Pirates, keep them or ban them, what would you do?

[chrisk123999]

Halo CE is dead. Only way to play legit 1.09 players is on Halo PC (UGH).

[TeeKup]

Realworld servers are still up right? I used to play with them, were pretty cool/good players.

[EagerYoungSpaceCadet]

Realworld servers are still up and usually filled with players, + the occasional custom map night.

[Sean Aero]

Seanaero, if i'm not mistaken, is trying to see if he is going to allow servers to run with his stats system if they all have the same hashes.

Basically it comes down to if I will support pirates into the stats tracking system, as in code the system in such a way that even pirates can enjoy the the fact that their scores are tracked. Keep in mind that I won't do it with half the effort, hence my hypothetical question. I either take them in with full support on their tracking problem or I leave them be (as in they can't have stats tracking).

The system would allow for the noobs be separated from the better plays so skill wise I'm still working on some ideas regarding same skilled player servers.
But all in time.

NOTE: All EVENT START TIMES ARE UK TIME:
® Realworld Server Sessions
8:00 - 10:00 pm Sunday - ALL Players [Map Packs]
Every week server is usually packed.

[Cortexian]

I was talking about something similar with Skyline. I was saying that you should make your stats tracking system only work for legitimate players, skyline said it shouldn't be hard to make a system that only tracks legitimate players, even if pirates are allowed to play on the same server.

If anything, that would be an incentive to go buy the game. No stats tracking for pirates.

[Sean Aero]

The only method I can think of right now would be to compare the hashes of players that went into a cd-key checked server and accept those hashes as legit.
Any other method would probably be too much work, but proof me wrong if you have a better way.

The current method I'm using is just checking if a hash has been used across multiple client IPs (> 3) see http://halorank.com/pirate.php. As you can see currently a 109 hashes would be banned by the system. Leaving 32k uniques hashes as legit. Also note that the Pirate population based on this system is a little over 10% of all tracked data!!
However after some research just before I started this topic I experienced my self how easy it is to change your hash.
Hence the whole reason I want some feedback to see how you guys feel about pirates.

I'm also thinking of contacting sawnose to request the list of legit hashes that gamespy uses, although i doubt I'll get them just like that.
If I did have that list I would finally be able to put an exact number on the amount of pirates we actually have playing.

[p0lar_bear]

The only method I can think of right now would be to compare the hashes of players that went into a cd-key checked server and accept those hashes as legit.
Any other method would probably be too much work, but proof me wrong if you have a better way.

The current method I'm using is just checking if a hash has been used across multiple client IPs (> 3) see http://halorank.com/pirate.php. As you can see currently a 109 hashes would be banned by the system. Leaving 32k uniques hashes as legit. Also note that the Pirate population based on this system is a little over 10% of all tracked data!!
However after some research just before I started this topic I experienced my self how easy it is to change your hash.
Hence the whole reason I want some feedback to see how you guys feel about pirates.

I'm also thinking of contacting sawnose to request the list of legit hashes that gamespy uses, although i doubt I'll get them just like that.
If I did have that list I would finally be able to put an exact number on the amount of pirates we actually have playing.

3 IP addresses? You do realize that ISPs change client IP addresses on a regular basis, right? Not to mention that, even if all IPs were static, I'd be affected anyway; I've been on the move for the past few months and been in three different houses, and I also have CE installed on a laptop that I can bring with me to play at public hotspots.

[Sean Aero]

All right a little more detail once a hash is linked to your account it doesn't care about your IP, basically linking is done through IP.
However for the first check it would be interested in how many IP addresses are used by that single hash.
Now I can easily increase this for let's say to 20 to be very precise but in my understanding between the time that you play on a server and you actually decide to sign up. I don't believe you'll have moved through more than 3 IP addreses. In that special case the system will tell you your a pirate and if not to it will tell you to contact me.
I'll be able to manually confirm your story, but I doubt this will happen often.

The only way you would currently slip into the system is if you use a completly unique hash, never seen in the system before.
This would usually be the case when there is not enough data available. However since 32k hashes have been tracked so far and especially once the app is ran on multiple server I seriously doubt you'll slip by just like that. Unless your a pirate but not as legit player.

[Pooky]

Halo CE is dead. Only way to play legit 1.09 players is on Halo PC (UGH).

Not like there's any real reason to play CE over PC anymore. Either way you're going to be playing nothing but stock maps.

Mostly bloodgulch.

[chrisk123999]

With stat tracking, just have it ignore invalid hashes.