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Bug - Krono exploit, player-to-player theft (confirmed working)

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Apparently there's a new Krono exploit, but this one's malicious as it involves stealing from other players.

Player-to-player only, not using the bazaar platform.

These posts were swiftly deleted from the EQ forums:

If you put 2 or more Krono in the trade window and the buyer spams escape it'll cancel the trade. The buyer will say never mind I just need 1. When you open up the trade window it'll show that you're only trading one. However on his screen it'll show up as the 2 or 3+ that you initially put in the trade window.

The buyer will then receive the extra Krono free of cost and the seller is left wondering why he has fewer Krono.

I have had something similar to this happen to me twice as a seller. Put the krono in the trade window, the buyer hits esc before putting the money up, I lose a krono.

In my own testing with my own toons, I haven't been able to replicate this.

edit: nevermind, confirmed working. Details from my test below.
 
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Re: Krono exploit, player-to-player theft

This could be troublesome for ppl buying/trading more than one. I guess the solution temporarily is to only trade one at a time...
 
Re: Krono exploit, player-to-player theft

yeah good to know info..... just parcel em to me, thanks....
 
Re: Krono exploit, player-to-player theft

Haven't tested this just FYI, on mobile. Will try it on my own toons when I get home
 
Re: Krono exploit, player-to-player theft

Just tested it, confirmed working. It took a few tries. You have to really spam escape before the trade even begins, not easy when you're boxing both sides of the trade :)

As a seller, here's how it looks when you get scammed:

a) You click your krono on the player to open a trade window, and get an instant cancellation of the trade. As soon as you open the window, it's cancelled.
b) the krono don't go back into your inventory, nor your krono slot. They seemingly disappear.
c) You figure it's a glitch and no big deal, or you assume they're in your inventory and don't look through all your bags, and trade another round of krono. Everything appears normal to you, but the other party will see the new round of krono PLUS the other round you tried to trade before, and they'll get both. The trade window lies only to you.

My recommendation: don't open the trade window with Krono. Open it with copper. Always make sure you have all your krono, check your krono slot AND your bags. And if anyone cancels a trade window on you when buying krono, report them to GMs.

Using this exploit against other players will almost certainly lead to an account ban. This has been posted for our active seller community to avoid scammers, Redguides doesn't support hurting other players.
 
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yeah , PLEASE don't be THAT guy! Thanks for the open trade with copper rule, I like that!
 
Has anyone tried this with other objects? For example, plat? It could be a much wider problem.
 
Has anyone tried this with other objects? For example, plat? It could be a much wider problem.

So far, I cannot replicate it with other items or plat. It must be tied to the layer of security tied to krono processing (which is a completely separate system) and the actual game code.

Expect a patch soon.

I personally am staying away from all trade windows and krono for a while to avoid being caught in the logs being sniffed and mistakenly getting banned.
 
Someone pushed the info to the EQ page on Reddit (presume it was someone from here). Good stuff making it known.
 
Absolutely, protect the players. If we are going to screw each other, we end up like every other mmo community. We are a unique bunch, lets keep it that way :)
 
Re: Krono exploit, player-to-player theft

So I was just trying to trade a couple kronos to a friend, no money in exchange.
I placed both kronos in the window and hit accept. He was afk, i was semi-afk, when i came back he had cancelled the trade but both kronos were missing.
I was freaked. I zoned a bunch, but nothing fixed it till I camped out and camped back in.
I had a whole petition typed out ready to submit till they returned.

So this sounds somewhat similar to the posted krono exploit in that the krono mechanism is all fucky.
 
Atleast with that scenario though, re-logging always fixed it for me.
 
I did a bit of experimentation with this abit. If after the trade winds as canceled if you opened another trade window and closed it from the toon who had the Kronos, they then reappeared on that char. It worked for me 3times in a row. So...if they close the window and then reopen, you close, and then redo you should be OK...but as for me, if I'm buying, or selling, Kronos, I always let the cash trader go first, and the Kronos added after...but I like the 1 cp to open trade..
 
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Great info here. I'm old school and remember the times when you would mis click and drop items on the floor, So I ALWAYS open trade with 1 copper out of habit. Not a bad habit to have considering.
 
ok did not want to say this out loud but the lazy programmers that work at DBG will prolly fix this in the simplest way they can, like make Kronos "NO TRADE"

Lets hope they don't but it is a possibility, they are the laziest bastards on the planet....
 
I'm surprised they aren't doing anything. They've known about this exploit since the 9th, at least.
 
Well, its much more public now. Might force their hand when support tickets start costing more than fixing it.
 
Well, its much more public now. Might force their hand when support tickets start costing more than fixing it.

Sorry couldnt help but laugh at 'support ticket'


Dear Sad Player,

sorry you lost your Krono, you can reattain the lost items through gameplay (or just paying us more money and buy them from us).

Happy gaming, your friendly helpful CS rep at DBG.
 
Well, its much more public now. Might force their hand when support tickets start costing more than fixing it.

Well, with how much concern Absor showed on the reddit page I highly doubt they've dropped everything else and sprung into action. I doubt we see a fix for another 1.5 months, at least.
 
Thats hilarious - the "macroquesting group" reporting an exploit is being denied by the developers... You don't need to be British to see the irony in this. Even you Americans could see it :P


^walks away shaking his head^
 
The bug is due to Krono being a different trade resource than normal Items.

If you relog when the krono disappears, after the initial trade cancel, the bug goes away. The problem exists when a future trade is accepted. Since the initial "Krono Trade Lag" still exists and the "Trade ID" goes through, the Krono Trades gets assigned to the second Trade ID due to the Lag in the Krono Trades. (The Lag is noticeable all the time, just open a Krono trade with anyone and you see a delay)

Here's what I would find as an interesting test:
1. Player A tries to trade Krono to Player B
2. Player B does the auto cancel/close to cause the Krono to disappear from Player A.
3. Player A then trades Krono to Player C and that trade goes through
4. Does Player A still drop Double Krono, does Player C get double?
 
In my test with my toons..the answer was no..
On my trade with toon C, the original krono "appeared" back in its krono slot.
Mind I was doing this with all toons on same laptop (if that make any difference I don't know).
 
In my test with my toons..the answer was no..
On my trade with toon C, the original krono "appeared" back in its krono slot.
Mind I was doing this with all toons on same laptop (if that make any difference I don't know).

It is very difficult to do on your own as the spamming esc and getting a new window up is tough. Not sure you could even do it on 1 machine without a macro spamming it..
 
I did it on one machine, though I think Meistro is referring to a new test involving a third player.
 
I did it on one machine, though I think Meistro is referring to a new test involving a third player.

Ohhhh. That makes more sense.

Reading the reddit post. They are just arrogantly denying it. And the Krono traders that piped up seem to know and are denying it to keep their freebies flowing.

Glad I only trade enough to keep playing and are not trying to just trade and horde.
 
So looks like the Bug is the lag from adding a krono to a trade with the same player. And if you initiate a new trade with a different player, the Transaction ID is reset and then the previous ID is let go and the Krono resets its location.

Without knowing the actual code, im assuming its like this:

Transaction 1:
1. Initiate trade - TransactionID_A_to_B generated
a. A Put Krono into trade
b. Krono Logic Takes time to add Krono to trade window
c. Player 2 Cancels trade before Krono Logic completes
d. Krono Logic Completes
e. TransactionID_A_to_B ID saved in table due to 1.d not completing before Trade Cancelled
2. Second Transaction - TransactionID_A_to_B generated
a. A Puts Krono Into Trade
b. Krono Logic Takes time to add Krono to trade window
c. Krono Logic Completes, adds Krono to Window
d. TransactionID_A_to_B goes through with both 1.b and 2.b added to that ID


With Absor (was it really him?) saying its not a big deal, I'm hoping its a red herring to catch people exploiting and banning them. Because I guarantee you those trades are saved off into a Database.
 
HONEYPOT just saying..... good way to get rid of active scammers!
 
So looks like the Bug is the lag from adding a krono to a trade with the same player. And if you initiate a new trade with a different player, the Transaction ID is reset and then the previous ID is let go and the Krono resets its location.

Without knowing the actual code, im assuming its like this:

Transaction 1:
1. Initiate trade - TransactionID_A_to_B generated
a. A Put Krono into trade
b. Krono Logic Takes time to add Krono to trade window
c. Player 2 Cancels trade before Krono Logic completes
d. Krono Logic Completes
e. TransactionID_A_to_B ID saved in table due to 1.d not completing before Trade Cancelled
2. Second Transaction - TransactionID_A_to_B generated
a. A Puts Krono Into Trade
b. Krono Logic Takes time to add Krono to trade window
c. Krono Logic Completes, adds Krono to Window
d. TransactionID_A_to_B goes through with both 1.b and 2.b added to that ID


With Absor (was it really him?) saying its not a big deal, I'm hoping its a red herring to catch people exploiting and banning them. Because I guarantee you those trades are saved off into a Database.
After reading all of this it felt like you just took 3 of my kronos
 
Bug - Krono exploit, player-to-player theft (confirmed working)

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