Ultima Online is using Punkbuster now?

[Bizanich]

http://www.uo.com/punkbuster_faq.html

Wow lol. God, I wish they had had something like that 10 years ago.

[Surlok TP]

PB is more of a nuisance to non cheaters than it typically is for cheaters.I can't think of a game out right now that PB handles that there isn't a plethora of cheats for.

The only bonus to PB is if someone decides to actually bypass PB itself and get caught they get a hardware ban which results in them not being able to play any PB enforced games on the market. Granted there is ways around that to which doesn't involve buying new hardware, but it's usually enough to stop the basic leeches that cheat which are usually the most intrusive in games.

Anti-Cheat programs are annoyances for those of us that don't cheat, and when your game play is intrupted or altogether halted by them, whilst cheaters go about their merry buisness you really start to hate the Anti-Cheat programs more than you do the cheaters.

[Neric]

PB cuts off the incompetent cheaters and since that's well over 95% of all cheaters it's a pretty decent archievement.

[venom]

Originally Posted by Neric

PB cuts off the incompetent cheaters and since that's well over 95% of all cheaters it's a pretty decent archievement.

Agree. I'd rather have some protection than no protection at all. There's always gonna be somebody out there that will figure out a way around so-and-so anti-cheat program, but it will still end up catching a lot of other cheaters.

[Chaid]

Originally Posted by Surlok TP

The only bonus to PB is if someone decides to actually bypass PB itself and get caught they get a hardware ban which results in them not being able to play any PB enforced games on the market.

Hardware ban? Any dainbramaged kid can change their MAC.

[Surlok TP]

Originally Posted by Chaid

Hardware ban? Any dainbramaged kid can change their MAC.

I said it was easily overcome, don't quote out of context.

It doesn't cut off 95% of cheaters either, that's the problem. There is hundreds of cheat sites out now that keep lists of all current un-detected PB cheats for each and every game the sites support, these are updated daily. So all a cheat has to do is check the site before he logs on to see if his cheat is detected, and not use it. Furthermore, most non PB intrusive cheats only result in kicks, which allows the user to simply log out, turn off said cheat and log back in or find another. Valve's anti cheat system is a little better in this respect, while it doesn't seem to be any better at cheat reduction or avoidance, it doesn't insta kick/ban , rather it logs the user and does random ban waves making users in-capable of taking a daily census on what is or isn't detected.

PB needs to pick up on that, game companies however seem dis-interested in having thier users full out banned, rather simply having them kicked by PB.

systems like CDC work far better than the 3rd party cheat detection programs like PB and the like, and are freely devloped and offered, but are for whatever reason ignored by game companies. Any serious ladder match leagues, that aren't based on Lans typically uses things like CDC because they are far more capable programs, being pro-active rather than reactive. PB only pick's up cheats that the developers have taken and told it to find, Short of MD5 checks there is nothing it does that is pro-active in stopping cheaters, which is why it's always behind.

[Nerion]

Is WoW absolute zero tolerance for third party programs?