New Motd And News from SOE on MQ2 Detection (1 Viewer)

[Maskoi]

Cheating has become a serious concern to our EQ player base this past year. Exploits and hacks strike at the very heart of a game, creating deep resentment in the community as selfish players gain benefit at the expense of their honest fellows. You've let us know your thoughts, and we have taken action.


Players who partake in cheating are hereby put on notice: stop now. This isn't an idle warning. We have quietly invested significant behind the scenes effort into detecting cheaters quickly and accurately. The vast majority of players enjoy the game on a fair and even playing field. Those who gain unfair advantage over others will not be tolerated.


You know who you are, we know who you are, and you now have your warning. We strongly advise you to take heed and reform your ways immediately. There will be no second chances.

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/news_article.vm?id=52445&month=122011

 

[Redbot]

The active hacks they were targeting on progression servers will likely be targeted on live servers.

My non-binding, non-guaranteed advice: Stick to a more vanilla existence, run macros (Kissassist!) and zone like a normal player for awhile. No active hacks.

My guaranteed advice: leave cherished accounts alone for a few weeks, MQ2 up your brother's old cleric.

Traditionally, ban waves have targeted active hacks, not macro'ers or vanilla MQ2 users.

 

[makrolover]

Wouldn't it of been completely awesome if the erudite would of been pointing at a picture of Maskoi?

 

[Redbot]

hahaha

 

[Noobhaxor]

Sorry, but I call bullshit. My accounts are flagged as hacking, macroing, warping, etc... and I bet they won't do anything. Typical SoE incompetent to the end, and I hope I eat my words, because it would be nice if everyone was on the same playing field. I guess we will see... because I'm not buying it.

 

[Toneman07]

The active hacks they were targeting on progression servers will likely be targeted on live servers.

My non-binding, non-guaranteed advice: Stick to a more vanilla existence, run macros (Kissassist!) and zone like a normal player for awhile. No active hacks.

My guaranteed advice: leave cherished accounts alone for a few weeks, MQ2 up your brother's old cleric.

Traditionally, ban waves have targeted active hacks, not macro'ers or vanilla MQ2 users.

Kissassist requires mq2melee and moveutils are these not considered active hacks?

 

[Noobhaxor]

Kissassist requires mq2melee and moveutils are these not considered active hacks?

No, they are passive, they only do keypress's and do not modify packets or offsets to modify the EQ game itself.

 

[mroutlaw]

if they truely banned every hacker servers would have to merge!

 

[Chanticleer]

way to many hacking out there , only over the summer i met/seen at least 50 some people hacking, and those 50 people all had at least 1-5 other active accounts some even more, and for those 50 i know there are probally just as many if not more that i didnt meet, or see or know were hacking, and this is on a smaller server and only over a few months.. my thoughts are if they were able to , and did extract all of us, quite a few would be out of work @ soe. im pulling this number out of my butt, but just from what ive seen and all the people i have seen across mmobugs, and notaddicted im figuring there is probally somewhere around 25% of the entire population hacking, and maybe more.

 

[Maskoi]

My own research shows about the same 20%-30% of EQ players use MQ2 in some form and you also have to remember MQ2 users on average are paying for 3-6 accounts. That's a lot of subscriptions.

 

[Chanticleer]

as for these scare tactics, im sure theyve got a spy on these sites, thats why whenever an exploit gets mentioned , bam , its fixed, so think about this as youre out there trying to ban the hackers,,, catch me i dare you,, you will loose $120 a month, i will gain that , and i will finially have an excuse not to play, but you'd better start looking for a job, the big shots are gonna have to recoup the losses somehow.......

 

[Sum1]

If it makes you feel any better, I bet soe doesn't have anyone watching this site. Anytime a good exploit gets posted on here it stays in game for significantly longer than it does if posted on MMOBugs. I would bet money soe has people with accounts on MMOBugs to see where the hacking community is going and what they're doing, but I think we're safe here.

As far as the hacking detection, I'm with the people who think they just pushed the TLP banning stuff to all live servers, and that's it. That looked like it just parsed zoning times and popped you automatically if you zoned too fast (i.e. piggyzoned).

 

[AnonymousHero]

You know this would have been nice if they did this like 2+ years ago when I was playing on a PVP server and got merged into Zek... Doing it today is like closing the gate after the cows escaped.

 

[hoosierbilly]

creating deep resentment in the community as selfish players gain benefit at the expense of their honest fellows

Someone will have to explain that statement to me. I did not realize this game was a compitition between players, except on the PVP servers. How exactly does cheating come at the expense of others? Unless you are stealing directly from them or preventing them from accomplishing their goals.

Maybe if more people remebered that it is just a GAME. We play it for entertainment.

Botom line for me is - I'll play my way, you play your way.

I will continue to use macros to prevent wearing out my mouse button or causing carpel tunnel. I will continue to piggyzone and warp for as long as I can. This game is about entertainment and I don't find running across several laggy zones to buy more food / water very entertaining.

Probable worth mentioning that I am just finishing working through buried sea expansion. I will probably skip the face aug in secerts and start working on void access. Maybe next year I will buy the expansion underfoot and following.

Yesterday, I joined a group of other players for the first time in months / years. Took me about 20 minutes to realize I had made a mistake and unplug my internet to go LD. SOE really needs to find a way to ban stupid people and cry babies. They are the ones who are really gaining benefit at the expense of others.

Good luck to everyone out there. May the force be with you.

 

[Maskoi]

Once again this all stems from the stupidity on the TLP servers. They are just taking it to the logical conclusion. We will have to see what happens in the next week or so before we can gauge the extent of this. As Redbot said please be aware of it and use active hacks with caution if at all.

 

[Xat]

If it makes you feel any better, I bet soe doesn't have anyone watching this site. Anytime a good exploit gets posted on here it stays in game for significantly longer than it does if posted on MMOBugs. I would bet money soe has people with accounts on MMOBugs to see where the hacking community is going and what they're doing, but I think we're safe here.

As far as the hacking detection, I'm with the people who think they just pushed the TLP banning stuff to all live servers, and that's it. That looked like it just parsed zoning times and popped you automatically if you zoned too fast (i.e. piggyzoned).

i can guarantee sony has people on this forum, in less than 48 hours they ninja nerfd a macro i wrote and gave it out to people ONLY on this site. They didnt nerf the entire exploit JUST they way the macro was set up to work

 

[arch]

Someone will have to explain that statement to me. I did not realize this game was a compitition between players, except on the PVP servers. How exactly does cheating come at the expense of others? Unless you are stealing directly from them or preventing them from accomplishing their goals.

The one thing that does cause resentment is the people that zone into a zone warp to and kill named while people are working to the named... even on old content.

Another thing is that people assume that the cheaters are the ones keeping mobs permakilled so they never have a chance to kill them. Now you and i know that this is not necessarily the case but perception is reality.

 

[Sum1]

i can guarantee sony has people on this forum, in less than 48 hours they ninja nerfd a macro i wrote and gave it out to people ONLY on this site. They didnt nerf the entire exploit JUST they way the macro was set up to work

Was the same info put out on other sites? Toss a link to the macro you wrote ... I'm a member at a few different sites and I'd like to see if it was posted (same or similar versions) there too.

 

[Maskoi]

Was the same info put out on other sites? Toss a link to the macro you wrote ... I'm a member at a few different sites and I'd like to see if it was posted (same or similar versions) there too.

http://forums.notaddicted.com/showthread.php?t=24119

 

[hoosierbilly]

The one thing that does cause resentment is the people that zone into a zone warp to and kill named while people are working to the named... even on old content.

Another thing is that people assume that the cheaters are the ones keeping mobs permakilled so they never have a chance to kill them. Now you and i know that this is not necessarily the case but perception is reality.

That falls under preventing other people from accomplishing their goals and should be discouraged at all levels. I've had this happen to me (kill stealing my mob I worked to spawn). It's too bad SOE can't isolate the inconsiderate and ban them.

 

[thoughtriot]

this is just to keep the people who dont cheat quiet. i mean i only use the recommended items here in this post anyways so i am not going to worry too much... plus i would love a reason not to pay 37$ a month. Since i pay for this too

My advice... play nicely and stick to yourself and boxes for a while, do not exploit or cheat your way through the new expansion lol. what fun is that anyways right?

 

[Sum1]

http://forums.notaddicted.com/showthread.php?t=24119

Thanks, I didn't see the update to the fletching thread that went down 29-30 Nov with the item removal. I didn't see this on mmobugs, so sony caught wind of it themselves, via /feedback or /bug, or there really is someone on here. Who really knows? I will say, though, that of all the OTHER exploits posted on these boards, all but this one has remained in game for significant periods of time. Unless it happens again I'm still comfortable saying that I'd have much less concern posting an exploit here compared with posting at mmobugs.

 

[lordbyter]

I'm not going to worry too much. I only use MQ2 for maps, huds, and simple macros, anyways. Even on the tradeskills I only use the combine mac.

 

[Maskoi]

Interesting post from SOE forums Piestro is SOE Community Realtions. In bold red what I found interesting.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?start=100&topic_id=181668#2744753

Piestro wrote:
I'm not gonna create a list of approved programs, however I will say that common sense is more than enough to tell if you are cheating.

Parsing - Not cheating

Item Collectors - Not cheating

Program that has autofire button (and you are still in the general vicinity of the keyboard) - Not cheating

Swimming on auto-run into a corner to raise up swimming - Not cheating

Cheating - not allowed.

If it's reasonable and not unfair it's not cheating. If it gives you an unfair advantage and allows you to do things that can't be normally done in game it's cheating.

Shangsung wrote:
Right, that would be what I'm inclined to think as well.

But have you guys tested with various item collectors, to make sure that nothing sets off a red flag in whatever you're going to using as your method to catch the hackers?

I've seen people suspended for warping, when it was a mob summoning.

I've seen beastlords petitioned, for feign deathing with an AA.

I've seen Rangers accused of warping, for receiving a CoH.

Would really like to know that you guys are ready for different scenarios.

Piestro wrote:
We've been running the code for months eliminating any false positives.

People are always shocked by the beastlord fd for some reason.

 

[Jmo]

I would not doubt that they have been running a code similar to EQEmu. Be weary of anything you do. This seems like it could be a repeat of May 2005.

 

[Chanticleer]

im curious, what happend in may 2005?

 

[lordbyter]

Yeah, I'd like to know what happened in May 2005, also!!

 

[beastdaddy]

Go Vanilla and chill out. They are doing this to save face imo. The TLP suspends/bans were far less than what people thought they were. Be smart cheating. Don't go warp/zone/gank/instamem/fartaunt blah blah. it is simple. I'd guess it will blow over and be nothing but incase to feel safe and protect yourself just use non-active hacks.

 

[Parkview]

Ok, I'm wondering a few things. If I keep using the one I have, instead of Vanilla, and don't use the active hacks (I use /warp in instance, otherwise I only use the program for Maps and Macs) it would be the same thing wouldn't it?

Also, I saw they banned like 17 accounts for good and 30 something got very long term bans on the Progression servers, so 51 accounts they told us about(how many they didnt?) But my question is, Is anyone still playing there and using MQ?

And I'm wondering about 05 myself, thats about the time I left the game for a few years, so not sure what I missed then.

 

[Maskoi]

Ok, I'm wondering a few things. If I keep using the one I have, instead of Vanilla, and don't use the active hacks (I use /warp in instance, otherwise I only use the program for Maps and Macs) it would be the same thing wouldn't it?

Also, I saw they banned like 17 accounts for good and 30 something got very long term bans on the Progression servers, so 51 accounts they told us about(how many they didnt?) But my question is, Is anyone still playing there and using MQ?

And I'm wondering about 05 myself, thats about the time I left the game for a few years, so not sure what I missed then.

If you use the normal compile and don't warp/piggyzone/etc yes its the same as running the vanilla compile. I just put that up there because you can't use any active hacks at all since it doesn't contain them.

 

[Sum1]

I'm sure tons still use MQ2 on TLP.

 

[beastdaddy]

Aye. When you get non-tracking classes running to namers the second they pop ect people start to question SoE about cheating. (IE new expansion time/unlocks on TLP). That is just to start. There has been/is blatant disregard for other players lately. Watch people warp on namers ect in crowded zones. It was hillarious seeing people in a raid guild today randomly bringing up forms of gate options from events rofl.

 

[Jmo]

May 2007 Explained:

Around the end of April, KenetixEQ and a couple of other sites all released a "No Delay" weapon hack, as I'm sure most of you here have heard of at some point. While it was not the only game-breaking Plugin that had been put out at that time, it was the most hardcore and completely overpowered.

While MQ2 hacking had been around for a good long while at this point, Sony had, for the most part, looked the other way. People who were using the hacks weren't really interfering with the gameplay of others, so they didn't make it a priority.

With the advent of the damage hacks, all of a sudden everyone's eyes were on the hacking community. We had pretty much remained in the shadows up until that point. We could have stayed that way, but unfortunately some people are just plain stupid and don't use discretion when they break the rules.

Once everyone started crying fowl, Sony changed part of the coding of EQ and the way that the server sent and received Packets. They were then immediately able to not only track, but auto ban ANYONE who used ANY ACTIVE HACK. (Caps for emphasis). On May 15th, 2007 (if I remember that day correctly. We called it "Black Tuesday"), Sony banned pretty much everyone who was using active hacks. The rumor was that between 75,000-100,000 accounts were banned that day.

That completely decimated a good chunk of the MQ community. It took almost a whole year for most of the hacking sites to finally break Sony's code and get active hacks back out to those that were willing to risk using them. Since then, while Sony has cracked down a bit on hacking, they had mostly gone back to ignoring those of use who didn't cause a stir and didn't get reported.

While the new posts by the SOE Devs could be a bluff, I wouldn't put my money on it. I've heard talk that they've been working VERY closely with the EQ Emu devs (surprisingly) to work out a solution to actively tracking people who hack.

Now, SOE has already been sued at one point for including an active scan in their program that looked for running processes, so I don't think that they would worry about those folks that are using passive hacks (MQ2Map, MQ2Melee, MQ2MoveUtils, Non-Warping macros, etc.), I can almost garuntee that they will have an auto-ban program set up very soon to just start nabbing anyone who uses an active hack of any sort (MQ2RWarp, MQ2Piggyzone, MQ2Ghost, etc).

With that said, use MQ2 at your own discretion at this point forward until the Devs here and at MQ2 actually know what the changes that Sony has made actually are, and their lasting effects. If you've been using active hacks, I would back off. If you've been using them in front of people this whole time, well, I'm sorry but you deserve to get banned. It's people that use them in front of people and also to gain an unfair advantage that ruins it for everyone else. The TLP servers are the perfect example of this.

I hope that sums it up for those that were wondering. Remember, be careful.

 

[Jmo]

Post fixed. It was 2007, not 2005. Sorry about that. Not quite as long ago as I thought.

 

[Parkview]

Thank you Jmo, this explains a lot. I've stopped using /warp for any reason, as well as /sumcorpse and /gate, and I never took the time to use or learn piggyzone.

While I hope not to be banned, I knew when i started using this it could happen, so if it's a ban they send me, I'll take the money I spend on all these accounts, and find another game to play around in. 13 years is a long time for one game, I'm sure I can find another :-)

 

[Maskoi]

I would expect for first time offenses they will be handing out 7 day suspensions like they did on the TLP servers but time will tell.

 

[Jmo]

I would expect for first time offenses they will be handing out 7 day suspensions like they did on the TLP servers but time will tell.

I don't know. They were very adamant to just straight out ban people last time. But like you said, only time will tell.

 

[Harleyrider]

I 100% won't be getting new accounts if they ban me. so if they don't want my $1320/year, they can make that choice. I'm still not worried as I don't grief other players.

p.s. Thanks you TLP dumbasses!

 

[beastdaddy]

Don't hate this is a longtime coming tbh. TLP just brought it to the forefront. We all cheat here. Weather it is tracking or watching your map for see invis mobs ect. I am no better than the rest I warped/zoned ect. I did it with different INI's ect so it was different than others to draw less attention and I didn't warp around in crowded zones ect. But, I am just as guilty as the rest. Just play it safe be smart and let this blow over. Honestly the only thing I want / need is my maps along with melee/autoskills just purely to save myself from hotkey spamming.

 

[Harleyrider]

TLP brought it to the forefront because they are griefing other players. Cheating may be cheating, but griefing if what people really have a problem with.