Greetings Community!
Welcome to the “Crysis Weekly Update #9”, an official status report from Crytek to the world-wide community in order to get you up-to-date on the progress of various Crysis related topics.
This time we have prepared information about an official test game server that can be played on. Additionally we got interesting news from the cheating-front for your and we also release our third video of our Crysis Outtakes series.
Crysis – Crytek’s Test Game Server
With today we would like to introduce you to our new game server called “Crytek Testserver v1.21”. It is patched to version 1.21 and can be joined by every client. This game server is located at Crytek’s office in Frankfurt and helps us identifying and locating several server related problems such as crashes, random client kicks and more.
With the upcoming days and weeks we will track the complete traffic of the machine and evaluate the .log files it creates. Still we do need the help of the community for this task. If you have some time left feel free to join the server at any time and play a round or two.
The more players we can get and the longer the server is full the easier it is for the developers to stabilize the server code. As for the map cycle it will switch between the complete PowerStruggle and InstantAction level rotation. We start the server with PowerStruggle and will move on to InstantAction maps in a few days.
From time to time we will also have a few developers playing on the server for some live monitoring of the status. In the case you wanted to kick our asses – this is the best time to do so. The Crytek crew will be marked as such when playing on the server, so you cannot miss them!
Crysis – Anti-Cheat Status
Since patch 1.2 many things have been improved regarding anti-cheat solutions in Crysis. Several Punkbuster GUID´s from known cheaters and those who develop cheats will receive a global GUID ban from Crysis within the next days. This makes it impossible for them to play on PB secured game server again.
The current situation has gone better, but still we will continue working together with Evenbalance and PunksBusted.com to improve the cheat protection and make the online gaming even more enjoyable.
1. Custom Mod Files - Clarification
The internal anti-cheat protection that has been introduced with patch 1.2 is comparing files and will check if these files have been altered by a player. If this is the case the player will be kicked, but not banned from the server. Players won’t be banned for modified lasers, custom models or other modifications, but we recommend to not changing any kind of original files in your Game folder. If you want to modify something please use the Mod folder for this and backup your existing files.
Still there are other modifications that are detected as cheating which results in global ban by PunksBusted from the streaming game servers. The modifications are as following:
* Glow Models
* Modified weapon scripts
* Modified actor files
* Modified vehicle scripts
2. Streaming to PunksBusted
We strongly recommend having a look at the official server documentation and getting your own game server streaming to PunksBusted. In the case a cheater is caught on your server, he won’t be just added to the ban list of your game server, but also to a global ban list that prevents these players to join any server that is streaming.
Server administrators can also use the PunksBusted Master Ban List which contains exclusive bans for streaming servers only. New bans are added every day to this list. This is the most effective way to have your server up-to-date and protected against cheats and hacks in Crysis.
If you want to start streaming to PsB download the latest version of the server documentation and follow the instructions. We also want to mention that the following server companies are supporting us with streaming to PsB. So if you look for a secure Public server visit one of their servers.
* K-Play.de
* I3d.net
* Killercreation.co.uk
We are offering an additional ban list for server administrators. This list contains public bans only and does not contain the latest bans from PsB. To get the latest Crysis Public Banlist please visit the responsible thread in our forum.
Crysis – Punkbuster Status
Many users encountered problems with Punkbuster kicks during the last days. This was because of a memory check Evenbalance has added to PB. This memory check has been removed yesterday and you should not have any more problems. Find below a statement by Evenbalance about this.
“March 25, 2008
We rarely announce anything regarding commercial cheats and hacks. However, we are aware of the numerous "You Tube" type videos and posts on various sites where hackers who sell cheats make claims that are false but sound believable about PunkBuster and hack detection status. We receive numerous emails daily by concerned honest players regarding advertisements for undetectable hacks, etc. The truth is that via recent enhancements to PunkBuster's detection capabilities, we have cracked down hard on cheaters who pay for hacks in the games we support. Some commercial cheat sites have closed down due to our new methods and others have private forums where punks routinely complain about getting caught with the "undetectable" hacks, demanding refunds, etc. We have always maintained a strict policy of not giving money to punks, but thanks to community volunteer moles who have helped us obtain access to private hacks via donations of their time, etc., PunkBuster has been catching hacks from virtually all commercial cheat sites in recent weeks and months.
One of the recent enhancements involves our memory scanner which aggressively scans for patterns included in known cheats (public and private). A commercial hack site where we have had recent success catching their subscribers has recently staged a few demonstrations of inserting text-based patterns via certain chat-related systems such as IRC, Instant Messaging, etc. directly into the memory of computers. These are specific text patterns that we have deployed in some supported games in the recent past. It is clear that many of the demonstrators are cheat-supporters willingly participating in the demonstration, but there is evidence that some innocent players had PunkBuster violations triggered during the past few days by the hackers who sent specific text patterns into the chat programs that were open during gameplay. We are removing these text based patterns from our system and encourage admins to not ban for PB violations that occurred during the past few days.
Online gamers who play with other programs running should always enable security features in their messaging and chat programs to deny auto-download of files and only accept downloads from people they know and trust. As always, from PunkBuster's standpoint, if a known cheat pattern is in the memory of the computer during gameplay, then a violation will be triggered. We have always suggested closing other programs while you are playing multiplayer games on PunkBuster servers and that remains the safest policy. Leagues that require chat room usage for competitive play should take steps to ensure that only league participants have access and suspicious activity should be reported to us when there are concerns about manipulating the system.”
Video Series – Crysis Outtakes #3!
Welcome to the third part of our outtakes videos from Crysis. With each weekly update we are going to release a “Crysis Outtakes” video that has been made by our development team after the game has gone gold.
Today it is “Maximum Chicken” alert. So watch your steps and enjoy the video!
So that’s it for the ninth Crysis Weekly Update from Crytek! We hope you enjoy the information and thanks for your continued support. Do not miss the next update on Wednesday! J
- Crysis Dev Team
Crysis Weekly Update #9
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