Demanding a full refund - FacePunch have broken the game entirely

[gnif]

Before I continue, let me explain. Games today all insist on a service for anti-cheat that runs with admin access and privileges which has unrestricted access to view/read/edit files on your system and monitor your actions. As such I run Windows inside a virtual machine where I keep all my games and untrusted close source applications isolated from mission critical information. It would be irresponsible to allow such untrusted applications to exist on my system along side my client's confidential information without any form of protection/isolation.

About 6 months ago EAC was updated and attempting to connect to a Rust server, even a private local one, would fail due to EAC Timeout errors. After hours of diagnostics thinking I had a network issue, I eventually found that it was EAC itself detecting my VM and refusing to operate. It was possible to work around this with some simple config tweaks to the VM, but still not good none the less. After updating today, Rust refuses to even launch stating "Cannot run under Virtual Machine".

Obviously this has been done to combat hackers/cheaters, but let me explain something to you. The hackers with the technical ability to play games inside a VM already have the technical ability to modify the VM software to avoid being detected (and yes, it is possible and not that hard). All this does is stop legitimate players such as myself from playing.

FacePunch, I 100% regret supporting you and want a full and complete refund for this game that you have blocked me and thousands of other legitimate players from playing. You have just shifted the ratio of VM hackers to legitimate VM players to 100% VM hackers, well done.

What will you block next? This behaviour is deplorable.

[Mad Scientist]

gnif původně napsal:

In your (limited) opinion. And sure, gloss over the entire point being made and the proof of your faulty assertions.

Nothing faulty about it. Their chosen anticheat, EACs choice, the rest is just conspiracy nonsense that has no place in the discussion.

If you don't agree to it, don't even launch the game, uninstall it.

gnif původně napsal:

Great! they banned devices that are designed for cheating, good on them. KVM/Virtualisation was NOT designed for cheating, that is the defining difference. Using that rationale, cars were designed to get from A to B, not for breaking the law, or to be used for a quick getaway after a crime, or a weapon, should they be banned also?

Deflection as per usual.
You run it in the designed/approved environment or not at all.

gnif původně napsal:

Again you miss the point, I can't even play Rust on a local private server, by myself, with nobody else. Other titles that use anti-cheat such as Arma3 give people the option to either play on a bare metal with anti-cheat, or play as they like but without anti-cheat limiting them to private servers.

Then run it in an approved environment, on a non-development system or start locking down certain folders on the drive.

There is no loss to disallowing the use of VMs, someone always becomes overly vocal when they use something not approved for use.

gnif původně napsal:

This is not about getting a refund, but trying to make Facepunch aware of the damage they are doing to their own community.

You literally demand it in the title.
There is no damage to the community for one person not liking VMs being disallowed.

Most people this worried usually have non networked unless necessary systems dedicated to the development, with all entertainment thus being on an entirely different system. It's a standard practice, especially when people are paranoid about it.

Play the game as approved or uninstall and discontinue using it. Those are the terms. If you want it any other way, contact Epic in regard to a job working for the EAC team.

[gnif]

Mad Scientist původně napsal:

gnif původně napsal:

In your (limited) opinion. And sure, gloss over the entire point being made and the proof of your faulty assertions.

Nothing faulty about it. Their chosen anticheat, EACs choice, the rest is just conspiracy nonsense that has no place in the discussion.

conspiracy - noun
a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.

Did I state anywhere that this was secret, unlawful, or harmful?

You claim nonsense, yet I have given you proof positive of the detection methods in use, other titles that are also blocking them, and even another developer that is educating their users on how to bypass the Anti-VM detection that EAC is forcing on their users.

Mad Scientist původně napsal:

If you don't agree to it, don't even launch the game, uninstall it.

I did not agree when I purchased this game to have my usage of it limited to non VMs. The license I agreed to did not state that this would be a limitation, nor did it state it was against the rules to do so.

That said, it's uninstalled, and I will not be returning to it.

Mad Scientist původně napsal:

Deflection as per usual.
You run it in the designed/approved environment or not at all.

No deflection here, just critical thinking and reasoning. I don't really care what you think, the fact is that at the end of the day, this is only going to hurt the rust community as a whole. As I have stated numerous times, bypassing this detection is not hard, and those that are using VMs to cheat due to the protection it offers them from being detected are going to continue to do so.

Blanket banning VM users is only banning legitimate players, those abusing the VM for cheating will continue to do so. This will increase the ratio of hackers to legitimate players and will only get worse as time continues as the VM gaming movement is growing at an incredible pace.

Mad Scientist původně napsal:

Most people this worried usually have non networked unless necessary systems dedicated to the development, with all entertainment thus being on an entirely different system. It's a standard practice, especially when people are paranoid about it.

You have no idea what my requirements are for protection, who my clients are or the kind of service I provide for them. Seeing as I have mentioned several times now that I am a developer for QEMU/KVM and the bleeding edge virtualisation technologies being rolled into your operating systems and hardware should inform you that I have a very good reason for running things the way I do. Your argument here is null and void.

[The Gambler]

you cry when there is loads of cheaters you cry when they implement a better way of detecting with there anti cheat no winning for the game company go play my little pony and stop crying.

[Mad Scientist]

gnif původně napsal:

You claim nonsense

From someone who is complaining about unsupported playing methods utilizing a dev system to play something on while complaining about it possibly accessing things?

It's moreover nonsense complaining it "harms the community" when you try to play in an unsupported manner.

gnif původně napsal:

I did not agree when I purchased this game to have my usage of it limited to non VMs. The license I agreed to did not state that this would be a limitation, nor did it state it was against the rules to do so.

You didn't read, did you?:
Facepunch:

When does this Agreement apply to you? As soon as you download, install or use any of the Facepunch Services. If you do not agree to it, please do not use any of the Facepunch Services.

Facepunch:

If you do not agree to any significant changes, you may not continue to access the Facepunch Services

EAC:

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO AGREE TO THESE TERMS OF SERVICE, YOU MUST NOT USE THE SERVICES.

Seems extremely direct and ironclad.

gnif původně napsal:

That said, it's uninstalled, and I will not be returning to it.

Nor will you get a refund, which was the demand in the title.

gnif původně napsal:

No deflection here, just critical thinking and reasoning. I don't really care what you think

Doesn't seem to be the case.

gnif původně napsal:

the fact is that at the end of the day, this is only going to hurt the rust community as a whole.

It doesn't harm the community at all.
There is always one user that gets overly vocal about despite all agreements, not being able to do it their way.

gnif původně napsal:

As I have stated numerous times, bypassing this detection is not hard, and those that are using VMs to cheat due to the protection it offers them from being detected are going to continue to do so.

Yet it's very effective and blanket bans are acceptable. Region bans are entirely acceptable as well, Many forms of bans, restrictions etc are entirely normal for most industries, something a software dev should know.

gnif původně napsal:

Blanket banning VM users is only banning legitimate players

Except they're not banned and they can run it in an approved environment. The method of attempting to play through something else, is banned.

gnif původně napsal:

as the VM gaming movement is growing at an incredible pace.

That's funny.

gnif původně napsal:

You have no idea what my requirements are for protection, who my clients are or the kind of service I provide for them. Seeing as I have mentioned several times now that I am a developer for QEMU/KVM and the bleeding edge virtualisation technologies being rolled into your operating systems and hardware should inform you that I have a very good reason for running things the way I do. Your argument here is null and void.

All 100% irrelevant.
People try the whole "I do X" or "I do Y", the choices of FP and EAC are their own, they affect so far one single person who is not having proper security measures when concerned about possible access to development files.

Most serious software developers have a system for Development and a system for everything else, especially when they're worried about a "what-if". Keep the development on a machine dedicated for it, use swappable drives, dual boot or otherwise. They do not have to cater to this because someone wants to play in a VM.

[t0pg]

You have to attack the anti-cheat directly

[Mr. Scoot]

Again you miss the point, I can't even play Rust on a local private server, by myself, with nobody else. Other titles that use anti-cheat such as Arma3 give people the option to either play on a bare metal with anti-cheat, or play as they like but without anti-cheat limiting them to private servers.

If you want to play on your own server by yourself with no anti cheat you can launch that server with server.secure 0 and you can join without EAC. At least that's what I did a couple years ago.

[bastion of pragmatism]

If you need a refund for a game that was 10$ when you got it your web development must not be going so well

[gnif]

Mr. Scoot původně napsal:

Again you miss the point, I can't even play Rust on a local private server, by myself, with nobody else. Other titles that use anti-cheat such as Arma3 give people the option to either play on a bare metal with anti-cheat, or play as they like but without anti-cheat limiting them to private servers.

If you want to play on your own server by yourself with no anti cheat you can launch that server with server.secure 0 and you can join without EAC. At least that's what I did a couple years ago.

The game wont even launch mate

[gnif]

ok+!!*:) původně napsal:

If you need a refund for a game that was 10$ when you got it your web development must not be going so well

It's the principal of the matter, read through the thread before making such idiotic comments.

[MonkehMaster]

you aint getting a refund, deal with it.

[Schrödinger's Hitbox]

gnif původně napsal:

Mad Scientist původně napsal:

They can tune it to look for specific activity that attempts to hide other malicious activity, not the first time people tried using VMs to hide cheating software.

Think you're being a little too paranoid to realize what they look for and why.

I am very much aware of how VMs are used and abused to cheat, and I understand the (faulty) rationale behind blanket banning VMs. The cheats are being performed outside the view of the VM on the host system (You're talking to a QEMU/KVM developer here). It is possible (and commonly done by cheaters) to read the guest memory and use it to provide ESP leaving zero trace inside the guest system to detect.

The problem I am bringing up isn't that VMs are abused for cheating, but rather those that are using them for cheating are technically capable enough to implement countermeasures such as patching the kernel for the RDTSC and CPUID instruction timing detection.

Blanket blocking VM users will just restrict those using VMs to those that are cheating while punishing the innocent.

Games that are known to refuse to run under a hypervisor:

- Valorant
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
- Escape from Tarkov
- Genshin Impact (This is not even a multiplayer game!)
- CS:GO (FaceIT/ESEA only)
- Phantasy Star Online 2/PSO2
- Rust
- VRChat (though this is changing see: https://docs.vrchat.com/docs/using-vrchat-in-a-virtual-machine where the devs are actually teaching people how to bypass EAC anti-vm detection for their own title)

Don't fool yourself into thinking it's detecting malicious behaviour, there is no cleverness to this detection.

I don't know if this pleb knows who he's talking to.

This stigma around running games in a VM is really, just sad. I've been using steam for over 18 years and VM gaming for over 10 years. There are many competitive multiplayer games that I have played over this time. I've played all of them in a VM. I have never hidden my VM details. I have never cheated. I am not the only person who plays games this way. There are many advantages of using vfio besides system cost, less physical space, improved system stability, less e-waste, less electricity costs, multiple users can use a single system at the same time, multiple versions of Windows can run at the same time and update at the same time... the list goes on.

I played Rust using vfio (VM) without any issues for years. I played within the past 12 months no-prob. I also bought the game a long time ago. Not only did I buy the game but I also bought skins in-game. I installed it today because some of my friends invited me to play.

Facepunch Studios: You are punishing the innocent players. You are deliberately making the game unplayable on my system. Your blanket banning won't help at all because people who have the desire to workaround your checks will do that. You have effectively only prevented legitimate players from playing your game. Your behaviour is appalling Facepunch Studios.

These days I play the following games competitively online:
CS:GO
DOTA 2
Overwatch
Starcraft II
Grand Theft Auto V
Battlefield One
Age of Empires IV
Path of Exile
Fortnite (also uses EAC)
Foxhole
Northgard
World of Warships
Apex Legends (also uses EAC)
Star Wars Battlefront
Call of Duty: Warzone
FIFA

Other multiplayer games that I play online:
Valheim
Grim Dawn
ICARUS
Raft
Elite Dangerous
No Man's Sky
7 Days to Die (also uses EAC)
Stationeers
Hunt Showdown
RimWorld
Space Engineers
Factorio
Deep Rock Galactic
Satisfactory
Scrap Mechanic
World of Warcraft Classic
Company of Heroes
Fall Guys
Conan Exiles
Don't Starve Together
Killing Floor 2
Age of Empires II
Team Fortress 2
Alien Swarm
ORION: Prelude
Doom
Dungeon Siege
Depth
DayZ Mod
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
Command and Conquer 3
Command and Conquer 4
Project CARS
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
Dirt Rally
EVE Online
Simte (also uses EAC)
Natural Selection 2
Borderlands
Gimbal
ARK
Portal 2
Torchlight
Dystopia
Sven Co-op
Dungeon Siege
Arma
Unreal Tournament
Ashes of the Singularity
Savage
Among Us
Planetary Annihilation
Chivalry
Heroes of the Storm
Hearthstone
Warframe
Stellaris
Call of Duty MW
Last but not least: Quake III

I have over 2000 single player games that I play without issues. While being single player many of the games have in-game purchases that enhances the experience in some way.

Facepunch Studios: I hearby request that you to revert the blanket ban on my and other innocent players' systems or refund the game and the extra in-game purchases that I payed for.

[Toki's Road to 6k Elo]

I demand a refund for 3000 hours wasted to learn something I used to hate.
Actually, I want financial compensations, thanks.

[lama]

gnif původně napsal:

Mr. Scoot původně napsal:

If you want to play on your own server by yourself with no anti cheat you can launch that server with server.secure 0 and you can join without EAC. At least that's what I did a couple years ago.

The game wont even launch mate

Open RustClient.exe instead of running it from Steam and you should be able to play on servers which have EAC disabled.

[Candy Angel]

So, you bought the game several years ago when it was early access [and probably for less that $15] and now you want a refund?!?! Wow! You didn't get your money's worth of play time over the last few years playing the game? That's like buying a brand new car then demand a refund years later when new emiision standards come out or you decide you want to go electric or something. Take all of that money you've saved since you bought Rust those years ago and just build you a dedicated gaming machiine then.

[Schrödinger's Hitbox]

lama původně napsal:

gnif původně napsal:

The game wont even launch mate

Open RustClient.exe instead of running it from Steam and you should be able to play on servers which have EAC disabled.

I was at least able to connect to my own server using this method. I still can't play on 99% of servers or enable anti-cheat on my own server.