Guest Editorial: CoD2 Hackers
Our guest editorial this week is written by a Devil-Dogz clanmate of mine, {DD} LemOnade. LemOnade is an extraordinarily gifted FPS player - and for that reason is much feared and respected by our competition. He is a passionate competitor and that passion extends to his writing. In today's topic he picks up from where BubbaGump and I left off in Episode 26: Haxer! Remember, all opinions expressed in this article are those of LemOnade. Please post your rebuttals below (under comments) or email him at the address shown.
{DD} LemOnade
BASH Guest Editorial
email: crazybandit@hotmail.com
1. Why players hack.
There are a myriad of reasons why people cheat. I think it all starts with society in general. Name a console/computer game and any 7 year old can tell you where to find the cheat codes for it. What are we telling these children? "Don't worry son, you're ENTITLED to win. Here's the cheats". Multiplayer gaming is just a carry-over from these same children and their cheat codes in a lot of cases.
Then you have the people who are so competitive they will do anything to win. We all know a few of them. These are the same people in real life you wouldn't want to be the banker in a friendly game of monopoly.
There's also a small amount of people who cheat who simply want to cause chaos and ruin the gaming experience for others. I'm sure there are many reasons for them being this way, but since I lack this quality or a degree in psychology, I will simply comment on it and not the reasons. The reason I know they exist are the answers given when asked why they cheat. "I'm bored." or "You're just mad cause you suck."
I find myself having a modicum of respect for the hacker who boldly proclaims his hacks and doesn't try to hide behind the "I'm just a good player, you noob." defense. I mean, lacking an admin on a server, what can you do to a hacker anyway?
2.What type of hacks are being used in COD2?
I wouldn't know the name of the countless hacks that are available to players, but i can tell you the main ones and describe what they do:
a. The wallhack. There are a lot of names for what is essentially the same hack. Whatever the case may be, a wallhack allows you to see through solid objects and know where the enemy is on any map. Some of these cheats will cause the enemy to glow (for lack of a better word) through walls and other objects. Some of these cheats simply allow you to see the enemies name (and location by default) over their heads wherever they are on the map. Some of these same cheats will also tell you what weapon your enemy has, and the distance to target from your location.
b. The aimbot. Pretty much as it reads. The aimbot is a program that allows your computer to aim for you. When used in conjunction with a trigger bot, this can make a hacker almost unbeatable in some circumstances.You run into this less than the wallhack because even the least experienced player knows something is not right when someone is shooting them in the head from across the map before they ever even see them.But there are a few who use it. Some of the toughest cheaters to catch are experienced players who use an aimbot but no wallhack. Even when following these players in spec, you cannot see them looking through walls because they are not. The aimbot for the most part is subtle, if they have the intensity of acquisition set right. Some noob hackers turn the intensity all the way up and you'll see them do a complete 180 and shoot someone in the head from across the map. Even then its hard to prove they have an aimbot, because good players sometimes make incredible shots.
c. The aforementioned trigger bot. This program allows your computer to fire when the aimbot acquires the target. The timing of a trigger bot is instantaneous, taking human reactions out of the killing equation. However, as said before, this makes the cheater more obvious.
d. No recoil. There are programs which allow you to fire your weapon with absolutely no recoil. This gives the cheater a huge advantage against the average player. It allows the cheater to follow the target effortlessly, since you do not have to allow for recoil. This cheat gives you the most advantage with smg's and machine guns since each have a higher rate of fire, and more recoil than other guns.
There are more hacks out there, but these are the most prevalent, imo.
3. How can the average player spot the hackers?
I don't believe the average player CAN spot most of the hackers out there. Simply put, I believe you have to be of a certain skill in the game yourself and know what each weapon can and cant do naturally before you can become competent in spotting the cheaters. Even then, most times you cannot tell without sitting in spectator and watching the player for long periods of time waiting for the moment whet the cheater reveals him or herself.
But anyone who plays the game can go to spectator and make a demo of any suspicious player. I recommend that everyone who thinks there are cheaters on the server they are playing make such a demo. This will allow the average player to, at his leisure, go back and watch the demo for what they feel the player was doing that made them think he/she was cheating. If the player finds something that is obviously a cheat, simply get in touch with that servers admin and send the demo through xfire or whatever peer to peer program that allows for transferring files. I myself have gotten many players banned from a server by making a demo of cheaters.
To record a demo, simply pull up your console by pushing your ~ key on the upper left of your keyboard. Then when that little bar comes up with the blinking underscore line, type in
/demo
"name of file"
Name the file something you can remember because you are going to have to go into your Activision folder to find it, and naming it will make it easier to find. I usually name the file whatever the suspected cheater's name is in game. The trace route to find this demo will be:
C:Program Files/ Activision/ call of duty 2/ main/ demos
To view this demo and make a determination if the player is actually cheating, click on your multiplayer icon but dont enter a server. Open your console and type in
/demo
"name of file"
When you hit enter, there will be a delay of a couple seconds and then the demo will start playing. You can then view whatever it is you made the recording of.
4. Are there solutions to the problem of cheating?
Can clans mitigate the problem?
Of course there are solutions. For every cheat program out there, the game makers could come up with a detection program. This however, is not making the game makers any money, so they have no interest in supporting their product in this way. We all know the bottom line in our society is "Does this benefit me financially?". The makers of CoD2 made a half-assed attempt to make people believe that cod2 would be cheat free by adding PunkBuster as cheat detection. But every hacker knows that PunkBuster is a joke. There are so many holes in the program, its a good thing it's not a submarine. Anyone reading this diatribe, think about it. How many times have you seen PunkBuster actually CATCH someone cheating? Ive played this game almost daily since it was released, and i can count on one hand the cheaters PunkBuster has caught while i was playing.
Since the cheat detection is lacking, its up to server administrators to police their own server by observing players. I recommend you make a demo of cheaters before banning, because there are a lot of people who would rather blame the administrators of a server, than try to recognize that there are cheaters in COD2. Also, make sure you record the offending players GUID so there can be no doubt of who is actually playing the game when you catch them cheating. Good luck, and hope this helps people in the gaming community.
{DD} LemOnade
BASH Guest Editorial
email: crazybandit@hotmail.com
1. Why players hack.
There are a myriad of reasons why people cheat. I think it all starts with society in general. Name a console/computer game and any 7 year old can tell you where to find the cheat codes for it. What are we telling these children? "Don't worry son, you're ENTITLED to win. Here's the cheats". Multiplayer gaming is just a carry-over from these same children and their cheat codes in a lot of cases.
Then you have the people who are so competitive they will do anything to win. We all know a few of them. These are the same people in real life you wouldn't want to be the banker in a friendly game of monopoly.
There's also a small amount of people who cheat who simply want to cause chaos and ruin the gaming experience for others. I'm sure there are many reasons for them being this way, but since I lack this quality or a degree in psychology, I will simply comment on it and not the reasons. The reason I know they exist are the answers given when asked why they cheat. "I'm bored." or "You're just mad cause you suck."
I find myself having a modicum of respect for the hacker who boldly proclaims his hacks and doesn't try to hide behind the "I'm just a good player, you noob." defense. I mean, lacking an admin on a server, what can you do to a hacker anyway?
2.What type of hacks are being used in COD2?
I wouldn't know the name of the countless hacks that are available to players, but i can tell you the main ones and describe what they do:
a. The wallhack. There are a lot of names for what is essentially the same hack. Whatever the case may be, a wallhack allows you to see through solid objects and know where the enemy is on any map. Some of these cheats will cause the enemy to glow (for lack of a better word) through walls and other objects. Some of these cheats simply allow you to see the enemies name (and location by default) over their heads wherever they are on the map. Some of these same cheats will also tell you what weapon your enemy has, and the distance to target from your location.
b. The aimbot. Pretty much as it reads. The aimbot is a program that allows your computer to aim for you. When used in conjunction with a trigger bot, this can make a hacker almost unbeatable in some circumstances.You run into this less than the wallhack because even the least experienced player knows something is not right when someone is shooting them in the head from across the map before they ever even see them.But there are a few who use it. Some of the toughest cheaters to catch are experienced players who use an aimbot but no wallhack. Even when following these players in spec, you cannot see them looking through walls because they are not. The aimbot for the most part is subtle, if they have the intensity of acquisition set right. Some noob hackers turn the intensity all the way up and you'll see them do a complete 180 and shoot someone in the head from across the map. Even then its hard to prove they have an aimbot, because good players sometimes make incredible shots.
c. The aforementioned trigger bot. This program allows your computer to fire when the aimbot acquires the target. The timing of a trigger bot is instantaneous, taking human reactions out of the killing equation. However, as said before, this makes the cheater more obvious.
d. No recoil. There are programs which allow you to fire your weapon with absolutely no recoil. This gives the cheater a huge advantage against the average player. It allows the cheater to follow the target effortlessly, since you do not have to allow for recoil. This cheat gives you the most advantage with smg's and machine guns since each have a higher rate of fire, and more recoil than other guns.
There are more hacks out there, but these are the most prevalent, imo.
3. How can the average player spot the hackers?
I don't believe the average player CAN spot most of the hackers out there. Simply put, I believe you have to be of a certain skill in the game yourself and know what each weapon can and cant do naturally before you can become competent in spotting the cheaters. Even then, most times you cannot tell without sitting in spectator and watching the player for long periods of time waiting for the moment whet the cheater reveals him or herself.
But anyone who plays the game can go to spectator and make a demo of any suspicious player. I recommend that everyone who thinks there are cheaters on the server they are playing make such a demo. This will allow the average player to, at his leisure, go back and watch the demo for what they feel the player was doing that made them think he/she was cheating. If the player finds something that is obviously a cheat, simply get in touch with that servers admin and send the demo through xfire or whatever peer to peer program that allows for transferring files. I myself have gotten many players banned from a server by making a demo of cheaters.
To record a demo, simply pull up your console by pushing your ~ key on the upper left of your keyboard. Then when that little bar comes up with the blinking underscore line, type in
/demo
"name of file"
Name the file something you can remember because you are going to have to go into your Activision folder to find it, and naming it will make it easier to find. I usually name the file whatever the suspected cheater's name is in game. The trace route to find this demo will be:
C:Program Files/ Activision/ call of duty 2/ main/ demos
To view this demo and make a determination if the player is actually cheating, click on your multiplayer icon but dont enter a server. Open your console and type in
/demo
"name of file"
When you hit enter, there will be a delay of a couple seconds and then the demo will start playing. You can then view whatever it is you made the recording of.
4. Are there solutions to the problem of cheating?
Can clans mitigate the problem?
Of course there are solutions. For every cheat program out there, the game makers could come up with a detection program. This however, is not making the game makers any money, so they have no interest in supporting their product in this way. We all know the bottom line in our society is "Does this benefit me financially?". The makers of CoD2 made a half-assed attempt to make people believe that cod2 would be cheat free by adding PunkBuster as cheat detection. But every hacker knows that PunkBuster is a joke. There are so many holes in the program, its a good thing it's not a submarine. Anyone reading this diatribe, think about it. How many times have you seen PunkBuster actually CATCH someone cheating? Ive played this game almost daily since it was released, and i can count on one hand the cheaters PunkBuster has caught while i was playing.
Since the cheat detection is lacking, its up to server administrators to police their own server by observing players. I recommend you make a demo of cheaters before banning, because there are a lot of people who would rather blame the administrators of a server, than try to recognize that there are cheaters in COD2. Also, make sure you record the offending players GUID so there can be no doubt of who is actually playing the game when you catch them cheating. Good luck, and hope this helps people in the gaming community.
