Since launch the development team has been working hard on the anti-cheat system, in order to ensure that the multiplayer environment is safe, fair and fun to everyone.
We have been monitoring reports and more than 2000 players have been banned on suspicion of cheating since launch.
Unfortunately, after internal analysis of the logs and a review of the banning procedure, we've observed some cases where false positives may have occurred in the process, and while we have made every effort to ensure fairness, we cannot fully guarantee that some players haven't been banned unfairly. It is also the reason why we have been quiet in the past few days, we were undergoing a rigid and serious analysis of our internal processes.
For this reason we have decided we are going to review all cases of bans which might be the result of false positives or result of human error from our staff.
There have also been cases of players banned from multiplayer for having cheated in single player. Our system cannot differentiate between single player and multiplayer at the moment, so while we wouldn’t object to use of cheats in single player in normal circumstances, we cannot allow them right now, as it wouldn’t be a simple change.
We don’t take this decision lightly, but it is the only right thing to do in this case. Rest assured that there is only a very small % of players affected, but our aim is 0 false positives - there can’t be any doubts.
We apologize to those who have been banned unfairly.
Rest assured that we remain determined to stamp out cheating in all its forms.
Update 1.08 includes improvements to the anti-cheat system, and the team has been expanded with new members dedicated to thoroughly reviewing all cheating reports, ensuring fairness in the ban process. With this added expertise, we’re confident the staff will be even more efficient in detecting and addressing cheaters.
Update 1.08 released tomorrow
Tomorrow on July 11 we are going to release update 1.08. We are aiming at releasing it at around 9 am GMT, so hopefully we’ll be punctual. As usual, we will accompany the update with a post and a detailed changelog.
Please note that we will take the servers down in order to deploy the update. Estimated downtime: 15 - 25 minutes.
Community Call
Broken Arrow has players from all over the world. We come from many different countries and cultures, and we all have different sensibilities. All of us need to be more understanding and tolerant towards everyone. It is a game and we are here to have fun.
Stop accusing different nationalities of cheating, or having assumptions that different nationalities are more prone to cheating than others. That is simply not the case. Simply put, the proportion of cheaters is globally the same in every country, but some countries have more players than others.
We must be clear on one point: we do not accept or tolerate any form of racist language or behavior. We are one big family and we want people to enjoy Broken Arrow and to feel at home in the Broken Arrow community, no matter where they are from or who they are.
This is our call to the community: cheating makes things harder for everyone.
Cheaters are only making things harder for the developers, as they need to put more time into that rather than focussing on new additions.
Cheaters are only making things harder for the staff, as they are putting a lot of time into ensuring that cheaters get banned.
Most importantly, it makes the game not fun for people who play multiplayer.
If you love Broken Arrow, consider this and please help us by contributing to creating a healthy environment for everyone.