The online racing simulator
license removal for cheating?
1
(34 posts, started )
#1 - Chaos
license removal for cheating?
why not add a simple line into the license agreement that if you are caught cheating online it would void your S2 license?
this simple measure should keep anybody from cheating online... and there would be no need for additional anti-cheat coding for Scawen...

what do you think?
#2 - Jakg
...its already in the license agreement (that Scaview can remove you license at ANY time for ANY reason)

Arno cant use his S2 license for the next 90-odd days because of it...
But even after that, i'm sure they will still be baned from the iB and if someone on there own server see's them on they could possible remember who they are.

So I doubt they are getting away with anything whether Scavier bans them form playing LFS online or not.
Quote from Bawbag :So I doubt they are getting away with anything whether Scavier bans them form playing LFS online or not.

That's about it. LFS is still a rather small community so cheaters can be easily dealt with even without interference from the devs.

But on a side note Scavier and pretty much all game developers should do what Blizzard does to cheaters. Getting their licenses revoked serves them right.
#5 - SamH
@ Bawbag, I agree.. I've banned arno for life from the UKCT servers (not that they get used, like, but still.. LOL) basically because of a confidence thing. I know the guy has no scruples and I'm quite convinced that he will happily cheat and cheat while ever he can. I watched the reports come in to the barricade, and you could track his progress around the populated LFS servers.. each time, getting banned and moving on to the next one. In 90-odd days, hopefully everyone will be ready for him.
Quote from SamH :@ Bawbag, I agree.. I've banned arno for life from the UKCT servers

I also banned him for 999 days. In fact, if anyone has a server, whether it is popular or not, just ban him. Lets get the point across, because frankly, I think we should be INtolerant and discriminate for this cheating.

Make sure also, people who run servers, that you are signed up with internet barricade through UKCT. It is very effective.
I have a problem with this. While there is precedent for exactly this type of thing (Valve's anti-cheat on Half-Life come to mind), I don't think its right. People have purchased the game. It belongs to them. Nobody should be able to take property away from another individual because they don't like how that property is being used.

Yes, I fully realize that there are a large number of examples where this happens and is accepted by society at large. It doesn't mean I like it.

Banning a cheater from servers is perfectly acceptable.
It's not taking his property away, he can still use LFS on his own if he wants to, he's just not able to use it to cheat against other people who've paid for it. Which to me seems perfectly reasonable.

Of course a software license isn't property, it's a license, with terms and conditions. But whatever. It's a good idea to read terms and conditions before you set about deliberately abusing the product, really.
#9 - joen
Quote from animal1313 :I have a problem with this. While there is precedent for exactly this type of thing (Valve's anti-cheat on Half-Life come to mind), I don't think its right. People have purchased the game. It belongs to them. Nobody should be able to take property away from another individual because they don't like how that property is being used.

Total nonsense.
Like with so many products (especially software products) you accept buying the product on certain preset conditions. As long as these are made clear before purchase the buyer choses to accept these conditions. If the buyer choses to ignore these conditions any consequences are completely and unconditionally acceptable.
If it were my decision this user would never be able to partake in any online play again.
Besides, the product has not been taken away from him. He still owns S2, it's just a certain privilege has been taken away in order to protect those who want to play fair. Letting nutters like him be able to get away with this just because they paid for it basically comes down to punishing those who do obey the rules. Those people also paid for the game and should be able to use the game what it was created for without being affected by some tool.
Having purchased the game doesn't mean you can just do whatever you feel like. I feel it's not even debatable, because it clearly says in the license agreement:

1.5 Extreme disruptive or offensive behaviour by a user, towards the developers or members of the community, may result in temporary or permanent suspension of the user's Live for Speed license.


You really can't make it any clearer than that. You buy the game, you accept this agreement. Simple.
Quote from jayhawk :Make sure also, people who run servers, that you are signed up with internet barricade through UKCT. It is very effective.

I totally agree with you on this, but I think the problem is that the barricade is not as easy or straight-forward for server operators as it could be. I spoke to Sam a bit about this over PM and hope he won't mind me going into it again here, but for people like me who don't host a 24/7 server and just fire up and host every other weekend or so, the barricade doesn't seem practical. If the wrecker (and cheater) barricade is going to be effective it needs to be dead-nuts simple. Someone who hosts a server, or wants to host a server, should be able to quickly and easily download a current ban file. Even better, a tool that would do this automatically every 24 hours or whatever.

I can understand the reasons this isn't done right now, but I think it would be in the best interests of the community if the ban file were made easier to obtain. Everything can still be kept 'unofficial' and there doesn't need to be public humiliation (ala: 'so-and-so wrecked me' threads here on the forums), but making the whole thing less...covert...would make it more effective and widespread.
I come from the Gran Turismo racing community (don't laugh...it's a huge and very competitive group, even if it is light years behind LFS in terms of "simulation").

As a Race Admin, OLR (a euphemism for what the GT world calls online racing) forum admin, and active iLink (GT3) and LAN (GT4) racer, one of the great concerns was always cheaters. In traditional OLR, drivers would submit times for a hotlap or race, the Race Admin would compile the results and declare the winner. In the early days, there was no definitive way to detect cheaters...suspicious times required a "walk through" of the lap in question, declaring apex speeds, gears, etc. and it was often tedious to declare a submitted time clean or foul.

Later, we had the Dex Drive and then the SharkPort which allowed saved replays to be emailed to Race Admins/Stewards for review, and cheating became more difficult to get away with.

Ultimately in this community, most forums/boards adopted a 2 strike policy. If you were caught cheating once, you were given 1 strike, not including any "punishment" for the infraction itself (loss of points, DQ's from an event, etc.) On the 2nd strike, you (you screen name) were permanently banned from further competition at that forum, and often word got to other forums that you were "not to be trusted" by any means.

The bottom line is, Gran Tursimo RA's, Stewards, Admins, moderators and drivers learned that this loss of credibility was the biggest deterrent to cheating.
#12 - Gunn
I prefer a one-strike policy. Cheating in online racing is unacceptable, even to do it once.
Quote from NoQuarter :Ultimately in this community, most forums/boards adopted a 2 strike policy. If you were caught cheating once, you were given 1 strike, not including any "punishment" for the infraction itself (loss of points, DQ's from an event, etc.) On the 2nd strike, you (you screen name) were permanently banned from further competition at that forum,

Well, the recent cheater we had cheated an apparently countless number of times, so he probably racked up dozens of "strikes" before any action was taken. It makes more sense to count the number of times cheated rather than the number of actions taken as a result.
That cheater cheated months ago too, so I guess one strike or two strikes lovers are both served in this case.
For people theat cheat online, the only real solution is to permanently ban them from online racing. If you don't intend to race properly, don't race at all.

But, as we all know, all licensed drivers PAID good money for our licenses. Just keeping them away from online racing is acceptable as long as the single player game still works. This relieves the honest players of having to deal with cheaters without being complete jerks and ripping away a program bought with hard earned money.

Hope this sums up what all honest and reasonable LFS licensed racers want.
Quote from joen :You really can't make it any clearer than that. You buy the game, you accept this agreement. Simple.

I have a problem with all license agreements, not just the one under debate here. The only acceptable restriction is the protection of original property (IE: can't steal the product, make copies, modify without permission, etc.)

Stating that I may use my own property in very specific circumstances else that property will be made to be less than what it was is more like Renting the product.

If you buy one of my TV's, can I set it up so that if you watch a show I don't like it will disable all but one channel? If you buy my car and drive in a way that I don't like, can I automatically have the transmission not shift out of first?

It should be up to the community to enforce regulations, not the seller of a product. What is mine is mine to use as I see fit.

(Again I want to emphasis that cheaters should be banned and that i am not an advocate for cheating.)
I personally don't really understand the point of cheating thro.. it's such a nice racing-simulator. Why there are guys wanna cheat? Just wanna win the race and bully other racers?
#18 - Gunn
Quote from animal1313 :
Stating that I may use my own property in very specific circumstances else that property will be made to be less than what it was is more like Renting the product.)

LFS is not your property though. You have paid money for a license to use the software conditionally. The only reason that you have a problem with all licensing agreements is because you don't understand the concept of a licensing agreement.
Quote from Gunn :LFS is not your property though. You have paid money for a license to use the software conditionally. The only reason that you have a problem with all licensing agreements is because you don't understand the concept of a licensing agreement.

Ok. Explain it to me. I thought a license agreement was a "right" to use something in a specific way with certain conditions. LFS goes over this, though, by enhancing the basic product after a licensed is purchased. I can not just buy LFS without also agreeing to use it in a specific way. In short, I'm not buying (as in owning property), but rather leasing or renting it since the extra value can be removed if I do something that violates the license.

What would happen if, as in my examples above, products other than software came with the same types of licenses?
#20 - joen
Quote from animal1313 :I have a problem with all license agreements, not just the one under debate here.

If you have a problem with a certain agreement, then you don't buy the product... Because if you do buy it, you declare that you have agreed with it. It's really that simple.

Quote :
Stating that I may use my own property in very specific circumstances else that property will be made to be less than what it was is more like Renting the product.

The conditions in this particular agreement aren't very specific. They have more to do with common sense.

Quote :
If you buy one of my TV's, can I set it up so that if you watch a show I don't like it will disable all but one channel? If you buy my car and drive in a way that I don't like, can I automatically have the transmission not shift out of first?

If I buy your car and drive in a way you don't like you won't experience any bad consequences from it. And neither do any other people. And if they do (like driving dangerously) I risk getting a ticket from the police (since driving on public roads have rules as well, so this is like an agreement as well).
What happened to this guy here is actually comparable with this last situation. Sure, he bought the sim (car), but he is obligated to follow certain rules, which he chose to deny. His sim (car) will still be his property, yet he loses the right to enter online play (public roads) because he is disturbing other people. If his license (driving license) is taken away from him, his property (the sim or his car) is not taken away, but his right to participate in playing (driving on public roads).

Quote :
It should be up to the community to enforce regulations, not the seller of a product. What is mine is mine to use as I see fit.

Not at all. It all comes down to using the product the way you want within the set rules.

And if you don't like the rules that you have been given BEFORE buying the product, you simply don't buy it.
Buying it anyway and protesting against these rules afterwards makes no sense.
I agree with the license agreements to some extent, however, as Animal pointed out, some are going completely over the top in restricting the use of the product.
The agreement with LFS is quite fair, but if you REALLY want to be scared, try reading through the EULA on Vista!!

As for He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named (the cheat!), what more appropriate punishment than being sentenced to race the AI for a few months! At least he wont need to cheat to beat them....then again...maybe he IS that useless!
#22 - joen
I can understand people's feelings towards EULA's like the one's for Windows or other big software products. In the first place not even particularly because of the contents, but because of their length. The one for LFS is quite small, so it's perfectly clear and understandable to anyone.

But what it basically comes down to is common sense and responsibility. No matter what's in the agreement anyone can predict that cheating or improper behaviour is unwanted.
I'm a firm believer in taking and accepting responsibility for your own actions, but I do realize that a big part of people don't want/aren't able to do the same. This is the sole reason that statement is in the agreement in the first place. People will often prefer to put that responsibility everywhere but with themselves.
I do like Gunn's opinon. I had another a few days ago.

- Loosing your LFS license for longer each time. 3 months then 6 months etc.

Im now not sure if its a great idea anymore having had some more thought on it. I can see how it would backfire (ie: tempting the cheater to create better cheats while he/she cannot race online.)
Quote from joen :I can understand people's feelings towards EULA's like the one's for Windows or other big software products. In the first place not even particularly because of the contents, but because of their length. The one for LFS is quite small, so it's perfectly clear and understandable to anyone.

But what it basically comes down to is common sense and responsibility. No matter what's in the agreement anyone can predict that cheating or improper behaviour is unwanted.
I'm a firm believer in taking and accepting responsibility for your own actions, but I do realize that a big part of people don't want/aren't able to do the same. This is the sole reason that statement is in the agreement in the first place. People will often prefer to put that responsibility everywhere but with themselves.

First part - yeah, for MS's agreements you need a lawyer to explain it all to you. Quite a difference with our 1 page plain English one.

Second part - common sense indeed. But unfortunately some people lack common sense and it's for those people that we have to write the 'behavioural consequence' in our agreement, so that the bleeding idiots have nothing to complain if after immense havock their license is (temporarily) revoked.

Notice how i tried to indicate you have to be a real menace to get your license revoked.

For the rest behavioural consequences _are_ community efforts like animal1313 said how it should be. If you wreck, you'll probably get banned from that host. Only if you get banned a lot, you might lose your license (temporarily). But before that happens you will receive multiple warnings from us. Not knowing what's going on when 'you' are banned is highly unlikely and as such a master-ban is justified.

We are not after your licenses - we are after protecting the LFs environment and that's what the agreement is mostly about. See it like a very simple law. Laws are there to maintain order. Without them you probably wouldn't be living in your comfy home right now.
I'm curious.
What this cheater guy was doing?

Any links?
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license removal for cheating?
(34 posts, started )
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