Armed Assault Anticheats!!!

[DBR_ONIX 0]

One thing... How much does it cost to use PunkBuster in a commercial game? (Like say Mr Blah creates a MP game, and uses PB, how much does PB cost). And how much would it cost to pay howevermany people to code a anti-cheat system?

I have no idea, but I can guess buying punkbuster will be a hell of a lot cheaper than coding your own, and it means you can spend time patching your game, rather than the anti-cheat stuff..

Maybe that is part of the reasons PB is used..?

As for the ID Changer, you could do what Valve did, and force you to register the code to a user account, and encrypt the files and decrypt them only when you login and enter the keycode.. Which then means you can trade the game in, or take it to friends house to play, and to install it to an internet-less gaming PC your screwed..

[/HL2 rant]

@whoever said that you can't download games such as Doom 3 and Half Life 2, not true. Search on any P2P software and you get lots of results for cracked [game name here].. The tighter you lock a game down, the bigger the incentive is to crack it. But "subtle" things like OFP's FADE, IMHO, are more effictive, as people dont jump the the challenge of cracking something you see very little of. Where as with Valves complete-lock-down, people will instantly get annoyed at this, and try and find a way around, and most of the time, someone succeds..

Most anti-piracy/anti-cheat things are crackable, but BI are in the lucky position of not developing a "huge" game like HL2 or Doom3 (Super-Hyped* is maybe a better word ).

And "little" things like instead of having to make a trainer program to get invicibilty in Flashpoint, you can put a line of code in the mission..

One last thing, OFP is not like CSS, it's not about rankings, any game with a global ranking is asking to be screwed around with to get higher scores so that person can say "Hey look, I'm 1020302231 points above someotherguy"

Sorry if this post/bits of it doesn't make sense, I repeat my self or you disagree with any of it. It's a combination of what I personalbly think, and me screwing up because it's just before 00: 00

- Ben

[Moving Target 0]

Implementing PB in ArmA would just ruin the game, all the cheat communities know how it works, and ways to get around it, so it would be better if BIS made their own anti cheat. After all, they wrote the software so they should know how to keep it safe. That way, the cheaters would have to spend a lot of time finding ways around.

[Dwarden 1124]

...And PB is the best there is even if not perfect . But it must be costy to the publishers, plus once comercial games (unlike AA) stop selling or sales drop support also drops for obvious reasons   , while the developers may still continue to support their fan base and users (Bohemia ofcourse) its unlikely that the publisher will continue to support it and there it goes evenbalance updates stop coming...

So in the long run were will always be screwed, unless drastic measures including legal action are taken.

Hmm , i suggest You take look at pages of two oldest PB covered games  and what You see as last update date? ...

Quake 3

03.May.2005

Enemy Territory

15.June.2005

etc ...

and related to cost ... everything what eats programmers time, bandwidth will cost something ...

but You should take in mind EBI supports one free game (ET) and from multiple intervies they given and discussion it seems they got no problem to offer PB for another free project ...

but of course if "developers" willing to implement it ... (everything is up to developers and/or publisher) and that's where is usually fails ... not on EBI or UnitedAdmins or else ...

[Baphomet 0]

I don't support any counter cheat measure that causes lag. Period. Or at least one that can't be disabled so that people who don't have to worry about cheaters (me). Can play with less lag than those who have to.

[Moving Target 0]

PunkBuster can help get rid of these "ID" problems...

because PB GUID is generated from CDkey ... so if You ban that GUID his accounts "linked" to that CD key are out of order for Your server ...

same goes for PB global GUID bans ...

and best is HardwareUID bans are based over this so he is globally banned + his machine is banned ...

and all this fear about "PB" limiting "moddability" of game are nonsense ... it can be easily configured to work ...

best combination for cheat free enviroment :

- any important operation must be calculated OR/AND re-checked at server (preventing speedhacking, animation skipping, unlimited ammos, position cheats etc)

- correctly programmed client (preventing easy bytehacking and memory editing)

- some inbuild anticheat solution from developers (like file checksums , remote game variables control/checking etc)

- support for external but tied to engine anticheat (like PunkBuster), this will prevent D3D hooks and any advanced low level crap ...

- SDK support for 3rd party anticheat solution (ideally written in way to be able cooperate with PB (ie game module for client and server which is "COVERED" by PB against modification)

this way ... it will be close to perfect

I would just like to add that in Americas army (version 2.4) the hackers and cheaters are running amok. It is hard to find one game without someone with super nades or aim bot, and what does Punkbuster do? Nothing. You cant even kick them as they just take over admin, or some of them dont even have a PB GUID

[Dwarden 1124]

PunkBuster can help get rid of these "ID" problems...

because PB GUID is generated from CDkey ... so if You ban that GUID his accounts "linked" to that CD key are out of order for Your server ...

same goes for PB global GUID bans ...

and best is HardwareUID bans are based over this so he is globally banned + his machine is banned ...

and all this fear about "PB" limiting "moddability" of game are nonsense ... it can be easily configured to work ...

best combination for cheat free enviroment :

- any important operation must be calculated OR/AND re-checked at server (preventing speedhacking, animation skipping, unlimited ammos, position cheats etc)

- correctly programmed client (preventing easy bytehacking and memory editing)

- some inbuild anticheat solution from developers (like file checksums , remote game variables control/checking etc)

- support for external but tied to engine anticheat (like PunkBuster), this will prevent D3D hooks and any advanced low level crap ...

- SDK support for 3rd party anticheat solution (ideally written in way to be able cooperate with PB (ie game module for client and server which is "COVERED" by PB against modification)

this way ... it will be close to perfect

I would just like to add that in Americas army (version 2.4)  the hackers and cheaters are running amok.  It is hard to find one game without someone with super nades or aim bot, and what does Punkbuster do?   Nothing.  You cant even kick them as they just take over admin, or some of them dont even have a PB GUID  

Maybe You should ask AA developers why they left holes in engine code allowing cheaters do whatever they want ...

because primary PB was NOT hired to "fix" engine code bugs and exploits !

yes PB does cover some but it's not as easy as You think as PB is not "fully" integrated into Unreal Engine as it should be ...

again that's problem more for AA game developers than EBI developers of PB ...

of course YOU can kick them , what about if You use instead of UNREAL ENGINE based "votekick" PunkBuster's based pb_kick ...

also w/o PB in AA that game will be TOTALLY unplayable ...

at least now we can use checks on client variables using PB ....

IF some don't have PB GUID then that's problem of LAME AA Auth system not PB's fault and You can setup PB server config to kick such person (delay etc) ...

from what You wrote i assume You are not AA server admin at all ...

[Dwarden 1124]

I don't support any counter cheat measure that causes lag. Period. Or at least one that can't be disabled so that people who don't have to worry about cheaters (me). Can play with less lag than those who have to.

any today's AC system is "optionable" ... so i don't think this is reason to fear ... so You can always play on LAN or with trusted friends w/o it enabled ...

[Moving Target 0]

PB is anti cheat. If anti cheats cant stop cheats then whats the point paying for it, if the game has holes in ore not?

[sicilian 0]

PB is anti cheat.  If anti cheats cant stop cheats then whats the point paying for it, if the game has holes in ore not?

Because without anti cheats the cheaters can do ALWAYS what ever they want but with anti cheats they can only do their work as long as there are no updates for the anti cheat measurements out. Thats the point!

Leaving them without any riposte they will ruin a game in the shortest time.

[Kam2000 0]

PB is anti cheat.  If anti cheats cant stop cheats then whats the point paying for it, if the game has holes in ore not?

Because without anti cheats the cheaters can do ALWAYS what ever they want but with anti cheats they can only do their work as long as there are no updates for the anti cheat measurements out. Thats the point!

Leaving them without any riposte they will ruin a game in the shortest time.

And also because they can be caught

[Pyronick 21]

Punkbuster will ruin the game. I have never had a problem with cheaters in ofp.

You probably not but I had alot of cheaters, since 2002 or something those trainers went around big time.

Quite annoying when people are shooting RPG's as some sort of MLRS thing...

Or of course rocket spammage from city to city...

[luemmel 20]

Its nice to see that many players have good ideas to improve the game concerning anti cheat possibilities. but it would be fantastic if we can have some official informations to this big issue.

at the moment, ofp is not playable due to the fact of many cheats for every one, provided by the website --- cheat source link removed ---

So, from my point of view, these guys have modified the origin game and i would be happy to see if someone bring them to justice.

And if i heard that ArA will support the orign game in anyway, i am very afraight that wie will have these problems some days after release of this best game ever.

[ralphwiggum 6]

please do not post link to cheats, or mention them.

[Crazy_lenny 0]

please do not post link to cheats, or mention them.

This makes me kind of angry  

You guys are behaving as if this is a small problem while the community has COMPLETLY been DESTROYED.

U will not find a cheat free server anymore! All servers are infested with cheaters. Than we have the second fact that BIS only releases patches for the windows server(while linux servers are in the vast majority).

The only thing were ofp is still good for at this point is to make some addons or cheats and to test them, nothing more nothing less. league or squad play has become COMPLETLY IMPOSSIBLE

No we can't mention or say anything about it as if this will stop people from finding these very easely accessible cheats

Why don't you guys take legal action? those communites have registrated domain names. we know their webhost, we even have isp dailup names from several of those developers.

don't tell me that it is impossible for you when we can find this info very easely...... it is just that BIS doesn't care...

I am really sorry for this what offending post but it makes me REALLY unhappy/angry. BIS if you want to keep the largest part of communtiy they have to act now. Else they will loose a lot of people(and in the end, the only argument that apparently counts for them, you will sell much less games and make much less money)

[-TS-Varg 0]

We need a good anticheats for AA!

Please!

[Cycloon 0]

If we don't get a good Anticheat on AA, this game will be DOA.

For OFP it is ......

[luemmel 20]

sometimes i ask myself if bis has ever been played ofp online in the last 2 years. otherwise i cant understand that bis do not react in anyway concerning this huge problem.

for instance, ea / valve banned all servers / player accounts which have used modified server or game files. why can these companies use those possibilities and not BIS?

please, please BIS, do something against these cheating folks.

[FCOPZ-illuminator 0]

He Luemmel alter Kollege...

Take a look at this: New OFP Windows Dedi, posted yesterday.

Did you see that ?

BIS is very busy at the moment, so i can understand this...

[Dwarden 1124]

o.O ...

Quote[/b] ]1.96b - Improved: MP: Implemented more anti-cheat and anti-hacking measures.

sadly ... no "implemented PunkBuster as optionable anticheat solution " ...

that will so awsome ...

[dachrinne 0]

punkbuster would be great, and its downloaded in a few seconds

[korax 4]

Punkbuster

Too much of a hassle and not even 100% effective.

I play Ofp MP every day always cheat free, because I play on a server that consists of 90% regulars, the (rare) cheater that comes in can easily be found and kicked. (Also, the server having a gigabyte of addons seems to keep cheaters out)

Quote[/b] ]for instance, ea / valve banned all servers / player accounts which have used modified server or game files. why can these companies use those possibilities and not BIS?

They cant do that because the game is so easily moddable, and there are so many different versions of game files that its hard not to get a modified config message when playing on a server with addons.

[luemmel 20]

He Luemmel alter Kollege...

Take a look at this: New OFP Windows Dedi, posted yesterday.

Did you see that ?  

BIS is very busy at the moment, so i can understand this...

thx for info, it seems that some improvements were implemented. what i have found out so far is,

- no valid id's are blocked

- merged files are blocked

but i would prefer to log all the conection infos from the server into a file with the additional info of the connected ip. with this information we have the possibility to block special ips or ranges with the help of an ip blocker for live time :-)

but nevertheless, i see that we are on the right way, OFP rocks and i am waiting for ArA!  

[FCOPZ-illuminator 0]

Punkbuster not even 100% effective....

*hmpf* Punkbuster is a nice option, and works.

it's very effective ( if you can configure *g*)

Look ( screens taken with PB on our server ):

other PB Screen1

other PB Screen2

The mainproblem, it's not so easy to configure ( the first time *g* ), but then you will "catch" the most cheater....

[Placebo 28]

Please don't hotlink images over 100kb

[Kam2000 0]

I'm also really happy ( and disgusted ) that BIS don't move it ass in this 2 years that all ofp players and clans said ---> IT'S UNPLAYABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now all players and clans left OfP.

I don't know what we can do...

If we open a topic maybe BIS is happy because it have a new topic and discussion, so many posts and registered users...

But the problem is still not resolved after 2-3 years...

Maybe BIS don't care what we post but it care that we post.

ArA after 2 days will be like OfP NOW!!!

if BIS don't undestand, OfP like now we mean UNPLAYABLE!!!

follow this steps:

1) Open ASE

2) Check Servers with players ( if you find only one it's a miracle )

3) Join a game and play

IT'S UNPLAYABLE!!! U-N-P-L-A-Y-A-B-L-E from 2 years!!!! 2 YEARS!!!! 2 Y-E-A-R-S

It mean for 2 years you don't resolved the problem, you don't care what we all posted and asked, just 1 think!!!

ok let's see...

like always...

sometimes realease some patch ---> fixed some features

OfP community ask only 1 good anticheat ---> FIX CHEATS!!! FIX OFP!!! FIX ALL!!! FIX what you want but i want play ofp like 3-4 years ago.

uffff grrr