Warning: Use of Illegal Software on our Servers

[Bram Hengeveld]

In public servers there is a growing group of drivers racing with illegal pirated Skidmark software (don't click the download link). As a result of these growing numbers we have been checking our server logs thoroughly last night and the result is that some of our drivers are using the pirated games as well.

Thankfully those members can be counted on the fingers of two hands and out of the thousands that have signed up for a license membership that is pretty positive. So kudos to all who do support a developer by purchasing a legitimate copy of the game via www.steampowered.com and keep sim racing on PC alive

To the people with pirated software here is your first and final warning. Those of you who log in to race on our servers with games that you don't legally own will have their licensed membership revoked permanently. This means no more online racing at RD and back to the public servers.

We are not interested in the excuses that you may have to justify your illegal copy so don't bother starting a discussion to explain the reasons. We don't allow it.

 

[Eric Stranne]

Those public servers seriously need to upgrade and stop running the same boring wtcc 2006/2007 content online to get a full server.. Its now 2012 and several packs have been released to enrich the game: use it.

We've discussed this over at 100Mbit (I'm an admin there) and we did put servers up running add-on content, but they weren't popular. The most popular add-on server is the STCC II setver, but that's full of SKIDROWs and idiots half the time.

 

[Marco Bijl]

We've discussed this over at 100Mbit (I'm an admin there) and we did put servers up running add-on content, but they weren't popular. The most popular add-on server is the STCC II setver, but that's full of SKIDROWs and idiots half the time.

That's we we race at racedepartment, with (closed) dedicated servers, and a license system. It's not about being popular, and having full grid's all the time. It's about the quality of the races. Thats what matters at RD.

I rather race with 5 people in a server who all try to have a clean and fun race, then to be on a full grid, and being forced to avoid those lunatic's with their cheats and just trying to destroy the fun of others.

But that's me

 

[Eric Stranne]

That's we we race at racedepartment, with (closed) dedicated servers, and a license system. It's not about being popular, and having full grid's all the time. It's about the quality of the races. Thats what matters at RD.

I rather race with 5 people in a server who all try to have a clean and fun race, then to be on a full grid, and being forced to avoid those lunatic's with their cheats and just trying to destroy the fun of others.

But that's me

I can see what you mean, and I partly agree. When I wrote unpopular, I was saying that there was barely anyone on it, 2 or 3 people max. Bit sure, I like having races with few people, abd if everyone is at the same pace, it can be a blast. But once again, if you're on a public, and go to Monza for example, you barely have to deal with the lapped cars and wreckers, because the lap is so long. But at Brands Hatch Indy, Publics is all 'bout being alive

 

[Marco Bijl]

I like Monza, but as with Curitiba, I will NEVER race it online. Simple reason, the standards in driving are SO freaking low, that it's impossible to have a nice race, without being an *ss yourself.

Curitiba first corner, and Monza first are both places where people just take their own lines, which are so much faster. So, if you drive like crzay, and close a gap to someone during the lap, the gap is instantly back when going through first corner. This goes for so many tracks, that I personally have lost the interest to be online on a public server.

When I started to race online, I came to the 100mbit servers on a regular basis. Same argumentation, I like full grids. Now, IF I go to a public server, I choose one with non-popular car's, so I have a better chance of having a nice race with a few instead of having a bad race with many

 

[Petr Kantor]

100 mbit servers, full grid, I like it. I go there mostly only to see if i can survive the first lap and then have a maybe a close race with someone. Most ofthen than not, I find myself the last of the grid because got bumped 5 times in the first lap. Don;t know why everybody picks on me . Anyway, I know what is happening on 100mbit and am glad i have a full grid server most of the time to play on. I like RD for it's own quality too, but the signup system and the need to wait for the certain date is not so fun. Now, the RDTCC Season 8 is gonna be fun I hope, if my (division 3) server will be full after two races still... Close driving, gotta love it.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

In publics you need to be on the top4 in qualy or start at the back. Midpack is just lottery, if i find myself there i'll take as fast start i can take and then try to find a place where there's no one right behind me and brake full 50m before the normal 1st lap brakecue, that's about 100m before the real brakepoint. I lose 4-5 positions because of that but after T1 i've gained more than that back. In the last minutes of qualy check where you are and if it's P6-P14, drive the wrong way thru the pits to get DQ. That'll demote you at the back of the grid.

 

[Eric Stranne]

If you guys are on publics, throw me a messge on Steam if there are any smartasses on the servers, and I'll deal with them. My steam name is strannarna

 

[Hiroshi Awazu]

Can Skidrow users change their usernames so you can't tell apart from the others?. 100Bit is my favorite "Public" server. We (my gf or myself) go on around 1/2 am and there is usually six to ten drivers on. Sometimes there is a near full and those are fun imo.Its entertaining to see nearly half the grid crash on the first turn. We just start at the back and most times we make up half the grid by the first turn lol! In a ten lap race I've watched Pauline go from 17th to 10th place by turn one then finish her race in second because everyone was dropping out like flies. Great fun!

The reason I ask about Skidrow changing their usernames is because we don't see them much at all when we are online.

 

[Eric Stranne]

Ye Hiro, they can use whatever name they want. There's a fake (100Mbit) server up sometimes called Denmark (100Mbit) and someone on it had used my name and wreck with it.

 

[Keith Peppiatt]

just had an interesting time on a public. i baby sat a skidrow/hacker for a good 20-30 mins.

he'd turned up in a formula race room on a mini server. no one could get to chat, race monitor without having a crash to desktop.

still 10 of us went to race after the 15 min quali. he spun around as soon as the red lights went on and hit Rik who got a DQ for false start. he then continued wrecking others through the race. people quickly disconnect but i stayed on to baby sit the kid. while he was there he wasn't bothering anyone else.

it's a real shame open public racing could now be over because of this hack. hey ho..

 

[UMC 22]

it's a real shame open public racing could now be over because of this hack. hey ho..

Open public racing has never been much good, which is why communities like RD exist. Plenty of people out there don't need a cracked game to act like complete idiots at every opportunity.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Has SimBin even acknowledged this situation? It kind of feels like "don't care, discontinued product" issue.. I don't follow Raceroom forum so if any one knows if they are even trying to do anything could enlighten us more.

 

[James Woods]

had the same problem when running the odd server at night, mostly radicals. Two guys would enter and had a hack which could crash you to desktop if you do anything in the menus. Sometimes they would shout and insult, or stay silent so it was very hard to figure out who was the hacker.

 

[Keith Peppiatt]

Has SimBin even acknowledged this situation? It kind of feels like "don't care, discontinued product" issue..

I have that same feeling.

Communities like this are great. I had been racing at another last night but the bug for more was still there hence the visit to publics. You could get some really good races out there but it seems few and far between.

 

[UMC 22]

Has SimBin even acknowledged this situation? It kind of feels like "don't care, discontinued product" issue.

I think it's been mentioned before, but this is not a SimBim problem. It is a Valve/Steam problem, since it is their software being cracked which is allowing people to play online. There's nothing SimBin can do about it other than not use Steam for future games.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

I think it's been mentioned before, but this is not a SimBim problem. It is a Valve/Steam problem, since it is their software being cracked which is allowing people to play online. There's nothing SimBin can do about it other than not use Steam for future games.

I disagree. I fit was Steam issue people would be playing a cracked game without Steam. But since they are able to break the whole game with driving a car class that isn't even listed in the dedicated server class list, drive without damage, without other cars physics affecting theirs, it's a SimBin issue.

EDIT: I've had my own adventures with Steam bypass (note! i owned those games in Steam but choose not to use it, the explanations follow) and none of those crackd allowed the game content be modified. For ex the late AlterIWnet MW2. It was a simple bypass of Steam that allowed playing the original game without Steam. Afterwards the DLL injection started happening and that was hacking the game. The same goes for Steam version of MW2, the hacks are directed to the game, not Steam.. Steam had poor cheat detection that never worked since the injection was done after Steam and Activision was too proud to acknowledge that it was their poor netcode that allowed this. aIW made their own netcode correction that worked better than Activision, that's why the cease&desist orders included the rerlease of their sourcecode... I believe we are witnessing the same method here, the Skidrow crack allows Steam bypass and other method attack the SimBin netcode.

 

[Andreas Biester]

I disagree. I fit was Steam issue people would be playing a cracked game without Steam. But since they are able to break the whole game with driving a car class that isn't even listed in the dedicated server class list, drive without damage, without other cars physics affecting theirs, it's a SimBin issue.

It's a problem of how the game is Implemented into steam to begin with. When launching Race_Steam.exe from the folder right away i get "Steam blabla no found blabla"(Since it has to be launched through steam).

Remove the forced steam launch -> good to go. That's most likely how the whole thing plays out. I still wonder why people pirate race though, it's cheap and loads of fun. Go buy it if you like it! Or win it by driving fast (RaceRoom2)!!!

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Yep, Steam is just a glorified game launcher. It does check if the game files in your HDD are the originals but if the injection is done after that check, Steam is powerless. As much as i hate Steam, this is not their fault.

 

[Yves Larose]

i never understood those people who comes online to cheat or to ruined other people fun, they must be very sad people and unhappy and its pathetic.

as for the illegal part and whose responsabilities it is, well its both steam/valve and simbin. steam being the security system use to prevent cracked game to be played online which is now not so secure anymore and for simbin its the hacking part where people can makes other game to crash or being able to drive any car class they want on any given server.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

That's one thing i'll expect GTR3 to do differently.. Personally, i'm hoping for forum/website based login system and not one-site login either; you put the dedi up and decide where the dedi takes it user login/password information.. That would allow the old community intergration, one-site logins pose another problem when the product is not supported anymore and that one site goes offline..... Steam can is still one of the best content release channels, the procedure is simple and hassle free plus they handle updates. 3rd party login is of course not problem free, then it would be three different systems interacting. It's possible, it's not actually even that hard to incorporate and would still allow full-public servers where user info is not needed at all. But i'm afraid that GTR3 will be SimBin site locked if it goes that route..

EDIT: it is really so simple.. Now the system has blacklisting (users are allowed to join unless they are banned) , it would be so simple to make it whitelisting (everyone is "banned" unless SteamID&Steam username is found on the server whitelist)