No "Mods" in NFBL matches for equal opportunity

[Pencat]

I know this might sound a bit weird coming from me, but anyhow I'd like this to be discussed at least. I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions.

Game modifications and conversions alter the design of game elements such as the HUD, model skins or display and game settings. Actually these changes were used to nothing else but enhancing the game by, for example, giving the player models a nicer skin or using a better looking HUD. However modifying parts of the game could also be used in order to make it more easy to see and hit enemies etc. In the strict sense this would make mods a cheat.

I am not going to list up specific details HERE but I know of many modifications that make the game a great deal easier and I could tell these to NFBL admins directly.

Of course, as with most cheating rules in Nightfire, it is hard to check their abidance. Admins could ask for screenshots showing their HUD and at least one player model. But the details may be discussed later.

[EDIT: Should this be moved to NFBL Rules?]

[[DS]CROSSI]

Well I consider mods of skins and walls for cheats. For example when you mod dark map and create white walls, then you have large advantage (dm/ctf casino). You want to hide in dark corner and let enemy go past, but on his screen that corner isnt dark at all and he kill you in 1sec. Same for coloured grapples, light hud, modded skins and dont know what more :).
But this will never change cos the program that would let play only ppl that has no mods doesnt work for all.

[Tras]

Yes I remember that I did a program with that function and it didn't work for all, I know. (It was written in DOS batch files) but with DSS it's possible to begin creating another system, like Valve did for their source games with VAC 2.0. Just restoring all client configuration before joining a server and checking assets.007 integrity (plus checking any "add-ons" like speedhack and aimbots).
And about the modding, people usually colour the players so they could be easily differenced (and sometimes for worse purposes), I think it would be a good idea considering this..

[Pencat]

Ok, I see you agree but I intentionally did not want this to be a list of possible cheating through mods :P

And I guess this rule could work, too, even without a program such as yours, Tres, which checks the Nightfire folder. At the end of the day, we have to "trust" every NFBL member not to use any cheats (we're already doing that with the usual hacks, e.g. aimbots).

[Tras]

:D utopia, but well, it could be,..

[[George]]

well in some servers grapples are completely black, no matter what mod you have.. maybe this could be done for walls/models?

[Mackan]

This is a hard topic because it is possible to gain advantages through changing skins for objects in the game. On the other side, a lot of people wouldn't consider to play without their favourite mod...

I remember the both of you being fanatical about HL2-mod (lol no wonder :P ), so obviously there are a lot of other players who feel the same for their mods.

We are always open for suggestions that would make the game more fair without compromising too much on the experience. (one exampel, changing game settings to reduce p-jump).

If someone has a good idea to make it possible, I don't understand enough of programming,so would prefer it if suggestions with details were e-mailed to NFBL. That would make it easier to discuss more privatly

[Pencat]

well in some servers grapples are completely black, no matter what mod you have.. maybe this could be done for walls/models?

This could be done I guess as a serverside setting but it would mess the game up badly. Also hiding would be impossible if the player were black and the walls unchanged. Not speaking of black walls and unchanged player models...

If someone has a good idea to make it possible, I don't understand enough of programming,so would prefer it if suggestions with details were e-mailed to NFBL. That would make it easier to discuss more privatly

So taking the way of trust is not enough, as that's what is done with hacks already?
A program I could think of would be a screenshot creator and sender, that takes one or several screenshots from each player's screens who is in a match, and at the end of the game, send these to an NFBL server for analysis. If this was possible lots of other hacks could be checked up on, as well. Anyhow I am not sure if people would like to get their screens captured?

[[George]]

Well heres a pic of my character skins and the casino texture mod i have..

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r280 ... /GCS13.jpg

I think it can give me a little advantage, but I like the textures, as it changes casino a bit, making it a little more interesting, and apart from spotting the person in the first place, the better person will still usually win the fight ;)

[Tras]

pencattero, what you say is possible, but we need to define the system.
Anyway, getting a screenshot might not be "perfect" because you might get in a moment the player died or was not facing to players. But if we can create a system like this, why not for other add-ons?
And george, LOL that's a little of advantage?

[Pencat]

@ GEORGE!:

I am not going to list up specific details HERE but I know of many modifications that make the game a great deal easier and I could tell these to NFBL admins directly.

Ok, I see you agree but I intentionally did not want this to be a list of possible cheating through mods :P

Next time post a thumbnail of a screenshot at least :@


Tres, yes that's why I said "one or several" screenshots, if you do 3 or so there has to be at least one showing what needs to be showed.
Also, what do you mean by "define the system"?

[[George]]

sorry, changed it to a link ;)

and yeah, other then making it easier to spot people, it doesnt exactly do much more.. it doesnt help me aim or dodge :P

[Mackan]

If someone has a good idea to make it possible, I don't understand enough of programming,so would prefer it if suggestions with details were e-mailed to NFBL. That would make it easier to discuss more privatly

So taking the way of trust is not enough, as that's what is done with hacks already?
A program I could think of would be a screenshot creator and sender, that takes one or several screenshots from each player's screens who is in a match, and at the end of the game, send these to an NFBL server for analysis. If this was possible lots of other hacks could be checked up on, as well. Anyhow I am not sure if people would like to get their screens captured?

The way of trust is already the way now. I don't think anyone would like to check 100 screenshots/screenshot each player is supposed to take (if you take 3, it would be 300...) every weekend just to see if somebody has in illegal skin or not...

Programs that do work is preferable, if avaible. Aslo having a big brother-treatment of players in NFBL might reduce a little bit of the fun?

But as I opened my last post, it's a hard topic...

[[George]]

but maybe some part of winning nfbl is good modding ;)

and for like crosshairs, some people are rubbish with one crosshair, where as someone will be fantastic with it, and vice versa, so is it fair to make everyone use the same crosshair?

[Pencat]

If there was such rule that forbids modding it should not have exceptions such as crosshairs. In case you start allowing one part, many people won't understand the difference between one modification and another , thus making the whole rule hard to understand and agree to.

Some other kind of program to fix this could be:
Make the game check which files in the Nightfire folder has been modified and then extract the changed ones from the uneditable assets.007 file, that contains all nightfire files. Extracting could take a lot of time though and it has to be careful, possibly taking backups of mods so they won't get lost completely. But this program would not send any informations from the files, so it'd give less of a big brother feeling.
A way to check up if every player in a match uses the program is neccesarry though, of course.