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Punkbuster wrongly bans Battlefield 3 players, EA working on solution
Alongside legions of actual cheaters, EA's third-party anti-cheating technology, Punkbuster, has apparently been booting innocents from Battlefield 3, a problem the publisher is currently looking into. "We are investigating an issue of Punkbuster bans that were incorrectly applied to some of our players," reads a statement on EA's official help site. "Please undertstand [sic] that our game advisors are not able to access or overturn Punkbuster bans, but we're working with our partners at Even Balance to get this resolved as quickly as possible." Even Balance is the developer of Punkbuster, a once-popular anti-cheating program that saw widespread use prior to the advent of Steam and Valve's Anti-Cheat (VAC) software. Since that time, many newer games (including EA's own Titanfall) have opted to use Valve's solution over the comparatively dated Punkbuster. Unfortunately, older games, such as Battlefield 3, remain tied to Punkbuster and its banning protocol which makes it very difficult for even the game's publisher to rescind punishment once a ban has been issued. [Image: EA]
New APB Reloaded dev blog outlines aimbot policies
This week's APB Reloaded dev blog is live, and GamersFirst CEO Bjorn Book-Larsson gives way to Aphadon, a former AI engineer on the Realtime Worlds version of APB who is currently overseeing the anti-cheat systems for the new incarnation of the game. Aphadon details the original implementation of PunkBuster in APB (and the performance and connection-related disasters that it caused for players in the beta), and states that it eventually was able to detect "every single commercially available aimbot." Due to the financial problems at Realtime Worlds, the APB team was never able to ban the thousands of cheaters that were identified in the original game. For chapter two, Aphadon states that the problems with PunkBuster have been ironed out, and anti-cheat measures will be enabled from the start of APB Reloaded's closed beta. GamersFirst is also planning a hard line approach when it comes to dealing with aimbotters. Aphadon says that first-time offenders will be immediately kicked and their accounts (and PCs) banned temporarily. A second offense will result in a permanent account and PC ban.
EA completes Battlefield: Bad Company 2 server maintenance
[sugree] EA assures us via Twitter that, after a rocky launch period, the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 online servers have now been stabilized. Pretty much every iteration of Bad Company 2 has seen issues arise when connecting to EA's servers for online multiplayer, with Xbox 360 kicking some users all the way out to the Dashboard and PC users experiencing authentication issues with PunkBuster. The developer now says that those issues have been addressed, due in no small part to new servers being added over the weekend. "All new hardware is in place and ready to serve your BFBC2 needs," the tweet reads, backed up by a Q&A on the Battlefield Blog with more info. While some players may still experience a stat loss issue, EA and DICE are actively looking into a fix and encourage anyone who experiences said glitch to report it online. Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got dudes to sneak up on and knife in the back. Source 1 - Twitter Source 2 - Battlefield Blog
Aion: Say goodbye to GameGuard (for now...)
"Hark! The Herald Daeva Sing. NCsoft casts GameGuard out from under its wing." Many an Aion player are rejoicing at the latest news out of NCsoft. The game will not be launching with infamous anti-cheating software GameGuard (GG). If you're unfamiliar with this software, it comes packaged with many Asian MMOs. Think of it as Warden from World of Warcraft or Punkbuster from your favorite FPS... on steroids. GG has probably been the number one complaint about Aion throughout beta and it appears that NCsoft is unwilling to put off any customers on launch day by potentially inconsistent performance.However, this removal of GG will be only temporary until they can figure out a way to re-enable it without causing major issues. NCsoft just released one last patch before launch to banish GG and include a few more updates to the client. The level cap has been raised from 45 to 50. Players can now reserve 2 characters during preselect and create 8 characters in total during the head start period and beyond. Finally, channels will be set at 10 instances for the first two zones of each faction. This number will be reduced once players settle in, likely to reduce farming potential and maintain critical mass.
Griefing and self-governance in online games
The Guardian has produced an excellent column that addresses the problem of "griefers", people that abuse, team-kill and cheat other players of online games, particularly MMOs. Griefing has always been a problem where real players compete against their peers, although with massively multiplayer online games the problem has become much more serious. Earning a battleship in Eve Online or crafting a special item in World of Warcraft can take weeks if not months of game time. On top of that, the recent trend for people to sell items on auction sites like eBay has meant that rare online items have a monetary value.The article cites several high profile situations where griefers have bent moral codes with the Guiding Hand Social Club's ruination of Ubiqua Seraph in Eve Online and the funeral crash in WoW being the two main examples. Solutions that companies have come up with to limit these types of situations from happening are also looked at with the Xbox Live points system and strong community measures (like guilds and friend lists) being top on the list of letting players self-govern the problem. Effective community governance is essential if companies want to keep players inside the game and so that the owners don't have to resort to more drastic measures, like Blizzard does with its periodic account banning binges.Update: fixed a couple of minor grammatical errors.
F.E.A.R. patch to include PunkBuster
Vivendi announced today that there's a new patch for the psychological shooter F.E.A.R. in the works. This patch will include PunkBuster anti-cheating software and the option to kick players from multiplayer matches, as well as three new maps.This is eerily similar to the recent Call of Duty 2 fiasco, in which players threatened strike action unless something was done to reduce the levels of in-game cheating. A patch was released with PunkBuster, and everyone seemed to be satisfied. Cheating can make or break a title in terms of its multiplayer success, and as developers will inevitably have to patch anti-cheating in, it's surprising that neither game launched with the functionality.
