VAC secured gaming.

[Jinxsey]

It's not perfect, but it's alot better than Punkbuster.

This thread is intended to guage the interest in the community in seeing an alternative to punkbuster used. I know there are alot of people who can't play PB games due to the "packet loss" problem, and I know there are people like me who never have problems. I want to play with my friends and some of them have trouble with PB that evenblanance are unable to resolve.

Valve anti-cheat seems like a better option.

/sign.

[Meriv]

It's not perfect, but it's alot better than Punkbuster.

This thread is intended to guage the interest in the community in seeing an alternative to punkbuster used. I know there are alot of people who can't play PB games due to the "packet loss" problem, and I know there are people like me who never have problems. I want to play with my friends and some of them have trouble with PB that evenblanance are unable to resolve.

Valve anti-cheat seems like a better option.

/sign.

I am one of these i had to stop to play battlefield heroes. Soo it is an amazing news :) if it becomes reality

[willaguy]

^

[SKYeXile]

There willbe no anti cheat system...? You got a quote on that?

But yea vac >>>>>>> pb.

[NCLynx]

The devs already stated there will be no anti-cheat system, however there will be 24/7 support from live admins on the server.

Except they confirmed Punkbuster. That's ***supposed*** to be an anti-cheat system although it doesn't work to well. Regardless of how it works, it's what they're using along with 24/7 admins.

[indirect]

No anti-cheat system on an online game = wearing no condom fucking Snooki.

Bad idea.

I'd rather have no anti-cheat system than have punkbuster. Punkbuster RUINS games, it doesn't help them.

SEE: BC2, All-Points Bulletin, etc.

[DoctorIsIn]

PunkBuster? Sounds familiar. Oh yeah, that's that process I terminate every time I start up my computer, except on select occasions.
Edit: On topic: VAC would be a good alternative. I've never had any problems with it.

[MrSmegz]

First off they need to have enough GM's in game. In WoW you can go down to Uldman and just watch bot after bot fly by and hit all the mining and herb nodes, its so blatantly obvious and the fact that nobody does anything about it is disgusting. Second if they have enough GM's, they need to have proper tools that Flag players as questionable, by looking at K/D ratio, Average shot distance, accuracy, etc. Finally the GM's need to have the teeth to do something about these cheaters when they are caught. This will be by far better than PB, and hope they can implement something like it.

[Top Sgt]

please search we have already had a like 15 page discussion of this topic.. it's not hard to find either

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=39499

[AvacadoEight]

Just to add something, this game can only be as exploit-free as the community wants it to be. ( As well as hacker free ) Everyone needs to do their part to make sure rule breakers are dealt with accordingly. They can only monitor so much at one point in time.

[Baneblade]

Anyone remember the Hulk Pounder? Best PS1 cheat ever, was like trying to kill a super villain.

[Trafalgar]

I'd much rather have VAC than Punkbuster. Punkbuster is known to cause system instability and crashes, and I have pretty much not allowed it on my computer at all for that reason. (Plus that it likes to run all the time)

[Logri]

Game disconnected: you were kicked by PunkBuster. Stated reason: PunkBuster kicked player 'redacted' (for 2 minutes) ... Violation (IGNORING QUERIES) #9006

Sound familiar?
Try to have fun when you get that all the time and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with cheating.

[The Kush]

They never said there wouldn't be anti cheat systems. Actually they said the opposite.

There will be several anti cheat systems including 24/7 live server mods.

Please don't make up random bull s*** that is annoying as h***.

[WNxThentar]

The devs already stated there will be no anti-cheat system, however there will be 24/7 support from live admins on the server.

Actually they said they have their own systems in place and it will be backed up by a 24/7 team with additional tools to track down and proactively deal with cheaters.

[Inverness]

Yes, I do support the VAC model since it relies on detecting known cheats and doesn't fuck your system up like PB.

[Malorn]

They aren't doing a single line of defense.

And they aren't stupid enough to tell us everything they're doing.

Quit freak'n out, they know how important it is to stop the hax.

[Kran De Loy]

What Malorn just said.

However I do agree that PB is a completely terrible and insane choice to implement.
If they use VAC or not is up to them, but please dear god no PB.

[Coreldan]

There willbe no anti cheat system...? You got a quote on that?

But yea vac >>>>>>> pb.

VAC isnt much better than PB. Both are bypassable, games using either still have cheaters in them, even games that use both at the same time :D The only thing that VAC really has over PB is that VAC is a little more user friendly, as PB every now and then likes to kick people out for no reason, but usualyl fixed with a manual update.

I don't mind VAC, but I personally think it's bullshit saying it's actually any better.

[Rabb]

Cheats/Hacks get blown out of proportion in my opinion. Unprotected servers will have lots of hackers. But put any sort of anticheat in and that drops hackers down to a minimum.

I've played allot of games over the years and never found the hacker problem to be anywhere near as bad as the doomsayers make it out to be. At worst it is a minor annoyance that is easily dealt with by an admin or moving to a different server.

Correct me if I'm wrong but VAC I believe is reactive banning someone after the fact. I've never liked this as the damage is already done by this point. The hacker has ruined you game and possibly you server. PB on the over hand kicks them out as soon as it finds something so has always been my preference.

[I SandRock]

VAC requires steam right? I don't think they want to exclusively publish on Steam.



VAC isnt much better than PB. Both are bypassable, games using either still have cheaters in them, even games that use both at the same time :D The only thing that VAC really has over PB is that VAC is a little more user friendly, as PB every now and then likes to kick people out for no reason, but usualyl fixed with a manual update.

I don't mind VAC, but I personally think it's bullshit saying it's actually any better.

It's not about whether it has cheaters but how many ;)

I thinK VAC is better simply because it doesn't cause as much lag and issues and AFAIK if you get banned from one VAC game you are banned from all VAC secured games?

[SKYeXile]

VAC isnt much better than PB. Both are bypassable, games using either still have cheaters in them, even games that use both at the same time :D The only thing that VAC really has over PB is that VAC is a little more user friendly, as PB every now and then likes to kick people out for no reason, but usualyl fixed with a manual update.

I don't mind VAC, but I personally think it's bullshit saying it's actually any better.

i care a little about the protection is provides, i just care about how much it fucks me. iv been fucked by punkbuster, alot.

[SKYeXile]

they should ninja tie SOE accounts to steam so anybody dumb enough to run hacks on their SOE account get their steam account banned....they should not advertise this though, just ninja ban their steam accounts all in a large batch like 6 months after release. hilarity would be insured.

[Coreldan]

It's not about whether it has cheaters but how many ;)

I thinK VAC is better simply because it doesn't cause as much lag and issues and AFAIK if you get banned from one VAC game you are banned from all VAC secured games?

It's not only down to anticheat there. A lot of it has to do with the game engine. Take any Unreal Engine using game and compare it to a game that uses almost anything else.. there are more cheaters. And it isn't so much about what anticheat it uses.

PB can also ban you from all PB protected games, but somewhy not that many games seem to utilize that for whatever reason. Back when I played America's Army 2, our server would stream some PB ban lists. Basically all kinds of PB protected servers would "upload" the PB GUIDs they have banned online and other servers would download these and run checks based on them. So if you were banned on a server of another game that streamed their bans and we used the same ban stream, you would get booted out of our server as well.

Other thing is when we compare most VAC secured games to APB for example. Most of these games are small servers owned by an individual or a small group, and they have some admins/mods around nearly always. APB then again does not have an admin/GM/mod/whatever for each of it's districts. These small servers will easily seem more cheaterfree, cos theres often the server owner who can take care of shit. I admit APB has it's own special problem with cheaters (something PS2 will face too), but when I compare similar games (say, 64 player servers in "normal shooters), the experience is pretty much identical on both PB and VAC secured servers.

Brink used both VAC and PB and it still had plenty of cheaters :D

[SKYeXile]

yea, gotta love the amount of admins on private servers, zone in kill the admin and some other guys, get banned. way more of a compliment than any hacker tell.

[I SandRock]

Brink used both VAC and PB and it still had plenty of cheaters :D

I don't see the relevance in this argument you keep bringing up. Just because a game has cheaters while using anti-cheat protection doesn't mean anything? What is your point with that? We should stop using anti-cheat all together?


I think both VAC and PB probably protect against hackers equally. But in the end of the day what matters is that:
Every single game I've seen use PB has had problems the first one or two months, problems that lead to unplayability of the game. And most servers would turn PB off during this period. I've never seen these problems with VAC.

But I don't see PS2 going to steam exclusively. And there is no good alternative to PB. So were stuck with it.

[Rabb]

yea, gotta love the amount of admins on private servers, zone in kill the admin and some other guys, get banned. way more of a compliment than any hacker tell.

My admins would end up banned if they did that on my servers when I had them. Banning without a good reason is just as ban as cheating in my book.

[Coreldan]

yea, gotta love the amount of admins on private servers, zone in kill the admin and some other guys, get banned. way more of a compliment than any hacker tell.

Yeah, this is the downside of it, too, but it does keep the blatant hackers at a minimum though :D

Then for those who say that the 247 admin presence is better than any anti cheat.. Not really. It only catches those blatant cases. An observing admin won't catch someone who has set his aimbot so that he makes no visible snaps. With a loooooooooooooooooooong period of observing you might get a good hunch that this player is either super smart and lucky or is using a wallhack, but who will take the risk of banning a legit paying customer on that hunch?

GMs are very expensive and very inefficient and will only catch the blatant cases, which tbh shouldnt be a problem for the anticheat (even if they still sometimes are though).

I still hope for smart netcode that basically doesnt allow for anything else than aimbot and wallhack. BF3 is a good example of how to fuck up in that department, when you have a guy without LOS killing the entire server from his own spawn.

Sandrock, the BRINK thing was mainly a lighthearted joke, not so much of an argument. I miss Brink, sucks it died :(

As for the rest, well, I realize I'm probably amongst the luckiest to never have had any real issues with PB. I've had to manually update it twice in the course of 6-7 years. Took me a few minutes tops.

[ChipMHazard]

Actually they said they have their own systems in place and it will be backed up by a 24/7 team with additional tools to track down and proactively deal with cheaters.

Indeed. I don't particularly like VAC or Punkbuster, both of them have irritated me a great deal in the past.
Also since PS2 won't be running through Steam it [VAC] won't be an option.

[Trafalgar]

VAC only protects well if it's implemented well in the game its being used in. It's not a magic bullet. If they don't bother (Brink), it won't work well.

Also, as for the bans, it doesn't ban immediately because it does delayed VAC bans to ban from playing the game multiplayer at all, and the point of the delay is so that the cheaters might not be able to figure out what it was specifically that tipped off VAC.

[Nasher]

The thing about VAC is valve control it directly, so they are always on top of it. Also they have the power to ban you from playing ANY VAC games so it's a good deterant.

Punkbuster never really seemed to work that well and it relies on a system service which crashes sometimes. I can't think of a single PB game where cheating wasn't a problem either, because if it detects a cheat it merely disconnects you and no ban (probably because it likes to randomly kick people for no reason) :/

[Novacane]

Since this thread just seemed to turn into a huge PB bashing pit, I just wanted to throw in, I haven't had a problem with Punkbuster since the late-2000s. Other than it always running in the background as a service causing who knows what compatibility issues and actively scanning all memory (Lookup PB IRC exploit) for any form of a cheat if it's running against the game it's trying to protect or not, its pit falls seldom show themselves and it is the best all-around solution out there, short of developing their own. In my opinion VAC is a superior product but I don't think it's ever been tried in an MMO environment, I could be wrong though.

[Danelo]

I have friends who can't play any punkbuster games. They get kicked out every time. When they learn about this they will ultimately know that they can never play planetside 2.

[Kran De Loy]

I'm curious why no one has mentioned that SOE has other MMO's on the market (not FPS's of course), and cheating does not seem to be the second holocaust in those games. So what do they use?

While VAC may or may not be more effective than PB, it certainly is less invasive and more stable.
IMO VAC>Nothing>PB. Inhouse programing is also said to be somewhere in the mix and if that is greater or less than VAC is of no matter to me as long as there is no PB. I do not want to have to a program on my computer continuously sucking a golfball through a waterhose in order for me to play.

Side note: With many of SOE's games already accessible through Steam, I don't see why VAC couldn't be used for PS2 unless some other SOE internal reasoning that we don't get to see.

[Darthkorr]

Vac Please.

/signed

[Nasher]

I'm curious why no one has mentioned that SOE has other MMO's on the market (not FPS's of course), and cheating does not seem to be the second holocaust in those games. So what do they use?


There was some when the games were new and popular. But the retards moved on to the next big thing and cheated there instead.

[CuddlyChud]

In order to be secured by Vac, don't you need to be a steamworks game? (i.e. Require steam to play?) I think that's one reason why you'll never see Planetside 2 use Vac. Or any big budget MMO for that matter.

[NewSith]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=39499

[Trafalgar]

PunkBuster usually searches for known cheat program signatures as opposed to relying on a heuristic approach.[6] On March 23, 2008, hackers published and implemented a proof of concept exploit of PunkBuster's indiscriminate memory scanning. Because PunkBuster scans all of a machine's virtual memory, malicious users were able to cause mass false positives by transmitting text fragments from known cheat programs onto a high population IRC channel. When PunkBuster detected the text within user's IRC client text buffers, the users were banned.[7] On March 25, 2008, Even Balance confirmed the existence of this exploit, and advised users not to run any other programs at the same time as PunkBuster protected games.[7]

Really? Obviously, the chat program is the problem here, not PunkBuster itself... You shouldn't try to coordinate with anyone outside the game, and for good measure you had better disable the in-game chat in case anyone pastes those same text strings into the game's own chat!

Picard's Epic Double Facepalm - YouTube

If they do go ahead with PunkBuster, I will be disappointed, but if Firefall will have its own solution, that means I won't have to be completely disappointed if I swear off PS2 over its use of PunkBuster.

[Ant001]

Having been a server admin in many different games over the years I have to say PB does work. Vac is pretty much usless because it allows very little interaction to update it or allow you to screen shot dodgy gits.
Punkbuster works and it works well. It may take a little tweeking sometimes but that is more than worth it.

The internet is full of cheats and hack sites and downloading them is easy. Punkbuster catches these idiots and bans them. If you are caught bypassing PB you are hardware baned so go buy a new pc.
Any anti cheat is great and PB is probably the best around at the moment.
Please do not listen to the xbox kiddies, please put as much anti cheat as you can into PS2.

PB and 24/7 admin will catch 90% of cheats, you can't ask for more.