That’s not clear at all. In fact CCP inferred just the opposite. The count drop so many see was largely bots being removed and afk/semi mining alts that didn’t’ bother to move to HS during the BO.
I do agree with the rest of your post though especially “So the ‘nerf’ to your mindless grinding is actually a buff to people that think the free Intel shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I only proposed as a compromise a way to give these people something they want (the free Intel) but also adding some gameplay (guerilla warfare to make things interesting). That is better than the current tend of CCP just removing interesting gameplay from the game.”
When I said ‘before’ maybe I wasn’t clear enough. I was taking about many years of nerfing various PVP activities in the name of safety and loss of players not just the blackout and ending the blackout.
Very well said and 100% agreed, i used to move around 50-70 billion isk in game monthly for long term goals… after black out i stopped there’s zero stability in game, to plan or work on long term goals , so now just doing some pvp , even stupid fights for fun since its so much cheaper to replace the ships when losing than building a corp/alliance.
False positives, from experience PunkBuster does give out false positives which will lead to unwarranted bans.
cheats that interfere with PunkBuster’s software itself could lock out the GUID of the offending system and disable access to all PunkBuster enabled servers for that particular game
This not so clever little part of the program got me banned from a game i had been playing for years. Probably been fixed now but back then i got banned for (*I believe) having virtual machines running while playing this particular game.
*I was never able to find out what exactly i had been banned for but never ran cheats of any kind. Neither the game admins or PunkBuster would enter into any sort of resolution with me - I was only told the program detected cheat codes on my computer.
When I asked what these codes were i was threatened with legal action if i didn’t stop “harassing” them. I’d sent 4 emails asking for my ban to be looked into.
The way Punk Buster works it is possible players could get banned for having Near2 or other such things which are not against CCP’s eula but do interact with the CCP server. To avoid this, CCP would be handing a LOT of information to PunkBuster publishers, whose code is known to have been exploited by those with ill intent in the past.
NB; PunkBuster also has to know “what” cheat codes to look for in a game, if CCP know this already - Why would they need PunkBuster.,.
As most companies will not enter into any sort of resolution process when someone is banned by PunkBuster, it opens up a whole arena of possible issues for Eve players wrongly accused/banned.
Games using PB (http://www.evenbalance.com/) have their own anti-cheat player run communities. Especially those that are server based games. Server bans for Proving Grounds, BF, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor are handled by ACi (http://www.anticheatinc.net) and PBBans (https://www.pbbans.com/index.php) . There used to be many other anti-cheat communities working on anti-cheat such as AoN (Airdale Ops), CB (CheatBusted), AASA (Americas Army Servers Admin) and other smaller ones. Right now, the main two are ACi and PPBans. Those 2 organisations handle bans and all players go thru those 2 organisations for both bans and ban appeals.
@Sgt_Ocker Not sure what game you got banned from, but if it was an FPS, one of those 2 organisations would be the one handling the ban. And traditionally, anti-cheat organisations do share bans with each other. For example, ACi would share its bans with PBBans and vice versa.
I know both organisations well and all of their staff is of high quality and professional in their handling of ban appeals.
Now the thing to understand about Punkbuster (EvenBalance) and the anti-cheat communities is that EvenBalance does provide the initial anti-cheat scripts, however anti-cheat communities do add their own scripts checks as well.
In the case of EVE, since it is an MMO and on 1 server, CCP would have to provide EvenBalance with the softwares that scripts need to check for, along with softwares that are legal for players to use, such as Near2 and so forth. and probably bans would be handled directly by EvenBalance unless it is implemented in a way that allows for player run anti-cheat communities to submit their own bans, which is possible and would be wonderful.
And contrary to perception, in my opinion, PB is probably the best anti-cheat software available around
People have different experiences i guess. All I got was a letter in my mail box (snail mail) threatening me with legal action and never did get told what it was got me banned, though they did go through a lot of scenarios as to what could have caused it but nothing that specifically related to me.
While it would be great to see bots gone from Eve or even severely limited, it needs to be done right.
Yea, this would have been EvenBalance or the game devs directly. None of the anti-cheat organizations use snail mail because everything is done by email, messenger and now probably discord.
yea, I do agree that dealing with bots need to be done the right way. BO was definitely not. Implementing a new anti-cheat might be a step in the right direction
I believe for any anti cheat to work in Eve it needs to be handled by CCP, with NO input from players.
Eve is not like any other game out there.
If CCP were to use something that involves “player input” it would be open to abuse by those who want to see botting continue - Those who make money via RMT for example.,.
Gonna leave my 2 cents…
Blackout failed because it was forced upon the player. If the player wants WH mechanics he can go into WH space… thats it. (oddly enough WH is safer than any null space)
This whole mess is because whiny little entitled know nothings are very loud and CCP made the mistake of listening to them.
Hopefully this fiasco is a lesson learned.
Obviously it’s CCPs responsibility to make shure everything works propperly and people don’t get banned over false positives but thats also not guaranteed right now and a lot of man hours go into mannually checking stuff annyways.
Automation is needed if you really want to cut into cheaters profit margins. It would certainly make the job much easyer to use specialised software like PB as basis instead of cooking something up from scratch.
I would hope CCP is smart enough to stresstest everything propperly before handing ban-authority over to the software but even if it’s for detection only it would still help a lot.
As for the involvment of players i am pretty shure it’s not like someone can just change code without anyone double checking or it would defeat the purpose no matter what game we’re taliking about…
Yea, if you are referring to anti-cheat organisations implementing their own checks, that is a situation only seen in FPS which use PB and it is all done legally, with knowledge by PB and by the players. Traditionally, every server using scripts from anti-cheat organisations does announce on their server MOTD that those specific scripts are being used.
PB relies on volunteer groups to monitor the program AND add new scripts.
Now for just a second imagine - Bot programmer joins volunteer group and has access to any new scripts that are put up to be added to the program.
Is the bot detection program likely to be of any use against the bot he makes his living from?
He doesn’t need to “change” anything, just have access to what is being run and new scripts being added.
And that is where one has to understand that anti-cheat organizations such as ACi and pbbans are very professional and they do a full background check on any person that is allowed as staff. And yea, there are always bad apples, but those are dealt with quickly and swiftly
Knowing how something works doesn’t necessarily make it easy to break and the goal isn’t to make that impossible (because you can’t) but to make it so hard that it’s no longer profitable.
Would seem neither of you understand human nature very well.
RMT has been alive and well for as long as i have been playing the game - Despite threats and warnings from CCP these people still make a decent income from it.
CCP would be well aware of the RMT sites yet a quick Google search shows many of the same sites are still around.
Do either of you believe these people are going to just give up their activities OR are they more likely going to find ways to exploit anything CCP attempt to do.,.
I’ve seen many games attempt to “fix” illegal activities within their games over the years - Some of them are now gone while those remaining still have illegal activities in their games.
As long as there is money to be made, players will find a way to make it.
The first thing you have to look at is the scripting of the bots - PB needs this before it can even get started, then it has to be reverse engineered and distributed to its volunteer groups, which may or may not contain individuals who actually own or distribute the software - Unless PB/CCP is going to go to each individuals house and check their computers for “illegal software”, well…
Then you have laws governing what is and isn’t legal - Many of the RMT sites are still there because the laws in the host country allow them, CCP/PB have no control over that.
Sorry, not sorry for being a nay sayer but after over 30 years of working with some of the worst types of people in society, I know those who want to break the rules for profit will always find a way.
I hear you and you make good points. As I said, there are always going to be bad apples, especially in the anti-cheat business.
Personally, I will maintain my positive outlook about PB and the anti-cheat communities based on my own experience working with them for many years. I also trust on the leadership of both anti-cheat communities (ACi and PBBans)
No, they don’t need to aqcuire every piece of cheat software and reverse engineer it in order to counter it.
Looking at Bots - that can be done by input analysis and trying to make your bot farm emulate human behaviour ads orders of magnitude in complexity. Injection attacks can be countered by integrity checks and so on.
People who do this ■■■■ for profit move on to an easyer target if you make life hard enough for them.
And what do you suppose CCP should do instead if you dislike the idea of anti cheat software?
By having steamed installed, you have VAC installed as well, however you are correct that it only activates in the event that you join a server with it already turned on.
I don’t dislike the software per se, it’s the fact it relies on players to work that is the problem i see in Eve.
It is the fact the anti bot needs to install a trogan horse on every computer that logs into the game - it is the fact Eve has taught me NEVER to trust anyone in Eve not in your group and even then with caution.
I’ve been banned for supposedly cheating in another game when I know i never had. Forgive me if i don’t want to risk that happening in Eve.
Looking at recent security reports from Eve, I’d suggest they keep on keeping on - Just as they are.,.