Hello everyone,
last year, we had a look and one of the biggest problems in World of Tanks, botting. Now, we are going to have a look at another – and that is cheating.
They say that you cannot cheat in World of Tanks and it is true – to a certain extent. You can’t use the most notorious cheats such as wallhack or cheats that allow you go or fire faster, simply because these things are calculated server-side. It’s the only way to go really and is one of the biggest advantages of World of Tanks.
On the other hand, yes, there ARE cheats in this game and they DO give you an advantage, sometimes a pretty massive one. Practically all are in the form of illegal modifications (AKA “mods”) and are forbidden (how “strictly” that is, well, that we will talk about further below”). The existence of these mods is a public secret and, well, sort of an elephant in the room really, but in any case it’s something generally avoided (discussion about cheats in World of Tanks is banned on the official forums, unlike bots). Amongst the most notorious cheat are the following:
- defoliants (leaf removers, that allow much easier aiming through bushes and forests)
- lasers (that show where every enemy player’s gun is aiming in the game in the form of a “laser”)
- 3D hitboxes (reworked models, that show you where exactly internal modules of the vehicles are, these are rare though, as in the new models, the location of internal modules is no longer a part of the client data and has to be tested manually, which is time consuming and imprecise)
- breaking object indicators (these mods will show on your map, where an environmental object was broken, for example if you run over a wall and break through it, the other player gets a warning like “someone breaking a wall detected here, with an indicator of your position on minimap)
- automatic fire extinguisher (a mod, that will activate credit fire extinguishers literally a split second after you catch on fire, much faster than manually pressing the extinguisher)
- vision mods, that allow you to “cheat” bushes and look through them or behind a corner
- hacked artillery tracers, that allow you to exactly see the position of enemy tank based on the shell path
Let’s have a look at an example. The following video (provided kindly by Plazmakeks, thank you) is of a player using an illegal modifications from a cheat pack, named Stealthz Hack Pack.
The first thing you notice probably (apart from the messy UI) is the black sky. To be quite honest, I have absolutely no idea what kind of advantage does THAT give you apart from looking creepy. Performance increase by removing sky texture? Easier spotting of enemy tanks against black background? In any case, this hack pack has a lot of the forbidden mods included in it – lasers, auto extinguishers, enemy reload timer, you name it. There is also a mod that displays the silhouettes ALL the time (not only upon mouseover), I don’t find that very useful, but it’s forbidden as well (IIRC).
As you can see, especially the lasers can give you an insane advantage, since you know exactly who is aiming at you and can react extremely quickly (much more reliable than the light bulb, providing that the enemy is spotted – you cannot see lasers from unspotted enemies since a laser is basically a changed vehicle model, the barrel is prolonged and painted red).
Notice the enemy reload indicators, allowing the cheater to precisely time his shots between the reloads.
At around 7:40 of the video, if you look closely at the minimap, you will see in the lower right corner (enemy base) white spots, that’s the indicator of destroyed objects, showing you that someone’s down there. I am sure you can see what an advantage would that give you, should you be for example alone against one enemy tank while not knowing where he is. He breaks a wall on the other side of the map? You’ll know.
These are of course only the basics, there are much more sophisticated cheats out there, the most infamous of which is the Warpack cheat pack.
For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Warpack is probably the nastiest modpack available. It has one big disadvantage (for players), it actually costs money, monthly, if I recall correctly. The rest of the lesser cheat modpacks (like the one linked above) are free, but they come with the inherent danger of downloading something you really didn’t want to download with them (virus, trojan, you name it).
So, what is Wargaming doing against these cheats?
Well, you guessed it. Not much.
Currently, Wargaming is not capable of detect these modpacks during their use.
Enemy players will not detect these modpacks either of course and thus you are in no danger of being reported for “cheating” (you are just THAT good to dodge as soon as someone aims at you, right? ;) ). Well, unless you brag about it or are stupid enough to make a video.
Okay, here comes the good part. Wargaming doesn’t accept videos of cheaters as evidence, as it might be staged (for example, by running a replay with a mod that removes the secondary FPS counter in the upper left corner to make the game look live and not like a replay), so even IF you are stupid enough to make a video where you are cheating, you won’t get punished either.
It is possible (but unconfirmed) that Wargaming uses some sort of method of getting the mods used from your replay. How do I know? Well, let’s say it was tested (granted, on RU). In 9.3 and 9.4, several players ran a nasty cheatpack for cca 400 battles total. They were not banned by cheating, so if there is any “runtime” detection in WoT client, it probably sucks (but I think there is none).
What they did as the next step was getting a replay from several players participating in battles with one of the cheaters and sending the replays to support, claiming he was cheating. He was not banned for that either. As the last step, one of the cheaters took his replay where he was cheating and gave it to one of his friends, who then reported this replay along with a claim that he “found it”. This resulted in a temporary ban.
Personally, I believe there is no special tool for this, that they are simply looking at the replay looking for clues that it might be a cheat (like constant split-second reactions to being aimed at).
Conclusion
So, unless you are stupid enough to upload replays where you are cheating somewhere, it’s very unlikely you will be caught using the illegal cheat mods. These mods are also very easy to access and are mostly free (save for Warpack), so it is my theory that these cheat mods are used FAR more than we suspect – it is always so, when something illegal is
a) easily accessible
b) safe to do
it WILL be done, a lot and often. It’s our human nature I guess. Wargaming made a big deal lately out of dealing with bots, but will they deal with cheat mods as well? Who knows. But I’d really love to see some cheat mod statistics, if there is such a thing.
To the people thinking “OMG SS U SUX 4 LINKING HAX MODS FFS!!11ONEELEVEN” – remember the bots? “There are no bots”. Until the Russian streamers stepped hard into that pile of shit. Where have you EVER seen Wargaming react to something that was not an immediate issue?
To be absolutely clear: I want this shit gone and I want the cheaters banned. Permabanned, if possible. I also think Wargaming should name people, who get banned for botting and cheating the way they do on RU server. In a way, I think that these mods pose even more danger to the quality of the game than the bots. A bot is usually a clear, visible threat that can be detected by players, so an outrage can be formed based on what everyone see. But how will you tell whether the guy that just reacted to your shell in a split of a second was simply THAT good, or he was cheating? Or perhaps he is cheating and therefore appears that good? Who can tell?
A solution would probably lie in World of Warcraft-style resident software checking for cheats/mods/whatever, something like the Punkbuster. After its implementation to WoW (very, VERY long time ago), it practically wiped out series of cheaters (vanilla and 1st expansion veterans might remember “underground miners” in Nagrand and around Scholomance). Sure, they returned eventually, but just like the war with malware, this is not a conflict that can be won. Only fought and contained.
Still wont help the tomatoes.
Also every tryhard will claim cheating if owned by a good player.
Also good that you posted this on your blog will help immensely with the popularity of these shitmods. GG
Until Wg does not implement a filecheck or some shit like that, nothing will happen. They should follow Blizzard example of anti-cheat.
I remember Diablo 3 players were banned even for using simple inofensive macros to quickly switch their gear with another one in the inventory.
It’s simple. As SS said WG should implement resident software checking for cheats/mods/whatever and make a list with all the forbidden mods, built their anti-cheat system based on it to recognize those instantly and without error.
Silently release it without anyone to know about it and watch those cheaters pop up on the forbidden mods list. Then proceed to ban the fuckers FOREVER! obviously most of them are good players with huge amount of battles and time invested in the account. Once the word does out that big players (battles wise, premiums bought, money invested) have been banned forever from WoT, then that would be a pretty serious warning for any other shithead trying to cheat.
But naaaaah. WG and their gay ass shit policy of bans will just ban them for 7 days. I remember when that NA streamer using some kind of warpack minimap shit was first banned for good. Then WG probably realised : motherfuckers!! this maggot is throwing lots of money at us! remove his permanent ban and give him 7days only. HE HAZ MONEY!!!!!!
WG and their ban policy in a nutshell. And their policy about forbidden mods : use them but dont get caught. LOL!
That was Sela from clan -G- on US server. But he didn’t get unbanned because of WG policies, he got unbanned because of corruption of certain specific employees that he and his clan are close to. Allegations of clan favoritism have been around forever.
What? You really thought all those super unicums get to the top without cheating? HA!
There is enough superunicums streaming and posting replays that make your statement look like a typical denier BS.
Yes, because ALL games they play are streamed and ALL replays are posted.
How stupid are you?
So its just coincidence/luck when they play like unicums during streams?
How stupid ARE you?
or better…
How bad at this game are you?
Well, clearly I am dealing here with a really logical person, who manages to draw conclusions so well… but… aren’t those the wrong conclusions?
Let’s examine this in effort to humiliate that brainless turd.
So, you are under assumption that a terrible player can install those mods and become super unicum. Well, that just means you are stupid and a lot of people will back me up on that.
However, if a great player in the unicum range installs mods that give him EVEN MORE of the edge, he can become super unicum. Those mods give a certain percentage to skills, if you are a bad player, you will be a slightly better bad player, and if you are unicum… finish the thought.
So if you think all those super unicums that care about stats so much will willingly disregard something that can give them an edge just because they are NICE guys, let me introduce you to the world of baseball (a real life comparison case that you so desperately were looking for).
ALL the greatest players in baseball (or ANY sport, Armstrong for example?) have proven to be on steroids. Barry Bonds, A-rod, you name it. Why? Because EVERYONE does it, and for them to have any edge at all over competition they have to do it too. They are already as talented as they come, but it’s SIMPLY not enough.
I hope you shut your trap for a while after this exercise in logical thinking.
P.S My stats are on display, take a look.
also, just for your convenience, here are my most recent replays (naturally just a selection of most fun/intense ones)
http://www.vbaddict.net/player-replays/paaranoja-eu-608adbbf077cb714afe816a09c72a898
My mods:
-striped meltys cross-hair (just the cross-hair, everything else is turned off and if i knew programing i would make it even more minimalistic) im colorblind and thats the only blue one that has a decent horizontal line.
- 455m circle and draw range square on minimap
- damage panel (again, due to wg everything is in red color which i cant see, this allows me to see better where the shots came)
Neither of you has a clue as to what you’re talking about. Sela was unbanned, due to the lack of a comprehensive list of illegal mods on NA, something we had complained about to NA for MONTHS, and even Sela himself had asked prior to the incident for that list to be made to ensure he wasn’t including something illegal in his packs. It had nothing to do with favoritism or a bad policy about bans. It was merely NA being lazy with making the list we reasonably asked for.
Shortly after Sela’s ban was overturned, we got finally got the list we had been asking for. and there hasn’t been a problem since.
You mean Sela just stopped streaming with illegal mods on? Yeah, problem solved.
Denier.
If you dont like it, then find another game, it’s going to happen, like ALL moddable MMO’s (or RPG’s, or MOG’s)
Silently release it without anyone to know about it…. and watch the ACLU, EFF, and others like them go after WG so hard that they may just withdraw from the NA market entirely because it’s not worth the legal fees to retain ~5% of their playerbase. Others have tried rootkits and trojans like that, and it’s never ended well.
As for slipping the right to install such malware into the EULA, WG will have to prove that their checks are limited to ONLY the WoT folder, and that will likely be more hassle than it’s worth. WG better not get caught either.
Shoot the messenger… Blithering idiot. If no one talks about it, and no one is aware of such a thing, how do you suppose it will be eradicated?
Its enough that WG knows, if SS thought WG had no idea (lol) he could have just sent email with the same data in this post. The thousands and thousands of players now aware of this crap will in no way help or speed up solving of the problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4oCCBVnhjs
Guess this doesnt give any advantages at all!
+ there is working wallhack and dmg hack ( always hits and does dmg) my friend tried it so…
Ignorance is bliss but will lead you off the cliff
We’re better off all knowing about the cheats than only the people who use them, even though it will increase how many people take an interest in using them.
“Still wont help the tomatoes.
Also every tryhard will claim cheating if owned by a good player.”
quote from Above ^^^^
Oh Please…. You self absorbed clowns. You instantly assume it’s tomatoes running around doing this. Not once in your mind did it ever occur to you, that those “So called Good players” are the ones using these cheat mods did it???
Wake up man. The big clans, and those stat padders are the one’s using this crap all the damn time.
Jesus !! Get a Clue dude… :(
http://1.1.1.1/bmi/hugelolcdn.com/i700/322269.jpg
let me fix that for ya
http://hugelolcdn.com/i700/322269.jpg
I don’t need lasers. The TANK GOD tells me when to move.
Praise RNGesus!
Hallowed is his name!
Urrgh why would you play a game with these mods makes it look so UGLY!
Why does anybody play a game with cheats? He is bad at the game, uses cheats to make himself feel like he pwns everybody..
because their lives suck It’s the only way they can feel good about themselves. Just Pitiful fucking people
It had a cool mass effect vibe with that music.
i was thinking the same, UI, black sky, music… like mission in ME
Even if it is going to be dealt with, I don’t see WG EU doing anything against it.. this seems like something they would need to work against all the time, and I don’t see them working to prevent it ever. It would be fun if I was wrong, but I know I’m not xD
” – automatic fire extinguisher (a mod, that will activate credit fire extinguishers literally a split second after you catch on fire, much faster than manually pressing the extinguisher)”
Useless and worse than automatic fire extinguishers (which are cheap enough even for non-prem players). Regardless of how quickly you react, you always take at least 3 (?) ticks of damage before the fire is extinguished, while the automatic extinguisher takes 1 tick of damage.
No, you take only 1 tick with a manual extinguisher, that’s the goal of this cheat.
I am fairly sure you don’t.
One of my clanmates told me that he made his own mode (only for testing purposes) and he took only 1 tick of fire.
Of course, you don’t have the fire chance bonus.
still thats the program on your computer run, lag or the overload of “input” can delay it or even fail to launch it completely. Also the problem is what will happen if you are going to repair a module and the program will try to run the manual extinguisher, for which it have to for example hit “5″ key.
Most of people also do not think about the -10% fire chance bonus from that Gold Consumable. I definitely prefer this to any kind of mods. :)
The mod doesn’t simulate key strokes. It makes the client return a keystroke signal as soon as the client receives the fire signal. It works even while you’re typing in chat or whatever.
some time ago they ‘nerfed’ manual extinguishers (3-4 ticks) because of this mod. Can’t tell you how long ago.
I’m fairly sure it has always been like this.
So damn glad Armored Warfare is NOT allowing MODs in their game..
AW knows what a pandora’s box this is. I hope AW never allows mods.
Apart from the discussion about cheats. Does anyone know what is that bat-chat skin? And where to download this badass?
It’s a cheat and no you can’t have it.*Sarcasam*
Google PL-10 skin, its a new Polish tank.
It isn’t PL-01, it looks like a Merkava mk. IV.
Yup, it isn’t PL-01. Merkava may be a good guess. At first, I thought about Stingraly Light Tank but I’m not sure
Edit.
I’ve found it. Indeed it’s a Merkava IV
http://pkwot.blogspot.com/2013/10/remodeling-bat-chatillon-25-t-to.html
I really dont see the point of most of these cheats… they are just for twats..
You prove nothing… (except that you’re a twat).. you gain fuckall..(MOAR pixels.. woohoo!!..).. and when you go back to real life, real life will fuck you over because there is no easy mode….
I have, and have previously had, Admin on servers and God Mode.. I’m sure many others of you have as well…. but I never use it to cheat/win.. only for the real use of moderating/ checking other players aren’t cheating or to help them…..why?
….because cheating is for twats.
They want the title of unicum by every mean possible. They want the adoration and respect of the non-purple proles.
Very much like that one in the NA server, whose name I don’t remember, who was caught during a streamung session.
That was Sela. He used the illegal minimap mods for a long time and I reported his modpack, because it featured illegal mods on the official WG forums. He claimed they were legit, because WG NA had no official list of banned mods. Instead of hiding the thread and informing Sela, as I requested, they swung the banhammer immediately. GG Wargaming. His initial permanent ban was then reduced to 1 week.
Bullshit… He knew full well they were illegal, I watched the stream and he even made a comment of “oops, forgot to hide my minimap” and he hides it right away.
The fact that he was unbanned is what should be investigated by SS, the corruption of WG employees. That would be a worthy target to channel SS’s hate into it.
“he claimed they were legit” while knowing all along they were not…
He should have permaban or account reset.
Same for every wanker who cheats and gets caught… no comeback, no “oooo I didn’t know”… you install a mod which removes, adds or changes anything to a fair degree is a cheat.. you know it, I know, they know it… denial means fuckall.
For want of a better quote “ignorance is no defence is a court of law”.
Oh really? Then why was Sela one of the lead people that consistently asked for a comprehensive list of illegal mods every time the subject came up on the NA forums?
So he can know which mods to turn off when he is streaming and turn them back on when he is not. Durr.
Stupid or ignorant much?
In army, they have a saying: You need to know the rules to know how to break them.
” go back to real life, real life will fuck you over because there is no easy mode….”
there are at least two. One is called ”dady is rich and important”, and the other one is called ”a pair of nice boobs and blond hair”
However,I have neither off those 2
Neither does most of the worlds population…
However.. on the second one… life will still fuck you over…. me first in the queue please?
Life will still fuck you ever regardless.
Daddy is not immortal and if you don’t know how to make it, the money will evaporate.
Boobs and figure have a time limit as well.
Life is very patient with these people, but it always get its prey.
actually… friend of friend of mine WAS caught using illegal mods (some nasty mods) but he just received a letter in his email. that if you won’t remove illegal mods you will be punished by ban. and yes he is/was a premium player.
In my opinion, the black sky makes the ridges much more distinct. But that’s not a massive advantage.
One thing doing blacksky will help with is FPS… but only slightly…
Years ago when the first “pro-gamers” were starting off, they would have the best PCs and Networks available.. but keep the game settings down on 800×600 and low details because the PC would behave MUCH faster than the enemys’ PC… If the game is running very fast, rather than laggy or stuttering, you can see and react quicker.. that 1/4 or 1/2 second would enable you shoot first….
It’s less of an advantage these days, and in WOT the milliseconds don’t mean quite as much as say CS, BF or CoD, but it could help.
There is also, as you say, less distraction… similar to doing the White Death mod or blanket skinning all tanks bright pink or red… they are more obvious.
Personally i think that map upgrade done by Wargaming will result in disabling the modification of it. I clearly do not see any other reason why they are doing it.
It the most nasty shit i have to deal with. I do not care about any other mods except the “Fallen Trees” (the mark on map where the object was destroyed) as a FC i really hate when shitbags from top clans known exactly where the covert part of tanks are going just after the single object is destroyed.
Simply by using this i could increase clan winning chance by far. I really dont need to test it to know that. Not like i ever did. Single battle where a player gave me 3 points from this mod on map resulted in even too easy battle. Since then my clan players are forbidden to give me any information they obtain this way.
Sad part is that 95+% of the “top” clans players use a shitload of this stuff all the time, especially this sad 3k-3,5k wannabes often on new accounts (or new accounts made quite long time ago) that think they are too “pro” to play fair.
Where do you pull your random “95+% top players use shitload of this stuff” ?
Just jealousy or inferiority complex defence mechanisms for losing so hard?
Did you consider that maybe those top clan FCs can guess accurately where you are moving as most maps have only limited viable options and tactics and therefore if they dont spot you in one side of map, you are likely in the other side then.
Always these same baseless accusations. We see no proof, but your motives are clear, jellyness and covering own incompetence with bullshit excuses.
I don’t claim to know the percentages but I wouldn’t be surprised if a large portion of the competitive clan players use banned mods. At this moment I expect anything from the so called unicums. Unfair? Yes. But then they are the ones who instead of kicking out of their ranks the known cheaters, they actually defend them.
So, “I’ll know who you are by the company you keep.”
1) Top clans FC’s are nothing special to me, i really enjoy fighting them. U think that there is a great gap in a level of skill between them and me but u are wrong.
2) I know many members of such clans personally so i got quite accurate info about that.
3) U are playing fool or u are one if u think i mentioned actions like that.
“Just jealousy or inferiority complex defence mechanisms for losing so hard?”
I rather prefer to kick their ass anyway. Dunno why u think i “lose so hard”.
“Always these same baseless accusations. We see no proof, but your motives are clear, jellyness and covering own incompetence with bullshit excuses.”
I am far from shit like that and i dont have a problem with loosing fair against better opponent which still do not occur too often.
True the number may be too big (80% may be far more accurate), but still its hard to hear about any1 not using this mods nowadays.
found one its me found another bunch of em their ppl from school playing without these mods.
personally i think mods are fun but I have the problem with modding its fun to be able to shoot everyone see everything know everything and never get killed, but for me that takes away the challenge wich is why i play a game. challenge is gone game gets boring so I stop play that game.
and i know of alot ppl that think the same and do play wot,
played 11k battles and yes i maybe tried some mods (mostly on test server) but after some fooling around with em there i didnt keep em just because they suck. one of the best mods is minion crew…
Summary castration is the only solution.
Hmm it would be usefull to have some official list of banned mods. As I read that I found that I used 2 of those mods from some modpacks during one patch and I dont wanna be cheater.
Thank you SS for promoting cheatmods through this article. Now that people here know you have 1 in 10k chances to get banned for using epic hacks, more people are likely to download this shit. Next time you should abstain from writing such articles, even for the sake of information. Or at the very least abstain from mentionning hack names. What an epic fail…
Especially when Plazmakeks who is mentioned sometimes here runs website that make these cheat mods available for non Russian speaking people :)
I started posting forbidden mods as a warning to regular players – watch out there is mod like this that can hurt you in this manner.
After several moths and ZERO reaction from WG (I actually contacted them 20+ with actual forbidden mod files), I made them fully available. Why ? As SS staid:”WG wont do anything until it’s a big problem”. Well let’s make it a big problem.
I wanna play world of tanks, not Star Tank Wars. I want a game where the only advantage is your brain. Not the size of you wallet or your knowledge of Russian.
Why Russian. Well, the RU community that makes and uses cheats is very well hidden. Forums with invitation, downloads with a hide number etc. Once you start asking questions in English you are banned. Apparently the idea is that ONLY RU players can use forbidden mods.
wait, so your logic is: Not many people know about those mods, but its preventing WG from doing anything against it. Hmm, what about telling everybody they can download illegal mods (=hacks) for free here and there and cheat as well. Because WG acts so quickly and rapidly in these cases.. yeah right.
Only thing this will cause is increasing the number of cheaters while nobody will do anything about it since WG probably doesnt even have a method to catch those guys. Clever as fuck. This article was a big mistake. I can understand the posts about artillery, but promoting fucking hacks?
That’s pure crap, and you know it… You promote cheating. period, if you only wanted to warn players you would post cheat-mods’ names not provide everyone with links to download them.
Come on, not all of us are so naive to believe that bs.
I wasn’t even aware of lots of those cheats (like breaking object indicators at minimap), until I’ve visited your site looking for some hangar mods. So please, remove that shit, let the cheaters look for them in another place, if you are against cheats like you said… Right now you are part of the problem, be part of the solution… Facts, not words…
Because blaming the Messenger is so fucking sensible and honorable, isn’t it.
Any fuckwit who wanted cheat can find these modpacks in a few minutes, or has that escaped your single brain cells attention?
I wonder why WG wouldn’t just take a snapshot of user screen when someone reports for a cheater or something. Well, I’m not that experienced on how graphics work on games but surely there has to be some simple crude/bruteforce way to get some kind of additional evidence.
But maybe it’s impossible to create such thing or they would already thought about that. Also it could be that it would be too easy to circumvent or something, so not worth the effort to implement.
Nice advantages, but you have to pay monthly for the cheatpack, thats greedy and I don’t like it, they should be banned from the warez scene.
Good thign u promoted the stealth hack pack. I guess the author will appreciate it. ;)
However why do ya call it cheat? As far as I remeber it, a cheat is mth the developer implemented on purpose in the game, like pressing three times x, y, arrow up and gettin infinite ammo.
Since Wargaming hasn’t to do with this mods, they are hacks.
Ok maybe some WG developers are programming them in their freetime, but still nothin intended by the company.
But imo it’s quite simple. A big tomato cant use all the information out of such mods, so still will suck and purple Unicorns are already decent.
And for me it’s simply overload of information and way to unclear HUD. I prefer my vanilla wot and still havin ~2300 WN8 overall.
Do I take it that….
K_A_R_A_T_E_L_
Atner93
_M_A_K_S_26_R_,,
are banned or not?
The mod pack in the video uses the GTO’s animated MLG 6th sense. IDEAL cheater clan confirmed!
And you overlooked the laser beams, the dark sky for better silouette, the always on outline, the enemy reload timer, etc.
The animated 6th sense thing is along with the gunsight the only legit mod so far.
In e-sport in ESL ligue there is a must to use ESL Wire Anti Cheat solution.
App is running in the background checking the files in WoT folders + applications running in the background.
So the more popular the cheat is then the higher probability of the guy getting banned from the competitions.
“Fallen Trees” mod resulted in 2 years ban from ESL tournaments for a clan leader of well know polish clan, since its linked with in-game account it is impossible to bypass the ban for ESL ;)
He was just too lazy to clear his res_mods folder for the go4wot tournament like the 5/8 team players did (2 including me did not used this mod or any other illegal mod so did not had to do this).
ESL Wire is the great stuff :)
Yes ESL Wire solves the cheating part, but it does not change the fact, that the software is badly programmed, tends to crash the game and is shit.
Do hope it will be debugged in time.
Any of the situations u are writing about did not occurred to me, sure on the beginning the program was hard to even launch properly but like 2 weeks after release they fixed most problems. Also remember that every program needs to be tested by bigger group and fixed after the release to the audience. ;)
Good for you that it did not. But it did for several of my team players. Kinda stupid when it crashes for you when the whole stream is waiting…
Can you really say that these so called cheats are more useful than the very popular mods like zoom mods, damage left on spotted tanks, what tanks were never spotted that every popular mod pack has?
I mean removing bushes is retarded.
Lasers and longer tracers are barely helpful. No decent player should need them.
Reload above tanks is the only thing i see that is even remotely decent from this so called cheats….
A lot of crap on your screen that you will almost never use and will distract you from actually playing the game. Vanilla is the best way to play and improve, especially since the mini map mod was introduced.
This. Zoom out mode is sometimes very useful aswell, eventhough I consider it a cheat too. (still using it, since its part of QBs modpack though)
I actually like the black sky… :)
Me too.
I really want that.
Don’t care about the rest but I really want the black sky.
Anyone know if it;s legal?
I think the black sky is just for a better lasers visibility.
It’s so he can have OMG 100FPS!!!!!111111
Better tank visibility against the background.
SS, underneath the white, shining armor you so love to see yourself in (white knight, right) you are just a self-righteous asshole. Thanks for making this shit more public. Your claim you’d want this to be banned is just a lame excuse. Actually you simply want to attack WG and vent your anger for being treated “unjustly” by them.
Why don’t you seek professional help already? You might eventually get out of the little shithole your insignificant news page is and have a real life.
Look at it this way: If because of SS those mods become more popular, WG will HAVE to take steps to fight them. Win-win situation. :D
There is no easy way to fight certain mods. In the end, WG might decide to ban all mods, which would hurt a lot of players only using mods that are actually ok.
Given the time WG needs to do a proper response (just like “havok”) we all would suffer badly from the now much more popular mods.
GG smartass.
I don’t know… WoW doesn’t have mods, any anti-cheat software would have to be quite clever and constantly updated to look for the right things. Forbidden modding of some lines in a file? Make a link in that file to a different file that rewrites the former one at the runtime start.
I think the problem lies in the fact that:
1) The game is still in massive development, so there are no capacities for this.
2) Not that many players use these (I think that WG can roughly see which mods you use), so it’s not “grave enough” to push the priority higher.
But one of those might change later on. Just hope it won’t screw players up, one has to be careful with this – remember Game Guard screwing up lots of players in Nexon games – you AltTabbed to your browser (for example to look in some guide for a quest or where to find a drop)? Might be for the hack, DC + 1hr ban. Got fixed over time, but it wasn’t fun.
I also thought about the mods problem. The solution would be a certification program, so that only certified – and digitally signed – mods are allowed into the game. Then checking game files becomes a solvable problem (not necessarily easy). It would require some changes to the mods system, namely the mods would only provide diffs for files that they want to change, while the actual changes would be applied by WoT at runtime.
“Something like Punkbuster”
You mean something which causes no end of problems for players who are not cheating and totally fails when it comes to detecting actual cheats.
Yeah, that’s what we need.
Having watched the video, they can use those cheats all they like, it won’t make them a good player.
If u dont see the advantage of map markers of destroyed objects on for example CW or Strongholds u are stupid @_@
Wargaming will do nothing, all they watch is the bottom line.
Serb “someone is doing well by cheating? he is smarter than you ho ho ho how terrible”
Employee: “Profits dropped last quarter as people left game because of cheats”
Serb “Cheaters steal my money! this is terrible, we will punish them! Quick make anti-cheat system and roll propaganda videos on youtube to show stong anti-cheat system”
Employee ” profits stable”
Serb “Good my plans for rockets can continue!”
That’s sound logic but has one catch, 100 pro’s leave because fed up with cheaters, 1000 new tomatoes join because using cheats makes game easy, profit increased 10 fold, Serb laughs, WG does nothing against these mods.
more like 1000 tomatoes doesnt even have a single clue that some cheats do even exist.
Getting counter batteried a split second after firing my very first shot of the game deep in friendly territory 1.5 minutes into the game. Yea something fishy going on there.
Typical arty spot? Sure. I did this often, just check the favorite arty camping bushes for tracers and click – one dumbass less.
Just dont use bushes for positioning, you wont be spotted anyway at the start. Cant be that hard.
Seeing as that World of Tanks will not do anything about their moderators rigging clan wars battles for the top clans even after being sent proof I don’t think much will happen about cheats. As for black sky it helps to raise your FPS by about 10-20. War gaming will just keep playing with their pretty pictures of tanks as their user base keeps getting smaller and smaller.
some of them are useless (I think removing bushes actually puts you in a disadvantage as you are unable to use them for camo) but some are quite nasty. Especially the minimap mod.
The reload timer and lasers could be quite useful at some situations, even to top players. It would be more useful for not so good players.
Even XVM did contain (still does?) some features that are borderline cheats. Essentially it gives you extra information, thus allowing you to make better decisions. Cheat enough for me…
A simple solution to this? Ban all mods. Game could scan for unwanted files. Of course this is not applicable as WG likes some mods and players like mods and it would not work 100% anyway (because external programs).
A more complicated solution? Anticheat (like Punkbuster) with a database of known stuff, active WG cheat hunting department (looking for new cheats etc.) and perhaps forcing mods to be approved by WG. Every mod would have to be sent to WG for approval, it would receive a special signature and there would also be a server-side check, which would look for extra files in the game directory, verify their signature and also compute some secret identifier (like a checksum just way more sophisticated) to find files using “fake” signatures. Files without signature or files with fake signatures? Sorry mate, go delete those and try again.
The sound around 3:30, when FV hits FV – this sounds familiar. I’m not sure but I think we had such sounds back in the beta times. I wonder why they removed them
if this is how the game looks like when they play then my god keep using it u ussless turd all of the lasers and shity picture wow much nice,,but on the other hand he doesn’t care how it looks i guess..sure WG should come up with solution how to get rid of these donkeys cuz it’s just pathetic and ofcourse ”normal” players are trying their best to win and simply play the game
Well I have 10 botters in my friends list, one of them has 30k+ of battles, he was reported in my game by 4-7 players(idk how many reports he got overall) but still HES NOT BANNED. You might ask why I add them to friends list ? To see if they’re punished or not. And belive me they aren’t. Once I asked cDa moderator, why WG is not banning them 0 response for few mins, but when I started to put nicks of these botters on general chat, he suddenly responded that Support is dealing with them. Yea that support is dealing with vodka not them. During the event of double exp few days ago, I’ve spotted 3 botters. So how is this fighting with botters when one player can find 3 bots, while whole WG EU support is unable to ban ONE after he gets reported 30-40 times for bot ?
WG EU don’t posts nicks of banned botters for one reason. THEY DONT BAN BOTTERS AT ALL
Woras is in prison again.
New Year Miracle!
Well i thing that 2 mode (except crosshair) are not forbidden there… Arty mod – that new on G view on shell direction and that mod which shows you how far and what direction is an enemy, m’i right?
Anyway i hope that there will be more actions contrary to this kind of cheaters. If not there will be more than ever. Basically this post made to that specific cheats a great advertising. Although i can understand why SS put this here. Pity that SS couldn’t share just a video, because link on that cheat was simply in description ^_^.
Howgh
Anyway, nearly everyone is using XVM. It’s giving you following huge advantages:
- rendering distance marker and max. viewrange. I’m personally using 445-400-350m circles to know how far is enemy tank and i can estimate when i’ll be spotted – except sometimes underestimating people experimenting with bino on is3 and camping in open space. This gives you huge advantage to predict when you’ll be spotted. Estimating that two enemies are 460/500m far and “bush likely with eyes” is 480m away without circles is pretty hard.
- position of last spotted tanks. knowing their “skill” it can be unlikely that they will change flank or position for a few minutes
- number of unspotted tanks
- knowing whether medium on minimap is batchat or t-34-2 without looking around and reacting accordingly
Why exactly is this mod legal?
Way to miss the blatlant cheating mods and focus on the legit ones.
Isnt that “last known tank position” now in vanilla wot? Just saying…
It’s funny to see the cheat is one of those noobs that bump into people at the beginning of the game.
If he was skilled, he wouldn’t need the cheats.
omg i have read all the posts and now i hate cheaters more.
btw, where can i find that flora remover mod? actually i heard a mod that removes flora only in sniper mode but i cannot find it anywhere. there are only 8.x versions.
i hate shooting rocks and wallz and houses when leading my target :(
Like with your Botting campaign I fear SS you just have promoted another terrible software pack to the public I am sure 90% had no clue about it is available …
“This is the best BOT, look what it can do, look how awful …”
“This is the best CHEAT PACK, look what it can do, look how awful…”
Is it creating awareness? Yes.
Does it help? Questionable.
Have you just spread the word there is easily obtainable cheats in WOT? Most certainly YES!
I see you are, as always, emotionally invested, but I fear you are doing us and yourself a horrible favor in the way you go about it.
Side note to the CHEATS:
- information overload (FAIL)
- removal of foliage screws any usage of bushes, vision games and blind shooting (FAIL)
- optics: looks like space laser game from hell. If you get better WN8 with this than playing vanilla, your brain doesn’t work right (FAIL)
- Many legal mods do a better job (last known position, allied outlines, zoom mods, white wrecks, meltys enemy reload, etc etc etc), (FAIL)
Conclusion: I can’t see how a tomato player actually profits from the cheat unless shooting other tomatoes. Every good player would still outplay with vision game and obviously not driving into the open like in the shown video. Does it help Unicorns? If they want to sacrifice an enjoyable game interface with this and can process the given information? Probably yes.
Is it wrong to cheat? Yes.
Does ist make sense to spread the word it exists in the light that many will just jump on the bandwagon because they realize how easy it is? No.
Again, like indirectly promoting tank leader a year ago, this seems like a huge DERP moment SS.
as i said, there is a mod removes foliage only in sniper view, so you can use bushes to hide and then snipe whereever you want.
The only way to combat this sort of thing is to create public awareness. Yes, potential cheaters may now know where to go, but on the other hand, WG will be forced to react. The assumption cheating is impossible is a very big selling point. Take it away, publicly, and they will be forced to react. So short term, cheating may become a bigger problem, long term, WG will find itself in a spot where not acting is suicide.
Remember, only cheaters profit from keeping silent.
The official (but probably not advertised) stance of WG according to this thread (in Polish) http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/460696-wszystkie-modyfikacje-dozwolone/page__p__9772577#entry9772577
is that all mods are allowed.
Very depressing to see, I actually did not think it was this bad.
That sort of crap have been the bane of many good games over the years.
I do not know what is worst, the people that do write them or the lowlifes that use them.
With no on-line admins, with no in-game client remote snapshot and no system in the game-client to look for and take action on illegal mods the future is a bit bleak IMO.
On the good side is at least the fact that WG now do acknowldege some of problems and have started to address them.
Many of the FPS games I play, I only play on servers which have some good admins looking after them and those are far between.
Every one want’s to make a fast buck and with the player-base that WoT now have it’s now wonder that stuff like this gets more prevalent, also a very nice environment almost with no policing at all going on.
There is also always this money war going on between companies competing for the gamers money and interest and IMO I have seen efforts in forums to hype one game and cast doubt on another to get those precious users to use there product instead.
Anyhow,
Depressing but glad I got to see it, Thanks for the post.
-cb99
After reading this I wonder why anyone would play CW, stronghold or whatever related to clans, prize gold or provinces. Any clan that would try to go “clear” would be crushed. Almost every aspect of the modpack is a cheat – laser pointers? fuck, he can see that a tank almost behind him is trying to aim for his turret? That’s huge cheat getting even more cheaty with distance. And so on.
Thanks SS for this piece of information. If I ever slightly considered entering a clan (and many clans would be happy, at least they say so when trying to recruit me. You know, 14 tier X tanks can draw some recruiter’s attention ;) it’s definitely out of question now. If I get strangely battered in a random, I dont care, I have another battle with different people, but trying to outplay an enemy who is using such a cheat is futile. I let the clans have their ‘who-has-the-best-cheater-pack-around’ competition and stay happily in randoms.
Amen to that.
-cb99
The problem with installing software to check for illegal mods is that eventually someone will find a way to spoof or otherwise evade that software. The one sure way to eliminate almost all cheating is to limit the information each client receives to only that the player should have access to: for example, the server doesn’t tell the client about every tree that falls on the map, but only those in view range. That wouldn’t take care every of absolutely everything–lasers and reload timers, for example, would still work, though you could limit even those by not sending the client visual data on spotted vehicles that are not in line of sight (that is, the server tells the client where these vehicles are, but not when they fire or what direction their turrets are facing–though you’d still need hull directions displayed for arty players, at least).
The problem with doing all of this is performance hits: you end up with the server having to calculate which trees or vehicles are visible to which players. I’m pretty confident that’s why Wargaming hasn’t taken this route before.
I sincerely thank you for promoting / advertising that cheatpack. Naming and even linking it already lead to a noticable increase of people using it, turning the game into a huge cheatfest..
There’s nothing better to be spotted inside bushes, even with good camo and crew, people knowing all the time where you are / looking at and when there’s a time window for them to get you.
It’s not WG that should be blamed but also FTR, I wonder if SS is even aware of the consequences his posts bring along.. Thank you SilentStalker for ruining the game for thousands of legal players..
Because blaming the Messenger is so fucking sensible and honorable, isn’t it.
Any fuckwit who wanted cheat can find these modpacks in a few minutes, or has that escaped your single brain cells attention?
It’s one thing if people actually need to think for keywords and google to find them or if they are presented and promoted like that. Open FTR -> click link -> download and install -> done.
Maybe it escaped your attention that this article makes the access to those hacks even easier as it already has been? Maybe you realized that the post as a whole is nothing but an encouragement for people to cheat? Or maybe the thin air in your head isn’t enough to understand. Go suck a lemon, retard.
You are talking as if the use of those “illegal” mods are small. I dont think it is. The amount of people using “illegal” mods are much more than people realize.
Because what is really stopping people having those mods? Nothing.
Those who what to use “illegal” mods will find them and use them either way. With or without this article.
I think the amount of people that use “illegal” mods is so big that WG is to afraid to take any action against it. Any action against users will result is a big lose of WoT population.
warpack is a wargaming made chack pack that why its inposible to be baned with this
Ah! The many facets of the “virtual” stat fetish issue continues.
I tend to stop playing games that are loaded with cheats. If wargaming doesn’t want players that spend money on their game (like me), they will lose them. I’d speculate that most of the cheaters (certainly not all of them) spend very little money on the game. People with low ethics generally want something for nothing so eventually the game will fill with slackers and morons and will run out the players willing to support a quality product. Guys like me are willing to spend my cash on a clean game…but not on some hackfest. In the end wargaming will determine their player base. If they want one full of hacks I’m sure they will find out that their revenue streams will take a beating.
Wow, this video just give me an idea what I could do with such a Mod. It removes all disturbing objects, makes a very nice contrast between sky and ground profile, marks near by objects, show you the profile of tanks at all even without aiming for them and another big advantge are the lasers. Its so pretty simple to see whether you are in danger our whether you can take a look and shoot again since they aim somewhere else.
Im pretty sure, I would definitly perform much better with such an Mod Pack. I should give it a try.
Haven’t WG said that they won’t tell EU players what mods are banned or are thought to give an advantage, also stating that it is up to the players whether or not they want a clear conscience or if they want to use them to get an advantage?
Correct .
“Hello thank you for contacting the Wargaming Support for your request.
Please accept my answer as this our official point.
If a mod or the use of a mod is restricted, the Wargaming.net Support is NOT involved in finding, banning or preventing players from using them.
To us almost all Mods are acceptable but for regular tournaments and ESL events.
Our official Statement towards this topic can be seen here:
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/378578-official-statement-on-game-modifications/
If you have any suggestions about the game and the game mechanics that may help to improve our features, you are most welcome
to post it onto our Suggestion forum. Please follow the link:
http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/forum/453-player-suggestions/
The Customer Support can be helpful in those cases:
-Accountproblems
-Billing Support
-Technical Support
If I can help you in any further cases, don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Kind Regards,
Daniel Boone
EN/DE Wargaming Customer Support
-Once this ticket is closed, you will have access to a short survey. Please, take the time to fill it in to help us improve our overall quality once the ticket is resolved.”
make a program just like esl wire anti cheat….maybe will reduce hackers in world of tanks
My old firend used to use that “lazor” mod on his older account and he got permabanned. I dunno how we got banned, but he is below average player. But on his banned account he was even worser and his stats wasn’t increasing, what is interesting when he started to play normal (without mods) his stats increased much faster and by WN8 he is now really better thanon his banned account. Interesting….
where i can download them cheats ?
I found this yesterday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B6i9EVOx6M what do you guys think about it?
Only long term solution is to make some kind of mod store and allow game to install mods with some kind of unique signature. This will require complete overhaul of mods, ie one folder per mod not all in single folder, and they should pass some official check. But until some mod hurts WG earnings nothing similar could be expected any time soon.
Easiest and only way for WG to combat this:
1) Removal of the res mod folder completely from the game. If the cheaters are going to cheat remove the ONLY way they have an entrance.
2) Make the various gun sights 10 most popular part of the game. incorporate them into game play it’s the players choice then
3) They can do the same with many other Mod’s that are out there. Have it so it’s available in game and not through the res mod folder.
Problem solved. Any attempt to place things into the game from that point on will be detectable and boom you can’t log in.
SS i have 1 idea how to make idiots from WG notice the threat of ilegal mods and finaly make a move against them . 1 player sending a complain ( with this video atached) wilkl get a shity replay and do nothing but move the dust 1 mm. but…lets ALL of as send complains , and tell ALL friends wot players to do that and we will have not the dust but the storm! they will have..lets say…1k-2k -5-10k complains? depends how we move and anounce everyone to do this. and imagine the blocking in wg…the masive frustration to receive 10 k complains about the same subject !i bat after some time they will ignore aand not replay to many of us. but…the point….1 person opinion can be trow to garbage. 10-20-30 k people…its a major problem and i bet they will finaly start to move. im an 15 k batels player with 51% win rate ( a mid rate player , not good but not bad either ) , but for sure i cant compete 1 vs 1 with a player who use what i saw even if he have only 100 batels experience on wot. really not fair . but…tink about my idea and write here if you want us starting sending tickets .
I’m not worried, some minor position pinpointing “cheats”, all can be countered by just moving (around) after firing and letting the enemy cancerclicker miss. Also there are no bots that improve your tactical gameplay or 1v1 skills (you can still troll a moron with cheat by poking hill/corner and making him miss the shot – works on some better players too).
That “All Seeing Illuminati Eye” shit for the sixth sense icon was creepy as fuck.
The only mod in the video that seemed useful was the enemy reload timer, although you pretty much know that 80% of the time (the other 20% would still be useful though). He had good games, but mostly just abusing terrible players. I rarely see such idiocy at tier 10 on the NA server. People just trying as hard as they absolutely could to run directly into the line of fire of a 183. Maybe the laser mod could help you in a couple situations, but really you should know that someone will be aimed at you if you are in position to be aimed at .. it is mostly the non-spotted tanks that you should be worrying about. None of these mods are game breaking, and also people are very wrong to assume WG doesn’t care. Hacked games die quick deaths.
Interesting article.
I didn’t see much of the video, but one thing immediately got my attention.
When enemy is spotted but not on your screen (cause you look somewhere else or zoom etc.) there appear little arrows around the crosshair that show in what direction and how far spotted enemies are.
Anyone knows where to get such a mod. Google just gave tons of results for illegal gun-direction mods and discussions etc.
Such a mod would be extremely usefull for me, especially for close enemies and I don’t really see why it would be illegal, even though that video contained illegal mods.
I hope someone could help.
I hate the break it to you, but banning users permanently on a free to play game, just ain’t gonna happen. Also you’ll find cheaters in practically ANY online multiplayer game, regardless of whether its free, payed for and regardless of what genre it is… aimbotters and wallhackers are rife in FPS games, and they keep coming back – People are more than happy to repeatedly spend money on a product if it gives them an edge.
I notice that the leagues are saying that you can’t use mods… I’d like to see how exactly they’re policing that :/
Or do what they did with 6th sense….make it available to everyone! Because before it was introduce as a perk it was a ‘cheat’
Armored Warfare said NO MODs…….Was glad to hear that.
Hope they can keep it all out I hope…..
Damn sick little cheaters…. And no they are NOT Tomatoes like the idiot way above this thread said, they are even clansmen, and higher skill players cheating too….
Damn them all….
punkbuster is terrible for anti-cheating, in battlefieldpay4free, most of the time you’ll get kicked from servers while not using any mods, cheats etc
What about the big scandal in Asia Server during campaign 3? Cheating is also involved.
I’m not sure if that bush mod would actually be a help or a hurt to overall play?
Nobody knows they are cheating. When searching for the mod, they google Illegal wot mods for which I don’t know they are illegal. And they are off the hook.
Anywaaaayz… Who cares. It’s not that big of advantage. Slight yes, but RNG is the the most badass factor here. He can have all the cheats, but it won’t help if his team is full of noobs and he gets raped in first 3 minutes of the game alongside with his team.
So hail to the RNG for saving us!
15 years ago good old Counterstrike Punkbuster simply took occasional screenshots of your gameplay to identify aimbots, wallhacks and stuff. So don’t tell me there’s nothing you can do …
I think you guys are missing the basics here. The EULA (as stated in an article here a ways back) allows WG to scan your PC for whatever they like. Games like Rift for example, would scan Exe Process Names, Window Titles and even Files. So to be this ignorant and just assume there is nothing they can do it just annoying to me. That article stated that WG only uses this feature if they get a nigh number of reports on a specific user. There is nothing stopping them from checking everyone.
Now the point… I have none. Either WG doesn’t want to scan or maybe they will scan and these asshats are going to get banned. Maybe the loss of revenue stops them from banning 20% of the player base that is running shit like hitskins or the treedown minimap type mods… No one can be 100% sure about this. What I am sure of is how easy it would be for them to see what mods you are running at any point in time.
All this comments only result in one sentence: Hetzers gonna Hetz.
I still don’t get why Westerners whine a lot.