Cheaters, ghosters, MQers, haxxorz - whathaveyou

It's getting out of hand in a big way and is a HUGE problem on Quellious! My guild is the only guild with official Ashengate kills on Quellious, yet all Ashengate loot discovered is already credited to the toons in this guild http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/guild_profile.vm?guildId=536870912867 which has 9 level 75s.

Open zone mobs are down ALL THE TIME. It's not the work of other guilds on our server, Mad Mary Ann was down all the time six months before any guild on our server even killed her.

Why does SOE pretend this isn't happening? There is SO much the devs could do to thwart this cheating. Not the least of which, is adding a small patch each week that changes a few minor elements. Keep the cheaters guessing. Another is actually ban when they say ban. I hear of so many getting 'suspended' in this game for cheating, but they're back in game just in time for their lockouts to be up. Also, why would the devs cut back the number needed to open a raid instance to a group? I can't think of any logic behind it at all.

From what I understand, most of the people involved in cheating at this stage are friends of GMs and that the GMs 'look past' it.

I'm fed up and irritated, we'll never be credited with another discovery again if this keeps up. Anyone else having this problem on their servers?

They're not pretending it's not happening. From what I've heard, there's actually a lot of complaining on the cheater forums lately about Sony cracking down in the last couple of months.

I think Quellious may have it worse than other servers, too. Even before the recent crackdown, on my server most hackers on my server didn't seem to go for open zone mobs aside from Mad Mary Anne, who we really didn't want to kill anyway.

It is getting worse on Saryrn, too.
I'm not sure which is worse,
A)The fact that cheaters have no will to hide it anymore, thus proving that sony doesn't care much now,
B)That they are killing static raid mobs that people use for progression,
C) The fact that they ARE hacking!

I'm not a fan of any of them, but Sony's Veteran Forum was/is full of these posts.. Kind of makes me wonder, have the customers own that little of power in this game?

player attitude is seriously beginning to bug me on this, too.
we recently caught an app and i was just shocked (and pissed) at how many guildies said "so what? i don't care if they use it during off-raid times"
i also like the line, when caught, "oh! i didn't know it was wrong. i won't ever do it again" and that people actually believed it.

it really blows me away. my previous server (7th hammer) was really outspoken against it. people on my current server (nameless) want to make excuses for cheaters behavior. i'd like to think it's lack of population and seriously low attendance that are making people want to excuse cheating and why they shouldn't be booted. i dunno. not happy with it.

Also, why would the devs cut back the number needed to open a raid instance to a group? I can't think of any logic behind it at all.
As for this, there are some raid instances where a group can and should have access. Citadel of Anguish is one of them.

As for the cheating, they should be more aggressive in stopping this. There should be a clear warning when you log in every time (placing a notice on the log in page like, "Use of third party programs that change anything in the game will get you permanently banned.") and they should permanently ban people caught.

Besides that, perhaps they could rewrite the client so that it uses random memory addresses for information every time you start it up. I don't know how hard that would be to do. I do know that Microsoft Vista uses something like that to help prevent people hacking it. I don't know if you can do it for applications as well.

Besides that, perhaps there could be a program that randomly monitors the servers in the zones people are most likely to cheat in and if it observes someone doing impossible stuff it would report them.

Ten:

If that guild is hackers and not ebayeds, it's funny to know that people are GKing OOM~

Aelfin:

So many people use MQ now that it's futile to put energy into being against it. Ghostkilling has become so big that it has overshadowed your standard warping/autopostitioning MQer.

Personally, the only difference I see between a teenager GKing with three chars and a 30+ year old MQing with 20 chars is amount of money invested in computers. Both basically involve hitting one button and watching a mob die.

Fanra:

The new logic isn't to ban MQ/GKers, but rather to delevel their chars to level one and delete their gear. Which, imo, is a better solution than banning when all things are considered.

If that guild is hackers and not ebayeds, it's funny to know that people are GKing OOM~
While I have heard *RUMORS* that OMM had been macro'd/ghost killed; I am pretty sure that most of the toons running around with Anguish BP's that are known ghostkillers actually killed AMV over and over again via his chest loot trick.

Basically there was no lockout when AMV died; only when his chest was opened...so people were killing AMV, dropping the task on most of the toons, leaving 1 in task, opening chest, getting re-added to task, warping up, looting...and then killing AMV over and over again until they got their BP's and loots. Pretty screwed up.

While I have heard *RUMORS* that OMM had been macro'd/ghost killed; I am pretty sure that most of the toons running around with Anguish BP's that are known ghostkillers actually killed AMV over and over again via his chest loot trick.

Basically there was no lockout when AMV died; only when his chest was opened...so people were killing AMV, dropping the task on most of the toons, leaving 1 in task, opening chest, getting re-added to task, warping up, looting...and then killing AMV over and over again until they got their BP's and loots. Pretty screwed up.

Just to clarify, I was refering to OOM ring, belt etc

Hrmm, when you say OOM, do you mean OMM (overlord mata'muram)? I think we may be talking about two different mobs, but maybe not.

Either way, hacking especially ghost killing sucks massively.

Not being an end-game raider I am confused to all of this. What is ghost killing? I know there were some issues last year when someone figured out how to warp to a Boss Mob and kill it - (which I still don't understand how 1 or 2 toons can do that) Is Ghost killing similiar?

How easy would it be to see a toon with loot from a mob and know they didn't get it the correct way? I mean if you see a level 70 toon with only 2 days played and not in any guild - wouldn't that be a clue?

I find it disappointing there are these folks out there that ruin the game for others who work so diligently to get the rewards the intended way.

I don't know the exact specifics, but my understanding is that the hack program tells the game that the gker is in a particular spot (like directly in front of the mob) so the mob does not summon that person but continues to beat on the "ghost" of the player, while the actual toon beats or nukes away at the mob.

As for the cheating, they should be more aggressive in stopping this. There should be a clear warning when you log in every time (placing a notice on the log in page like, "Use of third party programs that change anything in the game will get you permanently banned.") and they should permanently ban people caught.

There is.. The EULA that you click 'I accept' on every log in.

As for ghost killing OMM, that'd be pretty dumb. Upon OMM's death, he does a world wide emote (Omens zones) saying

The walls of Anguish tremble, you can feel the world shaking your bones. For a brief moment you think you see a smile flash across Mata Muram's face, and as the last breath escapes his lungs you hear a faint voice, "There are worlds other than these..."

The people in question probably got them off of AMV. Monks are also the primary ghosters, though I cannot figure out why that is. :(

There is.. The EULA that you click 'I accept' on every log in.
Yes, I know the EULA says you can't do it.

But it is buried in a huge list of all kinds of things. How many people actually read the entire thing and understand it all?

The EULA is for lawyers.

Sure, we can always get on our high horse and say people should know these things because it is there. Or we could act realistically and just add it to the log in screen and make it easy to understand. Is the goal here to protect SOE from lawsuits or to make it clear that cheating is not allowed? Because the EULA is great for protecting SOE and very poor at conveying information.

If you happen to read the Privacy policy and User agreement of every web site you visit, good for you. But 99% of people don't. And 99% of people don't read the entire EULA of every piece of software they use either.

Frankly, they shouldn't have to.

I'm sure if Microsoft buried in its EULA for Vista that by using it you agree to give them every dollar you have that you wouldn't be satisfied with the excuse that they told you about it so therefore it is ok. :)

I think most of the cheaters are well aware that they're breaking the rules already.

(Of course if a more prominent message would actually cut down on cheating at all, it would probably be worth it...)

Yes, but if you are clicking "I agree" you are agreeing, whether you read the dang thing or not. If you agree and still break the rules, well you should have known better. It's not as if you didn't have the opportunity to read them.
But yes, I get the point, people don't read it. And cheaters will always do what they want so they can get get the best advantage for themselves in the end.
That's what cheaters do.

Anyone who plays EQ regardless if they have read the enitire EULA or not will know that using programs to do such functions is not legal.

Thus i think it's kinda pointless needing a special warning not to do it.

Not being an end-game raider I am confused to all of this. What is ghost killing? I know there were some issues last year when someone figured out how to warp to a Boss Mob and kill it - (which I still don't understand how 1 or 2 toons can do that) Is Ghost killing similiar?


I did read a report on one of the EQ forums about somebody saying how saw a player 'skipping' on and off the who list for a zone while the health of the raid level monster in that zone was dropping rapidly. The writer seemed to think this was evidence of this ghostkilling, and my assumption from reading that is that it works by tricking the server into not noticing that the player is where he really is, allowing him to whack away at a monster without being in range for retaliation part of what the monster does for combat. But I have no idea if this is actually correct, just my guess.


How easy would it be to see a toon with loot from a mob and know they didn't get it the correct way? I mean if you see a level 70 toon with only 2 days played and not in any guild - wouldn't that be a clue?


I think it would not be that hard for the server to keep track of the hate list of each of the big monsters and write it down, along with all the group members of those players, each time it is defeated. Along with start of combat time, end of combat time and damage dealt (by the monster) that should provide ample evidence of players who are useing less than legal means to win fights.
Or at least, it points at possible culprits since the amount of power inflation is such that one player's raid target is another solo farming monster.


I find it disappointing there are these folks out there that ruin the game for others who work so diligently to get the rewards the intended way.

That I entirely agree with. I do not understand the mindset to want to cheat in a game where you play against yourself.


Eri

I am not 100% sure because I have not followed the situation closely, but as far as I understood they have banned several accounts for ghost killing lately. Monk seems to be the best class to do ghost killing. The past months several friends of mine with monk char and my husband's monk alt have gotten tells asking to buy their char. They are also very aggressive about it, spamming the tells and also market channel, even in bazaar!

There have been over 50 bannings on xegony alone in the last month, with one of the last few patches they released they changed something with the movement waypoints so that when someone warps now packets are sent that recognize this warp, or something to that effect. I don't know if anyone has bypassed this yet, as far as I know they have not. GKing warping etc is on their to do list of things to stop, it's just hard for the devs to compete against 500 ppl trying to break their code, it's going to happen and it's not their fault.

Gking also has nothing to do with not getting hit, the monk ranger whatever they use DOES get hit by the mob, just not as often. The gking toon warps there and back (and through use of the program triple atk and other things go off every hit and DPS is increased rediculously) and they do get hit by melee and aes.

http://www.antonius-bayle.org/viewtopic.php?t=6457&start=225

Example of ban :)