes 0.6, you can expect that the savegames will again not work. It's our fault the game even loads savegames that are altered, or in other ways deemed incompatible with a given release based on changes in game data and/or variable names and values. Such error checking should be addressed.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by JsnMtth »

I've edited my savegame. It didn't suit my needs to I hacked the units.csv instead (I wanted to play with the cloak).

My gut reaction to the idea was NOOOO!!!! The more I think about it the more I think safemode is right. Just imagine playing Monopoly with no rules.

Being able to edit the savegame for development is important. Compressing is a GREAT idea. We could statically link to lzma, that would be easy for developers to handle, make save-game size MUCH smaller, and discourage would be cheaters.

There is the option of adding it to the pre-processor flags. This way it can be disabled a compile time. Then we release the binary builds with compression on. The players don't have cheaters "crack" at their fingertips, developers don't have to worry about it.

You can expect these kinds of features anyway, with the game utilizing multiplayer and massively multiplayer features, the entire API needs to be implemented in a way that make it anti-cheat. That includes the data-files. I wouldn't mind seeing digitally signed and online verified data-sets for MP.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by parkel »

IF: vegastrike goes 0.6

surely the savegame files will never be compatible.
therefore, ppl will have to start all over again.

but here's the catch: with hacking, you can "transfer" your funds, your ship and ur er.. assets over to the new one without actually restarting all over again.

and IF: you guys decide to encode the game, ppl will still put up tutorials on the forums one how to decode it. :D
(mind you, don't count me on this, it's only an IF)

but IF: vegastrike were to go multiplayer as an official mmorpg space simulation game,
THERE WILL BE A NEED TO ENCODE THE GAME FILES!

period.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by CLoneWolf »

For multiplayer, IMVVVVHO, server-side storage of player profiles would be better than keeping them locally encoded...
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by JsnMtth »

IF it goes 0.6?
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by javier »

It's a long time from my last post here. I seldom lurk in the forum because I lost interest in the game for a variety of reasons, mainly the lack of content, but this has to be the stupidest idea of all the stupidest ideas I have seen here. I can write a hundred reasons why, but one is enough. It's impossible. Anyone who have the slight idea about programming and thinks otherwise should be embarrassed. So any time put in this is wasted time.

All of you should know there are savegame editors for closed source games everywhere and somebody comes with the "cool" idea to prevent editing a open source one. And people thinks about it seriously? Really?
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by JsnMtth »

Well there are two very strong points of view here. We all know preventing cheating is impossible.

The idea is to make editing the savegame file MORE difficult, NOT impossible.

The method is by compressing it. NOT encrypting it. If you've looked at the save game file you'll see that its HUGE and would benefit from being compressed. Especially if a gamer may collect several hundred of them.

Having the save game file as editable as it is is great for developers of the saveing part of the engine. For end users its like adding a Money Tree to the Concourse. I doubt anyone thinks free money in a trading game is a good idea? It's like well ... I've watched the demo, now I'm done with the game.
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Re: plugging up free cheating.

Post by javier »

And how much difficult is to launch the ad-hoc editor that somebody will make than to open the file with a text editor. If something, it will be easier for the casual player. You will achieve nothing.

I stand by my position. The whole idea is retarded.

If you want to do something to maintain the interest to the game, spend your time adding content, because as it is, the game will bore you to death in a few weeks.
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