IL2 and Sound Modding

[Rama]

Originally Posted by jasonbirder

Why cannot Cheating be prevented by stronger server administration or stronger policing of the Online community? Surely if anyone caught cheating was perma IP banned, cheating would tail off pretty quickly...All it would take is the major servers exchanging usernames/IP addresses of people abusing the system on a weekly basis and bingo! Problem solved...

You don't know that:
- IP adresses are floating (for most of users). Everybody "cheater" can change username and come back with another username and another IP.... so your usernames/IP addresses list would just be useless (or even worse...)
- cheating isn't evident to prove. The only thing you can do (which is allready a constraint) is to record tracks.... but how will you prove on the track that one player is using a plane with a topspeed 50 Km/h higher (or even 100 Km/h higher) than normal one? You can have strong presumption, but hardly any real proof. That's just one exemple, but I could find many other. Then, with only strong presumption, what you gonna do? create an "online" tribunal, having a jury of player all watching the track and giving their "honest judgement"?... anything else and you'll be an "online dictator" and will be flamed on all the forums.
- Even if you are able to built an heavy organisation of peoples whatching all tracks of all online contesters and taking care of all conflicts, this is going to maybe work for single dogfight servers.... but not for online wars with thousands of participants.... no online war dev will ever accept to built such an heavy machine (you would probably need dozens of peoples just to take care of this)
- And even with all these heavy mechanisms.... there will be still cheating (it will just refrain cheaters to use obvious big changes... but they will be able to use multiple small changes to have an advantage, which isn't a big deal in itself... but is enough to kill the fun and discourage the honest online player.

All of thess would be obvious to you if you have the slightest knowing of the online world.

[jasonbirder]

Wow!!! You're right...I obviously have less understanding of the Online world than I thought...There sure are a lot of sharks out there in the pool if its that much of a problem to enforce...
I guess ive been lucky not to have played IL2 online then...I'd hate to hang out with such a bunch of jerks...
You seem like a pretty reasonable and intelligent guy...why do you put up with it?

[robtek]

Originally Posted by jasonbirder

No one is criticising Oleg for stopping support of the IL2 series at 4.09 and shifting to BOW-SOW.
I applaud Oleg and his business model...I think he has been savvy enough to continue to release patches through the long period between PF and BOB-SOW to maintain interest in his games when it might have died off...
But it is natural now, as there is still continued interest in the game series from its user for the community and for third parties to continue development of the game outside of the aegis of official patches, expansions and mods...
This is what has happened with every single other flight simulation in history...

Why cannot Cheating be prevented by stronger server administration or stronger policing of the Online community? Surely if anyone caught cheating was perma IP banned, cheating would tail off pretty quickly...All it would take is the major servers exchanging usernames/IP addresses of people abusing the system on a weekly basis and bingo! Problem solved...

First: the support has not stopped at this time,altough it will stop in the near future.
Second:Every modded Flight-Sim is quite dead online.
Third: to ban anybody you have to prove that he or she is cheating, quite impossible if the
cheating is not as blatant as a lerche in a 41 planeset.
Fourth: of course it is quite easy to put the workload from this problem on the people who
spend their free time and their money to host a server, but that can´t be called a solution.
maybe the people who are winning by improving their gameplay (aka modder) should do something
for the people who are loosing by that "improvements" (aka full-real-onliner).
i.e. a crt=3 or crt=4 or better a software that guarantees that everybody on a server has to have the same mods.
If i had any idea how to realize something like that i would start programming right now to save "my game".

[Archie]

Originally Posted by jasonbirder

Wow!!! You're right...I obviously have less understanding of the Online world than I thought...There sure are a lot of sharks out there in the pool if its that much of a problem to enforce...
I guess ive been lucky not to have played IL2 online then...I'd hate to hang out with such a bunch of jerks...
You seem like a pretty reasonable and intelligent guy...why do you put up with it?

Because its all rubbish thats why.I have flown online for years,and have not seen any increase in cheating using the hacks.And I am not a hack supporter.Breaking the code was wrong,but there is no going back.Only Oleg Maddox can fix it,if he has time.If not him,then someone else.

[Rama]

Originally Posted by jasonbirder

I guess ive been lucky not to have played IL2 online then...I'd hate to hang out with such a bunch of jerks...
You seem like a pretty reasonable and intelligent guy...why do you put up with it?

Because before Qtim tools where available to everybody, the door was closed to most of the cheats (except some obvious ones generally turning around lag cheat that were easy to prove and to report).
Now I'm staying mostly because of friends... but wont stay long if there's in the future no way to close the door again (online I mean.... people do what they want offline)

Got it now?

[robtek]

Originally Posted by jasonbirder

Wow!!! You're right...I obviously have less understanding of the Online world than I thought...There sure are a lot of sharks out there in the pool if its that much of a problem to enforce...
I guess ive been lucky not to have played IL2 online then...I'd hate to hang out with such a bunch of jerks...
You seem like a pretty reasonable and intelligent guy...why do you put up with it?

namecalling again?

[jasonbirder]

Far from it...it seems that everyone here is saying the same thing...that as soon as tools became available that made it possible to cheat with relative impunity, then cheating became widespread...
I infer from that that the online community isn't exactly the kind of place i'd like to spend my free time (IE with people who will lie and cheat me) and I wonder why so many people are happy to fly in that environment...
Alternatively...cheating isn't really a big issue at all...and people here are making far, far too much of it!

[Rama]

Well... let me tell you...
The real world is the kind of place you spend all your time (not only your free time), and it's full of peoples who will lie and cheat you (no more and no less than in any community).
But it's also a place where you have your friends and where you do everything (alone or in good company...)
Now you're also happy that the police is protecting you from escrocs and criminal, and you're bothered when you discover a relation is cheating you, you would certainly prefer not having this relation.

It's all the same in online sim... but since its a place you're not obliged to go, and where you go only for fun, if the entry is full open for cheaters, then you will at some point prefer to meet your friends in another game place, where the cheater door is closed enough that they need a bazooka to open it... and so you'll know they are there and can change game room when it's the case.

[LEXX]

Bear::

Yes Lexx you are right about one thing.. this whole line of reasoning you are on is simple....

Look I know some of those mods are good things that folks have wanted for a long time... that is why I don't go around trashing guys who use them... and not only that I still have a great deal of respect for some of the guys I know who use the mods.. because I know that they will not use them where they aren't wanted.. but until online play can be secured from those who do not have the same values, as much as I might want to try out some of them.. and I do.. I will not.... and I do that because it is right for me.... I can't judge YOU... or anyone else who prefers to do otherwise....

Yough Bear. Believe it or not, I hold the same view as ElAurens (or the view he/she currently claims). ElAurens recently poasted that he/she would accept the hack/mods if Oleg approved, which is a 180 degree reversal from the usual "mods kill sim" doctrine. I would like to modup 1946 for early Eastern Front simming where Oleg abandoned it for AEP, but I first have to buy 1946. I will do neither unless Oleg gives some kind of approval. No mods, no sale. But this opinion is for myself alone, and for none other.


Simplicity is the start of understanding.

[LEXX]

Yup. The most effective form of cheating might be undetectable -- never noticed. Oddly, this was never advertised until after the Sound Mod became widely known. For years, all we were told was that anybody asking for modding ability only wanted to cheat with X-Wing F-16 Tie Fighters -- I guess these three spacecraft make good slogans to use -- far better slogan than "You only want to add 5% power to climb and cheat!"


The most wild FM and DM online and Offline mod cheat in FB Hristo-ry was Oleg's original I-16 mod from FB 1.0 that outclimbed -109K and had the Tiger tank damage model.

Oleg's I-16 mod was BANNED from all servers.
Oleg's I-16 mod was even BANNED from Offline single play by some customers. Despite I-16 being my 2nd fave aircraft after MiG-3, I simply could not use the thing in single play missions, as the FB 1.0 I-16 always survived and completely dominated 1945 missions against 1945 LW aircraft.