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server logs (warping) (1 Viewer)

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ncccippy

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how does the EQ server log warps, etc? is this something they can just do a general text scan to find out who's warping or is it a little more detailed than that. does every toon appear to warp at least a small amount or is this something only 3rd party programs can cause ever? im trying to evaluate the risks of warping, and while ive heard that sony only goes after people who warp excessively im curious to know exactly how detectable it is.

thanks/sorry! in advance.

edit: im sorry i meant to post this thread in the questions forum, i apologize for causing an admin to have to move it.
 
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ncccippy said:
im sorry if this has been asked before or if im posting in the wrong section, ive used the search function and couldnt find any definitive information.

how does the EQ server log warps, etc? is this something they can just do a general text scan to find out who's warping or is it a little more detailed than that. does every toon appear to warp at least a small amount or is this something only 3rd party programs can cause ever? im trying to evaluate the risks of warping, and while ive heard that sony only goes after people who warp excessively im curious to know exactly how detectable it is.

thanks/sorry! in advance.
Click to expand...

It's very detectable but so far sony didn't do a damn thing about it so warp on (just don't be stupid and use it in moderation).
 
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Aye, They could easily pull out the ban stick and ban a ton of players warping... Very detectable, case and point is when they banned all those people for ghosting. All Ghosting was warping from A to B very fast so mob would never aggro. They saw that that plugin vastly altered the gaming experience and banned all those doing it.
Warping as of yet has not entered there crosshairs for bannage from logs, as long as you don't do something stupid... like warping in front of a GM or pissing other people off your cool, but then again there is always that risk.
 
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ghosting was alittle more complicated then that... lol. anyways yes sony can see us warping because every few seconds a movement packet is sent to the server. this packet shows wether we are warping or not by the size of it so warping dir 10 just looks like simple lag but warping across the zone makes the packet size large and through the size of the packet its easily seens that you jumped from one spot to another WAY far away.
 
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Yea i use warp alot. But i make sure no one is near me or the place im warping to. (thank you /mapfilter pc on :P) I dont warp in highly populated zones, and i NEVER let anyone know i can do it. 3 months ive used it and no problems. I only use macros with warp in instanced zones. I Just cant stand running everywhere. I probably wasted 1/2 to 3/4 of my time on EQ just running to places. I think everyone should be able to warp. But thats just me. And if i get banned for it im gonna tell em "If you made it easier to get to places maybe i wouldnt have to warp" lol anyways /rant off
 
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kaneda86 said:
ghosting was alittle more complicated then that... lol. anyways yes sony can see us warping because every few seconds a movement packet is sent to the server. this packet shows wether we are warping or not by the size of it so warping dir 10 just looks like simple lag but warping across the zone makes the packet size large and through the size of the packet its easily seens that you jumped from one spot to another WAY far away.
Click to expand...

That's not how movement packets work at all :)
 
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I think they can detect warping, because one instant your at 533, 444, 145. Then one second later your 1200, -300, 120. This would be my guess on how its in the logs, and why SOE doesn't put effort into it at this point in time.
 
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Easy_Moder said:
I think they can detect warping, because one instant your at 533, 444, 145. Then one second later your 1200, -300, 120. This would be my guess on how its in the logs, and why SOE doesn't put effort into it at this point in time.
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The problem is they would have to put in code to detect legitimate large movements like that too, via succor, levant, shadowstep, etc.. A bard turning on his shadowstep song in a group can cause all kinds of flags to come up with people 'warping' everywhere.. While I'm sure Sony has a better grasp on how to detect it than I do, I imagine it's not an easy thing to find just by watching for it in the logs..
 
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Could they track warps if they wanted to? Yeah

Do the have the manpower/assets/time to do so? Nope

Like the posters above stated, it would just take too much time to filter through that many logs, regardless of an automated system or not. And so many red flags would have to be checked every minute/hour/day/week that it would be impossible without hiring half of India (their favorite cs dept these days).

So yeah ... warp all you want. You're generally safe unless a GM is watching (cloaked or not) or another person reports you. Playerbase petitions are your number one concern ... and yes there are assholes who use MQ2 and petition other users they find. Those guys will smack you almost more often than non mq2 users. Case in point: you use mq2 to farm something they want to farm? Some assholes will do anything to bypass competition. This was a problem on my server concerning certain outdated raid zones. A specific group farmed a specific zone for alts etc regularly ... a new group moves in and starts presenting competition ... they watch the zone for the 'offenders' and petitioned them. GM's went and checked logs and punished the 'offenders' ... original assholes walk away victorious.

Just be careful with it and you're 99% safe.
 
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my basic understanding of how warping is tracked has somethign to do with the following.

1st if I understand correctly, server side checks can determine if you have moved faster than you should normally be able to, so blocking the special packet doesn't matter all that much.

that said, there is a packet generated which returns a number related to movement.

A bard moving at bard speed, generates a number greater than someone walking.

so, if you go from x/y to x/y ultra fast, it returns a larger number than normal. ie... a warp.

There are some aspects of the game that can return false positives on warps such as in zone gates where you are bound in said zone....COTH...Shadow step type spells...etc.

So yea, if they wanted to ban us for warping, they could. I try to keep my warp usage down to a minimum personally; however, warping is just oso tempting and convenient.

Also, one other thing.....it isn't warping necessarily that generates movement packet anomolies, more so, warping over a great distance which would cause a higher number to be generated in your fat packet.



the one I am more interested in is how chain zoning works. This is probably one of my bigger abuses simply because running everywhere sucks some serious ballz.
 
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There's more to this than just checking ''packets''. (a packet is a packet of info btw, size of the packet doesn't tell them anything, its the info in the packet (packets are usually fixed size btw))..anyway...

Other considerations than person was here and now they are there:
Was it a:

Mage Summons
Mob Summons
Lag
Wiz TL
Wiz/Druid Port
Gate Potion
Mob Push (even)
Origin AA
Wiz/Druid Evac
Mob Port (similar to Trakanon)


I'm sure you could come up with alot more examples they would have to look for.

Basically, players are porting non-stop 24/7 for a ton of reasons, the logs alone for this would be astronomical. They (Soe, the ''enemy'') do say they flag accounts for things like warping. My guess would be they flag everytime a player ports. The flag count probably tells them something. A person who has 200 flags in a week might be ok, whereas someone (me) with x,000 ports in a week would cause them to physically watch that person (since most of us don't get caught, I would also guess they would only watch that person if someone gave them a reason to)
 
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Psycotic said:
The problem is they would have to put in code to detect legitimate large movements like that too, via succor, levant, shadowstep, etc.. A bard turning on his shadowstep song in a group can cause all kinds of flags to come up with people 'warping' everywhere.. While I'm sure Sony has a better grasp on how to detect it than I do, I imagine it's not an easy thing to find just by watching for it in the logs..
Click to expand...

Except for the fact these are caused by spells. Which would not set off alarms. And I don't think Sony has alarms. You get petitioned they pull logs and look. Which is why we aren't all banned. This is my O, anyways.

A GM once stated that they can tell how many warps you do, he claimed they logged them, and if you had an obscene amount you got banned. Of course, I don't believe goody-goody GMs what I think he meant was that they can't tell if you lagged to a spot, or warped to it. But if you have 10,000 warps a week they safely assume your warping and not lagging.
 
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odessa said:
MLPTSC doesn't execute during lag so that's not an issue, they can definitely tell if you warped, they just don't care that much.
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Is that why when I'm lagging pretty bad and I try to warp I end up back in the same spot?
 
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Another interesting thing I have noticed recently is sometimes I will run first toon across zone and warp bots to him (/Warp Target) . They do not always go all the way to him. Sometimes they go somewhere along his path. Is this something I should be concerned about? Has anyone else noticed this?
 
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