[gameprogrammer] Re: Scoreboard functionality across internet

Nice idea Dave,

But I do see some issues (Beyond all the extra work). The idea is to
avoid people cheat and as we know people will try.. The main worry is
that if people 'hack' the data been sent to the server and the server
then tries to play through the game with that data, then who knows..
Maybe it will crash the game, or even play better than the player did ;)
Of course the 'server' could be checking for valid data and make sure
that nothing 'impossible' would happen from the recorded data. Checksums
would be needed. Oh, and of course store seed values for random generate
data, wonder what a change in those values would result in, specially if
it was used to defined enemy positions or level layout ;)

Hell lot of work if you ask me, but thumbs up for the idea.

-Sam

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Dave Slutzkin
> Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 3:54 AM
> To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: Scoreboard functionality across internet
> 
> 
> On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:29:55 -0800, "Alan Wolfe" 
> <alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>
> said:
> > Hey you guys,
> > 
> > I'm thinking of trying to implement a global scoreboard for a game.
> > 
> > The game itself is a standard desktop game where you have 
> the exe and 
> > files needed on your computer (ie its not a web based game 
> or flash or
> > anything) and the scoreboard i want to reside on a web page.
> > 
> > Doing the web and database thing isn't a problem but I was 
> wondering, 
> > are there any techniques to make this process secure?
> 
> You could send the server the entire run of the game - the 
> start state and every piece of input in between it and the 
> end state.  The server could then run through the game itself 
> and generate the score that way. 
> This sounds like a lot of data but if stored efficiently and 
> then compressed it might be all right, depending on the application.
> 
> It'd still be possible to hack this but much harder, cause 
> each bit of input affects the state after it and so changing 
> one may actually invalidate later pieces of input - at which 
> point the server could throw the log away.
> 
> Dave.
> -- 
>   Dave Slutzkin
>   Melbourne, Australia
>   daveslutzkin@xxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> 
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