Archeage

Skinner_sl said:

http://forums.archeagegame.com/showt...l=1#post910126

http://forums.archeagegame.com/showt...l=1#post909763

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I saw two of these annoucements happen the other day within a span of a few minutes. I didn't think anything of it at the time besides never seeing an annoucement like that while I've been online, let alone from the same player. I saw a server wide annoucement last night talking about them cracking down on 'rapturing'. Trion is basically the landlord who's only function it seems is to collect the rent. They seem completely powerless in doing anything about this stuff.

Vandyn_sl said:

Trion is basically the landlord who's only function it seems is to collect the rent. They seem completely powerless in doing anything about this stuff.

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Slightly off. A landlord would actuallyownthe property. Trion's more like the building super who lives rent-free in the basement of the building as long as they agree to fix the clogged toilets, busted refrigerators, clean the piss out of the hallways, cut the grass and collect the payments. Everything they do has to be cleared by "The Man" first.

On good news, at least one of those pics don't seem to prove hacking from what the scuttle is. I did find it interesting that Hartsman commented in a reddit thread regarding landgrabbing hacks not long ago in a 'WoW I didn't know that!' kind of way, but refuses to touch the hottest topics on his own site. I can only guess that he figures he's paying people (Scrapes) to do that already so why bother.

People in that thread saying the game is done but I find it hard to believe that could happen only about 30 days into a launch. Only game I remember being 'done' that fast was the reincarnation of Gods and Heroes that they tried to scam people into Lifetime subs for. Given this is still running (and supposedly) doing well in Asia, it's not like they are going to terminate Trion's contract and pull the game because of bad performance. If anything, they have great performance from the people claiming they've spent 'thousands' in AAge's cash shop. Even AION is still running in the West with shitty Western sub levels.

AA is just one game in Trion's stable of games. As CEO his focus can't necessarily be on any one thing, though he should have more focus toward AA simply because it's the latest one to launch.

That said, the speed at which this turned into a shitfest is staggering. The flaw, however, is baked into the game itself. That's on XLGames. At best Scott can call them up and bitch at them to fix their shit. Which he should be doing. Daily.

Where's the batphone when you need it?

There was talk in PRX a few weeks ago about how this game is on borrowed time anyway. Apparently there's a lawsuit to shut it down because of Hackshield. I don't know how legitimate all of this is, but what someone was saying is that there's some kind of law against rootkits in the US. Since Hackshield is a rootkit, it basically means that whenever this suit proceeds, Archeage is done in the US. The people in PRX were saying it's only likely got 6-9 months.

Bondurant_sl said:

forum pic

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Kind of reminds me of the DirecTV hacks used back in the day.

They'd do a mass wave reset, locking all the cards out. People get on the forums and "I'm locked out. Anyone else locked out?" Then an hour later, someone was up with a fix, posted it, people rebooted the emulators and back to business. Went on like that for many years until DirecTV changed a lot of their code. They even sent out threatening "We got you dead to rights, so pay $10,000" type letters from a law firm which were funny to read and everyone but the companies making the actual code/programmers threw in the garbage.

Curious to see how flexible a hole-ridden MMO like ArcheAge can last when they don't target the actual program makers selling them and keep trying to ban people who can just make a new account, and (unlike a few in that pic) who are smart enough not to use a main for their dirty work.

Elurin_sl said:

There was talk in PRX a few weeks ago about how this game is on borrowed time anyway. Apparently there's a lawsuit to shut it down because of Hackshield. I don't know how legitimate all of this is, but what someone was saying is that there's some kind of law against rootkits in the US. Since Hackshield is a rootkit, it basically means that whenever this suit proceeds, Archeage is done in the US. The people in PRX were saying it's only likely got 6-9 months.

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Hackshield only prevents casual hacking if anything. There are patchers that disable Hackshield, so removing it won't suddenly allow a lot of hacks to start working. If anything they just remove hackshield, not shut down the entire game....

Hachima_sl said:

Hackshield only prevents casual hacking if anything. There are patchers that disable Hackshield, so removing it won't suddenly allow a lot of hacks to start working. If anything they just remove hackshield, not shut down the entire game....

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I think the issue was that XLGames said they absolutely wouldn't allow Trion to remove Hackshield. Like I said, I don't know the details nor do I know if there was actually anything truthful in all of that. I didn't especially care because the I doubt most of us would be around in 6 months. Just something that was interesting to me with people discussing how Archeage may be dead soon.

A message from the GM Morgana:


"Gold Being Removed: A Tale of Illicit Gains Coming to an End.

A number of you have mentioned that you're seeing gold disappearing.

As we broadcasted in yesterday's initial blast of rapturing hackers, gold farming bots, mules, and storage accounts, we're now also taking the step of removing the gains passed on by them.
What that means is: If you bought or were gifted gold from one of them, you may see it disappear. We do have the ability to trace coin, and that's the gold that's being cleaned up right now.

The best bet is to not buy gold - It's the same people trying to crap up chat with spam and trying to fill the game with bots and landgrabs. If you bought gold from one of those sites, you are absolutely welcome to try to go back to them for a refund, but we will not be returning gold purchased or gifted from goldsellers and botters. It's off in the ether from whence it came. "

I am curious, if anything happens or just some damage control. I hope they actually have the capabilities to combat the problem a little at least.

Not specific enough to tell whether they're making sure that the gold removal stops with the person who bought the gold. If I get a ts tree and sell it to someone whose gold is purchased, do I lose that gold? If yes, shit is going to hit the fan.

Ridas_sl said:

I am curious, if anything happens or just some damage control. I hope they actually have the capabilities to combat the problem a little at least.

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Yep, it's a good start from someone who's outside looking in (not subbed or playing). I think most of the players might be okay with this measure, I've seen people on the forums even calling for mass rollbacks and server resets and they'd be happy (too extreme possibly).

Apparently they can track the gold but not the items bought with the gold or bought and already used like labor pots and consumables? I guess there's going to be a lot more instant chugging from here on out and less stockpiling. It might suck if you were a third/fourth party in this somehow and they tracked it all to you and there wasn't any fault on your end. Kind of like RL where if you buy a TV or a car from someone who stole it, and they freebased it up, you're SOL with your money but those goods go back to the owner.

Although it's a decent starting salvo, I know if I was one of those legit players who ended up losing some/half of my wealth through no fault of my own, I'd be done with the game though. That's simply too much of a burden to overcome in a game like this.

Honestly with due diligence, under the circumstances trion is in due to ownership problems... Beefing up their removal of bots and hacked items might be the only solution. Of course now you'll need to launder your gold by using vendors to break the trail. Gold transactions and ip bans are easy but this isn't p99 there's a shitload of players and a lot of logs to shift through, you'll need to blend in and keep the transactions small which means you're going to need a lot of staff that have special talent to avoid a PR nightmare.

This day and age, rmt is everywhere, you cannot stop it. Hacks, you prevent from the ground up, not 4 years after launch with your fingers cut off.

If you want to enjoy games you need to just be ignorant to it and just play. Combing the forums and seeing every little thing that happens is going to kill your fun.

Unfortunately leveling up you see tons of bots, I used them to my advantage. It's possible to snipe every mob they attack with some practice, you can get full xp and loot with just an arrow shot and kill twice as much as normal.

None of them detect if they have first hit.

Explosivo_sl said:

Not specific enough to tell whether they're making sure that the gold removal stops with the person who bought the gold. If I get a ts tree and sell it to someone whose gold is purchased, do I lose that gold? If yes, shit is going to hit the fan.

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From what I understand, yes. Any and all gold got through bots or bought through websites etc etc, will disappear. Even if you didn't know about it.

Glad I bounced during beta from this shitstorm.

I wonder if that includes stuff laundered through the AH. You're ostensibly buying the item from the AH and then the AH does some calculations for its cut, returning the listing fee and whatnot, before it goes to the seller in a mail. If the buyer bought the item using illicit funds, what then?

Another 10k ban wave went out an hour ago:

Scrapes_sl said:

We've just issued bans for about 10,000 accounts where third-party software was detected (the kind that botters, spammers, and hackers use).

You're welcome to play on a new account legitimately.

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http://forums.archeagegame.com/showt...t-Banned/page2

hartsman_sl said:

If anything we were too cautious in testing a new heuristic. So far, the audit says 100% accurate. These accounts are gone for good. Really nice try though.

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http://www.reddit.com/r/archeage/com..._begin/clgrtth

Between this and the gold removal its been a decent morning.

Looks like the ban wave was legit : archeage

Hartsman is all up in this thread, strutting like a rooster on the walk, lol. Funny stuff.

Actually had a semi pleasant result today. Still waiting on my things but a GM unlocked my account from store and I magically have patron for another month. Not sure if that was a bug, generosity, or what but I got it.
So at least I can do things now and gain labor again.

Olebass_sl said:

Actually had a semi pleasant result today. Still waiting on my things but a GM unlocked my account from store and I magically have patron for another month. Not sure if that was a bug, generosity, or what but I got it.
So at least I can do things now and gain labor again.

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Everyone got the free month that was a patron/founder I believe, or something to that effect.