PB and ET support!!

(BigBear) #21

On my servers I use Punkbuster Only in the goal to manage GUID/etkey … all the rest is disabled ! :slight_smile:

But now without GUID it is a big problem ! :o For all servers !

The most easy way rest to create with the help Even Balance a server just to manage GUID.

1) Hosted by ID software ?
2) Hosted by Splash Damage ?
3) Hosted by Splatter Ladder ?

The only question is who will pay ? : I think can be paid by major Hosting companies.
The cost of a dedicated for those companies is not really expensive : you can find something good for 100/200 by month.

If Admins want to protect their servers they can use TZAC (now for al mods)

I think all of that can be the best way…

(Paul) #22

Trackbase does have the capabilities to host this if it’s needed but I doubt it’ll ever get that far.

(BigBear) #23

Hi!

Thank you for your support !

All is question of money !

A good reason that someone decide to continue just to manage the GUID/etkey of Even Balance :

No ETKEY = No Tracking = No Reason to exist for Tracking servers :o

The most simple way can be that hosting companies provide some fees : if they want to continue to propose to rent WET server they must seriously think about that. It is impossible to manage that at the level of players, for admins somewhere the same problem. Companies will need to discuss together but is that possible ?

* All depend of how much cost those kind of dedicated server needed to manage GUID/etkey feature *
>>> What is the server power needed and the money cost ?

(calipso) #24

Seems ET is not the only one left out. Other games, including RtCW,Doom3 or Quake 3 arena doesn’t show up on supported games list.
http://web.archive.org/web/20110719003544/http://www.evenbalance.com/ as it apears on 19.07.2011

(hellreturn) #25

AFAIK, only ET was most played out of those games. RtCW was almost dead anyways. None of those games will miss PB but yes ET will.

We are thinking to add some support for mod based GUID’s in silEnT mod. At present we have added !subnet feature for admins.

Following new commands for flag ‘.’:
!subnetban [subnet] (time) (reason)
!rmsubnetban [subnet ban #]
!userwl [PBGUID] [add|remove]
and for flag ‘b’, the same flag with showbans command
!subnets

Subnets can be created for octets 2 and 3. First octet subnet bans (...) are rejected. User, if online, cannot subnet ban himself unless he has whitelisted himself. The last octet is ignored, i.e. if giving full IP, the subnetban is created to the 3rd octet.

Users can be whitelisted. Using !userwl [8 character guid] add | remove.

!subnets command will show all active subnet bans

!userinfo, !userlist and !usersearch commands will output information if the player is whitelisted. For the !userlist and !usersearch, there is a white W in the ban column.

(stealth6) #26

Tracking sites don’t look for your Guid… That’s why if you want a high rating on SL you need to keep the same name since it tracks your NAME

The best solution would indeed be to get whatever system EB was running and just host it somewhere else, but I doubt that’s going to happen.
The next best thing would be just host a new server that hands out Guids, but this will cause some problems, first the obvious:

  • Who’s going to make the software
  • Who’s going to host it

Then the next problem would be what happens to all the current guids, since the chance exists that you’d hand out a guid that already exists.

Adding it to the installer wouldn’t work for that same reason, if you just hand out random guids, then there is a chance of the same guid occurring twice. (I guess it’s a slim chance though + easily fixed)

The idea I suggested a while ago on the nitmod forums is that you have a Guid per server, which is a combination of your IP / Mac and the server’s info so that it is always unique. This would give you loads of keys, but since they are only a few (kilo)bytes large who really cares. - This obviously isn’t a solution though since if it’s attached to your mac / ip it’s not transferable, but maybe somebody has a better idea :slight_smile:

(hellreturn) #27

What if IP changes? GUID changes too?

(stealth6) #28

That’s what I meant by “it’s not transferable”, therefore not a good solution, but maybe if you just took the server mac, or just something to identify the server + a number that the server hands out, then it would work?

(dutchmeat) #29

What’s the status on SLAC ? We can try to find methods of creating new guids, but if we don’t have a solid anticheat system, it’s still useless.

My suggestion would be a user system like QuakeLive, just register with an email address, bound to your nickname and use that as guid.

(Angrymoose) #30

Good day to you all. I help run the R*X Clan (Rox ET 2.55pub)

How is the server list generated & who hosts this ? to clarify the list that comes up when you go online. I assume Activision , they are also pulling their support so will we have a server list ? A means to find other players etc. ?

(BigBear) #31

Local solution is possible only if NEW ETDED is compatible with ADD ON like QMM & too if you include 2.55+ Patch
Local solution is the best long lasting solution because it is free of any other server.
But bye bye global stats tracking :o
===> All tracking site down not more WET server tracking

But The most simple way is to continue Even Balance service on another Third Party Server but I do no think they will provide their files.

The best way is if they are kind they will perhaps propos to a third party to host GUID management on a server but with a new kind of etkey management in the best case : for sure they do not want to provide their code or to risk to have it compromised ! :confused:.

*** In all ways this is the S**T because imagine big clan with 200 Admins :o ***
==> And too NEW etkey same possible problems for stats tracking ! All risk to STOP :o

Remark : And for those that speak about player’s IP it have not a real interest because 99% of players do not use a fixed IP ! And for server too if your server changed from IP you will got a problem too…

(adeline) #32

I found the answer…

(-=Frenki GER=-) #33

Hi,
i´m -=Frenki GER=- from German ET Racers. We want to continue the Punkbuster Service to autocreate new GUID´s.
I also told in UJeclan Forum with members of UJEclan about this probs, i hope you can do anything for us to continue this service, the communitys worldwide are very big and there are everytime new member connecting to play ET Wolfenstein. Since last 2 weeks there where fourteen new member connected to our server.
And now ??? Not possible cuase no GUID given. :-((((((((((((((((((((((((
Please do anything for us, thanx thanx thanx:):):slight_smile:
Our website : ger-funclan.de
my name -=Frenki GER=-

(UJERebel) #34

I thin someone decipherd an etkey completly/partly? cant we just ask pb for the code and i’ll make a new etkey creator :slight_smile:

(schnoog) #35

As far as a server not is set to a min guid age, its not a big problem to generate ETKEYs to join server. Maybe the implementation of a central ETKEY single point of contact could bring a little light in.

(ailmanki) #36

If we create a installer, which downloads and installs a etkey in correct place, it would be fixed; basically it would need a url which issues unique ID’s. Maybe it could even come with some kind of management - e.g. user/password. hint sl / tb.
But… at some point I guess pbsetup.exe will not work either; yet since ET comes with a pb client (even if its outdated - I think the etkey stuff should work).

(Pedro-NF) #37

It seems that the structure of the etkey file doesn’t matter much, as long as the data in it is sufficiently random to allow for the generation of unique PB GUID’s. One of my refs found this workaround to easily create etkey files that the local PB server has no problems using to generate a GUID in the PB format (32 hexadecimal (0-F) characters). It’s working fine for him:

http://forums.noobsforever.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=347

(Paul) #38

I want to get one thing clear for everyone: whether there are GUIDS or not, this will NOT affect tracking or tracking sites in any way, they/we don’t use GUIDs/keys :slight_smile:

(schnoog) #39

As an immediate measure I started up the site http://etkey.org which allows to get a unique ETKEY
The design is very very beta :wink: But it works at least for server not configured to ban GUIDs not reached a minimum age

(acQu) #40

How about the etpro guid. Was integrity always ensured with this one ? Because it always seemed to be pretty stable to me. Something like this could solve the problem for all mods. But when there is no guarantee for integrity, there won’t be any future.

Local ids ? Well, they are not robust enough imho, but for sure a solution.