Have you had enough of Modern Warfare 2 coverage yet? Are you a vindictive PC gamer? If you answered "no" to the first question and "yes" to the second, you are now free to have a few quiet "I told you so" chuckles, because reports are coming in that Modern Warfare 2 on PC may already have been hacked wide open. And less than a day after the game has finally unlocked for people who preordered via Steam.
The video, embedded below, was posted on a website selling hacking tools for various games in the series. It shows several cheats in action during a multiplayer game, most of them position detectors and aimbots. 1up raises the possibility that this could all be an elaborate hoax, as some of the feats being performed could probably be done by a very skilled player.
But if true, one of Infinity Ward's major selling points for IW.net - their console-style matchmaking service - has been more or less annihilated. At least with dedicated servers, admins and players were capable of manually kicking and banning known cheats and even altering code to lock them out.
This is just the first strike in the ongoing arms race. Steam and IW.net will retaliate, hackers will re-hack, and so on.
HA! Activision and IW just got served!
I'm not getting this game.
I did not approve of the subpar multiplayer they put into MW2.
And I like to vote with my wallet. :p
lol, 1up sees this as a possible hoax because the cheats were put up for sale? Man they need to dig a little deeper in the hacker world to see that selling 'hacks' & 'cheats' has been a rather common trend for awhile.
While I despise hacking in a game, I cant help but smile to see Activision/IW get slapped in the face through their smoke and mirrors about their 'Grand evolution of pc gaming' iwnet. If there is a will there is a way 'security' is a lie in all forms, especially in the software industry. It does. not. exist.
200 says he gets banned within a week. Of course people cheat on 360, I'm not stupid. The point is the PC makes it easier for them to do so. Any system that gives you the tools to edit game code is asking for this kind of thing. There are four times as many cheaters on PC than any console.
Glitches, otoh, are a different story. That's what plagued WaW, and why I stopped playing. But I'll blame Treyarch for that.
Anyone who visits PC-orientated forums knew this was going to happen. IW practically challenged the hacker community with its "it'll stop cheaters and improve the experience."
Actually, it's called knowing and talking to people who play exclusively on either platform. I've met a rough ratio of 4 to 1 who admitted to cheating in a game, or at least had the ability to. Of course the test group isn't representative of the whole group, I know that.
Just saying, my experience. I wonder if that URL is available too.
The first time I read this, I thought it was a hack to enable dedicated servers. Then I re-read it and realized it was a just hack to prove the necessity of dedicated servers.
But I thought IWNet was supposed to protect against hacking and cheating. After all, that's what makes IWNet and matchmaking superior to dedicated servers, right? /sarcasm
What has been neglected thus far is the fact that IW will likely have these hacks figured out and blocked very soon. Oh well, my console version is keeping me happy ;)
MW2 has already sold well enough on the PC that I'd be surprised if they do anything about this and just hope VAC gets to them which it may will... eventually... probably... maybe... someday.
They got all the PC money they expected to get, it's a top Steam seller and 3rd best game being played on Steam currently, they have no motivation to 'fix' this.
All I'm saying is don't expect a patch, fix, whatever, just a press release of "We are confident VAC will alleviate this issue."
word on the street is there is already a online pirated hack coming tomorrow so people can actually play online, not that i endorse pirates i personally despise them but lol at iw
Letting the community police itself has worked quite well for PC gaming using the dedicated server model. Silly IW/Activision, now you have to do the policing. Wouldn't you rather let your community do it for free?
Saw a video similar on youtube earlier, and it's already been taken down by Activision. I laughed... Wonder when we're going to get an official response to this, and if they'll just admit that the new IW.net system is in place to cash in on DLC from PC players.
The game uses Valve Anti-Cheat, which while nice, uses a time-delay ban system to ensure players using multiple cheats don't know which ones they were banned for.
VAC usually compliments regular server administration, where operators or users would remove the cheaters themselves, but with severs AWOL, this is going to suck big time for regular players.
Well it's not just PC. People have been modding/hacking for 360/PS3 since MW1 came out. All the CoD's run on the same type of engine and the people who have been modding, are still going to be familiar with the game's insides and could basically tweak any previous CoD mods to fit the new game. A game like Halo has none of this crap, CoD has to patch something all the time because it is an inferior setup.
If you had been following the PC version of MW2 at all, or even bothered to know the biggest to-do behind why this article is being post, is because Infinity Ward announced that they WOULDN'T be releasing in-game edit tools for the PC version of the game, they WOULDN'T be allowing dedicated servers for the game, and would entirely be responsible for controlling the hacking community.
The fact is that while PC gaming allows it's users to be in control of the experience to the point of hacking being possible, it ALSO allows the PC gaming community to be in control of DEALING with hackers. The same tools that can edit the game to make wall-hacks and aimbots can be used to lock-out the use of Aimbots and Wallhacks for people's own dedicated servers. Server-owners can install mods and edits to help the experience, they're in control of dealing with hackers personally through their own Admin tools, etc.
The main purpose behind this article is that because IW has refused to make this tools available to the PC audience, saying "oh yeah, we're just gonna make the game real real good so they can't even make hacks, and then we'll ban them and stuff!", that how bullshit that really was now that aimbots and wallhacks have been made available from Day One with no way for the PC community to deal with it, we can only sit back and wait days or weeks for IW's response to these developments. Which is exactly what PC gamers have been rolling their eyes at for weeks over the limitations being put on the PC version of the game for the sake of "balance" between all of the releases.
So no, this is not a matter of PC gaming having the innate flaw of hackers, because the way PC gaming typically functions has allowed us to DEAL with those issues quickly and efficiently. This issue here is that now that the reigns have been taken away from the community by IW just saying "oh no, let us take care of it", the game is suffering.
This comment seems to reak of doomsayer. As if a PC game having hacks is somehow a new concept or a deterrent for anyone and saying it like consoles dont suffer from the same possible hackable content.
It's really not much of a big deal, same as hacks in counterstrike, or TF2 or any other FPS game. Hacks are always going to be present, as you pointed out (Big surprise!) yet you still report on it like its going to ruin any gaming experiences or doesnt have easy counters, like leaving the server and just matchmaking to a new one.
I play a wide variety of PC FPS across a vast variety of servers (mostly PUB servers, which are as good as matchmaking it terms of person quality). If someone hacks (and proving it is possible, more on this later), you can just leave. Hacker averted. Its not as if hacking is something everyone does, it still only a minority of players who do it and hack their way to auto-win. The people who hack and ARNT doing well anyway in the match, well who cares if their hacking.
More importantly by highlighting its possible its now going to start the fanboy treatment of 'I heard its hackable on PC' 'Me too, i hear you cant join a game without someone cheating' 'Yah, Xbox wins again!'. This is a great strawman argument i've constructed but i have no doubt in its validity (at least in some people).
Hacks, typically, are pretty hard to prove. The difference between an aim bot and a guy whos just really good is pretty hard to tell the difference unless you spectate and watch them or they are doing something obviously incriminating.
I guess my point is, its fine. Who cares if someone cheats, just go to a different game. Don't worry, i'm sure cheats will hit the xbox and PS soon enough so we can all share the experience.
I'm actually quite an avid PC gamer. If I do end up buying the game, it will be for the PC, hacks be damned.
My point is in highlighting it is that Infinity Ward have been pushing IWNet as something intended to kill off hacking. That it's (potentially) been compromised so early on suggests that the approach isn't as foolproof as they wanted you to think.
That's certainly a point to consider if potential buyers intended to rely on IWnet to prevent cheating in such a multiplayer-heavy game.
Eh, this was to be expected. It's the same engine as the last one. Hell, he probably barely edited the code from one of his old hacks.
One thing to bear in mind is that this is using the same anti-cheat as TF2, and I've only come across 2 hackers in my entire playtime of that game, which is a lot. Any game these days is easy to hack. It's just now we have to watch as a stupid system means that IW won't block that kind of stuff for frigging ages, and we'll always have to deal with stealth hacks that VAC doesn't pick up.
And we, as the genuine gamers, can do nothing at all about it, whereas before a voteban would have done perfectly fine.
Although I guess the 0 ping host advantage is also cheating in its own way too...
For it to be an arms race, both sides technically have to care. I think IW has made it abundantly clear already that they just don't give a shit about the PC.
What's that? MW2 got hacked even though IW said that would be harder for people to do even though we told them it would be just as easy? I think that deserves a Tactical "Oh Snap!"
Ya know, I've defended PC gaming because it was at the roots of what has made games so great. I was genuinely angry when IW dropped dedicated servers because it is kind of a Karate chop right to the aorta of the PC community. But when that same community goes out of its way to cheat and break stuff, and even make threats as I've seen elsewhere... what's the point anymore? If you are making cheats and hacks for this game, of all games, you are just shooting the PC community in the foot. And when the foot takes enough damage, it is likely that it will be amputated. There will always be PC gaming, but if the community behind it continues with their crazy militant bullshit, then developers will be less and less likely to make PC games. How about this for the PC crowd: don't buy the game. I rented the game on the 360, it's brilliant, and I'm now considering buying it. But if you feel like ruining the good time of the people who would choose to buy it, then what is your real purpose? Be a vigilante if you want, but you aren't fighting a good fight when you just hurt other game players. It's time to stop hurting each other in general.
I point at TheMuffinMan's post a little ways up. IW should have totally seen this one coming. The game was gona get hacked, if it wasn't today it would have been sooner or later. IW should have had the brains enough to at the least give the ability for people to vote kick or ban hacking/exploiting/annoying players. But they couldn't even be asked to supply us with that. It's not PC gamers shooting them selves in the foot, it's IW. Lets face it hackers are always gona hack, but we can atleast police ourselves if they gave us the tools.
Devil's advocate here: when IW is done counting its money and shaves the Snidely Whiplash mustache it grew in the internet's revenge fantasy--doesn't IW.net allow IW to suss out the cheaters and ban/reset their everything? So whereas hacks aplenty existed in Modern Warfare 1, I don't imagine griefers gave two shits about a server ban because they could take their XP and evil shit with them to another and another and even a fourth other dedicated server.
Now, if individual serial numbers are shut the fuck down for good, across all IW.net, that sounds pretty okay to me.
The thought occurred to me, and there is no immediate indication this might occur because Infinity Ward 'doesn't care about the PC' anymore, but the theory seems sound.
I guess Battle.net lightning doesn't strike twice.
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