A survey on network game cheats and P2P solutions

The increasing popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) - games involving thousands of players participating simultaneously in a single virtual world - has highlighted the scalability bottlenecks present in centralised Client/Server (C/S) architectures. Researchers are proposing Peer-...

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Main Authors: Webb, Steven, Soh, Sieteng
Format: Journal Article
Published: Australian National University 2008
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/21213
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author Webb, Steven
Soh, Sieteng
author_facet Webb, Steven
Soh, Sieteng
author_sort Webb, Steven
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The increasing popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) - games involving thousands of players participating simultaneously in a single virtual world - has highlighted the scalability bottlenecks present in centralised Client/Server (C/S) architectures. Researchers are proposing Peer-to-Peer (P2P) game technologies as a scalable alternative to C/S; however, P2P is more vulnerable to cheating as it decentralises the game state and logic to un-trusted peer machines, rather than using trusted centralised servers. Cheating is a major concern for online games, as a minority of cheaters can potentially ruin the game for all players. In this paper we present a review and classification of known cheats, and provide real-world examples where possible. Further, we discuss counter measures used by C/S game technologies to prevent cheating. Finally, we discuss several P2P architectures designed to prevent cheating, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.
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publishDate 2008
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-212132017-01-30T12:23:51Z A survey on network game cheats and P2P solutions Webb, Steven Soh, Sieteng Cheating peer-to-peer networked computer games client/server The increasing popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) - games involving thousands of players participating simultaneously in a single virtual world - has highlighted the scalability bottlenecks present in centralised Client/Server (C/S) architectures. Researchers are proposing Peer-to-Peer (P2P) game technologies as a scalable alternative to C/S; however, P2P is more vulnerable to cheating as it decentralises the game state and logic to un-trusted peer machines, rather than using trusted centralised servers. Cheating is a major concern for online games, as a minority of cheaters can potentially ruin the game for all players. In this paper we present a review and classification of known cheats, and provide real-world examples where possible. Further, we discuss counter measures used by C/S game technologies to prevent cheating. Finally, we discuss several P2P architectures designed to prevent cheating, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. 2008 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/21213 Australian National University fulltext
spellingShingle Cheating
peer-to-peer
networked computer games
client/server
Webb, Steven
Soh, Sieteng
A survey on network game cheats and P2P solutions
title A survey on network game cheats and P2P solutions
title_full A survey on network game cheats and P2P solutions
title_fullStr A survey on network game cheats and P2P solutions
title_full_unstemmed A survey on network game cheats and P2P solutions
title_short A survey on network game cheats and P2P solutions
title_sort survey on network game cheats and p2p solutions
topic Cheating
peer-to-peer
networked computer games
client/server
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/21213