Please fix the Alt F4 exploit

[Asp Explorer]

People are being rather overdramatic as well regarding this whole hacking business.

I'm sorry Loki - but if a hacker has been successful then this is what happens.

1) Report a Player mechanism - hacker reports genuine original Player's account for lulz
2) The price of the game - it's free if hacker uses genuine original Player's credit card for lulz

I'm not saying that's a very sensible thing to do - it's disgusting - but it happens all the time

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I'm sorry Loki - but if a hacker has been successful then this is what happens.

1) Report a Player mechanism - hacker reports genuine original Player's account for lulz
2) The price of the game - it's free if hacker uses genuine original Player's credit card for lulz

I'm not saying that's a very sensible thing to do - it's disgusting - but it happens all the time

How do they know who is reporting? Anyone reporting without reason is going to be carefully looked at. Credit card fraud is a legal issue and they may end up serving jail time if they get caught... a bit of a silly risk to take in order to have lulz in a game. Credit card fraudsters are usually after making lots of money, not playing games.

And the number of people who will use such tools will be tiny.

Again, people are getting over dramatic about this whole thing in order to support their pet theories and solutions.

Perhaps people should take a step back and relax a little.

 

[Briarée]

Yeah, everything you just said, the main arguments against using p2p... However would probably be easier for them to incorporate something like punkbuster or such to make sure no 3rd party programs are injecting data into the stream. And I say that simply for the fact they could buy punkbuster and incorporate it or any other anti-cheat software to keep those kinds of hacks from happening. RATHER than building an anti-cheat app of their own from the ground up (Lots O Work...).
Checksum wouldn't work, as the "3rd party programs" could figure out what algorithym they are using and emulate that, would require an anti-cheat programming congruently to the game application and scan for any other programming attempting to modify the running games assets on the fly.

as long as they don't use a crap like hackshield.....cause every hackshield game i came acrross was a bot / hack fest

and if there is one thing we can all agree on, regardless of this topic, is that we don't want bots nor hacks in ED

 

[Briarée]

What's going to detect it? the server thats in contro... oh wait, yeah thats right, there ISNT ONE! ROFL HAHAHA

so no perpetual simulation then.
this means one can alter it's very own data, like say credit himself with 2 Billions credits or have infiny shield cell ammo etc... and no mechanic is ther to prevent it.....

game is OVER if this is the case, since they lied

 

[Robert Maynard]

so no perpetual environnment nor simulation then.
this means one can alter it's very own data, like say credit himself with 2 Billions credits or have infiny shield cell ammo etc... and no mechanic is ther to prevent it.....

fine, game over, still have 2 month to charge back from paypal should this be confirmed

From what I understand about the P2P / lite-server system that is in place, particular transactions are authenticated with the server, e.g. purchase or sale of commodities, modules, ships, etc.. The transaction log would allow Frontier to examine a commander's history to check whether unexplainable changes had been made.

 

[DaveB]

If a router is set to block traffic, neither will know the cause, just that they lost touch with each other... Its the router blocking not the software it would remain clueless, all it would know is that it can't talk to someone... And the same for the other players software. There's no way to tell why it stopped or where it stopped, just that it stopped (And thats a mighty big iff, I don't think the telemetry is in this software to do what you are saying right now)

right, and that will throw you BOTH out of the instance. Next time you're in the same place, assuming your opponent is still on the blocked IP, the game will fall back to relaying through the TURN server and you'll still have a link. Block the TURN server and you can't connect to an instance at all.

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Anyone ever a read a book called "Starliner?"

Totally off topic but this isn't going anywhere anyways...

It's about an intergalactic luxury liner and a young officer named Ran Colville. Lots of interesting ideas about space travel with some action and some love scenes. A real decent read.

While we're on this, there's a 3 part series of books called "The Fleet." A relatively unknown writer that makes a lot of grammar mistakes, but has a great imagination. It stars a cowboy type space smuggler who is tasked with leading a fleet that contains all that is left of humanity. It's got aliens, sex, profanity, zombies, and some bad ass scifi action. The aliens intend to slaughter all of the remaining humans and harvest them for meat, but underestimate the tenacity of their fearless leader and their finest battleship, The God of War, which cuts down the alien ships with firepower they've never seen. I got the whole set for 6-7 bucks from the Amazon kindle store. Definitely worthy of a little late night reading.

I got my adjustment tool right here... Don't mess with the cold crew.

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so no perpetual simulation then.
this means one can alter it's very own data, like say credit himself with 2 Billions credits or have infiny shield cell ammo etc... and no mechanic is ther to prevent it.....

game is OVER if this is the case, since they lied

ROFL. No. If it impacts your credit balance or your save state, the transaction goes through Frontier's server, If the server don't agree you go splat.

 

[tagos]

>overdramatic

oh, do behave

>report a player

Well you did say that a more central server was somehow uneconomical and would require a subscription model. You're suggesting an employee manually pores over individual tickets that merely have an accusation of cheating, written in unstructured English.

Yea. Not a chance. There seems little chance of getting ordiniary support.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Ah. I get it. Guess that's it then. Nothing you can really do about it. Which actually is fine by me, PVP was never supposed to be a focus but I know some are looking at this game for it.

Well I think a lot of people are looking at it, actually and that means, with the lack of foresight from FD by using the worst connection possible (P2P is fine if you're hosting your own server for something like you used to be able to do in COD), is that people like me won't be investing any more money into ED. Me and my gaming friends are about 10 in total that have the game or will get it depending on what we tell the rest. We're not so much interested in PVP but we want it in there because we like the challenge.

It's now pretty obvious the ED is going to be nothing more than a limited player encounter that in some cases, everyone will see different ships, or not see them and any chance of big space battles or owning space stations seems a no go either.

This leave very little content because what's left get's incredibly boring after 30 minutes.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

It's now pretty obvious the ED is going to be nothing more than a limited player encounter that in some cases, everyone will see different ships, or not see them and any chance of big space battles or owning space stations seems a no go either.

You do know this was part of the design from the first place? The problems with instancing will be fixed with patch 1.1 or 1.2 we hope, so that at least it will stop the silly business of being in the same instance and not seeing other people's targets. Otherwise, things are going according to plan (from FDs perspective, if not yours).

And i hope your friends have brains enough to make up their own minds and just take on board your feedback as one possible source of information. Otherwise you might be denying them a game that they might enjoy as much as i enjoy it. Not everyone likes the same things, not even your closest friends. I've got friends who love Starcraft, but i really hate that game, even though i love strategy games. By the same token, i love ED, but i wouldn't even bother recommending it to some friends, because it simply wouldn't be their thing.

 

[Cathalo]

You do know this was part of the design from the first place? The problems with instancing will be fixed with patch 1.1 or 1.2 we hope, so that at least it will stop the silly business of being in the same instance and not seeing other people's targets. Otherwise, things are going according to plan (from FDs perspective, if not yours).

And i hope your friends have brains enough to make up their own minds and just take on board your feedback as one possible source of information. Otherwise you might be denying them a game that they might enjoy as much as i enjoy it. Not everyone likes the same things, not even your closest friends. I've got friends who love Starcraft, but i really hate that game, even though i love strategy games. By the same token, i love ED, but i wouldn't even bother recommending it to some friends, because it simply wouldn't be their thing.

I want to like this game, I wish I could recommend it to my old guidies who have stuck with me since the beginning of Ultima Online, Asherons Call, Shadowbane, EvE, SWG and Darkfall. But I will never be able to convince them that this is a serious PvP game even though it is advertised as one. In none of the games I mentioned was it possible to simply escape defeat with the press of a button. This is the problem we have.

 

[Robert Maynard]

But I will never be able to convince them that this is a serious PvP game even though it is advertised as one.

Can you provide a link to the official advertising material that states that the game is "a serious PvP game", please?

 

[Jex =TE=]

This game is dead in the water, wings are a waste of time, this game isn't gonna last years lol. They should kick planet landings out the door and then work on the sequel. Dumping effort into this one is waste of time. There is now zero point in playing the main game mode. It's about to become a cheat arms race.

You're probably right - planetary landings we had in Frontier and whilst they're nice, they're not going to save the game at all. Not even sure what the point of the walk about thing is going to be without there being gameplay for that too. Just being able to walk is pointless on its own and without deeper content, there really is nothing to do.

 

[PhotoSensitive]

You assume it's a flaw, I think of it as a feature, don't like having players leave the game when you catch them? don't attack players. Combat isn't fun when it's forced on you.

Solo is the mode you want then. its a valid game choice, dev's confirmed it, if you dont want to play the full game online, there is a valid option for you not to do so.

Id be in faviour of a logout timer if possible. realize it would cause other problems; but as we say in new eden, dont fly what you can not afford to loose.

 

[Cathalo]

Can you provide a link to the official advertising material that states that the game is "a serious PvP game", please?

I don't recall the link, I just know that it said "Gameplay with consequence". Being an old time space sim fan, when I saw the video footage it sold me. I have been longing to play a game as good as Wing Commander : Privateer in an online environment since as long as I can remember. Gameplay with consequence can be misleading, I suppose. In this game there seems to be very limited consequence for anything we do.

The fact that players can basically avoid death in PvP at the drop of a button isn't even the worst part of it.

 

[Jex =TE=]

You do know this was part of the design from the first place? The problems with instancing will be fixed with patch 1.1 or 1.2 we hope, so that at least it will stop the silly business of being in the same instance and not seeing other people's targets. Otherwise, things are going according to plan (from FDs perspective, if not yours).

And i hope your friends have brains enough to make up their own minds and just take on board your feedback as one possible source of information. Otherwise you might be denying them a game that they might enjoy as much as i enjoy it. Not everyone likes the same things, not even your closest friends. I've got friends who love Starcraft, but i really hate that game, even though i love strategy games. By the same token, i love ED, but i wouldn't even bother recommending it to some friends, because it simply wouldn't be their thing.

We'll see what happens in the future won't we. Unless you have some super intellect or a crystal ball you have no idea what the future holds and no, I didn't know a crap P2P network was being used and my assessment of the game is pretty much spot on. Very little depth (some of my mates have already given up playing due to "boredom") which people on the forums are reporting a lot to make it a problem for the game. In your world, I'm sure ED is fantastic for you with flying between A and B and clicking things - fill your boots For the rest of us, we want a little more out of a game.

[h=2]Spectacular Multiplayer Space Epic.[/h][h=3]Take control of your own starship in a cut-throat galaxy.[/h] Start with a small starship and a few credits, and do whatever it takes to get the skill, knowledge, wealth and power to stand among the ranks of the Elite.
[h=3]400 Billion Star Systems. Infinite Freedom. Blaze Your Own Trail[/h] In the year 3300, across the vast expanse of an epic, full-scale recreation of our Milky Way, interstellar rivalries flare as galactic superpowers fight proxy wars.
Some may know you as an ally; others will call you a pirate, a bounty hunter, a smuggler, an explorer, an assassin, a hero... Fly alone or with friends, fight for a cause or go it alone; your actions change the galaxy around you in an ever unfolding story.

That's a little tongue in cheek. Not really spectacular MP is it and with no likely fix to combat logging, more like irritating multiplayer which it is right now. Unless they mean spectacular failure in MP, which right now it clearly is and from others posts here, was brought up during Alpha.

[h=2]Play your way[/h] The ongoing conflicts between the galactic superpowers provide you with a plentiful supply of different missions across the galaxy to choose from.

Trading is a great way of finding your feet and starting your future fortune.
With 400 billion star systems, there is a lot to explore in Elite: Dangerous. Deep space offers awe-inspiring sights to behold and valuable information to acquire, should you return safely to civilization.
Remember it's a cut throat galaxy out there and combat is a basic skill that you need to survive. It can also provide rich pickings, be it bounty hunting or piracy.
But before you set out to make the galaxy yours, it is advisable to get to grips with your ship and hone your flying and docking skills. The best way to do this is to begin with the single player missions and to watch the Pilot Training Videos.
Achieving the exalted rank of Elite is possible whichever way you play, be it Trading, Exploration or Combat.

Except the missions are already boring people, which was obvious because they're using pretty much the same system they used in frontier. Random missions which all look the same and feel the same and feel like they're randomly generated. When I was 12 they could get away with that. Awe inspiring sights perhaps but valuable information? Cut throat galaxy? Returning to the safety of civilisation? well not really.

Where's the blurb about the exciting trade runs that you have to do to make any real money? Or the crap AI that you must "take on" hundreds of times in a combat zone devoid of anything where you basically just pull back on your flight stick and it even aims your lasers. Maybe try the banality of mining? Everything in ED, right now, is to make you waste time whilst you do nothing.

I will say the visuals are great and if you're interested in astronomy, this is a good program to use to get a feel for the universe and flying through planetary rings is cool.

Boredom is not something people should be complaining about a month after release.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Can you provide a link to the official advertising material that states that the game is "a serious PvP game", please?

This might go someway - it certainly proves that FD give the green light for pilots to kill other commanders who get a bounty on their head! Except the bounty is worthless.

[h=3]It is a cut-throat galaxy out there, and combat is a basic skill that you need to survive.[/h] The Pilots Federation place bounties on the heads of anyone who is seen killing its members - Commanders who kill another member immediately get a bounty on their head. You can claim these bounties by hunting and killing the culprits.

For the less scrupulous - Why buy a hold full of cargo, when you can pirate it from someone else? Why go to the bother of exploring a system to sell the data, when you can simply take it from them by force?
The ongoing conflicts between the galactic superpowers also provide you with a plentiful supply of different missions to choose if you want to earn cash from them. There are assassination missions you can carry out for individuals, or you can be a hired gun, helping one (or all) of the superpowers in the wars which flare up across the galaxy.
Every time you and every other commander undertake a mission, the outcome has an impact on the galaxy as a whole for everyone, so your experience is ever-unfolding.

Uuuh....no, it isn't a cutthroat galaxy I'm afraid


So, what about trading.....

[h=3]Trading is a very useful, popular way to make money as a starship Commander.[/h] There are thousands of star systems with commodities markets - and some with multiple markets. Each of these markets exists in a Starport.
The rules are simple and universal: buy goods cheaply, where they are made and there is plentiful supply, and then sell them where prices are high, in a location with a high demand for your cargo.


Supply and demand drives prices galaxy-wide - your every trade contributes to the dynamic market activity. The smaller the local market, or the rarer the commodity, the more easily you and friends can work together to influence prices for your own benefit.
Commodities range widely in type depending on the system you are docked at, from domestic goods to raw minerals to agricultural products and weapons.
The majority of things you can trade are above-board, but there are narcotics and slaves too, which are illegal in different jurisdictions, so you'll need to put your stealth skills to the fore to successfully trade in those.

You can make a healthy profit as a smuggler or an honest trader. But beware the pirate looking to make their own profit - from you.

My bold and clearly not true. Just boost through the entrance and you're good. Not exactly a "skill" , per se.

What about exploring.....

[h=3]With 400 Billion star systems, there's a lot to explore in Elite: Dangerous, and it's possible to build fame and fortune from that exploration.[/h] Scanning a system provides a mass of information such as planet types, their chemical composition, mineral resources, surface liquids, interesting anomalies, and even indications of the presence of indigenous life.
This information can be returned back to a civilized planet with a data claim registration, logging the data earns money for the explorer - the more valuable the planets discovered, the more you're likely to earn.
There is a high-stakes race to be the first supplier of such information, and underhanded methods of denying your rivals are commonplace.
The galaxy is wider and deeper than you can even begin to imagine, and hides many secrets and mysteries, as well as awe-inspiring sights and unusual cosmic phenomena to behold.
Venture out into the deep unknown far from civilization, with little more than a fuel scoop and a scanner - you may even find more than you bargained for.

Once again not really accurate to what I've been reading on the forums here. There's a "race" to get the data back - really?? Underhanded methods - like what? And what "secrets and mysteries" are there - a piece of text to read that offers you no other gameplay other than to read it?

Lastly, let's look at the Pilot Federation as it neatly closes this reply....

[h=3]From Harmless to Elite[/h] Formed in 2805 after the great surge in private ownership of smaller starships, the Pilots Federation acts as conduit for trade route information exchange between trusted pilots and provides the infrastructure for a mutual protection scheme against the scourge of interstellar pirates.
The Pilots Federation's zero tolerance policy of dishonourable behaviour amongst its members is enforced by a system of bounties automatically placed on the heads of transgressors.

There is a galaxy-wide respect for the badge, which, when achieved, is worn with pride by members.

The Pilots Federation has a 9-level "kill tally" Ranking System from Harmless through to the coveted Elite status, with similar Ranking Systems up to Elite for trading and exploration. You can become Elite any way you choose to play.

Isn't it dishonourable behaviour to comabt log?

No nothing in their blurb is really that accurate and even make it sound like you can directly affect the universe you fly in amongst all these other people you can (not) fly with,.

 

[Vic Cynex]

I'm surprised there's an instant log off in this game.

Just about every other MMO I've played has a timer on log out, 30 seconds or so, and if you decide to 'quit now' your avatar is still there for the remainder of the countdown, giving whatever is hitting you time to finish you off; if it doesn't manage in the time, then you got away with it.

Sure, there's always the possibility the game will crash or the connection will drop, leaving you vulnerable to something that ordinarily wouldn't have been a problem, it's happened to me, but it's a small risk.

Quitting-to-avoid-dying is pretty much the definition of cheating.

 

[Flyinpiranha]

LMAO "Serious PVP game". If you got that out of all the different videos and descriptions of the game I'm not sure what to tell you. It's not and hopefully will never be. Stop trying to force it into a mold you want. I read the quoted text above and just kind of wondered how you can seriously take PR speak like "dishonorable behavior" to mean something associated to network coding. I'm pretty sure that's "in-game" related.

Either way, hopefully the PVP crowd dries up and moves onto something else. The "PVP crowd" isn't the only game in town and I hope FD realizes that there are players out there that want something different than just PewPewSpace Shooty McShoots A Lot. There are so many other games with good PVP and mechanics in place that support competitive play that I can't imagine somebody would want to try and force this into ED. It's not 'fair', it's not 'balanced'. They can chase that carrot all day but in the end you can still just bring 5 of your friends to take out 1 of another.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

The Pilots Federation's zero tolerance policy of dishonourable behaviour amongst its members is enforced by a system of bounties automatically placed on the heads of transgressors.

What gets bounties on the heads of transgressors in relation to behaviour amongst it's members? Let me think now, that was on double jeopardy just last week...

 

[Bangfish]

LMAO "Serious PVP game". If you got that out of all the different videos and descriptions of the game I'm not sure what to tell you. It's not and hopefully will never be. Stop trying to force it into a mold you want. I read the quoted text above and just kind of wondered how you can seriously take PR speak like "dishonorable behavior" to mean something associated to network coding. I'm pretty sure that's "in-game" related.

Either way, hopefully the PVP crowd dries up and moves onto something else. The "PVP crowd" isn't the only game in town and I hope FD realizes that there are players out there that want something different than just PewPewSpace Shooty McShoots A Lot. There are so many other games with good PVP and mechanics in place that support competitive play that I can't imagine somebody would want to try and force this into ED. It's not 'fair', it's not 'balanced'. They can chase that carrot all day but in the end you can still just bring 5 of your friends to take out 1 of another.

I am a PVP player and do I want to make PVE crowd go away? Get a grip dude... It's not like the PVP crowd is a niche market, just look at wow which has more PVP players than PVE. I don't understand how anyone can imagine farming brainless NPC ships for years to come but I accept such people exist and I certainly don't tell them to go away like you do.
It's more than interesting that these rabid and affected reactions often come from PVErs who always selfishly want the whole game for themselves.