Valve Banning Counter-Strike Cheaters

[NicColt]

I just saw this over at Icronic.com

Isn't this a little late in the game. I mean CS has been out now like what 3 years now. And only NOW Valve is saying that they are going to ban keys ** excuse me I mean 'gathering information about detected cheaters'. Actually this is the first time ever that I hear Valve admit about cheats in their engine. Give me a break, how lame.

Funny how Id Software and Grey Matter had punkbuster built-into the game engine itself and fixing all problems instantly with the first patch within a cpl of months of RTCW's release. Punkbuster had been offered to valve for at least two years and they totally ignored them, they could have had the problem fixed a long time ago but nooooo. This is just another weak attempt by Valve to put some sort of face on a three year old problem that they didn't want anything to do with. No freeeken wonder TFC2 or HL2 or ANYTHING from valve is nowhere in sight.

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Valve Banning Counter-Strike Cheaters
« Posted 2002-07-16 18:38:40 ·· Author: Mortin ··
According to CSNation, Valve has been gathering all the product key's of cheaters, and will soon ban them all on the master servers.
Security module update *** This only affects Counter-Strike servers. *** We've updated the public security modules again. Your Counter-Strike servers should update themselves automatically. If you find your servers are suddenly having problems, try restarting the servers. These modules should detect OGC's OpenGl Hack 1.8 and will start reporting detected cheaters to our master ban list server. We won't be banning anyone yet, but we'll be gathering information about detected cheaters.
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[NOX]

Actually, I don?t even think Punkbuster could have helped CS. I know personally people who had Punkbuster activated and were still able to cheat.

Yes I agree, Valve could have solved this issue way back when. However, we must remember CS is not some game Valve marketed from the start like id and others do with their flagship products (i.e. Quake III).

Valves flagship was Half-Life. Valve and many gamers (including the CS makers) probably didn?t know how popular CS would become. Valve only started becoming interested in CS once they knew it was a good possibility valve could make some money off of a retail version of CS. By that time it was a little to late, and cheats were everywhere. Now they are trying to stop cheaters and this is where we are at today.

I think it?s a good thing, if you are not cheating you have nothing to worry about. I think this will probably bring back a lot of people who were around CS since B1. I know a lot who have left the game because of cheaters.

 

[NicColt]

Nox everything you said is very true.

>Punkbuster activated and were still able to cheat.

PB along with other anti-cheats with CS have come to a wall.... what I mean is that unless you build it into the game engine itself there is nothing you can do to prevent cheats like OGC's OpenGl Hack and others.

I bet you anything that the following is why Valve is putting this anti-cheat in the game engine and looking to who owns the keys.

Even if you have anti-cheats that are outside the game engine, any banana admin could and would prevent the anti-cheat from detecting him and others he chooses. The only way to catch the cheats is to build it into the engine itself and that is why Valve is moving on this.

I went to a website that keeps track of online players and CS was still leading with some 120,000 active gamers. I wish I remembered what that site was. It timed you out after 5 min. I think. All other online games were way behind.

 

[CubicZirconia]

>Punkbuster activated and were still able to cheat.

I'll agree with that too. Awhile after PB came out I started to wonder what the point was. It didn't seem to curb cheating at all.

I know a lot who have left the game because of cheaters.

Right about the time PB came around cheating seemed to be at an all time high. I stopped playing shortly after. I've just started playing again recently. At this point, I'm more concerned about Counterstrike: Condition Zero. If they can keep that cheat free I'll be happy.

 

[Scouzer]

I wouldn't bet a peso they will keep CS: Condition Zero cheat free. Cheat reduced...maybe. But I still wouldn't count on it. Counterstrike has a huge backing of cheaters that will do their best to screw it all up..

 

[HJB417]

Originally posted by: NicColt
I went to a website that keeps track of online players and CS was still leading with some 120,000 active gamers. I wish I remembered what that site was. It timed you out after 5 min. I think. All other online games were way behind.

http://www.gamespy.com/stats/ ?

 

[vash]

We all have to remember what Valve is really doing. They have a game, that is about 4 years old and they are still supportnig it. Did they shut down cheaters a long time ago? No. Are they shutting them down now? Yes. Sure, there may be a few people that left CS because of cheats, but those numbers are far and few between. Looking at the CS stats, there are so many people still playing CS, I don't think too many people left.

Valve is going to move in 2x directions:

1. Their Steam is going to be one delivery system for games.
2. Only via Steam, will you have a guaranteed service level.
3. They will be charging for Steam.

With Steam, they will definitely have games, and you will pay a monthly fee. BUT they will be guarantee a cheat free environment. For the rest of us, at some point, they will stop updating and supporting their WONid system.

Just you all wait and see. Valve's next business model will revolve around you paying monthly for a guaranteed level of service.

vash

 

[SupermanCK]

just wanna say it's about time

 

[NicColt]

>Valve's next business model will revolve around you paying monthly for a guaranteed level of service.

I agree but paying models have never been that sucessfull.

>BUT they will be guarantee a cheat free environment.

and the only way to do that will be to build an anti-cheat directly into the game engine and server side components.

 

[GeSuN]

just wanna say it's about time

Agreed, I was starting to enjoy the game more when I was playing alone with bots... the day these cheaters will be stopped, I'll be the happiest man on earth...

 

[vash]

I agree but paying models have never been that sucessfull. and the only way to do that will be to build an anti-cheat directly into the game engine and server side components.

Pay models are very successful. Look at games like EQ, that have a huge following. Their low monthly fee goes to keeping the servers up, adding new content, etc. EQ, has MANY more subscribers than CS players, so its not quite a fair comparison.

As far as a cheat free environment goes, with a subscriber model, they MUST come up with a way to keep the system completely cheat free. With their "steam" release, its basically backwards HL compatible, making possible exploits available. If they removed the ability to be somewhat backwards compatible, there is a better chance of removing a lot more possible hacks out of the system.

Think about it this way, if 60k+ people were paying about $8-$10/month, they'll have more revenue and an incentive to build in anti cheat technology and build a better system. Just everyone watch, Valve, some day, will remove their support of WONID's as being "official" and "supported". Valve will turn on STEAM and have STEAM as their content delivery system, guaranteed to be cheat free, as long as you pay. Offenders of the service will be removed, or they can come back with paying another fee.

vash

 

[ceZium]

I too will be glad to see the number of cheaters reduced significantly if possible. The game is NOT alot of fun when there are alot of cheats running around.

 

[LuDaCriS66]

I'd love to see global banning start as soon as possible.. unfortunately, there are still hurdles that need to be worked out to ensure that false cheat detections don't occur. The biggest problem with that are people who still use Voodoo graphics cards. With all those 3rd party drivers for the voodoo series, it's tough for Valve to keep track.

 

[Maleficus]

Global banning is all good and well but who/what determines you are cheating? some modules that may mess up? admins that jump to conclusions?

I have been banned from countless servers as im sure many of you have for "cheating" it would really suck to be banned globally when u didnt cheat...

 

[LuDaCriS66]

Originally posted by: Maleficus
Global banning is all good and well but who/what determines you are cheating? some modules that may mess up? admins that jump to conclusions?

I have been banned from countless servers as im sure many of you have for "cheating" it would really suck to be banned globally when u didnt cheat...

You can't be globally banned by a manual server ban... only the Valve anti cheat can do that... the only reason I know of that causes those false detections is the voodoo drivers... which isn't Valve's fault.

 

[NOX]

Originally posted by: vash

I agree but paying models have never been that sucessfull. and the only way to do that will be to build an anti-cheat directly into the game engine and server side components.

Pay models are very successful. Look at games like EQ, that have a huge following. Their low monthly fee goes to keeping the servers up, adding new content, etc. EQ, has MANY more subscribers than CS players, so its not quite a fair comparison.

As far as a cheat free environment goes, with a subscriber model, they MUST come up with a way to keep the system completely cheat free. With their "steam" release, its basically backwards HL compatible, making possible exploits available. If they removed the ability to be somewhat backwards compatible, there is a better chance of removing a lot more possible hacks out of the system.

Think about it this way, if 60k+ people were paying about $8-$10/month, they'll have more revenue and an incentive to build in anti cheat technology and build a better system. Just everyone watch, Valve, some day, will remove their support of WONID's as being "official" and "supported". Valve will turn on STEAM and have STEAM as their content delivery system, guaranteed to be cheat free, as long as you pay. Offenders of the service will be removed, or they can come back with paying another fee.

vash

That is true, however they would need to guarantee NO cheats before people will be willing to pay to play. Unless... mandatory, which would be hard to push on the public. Pay, and you have cheat free servers, don't pay, and we cannot guarantee NO cheaters.

Personally, I'd be willing to pay a monthly fee for cheat free servers.

 

[vash]

That is true, however they would need to guarantee NO cheats before people will be willing to pay to play. Unless... mandatory, which would be hard to push on the public. Pay, and you have cheat free servers, don't pay, and we cannot guarantee NO cheaters. Personally, I'd be willing to pay a monthly fee for cheat free servers.

With their Steam system, they have the ability to shut down the cheaters for sure. With VAC, Valve is really using it as a test grounds to ensure their anti cheat system is in place, to not only stop hacks from continuing, but to prevent them from becoming used at all. There are still hacks for CS out there, but nothing major since VAC has stepped up and shut down the cheaters in most of their methods of cheating.

Paying to play is going to happen, even if we don't like it. The business model only makes sense for pay to play. Paying to play will have more games than just CS and DOD, but they MUST bring in more titles and guarantee a level of service before people are willing to take on the pay to play mentality. If there is going to be a company that will bring us to pay to play, it'll be Valve and their massive online following for a FPS game. Sure, EQ and other RPGs have larger followings, but when we talk FPS games, nothing comes close to Valve's Half-Life and the mods around it.

vash