This message is from Cheffe, the former developer of the UO script program.
This IS NOT my statement.
This post is from August 2006 when EA was considering the implementation of Punkbuster.
All of the *** are words or phrases that are not allowed to be posted on UO Stratics.
This IS NOT my statement.
This post is from August 2006 when EA was considering the implementation of Punkbuster.
All of the *** are words or phrases that are not allowed to be posted on UO Stratics.
This is my official statement concerning EA's recent announcements about including PunkBuster to fight scripting.
To summarize it, I think they're using PB as a scare tactic, to annouce that they'll not tolerate *** any further without needing a ban wave in which they'd lose customers.
Obviously, they've been able to detect *** before and it's not hard to smuggle something into the client that detects ***. I can't check every single patch for such things and even if I could I would miss something sooner or later.
So it's quite certain that they know exactly how many *** users are out there, not just from the number of registered users on our boards but because they used some sort of detection in the past and logged everything. When they saw how many people were using scripts they knew they couldn't just ban everyone because of the financial repercussions. But they couldn't admit to being able to find *** users either, because the other part of the community would demand that all "cheaters" get banned. And because they were understaffed anyway they probably ignored the problem for a while and let the GMs deal with it as best as they could.
Nowadays, with heaps of items and gold being sold on Ebay and the economy going downwards, they see that they have to do something. Not against the casual scripters, but against the few who abuse the system to farm billions of gold and items. We've seen all this happen before on scripting-friendly freeshards that had to ban *** for that reason.
So EA had to find a way of telling people that they will be able to detect "cheaters" without admitting that they were able to do just that all along. And they're using the name of a renown company, a 3rd party, to achieve this.
It's quite a smart move, actually. First, you announce that you'll use PunkBuster to get the rumors started. Then you'll make a beta phase where you show the scripters that they can be detected without having to ban them (it's only testing after all). When the system goes active, even if the *** developers manage to keep ****** hidden from PunkBuster for a while, most users will be too scared to use it anymore. And some of the few that still do could be banned as a deterrent.
Using PB also eliminates the problem of telling people they'll be spied upon. Some users already know PunkBuster and probably have it already on their system. So EA won't have to deal with privacy concerns either because they can refer to Even Balance.
Actually, PunkBuster can only find cheating tools that are known. It's designed to fight those tools used by "kiddies" to cheat in FPS games. So it does not actually attack the creation of cheating tools but their distribution process. If I were to make my own, completely different version of ***, there would be no way how they could detect that because the PB system just doesn't work that way. But if a tool is distributed on the internet, they can grab it and create detection fingerprints.
Even if I were to devise some countermeasures, they could simply grab *** again and try to find a way around that. Because PB is a client/server system, they can update their software anytime. We've seen all that happen with World of Warcraft and WoWSharp (www.wowsharp.net), a macroing system similar to ***. The difference between UO and WoW is that Blizzard was a lot better prepared for all that because they came 8 years later than UO and had time to learn from the mistakes of others. They had a zero-tolerance ban policy from the start and were willing to fight in court for their right to scan users harddrives for 3rd party tools (and won).
WoWSharp went down not because they couldn't devise cloaking measurements, but because each time the detection system got around that, Blizzard silently logged all users and banned them a week later. Which is exactly what EA couldn't do because there were already too many people using ******.
The whole PB thing is only a scare tactic and it's also about shooting with cannons at sparrows. They don't need PunkBuster for detecting ****** which they can do themselves easily enough. In fact, I could come up with really simple code to detect *** in say... 5 seconds. I mean it's ridiculous to assume EA wouldn't be able to detect something like *** client-side.
PB is designed to react to small cheater tools. Those tools get released and used by a few hundred people and after about a week, when the PB guys get their hands on it, everyone who still uses it after that gets banned from those FPS games. The cheat tool creators release a new tool and the whole thing starts again.
With ******, we have a whole scripting platform and over 1500 scripts which are used by over 50,000 people. Besides a few other tools, there isn't even anything else out there because there's just no point to create something that already exists and obviously performs so well because it's free, because there's a public script library (PSL) and forums for help. Even without anything like PB, if EA *REALLY* wanted to do something against a project on such a large scale as *** then they easily could.
The main reason for ***'s success is because it was able to satisfy the need to automate some really boring tasks in UO while the developers did little to help you there. Even the zero-tolerance WoW has a built-in addon system which allows 3rd party code to run within WoW to simplify things for the users (and the whole thing is a great success. People love addons!). EA now finally recognizes the need for some changes to make some tasks in the game less boring but doesn't want to give you the whole thing because it would change the game and would probably be too expensive. They certainly don't want to invest too much money in a game that has seen its best days anyway.
So, where does that leave us after I've said all those things? Do we just give up? Hell no!
You've got a right to play the game in a way where you don't have to fear you'll get the carpal tunnel syndrome. If the developers can't come up with a satisfying solution then they'll have to accept that you'll use a 3rd party tool if that does the job.
Does the introduction of PunkBuster change anything? No, your account ID is probably already stored in some log or another for using *** in the past. Guess what, so are 49,999 other account IDs and they didn't do anything about it... it's a third of the user base after all. This PB thing is only a marketing trick. It changes nothing. The question is how everyone is going to react. Will you say "Oh my, they can detect me now so I'll better stop". Or will you say "They have already detected me and many others. Why not just keep on using what I've used for the last 5 years?"
We could make the whole thing even more blatant. Why not use a special *** version that is _designed_ to be detectable? Of course, you wouldn't feel comfortable using something like that but in fact, it probably wouldn't make any difference. But it would force EA to admit that they didn't satisfy their customers' need to change the game towards less boring tasks and that they kept looking away for the past couple of years. Something like that would kill off the whole PB marketing trick right at the beginning.
Maybe you're asking yourself, if Cheffe knew *** was detectable client-side in one way or another, why didn't he say anything? Because that would have created an unnecessary panic. We didn't see any ban waves for using *** in the past so it was unlikely they'd do anything like that in the future. The only time you're at risk is if you do something stupid and a GM pays you a visit, in which case you're hosed anyway. After all, you knew the risks and lived with them. And you knew that many others were using *** too and didn't get banned either.
In all those years, we've been trying to protect our users by not allowing any cheats/exploits to appear or be discussed on our website. We've kept *** itself cheat-free and didn't include stuff that would be too dangerous. This was all done because we didn't want to "anger the dragon".
****** itself isn't good or bad. It can be used for either. And that's the problem with it. EA is trying to get rid of it because the bad people are hiding in the mass of legitimate *** users.
So, no matter how we react on EAs apparent new stance towards ******, if they're really willing to go through with this against a third of their customers, then you'll probably see a few changes here.
Of course, I'd much more like the idea to work with EA in order to fight the problem of farm bots or even to integrate *** into UO or make it UO Pro or something. But I haven't been approached in the past. And since they kept looking away, I just did the same. So EA, if you're up to it, get back to me and we'll see if we can find a better solution.
Otherwise, if worst comes to worst, I might decide to make ****** open source to give EA users a chance to cook up their own *** versions. Of course, I would continue to manage and support *** and maybe play a little hide and seek with this oh so powerful PunkBuster. In the end, it really only matters if EA is willing to ban thousands of people and lose a lot of money in the process.
As in the past, we encourage all EA users to take a look at our freeshard server ********** or at any of the other high quality servers out there. In case you want to completely turn your back on Ultima Online, I can really recommend World of Warcraft, which is already played by about 50 times as many users as UO has. It looks really nice graphics-wise and comes with an integrated addon system (not really full macro support like *** has but hey, you can't have everything). Most tasks in WoW aren't nearly as boring as some in UO are, the economy is healthy and casual gaming is possible up to some point. They're even offering free 10-day trial accounts here: http://teaser.wow-europe.com. So if you haven't already checked out WoW you may want to do so now.
Other than that there isn't much to say Wink This is my opinion and how I see things. You're free to post your comments below. Also don't hesitate to let the Stratics guys know about this, too.
Cheffe
Developer of ******
