Punkbuster Down

[Bensam123]

Thought you guys would be interested in this, if you haven't witnessed it first hand yet:

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/punkbu ... again.html

Punkbuster is completely offline and people can't play because of it. I've been harping on games for quite awhile for poor AC (BF3 included), but when security theater completely fails it has a funny taste of irony to it.

[rcs2k4]

Oh... I've not been able to stay in BF:3 for more than a minute at most and get disconnected - Is it this??? I was going to go all mad-rage at my ISP for packet loss issues again...

[JohnC]

Well, their sites are up and functioning again... Though there are no announcements about the reasons for downtime... Oh well, maybe game developers will learn something from that and will stop being so "cheap" and would instead start developing their own versions of automatic anti-cheat programs Valve did it, EA can also easily do that.

[Washer]

Well, their sites are up and functioning again... Though there are no announcements about the reasons for downtime... Oh well, maybe game developers will learn something from that and will stop being so "cheap" and would instead start developing their own versions of automatic anti-cheat programs Valve did it, EA can also easily do that.

No. Absolutely not. You seriously think the likes of EA would update and maintain their anti-cheat software or that'd it be any better? I don't, at all. VAC isn't a shining example. There's numerous cheats available for games that use it. Anti-cheat software only blocks the common public cheats. Anything kept private behind paid walls is going to take extra work. Work I don't trust the vast majority of publishers to put in. I would like to see more third party options pop though, PB sucks and this outage is just another example.

[JohnC]

You may dismiss VAC all you want, but I know from a personal experience (both as an "honest" gamer and as a past subscriber to certain site's paid "aiming aid products" ) it actually works, and works much better than PB. Sure, it will never be "up-to-date" with most recent cheat releases, but no cheat detection software is, just like no antivirus software is capable of detecting 100% of most recent malware.

As for EA's own management of such software - they may actually be able to "pull this off" properly with enough dedication... And if they aren't dedicated enough - they can equally refuse to integrate "superior" 3rd-party cheat detection into all of their products (and will instead stick to PB) even if such option would exist...

[Washer]

Oh cool. You're a cheater. Thanks for letting me know. I guess that does give you more relevant experience in which is better.

[lilbuddhaman]

Not that PB stopped cheaters in any of the games using it anyways. BF3 being the worst offender. Nov-Jan 2011 was a nonstop hackfest, and died down not because of pb updates, but because of the hackers getting bored.

[Sargent Duck]

Oh cool. You're a cheater. Thanks for letting me know. I guess that does give you more relevant experience in which is better.

Keyword was "past".

[JohnC]

Oh cool. You're a cheater. Thanks for letting me know. I guess that does give you more relevant experience in which is better.

Keyword was "past".

Yea, my last "subscription" to Planetside 2's part of "framework" has expired last month (because game is boring even with cheats, especially if not many people are playing during certain times of the day)... For Valve's games - long time ago, was mostly used for self-educational purposes I prefer to play TF2 "legitimately" since it's always fun to play even against much more skilled players and I rarely seen other cheaters on pub servers I've played at (I have seen more cheaters in PS2 during 2 months of playing than I have seen in TF2 during all my 6 years of playing it).

[Bensam123]

PB and VAC are equally as horrible. I don't know what form AC would have to take on for it to actually be feasible.

PB and VAC only work so well because they aren't actually hard coded into the game and they're 'soft' solutions. That's the problem with a 3rd party making AC for a game. Not only do they need access to basically the entire game, but they have to constantly update it with other updates to the game, in addition to cheats. It would be a huge undertaking simply for one contract for one game. Although I agree it'd be great to have one company figure this out and I have some ideas for it, I don't think it'll happen anytime soon. PB has been in the business for more then a decade as a 3rd party solution and it barely works... I mean look at their sorry excuse for a site. Obviously they aren't making much off of this. That could also be because their AC sucks, but I'm unsure.

Either way gamers need to start being more vocal about cracking down on cheaters and stop pretending it's some guy who plays in their moms basement 24/7/365 and somehow became omniscient through a act of god just so they can enjoy a game.

[Washer]

Clearly JohnC's cheating is in the "past."

[Ryu Connor]

Righteous indignation over a first world and irrelevant/intangible problem such as cheating in a video game is not needed in this thread or the forum as a whole.

[Krogoth]

Never understood why PB, VAC and such get so much traction.

They are just "feel-good" solutions that get easily pwned by crackers. The only way to avoid cheaters is to play on servers with people that you know IRL or be part of gaming communities who are vigilant. Griefers and cheaters typically give up after a few kicks and banning attempts assuming nobody on the server falls for their trolling attempts.

Righteous indignation over a first world and irrelevant/intangible problem such as cheating in a video game is not needed in this thread or the forum as a whole.

Seems that you have an ax to grind over PB and its ilk?

[Washer]

Righteous indignation over a first world and irrelevant/intangible problem such as cheating in a video game is not needed in this thread or the forum as a whole.

Hilarious post given the context of a site like Tech Report. Do you cheat too?

[Ryu Connor]

Seems that you have an ax to grind over PB and its ilk?

I'm heading off some personal attacks and snark I see brewing. The discussion without those things may continue.

[JohnC]

Never understood why PB, VAC and such get so much traction.

They are just "feel-good" solutions that get easily pwned by crackers. The only way to avoid cheaters to play on servers with people that you know IRL or be part of gaming communities who are vigilant. Griefers and cheaters typically give up after a few kicks and bans attempts assuming nobody on the server falls for their trolling attempts.

Not sure if serious... Probably not Anywayz, how do you propose "to play on servers with people that you know IRL or be part of blablabla vigilant" with games like Planetside 2, which only has few official servers hosted by SOE themselves? Or any other MMORPG/MMOFPS game? You can "/report" as much as you want to, BUT if few in-game admins are busy with other tasks, the cheater will continue to play, perhaps logging off before admin will decide to spectate him, then log back in days later, after admin decided to close the "ticket" or become busy again with other tasks (some of my PS2 accounts lasted WEEKS even with BLATANT cheating)... Proper automated anti-cheat solution, as well as proper user registration (for example, require "free 2 play" or "trial" users to submit valid credit card number for verification with each new account created, and ban people based on that data instead of relying on silly nonsense like "IP/MAC address bans") are the MUST-have for any online game (especially where admins can't watch every player 24/7) to successfully combat cheaters.

[lilbuddhaman]

I have a problem with people that think cheating in a game is "ok", whether past or present. Once a cheater, always a cheater. They should be ostracized just as a player in any sport would be(whether pro or not). I agree with where you were going about avoiding name calling and killing the discussion, but that is exactly where the official forums end up failing for games like this.

Thousands of players would "name and shame" blatantly obvious hackers, and get temp-bans or mutes; while the hackers would continue on their spree AND troll those people on the forums. Taking a stance of "we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings" caused the legitimate players to suffer even more, both on the forums and in the game itself.

The cheaters end up winning on both fronts, and that sucks.

So ban/infringe me all you want, but JohnC deserves every bit of flak that might come his way, and it should be allowed, I don't see it as a Rule #2 "personal attack", i see it as an attack on his (gaming) behavior, and since this is a gaming forum, yeah.

[Ryu Connor]

Unfortunately the topic isn't about him. The OP doesn't say, "JohnC is a cheater," not that said discussion would turn into anything profitable.

I think this discussion has run its course.