I put this in gaming because it isn't directly about FF and having it on the general discussion area isn't the best idea for FF.
Here in the next few weeks/months we will be experiencing an apocalypse of epic gaming proportions that will ripple down the history of competitive gaming for a very long time. To summarize what's going on, the Steam Workshop allows players to download any hack without having to do anything.
Here's a breakdown of how this works from the hack creators side.
- I create a hack and make it hidden in the Steam Workshop.
- I get people to pay me money to have access to the file.
- I update the file regularly to do my best to avoid VAC bans.
Here's what it looks like from the players side:
- I buy access to the Steam Workshop hack.
- I set it to autodownload and install whenever I log in to my Steam account.
- I can use these hacks at any LAN without being detected as long as it isn't an obtrusive hack.
This has been going on for as long as the Steam Workshop has existed. Further, because of the nature of these hacks (auto update via steam), they are incredibly hard to detect. Even further, this is extremely similar to what some players were doing when they went to LAN parties or tournaments before the Steam Workshop and it's why some tournaments require you use the mice, keyboards, and headsets they provide.
So, how does this tie in to the future of FF?
Although FF will be moving to a new engine, this game should not have any sort of non-map user content creation. That is to say, if the U4 engine has the ability to have a Steam Workshop styled thing, don't do it. Don't allow Steam Workshop to be a thing with this mod. Don't allow the Steam Workshop to be a thing with Source 2. Do not allow leagues to host your game if they don't actively work against hackers (I'm looking at UCG). Actively seek out those who are not on the up-and-up.
The days of the auto-snap aimbot are long, long gone. The modern face of hacking is very clever and very subtle. No game has been exempt from it, and FF was not exception. We will see in the next few months the face of online competitive gaming, at least in FPS, change dramatically.