How secure is your server?

[Cyber-Couch]

From hackers I mean. I'm wondering this because hacking seems to be a big issue now with PRM, and I may have come across a few on your server. Do you take punk buster screenshots on your server regularly? This seems to be a good way to find them out since punkbuster doesn't detect the hacks.

[perry]

We take cheating accusations very seriously at TG. Cheaters, especially those wearing TG tags, are given absolutely zero tolerance and are not at all welcome on our servers.

The best anti-cheat is our players properly reporting suspected cheaters to an admin as quickly as possible and as specifically as possible. Teamspeak is probably the best method.

If you are interested in specific counter-measures, your best bet would be to PM Apophis and find out what he is willing to share.

[Cyber-Couch]

PRM isn't the best game to report cheaters because you can't tell who killed you. The only way to tell is looking at scoreboard.

I read on the reality forums that other servers were taking regular punk buster screenshots of players who have a higher number of kills than the average player. I think this is a good idea and I think TG should be doing the same.

[Drizzid]

Seems kind of odd that someone could be accused of cheating if they have a high kill to death ratio. We have people here at TG that can and do have K/D ratios of over 10-1 in our other games like POE and Vanilla . They don't use hacks

[Cyber-Couch]

I'd say you're right if you have a better way to weed out hackers from your server. It is pretty blunt, but I was suprised to see how many cheaters play PRM.

After seeing that the other servers were taking actions like these against cheaters, I hope your server would too since I like playing there.

[Root]

Originally Posted by Cyber-Couch

After seeing that the other servers were taking actions like these against cheaters, I hope your server would too since I like playing there.

Maybe I'm not reading your post correctly. Our admins DO take action against cheaters. Every TG hosted game has a SOP that covers cheat accusations.

[icky]

Originally Posted by Cyber-Couch

From hackers I mean. I'm wondering this because hacking seems to be a big issue now with PRM, and I may have come across a few on your server. Do you take punk buster screenshots on your server regularly? This seems to be a good way to find them out since punkbuster doesn't detect the hacks.

What is your evidence? We can watch for it if we know what it is.

[sordavie]

I don't think he's accusing anyone on the TG servers of cheating. I think he's just posing a question about whether any special anti-cheating measures are taken on the TG PRM servers.

It sounds like he's suggesting that cheating is a bigger problem for the PRM mod because cheaters are much harder to catch, since players are not notified of who's killing who. It's not even that they have no name to report; it's that, since everyone on the other team looks the same, there's no real way of even suspecting that someone is cheating.

He further mentions that other servers regularly take screen shots of players rather than relying on the players themselves to notify admins of suspected cheating, and wonders whether this practice is done on the TG servers as well. I take it this is because the server admins can pick out who's who while players cannot. And, if the players cannot pick out who is who, then the players cannot report anything.

At the most, players can report things like "there's a guy on the other team with a really high k/d ratio", "there's a guy on the other team that's taking advantage of a glitch", "I got killed ten times in a row and I'm usually a lot better than that", etc... Some of the more obvious cheats a player might report because he's got direct evidence (i.e. screen shots, video, whatever) of an opposing player doing something, but I guess the problematic ones being used are those that players don't have access to (like aimbot or something).

So, telling him to report suspected cheaters on TS, to provide evidence of someone's cheating, or that TG admins take cheating seriously and ban cheaters when caught, don't appear to be relevant responses to his question. At most, he's implying that PRM demands more sophisticated anti-cheating measure than regular bf2 or POE due to the nature of kill reports, and wondering whether that's what's done on TG. I don't think he's implying that anyone on the TG server is cheating.

[icky]

Originally Posted by sordavie

I don't think he's accusing anyone on the TG servers of cheating.

Yes he is. That's why I quoted him.

Originally Posted by sordavie

So, telling him to report suspected cheaters on TS, to provide evidence of someone's cheating, or that TG admins take cheating seriously and ban cheaters when caught, don't appear to be relevant responses to his question. At most, he's implying that PRM demands more sophisticated anti-cheating measure than regular bf2 or POE due to the nature of kill reports, and wondering whether that's what's done on TG. I don't think he's implying that anyone on the TG server is cheating.

Those are ALL relevant responses to his comments.

If he "may have come across a few on [our] server", then it would do us a world of good to know what makes him feel that way. If it is because he saw a guy walking through walls and flying through the air, then we know we have some investigation to do. If he says it was because his tea leaves told him so, then we know that this case file goes in a different pile. We understand that it is hard to report a problem without a name, but it is even harder to investigate a problem without a report.

[sordavie]

Ah, okay, my bad. But, it still doesn't seem to me like this thread was one where he was prepared to make any accusations towards specific incidents. At least, that doesn't appear to be the main thrust of any of the three posts he's got in this thread.

It's one thing to say, "I suspect something wrong when I played on the servers, and I am wondering what, if any, countermeasures are in place" and another to say "I want to report my suspicion of a specific incident of cheating, and I'd like the admins to do something about that specific incident."

The difference is between wondering about a general problem with the mod and wondering about a specific indicident.

My guess would be that he's got no tangible evidence of the sort like seeing a guy walking through walls, flying through the air, or walking fast. This is reasonable to suspect because if he saw those things, they are things you can report without player names and there would be no need for his suggested countermeasure.

But, I guess I'll backdown from my claim and we can see what the point of his thread is when he can clearly tell us.

[fuzzhead]

well regardless of what the thread creator meant, you havnt answered his questions yet....

DO YOU take PB screenshots of all high scoring players?

DO YOU use any other special anti-cheat methods because of PRM's more complex gameplay (no kill messages, nametags, etc)?

seems like your giving the guy a rough treatment when all he wanted to know if how you guys are handling the latest news of cheating...

cybercouch: i know of at least 10 servers doing the pb screenshot thing, as well as other methods. gloryhoundz admin fritz went though 2000 screenshots, and didnt find any cheats.

[perry]

If he wants to know specific anti-cheating measures that are in place on our servers, then Apophis and/or Tempus would be the people to discuss those with.

If you house has an alarm, do you tape a map to your mailbox showing where all the sensors are?

[sordavie]

Originally Posted by perry

If you house has an alarm, do you tape a map to your mailbox showing where all the sensors are?

Nope, but you might put a sticker on the window that says there is an alarm.

[Root]

Originally Posted by sordavie

Nope, but you might put a sticker on the window that says there is an alarm.

People that join a game server, with the intent of cheating deserve no warning. Such people ruin other peoples fun.

My thanks to the BF admin team for their fast response every time I've needed one to deal with a problem player.

[sordavie]

Originally Posted by Root

People that join a game server, with the intent of cheating deserve no warning. Such people ruin other peoples fun.

My thanks to the BF admin team for their fast response every time I've needed one to deal with a problem player.

This may be true but, to push the analogy, a sticker could serve another purpose as well. It may serve to comfort your house guests, letting them know that would be intruders have a warning and thus may pick on an easier target; and letting them know that an alarm will sound and the police automatically notified if an intruder breaks in.

It may just be that this guy wants the comfort of knowing that the latest and greatest alarm is protecting the house he's sleeping in.