As long as they ban all the cheater scum and not someone for posting a negative review or criticizing a game, I'm all for it.

jacobvandy wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 18:21:
Actually they can and do...How can you possibly advocate hackers be refunded their money? Without that kind of tangible penalty, where is the deterrent?

With Steam having close to a monopoly on game purchasing, I'm sure they'll take away paid for games without refunds. We'll see if it holds up legally in the future I guess.

Why am I supporting refunds being offered in the case of bans? Because there will be plenty of innocent players being banned from what they paid for. And they'll get no appeal and no recourse. Brilliant on Steam's part to ensure there isn't negative feedback on any games. Another move that is done to benefit the bottom line aka paid mods.

If Steam wants to remove something I paid for, I'd like my money back.

ItBurn wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 11:29:

Verno wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 11:19:
I don't mind playing with cheaters, it really doesn't get my blood boiling or anything. Some people get all worked up about it but I could really care less, I'll just go do something else or laugh it off. They want your anger so why give it to them? I don't see a huge need for this either, at least not without oversight from Valve and it doesn't sound like they want to bother.

Cheaters are great practice! It really trains your skills and reflexes, but also the mind game aspect of first person shooters. There's usually two types. The younger guys who just want to piss people off and the more serious ones, sometimes who make hacks themselves. The younger guys are really susceptible to mind games and will get angry themselves if you just stay cool headed. Once they get angry, they're easily manipulated :p For the serious ones, usually they have some kind of "honor" and you can get them to stop causing problems if you stay cool.

Personally I absolutely love when noobs in BF4 call me a cheater It's 50% of the reason I still play that.

And when others really do cheat, I don't care. A wallhack or an aimbot can't protect you from out-of-range attacks, via ucav, mortar, or vehicles. So whatever.. cheaters are poor people imo, they deserve pity.

Krovven wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 15:43:

Creston wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 10:51:
Ehhmm, this sounds shady as fuck. So one dev gets tired of you saying his game doesn't work properly, orders Steam to ban you, and the only recourse you as a customer have is to talk to the dev hoping they lift the ban, because Valve will just shrug and say "talk to the dev."

What the FUCK is going on with Steam these days??

Time to migrate en masse to Gog, fellas.

Baffles me when people suggest just using GoG. Do you only want to play games 10+ years old with the odd exception?

Publishers go where the customers are. Ergo, Latin, if more people used GOG, more publishers would use GOG, and more games would be available through GOG.

It's a bit of a vicious circle, admittedly.

It doesn't take away the fact that Valve banning you and going "Yeah, talk to the dev" is just bullshit. You said it's the same thing as a VAC ban, but with a VAC ban you can contact Steam. With this, you can't.

On the flipside, maybe they realize that their worthless-as-shit customer service couldn't do a good job of dealing with protests against bans to begin with, so they just deflect the possibility of it landing in their lap as an actual service to their customers. It's hard to do anything worse than to ask people to contact Steam customer support.

Cutter wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 13:54:
I don't cheat in games so not a problem for me.

Yeah, that's pretty much my take on it all too.

At least people won't be getting a complete steam ban for cheating and losing access to an entire library of games.

Really though, this is just valve stepping back a bit more, becoming more of just a distributor and allowing the developers more control over their own games.
It never made sense that the ban came from Valve/Steam when the infraction was with a particular game out of a library of thousands.

clint wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 19:29:

Cutter wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 13:54:
I don't cheat in games so not a problem for me.

I doubt anyone has a problem with banning a cheater, at least temporarily.... Some people here have a fear of some devs using the banning system to protect their game from a bad image, eg Person calling out issues in a forum, missing features, bugs, give a bad review which can start a bad image for a game. Good devs will try to fix and patch their games, bad devs will go ban ban ban ban.

Do that and they won't be around long.

Cutter wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 13:54:
I don't cheat in games so not a problem for me.

I doubt anyone has a problem with banning a cheater, at least temporarily.... Some people here have a fear of some devs using the banning system to protect their game from a bad image, eg Person calling out issues in a forum, missing features, bugs, give a bad review which can start a bad image for a game. Good devs will try to fix and patch their games, bad devs will go ban ban ban ban.

wasteoid wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 17:44:
The best cheater remedy I've heard about was the one where they put all the cheaters on their own server, so they only play against other cheaters. They can still play, aren't banned, but they don't bother the non-cheaters.

I don't think you understand the psyche of a cheater.

They would never play on a server filled with other cheaters.

Julio wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 18:06:
I'm fine with Steam banning users when they feel like it. But - also issue an automatic full refund with each ban.

Can't have it both ways.

Actually they can and do, just like any other commercial enterprise selling products and services that does not assume responsibility or liability for their misuse. A valid ban can only be issued in the case of the player breaching the terms of service; it is not anyone's fault but their own when they forfeit the use of that service.

How can you possibly advocate hackers be refunded their money? Without that kind of tangible penalty, where is the deterrent?

Krovven wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 15:43:
Baffles me when people suggest just using GoG. Do you only want to play games 10+ years old with the odd exception?

GOG has plenty of new games. And if consumers migrated to GOG to protest Steam's monopolistic tendencies, then GOG would have even more new games to choose from.

I'm fine with Steam banning users when they feel like it. But - also issue an automatic full refund with each ban.

Can't have it both ways.

The best cheater remedy I've heard about was the one where they put all the cheaters on their own server, so they only play against other cheaters. They can still play, aren't banned, but they don't bother the non-cheaters.

Cutter wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 13:54:
I don't cheat in games so not a problem for me.

Right, that is why I tend to support this, only takes the garbage out. When I get wrongfully banned, I'll get back to everyone with a detailed rant for justice. I highly doubt that ever happens.

I still don't understand why this is any different from before. The only difference here is Valve isn't making the decision. The dev is but the decision must still be executed by Valve. I also have seen 0 reference to single player bans or outright bans of accessing the game period.

Yeah thats a good point I hadn't considered jacob, thanks for the perspective. Its pretty hard to hide anything from reddit these days.

I see a lot of people here stating that a ban means you're locked out of the game entirely. Has that been confirmed anywhere? I wouldn't expect a ban to lock you out of game, just the MP portion.

No dev in their right mind will abuse it, because they moment they do, a shitstorm brews that Gaben himself hears about and ends up investigating. You don't want to ruin your relationship with Valve and the primary means of distributing your product(s). It could happen, sure, but it's not likely.

bhcompy wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 14:37:

Task wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 08:56:
I remember once upon a time being able to kick/ban people from a hosted dedicated server; was much easier. The cheater might move to another server, but they wouldn't be on mine.

rcon addip 0 x.x.x.x
writeip

I miss having this level of control over my servers Hell, I miss being able to host servers, sad that user hosted stuff is semi-rare. Dev anti-cheat stuff is never good enough compared to active admins IMO.

I see a whole lot of concern for what the potential to happen is here. And that's the typical Blues way, worry about the worst case scenario.

People will have the same recourse as if they were VAC banned. Contact support.

Don't act like a douche and it won't be a problem.

Verno, your example is a software error and not due to a malicious developer trying to do you wrong.
This is not to replace VAC but to work when VAC doesn't work, in the cases where someone is just being an ass and not even using cheats.

I think this will rarely be used.

This comment was edited on Apr 30, 2015, 16:03.

Creston wrote on Apr 30, 2015, 10:51:
Ehhmm, this sounds shady as fuck. So one dev gets tired of you saying his game doesn't work properly, orders Steam to ban you, and the only recourse you as a customer have is to talk to the dev hoping they lift the ban, because Valve will just shrug and say "talk to the dev."

What the FUCK is going on with Steam these days??

Time to migrate en masse to Gog, fellas.

Baffles me when people suggest just using GoG. Do you only want to play games 10+ years old with the odd exception?