Novel way of cheating!

(BondyBoy007) #1

I was round my mates the other day and he has a network set-up in his house(5+ PCs).

When he plays online games (not specifically ET) he joins a server from his main PC and on a second PC which is right next to his main machine joins the server again. So he then uses the second PC to ‘spy’ on the opposition and find out what they are doing/where they are which of course gives him a huge advantage. :angry:

The simple solution to fix this would be to only allow one connection to the game server per IP, but this would obviously rule out legitimate play over a LAN. Prehaps a reduced inactivity kick count for all subsequent connections from a single IP could be setup to stop this abuse.

Has anyone else encountered/know of this type of muppet(lets hope he doesn’t read these forums) or does anyone have suggestions on how this situation could be stopped

(lets hope I haven’t put ideas into any lamers head - quite a bit of network config was required to get two machines working at the same time like this so prehaps that’ll scupper them)

(Fenris) #2

Lol, some players obviously have too much free time or take the game altogether too seriously :smiley:

One simple way would be to speclock the teams, but on a public server that wouldn’t be too practical I guess.

But do you really gain so much from it, since you have to divert attention away from your own gaming constantly I’d guess, for it to be of any use ?

(Wraith2k3) #3

I was playing with a guy doing exactly that a few weeks ago. He kept telling us that he had another comp with a guy on the other team so he could spy on them. He kept telling us what thier coverts etc, were doing.

Of course, being an idiot, he was obviously doing all of this through GLOBAL chat, so everyone could see, yet nobody said anything to him about it. When I confronted him and told him to stop cheating, he couldn’t understand what I was so concerned about. It was like it just didn’t occur to him that this is cheating. He kept telling me “I’m not cheating, cheating = using a hack program” and dumb crap like that. In the end he left.

(BondyBoy007) #4

Could have been the same guy, sounds like it’s something he’d do. He was so excited when telling me all about it - but I still manage to kick his arse whenever we meet (except if he’s got a panzer and fires it at me before he can even see me)

(=TAC=Chron) #5

some will try anything…

(WT) #6

Is he a spectator on the second PC or has he joined the other team ? If he is a spectator he can’t see enough of the map to really affect anything. Say he sets it on the spawn and then mortars that. Hell, anyone can do that anyhow by checking the spawn timer and mortating the spawn.

And if he has joined the other team, the server SHOULD have an activity timer set to no less than 2 minutes , at which point he would get disconnected on the second ‘spy’ PC.

Honestly, if he had any brains, he would plant dyno on the one team, then defuse it using the second PC as the second player.

DOUBLE XP POINTS !! He could major on BOTH teams, an accomplishment that would obviously place him in an elite group of ET players worldwide.

:smiley: :clap: :smiley:

(BondyBoy007) #7

He spectates and just clicks his mouse occasionally to change the person he is following/watching so can watch what ppl are doing on both sides anywhere in the map (eg. instead of going to the back door on battery to check for sneak ins he can just click a couple of times and see exactly where everybody on the other team is)

The two min inactivity does not really help as all he has to do is lean across and press a key every min and a half

(Fenris) #8

My guess is that he really needs to be spec, a) to spec-follow someone would the camera move around the map, b) a static view from spec wouldn’t give too much, except maybe in some chokepoint but then just go different ways, most maps have that and on most maps you can’t get high enough to get a good overview from the air anyway, and c) joining a team would require actually moving the player on both PC’s, I doubt that would work, and a sensible team would kickvote an idle player to leave room for others.
But yes, inactivity timer is a good thing :slight_smile:

(blushing_bride) #9

cool he can let himself in the backdoor that would be handy. Maybe you should go round his house and cut one of his arms off then he would stop doing it. I can lend you a large kitchen knife if you need it.

(=MLK=FOO) #10

me and my son play at the same time if they only allowed one IP that would blow!

(Vengeance) #11

I also play with my brother at the same time and I agree - that would blow!!!

(BondyBoy007) #12

Yep and I said as much in my post . . .

“but this would obviously rule out legitimate play over a LAN”

(BlackDeath) #13

Eh, who cares…

Just play with a group of peeps you know well, you get alot more challenging games and dont have to worry about anything dumb.

(Of course, your clan mates, clan friends, RL friends wont be on 24/7, so usually you dont have a choicce put to pub. So go to a reputable server with refs on.)

And yes, i knew someone could do that from the start, but its just lame and takes the fun outta the game.

No, you cant allow one player per ip, peeps play all the time together from matching ip.

(niko) #14

if he was really really smart, he would have a config on the other computer setup and running that would simulate usage of the mouse and then have everything taken care of.

like thats self automated rocketjumps in q3

(amazinglarry) #15

Well if you and your son were on a router, it wouldn’t be the same IP… myself and 2 of my brothers play all the time, however the router assigns a seperate IP to each computer… and it has to, thus the information being sent to the right computer.

So in that regard I’m almost positive you can’t play off the exact same IP.

(cynric) #16

Well if you and your son were on a router, it wouldn’t be the same IP… myself and 2 of my brothers play all the time, however the router assigns a seperate IP to each computer… and it has to, thus the information being sent to the right computer.

So in that regard I’m almost positive you can’t play off the exact same IP.[/quote]

thats only in your private network at home (behind a dsl/cable modem or something like that)

you usually get only 1 ip on dial-up, that is what nat/masquerading is for … so for the server you do have the same ip

(Ragnar_40k) #17

He could open teamdoors for himself, e.g. on Fueldump.

(BlackDeath) #18

And if he was REAL good, and could split his eyes so he could look in two different directions AND control the amount of stimuli entering his brain…

He could get to General with both players!! :banana:

(Ao1SYS) #19

I’ve also seen people use the extra PC/PC’s to create AFK players on the opposing team, thus helping his team to have more players, than the opposing team and also to find our spawn times.

Lamers have always been a part of gaming and IMHO, always will be. Getting to upset over it will only ruin your enjoyment. In my experience, people like this are so busy trying to exploit an advantage that they are distracted from actually playing well.

To each his own, I guess…

(sniser) #20

Actually I’m going to do something like that the next time a mate will bring his PC over to my place, when he’s not using it. The idea was born the last time we played on the net over my LAN: at one point he was mortar and I more or less dedicated field ops. When I got bored, I simply went prone, put a match between the keys and did stuff away from the computer :blah:

So, when you see “(sniser)” and “(slave)” on some of the next weekends - kick me or not, at least now you know what’s going on :smiley:

I’m curious wether other players will give me any shit about it… I don’t see any real problems provided you do it on a server with a.) enough players that mortars are needed and b.) enough free slots. And if you do it near the spawn the surplus ammo isn’t even wasted (it also means getting killed a lot though).