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The Final Word on Hacks in Darkfall
I have been posting in the "Speedhack 
" thread, but I think its kinda gotten off track, and the motivation for this thread is to disabuse some inherently flawed notions about hacks in Darkfall, AV's repsonce to them, and how this will play out.
So lets start by clearing up any misconceptions:
1. There are Hacks in Darkfall
No, its not lag or a sync issue, there are live hacks in game right now, stop living in denial.
2. Too much data is stored client side and there is no Warden feature in DF
No MMO ever has made this epic mistake (that I know of or are major names that are still in existance), and without coding and implementing a Warden or similar product there is little to no chance, even with a larger and more capable staff, to retrofit such a thing into the clients.
3. Without a Warden type program its going to be harder to catch hackers than botters
Bots and macro AFKers hang around inviting themselves to be caught, hacks are usually something people use actively as they play, and can/will turn them off when the heat is on, granting there is even enough staff to put the heat on in the first place.
Extra important point:
4. PEOPLE ARE THINKING 180 DEGREES IN THE WRONG DIRECTION ABOUT LONG TERM EFFECTS
OF HACKING!!!
Rather than thinking that the problem will lessen with time as AV tries to fight it (lol), one has to realize that;
A. Games with unlimited funds and staffing capability still get hacks... they catch a lot, but even in those games its happening, and AV is not even close to having the funds or staffing to fiight this, and volunteer GM's are a dangerous road considering they can just pick on guilds they hate on their main char.
B. There is not as much hacking now as there will be!!!! While still in the honeymoon stage, those that are already hacking are hiding in the background noise of everyone trying to establish themselves, but guilds like Lordknights and Undead Lords and Ebonlore or others are known to dupe/sploit/hack in other games they've played and are already doing so now, but they are still the minority, and the impact of some guilds hacking their way to the top is not noticable, YET... I'm sure there are plenty more minor, handful of members griefer guilds already making an inordinate advancement/impact to their size due to hacking...
The main problem with that is:
C. Once hacking/sploiting guilds start their inevitable domination it will be "hack or die", this will come in time.
THIS IS NOT GOING TO GET BETTER, its only going to get worse!
Without Warden or anything like it trying to stop this is going to be like trying to empty the ocean with an eyedropper.
AND WE HAVE ONLY SEEN THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG OF HACKING that can and will take place the longer more people have access to the client side info.
The arms race has not even really begun, and once it does, the types, numbers of, and people who use hacks will increase exponentially.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Comments
I do agree with you, and now I've seen the game actually being played first hand (I made a review type comment in the best game in 10 years thread) , I do wonder where it will go, I think the cheats are by far its biggest potential problem outside the sheer idiocy of the customer care/support infrastructure.
Having said that, it depends where they go with it. The sprint/stam free running/speedhack ones are annoying to play against I should imagine, but the risk of report will keep it to use outside of PvP, the teleport one is worse for the nature of the game meaning people can travel risk free throughout the world, defeating the 'dangerous world free loot' ethos.
But when they get auto aim hacks, , or assitance hacks to make sure a group are all targetting the same mob/player. thats when it will become a game altering issue.
I don't see where the solution will come from either.
This problem is actually the only thing holding me back from playing the f5 game with credit card.
I hope your wrong about this....
Aww man, this gives me DiabloII flashbacks, the bad ones
For now still having fun in EVE Online, guess I'll let Darkfall mature a bit more and then see how it goes.
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
Yup, it's all there on You Tube, speed and teleport anywhere on the map hacks. The damage is already being done to the game.
Thanks for the civil, reasonable, and real responces! I'm shocked that my first responce wasn't fanboi vitriol!
{though, I probably just jinxed it}
Red: The long term ramification are, I admit, postulation... but based on a wide range of MMO experience, a bit of knowledge of psychology, and an IT centric background.
I may be a bit off on the details, but I'm absolutely confident that any MMO, or any online game at all for that matter, who puts as much info on the client side as Darkfail has, is doomed.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Time will only see things get exponentially worse after an initial cooling period from release, such as it is.
I was on the Shadowrun forums before the game was released (what a fucking turd!) but the devs said the premise behind all the in game powers is that "What if you took all the FPS speed/wall/aimbot hacks and integrated them into the game as powers everyone, one way or another can access??"
Good idea, retarded execution, but this is how Darkfail will end up: every major guild's leaders/officers will have to use hacks/dupes for resources for their cities and in any major PvP battles, or be killed by guilds 1/10 their size that all have active hacks running...
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Hacking/cheating is probably also my biggest concern with the game. This is a competitive PvP game, so the availability of cheats will adversely effect it more than just about anything else. Even if only a minority of players use them, that'd be enough to make playing pointless.
Given AV's current performance, I have very little faith that they will have the ability or the resources to effectively combat this, and that's my main hesitation with getting into the game.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
okay, im totally noob on this area, but as far as i know, no1 wants to play a game where everyone hacks, so this will be the main topic on DF forums.. once ppl start leaving the game because of all the hackers DF will realize they HAVE to do something to get as many og the hackers out of the game.
its not like they will sit back and think: "oh well, guys, we tried!.. now its a hackers game.. meh who cares"
they will do what they can to stop it....
But as far as i know, there will ALWAYS be hackers in any game you play, nothing can stop them..
Unless everything is on server side, not client. :P
This is very true, there will always be hackers, but how prevelant wil they be and will the developers be active in their pursuit of getting rid of 99% of them otherwise your giving these ppl a free license to do as they please and ruin the gaming experience of those that come into contact with them.
Aventurine need to be pro-active in sorting these issues out to prove to the community and those wishing to enter the game that they are doing something and that they understand the impact this has on the game, communication needs to be very visable when it concerns hacks just to let the hackers know they are onto them.
I'm part of the crowd that won't touch Darkfall while hackers are prevelant and getting away with it, when Aventurine have a grip of the situation and are able to resolve many of the loopholes these ppl are using then I'l consider trying to get a copy of the game.
How hard is it to hire one or two people to watch for hackers full-time?
As long as they don't puss out on the perma-ban rule, hackers will live in constant fear.
A perma-ban will hopefully mean not only losing your toons, but also having to pay another $50 to get a new account.
They should also post a list of accounts that have been perma-banned as a warning to others, to instill fear.
This should keep the hacking limited.
-----
Its funny how people who hate Darkfall spend so much time talking about Darkfall.
I guess being a fat troll means having no friends, no girls, and nothing better to do than spew hate on internet forums..
Well its not that prevalent.... YET, but you can bank on the fact its going on in ever increasing numbers... and those numbers will increase more and more once large scale PvP starts happening and hackers get clear advantages.
I don't think most people in DF want to hack or are hacking, but those with the drive to want to win will be forced to by those with the drive to piss in everyone else's cheerios no matter the consequences.
Sure, every game CAN have hacks, even the ones with mostly server-side info, but those games are harder to hack -or at least get away with- already have an anti-hacking infrastructure set up they can rely on, and the means of enforcement.
Darkfail is wide open, bent over, looking over its shoulder with a come hither look on its face...
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
I started the other "hack thread" and as I stated in my OP there, the response or rather the action taken by Aventurine is what matters. Now there is proof of hacks in-game as well as a forum post from Aventurine. Now all we can do is wait and see what is done about it.
One question though, there are a lot of posts stating that a lot of the data is stored client side, are we sure this is the case or is it just speculation?
edit: Just now there is a post on the official DF-forums about a lot of hacking and macroing going on in-game. Macroing seems to be allowed by Aventurine though. Stupid move in my opinion and an admittance that they can't make the game fun to play instead allowing people to increase skills by not playing, if I made a game I sure would like the players to actually play the game! Anyway macroing apart, seems like the hack-cheats are spreading.
Thanks for that thread, I wasn't trying to steal your thunder or anything, just wanted to try to start a more focused discussion, and that thread has going kinda meanderingly prodigious (through no fault of your own)
The main issue I have with the "lets see how AV will handle it" mentality is, quite simply it really doesn't matter! They can stick their finger in the dyke, but because they hamstrung themselves by not having already built in Warden tools all they can do is follow up on reports and have GM's wandering around checking on people, which is at BEST ridiculously inefficient, at worst a monumental waste of time... as I said, bots and macros will be pretty easy to spot like that.... active hacks are run my active players who can (like in the speed hack) lessen the obvious nature of what they are doing.
Yes, its absolutely confirmed that there is more client side info than usually for MMO's, I think it was even confirmed in your thread! It was also confirmed by someone in your thread that there is no Warden type tools running, AT ALL.
Its been that way since beta, thats how there are already hacks... its a piss poor way to up their FPS, and they will pay for it.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
I guess the only way you will know if Aventurine are doing their job is when and if they announce accounts being banned, just hope that they make it a public announcement and not just do it on the quiet.
Ok.
First, please prove your assertion regarding the amount of client-side info in DFO, or admit that you are simply making an unevidenced assertion.
and
Second, please prove your assertion that there is, in fact, no "Warden" type system in DFO, or admit that you are simply making an unevidenced assertion.
The rest are, admittedly you own opinion s and prognostications, so I suppose you are entitled...
First, I can't be assed to bring every noob up to speed that hasn't been keeping up with the hacking info, and also the issue of client side information (and some even assert, unencripted) has been common knowledge for some time now, try google, I am at work so go do your own footwork.
Second, about Warden, its been posted in at least three different threads:
"Run Spy++ (it's available with Visual Studio) against the game DLLs, and EXEs. No processes touch them when they launch, they are running in their own process without any hooks."
Run it yourself and see...
Another reason I'm not going to rise to the trollbait, is that posting evidence on the internet is like spitting in the wind, go find out for yourself. Anything anyone posts as proof can be spun, I won't play those games.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
So, you are simply making unevidenced assertions.
Thanks.
So, you are simply making unevidenced assertions.
Thanks.
Except that he told you how to get the evidence, you just dont want to hear it.
Look Timmy, like I already said, the only thing more retarded than thinking anything is evidential on the internet, is asking for evidence for anything on a forum.
the client side info is common knowledge and undisputed, I really don't care if you believe it or not.
I have given you the info you need to find out if there is a Warden program yourself, rather than link you to some site that would, of course, support my stance.
Its not my fault if you were breastfed till you were 12 [last year] and cannot stand to do anything for yourself, but I'm not your bowlegged momma, so I'm not gonna suckle you from the teat of lazyness like she does.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
sturmrabe 2 - fail troll 0
I keep looking for new videos to find something demonstrating any magic other than heal-self and mana missile. I keep finding "commercials" of different hacks.
Now I found a new one that was pretty amusing: flying-and-gravity hack. One of the things its demonstrating is a guy "flying" under the map, looking up on players and trees from underground.
I guess we'll have to wait and see how well Aventurine is handling the hack issue. Judging from how they have handled things like their website, the billing, and the customer support though, it doesnt look very promising.
It just takes common logic to deduce that 1) DFO is heavy clientside. Simply put, there would not be the plethora of hacks already available if everything was stored server side.. Also, the game would not run nearly as smoothly with large amounts of players on at the same time. It's one of the reasons they pulled off smooth fps combat, and a large server load. But with every positive, there is always a negative. 2) There is no "anti-cheat" software.. It's already been explained how to check that yourself. Apparently any explanation would not be enough for you. There are hacks being used in DF at this point, and they're not all being caught. There is much more proof for that statement, then DF is not being hacked at all. If you're so sure that DF isn't/can't be hacked, show us your proof for this reasoning. Just because one is a fan of a game, does not make these statements untrue. No one is saying DF is a pile of crap, nor sharing an opinion. We're simply pointing out a potential fault in DF's design. It doesn't mean Aventurine won't/can't fix it. If you turn a blind eye to the problem, it will never get fixed. No matter how much you try to convince yourself it's not happening, does not change the fact that it is happening.
excellent posts! I am very appreciative of all the good feedback and contributions made to this thread about a real, and potentially game breaking, issue!
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Damn, this good thread is being pummeled by spam crap about the staggered beta invites...
Ugh!
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche