CPU Abuse for Cheating Purposes

1422 Views 9 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Cueshark, Aug 19, 2005

Cueshark

Discussion Starter · Aug 17, 2005 (Edited by Moderator)

Hi there,

I don't know if I'm posting this in the wrong place so forgive me if I am.

"Worms" is one of the most original and popular games in the world and there is a nice online community of players with all the usual clan type antics.

There is basically two types of player....the "roper" and the "artillery".

(there is a point to this)

Roping uses the ninja rope weapon and a player will use the left / right arrow keys to swing the rope, up and down to shorten and lengthen the rope and the space to release the worm from the rope and again to fire a new rope.....

In short, roping is easy to do but takes immense reflexes, timing and skill. Some people have been playing worms for over 5 years (sad gits) and still have not come close to mastering it. Rope races and other rope games dominate the online community.

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Xspeed Online edition is being used by an amount of people in the community to slow down their processor to allow for roping to become FAR FAR easier.

Slowing down the processor will obviously create lags on the other persons screen because of the time difference. If you slow down by 50% then you will have an extra 10 "real life" seconds for every 20 "game" seconds and so normally you'd see lags. Unfortunately people have found a way to eliminate lags by (I think) storing time by speeding up the processor during the beginning of the turn and then using this "buffered" time to slow down the processor and hiding the lags during the important roping bit....

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When someone is using Xspeed the odd lag will creep through even if they are trying their best to hide them but at the moment there is no way to detect the cheating because lags are not shown on the game replays and the software is clever.

Of course, lags can be attributed to other factors such as network traffic etc...even though a replay consists of a 20kb file spread over one minute or so of time (lol).

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Basically myself and a lot of people are absolutely sick of people cheating using this nasty program. The people who use it are interested in the quest for social attention and not personal gaming enlightenment.

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Apologies for the long post but is there any way you guys can make a program that I can run on my pc while playing worms to detect the use of Xspeed! online.

Is there any other way that you can detect it? What does it do, how does it work and is it impossible to detect like it is so arrogant claimed on the website.

I know you guys are pretty damn knowledgable on technical stuff so any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks,

Cueshark
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Cueshark

Discussion Starter · #2 · Aug 17, 2005

A few viewings....but no replies.

XSpeed adjusts the clockspeed and Worms transfers key presses over the internet...that is how the replay files are made I think.

I get it's unlikely though.

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ebackhus

· #3 · Aug 17, 2005

It's unlikely that you'll be able to since this program is run clientside only.

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Cueshark

Discussion Starter · #4 · Aug 18, 2005

ebackhus said:
It's unlikely that you'll be able to since this program is run clientside only.

K, that sucks.

Thanks though.

Cue.

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Volt-Schwibe

· #5 · Aug 18, 2005

yeah, the problem with this, is that you'd have to be running a tool on the server to see the packets sent by the other players to check for fraud like that.

some games have the ability to use punkbuster software to remotely analyze the packets of other players, and in a way defeat any cheats.

i'm fuzzy on how it works, but i am pretty sure unless the makers of your game server have included this option, you kind of have to just trust people not to cheat.

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Cueshark

Discussion Starter · #6 · Aug 18, 2005

Thanks Waltside,

So how would the packets of data be different, from someone using Xspeed?

And what would you need on the server...perhaps I can suggest it to someone as I know someone who knows someone at Team17.

Cue.

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Volt-Schwibe

· #7 · Aug 18, 2005

i think it mostly detects patterns in lag.

i know that in games based on the quake3 engine, people use lag the exact same way to slow you down and hit you with large guns.

the more i think about the game worms, the less i think this would work.

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Cueshark

Discussion Starter · #8 · Aug 18, 2005

I was hoping someone could disect Xspeed's code....and tell me how to detect it.

It sounds like we're flogging a dead horse if you ask me.

What the point in playing for the Worms league when it's corrupt. :<

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SENT[uk]

· #9 · Aug 18, 2005

I understand your frustration

al online games are plagued with cheats even punkbuster ones are not perfect that program works in BF2 tho it does very little and that has really updated PB security, it is impossible to detect.

if they made worms without the "zeroping" timings this would work as the server trusts the clients version of events when ther eare timing errors and blames them on lag etc.. what needs to be done is to have serverside timing so called "NON zeroping" so start a compaign on team17's webby for the next version of worms

and emphasize how nobody will buy worms if it is rife with cheating and how the program is costing them money. that is all that will motivate them

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Cueshark

Discussion Starter · #10 · Aug 19, 2005

Thanks a lot.

I'll see if my contact at Team 17 can sort that out

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