The Essense of "Speed Hacking"
 

Today a silly thing happened, but this one was kind of funny to me because it was an exact moment on what happened on Delteria sometime ago (this thread is not to cause trouble, it has a point to it).

My brother today decided to sign on graal for the first time in a long time. He doesn't get the chance to play much anymore. Some of you might know him, he went by Roman he was here before most of you so majority here probably wont remember him. He signed on N-Pulse today and started to spar and was jailed on the excuse of "Speed Hacking." Now actually witnessing things like this, I got up and was curious on how this issue was approached by the staff.

Now back in the day when graal was not pay I probably wouldn't care at all but a player is now a customer and should be treated in a professional way. When I asked why he was jailed it was because of "speed hacking" (obviously). I asked how this was determined, maybe they had a possible NPC that actually checks the players speed and isnt based off lag perception. He told me that 2 admins and 3 players saw this mysterious hacker going at abnormal speeds which obviously was under the definition of "speed hacking."

The definition which was supplied...

speed hacking would be to use a program to benifit the speed in which your character moves to benifit yourself in game


Seems pretty simplistic and general, but the definition can be determined in so many ways. These days it isn't a simply "YOUR GOING WAY TO FAST" like it used to be. Now we have players changing udp settings and changing overall program priority to above a normal setting *EDIT* (SINCE PEOPLE HAVE FAILED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS, THIS IS A WINDOWS SETTING NOT A INTERNET PROGRAM FOR SPEED HACKING, THANK YOU.) , all of this can change how a player looks to move for us, but is not HACKING at all. Or in that definition you can easily go download something to cause a delay to have an advantage in a spar, that is also not necessarily speed hacking (though cheating and should be punishable if it's used for gaining an unfair advantage).

Some of the actions mentioned above (using certain things to an advantage in spars) are illegal and is punishable, that is not the case here though.

In the end result after arguing for more than 30 minutes on the unjust decision, we came to an agreement and an EYE is not a correct way to determine if someone is speed hacking these days and he was released. Then put back into jail by another staff member, I was told to shut up and that I was just simply "STICKING" up for my brother. How in gods name is anyone suppose to get any consideration about this kind of thing if they are ignored. Think of the amount of people getting jailed for no reason. And they are continuing to harass him and tell him that there is nothing he can do because they are superior being staff.

What I'm getting at is an idea that can be used for all the playerworlds that can bring a more precise and correct decision when jailing a customer for a valid reason.

Maybe the GST should make a general line up of hacking tools that are placed on each playerworld that can give correct results and without question if someone breeches a certain setting they are jailed, and the proof actually exists and is correct.

This is needed because I've seen the issue before on another playerworld, I've seen players quit because of the issue, which is just losing more customers. There needs to be some kind of general global hacking npcs provided with the playerworlds for security and for fairness on the customers side.

Please post your ideas.

(Darlene I have PMed you over the issue with you being the manager)

You don't think using a program to make yourself lag on other player's screens is a form of cheating? Okay I stopped caring about your dilemma right there.

Uh... that would be gaining an advantage not through your sparring skills nor Graal's internal game mechanics, but, instead, a program. Doesn't sound so fair, does it? YES,IREALIZETHATTHISTHREADISABOUTSPEEDHACKING,NOTC HEATING,BUTTHOSEAREBOTHLIKELYBANNABLECIRCUMSTANCES .

On everything else:
"Yes, I agree" (remember that, James?)

Meh you have my blessing.

You're still crying over this!? Dude, he was going a good 2 tiles faster than anyone else. You couldn't keep up with him in spar , he was always on top of your ass. It was funny he'd get done sparring and players would go "wow hes fast" LOL It was so obvious

You don't punish someone simply because they appear to be moving slightly faster. You need proof. As in, monitor the speed through a script if possible.

Now if it's obvious they are using some program, by all means punish. It's just not good to automatically jail/ban/disconnect someone if they move differently. It could simply be their computer/connection/your computer/connection having problems.

It was obvious he was using a program. Anyways, I'm done talking here so have fun! :cool:

Your attitude is, quite honestly, a terrible attitude. I know if I were still PWA I would come and check you out. You won't listen to reason or say anything more than "OH IT WAS OBVIOUS!". Well, if you played Doom 3 on a 56k modem with a barebone system, you could call the other players "hackers" since they would own you majorly and would warp around. Heck, even if you had broadband and a good system, that can still happen depending on network and resource conditions.

Fact: You can't ban paying customers for "perceptions". You need 100% proof. You need a script or something to verify it, not just visual acknowledgement and witnesses who could simply have something against the individual.

Something should be built into the Graal engine which checks for this, in my opinion. There are people who are erroneously banned for speed hacking and that is one thing that makes this game look unprofessional. A GST-made, server-wide script would be appropriate in the mean time.

LoL. To bad I didn't ban him nor did I jail him. XD owned sucka

I thought you weren't going to post anymore? XD owned sucka

GFX cards can cause frame skipping, which makes it appear that the person is speed hacking. Happens every now and then.

Well, then I'd just go onto whatever server you were on and disconnect you. Repeatedly. Just for saying "owned sucka".

It's N-Pulse. Many people lagg like hell on there, mainly in the NP Spar.

I'm very very surprised they actually did things about this >_<

I had to :[

owned sucka

He wasn't lagging.

I'm accused of 'speedhacking' every day. At times I lag, at times I don't, but I never have any programs running other than Graal when I play, fullscreen, except the system services. I have 56k, and honestly, if I could go without lag, I would, because I spar much better that way.

I think we've established that some members of the N-Pulse staff are idiots. Unjail/unban James' brother for that reason! :frown:

I remember on Classic people would be jailed for speed hacking all the time because someone didn't like them, and it was an easy excuse. :)

Still happens.

It's actually pretty easy to tell if someone is modifiying their speed with a program, if you yourself are used to seeing people normally move.

Graal does have a set run speed.

What causes people to appear to move faster is either lagbursts, CPU speed (only effects it if their CPU is slow, probably only noticable under 800 mhz),or the style they move in.

If two people with similar computers, one with DSL and one with a good 56k connection (not lagbursting) run in a straight line frrom point A---->B, they should arrive at the same time.

However, I believe on graal, running in a diagonal covers a greater amount of total distance than running in a straight line.

So if player X runs in a straight line for X seconds, they travel less total pixels across the screen than if they ran in a diagonal line for the same amount of time. This would cause a player who moves on diagonals a lot to appear much faster.


But, no player should be able to literally run another down in a spar if his opponent is moving at a normal speed.

lag looks different from speed hacking.
lag a person suddenly 'warps' speed hacking a person walked very quickly to a possition. sorry, but if more than one admin saw it happen, and they agree it was speed hacking they could jail him. and some players have faster connections, or faster cpus, which would make them look slightly faster. they should only be jailed if they opposed an threat to the players, or were ignoring the rules. however in this case, if your acussed of speed hacking, make sure you weren't hacking before complaining on the forums :\

I had no part in his banning, just stating what I saw, and that he was moving at an extremely fast pace, that it wasn't "normal" Taking in that maybe it was "lag" but he wasnt showing any signs of lag. Any player he sparred couldn't get away from him cause he was right on top of them, sparring him yourself, its much easier to tell.

Let's put it this way, to me it looked like he had staff boots or something.

Its pretty easy to tell if someone is using a speed hack (trainer) or not.

Yes it is obvious when someone is moving at a abnormal speed, meaning super fast. My brother was moving just as fast as me and everyone else, we even tried to show them but we were told to shut it. This kind of stuff needs to stop :redface:

Well said my friend, that is exactly what I'm talking about.

No, like I said, he was moving like he had staff boots on. Who told you to shut it?

I love small children.

Down MJ!

Intentional Speed Altering = bad ;o
Unintentional Speed Altering or LAG = not their fault.

Please, do what James suggested about Global tools... I know SL scripted some hack detecting tools, as did Era but I think a global set would be far superior.

And when you entered new levels, the script would mess up a little and make your recorded speed ridiculous (because x/y values abruptly change, from 61 to 0 when entering new levels on the overworld for instance)

Yeah, if the NPC was scripted awfully.

False. :cool:

Haha, yeah, I'm pretty sure it can and has been done without failure... I remember testing speedhacks on Era with Velox aka Rance and his showed up on RC quick smart.

omgz