Pbbans User Survey

I really hope that the issues raised by Lolyn and myself surrounding the perils of alias searches and name-spoofing are addressed at some point.

My post is one away from the bottom of page one, and his is about half way down page two. His elaborates on my point, but makes it more thoroughly.

Edited by Forces(UK), May 4, 2008 - 02:23 AM.

I wouldn't mind a tool that could grab information from SS and incorporate them to a PBBans ban list format (ie. date, guid, name, etc for private ban list use). Although, this tool may exist and I'm not aware of it.

hi
i think as part of pbbans TOS, all clans who use pbbans streaming should be made to ban known cheaters once they get back on. if they allow known cheaters to play on servers that are streaming then they are just making a mockery of the whole system. they should have it pointed out that their servers will be removed from streaming if they break that rule.
too many cheaters are able to get back on fairly quickly, if anything could be improved on preventing that, it would be a massive step forward in the fight against cheaters.

thx for all that pbbans do.

{NB}colmusturd

I don't know who would handle this but I would love to see a utility that allows you to ban an entire clan. Also, I wish all clans/servers would set up forums that are simple to use. One of my clan members were banned from a server and they wound up banning TWO of my members because their soldier names had the same first three letters..

foxdie, on May 2nd 2008, 03:33 PM, said:

Iam sorry, I just remembered the Fox.... rest was guessing ;p

is pat still online? maybe good to know if i find time for a new server...

*KILLDU* NiteRunner81, on May 5th 2008, 05:05 AM, said:

All bans from PBBans are PB GUID's only, we don't ban on name tags or IP.
Banning a entire clan will never be an option, this i not pool for clan vendetta's, but an AC Community who issues legit bans based on the anti cheat software PB from Even Balance. Every ban is an individual ban based on a triggered check or decision made on submitted demo recordings and/ or PBSS.

Something I've often thought about & I don't know if it's feasible or even something pbbans would be interested in offering ....

It would be nice for players to have a tool where they could plug in any.cfg & it could scan it for known cheat cvars.I think this is something desperately needed,at least in the ET community where player configs get passed around like mad.Many legit players find themselves with a cvar ban listing here at pbbans just for not knowing what they've gotten a hold of.Many have no idea what one cvar is from the next.

I know personally it's something I would use regularly as I have just begun to offer player configs & scripts for download from my ET resource site.Being an admin of a league that bans players for being caught with these cvars,it would be pretty unmoral of me to offer configs that may contain these cvars & then turn around & ban them for them so at the moment I have to scan all submitted configs manually before I make them available to the public.

I'm sure it would be a nice little feature, then again if you don't know what that Cvar does, don't use it!
Pretty simple. But I do see your point, to filter out players who just want "better" config and have no intension's in cheating.
Then again, why bother to use someone else's Cvar config in the first place? In W:ET and in ET:QW I have several binds, such as class scripts, volume scripts, and some net settings cvars i want to have saved. Basically that is all you need. The rest, such as graphics's i do from ingame menu. Failsafe

FuZZie, on May 3rd 2008, 09:40 AM, said:

Same here.Have set up several server's to stream here and its never taken more than 5 minutes to get everything up and streaming.Great job guys.Keep up the great work

hugin, on May 5th 2008, 08:59 AM, said:

While this may be true,fact of the matter is it's just common practice for players to share & download random configs.There are entire websites dedicated to offering player configs for download so simply telling players not to do it isn't really a viable option.

I used to be a config junkie myself.I was always intrigued by all the different quake3 engine settings & in the end it really gave me a better understanding of it & how it works & was somewhat of a stepping stone for me to understanding server configs & being able to admin & maintain my clans servers.Still completely baffled on how I never maged to aquire a cvar ban myself.

Hers an example of a well known & trusted ET website offering bad configs........shame.I won't post direct links to the bad configs but their there so beware
http://enemy-territory.4players.de

I guess the point I'm trying to make is I know what it's like to be ignorant & naive about these things & the vast majority of players out there are.I help people on a daily basis sort out their configs & settings.Many are just looking to ensure that they have the same edge as everyone else & are by no means attempting to cheat.

I'm not entirely familiar with that terrible game ETQW (lol sorry but I hate it) but in ET wolf there really is only so much you can tweak with the user menu.There are vast majority of things you can adjust through a config that aren't available in the menu.

Edited by ETL - evilzombie, May 5, 2008 - 08:51 AM.

As a former W:ET player i am all well aware of that, and it might be the reason i am a bit stubborn about such idea in the first place. I am well aware of all the possibilities out there, and letting all those with not so good intension's to "test" out if a Cvar is kick or bannable is not the way to go, if you don't know what that particular Cvar does or the range for it, then don't use it and run stock. BTW: ET:QW Rocks, especially with the ETQWPro mod, if you have only played Vanilla you have no idea


Thats my 2 cents

As a admin of a tour, we do not run all of our servers every day. This causes them to fall into the "deactivated" status once a week. Would be nice if the wait time was more then a week.

Hello , i've been playing Enemy territory for years, more players are getting private hacks which are harder to detect or not detected at all by pb/pbbans it would be a lot better if you started to hardware banning again that way they would think twice about cheating, getting caught would finaly take them out for good. Knowing that if they get caught it's over for them and we would play legit players , you guys probably going to give us that bs about kid / dad playing on same comp, hello? it's obvious when you exec a hack.

i have done the survey even though i am at the moment banned locked out of all your games for no reason whatsoever,
if you want to do a survey that matters ask how many have been kicked for nothing at all.

I used to have faith in Punkbuster and PB Bans, but I think they are in an uphill battle here. A buddy of mine sent me to a website, which I will not post here, that sells hacks for 30 or 40 bucks. I watched the demos they had on there and it was utterly sickening.

They guarantee their cheats to not be detectable, as long as you go to their site every day to check for updates. And if you do get popped they send you a new CD key.

I have been running game servers since Quake2. When Medal of Honor: Allied Assault came out, I suspected someone of cheating and did some research. I found a cheat and tried it to see what to look for. From that I was far better equipped to know what to look for when speccing a suspect. But that cheat was primitive to the cheats I saw in those demos. For the life of me I do not know how anyone can keep up with them as far as detection goes.

Punkbuster updates, what, every few months or so, maybe even every few weeks at best? And these guys update probably a couple times a week?

I currently run 3 servers and use Punkbuster on them, even though I think I'm just using up bandwidth doing it, but at least I'm trying to do something. I f I even suspect someone of cheating I ban them. I used to stream all of them to PB Bans, but now do it with only one. With PAM, PB, and PB Bans at the same time, that can get pretty hard on a server.

I cannot understand what some people get out of using those cheats. They aren't playing the game. They're just sitting there while the computer wins for them. Perhaps it is ego masturbation since they are unable to enjoy the thrill of winning from raw skill. I think that reveals a character flaw; getting something for nothing at the expense of others.

Sad.

Edited by ZTedster, May 5, 2008 - 11:00 PM.

I do not see any team account in the PBBans system related to you ZTedster.

If cheat coders advertised their cheats as detectable, how many do you think they would sell ?

PunkBuster does a lot of silent detections, wereby they log who is using a particular cheat and do nothing.
When the hit's dry up for new users a mass ban is issued to all who were logged, we see this more frequently now.

PBBans updates for cvar/md5 scans are done a lot more frequently than every few months.

PBBans employs the PBBans Hub to save on server resources, why not give it a try with the 2 servers you have spare (I presume your streaming elsewhere because I dont see any team account details relating to you)

ZTedster, on May 6th 2008, 05:48 AM, said:

Would a car sales man (no offense to car sales men) say this car will break down after 10 miles? No

ZTedster, on May 6th 2008, 05:48 AM, said:

Never try cheats, first lesson.
PBBans staff is more equipped than you thing my friend, and what you are saying on how to detect cheaters is a bit naive, no offense, but I don't think you do not know how busting cheaters really work, believe me, we detect them

ZTedster, on May 6th 2008, 05:48 AM, said:

You are talking about masses, believe me, those cheat coders have a hard time to get past PB software, and PB is always a step ahead, but when new cheats get out they do need to find the proper checks for them, every cheater will be caught, they always do.

ZTedster, on May 6th 2008, 05:48 AM, said:

For some reason you will not disable PB, even still they don't detect cheaters and only use bandwidth, why is that?
Thing is you don't take that chance, as you in fact do believe in PB, get you servers to stream to us and we can at least guarantee you that those who are caught by a PBBans streamed server will never bully you and your guest on your servers again

ZTedster, on May 6th 2008, 05:48 AM, said:

Mostly unmature people with no remorse or insight in games at all, they don't understand or just don't care at all.
But lets not get hanged up in details, that question is no real answer to anyways. best we can do is to stream and get things organized, PBBans is one of them

ZTedster, on May 6th 2008, 05:48 AM, said:

first off "undetectable" is nonsense in itself (or obvious fraud), "yet undetected" would be (eventually) correct, the golden rule is: "every detection can be bypassed, every bypass can be detected" ;p

i watch the one or the other private, gold member, vip etc. whatever they call this area, among them one with a certain "reputation", like uninformed admins keep telling me "codehacks have undetected bots for Tetris2" ;p Well: why do they need a priv. forum thread "Globally Banned? Post a screenshot here - each customer 1 key only no discussion" where they hand out "borrowed keys" that "might be in use" then?
Who would pay money for something that keeps returning VIOLATION (AIMBOT) #50999 after each "update, new great features etc. pp."

As always great work guys and am really pleased to see you asking "is my baby ugly?" ( sign of good development in my book)


Voted:

no: i only manage 1 server and am sure that the Account Management area can be improved - I dont have a magic bullet - I just find it clunky (espcially 'greetings')

yes: found what i needed in both the downloadable guides and the forums.

15-30mins: read the guides....

yes: (apologies but havent read entire thread - so my bad if already discussed/flambéd) would love a stand alone streaming tool (from our server) similar to rcon, with pbbans account management flags etc & to manually tag a player so you can track them and be notified if they rejoin your server (based on guid)? Also (am sure this isnt possible atm) same tool that lets you force all md5 & cvar chks on a player, and the ability to list cvar changes since joining?

h4nnib4l, on May 5th 2008, 09:14 AM, said:

PAT is still available, and so is jPAT

Kultur, on May 5th 2008, 11:39 PM, said:

Hardware bans are handled exclusively by EvenBalance. PBBans have no control over hardware bans