#73 – Another Broken Patch

Posted on: November 19, 2007

Posted in: Battlefield Podcast

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#73 – Another Broken Patch

Battlefield 2142 finally gets its long-tested patch 1.40 but it’s off to a bad start (fixed now). We talk about how this can continue to happen and also answer some questions; 1.40 for Mac gamers, anyone (coming soon)? Let’s not forget our first sponsor: Godaddy.com (Enter “BATTLE” at checkout for a 10% discount)!

We also spend quite a bit of time discussing a topic brought up by our quasi-host, PocoLoco (Chalk.Four?), that brings up the question: Who’s really to blame for all the cheats and hacks in Battlefield? Maybe it’s not EA/Dice’s fault. We investigate and comment. Of course we also have the latest mod news and we check out a new BF2 Stunts movie by our very own Tuner111.

More new website features and how to give the gift of Battlefield Podcast this holiday season round out the show.

Show notes:

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  • Unclean009
    Punkbuster does indeed do it's job, it is just that some hackers work alot faster than the Evenbalance people. Recently, MSX Security, a very well known hack site totally went down. Most, if not all of the hacks from them have already been detected. The only real way punkbuster can work to its fullest, like someone else mentioned, is a variety of community based punkbuster master ban list sites such as www.punksbusted.com or www.pbbans.com . If a master ban list is not implimented on a server, the only thing that punkbuster does is constantly kick the player that is hacking from the server, rather than banning him permanently. A good example of a company that doesn't use Punkbuster in it's games is Valve. Many of us know how bad the hacking can be in couter-strike. I even stopped playing that game because it was so bad. Case in point, companies that are specialized to deal with hackers have alot more success than if a company tries to do anti-cheats itself.

    Anyway, thats my 2 cents.
  • Chris Redfield
    There are a few games out there, which dont have an anticheat solution in a form of a 3rd party software. One of them, SWAT4, has 3 anticheat solutions developed by the community, 2 of them are being used in clan matches simultaneously. One of them, developed by Dexus enables to take screenshots from anyones game at any time, whos connected to the particular scrim session (in simple terms). It also performs scans for known cheats. Another anticheat solution, called "Antics", was built so it "disables" hacks. While in most cases, it has been circumvented, it still has disabled "aimbotting" with (not sure at the moment) 100% reliability. So in essence, a mix of two reliable anticheat solutions is being used. However, since SWAT4 isnt being updated anymore, hackers have had 2 years to exploit the game and as such, have developed cheats that (for example) enable you to be immune to tactical grenades (CS gas, flashbangs, stingers).

    The only way one would really force cheaters out, or at least kill their numbers substantially, would be to involve the whole community like www.punkbusted.com is doing. The second option, which is being evaded, involves direct monetary loss. If aplayer got caught cheating in a Punkbuster protected server, he should lose his CDkeys to all Punkbusted protected games hes owning. Basically, render all of his PB protected games useless in online play as soon as hes caught cheating in at least one of them.
  • ChiefRedCloud
    I have to add my discust for cheating to your long list and agree about Punkbuster. Both the Pros and Cons. It's better than nothing but I too have wrestled with Punkbuster numerous times. Some times I've won (spelled broke even) and sometimes I've lost. Thanks guys for your feed. Enjoyed it.
  • Ole
    That's exactly the point I was trying to make, =ST6=rfp :)
  • Punkbuster is always playing a catchup game with the hackers. They can only ban a tool that was gotten in general distribution. Without it every hack tool ever made would still be working instead of only the most recent. As a server admin, I can say that a lot of things that aren't caught by Punkbuster directly can be found by looking at the Punkbuster screen shots that servers can be configured to take. I spend a couple of minutes every morning going through shots and If we find something, we turn them in. My clan just caught some of the first baned cheaters in COD4, using these screen shots. There are also groups like punksbusted.com and pbbans.com that help admins by distributing lists of baned players.

    So yea, Punkbuster is not perfect, no security program ever is (I liked the comparison to an anti-virus program). but it's better then nothing.

    =ST6= rfp2566
  • just thought id add this since it coincides with this podcasts conversation about hacking.

    http://www.totalgamingnetwork.com/main/showthread.php?t=134052

    one of the community watchdogs has taken it upon himself to contact the IRS about these hack companies failure to pay income taxs so perhaps we will see them at least get nailed for tax evasion.
  • Tuner111
    Ask BFP :)
  • who do you do that?so they put it in the podcast?
  • Tuner111
    Wow,thxs man :) !
    [riffly_audio]8C576836978011DC919F44CF0D09CCE3[/riffly_audio]
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