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man i hate punkbuster

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  • man i hate punkbuster

    i am the biggest fan of 2142 in the world. check my post history here. i go on 4chan /video games and tell them how awesome it is. i host a gaming forum website and i tell everyone there to get 2142. i tell people i know IRL.

    but punkbuster makes it hard to love 2142. first of all, half the people who try it never get it to work because of punkbuster issues. even with my help a lot of them just give up because they always keep getting kicked. secondly, i do an OS reinstall every 1-2 years, and every single time something goes wrong with punkbuster, usually something new even if i use the same OS, hardware and drivers.

    and now their policy on windows 7 takes the cake. i just built a new $2000 PC with a core i7 CPU and i wanted to get used to windows 7 until it comes out in a couple months. but i can't get 2142 to work because PB always kicks me with error 131131 about an "unknown windows api function." when i asked PB for help they responded:
    02/17/2009 16:22:31
    This is due to PunkBuster not supporting Windows 7, and we will not support Windows 7 until it is released to the general public for purchase. I'm sorry, but we do not support beta or release candidate operating systems.
    this is stupid for four different reasons:

    a) windows 7 is almost identical to vista (it basically is vista), especially regarding low level api stuff. if they support vista, windows 7 shouldn't be any different technically

    b) if the reason is because they think it has a small user base, they support 2142 on OS X and i would bet money more people would play 2142 on a PC running windows 7 than on a mac

    c) they should support what the users need. denying support for something because they made up a reason not to support it is just saying f__ you to the customers for no reason.

    d) they aren't going to magically be able to support it the second it is released. they are going to support it before it's out, and that's when it should be publically available. alternately if they don't support windows 7 even after it's released, then they are just admitting they are a terrible company

    this post is just me venting about this terrible company. if anyone from EA or Dice reads this, please STOP USING PUNKBUSTER in your products!

  • #2
    Re: man i hate punkbuster

    It is a beta operating system and should not be supported until it is official released. You should not be using Windows 7 as your primary operating system until it is officially released. Which Microsoft has hinted many times in various places.

    As there are different hooks, and other things that pb has to test/implement to make sure it is fully operational. They are probably testing internally but will not officially support it until it is officially out of beta.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: man i hate punkbuster

      I doubt you'll find anyone who likes Punkbuster, but what can DICE do? If they made an in-house anticheat that worked a lot better, that'd be great, but they aren't going to invest time and money into it when the could just use PB.

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      • #4
        Re: man i hate punkbuster

        That, and a beta, or even a release candidate can be different from the final product. A single character is all it takes to force EvenBalance to release another patch to PunkBuster, and they are in no obligation to do that, especially with a system that hasn't been released yet.

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        • #5
          Re: man i hate punkbuster

          Originally posted by TheHeartSmasher View Post
          It is a beta operating system and should not be supported until it is official released. You should not be using Windows 7 as your primary operating system until it is officially released. Which Microsoft has hinted many times in various places.

          As there are different hooks, and other things that pb has to test/implement to make sure it is fully operational. They are probably testing internally but will not officially support it until it is officially out of beta.
          windows 7 is nothing more than a reboot of vista with a slightly improved product and better marketing. the kernel is the same, and i doubt the API has changed at all from vista.

          also as i said, who cares if it's beta? it's not some obscure sound card driver, it's the next OS from the 95% gaming market share OS company in the world. there are more than 30 million people already using windows 7 which is probably 100 times more than are playing 2142 on mac OS X. so why shouldn't they support it? the "beta" label is just being used as an excuse, there is no reason not to support it.
          Originally posted by Wizrdwarts View Post
          I doubt you'll find anyone who likes Punkbuster, but what can DICE do? If they made an in-house anticheat that worked a lot better, that'd be great, but they aren't going to invest time and money into it when the could just use PB.
          when a substantial number of customers can't even use the product (as has been my personal experience) then the solution is worse than the problem. they are losing money by using PB.
          Originally posted by Shurikane View Post
          That, and a beta, or even a release candidate can be different from the final product. A single character is all it takes to force EvenBalance to release another patch to PunkBuster, and they are in no obligation to do that, especially with a system that hasn't been released yet.
          there are tens of millions of people who paid for a game they can't play. i think that's enough of an "obligation" to fix it.

          also, as i pointed out twice already, they support vista and windows 7 uses the same kernel and probably 100% exactly same API. it's not like they have to do a lot of work to support windows 7

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          • #6
            Re: man i hate punkbuster

            They don't have to do a lot of work for Windows 7 support, but it's still in beta, so it understandably isn't a priority for them (but that raises a question: What is?).

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: man i hate punkbuster

              i just don't see how they can ignore it. already windows 7 has tens of millions of users and is basically the same as vista, and punkbuster's business model is a value-add to an existing title. they don't make games, they don't sell games, they don't market games. their entire job is basically just to support us, the users, and stop cheaters. the whole "no windows 7" thing is just a sham.

              and even if you totally agree with them not supporting windows 7, the fact remains that punkbuster is terrible software that causes a LOT of people not to be able to play the game they paid money for. it doesn't hurt punkbuster to suck because they don't sell games. it just hurts DICE and EA. evenbalance has zero motive to try to do a good job as long as EA & DICE are paying them.

              the whole situation is set up for failure.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: man i hate punkbuster

                Originally posted by joe2 View Post
                there are tens of millions of people who paid for a game they can't play. i think that's enough of an "obligation" to fix it.
                No.

                In fact, EvenBalance could choose to simply ignore all bug requests altogether and do jack about them, and you would have zero power over this. The only people concerned are those who shield their game with PunkBuster, and they will only cease to purchase it for their software if it causes a loss of profit that is more significant than the one that would have happened had the game been left unprotected and overrun by cheaters even more.

                In layman's terms, EA believe they will make more money by including PB than by not including it.

                Software companies have no obligation towards its customers. Zip. Zero. Nada. Obligations are for contracts and key-in-hand software - enterprise stuff. In the consumer market, if the software doesn't work on your machine, tough luck. The only thing you can do is decide not to buy from this publisher/developer anymore.

                No software company in its right mind will release a finished software on a beta platform. They will use that beta and run a few tests on it for perhaps an upcoming release, but it is quite simply not a good idea to release a software on an OS that is due to change in a significant manner. Anything not released is not set in stone. Microsoft could very well decide to scrap the entire Windows 7 project altogether and work on something else. They could just do that. After all, nothing's been released, no service plan's been created, nothing of that sort. They could go "We ran the beta and we came to the conclusion it just won't work, so Windows 7 is a no go." Bam. What happens to PB's new release, had it happened? Hours of programming down the drain. And that's coming from a programmer: an already ludicrous amount of time is lost on petty things in the prog world before even taking other people's software into consideration.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: man i hate punkbuster

                  Originally posted by Shurikane View Post
                  No.

                  In fact, EvenBalance could choose to simply ignore all bug requests altogether and do jack about them,
                  and that's what they are doing
                  Originally posted by Shurikane View Post
                  and you would have zero power over this.
                  that doesn't make it right.
                  Originally posted by Shurikane View Post
                  The only people concerned are those who shield their game with PunkBuster, and they will only cease to purchase it for their software if it causes a loss of profit that is more significant than the one that would have happened had the game been left unprotected and overrun by cheaters even more.
                  which is what could happen because PB is such a piece of crap that possibly hundreds of thousands of people who tried a battlefield game once will never buy another because of punkbuster

                  Originally posted by Shurikane View Post
                  In layman's terms, EA believe they will make more money by including PB than by not including it.

                  Software companies have no obligation towards its customers. Zip. Zero. Nada.
                  that's incorrect, they have both legal obligations (ever heard of a class action lawsuit?) and moral obligations (ever heard of not cheating your customers?).
                  Originally posted by Shurikane View Post
                  Obligations are for contracts and key-in-hand software - enterprise stuff. In the consumer market, if the software doesn't work on your machine, tough luck.
                  totally dead wrong. if you sell something, you enter into a contract, whether written or unwritten, that your product will do what it says. if i sell you a car missing an engine and tell you it runs, you can rightfully sue me and win. your ignorance of how our legal system works is frightening.
                  Originally posted by Shurikane View Post
                  The only thing you can do is decide not to buy from this publisher/developer anymore.
                  no, if they cause damages or dishonestly take your money by promising something they don't deliver you can sue their *** off.

                  Originally posted by Shurikane View Post
                  No software company in its right mind will release a finished software on a beta platform.
                  uh... yes they will. we aren't talking about some tiny shareware product, we are talking about the successor to the most common operating system on the PLANET, with BILLIONS of licenses sold. everyone else is getting their stuff to work on windows 7 (which is really just vista as i've pointed out 4 times now).

                  Originally posted by Shurikane View Post
                  They will use that beta and run a few tests on it for perhaps an upcoming release, but it is quite simply not a good idea to release a software on an OS that is due to change in a significant manner. Anything not released is not set in stone. Microsoft could very well decide to scrap the entire Windows 7 project altogether and work on something else. They could just do that. After all, nothing's been released, no service plan's been created, nothing of that sort. They could go "We ran the beta and we came to the conclusion it just won't work, so Windows 7 is a no go." Bam. What happens to PB's new release, had it happened? Hours of programming down the drain. And that's coming from a programmer: an already ludicrous amount of time is lost on petty things in the prog world before even taking other people's software into consideration.
                  you don't know what you're talking about. at all. hypothetically a beta is meant for QA by customers. but the reality is that windows 7 is way beyond a "beta," it has more users than almost every other operating system except xp COMBINED. it is effectively the 2nd most common OS on the planet, unless you count all *nix variants as one version, which i don't.

                  and as i already pointed out, even forgetting the whole windows 7 thing, which in itself is a gross insult to the end users (us!) their product STILL sucks and STILL causes huge numbers of people to not be able to play.

                  i dont get why people here are evenbalance fanboys. they have a terrible product that causes games we love to age faster and die faster, and causes a lot of us tons of technical headaches, and now they are creating flimsy excuses for not doing what everyone else in the gaming industry is doing: gearing up for windows 7 as fast as possible. if they WANTED to support it, they easily could. how hard can it really be to add support for the tiny difference between W7 and vista? probably 30 minutes of work. they are just using it as an excuse because they suck, and you guys piss me off for being on their side of this argument.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: man i hate punkbuster

                    I agree with OP

                    Punkbuster is the only thing that I have issues with on Windows 7. The evenbalance 'we don't support beta OS's' position is just lazy. I don't imagine 7 is gonna change much from now till release. I hear there won't be a beta 2 but the next release will be a RC1 and I don't imagine the code will change much between now and then as Seven is pretty solid already.

                    This is a chance for Evenbalance to get some public testing for their crappy anticheat software (which doesn't stop cheats by the way) prior to the release of Seven. The whole point of Seven is that it works out of the box on day one - avoiding the Vista style balls up of no drivers and hardware/software incompatability on release.

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                    • #11
                      Re: man i hate punkbuster

                      Originally posted by joe2
                      i dont get why people here are evenbalance fanboys.
                      I don't think there are many of us here that are "fanboys" of EB. Rather most of us agree that they are a pain in the butt, and their software is very buggy. However, to get all worked up and claim that they have a "moral responsibility" to support a product that no matter how many users has is still in beta is just plain silly.

                      Of course if they did support it and the "tens of millions" of people with 2142 that are using Windows 7 could play it that would sure boost the player base. Did you pull that number out of the air? I'm not even sure that 2142 has sold that many copies of the game, let alone ones that have it and are using Windows 7.

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                      • #12
                        Re: man i hate punkbuster

                        EB are lazy, they won't support 64-bit applications, but not supporting W7 I can understand. What's the point in reworking their software for a beta OS when they're probably going to have to redo some stuff again with the final version of the OS.

                        It's a beta OS for a reason.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: man i hate punkbuster

                          thats why you dont buy sht when its totally new you gotta wait for the bugs to be worked out and everything to be reliable. duhh

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: man i hate punkbuster

                            Originally posted by Field View Post
                            thats why you dont buy sht when its totally new you gotta wait for the bugs to be worked out and everything to be reliable. duhh


                            What kind of answer is that? Maybe software companies should step up and be doing a little more QA before releasing their products, ever think of that?:thumbsup:

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                            • #15
                              Re: man i hate punkbuster

                              Yeah, cuz, ya know, look at BF2142 for example, which is perfect after how many patches?

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