Hacker Day of Reckoning.

[General Sherman]

Today, after working all day through a gloriously beautiful Saturday, I logged on to steam and took a quick peek at this HUB, only to be greeted with an even more glorious revelation about a recent glitch ocurring in a new anti-cheat measure implemented by Tripwire.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/35450/discussions/0/540741859242353523/

Reading through the rage threads posted by community members with VAC bans on record has been a wonderful dose of schadenfrude for me. One thing that was common to many of these threads stuck out to me in particular.

The idea that people getting effectively locked out of the game had been greiviously wronged, and deserved some sort of compensation. The irony in these statements is almost overwhelming. What do people with these VAC bans think they were doing to other players when they cheated in the first place?

I've had more encounters with hackers than I care to remember in online gaming. Just recnetly one of the best games I have ever played was effectively destroyed by a massive influx of hackers. This was an online only game game I had put over 900 hours into. I joined a clan, particiapted in tournaments, made new friends, and generally had some of the best fun of my life. The studio making the game was small, and there were always issues with glitches and game balance, but the game was excellent and the plusses decisivly outweighed the minuses.

Then the game went f2p and some hackers started to pop up. The game had no real anti-cheat mechanism to speak of, and it soon became apparent that the developers were powerless to stop the growing trend. A few disgruntled players began hacking agggresivly, and even posted info on various forums about how to cheat in the game. They claimed they were doing so in protest in order to spur activity on the part of the developers, but to anyone paying attention this flimsy excuse stood out for what it was, a cheap cover to give the barest sense of justifaction to rampant trolling. More and more players followed suit under the assumption that it was OK since, "everyone else was doing it". It soon became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now the game (War of the Roses) is dead, and all I am left with is fond memories of what once was. Certainly the developers bear a large part of the blame for this. They should have known that cheaters and hackers would be a problem in an online game; but imo the prime responsability rests on the cheaters themselves. The people who think it is permissable or forgiveable to ruin other people's experiences. That game cost me 30 dollars and 900 hours of my life, and its all been ruined by cheaters. What compensation do you think I should expect? From whom should I expect compensation?

Now, for once, I see cheaters in a game I love getting hit with some real consequences. For all of you who are angry that you can't enjoy RO2 because of this glitch, even if its just for a short time, remember that this is exactly how you made every single player you cheated against feel. Before you complain that this new measure is too harsh, just look at what happened to War of the Roses, because thats what happens to a game when not enough is done. Frankly I prefer Tripwire's "heavy handed" approach.

[SupaSwope]

Most of the people getting affected by this have VAC from years ago like myself. Which is not right to deny my acess of the game when I never did anything wrong to the game in the first place? How is that right? I love RO2. Im in a clan. and Im on the TWI leaderboards for clan. How am I a labeled a bad person and cannot play when I have put more into this game then most people? That is just not right..

[Priest of Dagon]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von IG General Sherman:

Today I logged on to steam and took a quick peek at this HUB after working all day on a gloriously beeautiful Saturday, only to be greeted with an even more glorious revelation about a recent glitch ocurring in a new anti-cheat measure implemented by Tripwire.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/35450/discussions/0/540741859242353523/

Reading through the rage threads posted by community members with VAC bans on record has been a wonderful dose of schadenfrude for me. One thing that was common to many of these threads stuck out to me in particular.

The idea that people getting effectively locked out of the game had been greiviously wronged, and deserved some sort of compensation. The irony in these statements is almost overwhelming. What do people with these VAC bans think they were doing to other players when they cheated in the first place?

I've had more encounters with hackers than I care to remember in online gaming. Just recnetly one of the best games I have ever played was effectively destroyed by a massive influx of hackers. This was an online only game game I had put over 900 hours into. I joined a clan, particiapted in tournaments, made new friends, and generally had some of the best fun of my life. The studio making the game was small, and there were always issues with glitches and game balance, but the game was excellent and the plusses decisivly outweighed the minuses.

Then the game went f2p and some hackers started to pop up. The game had no real anti-cheat mechanism to speak of, and it soon became apparent that the developers were powerless to stop the growing trend. A few disgruntled players began hacking agggresivly, and even posted info on various forums about how to cheat in the game. They claimed they were doing so in protest in order to spur activity on the part of the developers, but to anyone paying attention this flimsy excuse stood out for what it was, a cheap cover to give the barest sense of justifaction to rampant trolling. More and more players followed suit under the assumption that it was OK since, "everyone else was doing it". It soon became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now the game (War of the Roses) is dead, and all I am left with is fond memories of what once was. Certainly the developers bear a large part of the blame for this. They should have known that cheaters and hackers would be a problem in an online game; but imo the prime responsability rests on the cheaters themselves. The people who think it is permissable or forgiveable to ruin other people's experiences. That game cost me 30 dollars and 900 hours of my life, and its all been ruined by cheaters. What compensation do you think I should expect? From whom should I expect compensation?

Now, for once, I see cheaters in a game I love getting hit with some real consequences. For all of you who are angry that you can't enjoy RO2 because of this glitch, even if its just for a short time, remember that this is exactly how you made every single player you cheated against feel. Before you complain that this new measure is too harsh, just look at what happened to War of the Roses, because thats what happens to a game when not enough is done. Frankly I prefer Tripwire's "heavy handed" approach.

Good post. I completely agree.

[General Sherman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von DG | SupaSwope:

Most of the people getting affected by this have VAC from years ago like myself. Which is not right to deny my acess of the game when I never did anything wrong to the game in the first place? How is that right? I love RO2. Im in a clan. and Im on the TWI leaderboards for clan. How am I a labeled a bad person and cannot play when I have put more into this game then most people? That is just not right..

Saying that most of the people effected were VAC banned a long time ago is an un-substantiated claim. You know about yourself and handfull of toher people posting on this forum. If you truly are a reformed cheater, than maybe I feel a little bad for you, but not much.

Again, its a server side option to kick all users with a VAC ban on record. If you are in a clan, you can probably convince them to un-ban you from any server they run. And as Yoshi said, there is probably a glitch that is causing this option to be enabled by default. By next week it will probably all be sorted out., and you can go back to playing as before.

You don't get VAC banned for no reason. You aren't being labeld a bad person, you are being labeled as a cheater. And you had to EARN that label. It may be harsh, but it is not arbitrary.

[Malsour]

100% agree with OP. People need to learn a lesson, and this is a fine example of a great method.

If they want to still play they can.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/35450/discussions/0/540741859245093847/
They need to sign and decide where the server is. I make more than enough money to kick start this, instead of crying they should take what help they can get. I don't want to play with any of them, but fi they wanna play with each other, be my guest.

[BujinStudent]

Also, they're not being "prevented", they're being prevented only by admins who don't want them. Admins have the right to restrict many options, hacker being one. The admins have free reign to turn off the "hacker free" option. If that's not good enough for them, they can put up their own servers and play all they want with whoever they want or don't want. So nobody is stopping them from playing. The post above is one perfect example.

[Malsour]

I'm setting up a server right now, and if no one plays, well that's a free server they passed up and they can't say they aren't allowed to play.

[Chronic]

Where can we go for refunds?

[R5CYA]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Chronic:

Where can we go for refunds?

hell.

[FriskyJohnson]

My main point was that I wish they would have given some sort of warning or indication that this was to come (or that they actually had the authority/ability to do this) before I bought it. Apparently it is well within their rights to do this, and I'm okay with that... I just wish I hadn't wasted money on this game, or any of the other Tripwire games that I own.

[R5CYA]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von NotNakedJohnson:

My main point was that I wish they would have given some sort of warning or indication that this was to come (or that they actually had the authority/ability to do this) before I bought it. Apparently it is well within their rights to do this, and I'm okay with that... I just wish I hadn't wasted money on this game, or any of the other Tripwire games that I own.

people with old bans,like you, will probably end up being alright. tread yoshiro's thread. some admins will leave the settings to keep all VAC ban players out though. can you blame them?

but if you really want to play again, quote from Yoshiro.."And once again I am still looking for somebody with a VAC banned account who is willing to work with us to identify any problems with this system to contact me via PM at the Tripwire forums.

And we are looking into seeing if we can add the date since last ban as an option for admins (I do not know if we will be able to, but we are looking into it)."

[SmaSh it Up]

Tripwire are one of the best independent studios around. The dedication to their craft is exceptional and this is what allows them to stay independent. Their intent to service releases with regular, high-quality updates is an extremely rare quality to be found among developers these days. Tripwire's ethos harks back to the old school, and it considers post-release fixes and free content as an automatic duty on their part, not a paid-for right of the player. They are a treasure for anyone who knows their roots and loves PC games.

Death to micro-transactions and rip-off DLCs. Mobile and console gamers I'm looking at you.

[Pte Maylam]

I'm all for it, but there has to be a cut off point at which point you're allowed to have another go at joining the non-cheating society. So I'm glad they're looking into that.

And we are looking into seeing if we can add the date since last ban as an option for admins (I do not know if we will be able to, but we are looking into it)."

[R5CYA]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Pte Maylam:

I'm all for it, but there has to be a cut off point at which point you're allowed to have another go at joining the non-cheating society. So I'm glad they're looking into that.

And we are looking into seeing if we can add the date since last ban as an option for admins (I do not know if we will be able to, but we are looking into it)."

that HAS to be server controlled. i know of plenty who would rather not even have known hackers play with them after what's been going on.
just because a known hacker, like MrEpicGoat, and yes, i did personally follow him into multiple servers to watch him cheat, has no recent VAC bans on his account, does not mean they should get a "free pass". we've got hacker with 20 steam accounts (epic goat). i'm not even sure what TWI has done will fully cure the problem.

[Pte Maylam]

You're right, they don't deserve a free pass, but if he's lacking in the VAC bans department, then these measures wouldn't work.

Presumably if he's reported he would get a vac ban..?

Don't get me wrong, hackers ruin games, they really do, and people like MrEpicGoat should get their bans and should see them enforced. But to borrow an example from another thread, someone VAC'd 10 years ago for another game, surely that's worthy of being given a second chance.

[Nocturna]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Chronic:

Where can we go for refunds?

Tell your mommy you wasted her money on a game you cant play because you are a cheating scumbag. Steam doesnt refund. QQ some moar.