Take the servers offline till the hack is fixed

DeanTheCat · May 2016

The damage to the game and it's community is growing larger and larger with every passing minute till the Cheat Engine hack is fixed.

So far, we have:

PvE Leaderboards (vMSA specifically) ruined by the hackers
Hackers running rampant in PvP, cheesing everyone and everything with all sorts of "Creative use of game mechanics" under the sun.
Hackers are using the hacks to cheese content, allowing the acquisition of gear/titles that they could not otherwise legitimately obtain
A spreading sense of distrust amongst the community, who now are suspecting any player with a shred of competency to be cheating.
A lack of trust in Zenimax, especially from the PvP community due to their habit of turning a blind eye to "Grey area exploiting", resulting in the hackers getting emboldened to the point where they dare to cheat openly and are proud of the fact.
Harvesting Bots have again been spotted in the Hollow City, exploiting the lack of validation on client side data to teleport around the place picking all the herbs, thereby causing an economic backlash that will be felt for the coming months.

These are just some of the current repercussions from the hack, and the longer the servers are online before it is fixed, the larger the backlash and fallout that is going to happen from the community. At this point, the best thing that Zenimax can do as a stop gap measure is to take the servers offline to staunch the bleeding. The wounds are already severe enough that many of the current community are looking for a new game to play. We don't need to let the wound continue to bleed to the point where there isn't a community left at all in this game. There is nothing more frustrating to see years of effort being suddenly thrown out of the window due to people having a "I-Win" button that they can just spam.

Taking the servers offline would allow Zenimax time to correct the errors in their code, while preventing further blood loss from the damage that is already inflicted. I know that the Dark Brotherhood release is scheduled for tomorrow, but pushing that release as-is right now will destroy any shred of faith that still remains in your community; as doing so will prove that we are no more then walking wallets to Zenimax rather then players.

And if after all this and Zenimax doesn't take any swift and immediate action, well...

DannyLV702 · May 2016

Console: 1
Master Race: 0

DannyLV702 · May 2016

Trolling aside...I'd be pissed off if I was y'all

DeanTheCat · May 2016

DannyLV702 wrote: »

Console: 1
Master Race: 0

I'm not one of those "PC master race" people...

Go bring that crap somewhere else =/

Jhunn · May 2016

Word, kitty.

ManwithBeard9 · May 2016

I second the motion for bringing down the servers. This is not something that will be fixed for Tuesday. They need to take this on the chin, admit it was a mistake, and do everything possible so it cant happen again.

Tommy1979AtWar · May 2016

DannyLV702 wrote: »

Console: 1
Master Race: 0

I'm console and tbh I don't think we've anything to brag about, both PvP and PvE are broken and getting worse no matter what platform you're using, in fact this game is so messed up I'm installing a new 2 tb hd into my ps4 today and doubt I'm even gonna bother re-installing ESO.

Vaoh · May 2016

That moment when you are happy to play on PS4 because ZOS can't moderate PC if their lives depended on it.....

Alcast · May 2016

The real question is: Can it be fixed fast?

Tandor · May 2016

It's down to individual players whether they wish to engage in competitive gameplay while this problem exists, there's absolutely no reason to take all the servers down for everyone, most of whom aren't engaged in competitive gameplay or even playing on servers where it's a problem.

Pomaikai · May 2016

Bringing down the servers won't help. This is a 3rd party cheating program that they're using. Unless ZOS starts checking player's PC's for the hack, like SOE did with EverQuest, they're going g to be really hard pressed to put an end to this.

ManwithBeard9 · May 2016

Alcast wrote: »

The real question is: Can it be fixed fast?

Unless they knew there was a hole and were delaying for whatever reason to fix it, I highly doubt it could be fixed in a timely manner.

Serenityx · May 2016

DeanTheCat wrote: »

The damage to the game and it's community is growing larger and larger with every passing minute till the Cheat Engine hack is fixed.

Wait, cheat engine? Like that little program that hacks flash games and such?

DeanTheCat · May 2016

Alcast wrote: »

The real question is: Can it be fixed fast?

I doubt it

Tandor wrote: »

It's down to individual players whether they wish to engage in competitive gameplay while this problem exists, there's absolutely no reason to take all the servers down for everyone, most of whom aren't engaged in competitive gameplay or even playing on servers where it's a problem.

There is also the issue of the Economic Backlash on the hack. Do we really want a repeat of the banker writ exploit? As I type this, harvesting bots are strip-mining Tamriel en-mass.

Pomaikai wrote: »

Bringing down the servers won't help. This is a 3rd party cheating program that they're using. Unless ZOS starts checking player's PC's for the hack, like SOE did with EverQuest, they're going g to be really hard pressed to put an end to this.

Checking player PCs might by what ZOS may be forced to do in the future.

As I wrote above, there is also the Economic Backlash that is happening right now.

DeanTheCat · May 2016

Serenityx wrote: »

DeanTheCat wrote: »

The damage to the game and it's community is growing larger and larger with every passing minute till the Cheat Engine hack is fixed.

Wait, cheat engine? Like that little program that hacks flash games and such?

Yes.

https://www.twitch.tv/fengrush/v/69238314

7:20

Immortal_Dark410 · May 2016

Pomaikai wrote: »

Bringing down the servers won't help. This is a 3rd party cheating program that they're using. Unless ZOS starts checking player's PC's for the hack, like SOE did with EverQuest, they're going g to be really hard pressed to put an end to this.

This and no company would bring servers down to them its a $$ loss, either they fix this by DLC release (Which is unlikely) or they continue along this path and face reality that less and less ppl will play or even tolerate it.

sphane · May 2016

Before a full fix, They could do dirty things like altering data structure to force cheating program to be upgraded/reconfigured. Things a lambda cheater cant do by his owns.

susmitds · May 2016

Pomaikai wrote: »

Bringing down the servers won't help. This is a 3rd party cheating program that they're using. Unless ZOS starts checking player's PC's for the hack, like SOE did with EverQuest, they're going g to be really hard pressed to put an end to this.

They could create something like the VAC by Steam to prevent 3rd party hacks. The Client needs to be more secure and the moment memory swaps are detected, the player's account should be put on a temporary cooldown till the issue is investigated. Of course, if a professional hacker or modder becomes hellbent on hacking the game, then they will manage it someway or the other, but they generally have better things to do and don't bother with paltry stuff like this.

Bluepitbull13 · May 2016

I wouldn't mind the servers being brought down but heck while they are at it, they should fix a whole lot of other things too. Imagine if they fix the hacks in ESO and lag? *sigh :'(

Whatzituyah · May 2016

Bluepitbull13 wrote: »

I wouldn't mind the servers being brought down but heck while they are at it, they should fix a whole lot of other things too. Imagine if they fix the hacks in ESO and lag? *sigh :'(

It would be a perfect world sadly this is how things are.

Pomaikai · May 2016

It's a program that you lease time on, and it's for lots of games other than ESO. Not only can it do things like the cheats we're seeing in PVP, but it can also be setup as a harvest bot, macro multiple attacks, and a whole lot more.

Jaronking · May 2016

Alcast wrote: »

The real question is: Can it be fixed fast?

I doubt it best it will take 2 weeks hopefully they can fix it around console launch of DarkBrotherHood,but If they only focus on this and nothing else hopefully they can fix it we just have to.give them time.

Serenityx · May 2016

How can something like this not be obvious to ZOS. I mean a 3rd grader could use cheat engine and ZOS doesnt know their game is vulnerable to something that simple until stuff like this starts happening..? I used it when I was twelve on a pokemon emulator.

Minalan · May 2016

Without some internal memory data structures, encryption, checksums, hashes and integrity checks. ZOS won't be able to overcome some idiot with a simple 'trainer' program.

This is hilarious, sorry.

Turelus · May 2016

We could always contact Zenimax Media and ask them to invest actual money into ZOS having a real security team.

https://www.zenimax.com/more

sneaky_t · May 2016

after witnessing the chaos the other day of a certain ep group first hand, and then seeing the same people who were openly hacking within the group still running around in cyro today, i can no longer take this game seriously - especially in vma, pvp.. this just puts a big question mark over everything. seriously, how long have people been using this program to gain an advantage over legit players?

Turelus · May 2016

sneaky_t wrote: »

after witnessing the chaos the other day of a certain ep group first hand, and then seeing the same people who were openly hacking within the group still running around in cyro today, i can no longer take this game seriously - esspecially in vma, pvp.. this just puts a big question mark over everything. seriously, how long have people been using this program to gain an advantage over legit players?

It's the people not being stupid enough to get noticed who will be the benefactors. I'd imagine the ones in Cyrodiil being blatant about it or trashing vMA scores will get their sanctions. The ones using it unseen in areas to gain wealth or materials I fear will not.

ManwithBeard9 · May 2016

Turelus wrote: »

sneaky_t wrote: »

after witnessing the chaos the other day of a certain ep group first hand, and then seeing the same people who were openly hacking within the group still running around in cyro today, i can no longer take this game seriously - esspecially in vma, pvp.. this just puts a big question mark over everything. seriously, how long have people been using this program to gain an advantage over legit players?

It's the people not being stupid enough to get noticed who will be the benefactors. I'd imagine the ones in Cyrodiil being blatant about it or trashing vMA scores will get their sanctions. The ones using it unseen in areas to gain wealth or materials I fear will not.

Gotta wonder how many people have used it for pledges. Or other trials.

Wonder how easy the new SO would be while using the 3rd party software.

STEVIL · May 2016

The way to a dead gsme is tsking down the game for sny period of time beyond the dlc drop. Its an advertised release.

Any idea to stop db huh?

DeanTheCat · May 2016

Turelus wrote: »

sneaky_t wrote: »

after witnessing the chaos the other day of a certain ep group first hand, and then seeing the same people who were openly hacking within the group still running around in cyro today, i can no longer take this game seriously - esspecially in vma, pvp.. this just puts a big question mark over everything. seriously, how long have people been using this program to gain an advantage over legit players?

It's the people not being stupid enough to get noticed who will be the benefactors. I'd imagine the ones in Cyrodiil being blatant about it or trashing vMA scores will get their sanctions. The ones using it unseen in areas to gain wealth or materials I fear will not.

Which is why the servers need to go offline till a fix is ready, even if the fix is a band-aid solution. We need a tourniquet to halt the blood loss from the wound.

DeanTheCat · May 2016

STEVIL wrote: »

The way to a dead gsme is tsking down the game for sny period of time beyond the dlc drop. Its an advertised release.

Any idea to stop db huh?

At this point, I couldn't care less whatever "balance" changes that DB brings. Those are completely unimportant compared to maintaining the integrity of the game, community and economy.

Letting DB drop in this state is basically a signal to us to throw in the towel, as there isn't any point in playing a game where half the community cheats to win. I've seen that happen once already in War of the Roses, and I don't want to see that again here.