So is messing with your .ini a hack?

Talk about anything UT2004 related
RaeP
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:00 am

IM not even sure if changing a keybind to have a preloaded rocket is possible in ini i've never seen that done before...although there is a person most of you probably know him. when i fight this guy hes shooting flak or rockets,then pulls out lightning gun shoots then switches back. not odd at all but he hits me with lightning gun so quick. from my screen i see him shoot before the gun is even out all the way..very wierd wonder if he hacked the ini file like defiant explains..
joeblow
1337 Haxor
Posts: 635
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 12:00 am

Defiant wrote:Urtho in some ways I agree with you but for the majority I do not. Altering the .ini to do something beyond the scope of normal setup is deffinantly a hack. For example (numbers are not exact)

It takes 1 second to fire a single rocket.

It takes 10 to load the 3 and fire.

These are values set by epic for balance of gameplay. They had a choice to make in allowing people to change thier .ini file or not. they allowed it so that pros can do such things as mentioned in this thread. I.E firing a rocket, switching to flak cannon, dispatching the dude on him, then locking onto that raptor.

Unfortunantly it comes with a risk of people figuring out loopholes in the system.

if said rocket launcher is designed to take 10 seconds to load and fire 3 rockets "once the weapon is equiped". And you set a keybind up that preloads this for you, nullifing the 10 second load time. This is most assuridly a hack. As it completely nullifies the set values of the game.

Unfortunantly you can only have it one of 2 ways. Allow keybinds or not allow keybinds. Allowing them forces you to make this appear in your .ini file. Not allowing them of course your .ini file only contains settings such as video and sound settings and so fourth.

You can not run a game like this and not allow a rebind of your keys. otherwise gamers get frustrated and uncomfortable. And your game takes a serious decline in numbers played and sales. They viewed the risk and the ability of being able to hack it as an acceptable condition.

However now they don't. Anyone caught in a demo that has changed thier .ini file in such a manner that it is blatantly obvious. And it is sent to epic. They will pull your cd code. That means they will ban it. And you will no longer be able to do shit but play single player. They very much so consider it illegal. pro or not.
see for me its not frustrating at all. Its a game and I play it the ways it was built nuff said.

Im a litle surprised so many agree with me this is interesting.

wp
KaptainZerg
Camper
Posts: 58
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:00 am
Location: Liandri College, Office of the Dean

It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.
- W. C. Fields
Any edit of the .ini file that does not break the rules of the game server you are playing on is "legally" and morally acceptable. Server rules, hopefully (1) Codify what is and what is not acceptable play and client settings, and (2) with the rules in place players are freed to tweak their game to the maximum point permitted by the server rules.] This is what the majority of UT players wish to do, even beginners. It's not cheating if anyone can do it and the game server rules do not prohibit it.

Ok, who didn't know that, right? Right. I mention this only because this discussion might not be taking place if there were server rules posted; we might be discussing the merits of the rules if there were some posted, but that's hypothetical.

I am not saying that Toxic should post written rules. He's busy, already and this is not a crisis. Rules aren't really needed here because it's not a ladder match server, it's a get-on-and-just-frag server. And, a very decent one at that. However, because there are no published rules players are gonna have questions now and then, especially when there's an influx of botters and hacks on the server.

What constitutes a hack of the .ini files? Folks have posted lots of intelligent comments on this question, all good reading (I love this kinda shit - game science!), and it has me thinking about the question again. I've always held that any edit of the .ini file is fair as long as it doesn't violate the server rules, and anyone can edit their own .ini file the same way. By granting every player the right to alter his or her .ini files to accommodate their own play style always makes them play better, and that improves my game experience.

ClanBase, http://www.clanbase.com/rules.php?lid=2333#chap_97 , one of the original "pro" leagues in Europe, has this posted on their site regarding client settings for UT2004 ONS matches:

7. Client settings

1. The minimum netspeed you may use is 3000, and the maximum is 15000. A maximum of 3 netspeed changes during the entire entire match is allowed.
2. Custom models and skins are not allowed, these include models that have been 'tampered' with.
3. Players are allowed to change their FOV in game. Only FOV's within the range 80 - 120 may be used.
4. Behindview in any use or form is forbidden.
5. Any file which tweaks or improves in anyway the users game may not be used.
6. Excessive use of voice taunts is not allowed.
7. Taunt/Fire and/or Taunt/Movement binds are not allowed.
8. To participate in this cup you must have the following things installed:
* Latest official UT2004 Patch
* Community Bonus Pack 2 v1
* Community Bonus Pack 2 v2
9. You must have Editors Choice Edition pack v1.1 installed.

Very simple rules that only a fool could not understand. This is perfect for a big league. Would this kind of thing help Spam Vikings? I doubt it. But, if this discussion leads to the adoption a set of rules about .ini settings I hope they will be simple as the ones above. Obviously, rule #5 would need to include more details, but, you know, basically, it would do.

W. C. Fields once said It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money. I like this slogan but for different reasons than he did, probably. Here's my take on it: all instances of "carebearism" on a server are detrimental to player education and must not be allowed. An example of Carebearism would be rules implemented by the server admin designed to protect less skilled players from the more experienced. Why? Simple - you cannot improve your skills at UT reading the manual, and you can't get better by playing against players of the same or lesser skill level. You have to play against players who can own your ass in order to learn how to stop them from doing that. Therefore, I will take a sucker's money every time. It can only benifit us both. Players on Spam Vikings take my money left and right, and I'm glad they do. I have learned a lot playing there.

And, one day you'll ALL pay dearly for kicking my ass! LOL
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DW_WailofSuicide
DW Clan Member
Posts: 1634
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 12:00 am

Storm wrote:I totally agree with you joe. The way I see it, whats the point of playing a game if you don't actually PLAY it. Just doesn't make sense to me at all. As for the rocket thing, I have seen people do this, in spec and in game. Fire 1 rocket then fire 2 or 3 with no pause whatsoever, and more than once, so it wasn't a glitch. I may be a noob player, but I'm pretty sure that is impossible in normal play, but I don't know if it is a hack or some sort of program like an aimbot.
Were they bots? There are some weapons-fire lag times in between say, firing a fully charged Biorifle, RL, etc. that bots can ignore.
joeblow
1337 Haxor
Posts: 635
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2006 12:00 am

WailofSuicide wrote: Were they bots? There are some weapons-fire lag times in between say, firing a fully charged Biorifle, RL, etc. that bots can ignore.

Yeah thats rapid fire and who knows at this point in the life of this game whats out there now.



wp
Arienrhode
Killer in Training
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 12:00 am

I have never got around to exploring the rocket trick, as I'm not terribly good with rox and I don't think it's worth even trying at this point.

I do use pipeswitched weapons (binding more than one weapon to a key), forcemodels to Gorge and Rylisa, and sound rolloff so I can hear things better. These are all pretty standard things for serious players though but someone who just bought the game isn't going to know about them obviously.

Here is how you forcemodel:

UT2004.ini
[UnrealGame.DeathMatch]
bForceDefaultCharacter=True

User.ini
[XGame.xPawn]
PlacedCharacterName=Gorge
PlacedFemaleCharacterName=Rylisa

And you have to play as one of the models you force (Gorge or Rylisa).

I highly reccomend Gorge and Rylisa, as they are the largest models and they don't do flips. Using this all players using a male model will appear as gorge, all females will appea as Rylisa. This really helps with hitscan weapons (shock & LG) as everyone is presented in the same way...you don't have a Mr. Crow, a Xan, and a Mokara all jumping around differant ways. It will also help your FPS out a bit and you won't need to precache all models.

With the pipeswitched weapons I just have bio and flak bound to the same key because I use bio so little but still want a key for it...flak comes out first though.

Every player that wants to get better should bind every weapon and find a mouse sensitivity that works well for them (I use 0.95)...once you get use to it you can really start getting better!
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Arienrhode
Killer in Training
Posts: 33
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2006 12:00 am

Force model is right there in the .ini, you just have to enable it. When you play with UTComp it allows you to do a whole host of other things with forcemodels and brightskins. You can force teamates and enemies to any model and put any color skin you like on them. Since I play with UTComp so much it's nice to have things appear relativly similar when I want to play on a pub like DW.

Using pipeswitched weapons isn't really an advantage on it's own, it's just nice if you want to have more than one weapon bound to a single key. It works just like s regular keybind except that the second time you press the key you get the second weapon, e.g. the first time I press "C" I get flak, the second time I get bio if avalible.

I can see the viewpoint of some who just want to buy a game and play it out of the box, but to play well in UT you at very minimum need to bind weapons to keys rather than scrolling though them (don't know if that's what you were implying), adjust your mouse sensitivity, crosshairs, and sound levels.
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