I somewhat agree with you. I, myself have a vac ban from CS 1.6, though it's true that I wasn't the one cheating, it was still my account being used, so I'm still at least partially guilty. That being said, I have a low tolerance for cheaters and people with multiple vac bans are simply morons who get off on ruining other people's fun or lack the mental capacity to understand what they are doing. But there are people who learn from their mistakes (myself included). It's bad enough that I have to wear the stupid banned sign on my profile without it further influencing others' opinions of me or their actions towards me, like not being eligible for giveaways.
TLDR version: there are people who learn from their mistakes, besides the person might be a bigger dick than just a cheater IRL, you have no way of knowing that so there's no use in fretting over it.
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In my opinion, there should be an option like that, but otherwise I heard of vac-bans where the guys just did some gui-changes (not the cheating way) or they got the ban while recording the game. And there I would see the problem... you never know if the person was cheating or just tweaking the ui...
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Agree with OP. +1
If they ever add it would be nice to have an option to exclude SAM users also, since they are cheaters also.
Anyway i guess im getting offtopic, so yeah, an option to exclude cheaters from GA's would be nice.
About "unfair ban" stories, VAC discussion is full of them, somehow no-one's guilty.
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Games are games, not anything that makes any real difference in the world. I have no problem with people who cheat. I don't understand it, but have no issue with it at all.
Suck it up.
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It makes the difference between having fun and.. not having fun. You want to enjoy a game you paid for in your free time and cheaters ruin it (and no it's not always as simple as just leaving and joining another server like in TF2, the only MP game you seem to play). How can you have no problem with cheaters who ruin the experience for thousands of others?
If you are just talking about giveaways, ignore my post but 'I have no problem with people who cheat.' is just wat imo :p
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See, I'd care if the game made an impact to my life, but games don't. If I'm not enjoying a game because someone's cheating, then the game was probably boring or broken to begin with.
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"If I'm not enjoying a game because someone's cheating, then the game was probably boring or broken to begin with."
That doesn't make any sense at all, but since you only play TF2 you probably dont have an idea how bad it can be. When I get home I want to relax with a beer and some CS GO competitive, if someone is cheating it has an impact on my life (and I'm forced to stay till the end else I'll be the one getting a temp ban). Nowadays they are rare tho, but once CS GO goes on sale (and you see people buying 25 copies at once on steamtrades you know what to expect).
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I don't even play TF2. I used it to farm items and that's it. I have never even played it.
I don't know why you seem to think that I would care if someone was cheating if I ever encountered it. I have encountered it- many times. I simply don't let it affect me, and I can't think of a single game where I was left with a useless product because people are cheating.
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Uhm no...
In a perfect world it would be impossible to cheat but that aint gonna happen. It having cheaters doesn't make a game boring or broken, nor does such mechanic which still does more good than bad. It only proves that that one guy is a immature dick and he shall be treated as such. Impossible how people can defend cheaters, I guess some have a VAC banned alt on SG :p
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Yeah, I buy all of my games twice so I can add them to my VAC-banned account and this, my alt.
Just because you can't understand my point of view, doesn't mean that I have an agenda.
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look at it in a different way. you payed a specified amount for a game you want, so naturally you have some expectations about the game. For example in MP games that you're on somewhat equal ground with the other players. A cheater is tampering with the game which is not only breaking the rules of the user-end license agreement but is also interfering with your "expectations". Just because you don't care about it, doesn't mean it's ok to do it. If you order a burger and someone spits in it, it wouldn't have an impact on your life, but I doubt you'd want to eat it...
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Bad example. That could have negative effects on your health.
I think the problem here is that most people have expectations for things beyond their control.
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Like gaining a real trophy and never have to work again or something similar
Can only support BearHugger!
Of course it's "bad" to have to play against a cheater.
Why is everyone talking about CS:GO as if it would be the only multiplayer game and the only one where you can find cheaers?!?
You can even find cheaters in real life at a poker game for example ;)
What about them? Head off?
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i think it don't make sense to exclude VACed user. a friend of mine got banned for a trifle, which i can't comprehend at all. SG should be open for everyone. this is not valve.
we can go a step further, imagine the user which won your giveaway has a different view of - let's say - politic stuff, the "wrong" haircut, religion or is from another countrie you don't like.
don't get me wrong, multiplayer cheater are stupid in my opinion. but what do you care about if the winner of your giveaway is already VAC banned?
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This is honestly just kind of a pointless topic. You can already exclude them from private giveaways if you get the rule approved by support. Boom. Solution right there. Stop crying about how you can't exclude them in a specific way and be happy that you have the option to exclude them at all.
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If you don't want to give a game to a cheater, then don't give away games. You don't have to use this service, and if you do, just give the game to the person who wins. A VAC ban doesn't make them a bad person. The lack of a VAC ban doesn't make them a good person (and it doesn't mean that they don't cheat in other ways).
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You could've just taken 1 not received if you hate them so much.
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Do private giveaways restricted to those on your friend list, and be sure it's free of VAC-abusers. Problem solved. :D
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Restricted to those of your friend list...
Why not just gift them the game and not involve the site at all? Rather a cheater gets some game then someone continue to milk CV and act superior for it.
I think what you are trying to say is for OP to do a private giveaway, disperse his link, but have a special, mod approved condition that the winner can not have a vac ban.
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If it's private you can give the link to whoever you want, and maybe consider only sharing the url to people who don't have a VAC ban.
if the winner had a VAC ban and you didn't get your rule approved by support first, the reroll won't be approved, even if your giveaway was private.
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Or you can make a private giveaway, post it in the forums and make a special rule about not giving it to VAC cheaters...
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Cheating/VAC bans are a wide area and in a certain sense, I have more respect for those who were VAC banned for grey area reasons than I do for those who never ran the risk of a VAC ban at all. If it could be proven that the banned user cheated purely to gain an advantage in a game and it was a recent enough action, then sure, I'd consider using an option like this - but I'd rather a game went to a known active cheater (who may very well deserve the gift anyway due to other contributions they've made) than unfairly punish someone who didn't deserve it, even if they're a relative minority.
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Well i have to comment now. I have a VAC ban. It happened 300+ days ago. Although i don't think I'm a cheater, i did contravene the EU policies for a specific game, and take my ban accordingly. I have created giveaways here etc, but feel that a "blanket Ban" on everyone that has had some issue with VAC, would be childish and premature. Please use some common sense and/or judgement here. If multiple VAC bans, then i agree with a re roll or at least monitor that account for leeching.
My 2 cents worth.
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I'm impressed that you've talked to 1 million VAC banned players and that only one of them told the truth. Personally I've only talked to a few and found them to be a mix of assholes and genuinely nice people, similar to the population in general, but maybe I was just lucky.
VAC is a system which relies on obscurity to be effective, so I always find it unusual that people talk like they know exactly how it works. :) Google brings up a number of results relating to VAC bans being applied manually - the nature of the system means there's no way to confirm these, but I don't think they can be so easily denied either. There are perhaps other ways that what Bakers says can be the truth. I'm curious about the exact nature of it too, but when people seem to be lining up to judge him for something he did once, 300+ days ago, and was willing to bring up here at all (even if it was vague) I can't blame him for not wanting to go into details.
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Time to address the haters and naives. It was because of an exploit. no "illegal program", That why i said i don't think I'm a cheater. It was part of the games programing. I may have just been unlucky and at the beginning of the cusp, before a patch was put into place to rectify the Dev's mistake. As for "Be a man and ADMIT your fucking mistake." like i said...."[I] take my ban accordingly"
Just saying that sometimes there is another side to the story, not just black and white.
There is no cure for stupidity, or in this case Naivety.
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That's still kinda vague, an exploit can refer to a very wide range of things, but it would have to be something pretty extreme to warrant a VAC ban. Personally, if I was in charge of a game, I'd only punish exploits where I feel there was a deliberate attempt to wreck the game or harm others (for example, excessive use of an exploit which would wreck a game's economy, or an exploit which stole accounts or assets from others accounts beyond a level reasonable for the game) - beyond that, it's a poor dev who punishes players for his own mistake.
I once tried to kill the otherwise invincible admin of a MMO using a funny exploit that involved burning people by giving them lit campfires - he woke up just in time to stop it, instakilled me, we laughed, and then he fixed the bug. That's what a proper dev does. :)
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No I didn't - I was posting hyperbole or some sort.
Indeed VAC relies on obscurity, even Gabe Newell only talked when he was forced by community - driven by cheater programmers, perhaps, about VAC. I've never claimed I know exactly how VAC works, nor do I claim I'm knowledgeable, but with a simple observations (regardless of black and white that Barkers was talking about) you'll see who's often on the wrong end. VAC system has had mistakes in the past, I believe thousands of not tens of thousands got banned falsely but Steam issued an apology and rectified the mistakes accordingly. If anything, I'd put my faith on that not-so-perfect system than random people on internet claiming they're being victim of VAC.
Now as to why my 'tone' or post was like that,
if you see around, bunch of real cheaters tried to make up an excuse. Now let's be real, count those liars how many of them, and count also how many falsely VAC banned victims, compare both numbers, which has a bigger count?
The said guy claimed he got banned because he contravened EU policy OR as he said: he used an exploit.
What did the exploit do? Simple, if it was giving advantage over other players, it is a cheat. End of story. If he didn't want to explain, more power to him. It's well within his right since it probably wasn't a pleasant thing to say and nobody has power to force him to talk. Well, except law.
Then again, the other side also has right to observe and judge. He got VAC banned, he was a cheater. Note that I said 'was' not 'is'. The story isn't relevant, it's what is written on his page 'VAC BANNED' on Steam profile.
In the end though, his statement was too obscure. Wtf was 'EU Policy' in a multiplayer game???? This is the first time ever I've heard about such policy. Not only I, just check the other two replies to his, and you'll see there were people questioning him for such statement.
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EU Policy is an unusual term, but I assume he's referring to the game's EULA or something similar.
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The easy way around is the one that's already been suggested. Do a private giveaway, post the link visibly on the forum, but add the rule that VAC banned users aren't eligible to enter - you should have it cleared with support first. I understand your qualms, and I'd even consider asking for a reroll on the grounds that a multiplayer game should not be getting on the hands of a cheater. I'm not sure how support would deal with that, but it'd be worth a shot. (Edit: I saw below that's not considered reason enough for a reroll, so ignore the second part.)
Please guys, don't hate me for suggesting two different ways to add to your workload! :)
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Yeah because you know a vac ban always means cheating....
Rolls eyes
Honestly do you really have nothing better to worry about? I hate cheaters as much as the next guy but if I see someone who won a game from me has one, I am not gonna loose my crap over it, maybe he got vac banned for modding a game? Who knows, not your probably unless you played this guy in a server and saw him cheating(Btw people get called cheaters that are just really good 80% of the time imo).
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Pretty sure mods factor in here, I heard a ton of people getting banned for mods even in single player portions.
"No program is 100% bug free. Our Windows, our Microsoft office, Linux etc. Even your android. Or for recent examples... Heartbleed issue.
Every single thing is unreliable. Us humans are also unreliable."
This was said by you, going by YOUR logic, not all VAC bans are cheat related.
Maybe stop getting all pissy while contradicting yourself in multiple posts all at once?
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No normal mods get you banned. Reading comprehension fail, Miss Hillary?
I'll mod Skyrim or cheat endlessly and post it for your eyes to see.
Oh wait.... I can get banned on Skyrim. OH WAIT SINGLE FUCKING PLAYER GAME CAN GET ME BANNED NOOOOOOOOOO!
Gotta love your logic.
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Oh you got attitude, cute, but that was proven wrong by countless people in the past, hey look one below us, SeanBahamut proved that just now! :-D
Of course Skyrim won't get you VAC banned...its SINGLE PLAYER ONLY. I am talking about games that have multi-player but are modded(In a none cheating way, unintentionally breaking some unwritten steam rules.)
Gotta love your reading comprehension....its funny how you ignore parts of the convo, up on xarabas post you do the same, its sorta sad haha.
I'm done here, you're ridiculous and are obviously just picking and choosing parts of peoples conversations in order to look right all the time, hell even xarabas said when he was wrong, what you can't do that? Oh well....
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Some mods can and DO get people banned.
Here's an example
(disclaimer: please no-one be stupid enough to download and use this mod. it has a giant RED TEXT WARNING saying you can be VAC banned)
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It should be pointed out that graphical mods, even intended as harmless, can have an effect on gameplay - for example, a graphical effect may make an enemy more visible than they're supposed to be. In that regard they are a potential cheat and it makes sense for VAC to pursue them. However, I feel more could be done to encourage appropriate use of such mods, like some kind of whitelist system where servers, or a vote by players, can determine what is and isn't allowed (on an otherwise protected server) without fear of banning.
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^ oh yes I completely agree. Many graphics mods can be exploited (hence why VAC blanket bans things like that). I think a player democracy would not be very good though, as it would probably take too long to get a proper consensus. I also wouldnt trust downloading mods and testing them on special servers, as I'd be afraid I wouldnt be able to scrub my games clean before going back on VAC-secure servers.
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Yeah, player voting systems generally don't work well, but under certain circumstances it's a good option to have. In general I would expect it to be just admin controlled, though.
I'd rather VAC could detect certain potentially allowed cheats and simply say "sorry, you'll have to disable that to play on this server" when appropriate, though in certain cases such a system could be abused by malicious cheat developers. It's a hard balance to get right. :/
The thing that annoys me right now is that Clickr - an awesome game with unfortunately broken multiplayer - says that it uses VAC. If anyone wanted to try and make an unofficial patch mod for it, they would have to run the risk of being banned.
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Thats the thing, people might use mods like this for enjoyment purposes without a clue of knowing it can VAC Ban them, its blurry is all, cant call everyone with a VAC ban a cheater...
Anyways NeverWinter Nights had a system like that, there were actually servers for cheats and cheat related stuff, was fun, actually put a whole new spin on character builds.
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some of the profiles have multiple vac bans , you can consider the first to be by accident but multiple ? check op winners profile i would be sad if such people won they are not helpful to the community in any way.
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Did you even think of the hacker/cheater community when you said they don't help the community in anyways? You're gonna hurt the feelings! :-D
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Not sure if this counts as calling out, but... Steamgifts somewhat shares a community with Steamtrades, where that person has 78 positive, 0 negative rep. I think at least some of those people (also part of the community) would say he's been helpful to the community from their point of view.
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Disregard the people throwing off-hand taunts at you. The internet is a giant gathering-place for drama vultures like them. They'll take any random excuse to sneer at someone regardless of the subject.
Regarding the give-away, you could open a support ticket and try to discuss it with a member of the support staff. Failing this, you can simply write in your giveaway description that you will reroll any winners who have a history of VAC bans, and you're pretty much covered.
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If the intent was to expose a private giveaway's link to everyone in a similar way to a public giveaway, and the reason for it was just somebody's VACphobia, then - while I don't know for sure - I think the staff would basically consider it a public giveaway and invalid for special rules, in much the same way that group giveaways in large, public groups are.
Nobody's saying the current rules are perfect, but if you make a change like that just for the sake of the people who are particularly vocal about VAC bans, then pretty much anything can be a rule with the same justification.
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Except no, not really. Also, that's the slippery slope fallacy. Making a single exception does not automatically mean anything unreasonable will automatically follow.
Not wanting to allow giveaways to apply to people who have previously taken steps to harm the enjoyment of others on Steam is perfectly rational.
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I never meant it would happen - I meant that it could happen, with the same justification. If you chose to reroll a giveaway because the winner was VAC banned, then I would feel entitled to choose to reroll a giveaway that you won, because by rerolling in that situation, you took a step to harm the enjoyment of someone on Steam. It's purely opinion.
I personally think the wave of negative opinion about VAC banned accounts is ridiculous. If someone was a real life criminal, you wouldn't know. If someone got banned on one account, but made a new one which was clean, you wouldn't know. Someone chooses to continue to use a VAC banned account though, and people care. It's got nothing to do with the severity of the offence - in general they don't know why the person got banned, who (if anyone) was harmed, or how those potential victims feel. People just see a VAC ban and think "yay, someone I can rage against and other people will support me!"
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And like I said, that's the slippery slope fallacy. For example : "If we let homosexual couples marry and get equal legal rights from marriage, then who is to say that people won't start marrying ROCKS or ELEPHANTS?". Using the slippery slope fallacy, all positive change would be halted, because if you follow any direction for long enough, it becomes an extreme.
You just said that you find people's negative opinions of cheaters 'ridiculous' because of the ability to make new accounts, and because real-life crimes don't come with a "I'm a criminal" tag? Uhm... what? :P
Nobody is 'raging' against people with VAC bans, we just don't want to support people that have been found abusing the system. Look, people are paying with their own money to offer up free games to people here, and if people don't wish to burn that money only to be met with a user with a recorded VAC ban, then where is the harm in allowing them to reroll based on this? Those without problems with VAC bans can happily give their games away to whoever they please, nobody is trying to take that away, but why try to enforce this value on others? It's akin to the people who make $0 CV giveaways saying "Nobody should be able to set a CV requirement for giveaways, why are you raging unjustifiably about this?"
The addition of a reroll-on-VACban option, which is entirely reasonable, isn't the big earth-shaking problem that some of you are making it out to be. We already have CV entry limits and even BLACKLISTS that you can get added to for so much as being -disliked- for any whim.
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In the majority of cases you have no proof of what a VAC banned user did to get that ban. Your proposed idea punishes those who are marked as VAC banned, regardless of the circumstances behind that ban, which the giveaway creator will (in most cases) be completely unaware of. Yes, in the majority of cases it may be simple, malicious cheating. However, there's plenty of other possibilities. It could be an accidental ban for non-malicious cheating/modding. It could have been an issue with a hijacker. It could have been something silly they did ages ago and have matured to a point they'd never do it again. The people actually affected by that player's actions may have completely forgiven them.
I mentioned the ability to make new accounts because your suggestion would only punish cheaters who are using an account flagged as VAC banned. If someone who had been banned many times before used a new account, you'd have no way of knowing. If someone cheated maliciously in non-VAC games, again, you'd have no way of knowing. If they had done something else you felt far more strongly about, you'd have no way of knowing. You'd just give them the gift, happy with yourself that you think they're a good person. It's completely reasonable to want to punish those who are actual, active, malicious cheaters - I don't particularly like them myself - but your suggestion isn't based on punishing those who you actually want to punish, those who abused the system. All it would do is create a false perception of that, and the only people who actually get punished are those who have already been punished and accepted that punishment.
CV and blacklists have been horribly abused too - the way you mention blacklists there suggests some disapproval - and I'd rather see them removed, or at least seriously reconsidered. If you're seriously using those features as justification for this, then it seems like you're proving a slippery slope can be valid.
As people have said, you already have options - private giveaways with pre-approved rules, handle the giveaway yourself, choose not to deliver a win and take the hit. None of those are ideal, of course, but it's the nature of making a system that caters for a wide range of people that it will never be perfect for anyone. What matters is that they do give you the control you want. I appreciate that you're looking for an option which allows you control without any of the downsides, but if you add an option like this, then I feel it would further promote hate towards people who don't deserve it.
Under very specific circumstances - for example, if somebody cheated maliciously, against you personally (or at least having a serious negative effect in a game you were in or otherwise involved with), it was recent enough, and you had proof of it, then (if I was in charge) I'd consider allowing the reroll. However, even if the staff agreed with that, they're busy enough and probably don't have time to play judge and jury for complicated cases.
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but beeing banned does not mean that somebody cheated.
me for example. i modded my server in MW2 with mods like "roll the dice" and such.
i knew that i someday get banned for it but i didnt care because i had fun, like the people that played on my server.
do i really deserve to get rerolled once i win a giveaway?
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Hello,
on my first giveaway it happened, what I feared... I had to give a game to a known cheater with multiple VAC Bans.
I am known for being a cheater hater, I don't care about people that insult me because of it. Well, so I would love have an OFFICIAL option to disallow entrences for any VAC Banned users.
I do NOT want to support cheaters with free games especially not multiplayer games.
That I exactly hit such a player on my very first giveaway really struck me.
Would like to hear other opinions about that.
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