We caught
up with Tony Ray from Even
Balance Inc regarding PunkBuster for Return To Castle
Wolfenstein. For those who don't know, PunkBuster is an
anti-cheat software that is used to prevent multiplayer
cheating. The Interview covers alot of interesting aspects
regarding the present and the futur of Punk Buster. Have
fun reading!
Q: What is it like working with Nerve/ID so far?
A: I cannot say enough good things about those guys. I
went to id's HQ in Mesquite (which is just a couple of
blocks away from where I went to school up through grade
7 before my family moved away) for a couple of short visits
awhile back and I met with the Nerve guys in id's office
as well. I will definitely confirm what is on their website
about it being the coolest game shop in the world. I have
really grown to respect both teams.
They have
similar work habits to mine: work as long as you can,
then take a short break, then go right back to work -
often into the wee hours of the morning and sometimes
you wake up in the morning at your desk (or on the floor).
One day, I went out to lunch with a group of them (Taco
Bell) and afterward we all sat down in the conference
room for a few minutes to "help" play a newly
released single-player game - I sorta felt sorry for the
guy with the controller ... I'm not sure he wanted all
the help he was getting. They know how to keep the fun
in while getting lots of work done which is something
I hear a lot of companies talk about but is usually just
talk. It is very clear that they all enjoy one another's
company and what they do for a living. It was very common
to hear all sorts of outbursts ringing down the hallways
at all hours.
On a business
level, they have been extremely professional which is
refreshing. As far as the actual development work goes,
id asked me to write the integration code for PunkBuster
and I've been working on that now in my office for several
weeks - I'm extremely pleased with the whole arrangement
thus far.
Q: How
many team members are working on PunkBuster for Return
To Castle Wolfenstein?
A: Up until
a few days ago, I was the only one as most of the PB staff
is still supporting the old HL version of PunkBuster (we
didn't stop supporting it, we just suspended development).
As things ramp up for RTCW in the next couple of weeks,
I expect that about 15 of the Staff members will be helping
out in one capacity or another with our RTCW products
and services - we have big plans for expanding what PunkBuster
is all about. My team is a great group also - I have been
amazed over and over at how much effort and dedication
they have put into the PunkBuster project over the past
year and a half as volunteers. I hope to some day be able
to reward each of them as they deserve.
All of them
have contributed significant resources (including personal
funds, in some cases) strictly for love of the online
gaming communities of which they are a part despite some
pretty nasty and uncalled for emails and forum posts about
each of us personally. I'm proud to call them my friends.
Q: What
will PunkBuster for RTCW have that Counter-Strike didn't?
Maybe new features, new cheat prevention system...?
A: There
are so many things we wanted to do with the first PunkBuster
that just couldn't be implemented properly without having
full integration with the game. I think just about everyone
(except the cheating punks) will be very pleasantly surprised
with how much better PB is in the RTCW edition. There
is no separate user interface. All interaction is now
done directly inside the game itself. No more having to
remember to start PB as a separate program before launching
the game. Once you enable PB, it just always works whenever
you are in a multiplayer game because the PB Server and
Client send and receive packets on the same network socket
as do the game packets themselves.
Players and
admins can now put PB commands into regular game config
scripts, key bindings, aliases and also type them straight
into the game console if they want to. We have plans to
roll out several new services and products for both players
and admins over the coming months to enhance their enjoyment
of the game and keep everyone on a PB Server accountable
to each other. Mutual accountability is at the core of
what PB has been about since the beginning. One of the
new extras is a command to regulate how much PB sleeps
between each processing cycle - this will allow players
to customize the way PB runs based on the speed of their
computer and their connection. There are no more connection
problems or any of the other unusual issues that would
pop up from time to time for some users of the old edition.
If you can
play the game, you can use PunkBuster and you won't even
know it's there unless you want to use some of the extras
- id software is even sponsoring a couple of master servers
so that your PB will get the info it needs at the same
time the game is authenticating for online play. I'm very
happy to be able to redesign parts of PB so that they
work the way they were always meant to work.
The Cvar checking has been totally revamped. There is
now 2-way variable checking so that players can verify
that server settings stay where they are supposed to be
all throughout a match. No more "home team"
advantage by screwing with the server variables in the
middle of an important match and then editing the logs
afterward (we plan to offer a remote log signature hosting
service as well for leagues and admins who want that type
of thing). Plus when a player first connects, his or her
PB client will download the whole list of cvar parameters
in effect for that server and alert the player immediately
to any that are currently set outside the allowed ranges.
This gives every player the opportunity to fix any cvars
that are out of line right at connect time.
The Screenshot
Capture Facility is very much improved as well. All screenshots
are stored directly in PNG format which is viewable with
just about every web browser out there. Players can now
use PB to take their own full or partial screenshots of
their own screen if they want to and they also have the
option of having all server requested shots saved to their
local hard drive automatically. To help protect players
from faked screenshots, PB creates and keeps a personal
log of all screenshot activity for each player in the
form of a locally stored web page. Also, players who want
to run the game in a window as opposed to full-screen
don't have to worry about getting part of their desktop
captured since PB can now limit the capture area to just
the game window (a big benefit of direct integration).
On the server side, admins can now easily set up parameters
so that PB automatically takes screenshots every few minutes
for each player and the PB server has enhanced abilities
for automatic and seamless real-time publishing of screenshots
to a web site.
There are
many other new things coming as well, but I hate to spill
all the beans. As always, we'll listen to our users and
keep adding to and improving the system over time.
Q: Some
concerns from dialup users regarding the size of the patch
that will include PB in it. Any idea on its weight?
A: The PB
portion will most likely be less than 500KB before compression
which is very small. I believe that Nerve and id have
other updates coming at the same time so I have no idea
how large the whole patch will be.
