Novalogic Responds to petition

[Scott]

ÑÇ][nêrÑø writes:

I recently sent novalogic a petition my friend started about cheaters and how they need to be banned permanatly
( http://www.petitiononline.com/cheaters/petition.html )
They replied with this message:

Thanks for your email and I\'m sorry to hear of your frustrations with cheaters in our games. People think that because they see cheats in the game, that we must not care. The truth is that we have our best programmers, including the lead programmers for each project, spending
months upon months dealing with these issues. That's quite a commitment, as we could instead be having these expensive resources working on the next game.

Read the full reply here!

[Scott]

Thanks for your email and I'm sorry to hear of your frustrations with cheaters in our games. People think that because they see cheats in the game, that we must not care. The truth is that we have our best programmers, including the lead programmers for each project, spending months upon months dealing with these issues. That's quite a commitment, as we could instead be having these expensive resources working on the next game.

Our games are very important to us. It is very important to us that people love them and are satisfied with them. We work long and hard on the seemingly endless problems caused by a small group of hoodlums who devote their energies to hacking the game and trying to kill it.

Firstly let me assure you that NovaLogic does not permit cheaters to play on NovaWorld. However, cheating online is a pervasive problem which effects all online games world wide and trying to stop cheating is a lot like trying to stop piracy. You are basically patching holes in a dam. It has become such a common problem in online games that it is the subject of many panels at industry conferences world wide. It is an issue that all developers are faced with, and one that we are taking very seriously.

Currently, online multiplayer games are FREE for NovaLogic customers and as such, no monthly fee is charged. However, to effectively control and eliminate cheaters takes manpower, and we need resources and money in order to do this. You can see that this presents a difficult problem for the company, because short of charging players to play on NovaWorld, no money is freely available to do this. Even if we did decide to charge customers to play our games online, to pay for a team of programmers to monitor games 100% of the time, this would not eradicate cheaters. It is a problem that can not be solved.

However, I would like to assure you that NovaLogic has put the following in place to help control this issue. We provide FREE match making services. Customers can set up their own
password protected games and unless invited, cheaters do not have access to these games.

Another thing that customers may not be aware of is that we can only monitor games running on our own servers. Like many other game developers we have no control over servers set up by customers. We make a number of server side fixes to help with various cheat problems. For example, for Delta Force Land Warrior we are currently on version 31 server side and version 7 on the consumer side. These revisions force migrations and the majority deal with issues concerning the fairness of gameplay. To put it in perspective and to understand the scope of work involved in doing this, each revision can take between 2-6 weeks to go through the proper development cycle.

We are constantly looking into ways to deal with cheating and improve services on NovaWorld and to this end, all games that NovaLogic now develop have a software key code. This system was introduced in the most recent version of Delta Force, Delta Force Land Warrior, and helps us track customers who cheat. This makes it easier for us to track and ban them and we are looking to continue with this for all future releases.

As well as monitoring for cheaters on NovaWorld servers, we rely heavily on customer feedback. With the help of the customer key code, which was introduced in the third Delta Force game, Delta Force Land Warrior, if a cheater is reported to us, we can now jump into a game where they are playing and ban them for three days. If they are caught cheating again they are banned permanently, but the nature of online gaming means that these cheaters can easily create new accounts under different names and hence the cycle starts again. This is extremely frustrating for both you and us, and only really acts as a deterrent and not a permanent solution.

We are looking at a 'vote/police' banning system also.

To summarize we are doing our best in a \'no pay environment' to continue to support what is in affect an entertainment product. We are after all, a part of the entertainment industry. It is increasingly difficult for us to
justify major updates and support on legacy products that are in some cases more than 3 years old. NovaLogic can and do provide minor patches and support for older titles to keep them running online, but to extend the capability of an old game is unreasonable and is not seen in any other software product.

To put this in perspective, a film director does not edit a film every 6 months to include the latest special effects or to change the story line. In the same vein, Microsoft does not continue to spend time patching and updating old versions of Windows. They merely upgrade the software to the next version and in this case they are up to Windows 2000. This is the natural evolution of software, and something that we as an industry face.

Novalogic Technical Support, Mike
Novalogic Inc.

[Muninn]

NovaLogic: "Exuses, Exuses"

To put this in perspective, a film director does not edit a film every 6 months to include the latest special effects or to change the story line. In the same vein, Microsoft does not continue to spend time patching and updating old versions of Windows.

I think this sums it up beautifily.

Remember people that NL do have stuff in place for the games including, password protected games and the server admin can ban people and you can report people, it isnt NL's fault people leave their server running and go do other things and people jump up and down when NL do the same?

You should be more angry at the pepole that make the cheats than you should be at NL.

And there's always an upoar over a setback of a release date, so what should they do watch for cheaters in a game thats 3 years old or work on a new game???

And no i am not receiving payment from NovaLogic!

[Scott]

They cannot just download deadbolts cheatblocker and inplent it into the game.

And microsoft does not put new things into their operating systems. They only fix critical errors for older versions. Novalogic have been updating there games also, dflw is pretty old and there was just a recient update to help prevent older cheats. The problem is the trainer makers can make trainers faster then nova-logic can make patches, and nova-logic have to pay there programmers to make patches, which costs alot of money. More then you know. I dosnet cost trainer makers anything but time to make trainers, therefor novalogic cannot keep up with it and all the costs trying to patch somthing that will be cracked in 12 hours.

You have to take it all into consideration before you blurt somthing out. Patches cost money, trainers cost nothing. Trainers come out about 24 hours after a new patch comes out, that means nova-logic would have to have dedicated programmers working around the clock just to fight the trainers. Did I mention that costs alot of money?. Specially for a game that isn't bringing in much profit anymore because it's old. Good Programmers don't come like burger flippers. You can't just pick one off the street. (No offence if you work at burger king or somthing..)

The punt/vote system would suck. Well that's my opinion. For the 'better' players it would be a nightmare. There are alot of great players out there that get called a cheat everyday, just because they are good. Everyone would get mad and vote against them. The game would simply die for the better players.

I would just say live with it. There are cheats in every game you play. Even in monopoly/checkers. There are more then 50 servers up at any given time, it's not hard to pick another.

THANKYOU!!!

[katana*GFR*]

I agree with you Blackbelt and Panther. I do not know much bout programming but wasnt CheatBlocker a prog that stopped the changes in the gamecode by trainers?

Maybe im gonna say this to easy , again i dont know much bout programming, but what if there was a code build in that immedaliately kicked yer game out when it detects changes in the gamecode by a thirdparty program? Would that be an option. On the other hand it has to support the "good" thirdparty progs like DFfavs and stuff.
Well i rarely play in Nova servers (atleast on DF2) so i dont c them much.

[Scott]

That would be an option. And by far it's the best one. Thats what a program called punk buster does. It works but a pain in the arese if you ask me. I play some sofII and they have it, it always times out trying to connect back to the server and I get punted.

Then again, you still have to update it all the time to keep up with new trainers. If the trainers are kept private by lets say tcb it would be usuless against it because they wouldnt know how tcb coded there trainers.

But mostly whats happening is, and I do not speek for novalogic on this, they don't want to dramitacy update a old game that isn't bringing in the profit to support it.

[staffy bull]

well in my humble opinion novalogic do a crackin job
like panther said they can`t afford to stay on top of cheats (chicken and egg) you patch it they crack it never ending
alas this prob will always be with us so live with it

just my personal opinion

[_|()R|Z]

Originally posted by Panther

As well as monitoring for cheaters on NovaWorld servers, we rely heavily on customer feedback. With the help of the customer key code, which was introduced in the third Delta Force game, Delta Force Land Warrior, if a cheater is reported to us, we can now jump into a game where they are playing and ban them for three days. If they are caught cheating again they are banned permanently, but the nature of online gaming means that these cheaters can easily create new accounts under different names and hence the cycle starts again. This is extremely frustrating for both you and us, and only really acts as a deterrent and not a permanent solution.

ok tell me if i'm stupid by saying this but: why doesnt novalogic just ban cheaters of novaworld? now they ban their account.
all novaworld lobby's are hosted by www.novaworld.net, so why cant they put a script into that site so that cheaters cant acces the lobby's anymore?

[Steve]

i think that is a fantastic email from NL

they do what they can which is fine by me and as good as it's gonna get and there is nothing anyone can do except become a programmer and work for free.

public servers run your cheat blockers

everyone is happy right?

[Steve]

Originally posted by _|()R|Z
ok tell me if i'm stupid by saying this but: why doesnt novalogic just ban cheaters of novaworld? now they ban their account.
all novaworld lobby's are hosted by www.novaworld.net, so why cant they put a script into that site so that cheaters cant acces the lobby's anymore?

i suppose they could if they have a large notice that comes with the cd that says cheaters will lost their rights to play on novaworld.

then NL would have to prove without doubt that is was THAT person on THAT computer at THAT time.

the banned person could simply say it wasn't them and someone must have hacked they account and then sue NL or claim a new cd-key


there is always problems

[_|()R|Z]

Originally posted by StevieB
i suppose they could if they have a large notice that comes with the cd that says cheaters will lost their rights to play on novaworld.

then NL would have to prove without doubt that is was THAT person on THAT computer at THAT time.

the banned person could simply say it wasn't them and someone must have hacked they account and then sue NL or claim a new cd-key


there is always problems

and that "cheater" is going to court nova for it?

© Novalogic 2002-2003, Novalogic has the right to ban people from novaworld when they suspect cheating.

[BeBop]

DF2 has been aroudn for ages, an the easiest way to detect is someoen is cheating, that ive found most effective is when your on teh host screen you hit the enter key. That changes the names to the numbers indicating the bandwidth they r using. So for df2, if you see someoen with 275-350 and everyone else is at 100-125, chances are they may be cheating.

Novalogic does its best job to stop cheats, like panther and blackbelt said, it costs money, and i for one dont have THAT money to play if they start charging to use novaworld. These petitions are probably getting annoying to them aswell, they know there are cheats and try to fix it but there are to many ass holes out there making trainers. CB doesnt block to many cheats adn therefore would be a waste of time. If you want a cheat free game, go find one in public or host one yourself, thats my opinion...

[BeBop]

Maybe im gonna say this to easy , again i dont know much bout programming, but what if there was a code build in that immedaliately kicked yer game out when it detects changes in the gamecode by a thirdparty program? Would that be an option. On the other hand it has to support the "good" thirdparty progs like DFfavs and stuff.
.

If you read the terms and all that in ladn warriors lobby etc. It explicitly says ANY third party programs are illegal.

rule 14 of rules of conduct :
"You will not create, use or provide any server emulator or other site where NovaWorld games may be played, and you will not post or distribute any utilities, emulators or other software tools related to NovaWorld without the express written permission of NovaLogic, Inc."

[HØWÁRÐ †hè Ðû¢k]

Its not the obvious cheats that get me,its the ones who just do it in certain situations.

Obvious cheats are thinner these days.

BTW:
While NOva is fixing problems......since Ive had broadband,I still see peep that jerk and flash running on hillsides shooting peep very accuratly.

What is that,because I can kill them,but they almost always get me in one shot with a mag,500 m away...with no scope?!

That is why Im playing BF 1942 now,at least i can grab a tank and kill somebody....

Cheers!!!

[_|()R|Z]

Originally posted by BeBop
275-350 and everyone else is at 100-125, chances are they may be cheating.

thats his ping, try playing with a 56k from europe on an usa server. its always 300ms+

[Bustin]

Originally posted by BeBop
DF2 has been aroudn for ages, an the easiest way to detect is someoen is cheating, that ive found most effective is when your on teh host screen you hit the enter key. That changes the names to the numbers indicating the bandwidth they r using. So for df2, if you see someoen with 275-350 and everyone else is at 100-125, chances are they may be cheating.

if that is the case then shoot me dead I am a cheater and always have been.

That petition e-mail response is almost 2 years old I've seen it 4 times now lol.

The only real thing people need to get on NL's case about is them finishing something they start, instead of saying the hell with it and starting something new.

[BeBop]

Originally posted by _|()R|Z
thats his ping, try playing with a 56k from europe on an usa server. its always 300ms+

i have people from euro come in on 56k and its most of the time LOWEr than the usa peeps who come in (im a usa host)

[katana*GFR*]

Originally posted by BeBop
If you read the terms and all that in ladn warriors lobby etc. It explicitly says ANY third party programs are illegal.

rule 14 of rules of conduct :
"You will not create, use or provide any server emulator or other site where NovaWorld games may be played, and you will not post or distribute any utilities, emulators or other software tools related to NovaWorld without the express written permission of NovaLogic, Inc."

Then just email Nova bout it and ask if they agree on it. If not bad luck just gdo it And if they do well job done, allowed
prog.