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Is there something the C&C community should know? Mail it to MacMark@t-online.de and let's all read it here!
[2001-06-30]
Free win rushing at a new high?
I got an email from a source. According to it, free win rushing has increased in the recent 12 month compared to the years before. That source seems to be close to the cheaters. The source has the names and those names are ranked. It's a little bit uncertain how many players share those names to do the free win rushes. I told my source to inform Virtual Ted and contests so they could take care of these cheaters. I'm hoping to get more detailed informations on this and the grant to publish it.
[2001-06-30]
Enemy control is a game bug
As a reply to earlier news
No enemy control
I got this email:
Reply-To: "Vaggeto2k" <vaggeto-2k@home.com> From: "Vaggeto2k" <vaggeto-2k@home.com>
To: <MacMark@t-online.de>
Subject: Hey Mac...
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 00:07:23 -0600
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Priority: 3
Hey Mac, this is Noreaga1 from CNC.
I'm just letting you know the enemy control thing happened to me once before. It was about a year ago I'd say... Even game... both players just fighting away and BOTH of our units went crazy, killing anything... I had to keep telling my men to move so they wouldn't attack my own CY etc... I'm 98% sure it is a BUG, and noone cheated. If it was around then, it would definitely be around a lot more now. Bug... simply that, very rare I guess, but still... noone cheated, you should clear this up.
Thanks,
Noreaga1
Thanks for Your information :-)
[2001-06-21]
Enemy control a game bug?
In addition to earlier news
No enemy control
I got two emails that try to shed some light on this issue:
From: DeucerQ@aol.com
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 00:11:56 EDT
Subject: No Enemy control
To: MacMark@t-online.de
MIME-Version: 1.0
MacMark,
I told you about an incident were this happened to me, the report is dated November 23, 2000. Under the dirty player "Zawaduik", and discussed in "Strange bugs surfaced". My own units were firing on my base, my own apc filled with engineers infiltrated my own refineries. And to top it all Off, I had killed everyone of his units buildings, everything! He had nothing left, and got the win for the game. You even made the comment that you didn't believe it to be possible.
~ AcerNod
Heres a copy of the report from your web page and the discussion of it: 2000-11-24]
Zawadiuk Cheated AcerNod
From: DeucerQ@aol.com
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 23:28:18 EST
Subject: Zawadiuk Cheated AcerNod
To: heliwiper@hotmail.com, MacMark@t-online.de, contests@westwood.com MIME-Version: 1.0
Zawadiuk Cheated AcerNod
9999 Credits
Zero Start Units
Tech 7
Zawadiuk(GDI)(Brown) VS. AcerNod(Gdi)(Green) Tib on Crates on
Bases On
Map: Moose Head Barrons
10m, 11/24/00
I don't how he did it, but he took control of my units. I watch my own engineers infiltrate my own buildings, my own apc was firing on my harvesters and buildings, my own infantry were firing on my Buildings, and I couldn't command my own apc, I had already taken over all his building and killed all his units he had nothing, I talked to him after the game and he admitted it even. Whatever he did caused Westwood chat to stop and close. The Game froze on me as well.
~AcerNod
This sounds quite unbelievable.
From: DeucerQ@aol.com
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 02:21:02 EST
Subject: After Game chat with Zawadiuk
To: MacMark@t-online.de
MIME-Version: 1.0
You have joined the Zawadiuk's_game channel. <AcerNod> what the hell? Zawadiuk : click in
<AcerNod> dude you cheated, your reported Zawadiuk : tell some 1 who cares <AcerNod> you took control of my units some how, your so reported <AcerNod> LOL, westwood
<AcerNod> macmark
<AcerNod> heliwiper
Zawadiuk : go for it
<AcerNod> mccreadie
<AcerNod> all the westwood comunity will know <AcerNod> what the hell did you do?
Zawadiuk : @%#! mccresadie
Zawadiuk : who ever the hell he is
<AcerNod> what can't you play fair ?
Zawadiuk : u like what happened
<AcerNod> do you have to cheat to win?
<AcerNod> what the hell did you do?
<AcerNod> how did you do that?
Zawadiuk : not enough i guess
Zawadiuk : they will never believe u anyways <AcerNod> lol, yeah right, weestwood wil review the game Zawadiuk : i kind of find it hard to believe myself <AcerNod> whatever, darn you people have to find some new way to cheat don't you
Zawadiuk : was that u didn't resist
<AcerNod> why can't you just play fair?
Zawadiuk : how long u been playing this game? <AcerNod> about five years Zawadiuk : click in and let's play
<AcerNod> lol, yeah right so you can cheat again? Zawadiuk : and don't build so many darn tanks <AcerNod> laters dude, enjoy your time online You have left the Zawadiuk's_game channel.
[2000-11-21]
Strange bugs surfaced
Some month ago a Humm-Vee of mine showed very strange behavior: While scouting it unvealed much more terrain on the left than on his right side. That occured when moving from the south west to the middle north of the map. Before and after that the Humm-Vee was normally. Other similar strange things happened to other players:
BlaK (a quite relieable sourde) wrote this on my forum:
acernod wrote u a report saying how his opponent started controlling his units.. i want u to know this has happend to me before 3 or 4 times in all. sometimes when you are both the same side your units can be swapped
like if im blue and my opponent red, on his screen my blue units will appear red to him and he can control them like their his... on my screen they are blue and i can control them as well... this pose problem when one person try to move them ... other person think they cheating
sounds unbelivable but has happend... one of the times it was with noreaga.. i think he took screen shots of it, ask him for them... cant remember who the others were with
ACnDC (so handle this information with care) wrote this on my forum:
I seen a few time people build stuff without cy...ALSO on control other guys unit i seen in a game were there was bad lag my units would land off airstrip and go to other guys base like they were his..the strangest thing i ever seen was i put a enginer in apc wen i got to his base not enginer but a silo guy came out of apc..they are just bugs in game Like this month i built a fence so the guy could not get to my base,wen i sold the fence later it was next to my refinery and it sold my only refinery instead of fence a bad westwood bug that made me lose a game.
Other famous bugs are the skey-bug (only in the PeeCee version), the scout cheat and the Refinery-selling-bug (not confirmed to exist in Mac-version too). Using any of these bugs to Your advantage is against the rules and You would be disqualified at least for that. Some players lost their account, if You like that even more ;-)
I read that reports again and together with the news and reports of this month it looks like a game bug. I guess only the C&Cgold version is affected, because on my MacC&C such problems had never occured.
The other email I got was:
From: MAC1ROX@aol.com
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2001 01:38:51 EDT
Subject: Regarding "Controlling Enemy Units" To: MacMark@t-online.de
MIME-Version: 1.0
This is totally unconfirmed, and is based upon what I know and have reasearched about C&C over
the past 3-4 years.
It might not be wise to post this on your site, but instead, just document it, because otherwise, people
may try this, and if it works, then that's another cheat to be added to the playlist.
Also, if this cheat does work, then I feel it is reason enough for an update. s-keying, changing the
sight of a unit, and etc are just annoying, but this cheat could render you dead. If the enemy had
access to your units, he could have your defensive structures attack your buildings, have your
offensive units attack themselves, sell your defensive structures the moment they are built (hey,
wtf!?!?! i wasn't attacked, where'd that turret go?! lol)
It may be possible, if you are a decent computer programmer and a hacker (hacking skills are
required to figure out the protocol), to create a cheat program that sends orders to units not of your
own. It should not require modifying of any files, since all that the files do is tell C&C the parameters
for the units/buildings/etc (unit sight, firepower, how many "payloads" it can hold, how long it takes
to recharge weapons, etc), as well as the MIX files are only sounds, missions, graphics, palettes,
movies, and the sort.
I am not such a programmer, since it requires C/C++ to fake the origionating address in a network
packet, and I only know BASIC.
Anyways, how one would go about doing this is by learning how the C&C application
communicates with other C&C applications. Once you've learned this, you would then send a
network packet with the orders for the unit, with a modified origionating address parameter, address
would have to be the IP address of your opponent. You would send that packet to your opponent and
yourself.
If the packet is created correctly, your application wouldn't know the difference between it and a
packet that was really sent by your opponent.
Now, here comes the unknown part. If your opponent's application isn't configured to not accept
packets come from itself (or at least appear like so), then it will probably treat it like any normal
packet, wich would then allow you to control your opponent's units.
On the other hand, if your opponent's application IS configured to not handle packets sent to itself,
then you probably have just created an out-of-sync game.
If this works, then it probably also works for selling enemy units, and maybe even buying them as
well.
In an additional note, if C&C doesn't tell the opponent application when you start or stop building of
a unit or structure, then you could use this cheat to give yourself "rapid build" of units. That is, send
a packet to yourself and your opponent saying that a new unit has finished being built.
Related to that, if your opponent application doesn't keep track of your money, then you could build
units and structures beyond your current funds (lets say you have absolutely no income. If this is
true, then you can still build units.).
--
Thanks,
Keith Bennett aka Kane, theAnnoyer
Macintosh DNS Services; kbserver.homeip.net. Having trouble finding cheap DNS services? eMail me at MAC1ROX@aol.com!
I know that one guy tried to make a third party update for MacWChat and tried to find something out about the protocol C&C and WChat are using. He was familiar with such programming but still wasn't able to get knowledge about the protocol. (For more on this topic read the news of January 2001, there're several articles!) I think it would be very hard to cheat this way.
As written above, my current opinion about this issue is now, that we're facing a game bug here. Thank you all for your help and informations!
[2001-06-19]
C&C in danger?
NKOSlider wrote in response to yesterday's news No enemy control:
X-Originating-IP: [209.23.96.147]
From: "john ellis" <nkoslider@hotmail.com> To: MacMark@t-online.de
Bcc:
Subject: FunSeeker
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 18:15:16 -0400
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 18 Jun 2001 22:15:16.0349 (UTC) FILETIME=[271472D0:01C0F844]
Hello Mac, i was just checking out ur site as usual.I saw the thing that that guy stated that Funseeker don cheat.Well was this guy there during that game.For someone who doesnt cheat i sure as heck get enough reports about him.This cheat does exist i got news for u.And this guy is a cheater.You believe whoever u want, but i don lie bout anythin.I don waste my time reportin anythin unless it warrants me to do so.You can ask anyone on ww bout me,but u believe what u want to.As far as what i saw during that game, i know what i saw.I was there ,me & funseeker were the only 2 there.Since when can a 3rd party write a contradiction to a report anyhow.I know exactly what happened, he controlled my units, took out 3 of my buildings.If it didnt happen do u think id be wastin my time writin a 2nd time about this & that guy, which i may be anyway, since u seem to believe him over me.It wasnt friendly fire either, i was top he was bottom.My tanks were shooting downward way away from my buildings until he took control over my units.I had another person on ww say this is possible by changin some files in the game somehow.I crushed the cheater easily anyway, cheat or no cheat.He's a no skill wannabe hacker, is all he is.NKOslider.
Should this cheat really be possible? Usually the game gives an error if not both sides use the same files. Modifying one side would result in out of sync or similar errors. The existence of such a cheat would mean it's sufficient to change the cheater's files only - something we all would dislike, because that could be a serious threat for Command & Conquer.
If you've got something to contribute, mail me!
[2001-06-18]
No enemy control
In a report that I received earlier this month, NKOSlider claimed that Funseeker was controlling his units. He wrote:
I played Funseeker tonight, beat him easy, but somehow he got my units to shoot up my base. He took out both my weapons factories with my own units. What is this game coming to. How can someone do this & how can you stop it. If you guys know anything about this plz. write me back, i still cant believe it, thanx, NKOslider.
My answer was as follows:
I've heard of such a cheat 1 or 2 times before during the past few years, but I've no informations about that. I will publish Your report and we will see if someone else can help.
Meanwhile I got a reply from CmdrCD, saying:
Since I do trust CmdrCD 100%, I conclude that FunSeeker isn't a cheater and thus he didn't control NKOSlider's units in that game. But I'm still wondering what NKOSlider saw during that game.
I remember ACnDC claiming that I would control his units, when his heli began attacking my Rocket Soldiers. In fact he was attacking some of my units/buildings and my Rocket Soldiers started their defense. Then his heli automatically returned fire to the Rocket Soldiers. This is normal, because all C&C units return fire if they're under attack and the enemy is in range and if they're not in force-move or force-fire (short cuts) mode.
In contrast to that incident, FunSeeker claimed that his own units fired at his own base, at his two Weapons Factories. Sometimes it happens that buildings are demolished by friendly fire, e.g. when a tree or something like that is in the way of your units, they would fire at it and hurt even your own buildings in immediate vicinity. But I think it's impossible that they would destroy two buildings. Furthermore if that happens, you can stop them firing by moving them to another place. So I'm still unsure what NKOSlider did see there.
Let's assume such a cheat would exist: Why isn't it used by all those cheaters out there? Why do they still dc and risk to get the loss? Why dc if they would be able to control all your units to their will? With such a cheat they could beat everyone. So why isn't it widely used? To keep it secret? Not that secret! I think that such a cheat doesn't exist. |
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