Responsible use of hacks (1 Viewer)

[RaidNazi]

With the latest changes from Sony, There has been a lot of discussion (bordering on flames wars) about the level of availability & responsible use of hacks vs. the retarded use of them.

I find myself falling on the "keep them private" side of the fence, because the bad publicity generated by those who don't know better or just don’t give a damn being blatant about their use of these tools has led to this crackdown by Sony which impacts on all MQ2 users, be they GK'ers, afk macroers, or people who only use core MQ2 functionality.

I like to think I'm a fairly responsible user of both core MQ2 and some of the more active hacks. I've been using MQ2 and the public F-H offsets for years before joining redguides, and have in more recent times used warp, zone, and various other things without ever once being suspended/banned etc, and making sure anything I run has as many safeguards as I can to ensure that I don't end up macroing in populated areas. However given that I don't have the skills to code plugins, let alone disassemble the inner workings of EQ's packets, if all the plugins stay private then I'm unlikely to be able to make use of them myself.

If the various packet plugins are to stay private(assuming the new opcode stuff is eventually bypassed), does anyone have any suggestions on how myself and others like me can prove to those elite that we do have the right attitude and are worthy of being allowed access to them, or do you think that Ghost, nodelay etc are destined to once again only be in the hands of the few elite with the skills to make their own?

Discuss.

 

[Alatyami]

Here's my five cents for what it's worth (and considering the US economy right now it's more like 4.4 cents)

I still believe that the biggest enemy to MQ2 users is and always will be other MQ2 users. I have been using warp and zone for about three years and still have not been banned or even suspended. Granted I am always paranoid and ensure that I do not do it in front of other players.

Education is the key.

Every time Sony does something to prevent MQ2 usage, MQ2 and plugin developers always find new inventive ways to get around the blocks.

 

[Jigs21]

Obviously you have no clue whats going on. You act like we are the bad guys for not giving you warp, speed, zone etc, but in fact we are not. It has nothing to do with how responsible you think you are. We are keeping them out of the public because it's just not safe. I've suggested to a few people here that warp, speed, etc should be released to those who wish to use, but dont come here bitching and crying when you get banned the next week.

 

[hotdog]

Ultimately, it is a gamble no matter what criteria anyone decides on to say who is and who is not "trustworthy" to use them. You don't know me. I don't know you. Hell, for all we know Brad McQuaid himself runs these boards.

There may be some selectiveness in future MQ2 releases, at least in the beginning, but it will be short lived. While I have no way to back up my idea, I think it is safe to say that at least one SoE employee trolls every MQ2 board out there to see what we are doing. The chances on that employee getting into the "inner circle" of plugin creators, I imagine, wouldn't be very hard...especially if they came to the table with a couple of l33t plugins themselves.

 

[thez]

Or we could just stop posting precompiles.

That'd solve the problem right quick.

 

[CodeCompiler]

Hey that would mean im out of a Job Thez =P HAHAHA But no till we know more about whats going on with the warp and zone issues and what not and others clue me in 100 percent I also will not be including them into my compiles. I will only give out what i feel is needed for compiles.
But I am not here to listen to whining and sniffleing cause ANY of the admins state they dont want this out cause would only cause others to be banned then Guess what Precompilers should respect that and the integrety of the website.

 

[Vortix]

Not posting pre-compiles would only result in more profit for other sites who do the same as RG does.. sadly enough.

 

[Darknessfollows]

The problem isn't IF or WHEN warp and the other nifty plugins can be fixed. I'm fairly certain they were 100% functional on 4/20/07 shortly after the new MQ2 compile was fixed and released.

The current problem is getting the plugins to work without Sony detecting their use. Red and the others are doing people a huge favor by not posting functional movement plugins. If they did, a lot of plug and play users (who don't read the boards) would get banned immediately and then come back here crying.

 

[alabama20]

Here's how I look at it.The idiots, the ones who do obivous hacking in front of others, are the ones we all probably do not want to have playing the game at all anyway. They get banned because of their stupidity, and those players who have a chip on their shoulder about hackers, get to feel good about getting rid of a hacker. If these idiots were not out there, then the only ones Sony would have to ban are those of us who take care in what we do. I don't know for sure of course, but this line of thinking makes sense to me. What do ya'll think?

 

[Wizman]

I think, therefore I am hehe. Most of the past bans due to warping and zoning I firmly believe were because of people being ratted out due to jealousy, EQ purists, etc. When you could run the MMs before they put timer on, a buddy and I would run fairy MM to the one in commonlands[eggs?] back to back to back. We warped and zoned like crazy, out of sight of others tho. Well, one day he gets banned and they wouldn't say why. I was 3 boxing my toons [warping, zoning] right beside him in everything and I got not even a suspension. I still think someone he grouped with from time to time was jealous how quickly he leveled his warrior.
My Buddy has since went WoW because their refusal to come right out and say we logged you warping etc. really irked him. He did get acct. back and closed it up. I sweated it out the whole time waiting to get hit too. I guess maybe because I mainly ran my own group, or with guildies I knew well is what saved me.
I love the time it saves me as a casual player to warp and zone places, but I started "using" MQ2 for the map features only. Hopefully I'll be able to use the other functions in the future, but if not, then long as I can see where and what I'm running into I'll still be happy.
My hat's off to you peeps with the knowledge. Just wish I didn't skip computer programming class when they first offered it in H.S. in 79. Just Basic, but it was a start and mebbe I would've kept up with it all?

 

[BobOfEQ]

If you think its only idiots that get banned..... how many people here have had accounts suspended or banned? Most of those people probably don't see themselves as idiots. They probably feel just like you do about your actions.

The fact is it can hit anyone, I don't mean that as a scare, but anyone that thinks they are too smart to ever get hit with the stick is fooling themselves.

 

[Sum1]

If you think its only idiots that get banned..... how many people here have had accounts suspended or banned? Most of those people probably don't see themselves as idiots. They probably feel just like you do about your actions.

The fact is it can hit anyone, I don't mean that as a scare, but anyone that thinks they are too smart to ever get hit with the stick is fooling themselves.

It's not that idiots ONLY get banned... it just seems like people who've been around here for a long time and haven't been banned or suspended take more precautions than the next guy. A good follow-on question would be "well, if precautions work, why did the first guy get banned?"

Well, it's because he did something he shouldn't have in front of people he shouldn't have... or he spend $200 buying plugins that were going to get him a lot of attention (not exactly a "precaution"). Then there are the people who do blatently stupid things like ghost afk and then pop up in the guild lobby warping all over the place... great job, asshat.

The idiots exponentially increase their chances of being banned.

Banned people usually fall into the categories:
1. the idiots
2. the unlucky (but who made risky moves like warping or /zoning)
3. the people who don't care (plenty of people running around here with 10+ accounts just don't care if soe bans one or two... so they do whatever they want... and are generally not idiots)

It could be argued that the unlucky are idiots because we've told them time and time again that /zoning has a high likelihood of getting you banned, especially if you chain zone a lot and havn't changed the waypoints. The people who don't care make me laugh though... lol hats off! I wish I could bring up characters that fast.

 

[thez]

it just seems like people who've been around here for a long time and haven't been banned or suspended take more precautions than the next guy

My monk was banned after not even killing a mob since the patch, just testing the monk plugin to see if it worked. My main account is on a long-term suspension for warping 4 times while sniffing packets after the last patch.

This isn't something you can hide from. I had the best warp protection that anyone could offer before the patch, and I still got nailed. This is the time to duck and m'f'ing cover, then wait until the storm passes.

 

[Ccomp5950]

[YT]lW4s7TETtJA[/YT]

 

[Anthrax]

[YT]lW4s7TETtJA[/YT]

LOL, excellent!

Anthrax

 

[Marbury]

The best thing to do is quit pointing fingers, quit posting about it, and let things go the way they do.

You can't prevent jackasses from getting their hands on the stuff, so just beat them to the point.

 

[alabama20]

I wasn't tryin to say that people here are stupid or that only stupid people get banned. Many of the people on this board that I respect and pay attention to have posted they have gotten banned before. Just pointing out that the dumb ones are probably the first ones to get noticed and banned. I know anyone can get hit, and that those who are careful can and do get banned. But those who act foolishly are the ones that get noticed first.

 

[kaneda86]

There is something to be said though that monkbug has been around since pop came out... and only now is being nerfed after the wide and uncensored distribution of it; after complete abuse of it.

 

[RaidNazi]

Obviously you have no clue whats going on. You act like we are the bad guys for not giving you warp, speed, zone etc, but in fact we are not. It has nothing to do with how responsible you think you are. We are keeping them out of the public because it's just not safe. I've suggested to a few people here that warp, speed, etc should be released to those who wish to use, but dont come here bitching and crying when you get banned the next week.

Jigs,

I'm not accusing anyone of being the bad guys, My understanding is limited but as I understand it right now we can still generate the packets, but that sony are using some form of encryption which changes when you zone or every 48 seconds. The EQ servers are currently accepting packets even if the encryption is wrong, but if its wrong people get banned (ergo why none of the plugins are released currently). The challenge is to understand the process of that encryption and then emulate it so that when the EQ servers receive one of our packets they cant differentiate it from a legit packet. If thats a flawed understanding I'm happy to be corrected.

When/if the packet manipulation becomes safe again, some of the discussion i've seen has indicated there is a possibility that the plugins won't be distributed widely to try and reduce the possability of further crackdowns by SoE. What I was trying to ask was in the opinion of the RG community, how could members of the community who don't have the technical skills to be involved with the development show that they are responsible enough to have access to them.

I wasn't trying to bitch or whine, or nag for things to be done faster or anything. Hope you havn't taken offense.

Or we could just stop posting precompiles.

That'd solve the problem right quick.

I dunno.. Well before I found redguides I remember the floods of morons trying to get help on the MQ2 forums, and the flamings that followed (before general discussion got locked permanently).

The only way to really stop things IMHO is for people to stop selling plugins, and only give them to people they know arn't rtards but I can't see it happening. The rtards have lots of money and I suspect Abyss makes a damn good living out of selling plugins to rtards. Supply and demand really.

 

[mitell]

This is my 1st post, i might be wrong but what I think was Sony is focusing on warping, ghost kill and monk plugin. This is the real problem that gives them a lot of headache. For this 3 type of packets that sent to their server. They will change the encryption every 48 seconds, if they got incorrect packets coming form the EQ account that generate it, this account will go into the so call hacker log and u will be waiting to get ban stick.

This is hard to counter as they may have a few set of of encryptions for them to change the sequence everyday. Is that what is going on?

 

[someoneorsomething]

The only way to really stop things IMHO is for people to stop selling plugins, and only give them to people they know arn't rtards but I can't see it happening. The rtards have lots of money and I suspect Abyss makes a damn good living out of selling plugins to rtards. Supply and demand really.

I know that it will get out. Someone is always trying to make a buck

 

[Nightmare327]

To be honest, I don't mind if the warping stuff doesn't get fixed. I get most of my satisfaction of using the program from the little things like mq2melee, that is what really helps me on a day to day basis. As long as that stuff, and the tradeskilling automation stays in i am a happy camper. it is actually better for me NOT to have it, then I am not tempted to use it for just this ONE time in an emergency

That said, once it is fixed, I will probably put it in the directory, just in case I need it that ONE time for the emergency, lol.

 

[Timberlander]

I had been using certain unsafe plugs on 1 account for ages inluding warp zone and ghost while only using map and other safer hacks on another account i do use my "hack account" in instance zones and do it as resposibly as possible with as many programs s possible to make it safe combined with common sense and really only use them for exp quick for both accounts. as of 4/19 i had found both accounts suspended for 10 days so as of now i feel no matter what protection you use warp zone ghost and others are extremely unsafe

 

[Wizman]

So, body condoms won't protect me?
Damn it! hehe

 

[RaidNazi]

I just wanted to clarify my post, as it seems some people got the wrong end of the stick.
What I was trying to say is.

There have been comments from various people that the packet plugins shouldn't be publically released at all (source or binary).
I tend to support the idea that the packet plugins should be restricted, because there are just too many tards being obvious and pissing off the sheeple who whine at sony.
My post was basically asking IF the plugins arnt released publically, how could people outside the community that develop them show that they were able to be trusted to responsably use the plugins.

Hope that clarifies a few things.

 

[nijhal]

I think the best thing to do is for the writers of active hacks such as ghostkill ect...

Limit those hacks in the plugin to ONLY work in instance zones. Theres so many instance zones to get exp and loot from, there is no reason to use it outside of them.

That would really really help alot of situations.

Or maybe not only instances but have it limited to not be able to kill in hot spots where alot of guilds either need progression or kill a certain target.

Example have active hacks like gking NOT work in....

Sevrage
Relic
Dreadspire
Elddar
Arcstone
Direwind
ToB
Devastation

I cant think of any other problem causing mobs offhand, but I think this would be an ideal fix to people who either cant control themselfs, dont care or are too greedy. From the plugin writers I have talked to, say it would not be hard to put in a zone id check before allowing a command to be used.

What do you guys think? I may be wayyyy off base here. But I think this would definetly help aleviate alot of the attention being drawn by these hacks.

 

[hotdog]

I'd almost agree with you on this bro (I do think you have a good idea), but seeing how GMs are specifically targetting instanced zones right now...that would make GK utterly useless unless people only played after 10PM PST when the GMs weren't working (and given that the programmers found a way to circumvent SoE's ability to sniff GK users out).

The attention has already been drawn to us all. It appears that SoE is finally making a concerted effort to eradicate the use of MQ2. Whether they suceed or not is something only time will tell. But as I read someone post here say, "If it is a code, it can be broken." So, it's just a matter of time before we're all back in business and SoE is left scrambling to catch us. Only then, they will more diligent in watching specific zones where GK'ers tend to do business. That might force Gk'ers into open zones, which will cause nothing but a lot of hate and discontent from both non-MQ2 user and "responsible" MQ2 users alike.

It's a tricky situation because the community wants people to be responsible with MQ2 but at the same time give MQ2'ers the ability to use it how it can benefit them. Limiting what MQ2 does, even it it benefits the community by lowering MQ2 detection, is going to spawn a least a couple of groups of people that say, "To hell with limitations!" and release unrestricted versions of it.