I noticed in another thread this line: 'There is no local hosting, all games are dedicated servers during alpha.' During which phase should we expect to get our hands on Dedicated PA so I can run this on my local server (running Linux)? With the terrible internet connections in my area, it will be difficult to lan this in one building with a few games going over one connection. Just to clarify, I don't mean so one client can host on their PC and the other can join locally, but I can run PA on a dedicated headless server, and it can host games.
Yeah Uber probably can't really afford to release server software until late in beta to prevent piracy.
Why would this have anything to do with piracy? They can still do account verification as they do now, just instead of connecting to a Uberent server for the game, it could be somewhere else.
This game is client-server, everything calculated on server and mostly nothing on client. So if somebody want to "crack" game he need to create own server from scratch, it's just impossible somebody will do that for unfinished game. All these "verification" methods is easy to crack, they are never worked for any game.
I guess the reason they do not release the server yet is because they want to gather data. Also they might run a dedicated server themselves for ranged matches. What is a better way to host the server themselves, it allows them to see what the server load is with how many players. Another reason might be that the server is another factor which can brake down for players when they run the server local. It might be an Alpha, but everybody likes to play so they are already spending resources to help Alpha players to run the game. And offcourse, it is hard pirating a game where all the calculations run on a remote server :mrgreen:
The problem not in pirating itself, every game meet it anyway and this game will be DRM-free after release. Problem is most of people will download outdated builds and judge game based on these unfinished versions. And this is really "bad PR" as I see.
You really have an unrealistic view of programming. This would be a near impossible task as this game I would assume is in C/C++ and closed source. This isn't a standard server. ALL of the game mechanics and calculations are handled server side. The client (as far as I know) really just renders output and sends input to/from the server. Good luck reverse engineering this. Just because it hasn't been done correctly before, doesn't mean it can't be done correctly. But I don't see how releasing a dedicated version to a closed group would make this game any easier to crack since you say that it currently is vulnerable in this area. Once again, I'm not sure how relasing a dedicated version of PA would result in more pirating. In regards to gathering data and watching for bugs, this really does make sense. I would though like to hear a dev's response, just to have an idea as to when we should see this. I'm not one of these people demanding to have this right now because I spent money. I'm just a curious gamer wondering when this will happen.
In what way? They wouldn't be releasing the software that validates their account. Just the software that runs the game. Just like with TF2, or L4D, you get dedicated software where people can join. You still have to be able to validate your software. I understand there are cracked versions of those, but I don't believe by them releasing a dedicated version, it would make it any easier.
How will the dedicated version make it easier to bypass authentication? It's handled by completely different servers! How will the server be cracked? It isn't handling authentication, just doing what it's told... Unless I'm completely misunderstanding the way they built the server architecture.
Kinda... the final server version won't have authentication, since lan play and offline single player is supported. But anyway, the whole piracy discussion is pointless and tiring. Preventing piracy doesn't work. -------------------- Having only uber hosting servers has the big advantage of all games playing through them and thus all bugs, server crashes etc. happening somewhere which they control and thus can take a look at. It also forces people to have only the newest version to play games on which makes bug reports much more useful. (Take a look at other games and how often bug reports are about outdated game versions...) So a lot of advantages in testing for uber, which is the purpose of alpha after all. :mrgreen:
Exactly. I have no issues there and I'll be using the Uber servers as much as I can. I would just like a way to host lan parties with 20ish people and be able to have a nice game of PA. I just can't stand this misinformation where people think you can magically crack things. Ever since Minecraft, people think it's that easy. (Java is amazingly easy to decompile unlike C). I'm also guessing we won't see it until late beta/final, but I would like to know what they are thinking.
Authentication is not what's stopping the current game from being cracked. The fact that the community has no access to the server-side logic *is* stopping it from being cracked, because no matter what you do to the client software, ( including removing authentication) you still need to connect to uber's servers and convince them to run a game for you. If the community had a copy of the server software.... Someone could alter it and the client and the server software so that neither one of them did any authentication .... et Voila Cracked client and server. Job done. This may or may not be an issue for uber, but maintaining control over the server software for the present gives them advantages: - Known quantity server (no modded versions) - The ability to record and store sessions for debugging without the need to upload. and I'm sure many more as well.
I am programmer and It's what I want to say, you probably get me wrong. DRM is not working, it's never worked for _any_ game. That why this game will be DRM-free. And really, I give devs my money to let them make a great game, not great DRM ****. There already was dev response. Servers will be released in late beta or at release.
Tried searching, didn't see it. Why not point this out at the beginning, instead of derailing. If you are referring to the quote I had, this is not conclusive as to when this will happen.
There it is: viewtopic.php?p=741663#p741663 viewtopic.php?p=730393#p730393 I know lot about software protection and cracking, so I just talking my opinion. It's interesting thing to discuss for me. And you are wrong about DRM, no mater what language you using, it's not working.
This is what I was looking for. The other one wasn't very specific. Thanks. Same. I just didn't want to fill the thread with discussion to have the original question overlooked. In its current form I completely agree. My point, is that I think it can be done right. At work we are working on a similar problem, but instead in regards to licencing a backend framework for web. (Server side framework) Programming isn't stationary. Things can always be done better. We need to realize questions are never solved, everything can be improved on.
People who crack games are highly skilled professionals, they doing it for years, it's their specialization. They know everything about reverse engineering and obfuscation. Should game developers try to make unbreakable DRM and join contest against high skilled reversing-fanatics? I said no, they should make good games.
