|
01-16-2017
|
81
|
|
cute frog
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 1,644
|
|
Bolded and marked the points I want to respond to with numbers:
1) No, but it will get significantly better. Do you really think there won't be a decrease in the number of hackers in spar arena if there's a dedicated sparrer (who can be trusted to be mature and objective of course) sitting in the room 10/12 hours a day like many dedicated sparrers do now? The GPs simply can't/won't respond quickly to hackers currently, so obviously players will be affected less by hackers if hackers are banned within a few minutes instead of a few hours. Seriously, there have been times where hackers have streaked for an hour or more. Myself and friends have had little games where we go into the ring and toy with the hacker because they're often so bad they can't win even with hacks. This shows that the GP response is so slow they have time to requeue in a queue with 5+ people and spar again MULTIPLE TIMES. Now apply this same concept to other forms of PvP (such as having dedicated, trusted, objective PKers keeping an eye on towers) and you have a game that has significantly less noticeable hacking.
|
Honestly, I don't think it will go down as much as you think. Maybe a little, but people who hack don't expect to get away with it. There are many ways to avoid IP bans, which is typically what these players like to do. If a hacker is reported and nothing happens, it doesn't mean the admin doesn't care or is incompetent, it just means that nobody is on. You may say "well if we have players dedicated to monitoring these rooms then this will be fixed!" which, while that is true, hiring players to be GPs that focus on more than just one aspect of the game would theoretically fix the problem as well.
|
2) Lol, don't kid yourself or anyone else, there's an objective, significant flaw in the engine that there's been a solution to for years: NEVER TRUST THE CLIENT. Movement, collision, sword attributes (the small freeze, etc) are all clientsided - meaning much of the game logic takes place on the client and the client is trusted to tell the server truthfully what happened (lol). HELL even the client who's being hit is trusted to tell the server whether they were actually hit. Why do you think there's so much hacking? It's because Graal is one of the few popular multiplayer games in existence where [certain script kiddy software which I removed the name of to prevent causing you issues] is considered a valid and incredibly easy approach to 'hacking'. That's a BIG problem. Granted, the game was made in 1998, but there's no excuse for the client/server engine not having been updated to fix or at least mitigate this years ago.
|
Okay, perhaps you're right. But again, there's nothing a GP can do about this
|
3) I agree with you totally on this point. However there's also an obvious point where you have to look at an application and say "this guy looks good but why does he spell every second word wrong" or "hmm, this guy claims to be a business student in university and this other guy we're considering is a 16 year old working at McDonalds part time to pay for his Pokemon cards" and that's the point where you ask them to elaborate. Often, if that's done, you can tell within 5 minutes or a couple simple questions, whether the person is full of **** or not. There's a reason employers conduct interviews and don't just hire people based on applications/resumes.
I'm not saying you have to interview every applicant or even all the ones you're considering, but take the ones that look really qualified but might be full of **** and PM them stating that you have read their application and had a few small questions. You'll be able to sort the garbage from the ones who are telling the truth relatively easily. Tossing out a qualified, well written application because the person might be using "fluff" is nonsensical.
|
The higher ups always speak with the applicant first before giving them any sort of access to RC.
|
4) That's such an obvious point you can't even use it as an argument. The fact is, despite screening, you guys have had objective issues in your hiring process and really haven't done much to prevent these problems. At the risk of sounding like educators in the US, as a worst case approach, you could implement and warn applicants about a no tolerance policy: If you get hired and screw around/break rules/break admin protocol on your staff account AT ALL, you will be fired and your player account banned. I don't think that's unreasonable. People, especially the young teenagers, that you hire should be held accountable and well aware of what will happen if they break the trust that you're placing in them by introducing them to the admin team. What I described is just one quick, shotgun solution to these issues that will allow you to take more calculated risks and build a stronger admin team while still keeping things relatively safe from abuse. There's many other much better solutions, which I've seen used on Graal when I was younger volunteering as an admin myself, and also when working real world jobs. Professionalism is a real thing. Your problem is not an entirely unsolved one. Do some research and suggest/implement some better screening/risk management for admins and potential hires.
|
This is made aware to every GP during the training process. Strict enforcement of the rules is constantly going on, which is why the higher ups are constantly checking newer GPs' account activity and things like that.
|
|
|
|