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The initial few minutes after loading the map are terrible. :| It clears up after a few rounds though.

Also:

koth_harvest_event0005.jpg

AAAAAAAAAAAH! :rofl:

(got all achievements and both hats BTW. :happy:)

How good is Steam's hacker protection? Just played a game and there was this sniper just headshotting everyone. Are hackers common throughout the game?

He's either using an aimbot or wall hack. I'm not sure how good Steam's anti-cheating protection is, but I think there's a lot of people using, at the very least, wall hacks. I find it impossible that some of these snipers are getting the shots they are. Especially with the new Huntsman. I refuse to believe that when I'm walking around a corner they can get a perfect headshot. I never go the same route as the rest of the team and it was happening to me all the time on the harvest_event map today. This one guy was getting a headshot with the Huntsman with every single shot across the entire map.

How good is Steam's hacker protection? Just played a game and there was this sniper just headshotting everyone. Are hackers common throughout the game?

VAC usually takes a while before they flag an account as a hacker. The most individual communities can do is identify hackers (community vigilantism via recording demo files, and watchful admins) and ban them from their own servers.

They're not that common as you might think, but yes they're there.

Where is that ghost?! I want it to chase me.

I am actually getting the hang of this game. I am pwning with Pyro. :D

Find a server with koth_harvest_event and have fun. It occasionally spawns near the control point and rampages through it, immobilizing any poor ******* trying to defend or capture the CP. :p

It's up for today and tomorrow, not sure what will happen to the map after that.

Try this server: 209.239.121.212:27018. Not sure how good the latencies will be for the west coast though :s

VAC usually takes a while before they flag an account as a hacker. The most individual communities can do is identify hackers (community vigilantism via recording demo files, and watchful admins) and ban them from their own servers.

They're not that common as you might think, but yes they're there.

One important thing to remember is there are texture hacks which are, according the the way VAC works, completely legal and will never be bannable by VAC.

Due to Valve leaving TF2 open to modders people are able to change things such as character models or textures, map object models and textures, as well as particles and a number of other things. Due to this, people can make head textures bright green while leaving the rest of the texture intact. They can also do thinks like make wall textures transparent, which allows them to see through the walls without any external hacks. This type of cheating is not detectable, let alone bannable by VAC. The only way to ensure people you play against are not using these types of hacks are by finding sv_pure servers. Sadly there is no tag before you join a server, once you find a server go into your console and type sv_pure and you will see not only its setting, but a list of directories being blocked (if it server is sv_pure 1, servers can create a list of what is and isn't allowed). What you want to look for on sv_pure 1 servers is that they have the model and texture directories set to from_steam, this ensures that a client is loading textures and models from Valves GCFs for TF2 and therefore blocks custom models and textures that a client may have in their TF2 folder. While this reduces some customizability that Valve put into the game, it protects a server from having to deal with model or texture hackers, while still allowing people to do things like using custom particles (which are now blocked by default do to a few particles being exploitable if changed) and custom UI's.

That being said, VAC typically does a very good job at keeping hackers at bay (I would know, I got a HL1 account banned years ago for hacking), it doesn't instantly ban someone, instead it gets some identifiers from a hack, then tags people for later banning. This way its impossible for someone to know as soon as a hack is detectable, as no one is banned right away. Instead people continue using it thinking its undetected, until Valve mass bans users of that specific hack. The only hacks that would ever be safe for long-term on Steam, are those that I mentioned above or private hacks that 1 maybe 2 people have access to, and even in the later case as soon as Valve catches onto it they will find it and ban it.

Rest assured that 90% of true hackers on Steam will be banned eventually for their actions.

I've only run into 2 snipers which I could actually confirm to be hackers, you shouldn't be able to headshot a cloaked spy multiple times in a row.

I remember the first time I headshotted a cloaked spy, he stepped right out infront of the enemy sniper while cloaked, taking the bullet for him allowing him to headshot me and kill other team mates while I respawned. >.<

I've only run into 2 snipers which I could actually confirm to be hackers, you shouldn't be able to headshot a cloaked spy multiple times in a row.

And those are the noob hackers who provide undeniable evidence they're hacking. :laugh:

The smarter guys can be difficult to nail due to the nature of the demo recording system, or if their ping tends to fluctuate a lot. For the demo files, the accused hackers could simply blame high latencies to account for the sudden jerkiness of their mouse movements. It provides a decent recording of a game, but not perfect enough to replicate 1:1 what happened at the time on the server. There was also one guy (I think he eventually got banned after a long period of suspicion from our community's admins) whose ping tended to shoot up right before he took a shot.

Alright this is the last day for the harvest map and I haven't seen the ghost yet! :(

I tried just hanging out at the control point in KOTH, but it's not coming out!

I'm surprised you haven't seen him. He hangs out at 3 spots (I believe).

Alright this is the last day for the harvest map and I haven't seen the ghost yet! :(

I tried just hanging out at the control point in KOTH, but it's not coming out!

The ghost is so common :|

Contrary to what I said earlier, it doesn't spawn only around the CP area. It can also venture into the buildings directly outside the spawn room.

Thanksgiving... Bring on the exploding turkeys. Rush them and they run away into other players then BOOM!

or as one player in a server I was playing in suggested, change payloads maps so that you are pushing a giant turkey into a oven.

Yay! I saw the ghost! I was in the normal harvest! Harvest_event is a lot better. :p

Now how can I dominate to get the hat?

Just kill anyone you see wearing the gibus hat three times in a row. (not sure about assists)

Wait, in a row without killing anyone else? Or throughout the game?

Throughout the game. Forgot to add; they can't kill you back either through an actual kill or assist, else the counter resets.

Just dominate somone wearing the hat.

.. and if they take the hat off before you dominate them HAHA that sucks.

Fortunately I haven't ran across any douches like those. :p (but The_Decryptor did lol)

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