MP: STACKERS, newbie game, (started)

[Amadamus]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

I would say end the game. I'm not a part of it, so I have no say, but I have been following it here and on IRC. The best choice is to end the game now. There has been obvious cheating, and that is not a part of the Dom3 community.

I'd actually go with this -this is a sad state of affairs.

But it cannot be explained how someone else can access the game besides BG. The aligations of cheating are serious and with out any proof that we have a genius hacker in our midst, It is rubbish that all the players in this game are implicated and carry a stigma of cheating.

[Amadamus]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Before all this hullabaloo happened, I'd been talking with blackguard about the game a bit, and we had a discussion or two about his strategy. Having had those conversations, I think there is about a 0% chance that he sabotaged his own turn. While it makes for amusing speculation, it makes no sense and certainly does not fit with my knowledge of his intentions for the game. And probability 2 is pretty minimal, you'd have to actually know how to play the game to sabotage the turn in the way it was done, and know the password he was using.

Whilst this may be so, the other likelyhood that the server was hacked or someone guessed his pw are just as outrageous.

[Gregstrom]

It's easy enough to download another player's .trn file through direct connect. Assuming poor password security, a simple and easily automated dictionary attack will get you access to a turn file. Other attacks may be possible depending on the security of the .trn file's password system (and I have no idea how secure .trn files are - I'm not into hex editing).

The idea that hacking is less likely than anyone intentionally going back into a completed turn and
1: Countermanding a series of critical orders
2: Destroying some of their own items
3: Casting 4 (count them, 4) dispels at their own globals
is pretty ludicrous.

[Amadamus]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

It's easy enough to download another player's .trn file through direct connect. Assuming poor password security, a simple and easily automated dictionary attack will get you access to a turn file. Other attacks may be possible depending on the security of the .trn file's password system (and I have no idea how secure .trn files are - I'm not into hex editing).

The idea that hacking is less likely than anyone intentionally going back into a completed turn and
1: Countermanding a series of critical orders
2: Destroying some of their own items
3: Casting 4 (count them, 4) dispels at their own globals
is pretty ludicrous.

Sounds like both of the scenarios you paint are equally ludicrous!

[cwkjc]

Or another solution is double personality

Auto dispeling globals can't be a file or turn problem, all this is very strange but hacking the file of blackguard is so amazing that i can't imagine it, but as BG said facts are here.

So what is decided ? Game is stopped or not ?

My nation is not in a good position to prononce for stop or not.
And i'm leaving in holidays tuesday, but it's very sad the game was perfect before this amazing turn.

I would be very happy to begin in September a new game with the same players in the same conditions and hosted by our super Gandalf.

But it seems important to understand what happened clearly in this game.

[Gregstrom]

Hacking .trn and .2h files has been done before. Normally on a player's own file, but there's no reason not to extend the principle. And if you aren't hacking a file to do anything obviously advantageous to a player, then the inbuilt cheat detection might well miss it entirely.

[Gandalf Parker]

Dom3, or the topic of direct-connect vs pbem, dont make this a new subject. Pardon a netcop lecture but it still boils down to having a password and choosing one that is at least laughingly unguessable. I feel that I can safely say that if everyone puts a password on their pretenders that is even jokingly reasonable then this is becomes as unlikely as any other password secured service on the net.

Part of the problem is actually unique to this forum. Some of the people here are actually told NOT to password protect their pretenders for IRC blitz games, and sometimes for PbEM games. So even though I try to specifically SAY that pretenders should have passwords (see post #2 of this thread) there are still people who have no password, or it matches the nation, or the players login. In such cases, I have trouble feeling any shared responsibility for what happens.

So far it seems the smoothest (even if not best) course is to allow the AI of Rlyeh and allow everyone to decide for themselves if they wish to continue playing. So for now, consider that to be the action unless there is a definite group agreement otherwise.

[Nauquan]

ahhh. Things are clearer now.

OK moving forward.

Can we vote please?

1) Stop the game

2) Play on with R'leyh set to AI, look for a substitute

3) Play on with everyone out of the water, R'leyh set to AI.

Please let me know as the Ashdod war machine has a large investment in the water at this point.

I vote for #2

[Nauquan]

I wonder if the AI will cast BOT

[Gandalf Parker]

AI is a one way trip. Once the game hosts with Rlyeh set AI, it cannot go back to being a human player.
So its either AI, or substitute. We cant go AI then sub later.