Counter Strike

Mods and scripts and Cheating

11/17/2010

Mods and scripts

Though Counter-Strike is itself a mod, it has developed its own community of script writers and mod creators. Some mods add bots, while others remove features of the game, and others create different modes of play. Some of the mods give server administrators more flexible and efficient control over his or her server. "Admin plugins", as they are mostly referred as, have become very popular (see Metamod, AMX Modand AMX Mod X). There are some mods which affect gameplay heavily, such as Gun Game, where players start with a basic pistol and must score kills to receive better weapons, and Zombie Mod, where one team consists of zombies and must "spread the infection" by killing the other team (using only the knife). There are also the Superhero and Warcraft III mods which mix the first-person gameplay of Counter-Strikewith an experience system, allowing a player to become more powerful as they continue to play. There is also other mods such as Jailbreak which is a Prison-Based system in which the Terrorist side of the team are the Prisoners and the Counter-Terrorists are the Guards. One other mod is Deathrun which consists of Terrorists hitting buttons while the Counter-Terrorists run a long an obstacle course avoiding traps to get to the end. The game is also highly customizable on the player's end, allowing the user to install or even create their own custom skins, HUDs, sprites, and sound effects, given the proper tools.

[edit]Cheating

Counter Strike has been a prime target for exploitation by cheaters since its release. In-game, cheating is often referred to as "hacking" in reference to programs or "hacks" executed by the user.

Typical cheats are:

• Wallhacks, which allow the player to see through walls. These work by displaying objects that are normally obscured or replacing opaque game textures with semitransparent ones, allowing a player to see enemies before they would normally be in view. As the engine onlyrenders the immediate area around the player, this does not allow a player to see the entire map at once.
• Speedhacks, which give the player increased speed. These work by sending false synchronization data to servers.
• No recoil, which keeps the player's gun shooting straight on the y axis without a kickback by removing gun physics.
• No spread is used to make a player's gun shoot straight along the x axis.
• Aimbots, which helps the player aim at enemies. These work by moving the player's view to anticipate an enemy's position.
• ESP, which shows textual information about the enemy, such as, health, name, and distance, and also information about weapons lying around the map, which could be missed without the hack. Most of ESP cheats show info through walls.
• Barrel hack, which shows a line that depicts where the enemy is looking
• Anti-flash and anti-smoke, which remove the flashbang and smoke grenade effect. This branched off the wall hack.

Valve has implemented an anti-cheat system called Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC). Players cheating on a VAC enabled server risk having their account permanently banned from all VAC secured servers.

With the first version of VAC a ban took force almost instantly after being detected, and the cheater had to wait 2 years to have the account unbanned. Since VAC's second version, cheaters are not banned automatically. With the second version, Valve instituted a policy of 'delayed bans,' the theory being that once a new hack is developed which circumvents the VAC system, it will spread amongst the 'cheating' community - by delaying the initial ban, Valve hopes to identify (and ban) as many cheaters as possible. Like any software detection system, some cheats are not detected by VAC, and at times the only effective anti-cheat solution is a human administrator watching an online game. Some servers implement a vote system, in which case players can call for a vote to kick or ban the cheater. VAC's success at identifying cheats and banning those who use them has also provided a boost in the purchasing of private cheats.

 These cheats are updated frequently to minimize the risk of detection, and are generally only available to a trusted list of recipients who collectively promise not to reveal the work around.

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