Kernel-mode anticheat is a huge nope

[GooberMan]

15 minutes ago, Linguica said:

How soon should encrypted-memory-by-default be the hardware standard, Gooberman?

SOON

[NoXion]

49 minutes ago, GooberMan said:

"Doomers held at gunpoint forced to stop playing their game"

 

The only people actually forced to stop playing the game is the ones the publisher/Denuvo is considering (ie people playing through Proton on Linux, people getting crashes that might be unrelated since it's a whole new update, etc) and cheaters whose cheats are broken. Everyone else is just taking an ideological stand.

Which, you know, is fine. It's your money. I just find it hilarious considering how many other bad drivers people install daily that an anti-cheat driver is the hill they've chosen.

 

(Ask me about how soon encrypted-memory-by-default should be the hardware standard, since that'll make the need to out-cheat the cheaters much less relevant.)

The old "tHeY'rE nOt hOlDinG a gUn tO yOuR hEaD" nonsense is an irrelevant fallacy used to excuse all kinds of shitty practices. Why should I be forced to choose between the security of my systems and being able to play a game that I paid money for? DAC is secure for the moment, but how long until that is no longer the case? You know that you can't honestly say "it'll never happen". Cybercrime and mass surveillance are facts of life now. Video games as an industry are as mainstream as the film industry.

Dismissing peoples' concerns about this just because some of them might have installed bad drivers at some point makes no sense. Apart from the fact that they're not necessarily the same people, there are all sorts of potential reasons why they might not have ever brought it up before. In my case it's because I previously had no fucking idea about how anti-cheat stuff works. In my naivete I just assumed that the developers of anti-cheat software were clever enough to write something that could detect cheating without demanding all the keys to the kingdom to do so.

 

[GooberMan]

10 minutes ago, NoXion said:

The old "tHeY'rE nOt hOlDinG a gUn tO yOuR hEaD" nonsense is an irrelevant fallacy used to excuse all kinds of shitty practices. 

"Ironic hyperbolic response gets serious hyperbolic response on internet forum. News at 11"

[NoXion]

32 minutes ago, GooberMan said:

"Ironic hyperbolic response gets serious hyperbolic response on internet forum. News at 11"

I'm sorry, it looks like I might have got the wrong end of the stick. Were you being at all serious?

[seed]

1 hour ago, NoXion said:

In my naivete I just assumed that the developers of anti-cheat software were clever enough to write something that could detect cheating without demanding all the keys to the kingdom to do so.

 

Yeah, this is another concern. If it did its job y'know, but it does not, no anti-cheat is perfect, and granting them full system access does not make them more efficient while also exponentially increasing security and stability risks for the end user without benefiting them in any form.

 

And "you're not forced to play/buy it, so?" is a cretinuous idea I am completely sick and fucking tired of honestly. It's nothing more than an invalid, pathetic excuse from people who are too lazy to do their research, fight for what they care, and choose instead to allow others to dictate them whatever they want, and them to accept it. It was and still is the same for MTX for instance, "but you're not forced to invest into them/buy those games, duh", and look where we are now, because not enough people cared to fight them or even supported the practices. It reminds me of a quote I ran into a while ago, to some extent - "but it bore no fruit, for the slaves had learned to love their chains."

Edited May 18, 2020 by seed

[hybridial]

@seedI saw something about this the other day but only really started looking into it today and wow. This whole thing is really scummy and I am very disappointed in id. 

 

And I think the nature of the software is far less relevant than the manner in which they've introduced it, which is to withhold their intent of adding it until after most of the upfront purchases were made, it's sketchy as hell and I imagine illegal. 

 

I'm gonna try and request a refund. I mean, I was willing to accept I bought the game with my set up not allowing for the performance I wanted from it, but I understand that's an issue on my end and I was intending on addressing it eventually. 

 

This though, sets a horrible precedent for software retail and does go into outright bad faith and dishonesty. And I thought SNK turning down epic only to go lol Stadia was an embarrassment for a company I once held a lot of respect for. This is what I put in my request - 

 

Quote

I am asking for this refund on the basis that Doom Eternal has been updated with Denuvo Kernel-mode anticheat, in a manner which infringes on the legal agreement made by the original purchase of the game. When this happened I didn't have the game installed, and I have not installed that update. My intent was to resume the game after making a graphics card upgrade but this turn of events with this anti-cheat software I think sets an extremely poor standard for consumer rights, and is by both EU and UK law illegal, and I feel I have been taken advantage of by the provider's action and by their failure to inform anyone of their intent until this update.

 

[seed]

13 minutes ago, hybridial said:

@seedI saw something about this the other day but only really started looking into it today and wow. This whole thing is really scummy and I am very disappointed in id. 

 

And I think the nature of the software is far less relevant than the manner in which they've introduced it, which is to withhold their intent of adding it until after most of the upfront purchases were made, it's sketchy as hell and I imagine illegal. 

 

I'm gonna try and request a refund. I mean, I was willing to accept I bought the game with my set up not allowing for the performance I wanted from it, but I understand that's an issue on my end and I was intending on addressing it eventually. 

 

This though, sets a horrible precedent for software retail and does go into outright bad faith and dishonesty. And I thought SNK turning down epic only to go lol Stadia was an embarrassment for a company I once held a lot of respect for. This is what I put in my request

 

Nice 👍.

 

As I have stated multiple times, my issue is two-fold: a) It is a kernel driver, thus a serious concern for security and stabily and b) it was introduced silently only well after the refund period expired which as you said, sets an extremely poor unprecedent for scummy practices and total lack of transparency, and as we have seen, neither id or Bethesda have done anything to address the concerns, and probably will not anytime soon either...

 

If I was to buy it, I would have requested a refund as well. I guess not buying games at launch has its advantages too, not to mention never buying games at their full price.

[Doom_Dude]

2 hours ago, hybridial said:

I'm gonna try and request a refund.

 

Good luck. I tried twice and was denied using their 'I would Like A Refund' menu using 'My Issue Isn't Listed'.

 

I was on Reddit today and read that refund requests for games that are over the 2 hour minimum / 2 week purchase date are all automatically denied.

 

So if you're over the time period / purchase date your best bet is to: Go to support->purchases->doom eternal->I have a question about this purchase, and then ask for a refund and explain the issue in full detail there. I'm gonna try this route later, when I get a chance.

 

1 hour ago, seed said:

I guess not buying games at launch has its advantages too, not to mention never buying games at their full price.

 

That's what I do 99% of the time. So I kinda just threw caution to the wind and bought Doom Eternal the day before it launched. The last time I paid full price for a game was on Skyrim's release. I'm going back to not buying games at launch and waiting for a sale, even if it takes years. lol

Edited May 18, 2020 by Doom_Dude

[seed]

2 minutes ago, Doom_Dude said:

That's what I do 99% of the time. So I kinda just threw caution to the wind and bought Doom Eternal the day before it launched. The last time I paid full price for a game was on Skyrim's release. I'm going back to not buying games at launch and waiting for a sale, even if it takes years. lol

 

Heh, yeah, but sometimes if it's a series of games they may get packed together at some point and be sold for ludicrous prices as a result - see what happened to Fear on Steam :(.

 

Buying games at launch nowadays is a very bad idea anyway since they are all too often very buggy, crash-happy, or have other kinds of issues. So I always buy them on sale now, or well after their price drops considerably. Besides, I mostly buy older games anyway since there's a lot I missed over the years, I rarely ever buy triple-A games anymore since I usually don't meet their system requirements anymore, so there's just no point. Last game I bought at full price was NFS Undercover, and that was way back in 2008.

[hybridial]

17 minutes ago, Doom_Dude said:

 

Good luck. I tried twice and was denied using their 'I would Like A Refund' menu using 'My Issue Isn't Listed'.

 

I was on Reddit today and read that refund requests for games that are over the 2 hour minimum / 2 week purchase date are all automatically denied.

 

So if you're over the time period / purchase date your best bet is to: Go to support->purchases->doom eternal->I have a question about this purchase, and then ask for a refund and explain the issue in full detail there. I'm gonna try this route later, when I get a chance.

 

Okay I've tried that so let's see if they'll grant it this time. 

[Quasar]

50 minutes ago, seed said:

Buying games at launch nowadays is a very bad idea anyway since they are all too often very buggy, crash-happy, or have other kinds of issues. So I always buy them on sale now, or well after their price drops considerably. Besides, I mostly buy older games anyway since there's a lot I missed over the years, I rarely ever buy triple-A games anymore since I usually don't meet their system requirements anymore, so there's just no point. Last game I bought at full price was NFS Undercover, and that was way back in 2008.

Doom Eternal was a huge personal exception for me. Other than games in the Doom series, I have never pre-ordered anything. I have never bought anything that has microtransactions or premium cosmetics. I held out until the day before release to lock in my order for the Deluxe Edition to get the bonus content after I thought we were in the clear on objectionable features - Marty & Hugo already denied there'd be mtx or a shop, updates were said to be free, DRM was going to be the minimally annoying DAT as usual and would (a reasonable person thought) probably get removed a few months after launch.

 

Boy did I get schooled. Never fucking again. At the rate this is going they'll be lucky if I even buy the next game at all, and it definitely won't be within months of the launch date. I don't fuck around with this kind of bullshit.

 

They have betrayed their core fanbase and are going to pay for it for a long time.

[Man of Doom]

Welp, the plot thickens. Granted, it’s a case of a false positive, but to even see this in the first place is goddamn disgraceful.

 

 

12 minutes ago, Quasar said:

They have betrayed their core fanbase and are going to pay for it for a long time.

That implies that Bethesda didn’t just kill one of their game studios EA-style as well as one of the most popular FPS franchises ever known in one fell swoop.

[NoXion]

1 minute ago, Man of Doom said:

That implies that Bethesda didn’t just kill one of their game studios EA-style as well as one of the most popular FPS franchises ever known in one fell swoop.

I don't understand why they would do that. At least with revenue enhancement bullshit, the motive is obvious. But this? That cliche about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs comes to mind.

[seed]

5 minutes ago, Quasar said:

Doom Eternal was a huge personal exception for me. Other than games in the Doom series, I have never pre-ordered anything. I have never bought anything that has microtransactions or premium cosmetics. I held out until the day before release to lock in my order for the Deluxe Edition to get the bonus content after I thought we were in the clear on objectionable features - Marty & Hugo already denied there'd be mtx or a shop, updates were said to be free, DRM was going to be the minimally annoying DAT as usual and would (a reasonable person thought) probably get removed a few months after launch.

 

Boy did I get schooled. Never fucking again. At the rate this is going they'll be lucky if I even buy the next game at all, and it definitely won't be within months of the launch date. I don't fuck around with this kind of bullshit.

 

They have betrayed their core fanbase and are going to pay for it for a long time.

 

True, in fact I think Eternal was a big exception even for the people who typically don't buy games at full price, much less pre-order, because of how professional everything about D2016 was, which even got its DRM removed altogether once it reached the end of support.

 

Fast forward to present day and we get a complete slap over the face, in addition to being treated with nothing but absolute silence from both id and Bethesda. It's embarrassing really... I think this taught us all a valuable lesson that no hero is infallible, and it kind of shows how gullible we can be sometimes when we trust something too much as well. I found the part about DRM in your post rather interesting, if true, then it could easily qualify as either misleading advertisement, or outright false advertising by id/Bethesda.

 

My track record, when it comes to games incorporating MTX and other greedy practices is quite solid too. Up to this date, the sole exception to the rule was CS:GO, for two reasons: a) I was much more competitive at the time and b) I was also less conscious about these things. But that being said, the total amount of cash I have spent on MTX, P2W, lootboxes, and so on amounts to exactly 0$ up to this day, and it's forever staying that way,especially now when you start weighting things a lot more with age, and when other priorities take over. Besides, everything is possible if the will/determination is strong enough to back it up, you just have to realize that, and I assure you I've got plenty of that.

 

It sucks, it fucking sucks to not be able to play any game you may otherwise enjoy and play to death thanks to shit that was added to it, but we need to understand once and for all that investing into these games only contributes at making the industry even more greedy and destructive than it already is - and there is no such thing as "supporting the game/devs, not the practices" erhm, no, you bought it, it means you've contributed to the fact either directly or indirectly, there's no way around, that's a very naive and reductionist approach to take, if not outright flawed. Last time a game I was otherwise looking forward to added crap was MK11, which in itself was quite a surprise to me after 9 and 10 had none of that, caught me off-guard, the damn thing. Welp, there went another game I hadn't bought as a result. Youtube videos and streams it shall be then.

[Kristian Nebula]

Yeah, I also never pre-order and don't really even play that much games. Because of the beer cold I have played excessively compared to what I'd normally do.

 

But as I loved DOOM 2016, briefly even more than playing classic DOOM games I didn't hesitate to let my fanboy self rampage free and order the CE, Artbook, McFarlane toy and at launch the game from Steam because the CE being late for five days like I mentioned in an earlier post. It's nice to have this stuff, and not being able to play the game now. BIG LOL. Never again, heh.

 

Now it's time to complete my 2nd music album, which will then be released in early 2021 and I'll be able to play it on all those festivals once it becomes possible again. This was a good emergency break for my Doom Eternal Rampage :D

 

EDIT. And I ordered the CE specifically to get the helmet for my 20-years artist career anniversary masquerade party which will still hopefully happen this Halloween :D

[Caffeine Freak]

I know I'm not the first person to suggest this, but regardless of how this situation plays out and who the main culprit(s) of the game crashes and bad performance turn out to be, it would be a wise move to always include the topic of Ring 0 anticheat software in questions about future game releases.

 

This would be especially pertinent in the case of a studio like id, who have enjoyed a level of transparency with their fanbase in recent years that many studios have not. Take advantage of this and ask them, bluntly and unequivocally, be it on social media or in a Q&A at Quakecon: 'Will this game include Denuvo or any other Ring 0 level anticheat software, either at release or in any future patches?' Any answer that is meandering, vague, unclear or indirect should be seen as an evasion, and should serve as a warning. 

 

Make this topic an inescapable one, and make sure the very concept of Ring 0 anticheat software is toxic in a very public way, the same way microtransactions have become in recent years. The way this is blowing up right now is certainly unpleasant (and again, we still don't know for sure what the cause of the performance lags and crashes are), but the very public manner in which it is unfolding could hopefully serve as a catalyst for this type of change.

[NoXion]

Would they even admit it if it turned out that DAC was the reason for the performance issues? They weren't exactly upfront with us about their plans to include it.

Not that performance is the issue in my eyes, but it's something to bear in mind.

[Caffeine Freak]

25 minutes ago, NoXion said:

Would they even admit it if it turned out that DAC was the reason for the performance issues? They weren't exactly upfront with us about their plans to include it.

Not that performance is the issue in my eyes, but it's something to bear in mind.

 

They may not admit it up front, but I think id are reactive enough to both their own tech problems and the complaints of their fanbase (especially when the complaints are at this magnitude) that their future actions should speak for themselves, regardless of whether or not they verbally acknowledge it. If they ditch DAC in the future, that says everything, regardless of what reasons they give (or don't give) for doing so.

 

Them not being up front about it's inclusion is something that troubles me as well, but I'm trying to view this from all possible angles. Did anyone ask them about the anticheat software they planned on using? I could be wrong, but I don't remember it being a big topic of discussion. Somebody link me something if I'm incorrect here. 

[Dark Pulse]

4 hours ago, hybridial said:

I saw something about this the other day but only really started looking into it today and wow. This whole thing is really scummy and I am very disappointed in id. 

Stuff like this is almost NEVER a developer choice.

 

Developers know they'll take the blame for if anything goes wrong. Many developers actually don't like DRM, I think. I mean, all it does is steal away time from the game running and so on.

 

It's fairly safe to say that almost always, DRM is a PUBLISHER decision, not a developer one. Publishers rarely get blamed. Sometimes, even the "primary" devs don't get blamed.

 

Case in point, Aliens: Colonial Marines.

• Sega contracted Gearbox to make it.
• Gearbox fucked around because Borderlands 2 was being made at the same time. Time spent on A:CM is time not spent on Borderlands 2.
• Gearbox then fobbed development off to another studio (TimeGate Studios) so they could focus on Borderlands 2, basically giving them a whole bunch of loose assets and telling them "Go get 'em, boys!"
• Gearbox left them all sorts of hung out to dry, so it was totally up to a small studio to try to scrape a AAA-class game together.
• Game comes out in a shaky state as a result. Everyone shits on it. News comes out Gearbox subcontracted to TimeGate.
• TimeGate gets fucked and dissolves, taking virtually the entire blame despite that they did the best they could with the scraps they were given.
• Gearbox is fine because it's a big-name dev and can absorb the short-term reputation hit (because hey, everyone likes Borderlands!).
• Sega as a whole basically gets forgotten in the entire thing.

In other words, don't blame id - blame Bethesda/Zenimax.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Dark Pulse

[Caffeine Freak]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the whole notion that this was a decision by id doesn't make a lot of sense to me. In no way am I saying that id can do no wrong, but the idea that they deliberately set out to deceive people because they knew this would piss everyone off seems absurd. It's the LAST thing a dev would want to do to a game they just released to record sales and critical acclaim. After all, they're not even *done* working on Doom Eternal, in the sense that they're still working on paid DLC they just released screenshots for. They can't very well make a return off the DLC if everyone is uninstalling Eternal, review bombing it and trying to get refunds. Given all this, the notion that they were purposefully deceptive, and are now behind the scenes laughing on their way to the bank because it's safely past the refund period, just doesn't really click.

[Mr. Freeze]

Boy do I feel dumb about pre-ordering this. 

 

I uninstalled DE, but I am hopeful that one day there will be a workaround. 

[Smouths]

1 hour ago, Caffeine Freak said:

Yeah, the more I think about it, the whole notion that this was a decision by id doesn't make a lot of sense to me. In no way am I saying that id can do no wrong, but the idea that they deliberately set out to deceive people because they knew this would piss everyone off seems absurd.

 

While I agree with this, I'm still going to be pretty wary of them from here on, at least until they're out from underneath Bethesda's thumb- and even then, probably not until they've released at least a game where this sort of thing doesn't happen.

[Dark Pulse]

45 minutes ago, Smouths said:

While I agree with this, I'm still going to be pretty wary of them from here on, at least until they're out from underneath Bethesda's thumb- and even then, probably not until they've released at least a game where this sort of thing doesn't happen.

That won't happen. Bethesda bought the studio and basically is heavily invested in using id's technology for their own future products.

[Smouths]

2 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

That won't happen. Bethesda bought the studio and basically is heavily invested in using id's technology for their own future products.

 

Probably so, but we can dream, right?

[Spectre01]

6 hours ago, Doom_Dude said:

So I kinda just threw caution to the wind and bought Doom Eternal the day before it launched.

Hah, that's exactly what I did after seeing it 20% off on GreenManGaming. So I thought, why not, it's on sale and I'll get Doom 64 since it'll count as a pre-order. Too bad it was the Bethesda Launcher edition, but whatever.

 

But I will echo the statement of not buying AAA titles at launch. Unless you're really paranoid about spoilers or want to play it on release with all the cool kids, it just seems more sensible to wait a while for a more polished experience after all the usual problems get ironed out with patches.

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, Smouths said:

Probably so, but we can dream, right?

"It's called a dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

[Smouths]

13 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

"It's called a dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

 

...You realize I was implying that in all likelihood I'd just be wary of id, right?

[Dark Pulse]

Just now, Smouths said:

...You realize I was implying that in all likelihood I'd just be wary of id, right?

That's the lesson of ambiguity, where your statement could be taken to mean both "Yeah, it'd be nice, but it'll never happen" versus "Well, we can still hope for it someday!"

[Quasar]

5 hours ago, Caffeine Freak said:

Given all this, the notion that they were purposefully deceptive, and are now behind the scenes laughing on their way to the bank because it's safely past the refund period, just doesn't really click.

Pretty sure that part is on Bethesda. I am pretty sure what's going on here is some kind of substantial deal with Irdeto to be the flagship product for DAC and allow the type of promotional post we saw from them on day 0.

[Chronohunter45]

On 5/15/2020 at 9:21 AM, Graf Zahl said:

 

People like you who accept every shit being thrown at them are a menace to everybody else. :(

I haven't looked deeper into it, but installing invasive software without explicit consent is a felony in some jurisdictions, no idea if this falls under it, but isn't it amazing how the story repeats itself? Does anyone here still remember Sony's CD rootkit debacle?

I'm fairly confident there are entries still in metasploit for it, and it's probably on the CVE list still.