The future of competitive Elasto Mania

8-ball · Post by **8-ball** » 17 Jun 2011, 18:50

I believe a serious thread on this matter would be in order.

It is no secret that a (EDIT: possibly undetectable, hasn't been confirmed) save/load tool has been widely leaked and it's a real shame but like it or not, the scene can not deny its existence nor the truth that sooner or later it was going to happen anyway and 11 years was a good long run for practically legit Elma.

Now anybody who wishes to do so can save in the middle of any ride and reload with just one button press with no trace in the resulting .rec file.
So where does it leave us now?

The bad news is that this seem to irreversibly destroy offline external contests, cups and the internals scene as we knew it until now.

Good news, if you can call them that, is that not all is lost. Times driven in EOL online can not be cheated as of now.

Welcome to the new WR table: http://beta.elmaonline.net/?s=stats&p=internal

Battles remain strong and become now a more central Elma activity than ever before.

Will there be a significant interest in driving perfect but "cheated" Elma WRs and other replays? I don't know.

But I know that The Times They Are A Changin'

J-sim · Post by **J-sim** » 17 Jun 2011, 19:07

Things don't have to change too much, and could just be for the better. Like external competitions and cups in EOL. If it were posible to hold cups/contests in EOL with hidden times it should still be posible to do so without cheaters, no? And this could posibly be even better.

About battling being even more important. Well it easily is the most important part of the game now as far as I see, and has been for a while. What we also should be discussing (maybe I should just post in an intended topic for this) is the posibilities of the elmaonline.net site. I don't hate it, but from my perspective I'm not really using it and not getting anything out of it. I don't understand the points system, and I'm not really getting involved in any of the stats. I don't know if that's just me, but I feel like for this to be really good it needs to demand a lot more presence. People should be checking their development all the time. And there should be a lot more "competition" within this system. (No I don't have any concrete suggestions as of now)

Kortsu · Post by **Kortsu** » 17 Jun 2011, 19:15

I'm not involved in every part of the community, not even close, so I'd like to know how/where/by whom this undetectable s/l was confirmed to actually being undetectable.

ville_j · Post by **ville_j** » 17 Jun 2011, 19:23

Kortsu wrote:I'm not involved in every part of the community, not even close, so I'd like to know how/where/by whom this undetectable s/l was confirmed to actually being undetectable.

No one has confirmed it. Dunno what is this Xarthok talking about. It may very well be detectable/undetectable.

Chris · Post by **Chris** » 17 Jun 2011, 19:24

Who said it's undetectable? Mila said he doesn't know. I think he is the only person who can tell whther it's detectable or not.

Kiiwi · Post by **Kiiwi** » 17 Jun 2011, 20:50

To me this doesn't change anything...Except that there will be EVEN MORE of these "What? slalom 38.5x? That's shit, EZ better"-persons (which i HATE) because every idiot with s/l can hoyl the shit out of ints.

But anyway, as long as there is an verified table with legit times only, things are fine.

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 18 Jun 2011, 02:07

Chris wrote:Who said it's undetectable? Mila said he doesn't know. I think he is the only person who can tell whther it's detectable or not.

The program shared is the same program that darm was caught with in 2005. Mila's anticheat programs detect it.

jonsykkel · Post by **jonsykkel** » 18 Jun 2011, 02:13

Haruhi wrote:
Chris wrote:Who said it's undetectable? Mila said he doesn't know. I think he is the only person who can tell whther it's detectable or not.
The program shared is the same program that darm was caught with in 2005. Mila's anticheat programs detect it.

lol wat

ville_j · Post by **ville_j** » 18 Jun 2011, 09:38

Jappe wrote:it's not the same.
even if its undetectable it's not easy to use (you cant load after death for example).
hourglass was detectable for sure and had many bugs

Dunno what you're talking about, mine loads automatically very well after death and it is very easy to use. Right shift for loading doesn't work, though.

Madness · Post by **Madness** » 18 Jun 2011, 09:51

I tried it yesterday. Doesn't crash after death, it loads automatically back to saved position. Right shift for loading works fine too. Bye bye internals :/

ribot · Post by **ribot** » 18 Jun 2011, 20:11

program works fine...
was gonna say there is no point to discuss the future..
i agree (dunno with who) it's a bit sad that it's all changed now about wrs...but those levels were old, and wrs changed so slowly.. it's better to be open to new potentials of this life than to just stick to old patterns...

some years ago battles were made manually, then there were some mirc scripts taking care, then belma, then eol... there is so much potential for evolution and we shouldn't wine and be shocked too much... accept reality as it is and live with it..become men!

Chris · Post by **Chris** » 18 Jun 2011, 20:14

Why are you sharing s/l what's the point?

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 18 Jun 2011, 20:39

Exactly... Was better when only few rus had it and released some very few crazy recs once in a time, it's not fun when everyone has it and overuses it
I hope that either people will forget about its existence after a short period of time, or just orka use it daily -> not use it at all.

What options do we have for the future? I think it might be worth a guessing poll :)

abruzzi · Post by **abruzzi** » 18 Jun 2011, 20:41

Well people, on the other hand, look at the save&load feature. What if for some unknown reason Mr. Bill Gates ordered that Microsoft Windows has to be equipped with some RAM dumper of a chosen running process? What I'm going to say is save&load isn't some kind of super max cheat tool max cheat watefak magic sax. In fact it's just a handy tool which most programmers anyway had or are able to produce in some hours. Remember Alovolt? At first it was considered cheating that some people could press alo with one button (patch) while the rest must have pressed two arrows simultaneously. Remember merging/stopping/slow motion in recs? Remember FPS Limiter? Kinda same stories. Now this stupid save$load occurred. What I mean is we shan't just curse it all the time, avoid this topic or call those who have fun with it faken-idiots, but as the TT fun is now simply out and the WRs are covered by a tense, sharp smelling smoke of question, we should treat it as another computer tool which could pop out anytime. Therefore we should unite and come up with a policy allowing the competition to remain fair and enjoyable. The battles are still there, there is maybe a rating to improve, maybe eol contests to come, let's just be happy that our scene is not dull and there are still new topics around and still some issues to sort out as well.

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 18 Jun 2011, 20:46

Very sensible post I must say, spoken to my mind! Especially this:

abruzzi wrote:we should unite and come up with a policy allowing the competition to remain fair and enjoyable.

Very wise, I'm extremely glad to see that berh has turned from a pitiful spoiler to a caring and reasonable guy :) So I totally second it and I certainly vote for it to be brought to life!

ville_j · Post by **ville_j** » 18 Jun 2011, 20:54

Pawq wrote:berh has turned from a pitiful spoiler to a caring and reasonable guy

Are you stupid or what?

abruzzi · Post by **abruzzi** » 18 Jun 2011, 21:13

Ye, what pitiful, what spoiler? I have always been helpful and loving the scene except for some minor psychic accidents

ribot · Post by **ribot** » 18 Jun 2011, 21:36

ye berh is just the same as always....

good points anyway, let's invoke anti-clockwise alovolt now

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 18 Jun 2011, 21:52

abruzzi wrote:Ye, what pitiful, what spoiler? I have always been helpful and loving the scene except for some minor psychic accidents :P

pretty major minor accidents :/

nick-o-matic · Post by **nick-o-matic** » 18 Jun 2011, 22:31

Maybe eol's rec format could be slightly changed? Then people would have saveload (that produces recs in current format) for playing around for fun and eol (recs in new format) to drive internals and cups etc.

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 18 Jun 2011, 22:42

that sounds both amazing and unreal :(

abruzzi · Post by **abruzzi** » 18 Jun 2011, 23:04

btw what has the rec format to do with SAVING and then LOADING them?

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 18 Jun 2011, 23:09

two different formats -> compatibility issues
maybe in some solution all contests/eol/wrs would be held in the new rec format? dunno, the idea itself sounds brilliant but a more precise and reliable solution would have to be found

nick-o-matic · Post by **nick-o-matic** » 18 Jun 2011, 23:39

abruzzi wrote:btw what has the rec format to do with SAVING and then LOADING them?

Lol? Obviously any saveload patch to generate the new rec format recs wouldn't exist? And since, according to my understanding, only milagros has the eol source (and eol would be the only sensible version of elma to be transformed to the new format), nobody couldn't even generate one. But on the other hand I don't know how willing milagros would be to change eol once again.

Pawq wrote:two different formats -> compatibility issues
maybe in some solution all contests/eol/wrs would be held in the new rec format? dunno, the idea itself sounds brilliant but a more precise and reliable solution would have to be found

Well of course there would be compatibility problems. But I think that if the new rec format comes, eol could also read the current rec format but only produce new rec format recs. And sure only new rec format recs would be accepted to the cups and competitions after that.

ville_j · Post by **ville_j** » 18 Jun 2011, 23:48

Just making a slightly different format is quite nonsense, someone would make sl patch for it too. It would need to be something more pro, and I'm afraid no one is interested in making that complex things because at the end of the day I guess it's quite impsy to make it fully cheat-proof in terms of saveloading.

edit:

nick-o-matic wrote: only milagros has the eol source, nobody couldn't even generate one

Well only Balazs has elma source, and yet eol and sl and all kinds of shit exists..?

Zweq · Post by **Zweq** » 19 Jun 2011, 09:10

I destroyed many 1.07 animal rides just because of pressing save in a bad spot, and yeah I finished a 1.08.9x after 40mins of failing and a 1.10.22 in 10 mins. I could just have sent in the 1.10.22 and said I did it some time ago. WRs have never been this easy, not even in table #1, so if anyone is still saying, dont be so overdramatic, dont be so pessimistic, you're really fucked up. Any pro internalist could rape 30 wrs in one day, Of course it'd not be believable in one table, but that's entirely beside the point.

ribot: this is not only about the usual human reaction to new things, this is about the agreed ruleset for the wrs, long traditions, statistics. Being a man is not gonna save my bowling WR from the guy with 40tt

. but to some extent I do agree. I'm just trying to think what can be done from now on, obviously it's not gonna help if you keep saying "bye bye internals" or whatever.

The interesting and optimistic solution: finding limits in internals using an SL would be a totally new interesting realm to explore, especially if there was a competition about it. Then you would need to open a xiit WR table, freeze the uncheated table/statistics (or only update that from WRs driven to eol db) and make sure everyone has good enough tools, because obviously this smibu SL is too "rough". You need somekind of a method to get backwards in the ride. One of the dangers that lies here is that the xiit WR table would only become a tool-war, where most of the people don't have an access to the best tools. We also gotta keep in mind if there's gonna be an elma clone written by mila and jon, it could be an error to start mongoing with xiited WRs now. I'm cracking this new elma discussion on lauta because it was discussed in eol chat anyway.

I'm just gonna keep riding internal times into eol db and observe what's gonna happen during the next year(s) concerning WRs.

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 19 Jun 2011, 10:48

Zweq wrote:WRs have never been this easy, not even in table #1

Zweq wrote:Any pro internalist could rape 30 wrs in one day

Sir, I heard we are talking about WRs here.

Luther · Post by **Luther** » 19 Jun 2011, 11:24

I think zweq is absolutely right

anpdad · Post by **anpdad** » 19 Jun 2011, 12:03

The interesting and optimistic solution: finding limits in internals using an SL would be a totally new interesting realm to explore, especially if there was a competition about it. Then you would need to open a xiit WR table, freeze the uncheated table/statistics (or only update that from WRs driven to eol db) and make sure everyone has good enough tools

I like this solution. That's what i actually hoped for for a long time - tas elma competition living along non-tas elma competition, both evolving separately and, hopefully, helping each other.

because obviously this smibu SL is too "rough". You need somekind of a method to get backwards in the ride.

Hourglass can do that. You can go back to any moment. Even quit elma, turn pc off, and be able to restart from any point of your run when you come back. The only drawbacks of this tool is that elma should be ran in fullscreen, and that you have to drive with fixed fps (any number works though). That is, there is no way to change fps amidst the run. It's a pretty powerful tool. Not as powerful as mila's programs though :p

Madness · Post by **Madness** » 19 Jun 2011, 12:40

Pawq wrote:
Zweq wrote:WRs have never been this easy, not even in table #1
Zweq wrote:Any pro internalist could rape 30 wrs in one day
Sir, I heard we are talking about WRs here.

Aren't you missing something ?

Madness · Post by **Madness** » 19 Jun 2011, 13:01

I absolutely agree with Zweq too, but what can we do now... Of course, it's not a big problem to go play online if someone aims to drive a WR, so at least there is still some motivation in driving WRs... But it's not all about WRs... Are we gonna check if every single rec of anybody was driven online ? What's going to be with all moposite tables ? I might sound pessimistic but internal scene is really in a huge problem...

nick-o-matic · Post by **nick-o-matic** » 19 Jun 2011, 13:29

Also places like Kopasite and Skintatious will die :S

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 19 Jun 2011, 13:34

Pawq wrote:A dark age for elma has begun.

ez

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 19 Jun 2011, 13:36

Haru can do 1.10 anal farm with saveload quite easily. Got the octotrick after some norm hoyling with hourglass and i assume the smibu prog is easier, so lets just say it's a new scope of tricks can be done.

abruzzi · Post by **abruzzi** » 19 Jun 2011, 13:42

Can anyone please paste the Abula's insight on the situation? Most people don't use #across daily whereas maybe he released some interesting comment.

nick-o-matic · Post by **nick-o-matic** » 19 Jun 2011, 15:00

I don't think that even eolsite internal times are really reliable by the way. One could make a lucky run with a bugbounce or something and then just produce a bugbounceless saveload rec with the same time. As Zweq showed with New Wave, it's even a realistic scenario.

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 19 Jun 2011, 20:20

would be hard i think nom :D match so nicely

Ves · Post by **Ves** » 20 Jun 2011, 00:14

Questions to all who claims EOL to be a panacea:
1). What prevents previously saved run from being loaded in EOL? Disconnect -- save decent run -- connect -- load run.
2). How EOL can be proof of anything if it is even doesn't save the rec of best time, except the battle winner rec? Is there some defense against TCP/UDP packets spoofing?

abruzzi · Post by **abruzzi** » 20 Jun 2011, 00:32

ad.1. I think that every lev entry marks your run with a certain label that eol have to return in order to make the run valid, while even if you managed to grab it to later bring back with your saveloaded run, something would be wrong. Your run would be much shorter than the time which eol measured.

ad.2. Unfortunately, eol can't be the proof for anything due to various circumstances, (bug bounces, possible nitro usage, packet spoofing) yet it might work fairly well if it forced your driven best-time replay to be automatically uploaded.

gimp · Post by **gimp** » 20 Jun 2011, 01:11

a sensible way to make sure that all wr's are legit is just to make it a requirement for everybody to have to drive their wr's in eol, that way we know they arent cheated and they will show up on shift-f5 best times. im not saying i want this but if it comes down to it and sl is indeed undetectable then maybe this would be a good option to think about?

somebody like zweq, kazan, bjorn, grob, or jarkko should send in a cheated time that is believable and see if it gets accepted or not by px, and then honestly remark afterwards that you were trying to see if it was detectable/undetectable. seems like a good way to see where we are at.

ville_j · Post by **ville_j** » 20 Jun 2011, 12:52

Ves wrote:Questions to all who claims EOL to be a panacea:
1). What prevents previously saved run from being loaded in EOL? Disconnect -- save decent run -- connect -- load run.
2). How EOL can be proof of anything if it is even doesn't save the rec of best time, except the battle winner rec? Is there some defense against TCP/UDP packets spoofing?

You can't connect if the .exe is modified. Unless you modify it so that it will send the "right" hash or something even if the .exe is not the original one.. probably. I guess once you got over the connecting thing you could use the sl.. who knows.

gimp wrote:somebody like zweq, kazan, bjorn, grob, or jarkko should send in a cheated time that is believable and see if it gets accepted or not by px, and then honestly remark afterwards that you were trying to see if it was detectable/undetectable. seems like a good way to see where we are at.

That's just stupid, someone should just officially announce whether the sl is detectable or not. Why would we need a cheat attempt to discover that? Every nab will try it unless someone confirms it first and it is only fair that everyone knows the situation.

milagros · Post by **milagros** » 20 Jun 2011, 13:29

there are several ways to make sl very hard to use online
you know, you can load the old position, but you can't "unsend" old messages
ofc current version of eol is not designed to do so (properly) and it is not THAT hard to cheat
on the other hand not many ppl have skills for that

Chris · Post by **Chris** » 20 Jun 2011, 13:48

VJ, I don't know how EOL works. Firslty You will need to check whether EOL is able to produce 2 exactly the same rec files. I don't know whether fps matter. Try lev where you just keep throttle pressed all the time. You can generate some hash of them. Then if they are the same you drive once rec with s/l and then compare hashes. If they are different it would probably require some statistical methods to detect save loads. If 2 recs driven without s/l aren't the same it would make even easier to find s/l recs at least in theory. I don't know if it makes any sense, but this is how I see it.

milagros · Post by **milagros** » 20 Jun 2011, 13:53

Chris wrote:I don't know how EOL works.

Chris · Post by **Chris** » 20 Jun 2011, 13:56

milagros wrote:
Chris wrote:I don't know how EOL works.

ville_j · Post by **ville_j** » 20 Jun 2011, 13:57

Chris wrote:VJ, I don't know how EOL works. Firslty You will need to check whether EOL is able to produce 2 exactly the same rec files. I don't know whether fps matter. Try lev where you just keep throttle pressed all the time. You can generate some hash of them. Then if they are the same you drive once rec with s/l and then compare hashes. If they are different it would probably require some statistical methods to detect save loads. If 2 recs driven without s/l aren't the same it would make even easier to find s/l recs at least in theory. I don't know if it makes any sense, but this is how I see it.

I know the structure of a rec file and I think I don't need to do that..

ribot · Post by **ribot** » 20 Jun 2011, 14:03

let's just open cheat wr table for now with opens recs! can zweq pwn mila?

Chris · Post by **Chris** » 20 Jun 2011, 14:18

There is cheat table: http://elmacheat.tripod.com/

Here you can find person who maintain it.
http://mopolauta.moposite.com/viewtopic ... at#p205630

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 20 Jun 2011, 14:35

tt of those times is some 42mins :D)))

adi · Post by **adi** » 20 Jun 2011, 20:15

Future: http://www.aapeli.com/pelaa/minigolf/