Forgotten Soldiers

Hi all:Was banned the other day after pointing out a player that was obviously using a wall hack aim bot combo. Player name was exynos on the Battery Map. I specked him after he killed me a number of times in situations where it was not possible. His score at the time was 60-10 with a ping ~200. When I made the point he obviously turned off the hack and went 6-20. An admin happened on and specked him as well  but it was too late.
The admin and I had a discussion and have to admit I was a bit perturbed not to be believed. I have been an admin before and know what I'm seeing, of course the admin doesn't know me and he had a point that he hadn't seen anything. I don't think the discussion was particularly heated, no swearing or the like, but as a long time player,  the number of hackers around these days is getting ridiculous and I hate to see them getting away with it. If I offended the admin in some way I apologize and hope you will lift the ban.Thanks.

Dweller,
We will get back to on this matter but for future reference please record a Demo and submit here for us to determine if the person is hacking, we can not go on observation/word alone.

Thank you.

Hello Dweller and welcome to our site.

I banned you for breaking Rule #2  No accusations without providing a demo


We had to create this rule in order to maintain some kind of quality control in how we deal with players using hacks and those making the accusations.  This rule mostly applies to players that constantly accuse other players for cheating to the point that it becomes disruptful to the game play. It's fine if you call another player out once or twice if there's an admin on, as it helps us in spotting the problem and removing the cheater from the server as quickly as possible.  This can become a problem though,  as half the time the accusing players are wrong about it and it turns into a lynch mob in there.  Everyone becomes paranoid, even if the accused is just a very good player.  And if not carefull, the rest of us that don't use hacks, end up becoming their victims in one way or another.  As for most of them, their intended goal is to ruin the game for everyone.  Personally, I only  blame the people that create the hacks and those that use them,  we are all victims here.

And I agree with you 100%, the amount of players using hacks these days is ridiculous.  Sadly many online fps games are infested with cheaters. CoDWaW is nothing compared to CoD4 though. We had plenty of experience dealing with cheaters in that game.

We believe you were sincere when you said Exynos was using hacks as we immediately started specing him.  We didn't see anything and couldn't ban him because we couldn't find any proof as we recorded him.  If we start banning players on mere suspicion, like we used to in the past, we will end up banning a large majority of innocent players. We now believe that it is better to let a cheater go free than to ban an innocent player, props to pbbans.com for that which works like a charm. One thing about cheaters is they always come back, and we always end up getting our demo for the ban.  If Exynos was cheating before you called him out, and you didn't say a word until after you made the demo and showed it to us later, he would be banned right now.  Most of the time, accusations without proof never go anywhere and only cause a wave of paranoia, a bad atmosphere and a disruption to the game play.

I must admit, it bothered us when you said you were going to play somewhere else where you could trust the admins.  Because you really don't know how much time we spend dealing with this problem.  So as proof to you, that we do in fact work very hard to keep our servers clean, here is a link to all our demos, of all cheaters banned on our CoDWaW server since Christmas of 2014. That total number is about 60 cheaters caught in a little over 30 days, and with a demo as proof for every single one of them.  They are all stored for download on our Microsoft One Drive account.  Feel free to download and watch them if you wish.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=B1EFE7BF1EB33730%21192

Your ban has been lifted and I hope that you can trust us a little bit more now. And if you see  a player using hacks, it's not difficult to type /record in console while your spectating and /stoprecord when done. You would be suprised on how many cheaters you can get banned on other servers by providing a demo to that community. If you want to fight the good fight against cheaters, and be effective, make a demo and submit it.  Although we may never get there, our goal here is to provide a clean,  hack free, competitive atmosphere and to never ban the skilled innocent player. Good luck to you.

Thanks Goodshot: I understand the problems you have described and appreciate the efforts that you are taking. I've seen people accusing everyone and their dogs of hacking when the problem was simply lag. I guess I've been around so long that I'm usually trusted not to make false accusations, but understand the need for documentation in the future. CoD 4 is infested and for the most part many of the hacks are pretty sophisticated and almost impossible to prove and common sense isn't enough to make a case. I have noticed that no one is running punkbuster anymore, I think due to some issues with updates and connectivity. It may be that they have fixed that, but I'll have to look into it when I have more time. While it was never totally effective PB did discourage hackers from joining protected servers. Now its just open season and very difficult for admins and players to keep on top of the problem. Particularly when some of the hacks automatically shut off when someone goes to spec. The only proof you have then is in the K/D ratio which usually goes down the tube. Anyway thanks for lifting the ban and again I apologize to the admin. The trust statement was uncalled for.

You're welcome. We would love to run Punkbuster and stream it to  pbbans.com and ggc-stream.net ban repositories which is  a combined effort of clans and gaming communites working together, sharing and building a conclusive ban list. It would be great to turn on the MD5 tool and cvar checks. It would be a pleasure to be able to submit all our future demos to pbbans and ggc and help support the effort while maintaining a cheat free environment.

We may start running PB  our WaW server in the near future if the conditions are right.  We may give it a trial run very soon and leave it on if enough players can get in.

Although Punkbuster still works and is very effective , the problem with Punkbuster these days is that Evenbalance has ended Punkbuster support for CoDWaW and all of the prevous CoD series.

http://www.pbbans.com/forums/pb-support-discontinued-for-codwaw-t179145.html

Most of the old legit WaW players have PB installed and running correctly but for new players buying it on steam, it doesn't come installed. (steam just had a sale for WaW for $9.99 I think it was, not long ago). I'm sure you noticed a pretty big spike in new players recently.

Since PB doesn't come with their new WaW installation, new players are forced to download the PB install from evenbalance.com and install it on their computer if it's not already installed with a newer PB supported game. And then add the last updated files manually to the WaW pb folder. Lets not  mention certain ports need to be open in the OS firewall and router in order for PB to communicate as well.  Knowing about it for these new players is half the battle.  Players can get these files from here, btw:

http://www.pbbans.com/forums/files/legacy-punkbuster-files-cat7.html

This is why you see so many WaW servers with PB disabled these days.

We have zero tolerance here for using hacks of any kind on our game servers and have active accounts with both of these anticheat communities.  All the updated PB files are currently on our server,  ready to stream to both repositories at the flick of a switch. So  if the time is right, and the conditions are met, PB will be turned on. And yes  I know, PB doesn't automatically catch old and new hacks, or any private hacks but we can demo and submit them if we're streaming to third party anticheat communities and contribute to both ban lists. We can also enable PB screenshots and submit those too. If 100% of all communities hosting WaW decided to enable PB, it could force many new players to learn how to install it and heavily reducing the use of hacks. 

And funny after researching Exynos further, I found the proof that Exynos has cheated in the past and was caught.  After he was caught and banned for hacking on July 17, 2009 under a different alias:

http://www.pbbans.com/mbi-viewban-f5641ee2-vb136297.html

He was last seen with the banned account on Feb 17, 2010 and was kicked from that server for being caught the year before.

He immediately bought a new WaW and was first seen with it, the next day on Feb 18, 2010 and has been playing with it, without any violations. Also one of the same aliases are used on both accounts and linked to the same IP.   Was caught as van1104 which is on both the banned account and clean account.  We know how the profile system works in WaW.  It's definitely him caught with an Even Balance VIOLATION (GAMEHACK) 89188.  Since he is a known cheater he will now be banned on our server. See how getting caught cheating can come back at you 6 years later?

Thank you Dweller for bringing this to our attention. We really appreciate it as we now have found the proof we needed to ban Exynos.

Yeah, it does come back to haunt you 

Dweller,
apology accepted, thank you and just have fun playing.
As you noticed we spend several hours watching to keep the server hack free and will continue to do so.
dp

I'm impressed. You people do take this seriously. If I may contribute something here..a couple of links to new PB files for World at War:

http://www.pbbans.com/forums/files/call-of-duty-world-at-war-windows-file88.html

http://www.christiansnipers.com/index.php/gameservers/mods-maps/item/punkbuster-update-for-call-of-duty-titles-legacy

These are new files so hopefully will fix the problem without too much work for new players. I haven't tested them myself, so the usual caution is in order, though they seem to be trustworthy sites. The pbbans file should be the best and was just released in the last month.

I was recently banned from this server on WaW. Banned for life that is. I was expressing my opinion when an admin deemed a gamer tag as not appropriate. Why do you feel the need to censor peoples gamertags. What gives you the right? Is this not America does the 1st amendment mean nothing to you people. I understand a no racism rule but, no foul language? WTF is wrong with you? This game has an ESRB rating of M 17+ you see people get their arms and legs blown off and all of a sudden you think there is room for offense? We are adults. If you get offended by stupid things like that you shouldn't be ONLINE period let alone in a gamer room. Gamers tend to be dumb and vulgar and you want to play god of the game room kicking people for nothing. What ever admin of yours name is Adhdskldfhsakdf something like that get a life get a job. Stop trolling game lobbies looking to kick people for names you deem unfit don't you have better things to do? I'm obviously not asking to get my ban lifted I could care less if it gets lifted I don't want to play on your server if your like that. I expect you will just ban me for life from this website. But if for the love of god any of this makes sense to you id like to hear your reply. Sincerely your angry gamer friend Dkushman

Players were asked to keep the chat clean. You decided to disrespect it by making a dirty smart comment afterwards. Simple as that.

Hi - I am not sure if I am posting this in the right area but I was banned earlier today. I play under HalfaLife screen name and I love playing FS W@W server. I am a clan living person and while (I thought) I was having some genuine fun with the spectator/moderator, I ended up with a permanent ban from the server! I obviously apologise if I did the wrong thing and would love to have the ban lifted - please advise. The FS server is the best by far and I don't want to play on another one.     

QuoteI was recently banned from this server on WaW. Banned for life that is. I was expressing my opinion when an admin deemed a gamer tag as not appropriate. Why do you feel the need to censor peoples gamertags. What gives you the right? Is this not America does the 1st amendment mean nothing to you people. I understand a no racism rule but, no foul language? WTF is wrong with you? This game has an ESRB rating of M 17+ you see people get their arms and legs blown off and all of a sudden you think there is room for offense? We are adults. If you get offended by stupid things like that you shouldn't be ONLINE period let alone in a gamer room. Gamers tend to be dumb and vulgar and you want to play god of the game room kicking people for nothing. What ever admin of yours name is Adhdskldfhsakdf something like that get a life get a job. Stop trolling game lobbies looking to kick people for names you deem unfit don't you have better things to do? I'm obviously not asking to get my ban lifted I could care less if it gets lifted I don't want to play on your server if your like that. I expect you will just ban me for life from this website. But if for the love of god any of this makes sense to you id like to hear your reply. Sincerely your angry gamer friend Dkushman

What gives us the right?  Well, now that is a good question.  As I am also an AMERICAN (that doesn't put up with emo crap), there  is not going to be some bozo crapping on our rules set forth as you read them.....  We run this server, if you don't like it, it is your choice to leave and our choice to remove you at any time we choose.

Good Luck to you 

That was pure example of a very poor 'attitude'.  Anger was your end.

I also believe in the 1st amendment and all the rest thereafter. But I wouldn't disrespect someone else in their own house after being asked not to do so. I hope you can understand that.