A neat anti-cheat

[dmn_clown]

I always play q3a under linux with pb, I've even got PB running on my own (linux) servers. Had some trouble in the beginning with that stupid update script, but it seems to work now.

I haven't used iD's binary (and pb) since ioq3 made the code 64-bit clean which means I can't use pb without a lot of reverse engineering that I really don't want to do.

so what's this all about?

Trying to prevent people with high end systems using the lowest possible settings to gain an advantage over people.  Capping the FPS in the client and/or adding a cvar check in the vms for the max_fps to prevent people from changing the client on their own will probably be the only "anti-cheat" implemented.

[ix-ir]

I would strongly encourage you NOT to do this. Setting max fps 125 is fine (125, not 120 although 120 rounds to 125 in any case) and has good reasons for the limit but graphical tweaks are a seperate area. The Quake 3 community, of which one would hope Open Arena would want to be a part, already has standards in this area, you're allowed to tweak visually. By setting your own standard you isolate yourselves and reduce the potential use of Open Arena. If you want to play with pretty settings that's your personal choice but expecting your needless decorations (the equivalent of expecting tennis players to put paper streamers on their racket) to be imposed on other players misses the point of the Quake games that are about competition and reaching your personal limit.

There is no skill involved in adapting to over-complex graphics (infact research on pattern recognition shows that people who learn in a simpler environment have better analysis in the complex environment than those who always practiced in the complex environment, the point being your skill level improves more because of the simpler environment, PM me if you want details), all you are doing is taking away skill from the player as well as increasing the practice time required to reach a particular skill level. No skill comes from the simplified graphics, it does not make you more coordinated or add some ability you never had which is how some like to portray it, it just means you don't have skill taken away from you by the medium.

There is also the issue of the pleasure in playing, if you want to play for a few hours higher detail settings cause far more eye strain and possibly head aches than lower detail ones.

The purpose of Quake is to provide a medium for competition with another person or persons, you should be competing against the opponent, not fighting the game just to achieve what you intend. The tweaks allowed in competition, such as those allowed by the CPMA mod, do not give you access to information you would not otherwise have had; they just present the information you're supposed to have more clearly.

For these reasons preventing graphical tweaking is a very negative thing for the game and it's especially silly to call it cheating since it does nothing outside the normal range of available information. If you want to play in pretty settings do so and if you wish only against other people who want to as well but do not try to make it a more general rule, you will damage OA in the long run.

[sago007]

It should be mentioned that it is not such a big problem in Open Arena.

Yes, you can see people more clearly but the advantage is limited.

There have been other games based on the Quake 3 engine that had bigger problems with picmip. In Return to Castle Wolfenstein you was able to look through some trees if you sat picmip low enough. Imagine that one player looking into a wood and only sees the tree-covered players in the wood and can easily kill them while they look around and see nothing but trees.

Therefore a low picmip was considered cheating in that game. Of course the developers should not have picmip to interfere with threes in the first place.

[ix-ir]

The mappers should have added nopicmip to the tree shaders. And yes, you're right that in that context that would be a cheat because it changes the available information although only due to mapper oversight.

[Fitacus]

But do we want punkbuster? I think not. Personally I consider it cheating to use a high-dpi mouse since I don't have one, how can I control that on server side? disallow1200dpi_mouse.zip, is that what I need?

Well u can't consider it to cheating when u use a optical mouse over 800 dpi bcuz it's an a peripheral equipment for ur comp. and not for OA. And btw. most ppl don't believe that it's a must have to have those xtreme dpi addicted mice @ 4000 DPI

There is also the issue of the pleasure in playing, if you want to play for a few hours higher detail settings cause far more eye strain and possibly head aches than lower detail ones.

Well I think u won't like to play with this lower detail configured Q3 for a long time

[w1zrd]

Well I think u won't like to play with this lower detail configured Q3 for a long time

Well, that ain't low detail, that is missing textures so there is a slight difference.
But again, the question is: where do we draw the line for what is considered cheating?
Or rather, who decides what is cheating, and what is not?
Some people change their com_maxfps, rate, snaps, cl_maxpackets, cg_fov, cg_drawTimer 1 e.t.c to improve gameplay and network rates, others are content with the default settings, be it modem or T3. Should we prevent any changes to any variable so we get one default standard and hence prevent 'cheating'? That way we would get rid of 'professional' players and all forms of 'cheating' for sure.

[pulchr]

since it's a competitive game and you can change so much of how the game appears these problems will always be there. i've never played quake 3 in any competitive style at all. however i did play in a clan when return to castle wolfenstein was popular. in that game i "had" to change a lot of the settings - my computer wasn't up for it on certain maps but most of all everyone else altered it so much that unless you lowered the settings you had no chance. you felt something was wrong when you could hit people in the head down at the beach from upper base on mp_beach with the mp40, a submachinegun. was that the intent of the mapdesigners? wouldn't think so...

later when the punkbuster was introduced the game became more fair but since every server could apply it's own forced settings you ended up with a bunch of different configurations for every possible server you regularly visited. and some of the settings really made the play different. apart from the visual things you had to change the com_maxfps on maps like mp_assault, or you couldn't jump up on the crates...

now when i play OA i have a computer that can handle the graphics rather well and i've capped the fps at 125, turned off the drawgun, bobroll, blood and gibs. this gives me a nice playing experience that i can have some serious fun with.

[ailmanki]

I just registered to post here.. hello

I am admin since 2 years in another game Enemy-Territory, we use punkbuster to limit tweaking possibilities, due to some things like seeing through trees, disabling fog and such things.
The rules there are made so, that everything which is a unfair advantage is dissalowed, now what is defined as a unfair advantage?
For example, when tweaking allows you to disable fog, or to see enemys through walls. Means that there is additional tactical game information compared to untweaked.

If for example in openarena, one makes textures blurry so that a wall has just a color at the end, and enemys are polygons with a color. You have still the same tactical information as one with all textures detailed. Allthough I believe it takes longer for the human brain to process.

For tweaking changing your movement, like com_maxfps, with its magial errors ...
this is a unfair advantage, but it is also related to hardware (at least in enemy-territory, your not able to get enough fps on a low end system).
On enemy-territory, it is possible todo the calculations server side, so that all have a jump with 125 fps or whatever you set it at, but this is not possible with vanilla enemy-territory.


Only limit things which give a tactical difference, com_maxfps I suppose is discutable.. for competitive fair gameplay it would need to be set to a specific value..

Beside their is to mention that a korean pro player, will surely not play quake3 with detailed graphics, he will only want to display tactical information, and not a nice ornament on the wall...

PS: some may know me, i play as peyote, and I manage that cpma server Bunker #5..
I am fairly new to openarena/quake3 ... still learning what is possible and what not.

[pulchr]

yes, well, the trouble is that you can't limit any settings since we can't use punkbuster with OA

[ailmanki]

afaik openarena should be same as vanilla quake3, if so - it needs something to replace punkbuster asap!