Do You want PunkBuster in Armed Assault?

[A.K. 0]

nah don't add PB, it's worthless, like a condom with the tip cut off serves no purpose what so ever, it might stop some cheats but it can't keep up.

[Guest]

Quake 4 to use Punkbuster

One more to PB's list.

Last night i was playing AA on an OFFICIAL server when someone who was cheating quiet blatantly sniping 2-3 people at once in different places    , HACKED the server somehow when people decided to vote kick him out he hanged the whole server and everyone had to disconnect as the game was totally stuck. I hate this kind of losers.

And the official army server was running PB updated   .

Since Quake3 uses it, this was a no-brainer. If you've seen any of the shakey-cam footage of Quake4 from QCON then you may have noticed they had PB switched off there

[shinRaiden 0]

How would you implement an anti-cheat system in the OFP environment? There is lots of discussion about server-side management, with requests for more PB-like integration, but is that really the full answer?

OFP is such a modder's game with the ability to run raw dynamic content, that it lends itself readily to advanced hacking methods, which often are similar in logic if not functionality to development steps.

The biggest problem I see is to develop content you'd need to disable some or all of the anti-cheat measures to avoid being PB'd. Frankly, the only way you could play MP then would be to have a very strict clean install, with a few premier mods that are relatively stable. The majority of the mods being chaotic or anarchistic in release management would seriously impact the functionality of a PB-style anti-cheat system.

On the other hand, perhaps implementing it would force the community to manage their addons at a higher quality level.

I doubt though that BIS would license an external system like this though, they seem to prefer to develop as much as possible in house, even when there's modules on the market already.

[EiZei 0]

Overzealous anti-cheat systems that slows down the game and get you permbanned for having mods/custom hacks/weird display drivers while doing worth shit preventing actual cheating? No thanks.

The only anti-cheat solution is to stick to servers you are familiar with and stop playing with random 12-year-olds.

[Dwarden 1124]

Since Quake3 uses it, this was a no-brainer. If you've seen any of the shakey-cam footage of Quake4 from QCON then you may have noticed they had PB switched off there

sure ... they will have switched on something what is not yet finished ... ) ...

that's like await that car prototype on trade show is 100% functional ...

and Q4 is just one many upcoming ...

[4 IN 1 0]

How would you implement an anti-cheat system in the OFP environment? There is lots of discussion about server-side management, with requests for more PB-like integration, but is that really the full answer?

OFP is such a modder's game with the ability to run raw dynamic content, that it lends itself readily to advanced hacking methods, which often are similar in logic if not functionality to development steps.

The biggest problem I see is to develop content you'd need to disable some or all of the anti-cheat measures to avoid being PB'd. Frankly, the only way you could play MP then would be to have a very strict clean install, with a few premier mods that are relatively stable. The majority of the mods being chaotic or anarchistic in release management would seriously impact the functionality of a PB-style anti-cheat system.

On the other hand, perhaps implementing it would force the community to manage their addons at a higher quality level.

I doubt though that BIS would license an external system like this though, they seem to prefer to develop as much as possible in house, even when there's modules on the market already.

thats kind of sure, as unlike many other games other which made profit the first place, BIS is more likely to work on its own dream, and that force them to work most of the thing inhouse, just to fit their dream

[Kuja- 0]

PB is wholly useless.

In CS it was ineffective; the only cheats it detected were week old noobs who thought downloading year old hacks would fool everyone into thinking they had pro skillz.

In AA it was illustrative; not only did it completely fail to stop any cheating, but it became the major route for exploits, allowing servers to be crashed, players to be kicked, text flooding and so on. In something like 6 months, a single update was released that only managed to stop the exploits allowing people to mass-kick.

In Q3A it was the same. It was a hassle for legitimate players and did nothing to stop cheats.

I can't think of any others, but why would BIS possibly want attach that fucking useless bit of software to AA.

[Madus_Maximus 0]

The OFP game style is one of those things that really makes most cheats useless anyway, and very easy to detect by the other players on the server. e.g. if someone won't die from say 4 shots and has no sign of blood then you know something is amis, or if they never seem to reload, or have things that you know aren't in the mission like a tank. The game itself is an anti-cheat system of sorts because it's not a massively fast paced shoot at whatever moves whilst running around like a moron jumping all over to avoid being hit straifing in a circle crap.

I hope they don't use PB, but use their own. That way it'll be harder to hack because it's less well known. All PB games use the same core coding and it's everywhere. At least if BIS made their own they'd know the code inside out and be able to quickly see what has been exploited and find a fix for it (more work for good old sleep deprived Ondrej... poor sod).

PunkBuster is the cheap lazy way out. Look at who use it, it's mainly the big gaming devs, and we all know most of the big boys are lazy when it comes to content *coughea* so why would they bother making a cheat thing that works themselves when they can use one thats already there and exploited already so they can then say they're making a new addon pack to "fix" it.

[Dwarden 1124]

PB is wholly useless.  

In CS it was ineffective; the only cheats it detected were week old noobs who thought downloading year old hacks would fool everyone into thinking they had pro skillz.

In AA it was illustrative; not only did it completely fail to stop any cheating, but it became the major route for exploits, allowing servers to be crashed, players to be kicked, text flooding and so on.  In something like 6 months, a single update was released that only managed to stop the exploits allowing people to mass-kick.

In Q3A it was the same.  It was a hassle for legitimate players and did nothing to stop cheats.

I can't think of any others, but why would BIS possibly want attach that fucking useless bit of software to AA.

please stop using PunkBuster CS version first ... it's like compare game from 2000 with game from 2006 ...

PB in CS was program w/o any tie or access to game engine code thus limited like hell ...

yet it was still more effective than VAC.

Also PB for CS was not much different than Cheating Death in that times ... do You complain same about CD ? By this style You will need to complain about "any" anticheat software ...

In Americas Army is problem completely different as PB can't stop problems which are coming from mistakes directly in game engine code ...

so if You wanna whine and cry about ... send comments to AA dev team not EBI dev team ...

i suggest You reconsider what are You saying after new AA version release and PB updates to match that version ...

And seriously w/o PB ... AA or Q3 "public" multiplayer will be already turned into unplayable mess (You sure noticed Q3 sourcecode is freely available by ID and as cheat programmer You can find there even more than is known about Unreal Engine 2.5)

and WTH is Your problem anyway ... PUNKBUSTER IS OPTIONABLE ... that mean ADMIN and PLAYER can DISABLE IT!

Including it is "bonus" NOT curse ! ...

Seems like people will whine about anything anytime ...

[Dwarden 1124]

The OFP game style is one of those things that really makes most cheats useless anyway, and very easy to detect by the other players on the server. e.g. if someone won't die from say 4 shots and has no sign of blood then you know something is amis, or if they never seem to reload, or have things that you know aren't in the mission like a tank. The game itself is an anti-cheat system of sorts because it's not a massively fast paced shoot at whatever moves whilst running around like a moron jumping all over to avoid being hit straifing in a circle crap.

I hope they don't use PB, but use their own. That way it'll be harder to hack because it's less well known. All PB games use the same core coding and it's everywhere. At least if BIS made their own they'd know the code inside out and be able to quickly see what has been exploited and find a fix for it (more work for good old sleep deprived Ondrej... poor sod).

PunkBuster is the cheap lazy way out. Look at who use it, it's mainly the big gaming devs, and we all know most of the big boys are lazy when it comes to content *coughea* so why would they bother making a cheat thing that works themselves when they can use one thats already there and exploited already so they can then say they're making a new addon pack to "fix" it.

In game like Armed Assault

which is mainly about ability to cover and aim  ...

will be cheats very valued and demanded ...

due to ability then see thru "objects, terrain, vegetation" or radars or aimbots and aiming helpers (ie for hi angle grenade trajectories) ...

trust me if ArmAs is at least as popular as OFP/OFPR then there will be TONs of cheats and any "public" server will be infested ...

and

internal anti-cheat is nice dream ... but will be BIS developers able update it daily or weekly when "cheater release spree" happens ? ...

PB updates on based multiple level system ...

silent backgroudn updates like antivirus software (small definitions) then main definitions and scan modules then program itself (server and client standalone again) ...

[olemissrebel 0]

It doesnt matter if i want or or hate it, we all know BIS won't use it.

[Kam2000 0]

I voted yes!!!

I don't care if it's PB or others anticheats but the important is that we MUST have a good anticheats or the game will dead after about... uhm... maximum 2 weeks!

And will be the same of OfP now!

ufff... always the same discussion but never a good action!

I'm bored!

[Moving Target 0]

The OFP game style is one of those things that really makes most cheats useless anyway, and very easy to detect by the other players on the server. e.g. if someone won't die from say 4 shots and has no sign of blood then you know something is amis, or if they never seem to reload, or have things that you know aren't in the mission like a tank. The game itself is an anti-cheat system of sorts because it's not a massively fast paced shoot at whatever moves whilst running around like a moron jumping all over to avoid being hit straifing in a circle crap.

completely agree with you, the only problem comes when people spawn tanks everywhere, and crash servers.

However, as has been touched on before, some addons are not as stable as possible, and thus might cause conflict with PB as it sees a potential cheat. Last point is the amount of addons people have, after 3 years my addon folder has grown to 1 1/2 GB. Is PB going to have to trawl through this to find errors in .PBO's?

[Kuja- 0]

PB is wholly useless.

In CS it was ineffective; the only cheats it detected were week old noobs who thought downloading year old hacks would fool everyone into thinking they had pro skillz.

In AA it was illustrative; not only did it completely fail to stop any cheating, but it became the major route for exploits, allowing servers to be crashed, players to be kicked, text flooding and so on. In something like 6 months, a single update was released that only managed to stop the exploits allowing people to mass-kick.

In Q3A it was the same. It was a hassle for legitimate players and did nothing to stop cheats.

I can't think of any others, but why would BIS possibly want attach that fucking useless bit of software to AA.

please stop using PunkBuster CS version first ... it's like compare game from 2000 with game from 2006 ...

PB in CS was program w/o any tie or access to game engine code thus limited like hell ...

yet it was still more effective than VAC.

Also PB for CS was not much different than Cheating Death in that times ... do You complain same about CD ? By this style You will need to complain about "any" anticheat software ...

In Americas Army is problem completely different as PB can't stop problems which are coming from mistakes directly in game engine code ...

so if You wanna whine and cry about ... send comments to AA dev team not EBI dev team ...

i suggest You reconsider what are You saying after new AA version release and PB updates to match that version ...

And seriously w/o PB ... AA or Q3 "public" multiplayer will be already turned into unplayable mess (You sure noticed Q3 sourcecode is freely available by ID and as cheat programmer You can find there even more than is known about Unreal Engine 2.5)

and WTH is Your problem anyway ... PUNKBUSTER IS OPTIONABLE ... that mean ADMIN and PLAYER can DISABLE IT!

Including it is "bonus" NOT curse ! ...

Seems like people will whine about anything anytime ...

Well, uh *scratches head* thanks for that incoherent fanboy rant. I still fail to see the point of including PB at all if it is ineffective in practice, irrespective of the [incorrect] reasons to which you ascribe the failure.

P.S. CD was just as impotent as Punkbuster. That they both failed to stop cheating does not justify the failure, nor does it help much at the current time.

[EiZei 0]

I voted yes!!!

I don't care if it's PB or others anticheats but the important is that we MUST have a good anticheats or the game will dead after about... uhm... maximum 2 weeks!

And will be the same of OfP now!

ufff... always the same discussion but never a good action!

I'm bored!  

If games get killed "in couple of weeks" if theres no effective anti-cheat system there should be no popular games at all.

Quote[/b] ]

It doesnt matter if i want or or hate it, we all know BIS won't use it.

Good, because BIS knows they should'nt waste any time or money on this crap.

[4 IN 1 0]

for me PB is kind of "better then none" way on the anti-cheating, not really THAT useful, as even the game might/might not get MIA "in couple of weeks", i am pretty sure that PB is going to be cracked within one or so week(s), and as i said b4, you cant really get the real a$$hole who do these kind of crap

[Col. Rotten 0]

I voted No on PB.

I play sometimes on public servers and I don't mind if people cheat. That will be a reason for me to leave a server because it will be not much of a challenge playing against people who use cheats.So I try to remember people who cheat are not doing something illigal. On my own server I am used to let the hammer of Justice fall. I haven't banned someone and I probably never will. So no PB. we don't need it at all

[EiZei 0]

for me PB is kind of "better then none" way on the anti-cheating, not really THAT useful, as even the game might/might not get MIA "in couple of weeks", i am pretty sure that PB is going to be cracked within one or so week(s), and as i said b4, you cant really get the real a$$hole who do these kind of crap

Just a question, have you used dxdll or any modifications that modify the default game itself?

[XeLSiS 0]

I voted no, in the case of adding some sort of security protocal to the game, a much better idea would be, to have a "Steam" sort of thing that you can edit MOD to run off of also so that my idea, n2m the updates are automatic saving the hastle of game version messing up.

But as to PunkBuster, no, its been cracked so I no longer trust it.

@ TKC HACKERS

[Dwarden 1124]

I voted no, in the case of adding some sort of security protocal to the game, a much better idea would be, to have a "Steam" sort of thing that you can edit MOD to run off of also so that my idea, n2m the updates are automatic saving the hastle of game version messing up.

But as to PunkBuster, no, its been cracked so I no longer trust it.

 @  TKC HACKERS

btw what does Steam have have with PB ... Steam = content delivery solution (digital online data distribution) ... NOT anticheat ...

and VAC2 , well noone except authors knows how it works but surely it's not much different from PB (ie not unbeatable or perfect)

PB itself was cracked ? public ? where ... got any code ? k thx

[XeLSiS 0]

well the Steam delivers constant anti-cheat updates so therefore it dosnt have to release a new patch every week...

anyway, PB is broken to people who know how to defend against it, all they do is block access to the modified file and then PB cant scan it and dosnt therefore do anything.

[Dwarden 1124]

well the Steam delivers constant anti-cheat updates so therefore it dosnt have to release a new patch every week...

anyway, PB is broken to people who know how to defend against it, all they do is block access to the modified file and then PB cant scan it and dosnt therefore do anything.

Steam (read VAC2) delivers anticheat updates at same basis like PB:

- main core updates before You are even able play game...

- background (silent) updates for detection rules

and there is another difference when Steam master servers are down u can't play MP ...

but you still can play MP if PunkBuster master servers are down ...

so i see no point in that compare with because they totally different ...

i think You mismatch VAC2(anticheat for Source engine) with Steam (content delivery network/complete solution)

about these "avoiding solutions"

well seems You not heard about silent (delayed) bans and Hardware ID bans right ) ...

[OFPDude 0]

NO times 100,000,000 !!!!!!!

I dont use anything that won't allow me to play games without being logged into windows under an administrators account. Punkbuster boots you from games.

Steam is a total waste of time and lies about how far it's update progress is.

Above all, none of em work....cheats and hackers can get round these systems in no time....software can be reversed engineered and is too easy to crack.

Software Anti-Cheating systems don't work period !!!! they just add more latency and waste harddisk/cpu resources.

[Dwarden 1124]

NO times 100,000,000 !!!!!!!

I dont use anything that won't allow me to play games without being logged into windows under an administrators account. Punkbuster boots you from games.

Steam is a total waste of time and lies about how far it's update progress is.

Above all, none of em work....cheats and hackers can get round these systems in no time....software can be reversed engineered and is too easy to crack.

Software Anti-Cheating systems don't work period !!!! they just add more latency and waste harddisk/cpu resources.

You can play fine w/o admin or power user account ...

another person who failed to even look on what rights are need and how set user to have them ...

       

[scruffy 21]

I can understand both sides here, but I have also voted "no". The simple reason is that with my current OFP install I think I wouldn't be able to play on any server.

From modified islands over custom animations and selfmade replacement configs to altered addons (sounds, config settings, etc.), I don't think PB would ever let me play like that.

And I don't think that's only my OFP, at least some anims and a skypack are somehow standard (one of the hundreds of variants) and since release I and nearly everyone I know haven't ever played without DXDLL.

wrong ... u can configure PB to accept any file change You as admin want to be used for game ... this include also allowing multiple versions of 1 file (e.g. low res, med res, hi res texture or model file etc)

I want to see the admin who fiddles with the settings so that only half of the common addons are going to work. Poor guy

I think only the tweaked configs for some planes (from mouse to joystick sensitivity) would get me kicked before I see the welcome message. And if it is allowed to modify a file it's easy to abuse that right, so why the check anyway?

and WTH is Your problem anyway ... PUNKBUSTER IS OPTIONABLE ... that mean ADMIN and PLAYER can DISABLE IT!

Including it is "bonus" NOT curse ! ...

Actually I think not many Admins would disable it on a public server, so your somehow forced to activate it to find a decent server without limiting your choice.

Another thing would be the performance. Think about you actually managed to find a server with that full conversion mod you liked and it runs that CTI. Just thinking about my performance if PB tries to check all those addons and scripts... (Actually, even thinking about it without PB makes me shiver )

And yes, I have seen cheaters, but as I play mainly coop surviving a few hits from a 30mm or playing further as a corpse are, especially with KEGs spectator script, pretty obvious. And an id ban is a good choice and already there without PB.

It's already hard to find a server running with the addons you like and there are enough problems with missing/incorrect/modified addons already. If its modified you get and you get a message the others can see it and decide if they want to believe you it's not a cheat.

On the other hand I see the problems with league play and competitive maps like hexenkessel, but as I normally don't play these the negative effects overweigh for me.

As a conclusion I would say that no protection hasn't yet bin broken and PB or any other for ArmA will be the first to achieve that. So I would prefer an advanced system from the one already in use, there's no way to 100% protect a game and there are enough people who can ruin it without a cheat.

Freedom and diversity before security I say