Anonymiser: Rust Adds Anti-Stream Sniping Option

Livestreaming has lead to a few interesting changes in how people play games together. Some games let Twitch viewers trigger in-game problems and shocks for the player to deal with, we play Dark Souls by committee, and, of course, some use it for cheating and griefing - whether that's watching an opponent's livestream in an RTS to see their side, trying to jump into matchmaking at the same time, or seeing where they are in the wide world of Chernarus to track and murder them.

Rust [official site] can have a problem with the latter, with viewers griefing streamers by joining their server and hunting them down, but this week added anonymising options to tackle that. I'm sure we'll see more games follow suit.

Rust head honcho Garry Newman explains in the latest devblog:

"Something I've been wanting to try out for a long time is a streamer mode. Streamers sometimes find it hard to play Rust because people will find out what server they’re on and either DDOS it or hunt them down and kill them. Streamer mode hopes to make that a bit less likely.

"First of all it tries to hide all server names, so if you’re streaming and you accidentally press escape, your audience won’t see the server name.

"Secondly, it changes everyone's name to something random. The names are based on their steamid, so the same guys will always have the same names. You'll recognise your friends because they will always have the same random name.

"This probably isn't going to solve all the problems, and I'm sure there’s room for improvement, but hopefully it will help out the guys who have been asking for this. Or at a minimum it will make them realise it's a big waste of time and will shut up asking for it."

Bless your cantankerous little heart! He's right in that it'll be something most people will never notice and never have a use for, but it is an interesting reaction to a new technology. Many technologies that let you show people more of what you're doing and where are exciting at first, then you realise that perhaps not everyone will use that information for good. Well, for your good, at least.

I've heard a few funny stories about stream sniping in Day Z and Rust, mind, elaborate schemes and pranks. I vaguely recall a chum was abducted by two people he distantly knew and didn't twig until their demands became especially silly? Unhelpfully, I can't remember any of them in enough detail right now to be worth passing on so, er, you heard any, gang?

Oh, also the update added a chuffing NPC helicopter gunship that'll spawn every two or three days to patrol the island and gun people down. No biggie.

[Disclosure: former RPS hired newsgun Craig Pearson works at Facepunch on Rust stuff.]