The clowns at Daybreak are to clueless on figuring this stuff out on their own. (I love taking stabs at this company cause I know their reading this).
My guess is they acquired the tools from the Project 99 developers.
Chatwiththisname can give you an example how powerful those P99 tools are.
Thats what they mean by "improving their algorithms".
And remember, the last time they did a mass server log check was like 5-6 years ago, and they had to hire a 3rd party to check logs, since they couldn't do it themselves.
I was under the impression p99 actually uses invasive software to actively track your processes. Surely that's not allowed unless they overhauled the EULA for DBG no?
Also I get the feeling they are more after the fact some one was re-creating their own program for TLP's as far as I saw you could set speed, chain zone (limited), as well as warping within the same zone. It has been functional on TLP's since something like fippy and the guy was constantly adding stuff, but it recently became more public.
No need to be invasive. Let's take for instance just targeting things. When you target something you send a packet to the server. The server knows the clip range for the zone you're currently in, the server gets your location and the distance from you to the target, if the target isn't in your xtarget window, or your group window it throws a red flag if your target is outside of clip range. So if you've ever targeted something across the zone, they know you use 3rd party software.
Warping - the server knows your characters max speed, it knows your current location, it knows the last spell you casted, if you warp across a zone and it calculates the speed you traveled from X Y Z location to X2 Y2 Z2 location based on distance, time, to get speed and that speed exceeds your characters max movement speed and you didn't cast a teleportation spell and you weren't summoned, then you're using 3rd party software.
Distance on 3d Coordinates -
http://www.math.usm.edu/lambers/mat169/fall09/lecture17.pdf
Calculating rate or speed based on displacement (distance) over time.
Calculating average velocity or speed (video) |
Khan Academy
Instant camping, If you bypass the wait to camp they know it.
Instant Zoning, If you traverse 12 zoneslines in 2 minutes.....they know you're using 3rd party software.
The bottom line is DBG has known who uses 3rd party software for as long as they've owned the company. It's math, the answer is always math.
The question is, how distruptive is your 3rd party software as an individual. Have you ever been reported? Banned if they look at the log. Have you petitioned? Probably banned if they look at the log.
Ban waves - It's happened in the past. I've never bit the big one myself. I don't afk hunt in the sense that I'm at my keyboard when EQ MQ2 is injected and something is making my character do something. I got booted once by a GM who knew I was using warp and Monkbug back in the day. He zoned into droga and my level 70 zerker had killed 513 mobs faster than the first one I killed could respawn. I stopped when he made his self visible (Gm's can be in the zone without appearing to be in the zone, they don't show up on spawn count etc) He appeared in front of me, my macro had a heart attack and stopped killed itself. I targeted him and /waved, he targeted me and /mourn "You've been disconnected"
I stopped using monkbug that day. I never went back to droga (the old one, not the new one) and I probably didn't do any shady shit for a while after that either. Was quite the scare.
Typically the use of MQ2 by a responsible person will yeild no red flags that warrant immediate attention to GM's banning/suspending because it's not interfearing with the game play of others. For TLP servers EQMule struck an agreement to stay off truebox servers, that's why live source offsets and structs were sheltered and you can only build your own test copy. Because people were bypassing the truebox crash that was put in to prevent its use on those servers and were appearing in videos on youtube. Mule, rightly so, removed access to live offsets/structs and only gave access to test builds (to keep with the License of the code where it must remain open source).
Now some jarhead has decided to release software that allows for them to use it on truebox and this is in direct violation of the agreement with mule and dbg. While mule has no hand in this, it's still cause for alarm on the side of DBG because where both sides of the fence were in a peace treaty, that's not been fucked right up.
The hope is that the targets are only those using it on truebox. If that's the case you won't be getting bans on accounts from user of MMOBugs or Redguides. If they decide that everyone is fair game they could potentially drop the ball and streamline banning flagged accounts.
But why would they ban all MQ2 Users, most of which have 6+ accounts.
Financially I don't see them surviving a ban wave of that magnitude. They shut down EQNext and kept all our money, it appears they don't have the funding to support something that isn't making money. If they shut down every MQ2 user they likely would go in the negative.
Just like shutting down the sale of perfectly legitimate krono, someone paid the rediculous price they cost to get them in the first place. Shut down everyone who uses them for personal gain and it's a potential loss on their end, so they only do it to the ones that offend on a large scale.
So while, yes, it's possible they could do a ban wave on anyone using MQ2, and have been able to for a very long time. There's a reason they chose not to do it. I expect that the only thing that has changed is that it has become an issue on truebox servers. I expect that is where their "new algorithm" will be pointed. I hope for the best, this is how I make my money to pay my bills. Without this I'll be forced to depend on the government. Which is never a good route to go.
