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86 Comments
- SkeletaLlama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I haven't yet played HL, I don't own a gaming quality PC, but I plan on checking it out on Xbox when it's released. But I've been following all of this Valve/Steam crap that's been going on since the release of HL2. I was just wondering why people still respect a company that can screw up so badly. If Bungie did that to my Halo, I'd never buy another Bungie product again.
All of this copyright protection, DRM, anti-theft ***** has gone too far. From Sony rootkits to Valve/Steam to the RIAA and the MPAA, I'm fed up with this *****. I don't steal movie, music and games (anymore) but I'm seriously considering starting up again as a form of protest against this kind of stupidity.
I realize this article isn't about theft necessarily but this kind of uncooperative attitude on Valve's behalf is unreasonable and their customers shouldn't tolerate it. They inflicted Steam on their customers and (from what I heard) did little to help their customers in those first few days. And now they pull this crap on innocent users. It's crap and you shouldn't have to put up with being treated like this just because some company holds copyrights. Copyrights shouldn't entitle companies to abuse customers. - VladDrac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2How can anyone feel sorry for these losers? Steam was WELL publicized before Half-Life 2 was released. I too bought an advanced copy. I heard about Steam, about how Valve can turn off your account at any time. About how earlier Valve games are converted to the new DRM infested format. About how you give up any rights to resell your games without going through Valve.
After hearing about all of that draconian crap I received my copy of Half-Life 2 and quickly sold it to some sucker.
Let's face it, if the RIAA did something like this, think of the recent Sony incident with its root-kit, we'd be upset. But because a "cool" company like Valve did it, there was hardly ANY backlash.
If you guys want to PAY to be ***** up the ass. That's fine. Just don't bitch about it while Valve is ***** you. - MegaMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2SkeletalLlama said it best, this copy protection and DRM stuff has gone too far. It seems like a lot of companies have decided it doesn't matter who gets screwed so long as their content is protected (until it's cracked which it always is).
I have to say I liked the whole concept behind Steam, a service that allows you to download games and update them without having to hunt down the correct patch and so on. But Valve screwed it up big time. For instance when I first got Half-Life 2 (the day it was released) I wasn't even able to play it because the Steam servers were getting hammered so badly that I couldn't do something so simple as unlock my game. The real kick in the teeth was that people who had cracked versions were able to play without any problems.
An then Valve does this crap with not having any way to fight a wrong ban. If somebody paid for a copy of a game they sure better be able to play it when they want. If Valve feels like banning them from using it they should also refund that person's money since they are pretty much taking the game back.
Practices like this should be illegal. It would be like buying a TV from S-Mart and then having an employee come in some time and steal it back because you were watching content they didn't approve of. I understand wanting to fight cheaters and piracy, but punishing innocent people isn't the way to go about it. - SkeletaLlama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2screw EULAs. They shouldn't be constitutionally allowable. They're just a form of dictatorship for intellectual properties. No one should be able to tell me how I can use a product I purchase. When I go to Target and buy a package of Martini glasses, they can't then force me to sign an agreement not to drink Manhattans or Cosmopolitans out of them. If I buy a car, Honda can't tell me not to drive with certain products in my car or not drive through New Mexico. It's ridiculous that EULAs are allowed in our society. In my opinion they're a violations of my Civil Rights and the Supreme Court is in violation of my rights for helping to enforce these laws.
- donKey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hi.
I was actually banned by mistake. I had NO idea why. I asked, waiting 3 days and they said it was because of a chargeback on the credit card...Fast foward 3 more days I got an email from Doug V at Valve (big shot) apologizing for the mistake. I was reactivated. I believe this Digg. - shotgun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I visit the vac forum on steampowered a lot, no idea why... anyway here are some things I have noticed.
There is a glitch if you have a banned account and then log into a non-banned account it'll say that account is banned as well. You need to quit steam and restart it to solve the problem. I could care less though because I don't have a banned account for cheating and a legit account for normal use.
Once in a while someone takes down the vac server (either a valve employee doing maintenance or malicious attacks, neither are really ever disclosed by valve) and that has been known to send out temporary “vac status banned” notices until the user restarts. I've never personally experienced it, nor has anyone I play with online, but I have read about it a few times on the forums.
A lot of times accounts get stolen, either by guessing the password or otherwise. (a popular way seems to to be sending out spam mail addressed from valve saying they can be in the HL3 beta and they just need to send there username/password - people fall for it all day long for some stupid reason.)
Anyway, this article is ridiculous, I play the game a lot (unfortunately) and know a lot of great people that I play with on private servers. We're all legit (and mostly anti-piracy and %100 anti-cheating,) play every day and never had a single problem with vac since the beta was initiated.
Lastly, the great thing about delayed bans is that they're not banned for at least 2 weeks and usually 4-6. During that time it logs what cheat the user is using along with anything else valve wants to know. If you submit a support ticket I guarantee you valve looks over these logs for your steam i.d. just to make sure vac is actually working correctly. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a convincing post only to google their username plus hack and find forums they've used to download cheats and talk about them. If the guy that was falsely banned even exists and not just a scapegoat and the ban is still in place I guarantee he was cheating.
tldr: vac works fine stop overreacting. - gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They say right there on their FAQ that if they've banned you for hacking (whether you were or not) then they won't unban you and there's nothing you can do. They don't give you an email address or anything.
- gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ah, found another similar case on the Steampowered forums: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=355989
- gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1However, I did quote the only two posts in it in the thread I created, so you can see what was said in it.
- mattyG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1dude this happened to me last week. i was playing on a uwc3 server and the next day i tried to get back on and i was banned. i was like what the heck?!? i dont hack.... but i have another account but my char was lvld high in uwc3 so i was kinda pissed
- jasqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Valve deleting threads about their products being flawed on their own forums?
Seriously, if you really weren't cheating, and emailing them doesn't work, just steal the the game. It's fair at that point in my opinion. - Mark_H, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Somebody I used to play CS:S with had this happen to him. I didn't know it was this common.
- gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would have provided a link to the thread they closed, but it looks like it's now been deleted.
- DeCePTioN34, on 04/21/2008, -0/+1This just happened to me!
- BluParadox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This sounds alot like there being an update for steam sent out, and people not being allowed to play on old clients. Nothing to back it up, but the behavior is consistant with what you'd expect in that case since steam requires a restart to update.
I think it's likely that steam IDs are falsely being identified as being banned, so they are prevented from joining games. This is as opposed to actually being banned where they are recorded in their system as such. The problem becomes less important in that case. - VladDrac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1circusbred, you are so ignorant I'm surprised you're even conscious!
"People who whine about DRM and copy protection are generally those who feel they are entitled to the software/music/movies/etc, free of charge (aka stealing)."
DRM does NOT affect pirates. Despite decades of DRM infected content, it freely flows to those who don't want to pay. The only group that are affected are people who honestly pay. Those are the people who suffer with root-kits. Who are unable to load their music into their iPods. Who are unable to make various CDs of their music for friends and family, which is perfectly legal under the Home Recording Act.
Heck, I'd guess that real pirates, those that profit from their work, LOVE DRM. It makes their illegal copies move valuable. - imdrfreak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've been banned from playing on internet VAC servers. I have never cheated, nor do I even know how. I emailed Valve, and was informed that I was out of luck, that they're never wrong, and that if I emailed them back, I'd have my steam account shut down.
If anyone has filed a class action, I'd like to know. - starman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"People who whine about DRM and copy protection are generally those who feel they are entitled to the software/music/movies/etc, free of charge (aka stealing)."
*****.
I'm 38 and I buy everything I own now. I don't like DRM because it restricts my rights as to what I can do with what I bought. If I want to put it on a damn 8-track and listen to it in a cheap 8-track player I should have that right because it's not hurting the artist since I already paid for the music.
Same for these DRM-protected videos. If I buy it, I should be allowed to put it on my PSP, or burn it to a DVD for playback in the car for my kids, or whatever. - yaos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So the moral of the story is to ALWAYS pirate Valve games.
- dstart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've never been VAC banned, however I cannot believe some people are foolish enough to think the VAC system is defectless and does not miscalculate players actions.
The bottom line is, VAC was designed and built by humans therefore it is flawed by nature. This is software people.
The day Valve realizes that VAC is not as judicious as they claim is the day Gabe Newell gets VAC banned from his own game. - dougm0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Here is what I can tell you. Most of this is happening just after a Steam update. It has alreay happened to 3 of my friends accounts. One was lucky and the account was unbanned 2 days afterwards.
It is happening to people who are not using any mods or hacks or anything of that nature.
First friend it happened to Memorial Day weekend this year, second was mid August and the last one happened about 3 weeks ago.
Furthermore the first friend that had their account banned for no reason tried to contact steam for 3 MONTHS with zero reply. He gave them proof of purchase and everything in multiple emails, even tried to find a way to call them and they simply ignored him.
Everytime I use my steam account I fear I will be next.
Steam is treating everyone this happens to as if they are guilty and the consumers can do nothing about it. Im glad someone somewhere is finally speaking out and maybe my friends can get back what they rightfully paid their hard earned money for.
I do want to make some clarification that neither of them got banned by VAC. After the steam update they get a strange error message trying to load the game and then the account is disabled. Therefore, they cant even play single player for a game they have the reciept's for and Steam even has all their information to begin with because the accounts were purchased through Steam. It's total garbage and they dont give a damn.
Class Action anyone? - liquidcoooled, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1fli7e - I wonder how pissed you would be if you got banned now - just because VAC happened to notice you were running an executable with the words "cheat hl2" in its memory space (hint - firefox.exe and this thread)
It would really piss you off, and since we don't know the exact reason why VAC bans people, it could happen.
What I see as being needed is a detailed reason for the ban, naming the exact executable or problem that caused the ban would either confirm or deny the problems with this. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0math_Genius: he's talking about drm, not whatever the hell you're talking about
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0shii, you are a retard. DRM limits pirates' ability from playing multiplayer games.
- vertex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I was banned a while back from cs by VAC..... I wasnt cheating either. You probally wont believe me, but I wasn't.... at least not intentionally.If i was, it was without my knowledge
- Captainstarbucs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0believe it or not, this is still happening after a year of this thread, I've been chewing off the support teams fingers, emailing them as soon as they email me back.
I NEVER CHEATED
I BOUGHT THE GAME LEGALLY
THEY WONT TELL ME WHAT IM BANNED FOR!
This is seriously the worst gaming company ever.
Its a damn shame because CS and DoD were my favorite games - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Same thing happened to me.
I am in the Crossed-arrows clan, got banned, ( I wasnt cheating), clan thought I was, removed my admin, and doesnt trust me anymore. What is that, all valve's fault. - ximian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have been banned from Steam and don't know WHY! I have a valid account paid a f... 100$ for the collection version and now it is worthless. I sent an email to support because I was getting kicked once in a while, saying my account was used somewhere else. Wanted Steam to change my information but they never got back to me. I have sent repeated emails to steam without any replies. If I receive no replies from them in the next week or so I will be seeing a lawyer to start a Class Action Suit. I am sure I will have a lot a people on board! I can tell you that this is the last time i purchase a VALVE software or anything that uses STEAM because I am STEAMED PISSED!
- noaksey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If your account gets hacked, tough luck. People do have more then 1 way to steal your info apart from guessing your password. If you really haven't cheated and have never downloaded any hacks or things then it is the fault of you for making your account possible to get into, regardless of whether you knew about it or not! That really is the harsh reality of it all, and that's why Valve say your account is your responsibility. It really IS your responsibility, and for the most part everyone who complains they got banned for "no reason" did allow their account information to get 'hacked' regardless of whether you knew it was happening or not.
Shotgun is probably the only one that realizes such a thing. - [Lep], on 10/12/2007, -0/+0None of my 10 stolen accounts are banned, but I don't play HL/CS. ;)
- dongtoucher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My sons account was VAC banned and I know he has never cheated. He's a gullible 12 year-old and I'm sure some creep he met while playing convinced him to go to some website to see the uber cool doowhatjamajiggy which installed a piece of spyware that leaked his account info.
Why doesn't Valve put a little effort into protecting their honest paying customers from fraud? (Answer: because they don't care about you once you've purchased the product) They won't even tell you anything about why you were banned so you can try to determine if maybe your account was hijacked.
My account still works fine, but I only play about once every 3 months, so I guess he can just use mine. It really pisses me off how lousy they treat you though... I hope all the Valve NAZI's have their credit cards stolen and a bunch of charges rang up on them, then when they call the credit card company, they say "tough luck buddy.. it's your responsibility to protect your card!" - henningol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Valve also banned my account yesterday, I wrote them and got the same reply as anyone else. "Unfortunately, the VAC ban on your Steam Account will not be lifted. Please refer to the Steam Subscriber Agreement and the Rules of Steam Online Conduct if you wish to review our policy regarding this matter."
Luckily I just bought my account 5 days ago using my credit card so I can still do a charge-back, HA-HA! Kiss my shiny metal AZZ!
I have not been cheating in any way what so ever, and really I think the reason why they closed my account is that I have a cracked version of Half-Life 2 installed on another drive, I do not have any proof of this yet though but I will be testing it. Tomorrow I'm gonna reformat my old computer and buy a brand new steam account for it, then I will install the cracked version of HL2 on it and see what happens. If they ban that account to something does really not smell right, then they are sniffing through my whole computer, including my private documents and so, on now thast a violation of my privacy!
I opened an ANTI-valve Chan on IRC quakenet for this purpose #*****-VAC
Where are all the crackers at? it must be possible to crack steam so that banned users can play on VAC secured servers again, GET TO WORK YOU GUYS here is actually a chance to use your skills on behalf of the legal paying customers!!! - gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0From Valve:
"We do audit bans when people log Support Incidents. We do not give out specifics (if we disclose what cheats we find, we disclose what we are looking for). The recent VAC issue was NOT one of falsely banning people (for cheats we didn't find) it was for enforcing past bans that had expired. This was discovered and fixed within about 24 hours."
Okay, so it turns out that they *will* audit a ban if you create a support ticket. Why, then, on the FAQ does it not mention this? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"DRM does NOT affect pirates. Despite decades of DRM infected content, it freely flows to those who don't want to pay. The only group that are affected are people who honestly pay. Those are the people who suffer with root-kits. Who are unable to load their music into their iPods. Who are unable to make various CDs of their music for friends and family, which is perfectly legal under the Home Recording Act."
actully pirates can't play steam games on valve multiplyer servers. - LonylyTruth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you owned Valve people in the game they might banned you or someone that hates you and have the power to banned you with no reason lol
- TheThing999, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0So that's why my account was banned from VAC servers. I hope this situation will be under control at some point. Besides, I actually bought Zone Alarm Security Suite, the #1 firewall, that protects me daily.
- animator3000, on 10/07/2008, -0/+0god dam it i have those people from valve i have been banded from 2 account and i didnt even used cheats and now i cant play on any server now that suck
- joebus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0roxet, you couldnt of said it better
- dstart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0roxet: and guess what, you're an ignorant bastard.
- headcrab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0what the hell has that got to do with anything? thatd be like a traffic cop sayin "oh, look, that guys speeding. ill arrest the guy in the car right behind him, even though hes going to speed limit, and is following all of the rules of the road."
i think steam is a load of crap, and valve just needs to stop screwing with stuff. i cant believe the audacity of valve. after theyve already made money off a purchase, theyre gonna ban the person to make more money when they buy a new account. the only reason i dont just stop playing and uninstall steam and all of the other programs is because im addicted to counter strike and i have a bunch of friends on there.
dug - micromause, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Does VAC ever make mistakes?
There are no “false positives”. We will not un-ban you for any reason. You are responsible for your account regardless of who used your account."
WOW! They made software that doesn't have bugs?? MY GOD! Microsoft should get in on this racket. =P - SirBriggs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Also, servers automatically load stuff onto your computer .. so who knows, maybe there is a mod/something that shows up as a hack once it gets loaded onto your computer."
....thinking the same thing. - Stopher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I don't mind using Steam, I just hate that it's another one of these stupid programs that starts up everytime you boot up and it has a tendency to lock up my computer if it can't get an internet connection right away and there's no option to have it do otherwise. It just get's annoying having all these little update programs that you have to jump through hoops to turn off ,if you even can without uninstalling them. They make your computer take 10 minutes to start up. The people who write them should die of slow cancer.
- xil3nt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0OMG FINALLY SOMEONE HAS BROUGHT THIS UP ON A BIG SITE!!! IM BANNED TO FOR NO REASON STUPID STEAM:@:@:@
- covaro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Of course, if it weren't for the fact that so many people cheated on these games this wouldn't be an issue.
- TKBaby13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0by dongtoucher on 11/17/05
My sons account was VAC banned and I know he has never cheated. He's a gullible 12 year-old and I'm sure some creep he met while playing convinced him to go to some website to see the uber cool doowhatjamajiggy which installed a piece of spyware that leaked his account info.
Why doesn't Valve put a little effort into protecting their honest paying customers from fraud? (Answer: because they don't care about you once you've purchased the product) They won't even tell you anything about why you were banned so you can try to determine if maybe your account was hijacked.
My account still works fine, but I only play about once every 3 months, so I guess he can just use mine. It really pisses me off how lousy they treat you though... I hope all the Valve NAZI's have their credit cards stolen and a bunch of charges rang up on them, then when they call the credit card company, they say "tough luck buddy.. it's your responsibility to protect your card!
You couldnt of put it any better they dont care about us as long as they make there money because i had the game 7 days and im banned now it pisses me off so much that i wasted $50 over some worthless crap like this. - IvanAndreevich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My account was banned for no reason. It was from a legit coupon that came with an ATi card. I never cheated either.
- iFindout, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Steam is still alive!??..those kids!. I think the HL series is past its glory days.
- aznboi04k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i don't trust the article. i still think his bro might of been hacking.
- TVIRO900, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The same thing happend to me. i only played cs and dod and they banned me from all secure servers. so i emailed them and they said that they wont remove the ban or anyones ban since juin 2005. and that my account is my responsiblility.i never even cheated on any off my steam games.i guess it could of came in when i was going to different servers? so i emailed them back and and complained saying wtf? why did you even ban me and they didn't tell me.i was able to login to steam 2day but as soon as i said logout and sign in with different user and retried 2 re login 2 min my account was de ativated. always check off the box remeber my password! VALVE SUCKS! and yet i still try to play their games.
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