THE 227 question...

[Smirftsch]

especially things like advanced banning and different kind of filechecking mechanisms are possible when both client and server are 227. By checking the files for differences to the original files a lot of cheats and bots can be directly barred from unreal. Thats the most important reason why to make a break here. These things must be implemented for both client and server.

[Bane]

I'm curious. Just how good of security could you add with 227? I assume you'd be able to definitely block the more popular bots, i.e. hunterbot and docbot, but what about DLL bots? Could you also stop all/almost all of those? How hard would it be to crack the cheat protection (theoretically)?

[Kajgue]

This is only what I think, but I think 100% compatibility with absolutely everybody should be compulsary. I am unable to play with perhaps less than half of Unreal's community because of this problem, and some of my team members use UGold. This may not initially be a problem, but it means we cannot run through maps or anything else, analyse and discuss them, which is absolutely vital if you want to produce something with anything above medium quality.

[Smirftsch]

well thing is, that after this one, the different Unreal versions Unreal and UnrealGold will be compatible against each other. We will get rid of the incompatibility Legend created - and this is something i'd really say is compulsory.

[UnLeaded]

Well 227 will:

-Be Able to play ALL Unreal 1 maps (no conversions necessary)
-Be "seen" by ALL the older versions with a direct for the patch
-Be almost entirely secure (we might have to say goodbye to Wolf & Co! )
-Have ALL rendering options "built in" (except for "PowerVR" I suppose ) and new sound options
-Fix all the bugs found in the older versions
-Fix the very LARGE v225 D3D rendering "omission"

What changes to the editor will be made?
Help built in for new players?

ASSUMING the editor won't be annihilated in any way "AND" with the guarantee that every version from 224-on will be able to "see" the 227 servers, BREAKING compatibility really IS the answer.  

I'm assuming the Scoreboard fixes will be put into place? Here raises the question- what about Scoreboard layout, stats, etc, who will be deciding this?  For example- personally I would like to see Wolf's design "frags, deaths, ID, FPH, etc" and add the Time and Date (because this is a useful add-in to me).

The assumption I'm making is that v227 will be basically GOLD+ "level" + all bug fixes + all U1 protection add-ons (please don't give admins abusive powers like UProtect or file comparing... this will "definitely" discourage new players, I get kicked frequently skins often it doesn't like) and Wolf's 10B doesn't work unless you turn off your AV...  :-?  To me these are bugs...  Let's not inherit these bugs in 227...  I genuinely appreciate the protection offered from these, but they're not perfect, and if we can as a community I think we should try to make the installation and usuability of Unreal 1 near "seamless" for new entrants to Unreal 1.  For example, having a player dumbfounded for why he gets kicked off a server for no apparent reason, only to find out weeks later that he needs to turn off his AV to play on the server, is the farthest from "seamless".  If I were new I would be heading for another game by the second day honestly.  Since we have the opportunity to make the best Unreal 1 game, let's consider everything.

Smirftsh knows all the add-ons that are out there and their benefits and bugs, so with this I'm assuming just the good points will be adopted in.  The servers will be seen, all maps will be playable, I am FOR breaking compatibility (assuming that we'll still be able to use the editor fine).  

No one has thought of this option, but it's an easy one...  If 227 servers break compatibility and a new 226 server pops up, anyone can go into these new servers themselves and simply let the new players know, this is as easy as a phone call... As a community we are pulling together, I can see this happening.

[Zombie]

I'm assuming the Scoreboard fixes will be put into place? Here raises the question- what about Scoreboard layout, stats, etc, who will be deciding this?  For example- personally I would like to see Wolf's design "frags, deaths, ID, FPH, etc" and add the Time and Date (because this is a useful add-in to me).

The assumption I'm making is that v227 will be basically GOLD+ "level" + all bug fixes + all U1 protection add-ons (please don't give admins abusive powers like UProtect or file comparing... this will "definitely" discourage new players, I get kicked frequently skins often it doesn't like) and Wolf's 10B doesn't work unless you turn off your AV...  :-?

No decisions about the scoreboard need to be made to my knowledge, and I think altering it should be the job of mods. If some of the "features" were to be included it should be optional. The main things needing to be addressed are any scoreboard bugs which crash, break functionality, or produce scriptwarnings. Same goes for the HUD about all of that too.

Now any good anti-cheat security will need to work similar to UProtect. There is no way getting around that type of package, process, and file checking AFAIK without the possibility of cheats getting passed. If any such anti-cheat implementation is done in 227+ then game servers should contact a master verification database on a central trusted server. In this way game servers can always be up to date on trusted files and packages so that players aren't kicked. That definitely helps reduce a lot of the latent actions of administrators thar do not copy the latest file checksums.


-Zombie

[OlgaB]

Will it ever be possible to play online using S3TC textures in some sort of patch?

Also, I think the biggest reason nobody uses 451 is that it breaks UnrealEd.

[UnLeaded]

Well the "original" scoreboard is screwed up, I can't see why a basic fix shouldn't be implemented, perhaps Wolf's fix (without all the other adds he put in), because if you're going to fix it, why not fix the whole thing?

[UnLeaded]

Well UProtect never fails to kick me because of "skins".  Now I honestly haven't done research on it, but it seems to me not much cheat code can be put in textures...  If I'm lost on this please educate me...  :-?

My view is this, all the coders in Unreal 1 are supreme, but I think some of the features unnecessarily added in really deter new players, features that kick them, prevent them from playing, erase their cache... etc... We need protection yes, but new players shouldn't have to be expert coders to be able to know what's going on (why they're being kicked, why they have to turn off their AV..., etc).

I was going to quit quite honestly after no explanation could be found for the AV bug in 10B..., and I've been in the game over 8 years, it is just that frustrating, I mean you're just "NOT" playing unless you turn off your AV... a new player would try maybe 3 times, then go to another game.

Another time while on an INF server the admin thought he was being "cool" by freezing my screen for no reason, erasing my cache, and whatever else he was actually doing...  So I would prefer that no admin be given all the "cool" punishments... because they're not so cool when you get a bad admin...

People swear by UProtect, it has to work great, but I'm getting kicked for "bad" skins? (realCTF skins as well...)  If someone tells me there exists skins with cheat code maybe i'll change my point of view on this, otherwise I think that perhaps it needs to be toned down a bit, because I'm telling you... MOST new players "aren't" coders and they won't be either sympathetic or understanding on being kicked, played with, or not able to connect at all...

Frankly I would like to see UProtect send them to a web page "thoroughly" explaining why they were kicked etc... because it unnerving for any new player I'm sure.

What I'm saying is that consider a new player that has never coded or mapped, etc.  He comes on an online game, it kicks him, or it won't let him connect.  Before we all got sucked in, how many people really want to fight through these things for a video game?  I just think we should make any new entry as painless as possible.

[UnLeaded]

Let me add this 2 cents as well...

I "truly" hate the million workarounds with having to have 225 in as your server, not being able to map in 226, and not being able to map in 225 as well without being aggravated because the D3D is F***ed and you can see what the true result is.  Most NORMAL new players will be VERY turned off by being required to have 3 separate installations for playing, serving, and mapping... They will say "what kind of s*it is this???"  Which is exactly what I said and this is why people went on to UT, even if they loved Unreal 1.  We need to BREAK the compatibility and make the Unreal 1 experience easier, more fun, and more secure as well. My bet is that if we can accomplish this we may even be able to lure people back from the UTs as well...

[Bane]

I'm assuming the Scoreboard fixes will be put into place? Here raises the question- what about Scoreboard layout, stats, etc, who will be deciding this?  For example- personally I would like to see Wolf's design "frags, deaths, ID, FPH, etc" and add the Time and Date (because this is a useful add-in to me).

I certainly hope that no major changes will be made to the default HUD/Scoreboard. Stuff like that should be left SOLELY to mods. I would, however, absolutely LOVE to see all those blasted accessed nones fixed. I tend to get a lot while joining a server, I think because my PRI, weapon, etc don't properly exist (or something)
(Speaking of accessed nones, if you guys do break compatibility, will you be trying to track down any of those? They just annoy me, especially while trying to remove them from my OWN scripts)

[Zombie]

Well the "original" scoreboard is screwed up, I can't see why a basic fix shouldn't be implemented, perhaps Wolf's fix (without all the other adds he put in), because if you're going to fix it, why not fix the whole thing?

The main things needing to be addressed are any scoreboard bugs which crash, break functionality, or produce scriptwarnings.

Any uscript changes have to be done very delicately, especially since so many mods may subclass the scoreboard and inherit its code. It's safer to only change what is neccessary to make it work like Epic may have wanted. Bane, scriptwarnings can be fixed without breaking compatibility.

...but I think some of the features unnecessarily added in really deter new players, features that kick them, prevent them from playing, erase their cache... etc...

...

Another time while on an INF server the admin thought he was being "cool" by freezing my screen for no reason, erasing my cache, and whatever else he was actually doing... So I would prefer that no admin be given all the "cool" punishments... because they're not so cool when you get a bad admin...

No argument there. Unfortunatly these type of client damaging mods have been circulated across many servers now. My advice is NOT to play on those servers, it's as simple as that. You only add to their popularity by playing on them yourself. Discourage players from going to any server where administrators will likely abuse them in a very bad way.

Frankly I would like to see UProtect send them to a web page "thoroughly" explaining why they were kicked etc... because it unnerving for any new player I'm sure.

The author of UProtect can no longer be contacted so it would be completely obsolete by the time 227+ patches are released. I don't mind that because UProtect obviously has limitations.


-Zombie

[Hyper]

About the server side controlled client 'debug' 'punishments': Maybe it is a good idea when the 'debug' console commands get fixed with a confirmation from the player itself:

"Are you sure you want to perform a (momory allocation) crash test? This will crash your game and might make your computer unstable"

It would be even better to restrict those commands to human execution only, but that might be difficult since UScript has the possibility to execute console commands.

Anyways: Adding the command 'debug' to the aliases array in User..ini will immunize your Unreal client for these crashes. Must users will never have to use them anyways.

[Shambler]

The 'debug' command has been out of Infiltration for years now and if you have any trouble with mod/admin abuse on an SA server tell me (with screenshots if possible) so I can deal with it.

Now, if your worried about client-punishing code...talk to Bane. (some people think Cache erasing is as bad as it gets, this chap actively boasts of making Unreal unplayable for people he dislikes..nice huh?)


UProtect is right in kicking for skins, any Unreal package can contain code...Textures/Sounds/Music and even Map packages can be modified to contain executable code...so if the package name or checksum are not known by the server then they should be blacklisted and kicked, even a single ignored package (even what appears to be a stock map) can contain malicious code and there is a way to deal with that in 227.

Now, if you assume blocking the modification of all Unreal packages is enough to permenantly stop cheats..no, wrong....there is always a way to break a cheat protection and always a way to break a cheat.

[Buster]

Quote: "226f and 226b cannot join each others servers, but that isn't a huge problem, really"

I disagree with that big time. Since about 2001 there ain't an Unreal "225" disk in any store ... the MOST available version is UnrealGold - at least in Canada. And that's why I use UnrealGold to map with. Not being able to run my PC as a server to "test" a new map with those peeps that have Unreal 225 really sucks big freakin' time.

If my UnrealGold 226b patched to 227 can solve this problem ... great !! If I can run my UnrealGold 227 as a server to test a map and ALL peeps 224 225 226 Gold etc can join it would be BEST ... but one patch to make 225 and Gold both into the SAME 227 is the goal. One patch to rule them all - hee hee hee.

As for a 227 server having a message to "upgrade" if they're using 225 etc ... well, what's the problem. I can't count the # of games that do that. Lots of them "auto" install the upgrade - like the changes or not. To play the game you've got to upgrade - period and end of sentence. A good example is BF2 ... lots of upgrades and HUGE too ... oh well.

Suck it up !! LoL

Quote: "what changes to the editor will be made"

Good question Bro !! Having the big 3 in the editor - with a button even - would kick asp ... the big 3 being TerraEdit (able to have a bigger grid too) ULight and TexAlign2. At least these three OR *gasp* improved version of them.

Now will these 3 gems work with the my UnrealGold make into the mystic 227 - if they can't be included. And having the Help fixed would be neat too. I've got an F1 Help fix for the editor on my site ... it's OK but simple in conparison to some of the References available for DL. And having UnrealGold 227's editor able to make maps that DO NOT need to be converted is a GREAT thing.

If it's possible to have MOST of the security issues "tight" and still be ALL compatible for the 227 should be the "intro" to the NEW patch for our favorite OLD game. And later on, when other neat stuff like footsteps and shadows etc are tweaked to perfection (hopefully by then ALL of the peeps will have been drawn together by the power of the ONE patch) ... then it would be very SAFE to toss in the "few" things missing and BREAK the compatibility with the 228.

And one more thing ... being able to change the maplist remotely would be great !!

THANKS for all your work Smirftsch and others - it's peeps like you that make this game the BEST ... and I don't say that lightly. Those that know me well rarely ever (NEVER actually) hear me call Unreal BEST or GREAT. My comment is usually "I hate this game" !! LMAO

[OlgaB]

Are there any plans to add mutator/custom map configuration to the GUI like in UT?

[UnLeaded]

The 'debug' command has been out of Infiltration for years now and if you have any trouble with mod/admin abuse on an SA server tell me (with screenshots if possible) so I can deal with it.

Now, if your worried about client-punishing code...talk to Bane. (some people think Cache erasing is as bad as it gets, this chap actively boasts of making Unreal unplayable for people he dislikes..nice huh?)


UProtect is right in kicking for skins, any Unreal package can contain code...Textures/Sounds/Music and even Map packages can be modified to contain executable code...so if the package name or checksum are not known by the server then they should be blacklisted and kicked, even a single ignored package (even what appears to be a stock map) can contain malicious code and there is a way to deal with that in 227.

Now, if you assume blocking the modification of all Unreal packages is enough to permenantly stop cheats..no, wrong....there is always a way to break a cheat protection and always a way to break a cheat.

Thx Six for your honest feedback.   Because abuse can come from any side- bad coder (cheater, hacker), bad server admin (ie above example), bad mapper (I've seen maps made with the sole intent on crashing clients, but it's easy just to not play these) I'm glad that we can see not to "enable" someone with the potential to abuse others, kicking is enough, and kicking for 1,000,000 maps that should really be the extent of it.

I don't know if Bane is a part of the design team (and not meaning to point fingers) but hopefully the feature you mentioned doesn't show up in a patch meant to encourage new players.  From what I've seen from Bane my original sense is that he wants to promote Unreal by creating interesting mods for people to play, so I'm having faith that nothing will be publicly released to take away from that.
I'm actually looking forward personally to the Doom2 mod he was working on, not sure if it's still in the works or not...

UProtect
To me UProtect seems very ingenious, to a new player who inadvertantly has one of these files that is in no way a cheat, it's disconcerting, and minimally puzzling, only because a full explanation is not given to them.  

For example, I have "realCTF" skins that it consistently kicks me for, are these skins qualified cheats of some kind?  It asks to delete them from my folder.  I've only DLed from qualified sites, so it's puzzling about these skins.  I also think there should have been a build list site of some problem files found, so any player could "lessen" or have a heads up on potential problems.

Probably the best option to me (in the impossible world I'm sure) would be to relocate these questionable files to a "temp" folder in Unreal, much like an AV does when it quarantines and then let the player play like normal but inform them that these files have been placed in this folder, please be warned they may be corrupt or cheats, blah, blah, blah...  Seamless, Smooth, but I'm sure impossible...

Coding is tough, takes time, and I certainly appreciate the time and efforts of our coders.  Personally I'm doing some low level coding now and at times it's just maddening the process...  :o

[Bane]

Shambler, I have never deleted anyone's cache. I can't help but wonder what you're basing this information on; not only have you never been in my server, but you don't even play unreal anymore (going into SA|US to admin does not count in any way.)

As for UProtect, I don't know if this is the best explanation for it, but I'll try...
UProtect's main feature gets a list of every package loaded by unreal onto your computer. Every single .u (system), .utx (Texture) .uax (Sounds) ...you get the picture. UProtect gets the name of all of these loaded files and some package information about them. By the default setting (non-Full scan), texture, sound,map, and music files are trimmed, so only System files and Cache files are sent to the server. The server then checks your list of packages. If it finds anything that shouldn't be there, you'll get kicked for it. It is possible to just load in a bot this way, so you need to be kicked for having unrecognized packages. Also, any recognized files that are changed you will definitely get kicked for. These are the most common bots, i.e. Hunterbot is a modified version of UBrowser.u. You get a new console that contains a good deal of bot code, but the package information itself is different.

227 will need protection similar to this. It will probably be more advanced/network efficient/whatever, because they have access to the native code, and can write their own. Also, more importantly, they can check .dll files, which are loaded by unreal and CAN contain hacks, but UProtect cannot scan them in any way.

As for that doom2 mod I was working on, It was a pain in the ass, I was working on other stuff, and Dots (:.:..) made his own before I did much. So I gave up on it. I don't like his implementation though, he changed a good deal of crap to make it more 'balanced'. If you're interested in trying it, I think a few coop servers run it, and it should be available for download off of hyper.nl's website.

[Smirftsch]

i see here some very interesting points of view, please continue it will have a priceless value for me once the decission is made

Just a short note about UED- although i have the full code i currently can't work with it, its completely in VisualBasic, can't be converted to the new version of VB automatically and my lack of knowledge about it puts this to the very end of everything, although i'd love to make a new version of it too.

[Shambler]

I notice you don't deny my main accusation Bane but instead deny ever erasing someone's cache. (which you waren't accused of

And as a basis for that:
11:41> Say:Bane: ALL BOW DOWN BEFORE MY POTENTIAL ABUSE
11:41> Say:Bane: would you like to SEE abuse?
11:41> Say:Bane: go into my server
11:41> Say:BanBane!: yeah!
11:41> Say:BanBane!: hide&seek?
11:42> Say:Bane: well I do need to make sure the ICD server I'm trying to set up for a test works.
11:42> Say:Bane: so I guess I could test it while ruining your unreal!
11:42> Say:{S.A.M}DarkPunished: bane why did you lose your mod you fuck up you were abusive with the mod
11:43> Say:Bane: Anything I did with mod3 I would not call abuse, by my standards.
11:43> Say:Aeth: your standards are screwing up peoples unreal installs...
11:43> Say:Bane: hell I'd barely call making Mr Wiggle's copy of unreal COMPLETELY UNSTARTABLE abuse...


UnLeaded:
Nah moving peoples files around is a bad approach (and isn't possible anyway), the main problem with UProtect is that I think the whitelist/blacklist is hardcoded (I haven't actually checked tho tbh) thus custom skins etc. can't be added.

[Bane]

No, I'm not denying it. There's no point in it. So what if I made a mod that lets me ruin someone else's unreal? BaronDB did that with UProtect. Anything I can do to someone in my server can be done with UProtect too. I've seen Pickle do it to a guy. The only difference between my mod and UProtect is that its easier with mine.



Now for something actually ON THE TOPIC......
OK, Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these...
227 with feature changes to the system packages, severe enough that they will have different linkers information, regardless of compatibility.
There is no way to update UProtect, because the author, the only person with the source code, has quit unreal and is basically uncontactable.
227, if compatibility is broken, can feature some nice hack detection, and can be more effective than UProtect is now
227, if compatibility remains, could not feature this hack detection, because it MUST exist on every client to work
Because of the package changes, UProtect will be rendered useless on 227 clients. UProtect will see the changed packages and assume they are cheats. This would be similar to the related issue with the S3TC textures; during a full scan these are found and are determined to be changed.


Because of all these, doesn't this mean that for 227, we either have better cheat protection (breaking compatibility), or NO cheat protection (not breaking compatibility), at least until someone else makes a reliable anti-bot similar to UProtect, that wouldn't kick 227 packages?

I doubt very many people are still left to make something like that, and it would take time even then.
Unless someone can correct me on one of those points I made above, it sounds like breaking compatibility is the only option, because otherwise there'd be NO cheat protection, and someone would make a quick hunterbot or something, and even the 226-224 servers couldn't detect it, because UProtect would need to be disabled EVERYWHERE (or just "No 227 clients here!" signs or something.)

Can I change my vote now?

[DieHard SCWS]

I may be able to track down BarendB. As it is i am probably pretty close to finding him, however it still could be alot of work, which i can only continue after the weekend (lots of phonecalls)

So will it be usefull if i could uptain the sourcecode from U-Protect ? ,if not than i will discontinue my search, since i pretty much invading his privacy now.


Should i try uptain the U-Protect sourcecode Yes or No ?
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[UKBikenut]

I don`t know how important this is,but i feel it needs to be mentioned.

Normally when patching your Unreal version (for me anyway) it asks for the original Unreal CD.
Would this still be so for this 227 patch?.
The reason i ask is that there are now probably many players who have lost or damaged there original CD and are just using a backup of a patched Unreal installation on a CD/hard drive.(Unreal doesn`t need registry entries etc to work).
Not to mention those that have never had a copy(and lets be honest ,there will be a few).
So i think that if 227 must break compatability then it must be able to be installed WITHOUT the original CD.

Hope that makes sense

[DieHard SCWS]

Normally when patching your Unreal version (for me anyway) it asks for the original Unreal CD.
Would this still be so for this 227 patch?.
The reason i ask is that there are now probably many players who have lost or damaged there original CD and are just using a backup of a patched Unreal installation on a CD/hard drive.(Unreal doesn`t need registry entries etc to work).
Not to mention those that have never had a copy(and lets be honest ,there will be a few).
So i think that if 227 must break compatability then it must be able to be installed WITHOUT the original CD.

Hope that makes sense  

I do have official copies from Unreal, but i always install from my harddrive backup version(which installs alot faster than CD), all current patches allow you to enter a different path than the proposed default CD station, so you can use the backup to install the patches anyway and more important, without CD.


But i do agree this option should remain, what the official patches simply miss, is a Browse Button, so can browse to your backup or CD. In that way its optional
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[Shambler]

UT2k4 doesn't need the CD to patch, don't see why Unreal1 should.