He has a point ya'know. No one bothers searching for security holes in Mac's, because lets face it, who cares if all the Macs spontaneously combust, as long as the PC's are working still...
Interestingly enough, I've noticed PunkBuster only gives something like a 1 hours ban for hacks? Maybe that's something that is configurable, wouldn't have thought so though.
The only anti-cheat support that's ever going to get anywhere is one that updates on the client and server automatically, and at the moment VALVe are the only ones capable of doing this, so no matter what we think, they're just going to keep on doing whatever it is they're doing with VAC.
Isn't punkbuster supposed to be a nightmare to admin? Or was that PunkBuster when combined with Battlefield? :/ Certainly have a lot of respect for whoever designed the rcon / variables part of VALVe's games, soooo much better then any game on the market, yet it's been that way for seven years. You'd think the game developers would've picked up on it by now... :/
- Bruce "Bahamut" Andrews
Eric (Deacon) wrote:
In a bold display of creativity, Ian mu wrote:
Add up all the games supporting PB and you'll find there's nowhere near as much cheaters not sure what crack people are smoking if they think there's more. No comparison at all. Also there's the other features like screenshot grabbing etc which can catch many of those that get through as not detected yet, plus the global master ban list means its pretty effective.
I'd like to point out that gaping security holes aren't the ONLY reason there are more viruses for Microsoft products. It's also because they're on over 80%, some estimates say over 90% of all desktops in the World. Working on pure numbers alone is silly. It's like denigrating some small European country because they didn't donate as much money as the US did for some 3rd world cause, when in reality their GDP may be only a tiny fraction of the GDP in the US. Also, I'd advise against falling for this false notion of security in "screenshot grabbing", which was easily bypassed by cheats, later to be trumped, soon after to be bypassed again, etc. This is no silver bullet. It is an ongoing battle just like any other anti-cheat system may have. And I still am not totally on board with any global list of bans, as the potential for abuse is just too great.
I'm sure PB is certainly better than nothing, these days, and it certainly is *a* way to help the symptom of "cheats" on public servers. Is it the *best* way? I remember this argument came up a good while back, just as the argument about an allegedly malicious file-checking "bug" that was a fixture for so long and did a great positive service was "fixed" (just like the server.cfg loading at ever map change was a "bug" that was "fixed", even though everyone relied on it as SOP). Many seemed to come out of the woodwork as fanboys, unwilling to consider any perspective on it other than PB being a panacea to the problem of people generally being assholes in life, at least as it applied to "cheats" (some of which were rather subjective in nature) in their favorite online game.
The philosophy from the game companies is interesting as well. Evenbalance offered their services to Valve for $1 total nominal fee, Valve turned it down. Evenbalance offered their services to Id for free, Id said we'll take them but not for free, we'll pay you a decent amount to do a decent job. I know which company has the best philosophy for me.
There's a whole lot more to it than money, as I'd hope you're well aware. It's never as simple as awarding the contract to the lowest bidder (unless you're in government, heh). These "philosophies" are actually business decisions being made, and neither you nor I have enough information to make an informed judgment on each of the different business decisions, whether good or bad either way. Regarding any of these moves as "philosophies" is really reading very deeply into it, probably to an unreasonable extent.
-- Eric (the Deacon remix)
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