IP Check and Anti Map-abuse

[Woodenplank]

Hey Hive

So I just played a game of Azeroth Wars (if you don't know the map, it's actually irrelevant). And this one guy, who rather hates the map creator, decided to mess up a public game by joining it with 3 separate accounts.
Two accounts were placed on separate enemy teams, and the last he played himself.
That way two major factions were rendered virtually useless by only missing a player (With 1 player being half the faction), and then he could win the game with virtually no opposition.

So as I am currently developing a map for 10 players, I was wondering if there was any way to secure oneself against this kind of abuse - Now; I know it only happens with vengefully vexed people who want to hurt the creator/map in general, and that generally shouldn't happen... but if...

Now; my map doesn't have the same kind of alliances that Azeroth Wars has, and so this kind of abuse would not mess with any 'factions', but still; having AFK players really screws over most maps.

Are there any suggestions on how to prevent this kind of trick?

 

[Dr Super Good]

So I just played a game of Azeroth Wars (if you don't know the map, it's actually irrelevant). And this one guy, who rather hates the map creator, decided to mess up a public game by joining it with 3 separate accounts.
Two accounts were placed on separate enemy teams, and the last he played himself.
That way two major factions were rendered virtually useless by only missing a player (With 1 player being half the faction), and then he could win the game with virtually no opposition.

Man kids these days have far too much free time... Back when I was a kid we just moved on to playing another map if we did not like the creator.

In any case the solution in this case would be that the other teams allied together and united against him. I used to do this often in Azeroth wars against annoying people as even if they are a strong empire they are not winning 9 vs 1. Having friends on other teams was so useful. We used to often made up the alliances just for fun such as having NE+Undead+Demon ally against the rest of the world. Fun times.

So as I am currently developing a map for 10 players, I was wondering if there was any way to secure oneself against this kind of abuse - Now; I know it only happens with vengefully vexed people who want to hurt the creator/map in general, and that generally shouldn't happen... but if...

Controlling the host robot is the only way. One can then kick or black list him. Permanent IP bans are not possible because IPv4 addresses can be shard either by carrier grade NAT or from IPv4 pools, however temporary ones of a week or maybe a month should be fine.

Now; my map doesn't have the same kind of alliances that Azeroth Wars has, and so this kind of abuse would not mess with any 'factions', but still; having AFK players really screws over most maps.

Well seeing how hard it is to get a full house today...

In any case it is the responsibility of the host robots to deal with this. For very serious games white lists might be used to prevent spoof accounts or unknown trolls from interfering.

 

[Woodenplank]

Man kids these days have far too much free time... Back when I was a kid we just moved on to playing another map if we did not like the creator.

In any case the solution in this case would be that the other teams allied together and united against him. I used to do this often in Azeroth wars against annoying people as even if they are a strong empire they are not winning 9 vs 1. Having friends on other teams was so useful. We used to often made up the alliances just for fun such as having NE+Undead+Demon ally against the rest of the world. Fun times.


Controlling the host robot is the only way. One can then kick or black list him. Permanent IP bans are not possible because IPv4 addresses can be shard either by carrier grade NAT or from IPv4 pools, however temporary ones of a week or maybe a month should be fine.


Well seeing how hard it is to get a full house today...

In any case it is the responsibility of the host robots to deal with this. For very serious games white lists might be used to prevent spoof accounts or unknown trolls from interfering.

Thanks for the thorough reply.

But yeah, I did figure that only hosting bots would be able to combat issues like this. I guess the best I can do is make my map rid of abuse'able bugs and glitches.

Though that would require making the map play-worthy in the first place... Something I struggle with.
It lags too hard to be worth playing right now.

Thanks for the reply any way!

 

[Dr Super Good]

It lags too hard to be worth playing right now.

Sad to hear. I can only recommend looking for leaks and trying to remove or optimize frequently firing triggers.

 

[Woodenplank]

It is getting worse

The same guy tried the tactic twice more in a game, but was thwarted (by me and "mass"-allies) both games, and now he's giving me death threats.
But who cares... it's a 12 years old video game.

 

[DracoL1ch]

It is getting worse

The same guy tried the tactic twice more in a game, but was thwarted (by me and "mass"-allies) both games, and now he's giving me death threats.
But who cares... it's a 12 years old video game.

try mem hack, we will discover player's ips one day

 

[Dr Super Good]

and now he's giving me death threats.

You can either ignore them, as 99% of them never amount to anything but kids raging, or take it to the authorities. Unless he knows about some of your personal details it is likely it is just trash talk from some adolescent.

try mem hack, we will discover player's ips one day

Hopefully it gets patched as that is probably not all one could discover...

 

[DracoL1ch]

Hopefully it gets patched as that is probably not all one could discover...

im sure only server has access to other player's ips, so server-side protection will be enough. and it's really pathetic to see those "it will be patched". goddamn.

 

[Dr Super Good]

im sure only server has access to other player's ips, so server-side protection will be enough. and it's really pathetic to see those "it will be patched". goddamn.

Each client has access to the host and their own IP addresses. The host already knows all the IP addresses of all clients for logical reasons but that is the host server not any host client (if any). However by syncing local values one could then force the IP addresses of all clients into the game state and thus make them known to all.

However that is not the main problem. The problem is that someone who stupidly is running the game as an administrator and playing a bad map might find them sharing more data than they would like. Or worse... Hence why it has to be removed.