Posted: 12/6/2011 5:11 PM
Post subject: Packet spoofing: Moral in TASs?
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EagleEye
Joined: 11/4/2011
Posts: 11
If it were possible to implement the ability to send arbitrary packets at any frame to whatever game, should it be allowed? If so, that would allow TASs of, say, World of Warcraft or 4 player Left 4 Dead, or even Command and Conquer: Sole Survivor. However, it would also allow a lot of exploits. For example, Puzzle Quest does no checking to see if you're just making shit up when you send it packets, so in a theoretical single-instance "multiplayer" match, you could force the enemy's packets to say that he's dead. Then again, I have the same qualms about most memory manipulation when it's used to instantly win the game, like in Pokemon Gen 1. In Gen 1 Pokemon's case, however, there are alternate runs that have different goals that show off the game, so I'm not against the idea of memory manipulation. Memory manipulation can lead to entertaining runs, and I believe the same could be true of packet spoofing. In fact, a playaround TAS of Sole Survivor (which literally can not be played online at the moment, due to the lack of a server; literally doing the impossible) or Puzzle Quest (doing absolutely stupid things over and over) could be great to watch. And you could even make a second run showcasing the other Point-of-view if you felt like it, and have both encoded. In a Left 4 Dead TAS (whenever people's hardware is going enough to run 4 copies of Left 4 Dead simultaneously), you could show off the 4 survivor's points of view at once. All this talk of Valve makes me want to try and beat Half-Life 1 and Portal with the same input. I can't run Portal a full speed by itself, though, so I'm not going to. Though that brings up an interesting question: Does hourglass guarantee that loading screens with always sync on the same computer? How about on different computers?
Posted: 12/6/2011 5:25 PM
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scrimpeh
Editor, Skilled player (1438)
Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2107
TAS of 2017 First edition TAS of 2017 PSX TAS of 2017
I think it would about be the equivalent to using a Game Genie on NES game. And personally, I'd find it really boring. If there are no limitations to overcome by outright cheating your way through, what fun is there? I do suppose it'd make an interesting demonstration though.
Posted: 2/25/2012 11:37 AM
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Rena
Joined: 1/5/2012
Posts: 52
Location: Maridia
Well, the network IS an input... but it's not one you normally have direct control over during play. Of course, PC games should be designed with the consideration that the user controls the machine and can do whatever they please... Players can (and do) cheat by manipulating packets. But there's not really much they can do to protect against such forgery, either. Related: would we allow a Game Boy run that manipulates the game by sending arbitrary data on the link port?
Posted: 2/25/2012 2:55 PM
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creaothceann
He/Him
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Joined: 4/7/2005
Posts: 1874
Location: Germany
Rena wrote:
Well, the network IS an input... but it's not one you normally have direct control over during play.
Exactly. Manipulating the packets directly would be something like savestate hacking. Players cannot do this in real life even if they had slowdown and rewinding. But it's something completeley different (imo) if you emulate 2 or more connected virtual machines, and control their button input.
Posted: 3/1/2012 7:51 AM
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Blazier
Joined: 8/31/2011
Posts: 11
Yeah. Packet spoofing is not TASing... It's just plain cheating.