Punkbuster (Why not enabled on servers?)

We have Punkbuster disabled for a few reasons. First, those of us who are server admins take an active role in policing the servers for abusers. We haven't really had a problem with cheaters so much as with lamers. We've had a few problem players in the past who would engage in bad behavior. They either got banned, or were warned and subsequently left (to go continue their lame behavior elsewhere I would gather). Since we do mind our own servers we don't have too many problems.

Second, Gen, while a big project, has a fairly small player base currently. Since we are a tight knit group and most of us are somewhat familiar with each other, we're content to remain on the "honor" system for now. Once the player base expands (if it ever does again, you never know!) then it might become more of a concern.

Third, we've had technical problems with Punkbuster and some of our players. More than a few people I know fairly well have been unable to get PB to update when we did have PB enabled a while back, and as a result were unable to play. Most of this can be attributed to college IT departments not knowing how to properly manage their networks. This was completely out of the players' control. I've had my own sporadic problems just with the Id Master server rejecting my CD key, even though I have never shared a CD key, and I have 3 legitimate copies of Quake 3 Arena and 3 legit CD keys - all of them were causing the "Invalid CD-key/Missing CD-key?" message. I can't begin to tell you how frustrating that is. Gen itself does work with Punkbuster, but I don't like players being booted off a server because of a technical problem so the answer was to disable Punkbuster and set sv_strictauth to 0.

Fourth, all of our servers are technically test platforms, especially Central. Any potential problems with a third party utility - like PB - can interfere with bug reporting. If someone encounters a problem with PB (as stated above), especially if they are one of our own beta testers, it kind if makes testing the mod itself moot. If bugs go unreported and I don't find them on my own somehow, they don't get fixed. I don't like that.

Lastly, the Q3 Engine Source release. That changes everything because Generations may move to a stand-alone engine build to solve several problems, including bugs in the Quake 3 Arena engine, and to create additional functionality, such as a more efficient particle system. Punkbuster was not included in the Q3 Engine Source release since it is not Id property and also so that the source to Punkbuster remains closed (making it harder for cheaters to crack). This means any engine mods almost certainly won't be compatible with Punkbuster since Punkbuster is no longer integrated.

I personally have nothing against what Evenbalance is doing, or against Punkbuster for my own gaming purposes, but for Gen's purposes it makes more sense for it to be disabled at present. If we move to our own engine, which is a good possibility, it will not function with Gen at all so then the issue becomes moot. Don't get me wrong, I despise cheaters myself, and I would like to see every single autoaim proxy, wallhacker, and nosepaker boiled up to their eyeballs in their own blood. Until that's possible, we'll do everything we can to ensure a clean game on the servers that Wirehead manages.

We invite you to play Gen with us, and if you notice anything that's suspicious try to snag as much info as you can. Grab a demo (use the /demorecord command). Go "in-eyes" on the player you think is up to no good. PM one of the "Lords of the Arena" on the message board here and let us know what's going on. We'll review the evidence and address the issue the next time we see the player in question. Thumbs up!

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