Combining 3 GM made threads to create space for other stickies.

Announcement
http://www.navyfield.com/board/view.asp?Num=191232&Sort=C06

Thoughts on Hackshield
http://www.navyfield.com/board/view.asp?Num=190781&Sort=C06

Explanation for Hackshield Issues
http://www.navyfield.com/board/view.asp?Num=190494&Sort=C06

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Announcement

Dear Fans of Navy Field,

I have few things to announce today.

1. Hackshield
It has been more than one week now since Hackshield was applied to the game and
it seems like it has been getting adjusted well with the game. However, we still do
have a few technical problems to resolve.

I know that many players still strongly dislike or do not trust Hackshield and there
doesn't really seem to be anything I can do to sway their opinions. However, please
think about it logically in the sense that Hackshield has been and is being used by
more than 190 companies around the world including the largest online game
companies: Nexon, NHN and Gravity. More than 10 million players are proteced by
Hackshield around the world including North America. If Hackshield is as broken as
some people think, then do you really think that Hackshield would be used by this
many companies and players? I know that it's not the perfect protection, but it's
much better than having nothing to protect the players. Also, it helps provide a
better gaming experience since hack tools cause stress on the servers. Unlike some
other online games, Navy Field is really vulnerable in regards to player stats, so if
one player tries to use a hack to manipulate data during battle, it may cause
problems for other players in the same battle.

I am seeing some propaganda topics about Hackshield and while questions and
concerns are welcomed, it is not nice to make claims or misleading statements
attacking it without any proof. So, as of now, I will ask our forum moderators to
delete any propaganda topics about Hackshield. Please stop wasting time with such
unnecessary comments.

2. Server Merge
I know that we have not been doing well these last few months and I am really sorry
about that. This is why we have decided to release the Soviet Union as a free
addition as a form of pay back to the community. I have also been thinking about the
server merge for a few days and I have decided to listen to the community this time,
which means we will merge servers into two. Iowa and Yamato will be merged
together and Bismarck and Nelson will be merged together. I will open a new server
when both servers hit their maximum occupancy limits (I hope this will happen soon).
We are aiming to merge servers on 02.17.11 and also trying to release the Soviet
Union on same day. We will let you know when if there are changes to the schedule.
Also stay tuned for further merge details.

3. Crash Problems
We have been getting many reports from players experiencing crashing during
battle. I have looked into these reports carefully and found that it occurs mostly on
laptop users with low amounts of physical RAM. I have also found that if you use
"Gamebooster" or perhaps a similar online optimizer you will see a black screen in
NF. Please refrain from using such programs until this problem is fixed. Additionally, it
seems like most of the crash problems occur in Great Battle 2 and not so many in
Blitz. I am asking you to help us to resolve this problem. Please reply in this thread
with the following information:

Example:
PC format: (Desktop or Laptop)
OS: (Winows 7, Vista or XP)
CPU: (Intel Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz)
RAM: (4 GB)
VGA: (ATI Radeon HD3870)
Crashing issue experienced: (Great Battle 2 or Blitz, or completely random, etc.)

This is all for today. Thank you for your continued support of the community.

-yuno

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Thoughts on Hackshield

Hello NF players,

I hope you are doing well, but I guess many of you may not be as there are many
complaints about the new Hackshield program. First off, I am the one who decided to
implement this program into Navy Field. To our veteran players, you may remember
that we tried to implement an anti-hack program called "nProtect" 5 years ago.
However, we had to pull that program out due to major problem. After this, we
began checking for hacking programs or exploits through our internal scan system.
This worked well until we kept finding advanced hacking programs that were unable
to be detected with our scan method.

I know that there are only a few players using hacking tools, but because of those
few players we have spent a considerable amount of money to purchase this
Hackshield license; I'm serious when I note that it is quite expensive. These players
can potentially cause enough harm to warrant the decision however. I am also really
sick and tired of threats received from these hackers boasting that if I don't give in to
their demands that they will continue releasing new hacking tools. Some of them
went so far as requesting money. It's just out of our hand to handle all the hacks for
Navy Field; we do not have any other choice except to use this countermeasure. I
also really wish to not have to resort to this; it would be best for both players and us
to save that money and time and not have to worry about any complaints or issues.
However, the reality is not so great.

Hacking tools will kill NF. It is really important to block all hacking tools from online
games which is why almost all online games use some form of anti-hacking program
including the most famous ones such as World of Warcraft. I know that it's still not
perfect but it blocks 100% of the hacking tools that we have in our lab. Also, it will
block new tools if we find them. Hackshield has been proven by many companies as
more than 100 companies are using this. If it's not safe enough then I don't believe
so many companies would be using it. Therefore, I made a choice to have potentially
less players with a safer NF environment over more players with hacking tools use
rampant and spreading across the servers. There will be no pulling back this time.

Thank you.

-yuno

PS: If you want to know more about Hackshield, please check the other
announcements or visit their web site.

http://hackshield.ahnlab.com/hs/site/en/AboutHS/world.do

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Explanation for Hackshield Issues

To clarify the recent issues regarding this week's patch, we want to make a short
explanation about the current situation. Unlike the descriptions in some topics, the
developing company of Hackshield (AhnLab) is a reliable company, and it is one of the
most famous company for online security in South Korea. Also, the Hackshield
program is used in many other online games which are currently running service.

Before adding this gameguard to our game, we discussed and tested for a long
time. We also tried to check it on various OS environments, for the possibility of
crash issues between the game and Hackshield. However during the test, it ran
smoothly and effective so we finally patched it to the live servers this week. There
were few issues during the tests, but we have managed to fix them before
patching. However we do admit there still can be minor issues left.

If you are having actual issues with Hackshield during your gameplay or by launching
the game, please follow the process we have recommended in the patch note. If the
issue persists, you can go through the following steps to give us a detail report.

1. Go to the game installed directory and find the following files in the /Hshield/
folder:
- Hshield.log
- Supdate.log

2. Also, we need Ahnrpt.cab file also, and in order to get this file, please check the
below steps:
1)Run the ahnrpt.exe file (Gamefolder/Hshield/ahnrpt.exe)
2)You can get the Ahnrpt.cab file after click [report the error] in top-left corner.

3. Please send us the log files above to pass to our developers. You can attach the
files via email and send it to [email protected]

*If you cannot get ahnrpt.cab file, then please send us your Hshield.log and
Supdate.log
from gamefolder.


We are currently monitoring the situation very carefully with our developers since it
is a sensitive issue for us too. If it's actually causing a major issue, there is always
the possibility to make a hotfix, so until then we want to ask to our players to make
a detail report, that we can check the issue faster.

Thanks,
TeamNF

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(Unsticked by Angus725 due to the lack of interest)
-Angus