How To: Report A Player & Send In Exploits (Hacking/Exploiting/Illegal Play)

[[SIG] Emily]

Good day fellow Mercians,

if we find a player has been hacking in game or playing The Black Death by any false means using Steam, we will be issuing a VAC ban on their account, we have this system in place now as of our V4.20 Unreal Engine Upgrade. "Anti-cheating security measures for VAC banning".

This is now in action as of our latest update V0.23. See our Patch Notes here:
Patch Notes: V0.32

Reporting A Player For Hacking/Exploiting/Illegal Play

If you find a player to be performing actions that are not within the normal rules of gameplay, on an Official Server, as commands can be used on a Community server if the Admin/Server host has allowed it. We would appreciate a report being sent to us at [e-mail], with details, screenshots, such as chat logs and the player/s in question with their character being highlighted for their Steam name and a video would be really appreciated. The evidence must also be very clear.

Playing The Black Death without owning a license on your Steam account, and playing the game through illegal means can also lead to a VAC ban being issued on your Steam account. If you suspect a player is doing this, please send us a report with the details outlined below.

Please send the following details to: [e-mail]

Thank you in advance for your reports.


Details to send in:

• The Player’s Steam name & Steam ID
  
  
• The Official Server they were playing on. See our SIG Official Server List
  
  
• Information about what the Player in question was doing in game. What about their behaviour and actions was unusual. Please be as descriptive as possible on your report.

Screenshots to send in:

• In game Chat Box messages
  any Steam messages from the player/s if they are discussing using exploits/hacking.
  
  
• Images of them performing these actions, such as their character flying around in the world (official servers, this CAN be allowed on some Community servers if the Admin has enabled commands)

Videos to send in:

• Footage of the player/s performing exploits or hacking in game. The Steam name needs to be clear, if you can highlight their character whilst they are in game performing these actions this would be great.
  
  
• Video software can be downloaded for free. You can use the free version of FRAPS, OBS or NVIDIA Shadowplay/Share if you have an NVIDIA graphics card. Depending on your FRAPS settings, it can create quite large video files!

How to find a Player’s Steam ID and Steam Name

If you are unsure of a Player's Steam name, or you find that they have changed their Steam name, here is a tip for you to find who you have been playing with on a server.

When you are in game:

Press the Steam default keybinding of "Shift + Tab" to bring up the Steam overlay. Then click on "View Players".

"Current Game" will show the player's that are currently playing on the same server you are on.

"Recent Games" will show players that you have also played with, if you have hopped onto other servers for The Black Death and other Steam Games too.

Simply clicking on their Profile picture will take you to their Steam Profile.

We also need their Steam Name and more importantly their Steam ID. This is the long URL/Address of their Profile.

Some players have a custom Profile URL. These can look like one of the following 2 examples:

https://steamcommunity.com/id/SIG_Emily/

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198318030488/

When you are not in game:

Go to your Steam Client and click on “View” at the very top. Then click on “Players” from here you can then select “Recent Games” and see people you have played with on The Black Death recently as well as other Steam games.

We will then review the report and decide to take action on their player/s in question. I also have a list of players that have already been reported for duping and exploiting as well as playing TBD through other means. We will be reviewing these too.

Reporting Exploits To The Team

If you find any methods of exploiting in The Black Death, please send us a report with the details as mentioned in this post. We do our best to update The Black Death and patch exploits, but if new ones are discovered some players may not report these and will use them to their benefit. We appreciate any reports on exploits if you find them yourself whilst playing or have information from another player.

Stay vigilant! Thank you in advance for any reports you send our way!

// The SIG Team

[HolyAvengerOne]

A very good thing to post, thanks Emily :)

[Pwncakeroflsauce]

Hi Emily, i am here to report an exploit, in US PVE OFFICIAL MEGASERVER there is some1 who claimed every single plot of land. he placed the claim land flag everywhere..so its unplayable because you cannot destroy it. even worse is i cant even report him because you dont see the name of the owner of the claim land flag.. which shouldnt be the case btw... so because its the only server that seem playable to me being an official us pve server i wont be playing this game anymore till this absurdity is getting fixed. The first is the fact that some1 have the ability to claim every plot of land which literraly make every1 else unable to play. The second is that there is no way to see the name of the owner of those claim flag, so we cant report him.

[HolyAvengerOne]

Originally posted by Pwncakeroflsauce:

Hi Emily, i am here to report an exploit, in US PVE OFFICIAL MEGASERVER there is some1 who claimed every single plot of land. he placed the claim land flag everywhere..so its unplayable because you cannot destroy it. even worse is i cant even report him because you dont see the name of the owner of the claim land flag.. which shouldnt be the case btw... so because its the only server that seem playable to me being an official us pve server i wont be playing this game anymore till this absurdity is getting fixed. The first is the fact that some1 have the ability to claim every plot of land which literraly make every1 else unable to play. The second is that there is no way to see the name of the owner of those claim flag, so we cant report him.

Maybe read the OP first?

Originally posted by OP:

If you find a player to be performing actions that are not within the normal rules of gameplay, on an Official Server, as commands can be used on a Community server if the Admin/Server host has allowed it. We would appreciate a report being sent to us at [e-mail], with details, screenshots, such as chat logs and the player/s in question with their character being highlighted for their Steam name and a video would be really appreciated. The evidence must also be very clear.

[[SIG] Emily]

Originally posted by Pwncakeroflsauce:

Hi Emily, i am here to report an exploit, in US PVE OFFICIAL MEGASERVER there is some1 who claimed every single plot of land. he placed the claim land flag everywhere..so its unplayable because you cannot destroy it. even worse is i cant even report him because you dont see the name of the owner of the claim land flag.. which shouldnt be the case btw... so because its the only server that seem playable to me being an official us pve server i wont be playing this game anymore till this absurdity is getting fixed. The first is the fact that some1 have the ability to claim every plot of land which literraly make every1 else unable to play. The second is that there is no way to see the name of the owner of those claim flag, so we cant report him.

Hello there Pwncakeroflsauce,

This would be better sent to us in an email format as described in this original post that we made regarding reporting other players in The Black Death.

If you could send all of this, along with some screenshots and preferably a video as well that would be great thanks.

Without any evidence, and especially without a Steam ID for a player, there is no action that we can take. As for a player going around the world and claiming plots of land, as this is a PvE server, other players are not able to destroy these Land Claims, as such, I can see the issue here.

I can inform the team that there are potential players doing this in the game just to spite others and spoil the experience, and see what we can do.

Thanks for all your information. I will be locking this thread now, as all of the information contained on our original post on this thread covers all the details of how to send reports to us.

Many thanks,

[SIG] Emily