MQWarp/MQZone/MQGate Detector Discussion

[KLS]

Some concerns I have:

Cavedude already mentioned this but the built in punishments, need to either go or be able to be toggled on/off. False positives unjustly punish legitimate players in such a circumstances, just warping someone back to where they were is a pretty easy punishment and it doesn't really insult the players playing legitimatly. If they're lagging and get warped back a few times a play session it's not as big a deal as having to regen hp and mana and deal with res effects. Sorta leads into my next concern...

The warp system isn't perfect, it doesn't account for lag well and I've gotten quite a few reports of false positives from people who have used it. It could be tightened up a bit, and could account for lag. For example instead of measuring a set distance since the last update measure a variable distance since the last update based on the time between this update and the last.

I think outputting suspicious behavior to a .log file would be better than mysql, just because it takes some stress off of the mysql server and it's a lot easier to view and sent do someone else.

But like I said the first time, great initiative, it's something that was certainly needed.

[trevius]

For porting NPCs, maybe the code could get sent the port to location information when players are moved so it knows they aren't warping. Also, Mage CoH could maybe do something similar somehow?

I am mainly concerned with players jumping from one side of the zone to the other end. I imagine I could have thresholds set pretty high for that to account for lag. I guess that would also have to take bard speed into account (and probably GM speed too). Having it send the player back to where they started is a great way to deal with this. But it should also write to a log file similar to quest::write.

[TheLieka]

To allow spell effects, you just have to identify the spell effect to exempt it from setting off the hack detector. I don't believe Call of Hero's summon effect is in, but spell effects like shadowstep, succor, gate (for when the bindpoint is in the same zone) have been accounted for. I'm not sure how much time I'll have this week, but when I have time, I'll try to look into these concerns.

Dax

[trevius]

CoH does work just fine. I think it was fixed a while back.

[TheLieka]

I mean that I am not sure if it will be exempted by the warp detector. I'll have to check that.

Dax

[LordAdakos]

While I support the OP in his endeavor, and having used MQ/2 myself on live for many years, and contributing largely to the MQ/2 community, I have to say that some people don't quite grasp MQ/2.

MacroQuest, developed over the course of many years, is nothing more than a character automation/assist tool which is almost infinitely customizable. Fair enough. You write scripts, it preforms them. For example, you want to see a mob's health? use /say ${Target.PctHPs} and it displays their health to everyone around. Similarly, it can do timed commands, such as /timed 600 /camp desktop, which would wait 600 MQticks and then camp out gracefully. Quite useful, actually (if you have to run but want full mana/hp when you return to the computer)

With certain (read: frowned upon by the MQ2 community) plugins you CAN warp and chainzone. These were developed by a group of griefers who have no connection to MQ2, with the exception that they know how to programming in the language and compile plugins, but thought it would be fun to mess around. On live, not surprisingly, these people were instantly banned due to the sheer audacity of warping/chainzoning- which was easily detected.

However, these plugins are primarily found on bittorrent searches for MQ2 or PRECOMPILED MQ2 which means that these 'hackers' are too lazy/stupid to compile MQ2 themselves, with the correct dates

However, I have never seen a MQ2 user able to summon items from thin air (with the exception of mages, and even then, only certain items) - that is preposterous. ( from another thread, but useful in my point)

Do I use MQ2?
On certain servers, i do - and find it useful.
Let me explain -
on krushers server and nonlegit #level 70 #si anything #kill enabled servers i have a nice little set of scripts called nonlegit_${Class.ShortName}.mac that i use to equip myself for whatever class i want to play, max level 70, max AA's, without having to spent 45 minutes searching for items i want, putting in and clicking hundreds of times to max my aa's,i have it layed out in a nice database and that is that.

I will like to emphasize that you cannot summon items on legit servers UNLESS YOU ALREADY HAVE GM PRIVVIES - but for things like krushers, it's perfect. I can have any character level 70/75 with the best gear i can find from lucy or the 13th floor, with max aa's in a little under 3 minutes.

Back to the point on hand,
/zone and /warp are seriously stupid things to do on a legit emu. It DOES ruin the game for people who enjoy the legitmacy (see: wizards and druids, pre PoK)

What do I think about the warp code?
Stellar, go for it! Just default it to a maximum value and allow other users to set it lower, if they want it in on their server.

As a rule, you should try to assume people DON'T cheat, and then be surprised and punish accordingly, instead of assuming everyone cheats and cracking down so hard the servers become no fun for anyone and the population drops even lower than it is.

my two cents.

[trevius]

You mention that MQ2 was meant as a means to help assist players. Yes, that is true, and some of the features like the /stick autofollow feature is nice. But, when it gets to the point where players are starting to use scripts for the command /tell options where they tell one of their characters something and it does whatever they tell them (heal, buff, etc), that alone is giving them a large advantage over players without MQ. Not to mention that if a server wanted to allow people to play their characters that way, they might as well enable the offline bots so all players can have a similar experience.

Then, you get into more advanced scripts where entire groups could be killing in an area for days to XP or farm cash or whatever, and that is just wrong and completely abusing the system. Combining these macros with warping ability makes MQ a huge threat to any legit server. Both of them give huge advantages over players who play legit and have caused endless drama between players. Not only that, but all server admins work hard to develop content and create balanced zones for character progression. By warping, players are negating all of that hard work and skipping straight to the reward. IMO, if a player wants to cheat, they should go to a non-legit server so there is no need to use MQ to do it.

I allow the use of MQ on my server for maps only. This is mainly because there is no way to ever detect it and it only gives a slight advantage over players that don't have it. Also, there is not much of a chance that seeing which spawns are up will cause any dispute between players like we get from players that warp or macro.

As for server admins with harsh punishment for being caught by MQ detection tools, there isn't really many other options. In the past, I used to give players every last chance to stop cheating and time and time again they just lied to me and continued cheating. I spent countless hours watching them to catch them with my own eyes when possible. I have MUCH better things to do with my time, so now I just rely on my detection tools and make a judgement call as to when to ban. If you see many character in the same guild all tripping MQ detection, then there is a good chance that they all have MQ and are abusing it. There are other ways to check into this as well. But, there is no reason why any server admin should have to spend so many hours just to keep their server free of cheaters. It is a slap in the face to any admin every time someone cheats. We make these servers for players to enjoy, so all of the hard work we put into them gets the middle finger when players can't follow the extremely simple rules and policies of the server.