Rambling - VAC

[_Budweiser_]

It's kinda obvious,. considering the whiney nature of kids on the internet, especially cheating kids who get caught out

But look at these forums, only one thread in 3 pages is a relevant question. All the others fall into three main categories:

1) I GOT BANNED BUT I DONT CHEAT
2) WHY DOESNT VAC BAN BLAHBLAH
3) VAC SHOULD DO THIS

VAC was inplemented and designed by Valve for two reasons, one, they want people to have fun playing their games, cheaters ruin that fun for the majority. Two, the community (again, represented by a majority) pretty much demanded that Valve should do something and take responsibility for cheaters, particularly, at the time, by those on Counter-Strike.

A common complaint, is that VAC's permanency is unfair or too harsh, especialyl in the event of a hijacked account. WHilst I can certainly sympathise, there's a very good reason for such a state of affairs. Imagine, for example, if the VAC bans were not so automated, that there was a means for a 'user' (presumably a well-trusted Valve employee) could log on to the VAC controlling server and select which bans to revoke. This naturally places a huge responsibility on that one person, who may opr may not decide that friends of his/hers might not deserve bans. It also introduces the possibility of hackers modifying the ban database. This would be a much worse swcenario for all players than the ALREADY ACCEPTED AND AGREED UPON VAC system.

It's quite ironic how many claim Valve are nothing but 'capitalists', some demonic corporation acting out of greed. This is absurd.
Especially when ued as a retort to a VAC ban situation. The players broke the contractual agreement they made, the repurcussions and details of which have remained visible and understandable for years. It's that players own CHOICE whether or not to re-purchase a game and make a new account, or just play on unsecured servers. It's their own CHOICE that lead to them cheating or being irresponsible/lax with their account/computer security.

Valve are a commercial company in a retail indusrty sector. If they didn't sell produce for a profit, they would sink into administration, and then there really WOULD be problems for the games that require Steam clients to be connected to Valve's Steam servers!

They make money, sure, but they also provide a lot. They have listened, intently to the wants and needs of the community, performed rigorous market research in terms of actual polls, results of game stats/achievements and of course, the forums.
Yes, you'll find very few Valve employees responding to each and every "Why not do this" thread, but you can bet your bottom, they are aware of trends both those of players and of the gaming market and computing technology as aa whole.
It costs money for Valve to investigate cheats and maintain the VAC database, it costs money for Valve to provide the community with forums and the features presented with Steam. It costs them more when cheaters deter players from playing (and therefore purchasing) games.

So yes, Valve DO need to make / save money, and the best way for them to do this, is with satisfied customers. Certainly they make some from Steamworks services, franchising or licensing of rights to products, trademarks or IPs, but mainly, the bulk net income is from sales of game titles.
I've seen posts by hypocrites who claim Valve are evil etc. etc. etc., who seem to continue to purchase every game released. The hypocrisy is their business, and doesn't bother me personally, although it certainly sends a clear message to Valve. That these are customers who are satisfied enough to continue purchasing. In the light of positive real economics, a badly-written, abusive forum post is an extremely poor means of making any point as a plaintiff customer. Even if suh is followed by numerous posts of agreement or further attack on aspects of the company or market, they only serve to bolster the contrary notion expressed in the initial post.

That's not to say that forums are not an acceptable or reliable means of communication for the most part, in terms of discussion or seeking opinion, yet when merely presenting ones opinion without room for discussion, the medium of a forum becomes redundant. If people have a personal opinion to state directly, it should be perhaps written to Valve, by letter or e-mail, or even a telephone call. If the opinion is such a dislike of the company, and an expression of protest is apparent, then not contributing to the profits of said company is the greatest power any customer has.

I have yet to see any sensible complaints regarding VAC that have been made by someone who hadn't already agreed to the terms and conditions of its use.

[schnitzeljaeger]

I agree on most points but I think permanent bans are not the way to go. I hate cheaters as much as anyone but the overall steam experience in such a case is not my thing. You have to make a new account and buy the game a second time... ok, but will that prevent a "hardcore" cheater from cheating? I don't think so.
Why don't they allow to buy the game twice on the same account (maybe overwriting the old license) after a longer buying timeout and put a big "CHEATER" banner in their profile?

[Amy]

Originally Posted by schnitzeljaeger

I agree on most points but I think permanent bans are not the way to go. I hate cheaters as much as anyone but the overall steam experience in such a case is not my thing. You have to make a new account and buy the game a second time... ok, but will that prevent a "hardcore" cheater from cheating? I don't think so.
Why don't they allow to buy the game twice on the same account (maybe overwriting the old license) after a longer buying timeout and put a big "CHEATER" banner in their profile?

People banned from VAC already have a banned notification on their profile.

It's more annoying for them to need to rebuy it on another account instead.

[aboveyou]

honesty, if you can detect the cheat, then you can simply disallow the player to play until the cheat is gone...

"cheat detected - cheats are not allowed - remove the cheat to play the game"

If they can ban a whole cd key, they can do this... But they ban all the way... why? For money when the game is bought again...


No one can argue that: if you can detect the cheat, you can disallow playing until the cheat is gone, too, but you don't, you ban them.

I don't like cheaters and I don't care how they feel or how much money they lose - it's not a big deal for me, but this is still the facts.

[Fyndir]

Originally Posted by aboveyou

No one can argue that: if you can detect the cheat, you can disallow playing until the cheat is gone, too, but you don't, you ban them.

You can do that, but that lets cheat makers sit and try out their cheats and get instant results, with no lasting consequences, until they get their new code working in a way that isn't detected.

Which is a terrible idea.

I think I saw this in another topic somewhere, but why not at least a warning saying, "hey, your client DLL is a modified one, continuing may result in a VAC ban" indiscrimminantly. The fact that a similar warning always appearing will lead real hackers to ignore it and continue on, while in a case like mine, where I was trying to play against some computer bots, go "uh oh, maybe this isn't a good idea".

[King of Koopas]

Originally Posted by toastedcoconut

I think I saw this in another topic somewhere, but why not at least a warning saying, "hey, your client DLL is a modified one, continuing may result in a VAC ban" indiscrimminantly. The fact that a similar warning always appearing will lead real hackers to ignore it and continue on, while in a case like mine, where I was trying to play against some computer bots, go "uh oh, maybe this isn't a good idea".

If you read above then you would know that's only helping cheat makers. Think before you post

[schnitzeljaeger]

Originally Posted by Amy

People banned from VAC already have a banned notification on their profile.

Ah, I forgot the "ban(s) on record" thingy... They should make it bigger than and maybe put a sign into the multiplayer games for others to see. To show them up to the community is probably a better disciplinary tactic.

Originally Posted by King of Koopas

If you read above then you would know that's only helping cheat makers. Think before you post

Wrong. That's why I explicitly said twice that if the message is there indiscrimminantly and always whenever a modified file exists, it'll warn off potentially safe users while being disregarded by real hackers; whether or not the modification will result in a ban or even VAC detectable, a recurring message will be based on a much more general level of changes to the game.

For example loading a different DLL by modifying the liblist.gam file in goldsrc games: "your liblist.gam file has been modifed, blah blah", done.

[Gone'Postal]

People need a message now to tell them that there action might have a consequence? (even indiscriminately)

Sorry, but people need to man up to their actions, read up on what their doing before they do it and live with the actions after the event, not cry about how something didn't warn them with a large sign in crayon.

[xX_Renegade_Xx]

Originally Posted by _Budweiser_

A common complaint, is that VAC's permanency is unfair or too harsh, especialyl in the event of a hijacked account.

I also sympathise with the people who are banned because of a hijacked account, however, cheaters should not be given any chance at all, no warning, no message that they will be kicked or possibly banned, a hack has been detected by VAC and they should be removed from the server as soon as possible.

Getting soft on these people is not the way to go and I like the fact that VAC bans are not removed when a cheater is picked up, unfortunately, some of these people will just buy the game again and continue cheating.

I'm sure a number of us have been on servers with these cheaters and had our fun ruined because of these idiots, it's fun for them to ruin our games so I like to see cheaters banned and I make no apology for that.

Zero tolerance, you cheat, you're banned, that's how it should be!

[schnitzeljaeger]

Originally Posted by xX_Renegade_Xx

Zero tolerance, you cheat, you're banned, that's how it should be!

Yes, but not forever (IMHO). Cheating does you no harm apart from ruining your game experience for a short time. If you ban the cheaters for, let's say, 3 years from the game they cheated on, they have the same consequences as of now. I bet most of the cheaters are juveniles or very immature adults and while you are getting older you change your behavior (mostly ). This banning forever serves no purpose aside from Valve making more money.

@zero tolerance policy (from wikipedia):

Opponents of zero tolerance believe that such a policy neglects investigation on a case-by-case basis and may lead to unreasonably harsh penalties for crimes that may not warrant such penalties in reality. Another criticism of zero-tolerance policies is that it gives officers and the legal system little discretion in dealing with offenders. Zero-tolerance policies may prohibit their enforcers from making the punishment fit the crime.

It also may cause offenders to go all out, knowing if the punishment is the same for a little or a lot. This phenomenon of human nature is described in an adage that dates back to at least the 17th century, "might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb": until 1820, the English law prescribed hanging for stealing anything worth more than one shilling, whether that was a low-value lamb or a whole flock of sheep.

[Nekomancer]

Valve already tried timed bans, the cheaters just created multiple accounts and rotated them. Didn't work out. So they switched to perm bans.

[schnitzeljaeger]

Originally Posted by Nekomancer

Valve already tried timed bans, the cheaters just created multiple accounts and rotated them. Didn't work out. So they switched to perm bans.

Where is the difference as to now? If you make the bans long enough you don't have to fear rotating accounts As I said before, forever is a bit too long IMHO...

[LesMoore]

Originally Posted by Gone'Postal

People need a message now to tell them that there action might have a consequence? (even indiscriminately)

Sorry, but people need to man up to their actions, read up on what their doing before they do it and live with the actions after the event, not cry about how something didn't warn them with a large sign in crayon.

It is about people owning up about their actions within games. You have the decision to make either 1) cheat 2) don't cheat. If you do cheat and get caught...oh well that was your decision. Live with it. Nice post by the way!