I can't believe people are willingly installing rootkits of dubious origin on their computers to play games (and paying for the privilege). I know cheating is an issue, but still.
It's getting more and more ridiculous like controlling what software your computer can have installed. Pretty sure some even require TPM and that you are booting into a "trusted environment". The only one who suffers is the genuine gamer as cheaters find their way around, either by directly reading and writing from/to the RAM chip directly or using another PC running machine vision and feeding inputs as a emulated USB hid devices.
I don't think cheating is something that can be solved by a technology in FPS games, you can do some server side checks but it gets really difficult unless you stream the whole game as a video feed from a remote server. Cheating is a social issue, and we had working solution for it.. dedicated community servers which were community moderated.
It's ridiculous that gamers are willing to accept installing a rootkit in order to play a game. And it's ridiculous that they even defend the practice by crying about cheaters. And it's ridiculous that game developers reach for rootkits instead of securing their own games better against cheating and/or designing their games in such a way that computer-assistance gives no benefit. It's just ridiculous all the way down.
Highly unpopular opinion: cheating is a social issue and the only future-proof long-term solution is… acceptance and adaptation.
Technology is here to stay. A machine will always outperform unaided humans at some tasks. Don’t make that the point of the competition. The genie is out of the bottle, and save for an apocalyptic event, it won’t ever go back.
Do the contrary. Give every player a state-of-art machine copilot, and let them bring their own improvements to it. This is the only way to make the field truly level again. If your game mechanics is ruined… I’m sorry, but then that - probably - wasn’t a sustainable idea.
People who are called “cheaters” are different. Some exploit bugs and just want to watch the world burn - no sympathy for those folks, fuck them. Some want to trample on everyone without doing anything - no competition here, I don’t get those people (can’t say “fuck them” though - maybe it’s some kind of a trauma they have, so they need that feeling of fake “victory”?). But some want to win, but feel that cannot do so with their bare hands and eyes. So they do what humanity always did - improve by using technology. If they genuinely want to become better - how about we just don’t hate them for this? Heck, the desire to improve through tech is the very foundation of this civilization. (Yes, even if one just buys a cheat program - it still makes sense in any society that had invented money.)
Just rank such players accordingly to their machine-assisted skill. Here, problem solved, and as a bonus you’ll get your next OpenAI Five paper in no time.
I know it’s very controversial. I know some game genres won’t survive (not complex games like LoL or Dota, though). Most likely a lot of MMOs (and most mobile casino junk) will suffer, as a lot of their mechanics is based on boring grind (that’s how they earn money, hah). I know the industry is doing the exact opposite, trying to shove the issue under the rug with bans and memeing super hard that “cheaters” (a derogatory term) are vile scum. And I can see why people are buying it - if the developers say it’s against the rules, no surprise a slightest trace of automation (like a programmable mouse) feels unfair. Reading some Reddit threads I sometimes wonder how those people don’t say that wearing glasses is cheating too. I see that as a conservative approach, and - as anything that merely tries to uphold the status quo - I honestly believe it’s not gonna work in the long term.
No trolling, I honestly believe in what I wrote. And, no, I don’t “cheat” (although I’ve experimented with some basic game hacking, of course - because reverse engineering is fun)
And, uh, yes, I think the same should apply to non-e-sports. The logic is a bit different, of course. But the value of medical breakthroughs drastically overweights the fictional “purity” in my perception of values. I don’t really care if some athlete can do something (doubly so because I don’t have a nationality I can root for; personal achievements are cool but there’s zero benefit for me or society besides the economic value of the competition event), but if some athlete can do twice as much because of some tech (drug or implant), that may be beneficial for me as well. And yes, I’ve seen that standup/meme about dope Olympics - it’s fun but it doesn’t really invalidate my views.
I wouldn't say these anti-cheat tools that come with Valorant or LoL are from dubious origins. eSports has grown, real money is on the table and cheating is rampant in many games and it's not always obvious cheating, it's often slight improvements.
People complain, but there are a ton of games that use a kernel based anti cheat system that people haven't been flapping their arms around. Valve anti-cheat, EasyCheat etc.
It's not really clear it has, or is. [0] People, at least in the West, don't seem to think watching video games be played is equivalent to watching sport, which is honestly the least surprising thing ever to me, but I guess I'm not a bombastic YouTube 'content creator'.
I think the main problem has nothing to do with eSports, it's simply that average people don't enjoy games that are rigged against them. Ergo, a profit incentive arises to prevent cheating in multiplayer games. And since a separate profit incentive dictates that all games must be online these days, we end up in a situation where I can't play a single-player game of Madden on Linux because it explicitly blocks Wine, [1] presumably to protect the fairness of multiplayer. (Or more cynically, the integrity of the Madden MUT loot pack casino. Profit motives everywhere!)
>I wouldn't say these anti-cheat tools that come with Valorant or LoL are from dubious origins.
You are talking about Vanguard, developed by Riot which is owned by Tencent which is a Chinese company? China has demonstrated enough grip on companies over the years that anything China can directly influence is dubious. China can decide to do something with the installations and has the power to do it in secret. It is significantly harder in western democracies. The relationship between the state and the private enterprises is entirely different.
Valve's VAC is not in the same league with Vanguard from a technical point of view (it is not even kernel based if I'm not mistaken). I would not let that slide either if it was though.
As someone who plays a competitive FPS game 5-6 nights - I’m all for anti-cheat that actually works. Online games are plagued with cheaters and it really ruins the experience. If rootkit-style anticheat helps the situation at all I’m personally willing to make that trade off.
That's what the cheaters are doing. It's a cat and mouse game and it's hard to detect cheats that are running in kernel space when your anti-cheat is running in user space.
Given that the average computer has hundreds of pieces of software of 'dubious origin' installed on it, in everywhere from the OS to the driver to the application layer, I can't believe you are seriously baffled that most people don't think twice about adding another one... That's sourced from a reputable vendor.
Reputable, in the sense that you're already willing to install and execute a closed-source binary blob (the game itself) on your PC.
Cloudef|1 year ago
I don't think cheating is something that can be solved by a technology in FPS games, you can do some server side checks but it gets really difficult unless you stream the whole game as a video feed from a remote server. Cheating is a social issue, and we had working solution for it.. dedicated community servers which were community moderated.
ryandrake|1 year ago
booi|1 year ago
That’s hardcore. Sad they couldn’t put that talent to something like self driving…
drdaeman|1 year ago
This is very true.
Highly unpopular opinion: cheating is a social issue and the only future-proof long-term solution is… acceptance and adaptation.
Technology is here to stay. A machine will always outperform unaided humans at some tasks. Don’t make that the point of the competition. The genie is out of the bottle, and save for an apocalyptic event, it won’t ever go back.
Do the contrary. Give every player a state-of-art machine copilot, and let them bring their own improvements to it. This is the only way to make the field truly level again. If your game mechanics is ruined… I’m sorry, but then that - probably - wasn’t a sustainable idea.
People who are called “cheaters” are different. Some exploit bugs and just want to watch the world burn - no sympathy for those folks, fuck them. Some want to trample on everyone without doing anything - no competition here, I don’t get those people (can’t say “fuck them” though - maybe it’s some kind of a trauma they have, so they need that feeling of fake “victory”?). But some want to win, but feel that cannot do so with their bare hands and eyes. So they do what humanity always did - improve by using technology. If they genuinely want to become better - how about we just don’t hate them for this? Heck, the desire to improve through tech is the very foundation of this civilization. (Yes, even if one just buys a cheat program - it still makes sense in any society that had invented money.)
Just rank such players accordingly to their machine-assisted skill. Here, problem solved, and as a bonus you’ll get your next OpenAI Five paper in no time.
I know it’s very controversial. I know some game genres won’t survive (not complex games like LoL or Dota, though). Most likely a lot of MMOs (and most mobile casino junk) will suffer, as a lot of their mechanics is based on boring grind (that’s how they earn money, hah). I know the industry is doing the exact opposite, trying to shove the issue under the rug with bans and memeing super hard that “cheaters” (a derogatory term) are vile scum. And I can see why people are buying it - if the developers say it’s against the rules, no surprise a slightest trace of automation (like a programmable mouse) feels unfair. Reading some Reddit threads I sometimes wonder how those people don’t say that wearing glasses is cheating too. I see that as a conservative approach, and - as anything that merely tries to uphold the status quo - I honestly believe it’s not gonna work in the long term.
No trolling, I honestly believe in what I wrote. And, no, I don’t “cheat” (although I’ve experimented with some basic game hacking, of course - because reverse engineering is fun)
And, uh, yes, I think the same should apply to non-e-sports. The logic is a bit different, of course. But the value of medical breakthroughs drastically overweights the fictional “purity” in my perception of values. I don’t really care if some athlete can do something (doubly so because I don’t have a nationality I can root for; personal achievements are cool but there’s zero benefit for me or society besides the economic value of the competition event), but if some athlete can do twice as much because of some tech (drug or implant), that may be beneficial for me as well. And yes, I’ve seen that standup/meme about dope Olympics - it’s fun but it doesn’t really invalidate my views.
NoPicklez|1 year ago
People complain, but there are a ton of games that use a kernel based anti cheat system that people haven't been flapping their arms around. Valve anti-cheat, EasyCheat etc.
Edit: Valve isn't kernel based, my mistake
troad|1 year ago
It's not really clear it has, or is. [0] People, at least in the West, don't seem to think watching video games be played is equivalent to watching sport, which is honestly the least surprising thing ever to me, but I guess I'm not a bombastic YouTube 'content creator'.
I think the main problem has nothing to do with eSports, it's simply that average people don't enjoy games that are rigged against them. Ergo, a profit incentive arises to prevent cheating in multiplayer games. And since a separate profit incentive dictates that all games must be online these days, we end up in a situation where I can't play a single-player game of Madden on Linux because it explicitly blocks Wine, [1] presumably to protect the fairness of multiplayer. (Or more cynically, the integrity of the Madden MUT loot pack casino. Profit motives everywhere!)
[0] https://www.pcgamer.com/the-streamer-who-spent-dollar1m-on-a...
[1] https://www.protondb.com/app/2140330
esdf|1 year ago
devrand|1 year ago
dkarras|1 year ago
You are talking about Vanguard, developed by Riot which is owned by Tencent which is a Chinese company? China has demonstrated enough grip on companies over the years that anything China can directly influence is dubious. China can decide to do something with the installations and has the power to do it in secret. It is significantly harder in western democracies. The relationship between the state and the private enterprises is entirely different.
Valve's VAC is not in the same league with Vanguard from a technical point of view (it is not even kernel based if I'm not mistaken). I would not let that slide either if it was though.
justin66|1 year ago
throwaway48476|1 year ago
somehnguy|1 year ago
lispisok|1 year ago
vkou|1 year ago
Reputable, in the sense that you're already willing to install and execute a closed-source binary blob (the game itself) on your PC.