Let me clarify something

[CiRiON]

Good day everyone, I'll first introduce myself before I'm going to discuss.
I'm one of the admins of a Soldat community (registerd with an other nick), only our community is a bit different.
You see, we like Soldat in a different way, we'd like to go deep in the code and try to change this. (Better known as hacking)
Now, please don't judge me on this fact, since I'm here to talk about some problems.

First of all, hacking ain't a bad thing. It's basiclly what the soldat developers do, only then reversed.
Cheating is the bad thing, since cheating ruins the gameplay.
Creating hacks and cheating is WAY DIFFERENT.
Hacking is just a form of programming, and it's very educative.
Cheating is the use of created hacks for winning.
I hope you understand we do not support cheaters, only hackers.

Second is the way Battle Eye deals with hacks. I understand you want a "hack-free" server, but this has gone to far.
Not us, but Battle Eye is ruing the gameplay since people get randomly banned and the use off applications that hook onto soldat is forbidden. (X-Fire, winamp plugin).
Eventually, we (the hackers) will be able to bypass this, but soldat players won't.

Then the last thing I want to say. You guys (pointing to the development and managment team) think we hate you, we hate soldat and we'l love to destroy both.
That's NOT true. I see it more that we need you and you need us.
We help you improve the security system, while you help us to improve our skills.
It's a cat and mouse game we both play, but please be so fair not to cheat in this game...

I hope you guys understand us better now.
Kind regards.

[Sticky]

This was an excellent idea for a thread.

[InuYasha]

t thought chakra made the a thread similar to this in the sin bin

[Dascoo]

Why is this in the lounge? Go put this in general discussions since it has something to do with Soldat...

[InuYasha]

wtf y does his post count say 0?

[Dascoo]

Because this is probably his first post and it's in here where post count doesn't increase.

[echo_trail]

CiRiON, it is not you job to "improve" soldat, as you say. You know very well that it has been asked that you do not hack soldat in any way, no matter the intentions, so what you're doing is violating the trust of letting out the game free and open like it has been done. If you have some ideas for soldat, we have a forum for that. If you wanna take it further, talk to enEsCe or MM, just don't go around hacking as you have done.

Oh, and don't preach about hacking not being bad. You say you're not contributing to cheating and that you do not support it. however, the cheats I see used in soldat are all based on the work of hackers, hackers such as yourself. So don't be saying that, mate, no matter your intentions.

You might not be one of the bad guys, I wouldn't know. I suppose some hackers actually do produce hacking programs in favor of the greater good, but as I said, it is not your job to do so.

Hacking is wrong, no matter how you put it.

[frogboy]

ibtl

[InuYasha]

ibtl

Wtf does ibtl stand for? i nerver seen any1 use it b4

[Aquarius]

This post ensures me the BattlEye developer is doing a great job.

[Mangled*]

Fascinating, captain.

But what you forget, CiRiON, is that despite you claiming you you don't like cheaters then why do you hack Soldat in the first place? You are the ones that feed the problem, and yet you seem to think it is a good thing that you are able to hack into Soldats code.

Don't try and justify your cause. Especially to this community, who as it happens, does not appreciate this 'art' of yours. Why can't you go do something more constructive with your programming skills? Instead of adding to a problem that you claim to be apposed to.

I hate cheaters with a vengeance and I have never used a hack in my life.

What you fail to realise is that you are essentially promoting your diverse community simply by making this topic.

[CiRiON]

You guys still don't get it do you.
We eventually help you.
Since we're a community I can controll everything people are doing, and if it's going out of line (like soldat doom script for 1.3.1 wich has a massive DoS attack) I can stop it.
But I can't control freelance hackers.
If we create hacks, Battle Eye will improve and go on.

Hacking aint bad, it's considered annoying since many of you don't care.
If you want to learn programming, then reversing a program is the best way.
This is simply what we do. Ask any of the creators, nobody uses their own hacks.
Only test it, comment it, and try to do the same.
Cheating is something really different, cause with cheating you want to win by playing unfair.
With hacking you just want to program.

[Chakra]

It does beg the question though, why not highlight these loopholes and security issues directly to Michal and Sable themselves instead of creating applications that others can use to abuse them?

Think i'll just move this to Gen Dis too.

[Demonic]

Indeed: you seem like a reasonable fellow. You could just aswell join in on the developer team and help out, like Enesce did waaaay back.

[~Niko~]

:---===ANTI-CHEAT PROTECTION

The Soldat network Anti-Cheat Protection is based on two modules.

 Software company's developing multiplayer games spend millions of dollars, hundreds of hours,
the work of thousands of people are wasted to invent the perfect anti-cheat systems. All those systems are as good
as nothing because they forgot about one tiny little thing. The author of Soldat got the idea after 4 seconds of thinking.
Now Sierra and other On-Line industry giants can't stand it that they didn't think of it first. The first
Anti-Cheat Protection module in Soldat is simply:

I.
 A request: "Please don't cheat while playing Soldat".

If that somehow doesn't work then please read this:

II.   
  Because of the Anti-Cheat protection system used in Soldat you
cannot use any hack tools like: memory finders, trainers, packet
editors, hex editors and dissasemblers while Soldat is running. It is
STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to CLOSE all programs running in
the background while Soldat is on. The use of hack tools will
degrade the game to a level it will no longer be playable.
Also editing the executable or other related files and cracking
the shareware protection will cause system instability and problems
with network play.
If this happens to you and you are sure you did not do anything
illegal please contact the author.

 Please remember that this is a small shareware game made by one man. If you try to break the game protection you
make harm to yourself because I can stop making the game if I'm without money and with overload of work making new anti-hack and anti-cheat systems all the time. If you want to hack something please concentrate on big company's like EA Games. Hacking a big commercial title will prove that you are good, please leave Soldat alone.

Extracted from Soldat's Manual[/size]

[urraka]

I guess I understand you... but... you shouldn't come here saying that you are a hacker. If you are a hacker and you like doing that because it's educative it's fine, but keep it for yourlsef, don't make that public. Also, I don't know if you publish the hacks you do or not... I hope you don't (if you do all you are saying doesn't make sense and you are an idiot).

[CiRiON]

@Chakra + Demonic

It's not the security holes we'd like to find, it's the programs we'd love to make.
As I said, we are nothing more then learning programmers.
Only instead of creating a new application, we add features to an existing.
I know many of mine community have forgotten this, and release their creations everywhere on the net not realising the damage they bring.
But the reason for this whole thread is that I'm tired of the endless ware going on, and especially now the players are suffering from it.
I would like to see that "Hacker" doesn't instantly means BAN HIM, and that the name of my community doesn't means "Bunch of retards ruin games".
We should solve this out.

By the way, I'm registered with my real IP, not with my real nick since I don't want to advert for my community. So I'm completely open to be reasonable, and I hope to retrive the same.

[Demonic]

And what different would helping the devs out be? To stick with Enesce's example, he was a hacker once, and he's been working on the server code and what not.

We can understand that you are learning programmers, but as you said, some of the retards from your community ruin our game. Some of us spent half of 1.3.1 reviewing demos with a hack to make sure if no one used it in-game, because of the ineffective anti-hack. With BE, our job is easier, because Sable is updating it as fast as he can.

And you can stay a hacker, but don't be naive and think you're welcome if you don't help actively. I'm pretty sure you can still learn and add to the game without making apps suitable for ruining the game of others.

[Chakra]

Well, what you say makes perfect sense and I can understand it. I'm not a programmer myself, but each to our own hobbies, and I imagine the act of creating, adding and modifying such a game is a fun little task.

I can also understand how you don't want your community and hackers to be mislabelled, but all this does beg another question. Why does the responsibility of these hacked creations that come from your community for all to use fall on Michal and BattleEye, when - if just a private task that you wish to do for your own benefit - the responsibility should fall upon the admins of your community? If it doesn't, then surely your forums promote this act?

[FliesLikeABrick]

The fact is that your "improvements" use a lot of the same methods that cheaters use to create their hacks for the game.  If we make allowances for your "good hacks"/imrpovements, then the people who want to create bad hacks/cheats for the game will exploit the allowances we made for the good things.

Personally I'd rather have the "good hackers" make suggestions to imrpove the games, and help find/report bugs to make the game better instead of them trying to go out and be heroes and fix the problems themselves.  Participate in Soldat the way we all do and make a difference for everyone.  Don't try to do things on your own and complain when they get blocked.  That is selfish.  Helping via the normal/official means helps everyone.