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Kellon

Game is already losing people due to hackers.

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People should test putting 'verifySignatures = 2;' into their server.cfg and see if that reduces the frequency of hackers?

Just saying....

---------- Post added at 07:40 ---------- Previous post was at 07:35 ----------

Agreed, however some public servers would rather not have to lock their servers down from pubbers. We find having a member on the server to watch what is going on and have an admin hop in when needed usually stops the negative acts quickly and lasts for a good amount of time. Sadly I wish none of this was necessarily but this is the world we must deal with.

You obviously don't know what signature checking does.... It stops people joining with mods/editted game files. It doesn't stop any and all people from joining, or acting as a white list, or anything like that.

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There are still hackers on this game, not as bad as before though. Is there anyway for server admins to get logs? It's sort of annoying having people randomly accuse me of being a hacker and the admin takes their word for it. It's happened to me twice since the alpha started.

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Agreed. It really wrecks the experience people who want to play this game properly and/or even learn it. I was playing in an Aussie Wasteland server, had finally got some gear after sitting watching a firefight for 9 minutes and the Opfor had moved on, went down, scavenged some items, grenades and a MXM. I thought I would be able to track down the Blufor and take them out as there were only 4 of them left after the fight. So I set out, I caught up to them and I go prone, set myself up. Next thing I know, I'm at the deepest part of the ocean on Stratis with the other 39 people in the server.... -.-' Surely BI can do something about it. ALl we can do is hope in these early days of development :)

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People should test putting 'verifySignatures = 2;' into their server.cfg and see if that reduces the frequency of hackers?

It does nothing as you can load you own startup file atm and do whatever you want to do, it's very easy since there's NO anti-cheat applied.

I've asked what's the plan to deploy BattleEye at least, they doesn't have a date apparently and have closed a thread with many pages of discussions... the cheaters (that ironically are the main Arma plague, apart the very bad game performance) at the moment aren't considered as a top priority.

The average number of users has been reduced to hundreds concurrent today, while they were thousand only 3 weeks ago, and the hacking/cheating issue, isn't surely the single reason of this, but have heavily contributed to "zeroing" the userbase already (me and my clan is only an example, we have many other mates that are "waiting" for a solution, prior than start to play again).

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It does nothing as you can load you own startup file atm and do whatever you want to do, it's very easy since there's NO anti-cheat applied.

I've asked what's the plan to deploy BattleEye at least, they doesn't have a date apparently and have closed a thread with many pages of discussions... the cheaters (that ironically are the main Arma plague, apart the very bad game performance) at the moment aren't considered as a top priority.

The average number of users has been reduced to hundreds concurrent today, while they were thousand only 3 weeks ago, and the hacking/cheating issue, isn't surely the single reason of this, but have heavily contributed to "zeroing" the userbase already (me and my clan is only an example, we have many other mates that are "waiting" for a solution, prior than start to play again).

Saying it does nothing is pure BS mate, it prevents people from joined with any mod the server doesnt have a key for, so the "baby" hackers cant hack with theyre self written mods.

Sure it doesnt protect against injections of scripts, but it does help indeed.

Its funny how people complain they cant "test" (play?) the game on public servers because of hackers.

As i see it, to do proper testing you need a controlled enviorement aka passworded and locked servers with trusthworthy people.

So i dont blame them for not making it priority, as its not needed to do proper testing, at this stage of the development.

Its needed to actually play the game later on :)

I also think a whole lot of people are getting bored with the Alpha, at this stage, so they go to other games untill more stuff gets introduced into the game.

The second a big patch with more weapons and vehicles is introduced, you will see a HUGE flow of people coming back, for sure :)

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How can a game lose players that is not even released yet?

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How can a game lose players that is not even released yet?

I think bad reputation has longer legs than the good one, and more so when as it's been known from the previous game

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Anyone who dismisses the game during alpha would never have been happy with the finished game anyway. And so nothing of value was lost.

Edited by Harzach

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You guys are crying about a few hackers in this game and how Arma 3 is loosing players because of it ??

Have you been playing any other FPS games lately ??

Try playing BF3 or any other Call of duty or CS... All popular FPS games are infekted with those hackers, so it is not anything new, this have been a big problem in the online community this last years.

As some says here, lock your servers or make GUID bans and tHose guys will never come back on your server again unless they buy a new CD key/ new game !!

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Hey, wait a moment! Didn't you always say, the purpose of a alpha is the testing - but not to play?

When BIS want's to test their new units, they should bind the online alpha-testing to a bugtracker-account.

When they want to prevent hacks (like the mentioned mass kills), they should disable the mod-capability while the alpha. It can't be truly the purpose of an Alphaversion to test unsigned "self written mods"? Right?

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Hey, wait a moment! Didn't you always say, the purpose of a alpha is the testing - but not to play?

When BIS want's to test their new units, they should bind the online alpha-testing to a bugtracker-account.

When they want to prevent hacks (like the mentioned mass kills), they should disable the mod-capability while the alpha. It can't be truly the purpose of an Alphaversion to test unsigned "self written mods"? Right?

I would like to know your definition for words "playing" and "testing". Why would they exclude each other? Testing is playing, and playing is testing in my opinion.

With actually playing instead of having just eg. some kind of shooting range for testing purposes only the players, the community can get new ideas and discover issues that they would never notice with only that kind of "dedicated testing content".

It's been said before that anti-cheat is being developed and it will be implemented to game when it's done. In addition, BIS has stated that one of the purposes of releasing public alpha and beta versions is to give the community content creators a chance to start developing their content in as early stage as possible. In addition, mods can be signed already so your statement about unsigned mods is false. And still, playing on public servers only is not the only option. You seem to assume that having cheat-free game and the ability to mod the game are exclusive options (again). They aren't; it's just the matter of end user to adapt to the situation. One method to that is to play on private servers with people that you know and/or trust – ta-da, you got both cheat-free and moddable game! :)

After all, you can never make everyone happy because people never have equal opinions. If they disabled the moddability, the content creators and the users of the custom content would suffer from it a lot and there would still be cheats (maybe less though) in the game.

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they should disable the mod-capability while the alpha.

I think having mod tools in an alpha is genious, if a modder comes up with a good idea while the game's in alpha, BIS can refine that idea and put it in game if they see fit. This also applies to "unofficial patches".

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When they want to prevent hacks (like the mentioned mass kills), they should disable the mod-capability while the alpha. It can't be truly the purpose of an Alphaversion to test unsigned "self written mods"? Right?

The series' longevity and success, to an extent, is down to modding.

Do some homework before barreling onto the forums.

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Saying it does nothing is pure BS mate, it prevents people from joined with any mod the server doesnt have a key for, so the "baby" hackers cant hack with theyre self written mods.

Sure it doesnt protect against injections of scripts, but it does help indeed.

Cheaters that uses scripts in ArmA, are kids, but not completely noob: they go on a website to download a specific cheat to use. That's all you need today to cheat, forcing the signature doesn't help at all, if someone has enough brain to understand what's a custom pbo, has enough brain to download a injector as well, it's a matter of right click and "Save as...", you don't need a damn degree to download a public cheat on uc.

Its funny how people complain they cant "test" (play?) the game on public servers because of hackers.

You can test, but being mass-killed every 30 minutes is boring as hell.. it happens one time.. two time.. the third time you fu em all and change the game. :)

As i see it, to do proper testing you need a controlled enviorement aka passworded and locked servers with trusthworthy people.

I'm not sure if you ever beta tested something.. beta testing is done replicating the real environment, not by producing a controlled one. Testing with a couple of friends without "random" ppl does mean absolutely nothing.

I also think a whole lot of people are getting bored with the Alpha, at this stage, so they go to other games untill more stuff gets introduced into the game.

The second a big patch with more weapons and vehicles is introduced, you will see a HUGE flow of people coming back, for sure :)

It won't happens before Q2.. for that time you'll see only 100 chaps playing. :) I counted the chaps online this evening, they were: 1032 .. man 1032 ! They were 20 times that number two weeks ago.

Cheating and hacking is not the only reason of why ppl are abandoning this alpha, but it's sure contributing to the running away (the other two are: lack of contents, and very bad performance).

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(the other two are: lack of contents, and very bad performance).

I think there's a clear third going by the drivel on these forums - Unrealistic expectations of an Alpha

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I think there's a clear third going by the drivel on these forums - Unrealistic expectations of an Alpha

That's not necessary a user mistake (not by the average ones at least): they decided to launch the game (alpha) on Steam, it's a damn universal platform with millions players aboard, you cannot pretend to SELL something on it, telling ppl: "oh no, you didn't bought the alpha, you have pre-ordered the game!" (totally forgetting what's the steam "early access program" they are aboard of), and then blaming the customers because they doesn't understand what's an alpha is. If they wanted a controlled environment with a limited number of testers, they could have "hired" it, but instead thet decided to CASH (and we're talking about much money) today, and so they have rensponsabilities.

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If the user can't read the EULA and the blurb about what they're purchasing/getting into, then they only have themselves to blame. Anyway, we digress from the topic.

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Cheaters that uses scripts in ArmA, are kids, but not completely noob: they go on a website to download a specific cheat to use. That's all you need today to cheat, forcing the signature doesn't help at all, if someone has enough brain to understand what's a custom pbo, has enough brain to download a injector as well, it's a matter of right click and "Save as...", you don't need a damn degree to download a public cheat on uc.

You can test, but being mass-killed every 30 minutes is boring as hell.. it happens one time.. two time.. the third time you fu em all and change the game. :)

I'm not sure if you ever beta tested something.. beta testing is done replicating the real environment, not by producing a controlled one. Testing with a couple of friends without "random" ppl does mean absolutely nothing.

It won't happens before Q2.. for that time you'll see only 100 chaps playing. :) I counted the chaps online this evening, they were: 1032 .. man 1032 ! They were 20 times that number two weeks ago.

Cheating and hacking is not the only reason of why ppl are abandoning this alpha, but it's sure contributing to the running away (the other two are: lack of contents, and very bad performance).

I don't agree with you. I don't think that the more advanced cheats work automatically – I've followed the cheat forums for a long time in the past when I was admin on public server so that I could recognize it if someone was using cheats, and haven't seen many cheats, if any at all, that require just saving the file on your hard disk. The kiddies are crying in the cheat topics and requesting help how to use them because they don't understand how to use them, so I wouldn't call it extremely easy to use those. By using the simple tricks like the signature checks you get rid of the majority of cheaters, because the most cheaters don't know anything about cheating, they're just script kiddies with tools that they didn't create. The more traps there are to catch and prevent the cheaters from using their tools, the less there are people that are able and willing to bypass those.

No-one forces you to play on public servers only. If you get nuked by TKer or cheater so often, you could always play on passworded servers and even better, join a community and play with them. Problem solved. :)

Regarding to the beta testing, could you please determine what are the factors that render the testing in public enviroments necessary and above all, testing on servers with controlled access invalid? What are the factors that render the testing with eg. 30 ppl who you know invalid compared to 30 ppl that you don't know? I tried to imagine those but couldn't name a single one. Controlled access to the server doesn't mean restrictions in the game itself. With that logic every game out there that hasn't had public beta (or alpha) should be completely rubbish because of poor testing.

We're living the Q2 of 2013 already. The decrease in player number is pretty expected in my opinion because of the issues that Alpha still has – the lack of units, large map, missions and mods, performance issues, game crashes and so on. The most people play it for a while, become bored, stop playing and will come back later when there is more content and less issues with the game. Do you really think that the majority of players that have stopped playing the Alpha will never come back? Especially, when we take into account the fact that the issues with Alpha that you named are especially the ones that will progress a lot in the near future and overall during the development.

That's not necessary a user mistake (not by the average ones at least): they decided to launch the game (alpha) on Steam, it's a damn universal platform with millions players aboard, you cannot pretend to SELL something on it, telling ppl: "oh no, you didn't bought the alpha, you have pre-ordered the game!" (totally forgetting what's the steam "early access program" they are aboard of), and then blaming the customers because they doesn't understand what's an alpha is. If they wanted a controlled environment with a limited number of testers, they could have "hired" it, but instead thet decided to CASH (and we're talking about much money) today, and so they have rensponsabilities.

The customers have been notified about the nature of concept with A3 Alpha multiple times during the purchase, so I wonder why it would be fault of BIS when they start to complain about the game. If you signed a contract, would you be able to cancel it any time by saying that "Sorry, I didn't read that part in the contract before I signed it so the document is invalid now"? No, you couldn't do that. The people who complain that they've been cheated by BIS because the game wasn't in stage what they expected are in the same situation.

The people have bought early access to the game, not the Alpha only. They don't have to pay anything to play Beta and full version. They can start playing earlier, and they got the game cheaper. It's only win for the customer, who loses nothing but wins instead when compared to buying the full game with full price when it's released. Or if there are any, could you please determine what are the factors that make the customer to loose if we compare between getting early access to alpha with beta and full game and purchasing the full version with full price?

Edited by Ezcoo

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I don't agree with you.

You don't have to agree with me.. eheh.. go on UC register, download the cheats and launch em, it's not that hard. Neither i can attach the cheats to this post to show to you how it's easy to cheat now (havin signed on or off won't make any diff).. and you shouldn't be surprised: there's NO anti-cheat yet, so it's naturally easy to cheat! :)

No-one forces you to play on public servers only. If you get nuked by TKer or cheater so often, you could always play on passworded servers and even better, join a community and play with them. Problem solved. :)

I run 3 servers, and we run a large community.. with so few contents in the long run playing in a closed room is pretty boring. Anyway the problem isn't me, if anyone closes their servers, we'll end to have even less players than today.

Regarding to the beta testing, could you please determine what are the factors that make the testing in public enviroments necessary and above all,

The fact that they have opted for an open alpha? :)

We're living the Q2 of 2013 already.

It will end in June, we still have 3 months to go.. assuming they'll respect the dead lines.

The customers have been notified about the nature of concept with A3 Alpha multiple times during the purchase, so I wonder why it would be fault of BIS when they start to complain about the game.

I didn't said the customers weren't properly informed.. i'm pointing the fact that we PURCHASED a product: they have joined the "Steam early acccess"... that is different that simply pre-ordering a game (the playable alpha is the incentive to have ppl spending their money).

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I didn't said the customers weren't properly informed.. i'm pointing the fact that we PURCHASED a product: they have joined the "Steam early acccess"... that is different that simply pre-ordering a game (the playable alpha is the incentive to have ppl spending their money).

They purchased a work in progress, the product of which is released some time at the end of the year. In return for feedback, playing early and putting up with a great deal of teething problems, they get a reduced price and are granted access to play it early. That's what we have all agreed to, regardless if you decided to read up on it or not.

I understand people have different expectations of an Alpha, and as they always will, but I do struggle to reach the same notion people have of feeling that they've been cheated out of a complete product of some sort. That's never been on offer, has it?

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I don't agree with you.

You don't have to agree with me.. eheh.. go on UC register, download the cheats and launch em, it's not that hard. Neither i can attach the cheats to this post to show to you how it's easy to cheat now (havin signed on or off won't make any diff).. and you shouldn't be surprised: there's NO anti-cheat yet, so it's naturally easy to cheat! :)

No-one forces you to play on public servers only. If you get nuked by TKer or cheater so often, you could always play on passworded servers and even better, join a community and play with them. Problem solved.

I run 3 servers, and we run a large community.. with so few contents in the long run playing in a closed room is pretty boring. Anyway the problem isn't me, if anyone closes their servers, we'll end to have even less players than today.

I understand your point about playing in closed room, I like to play on public servers pretty lot too because of the random people who I meet there. But do you think that if more servers had controlled access, all the players would be brainless amebas and would not do anything about the situation, like to go to the websites or to join the Teamspeak servers that are shown in server titles in the server list in order to get to play on those servers?

Regarding to the beta testing, could you please determine what are the factors that make the testing in public enviroments necessary and above all,

The fact that they have opted for an open alpha? :)

You cut my sentence (on purpose maybe?), so I'll ask the whole question again: Regarding to the beta testing, could you please determine what are the factors that render the testing in public enviroments necessary and above all, testing on servers with controlled access invalid? What are the factors that render the testing with eg. 30 ppl who you know invalid compared to 30 ppl that you don't know? I tried to imagine those but couldn't name a single one. Controlled access to the server doesn't mean restrictions in the game itself. With that logic every game out there that hasn't had public beta (or alpha) should be completely rubbish because of poor testing.

As response to the "the fact that they have opted for an open alpha": Why can't there be open alpha that is tested also on servers with controlled access? Do you think that the purpose of open alpha is to let players to test the game on public servers or overall to let the players to test the game?

We're living the Q2 of 2013 already.

It will end in June, we still have 3 months to go.. assuming they'll respect the dead lines.

The customers have been notified about the nature of concept with A3 Alpha multiple times during the purchase, so I wonder why it would be fault of BIS when they start to complain about the game.

I didn't said the customers weren't properly informed.. i'm pointing the fact that we PURCHASED a product: they have joined the "Steam early acccess"... that is different that simply pre-ordering a game (the playable alpha is the incentive to have ppl spending their money).

I don't quite understand your last sentences about the purchasing and stuff, but I'll repeat myself: you have been told during the purchase what you're going to get. If you didn't read the contract but confirmed it, it's your fault. If you didn't understand the contract and the concept and knew it but confirmed the deal, it's your fault. The people who simply don't understand what they are purchasing shouldn't be able to purchase anything at all. The playable Alpha is an incentive, of course. BIS is a company and its goal is to make living by making money, it's the goal (to be more accurate, at least living condition) of every company out there.

But are you claiming BIS as greedy company? I don't know if you do, but I don't think they are. They're everything but greedy company in my opinion (see my other post here). Many companies out there release unfinished products and sell the bug fixes and necessary content as DLCs to unfinished products. EA is a good example of that kind of company. So you pay more and get less (the full BF3 may cost up to 200 euros (!!)). It's the exact opposite to current BIS, that lets you to play more with cheaper price, and as a bonus to really affect the development progress if you're willing to! And that's why I love this company; they love us customers.

Edited by Ezcoo

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If you don't like how the game is now then don't play it :p wait for it's proper stable release after all the alpha and beta testing is done, It will cost more then so be happy you saved a few quid :)

Personally i'm loving A3 :D we run a public server and do have arseholes spoiling things but the regular players know it will be sorted, once the scripter is found they are banned and we continue playing.

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Just have to agree with the signature Radioman when it comes to signature checking. It may not be a perfect solution and some people might be able to circumvent it but from my experience it does reduce the amount of cheaters quite a lot, so the question is, why isn't it used to a greater extent by server admins? I'm new to Arma 3 (and the whole Arma series for that matter) so maybe I've missed something but what would be a legit reason for having modified game files?

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Just have to agree with the signature Radioman when it comes to signature checking. It may not be a perfect solution and some people might be able to circumvent it but from my experience it does reduce the amount of cheaters quite a lot, so the question is, why isn't it used to a greater extent by server admins? I'm new to Arma 3 (and the whole Arma series for that matter) so maybe I've missed something but what would be a legit reason for having modified game files?

Again, it won't "reduce" anything. Signature check is supposed to kick ppl with modified pbo's, and do you think that someone that has enough brain to understand what's a pbo and to modify the contents of it for its own "hacking" purpose, wouldn't be capable of typing "pbo hider" on google? C'mon ppl!

Signature checks not used? It's because actually IT IS KICKING THE LEGIT PLAYERS ... most of the servers admin have disabled it because it's kicking out 30% of the userbase with the "signature check timeout" message, and it means that your server will be left empty in a short time (coz ppl will be bored of trying to join over and over again). I left it active on my servers, but it doesn't change anything, cheaters and mass-killers everywhere... nor that i care atm, i left the servers running there waiting for better times, if there will be.

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**snip**

I can understand alot of what you are saying mate, but some of the stuff is kinda strange tbh.

Take the skiddies, most of them are stupid, very stupid. Dont mistake them for the actual people who make the hacks, they are smart.

But most of the time when a dude comes along and nukes your server, hes not smart. He just found a website where he could download a step by step guide, on how to setup and use the cheat, but most of them have no idea how the actual cheat works.

I hosted alot of servers in A2, and 90% of everybody that was cheating, did it so obvious, with the same cheats, that you would spot them fast, thats not clever tbh.

Next is the Q2 stuff, how do you know it will be June? Arent there several months in Q2? Just because the Alpha Lite ends here, how do you know we will get a Beta Release?

It seems like you know a whole lot about how BI work and what content we will get and when.

Then the testing it self. Would like to know the answer to the question Ezcoo wrote aswell.

And if we have an open alpha with no AC, how can it be "ment" to be tested on open public servers or even "not ment" to be tested on closed servers, just because its an Open Alpha? Just dont get it tbh.

Its like bying a bike just to park it unlocked, and then complain someone stole it, because the manufacturer didnt provide a lock.

I mean sure you can host a public server, but the chances of you finding bugs, and the cause of them, are extremly tiny, because you are having a hard time knowing if its a hacker or an actual bug in the game, thats fucking with you.

At this stage in the development i would mean a controlled enviorement is the best place to hunt down bugs and figure out what causes it, so one can post a proper bug report.

I also think a locked PW'd server with 30 people you know, have a higher chance of spotting the bugs, simply because you try more different stuff then most public ones (example: 85% of ALL servers run Wasteland atm) and you trust people more, so you can figure out whats a bug and whats not faster.

Im not saying it has to be like this in the entire development fase, but right now its the best way to "use" Arma III. At least untill the servers get some kind of AC.

And now the kicker hehe.

You did NOT buy an alpha...

You bought a finished product and got early acces to the development builds. Many of the people who bought the game, did so because its cheaper now, then it will be in a year, NOT because they wanted to buy an Alpha or test the development builds.

So the whole "i purchaced a product" is kinda invalid at this point, because you have payed for the final product and not the testing fases.

You simply CHOOSE to play the alpha because you want, but you dont have to.

You can wait a year and then play the final game and THEN complain about you spending money, but at this point you have bought the final product, so you cant complain about "your right as a costumer" untill it actually gets released.

You can however, try to help BI make it a better game by giving constructive critism and posting proper bug reports.

I think you have way to high expectation of an alpha, we got extremly limited content, no AC and alot of bugs, but you complain about theese exact things, even though theres labels all over the place, telling you its not final and it will be subject to change.

Also the amount of players in the Alpha doesnt really matter at this time, so many people posted bug reports now so BI have a ton of stuff to do.

They will do it, with 500 players testing the game or 10.000 players, it doesnt really matter.

What matters is the "real" testers, thoose who provide feedback on the actual game content at this time, and not thoose who complain about stuff we dont even have yet.

Thoose who wants to test, will test, and thoose who doesnt want it, will stay away.

Regardless of cheating and hacking.

Im also 100% confident BI didnt release this Alpha for us to set up 100's of public servers with no AC and then complain about it.

Edited by Byrgesen

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