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Dwarden

Do You want PunkBuster in Armed Assault?

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Adding PunkBuster to ArMa would be completely pointless, as there are many people who already cheat in PunkBuster servers. All you need is a private cheat, i.e. one that nobody else has, and it will never catch you huh.gif

And please, no posts arguing this point,I can easily point anyone to many sites that offer these cheats for download(but I won't-so don't even ask mad_o.gif ), or supply you with the code, if you are a programmer. Some of the stuff currently availabe is:  anti PB screenshot, Hardware un-ban, Hardware spoofer. confused_o.gif

Anyway BIS should make their own anti-cheat, if they intend to use one. PB is already cracked as well as VAC, we need something new and improved. help.gif

that's already nothing new ... you can break ANY anticheat sooner or later ...

it's all about how well is coded, how easy to implement, how fast can be updated, ease to use for both players and admins, customizable for admins ...

you mentioned VAC ... but VAC is completely "VALVE" controlled ... as admin u get close to zero options (not even PB screenshot feature or ability adjust detections for files / variables etc) ...

it's known PBSS code is unperfect (rooting for D3D8/9 weaknesses) ... over time there were some improvements to that so let's hope they were not last ... DX10 could aid this again

HW spoofers ... they not so "easy" and "working" as claimed on many cheat forums ... 99.9% of cheat users never get 100% working one ...

completely new? well try it... You need go into kernel itself ... as low level drivers are still weak ... talk to MS about Vista smile_o.gif

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**warning - ramble **

JoinInProgress and a good fair admin is all you need to stop cheating. with join in progresds it doesnt matter so much if you kick or ban someone in a key position, teyll be replaced.

I have never, ever seen somebody cheat in OFP mutliplayer. not once. Granted I don't play tournaments, but if somebody cheats in a tournament you're ore likely to know who it is (if it's a well organised one).

The OFP community is just too close, one of the few communities where you can remember most of the people you see in forums, or in online games. It's just not a place for cheaters.

Maybe I'm living in a dream world, but I think the community alone is the only thing that can stop cheating. No armor can stop every weapon. If you make a defense, the cheaters will make something to break it. But if you keep the doors open, they're more likely to be civil.. and anyone who does hack a game with no protection will probably be forgetting to add their own protection from being indentified..

Also.. the amount of people that get modified file errors is uncountable, There are so many addons and mods for ofp that it's lmost impossible to keep track of them all, and nobody has the same settings as the server most times. Gettin the right addons to run an mp mission is hard enough as it is, with punkbuster it would be almost impossible.

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i agree totally with Dwarden 'cheating is killing MP games etc'!

too many hackin, cheatin ho's out there who think its fun to do these things.

some of the things ive read in these forums about people openly admitting that they would be sooo tempted to hack something if it was put in place to stop cheaters is beyond belief. banghead.gif

lets hope i never win the lottery cause i would be sooo tempted to pay someone to hunt down the hackin, cheating ho's biggrin_o.gif

Games are not cheap to buy and there may be some kids out there who cant afford to buy game after game to have them spoiled time after time by cheating fags. Of course cheating will never be stopped but Punkbusters i believe will help....

Have fun and stop the cheaters tounge2.gif

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A lot f the advances made in the operation flashpoint mod community were driven by the challenge of breaking down the walls of a slightly obtuse engne. When I first installed flashpint i never imagined that half of the stuff released for flashpoint was achievable. But the challenge is what drives people to do what they have done with OFP.

For example, a few years ago, back in the v1.30 patch I think it was, I downloaded a few scripts for fast roping. These were designed for v1.00 of OFP and used the 'allowDammage' command, which wa taken out in the first patch.

With the loss of that command people started believing a fast rope script would be impossible, so I set out to prove them wrong.

If you setPos a unit from a height above 7 metres to the ground the unit will be damaged, even if u setPos him down again below 7 metres, it still registers as a high fall.

I figured out that if I could setPos a vehicle just above the ground the exact same time the unit was supposed to come off the rope, put the unit in that vehicle and make him jump out again, then OFP wouldnot register it as a fall.

It was a pretty crazy workaround, but it worked, although not many people ever downloaded it, and BAS later used the same method... But the point is, the drive to break the barrier is what made me create the script. The same thing goes for hackers. Real ones anyway.

With a limitted and non-hyped protection system produced by BIS, those hackers won't be around to try and break the protection. With well known and over zealous protection systems like PunkBuster, they will try as hard as they can to break it. Purely for the challenge.

Having no challenge in the area of hacking with ArmA, they'll be more content to play the game without cheating (in theory) because then they have another kind of challenge.

And the other kind of cheaters, basically n00b players who aren't good enough to play without cheating, they'll be the kind of people that will forget to change their IP, people who you can slap with an IP ban.

This is all in theory though, and psychological theory is far from fool proof. Especially when you don't take much toime to do the theorizing. tounge2.gif

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With a limitted and non-hyped protection system produced by BIS, those hackers won't be around to try and break the protection. With well known and over zealous protection systems like PunkBuster, they will try as hard as they can to break it. Purely for the challenge.

Having no challenge in the area of hacking with ArmA, they'll be more content to play the game without cheating (in theory) because then they have another kind of challenge.

And the other kind of cheaters, basically n00b players who aren't good enough to play without cheating, they'll be the kind of people that will forget to change their IP, people who you can slap with an IP ban.

This is all in theory though, and psychological theory is far from fool proof. Especially when you don't take much toime to do the theorizing. tounge2.gif

Not everyone considers the PB as a challenge, people usually cheats to gain superiority over the other players or in clan wars or they just write cheats to be famous or for money!

Leaving the door open in such manner without strong anti-cheat system or something like it is a true suicide.

If every software firm specialized in the game industry brought such topic to public discussion and built their final decision upon it, I doubt that you would see all those PB supported games at evenbalance site.

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Quote[/b] ]they just write cheats to be famous or for money!

That would be like becoming famous for driving your car to work if the protection was limitted.

Ofp does not have a very advanced AC system, yet you barely see any cheating. Anyway, in turnaments I don't see what'sstopping somebody refereeing the games in spectator mode n kicking cheaters.

A good commnity is always the best defense against cheaters.

I say a definate no to PB.

Also hate waiting to play because of PB updates icon_rolleyes.gif

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That would be like becoming famous for driving your car to work if the protection was limitted.

Ofp does not have a very advanced AC system, yet you barely see any cheating. Anyway, in turnaments I don't see what'sstopping somebody refereeing the games in spectator mode n kicking cheaters.

So you think the amount of cheating in ofp is almost unnoticeable? wink_o.gif

Quote[/b] ]A good commnity is always the best defense against cheaters.

xCess? I don’t know how you evaluate a good gaming community or bad one, but in big gaming communities around a popular game there will be also smaller communities around, there cheating is usual practice.

Quote[/b] ]I say a definate no to PB.

Also hate waiting to play because of PB updates icon_rolleyes.gif

You making the PB looks like Microsoft update, I used to update those tiny PB files manually by executing the PB updater. That was never a problem the PB is not VAC after all.

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You can evaluate community by it's forums. OFP is the most civlised and helpful community I've seen, and cheating doesn't to be an issue, so changing the protection system doesn't seem to be an issue either.

IMHO

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You can evaluate community by it's forums. OFP is the most civlised and helpful community I've seen, and cheating doesn't to be an issue, so changing the protection system doesn't seem to be an issue either.

IMHO

Then you didnt play enough MP on public servers... wink_o.gif

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I play MP exclsively on pub servers, except when I'm helping to test.

But if the cheating problem is bigger than I thought I'd still prefer an AC system by BIS than Punkbuster. BIS is about the only software company I actually trust in any way whatsoever. And in my eperience I've seen much more cheating in America's Army and CS:Source than OFP (in which i've seen none)

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xcess ,

reply to Your post Mar. 13 2006,13:21:

problem is You always speak about game from past OFP/OFPR but not about future. By Your ratio Armed Assault ends with just bunch of hardcore fan players , i doubt this is what BIS is looking for . W/o being too optimistic let say target is min.2500 players at anytime / day online at public servers after release ...

reply to Your post Mar. 13 2006,22:36:

I already repeated multiple times in this thread PB is mod friendly (see BF1942, BF2, RTCW:ET etc) and if You need to utilize some "changes" beyond PB reconfigurability or break engine apart with D3D mods etc. You can always disable PB completely (server option) ...

so fearing PB will "drop" modding ability is wrong (plus You can apply same fear factor on any other AC solution)

about PB attracting cheaters and code breakers ... You wrong again... if BIS introduce own system and ArmAs become popular game THEN as result it will attract real code geniuses in cheat community why ? (because new system = new challenge) ...

so Catch 22 ... it will attract no matter what AC You going to use ... only what COUNT is game popularity (OFP/OFPR was NOT so popular in terms of MP numbers for masses) ... less popular game less cheats ...

reply to Your post Mar. 13 2006,23:23:

are You aware this "waiting for updates" got reason ? ... You sure don't want cheaters using custom / old versions of PB smile_o.gif

got problems with speed (defined to please 56k users) ?...

just use manual update (EvenBalance got specific tool for) at x mbit speed ...

and remember worst cheater is that one You can't discover at first look (aimbots with misfire rate, wallhacks / skinhacks , radar hacks not abused blindly) ...

you never saw cheater? ... prove it ... how You know? smile_o.gif

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yeh it is much harder to detect a cheater now but you know when you know crazy_o.gif

as for there not being many cheaters in the ofp community...i would like to know where XCess plays cuz we could maybe all go there and play whistle.gif

you maybe need to visit here: <link removed>

Its fags like these who have killed the game that we love and fags like these who will try to disrupt AA and any other popular game that is released (they call it fun), i have a different word for it but wont post it biggrin_o.gif

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Don't post that link on the forums please.

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I play MP exclsively on pub servers, except when I'm helping to test.

But if the cheating problem is bigger than I thought I'd still prefer an AC system by BIS than Punkbuster. BIS is about the only software company I actually trust in any way whatsoever. And in my eperience I've seen much more cheating in America's Army and CS:Source than OFP (in which i've seen none)

The PB is the best solution on the hand currently for Arma or game2, if the people in BIS have the time and recourses to develop and maintain powerful anti-cheat system like the PB by themselves well why not, but that’s a true headache! wink_o.gif

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Quote[/b] ]Also hate waiting to play because of PB updates icon_rolleyes.gif

then get something faster than 56k

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in my opinion, the choice has to be made looking to other online mp fps that are on the market... every damn game has a punkbuster support, or his own anticheating countermeasure...

dont wanna lag when connecting? just join un-protected servers... and have fun...

tell me how can manage a tournament, with prizes, when there can be half of teams using wallhacks, and aimbots and whatever they want...

u cant even take demos in ofp (obviously, u can in all other fps that came out b4 ofp... but who cares? who ever saw another fps... whats quake? counter strike? its just 150k ppl playing it... not that much...)

ppl make mods for every game, also with cheat support... and the difference... is just that everyplayer runs the same scripts and map... not the ones of his choice...

u dont really need an evenbalance punkbuster... valve, for example got his own VAC...

I always wondered, about how was possible to program a client sided fps... ofp was... and everycheat is possible... and more you lag, more ppl u hit in a "lag temporal space" totaly desynched from other players... thanks to this clientside decisions...

arma will be diffrent in that? will my client send the ammount of damage that my cheated gun just did? or maybe just send vector and class of weapon? who will decide who got hit first between x (30ms latency) and y(450ms) huh.gif the y client? or maybe server?

if not, will be a great single player simulation... nothing more

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the sensible consensus is that Arma must have some form of updatable Anti Cheat software

Whether it goes down the untested and more time consuming route of designing its own or decides to use a commercially available and popular program like Punkbuster is up to BIS - ultimately it is commercial sense that will dictate what happens nothing else

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To say that cheating won't be prevalent on ArmA is being a bit optimistic, I would guess this optimism comes from looking at the state of the OFP community.

Remember, OFP is a game over 5 years old, the kids don't wanna know about it. It's too tactical, and the game is seen as rather "clunky".

ArmA, when released, will be bought by the kids (or more likely downloaded) and the cheating subsection will emerge. To be sure, there will always be more straight players than crooked ones, but as we all know it only takes one goon to ruin a server. Until ArmA leaves the top 20 and becomes the domain of tactical players again, it will be like this. And it's no great surprise that BIS would rather the game stay as popular as possible for as long as possible smile_o.gif

So anti-cheat mechanisms are to be welcomed I think. PB is not so bad.

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Remember, OFP is a game over 5 years old, the kids don't wanna know about it. It's too tactical, and the game is seen as rather "clunky".

Armed Assault is going to be "tactical" also as far as i know.

ps. Imo punkbuster is one big pile of crap.

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I think BIS would have more success by creating their own anti-cheat rather than using a well established system like punkbuster. The reason is simple, punkbuster just doesn't work and it is well known by the cheat programmers. They know how it works and how to get around it, every time a change is made to it's cheat detection abilities they work around them and compromise not just one game but all games based on it. Systems like punkbuster are magnets for cheaters.

The very best way to combat cheating is to build those safeguards and mechanisms into the game engine itself. Many cheats exploit bad programming in the original game - not many game developers consider security in the same way that an OS or internet browser developer would.

Other cheats exploit the interface between the game and the lower level software/hardware. That's not hard to solve either, it just would require cooperation between hardware/OS manufacturers (NVidia, Microsoft etc). We all know M$ is lousy on this front!

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@ Aug. 10 2006,21:17)]
Remember, OFP is a game over 5 years old, the kids don't wanna know about it. It's too tactical, and the game is seen as rather "clunky".

Armed Assault is going to be "tactical" also as far as i know.

ps. Imo punkbuster is one big pile of crap.

But it has its good ideas, like pbss (screenshot). I think Arma has great MP potential and the new netcode and gamemode will atract a lot of players for the big battles, plus it will be our new game, i wouldnt like to see it abused and left to the dogs..

I think there should be an efective protection system, to ensure that the players have a good MP experience, because the open endness of the game will leave it very open for exploit confused_o.gif .

Protecting code is impossible, having a legitimate way to catch the ofender and ban their i.p. and CD key sounds more efective, pbss allows you to take and submit a screenshot of the possible ofender, wich will give you evidence if he's cheating or not, with this a "Great list of MP assholes" can be made and the information passed on betwean server admins smile_o.gif .

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@ Aug. 10 2006,22:17)]
Remember, OFP is a game over 5 years old, the kids don't wanna know about it. It's too tactical, and the game is seen as rather "clunky".

Armed Assault is going to be "tactical" also as far as i know.

Um, yes it is going to be tactical. Was there some wiggle room for doubt for you? wink_o.gif

Quote[/b] ]

ps. Imo punkbuster is one big pile of crap.

PunkBuster may not be perfect, but it's pretty far from a pile of crap. Unless you need to cheat, natch.

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Certainly the most effective way to dissuade cheating is to permanently ban a confirmed cheater from all servers. band.gif

This generally means a central server registration of all banned CD keys which game servers periodically connect to and update their ban lists against. (This method is lower bandwidth and puts less strain on the central server than checking every player as they connect against the central server.)

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