Widget signing gadget (request)

[JohannesH]

SA has a widget whitelist am i right?

[zwzsg]

So does Pure.

But neither use hashes and digital signatures.

[Argh]

I don't have a whitelist, exactly. It just prevents Widgets from being loaded outside the mod-space, VFS-wise, IIRC.

IOW, you can drop your custom Widgets into an install, just not in the LuaUI folder. I don't ban Widgets that I haven't decided are safe and don't ruin gameplay, I just make it so they'll desync if you use them online and the other players don't all have the same stuff.

I think that's the fair way to do things, frankly.

As a future solution... I think Spring or the Lobbies should check people's Widgets, and if player X has Widget Y, then player Z should get the option to download a copy of that Widget to their machine at game-start, so that everybody always has the same tools. Then, if people want to all use stuff that I personally don't care for... it's irrelevant to me, as a game designer, because they're all using a mutually agreed-upon set of software, and thus the advantages are always the same for all players. IOW, I don't care, if people want to play the game differently than it was designed to be played. I do care, if the advantages are asymmetric.

It's the inherent unfairness and secretive nature of custom Widgets that bothers me, mainly. If people want to all have Widgets that get rid of LOS, for example, I'd be fine with that, so long as all players have the same advantages. The situation where player A just has stock Spring and fairly weak Widgets, and player B is a vet who's using things like Defense Ranges (which gives a clear advantage, at least in P.U.R.E.) really bothers me as a game designer.

It's adding unfairness on top of experience, and it puts newbies who decide they want to stay in an immediate position where they must join an arms race to acquire the latest information-gathering toys. It's like CS, before VaLVe got a handle on cheaters, where some servers were chock-full of obvious aimbot players, all competing with one another to see who'd get banned last

In short... who wants to play a game where your opponent may have a lot more information than you do? Yet right now, nobody is sure what other people are using.

[imbaczek]

the point is, you can't do any of it in an open source environment, so we just don't bother.

[Argh]

We can't prevent people who have hacked their executables to avoid this kind of check-and-balance, no.

But for everybody else, it should be possible to allow for that behavior. There's no real evidence (that I am aware of atm) that anybody has been playing this game with a hacked executable, ever, so I feel it's a bit of a straw man.

[imbaczek]

that's because 1) the evidence is nearly impossible to collect and 2) you only need one person to spread the hacked exe around to make any cheat protection basically wasted effort.

[Argh]

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? If that particular Doom is unavoidable and probably inevitable, then there's no point in worrying about that.

If players felt that most of the time, they and their opponents probably have the same tools, the drive to acquire such a thing would go down, I would think. IOW, cut the psychological drive down, make it so that people feel like they're all playing the same game... and people's behaviors will be channeled in more productive ways, instead of defeating the problem at its source, which appears to be impossible until we have a new animation format.

[eyu100]

(edits underlined)

Even if a change doesn't get rid of all cheaters, if it gets rid of some it will increase the probability that any one cheater will get caught, since the number of cheaters will be lower. This will deter people and decrease the number of cheaters.

Anyway, since as far as any of us know nobody is cheating with a hacked executable even though it has been shown to be doable, we can predict few people would try to get a hacked executable if a widget signing gadget were implemented (and if only a few people hack their executable they individually face a much bigger risk of detection than if everyone hacks it, so it's not that bad).

[Forboding Angel]

A hacked Exe is the first thing I would be looking for.

The mod devs here (with the only exception being the CA guys) have a habit of being oblivious to some of the best widgets (EE Comes to mind - Not that fang is around anymore, jsut making an example) (Like custom formations... seriously, how the fuck do you play without that widget?). and as such want to ban anything they personally don't care for, which is pretty crap. Combine that with the fact that most mod devs don't 'listen' and you have a big problem.

I solved my widget woes by having lurker write me some code that simply loads my mod widgets first, then all user widgets (Did this because I needed some of the default widgets to be ON, that and user lua overriding mod lua is kinda strange).

[dizekat]

(edits underlined)

Even if a change doesn't get rid of all cheaters, if it gets rid of some it will increase the probability that any one cheater will get caught, since the number of cheaters will be lower. This will deter people and decrease the number of cheaters.

Anyway, since as far as any of us know nobody is cheating with a hacked executable even though it has been shown to be doable,

Nobody is cheating with widgets either. I'd even say, nobody's even bothering to circumvent any workarounds in those mods (which imo has something to do with popularity of those mods, or lack thereof).

However, at some times, like over 50% players were using patched unofficial executable by lurker, with backported fixes for some crashes.

we can predict few people would try to get a hacked executable if a widget signing gadget were implemented (and if only a few people hack their executable they individually face a much bigger risk of detection than if everyone hacks it, so it's not that bad).

In case I didn't make it abundantly clear yet. You're very sure that your mod will be far more popular than BA? If no, quit requesting bullshit. How comes neither BA nor CA has a problem with widgets, but you would immediately have? And don't give me bullshit that you can't cheat BA or CA with a widget. (though, i wouldn't want to play a game which is all about the kind of micro which can be practically and game-winningly automated anyway)

EE is good example. The Custom Formations is the very best thing Spring has. A real innovation in the world of RTS. Something that big time commercial guys will eventually clone.
What EE does, disables it. That's typical. All the otherwise cool looking mods that nobody plays - why nobody plays them, because developers are like this, NOT because of cheating or anything like that.

[smoth]

Just because a widget works for one project DOES NOT mean it works for another.

[smoth]

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? If that particular Doom is unavoidable and probably inevitable, then there's no point in worrying about that.

holy shit I think he gots it

[ginekolog]

I think whitelists are bad idea. I like to modify some widgets (like idle builders for example or unit marker) and that is good thing.

Widgets gives us flexibility NO OTHER RTS HAVE. Imagine playing BA without these widgets: metal maker ai, custom formations, idle builders... no thanx.

Potential cheaters are easily spoted and i have only spoted one in 4 years of game play (i think it was trademark as he had full los in FFA, pehaps with help of spec seating next to him (so no widget cheat))

So drop that silly idea.

[smoth]

Just because a widget works for one project DOES NOT mean it works for another.

gene, see the above sentence

[dizekat]

Just because a widget works for one project DOES NOT mean it works for another.

gene, see the above sentence

what if player won't enable a widget that doesn't work? (now that widgets are enabled per-mod...)

[smoth]

more often than not a player will enable a widget thinking it will work the same in X as it does in Y and it doesn't. They then will annoy the modder/content dev about the lack of support for said widget. While such requests are of course healthy we all have ample to do as it is and in the backlogs of our projects supporting stuff that isn't in the main design will end up next to forgotten.

So rather than have the whole head ache of it all, it is a good idea to restrict the game to only work with approved known compatible widgets. If such support existed for white lists then it would be EASY to add a mod option to allow for an unsafe mod in which all widgets are permitted. So when players want to develop new widgets or play with stuff that maybe isn't intended they could set unsafe mode on.

Most people when they are trying to promote a project run into a lot of issues from ignorant noobs who keep trying to use shit not intended for the project. It slows the game down, forces restarts, rage quits etc. This hurts the ability to promote projects.

We are all very technical people here and we have a propensity to want advanced controls. Such controls greatly increase our ability to poweruse the engine but may also bewilder the general public who we need to roll in here and play our games so we can assrape them.

Acessability is a big issue in spring and while personaly for gundam I could give two shits I can see why other content devs can benifit so I champion this idea. I do so know the pointlessness of it all, I just know others want it and I support them in that request.

[AF]

If a widget doesnt support xyz game it should fail gracefully. Widgets that can test if they work or certain preconditions are meetable should test for them.

When the widget fails or a known incompatible game is being played or necessary conditions aren't met, the widget should disable itself and fail gracefully.

Of course widgets crash, but this isnt about bugs in code, this is about sloppy coding and game environment checks

As such I blame the widget maker not the content developer

[momfreeek]

- optional widget whitelist in lobby as a modoption
- mod includes a default list.

Would that keep everyone happy?

Code: Select all

MD5          COMMENT
dh7s8aqh7    widgetname or whatever
fhd70Df7fd   hiswidget

Mod developers could restrict widgets, but the game host could override it... at least this lets people test out new widgets and play as they like. If you don't allow people any option to use their special widget then you're just asking someone to write a hacked exe.

Host could sneak their own special 'win' widget in the whitelist.. even disguised as some other widget, but at least its possible to check this and autohosts could easily be locked down.

[Caydr]

I have something to add, if I may... While we don't have Valve's sophisticated system, we do have similar tools. For instance, we can't charge people $50 to play and then threaten them that they won't be allowed to play any longer online if they're caught cheating.

But, we can ban accounts. And high-level accounts are not something that's easy to make. Even if you just idle in a game indefinitely, boosting your gametime and rank, I imagine it would be a bit of a pain in the butt.

We have replays - they are the tool which can be used to catch people abusing the game. We have the ability to ban accounts, which are a valuable possession since many games don't allow people below a certain rank.

We can make idling in a game a null factor by putting a limit on how much credit you can get for being in a game. For instance, if you're in a game longer than 2 hours, anything beyond that isn't credited to your rank.

So imagine you're an asshat that wants to get free full-map LoS. First you have to either hack the executable or find a hacked one. With the frequency of Spring's updates, this would be a minor PITA. Then you have to make an account and sit idle repeatedly so that you won't be excluded from games. Then you have to make sure you don't get caught, when there are tools available to monitor other players' performance after the game is complete. Then if you get caught, you have to make another new high-level account and possibly bypass an IP ban.

We can't make it impossible to cheat, but we can make it a pain in the ass occupying time that even some moron cheater can see would have been better spent learning to play the game at a high level without cheats.

What are the worst cheats someone can do? IMHO a really bad one would be infinite LoS. From what I've read, this is possible, but it's also extremely easy to detect - accurate weapons will never, ever miss due to radar inaccuracy. This is something that's easy to catch.

-----

Once again, there's no need for the "HAS TO BE PERFECT OR DON'T BOTHER!!!!" mentality. Anything can be hacked, all anyone can do is make it as difficult as possible with as little gain as possible with as much risk as possible.

[Kloot]

What are the worst cheats someone can do? IMHO a really bad one would be infinite LoS. From what I've read, this is possible, but it's also extremely easy to detect - weapons will never, ever miss due to radar inaccuracy. This is something that's easy to catch.

Everything after "this is possible" is false.