Define What You Think Is Cheating

[Baker]

This is just me:

I like new engines, but at the same time I don't. I think a lot of the features in engines are fine and long needed, but it always seems like 5%-10% of the features in new engines are borderline cheats, if not outright cheats or inherently unfair.

This isn't directed towards any particular engine, EVERY new engine geared towards multiplayer except GLQuake and ProQuake have some questionable features (you could argue that cl_fullpitch in ProQuake is a cheat (the ability to look straight up and down), but almost all servers disable it).

JoeQuake has grey area features like the deadbody filter, the gib filter, and the cl_r2g -- which makes rockets use the grenade model, which has fullbright red on it. Very long ago, JoeQuake had Quads and Pents that glowed thru walls and fullbright skin capability, but those were made non-functional in multiplayer soon after because player's expressed concerns.

My list of things that are cheats:

1. Solid color textures, absolutely a "cheat".
2. Quads and Pents glowing thru walls, no question.
3. Full bright skins, although I can see anyone in ProQuake in any lighting easily so I can't say I care about this.
4. Strong player shadows. Kind of like what you would see in DarkPlaces with real time lighting on.

Stuff I don't think is a cheat, but shouldn't be in multiplayer:

1. Dead body filters
2. Gib filters
3. The JoeQuake cl_r2g; it is trivial and unnecessary.

The main reason I bring this up is that if a new generation of clients are ever to be truly accepted among the more hardcore players, a clear idea of what is ok vs. not should be known.

Otherwise, you end up with players that are put-off by the new clients and think every server should be ProQuake cheat-free and that everyone should have to use ProQuake.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

JoeQuake had Quads and Pents that glowed thru walls

Proquake has this feature to my knowledge,GL or Win.It's just disabled by default if your one of the many who use a certain Q1 download that is well known amongst CA'rs and DM'rs

As for cheating, its often obvious what should be considered a cheat and what shouldnt. Anything that gives your prior knowledge to where an opponent is at ,where you normally wouldnt see them (transparent walls or classic pak2 type "spikes")

Some things that I find questionable,is how Qrack and DP can offer "StraightShaft" (models either pre-loaded/provided,or replaceable) , but StraightShaft inside GLProQuake was stopped in CAx.

There has been recently brought up the idea that some Q1 Clans are using Ventrillo,deadteamamtes giving out enemyplayer locations.This can be circumvented using an admin command in CAx but there isnt always an admin around. As Baker said,anything giving a direct advantage over another player (excluding framespersecond&ping) could be considered a cheat.

[Canadian*Sniper]

I don't consider chase_active to be a cheat worth banning in most servers

[scar3crow]

Some things that I find questionable,is how Qrack and DP can offer "StraightShaft" (models either pre-loaded/provided,or replaceable) , but StraightShaft inside GLProQuake was stopped in CAx.

StraightShaft in my opinion is offered as a cosmetic replacement, along the lines of colored lighting. It doesn't as far as I know actually change lightning behavior, but makes it not look like a slide show when ever you pan. For me, this feels a lot better, for others it doesn't. It benefits my aim as much as whether the gun is centered or aligned right or left. Mostly just a slight visual aid thats mostly cosmetic.

deadteamamtes giving out enemyplayer locations.

I don't know about other mods, but in TF it was common to say once killed "enemy sniper at x" or "enemy sentry at y." This sounds like a valid technique to me.

(you could argue that cl_fullpitch in ProQuake is a cheat (the ability to look straight up and down), but almost all servers disable it).

I wouldn't consider one, the only times it can give an advantage are pretty rare, and as you say, most servers actually disable it, which can put those who have it on (such as myself) at a disadvantage because of the stuttering of view, as the server and client "argue."

1. Solid color textures, absolutely a "cheat".

Amen, and dear god they are ugly as well. This brings to mind a question regarding SynQ players playing with normal Quake players, in terms of how much they can see (since the textures have different contrast levels). But thats a bit off topic.

4. Strong player shadows. Kind of like what you would see in DarkPlaces with real time lighting on.

Eh, I would say in most cases where you can see the shadow ahead of time, a skilled player would know they were coming by sound and general level knowledge anyways. Few shadows project very far because other lights blend them out before they're noticeable. In fact, some areas are a good bit darker with real time lighting, depending on the circumstance, so though they may have that advantage, in other areas they are at a disadvantage. Never mind the framerate loss in firefights.

Otherwise, you end up with players that are put-off by the new clients and think every server should be ProQuake cheat-free and that everyone should have to use ProQuake.

To be diplomatic, fuck that.

[Baker]

Some things that I find questionable,is how Qrack and DP can offer "StraightShaft" (models either pre-loaded/provided,or replaceable) , but StraightShaft inside GLProQuake was stopped in CAx.

I've toyed with straight shaft in JoeQuake and other engines and don't think it helps at all, I personally think it interferes with shaft aim but at the same time in a perfect world it wouldn't exist as an option. XQuake had that feature as well and you don't seem to mind that engine.

By the way, I don't see how CAx can stop someone from replacing bolt.mdl in ProQuake with a straight model; this was a common tweak along with replacing the crosshair back in the day from what I know.

[Senban]

I wonder if anyone's gone to the bother of building a quake engine entirely for the purpose of cheating, and if they did how hard it would be to detect.

[Baker]

Solid Color Textures are Not In ANY id Software released version of Quake: The Proof

GLQuake as released by id Software does not support anything worse than gl_picmip 4. GLQuake = Version 0.95, 0.97, 0.98.

Any version of GLQuake that does not have those version numbers is not OFFICIAL GLQuake and is modded GLQuake. The final GLQuake by id Software is on the Quake Terminus page: http://www.quaketerminus.com/exe.htm (direct link)

Here is what gl_picmip 4 looks like (click pics for larger version):





This looks nothing like solid color textures and notice how the soldier looks. In the 2nd screenshot, you can see the GLQuake version in the console.

ProQuake, like official GLQuake, does NOT support anything beyond gl_picmip 4.

Engines that support solid color textures are where engine author added the feature (JoeQuake, Qrack, DarkPlaces, etc.), not where GLQuake came like that from the source release.

I hope I'm not alone in viewing solid color textures as an abomination, and I don't think I am.

I've never seen any evidence that any players have ever requested solid color textures be added to an engine, I would bet most players are adamantly against it.

/Yeah, Quakeworld got ruined by all this junk but ProQuake cheat-free has largely protected vanilla Quake from being infested.

[scar3crow]

The only defense I can think of for QW in this case is if it allows for a higher picmip natively, mind testing that? I'm at work right now.

Solid color textures do just feel cheap, it makes a player stand out much more, regardless of lightmaps.

[Baker]

To be quite frank, in Quakeworld it looks like they just conceded as time went along to allow just about every cheat except bots and hacked maps to be mainstream.

I do not believe it was players in Quakeworld that demanded all the cheats to be accepted by the Quakeworld community, I think it was a case where Engine X or Engine Y added a new cheater feature and everyone was resigned to the fact that Engine X had Quads that glowed thru walls or Engine Y allowed replacement skins.

Quakeworld is a lost cause in this sense.

In NetQuake, ProQuake cheat-free acted as firewall to deny these type of clients universality. XQuake, an illegal and id Software license-violating ProQuake rival, had plenty of built-in cheats (brighter player colors, Quads/Pents glowing thru walls, etc, etc), but good luck on trying to play on cheat-free servers with that hack of an engine.

ProQuake cheat-free prevented any cheater features in new engines from becoming mainstream, at the cost somewhat of allowing no new engine to become fully mainstream.

This is the most redeeming characteristic of NetQuake is the lack of mainstream acceptance of cheats that are a perversion of Quake.

In my opinion, we should not throw this away and turn the game into something grotesque like what happened to Quakeworld:

/Just tried qw2.30 and like official GLQuake, only does gl_picmip 4 at best and crashes if I try gl_picmip 10

[E]s-Doom]

if you want players to stand out more w/o cheating make your own skin of like bright SOLID blue red green and yellow ( i did this and it works)

[Baker]

if you want players to stand out more w/o cheating make your own skin of like bright SOLID blue red green and yellow ( i did this and it works)

This is why there needs to a universal cheat-free. Tell the players that play @ CRMOD.com that what you did above is not cheating and see what they think about that.

One problem is that players are under the impression that any feature engine X, Y or Z has is fair game to (mis)use and leads to the hardcore players having negative reactions to some of the features in the new engines.

[E]s-Doom]

its basicly just a custom character skin like any other just the color values r set to 255 on red 255 on blue ect.

[Yellow No. 5]

Call me old school, but I view the above screenshot as a cheat.

Baker, when you get these kind of goofy ideas in your head I know I can't really change your, but I'll respond to this at least to throw my opinion in the pot.

That's just stupid. What makes something a cheat is whether it gives you more ability, or more information than you would otherwise have. Solid textures do not show you any more information than you normally have. Solid textures can simply make things clearer in certain circumstances. GL also makes things clearer. So does having a larger monitor. Big deal.

What was or was not originally in the engine is not relevant. Chase_active was originally in the engine, and it lets you wallhack.

QW'ers often use solid fluorescent textures with FULLBRIGHT. Thats a different story. Things like gl_picmip 10 or gl_textureless that show average colors of the original textures with normal lighting are fine.

[Baker]

Baker, when you get these kind of goofy ideas in your head I know I can't really change your [mind]

I change my mind on things when someone has a good reason. I make mistakes like everyone else.

What was or was not originally in the engine is not relevant.

I hate being in a position where I am sort of criticizing Qrack/Rook -- something I have no desire to do that considering all the great things he has done, but the consequences of this lead to a very bad place.

I hope that instead of thinking I am being unreasonable that you will try to see what I am getting to and where this leads ...

Solid textures do not show you any more information than you normally have. Solid textures can simply make things clearer in certain circumstances. GL also makes things clearer. So does having a larger monitor. Big deal.

Sounds like you are saying the feature serves no purpose. I agree.

So why not remove it then rather than have a cheater feature in an otherwise clean engine? Or is there a particular reason that Qrack users need this crutch of a feature that ProQuake doesn't have?

JoeQuake does not have gl_textureless, that was added to Qrack. If gl_textureless was added to Qrack, then it is clear that it is not the same as gl_picmip (and it isn't, gl_picmip makes ammo boxes look terrible).

Did someone say "Hey, I'd really like cheats to be added Qrack?" Of course not. This was an honest mistake of a feature added to Qrack. A mistake that should be corrected.

I'm not saying there was any bad intent when the feature was added, but this feature was not well thought through.

/By the way, Quads and Pents glow thru walls in the latest Qrack. I know it is beta, who knows if that was intended or what not.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

All of the above mentioned opinions about what is or isnt a cheat,pale to comparison to pak2 cheats. I have a non-mainstream cheat created by *****,which if I wanted to use on a regular basis I could,or even on a "I want to win" so I'll use it now and then basis. Not to stroke my own ego,but im not a chump in Quake1, I duke it out with the best and come out on top quite often with the best.1v1 me on CAx,and I garuntee the identical results,if not better on CA+ with CheatFree enabled.Just incase any peons want to question if im legit with the above statements...

ProQuake CheatFree got everything right except OpenGL32.dll , which CAx stops (minus a method which still enables it to be used on CAx servers)

In the end,everyone has an opinion about cheating,and mine is that Pak variants of cheating are more prevalent than any other out there today (atleast in the CAx sense..)

In the end,no one likes cheaters. Some people say "I dont care about people who cheat,it just means they cant cut it with a straight game" , but at heart no one wants to be cheated.

Ive spoken to r00k about CAx getting CRC checking,but thats about it,just chatted with him about it.