Hackers Griefing Left 4 Dead on 360

Witches and tanks galore ruining player experiences.

Interesting. Has anyone here seen any of these kind of things going on with L4D on 360 ? I'm happy this doesn't go on more then it does but I have been very surprised since even back during DC on line days, hacking on consoles to change the game play when on line wasn't something you seen everyday but it was happening.

Some cool stuff here but I could see many being turned off by this since they may feel some cheating is going on even when it isn't.

What ya think ?

Most PC games see hacks and mods, but now even Left 4 Deadfor the Xbox 360 is getting in on the action. Ars Technica received a reader tipthat outlined some strange hacks seen in the 360 version of the game. "Recently, I joined a [Versus] game and found myself in a safe house at the beginning of a chapter," he said. "Suddenly, about 30 witches spawned in the safe house with me, followed by two tanks." The tipster's in-game character wasn't long for this world, of course, but his experience helped bring the 360 hacks to the public attention. A video (above) shows off the many hacks, from the funny to downright mean.

Though it went largely unnoticed, the Xbox 360 version of Team Fortress 2has been seeing hacks for about a month, mostly consisting of low gravity and altered voice commands. Seeing as both games run on the Source engine, it's not surprising to see that Left 4 Dead has had the same happen, though much faster than its more comical cousin. Valve is a PC company first and foremost, and hasn't been very quick to support console versions of its games. But Left 4 Dead was seen by many as a push into the console market, so we'll have to see if this time they offer a patch.

EDIT: :oops: Watch Here.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171747

lol 30 witches? talk about overkilljohnnyblazed88

wth are you gonna do with 30 WITCHES!!!!!!!!!!joopyme

[QUOTE="joopyme"]wth are you gonna do with 30 WITCHES!!!!!!!!!!Jandurin

[QUOTE="Jandurin"][QUOTE="joopyme"]wth are you gonna do with 30 WITCHES!!!!!!!!!!SecretPolice

anybody have an idea on how they do this? johnnyblazed88

[QUOTE="SecretPolice"][QUOTE="Jandurin"] I'm thinking all you need is some chocolate, the right lighting, and some romantic music playing in the background,=.Jandurin

Your a tall drink of swine. :twisted:SecretPolice

This is pretty ironic because one of the reasons I always like console multiplayer was because it was harder to cheat >_>...Fredrick2003x

This is pretty ironic because one of the reasons I always like console multiplayer was because it was harder to cheat >_>...Fredrick2003x

Its only going to get worse as consoles get more complex... as they strive to become more 'computer like'.

Again Valve games on the PC sport VAC, so its fine on this front.... You want console command fun, its just a server option, purley based on preferance.

Thats some pretty cool hacks right there. The zombies the size of the buildings made me pee myself alittle lol.deigo

This is all basic stuff on the PC... all you need is basic server settings enabled:

From a recent LAN:

Witch Spam

30 witches? Pffft. This is only a third of the amount of Witches spammed - triggering them all at once caused a server crash.

Skybox fun

[QUOTE="Fredrick2003x"]This is pretty ironic because one of the reasons I always like console multiplayer was because it was harder to cheat >_>...Jandurin

Looking at the tutorial, it's actually fairly simple. You just have to modify a single file on your computer then put it back on your hard drive.Einhanderkiller

[QUOTE="Jandurin"][QUOTE="Fredrick2003x"]This is pretty ironic because one of the reasons I always like console multiplayer was because it was harder to cheat >_>...Einhanderkiller

Modders (not called hacking on consoles since you have to have a modded console to perform these actions) usually get kicked from XBL and PSN fairly quickly. Scans of peoples HDD are done regularly to stop cheating.

The population that actually mods is very very small as well. I guess when it happens it would be a drag but i've seen it happen maybe three times in my time with all XBL and PSN games (this is including original Xbox and PS2 online play).

skrat_01

Its only going to get worse as consoles get more complex... as they strive to become more 'computer like'.

Again Valve games on the PC sport VAC, so its fine on this front.... You want console command fun, its just a server option, purley based on preferance.

[QUOTE="deigo"]Thats some pretty cool hacks right there. The zombies the size of the buildings made me pee myself alittle lol.skrat_01

This is all basic stuff on the PC... all you need is basic server settings enabled:

From a recent LAN:

Witch Spam

30 witches? Pffft. This is only a third of the amount of Witches spammed - triggering them all at once caused a server crash.

Skybox fun

I remember seeing those in your Xfire awhile back. :lol:

Good stuff.

Well valve has always used VAC to get rid of their cheats and hacks on PC so they've never had to worry about it before though you can still get the big people cheat on certain mapsmarkop2003

Hacking has always been a big issue with Steam related games (and all computer games in general). Do you not remember the most-hacked-game-of-all-time Counterstrike? Even now sometimes it's tough to go from server to server and not run into a hacker. TF2 has a heavy amount of hackers as well. VAC is far from getting rid of all hackers. People have always found a way around...always will. VAC has helped, no doubt, but, much like Piracy, hacking when it comes to pc games is pretty much something that will never dissapear. It's just too easy to do. On a Console you have to Mod the Console and that gets detected when your HDD is scanned.

FYI

Valve has made server-side fixes to stop people cheating when playing Left 4 Dead on Xbox 360.

"Valve has released a server-side fix to deny the recently reported cheats on all dedicated Left 4 Dead Xbox 360 servers," says a statement from the developer on Blue's News.

"The fix is designed to halt the cheating behaviour on the dedicated servers, which accounts for the majority of the co-op and Versus modes of play.

"A title update for those playing on user-hosted servers and/or via system link will be released in the coming days."

Cheating involved using a mod to unlock PC-****console commands, which grant control over nearly all of the content; spawning baddies and weapons, giving infinite health, making things disappear and turning characters into giants.

SecretPolice

imagine spawning 5 withces and 5 tanks in a safe room it would be epic when they opened the doorMarloStanfield

[QUOTE="MarloStanfield"]imagine spawning 5 withces and 5 tanks in a safe room it would be epic when they opened the doorJandurin

[QUOTE="Jandurin"][QUOTE="MarloStanfield"]imagine spawning 5 withces and 5 tanks in a safe room it would be epic when they opened the doorMarloStanfield

I was a Tank at that game at some point, and they killed me in like...3-5 seconds?Salt_The_Fries

[QUOTE="johnnyblazed88"]anybody have an idea on how they do this? SteezyZ

First of all, it isn't possible to run unsigned code on the 360 as far as I know..so any modifications of the game's executables are pretty much out of the question.

I would guess that they're modifying player config files, which are likely associated with gamertag profiles, and stored on the 360's HDD. If that's the case..they can simply extract the profile config files from the HDD (there's tools to connect the 360 HDD to your PC), then open the player config files on their PC and re-map console commands to buttons on the 360 controller. All they have to do after that is re-write the config files to their player profile, and sign in to that profile on the 360. EDIT: These console commands would very likely only work for the hosting player; they'd do nothing for connecting players.

What's more..if that is indeed what they're doing, it doesn't require *any* sort of hardware modifications. Additionally, if Microsoft were to implement any sort of integrity checks to automate bannings, the checks would have to search the *contents* of the player configs..not just perform CRC checks (since each player's configuration is generally unique.) That is, assuming that's what's actually going on.

I was a Tank at that game at some point, and they killed me in like...3-5 seconds?Salt_The_Fries

Hunting Rifle maybe?..it's an underestimated weapon. A few rapid shots to the head can drop a tank *extremely* quickly, especially if he's standing still or running in a straight line (landing headshots are cake in both situations.)