Project Reality Forums

I have recently downloaded Project Reality, and have heard many good things about it. This is, mind you, the first time I played the game. Indeed, I have only heard of PR as of 1 week ago. However, when I tried to access the online training, I get the message that my CD key has been disabled, and any attempts to go into deployment led me to the message that I have been banned by the Admin. can anyone help or at least tell me what is going on?

I suspect that someone had used my CD key before...

or you have been banned by PB for hacking, either way (ya ya, you didnt do it your brother did) the only thing you can do is buy another disk.

gazzthompson wrote:or you have been banned by PB for hacking, either way (ya ya, you didnt do it your brother did) the only thing you can do is buy another disk.

... funny thing is, It was fine until I patched it to 1.50 so... : now I'm just confused. right now, I can see 3 possibilities. one, my brother did it, (which I doubt, since he needs the disk to play, and he is 15,138 kilometers away and I have the disk. Also, I know that the chances of some random dude guessing my account name, AS well as my password is almost nil... so... Either I am a sleep-cheat/hacker (I REALLY have no memory of ever cheating or hacking in any game... especially in BF) ... or have a severe case of selective memory lost.

In all seriousness though, it would appear that it is time to call EA up... as soon as they open... 9.30 hrs from now... In all likelihood though, this might take a while... so in the meantime, I'll have to remain in local and SP only.

BTW, is it possible to deploy a forward outpost alone in under 5 minutes?

Come to think about it, the reason could lie in the patch itself... or to be precise, the installation thereof. I recall that i had gone to my registry an added an install director, which in effect tells the patch where to install. This was necessary as I had installed BF2 in the D: drive due to lack of space in the C: drive (only 2.9 Gigs left) the stupid patch can't even find it on its own. naturally, EA has its head up it's ***, so this problem wouldn't go away anytime soon.

sigh* EA is just one large cluster-#?%$

gazzthompson wrote:or you have been banned by PB for hacking, either way (ya ya, you didnt do it your brother did) the only thing you can do is buy another disk.

I have since discovered that my name isn't among the banned list, (go ahead and check, its AlexRex24) so that leaves me with... nothing. I am absolutely clueless as to what to do now. I am now "banned" from playing online, but the website says my player is "not banned". Curiouser and curiouser. So much for your hack/cheat theory though...

Ok... problem solved. I can now play BF2 without any problems. still a bit laggy, but otherwise, fine. In fact, I just finished a round in BF2 to make sure. It works. To any sane mind, the fact that I was "banned" in BF2 would mean that I would be "banned" in PR. Therefore, the logic applies that If I become "un-banned" I will be able to play both PR and BF2 right? Wrong. Apparently, I am still getting the messages I got above in project reality only.

Please, please help me... This game is kick-*** even if you play alone... but I really want to play online... for reasons so obvious that it barely needs to be mentioned. could anyone help me? pretty please?

First off next time you post a thread like this I would not suggest both posting it in general discussion (support would be more appropriate) AND double posting so much when you can just edit your post. Anyway I'll throw you a bone regardless Back like 5 months ago I was experiencing a similar problem where I was getting randomly banned off of some servers by admin without having done anything. What ended up being the case was some player in germany got a hold of my CD key for some strange reason (probably a KEYGEN) and began using it to play online. He got banned from a few servers and eventually found himself on the PBBans list. This list is a privately distributed list of hacker's and cheater's GUID's (its kinda like a license plate that corresponds to your CD Key) caught in participating servers that is then streamed to all the participating servers so they are put on each of those server's ban list. Its kinda like a private blacklist for PB games. You can see if you are on list list, regardless of whether you are innocent or not. It can be accesed at PBBans.com. Note this list is different from the official PunkBuster ban list so you will only be banned from participating servers.

Get your GUID by doing this:


How do I get my GUID?

First off your GUID is NOT the PID you find on sites like http://www.bf2s.com or other stat tracking websites.

Enter a BF2 Server that is using Punk Buster.

Hit the (`~) key to bring up the console.

Type in pb_plist

Copy down the last 8 digits. This will be letters AND numbers.



You can then enter that GUID in to the list at pbbans.com to see if you are on the list, and if you are why. I told EA about the problem and I met a really nice guy on the phone (always call ea never do the online support) who helped me out by getting me a new CD Key free. That solved the problem.

CASE POINT:
Whether it is a PB Ban, pbbans.com Ban or a server ban 95 % of the time your problem will be solved by simply getting a new CD key and changing it using C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\Support\battlefield2_code.exe or by just reinstalling. Besides new keys are only like 10-20 bucks nowadays.

ps the other 5% represents hardware bans where you are royally bum f'd. I can guarantee you have not been hardware banned by PB

Hope that helped!

Thanks for such a fast reply. First of all I would like to apologize for double postings. It will not happen again. (I attempted to remedy this by deleting the topic but alas, like all forums, only the privileged few possessed this ability). In any case, you are right about this thread belonging to the supports section, and again I apologize for DP.

Secondly, regarding your answer. it would appear that it happened to me as well. First thing I did was I keyed in my CD key into the almighty Google search engine, and lo and behold, a polish site is proudly trumpeting my CD key.

secondly, I got in the server for a glorious 2 seconds before it kicked me out. reason?
"permenant ban issued for this game server on player 'AlexRex24' Global punkbuster GUID ban 10c992c8"

uh oh. This, however, is where things get really strange:
http://www.punksbusted.com/cgi-bin/memb ... 8&limit=20

That link links to the site you refered to. there is something missing on that site- my name.
In other words, I want to know If I am banned or not.

If you are sure you didnt cheat go to PBBans look up the IP that got banned and if you can prove they are from a different country or area then you then EA might cut you some slack as you can say they KEYGENd the key in which case you wouldn't be responsible for the incident directly. Otherwise you might as well buy a new cd. You wont lose your account or anything its really no big deal.

And yes, I am aware of EA's online support. It took me 5 minutes to solve a problem by phone compared to 1 + months exchanging emails with EA. what a joke.

Ok, now I am officially getting a hardware/global ban. I am also officially fucked.

how did u manage that?

The easiest thing to do is just go buy a new copy. You can get them really cheap off amazon or at your local electronics store. Cut out your morning coffee or donut for a week and you'll have enough extra money to buy a new CD.

Engineer wrote:He cheated, made our lives terrible and probably killed few kittens during the process.

This kind of punishment is justified.

Justified? JUSTIFIED? look at my stats:
AlexRex Lance Corporal Gold Stats
AlexRex24 Private Stats, BF2S.com

Do they scream "CHEATER"?
a 3:1/ 2:1 death to kill ratio... a consistent one at that (A cheater would see a dramatic increase in ability in a space of a short time)

Of course, If I am hypothetically cheating, and STILL get These results, I might as well not use the Hack/cheat in the first place. Hell, if you STILL get this results you might as well stop playing at all, because your hand eye coordination is so bad you won't even be able to hit a fucking titan at a range of half a meter. with a shotgun.

Final proof that sarcasm is impossible to convey over the internet.

Just look at my BF2142 account. If I need to use a freaking Tank JUST to have a positive kill to death ratio, most of which has been vs foot soldiers, then I am, at best, a lousy player. If it turns out that I achieved this only via cheats/hacks, then I am a very, very bad player indeed. so bad, I would begin to question my will to live. I mean, seriously, can anyone be that bad? (short of a complete newbie or a five year old) obviously I am neither (except for BF2, then yes, I am a newbie, heck I'm still a Private, but that's because I like 2142 better.)

And I am certainly not a five year old. I'm born in 91'

so please, before going around parading that I kill kittens, cheat/hack or sold my soul to the devil, GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT.

eka_alim

Did you ask EA to get another key - as yours is flowing in the net? What did they answer?

eka alim wrote:...I can see 3 possibilities. one, my brother did it, (which I doubt, since he needs the disk to play, and he is 15,138 kilometers away and I have the disk.

Just a side note.
You don't need the disk to play Battlefield with patch 1.5.

l|Bubba|l wrote:Just a side note.
You don't need the disk to play Battlefield with patch 1.5.

I changed the PW 2 weeks ago, so irrelevant.

gomimin wrote:eka_alim

Did you ask EA to get another key - as yours is flowing in the net? What did they answer?

Asking a CD key will get nowhere, it is a hardware/ global ban, and I will have to replace ALL the CD keys. I don't think EA will even consider it, but will try never the less.

Jedimushroom wrote:Final proof that sarcasm is impossible to convey over the internet.

If sarcasm is impossible to convey, how on earth did you recognize it?

Whoah, take a breather there Eka!

AFAIK hardware banning is illegal. You may have a very lucritive lawsuit for you to employ. You need to go talk to a lawyer and be comepletely and 100% honest, wether you cheat or not is irrelevant, you need to tell him everything and ask questions of everyone that has used your computer. And perhaps even before that research a little bit about hardware banning, because I could be completely wrong. But it still should be illegal.

But before all of this I have a checklist for you.

1. Take a DEEP breath and calm down, we cant talk to you while youre angry.
2. Uninstall everything related to BF2 (Patches, Mods, BF2 itself)
3. Re-install
3a. BF2 First
3b.1.5 patch
3c. PR Core Files
3d. PR Level Files

After all this, try out a PB enabled server. If you are still out of Luck I can help you no further. But just try to remain calm, I have heard of PB mistakes before. You should Talk to EA about getting a new CD key even if it says you are hardware banned. If all else fails, SUE THE ********, that's the American Way baby.