Lumber cheat/hack

[Rugarus]

Hey, sorry that this is in the wrong area but I feel the most experienced people are here and could shed some light on this issue.

So my game, it has 0 scripts that add lumber to the Human team. Basically I haven't added any cheat codes and what not that could of been abused.

I got a screenshot from a player playing the game, and the game time was 14 minutes in, the screenshot showed a player that had structures that could only be owned at like 24 minutes into the game. Basically he must of used some sort of resource hack to have gotten this far ahead for that time period.

First off, I've disabled lumber/gold sharing. So no other players could of sent him resources. It was not a single player game.

Do any of you know of such a hack that could exist?
There also used to be a hack to open the trade menu manually, but I heard that was fixed in the last Blizzard patches.

Anyway, if you guys have not heard of any such hack, what would be my best solution to solve this issue? Should I add a integer for all players and make that amount total amount of harvested lumber, and constantly check if that number adds up to what his current+spent lumber?
Thanks.

 

[IcemanBo]

Can players share/give their resources to other players?
Also, in theory it's possible someone took your map, edited it with cheats, and then they played this edited version.

Yeh you can try to make anti-cheat systems. They're probably always some amount of work, and good coders will easily avoid such simple integer checks. It depends on case, but such things still might slow down some, or maybe stop. Just ensure you don't shoot in your own foot with implementing security systems, that accidently affect normal gameplay also in future.

 

[Rugarus]

Can players share/give their resources to other players?
Also, in theory it's possible someone took your map, edited it with cheats, and then they played this edited version.

Yeh you can try to make anti-cheat systems. They're probably always some amount of work, and good coders will easily avoid such simple integer checks. It depends on case, but such things still might slow down some, or maybe stop. Just ensure you don't shoot in your own foot with implementing security systems, that accidently affect normal gameplay also in future.

Unlikely they took the map, haven't shared the source code with anyone since like 4 version changes ago and that person wouldn't share it.

The map is protected, the maps resource trading is shut off, there is a command to send gold but it's capped at 2 gold per minute, and no lumber is allowed.

I know that older map hacks from 1.29 contained a resource hack that forced open the trade menu. Perhaps it's back now. I remember solving it originally by detecting if a player sent resources and killing their units if that happened. I removed that code since I thought Blizzard fixed these exploits.

 

[IcemanBo]

Protection doesn't stop. It literally takes 10 seconds for most "protections" to be partially reverted, so the map is normally open- and editable.

 

[Rugarus]

Protection doesn't stop. It literally takes 10 seconds for most "protections" to be partially reverted, so the map is normally open- and editable.

I compile all the code with a jasscompiler with the code written in vJass/zinc, even if they get into the main map they don't have access to all that code do they? Or is it all converted to regular Jass that they can read?

 

[IcemanBo]

Yes, they can. And it's usually not hard. Basically as rule of thumb - If the map is playable it means Warcraft 3 can read your JASS code. If Warraft 3 can read your JASS code it means it does exist somewhere in the map. And if the code exists in your map it means someone will find it when trying hard enough.

edit: vJASS to JASS compiler isn't even meant as protection alone, and is normally readable JASS code.

 

[Rugarus]

Yes, they can. And it's usually not hard. Basically as rule of thumb - If the map is playable it means Warcraft 3 can read your JASS code. If Warraft 3 can read your JASS code it means it does exist somewhere in the map. And if the code exists in your map it means someone will find it when trying hard enough.

Ok thanks, something I find so stupid with Warcraft is Blizzard allows you insert maps with the same name as others. Like the game I work on is Vampirism Fire.

File name is something like vampirismfire5.14c
That's the original file. Inside Warcraft it shows the name as Vampirism Fire 5.14c

There's a few different versions that circulate around, some are the same file just renamed while others are different file sizes but the same map(so I think) as I haven't see any cheats until now. And even that was just 1 screenshot.

Now there is

Vampirismfire5.14c~1
Vampirismfire5.14c~2
Vampirismfire5.14c~3
Etc

And all of them show up inside Warcraft as the same "Vampirism Fire 5.14c" no one including me can tell the difference and even if you delete the fake ones or renamed ones someone else is always going to host the wrong version. No idea why Blizzard doesn't make it possible to prevent this. There should be some way to athenticate a map, or show the file name when clicking on the map before hosting.

 

[IcemanBo]

The file name, as the map title can be both altered. It will be hard to define if made changes were authorisized, or not.

 

[Rugarus]

The file name, as the map title can be both altered. It will be hard to define if made changes were authorisized, or not.

Yeah that's what I mean, I don't get why Blizzard allows this. Basically allows for easy cheat maps to pose as the real ones.

 

[IcemanBo]

Who is blizzard to give rules to userbase who is allowed to publish which version? It's hard, or even impossible to control authorization. They would need to make a host-only-official-signatured maps at blizz site, that you upload to them via account. And even then... it would end up being not water proof, by far.

 

[Rugarus]

Who is blizzard to give rules to userbase who is allowed to publish which version? It's hard, or even impossible to control authorization. They would need to make a host-only-official-signatured maps at blizz site, that you upload to them via account. And even then... it would end up being not water proof, by far.

There is steps they could take to make this issue less. Like showing the file size of the map, showing when the file was last modified. I just mean I'm sure there is something they could do that is better than what they have right now. Because it's way to easy currently to pose as another map.

 

[puffdragon]

There is zero protection towards cheaters in wc3, in fact I think cheating is even encouraged (host bots are gone). Bnet is filled with cheated maps (as it was before).

Who is blizzard to give rules to userbase who is allowed to publish which version? It's hard, or even impossible to control authorization. They would need to make a host-only-official-signatured maps at blizz site, that you upload to them via account. And even then... it would end up being not water proof, by far.

They don't seem to have a problem watermarking their own maps.

 

[Wrda]

There is zero protection towards cheaters in wc3, in fact I think cheating is even encouraged (host bots are gone). Bnet is filled with cheated maps (as it was before).

Cheaters always existed, that's not new...

They don't seem to have a problem watermarking their own maps.

What's your point with this statement? They already had implemented all the cheats we know in single-player, for several reasons like for testing purposes.
No map is safe from being cheated even if it was heavily protected. And that's life, deal with it.
It happened to a map of a friend of mine who gave it to me to continue developing it. 5 months ago I see a new version hosted by someone and stuff was changed, no cheats, just gameplay was changed. Not even the name of my friend nor my name was in the map description and quest. I was mad but I knew there's no way to stop a random guy to modify the map and keep his name anonymous.
And you don't see me crying over something like this, it's not worth it.
Instead of focusing your time and energy on protecting your maps from cheaters, focus figuring a way for people to distinguish your valid map from a cheated version.

 

[IcemanBo]

Not sure what default blizz map protection is meant, but it's anyways something different to check map integrity of a blizzard internal made map with no external updates by others -- and on other side a map made by random users of community where they don't even know what "official" updates are or "valid" authors with permission etc. How should regulation process look like, in regards anyone can change anything of map, including map author with updates, and including random dudes making changes, maybe even after long time?

 

[puffdragon]

Cheaters always existed, that's not new...

So what? Just cause there always have been thieves we disband police?

What's your point with this statement? They already had implemented all the cheats we know in single-player, for several reasons like for testing purposes.

Not only that, a lot of maps have additional "cheats" for single player. I dont see how your statement has any relevance to the topic.

No map is safe from being cheated even if it was heavily protected. And that's life, deal with it.

Or they could actually do someting about it like for example

HOST BOTS.

Instead of focusing your time and energy on protecting your maps from cheaters, focus figuring a way for people to distinguish your valid map from a cheated version.

Official download site and HOST BOTS.

Ideally they should encourage mappers by offering protection to their work, thats the ones that keeping the wc3 community alive. In fact WC3 fills the role of UNITY. Nobody really plays wc3 since ages, only custom maps

 

[Wrda]

So what? Just cause there always have been thieves we disband police?

This is an absurd comparison. A game isn't real life, and even less, user-made maps. Why would any one care about a random user's map getting edited by someone else? No one controls anything because it is a user-made map from a game that wasn't made by you, and it's not blizzard's concern that someone stole something.

Or they could actually do someting about it like for example

HOST BOTS.

There has been a host bot era and that doesn't stop cheated versions floating around, host bots have nothing to do with it.

Official download site (...)

Ideally they should encourage mappers by offering protection to their work, thats the ones that keeping the wc3 community alive. In fact WC3 fills the role of UNITY. Nobody really plays wc3 since ages, only custom maps

An official download site, maybe your own discord. Yes, but nothing will stop modified versions around, and again it's not blizzard's concern. I don't see how your last 2 sentences are relevant.

 

[puffdragon]

This is an absurd comparison. A game isn't real life, and even less, user-made maps. Why would any one care about a random user's map getting edited by someone else? No one controls anything because it is a user-made map from a game that wasn't made by you, and it's not blizzard's concern that someone stole something.

Isnt their concern the game to keep being played? No Reforge etc? Do people play the game for bliz shitty irrelevant maps?

There has been a host bot era and that doesn't stop cheated versions floating around, host bots have nothing to do with it.

You don't seem to get it. NOBODY GIVES 2 SHIT if someone cheated a map. They want to have a way to play the real version and not the cheated one. HOST BOTS did that PERFECTLY.

An official download site, maybe your own discord. Yes, but nothing will stop modified versions around, and again it's not blizzard's concern. I don't see how your last 2 sentences are relevant.

Again. Nobody cares for the cheated version you made that nobody wants play it with you, cause they all use (used) host bots.