Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

fuzzy troll strut

every pantheon update results in soaked brad pads here

Kyle Olsen, Nov 6, 2020: ".. encrypting real-time udp data is a fool's errand in my opinion .." (from that ^ video)

I'm sure everything will be fine. No-one would have any interest in observing or manipulating live client-server MMO communication.
Seems like the Visionary Realms industry veterans have everything covered.

So mq2 just without fully zonewide map spawn data will probably be available? This could turn it around for pantheon!

So does anyone know why there are people still working here? I had some hopium for awhile because I really miss that EQ/EQ2/Vanguard feel but its long gone. I cannot figure out why anyone would work at this company anymore? When was the last time they have shown something that looks like they have actually done real work on a game? I mean they have to be so small in the first place and they keep resetting the project. What are living on, are they even getting paid? I mean I saw they were trying to hire someone but where is the money coming from? How much donations could they still be getting?

Rease said:

So does anyone know why there are people still working here? I had some hopium for awhile because I really miss that EQ/EQ2/Vanguard feel but its long gone. I cannot figure out why anyone would work at this company anymore? When was the last time they have shown something that looks like they have actually done real work on a game? I mean they have to be so small in the first place and they keep resetting the project. What are living on, are they even getting paid? I mean I saw they were trying to hire someone but where is the money coming from? How much donations could they still be getting?

Click to expand...

Ever worked a job where you could just shit for half an hour a day? Imagine one where you got paid to NOT shit for half an hour a day, if that? Who would QUIT working there?

zinc_turtle said:

Kyle Olsen, Nov 6, 2020: ".. encrypting real-time udp data is a fool's errand in my opinion .." (from that ^ video)

I'm sure everything will be fine. No-one would have any interest in observing or manipulating live client-server MMO communication.
Seems like the Visionary Realms industry veterans have everything covered.

Click to expand...

I mean, they aren't wrong. You can encrypt just about anything and it'll be broken eventually. A lot of major games don't have packet sniffers available because they have anti-cheat software that makes it nigh-impossible to run debugging tools or sniffing tools locally, or they simply don't send the information you would want to know about until it becomes relevant. The only types of communication that are near-impossible to break are those that are, by design, not exposed to the client.

Contextually sending data to the client that it needs to know about is much more preferred than sending everything, even in a network optimization scenario. EQ had some really awful practices when it comes to the data itself, but that is independent of the encryption used. EQ encrypts traffic with a simple key per-stream, and to be honest, it's probably not needed if the server knows to reject data that it doesn't think are right, or the server can log it and ban the players after that trigger that condition. But also, a simple encryption can protect against OS-level manipulation of outgoing traffic, which was stupidly easy in the 00's, in the 10's it became harder with the advent of stuff like XTrap / GameGuard getting out of circulation, and most Western publishers turning to solutions like FairFight / BattlEye / EasyAntiCheat. Even then, the Asian market caught up with anticheats, services like XIGNCODE3 scare the living daylights out of me because they can easily be used for surveillance purposes.

Remember, game hacking is easy for people if you give them less barriers. Meaning, the more effort someone has to go through, the less likely the average user will set up the cheat, and the less likely someone will bother doing it. It's like stealing cable from your neighbors in 2010; you can do it, the setup is insanely hard for the common person, and because of the cost to do so and the punishment if you're found out, it's never worth doing and instead worth paying Comcast $160 a month for a full cable package.
This is why the 90's and 00's were the 'golden age' of gamehacking; low barrier of entry. Almost everyone I know from that era is now working professionally in industry, two individuals I know work at Riot Games on their anticheat that I have known since 2010 or so. The industry is small, and the amount of people that fully understand reverse engineering is even smaller.

A more detailed overview of game hacking below, for anyone who is curious. Still relevant today for most games, though factor in modern language usage (C#, Java, etc) and different programming structures of games (replication in Unreal 3, 4, etc)

zzeris said:

Paid is a very loose interpretation here. It's more like you get to fuck off all day and every once in a while, Pantheon pays for dinner at McDonalds instead of your welfare check doing it. Best of both worlds! Well, if you like the welfare lifestyle.

Click to expand...

Judging by the pace of progress I'm gonna guess these folks aren't the ambitious types.

yerm said:

Ever worked a job where you could just shit for half an hour a day? Imagine one where you got paid to NOT shit for half an hour a day, if that? Who would QUIT working there?

Click to expand...

They are still getting paid? How? Donations are still coming in at a high enough rate?

Rease said:

They are still getting paid? How? Donations are still coming in at a high enough rate?

Click to expand...

Despite the content and tone of the October Producers letter, they're very adamant that absolutely nothing is wrong financially, everything is fine, and there is no need for any extra money. Money is their last concern, and they're fully funded to an indefinite launch date in the indefinite future [no, of course that makes no sense]. Their zealot fans continue to push the insane notion that 8, 9 or 10+ years is completely normal for niche video game development, despite EQ1 taking a mere 3 years, and they had to make everything as they went: client, server, tools and content.

Kilsin was very clear in this thread.. " Dev's are not working for free, anyone saying so should be discredited as unreliable and ignored. " on July 21, 2019.

Unfortunately, anyone who can see lightning, hear thunder, and has completed Grade 6 Math comprehends that brand new pledge donations, alone, don't pay the wages for 20+ employees. Not even at minimum wage, never mind all the extra costs beyond wages that are part of having employees and running a company. But, they continue to claim everything is fine, and there is no need for any extra money. If you repeat it often enough, it becomes true, right?
Somehow, despite not gathering $800k for the original Kickstarter, they've managed to pay wages for 7 years, when $800k doesn't cover even one year of wages.
It seems unlikely they will ever explain this situation, especially if the reality is more negative than leaving your potential customers ignorant.

Sycophants don't care how much money they are making. It's a passion project!!!!

They're paying them in future pantheon sub time

I think these guys secretly Heaven's Gated themselves and all of these videos were pre-recorded. Not too long from now we are going to see a posthumous video from Brad talking about "The Vision".