Thank you Stormbinder!
 

I wish to directly thank Stormbinder for bringing to light the cheating by Norfleet. You absorbed many admonishes from gamers and Moderators about you rants. Thank you for sticking to your guns. No matter what others say if you had not hounded on the facts they would have ingored them hoping they would go away. To you conspiracy theorists : Yeah and OJ is innocent [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/crazy.gif[/img] I had given Norfleet the benefit of the doubt but anyone with a speck of logic will come to the conlusion he cheated. I foolishly believed this community was immune to this type of cheating but I was naive. I believed that this (more intelligent) type of game did not have the same issues as other main stream games. Once again a strategy game that I love to play in multiplayer is tainted by cheating and with a lump in my thoat I put the CD in in its case and shelf it. Sadly the cycle continues. I am done playing multiplayer for a while until some of these cheating issues are resolved. In the games I am active in (one including Norfleet) I will be going AI. I hope this does not inconvenience anyone.

To all the (non-cheating players http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) players thanks had a bLast playing in all the games. This is still a great community and I hope alot of these issues are resolved.

Good bye Pirateiam
 

Thank you Pirateiam.

I am very sorry to see you leaving, at least for now, Dom2. But I certanly understand your position. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif I hope you'll be back soon and we will have more fun and intesting Dom2 games in the future. DAfter all Dom2 is a great game, and I hope few rotten apples like Norfleet will not be able to rob you of the future enjoyment of it.

I wish you luck in whatever things you'll be doing meanwhile.

Take care friend!

With best regards,
Stormbinder

Re: Good bye Pirateiam
 

I agree with Pirateiam wholeheartedly. I gave Norfleet the benefit of the doubt and I apologize, Stormbinder. I basically thought you were insulting and making unfounded accusations. Now you are proved right and I appreciate your persistence. Well done, Storm.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Good bye Pirateiam
 

Well, if he didn't have any proof when the accusations were made, they were unfounded at that time, no matter how it turned out in the end. (I'm referring here to the rants that pre-dated the current bit of detective work Storm did. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.)

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

It seems pretty definate that it was hex-editing of the turn file. Any protection from such rare cheating will cause alot complaints amoung the players. No matter what game you play, there will always be people capable of editing the files for an advantage.

I was under the impression that there was more than enough warnings about Norfleet floating around that noo one should be TOO surprised at all this. I think you should continue enjoying Dom2 and simply be abit more careful who you play with.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Chess? :-p

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

You can still cheat in chess (when the other guy isnt looking).

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

If its the PbEM Version >;-)

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

That's not quite true. If the server can be trusted, you can have a cheat-free game. The idea is that

• No information that should not be displayed are sent by the server to the clients
• The clients only sends in the moves --- then the server validates that those moves are legal, and calculates the consequences.

This could have been done with dom2. .That leaves two kinds of "cheating"

• bots
• Better clients (e.g. displaying numbers instead of graphs could be considered more accurate) Easily solved by making the format plain text --- everyone is equal, then.

Neither of which is really that bad in dom2. (In games such as UT2004 those cheats are troublesome, though)

An added advantage would be that AI-bots could have been implemented

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Um, are you saying it's not going to be fixed?

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Sure. But "being careful who you play with" can get you accused of narrow-mindedness. Zen had this to say about my ban on Norfleet:

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the reason you 'Banned' Norfleet was the same reason you Banned VQ's and Clams, and Castling?

You never Banned Norfleet for cheating, at least that was my impression. Otherwise I'm sure this type of discussion would have been had a few weeks ago. Or what is more likely is that you suspected him of cheating, couldn't prove it, so didn't want to play with him to avoid it.

There was a distinctive difference between your 'banning Norfleet' and say, Graeme's refusal to join games/have Norfleet play in games, with him. Graeme's particular method was by far, to my mind, less overzealous and attacking. Even though Graeme and Norfleet had disagreements on a personal and philisophic level.

With your recent adulation and statements, it appears that is just your personality.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

You stand corrected. The reason for the ban was that Norfleet became a person I chose not to play with following the exposure of his dishonest behaviour in a game earlier in the year.

I was being "careful who I played with".

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Ah yes the "alternate persona" debacle. Forgive me if I can't keep everything straight as far as reasonings for people to not play with Norfleet, Clams, VQ's, Castles, or others http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I do stand corrected. While not in my mind a valid reason to ban someone (especially since he was obviously using alternate names http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif it's certainly isn't because he was cheating, though I'm sure that thought crossed your mind.

It sort of goes back to your Dom1 days and going out of control about alliances and such. As far as I'm concerend you can not play with anyone you wouldn't like to, I certainly don't play with people I don't like, but I don't make huge announcements and flame them at every opportunity.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

I sometimes have strong opinions, and I'm prepared to express them. Like you.
There has never been anyone, including Norfleet, that I've "flamed at every opportunity".

I think this discussion is in danger of becoming the kind of flamefest we both regard as counter-productive. Let's stop.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

For that kind of obvious flame personality I'm going to have to respond with ...

http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html

(As the Torch would say "FLAME ON")

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

I want to respond a second time to these statements from Gandalf, because an intervening dialogue between myself and Zen has buried the original. My concern (possibly unfounded - if so please put my mind at rest) is that these statements are a justification-in-advance for an announcement that the vulnerability will not be fixed:

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Er, what are you saying? That you want to start a flamewar with me? If so, I decline.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

You must really have a low opinion of IW if you honestly think that they would not fix an exploit to the best of their ability/time. You seem to be forgetting that Gandalf is ever the diplomat when it comes to these things. It's a safety blanket. It means that if an exploit requires too much work (as in a total revamp) it may or may not be addressed. Or any number of other circumstances. It also means there are alot of ways for people to cheat within the limits of the game engine (with the fatherland file, etc) and the currently limited cheat prevention code.

If you want peace of mind, you can know that IW is on it and has several answers already in place in the Last day(s).

As for the Flame Warrior's link. Come on man, unclench a little, I was not biting my thumb at you. Some people take everything too serious.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

If it turns out to be hex editing then there is no vulnerability to be "fixed". That would mean that he directly edited the files. A file can always be hex edited. If you want to see it just open a DOS window and use debug to view the file. (NOT recommended)

More checks and encryption could maybe be added if the devs wish but that would tend to cause alot of complaints.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Now this is a fair cop. Guilty as charged http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Sure there is. As Esben (I think) pointed out, a server-side audit of the incoming 2h file can entirely eliminate the possibility of cheating by editing the .2h or .trn file. However, I agree that if Norfleet was regularly getting his hands on the ftherlnd file (Esben doubts this and so do I) then there's likely no practical fix.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

I disagree Gandalf. I am a programmer myself, just like you, and I certanly don't agree that hex-editing is impossible to beat or detect, especially in the game like Dom2.



It is possible to make a game such as Dom2 much more hackproof against various forms of cheats, including "dreaded" hex editing. The combination of better and more powerful encryption methods that those that are being used now, with changes along the lines of what Mose have mentioned (BTW the mantra of all network security programmers is "Remember! The client is in the hands of the enemy!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ), with any numbers of additional security checks can make dom 2 *much* more difficult to hack, or even completely hack proof, depending how much efforts and changes into client/server architecture and tasks balancing devs would be willing to do to improve security.


Finally, I just don't think that the solution that Gandalf proposed "Sorry, but this game can always be hacked, just choose your partners carefully" would be an acceptable solution to a lot of Dom2 players. The typical MP Dom2 game can take anywhere from 4 to 17 players. When people invest *days* of their time into game with many other playes, some of whom they don't know very well, they want to be sure that they are not wasting their time playng against some jerk with unlimited ammount of gems. I am sure you understand such feelings.

Regards,
Stormbinder

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

I wouldnt call that a vulnerabilty. Only more checks. But thats all semantics. Basically thats the kindof accounting that is already in place. It would have forced him to spend his illicit gains every turn or have it caught by the cheat-check routine which apparently he did. Of course further checks can be put in (I think I mentioned that) but Im not sure if the processing time and harddrive space would a trade-off that will happen quietly. And that still wouldnt stop hex editing.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

OK I will stop trying to say people are arguing things I didnt say, and agree with you. Some protection can be added. It still will be possible to hex edit it but much more difficult. And "choosing your partners carefully or taking your chances" as a slight effort to avoid playing with a cheater is not a good answer.

I dont think I said anything in disagreement with what you just said, but yes, the way you said it is correct.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

All right, I am glad we are on the same wavelength than.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Putting on my software engineering hat for a moment:

While it is possible to make a bullet-proof server, it is not necessarily practically possible to make an existing server bullet-proof. Judging by some of the previous bugs, I suspect that in Dominions 2 the GUI is mashed in with the underlying game logic to such a degree that it would probably take an almost complete redesign and rewriting of the game engine to accomplish. That would be too much work to invest over some very rare incidents of cheating.

Remember, if it was easy to make secure software, people would do it more often.

Just a very minor nitpick here, but you can't really encrypt the turn files from the eyes of the player. As the player has access to the binary which generates the turn-file in the first place, he has always theoretical access to the plain-text - regardless of what encryption method is applied. The correct term to use would be "obfuscate."

(And yes, this is hair-splitting - at least when we're talking of nothing more important than turns for a game.)


Why not? It's not like anyone plays this game professionally for money, and even if people did, the existance of some amount of cheating is accepted in other games and sports that people play for money.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

It is hard to tell for sure without actually looking into source code Leif. But I also have noticed that Dom2's GUI is indeed likely to be mashed with arhitecture code.

How can you possibly know that these are rare incidents? If you have followed this cheat discovery story, you know that this particular cheat was catched only because of unique combination of many factors. And if cheater would not be so blatant with the amount of which he cheat, it would be impossible to prove. It would also be compltetly impossible to prove if the game would not be stoped by turn 23 but Lasted even 20 more turns. Et cetera...

Hey, I never said it was easy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

You are right.


It also know to devastate computer games communites in many other MP games. I have witnsses several examples of this myself, and I've heard and read of many more. And Dom2 is very time intensive game as far as strategic MP games go.

Great signature/quote Leif. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Two reasons. First of all, very few people have the skills and plain stubborness of mind that's necessary to fiddle with obfuscated binary files. Secondly, if this cheating was common, Norfleet wouldn't have had the unique reputation he did - both because his "strategies" wouldn't have been as efficent, and because other people would have managed to get them to "work."

Yes, I rather like it. It's a chapter heading from one of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Hmmm, why do you think that the Norf was nesseserly the one who discovered how to hack the files? I may be wrong, but he didn't struck me as somebody with good technical skills and programing knowledge. Besides once the protection is cracked, simple "trainer" program can be writen to modify client's turns before they are send to the server, with something like simple shortcut to reset all gems to 200, or whatever. Once it is done any 5 year old kid can use it.

As for the strategies, "madcastling" and "massive clamhoarding" strategies are still very efficient ones, if boring, norf was not the only one who used them successefully. Just like VQ was still overpowered before it was nerfed, regardless of the fact that Norf used her in all his games while cheating.

Basicly I am not saying that there are tons of cheaters out there, and I hope there are none or just a few.

I just wanted to point out these three facts:

First, we have no real way of knowing if there are other cheaters out there and if there are - how many of them.

Second - Norf's kind of cheats are virtually impossible to detect by other players, unless cheater is really greedy or stupid, and the curcumstanses are right.

Third - from my personal experience with computer MP games once the cheat is out the number of people using it would only grew in time, never shrink, until the loophole is closed. Call it human nature, or murphy law, or whatever. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif But I never seen cheats appear, and just slowly fade by themself with time.


Yeap, I remember you told me about it long time ago, answering my question. I even tried to find that particular Howard's Conan story, but couldn't. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Do you happen to remember its name by any chance?

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Sigh. Yes it would. It's like my server pages: You are told that no more games can be started. Of course, you could break out you hex editor and send in a request to have a new game made anyway. What happens then is that the server rechecks that the game creation is allowed, and stops the request. This is no different than casting a summoning spell: Done right, the client would sent a request to the server that caster A cast spell B. The server would then check that the conditions are met, subtract the used gems, and send the result back. (In practice, there would be several orders and so on, but the principle is the same.) '

I repeat: Given a trusted server, cheating can be limited to "better clients". If no trusted server exist, cheating is possible. Try looking in the KDE forums for KBattleship. Battleship --- such a simple game. But there is no way to make it cheat-free without a third part acting the part of the trusted server. Try me, if you want http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And yes, I'm aware that this would require such a major redesign that it would not be feasible for Dom 2. But I, for one, are secretly wishing for a Dom3, and for that, it might be done right <tm>

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Now you are getting contagioned with Norfleet's paranoia.

In my 3+ years of playing first DomI & now DomII I have only been burned once, and that was a 'map edit'. The cheating host was spotted & exposed easily.

I have joined many games in different servers since then with mostly unknown (at the time) opponents, and always met some excellent people. No cheating in them at all I believe.

I dispute also the idea that 'mild' cheating could become common: cheating in a MP games when no rewards are available always comes down to an ego issue: 'must win at all cost' for recognition or whatever, so it's never mild but rather tries to _fully_ guarantee victory, all the more the more opponents involved. Both the data KO offered re Norfleet's empire at turn 23 & my own experience confirm this.

The problem with this issue is IMO that Norfleet was such a dedicated player, involved in a dozen or more games at the same time...so it looks like many people might have been burned by him and a good deal of newbies at that, which is a sad first experience.


From our discussions at the time I certainly recall that a bunch of us defended that 'economic building' & 'turtling' strategies were only viable in big maps & vs non agressive opponents, and that argument was never countered at the time, but rather we were told 'look, Doom horrors wished for at turn 30!! after empowering to As9, this proves you are wrong'...now we know how those Doom horrors were wished for.

It all comes down to investing scarce resources in either the short term or the long, and the answer to the question of what to do with someone that is putting all his eggs in the long term is always 'kill him before he gets his return on his investment'.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

And just to point out something: if there is a way to have gems set to 200 specifically / exactly, it seems much more likely that this is a debugging / internal game testing command that was left in and discovered. Possibly a bogus way of using the wish spell, without having the astral / research necessary.

Say, Stormbinder : you're demanding / whining for Illwinter to make the game cheat-proof. You going to donate them the money to hire a couple of dedicated security/encryption specialist programmers, considering that big companies (Blizzard, for example) with multi-million budgets can't manage it with programmers largely dedicated to said task?

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Im not sure that going from a PbEM type game to a different style of gaming is a "fix". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Yes that would allow for MANY things to be fixed if all actions were interactive at the server. Of course even more would be fixed if you just went all the way to an Online world environment. Of course then you have to shift attention from hex editing to packet editing. Everything has its pros and cons.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

I'm not sure what you are saying here. There's no reason to quit having the game as a PBEM one to implement what he's described. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that it wasn't done that way in the first place.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

I don't think he's suggesting that the server checks everything inter-actively - just that all the rule verification is done by the server, and not by the clients.

The game would still be the same, but you would get rid of hex-edit cheating - as all the information in the turn files would be just player orders that the server would examine for legality (as opposed to just checking for validity and correctness.)

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

But it does that now. It does quite abit of math to decide if the turn that the player turned in can be legally accomplished. I know because I have been able to bump up against such checks frequently. It takes alot of time and effort to figure out what changes you can make in a 2h file that wont be caught when the host runs.

More checks could be added (and it looks like they will be) but there is ALOT of variation in this game as to how anything can be accomplished so such checks are hard to implement without a rash of (rarely friendly and understanding) Posts by players that they were declared to be a cheater when they werent. Of course any checks will make it even more time consuming to hunt for the way around it so it will serve some purpose. But as a security person my view is that nothing ever stops anything. The best effort is to only make it as hard as possible for as many as possible for as long as possible.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

The game could be identical in every single way from the player's perspective. The only difference is that all commands are executed by the server, instead of the client. So the client simply sends a list of commands he wants executed (Move commander A to province 2, cast spell X with commander B, alchemize 4 astral to water gems, etc.) and the server would check the orders and execute them (can A reach 2, are the gems available for both the spell X and the alchemy? Does command B know that spell? Does he have the correct paths?). See? No difference from the players perspective. The only difference is that cheat is impossible. If you don't believe, try me! Tell me how you would cheat with the above setup?

Everything IS interaction with the server TODAY --- that's why there is only one fatherland file. I'm not talking Online play.There are no cons, actually --- except that the game would need extensive refactoring, which is a showstopper for dom2.

If I were to make such a game, I would make at least these separate components:

• libdom2rules --- the actual game engine, which knows about gems, spell, movements and so on.
• dom2processor --- Uses libdomrules to processes turn files into new turn data files, ready to be sent to the client
• client --- Can represent the client
• ipserver --- Accepts files over IP, checks passwords and so on.
• mailsserver --- The same over SMTP or MTA or whatever.

The work is about the same, but using a software stack instead of one gigantic program makes every much more flexible.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

No offense intended to the IW folks, but the thing you must understand, Esben, is that IW does not have (AFAIK) any professional software engineers. Dom 2 has been created in the "spare" time of a few folks whose day jobs are something other than being programmers, game architects, graphics designers, network engineers, et cetera. It's actually remarkable that they've been able to do as well as they have given their relative lack of in-depth knowledge of professional computer game design (as compared to almost all other game dev shops) or even the inner workings of the coding tools they're using. I think you may be expecting too much from them, however nice your suggestions sound (at least they sound great to me). Perhaps if they become successful enough to consider giving up their day jobs, or hiring outside 'experts', then we might see the sort of polished product we'd love to have.

IW reminds me a lot of Paradox, who also began with 2 coders. After several years of popular products, they've grown to the point of recently soliciting for additional programmers. (Hopefully they've hired someone who actually has a clue on how to code a competent AI, and even more importantly, gotten a decent internal QA manager.) IW appears, to me, to be sort of following in the footsteps of Paradox. More or less. The largest difference is that I'm sure Strategy First has more money to throw at Paradox than Shrapnel has to throw at IW, since SF is a by far bigger publisher (nor better, just bigger). With more money, you can try to do more (or more difficult) things.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Thank you for posting that.

Actually IW is 2 guys and I think only Johan K calls himself a programmer. Kristoffer O is a teacher and seems to be the source of the thematic research, graphics, etc.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Oh my word, Arryn. I usually don't get involved in these discussions, but your post caught my eye and I feel compelled to speak. I disagree that Illwinter may be compared to Paradox. Dominions 2 has been said to offer "the most gameplay of any 4X game available anywhere" (Computer Gaming World, Sept '04).

And please don't compare Shrapnel Games with Strategy First. Paradox has dumped SF - the grapevine intimates because of unpaid royalties (http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=1002).
Stardock left for that reason (http://www.joeuser.com/index.asp?c=1...=21895&u=0). Just this week, LegendStudios posted on their forums:

"Strategy First Inc, our North America publisher, have not paid us a single cent since we sign our contract and what's more, they have not spend anything in ads and the distribution of the game is even worse (that's why the servers were not very busy). There is no way to get the game in big stores and even Amazon takes 2 months to deliver! Completely amazing.

So due to this situation and the economical problem we are suffering, we are forced to close our servers for Internet gaming. We have tried to arrange a solution with Strategy First but they refuse to find a solution."
(http://www.lsgames.com/wartimes/eng/...opic.php?t=243)

Don't be fooled by appearances. It's not how much money (or the number of programmers) a company has that makes it successful. It's understanding your product, your market and your customers that's key to successful publishing. And it's creativity, intellegence and dedication which make development teams great.

Just my dollar and 2 cents...

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

You're quite welcome, Gandalf.

Despite my saying that JK is not a "professional" programmer, he's apparently a better one than many of the CS-degreed migrant laborers (what I call the Indian and Chinese H-1Bs) I've had the dubious "pleasure" to work with. And, if one considers the term "professional" to mean that he gets paid for what he does, then JK is, indeed, a professional. Coding not being his day job notwithstanding.

Kudos to JK and KO.

Of course, my admiration for what they've done doesn't stop me from wishing IW had a professional GUI coder. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

I still don't understand why someone would cheat?
If I play chess and give myself all queens, so I always win, how is this fun? why would Norfleet or anyone do this? where is the reward to winning if you cheat? these people ruin the games for everyone and waste a lot of our time. <end of rant>

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

A professional GUI coder? Or a Windows GUI coder? (just razzing) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Sorry, Annette. I had absolutely no intention of offending. Personally, I detest Strategy First. They have lousy customer support. Perhaps I should have made that point in my post. Another SF case of unpaid royalties involves JA2:Wildfire.

And I agree with: But in all honesty, computer gaming is a business, and money does matter. Having more of it certainly doesn't hurt. Assuming that the points you mention are covered first, of course. Case in point for a failure on all counts is Atari, Quicksilver, and MOO3. Large budget and bad everything else. I won't rehash the details, they are very well known.

BTW, my comparison of IW to Paradox was intended to show how a small dev shop can grow. IW is by far a better shop than Paradox. And Paradox is better than most others. (What that says about most others I'll leave to your imagination.)

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Heehee Arryn brought Annette out of lurk mode. I can just picture her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif That was interesting info though.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

I'd settle for someone who's not UI-phobic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif (just razzing back)

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Nice to know I serve a purpose. hehe

Indeed it was. I happen to play HoI, and I'm curious as to what this means for HoI2 which is in dev now? I hadn't known that Paradox had dumped SF. Good for Paradox. If they have any brains they'll sign with Shrapnel. Or at least Matrix (cough, choke).

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

That would be very possible. The give/take would be the processing requirements being higher at the host end but for a pbem game that isnt supposed to matter. The solo players might hate it but they are low on the considerations anyway. Might even possible to have a level of checking avialable so that solo or hot-seat players dont have to wait for it.

Another nice advantage is that if everything is stored by commands instead of interface/results, it might open the door for scripting which would open the door for programmed bots which would open the door for player-programmed AIs. But lets not go there today. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I definately see the "web based game server" thinking showing there. In many ways that duplicates requests Ive made. Seperating host from client, and especially the IPserver, would go far toward good management for hosts.

I did understand the response I got about them not wanting to update multiple programs. Just the game and demo have floated quite a ways apart from each other.

Re: Thank you Stormbinder!
 

Boy, Arryn, you really know how to push my buttons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif How do you do that? Certainly, no apology necessary. I'm sorry if I've spoken out of context. Back to my cell before anyone notices I've escaped! (See why they don't let me post much??)