The sad state of PS2

[Kaldapas]

Hi everyone,

As we noticed more hackers are running on our beloved servers for last few days. How long do you think it'll take for SOE to do something about it, or do you think the game will simply die in a week or so like many other online games in recent past? Im having my doubts if it was smart thing to put hundred bucks into this game even though i love it so much, i must say i simply can't enjoy it lately. :(

I could never understand one thing though: why SOE or any other company can't simply sue those pesky script makers for ruining their product for 5-20 mil. at least. Of course those "smart" dudes wouldn't have money to pay so they'd have to go to serve some nice jail time for 5-10 years or more.

I firmly believe next time they would think twice before registering new website and promoting those pathetic hack scripts. In the end its a win win situation for a company and consumer. I really don't think theres hundreds of coders who'd risk going to jail after one or two smart moves done by gaming companies. I'm tired of seeing great games getting killed off one by one.

What do you think is the real reason for not acting ?

Where do i need to send small vids [like this Sad current state of PlanetSide 2 - YouTube not sure if its allowed to post vids here] to report those little losers ? It would make me very sad to see this game die so fast.

[Suitepee]

I must not be seeing these rampant hackers on Miller. I've only ever seen one speedhacker in my entire gametime thus far, although it seems people are often yelling in chat about reporting hackers during base fights. (whether there's any truth in them I do not know)

I believe you're meant to report said hacker via a support ticket or whatnot.

[Kaldapas]

Have you logged in for last few days? I haven't met a single hacker in the first month!!! Was starting to think soe had some nice code running to quickly and efficiently eliminate all of those losers. But theres been so many in last few days its getting so bad that i don't wanna play anymore.

Server Mallory.

[ringring]

I haven't seen any hackers on Miller.

But I agree with you, I don't know why they don't sue. There are guys out there making a living, or at least profiting from, destroying the work of game developers and ruining many thousands of peoples paid for game time, I would have thought a there should be a legal solution.

[Qwan]

Yea I have seen quite a few hackers on Woodman. The speed hack is pretty common, maxes moving at faster speeds and libs flying like mossy's and reavers. I hope they really clamp down hard on protecting and preserving this game, guess well find out in the new year. ;)

[SeraphC]

They need to find out who they are though. Suing the guy who uses the hack is entirely none effective, because, well, you can't sue all of them and it might not even hold up. Suing the guy who publishes them would only work if he was actually profiting from it. And even then ... people have been selling stuff like that for ages.

Most of these 'hacks' are only allowed because the devs really have no clue what they are doing. I remember back when I was playing Lineage2, in the early days, the game was open to SQL injection and a whole series of easy to fix/avoid exploits.
They need to start building their damn games decently, hiring people with an actual education. It's their own damn fault, it's not even hard to do.

[Kaldapas]

Thats why im saying sue the makers of those scripts. [cant be hard to track one down]

Those little kids who downloads them know nothing more than how to take money from their working mothers to buy that cool looking cammo. And all of them are absolutely horrible at the game.

If its true about Miller, then i guess theres more admins watching over more populated servers [which makes total sense btw]. Wish there was an option to switch servers. Not gonna start anew after reaching level 34 and having spent so many certs already.

Was thinking about a thread where players could just upload small vids, like 10-30 sec showcasing obvious cases. One or two admins have a constant eye on it and just log in after new vid and check if its true - then just type command and bam those losers almost instantly gone. Very fast and effective way. Never underestimate your community.

Now only problem with this is that SOE should acknowledge the ..problem and many companies don't like that.

[PredatorFour]

Ive seen hackers on Miller. Ive been killed in the VS spawn room a couple of times, seen a couple of speed hackers too. Theres probably people who only hack a little like they did in the first game so its hardly noticeable , but makes enough of a difference.

All they need to do is keep a few GMs on to police the servers like they did in the first 2 weeks.... but then seemed to stop.

[Tharrn]

I have also seen cases of shooting from within the ground or walls on Miller and sudden crashes of the whole squad. Question is always if it's bugs or deliberate hacks. Hard to prove.

[Sledgecrushr]

libs flying like mossy's and reavers.

With a fully upgraded speedframe a lib can fly as fast as a mossy or reaver.

[ringring]

I have also seen cases of shooting from within the ground or walls on Miller and sudden crashes of the whole squad. Question is always if it's bugs or deliberate hacks. Hard to prove.
The crashes thing is a bug apparently, but it's one that can be triggered if you know how, ie an exploit.

Higby tweeted the other day about asking for more info.

And btw, you can never keep hackers out, all you can do is make it harder for them and ban them when you find them.

On the other hand the people who create the hacks and sell them should be in jail.

[Chewy]

I seen a few on Waterson. Only got video on 2 so far and haven't bothered to edit it yet.

Though Im not 100% on one person I have video on. To me he looked like a dead player sliding around within the wrong spawn room, then when my line of sight was broken for half a tick he turned into a different class and faction. Followed him for a bit and didn't see anything else but got a clear view of his name.

Read that it may have been a bug, but not certain.

[SeraphC]

Thats why im saying sue the makers of those scripts. [cant be hard to track one down]

It could be harder than you think to track them down. And even if you do there are still plenty of countries with no or very little legislation about the internet and the likes.

If they do find them, before suing them, they should offer them a job. Often these are young, gifted people.

Now only problem with this is that SOE should acknowledge the ..problem and many companies don't like that.

Acknowledging a problem means people will expect a solution within a given time. They want to hear: "We are aware of the problem and are working on a fix. It should be ready at the latest two weeks from now. We will also be dedicating resources to preventing similar things from happening in the future or if they do, detecting them early on."
They don't want to hear: "We are aware of the problem."

Given their left they game open for the most basic attacks imaginable (if the video in the OP is genuine), they might not even know what parts of their code/system are vulnerable.

[Beerbeer]

I see the same types of hacks, which to me means that Sony hasn't done anything to at least auto-detect these let alone write some code that prevents them from running in the first place.

Kind of pathetic if you ask me. If they're not spending any time reverse engineering these hacks to both auto-detect and auto-prevent, they'll never go away.

[Stanis]

Playing devils advocate here for a moment.

I'd like to know what exactly the law allows Sony to do - other than switch that account off.
Lets Sue. Great. What exactly would they sue these people for ?


They modified the game experience on their computer. Transitory. In RAM/thread/process.
Such that the otherwise legitimate client sent legitimate data to the server. (Which rules out laws protecting transmission or hacking of server).
They probably didn't modify, decrypt or reverse engineer any executables or systems files actually protected by copyright or something like the DCMA protections.

They entered an agreement with Sony. It probably said they wouldn't do this.
I can't find a google copy of the PS2 EULA to check. I did find a reference to PS1 which says something like
"9. You may not use any third party software to modify the Software to change Game play."

If it's breaching an agreement then it's civil rather than criminal law which makes it more expensive to prosecute than simply switch off.
Many countries simply don't care. These activity aren't enforcable there.

This is where the concept of Lien is useful. Game is free to play. But requires a $10 refundable deposit to toggle the account active.
(Meaning you can deactivate and get your desposit back any time you want ..)
Which is almost a subscription model. Not going to appeal to the F2P model market is it?

[Valcron]

Hi everyone,

As we noticed more hackers are running on our beloved servers for last few days. How long do you think it'll take for SOE to do something about it, or do you think the game will simply die in a week or so like many other online games in recent past? Im having my doubts if it was smart thing to put hundred bucks into this game even though i love it so much, i must say i simply can't enjoy it lately. :(

I could never understand one thing though: why SOE or any other company can't simply sue those pesky script makers for ruining their product for 5-20 mil. at least. Of course those "smart" dudes wouldn't have money to pay so they'd have to go to serve some nice jail time for 5-10 years or more.

I firmly believe next time they would think twice before registering new website and promoting those pathetic hack scripts. In the end its a win win situation for a company and consumer. I really don't think theres hundreds of coders who'd risk going to jail after one or two smart moves done by gaming companies. I'm tired of seeing great games getting killed off one by one.

What do you think is the real reason for not acting ?

Where do i need to send small vids [like this Sad current state of PlanetSide 2 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daOgwqSz4lo&hd=1) not sure if its allowed to post vids here] to report those little losers ? It would make me very sad to see this game die so fast.


Hackers were rampant in PS1, I remember a vanu max with permanent air lift firing his quaser max in the air for over an hour, it was amazing. SOE doesn't have good mechanisms for capturing everyone, it's that simple.

[Rockit]

There is a "back alley" hacker site that is not so prominent as the popular ones you all know about. It's kind of a UN (lol) for hackers worldwide. Trust me SOE knows about it. Now whether they watch it or not I have no idea but all I can do is raise the awareness. BTW, this is where the floor hack you are seeing is coming from and it is absolutely free. :(

[Kaldapas]

@SeraphC
Sometimes the simplest way is the most effective.

@Barbeer
You want to say same hacks were available in PS1? Still its a new engine, different code. Must admit, i was more of BF2 guy.

@Stanis
Obviously some extra code must be injected into game allowing losers to fly straight through walls/roof/floors or simply teleport behind you, effecting hundreds even thousands of other players rights to enjoy the game.

Thats modifying game, no? Surely theres a few lines against it in UELA. And i'm certain SOE is doing everything they can? Else every new player who experience this atrocity, that i did first hand [and few others here], will instantly log off and will never get back to PS2.

[Stanis]

@SeraphC
@Stanis
Obviously some extra code must be injected into game allowing losers to fly straight through walls/roof/floors or simply teleport behind you, effecting hundreds even thousands of other players rights to enjoy the game.

Thats modifying game, no? Surely theres a few lines against it in UELA.

It's in breach of an agreement you made with sony.
Which means it's not a criminal matter. Most countries don't understand this to make a law about it - let alone enforce anything regarding it.


Let's take something benign. The steam overlay. Or the teamspeak overlay.
To my knowledge they don't modify the game. They work with the directx interface provided by microsoft.


Supposing a hack did the following:
changed what key presses do on your keyboard (same as logitech gaming software)
automatically pressed keys for you (macros are bad. hardly illegal)
pulled visual data from directx about textures
identified some of those textures
automatically pressed some keys to do something for you.

this is 'bot' territory. it hasn't actually done anything to the game - it's used legitimate OS functions and interfaces.

supposing you have Antivirus software. It includes a firewall. It just checks everything being sent to and from your computer.
Now lets capture it, inspect packets. apply the protocol.
we have a data stream between server and client
go back to bot scenario that uses windows interfaces to interact with directx/keybaord/mouse.

that's incredibly more complex than a few statements make it. but this again isnt illegal. ntivirus is noble. doing it to hack a game isn't illegal.


As for hacking processes/theads in memory.
Grey area. The law might consitute that an exectuable loaded into memory is a copy of the program and thus modification to it is the same as tampering with the actual exectuable.
In a non-gaming sense just talking about processes - if it's running on my computer I would like to consider the running instance mine to do with as I please. Things like stop it. Start it. not require a DVLA check and three drops of blood to get past the biometric encryption embedded into the next generation of UEFI motherboards.

(this is the sophistication of terminology which protects lawyers jobs for future generations).

At the end of the day, worst case scenario that I can see is the hacker breached an agreement with Sony.
It didn't cost them anything to click "i agree". It doesn't take anything away from them if they get shut down.

We need a generation of green-cross-computers or stern lectures from mothers. This is about social education.
The fun they derive is ruining anothers experience. MMO pixels on the internets are real people too.

Would you bad dad your 8 year old brother at cricket repeatedly?
Or use that 32 hit combo move in mortal combat?
Oh. You would.
We're doomed.

[Gnske]

Been a hacker or two sadly on my side, the Vanu on Briggs lately.

[Hamma]

Remember to use /report in game so these idiots get banned and send videos like this to the devs via Twitter or forum PM.

It's the new year now and people will begin returning from their holidays.. the PS2 team has some major things to do with the beginning of 2013.

[Kaldapas]

@HAMMA, will do! PS: Think I like this site now, a whole lot more.

We need a generation of green-cross-computers or stern lectures from mothers. This is about social education.
The fun they derive is ruining anothers experience. MMO pixels on the internets are real people too.
They are ..in an MMO ./

Would you bad dad your 8 year old brother at cricket repeatedly?
Or use that 32 hit combo move in mortal combat?
Oh. You would.
We're doomed.
Im sure you're being sarcastic here, but not so sure what to think about it.. Thanks for this post, im not some lawyer [hate the way they think] so every bit of extra info is always welcome.

[TehCandyMan]

Hackers man they love them some FPS don't they? Let me add up a count of how many I have actually seen since I have been playing them, going in order from the first one I played to the last one.

1. UT2004 - Saw 4 of them that I actually KNEW were hacking
2. Halo - 2
3. Planetside 1 - Good god about 45, expecially after ChinaSide
4. COD (MW1 and 2) - 12
5. BF series maybe about 14
6. BattleField Soldiers - 7
7. Planetside 2 lets see I average about 2 or 3 a day on Matterson and I have played for about 1 month... So thats about what 60 - 90....

S0 we have a winner! Planetside 1 and 2 are the most hacked FPS games I have ever PLAYED! YAH!!...

5.

[HiroshiChugi]

Has anyone even bothered to ask WarGaming.net what anti-hack system they use? After all, I've been playing their game "World of Tanks" for about 2 years now and I've only seen at the MOST 1, maybe 2 hackers? and a BIG maybe at that! :rolleyes:

[HiroshiChugi]

Hackers man they love them some FPS don't they? Let me add up a count of how many I have actually seen since I have been playing them, going in order from the first one I played to the last one.

1. UT2004 - Saw 4 of them that I actually KNEW were hacking
2. Halo - 2
3. Planetside 1 - Good god about 45, expecially after ChinaSide
4. COD (MW1 and 2) - 12
5. BF series maybe about 14
6. BattleField Soldiers - 7
7. Planetside 2 lets see I average about 2 or 3 a day on Matterson and I have played for about 1 month... So thats about what 60 - 90....

S0 we have a winner! Planetside 1 and 2 are the most hacked FPS games I have ever PLAYED! YAH!!...

5.

You obviously didn't play Combat Arms back in its Hacking Hayday... good God, I saw about 10-20 hackers A DAY!!! and i played it for the whole 2-3 months when this was all going down? The problem is, it's still going on... :\ shame on Nexon and them using Hackshield Pro... -shakes head- such a shame...

[kaysio]

There starting to appear on Mallory EU as well.
Ive met a few hex crashing, speedhackers, wall glitchers and god modes.

[Beerbeer]

The time played per hacker witnessed blows any other game I've played.

Moh:AA comes a close second in all of the fps games I've tried, but at least there they had banning admins and you could always switch servers if things got bad. This game, cripes, it's beyond ridiculous how blatant some of the hackers are and how long they play for. There are no admins to speak of and you can't switch servers, so to speak.

Flying superman who can go anywhere as infantry, float, fly, go underworld. Okay, an admin can't ban something that obvious right away? I watched him for a long time, spam reported, nothing.

Teleport hacks? I watched two people in the past three days teleporting. Unless you pay really close attention and purposely do nothing but watch them, these people are easy to miss or pass off as a fluke, especially if they're smart about the usage of the teleports. This one can easily go unnoticed to most people. Seeing is believing.

Wall hacks. I cannot prove this one, nor can I witness it from another player's perspective, but I suspect there's a lot more people who use this hack then what we may believe.

Aimbots, another hard one to prove, but I've seen two verifiable hackers and the only way I know for sure was that both were on my team and I was able to ghost behind him and pretty much watch. I can't tell from an enemies' perspective, but I know they are out there.

For every blatant hacker, not caring about getting caught--and I've seen my fair share--there has to be ten to twenty times as many not so blatant hackers.

Sony's negligence is beyond reprehensible IMO. The only saving grace is that the hacker's are their own worse enemies aside from negligence. As this game becomes a ghost town, hopefully they'll lose interest.

[Vashyo]

meh, that hacker most definately has been banned allready.

SOE does remove em as they come, and they apparently have hard time coming back to the game. :)