Sony is snooping on us!

some-eq-player · Post by **some-eq-player** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:33 am

im curios to see what i can find in the packets .. too bad servers still down.....

after this patch .. how will MQ be affected ? .. think its still usable without detection ? i saw eqgame.exe being downloaded.

MQSEQ · Post by **MQSEQ** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:47 am

I really don't think Sony cares about the 3rd Party and they only care when folks complain on the main EQ boards then they do a lil show of force. It would be very easy for them to determine if products are being used, but if they ban thousands of folks then that equals millions of $$$ they would be losing. MQ does not directly effect a player in RL (unless they have RL issues and use that to trigger ir aka EQ roadrage).

If you've been playing EQ since the begining you would have noticed all the changes they made to the game becuase mass users leaving the game and/or complaing about things. How many people actually use a boat? The are very few zones now that you can'tget to via the translocators. That actually was a major change in how the game is played since you can get to just about anywhere from a translocator and maybe 3 or 4 zones. Used to it would be a 10 or higher zones you had to travel to get somewhere.

They listen to folks but it's sad to see them only react when folks leave the game. GO to Lax's EQIM Trillian page and read his Open Letter to EQ and you will understand some of what I'm saying.

some-eq-player · Post by **some-eq-player** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:58 am

yeah your right ... i been there since velios came out =)

[edit] WOOHOO servers just came up ... i better load up MQ and restart =P [/edit]

[editagain] WHOA .. /em screeching tires

.some message box with MQ written on it just popped as EQ took over the screen then disappeard as i was trying to get the window off ... i THINK i read out of date ... i hope i did ... ima try again [/reedit]

some-eq-player · Post by **some-eq-player** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:09 pm

ok i caught it this time .. BEFOR it was already loading everything ... anywho ... said incorrect client vertion with todays date ... so ... wheres the new one.

Stogar · Post by **Stogar** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:11 pm

I totally agree. I've played since day 1, and things are drastically different now.

There was a point that SOE just took over from Verant. Verant used to be hardliners of the "You're in OUR world now". SOE is more along the lines of "You're in our world now, and our world's about the bottom line".

The traveling issue is a very good example. Back when the game was new, it made more sense to drag things out in game and hence drag out monthly subscriptions. They milked that until the mass majority get sick of things and drop in things like PoP. Where PoT would do fine for all the PoP quests, bank etc, adding PoK with teleports for the masses would make the customers happy, and prolong subscriptions that way.

I guess in a nutshell EQ has moved from a "get them hooked and make the game slow", to a "get them hooked and oil the squeaky wheel" approach to subscription longevity. I guess it makes sense as a MMORP matures.

some-eq-player · Post by **some-eq-player** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:20 pm

ok .. logged in all the way ...
MQ not working ... great ....

vzmule · Post by **vzmule** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:23 pm

some-eq-player wrote:ok .. logged in all the way ...
MQ not working ... great ....

Structs need to be fixed first there big guy....

Doodman · Post by **Doodman** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:28 pm

some-eq-player wrote:ok .. logged in all the way ...
MQ not working ... great ....

Again. Why does this surprise people? It happens just about everytime eqgame.exe is patched. It's a fact of life here and for ShjowEQ and EQEmu.

Doodman · Post by **Doodman** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 12:34 pm

MQSEQ wrote:True on the Sniffer part but your program sounds like it can monitor pakets going to Sony.

Yup. We use it to find the packet structures so the EQEmu servers function just like live servers. Now, I suppose they could be making other connections and sending data, but that would have been detected a long time ago.

MQSEQ wrote:Now I'm not saying they are sending the data but what they can be doing is collecting it locally then check it locally and set a flag and send that flag to Sony.

True enough. That's what I meant by "on the scale you are assuming". They could be sending flags, etc back but I doubt they are sending you browser history back, etc.

MQSEQ · Post by **MQSEQ** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:02 pm

Let them send mine, I'll go visit the Horsey and Chick sites then login to EQ so they can see we are whacked and confussed. Maybe they will add donkeys to the game.

Soulzek · Post by **Soulzek** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:23 pm

A few months ago I sent a few magelo profiles of my account to Yantis to see how much my account was worth (I was looking to sell it for the right price). A few days later I get a GM e-mail notifying me that selling accounts is against the EULA, blablabla. What does this mean?

1) Yantis is not to be trusted... (I don't see how, they never screwed me over in plat selling and had no reason to turn me in)

2) SOE was watching my e-mail

At first, I immediately believed #1 to be true, however, after reading this topic it would seem #2 is a very high possibility.

MQSEQ · Post by **MQSEQ** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:41 pm

Sony monitor forums and stuff. I don't know how they did it in your case since email are outside EQ unless you typed it while in game on the same machine (I doubt it but could happen, that's why we need a memory dumper to we can scan a text file of the data)

I would like to figure out how Magelo is caputuring the actual Item since the Equipment struct only say leather, velium sword, etc. not the exact item. The reason i want to know is so I can populate the screen with that data.

Doodman · Post by **Doodman** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 2:04 pm

MQSEQ wrote:I would like to figure out how Magelo is caputuring the actual Item since the Equipment struct only say leather, velium sword, etc. not the exact item. The reason i want to know is so I can populate the screen with that data.

What you say is true for how your client see's other mobs.

Magelo (like MQ, SEQ, EQEmu Packet collector) sees your entire inventory (bank included) will all names, stats, augs, etc.

mackster · Post by **mackster** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 6:13 pm

I just re-read the EULA. I couldn't find anything that specifically said that you grant sony access to your internal computer information such as what programs are running, your internet history or anything like that.

Wouldn't they have to specifically say if you agree to this EULA you give consent to such monitoring?

They have the usual privacy policy stuff, such as their websites use cookies to collect consumer information and "click path" referencing (might want to consider that if you click a link to any sony domain that has been posted on this site!) and things like that.

It also said the EULA was last updated august 10 2003.

Programmer · Post by **Programmer** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 6:47 pm

If Sony were monitoring your email I am certain they would be exposing themselves to a slew of legal issues which would cost them much too much money when all was said and done. If they were do breech your privacy this way, there's no way in hell they would send you an email that would basically admit that.

I suspect that you mentioned selling your character in-game and someone /report'd you.