As you know, the use of memory modification tools such as winHack and gameHack puts a game developer into quite a bind. It's impossible to completely protect the game from such an attack.

In WoS I try to detect the use of such tools, and in A46 I have implemented 'punishment' for the detected use (if you can go undetected, you can skate by, but experimental probing is likely to be detected eventually).

THE PUNISHMENT? -> MULTIPLAYER SUSPENSION

"multiplayer suspension" prevents you from playing the game over the Internet. The suspension will wear off, but the duration of suspension doubles with each detected hack. If you hack more than a certain number of times (and it ain't a big number), the suspension becomes 'permanent' (as permanent as I can make it, which probably isn't as permanent as we'd like - probably be a few more releases dealing with that alone! )

Any character you play while suspended (even in solo mode) will be marked a cheater.

Oh, and setting your clock forward to get past the suspension will 'appear' to work... for awhile. :-) I don't advise doing that.

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To those who have regularly hacked to help me improve the anti-hack features, I thank you for your aid. If you choose to continue hacking for that reason, I will appreciate hearing your findings, but I won't be able to remove any suspensions you encounter in the process.

Hacking for any other reason has never been condoned and I don't wish to tolerate it. This isn't an "I am mad at you" issue, it's a "hacking makes the game no fun for everyone else" issue.

I don't think it's too much to ask to have you not behave this way in a free game. I'd kinda like to think that you wanted me to get some joy out of this process myself and could see how your continued hacking threatened that joy.

I ask you politely now, please stop using memory hacks. Thanks for your kind attention to the matter.

We have been warned

For a million dollars : if you have two seperate installations of WoS, and you hack one, will it affect BOTH installations?

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[yes, it will affect all installations -s]

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 09-22-2000).]

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Well, looks like you get the million dollars!

*Takes the million dollars he stole from F'nok's personal hacking fund and gives it to Dan*

Rest assured Dan, we will try to find every way around the ban, so you can fix them

Yeh!
Go Dan!

This deserves another quote!
"Programmer- A red eyed mumbling creature capable of talking to inanimate objects"
-Merlin

remember: Please Stop Hacking To Help Dan. Dan's heart will be broken when you get messed up while going out of your way to be helpful.

If you don't see a code message, then you haven't tripped the hack detector and the problem is something else