CS Speed Cheat Fix & Anti-Cheat War
In a change from their normal inaction, makers of Half-Life Valve have released a beta patch for Counter-Strike servers that defeats the recent speed cheat. Shugashack has a mirror for the file, and there is a discussion about the cheat on the CS Forums. Oz CS page AusCStrike posted about the patch late last week.
Meanwhile, local discussion about how to combat the alarming increase in Counter-Strike cheating is continuing. I received an email from AusGamers’ Term last week containing details of discussions he has been having with server operators all over the country. The gist of the email was that there will soon be a national cheater data base servers will have access to in order to update their ban lists. What’s happening is a very good thing. The degree of cooperation between sys-ops is heartening, and says a lot for the positive aspect of the online community.
As an aside, I believe the fix for the speed cheat (which exploits client system clocks and affects all games, not just CS) is the first time Valve has actively responded to third party exploitative hacking of their game. It’s a good sign and the company should be applauded for its effort, but as one AusGamer pointed out, the sole reason for the massive number of cheats in CS is the shonky code in both the mod and the HL engine.
CS is the single most popular online FPS in the world - by a fair margin - and Valve has a responsibility to do its best to solve the many problems. Certainly enough money is made from it to warrant some hefty support. CS (and to a lesser extend the “other” big HL mod Team Fortress) has single handedly kept HL in the top ten PC games list for more than two years. The community and server operators can only do so much. While the code itself remains full of holes, crackers will continue to write cheats to take advantage of it.
The bottom line is, Valve are the only ones who can solve the cheating problem. If you have been emailing server operators about cheats, send one off to Valve while you’re at it. Actually, inundate them. They deserve it.
AusCStrike
posted by monty · at 4:11 am · filed under News