Why are HUD mods not allowed?

MapiarzMapiarz Join Date: 2013-09-05 Member: 187833Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Hi.

I really can't wrap my head around the fact that HUD scripts are checked for consistency with the server. I thought NS2 was supposed to be a moddable game. All competetive games allow for custom HUDs, yet in NS2 it's a no go. What's the UW state on this? They either don't give a damn or they have it on their TODO list, because I don't think anyone in their sense would disallow custom HUDs for a competetive game such as NS2.

Cheers.

Comments

  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    It WAS a moddable game, until they made everything blacklisted except crosshairs and minimaps by default :|

    Honestly I think the risk of pink skulks was worth it, they weren't "common" and even if people had them, they still needed the skill to aim and shoot. (Yes it's an unfair advantage, but like I said I think it was WORTH it to keep the game moddable).
  • MaxunitMaxunit Join Date: 2005-02-01 Member: 39414Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    It even gets worse then, in your case.

    Patch 255 will introduce a new system to restrict modding even more, if you want to play on official Servers etc.

    It is somewhere stated in the mailing list.

    On the other hand:

    It is up to the Server Admins to decide, if they want the players on their servers to be able to use mods or be forced to play the mods, which are active on the server...or play vanilla.

    My Server, for example, allows you to use custom alien vision mods and has 3 mods installed (one of them purely an admin mod for administration and moderation).

    UWE's official servers most likely never will support modded clients, unless UWE changes something.

    What kind of HUD Mods are you trying to use, anyway?

    Greetings,

    Maxunit
  • HuzeHuze Insightful Join Date: 2003-11-12 Member: 22724Members, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
    If you get any amount of access into the lua code it's stupidly simple to make wallhacks and aimbots. That is why coded HUD mods are not allowed.
  • zackmaster666zackmaster666 Join Date: 2013-08-30 Member: 187344Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Huze wrote: »
    If you get any amount of access into the lua code it's stupidly simple to make wallhacks and aimbots. That is why coded HUD mods are not allowed.
    Huze is right. The UnknonwnWorlds devs gave the community their chance at an extremely moddable game and the hackers ruined it. I am not trying to place blame but we all had our shot at this revolutionary game and the few ruined it for us... But I believe we are better gamers for it and with their zero tolerance policy for hackers it has done nothing but help keep loyal players on the game because there is no fear of hacker. There will always be the occasional hacker who will always find a loophole but there are so few on this game it stays fun for the true gamers.
  • MaxunitMaxunit Join Date: 2005-02-01 Member: 39414Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    Agreed.

    And even if a Hacker finds a loophole, it most likely is getting fixed pretty fast...otherwise VAC takes care of the job, if external software is used for cheating and hacking.
  • turtsmcgurtturtsmcgurt Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165456Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited September 2013
    Huze wrote: »
    If you get any amount of access into the lua code it's stupidly simple to make wallhacks and aimbots. That is why coded HUD mods are not allowed.
    Huze is right. The UnknonwnWorlds devs gave the community their chance at an extremely moddable game and the hackers ruined it. I am not trying to place blame but we all had our shot at this revolutionary game and the few ruined it for us... But I believe we are better gamers for it and with their zero tolerance policy for hackers it has done nothing but help keep loyal players on the game because there is no fear of hacker. There will always be the occasional hacker who will always find a loophole but there are so few on this game it stays fun for the true gamers.

    there's no way this is the reason. it would be pointless to even allow it to be moddable at any point because it is a guarantee there is one person in thirty that will attempt to do something malicious. i think it's kind of silly they made the game so moddable, but didn't think it through enough to either limit it, or create a secondary version [that is limited], similar to TF2's HUD editing.

    and please, the moddability in NS2 isn't 'revolutionary', other games have done more.
  • MapiarzMapiarz Join Date: 2013-09-05 Member: 187833Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    edited September 2013
    Hacks and exploits should not be an explaination for why HUD mods are disallowed. I know that right now allowing for HUD mods can lead to many exploits but that's just lazy design (from technical standpoint) on UWE part, HUD should be somewhat separated from the rest of the game logic.

    I, for example, wanted to create a very simple mod that places the health information closer to the center of the screen because I have trouble keeping track of my HP, I have to shift point of focus from the center of the screen to the corner in order to see it (16:9, big screen, large resolution). But I'm asking for too much... I'm just disappointed.
  • ArtfunkelArtfunkel Join Date: 2013-05-10 Member: 185184Members
    HUD mods could work securely if the HUD ran in its own Lua virtual machine (the principle behind "sandboxing").

    Data access would be restricted to whatever the game VM chose to pass to the HUD, but if all you want to do is change appearances that wouldn't be a problem. The biggest issue would be potential performance complications of having two VMs trying to render to the screen each frame.
  • lwflwf Join Date: 2006-11-03 Member: 58311Members, Constellation
    edited September 2013
    Artfunkel wrote: »
    HUD mods could work securely if the HUD ran in its own Lua virtual machine (the principle behind "sandboxing").

    Data access would be restricted to whatever the game VM chose to pass to the HUD, but if all you want to do is change appearances that wouldn't be a problem. The biggest issue would be potential performance complications of having two VMs trying to render to the screen each frame.

    I believe the in-game menu works like this already. Never reflected over how much opening it decreases FPS but I have noticed it game freezing.

    Perhaps if not consistency checked it could already be repurposed into some sort of HUD if you can make user input pass through. Unfortunately (or hopefully depending on how you see it, since it would be a huge security hole) you probably wouldn't be able to read the values the NS2 HUD presents, but if it works without lag using bogus values at least it would prove custom, user/client selected and installed HUDs would be feasible in NS2.
  • fsfodfsfod uk Join Date: 2004-04-09 Member: 27810Members, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    Safe from cheats hud mods could be possible by isolating them into separate empty Lua environment tables with a proxy table providing restricted data from outside the sandbox
  • zeqzeq Join Date: 2012-02-14 Member: 145493Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    It would be really nice if a global whitelist was compiled that new mods could apply for listing on. The people moderating that list just check that the mod isn't a hack or gives some obvious advantage like pink skulks. Make the mods reevaluated at each update (not quite sure how viable this is), and give the list to servers as the default or easily accessible option.
  • JektJekt Join Date: 2012-02-05 Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
    edited September 2013
    The game is moddable. But default consistency checking blocks close to everything, so no one can actually use your creations and if they can they can't be used reliably across servers.

    It's impossible for server operators to actually white list mods that people can use, only the files that they change can be individually white listed. However then they can be changed in any way.

    It is possible for the server to be running your HUD mod, than everyone in that server will be forced to use it. Or in the case of Mendasps custom HUD mod that used to work a few builds ago, generated options in the main menu for people to toggle on and off as they liked for that particular server.

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