Talk:PunkBuster

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What's with the bug/problem of the access rights? Since 2005-03, PB requires (for some games at least) to run the games as admin. This opens the door wide to all kinds of attacks on the players computer, as well as making it impossible to maintain a safe computer setup.

The older workaround was giving these rights to the player:

• Debug Programs
• Load and unload device drivers
• Manage auditing and security log
• Modify Firmware environment values
• Profile Single Process

but this workaround doesnt work anymore.

Shouldn't this shortcoming / problem be mentioned here?

You can just start the game with the correct rights, no need to login as admin. If you don't trust the game, don't play it. Everything else can be found on the PB website. wikipedia is no support-website. --84.58.148.46 17:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Punkbuster is highly unpopular in the gaming community - shouldn't this be addressed? Punkbuster has many faults, the in game autoupdate feature seems to work for very few players, the out of game auto update feature is worse, and the manual updates often fail, too. Quite often the ONLY solution is uninstalling, reinstalling, and hoping. I've known players to be unable to join most servers due to Punkbuster's faults.

I agree, I think that how unpopular PB is should be discussed in the article. SystemOverload

[edit] Criticism

Knight Online just installed this software through a game update. I don't see why having my computer backdoored with a self-updating package that has administrator privileges, and agreeing to let licensees of it scan my computer's devices, files, and memory, is a reasonable condition for playing an online game. IF you care about security at all, you pretty much have to have a dedicated box with a fresh install on it that you use for nothing else to play PunkBuster-enabled games on.

Needless to say, I'm not going to run PunkBuster on my desktop, and Knight Online is getting deleted. Hermitian 20:00, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I too agree with the above, I find Punkbuster to be exceedingly slow and a breech of privacy all for game protection. I do not like cheaters but the fact is that if more companies adopt punkbuster (as many already have) they will be weilding alot of power and it could lead to some corruption or problems in the system that are more likely to just create frustration for the customer. --JonWM

Gotta agree with the slow part. PunkBuster ensures that non-cheating players spend more time attempting to load a game than actually playing it. Which I guess is in a way a great way of keeping cheaters out of games. Same logic the Sentinels used in Days of Future Past - best way to protect humanity is to enslave/destroy it. Still, it doesn't make for very good consumer reaction. I for one won't be buying any games that involve PunkBuster from now on. Developers should code their games well enough for hacking not to be a serious issue, although it's true that the possibility can never completely be eradicated. But as far as I see it (and this is from a non-cheater's perspective), if someone puts out the time and effort and has enough knowledge to crack a program, they deserve whatever benefits they reap. That shit ain't easy. teh TK 19:08, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

-This true information about Punkbuster should be added. That line about false positives is very bullshit, because I was just hardware banned from Battlefield 2142 5 minutes after I got into my first game server and I don't hack punkbuster! Punkbuster's whole business model is based on preventing cheating and banning cheaters at the cost of stopping legitimate and innocent players from also playing. Those who are innocent and affected by the system are in the minority compared to the ammount of people who play the games, so there is little that Evenbalance, EA, Dice, etc will care to do because they aren't losing any significant ammount of money from this minority. By not being allowed to return games to stores anymore, a person is out 50 dollars.

In my opinion, I rather play on a server full of hacks and cheaters than to not be able to play at all. Ever since Punkbuster went to Half-Life this shit has been happening to people. EIGHT YEARS LATER these same exact problems persist and the only thing Even Balance has done is add more ways to counter cheating at the cost of more innocent players. You might now think it could happen to you but lo and behold one day it will find a bullshit reason to not let you play, because you are the expendible person at that time that will stop 100 real cheaters. Evenbalance also ignores support tickets because they aren't going to unban you even when you prove you are not guilty of hacking their lame software. -GdoggX 17:46, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

This article is in dire need of sources. --Sydius 14:38, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Permanent Ban?

From my impression of the article, Punkbuster's hardware bans is permanent. So is there anyway to contest a ban? since the only way to remedy it on a player's perspective is to buy new hard drive.

I owned a copy of Counter-Strike from awhile back. However, my CD key was banned from Steam for no apparent reason. Valve had no method for contesting bans (they had an email address, but I have received no replies from it). Couple with how crappy Steam was, I have never purchased another Sierra/Valve product since then. So I am quite interested in how Punkbuster handle such thing. --Voidvector 17:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

They handle it exactly the same. Read above in Criticisms. They will not unban you no matter how much you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. This has got to be illegal in some way, EULA stating they can or not. When you purchase a product you are not being told that there is the slight possibility that you may not be able to play it anymore one day. For me, it was within 5 minutes. -GdoggX 05:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)