"our staff now has much more time to watch forums / communities that build up around the games we support"

Thanks for dropping by to clear the air.   On behalf of all forum members thanks.  

Just a couple quick points:

“I realize there are obviously a couple of people here who hate us and that is fine”

If you are referring to me… I do not hate you.  I had unanswered questions.  One of them in a post just above yours… which, during your public relations post, you did not answer.  Also, it is a bit unflattering to claim victimhood as a business.

“Those of you who play on PB servers know that there is virtually never any talk of PB except when it kicks a punk for a detected cheat”

Taking the entire time frame since PB inception, the amount of various complaints was overwhelming.


“And just for the record, cd key checking is not done by PB at all - that is part of the game.”

Before PB, I understand more than one computer could play behind a router with one cd key.  Now they cannot.  Can you deny that a major selling factor to Activision was the ability of PB to detect and stop this practice.  By definition that is a cd key check.  Or are you actually trying to tell us that this was no consideration at all.

“All you suspicious people who think our efforts are only about money need to realize how much we invested (and still are) for the last 3 years”

Actually, you should be admired.  The only problem I see is bad public relations.  But then, great code writers are not necessarily good PR people…  When your initial installation into SOF2 does not go smoothly… when you close your forum… when you literally state that you work on a percentage of good kicks versus bad kicks…. Well, you are going to catch some flack. Good public relations is important.  If some of the negative comments in this forum helped to generate a desire on your part to participate (and help clear the air), then it was worth the effort.

Thanks for posting….  Oh, since you are reading here…. Why would I get kicked by a server for too many session starts if I just joined it (having left a server because it changed to a map I did not have… that is hardly a cheat).

Hello,

I meant to address the 'too many session restarts' issue but it slipped from my memory as I was writing ...

First, there are 2 categories of numbered violations in PB: technical and cheat-related. They are (and have been since the beginning) documented in our PB for Players manual both installed as part of the patch and on our website. Just because someone gets kicked by PB doesn't mean that person is cheating - that is one reason that PB does not ban - we leave that up to the admins - PB just kicks for up to 60 minutes depending on admin settings. There are all sorts of features in PB that admins can use to kick players either manually or as part of its running procedure that are not necessarily cheating ... just for the record, violation codes #30000 and up are for positive detection of known cheats/hacks.

At any rate, the 'too many session restarts' violation is a technical violation that basically means your PB client was not 'talking' properly to the PB server. This is known to happen occasionally during map changes when the server is running an old version of PB. Note that when players connect to a PB Server, it makes them run the same version it is running - so even if you have the latest version, a server with an old version will 'downgrade' you and whatever bugs existed in the old version will be in effect during that connection period. We have tried to get admins to open firewall ports, etc. to make sure their PB installations stay up to date automatically, but in some cases, there are SoF2 PB Servers out there still running old versions exhibiting bugs that have been fixed in newer versions.

I hope that answers your question. If you find that this happens to you on servers running the latest PB version, then please email us at support@evenbalance.com if you are interested in directly troubleshooting the issue. That would be the first such report for the current version of PB and is not something that can be resolved efficiently in a forum setting.

Next, I'll say flatly that the subject of kicking for duplicate GUIDs/cdkeys on PB Servers has never been discussed with Activision/Raven or anyone associated with SoF2. The feature was added at the request of actual admins because punks had figured out a way to hack GUIDs and found an exploit involving having multiple players with the same GUID. We did not (and do not) use this feature or any other feature of PB as a 'selling point' with regard to 'fighting piracy' or any related subject. Of course, we would consider doing so in the future should some developer/publisher ever request that we add such features for them.

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about with the 'claim victimhood' and 'work on a percentage of good kicks versus bad kicks' comments ... doesn't reflect my post nor anything that we have ever stated on our website or other communications. In fact, both are quite opposite from what our attitudes have always been. The people who I put in the category of 'hating' PB seem to spew these types of statements over and over regardless of the facts (and for the record, I had no intention of singling you out specifically by any means).

-Tony

Tony,

You have totally changed my opinion.  

I hope others read this thread and come to the same conclusion I have.

I wish you and all of your fellow members of Evenbalance great success in the future.

Gamers need cheat protection.

Misunderstandings happen.... This link in this thread is obviously a bad situation and does not put Evenbalance in the best light:
http://forums.urbanterror.net/default....geNum=2

However, as I typed above, I believe  you to be sincere.

I would place my chips that it's exhausting work dealing with 12 year old snot faced panzies day in and day out.

You say that "only if" EvenBalance released "good code" everything would be just bliss. Well my friends good code is ubiquitous to its creators, therefore being a reactionary enterprise to fix.

id's maestro J.C. is quoted that its fundamentally chasing the wind to prevent cheats in these types of games.

How much joy would you get chasing the wind? for how long?

The team at EvenBalance are passionate as you all are in squishing cheaters into oblivion. But cheaters will continue to be hiding in every tree, around every corner, in every game you play.

Stop biting the hand that feeds you.