This is not a direct slur to Cash's previous column as I do infact agree with the sentiment he makes that nC's actions will force a reaction that will hopefully be beneficial to the community, however there is one point in which he is wrong and most of you on Crossfire are wrong about.
Cash ends a provocative column with the line "we dont need them" - wrong, very wrong in any context he may have meant that, we DO need Punkbuster.
We do need punkbuster because we are a community who accepts cheaters. Regardless of your own personal opinion on cheaters, very few are strong enough to make a stance. How many known cheaters get welcomed back into new lineups be that high or low profile, this Eurocup season saw bSTURZ as a prime example of this. So if the community cannot be trusted to evict cheaters (people you know cheat because PB kicked them) then PB is needed to keep kicking them even if nowadays that is more infrequent.
However thats not exactly the point a wanted to make, more a justification for the title!
ET has been released for 4 or so years now? In that time PB has rarely failed us in terms of actually doing a job, whether you regard that as a good job or a bad job is irrelevant seeing as you dont pay for the product. There were those updates that caused some big problems, but they were resolved fairly sharpish and they were afterall free updates that went on since that date to bust cheaters.
Now PB after 4 years or for RTCW players 6+ has let you down, and it would appear from the comments over the past day that you've completely lost faith in them after 1 lapse. 1 lapse in a game that they are not and have not been paid to update for how long?
I'm just wondering whether perhaps the vast majority of PB slagging people on this site might want to see a touch of perspective? Or whether slagging off PB is just too cool or too easy and as a result makes you forget what they've given you. Not to mention the fact that you are all acting as predictably as nC thought you would, which is in my opinion the greatest insult anyone could pay you.
Cash ends a provocative column with the line "we dont need them" - wrong, very wrong in any context he may have meant that, we DO need Punkbuster.
We do need punkbuster because we are a community who accepts cheaters. Regardless of your own personal opinion on cheaters, very few are strong enough to make a stance. How many known cheaters get welcomed back into new lineups be that high or low profile, this Eurocup season saw bSTURZ as a prime example of this. So if the community cannot be trusted to evict cheaters (people you know cheat because PB kicked them) then PB is needed to keep kicking them even if nowadays that is more infrequent.
However thats not exactly the point a wanted to make, more a justification for the title!
ET has been released for 4 or so years now? In that time PB has rarely failed us in terms of actually doing a job, whether you regard that as a good job or a bad job is irrelevant seeing as you dont pay for the product. There were those updates that caused some big problems, but they were resolved fairly sharpish and they were afterall free updates that went on since that date to bust cheaters.
Now PB after 4 years or for RTCW players 6+ has let you down, and it would appear from the comments over the past day that you've completely lost faith in them after 1 lapse. 1 lapse in a game that they are not and have not been paid to update for how long?
I'm just wondering whether perhaps the vast majority of PB slagging people on this site might want to see a touch of perspective? Or whether slagging off PB is just too cool or too easy and as a result makes you forget what they've given you. Not to mention the fact that you are all acting as predictably as nC thought you would, which is in my opinion the greatest insult anyone could pay you.
The question is have they won or will PB bother to update their system....
They are a company, and like all other companies they want to make money, and ET being an old, free game, they would not be payed to update it.
Unless SD says "fuck you for boycotting our new game" to the W:ET community of course.
But I dont think they are gonna give us any more updates that will get rid of the private hacks.
Minimal FPS drops are hardly reason enough to justify dropping PB. Even if they stopped updating, PB still creates that risk factor for potential cheaters. Losing that would kill ET very quickly. Of course, having a secondary anti-cheat that actually innovates instead of doing the same old memory scan would be great.
Agree on that one, still, like Sainted aleady said, PB made a very big mistake, which is also relevant for other games!
I seriously hope, that PB will update once more for ET, if they wouldent do it for free, i would vote for a community effort ( something like 50 Euros per person, i dont know what such a update would cost though).
Even better would a new anti-cheat software, i would pay for that also, since anti3 is already cracked by nC (atleast they say that).
PB should be measured with the efficiency/effectivity it has. Quite obviously it fails. It's nothing but a hassle for anyone that's clean. So why bother using a useless program?
(And that's the opinion I have about PB since years.)
In thermodynamics the optimum for a cycle is the Carnot cycle. It's a theoretical cycle that one would like to achieve. There are other cycles used for different applications, like the Otto cycle for gasoline engines, the Rankine cycle for steam power plants. Both mark the optimum.
So why would I want to measure the efficiency for PB against nothing? The optimum is the only logical choice.
The optimum would obviously be the perfect anti-cheat program, which gives us a cheat free environment. But just like the Carnot cycle this is theory. There will always be a new method to bypass the anti-cheat program. (eptro's anti-cheat supposedly made ET cheat free for one month.)
PB would be a lot better if it was fighting methods, rather than trying to find a string somewhere in your PCs memory. (sounds a lot like they're trying to find the needle in the haystack.) That's a lot of effort measured against its use, which, looking at it from the competitive point of view, is really low. And that isn't even taking into account how much this stresses the PC.
I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't use an anti-cheat because it will never be optimal, but using one that is so flawed isn't really an option either.
Since they're banning strings, all that is needed to make the cheat undetected again is adding a char to the string. They make it very easy for cheat coders. (add a char -> compile -> undetected cheat)
In other words: there is no use in what they do.
This truly is "security by obscurity".
We're not only indirectly their customers, we are their customers (directly). If it wasn't for us they wouldn't have a business.
Wasn't the only reason PB was introduced in COD2 that the gamers wanted it? Would they have demanded it, if they knew it wasn't any good?
They want us to use their service, but if we don't do it (for whatever reason) and developers/publishers notice that hardly anyone wants PB (complains, worse sales -> "starforce"), developers won't use PB anymore.
(Another way to look at it would be other free services in the internet, e.g. social networks, etc. If they don't accept critic and don't 'please' their customers, they will lose customers, which in return hurts their revenue and lowers their market value.)
Instead they point out the flaws in punkbuster, which is a service to the community, and they are almost bringing us to a point where we decide to play without punkbuster altogether, which would bring them completely out of business (at least for enemy territory).
So we are lucky that they are so "unprofessional" :p
I think the unprofessional lies with PB if they don't take action on this so time will tell.
And agreed that we dont need nC for whatever reason.
The quote below says enough about pb's intentions and usefulness.
"Its not hard for EB to bust 100 players in an hour for a hack. I have seen it in COD4, BF2 and many other games.
Maybe you should take sometime and learn how PB works it does not scan IRC or any other chat program which a person may have running."
The problem is that some of the techniques PB uses are antiquated, and most of the rest stem from the developers' mental deficiencies. We need an anti-cheat system, but we need one that is more than a sign saying that we don't allow hackers. That keeps out the idiots and ones who worry about getting in trouble. That is something, true, and it's better than nothing, but it is no where near enough.
We don't need PB - we need an anti-cheat system that does the job. But, as always, it comes down to money, and the question of if enough can be raised to get the job done.
And surely PB keeps out the nexus scum, but if it isn't updated, it won't kick the new cheats, and what good is that to the whole competitive gaming scene? If a fairly accessible hack is out there and not banned, it doesn't matter if PB kicks for nexus!
just take into account how much publicity + advertisement PB has gained since it started busting et players..
anyway the plan is simple .. destroy the free game and sell another
who said et gamers arent willing to pay for et?
nC have already kicked hundreds of players in CoD4 and BF2/2142
Cant remember which COD it was, but I certainly remember the moaning (and petitions) that it had no cheat protection and I definitely remember people saying "I'm simply not buying it because there's no protection". Would you buy the next FPS with no cheat protection whatsoever??
Of course, PB will eventually update to accommodate these latest exploits and all will carry on as usual...
Having ANY anti-cheat is better than none at all.
I dunno if I get you wrong, but basicly you say we should all only play offline, or that is what makes ET. But its only the peak of it, you shouldn't forget that. If we like disable pb and have no AC, which I bet u dont mean, then we will not have any low or med clans playing any competition anymore, which will have as affect that the lan scene is gone also.
1. Realese an update to the game i.e. a mod which will cost some money. As an effect PB could get interested and make some updates for that money
2. Wait and enyoj a community full of children playin on BOTS WALLHACKS and other shits...;/