GWEN AntiCheat, what I believe should be done

Greetings everyone!

I am ToonBasic, or otherwise known as John to some and I've came to give my opinion on what must be done to GWEN AntiCheat to not only help improve the experience of those playing on Mineplex, but may also help in a monetary and player-count standpoint.

Here's a quick little background history of who I am to those who don't know:
I have approximately 5 years of Java experience and almost 3 years of AntiCheat development experience. I have learnt quite a lot of how the internals of Minecraft works and figured out a plethora of ways to develop checks by utilizing the literal source of Minecraft's code. Thanks to my knowledge that I have gained overtime, I have been able to detect most forms of combat and movement hacks within 1-2 hits (For combat) and 1-3 moves (For movement). I've also been able to detect other forms of hacks such as, but not limited to: ESP, Crashers, Timer, Ping Spoof, Scaffold, Jesus, the list goes on. I've worked with multiple major servers (That will not be named) that typically average hundreds of players per day, so I think I would be fairly qualified to give my opinion on how I think GWEN should be handled.

Enough of that though, let's begin!

As we all know, GWEN hasn't been in the best state in recent times. A lot of bypasses are being made, people are hacking left and right, people's game-play experience is getting ruined, the list goes on. What people don't realize though is that GWEN DOES WORK (kinda). It's able to detect a decent amount of people in (Most of the time) a timely manner and eliminate usually the blatant hackers, but that doesn't excuse the fact that more and more clients are rolling out updates that get around GWEN, so it's only a matter of time before there's an abundant amount of clients out there being released with all sorts of major bypasses.

What I believe needs to be done with GWEN is a literal "Rebranding". I've spoken to a lot of people over the past few years, quite a few used to play Mineplex, when I've asked them why they won't play Mineplex again, the main answer is because of the AntiCheat, not Mineplex itself. They believe that Mineplex is still a great server with fun games, it's just GWEN is no longer up to standards and highly dated in its methods of detentions, thus of course as stated above causing bypasses. So what I believe needs to be done is get rid of GWEN completely, though before you get on your high-horse and somehow manage to find a way to white-knight me about that, hear me out:
The "Core" of GWEN doesn't have to be entirely removed. Just its functionality and its name.

The name "GWEN" is highly disliked to many from what I've seen, so when a person may mention "GWEN", someone, or themselves could think, or even say "Oh, GWEN? That terrible AntiCheat?" and there's nothing anyone could do about it as it's their opinion. There could be a team of the world's best AntiCheat developers out there that fixed up GWEN, but that doesn't help the fact that the name has already been tainted through years of dissatisfaction from the community, so what I am proposing is maybe a rebranding of GWEN AntiCheat to something else so people can believe Mineplex is giving it a fresh start. so when players hear "Did you know Mineplex is making a new AntiCheat and getting rid of GWEN?", people may get a burst of hope for the future of Mineplex and start playing on the server once more knowing that something is being done to fix Mineplex and its "Hacker crisis".

Of course though, just rebranding GWEN doesn't solve all the issues. The most important thing of all is making sure GWEN is actively updated, worked on and managed by a proper individual, or even team if necessary (Make sure the people you hire are actually knowledgeable of how AntiCheats and Minecraft works. It's super easy to make an AntiCheat with hardly any falses that works on a small server/localhost than it is on an actual large server with many things to factor in, so choose wisely).

To the leadership of development for Mineplex:
When hiring someone who wishes to become an AntiCheat developer for Mineplex, throw them off with some complex questions. Of course, I won't be mentioning them here in case we get any potential applicants reading this, but if you are wondering of some, feel free to PM me and I would gladly give you some nice questions to ask them. They'll truly test whether a person knows how the game works and their knowledge of AntiCheat is legitimate.

Of course though, this is all my opinion! I would be glad to hear what you guys have to say in regards to this, so do let me know!
--- Post updated ---
I believe I could put more information to this thread, so I'll be editing it soon with way more information, tips and tricks for the developers, etc.

So feel free to keep updated with this thread!

 

Mineplex's staff team is fully aware of the underlying issues involved in our GWEN Anti-cheat system, and our Leadership is actively pursuing remedies to the issues that have befallen our anti-cheat. The fact of the matter is, when Mineplex Anti-Cheat (Commonly known among the community as MAC) was scrapped and replaced with GWEN, the expectation was that we would have maintained our full-time anti-cheat developer, which we haven't. If you'll reference this nifty page, you'll notice that our Leaders are looking to hire a developer to work full-time on our anti-cheat system(s) in hopes of remediating the issues with GWEN.

Now, for the meat and potatoes of this thread:
I'm not sure rebranding GWEN would have any positive effects other than just remediating public perception of the anti-cheat and moderation utilities built into the GWEN suite. I can't agree with renaming such a fundamental aspect of our network simply because it has a bad reputation, and I doubt my colleagues or our Administration/Leadership/Development will find any appeal in this either. Finally, maintaining the name of the anti-cheat even when development continues may be useful if for no other reason than when unassuming hackers with bypassing clients enable their hacks, they'll be promptly taken care of.

The issue with ensuring gradual and passive updates to the anti-cheat is addressed within Leadership's aforementioned job pursuit of a developer dedicated to the success of Mineplex's suite of anti-cheat and moderation systems. Existing backend & plug-in developers issue hotfixes in critical situations, but our staff team is working towards ensuring constant fine-tuned updates so our patrons can better enjoy their time on our network-- just like you're proposing.

Finally, as someone who's familiar with our development management and leadership, I doubt any guidance is needed in terms of the job hiring processes. Once again, the issue isn't that GWEN's developer did a poor job, rather the GWEN developer position was abdicated and hasn't been filled.

Please contact me or a member of the staff team if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns regarding the development & implementation of our anti-cheat systems.

 

Highly disagree with the majority of your response, though that's obviously my opinion.

The thing is that what people hear, say, and think is a major contribution to anything in life. If lets say 95% of the world said "Oh Apple is a terrible company! They make terrible phones!", you'll be more inclined to believe them and not utilize their product due to the majority of people not approving of them, same thing can be applied here with players not wanting to join cause of GWEN and the hackers.

Fact of the matter it does have a major contribution to the monetary gain and player-count of Mineplex. Whether you like it or not, Mineplex is a business. It's meant to make money. The best way to make money is to provide what's needed and properly execute actions to get the most out of everything which I believe "Investing" into a rebrand of the AntiCheat may help tremendously as it gives a fresh start for Mineplex once more and people to believe that a change for the better is happening, thus causing more people to return with high hopes.

In response to the guidance though, it was just some tips to ask people. It's not necessary, though could be very useful to lure out any person attempting to apply with a lack of knowledge (As trust me, a lack of knowledge can cause tremendous issues, especially in a large server such as Mineplex).

Finally in response to the former development team of GWEN:
Konsolas, while yes, he is decently knowledgeable is not entirely a good AntiCheat developer. The main issue with him is that he never bothered to learn how Minecraft fully works, nor did he bother to interact himself with the client community, thus causing a lot of client developers to go against him and not provide support on what's causing a bypass (And trust me, making yourself friends with the client community is tremendous help). Whether you want to believe me or not is your choice, but I've personally spoken to Konsolas and provided my support to AAC and provided code for AAC to utilize for some of their checks to further improve it. I've also given them suggestions on what could be done to fix it even more. It's just whether Konsolas decides to return and make the change or not at this point.

I've heard there was another AntiCheat developer aside from Konsolas, but I do not know of who he is, so I can't speak for him.

If you have any other questions, or concerns do let me know.

 

I read the title and I immediately sort of wanted to disregard the issue. As a Forum Moderator, I constantly see topics about the Anti Cheat. All of them, as you’d expect, are negative and never looking to actually give advice and feedback as to how we can fix it. It’s obvious GWEN has issues, and it’s not the best anticheat; were aware of that, there is literally no need to create an entire thread telling us something we already know. However, with your thread, that was different.

Learning insight from an actually anticheat developer is fascinating, and I thank you for coming over here to offer your opinions. This is quite frankly a wonderful thread, and I couldn’t agree more with what you’ve stated. GWEN isn’t a terrible anticheat, but it has a horrible reputation. People constantly put it down, not only because they associate the name with a bad anticheat, but then they associate the name with us. The stuff you’ve stated make sense, a lot of it at that. Rebranding is honestly what we may need, and it may take time for people to realize that.

A lot of what you described is simply the way that we’ve handled the anticheat. We basically built GWEN on the terms that Mineplex would have a developer to update and maintain it. Ever since that fell through we’ve basically been at a standstill, which sucks. I didn’t know our previous developer personally, but it sounds like he didn’t like to listen to others feedback and didn’t branch himself out. By not doing that, he wasn’t only hurting his knowledge, but the knowledge of our anticheat.

I thank you, greatly, for what you’ve contributed thus far. I don’t know your situation at all, but we do have a job opening for an anticheat developer. I think you have a ton of great ideas that could truly benefit the future of Mineplex. I’ll try to pass on this thread and push it as much as I can, as I agree with you here. I’ll just drop this link here, just in case. jobs.mineplex.com

 

From what I learned, konsolas was ok-ish active in GWEN development. He didn't really listen to the community, rather implementing the features our old QAM told him to.

 

GWEN will continue to improve because the developers are willing enough to make the Mineplex experience better for its players. I don't know about the rebranding though because GWEN is excellent for an anti-cheat name.

 

Thanks for your response! I've personally already applied, though I won't go too much into detail, nor do I want to talk about it any more to possibly ruin any chance of acceptance.

As of right now, GWEN hasn't been actually improved in a while, it's been at a standstill with not really any updates from what I've heard aside from maybe a hotfix here and there.

 

The analogy your using implies that people join networks solely because of the quality of their anti-cheat and not because of the quality of the network's services or minigames, or even the community backing them. Additionally, your response seems to imply that you believe Mineplex is just absolutely swamped with hackers-- which simply isn't the case. In fact, only the vast minority of the community partakes in the usage of modified clients-- the rest are largely law-abiding patrons, here for our minigames or other services the network provides.

I fully acknowledge Mineplex is a business entity, and fully support it in its financial ventures. I don't believe a large portion of our population is being driven away by rulebreakers simply because they make up such a small portion of our network's population that it's hard to call them truly disruptive, especially after our staff team quells their presence even further. I can't speak to the intentions of our network Leadership-- they may have plans to rebrand the anti-cheat-- but I just don't believe slapping a new name on an updated and reworked version of GWEN is going to remediate as many issues as you seem to think it will.

We can both agree that a lack of knowledge is never good, especially in an organization and a community as large as Mineplex. That being said, our Development Managers are some of the most deliberate and competent members of our team, and I have tremendous confidence in their ability to hire a strong and knowledgable anti-cheat developer.

I never spoke to the competency or the deliberateness of our previous anti-cheat developer, simply that we used to have a full-time developer dedicated to our anti-cheat systems. This section of your response would be better suited for a member of our development team familiar with GWEN's development.

 

As far as I can tell Gwen is doing a good, Yes some hiccups here and there but in no way should they completely take down Gwen, as said in MrAwoo's comment. I also agree that they should update Gwen but like I said not take away! That is just my opinion!

 

1. The quality of an AntiCheat is a major contributing factor to the quality of a server. It doesn't matter how many of the best games you have, it doesn't matter how beautiful the builds are, it doesn't matter how amazing the staff is, if there's hackers out there ruining the game due to an AntiCheat that's performing less and less as the days go by with new bypasses being made constantly, it's gonna get to the point where people will just give up trying to play. I am by no means talking bad about Mineplex, I actually enjoy it more than the competitors honestly, but you need to realize that a proper AntiCheat is one of the most crucial factors to the quality of a server and the gameplay for the players.

2. I honestly don't mind that you believe GWEN's name should remain, I am all for it if that's what the people want, though of course I did speak out my personal opinion on what I think may be best ^.^.

3. No need for a response there

4. No need for a response there, but thank you for your response! I apologize if I ever came out rude by the way, I just wanted to express what I think may be best.

As said above, I completely don't mind keeping the name GWEN, I just think it would be best for maybe a breath of fresh air and for people to return with hopes of a better change for both the community and Mineplex itself!

It must stink though the current situation happening in Bedrock! I hope it gets resolved soon!

I honestly love that this thread hasn't been trashed yet and instead, proper opinions are being said!

 

Most people decide whether to play a server or not whether the Anti-Cheat is good or not.
Plus, most of these hackers have told me themselves that they have multiple accounts to hack with so it's of nothing to them to get banned a few times.

 

I've never seen somebody with more intelligence about Java then you as of now. You look like you know what your talking about and yes I agree with most of your claims. You should apply to be on the developer team if possible. I can agree GWEN isn't the best anti-cheat, but it isn't the worst either. Great to know what an actual developer sees as a novice Java programmer myself. And I agree with @MrAwoo , never let GWEN go. Even if we make GWEN a chat anti-spammer. I feel GWEN is apart of Mineplex culture in a sense.

 

Haha, I completely understand where you're coming from, no worries!

I thank you for the compliment, means a lot! I actually plan on making a video soon for Mineplex on how to catch hackers and also show a bit of coding in the video to showcase what the client is doing and how it can be patched (Of course, no methods will be provided, but a way to give you an idea of how it can be patched).

^.^.

 

As of right now, I actually have none, though I am in the process of making one just to showcase for you guys.