Always Online Single Player Game

[Digital Toxin]

Hi Folks,
Does anyone know what build/change version was when single player games were converted over to be an always on sever setup? I think it was sometime in 2023. Thanks for anyone who can help.

 

Thank You

 

*Context* I'm looking to reach out to Fun Pimps and ask them to roll back this change, as having an always online Single Player game is an unwanted feature for me personally.

[SylenThunder]

Could you state specifically what it is you mean by "always online"?

 

It has been several years since they had separate builds in the client for single player and multiplayer, so it is more curious as to what the exact issue is you are trying to remedy.

[Gamida]

1 hour ago, Digital Toxin said:

Hi Folks,
Does anyone know what build/change version was when single player games were converted over to be an always on sever setup? I think it was sometime in 2023. Thanks for anyone who can help.

 

Thank You

 

*Context* I'm looking to reach out to Fun Pimps and ask them to roll back this change, as having an always online Single Player game is an unwanted feature for me personally.

 

 

You could just select Not Listed for Server Visibility if you don't want anyone joining your game. I do that and I also add a password for good measure.

 

 

 

[Jugginator]

There's no requirement for always online for single player, IIRC you have to make one connection to Steam/EOS servers initially and then you can go offline/online all you'd like. I've taken a live game on the Steam deck offline in the car/airplanes and it's worked just fine. Just select Play Offline when you get to that point. 

 

If you mean in SP the game always is listening online, you're right there, there's no "single player" so to speak, you're hosting and joining a server when you do that, but like Gamida said there, just choose Not Listed.

[seven]

It would be nice if the default settings weren't the most insecure.

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, seven said:

It would be nice if the default settings weren't the most insecure.

7D2D has confidence issues?  😆

[Riamus]

You can also set number of players to one and no one can join, though making the game unlisted is better.

[SylenThunder]

48 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

7D2D has confidence issues?  😆

I find a lot of people completely ignore most of the important settings when they are setting up their save game to play it. As a result, they end up leaving it open, and any bad agent could get in and cause them trouble. You hear about them every now and again and get to explain to them how to change the settings that are literally right there when they are starting up their save.

 

Truly though, the responsibility lies on the end user. The game is likely played by the majority in a co-op setting with people who pay attention to the settings they are configuring. As such, the default settings are just fine for most people. Which is very likely why they are the defaults.

[seven]

35 minutes ago, SylenThunder said:

Truly though, the responsibility lies on the end user. The game is likely played by the majority in a co-op setting with people who pay attention to the settings they are configuring. As such, the default settings are just fine for most people. Which is very likely why they are the defaults.

 

Are there any stats on that? Most people I know play mostly SP, which is admittedly a small sample.

 

Edit: mostly or exclusively

Edited April 23 by seven (see edit history)

[SylenThunder]

31 minutes ago, seven said:

Are there any stats on that?

I do not have access to any personally. TFP does though, and my statement is based on information they have provided over the years, and through my own personal support experiences with players.

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, SylenThunder said:

I find a lot of people completely ignore most of the important settings when they are setting up their save game to play it. As a result, they end up leaving it open, and any bad agent could get in and cause them trouble. You hear about them every now and again and get to explain to them how to change the settings that are literally right there when they are starting up their save.

 

Truly though, the responsibility lies on the end user. The game is likely played by the majority in a co-op setting with people who pay attention to the settings they are configuring. As such, the default settings are just fine for most people. Which is very likely why they are the defaults.

Although I agree about this, I would say that even if most people play multiplayer and pay attention to the settings, it would make sense to have default settings set to not show online.  After all, if you forget to turn that off and someone joins and messes stuff up on purpose, that isn't good.  Yet if you forget to turn it on when you want multiplayer, the worst you have to deal with is exiting the game and turning it on.  Given the difference in results if you forget, I think it is better to hide the online status by default.  I also think it would be good to be able to change that setting while playing the game and not only when starting it.  I don't see any reason you should have to exit the game just to change if it shows online.  Some other settings for the save could also be allowed to be changed within the game as well, imo.

[theFlu]

2 hours ago, Riamus said:

Given the difference in results if you forget, I think it is better to hide the online status by default.

Was thinking of posting something similar, thanks. The default-on is great - for a utopia where people looking for random games to join aren't largely just looking for people to troll.. sadly we don't live in that reality.

[DaVegaNL]

12 hours ago, SylenThunder said:

I find a lot of people completely ignore most of the important settings when they are setting up their save game to play it. As a result, they end up leaving it open, and any bad agent could get in and cause them trouble. You hear about them every now and again and get to explain to them how to change the settings that are literally right there when they are starting up their save.

 

Truly though, the responsibility lies on the end user. The game is likely played by the majority in a co-op setting with people who pay attention to the settings they are configuring. As such, the default settings are just fine for most people. Which is very likely why they are the defaults.

 'The responsibility lies on the end user.'

Well.. No. That's not how it works.

[meganoth]

Lots of software developers including Microsoft needed to learn that lesson the hard way and I have the feeling the games industry is largely still in the pre-learning phase: The default setting has to be secure or you will hurt your customers badly and have to pay the price later with a bad reputation.

 

It is exactly the least knowledable users who need the most secure setup and are also the users least able to set up the correct options

 

Edited April 24 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Catdaddy]

17 hours ago, seven said:

It would be nice if the default settings weren't the most insecure.

 

The "Secure" storage defaults to unlocked. Maybe they have stats to support that decision too?

 

15 hours ago, SylenThunder said:

The game is likely played by the majority in a co-op setting with people who pay attention to the settings they are configuring.

 

This a security feature. The default should protect those NOT paying attention. Those already paying attention won't be bothered nearly as much as the inattentive guy who just got robbed.

Edited April 24 by Catdaddy (see edit history)

[SylenThunder]

3 hours ago, DaVegaNL said:

 'The responsibility lies on the end user.'

Well.. No. That's not how it works.

Yes, actually it does. It is up to you to ensure that the settings for your save match up with what you expect to get. No one else can do that for you.

 

15 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Lots of software developers including Microsoft needed to learn that lesson the hard way and I have the feeling the games industry is largely still in the pre-learning phase: The default setting has to be secure or you will hurt your customers badly and have to pay the price later with a bad reputation.

 

It is exactly the least knowledable users who need the most secure setup and are also the users least able to set up the correct options

 

I agree fully, however most tend to lean towards ease of access for the majority of the intended playstyle. Where I work, we are contantly fighting between making things easy to access and use for our end-users and meeting high level security standards to maintain regulations for HIPAA and HITECH. 

[Riamus]

1 hour ago, SylenThunder said:

I agree fully, however most tend to lean towards ease of access for the majority of the intended playstyle. Where I work, we are contantly fighting between making things easy to access and use for our end-users and meeting high level security standards to maintain regulations for HIPAA and HITECH. 

Ease of access is one thing... when it matters.  Having to make one change in settings isn't difficult.  Better to be secure in this instance than save someone from making a change to settings one time per save.  As I said, the difference between users who forget to make this change is significant... potentially getting stuff messed up in one way or another (destroyed, stolen, etc.) versus having to exit the game to change the setting and then load the game back up.

 

In the end, yes, end users are responsible for making sure they do things, but that doesn't mean developers can't make security a priority.  Especially when it doesn't have any significant impact on users.

[Syphon583]

5 hours ago, DaVegaNL said:

 'The responsibility lies on the end user.'

Well.. No. That's not how it works.

That's exactly how it works. As a UX designer myself, you can try and account for every possible use case and scenario, but at some point, the end user has to be the one to make a decision. It's up to the designer and the devs to create an experience that allows the user to make informed decisions, but that's where it stops.

 

As a purely SP user myself, I also initially wished the default settings were geared toward my preferences, but after I learned how to cater the settings to what I wanted, it was no longer an issue. The only feedback I have regarding game settings is allowing me to save a custom set of, erm, settings so that it makes new game creation quicker. Other than that, current implementation is fine.

[Rotor]

I really dont see the issue.

 

I play with myself all the time and happily secured about it.

 

Err....WAIT!

[meganoth]

5 hours ago, Syphon583 said:

That's exactly how it works. As a UX designer myself, you can try and account for every possible use case and scenario, but at some point, the end user has to be the one to make a decision. It's up to the designer and the devs to create an experience that allows the user to make informed decisions, but that's where it stops.

 

Human nature. People often do not decide at all (aka decide to do nothing) when they have to make a decision. And therefore that should be the safe case.

They do nothing when they are overwhelmed by choices, do not understand, get distracted, don't care, are 9 years old or 99 years old, are in a hurry. In other words most of the time.

 

Do you really expect a typical kid with a steam account to already make the right informed decisions about its games when you practically know that most kids have just enough sense to klick on any button that says "start"? And even half of all grown ups operate the same way?

 

(Disclaimer: There are actually very old people who would understand, but they are in the minority)

 

Edited April 24 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Pernicious]

6 hours ago, Syphon583 said:

That's exactly how it works. As a UX designer myself, you can try and account for every possible use case and scenario, but at some point, the end user has to be the one to make a decision. It's up to the designer and the devs to create an experience that allows the user to make informed decisions, but that's where it stops.

Former security engineer/auditor/hacker here.

 

Imagine a world where firewalls were default allow. Or Windows logged you in automatically. And file shares were created with "everyone/full control".

 

These are all legitimate if not common use cases, but they are not the default because of the security implications. (Okay, in consumer grade firewalls default allow out is most common, but that's because there aren't a huge number of ways to exploit that directly, and it is balanced off with ease of use for mostly non-technical consumers). 

 

If you look through any penetration report, I bet you will find almost as many "insecure default" type findings as you do "vulnerable version in use" findings. "It's up to the user to set up security" is a cop out, and industry attitudes are changing fast: Amazon S3 buckets used to be default world readable. You should see the steps you need to jump through and the warnings you need to dismiss to make it world readable now. 

 

Of course it's different when designing games (or other consumer use devices like home firewalls). No developer would want to create an excess of support tickets or a bad reputation by disabling key functionality to make it secure by default, and honestly the impact of a troll coming in to ruin your game isn't exactly going to make it to "catastrophic" on the risk assessment matrix. On the other hand, it would be trivial to set up a new "New single player game" menu function that does nothing more than create a new multiplayer game set to not listed, max players 1, and a hidden long random password. 

 

Tongue in cheek, I can say "Thanks for keeping me in a job", but really, the industry needs to do better than "It's up to the user".

[Syphon583]

18 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

Human nature. People often do not decide at all (aka decide to do nothing) when they have to make a decision. And therefore that should be the safe case.

They do nothing when they are overwhelmed by choices, do not understand, get distracted, don't care, are 9 years old or 99 years old, are in a hurry. In other words most of the time.

 

Do you really expect a typical kid with a steam account to already make the right informed decisions about its games when you practically know that most kids have just enough sense to klick on any button that says "start"? And even half of all grown ups operate the same way?

 

(Disclaimer: There are actually very old people who would understand, but they are in the minority)

 

 

16 hours ago, Pernicious said:

Former security engineer/auditor/hacker here.

 

Imagine a world where firewalls were default allow. Or Windows logged you in automatically. And file shares were created with "everyone/full control".

 

These are all legitimate if not common use cases, but they are not the default because of the security implications. (Okay, in consumer grade firewalls default allow out is most common, but that's because there aren't a huge number of ways to exploit that directly, and it is balanced off with ease of use for mostly non-technical consumers). 

 

If you look through any penetration report, I bet you will find almost as many "insecure default" type findings as you do "vulnerable version in use" findings. "It's up to the user to set up security" is a cop out, and industry attitudes are changing fast: Amazon S3 buckets used to be default world readable. You should see the steps you need to jump through and the warnings you need to dismiss to make it world readable now. 

 

Of course it's different when designing games (or other consumer use devices like home firewalls). No developer would want to create an excess of support tickets or a bad reputation by disabling key functionality to make it secure by default, and honestly the impact of a troll coming in to ruin your game isn't exactly going to make it to "catastrophic" on the risk assessment matrix. On the other hand, it would be trivial to set up a new "New single player game" menu function that does nothing more than create a new multiplayer game set to not listed, max players 1, and a hidden long random password. 

 

Tongue in cheek, I can say "Thanks for keeping me in a job", but really, the industry needs to do better than "It's up to the user".

You're all taking what I said way too literally.

 

I'm not trying to turn this into an argument, but I'll simply reiterate and clarify. Obviously development and security teams can and should do all they can to make systems secure. It's also up to them to make sure users are not put into a position where the user can make critical mistakes. However, at some point, users need to make sound, educated decisions (again, by being presented with options that are clear). There is absolutely no way around it. Sure there are some things you can do to prevent them from performing certain devastating actions, but you can't coddle the user for every single decision.

 

Can improvements be made to 7DTD UX and user settings? Obviously. But IMO the current implementation isn't broken. Just needs a little love.

[theFlu]

1 hour ago, Syphon583 said:

But IMO the current implementation isn't broken. Just needs a little love.

I'd say it's actually pretty bad to have "let anyone in" as the defaults. But being a game, and thus not really that significant for anyone, it gets a lowered standard. Actual risks would require additional breaks, but I wouldn't really be surprised if someone would find a way for arbitrary code execution for any server they've successfully joined.

 

I'd suggest having a "New Single Player game" as an additional option, even when all it does is set safe choices. The current one renamed to "New Multiplayer game". A little more clutter, but rather understandable.

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, Syphon583 said:

 

You're all taking what I said way too literally.

 

I'm not trying to turn this into an argument, but I'll simply reiterate and clarify. Obviously development and security teams can and should do all they can to make systems secure. It's also up to them to make sure users are not put into a position where the user can make critical mistakes. However, at some point, users need to make sound, educated decisions (again, by being presented with options that are clear). There is absolutely no way around it. Sure there are some things you can do to prevent them from performing certain devastating actions, but you can't coddle the user for every single decision.

 

I don't think anybody will contest this. You buy anything that could be dangerous and it is the responsibility of the user to not endanger himself or anyone else through his actions. 

2 hours ago, Syphon583 said:

Can improvements be made to 7DTD UX and user settings? Obviously. But IMO the current implementation isn't broken. Just needs a little love.

 

"Broken" may be too strong in this case, and mostly means something different than "Unsafe". And I would call 7days unsafe by design aka having a design flaw in the UI. 

 

If you roll out something that could "endanger" parts of your customers simply by them not taking any actions except turning it on, then part of the blame is on you.

 

You should not sell guns with the ammunition already in the chamber and the safety off.

 

You should not sell home routers with a preset WLAN password everyone knows. 

 

You should not sell routers that open a management interface into the internet that the user has to turn off if he doesn't want it.

 

You should not sell machines with movable parts with the power switch on so they would immediately start if you plugged them in.

 

 

Edited April 25 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Maharin]

On 4/23/2024 at 6:19 PM, SylenThunder said:

Truly though, the responsibility lies on the end user. The game is likely played by the majority in a co-op setting with people who pay attention to the settings they are configuring. As such, the default settings are just fine for most people. Which is very likely why they are the defaults.

 

But why not let us set the defaults for our own style of play?  That was an option until very recently.