Cheat detection overzealous?
 

I was playing solo the other day, and it was one of my first turns with the new 2.12 patch (though not the first turn), in a game that's been going on for about 80 turns before under 2.11.

Well, as my first message, I got "Message from Host" telling me that Arcoscephale (that's me, of course) has had a sudden increase of wealth, and that I was probably cheating.

OK, it's nice to try and detect tampering, but all I had been doing was alchemizing gems, using my Alchemist's Stone and Alchemist. I ran the game for a few more turns, alchemizing again, and didn't get the same message again - maybe I had been doing it more intensely the first time, I don't know.

Still - in a MP game, it would be very bad for the game to tell everyone that Nation X is "probably" cheating, when they're just alchemizing. I can understand that, with Alchemy being one of a few orders that are instantly effective, it may be a bit harder to keep track of everything, but I'd like for it to be a bit safer.

Oh, and even if the player can justify himself and explain he's just doing some alchemy - other players should not have access to that information (plus, it could become the standard excuse of any real cheaters - though if some player has to explain he's been doing heavy alchemy turn after turn starting turn 10, people might have difficulty believing him).

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

@PhilD: Good Catch

@Norfleet: Nice Try

I would suspect that the russian testers were getting paid. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

So of all the things in the patch this is the item that you feel didnt get tested? VQ, Pangaea, Pangaea:CW, the various crashes/leaks and windows hosting problems, on 3 different operating systems. Apparently no one played deep enough into the game to test the gold-making cheat-check.

I agree this needs fixed. Anything else?

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you find out how to recreate it I'll be glad to know how you did it.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

I set up a new game with all 17 races as humans(Me) to have a look at something (assassin accesss IIRC) and was told that Ulm was cheating from turn 1. Presumably this is a bug too. I did not play any turns & have no idea what the various pretenders were & I logged it as a quirk.

Pickles

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

I assume Ulm was using a Vampire Queen designed under the previous Version. That is seen as cheating as she was cheaper back then.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

My feelings on this is that to even have "cheat detection" function in single player is ridiculous, pretty funny actually.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

Phil was talking about the implications for MP. If the game thinks cheating takes place when people alchemize, then the parameters are very suboptimal; I would rather have *no* cheat detection if that includes defining cheating as a great increase in money. Just one of these Messages could really ruin the morale and spirit of an MP game.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

Meh. I wish I could say I was surprised that yet another thing in the new patch doesn't work.

You have to ask....what exactly has this new patch given us? Certainly not the Skratti or the Great Warlock back, that's for sure. Did people even test this? You know, I hear that in the Soviet Union, programmers used to deliberately put bugs into the code, and if the beta testers didn't catch it, they were shot! Something to think about: In Soviet Russia, program tests you!

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

There is a problem with the cheat detection and the alchemist's stone. The alchemist's stone gives slightly too high bonus when converting fire gems into gold and this triggers the cheat detection.

So bear in mind that the owner of the alchemist's stone has the right to cheat in Version 2.12. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

It seems to occur if the Alchemist is holding the alchemist's stone when he performs the alchemy, but is no longer holding it at the end of the turn, such as if it has been stored back in the lab after alchemizing.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Given the crappy testing of many games (MOO3, Lionheart, JA2:Wildfire, etc.), this idea has much merit. I find it utterly incomprehensible how any "tester" can fail to find bugs that slap you in the face within 5 minutes of playing some game for the first time.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's perfectly understandable. Never heard of the "Law of Big Numbers" (or whatever you call it in English)? Remember there is only a handful of betatesters for Dominions, and AFAIK none of them is paid for the free time he devotes to bugtracking - heck, I even wrote a run-in-the-background backup utility just for that purpose. The simple fact that the 2.09 or 2.10 patches were never released should be enough of a clue that the testers aren't always idling.

Besides, when testing Dominions you're usually trying things like rituals and their effects, or scrutinizing the behavior of your units in the battlefield. You're not interested in competitive play and min-maxing strategies - and that's exactly what alchemy for gold is all about. So no wonder this one made it undetected into the patch.

[ June 24, 2004, 19:13: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

It should be noted that the Warlock and Skratti remained AWOL. Given that this was reported at the end of the LAST patch, you'd think that it would have been on somebody's test list.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, I wasn't alluding to this patch at all. My reply was specifically geared towards the other games I mentioned.

The closest that Dom 2 has come, IMO, to brain-dead testing was the failure to catch the rather obvious Utgard bug in the 2.08, and I attribute that to IW having a non-rigorous/thorough test plan and/or the patch possibly being rushed out the door. What irked me even more is that IW spent 2 months to release the fix for that bug. Frankly, the 2.08 patch should have been recalled and re-released the next day with the fix (a misplaced semicolon, IIRC). The bug was found (by me) and the offending code spotted (by JK, IIRC) within literally minutes of the patch's release, quickly enough that I feel that taking the patch off the Shrapnel site, fixing it, and then putting it back up would have been viable, and certainly would have taken less support time on IW's part than what they spent over the next several weeks in replying to Posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

But that's all in the past now and there's little point in dwelling on it. The only reason I quoted Norfleet's post is that not only did I find it amusing, but I've felt the same way towards the folks at Atari and various other publishers.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As various fanboys keep pointing out, the devs have a different idea of priorities than some of us have.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I was wondering how long it was going to take before people would start to accuse those defending the programmer as fanboys.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Maybe we should exchange places. You do the betatesting, and I'll ***** every time I find a bug.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you're serious about throwing down the gauntlet like this ... I accept your challenge. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

EDIT: PS - I was the lead software QA engineer at my Last job (before my position was outsourced to Calcutta). I also spent hundreds of hours beta-testing and writing up bug reports for E&B and SWG (not that EA and Sony paid much attention to them).

[ June 24, 2004, 20:28: Message edited by: Arryn ]

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

Heh. I gave the numbers of the Skratti and the Warlock to PvK, who said he was going to try to see if he could mod them back in. I might try that in a few minutes.

Anyway, after finishing a small project for Zen regarding research efficiency, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a very basic program to calculate research efficiency. If there is sufficient interest, I will see what I can do to tidy it up and beg space somewhere for it to go up.

Thanks have to go to Gandalf Parker for getting me interested enough to pursue basic computer programming again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What does the program do? Just wondering whether it overlaps with this?

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What does the program do? Just wondering whether it overlaps with this? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's more or less the same. My program is just this itty-bitty thing in Qbasic to auto-calculate the efficiency score.

Do you know if this website includes experience bonuses? This change things a bit.

Also, my program allows for calculation at any level. It's not nearly as elegant, however.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I was wondering how long it was going to take before people would start to accuse those defending the programmer as fanboys. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Eh - the people pointing out that the developers have different priorities than some of us aren't necessarily defending the programmers, so 'fanboy' isn't being applied to the defenders.

Explaining away the fact that the Skratti and Warlock didn't go back in as a "different priority" isn't defending the programmers.

Explaining away the fact that the developers didn't put out a 1 hour fix right after finding out the Skratti and Warlock was missing (in two patches now) as a different priority isn't defending them.

Explaining that parts of the user interface are infuriating, and aren't likely to get any better because the programmers don't like to do user interface work isn't defending them.

Feh.

Re: Cheat detection overzealous?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's more or less the same. My program is just this itty-bitty thing in Qbasic to auto-calculate the efficiency score.

Do you know if this website includes experience bonuses? This change things a bit.

Also, my program allows for calculation at any level. It's not nearly as elegant, however. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It does indeed handle experience. But anyway, congratulations that you are getting the hang of programming. It is a quite handy skill http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Ps. What do you mean by "any level"?

[ June 24, 2004, 22:05: Message edited by: guybrush threepwood ]