Thread: Beyond Telnet
View Single Post
Old 08-26-2006, 11:50 AM   #18
cratylus
Banned
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 153
cratylus is an unknown quantity at this point
My first question is, what are you solving with this approach?
What problem is fixed by forcing people to use your client?

I can tell you that I'm personally going nowhere near a
precompiled binary some mud admins cooked up and try
to make me run. The security implications of running such
a program, designed with the kind of planning I've seen so far,
are just an insurmountable object for my adoption.

Is there a purpose to forcing the exclusive use of your client,
other than a sense of control?

I would also comment that not only do you discourage
new players with such a hostile approach, you also are basically
challenging every clever coder out there to figure out some
way to defeat you. I think that no matter how
smart and clever and dynamic your defenses are, your efforts
to prevent the use of anything but your own client will
be foiled by someone more determined to make you look
silly. And the hackers have all the time they need to
figure it out, and they only need to defeat you once per
each client update you make.

Personally I think it's a horrible waste of time and energy to
do this, except maybe as an academic research project. If
what you're actually trying to do is run a game, this
just seems counterproductive to me. What's wrong with
letting people use their favorite mud client? What do you gain
by trying to ram your client down their throats?

-Crat
cratylus is offline   Reply With Quote