Cheat/Anti-Cheat Research - A few questions, if you will

[Cypher_CS]

Hey guys,

I'm Cypher (Mark) from CogniSafe.

I'd like to ask you a few questions regarding cheating in CoD or other games you play.

What do you think of Punk Buster? Does it work to your satisfaction or at all? How accurate is it?
What do you think of Valve's VAC (Valve Anti Cheat)? Does it work to your satisfaction, or at all? How accurate is it?

Have you ever been accused of cheating, by VAC or PB, when you weren't cheating?
Did you get banned or otherwise hurt by it?
How often has that happened to you?
How long did it take to get back to the game?

How frustrating, generally, is the whole cheating scene to you?
Has it ever caused you to quit a game entirely or just for a very long time? Which game was it?

What are the most important/annoying/critical problems related to cheating in CoD?
If you can, please rank or list what you feel are the top most important cheats/hacks/bots that need dealing with.


Guys, I'd like to first thank you, in advance, for taking this short questionnaire seriously.
We are working on a solution that would provide the players themselves the information needed to recognize cheaters when playing online and giving them the option of avoiding them. Giving the admins the option of banning, if they so choose.

I'd like to get as many answers as possible, as fast as possible.
Only you guys can make that happen.


P.S.
What's the most played CoD and most cheated?

[rudedog]

I've posted this thread link on the front page, to get more visibility. Good luck, looking forward to your research and findings.

[Cypher_CS]

Thank you VERY much.
If there's anyway you can encourage other sites to do so as well, or have the questionairre ask about all the games you cover (or at least CSS, CoD and BF games) that would be really great.

I didn't want to spam your forums with it in all those, so I only posted in HL2 and CoD... I think :)

[dixie]

Thanks Mark for stopping by fpsadmin.

I keep it short. I been a server admin since 2003 and cheating in general is foremost the most frustrating aspect of the job. Not to familiar with Valve, but PB is who we have relied on for years. I always hate assuming that someone is cheating so you put your faith in the service provided to recognized cheat/hacks and have it keep the servers we rent policed and provide as much as a cheat free environment as we possible can provide for players.

PB does what it can, but still I wish something or someone out there could be the miracle cure to curtail it. Cheats are so advanced now, and brings you down to the point of just given up sometimes. Mark, its makes you wish that something legally could be done about it. Trojans and worms are now embed in these things.. such a destroyer of the games we play and a threat to the operating systems and privacy of those that use them.

As for COD itself.. I find that in its short time of existance, that Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare, more than likey from its popularity has become to most cheated in the franchise. 4000+ bans are now in our dat files from our streaming services, not counting the globals that PB itself has caught that we dont see.

Any help from anywhere, always a welcome in this fight.. again thanks Mark for the inquirey and to Rudedog for providing this space for us.

DiXiE

[Ghost-Ryder]

For you guys that want to more about his company

CogniSafe develops a next generation anti-cheat and security platform for the online players and game providers. Based on semantic technology, CogniSafe’s solution will detect and handle a variety of threats on players' game assets and fair playing procedures, in order to secure the players and enhance game experience. In addition to knowledge sharing with players' communities, CogniSafe's solution exhibits intelligent, autonomous and self-learning capabilities.

Thanks for stopping by.
I have been an Admin for about 10 years and been throught a lot of anti cheat programs.
I started playing online before any cheat programs came out.
None of the older cheat programs are comming close to Punk Buster.
Punk Buster does a fairly good job.Nothing is ever going to be perfect.
I wish the Puplishing company's would get more involved in the fight against cheating.
I wish PB would BAN not just kick cheaters.
I wish they updated a lot more then they do now.
Taking screen shot from suspected players is a great tool for admins but using the same program for a long time with out updating it is not to smart IMHO.
Cheat programs are evolving and getting more and more sophisticated.
Buttom line is they need to get toughter to make a differents.

They need to have a Master Ban list for all and I mean ALL server they do have one now but only for Harware bans and global GUID bans.They should add all the other cheaters to that ban list but like I said PB only kicks players and prevent them from using known cheats.

[BoSBrian]

What do you think of Punk Buster? Does it work to your satisfaction or at all? How accurate is it?
PB is the best we have right now. I am moderately satisfied by PB. PB does a good job (if maintained properly by the server admins) to catch the "dumb" cheater. Most advanced cheat users are not caught.


What do you think of Valve's VAC (Valve Anti Cheat)? Does it work to your satisfaction, or at all? How accurate is it?
Based on the number of cheaters playing CSS I'd say it isn't worth the code its written with.


Have you ever been accused of cheating, by VAC or PB, when you weren't cheating?
No, and of course all of those that were accused are innocent ;)

How frustrating, generally, is the whole cheating scene to you?
Has it ever caused you to quit a game entirely or just for a very long time? Which game was it?
It is VERY frustrating, but at this point there is only so much that can be done. Yes, I do not play CSS anymore.


What are the most important/annoying/critical problems related to cheating in CoD?
It is very frustrating for not only myself but all of those on my server. It takes away the fun for everyone on the server except those that are cheating. Who wants to be constantly killed by the same person and not be able to fight back effectively?


If you can, please rank or list what you feel are the top most important cheats/hacks/bots that need dealing with.
Aimbots and wallhacks. Not sure of names because I don't use them :D


What's the most played CoD and most cheated?
Obviously CoD4 being the newest out.

[RaptureReady]

Hi Cypher (Mark) and as others have said, thanks for posting here at fpsadmin.

My name is RaptureReady(John) and I have been admining the servers that menofgod.us carries since 2004. My main game is CoD+ and have come to realization that cheaters and hackers get smarter everyday. We currently have one of the number Sniper servers in CoD2 v1.0, but after investigating why, I found out that most, say 3/4 of the folks that play on our server use cracked CoD2 games. It is sad to see this, but without any anti-cheat program running on the 1.0 servers I can see why they do not patch to 1.3, PB would certainly not allow them to connect.

With all that said, I do like PB, but as some have said, nothing is going to be 100% perfect, but I look forward in seeing your findings.

As for valve, I cannot say as I have only dealt with PB.

RR

[HellBilly]

i stopped playing medal of honor allied assault because of cheating
then played raven sheild till call of duty 1 came out
stopped played call of duty 2 because of cheaters

my thoughts on punkbuster
2 min. kick for cheating is a joke
ALL cheaters should be hardware banned

VAC : i have no opinion i dont know much about it .. but do play team fortress and cs:s from time to time

[dixie]

my thoughts on punkbuster
2 min. kick for cheating is a joke
ALL cheaters should be hardware banned



agreed, hardware across the spectrum for cheating whatsoever.. some cracks in the system.. the question is why? Slaps on the rist and the admins and honest players continue to deal with same cheating players making a comeback..