> On a sad note to honest players of Counter-Strike and Half-Life mods, we
> have determined that the current version of PunkBuster cannot be
appreciably
> improved without the direct support of VALVe. We have offered to do
business
> with VALVe on multiple occasions in the way of integrating proven
Anti-Cheat
> technology directly into their games. At this time, we are suspending
development
> of the Half-Life version to focus on game platforms where the developer is
willing
> to support the effort. We sincerely believe that we have had a positive
impact on
> the Half-Life community and we truly appreciate the support of our
hundreds of
> thousands of users. However, from the beginning we have said that we did
not
> want to charge users directly for our product and we intend to abide by
that
> decision. The remaining bugs, problems, issues, etc. with the Half-Life
version
> cannot be addressed properly without direct integration with the game, and
at
> this time, there is no hope of that even being a possibility.
IMHO, this can be considered a death knell for the Half-Life online gaming
software. If Valve is not willing to make it such that their programs
cannot be easily cheated on and they are not willing to work with a 3rd
party vendor that has come up with a way to prevent cheating, then they are
clearly not dedicated to the ideology of fair gaming.
FWIW, I would be very interested in hearing a response from Valve on this
release from PB. To say the least, the release is clearly one sided but if
it is accurate.... :(
Noc.
