SOE comment about hacking

[FlashG]

Here is some nice info posted by SOE about hacking and its effects on the game. IMHO MQ2 and similar, should make EQ more enjoyable to play and at the same time not to directly hurt others.

We are in a bind here because if we want the game to be rubber-band lag free with respect to player movement, then the player is going to continue to be able to do these kinds of exploits as long as the game mechanics allow for it to happen. This is because cheaters will use macros to move to exact positions at exact times and take advantage of this. Would I like to stop macro users? Absolutely, and we've spent literally hundreds of man-hours fixing exploits and have banned many, many accounts this past year alone. It's very important to us that the game is played fairly. Can we stop everything? No, and that's just a fact. But we do as much as we can and will continue to invest developer time making game systems more secure, less prone to abuse, and more robust in terms of identifying various ways people are cheating. When the client is on someone's physical machine, we simply have to accept that people can and do have the ability to mess with the memory and generally do whatever they want with it. There is nothing we can do to prevent that. Even if we could scan and find cheater tools on a player's machine, it would just become a game of cat and mouse as hackers hid the tools from us in ways we wouldn't possibly be able to identify. It would be a pointless exercise. The solution here is to move as much as we can that matters onto the servers where the server is the authority for what happens, and provide as little information to the client as is neccessary to play the game so that snooping at memory is as useful as looking at your screen (This isn't news for anyone who is familiar with computer security issues). The server is already the authority for almost everything that matters in EverQuest except for movement, because moving movement authority to the server would require the introduction of an intolerable amount of lag & latency (there are a few other things too, to be clear, such as NPC info that is used for tracking). Some games have tried server-authority movement in the past and have almost universally changed to use the same client-side authority for movement because it's just not worth ruining everyone's experience just so that a few hackers can't warp around. There is still room for improvement though, and just this past week I was in a meeting discussing our options so it isn't something that is being ignored.

Flashg

[Amadeus]

This is basically what the devs here have said for years.

[aChallenged1]

I for one have never done anything to hurt others using MQ2.

My main is a bard so I use it to twist the songs and such.
I don't AFK at all, other than spell work ups, and even then I am nearby with sound on.

Yeah, this should be used to make the game more fun, however, as with anything, there will be those who abuse it.

[insanitywiz]

By and large the people I know who use MQ, even those that do it afk occasionally, do it to accomplish trivialised things, such as loot farming for tradeskills, xp "grinding" or the like, things that don't have any negative effect on any other players (outside of the jealousy factor of wanting to have as many levels, aa's or whatever). There are a few however who find joy in pushing the envelope and using every advantage in ways that are detrimental to other players, a good example are the people using /warp on pvp servers. Those are the type of people who enjoy showing off their scores in other games that they attained in god mode. Thank god they are a minority.

[Clueless_Coder]

IMO MQ2 is a tool to make gameplay more enjoyable, and somewhat easier for me.

AFAIK I have never used it to obtain anything I could not have gotten or done anything I could not have accomplished without it. Just using it made obtaining/accomplishing the task or item a bit easier or more fun.

That, IMO is not cheating in the true sense of the word.

[dont_know_at_all]

This discussion points out why we refuse to condone active hacks. I don't really think that Sony cares if you are botting a cleric, as long as you pay for the account. It's just a matter of time before they start tracking the most commonly exploited warp.

[cronic]

This discussion points out why we refuse to condone active hacks. I don't really think that Sony cares if you are botting a cleric, as long as you pay for the account. It's just a matter of time before they start tracking the most commonly exploited warp.

I doubt that.

[insanitywiz]

This discussion points out why we refuse to condone active hacks. I don't really think that Sony cares if you are botting a cleric, as long as you pay for the account. It's just a matter of time before they start tracking the most commonly exploited warp.

I doubt that.

People doubted they would get off their butts and track any of the other common hacks too, but if you will think back I'm sure you can remember hearing about a few that got plenty of people banned.

[cronic]

Yes, but having such a thorough understanding of the mechanics of this hack, I don't think it will happen.

[Lax]

In most zones, they could simply implement a threshold of how far you can move (without spell effects) per unit of time before the server rubberbands you. Zones that include warps themselves would still be vulnerable. The other half of the problem is the client is pretty stupid as far as movement/time. Less fps = slower movement, whereas movement should be at a constant rate. If they fix this problem, they could do the same thing other games do -- relay each movement command to the server, so the server knows how long you move in what direction, when you turn, etc -- and the server should be able to accurately predict the client position at any given time, given the up-to-date movement sequence.

It's not that they cant stop warping (at least great distances. warping small distances is always valid), it's that they haven't quite figured out how.

[cronic]

You left out the "And they don't really care enough to figure out how."

[Neolesh]

You left out the "And they don't really care enough to figure out how."

You never know. Sometimes it just comes to you. One of the devs may wake up one morning with a brilliant idea how to impliment what Lax is talking about. Then 10 coding hours later it's on the shelf for the next patch.

[Virtuoso65]

SoE might figure out some special code to reduce hacking but they will never be able to prevent it. Most of what MQ2 does is just read information that has to be sent to the client for the user anyway. Its not like we are magically pulling the information out of our asses, its there for all to see and use if you know how.

Imo the only reason games get hacked in the first place is due to things that are not fun about the game. It was stupid ideas or lack of sight on the part of the designers in the first place that lead us to do what we do. For instance, as bard I manually twisted for over 3 years before I ever messed with any sort of macro or game pad. It wasnt untill later when I was diagnosed with CTS that I sought out alternative methods in the form of MQ1.

Strait out hacking of games is in part due to lame content, poor game design, or just general bored players. In terms of lame content, oneway doors and passageways in big populated dungons that require a rogue with mastered lock picking were the first reason I ever started looking into more dubious jacks. The same goes for zones with random see invis NPC that serve no real purpose being as hard as they are in the first place. KT, MPG, and RS comes to mind as shining examples, SoE saw fit to reduce the number of see invis mobs on their own which I commend them on.

Of all the hacks out there 90% of them are not really major in themselves, most are purely client side effects that no other player would notice unless the person talked about it.

Other hacks are totally obvious such as speed hacking, warping, and zoning into places one shouldnt be with their current status of flags or keys. SoE has done much to combat these major hacks with things like horses for all players, run1-5 Alternate Advance abilities, and delta checkers. Making mobs leash when the player warps away instead of following them was another bandaid SoE put in to reduce the ammount of warp pulls people were pulling in higher end oow zones. In the latest set of patches keyed/flagged zones now allow piggying people in instead of playing a major cockblock to guilds who are trying to advance past trivial content.


What it all comes down to is SoE isnt really taking the effort it would require to prevent all hacks that they could simply because it isnt worth the effort, they are just trying to get the ones that can/could cause a disruption to others. Any game worth its salt will/has been hacked, if people wernt trying then as a designer it would tell me that people just dont give a rats ass about the game enough to put in the effort.

/edit spelling

[fasterfind]

Hacks are good.

Right now, I'm stuck under the world in an OOW zone (which happens a lot because SOE messed something up again - Imagine that.) I was searching for the warp command and came across this post. Anyway, this is a classic example of why hacks are good. Right now, I'm losing time because somebody didn't program well enough. And now I'm turning to someone that can help me to help myself to save me time, and save the GMs time.

Ofcourse, if the devs took the time to do things right the FIRST time, I wouldn't be here, and maybe, some of the hacks they worry about wouldn't exist either.

[Virtuoso65]

Everyone should have one of these on them basicly all the time, 10 Dose Gate Potion .