Call of Duty: Black Ops PC Multiplayer FAQ

[bobytt]

Call of Duty: Black Ops PC Multiplayer FAQ


Full feature support: Confirmed
Ranked Servers: earn XP and currency. Wager Servers: gamble your currency. Customizable Unranked Servers. Combat Training against practice dummies. Theater. Create-a-Class "2.0." Contracts. Emblem editor. Everything the consoles get. Implemented in a way that makes sense for PC (*cough* no lobbies *cough*).

PC Features: Confirmed
Dedicated Servers. New Server Browser. Dev console. /record. Customizable game modes, perks, killstreaks, classes, and higher player counts on unranked servers. Map rotation. RCon. Kick & Ban. MOTD. In-game custom Server Banners. And more.

Mod Tools: Confirmed
We will release mod tools sometime post-launch. We need to finish the game first. Then we will make sure any urgent issues are handled. Then we will begin work on tools. The extent of the mod tools package will not be known until this time.

Global Persistent Stats, Profiles: Confirmed
Your profile data is stored on servers for you and is accessible from anywhere on the internet. Stats, XP, COD Points, configs, etc.

Leaderboards: Confirmed
Yes, leaderboards - globally persistent leaderboards (i.e. NOT per-server based).

Steam Exclusive: Confirmed
Millions of Call of Duty fans are already on Steam. Their Friends are on Steam. Steam will provide the ease of auto-updating instead of manual patching. Auto-updating will also help keep the community playing together on the latest version. The Steam cloud will make your profile and configs available to you on any computer.

VAC: Confirmed ---> FAIL
We are serious about protecting the integrity of this game from hackers and cheaters who would otherwise ruin the fun for the honest players. Used in conjunction with our own anti-exploit measures, Theater reviews, trusted servers, and supplemented by server admins with kick and ban powers we believe that Valve Anti-Cheat will be an effective solution for Call of Duty: Black Ops PC. We are committed to working closely and diligently with Valve to deal with new threats as they appear.

No ?Public Server Files?: Confirmed ---> FAIL
Many of these game features are predicated on having a trusted host or server. Otherwise these features would be wide-open to easy exploits and rampant cheating. Also, anti-cheat solutions can be significantly more effective on games that rely on trusted servers. We chose against ?public server files? in favor of providing full feature support and protecting the integrity of this title. This doesn't mean you won't have customization or admin capabilities with your servers - because you will. This simply means we've partnered with an exclusive server provider.

GameServers.com Exclusive: Confirmed ---> FAIL
We have partnered with GameServers.com as the exclusive provider of dedicated servers for Call of Duty: Black Ops. Every dedicated server for this title will be running on top quality hardware and infrastructure with excellent bandwidth. There will be a ton of official servers at launch for everyone to play on for free. If you want to run your own server you will be able to rent one at a great price (which will never go higher than $0.99/slot). They are actively adding new server locations and staffing up to meet global demand. If you don?t see your location you can suggest it here: Rent Call of Duty Black Ops Servers & Hosting - GameServers.com

Max Players: Not Confirmed most likely 18 ---> FAIL
We have not yet finalized the maximum number of players in ranked or unranked servers. More playtesting is required to determine how high these numbers can go. This happens as late as possible in the project otherwise the game is likely to change in ways that could invalidate the results.

Minimum System Requirements: Not Confirmed
The game is still in development, and the PC team is hard at work making further optimizations. We will announce the min specs in the near future.

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Hopefully that answers the majority of the outstanding questions not answered from our MP Reveal coverage. There are still some questions we do not have answers for at this time, so as always, we appreciate your patience. We will have all questions answered before November 9th.

Regards,
-JD, PC Dev, & the PC Team

[Ghost_Rain]

After reading this the games off my buy list now

[K PhaNTOM]

After reading this the games off my buy list now

What exactly changed your mind? This info was revealed and EXPECTED a year ago.

Still on my list, then again, I can't seem to skip any COD games. Even if the last 2 lasted me 2 months.

[Sir Psycho Sexy]

at least admins can vote kick, and ban cheaters, hopefully the bans will stick and there is no way to get around them....idk, im just hoping they release a map builder because id like to start being able to do that once again

[Ghost_Rain]

What exactly changed your mind? This info was revealed and EXPECTED a year ago.

Still on my list, then again, I can't seem to skip any COD games. Even if the last 2 lasted me 2 months.

The Vac Crap for 1 mate.

[Caddys83]

Can't wait

[Sir Psycho Sexy]

The Vac Crap for 1 mate.

the VAC crap wont matter as long as the CLR game admins can still ban by ip address...if not then BFBC2 will still see the most action, at least until BF3 comes out

[Ghost_Rain]

All I can say is roll on BF3

[Dead...Again]

What's wrong with VAC?

[Caddys83]

From tha Great Wiki

Valve Anti-Cheat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Advantages
Total integration through Steam, including using the Steam framework for any update tasks
Delayed bans deny cheat producers accurate and timely information
As of VAC2, client-side updates are not always required to detect new cheats,[citation needed] again denying cheat producers information.
[edit]

Disadvantages
Delayed bans (see below) means that cheaters are free to disrupt other players until their ban takes effect.
This may entice others to cheat, taking an "if they can do it so can I" attitude.
The burden of banning individual cheaters who have been detected by VAC but not yet banned remains on server administrators.
This also leads to the skewing of statistics and ranking systems, even if the cheaters' data is removed when they are banned.
VAC cannot detect 'content hacks', where, for example, texture transparency and color are manipulated, since they do not involve modification of any program code. In the Source engine the option to create "pure" servers (sv_pure) that prevent custom content from overwriting the game's defaults was created to alleviate this.
[edit]

Delayed bans, criticism & rationale
If a cheat is found the player's Steam account will be flagged as cheating immediately, but the player will not receive any indication of the detection. It is only after a delay of "days or even weeks"[6] that the account is permanently banned from "VAC Secure" servers[7] for that game, along with other games that use the same engine. (e.g. Valve's Source games, GoldSrc games, Unreal engine games). Valve never discloses which cheat was detected.[edit]

False-positive detections
Some who are banned by VAC claim that it has made a false positive. Here a distinction must be made among false positives caused by incorrect detection, and grey-area false positives caused by correctly-identified code modifications which do not actually offer an unfair advantage.

There are four recorded instances of incorrect detections, all quickly rescinded:
1.VAC1: On its initial release, VAC would issue bans for faulty memory. Valve quickly updated VAC to only kick for faulty memory[8] and reversed all bans for faulty memory.
2.VAC1: The effect of running the VAC-protected game through the Cedega software compatibility layer for Linux.[9]
3.VAC1: An apparent server-side glitch on April 1, 2004.[10]
4.VAC2: Over two weeks in July 2010, approximately 12,000 owners of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 were banned when Steam updated a DLL file on-disk after it had been loaded into memory by the game. Those affected received a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 and/or a gift copy to send to a friend.[11][12][13]

There are four recorded instances of the "benign cheats" described above triggering bans. These are:
1.VAC1: HLamp, which allowed the user to control Winamp from the game's interface. Detection later reversed, and all bans caused by it rescinded.
2.VAC2: The X-Spectate tool, which allowed server administrators to enable a wallhack effect while spectating to help decide if another player was doing the same. Later downgraded to a kick from the server, but bans not rescinded.
3.VAC2: The single-player Half-Life modifications Paranoia and Half-Life FX, which made changes to the engine's renderer that propagated to multi-player games.[14] This still triggers a ban and no bans caused by it have been reversed.
4.VAC and VAC2: sXe Injected, an anti-cheat system for Counter-Strike, however, does not trigger a VAC ban anymore.[citation needed]
Cheats may be hidden inside otherwise legitimate mod or skin downloads that are created to maliciously get innocent people banned. Since the source of a cheat installed on a computer cannot be proven, bans due to this are never rescinded.[6][edit]

Manually-applied bans
In July 2010, several players who successfully used information leaked from Valve to increase their chances of crafting a special Team Fortress 2 item found themselves banned by VAC.[15

[Reconsnipe1]

Looks awsome

[bobytt]

Awesome. Bring more VAC MW2 type of hackers FTW!

[{CLR} Cobalt]

They could give a sheit about cheating. There big deal is pirating.Thus the use of steam. This really sucks bad.

Gaming as we know it has gone by the wayside due to a few money grubbing individuals that changed the industry. History has been written and we were in the middle of it all. To the bad I'm afraid. These people dont even play games. They just go to shareholder meetings. Pat each other on the back while they laugh at poor schmucks like me and you on their way to the bank.

So terribly and unjustifiably bad for us.

[Skud]

Awesome. Bring more VAC MW2 type of hackers FTW!

Lol...ugh.