Kacey

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Kacey @kaceydotme10/30/2023, 11:10 PM

kata 🌊 aqua!@kadybat

Kelly @kelly10/30/2023, 1:04 PM

I Don't Care If Allowing Disabled Players To Play Means There's More Cheating In Call Of Duty

10489741287 comments 3290587238592508926 death threats 3 shares

liffy 💜@lifning10/30/2023, 5:56 PM

compromises your gaming experience

hm.

claire @darkwitchclaire10/30/2023, 7:04 PM

imagine just even having a preference for an uncommon type of controller

nope, you gotta do accessibility the microsoft way™

liffy 💜@lifning10/30/2023, 7:08 PM

microsoft doesn't want us cheating (on them)

they thought we had something special together! that we would never go behind their back for accessibility's sake. can't we just let them be our everything? look at how hard their accessibility team works. how could we do this to them.

Sylvia Lilith @estrogen-and-spite10/30/2023, 7:25 PM

Hot take: more harm has been done to gaming by companies trying to “stop cheating” than cheaters ever have.

Accessibility aids get blocked by companies.
Harmful programs are installed to monitor your computer.
Automated reporting systems are weaponized against marginalized people.
People get locked out of a game they bought because a bad actor gave them duplicated goods.

Meanwhile I’ve encountered actual cheaters maybe 3 or 4 times in my entire gaming career. I feel like there are obvious ways to solve the actual cheating that does happen…but those solutions involve billion dollar companies making a few hundred million less, and we can’t have that now can we?

#fuck capitalism

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in reply to @kelly's post:

vivian lim ⭐@viv10/30/2023, 6:08 PM

wtf. what accessory is this?

Weasel Hills Golf & C.C. (hole 19)@wildweasel10/30/2023, 7:02 PM

From what I've heard, this message appears to people using stuff like Brook controller adapters and the like.

andi @mcc10/30/2023, 9:20 PM

All of them.

Philippa Cowderoy @flippac10/30/2023, 9:25 PM

And people tried to tell me the XSX would be a good place to play fighting games this generation... (which, y'know, could be a lot worse, but brook's PCBs are the standard way to DIY in that community)

vivian lim ⭐@viv10/31/2023, 7:21 AM

wow that fucking sucks

andi @mcc10/31/2023, 7:05 PM

I am extremely angry

Kelly @kelly10/31/2023, 10:01 PM

me too! i am leveraging what's left of my accessibility consulting past to grab the ear of anyone who'll listen (writers, people On The Inside, etc) so at least they can't pretend they're not aware of the ramifications of this

andi @mcc10/30/2023, 9:22 PM

Why would I even care people are cheating online. We didn't pay for Xbox Live, so we're not allowed to play online anyway. How is it they think I'm going to cheat online if I can't play online in the first place

Kelly @kelly10/30/2023, 11:25 PM

cheating is the most public-facing problem (because of how massively popular those games are) but i imagine this is like Sony's PS5 policy in that they simply want to recover the "lost" revenue from licensed accessory sales, which have surely slowed as adaptors such as brook's have become more common. either that or someone found a way to get into the system through the usb port that has them in a panic. i certainly don't agree with this action personally but that's probably where some line-go-up boss man's head's at with this

spitfire @spitfire10/31/2023, 1:49 PM

hey so there's this thing you might be interested in: https://github.com/Santroller/Santroller , not released yet but it's firmware for custom controllers (originally designed for guitar hero stuff but works for anything that can be mapped to a gamepad) that supports auth passthrough via usb

Kelly @kelly10/31/2023, 2:07 PM

i am always interested in things like this, but i'm not a technical enough person to understand this. i'm happy it exists, of course! frankly, i shouldn't have to be a computer science person to use a human interface device without physical pain. i avoid PC gaming for similar reasons. and now with all 3 console manufacturers showing themselves willing to patch out support for things i already own, i'm going to be a lot less confident investing in any new control solution, even after the dust clears and we have a clearer picture of what will or will not be allowed on my platform of choice.

spitfire @spitfire10/31/2023, 3:07 PM

basically the way auth passthrough currently works is:

you build a custom controller, or an adapter, using this firmware
you plug in an official/authorized gamepad into an extra USB port on the custom controller
the custom controller sits in the middle and passes any auth requests to the official gamepad (also, both controllers in this configuration work in-game and can be used at the same time). to the console this is indistinguishable from a regular gamepad

and yeah it's still in active development, so it requires technical knowledge to use at the moment. but the goal is to make it as end-user-friendly as possible, with a simple graphical interface app for configuration.

i was beta-testing it recently, and besides GH guitars working on any platform, i now have an adapter that allows me to use basically any gamepad on any console (i personally tested PS2, X360, Switch and PC; but XB1, Series X, PS3 and PS4 are also confirmed working), for a fraction of the price of a cronus or any other decent commercially-available solution

Kelly @kelly10/31/2023, 3:10 PM

was it tested with the new Series S|X policy that started disabling peripherals as of just yesterday? having a vestigial OEM controller dangling off my fight stick isn't ideal but if it's what i gotta do then it's what i'll do... if i can be assured MS won't just patch it out if more FPS players complain about cheaters too loudly

spitfire @spitfire10/31/2023, 3:23 PM

yep, was confirmed yesterday it shows up as a legitimate controller. i don't think it can ever be patched, for all intents and purposes the console is talking directly to the OEM controller during auth

in reply to @lifning's post:

Kelly @kelly10/30/2023, 8:07 PM

i'm going to compromise their community management experience

in reply to @darkwitchclaire's post:

@NotMiki10/30/2023, 7:08 PM

cannot BELIEVE you are doubting Microsoft's motives here. truly there is no less restrictive way to prevent CoD cheating in ranked matches than to disable literally every third-party controller for every program.

Kelly @kelly10/30/2023, 8:26 PM

they're pretty liberal with licensing and this only affects a very small number of unlicensed (usually foreign or hobbyist-made) devices, but the number of compatible devices that they should be disabling is still zero

♿︎｜Asriel // Azi｜Θ∆｜🏳️‍⚧️@MisutaaAsriel10/30/2023, 11:18 PM

Don't they have a modular controller accessibility hub? I genuinely wonder how hard it would be for hobbyists to work around that? Make something that connects through it rather than directly, in such a way that it'd register as the XBOX Adaptive Controller instead of an "unauthorized accessory".

Not saying they should be disabling controllers. Just that I wonder if there's a genuine way around this for accessibility.

Kelly @kelly10/30/2023, 11:30 PM

i've got one of those and unfortunately it won't help here. it's a singular device which sends standard inputs mostly through 3.5mm jacks and the few inputs it has on the face. there are two USB ports but those are only to intercept and send analog signals for use as sticks or triggers. to use the device i wanted to use on my Series X, i had to buy one of the Brook adaptors which is now being blacklisted system-level.

♿︎｜Asriel // Azi｜Θ∆｜🏳️‍⚧️@MisutaaAsriel11/2/2023, 2:43 AM

So essentially if one wanted to use the XAC they would have to break their controller's inputs out into numerous 3.5mm inputs + 2 USB. Which is impractical.

Unfortunate.

in reply to @lifning's post:

Kelly @kelly10/30/2023, 8:09 PM

luckily for their ecosystem it would take a real serious rock bottom lapse in judgment for me to go back to being a PC Gamer

in reply to @estrogen-and-spite's post:

qim @queerinmech10/30/2023, 8:13 PM

there is zero chance this was really all about cheating and not about limiting people from buying other companies controllers and now they can gatekeep who is allowed to sell products while charging them fees and shutting them down if they do something that competes too much with a microsoft product

Kelly @kelly10/30/2023, 8:27 PM

they're pretty liberal with licensing and this only affects a very small number of unlicensed (usually foreign or hobbyist-made) devices, some of which definitely do cause havoc and have damaging or illegal uses such as trying to inject things to break DRM, but the number of compatible HIDs that they should be disabling is still zero

qim @queerinmech10/30/2023, 8:31 PM

i have rarely seen a situation where a company makes a power grab and does not exploit it soon after, but for all the xbox gamers out there i hope you continue to be correct

Kelly @kelly10/30/2023, 8:35 PM

they've already made a statement of intent to expand device licensing so this definitely seems like they're trying to cut off some bad actors faster than PR can keep up. and their accessibility hardware team is the best in the biz. i had some influence on the design of the Adaptive Controller and i can vouch for that team personally. of course i know a lot of Microsoft's right hands don't talk to their left so it remains to be seen how many will be affected by this. it's concerning either way

qim @queerinmech10/30/2023, 9:20 PM

i know the accessibility team is well regarded, and i hope you understand that my skepticism is not towards the people on the ground

this past year has been horrific for tech company leadership showing their true colors, and ms just brought the atrocious activision into the fold and it is starting to turn into a new media disneyesque testsuo shima ameoba juggernaut, this is all very scary

Kelly @kelly10/31/2023, 4:20 AM

oh absolutely. that is why i am going to be very noisy about being able to use an arcade stick to play the only official US release of the M2 port of "Dangun Feveron" until they tear it from me

Tempest @sutempest10/30/2023, 11:19 PM

Everything you just explained in this post has been my sincere belief for the better part of two decades. Everytime something is done in the name of "curbing piracy" or "stopping cheaters" or anything of the sort is an inconvenience at best and harmful at worst. Meanwhile, the actual hackers and cheaters all respond to this sort of thing with "challenge accepted" and find ways to beat the measure in place. Partly because there ARE measures to beat.

Kelly @kelly10/30/2023, 11:42 PM

whenever something like this happens i know there's some line-go-up bastard in a position of power where he says "do something about the cheaters" while everyone's getting laid off and they have to be able to say they "did something." they know most of the people are still going to buy and play all the games. i know which gamers they tend to consider "expendable"... and Microsoft was doing a good job pretending it wasn't "the disabled," until very recently.

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