u/PyxelatorXeroc

Don't we love this map?!

e.g. during a trip/away from home.

I'm looking to design a sophisticated offline mod (PMIA), but making it run without an internet connection is a challenge. Please leave some feedback for me to determine if it's necessary to add no-internet support for the mod.

I would do a poll, but you can't poll on this sub...

Also, please share what offline modes you enjoy playing, and what mods (if any).

Thanks! -Pyxelator

I took the SAT once in 9th grade, got a 1560, thought "okay that's a high enough score, no point in aiming for higher" so I decided to focus on other stuff.

Fast forward to end of junior year, and I suddenly realize a few colleges have stated they prefer more recent SAT scores (from past 2 years). Most of the colleges I'm targeting (MIT/Stanford/UC Berkeley) haven't said anything about this, but I'm wondering why some schools see it as a potential problem (just doesn't make sense imo), and whether this sentiment might carry over to other schools even if they don't state so.

I'd like to avoid retaking. I'm confident I can score higher if I put effort and study again, but honestly there are a lot of better things I could be doing with my summer before senior year, like finalizing my applications and essays.

Thanks!

Anything you want to know at all! Can be specific numbers, general loadouts/playstyle tips, anything. I have a lot of hours and most of them are from playing heroes, so I know a lot.

(please read the whole thing before commenting - I will answer every comment.)

TLDR: ALWAYS BE CAREFUL ONLINE. ALWAYS. No matter how trustworthy the source is. I got banned for using a harmless but malicious mod disguised as a cosmetic mod, specifically made to ban the user.

Hey guys,

Pyxelator here - update from yesterday's post, linked here. To summarize, last night I loaded up BF2 as I do almost every day, only to be met with a ban. Obviously, I thought this was a mistake, server error or something.

As many PC players know, the game's anticheat sucks. Cheaters rarely get banned, even full-on flyhackers and 1-shotters take weeks to be banned... so I was quite shocked. I also checked my email and my EA website - no indications of a penalty.

It turns out, the last time I played BF2 (earlier yesterday afternoon), I had loaded up a mod that a 'friend' online had sent me, a seemingly innocent cosmetic mod. It turns out, the mod was intentionally designed to get anyone who loaded it permanantly banned, instantly and automatically. It does this by spamming a particular message in game chat, and hiding the chat from you so that you don't realize your client is sending the message.

If you play PC, you probably also know that you can spam the n-word or anything in chat and nothing will happen to you. It turns out that this particular message is the same one that hackers would constantly spam as they were crashing Galactic Assault lobbies a year or so ago (if you remember that time). It was blacklisted by someone at EA in an effort to more easily ban those accounts that were hacking lobbies. (The message goes something like "TheNoobMaster: Buy CHEATPACK 3.0 NOW")

I feel really stupid right now, especially because I consider myself to be very digitally knowledgable, and I have a ton of experience with digital security and also modding this game. I had a rough week IRL, and so I was tired and didn't even glance at which prefabs the mod affected, which I almost always do (and would have tipped me off to the maliciousness of the mod immediately). The person who sent it to me was also someone I trusted immensely, so I would never suspect anything.

It turns out, my friend didn't mean to get me banned, he thought the mod was cool and shared it with me immediately. The ban only shows up when you load up the game again, and he also got banned. (IDK who he got it from, trying to track down the original creator currently)

Last night, when I made my post, I was confused and shocked (not thinking clearly), so I worded my post in a way that suggested that I was a hacker. While I do not deny that I have cheated on BF2 in the past (back then, I was 12 years old and thought downloading a hack meant I was cool lmfao) I put all that behind me years ago. A lot of people in the comments were hating on me and saying I got banned for my past cheating and that I deserved it, and I don't blame them at all because that is basically what my horribly-written post implied. I just wanted to clear this up because a lot of people in the community that I respect saw the post and commented (including u/AZZATRU who has been one of my favorite content creators - Azzatru if you see this, please comment!).

I am heartbroken because this account meant a ton to me. BF2 was my first real multiplayer game, and this was my main account that I started playing on when I was 12. I met so many awesome people on here, so many fond memories. It's the game I have the 2nd most hours on, and the community I interact with the most - if you don't believe me, scroll through my Reddit comment history for the past 2 years, the majority of them are on this sub.

This game, and its community, will always hold a special place in my heart. Thank you all for the amazing times.

I wanted to be part of the May 4th resurgence, but now I'm afraid of logging on to my alts in case they also get banned. I will try to clear this up with EA, as I have no intention of quitting the game entirely because of this. However, I will refrain from playing until it gets sorted out. The chances I get my ban lifted are almost zero, as even if I explained the situation to EA, modding is unsupported and done at the user's own risk (plus, EA is just generally unhelpful in this regard - many of my friends were falsely banned and could not recover their accounts).

At the end of the day, the only thing I really lost was 4 dollars (which is how much the game costs on sale) and my levels/progress (1,200 hours). It would hurt more if I had spent a ton of time just grinding co-op for levels, but thankfully I didn't (I play this game just for fun).