Q: Is
there any approximate date on the RTCW edition of PB for
RTCW?
A: We are almost finished with the PB integration and
the initial beta DLLs. However, I have no control over
the actual patch release and I don't know id's timetable
for other things coming in the same patch. However, once
the first patch with the PB integration code has been
released, then we'll be able to regularly and frequently
update PunkBuster components automatically, seamlessly
and securely while people are playing. That feature has
been improved substantially as well. The old PB emulated
a web browser to download information from websites and
that caused alot of problems for people behind proxies,
firewalls, etc. This time, everything is done with UDP
and information is exchanged using the same socket created
by the game for communicating with the game server which
avoids all of the hassles that some users had with the
old HL edition (yet another huge benefit of direct integration).
Q: Some
server admins are worried that they would have to totally
reinstall the server files for PB will that be the case?
A: No. The
game patch update should be just like any other game patch
update for both players and admins. Also, there will not
be a need for player-side files on dedicated servers.
PB doesn't depend on a "clean" copy of files
at the server-side in order to detect cheats.
Q: Will
the software be integrated or standalone? If it is integrated
will
there be an option for server admins to turn it on or
off?
A: PunkBuster
always has been and always will be optional. We are not
trying to force anything on anyone. We just want to give
honest players and admins a choice that they did not have
before. From a licensing standpoint, it is separate. All
PB users are still licensing directly from us (Even Balance,
Inc.). However, from a technical standpoint, the software
is fully integrated once it has been enabled by a user
(admin or player). It is very easy to turn it off, but
it does require a restart of the game program for the
disabling to take effect (i.e. it can't be just secretly
disabled in the middle of a match).
Q: Is
there going to be Linux support for PunkBuster in RTCW?
A: Yes, we
are planning to support all users, players and admins
on Linux and Mac platforms as well. Those two versions
may not quite be in place and tested by the time the next
game patch is released, but we're working as hard as we
can to try to get all versions ready as quickly as possible.
Also, now that PB runs in the same thread with the game,
there won't be any "pthreads" issues that plagued
a number of Linux server admins with segmentation faults
and other strange problems. Most games run single-threaded
but the old HL edition of PunkBuster was multi-threaded
(for various reasons) and multi-threading under Linux
is just not always reliable unless the program is either
compiled and run on the same distribution or distributed
with a large static library which wasn't possible with
our auto-update mechanism - we found that out the hard
way.
Q: How
effective will Punk Buster be for Return To Castle Wolfenstein?
As we all know, people keep finding new ways around to
defeat anti-cheat software, sometimes within only a few
short hours.
A: I predict
the same thing I did a year and a half ago when this project
was
initiated - we will be successful. Practically no one
believed me then and some don't now as well - but to me,
that's just part of the challenge. Most of our detractors
have their own agenda but the majority of people who played
in, admined for and organized competitive HL/CS matches
back last summer before we suspended development of PunkBuster
for HL know how much organized play was cleaned up by
the use of PunkBuster alone. Several thousand public server
admins and literally hundreds of thousands of players
were very happy with the results as well. It's unfortunate
that so many of the negative postings these days are coming
from people who don't even realize that when I stopped
working on PB for HL, there wasn't a single publicly available
cheat that wasn't detected and it had pretty much been
that way for months up to that point. The hackers didn't
find any new effective ways of hiding their cheats - we
just turned our attention to developers who wanted us
working on their products. Since day one and up to this
day, the majority of emails directed to the PB staff are
very supportive, appreciative and positive. It saddens
me that some of the minority of honest folks who had consistent
problems with PB seem to love bashing us in the public
forums after all the work that went into trying to make
PB run smoothly in the absence of direct game integration
- I'm certain that even that minority will be pleased
with how the RTCW edition turns out.
The currently
played (non-PB) version of RTCW doesn't have any way at
the game server of determining a unique installation of
the game so we have expanded the game by adding a "guid"
for each installation. The guid is a 128-bit non-reversable
hash of the cdkey (that means no one can figure out your
private cdkey from the guid). So that on PB servers, every
player will be held accountable by something more meaningful
than an IP Address which changes from day to day for many
players. PunkBuster and Admins (manually) will be able
to kick and/or ban players, both temporarily and permanently
based on this guid.
It doesn't
matter what ways cheater punks try to find to get around
our system or how fast they work, they never know when
the next PunkBuster update is coming or what it will look
like. We never claimed to be able to stop all cheating
(which is impossible) - our main goal in that regard is
to give admins the tools to be able to actually catch
cheater punks red-handed in order to create a large deterrent
against cheating. In the HL version, I never got to the
point of encrypting packets because I was spending so
much time researching and working on the connection problems
and other issues that are now completely gone with direct
game integration.
The RTCW
edition already has 4 different levels of dynamic encryption
and the keys are generated programmatically plus each
update scrambles the formulas. The hacker/cheater punk
network does hate us and they try to make us look bad
any way they can for one reason: we proved that cheating
could be attacked head-on. Before we came along and gave
the power to the honest players and admins, everyone in
the online communities was at the mercy of the cheating
punks and many games died premature deaths because of
the poison from within. Every cheater punk who tries to
cheat on RTCW PB servers is going to get busted sooner
or later. And to the relatively few honest players and
admins who had problems with the old PB, I hope you are
looking forward to joining the happy majority.
Thanks for
taking the time to do the interview, we at WolfensteinX
would like
to wish you great luck with this and future projects.
Thank you. We are really looking forward to being a big
and positive part of the Wolfenstein community.
