Zomboid anticheat

[Zomboid addict]

I am currently playing around with zomboid internals. Zomboid builtin anticheat or VAC are not doing much good. I decided to try to make my own anticheat.
I am curious, did many server owners meet cheaters in zomboid, and would it be interesting if there would be an anticheat with free trial and some not very expensive subscription plan after?
If yes, what would you consider a good price?
And if some zomboid dev is reading this, I want to ask if it is okay to ask money for anticheat from game server owners?

[Ralms]

Welcome to Project Zomboid

If you want to deal with cheaters, its easy, just create a NoSteam server. 
At least half of the active player base is cheating (saying this from experience). 

Also, the issues are not specific to NoSteam, you can cheat as easily on either Steam or NoSteam, there is no difference.
Just that most players using NoSteam are using pirated clients. 

Regarding you charging for an Anti-Cheat, you clearly don't know the game code and architecture enough to be considering that an option

[NorthRoad]

What do you mean "make your own anticheat"? Not trying to speak for the devs, but to do my best to answer your question as a modder myself who wouldn't want you to spend time on something only to find out you can't do what you plan on or else it'd get you in trouble (and likely no server admins would want to use it), the modding policy says:

Quote

2.4. Commercialisation. Unless any arrangements to the contrary have been made with us, mod creators cannot sell access to a mod and/or mod content. Mod creators are permitted to work on commissioned mods provided such mods are not sold. Please see section 4 of the Terms & Conditions for more information on this.

So if you are going to make an anticheat mod you can't sell it, short of a special arrangement with The Indie Stone. Of course you could try emailing the address on the linked page asking about that.

 

If what you are making is some sort of addon to the Project Zomboid client or server, but not technically a "mod" in the sense it's not a conventional lua mod, I wouldn't imagine that gets around this, and certainly not if by "playing around with Zomboid internals" you mean anything but doing clean room reverse engineering, which I can't imagine you are considering that'd exclude you from playing with internals at all while only getting you out of the deep end and into murky waters, where you rely on the good wishes of the dev not to drown (i.e receive a C&D or be sued).

 

On the other hand, if by playing with the internals you mean Java modding, you'd have to redistribute the game's code in order to do that, which basically precludes any possibility of charging for it and isn't officially supported either (though not something they go after if it's a free and not paid mod).

 

The majority of server owners are only hosting (or renting a host) for themselves and a small group, such as the friends they play with. So it's only the minority of servers that are public servers where there would be a market, and out of those, probably only the most dedicated; out of those, how many are willing to pay additional money on top of something that already has a cost? Probably a lot of that small group I'd guess actually, considering how fantastic a better anticheat would be and how much time it'd save server owners, but I can't imagine many would be willing to shell out or able to afford more than a small cost, doubly so if what they are buying is a subscription service.

 

Of course if it were free, you'd be the most popular modder in the MP community ever, and could always set up a donation page on a site like ko-fi where the vehicle modder Ki5 has his. No idea how many people donate to those, but however lucrative the donation modder market is, you'd probably easily end up the most lucrative in the PZ community.