It has taken a long while, but it seems the master plan of netCoders has finally culminated to its ultimate destination in where it will prove that PunkBuster is a faulty product. And for the first time, I see some justification for their actions, even a small sense of thankfulness is soaring though my minds. Seriously!
Why?
As an admin for a long time, I have seen how cheat makers have advanced on Punkbuster. In corporate terms, the cheat makers have innovated much harder, based on their sheer determination to prove a point. They can beat the system.
With many hackers in the world, it has not been about hurting the population. In fact, hacker's first drive is to the world that they can control a system, which is trusted blindly by an entire population to safeguard "its world". It is that sheer challenge of being better than another software developer.
In essence, Punkbuster has been providing us with an outdated product that is barely updated or innovated in order to be that one step ahead they were 4-6 years ago. Indirectly, we are paying for their services. When we buy the game, a portion of that money is used to pay Even Balance for their service, which they have offered to game developers/publishers as its anti cheat program. The game developers buy a service contract for a certain duration of a few years, in which Even Balance is obliged to keeping this game "clean" for that period.
As you have seen with ET and RtCW, the amount of PunkBuster updates have seriously diminished over time, which meant that the game developer/publisher did not renew its service contract with EvenBalance that this old game was being kept cheat-free.
We have never complained about this service. While we have seen PunkBuster losing the battle against cheat makers for years in a row now, we have barely complained for the fact that we get no value for our money.
Normally, if you buy a faulty mp3 player, you go back to its store to ask for a refund or a replacement. For some reason, we have accepted the fact that PunkBuster simply cannot cope with the developments of the cheat makers.
However, is that true? Would it really be impossible to be that step ahead of cheat makers/hackers, even if that would be only temporary? More importantly, do we as paying customers really accept being offered such a shitty service?
In effect, they are making people aware of what is going on. It might put this issue on bigger agenda's rather than just some anti-cheat admins.
In effect, they might be at the forefront of waking up the gaming world that Punkbuster is doing a crap job while cashing in on our money.
This is where netCoders have come in and perhaps some small degree of props is owed to them.
Whatever happens from now on and it might get interesting tomorrow, it might also have a positive effect helping every gaming community in the long run.
Some people will say this is complete bullshit and nC are still trying to kill ET. Just bare with me for four more paragraphs.
Continuing in a corporate context, although nC has been shouting it would try to kill ET, it surely can never have been their true intentions. The primary satisfaction of a cheat maker is the sole challenge of 'beating the system', cracking a code and I doubt that it is not any different over at nC.
However, a very close second has become the money they have been earning in selling their cheats. I think that Pansemuckl and his friends perfectly realize that if it would kill ET or any other Punkbuster game for that matter, it would kill its market. It's entire economic system of revenues will crumble to the ground leaving them with the sole thought that they killed their source of income. They might have succeeded in cracking a program or code, but meanwhile they have also killed the entire catch-and-mouse game of trying to crack the PB updates and code, add new features and so on.
The nC have called it a 'holy war' and although the term 'holy' might be over exaggerated, its attacks can be justified to a certain degree.
I bet that nC feels that it can do anything with PunkBuster as it pleases. Just with any other hacker, once they have reached that point, their urge to win the challenge has vaporized. The only thing then left is to claim the victory, hopefully triggering a new cycle of challenges.
By claiming this victory, game developers, publishers and gamers will recognize the real failure of PunkBuster. More optimistically, Punkbuster might be pressured by its clients such as Infinityward for CoD4, id Software for Quake 4 and SplashDamage for ET:QW to put more effort in safeguarding their games. Because, if this continues, the game developers will end up being hurt furthermore when gamers quit playing its game, losing the loyalty gamers have to for example the ET or CoD sequels.
And when PunkBuster will start innovating its anti-cheat program again, then the key challenge for cheat makers is back...trying to crack the code once again. Then...the race is back on.
We will have a better functioning anti-cheat system and the game might be significantly cleaner in the competitive segment of the game and nC have their new challenges.
Time will tell, if we owe them a little bit of props...
Ow btw as a final statement: We don't need them. In fact, we don't even want them. But the best thing is, they need us, both clean players and cheaters...Just think about it for a minute and you will know this is true. If you don't understand why, just pm me ;)
But our community is so fucked up, look at warsow when someone cheats it gets mentioned and nobody wants to play them again, they tried and disapproved of an Anti cheat system and a guid. They just refuse to play with cheaters and making them pariahs.
Sadly here, everybody is whining on pb or rather on their incompetence, Busted people can reintegrate in the community, peeps like bsturz get EC invites, ET-ACE gets rejected before it's release.
Why not remove pb, perm ban private bot users. And fucking ignore nC, if they want to sell cheats, let them be, give them no challenge, no attention.
And if everybody thinks about fun first then about skill. In my eyes, nC isn't the problem ( I pity them actually for investing time in selling cheats ) but the community.
Anyway this is an utopia and will probaly never happen. Changes are required to keeps things good, fresh and alive but people tend to disapprove changes and flame them on their bad points rather then congratulate them on their good points.
edit: if pb is removed there is no need for paying private bots and nC will be out of business :D
Or you manage to finish it before any of this happens
Then I'm quite sure A LOT will whine about gameplay
Then my reply would be: Shut up , did you want to lose the cheaters or not ?
Further on this with almost every new etpro release the gameplay changed slightly if not dramaticly
Anyway I hope it gets finished in time :)
I trust that nc and other hack producers have provided hacks to people who use them at the top of every gaming scene.
simple thing is people have got away with hacking at the highest level, EVEN at lans, and like adacore said why not just destroy them with a better product, especially if you know where the flaws are in their current setup.
nC have free reign in ET because its not updated anymore, that doesnt make them special. If they could have beaten PB when it was updated then maybe they could claim some credit, but...they didnt.
This raises the question is the complete code cracked universally, or is it just the updates?
*U ROCK CASH
damn, ice cold
bad boyo! :P
if it was really the way you described, they could've just emailed evenbalance with info about the hole, which is what i do now and then with information about cheats and new ways of bypassing pb
so.. from me there is no thank you, no respect, no credit, no props. quite the opposite in fact
EvenBalance have always had a reactive stance on taking down cheats. And this reactive strategy is hurting us as they only do what is really necessary.
If we mail them, we will remain in the same cycle. They close the hole, next week there is a new one.
EvenBalance need to take a proactive stance, where they determine the rules of the game, the pace of innovation. Many cheat-makers will not be able to cope with the rate PB could change and improve its code as they do it in their free time.
Then you considerably reduce the amount of hacks slipping through the mazes.
I want to have a cheat-free environment for whatever duration i play a game.
Moreover, check the nC forums, since day 1 of CoD4 there have been cheats undetected...and they still are undetected. This proves that pb is doing nothing or cannot do anything against it.
I'm not technically minded in this area, but I've heard no mention of them controlling PB on any OTHER game other than W:ET. If this is the case, NC have highlighted nothing, apart form the fact W:ET isn't fully supported by PB.... who didn't know that?
maybe they can only give out bans in ET.
I will still play my games you will do the same. EC and other cups will continue and we will always enjoy ET.
Nothing has really changed since the rise of the amount of cheaters. We occasionally play them and if you think about it, those are great training partners :P
And once the game is over you move on and continue to have more fun ;)
I guess the only thing me and you have in common is teh hate :P
Well written Cash!
that actually says a lot about them, because it is not a challenge but rather the hate of some people towards the community that has expelled them and the revenge of the same feeble-minded lowlifes mentioned above
They will likely bring new people along to pay for the service too.
lol, ET is free, a loaf of bread you have to pay for :p
thats true m8,...
as long as just lil kids are haxin, wich cant affort to buy a new key all the time it wil lbe "more" save! i gotta agree that the number of hckers will be smaler than in ET! should have thought about that!!
@slayor
its the forst time i hear about that guide checkin thing on hirntot! i always was wondering, that peeps with a 3 month old guide where fukin OWNING me. of course there are lots of better players than me out there, but if kids that are (as the guid tells) new to the game are raping me that bad alwys seems a bit suspicious to me! i gonna use those hirntot servers from now on! thx
(read my first comment ^ )
this is nothing more than a war between netcoders and crossfire/ET players because no one else other than us really gives a shit about netcoders and their "work", they know we hate them as much as anyone can be hated so they, little children as they are, want to revenge and no one should think otherwise, prove me wrong if it's not true, mbudget show me
bust peeps with avis gonna be a hell of work...
then we need to get a bunch of pees for a "cheat police" together :D
(not KiLl3rBoY nor spree )
and some sentences like " i'll look in to the avi, i am an official cheatbuster"
Didn't say you do useless things only that you do it for the wrong reasons.
it started out as a joke, and soon it became a fight, but that guid shizz was in the joke part, and he exactly cut that part out.
or it was u who made the journal, ye, it was u if I remember right, so u of all shud know the full story...
was just some random pubtard who thought he was cool u know, @ first we were kiddin eachother, but then he got annoying and started doing all these autistic things -_______-
You can abstract that further by saying that having taken a copy of the data stream out prior to it arriving at your computer, you can then run the cheat code on a seperate computer to that on which you're playing the game online and putting data back to the network.
With a wallhack this would, thus, be completely undetectable, as the game and any attached cheat software never communicates with the computer running the cheat and outputting to the VDU.
With an aimbot, it might be theoretically detectable as an aimbot requires data to be sent back to the server, and any computerised anomalies in this data may be regular and repeatable enough for a forensic analysis to pick up on, however with correct implementation of randomisation code I'd assume it could be very effectively masked, and possibly statistically undetectable. As a note, I don't know anything that even remotely tries to check incoming client data for regular 'humanised aimbot' type movement.
Every piece of software is breakable. Even if it goes into a mouse, it has its own data stream as well.
The only question is, how much will PB do to stop all this. It is a matter of a continuous process of closing holes, making new barriers and making it harder and when something slips through the cracks, you react to it.
A wallhack, however, cannot possibly be detected if set up correctly (a 'perfect' wallhack could only be detected by the changes to play style resulting from its use - not from that use in and of itself). To prevent it requires no information on the position of players you cannot see to be sent to client computers, as dunno suggests. Effectively this means rendering 12+ players' screens on the server, though, which I would assume would not be easily achievable, even if only a very basic rendering is required. It would also make the game unplayable on a high level for anything over ~30ms ping.
would be interesting to see where we would be today if the etpro team didn't feel like it was a waste of time devoting so much time and not getting anything out of it
That what was I posted in response to raskL's 'claim' on the GN forums. Found the resemblance amusing.. great minds!
and yes, great minds think alike
So imo this article only makes sense in connection with CoD4 not with ET.
The code of Punkbuster is not 100% waterproof, but neither are the hacks.
If pb spends more effort and time in making it harder for cheats to remain undetected you will filter out a large pool of mediocre cheat makers. Then you have to deal with the very good ones.
Whenever those are released, PB could take a much more proactive stance on instantly tackling that hack and blocking it with a new update. This would make the cheat detected within days rather than weeks or months, decreasing the value of a cheat (which would lower the price people want to pay for it).
If cheat maker want to keep earning money they will have to guarantee they will provide new versions instantly after a pb update. This would require a serious amount of time and most of these coders are not full-time cheat makers.
Cheats will remain to exist, but it can be made much harder than it is today. PB just didn't go with the trends and developments for the past 6 years. It is still relying on old technology, it has never innovated.
No, I'd actually prefer supporting the new anti3 cheatingtool that's currently being used in the 3v3 World Cup.
I'd also like to point out that it's most likely Activision who are hiring Evenbalance to provide Punkbuster, rather than the inidividual developers. Evenbalance are essentially a middleware company after all.
Hopefully PB will step up and improve their service, although I doubt this incident will generate the interest you expect - online PC gaming is still a small fry really.
Since we are talking about software now, for some reason we accept the problems, instead of complaining and flaming like madmen :)
I didnt pay a cent for my ET copy :) therefore I can't expect something from pb
what happened to the SGLAC?
An error has occured:
» You do not have the correct confirmation code. You are not authorized to log out.
Oh, looks like Im here to stay, wtf kind of an error is that lol
Do something like crossfire quakecon team, invite people to pay something if they want, or is my vision an utopia and is making anticheat big money?
ET community already showed that it is willing to do efforts for their beloved game, so crossfire, you're the one to take the initiative in this 'holy fight'!
Also wouldn't call their cheats a "pile of shit" (technically, not by what the piece of software does) - pile of shit is anti-cheat software, which in this case can't handle better-coded cheat detection.
i cant see any "2long2read" flames!11 where are they??! i miss them :(
It is about having a very long stamina. It should be Punkbuster's job.
Tho, ET-Ace seems to me as only solution atm.
The only problem I know is that they don't want to work together with YOU and your cheating past. :D
I think its stupid
Instead of anti-cheaters fighting each other to make or keep their own product the best they should join forces and defeat the cheaters once and for all
The only problem is: it is not impossible to stop cheats
They will always find a new way , make a new code
But stopping those we are (and have been) around now would be a very big step since pb seems to be too lazy to do its work
If you would have read on, you would understand why I used such cynism. Don't take everything as literally as it is put here.
So no thanks to be shoved.
but shoving it up a cheater's arse is fine by me ;)
e.g quad+chaplja .. their challenge is to backfuck the cheatcoders.
ofc it will be a challenge for pansemuckl.. but the good part is, quad+chaplja will stick to this challenge and will give pansefag and co a very hard time hacking into their anti-cheat system :)
so as i said. both take profit from eachother. if there woud've not been nC or similar tards, evenbalance would't had anything to do ..
and well, why should pb be crap? tell me one anti-cheat (except et-ace, itll be good!) which is better in protecting games than punkbuster.
valve's ac got fucked often, cheating death isn't really clean.
and the aqueais whatever ESL anti-cheat seems to be kick-ass, but i also heard lots of bad things about it :)
..best protection there is, is just to be fuckin true to your damn self..
btw, well written cash. we needz some more of that, dude .. :)
(ps:my english is fucked .. im gettin old )
I'm actually really impressed a person whose mother tongue isn't English (is it?) is able to write in such a wayon here. Good job!
For my standards, this is not very well written. I spent only 45 minutes on it. However, I can normally write fast if I have the thoughts in my mind.
I was CB Gamesupervisor before and together with TosspoT we have always organized the Crossfire events together. I am more on the background, he is the pretty face of the club ;)
Cash is the reptilian behind every terrible decision :v
What do you expect from a bunch of 10 years old faggots rofl...
Why reinvent the weel with ETACE? Let's figure out the cost of PB-updates, say for a year. Let Tosspot raise the money from the community and all will be fine.
Punkbuster has been going about it the wrong way. They didn't ban players for actual cheats anymore and that's where they went wrong. They started banning players based on suspected cheating since they knew they were one step behind the hackers/cheaters. Punkbuster tried to make a shortcut. They were lazy and that backfired. Badly.
Thank god for evolution. Punkbuster will probably be extinct now. Yay!
Someone up for setting up a good anti cheating company with proper tools? :)
Netcoders... they are little children. Look mommy at what I can do! I pity them. I really do.
Cash is right though. It sucks right now. The way it happened wasn't necessary but evolution is a good thing. Something better will come out of this. Probably not for ET but future games will benefit from this. Even though, I'm repeating myself now, this could have been handled better.
Well, as ET is a free game it generates nearly no income and therefore it's pretty normal that punk buster doesn't care much about it. They will only do the minimum they have been "hired" for.
so pb is just inactive project who hopes that nC will give it up and move for further new "challenges". pls gtfo