Reloading games in Multiplayer

[cookie]

I came across several influences which sparked something in my head. You might have read this in another thread as I thought it would be convenient but turns out otherwise. Well here goes:
As you notice on Multi-player, you can save and load games and as you notice on Wesnoth that you are able to open ANOTHER cilent of Wesnoth. Now some of you, (the smart ones) might get where I am heading now. It would be regarded as cheating on Wesnoth if a certain player would save and reload their game on the other client. Now, I most likely am not the first to figure this out. (But if I am, YAY! HAHAHA! IM A GENIUS!) I was simply wondering if there would be a way to prevent this other than having a really, really fast timer. If there is please enlighten me. Although the answer is likely 'No'. And if so I would like to point out this problem.

So the question is, How would I prevent this other than a seriously fast timer? :L

(If you don't understand what I just typed. I'm saying it as save and load in terms of cheating. As in to check what the other players/opponents have done previously, before you do your own turn. For example. Discovery of opponent's random-ed fraction, movement of units.)

Sorry if this is in the wrong area and topic and if it has been stated previously. AND any other rule I might of not noticed.

[HomerJ]

This has definitely been pointed out before, but I haven't heard of that for a long time.

Greetz
HomerJ

[cookie]

OH darn.
Was there ever a solution?

[HomerJ]

OH darn.
Was there ever a solution?

Not sure, the devs will know.

Take it easy

Greetz
HomerJ

[Caphriel]

Yes. Don't play Wesnoth for money

Seriously, though, the difficulty of preventing cheating is, if I recall correctly, one of the reasons given in the past for not implementing any sort of official competitive league or anything. Although the way you mentioned is one of the easiest, you can cheat at Wesnoth by editing the code and recompiling it if you're that desperate to win.

[pauxlo]

Another "solution" would be to play without fog. Then there is nothing you (or your enemy) could discover by reloading.

[soul_steven]

I'd venture to guess that 98% of high rank ladder players would disagree to playing without fog. For one it gives far to much an advantage to know what your enemy is particularly if he is UD since you can recruit speciality anti UD units. For two its important in wesnoth to be able to hide things behind the fog and as a player to read behind the fog to know what your enemy has that is one of the exciting things about it. And for three it would make hiding woses virtually impossible lol. Anyways thats my two cents maybe others feel different but I think fog is essential.

[pauxlo]

This is why I put the "solution" in quotation marks. It avoids cheating, but also changes the way of playing too much.

In general, there is no way to avoid this, apart from doing all battle calculations on a central server and sending to the clients only what their players in fact can see.
Today, all clients are doing the same calculations of the whole battle in parallel, and complain if there are any differences (the famous Out-of-Sync error). The server can stay dumb (it only has to transmit messages and provide random numbers).

[Caphriel]

That wouldn't address the issue of players being able to save and then load in another instance. Unless each player had to save at the same time, and then all the players who had been there for the save had to be present for the reload, also.

I don't really think this is a serious issue, though. I doubt any player who would consider it worth the effort and be willing to cheat would be good enough at the game capitalize on the information gained this way in most circumstances.

[pauxlo]

Of course, my solution with a server doing all calculations and giving the clients only what they are allowed to see would mean that the server is the only one which can really save the game. It should not give this save to anyone as long as the game is still running. To enable continuing later, there would be a command "interrupt the game", and another one to allow "continue the game" later, maybe only with the same players present. (Also some special handling of disconnects.)

This is all highly theoretical, as the developers credibly want to have all game logic only be handled by the client. As such, there is no possibility to avoid fog/shroud-cheating. Thus you should not play for money.

Ah, there is one possibility to avoid it: Let the opponents be in some room with real-life observers who can testify that they don't cheat.

[cookie]

I'd venture to guess that 98% of high rank ladder players would disagree to playing without fog. For one it gives far to much an advantage to know what your enemy is particularly if he is UD since you can recruit speciality anti UD units. For two its important in wesnoth to be able to hide things behind the fog and as a player to read behind the fog to know what your enemy has that is one of the exciting things about it. And for three it would make hiding woses virtually impossible lol. Anyways thats my two cents maybe others feel different but I think fog is essential.

Lol nice soul_steven. I was abooout to post a response, but I asked Gambit if my response was Not against the rules. Turns out it wasn't. xD

And it isn't a serious issue. I just wanted to tell the whole world about it.

Your expression now =

[Practice]

There is a solution: message in chat log when someone saves a game.
f.e: <Practice has saved a game>

And maybe turning off auto-save during ladder games?

[Caphriel]

Bit of a thread necro there.

Anyway, ladder is not an official part of Wesnoth, so disabling autosaving during ladder games would be an honor system solution, which is no better than what exists now. And it would cause problems during disconnects, etc.

I don't see any reason offhand not to broadcast when a player manually saves, though. Perhaps you should suggest it in the Ideas section.

[Practice]

Anyway, ladder is not an official part of Wesnoth, so disabling autosaving during ladder games would be an honor system solution, which is no better than what exists now. And it would cause problems during disconnects, etc.

Thats why i put question mark at the end of my sentence. I have no idea what could be changed in auto-save system to prevent cheating. The best way would be to make a blockade that doesnt allow loading the game you are playing at the moment, on the second client. But im not a programmer, and i dont know wheter its possible. Just make saves of a game you are playing at the moment, unable to load, until you finish playing it. Anyway, I have written science-fiction here probably