Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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.
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I rather painfully hit a wall in Dragon Age a couple of weeks back, finding my enjoyment stymied by the twin tediums of getting killed far too much and getting bored of wandering endless dwarven caverns and elven forests that required an absurd amount of backtracking through narrow, empty corridors. (Really, would it be so wrong to turn on the instant map travel system in major areas once they’ve been cleared of enemies?) Finding myself with some free time, I headed back in today, only for the former problem to re-rear its annoying head. I knew what was causing it – I didn’t have a good healer. As well as that, my main character, a mage, was a mess of mixed abilities, lacking a core function, horribly prone to inflicting friendly fire with his more powerful attacks and running out of mana horrifyingly quickly to boot. He was screw-up, in short – a liability in every fight.
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