Confirmed, Hackers banned for 3-10 days. [Statement from Smed]

[Mox]

After reading this i think Smed should get a lifetime ban.

[VGCS]

I notice SOE is denying it all pretty heavily now, but I feel like they're missing the entire point either way.

The "Hackers" (script kiddies... very few of these people wrote their own code) who got caught in the first place, had to be doing something so blatant that the average player noticed. Yet the Average player is so oblivious to subtle cheating that you can (and I actually HAVE) record yourself using the cheats and show them it several times, and they still won't figure it out. Even some Admins are almost that obvlivious and the only reason I know that is because I've worked with Dozens of admins in the past. I'm not naming names because they all "meant-well". But the point stands: The vast majority of cheaters get away with it because most developers are too afraid to challenge Convention.

The saddest part is that the most "effective" hack in the game isn't a Bot at all. And this goes back to what Hamma's often brought the most attention to.... The way that bases are designed and how the meta flows, and how XP is gained. Information hacks & "tracer warnings" are where it's really at and I personally guarantee that their GM's have no procedures or multicrew efforts for catching the sometimes 40% of the playerbase using them on the Weekends. But that's not the sad part, the sad part is that they continue to outright REFUSE to change their Server Client Architecture in a sensible way that would completely eliminate this "Gateway Drug". They HAVE the power to do this, (the technology has existed since Quake2/3 modders first experimented with BSP scripts), and put a stop finally to the increasing Arms-Race that even normal people are able to spot these days.

[Hamma]

Click the date link in the Tweet for the full convo.

[Stardouser]

So is Smedley saying that all the claims of non-bans are hoaxes? He has to be, since he seems pretty sure they ban for hacking.

I have no doubt that there will be people intentionally using blatant hacks to see what happens to put this to a test.

[Hamma]

I wanted to briefly explain how we approach banning and clear up some misconceptions out there.

First off. If we have clear evidence of a person cheating we ban them. We search for any other accounts they have and we ban those too. We have very good hacking detection algorithms. They aren't perfect though. There are some things that are very hard to detect. There is no "7 day ban". That's a myth. Sometimes we suspend someone for 7 days. This is typically someone who is breaking a rule but it doesn't warrant banning. Sometimes we suspend people for something while we actually suspect them of cheating. We'll watch them when they come back and the GM's are able to watch people while they play to make sure we're satisfied they are cheating.

Sometimes people say "But this guy is an obvious aimbotter". That may be true. It may not be. There are a lot of really good people in this game. There are also aimbotting scumbags. Telling the difference can be tough for our players sometimes but it's not for us. However we are careful about who we ban. We don't just ban because some player reports and says person X is an aimbotter. We actually put in the time to confirm this.

Also please don't use the new player site as "proof" that someone is cheating. I said when we launched it that it's still beta and we're still working out some data issues.

Also please realize the fight against cheaters is not a war we will ever be finished with. We make new detection and anti-hack code, they spend time and try and work around it. It's a constant effort. We just want you to know we hate them just as much as you do and we're busting our asses to get them out of the game. Do we do it as fast as you might like? Not all the time no. But we also don't want to falsely accuse people without solid proof.

I hope this helps clear this up at least a little. I'm sure there will be people that don't think we're doing enough. After having personally viewed some of the major cheat sites I can tell you I'm blown away by how sophisticated some of these operations are. They are making money on this. We're working on that from another angle too that I'm not going to go into just yet (hint. it involves lawyers) . But we have the resources to fight this fight and we will keep doing it.
Smed

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/c...ingsuspension/

[Snowfake]

pay me the money you are paying those lawyers and I would happily rid you of these people

[Assist]

Originally Posted by Hamma

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/c...ingsuspension/

I don't get it.
He says they don't ban people for 7 days. But sometimes when they suspect someone of cheating they suspend them for 7 days. He also says they're very good at detecting cheaters, the problem is they're not preventing cheaters. With their current way of detecting the legit players pay the price and the fun is therefore ruined for those players. Sure that player gets banned, but it appears that they find their way back quite quickly. It's annoying when an aimbotter, who was banned on one account, sends you a message on his new account to let you know that he's still around.

As much as I'd like to believe everything he says, his first statement alone contradicts what he was saying. It's not a misconception that you temp. ban people for 7 days, when you state yourself that you do indeed temp. ban people for 7 days who are suspected of cheating. You may as well have said you slap them on the wrist with a warning so they get a chance to stop cheating, which is completely the opposite of your stated stance against hackers.

[Higby]

Originally Posted by Assist

I don't get it.
He says they don't ban people for 7 days. But sometimes when they suspect someone of cheating they suspend them for 7 days. He also says they're very good at detecting cheaters, the problem is they're not preventing cheaters. With their current way of detecting the legit players pay the price and the fun is therefore ruined for those players. Sure that player gets banned, but it appears that they find their way back quite quickly. It's annoying when an aimbotter, who was banned on one account, sends you a message on his new account to let you know that he's still around.

As much as I'd like to believe everything he says, his first statement alone contradicts what he was saying. It's not a misconception that you temp. ban people for 7 days, when you state yourself that you do indeed temp. ban people for 7 days who are suspected of cheating. You may as well have said you slap them on the wrist with a warning so they get a chance to stop cheating, which is completely the opposite of your stated stance against hackers.

Cheater in some sense could mean a guy boosting, or spawning in a wall with someone's glitched sunderer, or flipping people in the warpgate, some would say TKing or using mines to blow up stationary sunderers is cheating. shades of grey in there, but not with aim botting, or otherwise 'hacking' the game. There's no tolerance for someone using an aimbot, zero. If you spawned in a wall a few times because of a glitched sunderer and got caught, we might give you a suspension instead of a ban for a first time offense.

[Assist]

Originally Posted by Higby

Cheater in some sense could mean a guy boosting, or spawning in a wall with someone's glitched sunderer, or flipping people in the warpgate, some would say cheating is using mines to blow up sunderers is cheating. shades of grey in there, but not with aim botting, or otherwise 'hacking' the game. There's no tolerance for someone using an aimbot, zero. If you spawned in a wall a few times because of a glitched sunderer and got caught, we might give you a suspension instead of a ban for a first time offense.

Ah, it didn't read like that. If that's the case then ok. The context the response post was in most people would consider him to be talking about hackers not 'cheaters'. I'd consider some of those acts griefing, not cheating but to each their own.


OT: You mean using mines on allied Sunderers? Or mines on stationary Sunderers?

[Koadster]

What about as been suggested many times.. require a Credit Card at registration, that would cut down on some hackers. Although ive been noticing alot more higher BR guys with cosmetics spinning around and near insta killing me even against a TRV with softpoint ammo, so there will always be hackers.

But a CC would cut down on alot of the wanna be hackers.

[Cantona]

I think it`s maybe a quick shame on PSU. The title of this forum post is VERY misleading and NOT what Smedley said at all and the horde seen the headline, skimped over the actual statement and went on the warpath. Shame PSU.
He said - if you care caught hacking you are banned. End of. What is the problem?

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by Cantona

I think it`s maybe a quick shame on PSU. The title of this forum post is VERY misleading and NOT what Smedley said at all and the horde seen the headline, skimped over the actual statement and went on the warpath. Shame PSU.
He said - if you care caught hacking you are banned. End of. What is the problem?

The problem is in the time between the hacking and banning, the cheaters are ruining the game.

Absolutely no point at all in caring about your stats or "being competitive" when the fact of the matter is that cheaters are allowed to play for hours on end, negatively effecting everyone they encounter. The best part? When they are suspended, they come right back on another account.

I give up. The cheaters won, SOE lost. Take care.

[Wahooo]

I'm not seeing these guys... The only thing i've found game breaking is Indarside.

[Wahooo]

Originally Posted by SMED

I hope this helps clear this up at least a little. I'm sure there will be people that don't think we're doing enough. After having personally viewed some of the major cheat sites I can tell you I'm blown away by how sophisticated some of these operations are. They are making money on this. We're working on that from another angle too that I'm not going to go into just yet (hint. it involves lawyers) . But we have the resources to fight this fight and we will keep doing it.
Smed

This actually kinda pisses me off. If we are to take this seriously where the hell was this response 4-5 years ago when a couple of these pay to cheat sites took off and started making money and at the same time KILLING PS1???

From ~Jan - June of 2009 the population drop in PS1 was friggen staggering due to the rampant cheating and SLOW response. Many of the worst granted were writing the scripts themselves and sharing free to others who included many of the 'subtle' hackers we all knew about and were reported with video evidence time and time again. BUT... the pay to cheat sites were there then. The pay to cheat sites were stealing SOE's money by killing the playerbase then. PS1 was an alive game that had 1, 2 sometimes 3 pop-locked continents daily to the constant 3-way cyssorside it remained for the last 3 years of its life. That probably represents a couple thousand players actually that quit over a period of 6 months MOSTLY due to hacking.

Remember in June of 2009? They started responding to tickets in minutes, 24/7 hackers were being banned, coming back and being banned sometimes 3-4 times and the banning and GM response was better than i've seen in almost any game... but it was too little and too late the damage had been done. I know the outfit I was in at that time lost 75% of its palyers between april and may, and the next outfit I was in went from platoons to 1/2 squads during that period and neither ever recovered. GM's actually doing GM stuff in a timely manner in June? Just not enough.

SO SMED,
If these sites are some new revelation to you and you feel NOW it is time to act? FUCK YOU! This threat and action is about 5 years to late in my book.

[Smed]

Originally Posted by Assist

Ah, it didn't read like that. If that's the case then ok. The context the response post was in most people would consider him to be talking about hackers not 'cheaters'. I'd consider some of those acts griefing, not cheating but to each their own.


OT: You mean using mines on allied Sunderers? Or mines on stationary Sunderers?

Specifically what I was saying is sometimes we have decent evidence against a person but not enough to say for sure. We might suspend (that is different then ban) and use some tracking software to watch them when they come back. The suspension would be for something legitimate (along the lines of what Matt said) on it's own though.

Why is a suspension different than a ban? We suspend an account. We ban a person. Very different things.

Smed
(and yes it's been a while since i posted here)