People hacking private games?

[sayaene]

Me and my friend Rosen we're playing a friends only game and since I had school work, I went away for a bit. Rosen was playing by himself while my idle bot is there messing around and someone joins. There was NO invites from him to either of us so once I get back, the chat is up so I take a look at it, and read it.
The guy (Who none of us know) starts a vote to kick Rosen when I am away.
For some reason, Rosen feels annoyed and calls him a name.
The person replies and says that an -name- can't use a mouse.
The person leaves and I come back later, After hiding in the safehouse when I get the pictures, I then start a vote to go back to the lobby.
It turns out it was really friends only.
We had no cheats or any mods on, so I have no idea how they got into the game.
-
And
-
There is the picture for proof of him joining the game and Rosen calling him a name.
Rosen doesn't think he's a hacker though :/
I just wanted to either get him warned or banned for a bit, and maybe warn other players about him.
I don't play public games on L4D so I don't know how he was able to join.

[Bindal]

1. You can't "request a ban or warning" here. Or anywhere for that matter
2. Griefing is not against the ToS of Steam nor does it trigger VAC
3. Friends-Only doesn't prevent people from joining when they know the IP of the server, it only prevents the Matchmaking from allowing that.

[sayaene]

I didn't tell anyone my IP ._. There was also no griefing there.

[Ŧђɇ ƼϮϞ §μȑ√iⱴ۞ѓ]

I think #3 is the one most people are just not aware of. I originally used to think the same thing a while back.

[Bindal]

Messaggio originale di LucyElfenLied-(Kaede/Nyuu/Lucy)~:

I didn't tell anyone my IP ._.

Doesn't stop the Serverbrowser from showing it as well as the game itself (and basically allwoing a join-via-IP)

Messaggio originale di LucyElfenLied-(Kaede/Nyuu/Lucy)~:

There was also no griefing there.

Then you have even less than no reason at all to request a ban.

[sayaene]

"I just wanted to either get him warned or banned for a bit, and maybe warn other players about him."
"maybe warn other players about him"
Doesn't need to be a ban -.- I don't want people joining me and my friends games out of no-where and starting to try to kick one of us.
It's cool people are online.

[Bindal]

As said, there is nothing you can do about it and nothing he did wrong.

[sayaene]

So you're saying this:
Lets let people come in and hack our games.
Lets let them kill us.
Lets let them ruin the game for us.
Lets let people quit the game forever.
Lets ruin all the games.
Lets let him do deathscream over and over again after killing us for an hour.
---
You have great logic sir.
I would be very thankful if you went back to school.
Hacking games is perfectly fine and should be ignored.
..And I thought the L4D community would be better than the second one....

[Marcus101RR]

Messaggio originale di LucyElfenLied-(Kaede/Nyuu/Lucy)~:

So you're saying this:
Lets let people come in and hack our games.
Lets let them kill us.
Lets let them ruin the game for us.
Lets let people quit the game forever.
Lets ruin all the games.
Lets let him do deathscream over and over again after killing us for an hour.
---
You have great logic sir.
I would be very thankful if you went back to school.
Hacking games is perfectly fine and should be ignored.
..And I thought the L4D community would be better than the second one....

There are a couple of things:

Friends Only will stop matchmaking, but not the server Browser. My suggestion is, host your own game locally or rent a server and put a Password on it, then no one can join unless they know the password. Hacking is almost impossible to obtain it.

Lucy, some people are that childish, nothing you can do about it. I wouldn't expect any of the above users to be smarter than the average freshman at high-school. However, there are ways to improve, and reduce the unfortunate events you seem to go through.

There is a nifty tool, called Sourcemod that allows you to administrate your server more effectively and prevent these problems. SourceBans is a wonderful tool. However, SteamBans is better since it uses a Global Bans system. Installing this will stop the most common griefers from joining your game.

Rcon Locker will prevent lagging exploits using commands which Valve failed to fix for years to come and still has not fixed despite the releases of 1.0.2.7 and 2.8, possible future releases as well. Do not expect them to take action against "Griefing" in general.

Dos Protect will protect you from DOS attacks, be advised, DDOS will not be protected, and you will need to use iptables using your firewall device to do so, if you have a provider, contact them and inform them to block the specficied Packet range to prevent lag attacks.

All in all, the above will reduce your griefing problems by about 75% of the time, the 25% remaining is a lack of time and patience. As DOS and DDOS attacks can still be pulled through, they are left to the more professional hackers or paid software of third party devices to bypass cheat detection and lag attacks.

To explain your issue:

Friends Only, activates Server Browser, regardless of private games or public. The master server will recieve your broadcasting of the "heartbeat". There is a variable you can turn off to prevent your server from transmitting to the master server. In addition, sv_password, is your best solution for Private Games, and less griefing for simple blocks.

I wish you good luck,
PS: Avoid noobs and always stick to people you trust on your friends list, and keep an eye out of reputable players, they may have some intel on how to assist you further.

[Dr Chaos MK]

I don't see why you are getting worked up here LucyElfenLied. To be so dramatic & say this person " hacked " into your game is overboard. I have been using the openserverbrowser lately on L4D 2, since the lobby seems to have a hard time connecting to good servers. Joining via the browser is not breaking any rules that Steam / Valve has put in place. It is unfortunate he was able to get a vote through while you were A.F.K. But it is not like anything THAT serious happened. Take this experience & learn from it. Maybe next time while you are playing, do not go A.F.K. And if a vote happens, look at the vote carefully BEFORE choosing.

[sayaene]

@Marcus101RR Thanks for helping out there, I'll have to try some of those things later >--< At least there's people like you in the community, I almost lost hopes of it. But, to use the sv_password, do you have to host a local sever or turn sv_cheats 1 on? I heard that local severs make everyone lag but the host, and thats also the sever you need to start sv_cheats.

@ Dr Chaos MK Don't worry I don't mean to be over dramatic. I just got kinda worried that it would end up being worse than what it started to be. I also didn't see the vote,only my friend did and even in the chat it was a "Kick Vote" but when you have school work, and you have problems. Sometimes you just gotta go for a bit.

[Marcus101RR]

Messaggio originale di LucyElfenLied-(Kaede/Nyuu/Lucy)~:

@Marcus101RR Thanks for helping out there, I'll have to try some of those things later >--< At least there's people like you in the community, I almost lost hopes of it. But, to use the sv_password, do you have to host a local sever or turn sv_cheats 1 on? I heard that local severs make everyone lag but the host, and thats also the sever you need to start sv_cheats.

@ Dr Chaos MK Don't worry I don't mean to be over dramatic. I just got kinda worried that it would end up being worse than what it started to be. I also didn't see the vote,only my friend did and even in the chat it was a "Kick Vote" but when you have school work, and you have problems. Sometimes you just gotta go for a bit.

sv_password can be changed in two ways:

sm_cvar sv_password yourpassword
This will be instantly done if you do it in console, that is assuming you use sourcemod.

Otherwise use the server.cfg file.

I have hosted Local servers before. Listening and Local servers are different. A listen server is the client and host at the same time, and your ID will be 0 in game.

While dedicated run separately using SRCDS.exe. You can easily use mm_dedicated_force_servers ipaddresshere to join your server from the lobby, if you want a pub, or you can simply use the above with password to make it private.

sv_cheats does not need to be on to change password.

Again, Local server is SRCDS.EXE running separate from your LEFT4DEAD.EXE. So, does it take more resources? Yes and No. Running SRCDS.exe will use less than if you use your client to play and host at the same time (Listening server).

[2point4]

You can set the CVar sv_allow_lobby_connect_only to 1 on your server. I believe this will prevent people from connecting from the server browser, though I have not actually tested it in a long time.

[Bindal]

Messaggio originale di LucyElfenLied-(Kaede/Nyuu/Lucy)~:

So you're saying this:
Lets let people come in and hack our games.
Lets let them kill us.
Lets let them ruin the game for us.
Lets let people quit the game forever.
Lets ruin all the games.
Lets let him do deathscream over and over again after killing us for an hour.

1. He didn't hack anything. He just joined by ways the game provide.
2. Everything else is NOT against any rules. He's rude and a d**k, but that is not forbidden.

So, no, you can't do anything about it.

[sayaene]

Bindal, "Friends only" means friends only. Friends only isn't public.
You already made you're point now if you want to be mature, go ahead and leave the thread alone. Thanks for at least telling me about all of the things, but making people who use the sever browser not being able to come in you're games, IS something you can do about it.
This is giving me more reflix.
My chest hurts now.

[Bindal]

Messaggio originale di ;864957182812625666:

Bindal, "Friends only" means friends only. Friends only isn't public.

No "Friends Only" means "Friends only for the Matchmaking". If someone doesn't use Matchmaking to join a game, then setting something won't do anything.
And no, YOU can't do anything about it because it is not forbidden in any form. Valve even recommended it as an alternative method to join games.