This is one of my concerns with HTML 5
-
If you are designing a game, you design the best game you can. If you design a game that can be cracked easily and quickly, you fail, big time.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
Cost vs value - making it a thin-client game would have made it hard to hack, but then they'd need more time to make it, they'd need to run servers etc, and for what? Just so people can't do a hack that would have had the global consequences comparable to those of a squashed bug?
-
Are you suggesting that it's okay to do second rate work unless there are profound consequences for violations? My guess is that the guy who built the app demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of how any app that is supposed to maintain data that cannot be changed by the user should work. If he can't do it with "Angry Birds," I sure as heck don't want him building anything that where there are profound consequences.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
Oakman wrote:
Are you suggesting that it's okay to do second rate work unless there are profound consequences for violations?
Not at all. I'm pointing out that the costs associated with the issue (maintaining server-side storage of the information) might outweigh the benefits (keeping players from accessing levels in a game). If you're charging users for other levels, and the 'cheat' interferes with your revenue stream, then there would a genuine benefit here to securing level access. If the game is simply a come-on for other things, and not important in and of itself, then it's sort of a 'meh'.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Cost vs value - making it a thin-client game would have made it hard to hack, but then they'd need more time to make it, they'd need to run servers etc, and for what? Just so people can't do a hack that would have had the global consequences comparable to those of a squashed bug?
David1987 wrote:
making it a thin-client game would have made it hard to hack
If you can't do it right, don't do it Second-rate is second-rate.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
Oakman wrote:
Are you suggesting that it's okay to do second rate work unless there are profound consequences for violations?
Not at all. I'm pointing out that the costs associated with the issue (maintaining server-side storage of the information) might outweigh the benefits (keeping players from accessing levels in a game). If you're charging users for other levels, and the 'cheat' interferes with your revenue stream, then there would a genuine benefit here to securing level access. If the game is simply a come-on for other things, and not important in and of itself, then it's sort of a 'meh'.
Software Zen:
delete this;Apparently, the only answer anyone can come up with to protecting the information is to store it on a server. Wow.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
David1987 wrote:
making it a thin-client game would have made it hard to hack
If you can't do it right, don't do it Second-rate is second-rate.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
No I really disagree - have you never had to work with a budget? There is nothing inherently "right" about making a non-ranked single player unhackable, it's just a waste of time and therefore money to do it. It would be like storing the settings & preferences of MS Word in the Cloud because they shouldn't be "hacked".
-
Apparently, the only answer anyone can come up with to protecting the information is to store it on a server. Wow.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
It is the only answer, although you can't even send it there (it would get wiresharked), you have to generate it right on the server. If it is stored on the client, it can not be encrypted. You can pretend you encrypt it, but you would really be obfuscating it since the client has the program that can decrypt it (it had better, or otherwise you just made a block of useless garbled data).
-
No I really disagree - have you never had to work with a budget? There is nothing inherently "right" about making a non-ranked single player unhackable, it's just a waste of time and therefore money to do it. It would be like storing the settings & preferences of MS Word in the Cloud because they shouldn't be "hacked".
This isn't about budget, it is about brains. The number of methods that could have been used to keep the player from hacking his score are almost without number. Anyone who couldn't think of one, shouldn't be allowed near a game design.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
It is the only answer, although you can't even send it there (it would get wiresharked), you have to generate it right on the server. If it is stored on the client, it can not be encrypted. You can pretend you encrypt it, but you would really be obfuscating it since the client has the program that can decrypt it (it had better, or otherwise you just made a block of useless garbled data).
Yep, things are always impossible, until someone does them. I prefer to work with the folks who think of ways of doing it right rather than reasons to do it wrong.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
Yep, things are always impossible, until someone does them. I prefer to work with the folks who think of ways of doing it right rather than reasons to do it wrong.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
This isn't about budget, it is about brains. The number of methods that could have been used to keep the player from hacking his score are almost without number. Anyone who couldn't think of one, shouldn't be allowed near a game design.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
Everything is always about budget. And you can't do this without taking something out of the budget. Whatever these "almost without number ways" are, none of them can involve storing (obfuscated) data locally because it is impossible (not through lack of imagination, but provably impossible) to make that unhackable.
-
So what is "right" in your opinion in this case? And why does something so trivially unimportant bother you so much?
David1987 wrote:
So what is "right" in your opinion in this case?
In preliminary design mode: insuring that the game is easier to play through to a win, than to hack. Beyond that., I'd need to spend more time than I have available determine what would be the best way to accomplish the goal. Perhaps, as a learning experience, you might wish to see if you could come up with a way of fulfilling that parameter.
David1987 wrote:
And why does something so trivially unimportant bother you so much?
I made a simple, relatively offhand statement which for some unknown reason you not only took exception to, but have been yammering on and on about. I have no idea why you defend mediocrity so passionately but am will to respond out of politeness as long as you feel the need to bother me about it.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
Everything is always about budget. And you can't do this without taking something out of the budget. Whatever these "almost without number ways" are, none of them can involve storing (obfuscated) data locally because it is impossible (not through lack of imagination, but provably impossible) to make that unhackable.
As I said, it's always impossible until someone does it. I suggest to you that we should simply disagree and let this go. Obviously I have higher standards for what constitutes good game design than you do and there's the end of it.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
David1987 wrote:
So what is "right" in your opinion in this case?
In preliminary design mode: insuring that the game is easier to play through to a win, than to hack. Beyond that., I'd need to spend more time than I have available determine what would be the best way to accomplish the goal. Perhaps, as a learning experience, you might wish to see if you could come up with a way of fulfilling that parameter.
David1987 wrote:
And why does something so trivially unimportant bother you so much?
I made a simple, relatively offhand statement which for some unknown reason you not only took exception to, but have been yammering on and on about. I have no idea why you defend mediocrity so passionately but am will to respond out of politeness as long as you feel the need to bother me about it.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
If your only goal is to make it "harder" to hack.. that's easy. Well the problem is, I am a game developer. So I take issue with such a blanket statement that doesn't appear to be have much following the industry. The toughest obfuscation I've encountered so far was "xor with 0xEF on every byte of the file" - in that case the original file was ASCII text, as "commands", not structured data. In that particular game though, deleting the games files of a level would make the game skip the level and go on with the next, so I'm not sure why anyone bothered to obfuscate anything. Usually it's just a binary dump of (part of) the game state with no trouble being taken to make it harder to edit. The general consensus, as far as I know, is that that is hard enough to meaningfully edit anyway, and besides we don't really care what players do. Of course all of that is only true for offline single player games such as Age of Empires, Minesweeper and, well, Angry Birds.
-
If your only goal is to make it "harder" to hack.. that's easy. Well the problem is, I am a game developer. So I take issue with such a blanket statement that doesn't appear to be have much following the industry. The toughest obfuscation I've encountered so far was "xor with 0xEF on every byte of the file" - in that case the original file was ASCII text, as "commands", not structured data. In that particular game though, deleting the games files of a level would make the game skip the level and go on with the next, so I'm not sure why anyone bothered to obfuscate anything. Usually it's just a binary dump of (part of) the game state with no trouble being taken to make it harder to edit. The general consensus, as far as I know, is that that is hard enough to meaningfully edit anyway, and besides we don't really care what players do. Of course all of that is only true for offline single player games such as Age of Empires, Minesweeper and, well, Angry Birds.
David1987 wrote:
If your only goal is to make it "harder" to hack.. that's easy.
When and why did you assume otherwise?
David1987 wrote:
Well the problem is, I am a game developer.
And I am a GAMA award-winning game designer who ran my own company for ten years. But neither statement makes either of us right, per se. Ultimately there is only one reason for doing the best job you can possibly do - so you can look at yourself when you shave in the morning. One either believes that, or one embraces mediocrity, and will do well as a mid-level manager.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
David1987 wrote:
If your only goal is to make it "harder" to hack.. that's easy.
When and why did you assume otherwise?
David1987 wrote:
Well the problem is, I am a game developer.
And I am a GAMA award-winning game designer who ran my own company for ten years. But neither statement makes either of us right, per se. Ultimately there is only one reason for doing the best job you can possibly do - so you can look at yourself when you shave in the morning. One either believes that, or one embraces mediocrity, and will do well as a mid-level manager.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
Yea well I guess I am of the opinion that mediocre generally means "good enough". We try to make our games fun to play, and that's really all we care about, it doesn't have to be perfect.
David1987 wrote:
it doesn't have to be perfect.
You seem to have a tendency to attribute statements to me I never made and then argue against them. Did I at some point suggest that perfection was the goal? The problem with "good enough" is that lazy people tend to define it as having as low a bar as possible. It's a lot harder to redefine "good" to mean mediocre.
David1987 wrote:
We try to make our games fun
Then why don't you simply allow the players to edit their score so that if they didn't do well enough to get to the "fun" of the next level, they can just type into a text box what they wish their score had been? I once designed a game, back at the dawning of time, that I never ever could beat (though a couple of testers did). Obviously I needed back doors to make sure that the end game worked, but somehow, I never thought of using them as "fun." Maybe I wouldn't do well at your company.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
David1987 wrote:
it doesn't have to be perfect.
You seem to have a tendency to attribute statements to me I never made and then argue against them. Did I at some point suggest that perfection was the goal? The problem with "good enough" is that lazy people tend to define it as having as low a bar as possible. It's a lot harder to redefine "good" to mean mediocre.
David1987 wrote:
We try to make our games fun
Then why don't you simply allow the players to edit their score so that if they didn't do well enough to get to the "fun" of the next level, they can just type into a text box what they wish their score had been? I once designed a game, back at the dawning of time, that I never ever could beat (though a couple of testers did). Obviously I needed back doors to make sure that the end game worked, but somehow, I never thought of using them as "fun." Maybe I wouldn't do well at your company.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
Obviously the player is not Supposed to edit the score, but sure if he wants to take his own fun away, that's not our problem but his. I'm not arguing in favour of making it as easy as possible to edit his score, I'm just saying that typically, here, no one cares enough to make it especially hard to do so. But, back doors are build-in and left in. We don't see it as fun to frustrate players with near-impossible levels that they may not be able to solve at their skill level. Views differ, I guess.
-
Obviously the player is not Supposed to edit the score, but sure if he wants to take his own fun away, that's not our problem but his. I'm not arguing in favour of making it as easy as possible to edit his score, I'm just saying that typically, here, no one cares enough to make it especially hard to do so. But, back doors are build-in and left in. We don't see it as fun to frustrate players with near-impossible levels that they may not be able to solve at their skill level. Views differ, I guess.
David1987 wrote:
We don't see it as fun to frustrate players with near-impossible levels that they may not be able to solve at their skill level
Then you build in skill levels, or you do as we did and use the concepts of the prototype and turn it into a real game that made us a lot of money. You don't use it as an excuse for sloppy work.
David1987 wrote:
I'm just saying that typically, here, no one cares enough
Yeah, I have gotten that. 'Nuff said. I've got to sort socks now.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
-
David1987 wrote:
We don't see it as fun to frustrate players with near-impossible levels that they may not be able to solve at their skill level
Then you build in skill levels, or you do as we did and use the concepts of the prototype and turn it into a real game that made us a lot of money. You don't use it as an excuse for sloppy work.
David1987 wrote:
I'm just saying that typically, here, no one cares enough
Yeah, I have gotten that. 'Nuff said. I've got to sort socks now.
The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots. R. A. H.
It's not "sloppy", it would be an unnecessary complication to "force" a player to "have fun". I'm also quite sure you know that Oblivion actually makes it very easy for people to cheat - you get the entire dev console. Surely they can't be complete idiots like I apparently am.
-
Yes but the way Microsoft is promoting HTML 5 is making clients make a shift from Silverlight to HTML5 even for LOB applications. Its not that Silverlight can't be hacked but its not this easy.
First of all, microsoft has NEVER said any such thing (that HTML5 will replace silverlight- or any other technology for that matter). Second of all, LOB applications have a back end on the server, which is not part of, but called from your HTML5 client. And last but not least, it's just another tool to make programs on top of the hundreds of ways available. What's the big deal? Any serious application is not running in a browser anyway.