Punkbuster? ohh no - Page 11

RawketLawnchair · 2012-05-10, 11:07 PM

Hack fun?

Wat?

I've purposely hacked in Counter Strike before, back when I was about 12 years old.
Its not fun, how could it even be remotely fun unless the reason your doing it is to get back at the clan playing on the server your on. Even then its extremely childish. You know, like a 12 year old. And hell, my recent Steam account was hacked and I still haven't gotten it back yet. Why risk it? Its like those kids who scream and rage before they find out their friends secretly changed their login. Or they must just REALLY suck at playing videogames.

Punkbuster? Oh god.

Please have mercy on us oh great noodly-appendaged one.

DirtyBird · 2012-05-11, 04:29 AM

Originally Posted by ItsTheSheppy

Bit of a necro, and I'm sorry if this is too old, but I didn't want to make a new thread talking about a similar topic.

This article was posted in the general gaming forum and I think it has a place in this conversation.

Clearly, punkbuster flat-out does not work. Planetside 2 is going to have some major, APB:Reloaded-level problems if they don't take this seriously.

Rampant hacking can and will kill your game, like termites can kill your house.

Yeah I play a bit of BF3 and this article just proved what most thought was the case. PB stops some of the hacking but there are clearly haxs that circumvent the systems put in place to stop them.
The fact you can alter them on the fly as well can make them stand out even less.

PB is better than nothing for PS2 but there has to be more than just PB.
Something that checks the players when they are in the game, not only as they are joining.
If PS2 has as much haxing as BF3, scale for scale, if will be shite. Hacking is my biggest concern with the game, it can turn people away that you will never get back.
Needs some sort of reporting system that is monitored by an admin as well but how do they handle that 24/7.

Sabot · 2012-05-11, 05:35 AM

There is a special place in hell for those that cheat in games. Every hour of every day for the rest of eternity, they will have a chance to escape the torment and agony they're in, only to lose every single time to someone else that cheated their way in to first place... then they will have to watch that person get their freedom, and cake, and women, and women inside cakes... then their agony starts again.

metziih · 2012-05-11, 09:34 AM

Oh bloody hell, please no punkbuster. That bloody thing is absolutely dreadful. Last time I had to deal with that POS was in Red Orchestra 2, and that game was already riddled with bugs. Punkbuster more or less broke the camel's back and made the game unplayable...)

Thoreaux · 2012-05-11, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by ItsTheSheppy

Bit of a necro, and I'm sorry if this is too old, but I didn't want to make a new thread talking about a similar topic.

This article was posted in the general gaming forum and I think it has a place in this conversation.

Clearly, punkbuster flat-out does not work. Planetside 2 is going to have some major, APB:Reloaded-level problems if they don't take this seriously.

Rampant hacking can and will kill your game, like termites can kill your house.

Thanks for posting this. I've got to say, the bit about the give-aways like hackers tracking you perfectly, echoes what I've been saying about hacks like this. If one client has enough info to make a reasonable guess that another client is displaying impossible behavior, what the hell is the server's excuse?

100% tracking, through walls? That is really not a complicated set of conditions to test for. It shouldn't be that hard to spot automatically, and (at the very least) flag those people.

Popper · 2012-05-20, 12:27 PM

I'd just like to point out, that the failure of punkbuster in BF3 has A LOT to do with the fact the BF3 hit detection and damage calculation is client side, yes....they made hit detection and damage calculations client side.

Now this was done for several reasons that can cause problems in online games, but clearly it also creates problems like allowing easier abuse by hackers. The positive (for the developer) is that players will never miss a shot because of ping issues, which severely reduces whine. It also lightens the load on the game server quite dramatically, since it does not have to do all the ballistic calculations - thus allowing low spec servers a high player count.

The other way of doing it (server side calulations) can be seen in games like EVE-online (though it is not an FPS, it is a MMO enviroment with very high player counts in battles). With all the ballistic calculations done on the server, and the player computers only sending "i shot at X, with Y, while moving in direction A, in ship B, at speed C, etc. etc.".

To my knowledge there has never been a single case of hacking that is useful in combat in EVE-Online - on the other side, the EVE-online servers have to be extremely High-end, with sophisticated hardware and software setups. It also results in exponentially decreased performance linked to player count on the same server node (in the same battle) - resulting in server crashes once the limit is reached 600-1000 last i checked.

TL

R
it is possible to severely reduce or even eliminate aimbot hacking, to the point of it being a non-issue, but are we or SOE willing to pay the price for it? (SOE financially, us in terms of player caps and performance degredation in large battles).

Timealude · 2012-05-20, 12:32 PM

Didnt they say they are using punkbuster along with other programs that havent been named...as a way to prevent hacking?

Gandhi · 2012-05-20, 12:51 PM

I'm just going to trust that they know what they're doing, because at the end of the day if we have rampant cheating it will kill this game. The amazing graphics, the unparalleled scale, the persistent world, none of that matters if it's plagued by script kiddies and aimbots. Especially considering there are no servers with admins on hand to ban people, it'll be up to the GM's to police thousands of people.

Honestly I'd be blown away if they can prevent cheating without hardware or IP bans and without any kind of box price. Lets hope we're pleasantly surprised.

NCLynx · 2012-05-20, 01:00 PM

Meanwhile at PB headquarters....

Like a lot of others I don't like PB, I would hope however that these "Additional securities" are actual GMs and a decent amount of them.

Delestial · 2012-05-20, 02:11 PM

Just copy-pasting my post from earlier to further agree with the general sentiment that punkbuster seems like a bad idea.

Hello all, I just recently found out about Planetside 2 and it looks pretty fantastic, however, I do have some concerns over punkbuster. From what I've read, punkbuster can inspect your entire hard drive and files. This seems incredibly invasive to me. Not to mention the fact that I've also heard that it runs in the background regardless of whether or not the game is running. Are these concerns warranted or are things being blown out of proportion? I'm not even sure if they've confirmed PB, or were just considering it.

Baneblade · 2012-05-20, 02:19 PM

The question is, will PB play nice with the other anti hacker methods. And will PB be doing a lot of false positives.

Fanglord · 2012-05-20, 07:00 PM

I don't really care that they are using PB as 'part' of their solution to hacking; however I too have had bad experiences of being kicked from severs multiple times for no apparent reason. Which I can see severely reducing the likelihood i'd stick around for something I've only pumped a few pounds in for a few cosmetic items.

EVILoHOMER · 2012-05-20, 07:07 PM

I think they should use VAC2 and have the game as a Steamworks game. Imagine the threat of having both your Steam and your SOE account being banned...... I don't know many people who would risk it then.

I was such an idiot back in 2005 as I used to own my own server and put hacks on for a laugh in custom maps I made with friends. I forgot to turn VAC off and got banned and Valve never allowed me to be unbanned even though it was my server lol. So devastated at the time and only ever used the hacks because I made physics maps which you needed to negotiate fast to have fun.

Sifer2 · 2012-05-20, 11:04 PM

Originally Posted by EVILoHOMER

I think they should use VAC2 and have the game as a Steamworks game. Imagine the threat of having both your Steam and your SOE account being banned...... I don't know many people who would risk it then.

I was such an idiot back in 2005 as I used to own my own server and put hacks on for a laugh in custom maps I made with friends. I forgot to turn VAC off and got banned and Valve never allowed me to be unbanned even though it was my server lol. So devastated at the time and only ever used the hacks because I made physics maps which you needed to negotiate fast to have fun.

Yeah VAC is better than Punkbuster. But no way SOE is going to tie this game to Steam IMO. They just wont want to have to share any more of the profit than necessary. I'm not even sure what percentage of profits Free 2 Play games have to share with Valve to be on Steam.

I still think the best solution to cheaters will be subscription only servers. It wont actually solve the problem. But would be a place those who hate hackers could go to play a cleaner game. All I know is Punkbuster is really annoying. Never played a game with it that didn't give me some kind of problem despite me not actually hacking.

Juturna · 2012-05-20, 11:52 PM

please god no