Multiplayer - Authoritive or Non-Authoritive

I am making a survival game, and I was wondering if I should make multiplayer authoritive or non-authoritive. Gameplay would involve FPS, Survival horror, and the environment is Open-World. Also, if I was to make it non-authoritive, would VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) make it authoritive?

Cheers,

Stormy102

Uhmm. Isn’t valves anti cheat api restricted to their engine and/or launcher… ie via steam? It’s pretty difficult to get a game on steam. Anyway, I could be wrong on that, so to answer your question.

It depends. If it’s a serious offense and epically game breaking to see cheating then authoritative is the way you should go, OR if you have a lot of persistent data that needs more than a database stored somewhere (ie logic). Otherwise, doing some basic checks across clients using static data to see if clients are performing unexpectedly is probably good enough, and just provide players a good system for reporting cheating in other cases. In non competitive games cheating isn’t that big of a deal. In fact Mass Effect 3 didn’t run an authoritative server. Damage and physics and movement was all handled client side and cheating was rampant. But it wasn’t competitive, so people just reported the cheaters and moved on with their lives. I played it a ton and never experienced cheaters despite all that. It was a really fast and responsive game though because of it.

Food for thought. :slight_smile:

Authoritative if you are serious with your game.
If it is a hobby game or made on a very small budget then go with a cheaper non-authoritative setup.

I suppose that’s the legit quick answer, haha.

Thanks for your complex and thorough reply!

I was also wondering - does Rust have authoritive or non-authoritive servers?

Also, 7 Days to Die has VAC integration, and it is made with Unity. See this link: http://7daystodie.com/alpha-8-7-hits-the-streets/

Stormy102

It looks like that game uses steam. You purchase it via a steam key. Worth looking into though, as I’m really not sure.

lols 7 days to die screwed up their subtitle / tagline
“the survival horde crafting game”
wtf you craft hordes in this game?? haha
… hmm unless they mean, you horde supplies and craft with them??

it should be “the horde survival crafting game”
… the “horde” is zombies right?

hmm… i guess it actually means the players make a horde of players? , and they craft???
like, they would be known as the “survival horde” ??

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