By Quintin Smith on July 26th, 2010 at 3:06 pm.
UPDATIER: See this.
UPDATE: Some consideration of whether this is actually a VAC problem, or simply MW2 being a bit nob, can be found here.
We’re getting word that over the last week a slew of Modern Warfare 2 players have been banned from the game by Valve’s Anti-Cheat software, or HAL VAC for short. You know, the same software found in Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead 2? The one that issues irrevocable bans that Valve will not remove or discuss “under any circumstances”? Well, a great deal of this freshly-banned crowd are claiming (screaming, really) that they’ve never cheated. Ever. Making this a bit of a sticky situation.
The angry mob can be found on the Modern Warfare 2 forums, the Steam forums and in their invite-only Steam Group (bearing the cute url extension of youowemesixtydollars). Alternatively, if you’re lazy or a fan of very sincere rock’n'roll, here’s a YouTube video that collects some of the protesting forum threads in a montage. I particularly like the guy who tries to prove his innocence by posting terrible kill stats from Counter-Strike and pointing out that he sucks and doesn’t mind sucking, so why would he cheat?
Valve’s support staff have, apparently, been courteously informing people that they’re sorry but their hands are tied, which makes sense- if you’ve got automated software which cuts people off from one of your products, you need to maintain a policy that the software is infallible, otherwise the whole system comes crashing down. This problem they’ve run into now is compounded by another bit of VAC policy, that of never sharing information on what the cheat was exactly or when it was found. VAC bans often kick in weeks after the software detects the cheat.
I’m pretty sure there’s no way out of this. It seems to me that if VAC really has been mistakenly detecting cheats, there’s nothing Valve can do but keep very, very, very quiet and fix this as soon as possible, then kill all the programmers involved and torch their offices. Or maybe I’m missing an obvious solution. What do you think, readers?
26/07/2010 at 15:09 Martin says:
I approve of your solution!
26/07/2010 at 15:26 Rich says:
Dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
26/07/2010 at 15:32 El_MUERkO says:
I agree with the nuclear option.
26/07/2010 at 16:01 Andy says:
@Rich (aka Cpl Hicks):
There’s a significant dollar value that you’re not taking into account there. :)
26/07/2010 at 17:19 Son_of_Montfort says:
In honor of the day, I think that the Protoss will come, find that VAC has contaminated the planet, and quietly purge it with plasma fire.
26/07/2010 at 17:23 l1ddl3monkey says:
@ Andy (AKA Burke): They can bill me.
26/07/2010 at 18:50 Bret says:
Look. I know this is an emotional moment for all of us, okay I know that. But let’s not make snap judgments, this is an important species we’re dealing with, and I don’t think that you or I has the right to arbitrarily exterminate them.
26/07/2010 at 22:33 GameOverMan says:
- Wrong.
- Yeah. Watch us.
- Maybe you aren’t up on current events, but we just got our asses kicked (and banned) from the game, pal!
27/07/2010 at 17:15 BAReFOOt says:
Sorry, but if you fell for the fraud of “buying” software (= something non-physical), instead of the service of software development, then it’s really your own damn fault.
Either I am actually (part of) the producer / business “angel” / client, or if I get it via another way, I just got it and there’s no point in paying anyone anymore since it was already paid, or it would not be out. (I’m not at fault for idiots giving games out to everyone without making 100% sure to get what they wanted in return, and then later whining that they “lost” control of “their” idea [=software].)
22/09/2010 at 05:23 elan says:
hi there i have been banned from mw2 and have never used a cheat or hack b4. is there any way i contact steam or VAC to undo this mistake? because i only just got the game a week ago.. and it cost 100$ nz
26/07/2010 at 15:11 Antilogic says:
I thought Valve were the good guys :(
26/07/2010 at 16:11 Optimaximal says:
Valve are the good guys, just like Cyberdyne were… The people who create the omnipotent AI constructs that proceed to decimate the human race are always the good guys…
They’re just very misguided!
26/07/2010 at 16:20 Dhatz says:
re:optimaximal: the real AI wars wil be between google and apple. once they both build robots(it would be also a part of history in my planned game revolving around anorganic future in 32nd century AD)
26/07/2010 at 17:19 Azazel says:
See also: ‘Do No Evil’ rule.
Which subsequently gets replaced by a Bill Bailey-eque ‘Scale of Evil’ when it becomes apparent that ‘Some Evil’ may actually be required.
26/07/2010 at 21:44 Bremze says:
@Dhatz WALL-E is what will happen if Apple wins.
26/07/2010 at 22:49 LionsPhil says:
“Good guys”? Hah!
Valve are very good game designers.
They are very savvy about PR and, yeah, I’ll credit them with honestly wanting to “do it for the art” to a large degree, even if they get indirect benefits from all their giveaways.
But this kind of thing has been there since day on in the Steam T&Cs. This shoe has just taken a while to drop.
I’m eagerly awaiting the frothing ecstasy about how great their new software survey is. It’s not spyware if it offers you great sales and autopatching, apparently.
26/07/2010 at 22:58 colinmarc says:
Google would win hands down – they already build robots, just not the metal variety. But I’ll just post a giant robots.txt on my front door and I’ll survive the google robopocalypse.
26/07/2010 at 15:12 Cerebrium says:
Your solution does seem effective. Keep them in Hangar 19.
26/07/2010 at 15:13 SquareWheel says:
Oh dear, Valve. If you broke it, you need to fix it. I’m not an online gamer but I imagine those who are don’t want to have to pay for a brand new game just to play online.
26/07/2010 at 15:14 Vitto says:
Kill them, torch their offices AND SALT THEIR LANDS!
Ops…. to far?
26/07/2010 at 15:14 Jonathan says:
Well, in the interest of fairness shouldn’t they just ban everyone else too so everyone’s in the same boat?
26/07/2010 at 15:25 Atrocious says:
I approve this solution.
26/07/2010 at 15:29 nakke says:
This. Would get rid of all the actual cheaters, too.
26/07/2010 at 15:14 CMaster says:
Have to say I’ve always been rather nervous of VAC and it’s unquestionable nature.
Especially as it seems that Valve actually do well out of it – if people want to carry on playing and have been unfairly banned, their only solution is to buy the game again…
26/07/2010 at 15:20 Jonathan says:
Why be fearful if you have no intention of cheating? I approve of zero-tolerance approaches like VAC — I know I’d never play on a server that had it disabled.
26/07/2010 at 15:22 Baboonanza says:
Because software is never perfect. There needs to be some sort of appeal process for when it gets it wrong.
26/07/2010 at 15:38 Rinox says:
It’s the same answer as to the question “why be afraid of constant camera surveillance if you’ve got nothing to hide?” Because it’s a slippery slope.
26/07/2010 at 15:50 jsdn says:
VAC has been perfect until now, where it seems the problem is MW2.
There’s no ulterior motives behind VAC, and thus no slippery slope.
26/07/2010 at 15:59 Heliosicle says:
my only real problem with it (problem has since been solved by having to confirm account changes via email) was if your account got nicked and someone used hax on it, you were screwed.
26/07/2010 at 16:03 Forscythe says:
There are plenty of reasons to be terrified of VAC – it is very sensitive, and it is quite possible to trigger VAC detection by accident by installing mods or making tweaks, even just for single player, that have nothing to do with cheating.
This wouldn’t be a huge problem, except that the consequences of a VAC ban are catastrophic and irrevocable – you are banned from multiplayer in all VAC games you own, not just the one you are accused of cheating in. Being hit with a VAC ban brings your gaming to a complete halt and destroys your ability to enjoy most likely hundreds of dollars worth of games.
Even if you really were cheating, I find the punishment disproportionate, but given that all systems are fallible and that typical PC behaviors like modding can easily be mistaken for cheating, it is really not acceptible that they do not provide any way to correct a wrongful ban.
VAC should only ban you from the game you are believed to be cheating in.
VAC bans should timeout after 6-12 months.
VAC should allow you to appeal a wrongful ban. (Anyone who requests more than one or two appeals can be denied, so it wouldn’t necessarily compromise the system)
P.S. I have had no problems with VAC personally, but it does scare me
26/07/2010 at 16:34 somnolentsurfer says:
The support documents all say this, but the only person I know who has one got banned (he claims) after letting a friend use it for CS 1.6 or something, and I’ve been able to play TF2 and L4D2 with him on VAC servers no problem.
26/07/2010 at 17:24 frymaster says:
that document is out of date, then. VAC bans you one engine at a time – the only way this affects multiple games is if they run on the same engine
just out of curiosity, i’ve always wondered how VAC works with non-valve games. do we know for definite that valve are authoring the anti-cheat rules for MW2, or is it activision?
26/07/2010 at 15:17 Eggy says:
my solution: add poor taste in video games to the list of bannable offenses, ban everyone from the game.
trollface.jpg
26/07/2010 at 15:19 Walsh says:
All I know is there are a large number of cheaters in MW2 and IW never did anything about it… ban everyone!
26/07/2010 at 20:36 icdragon says:
IW? Why are you bringing the sequel to Deus Ex into this? o.O
27/07/2010 at 07:32 Kommissar Nicko says:
IW stands for Inter Webs, not Invisible War.
26/07/2010 at 15:22 AbyssUK says:
Could they not just use VAC across these games other games to see if vac has been activated.
Cheaters in MW2 will cheat in other games too right… so cross reference them against TF2, L4D etc
Or unban them for 3 months but have them in a cheaters limbo, let them know they are being watched.. then after 3 months analyze the stats if they are doing much worse than before now they were cheats… however if the stats remain constantly good and no more cheats have been detected then they didn’t cheat. Its all a matter of maths
26/07/2010 at 15:23 Risingson says:
How I love the bunch of dumbs that just say “you are a cheater whatever you say”, “there is no use to post”, “don’t complain”, and every other alienating response. I hope they get a ban soon.
26/07/2010 at 16:19 StingingVelvet says:
That’s pretty much the attitude of everyone on the Steam forums about Valve… they can do no wrong, you are obviously a cheater/pirate/idiot.
26/07/2010 at 18:05 DJ Phantoon says:
Yeah but what if they are cheaters? I notice no posters in this thread so far are one of these people, and honestly, MW2 can go eat a bag of shit and die a dishonorable death from stomach cancer. It’s not that the game is terrible, it’s that it’s not any good and it’s practically a MMORPG with the level grinding which never needed to be there.
The only problem here is VAC will ban you from games that aren’t a pile of crap hurled at your mother.
26/07/2010 at 18:06 Hallgrim says:
@Risington:
In the first year of the game, one of my guildmates who I had played online games with for >2 years got banned and insisted that he was not cheating.
A bunch of us raised a stink on the forums, complaining about how unfair it was etc etc. All we got were form replies from CS Reps and taunts from people in the community who called him a cheater and had zero sympathy.
Two months later he admitted that he was really cheating, trying to use a teleport hack.
I don’t know that these people are cheating, and you don’t know that they are not. Valve, however, thinks they are and that kinda tips the balance for me.
26/07/2010 at 18:08 Hallgrim says:
Doh!
“the game” = WoW. My old ugly addiction was rearing it’s I suppose.
26/07/2010 at 18:09 Risingson says:
Great personal story. I was hooked!
Now, what does this prove?
26/07/2010 at 18:54 DJ Phantoon says:
That anyone that bought this game has terrible taste in brown shooty games.
26/07/2010 at 20:21 Andrew Farrell says:
But this is not new learnings!
26/07/2010 at 21:53 Alexander Norris says:
@StingingVelvet – it’s pretty much the attitude on RPS, too.
26/07/2010 at 15:24 Rinox says:
I know this is wrong, but I can’t help but feel slightly giddy over this being MW2 players. I guess karma is a bitch when you bow down to Activision’s will.
Now if this happens to TF2 or L4D(2)…I will unleash rage from my thousand mouths.
26/07/2010 at 15:24 Jambe says:
That makes absolutely no sense, Quinns. No sense at all.
I very much doubt Valve isn’t looking into this. I also doubt they won’t lift erroneous bans if they should be identified. Nothing in their EULA and no ethical notion suggests they should reveal why VAC bans people — they only need to fix unwarranted bans.
Let us remember this is Valve, wont to throwing freebies left and right… I wouldn’t be surprised by their handing-out of some free stuff if/when the problem is found & solved.
26/07/2010 at 15:34 Quintin Smith says:
I’m really going off of this page on the Steam support site.
“All VAC bans are permanent – Valve has a zero-tolerance policy for cheating and will not lift VAC bans under any circumstances.”
26/07/2010 at 15:52 Kyle says:
And, it actually does make perfect sense. Think about the end of Minority Report. As soon as the system is proven fallible, all previous cases — even those that might have been 100% righteous — suddenly develop what barristers and solicitors like to call “a shadow of a doubt.” Of course, Valve might be able to get around scrapping the software altogether with some serious rebranding, but that’s still a lot more costly than just not admitting they were wrong.
26/07/2010 at 16:07 DrGonzo says:
Absolute crap I must say. Why should VAC not have an appeal system but the legal system does?
26/07/2010 at 16:37 Collic says:
The legal system is a tad more important to people’s lives than moderating cheating in a video game. They are in no way related at all, to be honest. Maybe a car analogy would have been better ?
26/07/2010 at 16:46 DrGonzo says:
I was trying to make the point that VAC isn’t important. So why does it matter if it’s fallable and they unban some people.
26/07/2010 at 16:55 Collic says:
I think the classic floodgates argument is reason enough, really; it’s the same reason VAC doesn’t accept user submitted demos The system would be unworkable if they allowed individuals to appeal their bans.
As has been noted further down in the comments, in some cases VAC has picked up harmless third party software as a cheat before, and in those cases they will reverse those bans. They just won’t allow an individual to try and argue their way out of a ban.
You can be fairly sure that Valve are looking at this, and if indeed there has been an unusual number of bans, and they find that they were false positives, the bans will be reversed. They listen, they just don’t allow any transparency for the sake of not giving cheat writers anything to work with, and so VAC is actually a system they can use.
26/07/2010 at 17:14 Kyle says:
Well said, Collic.
And yeah, the reason I went with Minority Report was to avoid associations with anything too weighty. I think, as gamers, we kind of have a tendency to declare the sky falling whenever it rains. We really could do with a better sense of humour about ourselves.
26/07/2010 at 17:26 Jambe says:
That is just silly. I used the word “sense” deliberately. If they indeed find that VAC misfired and they don’t issue a press release or at the very least unban the victims, this will be an absolute PR nightmare (and a legitimate one at that, unlike all the hoopla over L4D2).
26/07/2010 at 21:31 teo says:
I don’t care what the page says, VAC bans last a year
26/07/2010 at 15:27 Torinir says:
The biggest problem is that MW2 is probably the first (and hopefully only) foray into P2P gaming for VAC. With dedicated servers, core functions are secured on the server side with reasonable consistency. Not so in a P2P environment. Host cvars will override the clients’ in P2P, so if you find yourself in a hacked game, you’re fucked until you can get into a clean one. That is not an issue isolated to PC, however. It’s been noted on 360 and PS3 as well. Despite all of IW’s “best efforts” *snort* at eliminating the problem, it’s never been resolved. Just another failure in the sad story of MW2.
26/07/2010 at 15:28 FinalSin says:
It’s not really likely to be VAC’s fault though, is it? VAC will just be a wrapper that ties in user data, the servers, etc. The developers will have provided definitions of what it means to cheat, surely. You can’t have a piece of software universally understand what cheating is.
26/07/2010 at 15:30 Thomas says:
VAC bans aren’t completely automated, and they can and have been manually(atleast according to Valve) verified to be legitimate VAC bans.
I can of course appreciate it may be an issue when the player in question may not be cheating other players, but you don’t have to cheat other players in order to be VAC banned.
26/07/2010 at 15:30 Andy says:
They have rescinded bans in the past when they’ve been found to be a misdetection.
They only refuse to discuss bans handed out to individuals, because individuals will lie and lie and lie that they had nothing to do with cheats and it’s all a big misunderstanding. It also helps the cheat writers if they’re told what exactly was detected and how it was done.
26/07/2010 at 15:37 Quintin Smith says:
Aha. If you can link me to any information on those rescinded bans I’ll knit that into the article.
26/07/2010 at 16:38 -Opaque- says:
I was doing some brief looking into this when this started happening (out of curiosity/slight paranoia, I haven’t actually being hit by this) and I haven’t found anything suggesting they have ever rescinded a VAC2 ban, admittedly my research consists of poking around the forums and Wikipedia. None the less here is the relevant chunk from the wiki article:
There are four recorded instances of the “benign cheats” described above triggering bans. These are:
1. VAC1: HLamp, which allowed the user to control Winamp from the game’s interface. Detection later reversed, and all bans caused by it rescinded.
2. VAC2: The X-Spectate tool, which allowed server administrators to enable a wallhack effect while spectating to help decide if another player was doing the same. Later downgraded to a kick from the server, but bans not rescinded.
3. VAC2: The single-player Half-Life modifications Paranoia and Half-Life FX, which made changes to the engine’s renderer that propagated to multi-player games.[11] This still triggers a ban and no bans caused by it have been reversed.
4. VAC and VAC2: sXe Injected, an anti-cheat system for Counter-Strike, however, does not trigger a VAC ban anymore.
26/07/2010 at 15:32 Alan says:
MW2 on the 360 has easily been the single most exploit- and hack-ridden multiplayer game in recent memory. It comes as no surprise to me that there would be “issues” on the PC side as well – VAC has probably been doing its job perfectly well. There may have been exploiting servers resulting in modified files on the client side (a cursory look at the steam forums shows this is the prevailing theory, in fact.) If anyone should be offering refunds, it’s Infinity Ward.
26/07/2010 at 17:58 Theory says:
VAC detects in-memory modifications to the game’s process (i.e. external programs hooking into it). Changing data files doesn’t come anywhere near it…in Valve’s games, at least.
26/07/2010 at 15:33 Hypatian says:
If it does turn out that the all-seeing-eye of VAC was wrong, then all they have to do is make sure to give out FREE HATS to the people who were unjustly banned.
Clearly.
26/07/2010 at 18:56 DJ Phantoon says:
I shouldn’t be denied a hat just because I didn’t buy a shitty shooter and then got caught cheating and then bitched.
26/07/2010 at 15:33 Heliocentric says:
Hahahahaha everyone who bought a game without dedicated servers brought this on themselves. If css vac bans you then you can at least play non vac servers, some of which still ban spotted cheaters. Hahahahaha. [/would be crying if this had happened to me]
26/07/2010 at 15:37 Jeffrey says:
What happened: One or two guys were so dedicated to bluffing themselves out of a ban they made a post on the forums and a steam group. Every other cheater banned around the same time jumped at the opportunity to make themselves look innocent.
Good riddance.
26/07/2010 at 16:19 airtekh says:
I agree.
The numbers of people banned are wildly disproportionate to the vast number of people who actually play MW2 online. Something stinks about this.
26/07/2010 at 15:41 rocketman71 says:
I’m sorry, but they deserve it for buying that POS and validating Activision’s “no LAN no dedis no modding no mapping no fucking anything” stance.
26/07/2010 at 15:47 Skinlo says:
I hate the game and Activision as well, but they don’t deserve it in anyway. They paid good money for it, if the VAC system failed, then its not their fault.
26/07/2010 at 15:45 Skinlo says:
I guess Valve can unban them if they want to, even if it says its permanent. I’m sure they are also looking into behind the scenes. And I too would cry if this happened to me.
26/07/2010 at 15:46 Rich Collett says:
What irks me is the claim that VAC is perfect, never makes mistakes and is well and truly perfect. It bloody well isn’t as I’ve been banned for cheating. When I’ve never cheated.
It would be so bad if the support system could properly support customers in cases where innocence is claimed but the whole thing stinks of copy paste template responses.
26/07/2010 at 16:47 somnolentsurfer says:
I looked into it all before I bought the L4D2 four pack together with a guy who had a VAC ban on his account. Just reading the support document was pretty terrifying. My Steam account is probably the most valuable thing I own – a lot more than either the value of my MacBook Pro or the total in my bank account. The idea that it could be rendered worthless in an instant was not something I wanted to contemplate.
26/07/2010 at 18:24 Theory says:
VAC, broadly speaking, hashes a game’s process and examines the result for known anomalies. It is possible for hash collisions to occur between cheats and other software that hooks in (little-known software, as ordinary things like anti-viruses are obviously accounted for), but the likelihood is mathematically insignificant. It may have happened though.
26/07/2010 at 15:46 Trespasser says:
I run a small league of Counterstrike:Source for about 5 years now. In these 5 years I learned that in 95% of the cases VAC was spot on when handing out bans.
One of the best excuses for a ban given by VAC was that the player was using “HD Models in order to make frag movies”. :D True, the guy made frag movies but also some funky frags during matches. :)
26/07/2010 at 15:48 Yka says:
Obvious : Activision is now working hand in hand with Valve to sell more MW2 copies to the same players AGAIN.
Little devils…
26/07/2010 at 15:50 Synoptase says:
Just to make it cleat about VAC bans.
Bans apply to every game using VAC system. It is a cross ban, yes cross ban!
Meaning that if you get banned on TF2, you cannot play any games bought that are using VAC. You’re good to creating a new account and rebuy each and every game that is using VAC.
This system has it’s use but is definetly customer unfriendly and IMO not very legit in these european lands…
26/07/2010 at 16:07 Ricc says:
That is not true. VAC bans across engines, not games (i.e. all Source games), which means that you will be able to play TF2 after getting banned from MW2.
26/07/2010 at 16:08 Urthman says:
I’d say it’s extremely customer friendly to those customers who want to play the game they bought without having it wrecked by cheaters.
26/07/2010 at 16:09 Centy says:
No it isn’t the Vac bans are engine specific so if you cheat in say Red Orchestra you are banned from Unreal 2.5 engine games but can happily play Source games or Call of Duty.
Frankly I find Vac bans to be pointless I’d rather punkbuster immediately got rid of people from the server than waiting because once one tool is gone another 2 have taken its place that’s what MW2 is so unplayable you can’t beat the hackers by banning the account 6 weeks later that means they have had 6 weeks of ruining peoples games. Punkbuster had a similar if unofficial PBans system that did the same thing as Vac anyway.
But yeah I’ve had the misfortune of having a steam account hacked years ago and they hacked and effectively lost me my HL2 and CSS games Valve were unable to prove that it wasn’t me who cheated and then lied to get my account back. So now I am extremely protective of my account and any mods I use for any game on it.
26/07/2010 at 16:20 -Opaque- says:
It goes by engine branch even, if you get a ban in TF2 you can still play L4D or Garrys Mod for example.
Pretty good list of all the engines and branches here:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=980116
26/07/2010 at 16:32 Collic says:
There is nothing wrong with the way VAC hands out bans. It needs to be a serious deterrent or there’s simply no point in trying to stop cheaters in the first place. The other thing to note is, you can still play on non-VAC secured servers, so it isn’t completely preventing you from playing your game, or even playing online; you can still play with pirates, and other cheaters.
Of course, with MW2 you might not have that choice given the lack of dedicated servers. I wonder if a few people are regretting not holding firm on their ‘boycott’?
26/07/2010 at 17:52 bananarama says:
Not all true, but in practice it’s not that far away from it. Your Steam profile will be publicly marked for everyone to see that you are VAC banned. If you’re on a server and an admin suspect you of cheating or just think you are too good and use the in-game interface to look at your profile then you will be banned again, and again and again. There are even server side plugins for all Half-Life and Half-Life 2-based games that will look on players steam profile automatically and ban anyone who has a VAC ban, even if it was from MW2 and not L4D/TF2/CS/CSS/DOD/DODS/and-so-on.
To get around it you need a new account. If you got any other games on your old account then all convince of using Steam is now gone. Poof! Enjoy having to log in and out of different accounts to play different games.
26/07/2010 at 15:52 Alexander Norris says:
Hopefully this will lead to Valve stopping the whole “plug fingers in ears, scream LALALALALALA” policy on VAC bans, but I very much doubt it. When there’s the possibility, ever so slim, that a false positive will cause you to be unable to play on legitimate servers for every single game that uses Steamworks, you do not have the option of fucking up.
26/07/2010 at 15:59 Peter Radiator Full Pig says:
Any system for detecting something can have false positives.
In light of this fact, having a premanant ban from all the games you have bought seems incredibly stupid. This is not the face of the VALVe i love, but its obvously one of its faces.
I would be livid if this happened to me. Cut me off from the games i bought, just because of cheating?
At the very least, cut cheaters off from the multiplayer game they cheated in. Never cut them from the single player ones.
26/07/2010 at 16:02 Peter Radiator Full Pig says:
Darn, ninja’d,
26/07/2010 at 16:12 Thomas says:
The reason why it’s delayed is not only to keep the hackers in the dark, but also to verify that it is infact not a false positive, false positivies are very rare, and very easy to spot.
You don’t get banned from Singleplayer, and by getting banned from MW2 you don’t get banned for TF2 either, it’s engine specific.
26/07/2010 at 16:02 neems says:
As somebody else has mentioned, I’m thinking that this may be related to hacked / modded servers as opposed to cheating. They are out there, and it may well be that if you have played on one (you have no choice about which server you join in MW2) you too may be VACed.
I’m off to check my Steam account.
26/07/2010 at 16:02 DrugCrazed says:
Part of me thinks that in this case, Vavle will have to look at it and say “We fucked up, here’s your account back”.
The other part isn’t so sure if that will happen.
26/07/2010 at 16:07 Thomas says:
They have looked.
26/07/2010 at 16:03 ChampionHyena says:
Dunno who to side with on this one. For one thing, MW2 is hack-tacular. I would not be surprised by a massive population of cheaters.
On top of that, what cheater in the history of this glorious planet Earth has not spun around once caught and loudly declared that accusations of cheating are PREPOSTEROUS and they would NEVER EVER do ANY SUCH THING? You’d need more proof of good sportsmanship than the sentence “I’ve never cheated.”
On the other hand, software is software, and admittedly fragile (MW2 itself is proof of that). I can’t be 100% convinced that this ISN’T some kind of major VAC hiccup as well.
If these bans are valid, I hope these twits choke on them. If these bans are somehow provably invalid, I hope that Valve decides to be its Valviest about amnesty or somesuch.
Meantime, I don’t play a ton of MW2, so mostly what I’m going to do in the interim is sit here in comments sections and snark.
26/07/2010 at 16:05 bleeters says:
But… but… Valve are perfect. This throws my entire perception of reality into question.
26/07/2010 at 16:14 dragon_hunter21 says:
I’ve got a feeling Robin Walker is going to be making a trip over to the VAC programmers’ offices…
26/07/2010 at 18:52 DJ Phantoon says:
On his horse, of course.
27/07/2010 at 00:22 dragon_hunter21 says:
Well, naturally. It simpy wouldn’t be right for Walker to go anywhere without his horse, tower of hats, or a trail of pink slips in his wake.
26/07/2010 at 16:15 Gunsmith AKA NanosuitNinja says:
Am I the only one here who doesnt give a shit? they were at fault for buying MW2, perhaps they will educate them into playing something decent.
26/07/2010 at 16:18 Nimic says:
Cheaters in “we never cheated!”-shocker?
Pardon me for being so cynical, but I’ve seen too many cheaters in MW2 to believe this is all some huge misunderstanding without any decent proof or convincing arguments. I saw more cheaters in MW2 the first couple of days I played it than I’ve seen in all my hundreds of hours of playing TF2, or my somewhat fewer hours of L4D. Or any other game.
26/07/2010 at 16:20 JohnnyMaverik says:
So does this mean I should avoid any VAC secured games/servers for a few days? Or is it really just a MW2 problem, which I don’t play anyway…
26/07/2010 at 16:37 D says:
Article specifically mentions MW2. No alarm
26/07/2010 at 16:20 Dozer says:
so – the wise man creates a seperate Steam account for every Steam game purchased, yes? Or does that not work…
26/07/2010 at 16:22 Dhatz says:
I avoid steam just to be sure I miss the apocalypse. but only thing it is worth is free online games when there is one, other than that I keep it uninstalled and all games pirated.
26/07/2010 at 16:24 apsas says:
@Forscythe:
Are you kidding? You can’t trigger a VAC ban by playing a mod or tweaking something in singleplayer. You have to be playing on a VAC server to get VAC banned.
And you’re not banned from all VAC games. You’re banned from the VAC games that share the same engine. Atleast that’s how it used to be. Banned in Counter-strike? You can still play CS:S etc.
And VAC bans shouldn’t be lifted after 6-12 months, cheaters shouldn’t be shown mercy. And if people could be VAC banned for playing mods/tweaking singleplayer games then we would’ve heard of it.
“Tweaking” .dll files that are used in multiplayer is and should be bannable though.
26/07/2010 at 16:25 Misnomer says:
Someone needs to figure out real solutions to hacking instead of these post facto bans. I am not sure what can be done, but it is really detrimental to communities when there is a ban and it affects more than one game.
Say one of these guys was a hack in MW2 and now he is banned in TF2. Does his clan immediately kick him out for his hacking in another game? What is he claims he is innocent. How can a clan decide if they are going to “harbor cheaters’ when there is no evidence in either case. It comes down to how much you trust Valve versus how much you trust your online buddy. Most times I would side with Valve or Punkbuster, but it is a bit extreme to punish someone socially and monetarily to that extreme when they may have not done anything.
At least with punkbuster you only have to buy one new copy of a game if you get a false positive (I know people who at least claim to have had false positives from running Xfire and the like), VAC seems to compound the possible error into more and more games every year.
While I want hackers gone and would like PC to be a platform not so much know for the ease of cheating, VAC does scare me. When I look at how much money I have in my Steam games collection, the idea of some false positive is truly frightening. Still, I do expect that most of these guys were hackers.
Those of us who criticize the system are more afraid of a Kafka like scenario for ourselves than defending the people banned.
26/07/2010 at 16:30 CMaster says:
The “real solution” is to do everything server side. That OnLive service is pretty much completely cheat proof. You can reduce cheating a lot with some slightly less extreme system, with all game behaviour being server side and eliminating most elements of prediction/client synch, although that still allows space for model replacements, extra HUD elements etc.
There are lots of reasons why this isn’t being done more.
26/07/2010 at 16:35 Thomas says:
I’m sorry, but it really isn’t that simple, there are very little you can do as long as you are still able to run code on the system in question.
Some programs even use morphing code where the game kind of writes itself, making it harder to implemented cheating, but definitely not impossible, at the end of the day the only thing you can do is either remove the ability to run custom code, basically turning the PC into a console (Though some console games, for example RPG’s can be cheated using savegame editors), or by making everything run on the server, but this isn’t pratical for a number of reason, including processing power and network bandwitdh.
At the end of the day i’ll bet on VAC, and keep my freedom.
26/07/2010 at 17:47 CMaster says:
@Thomas
But that’s the point about something like OnLive. All the client is doing is sending controls to the server and receiving video data. Sure, you can still have macros and scripts, but any “cheating” as it is conventionally understood isn’t going to happen.
Oh, and consoles are far from cheat proof. As you say, whenever any game logic is being done on the user’s machine, there is the opportunity for cheats.
26/07/2010 at 23:57 Devenger says:
If all game behaviour were serverside, unless you were exceedingly close to a server in terms of data-going-places, shooters would become unacceptably sluggish. OnLive is bad enough, and they HAVE the servers not far down the wires. It’s just not feasible, really, it isn’t. Since game behaviour ultimately includes moving and aiming, and 0.1 seconds really does make a difference to some people… no, it aint happenin’, not with our existing concept of the internet at least.
Also, allowing model replacements… what? Aren’t they part of the problem? I’d like all my enemies to have guns that are 100ft long so I can see them through walls, please … ?
26/07/2010 at 16:26 Out Reach says:
as long as it only rapes the MW2 players, those idiots deserve it.
If it comes to TF2 though I will be so full of rage.
26/07/2010 at 16:27 squirrel says:
BAN ?! Which means one not only gets kicked from a round, but being banned from that game online again?! Then yes there is someone cheating, the administrator is cheating money! Ask for full refund! need me say more?
BTW, we may need a court order to force Valve to disclose its definition of cheating.
26/07/2010 at 22:47 FunkyBadger says:
CRY SOME MOAR!!!
26/07/2010 at 16:28 mlaskus says:
Any automated grouping algorithm is susceptible to making mistakes. Detecting cheaters is a very delicate matter in which false positives are a lot worse than false negatives. A policy by which bans are permanent and unquestionable is simply idiotic and makes me respect Valve a lot less.
26/07/2010 at 16:42 D says:
As mentioned in these very comments, one of the advantages of delaying bans for 2-3 weeks is the ability to filter out false positives very easily. It however doesn’t stop anyone being banned if their files have been tampered with, without their knowledge, as I suppose this case is (if they are indeed innocent).
26/07/2010 at 16:28 bonjovi says:
to add my few pennies:
Anti cheating software is not needed. give dedicated servers and let players votekick. Problem with cheaters : SOLVED! :-)
Why?
Dedicated servers will develop a community, memebers of it will be less likely to cheat, and will enjoy the server.
Votekick will let them serve the jutstice, and as a long time FPS fan, you can always tell when someone is cheating.
Sure I have been unjustly kicked from the server few times but it’s a little risk (kick with 1h ban form 1 server)
Playing COD4 a lot i could tell that even with the PB a lot of people were still able to cheat, but you can easily tell who that is and kick ‘im.
optional: killcam – not only spots cheaters but also prevents camping :-) a win – win !
Believe in the individual people!! For the Liberty.
26/07/2010 at 16:31 Senethro says:
Theres a bunch of people in this comments saying that a single VAC ban is a permanent ban from all VAC games on your account. I thought this wasn’t the case, but that instead you were banned from all games that use the same engine. So, you could lose all your Source games but an MW2 VAC ban shouldn’t ban you from TF2.
26/07/2010 at 16:32 Senethro says:
The missing line: Could someone confirm/deny?
Conspiracy: Both my captcha phrases have had MW in them.
26/07/2010 at 17:50 Ryz says:
They’re wrong. If you get VAC banned in MW2, TF2 is unaffected, etc.
26/07/2010 at 16:31 Heliosicle says:
It seems to me that Valve could do with changing their policy, the whole zero tolerance thing was fine when there were relatively few games that people had locked to steam + steamworks, but with the popularity of steam and the number of games starting to use steamworks, its starting to look a bit iffy, even if people are using hacks, ALSO THE KEY BETWEEN U AND O JUST BROKE CRAP.
26/07/2010 at 16:44 D says:
I can help you with that. Copy paste: I i
26/07/2010 at 16:31 oceanclub says:
The idea that VAC could be infallible is, quite frankly, bizarre. The same reassurances are used by those who want to being electronic voting in.
P.
26/07/2010 at 16:31 Rinox says:
A minor comfort for the banned MW2 is that they already know they won’t be cheated out of any awesome MP mods coming up.
26/07/2010 at 16:31 Anach says:
Unfortunately I had a situation just like this. Banned by vac for something that took me a week or two to find out what. It seems a certain mod for a source game included a certain file which VAC detected as a cheat, although it wasnt. It took the mod author a while to let users know of this too. Of course there was no petitioning this, or asking questions or such. So I ended up with an entire account of games I could no longer play online. Yay!.
26/07/2010 at 16:35 Senethro says:
Wasn’t this Paranoia mod? Didn’t it turn out to be the programmers fault due to the changes his singleplayer mod made to how textures were viewed were propagating somehow to the multiplayer version of the base game?
26/07/2010 at 19:02 Twerty says:
I thought all ‘bans’ were temporary with Paranoia mod, all you had to do was remove the file? You weren’t actually banned, it just created some odd error.
See here:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/paranoia
The anticheating services WILL NOT BAN YOUR ACCOUNT IF YOU PLAYING OUR MOD ONLINE. The VAC will detect opengl32.dll as a cheat in case if you will try to play another HL1 mod (CS1.6 for example) online on the server with VAC protection. We have NO PRECEDENT that some account was banned, because VAC just prevent you from playing on the server with anticheating protection. If you want to play online with other HL1 mods, just delete opengl32.dll file (or replace it to other detectory), but don’t forget to put it back when you want to play PARANOIA. Without opengl32.dll in the Half-Life folder, the new graphic effects in PARANOIA will not be available.
26/07/2010 at 16:42 Tiktaalik says:
Well, call me cynical, but I’m guessing that what happened is that one person started complaining and saying there was a problem with VAC, and then every single cheater jumped on to insist they never cheated in their lives, please could they get unbanned now?
26/07/2010 at 16:53 Daniel Carvalho says:
Quite simply, if something is wrong with VAC, claiming that “your hands are tied” is just not good enough and they’ll have to do something about it.
26/07/2010 at 16:55 Incognito says:
VAC ban can only occur if you play a VAC enabled game if I understand it right, so I would never use any custom files at all for any VAC enabled game if that is correct.
But for games like Supreme Commander 2 which is not VAC enabled, I should be able to use any custom files I want? And the same for Empire: Total War?
26/07/2010 at 16:57 Conspiracy Theorist says:
RPS List of Reliable Sources
Extremely Reliable:
- Posts on the Steam forums
- Individuals with dubious claims
Extremely Unreliable:
- Professional programmers
- Valve
VAC killed my family.
26/07/2010 at 22:53 Christian says:
Also…they came and ate my dog.
I have proof.
You can come to my house anytime and have a look: no dog here.
Damn Valve!!!11!1
26/07/2010 at 17:01 jon_hill987 says:
Solution: Anyone banned from MW2 should go and play a good game instead.
26/07/2010 at 17:09 Baliame says:
@somnolentsurfer: There are two sorts of VAC ban for Valve games: Goldsource ban (HL, 1.6, DoD, TFC, Ricochet) and Source ban (HL2DM, CSS, DoDS, TF2, L4D, L4D2 and probably AS).
26/07/2010 at 17:09 Unaco says:
Hahahahaha. Good stories from all these cheaters. There is NO problem with VAC. Valve is infallible (just don’t mention PowerPlay), and, obviously, if someone gets caught cheating or similar, of course they’re going to say “No way! I wasn’t hacking/cheating at all! Please make the ban go away!”. What’s likely to have happened is… Someone has started posting somewere, or telling people “Do this… it isn’t a hack or a cheat and you can’t get caught for it”. Foolish people have done this thing, and then got caught, and now they are complaining.
Also, I don’t think VAC isn’t completely automated…. hence the delay in banning. VAC collects evidence and data were it suspects there may have been a hack/cheat used… this is then verified by a human at a later date. That way false positives can be caught.
26/07/2010 at 17:09 Don says:
I used to think Valve were the good guys, or at least better than the competition. Then I tried to buy something in their recent sale and got hit with a new requirement to ‘validate’ my email before finishing the purchase. Said email didn’t arrive for 24 hours by which time the sale had moved on and I found the item had vanished from my basket. When I raised this as an issue with Steam support the reply was basically ‘get lost, we’re not going to do anything’.
Valve care no more about their customers than any other equivalent body, the difference between them and, say, Ubisoft is just one of presentation.
26/07/2010 at 17:56 D says:
Hahaha. This post. Email gets lost in the internet, you miss a sale. Good thing they gave you a free game a week ago huh.
26/07/2010 at 17:11 Arnulf says:
My bet is on viruses and trojans.
26/07/2010 at 17:13 dorianGREY says:
the amount of cheaters it does ban, compared to the minority of people who it does get. I say VAC does a good job. Dont cheat, dont lose your game, simple. People may not hack, but they mod texture files and all that kind of bollocks too.
I agree it probably should have an appeal system.
But people will always scream they did nothing wrong when caught out. Maybe they should be allowed on again after 6 months. Like a sentence for cheating, rather than the electric chair, just toss them in a cell for a bit.
26/07/2010 at 17:13 Falwell says:
The fact that they preach they have infallible software is evidence enough that they’re full of shit.
Not to mention that this is the same company who went running to their player base for help after getting hacked TWICE (HL2 code and financial records) who also refuses to work with customers in rectifying mistakes, false flags, and hacked accounts
26/07/2010 at 17:14 Confused Bear says:
Maybe they were banned for playing MW2 in general!
26/07/2010 at 17:14 Shadow Aspect says:
How about the folks suggesting MW2 players get themselves a ‘better’ game shush? I’m pretty sure most of us are able to make our own minds up regarding our choice of recreational computer entertainment. I play a wide variety of games and would prefer you don’t assume you know my tastes better than me.
26/07/2010 at 17:17 Radiant says:
So what happens if you get VAC banned?
Do you lose all your games?
26/07/2010 at 17:23 drewski says:
Your system spontaneously combusts.
26/07/2010 at 17:25 bwion says:
Apparently (and this is just the usual third-hand gossip, so don’t take it as gospel), you don’t lose any of your games, but you do lose the ability to play the game you got banned from (and any games which share the same engine) in multiplayer. (You can still play those games single-player).
26/07/2010 at 17:33 Unaco says:
You can also still play the games from which you are VAC banned on Non-VAC servers.
26/07/2010 at 21:03 Radiant says:
what the…
Fuck the police.
26/07/2010 at 17:22 Calabi says:
Wow, gamers are some really wierd people. Its like hackers should get their balls chopped off as if its the most heinous activity in history.
I could slightly understand if the system was infallible but strangely enough its physically impossible for a system any system, including a computer program to be a hundred percent infallible. Even if you removed the human element and had an ai create the program a human would still be at the other end.
Gamers really are push overs, these companys are able to get away with quite alot which go contrary to consumer laws in certain countrys. But who cares as long as we get to play our games.
26/07/2010 at 17:28 Loopy says:
“if you’ve got automated software which cuts people off from one of your products, you need to maintain a policy that the software is infallible, otherwise the whole system comes crashing down”
it all sounds a bit “Minority Report” to me, very fishy. ;-)
26/07/2010 at 17:32 Patrick says:
Hi, I recently got mw2 and found out I was banned yesterday.
When I got the game, I had troubles connected (game would freeze every time connecting to a game)
Even the single player would freeze.
I figured it was a problem with my internet, so I opened the ports that cod uses and steam uses on my firewall and router firewall.
Game worked fine after that (had one bluescreen randomly, but that’s all)
Yesterday, I go to log on and get a big cheat detected message and a console reading.
I tried to post information on the steam forums, but I’m still not approved to post
(Why separate accounts for steam forums???)
I’ve sent in a ticket with no reply, and I could really use some help (I’d be glad to give file size and modification information)
My email is patrick@sheehangroup.net.
26/07/2010 at 17:32 Reapergold says:
Has it occured to anyone that these are all rightly banned? As mentioned VAC doesn’t kick in immediatly. Quite likely the large number of bans could be offenders that have been catologed over an unusually extended period of time as opposed to a system glitch. Ofc the banned are flaming about this and anyone capable of hacking or installing hacks can easily fake some poor stats to appear innocent.
After years of valves quality service to the salvating horde, I’m willing to have some faith despite the worry this is causing.
26/07/2010 at 17:42 Unaco says:
It occurred to me. Was the first thing that occurred to me. These people are guilty! These people MUST have done something, or had something done, to their MW2 installs for them to be flagged by VAC. It wouldn’t just flag an install that hasn’t been modified. All of the bans coming just now makes me think that something went about a few weeks or a month or so ago… a hacked server granting lvl xx automatically, a small exploit or cheat or hack or modification that people applied thinking it was too small to be a ‘real cheat’… something like that.
27/07/2010 at 01:07 MD says:
“a hacked server granting lvl xx automatically”
Are you suggesting that joining such a server is an acceptable reason for being banned?
26/07/2010 at 17:32 Navagon says:
I thought Modern Warfare was a hack? Well, a hack job at least.
26/07/2010 at 17:36 frymaster says:
this was mentioned in a “reply to” comment, I think it’s worth reportiing it separately:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=980116
note that one of the things it definitely says will get you VAC banned is that hack that enables the MW2 console in online play (as it involves either altered game files, or a separate .dll, this doesn’t surprise me)
given also that VAC is a delayed ban, it’s very possible these people moaning did something dodgy a few weeks ago, and are now surprised to be banned
26/07/2010 at 17:51 MRK says:
Considering how it is possible (and more and more common) to cheat in a method that VAC cannot detect (no, I’m not going to tell you how) Its time Valve (and other companies) stopped trying to auto-ban cheaters and start having developers be more proactive about protecting their games in the first place. Detect cheats, fine. But don’t auto-ban.
26/07/2010 at 17:52 Seras says:
finally! been waiting on a new wave of VAC bans for MW2 for months now.
though there’s still plenty to go, still encountered 4 wall hackers this weekend.
26/07/2010 at 17:54 Gothnak says:
Just ban anyone who wins too much… It’s unlikely anyone losing continually is cheating, and if they are, i don’t think anyone else cares :).
Job done…
26/07/2010 at 17:57 Vandell says:
Reminds me of when Blizzard goes on a banning wave. Every time, like clockwork, you see people whining on the forums on their friends accounts crying that they didn’t do anything wrong, that they used an unsecure computer, or what have you.
Essentially, I imagine all of these VAC bans are legit because a new, more modern hacks were entered into the database, resulting in a lot of people getting kicked at once.
26/07/2010 at 17:59 nsfklwe says:
It’s glaDOS!!! Everybody run!!!
26/07/2010 at 18:23 Sonic Goo says:
Does that mean there’ll be cake?
26/07/2010 at 17:59 upbeatlinux says:
PC gamers actually play the Call of Duty series? Come now…
26/07/2010 at 18:00 Dreamhacker says:
Hey, guys! Remember me? I was the guy from last week who tried to tell everyone Valve really was evil! But did anyone listen to me? Nooo.
Well, here’s your proof :)
26/07/2010 at 18:22 Sonic Goo says:
Of course you’d say so. Hacker. ;P
26/07/2010 at 18:24 Unaco says:
This is your standard of proof? A bunch of people whining on forums that they have been banned incorrectly. I sincerely hope you are not a judge.
26/07/2010 at 22:44 Dreamhacker says:
Nay, I may not be judge, but I am a prophet! Preaching the evil of Valve! Yes! Turn away from them, before it is too late and you are banned for forever!
26/07/2010 at 23:06 Christian says:
Repent, for The End Is Nigh!!
26/07/2010 at 18:04 Ryz says:
This is a really odd reply thread, almost as odd as the SC2 one…
VAC operates on a delay, usually a good week or so. So all of these people raging on the Steam forums were flagged for at least a week and verified and banned. That’s how VAC works, you don’t get an immediate ban.
You do not lose access to your account for being VAC banned. You lose access to VAC servers on all games running the same engine (TF2 + CSS, for example) due to cheats likely working cross game in those cases. You can still play single player or on non-VAC servers. So someone banned from MW2 would still have access to the campaign and TF2′s multiplayer.
VAC is not infallible, as the Paranoia mod proved. But it’s very unlikely that something on this scale happened by mistake. If you’ve followed MW2′s multiplayer at all, you’ll know that there’s been ban waves like this in the past as VAC is updated with more hacks. Each time there’s been a reaction like this, though the Steam group is new and pretty amusing.
I suppose it’s possible that someone’s figured out how to trigger a VAC ban for people joining a hacked server (which they have no choice, thanks IW.net), but…VAC detects everything client-side.
VAC has made mistakes before, it isn’t perfect, Valve isn’t infallible, etc, etc….but I’d be very very surprised if it was the case here. This is really same ole same ole for MW2 ban waves.
26/07/2010 at 21:50 oceanclub says:
“VAC is not infallible, as the Paranoia mod proved”
Since HL2 mods go into their own folder – {steam_home}\steamapps\SourceMods – how did this affect the parent games?
P.
27/07/2010 at 00:10 Devenger says:
PARANOIA was a HL1 mod. HL1 had a somewhat less mod installation system than a SourceMods folder, though I’m still surprised that the mod modified a core HL1 file – seems beyond a mod’s sphere of influence to do so. However, I suppose they might have needed to in order to make the graphics do what they wanted by adding extra rendering functionality. In which case, surely installation would have made it quite obvious… ?
26/07/2010 at 18:04 konrad says:
In unrelated news: “Playing MW2 on the PC is suddenly fun again.”
26/07/2010 at 18:18 Deadjim says:
I will say first off that I have never purposefully cheated on any game that I have played however, I think I may have unwittingly cheated on MW2…I do not know how It happened but when I was playing one night and joined a new server I was around about lvl 53 (so a few lvls off from 70) and in one game on this server I suddenly jumped up to lvl 70! I havn’t seen if anyone else has had this or indeed been band for this tho…will have to see whats happened to my game
26/07/2010 at 18:28 Theory says:
This will be to do with modified behaviour on the
serverhost’s computer, which sent ‘bad’ data to the ranking servers. Your own machine wasn’t affected.26/07/2010 at 18:30 Psychopomp says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Anti-Cheat#False-positive_detections
It’s happened before, and they lifted it.
26/07/2010 at 18:30 Joe Maley says:
I’m not a fan of VAC.
I got banned from CS:S a while back, and I never cheated. The rules are fairly unclear.
I was using bright models, but all I did was replace the textures of player models with neon blue/red. Essentially the exact same thing as custom skins (www.fpsbanana.com), which seems to be okay.
I wasn’t modifying the client.dll, so I don’t see what the problem was.
This however, shouldn’t even make news. I don’t care about call of duty, or it’s fan base of pre-teens.
27/07/2010 at 05:19 Frye says:
Full bright models getting you banned and you still maintain you weren’t cheating?
Why not try transparent textures while you are at it? Or unique textures for heads so your aimbot knows which color to look for?
26/07/2010 at 18:30 Seras says:
a theory has been put forward that certain “hacked lobbies” may be the cause of false positives.
these are the lobbies you connect to that either max out your XP or have some variation of low grav/turbo mode.
the theory is that some of these lobbies(most likely ones that alter your XP) change client files on your end and that is what VAC has detected.
the main problem here is that due to the completely imbecilic implementation of IWnet, players do not have control on whether they connect to these lobbies and that by the time they realize it’s not a normal game, the damage has been done.
it’s a theory I find plausible and it highlights the elements of VAC that have always worried me. I guess i’ll never know for sure if these claims of false positives are factual unless it happens to me….let’s hope it stays a mystery then.
26/07/2010 at 18:32 Wulf says:
What would be fairly interesting is that if were a new strain of downloader-type trojan that was responsible, one that downloads either a cheating app or one that emulates one, with the intent of getting people who play certain multiplayer games online banned.
It’s certainly not outside the realm of the possible, and I’d be amazed if no one had done just that, yet, just to be malicious.
26/07/2010 at 18:38 Duck says:
Valve has a history of finding things that do cause a VAC ban without cheating, and never rescinding any of the bans. Just look at VAC’s wikipedia article. This is the #1 reason I hate, hate, hate Steam. They take away your hard-earned money, provide no proof or reason for doing so, and say “hey, if you want to play again, pay us more money!”
26/07/2010 at 18:41 ThePieSpy says:
I’m sorry Gabe, i’m afraid I can’t do that.
26/07/2010 at 18:58 Twerty says:
VAC is NOT perfect and you SHOULD be afraid even if you don’t cheat. I myself have a friend who bought a shitload of valve games, and they all went down the grate because they somehow detected he was cheating when he wasn’t. :/
26/07/2010 at 19:05 Ryz says:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1380149
The running theory is that it isn’t necessarily VAC, but the hacked lobbies are altering files client-side now and thus triggering a VAC ban.
26/07/2010 at 19:05 DJ Phantoon says:
I think the only thing we learned here today is that this thread got linked from the main “I play a shitty game but now can’t” cryfest thread.
Because there are lots of new people and it sure is whine in here.
26/07/2010 at 19:13 triple_a says:
Could it be that VAC considers tweaks such as fixing the ridiculously narrow FOVs found in most modern FPS-games as cheating?
After all, it gives you an advantage over people with standard FOV because you see more than they do.
Personally I’m all for FOV improvement. Especially the widescreen modes in many games seem to do vertical cropping of the image instead of giving you more horizontal visibility.
26/07/2010 at 19:20 Sebastian says:
my personal experience with that ban can be found here:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1380242
26/07/2010 at 19:23 Zinic says:
You know what would be really funny? If all this was just an elaborate troll from the people who claim to be banned.
Or, conspiracy like, Activision updated the game with a piece of code that would trigger VAC randomly so they could sell more copies of MW2 and make Valve look bad.
26/07/2010 at 19:34 Dobleclick says:
Never thought much about VAC before, but this thread has made me think (and worry) a lot about VAC. I couldn’t care less about MW2 and I haven’t been banned myself ever, BUT:
VAC is the typical american response to everything, be it terrorist activity or simple online cheating: We hit you back twice as hard with the same illegal actions you used against us, and we will hide that fact from the public. Oh, and we are always right!
I don’t care if it’s “just a game”. Its principle is wrong, on any scale. I guess the golden cage of EULA contemplates this from a legal perspective: “In a worst-case scenario, I can do whatever I want with your account and your games”-sort of thing. That doesn’t make it morally right. VAC policy is as dirty as any cheater. Not being able to appeal a penalty through an established and official channel, whatever the context, is wrong.
Mind you, Valve is by far my favorite developer, but VAC IS MORALLY UNACCEPTABLE. Enough said, I’m off to play TF2 on a VAC-secured server and sadly will have forgotten about this as soon as I unlock a new hat.
26/07/2010 at 20:38 boldoran says:
You are dramatizing a bit but in essence you are right. VAC can ban you for life without giving proof of your crime or a way to appeal the verdict. They should at least let the bans expire after 12 months or so.
I can see the reasoning of Valve to some degree. Providing exact information on the forbidden activity would make it easier for the cheaters to find out witch parts of a game are checked by VAC and witch they better leave alone.
And providing a way to protest against the ban would mean that every caught cheater would open a request to get unbanned just to try his luck. This would bind way too many resources.
I am pretty sure that everybody that VAC accused of cheating had some gamefiles that have been tampered with. The question is if they were aware of it or if it was forced upon them against their own will. In fact it seems that VAC could be abused by virus creators or malicious server admins to get people banned from certain games for their amusement.
26/07/2010 at 19:50 Mwalk10 says:
Thanks for covering this RPS! After recently finding I too was banned (after a 30 minute play session to determine if I should give MW2 another shot after discovering BC2). I’m glad to see not everyone sticks with the “all banned players must be liars” approach to things.
26/07/2010 at 19:59 Inno says:
Cheaters in loudly proclaiming innocence shocker. That’s a new one. It’s no secret this game is infested with hackers so erm yeah.. Take from that what you will. I’ve never had an issue with VAC since its inception. The only false positives I know of date from VAC1 (if there are more recent I stand corrected).
26/07/2010 at 20:08 wazups2x says:
I agree. MW2 has a ton of hackers and now that they’re all getting banned they are saying they never cheated. I have yet to meet someone I believe to be falsely accused by VAC.
You can get banned for using the command console and basically any tweak in MW2. That’s IW’s fault not Valves.
26/07/2010 at 20:03 antigeist says:
Thanks for posting this, you are a helping us a lot!
26/07/2010 at 20:03 Kipper Salt says:
@theory – IIRC, the “Paranoia” mod mentioned above caused users who installed it to get VAC banned because it replaced a .dll file in the game directory. So, in that case at least, modifying files led to changes in the game execution that caused banning.
26/07/2010 at 20:18 Jahkaivah says:
@Quintin
I think the quote your linking to there is under the assumption that the ban was a warranted one. In other words “If you cheated we aren’t giving you a second chance” which is reasonable. As opposed to “if we screw up we wont make amends” which as Jambe says is nonsensical.
26/07/2010 at 20:18 Mistabashi says:
VAC doesn’t work by detecting when people are cheating, it works by detecting the cheat software itself. They do this by actually downloading the cheats from the various cheat sites and finding out exactly how they work.
When a load of people suddenly start complaining about being “banned for no reason” it just means Valve have added detection for a new batch of cheat programs. Of course all these kids are gonna claim innocence, that’s only natural.
26/07/2010 at 20:38 Delusibeta says:
A surprising amount of people complaining about getting banned from the online multiplayer components in one game, and a depressing amount of people who seem to think that VAC ban = account disabled.
26/07/2010 at 20:38 pupsikaso says:
This happens every time. A game starts banning people for cheating, and all of a sudden there is an explosion of people begging and pleading that they’ve never cheated. /Which is all lies/. Of course they would try desperately to claim they’ve never cheated, who wouldn’t? The reason why there always seem to be so many at once is because these bans come in waves, banning a lot of people at once, rather than drip by drip.
Have you guys already forgotten when Guild Wars banned a few thousand players? And what an uproar there was of seemingly innocent people that got caught up in the wave? They all lied too.
26/07/2010 at 20:44 Monkeypeachy says:
The system cannot be infallable – therefore there must be innocents caught up in this. I don’t understand how peoples dislike of MW2 or hackers means they are OK with a miscarage of justice (yeah I know this isn’t murder at court, but the principle is the same).
If bans are never removed, cheaters will not change as they are never given the chance. Isn’t a 6 month ban serious enough? Otherwise we are ostracising annoying teenagers rather than punishing them before giving them a change to become PC gamer gents and ladies.
tl;dr. VAC should give out 6 month bans.
26/07/2010 at 21:09 Konork says:
Valve used to have 1 year bans, back with VAC1. Apparently, most of the cheaters went straight back to cheating after the bans expired.
26/07/2010 at 20:47 Konork says:
Some guy on the Steam forums theorizes that the problem isn’t with VAC, but the fact that the engine is really a modified Q3 engine, with the disabled-but-unused dedicated server and mod support being used to make modded servers that download hacks and/or changed core files to the people connecting. In this case, all of the bans are technically legit, but the whole problem is with, as usual, IW
26/07/2010 at 20:49 Konork says:
Bit of a mistake there, I meant to point out that mod support and dedicated servers were still in the game, just disabled so clients can’t access it normally
26/07/2010 at 21:07 jack clark says:
The truth is that there’s a crap hack in MW2 that means you can get sent into a hacked server where if you kill anyone you’re immediately levelled to level 70. It’s very hard to reset this – in Windows 7 you need to system restore steam user data files. Dunno for other OS’s. This happened to me and now I’m worried VAC may think I’m cheating?
26/07/2010 at 21:10 +--JAK--+ says:
“Watch Us”
26/07/2010 at 21:25 Lan says:
It’s hard for me to feel bad for people who supported this game.
26/07/2010 at 21:32 Davian says:
Why would you cheat in a multiplayer game? What’s the purpose? Pwning dudes more efficiently? Those people have a weird understanding of fun.
26/07/2010 at 21:36 Konork says:
Some people probably have to feel like they’re superior to others, other probably just like watching people get pissed off. Neither of those issues are easy to fix
26/07/2010 at 21:36 Bobic says:
Wow, I cheated to tenth prestige and I haven’t been banned yet. Feel sorry for these kids.
26/07/2010 at 23:35 subedii says:
So out of curiosity, if you eventually get VAC banned for that too, are you going to complain too, or will you just accept it, or what?
26/07/2010 at 21:37 Urthman says:
One cheater ruins the game for lots of other people. One innocent person banned ruins the game for that one person. It sucks to be the innocent person banned, but it makes a lot of sense from Valve’s perspective that they would err on the side of banning the innocent.
Stuff like this is why I only buy games on Steam if they are within a rounding error of free (Portal 2 is probably the only exception to this I’ll make). Because you don’t really own a game when Valve can take it away from you like this.
Also, back up your Steam games. Many games bought via Steam can be run without Steam using the same No-DVD hacked .exe you’d use if you bought the game on a disc and wanted to run it without having the disc in the drive. (Not Steam-powered multiplayer stuff, of course.)
26/07/2010 at 22:02 facepuncher says:
I wouldnt even doubt that some unscrupulous dick from Valve decided to randomly ban thousands of accounts knowing that these people would more than likely rebuy the game and start a new account.
26/07/2010 at 22:11 terry says:
This is (not) a triumph.
26/07/2010 at 22:14 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Wow. That’s a pretty abysmal piece of software. And here you had me thinking Valve were the flawless saints of the gaming world.
Well, actually (obviously), no, I didn’t think so.. but it (automated cheat detection and banning) doesn’t look pretty from a design point of view. I mean, cheating is annoying if you’re into multiplayer games, sure, but this seems to go a bit far.
26/07/2010 at 22:23 Bitter.com says:
Personally I would like to see Valve make software that’s a little more resilient. I was banned from TF2, L4D, and DOD:S because I had a 10 year old memory hacking tool open.
Turns out, TF2 is so shitty, you can hack it with cheat’o'matic.
Do valve care? Not at all. It makes perfect sense that a person would spend hundreds of dollars on games throughout the course of their 7 year membership and then blow it all to get better stats or somesuch.
I defy anyone to gain an advantage in a modern FPS w/ cheat’o'matic.
Yeah, alright. I’m just another cheater who claims innocence after ‘being caught’. The reality is that Valve lost a loyal, paying customer. I now turn to piracy when I wish to enjoy a valve title.
In my case at least I admit that I had omatic.exe running. I maintain, however, that the system is broken and needs either an appeals process, or some kind of time-limited ban.
26/07/2010 at 22:25 Bitter.com says:
Oh I guess I should mention that I was using omatic earlier in the day to hack up my starting skills in dwarf fortress.
26/07/2010 at 22:57 Konork says:
VAC normally only bans for either known cheats or modified files that shouldn’t be touched. Full file hash comparisons are done on cheats before a ban. Bans are also delayed, as to catch as many cheaters as possible, instead of one getting banned and warning the rest that the cheat isn’t safe anymore. VAC also is meant to be used with server admins, not as a front-line defense against cheaters. As to why innocents seem to be banned, someone thinks that there may be a way to download hacks and modified files from a hacked server to a client, which are then picked up when the person tries to play.
Also, most TF2 variables are handled server side, if I remember correctly. Even if you tried using something as simple as Cheat’o'Matic on a real server, I don’t think you would be able to actually gain any kind of advantage, as the server would just force the value back to whatever it should be on the client
26/07/2010 at 23:03 Konork says:
It seems I misread part of your comment. The thing is, Valve has no way to prove who really cheated, and who just happened to, for any reason, have a cheat running that they didn’t turn off. If there was any kind of appeal system, cheaters would get unbanned and we would have major complaints about how obvious cheaters got unbanned. VAC was also put in because people wanted an anti-cheat system, so Valve made an anti-cheat system
26/07/2010 at 22:39 LionsPhil says:
These valued consumers should be ecstatic at the unique opportunity to repurchase Modern Warfare 2 and any other affected game products under an alternate Steam account to reassert their support for and enjoyment of its triple-A online entertainment experience.
26/07/2010 at 22:42 cjlr says:
Thanks, Dave Tosser!
26/07/2010 at 23:03 Christian says:
Maybe it’s just the little fragment of misanthropy I carry around, but if it were any other game than MW2, I’d really be shocked. But this…how do I put it…just doesn’t come as a real surprise. It’s not the pathetic whining about not having dedicated servers and all that…just that MW2 always had a cheap feel to it. I tried playing it a few times at a friends’ (damn…is that the right ‘? I get confused sometimes..) house and it was just damn boring and generic. I felt like a grown-up wanting to play in the IKEA bubble-plaything (you know what I mean..the pool with the plastic thiniges in it?).
Just didn’t fit.
Maybe they should just allow everyone to cheat as they like, that would feel more natural. Same discussion about doping at the Tour De France. If everybody is doped, why not just allow the whole thing and level the field that way?
If it would be TF2..ok, that might have been a scandal. But this? Meh.
26/07/2010 at 23:04 FunkyBadger says:
So, cheats got banned from playing multiplayer on secure servers, but can still play single-player or multiplayer on insecure servers. And their games that use other engines are not affected.
Sounds pretty reasonable.
26/07/2010 at 23:16 Mwalk10 says:
Actually you can’t play Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer at all with a vac ban. You are correct that it only affects Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer and not Spec Ops or other games.
26/07/2010 at 23:09 Dextro says:
Nope, it’s not spyware when it asks you if you want to send the info before it sends it. It’s just added value if it provides a kick ass service that no-one has been able to top so far.
But no, it’s evil and it must burn… BURN THE WITCH! :P
26/07/2010 at 23:11 faelnor says:
Let’s forget about MW2 for a second. Don’t all those VAC-enabled games also have dedicated servers? If you own a server and want to enable VAC to make it an official one, it’s your choice and you have to accept the low false positive rate induced by VAC. Or am I mistaken?
And players are still choosing VAC-enabled servers instead of public dedis? So they gain something from the presence of VAC, where’s the problem? For sure, if I log onto a server and get banned, I will accept the rules (doesn’t mean I would not contest a false positive).
Now getting back to MW2, I don’t think the target of the flak for this should be either Valve or players, but editors stopping people from using dedicated servers. VAC only becomes a problem if you force people to use it.
26/07/2010 at 23:26 Hamsterfury says:
Hey guys, wanted to throw in my own experiences with VAC. Logged into LFD2 one day with a “you’re a cheater” pop up. After many angry emails to Valve (every member listed on their site) I finally got a response saying they detected an old memory hacking program running with the game and actually removed the ban. BTW, turned out to be CHEATOMATIC, yeah the OLD ASS memory hacking program that’s 20 years old I was using to edit Dwarf Fortress. There should really be a disclaimer of some sort on Steam, I’m sure a lot of valid players went down this way. Anyway, my 2 cents.
26/07/2010 at 23:36 Film11 says:
Latest news is the bans are apparantly getting revoked. Some even say that free copies of L4D2 are being given out for their troubles.
Not sure if any of this is true or not, but if it is, this will be the biggest VAC cock-up in history. Not good for its reputation at all.
26/07/2010 at 23:39 Devenger says:
Plus (for anyone who gives a damn about recording themselves shooting people in the head) you’re better off recording a .dem file, which Source handles really well, then playing the .dem demo back with the models changed to whatever HD versions you want – no inconsistency during the game.
Unless CS:S does something funky. I don’t think it does, though.
26/07/2010 at 23:40 Devenger says:
The reply function doesn’t work if you attempt to reply in a separate tab (opening the Reply link in a new tab), or something. Hmph. :( Sorry this comment is so totally un-linked to anything on this page of comments.
26/07/2010 at 23:54 Brandonk says:
Well i dont think this is that big a deal because VAC bans only ban for the one engine that the game is on. So for example you get banned on cod 4 you are also banned on cod 6. You get banned on counterstrike source you are banned on tf2. So really they only lost the ability to play MW2.
27/07/2010 at 00:01 Mwalk10 says:
Valve has now rescinded the bans of those affected and given them a free copy of L4D2. Apparently not everyone on the internet is a liar
27/07/2010 at 00:19 Chorltonwheelie says:
Here’s what worries me about this.
I recently jumped into the ‘every man for himself’ lobby on MW2 for a quick blast.
Within a minute I was in a map I hadn’t seen before careering ’round a killin’ and a dyin’.
It slowly became apparent that this game was going on a bit…and then some.
Now this was fun, infinite respawns in a never ending game (when I looked closely the win target had been set ridiculously high).
When I got sick of it and had time to think I began to worry. I’d clearly wandered into a hacked game. Didn’t mean to but that’s the way p2p allocates your match. It could (and judging by the in game comms had) happen to anybody.
Am I in line for a lifetime, no chatback, ban for this? A tad harsh I think.
27/07/2010 at 00:29 Devenger says:
Seems a shame that Valve might lose L4D2 sales because IW’s matchmaking/server system is patchy (if people are guessing right). Oh well, never mind, I’m sure this will all blow over now.
27/07/2010 at 00:43 Devenger says:
Apparently, people were guessing wrong, and it was Valve’s fault… apparently…
Also, this sort of throwing L4D2 around? I don’t get it, in the same way that I don’t get that they sold TF2 for £2.49 at one point. But hey, this is Valve. Reigning in the inexplicable.
27/07/2010 at 00:43 Kudos says:
I was one of those banned after my first play session on MW2 that lasted 90 minutes. I have constantly been emailing Valve support and despite them telling me 3 times ‘Our system has confirmed that the ban was applied legitimately’.
I just got this email. (<3 Gabe btw)
Hello,
Recently, your Steam account was erroneously banned from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
This was our mistake, and I apologize for any frustration or angst it may have caused you.
The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game. This wasn't a game-specific mistake. Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans (about 12,000 erroneous bans over two weeks).
We have reversed the ban, restoring your access to the game. In addition, we have given you a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to give as a gift on Steam, plus a free copy for yourself if you didn't already own the game.
To share your extra copy of Left 4 Dead 2 with a friend, you can 'Manage Gifts and Guest Passes' from the 'Games' Menu in Steam, or visit this article on the Steam Support site for detailed instructions: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4502-TPJL-2656.
To access your own copy of Left 4 Dead 2, visit your library of games in Steam. If you didn't already own the game, it will now be listed among your others there, and is available for download immediately.
Regards,
Gabe Newell
President, Valve
27/07/2010 at 00:56 Mike says:
I was one of those people banned – just got this email.
Which is, I have to say, pretty awesome.
27/07/2010 at 01:09 cjlr says:
“Pretty awesome” would have been not screwing up so badly.
An adroit apology is, at best, middlin’ awesome.
27/07/2010 at 02:48 Urthman says:
Never screwing up is not an option in real life. Handling your inevitable mistakes humbly and gracefully, taking responsibility for what you did and making it right — that is pretty much the definition of awesome.
27/07/2010 at 01:20 Duck says:
All the VAC bans have been rescinded, and most have been given a free copy of L4D2 for their troubles.
Thanks, Valve.
27/07/2010 at 02:22 Duck says:
I want to see an apology from each and every one of the idiots who said “they’re just lying cheaters, Valve is infallible”. What a bunch of narrow-minded jerks.
27/07/2010 at 09:33 thebigJ_A says:
When pigs fly. It’s easy to condemn others, few people will admit they were wrong and apologize.
Oh wait, Gabe just did. Wow. Maybe we will see some apologies in this thread.
C’mon, guys, restore my faith in humanity!
27/07/2010 at 02:50 John J. Rambo says:
Actually, VAC seems to be a system designed for use with dedicated servers. The admins provide the temporary ban while VAC goes through the banning process. MW2 just totally fucks that system up by removing a integral part of the anti-cheat net.
27/07/2010 at 08:45 CrackJiver says:
Well http://www.infinityward.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=351966&start=270
Just goes to show that not all ‘cheaters’ are guilty and that sometimes software can make mistakes.
29/07/2010 at 18:04 Mesh says:
@ Bremze No… EVE will be what happens if Apple wins the AI war.
30/07/2010 at 02:26 Joe says:
If Steam won’t listen then we need to complain to whoever made MW2. Regardless, I wonder how many fewer copies of MW2 and its next versions will be sold, not to mention looking more fondly on Steam alternatives.
If the wallets start stinging then Steam will stop being adolescent about this, but it shouldn’t be that way.
There should always be room for appeals.
——–
24/09/2010 at 12:05 bowo says:
k.h. ahmad dahlan
24/11/2010 at 01:48 zhiguang says:
When opinion looses its rough to grow, creativity gets a satisfied block.