As our server host is physically moving the server tomorrow, the site will be down for a few hours on Wednesday, July 23, beginning in the morning, and ending some time in the afternoon (GMT+1 timezone).
The pluginservers will continue to run during this, so you should not see any interruptions with the plugin.
Since we get a lot of questions from people all around the world what the difference is between Steambans and Sourcebans I created this small post to explain it for once and for all
SteamBans
Since 2004 Steambans is a global anti-cheat blacklist program that protects HL1 or HL2 based servers from 'known' blacklisted cheaters. When 3 of our trained admins check a sent in demo, and all of them decide it's a cheater, the person will be banned. From that moment on, the cheater cannot join ANY of the Steambans protected servers anymore.
However, before a person gets banned we at Steambans have a pretty high standard of quality checks before we even decide someone is cheating. That's why at least 3 admins need to check each demo that is sent in (with sb_status call) and a fourth Management admin will then BAN or NOT BAN.
SourceBans
Sourcebans is a ban and administration system for Source engine based servers like CSS or TF2. It basically allows server admins to have their own management system purely for their own servers. Sourcebans allows you to manage your admins through the web interface (powered by SourceMod) and from ingame directly ban players to the banlist, who will then be banned from all the Sourcebans connected servers.
Conclusion: If you want the ultimate protection next to VAC to protect your server from known cheaters and help the community with catching them install Steambans now.
If you are looking for a banlist application which allows you to also define who is admin on your own servers use Sourcebans.
Both programs work perfectly together as they are written by the same group of people!
Our friend Liam from the SourceMod developers group released a handy plugin for Source based servers that run SourceMod which allows admins to spectate a possible cheater and get some handy lasers which basically show where the player is aiming and who is close to him.
Server admins might use this handy small plugin to detect possible wallhackers and other cheaters however please remember that while recording a Steambans demo you must disable this as it can be hard for our admins to checkout someone with all those lasers floating around.
Laser Info:
-White laser is where they are aiming
-Blue laser leads to CT's/Blue Team
-Red laster leads to T's/Red Team
-The thicker the laser beam, the closer they are to your target.
-The thinner the beam, the further away they are.
You can grab the small plugin over here at the Sourcemod forums.
As you might have noticed we had some problems with one of our sponsors as they shut down our website server and database without notifying upfront. On friday we decided to move everything over to our own servers in the Netherlands (at TechConnect) and things should now be back to normal.
Fortunately most things were recovered instantly and while we are still working in the background to fix the bugs that are still open, we are also preparing for a brand new plugin version very soon.
We also want to thank NuclearFallout, Killercreation, GameServers and TechConnect for their contribution to SteamBans. Without them we wouldn't be where we are now.
Stay tuned for more information and thank you for the patience you all had in the past few days.
As you may have noticed we have been working on our website to slightly change it's layout and design for better viewing. For new people we have added a handy Protect Your Server link at the top which will instruct them on how to get their server protected.
Work continues on the SteamBans front and some more changes are planned which will be released soon. Next to that the development team has also been working on a brand new plugin for both HL1, HL2 and HL2range Source engine mods which should fix some annoying bugs and hopefully will be released within the next few weeks, after extensive testing.
If you have any suggestions, ideas or feedback, please feel free to post them in our forums.
SteamBans.com is currently searching for new developers to take care of our plugins for the Half-Life 1 and 2 platform. So if you want to join the oldest anticheating community on the globe and you think you can make a difference between cheaters and the community send your application to Jobs@steambans.com.
Before you apply you should keep some points in mind:
You should be:
# at least 16 years old
# mature and diplomatic in nature
# experience with C++ and MetaMod (Source)
# able to use IRC communication on a regular bases
# able to work in a team
# enough time
If you fulfill all the points above send your application and you will receive an answer from us and maybe you will become part of the steambans.com admin team.
Please send an application with the following information:
# Username on SB
# Real name
# Age
# Country
# Previous programming experience
On behalf of the Steambans.com team im proud to announce a close partnership with MonDayCup Denmark.
Wook, league manager for Steambans:
I'm proud to annouce a partnership between MonDayCup.dk and steambans. MonDayCup is the biggest One Day Cup in denmark. With this co-operation we want to increase our quality in league anti cheating and spreading our league contacts. We are looking forward to work with this experienced staff to fight against cheaters in modern games on Steam.
MDC|moeller (owner of MonDayCup):
I'm pleased with the arrangement between Steambans and MonDayCup, we have been discussing the possibility of a profitable partnership for a while but today it is made public and a new strong partner in the fight against online cheaters has been found.
SteamBans.com is currently searching for new voting staff. So if you want to join the oldest anticheating community on the globe and you think you can make a difference between cheaters and the community send your application to Jobs@steambans.com.
Before you apply you should keep some points in mind:
You should be / have
# at least 16 years old
# mature and diplomatic in nature
# Admin experience either in a clan or a community
# basic experience with AC or demo reviewing
# basic knowledge about the common cheats
# able to use IRC communication on a regular bases
# enough time ( at least 125 demos a month)
If you fulfill all the points above send your application and you will receive an answer from us and maybe you will become part of the steambans.com admin team.
Please send an application with the following information:
# Username on SB
# Real name
# Age
# Country
# Admin / league experience
# AC experience
# Why do you want to join SteamBans.com
A new interview with the developer of HackCam, the famous never-released anti-cheat tool, seems to have popped up on AdminRequest.
We have talked about HackCam before here at SB, but since the last developer interview it seemed that HackCam disappeared completely with the forums going offline and the developer becoming unresponsive. Coupled with the fact that a lot of skepticism has arisen around the truthfulness of the program – after all the only proof released was the famous HackCam demonstration video showing off some questionable HackCam action – HackCam has been considered a dead project for a long time.
Not anymore it seems. The forums are coming back online, and the author seems to be responsive or at least informative once again. Let us hope the project does not go into hibernation as it did the last time a developer interview was posted. We as much as anyone else would like to see this project go live.
Our very own Devicenull has created a very simple but effective plugin for Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat Source based servers that will detect some basic aimbots and provide warnings to connected admins via a number of methods.
If you have any of the following plugins installed, they will be used to report this:
- IRCRelay (irc_relay) for SourceMod (will report to IRC)
- Basic Admin Tool for MetaMod: Source (admin_chat)
- Mani Admin Plugin VSP and MM:S (ma_chat)
This will also print a warning to all connected admins with the Admin_Kick flag in SourceMod.
Warning: Player NAME (STEAMID): 10 (55.5 percent) hits to the HEAD; max snap speed 10.0, avg 1.0
The snap speed values are less then useful right now, but I display them anyway.
The plugin provides the following cvars:
aim_minimum_data - The minimum number of hit's needed to display a warning. 20 is the default, and is the lowest I would recommend going.
aim_minimum_percentage - This is the minimum number of hits needed to a certain body part to cause a warning. Defaults to 55%.
aim_torso_weight and aim_limb_weight - These allow you to scale the warnings for each type of hitbox. By default each is set to "0.50" which means that warnings will never occur for either (to get above 55% they would need to have 110% hits to have a warning occur)
The plugin provides the following client command:
aim_info - This will bring up a display showing the data for the current player.
Installation: As always with SourceMod plugins put the .smx file in your plugins directory under Sourcemod and place the weapondata.ini file in your sourcemod\configs directory. Change map and it's loaded.
We are glad to announce the 1.0 release of SourceMod, the all in one admin plugin for Source games (You can compare it with AMXModX for HL1). With over 200 plugins already available, you can be sure there is what you need for your server and if it's not, try looking at the SourcePawn code and you could probably create it yourself.
SourceMod by default includes functionality like: SQL Support, Slap, kick, slay, mapvotes, freeze, burn and much more.
SourceMod runs on top of MetaMod: Source, the HL2 API handler.
A word from BAILOPAN, lead coder of SourceMod: We will continue to provide bug fixes and minor improvements to the 1.0 branch. From now on, the "trunk" of the source code tree will always be experimental/unstable. Automated builds will continue to feed from trunk, which currently represents the next branch, 1.1. The web compiler (which is also used on the forums) will, from this point on, remain against the latest stable version.
I would like to thank the entire SourceMod Development team for making this possible. In particular, I'd like to thank pRED who helped pick up my slack over the past few weeks. It's been exactly one year since SourceMod's first public build, and we're very proud to have reached this important milestone. As always, thank you for your support!
So what are you waiting for? Go grab SourceMod 1.0 over here
This is a warning for some of you that have received an email from "admin@steambans.com" with a link to a supposed new game-portal: Do NOT click the link.
As this is a recent event and investigation is still pending I will not make any statements towards the cause yet, but this is what I have concluded thus far:
1. Only some people registered here received the mail.
2. E-mail addresses not registered here also got the mail.
3. The e-mail address used (admin@steambans.com) is not an existing e-mail address, the technique used is a commonly used one to send seemingly trustworthy information and not something we can control.
Nonetheless, as proper Samaritans we have sent all the information available to us to the ISP and filed so-called 'abuse reports' at the related web instances.
Again, do NOT click the link - and if you did, make sure to run a virus and spayware scan. Below are a few programs I recommend in case you did:
The development team of the MetaMod: Source API handler for the Source engine and Orange Source engine let us know that they have updated their plugin system and no longer needs a "gameinfo.txt" modification.
MetaMod: Source can now be loaded like any other VSP with a .vdf file (Valve Server Plugin) without the server admin having to update the gameinfo.txt file everytime a new source engine update comes along.
Changelog for 1.4.3 (Source):
Metamod:Source can now be loaded via a .vdf instead of gameinfo.txt.
Added new plugin loading mechanism via .vdf files in the metamod folder.
Changed "meta list" output to look similar to Metamod:Source 1.6.
Plugins which need a VSP pointer can now receive it on late load.
Fixed a small memory leak when using recalls (RETURN_META_NEWPARAMS).
Fixed a rare memory corruption bug in the CVector class.
Changelog for 1.4 to 1.6.0 (Orange Source):
Added ability to load from a VDF file instead of gameinfo.txt.
Added ability to load MM:S plugins from VDF files.
Added new version of SourceHook with the following changes:
Added API for hooking functions on a virtual table to all instances.
SH_ADD_HOOK macros now return non-zero hook IDs. Additionally,
the old hook adding/removing syntax is deprecated (but still supported).
Added SH_REMOVE_HOOK_ID to remove hooks by ID.
CallClasses have been deprecated. The SH_CALL macro can now take a class instance pointer rather than a callclass pointer.
Can now generate dynamic, arbitrary hooks at runtime (see hookmangen).
Metamod:Source has now received a large internal rewrite to improve coding standards and to separate internal logic from engine specifics.
Added mm_basedir cvar to specify Metamod's base folder.
Added API for getting highest supported IServerPluginCallbacks interface version.
Added API for detecting the engine version.
Added API for getting the VSP-simulation interface upon late loading.
Added OnUnlinkConCommandBase to IMetamodListner to notify when Metamod:Source is about to remove a concommand or convar.
Added the ability for Metamod:Source to load as a VSP instead of through gameinfo.txt.
The output of the "meta list" command has been reformatted in order to allow more space for plugins' name, version, and author fields.
Sample/Stub plugins have improved building mechanism and code, and will compile against both MM:S 1.6 for OrangeBox and MM:S 1.4 for Episode 1.
What is MetaMod: Source?
Metamod:Source is a C++ plugin environment for Half-Life 2. It acts as a "Metamod" (a term coined by Will Day) which sits in between the Game and the Engine, and allows plugins to intercept calls that flow between. It provides a mechanism called SourceHook, a very powerful library for intercepting, overridding, and superseding virtual function calls.
From now on, submissions that do contain HLTV demos including sb_status will be accepted as valid proof.
Steambans has decided to accept HLTV demos as valid proof.
In the past it was not possible to execute the required sb_status command when recording a HLTV demo.
In cooperation with our community we got to know about former changes on HLTV by Valve and we found a way how to record HLTV demos including sb_status.
Take into consideration though that much less information is stored in HLTV demos. Thus please record an in-eye demo whenever you have the possibility to.
Note:
We will only do specific investigations. Submitting numerous files with random IDs is expressively unwanted. We reserve the right to decline such demo-files without a statement or examination and to suspend the account of the submitter.
Please use the comment field to post timestamps in order to save our admins some time.
When submitting large demo-files you should consider using the RemoteURL function or compressing the demo-file into 2 or more .rar archives (split archive). Please do not create too large demo files though.
Every scene recorded in slowmotion will not be considered in the investigation.
Caution:
This does only work for HLTV. We did not yet find a solution for SourceTV, thus SourceTV demos do still not meet our Proof Requirements for now. Feel free to post suggestions in our forums though.
Our very own devicenull has been working hard to improve our Steambans plugins and we are happy to announce a brand new version that fixes some stability issues and adds support for a steambans.cfg file in the /cfg directory where you can put your license details, this file will be auto executed.
Server admins with more then 64 slots are also going to be happy as we fixed the sb_status call if you have this many playerslots.
Changelog:
Fixed one possible cause for lag
Fixed issue with sb_status on 64 player servers
Fixed broken packages (No more 7zip)
Added steambans.cfg config file (for the license details)
Some other minor fixes
For HL1 mods this means release version 3.5.4.
For HL2 mods and Orange box Source this is release 2.5.4.
As always grab this new version from the manage servers page.
Note: Orange Source mods like TF2 should download the Orange Source engine version of our plugin which is for Metamod: Source only!
As always we, at Steambans try to give support for the latest interesting mods for both Half-Life 1 and 2 and below you can find a list of the most important games that we currently support for each of those engines:
Half-Life 1 - GoldSRC engine
Counter-Strike
Condition Zero
Deathmatch Classic
Day of Defeat
Opposing Force
Team Fortress Classic
Earths Special Forces
Natural Selection
Half-Life 2 - Source (and Orange Source) engine
Counter-Strike: Source
Day of Defeat: Source
HL2: Deathmatch
Team Fortress 2 (separate plugin)
Half-Life 2 Capture the Flag
Fortress Forever
Dystopia
Hidden:Source
Insurgency
Sourceforts
Empires
Pirates, Vikings and Knights II
The Ship
ZombiePanic: Source
So for server admins if you run any of these games (mods) make sure you install our plugin for best protection. At last let me add to this that we ofcourse support even more mods but the once above are most important and used already for a lot of servers.
A lot of times we see demos being submitted on Steambans that have no sb_status call in console. With this short newpost I would like to point out once again that we will ONLY accept demos that have the sb_status call typed at least once while recording.
Without sb_status we are unable to verify the validity of the demo and will decline it right away so again please make sure that the server you play on has Steambans on it and while recording a possible cheater always type sb_status in console at least once.
We have has just re-released a new version of the server plugin. This time it also includes the MetaMod: Source version of the Orange box (TF2) Source server.
Down below the changes:
Fixed choosing a different pluginserver
Added new Metamod: Source plugin for Orangebox games (TF2)
Fixed undefined symbol error
Other minor fixes
We suggest all server admins to update to the latest revision.
Team Fortress 2 admins should use the new Orange box (TF2) plugin which is available only for MetaMod: Source!
You can download MetaMod: Source for the Orange Source engine over here.
As always you can find the latest plugins on your right under Manage servers.
It seems a lot of people have reported problems with our new released plugin versions and we therefor ask everybody to NOT install the new plugins untill Devicenull can take a look at whats going on.
To make full use of this site you need to register and be logged in. Once you are a member you can submit details of suspect players or protest if you believe you have been wrongly banned.
Lost password?
] Submission Status
range Source engine mods which should fix some annoying bugs and hopefully will be released within the next few weeks, after extensive testing.
