Minalan wrote: »

Conclusion: ESO developers are nearly as terrible and arrogant as their exceptionally poor design team. They think they're much better than they are, but they really aren't.

I say 'nearly as bad' because If they followed @Wrobel standard procedure, they would come in here and tell us how awesome their non existent security is instead of fixing it.

Don't be an ass. This has lot more to do with the bean counters than programmers.

You're a business. You want to make money. You have a series of popular single player games, and now you want to bring that online. Time is money. Do you:

1. Basically keep the single player game as a client and attach MMO server capabilities with duct tape and bubblegum to get something out as fast as possible.
2. Redesign and re-implement everything from the ground up.

They announced ESO in 2012 and released in 2014. Two years, for a game of this magnitude. It's pretty obvious which path was taken.

Based on the information I'm aware of, this and similar hacks are a result of either missing or lax server validation. In any client server paradigm, it is always a game of "trust but verify". There is no way to push the "verify" aspect to the client. If it's on a machine outside of your control, then rule number one is to automatically assume that it has been compromised. You can add as many hack shields, checksums, etc. you want, but the fact remains that the client is running on a platform you don't control, and thus can be hacked.

The only way to address this and other similar hacks is to add the proper validation rules to the server. This can be more difficult than it sounds, depending on what their backend looks like.

At any rate, on titles/applications of this magnitude, the rank and file developers usually don't have a lot of say in the higher level business decisions. They're stuck with implementing whatever the upper level management has deemed to be the "direction". It doesn't matter if its stupid, ill-informed, or world class ass-hattery. If the developer wants to keep their job, then they have to do the job. It really doesn't matter what your programming skills are if you get bad direction and forced to implement bad decisions.

I was in the games industry for a number of years, so I'm pretty familiar with how the story goes. Yes, sometimes the developers are to blame but more often than not it comes down to some idiot higher up on the corporate food chain screaming "DO IT! SHIP IT!".

dagonbeer wrote: »

Hopefully everyone will have a great holiday, and return with banhammer at the ready and a quick resolution to the problem.

Unfortunately, the DLC releases tomorrow...so unless they want to push back the release date (and cause even more of a PR mess), I think this is ZOS' schedule:

Today (Memorial Day, Monday): Take the day off.
Tomorrow (Tuesday): Release Dark Brotherhood.
Wednesday: Arrive early in the morning armed with banhammers and begin the solemn process of permabanning those who used the exploit.

Although, in the meantime, I wouldn't mind if those who did indeed exploit gets a KOS bounty until such time as devs can permaban them. And the KOS bounty can't be cleared.

Short answered : ignored like a stam sorc

Ryuuhime wrote: »

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arena25 wrote: »

dagonbeer wrote: »

Hopefully everyone will have a great holiday, and return with banhammer at the ready and a quick resolution to the problem.

Wednesday: Arrive early in the morning armed with banhammers and begin the solemn process of permabanning those who used the exploit.

The thing is, there seems to be so many people using that exploit (at least from those youtube videos and threads about the NA server - I personally haven't seen anything happening in the EU server so far) that I don't think ZOS will perma ban them all. Imagine how many players they would lose if they permanently banned everyone who cheated like this. Wouldn't they end up losing a lot of money like this? Unfortunately, sometimes money talks louder than justice and ZOS has proven several times before that to them, it talks very loud.

To put it bluntly, the people hacking don't give a *** about the community nor the game, you shouldn't let them stay on the game, they cause more trouble than good and I highly doubt they bring any money to ZOS. If ZOS allows us, we're going to destroy the community unless some rules are enforced. And I personally believe we're going to get some good results once they get back from their holiday.
To me it seems they're temporary banning the known hackers probably to get variables that match with other hackers trying to be under the radar. I'm not too good with programming but I know that is definitely possible
@Woeler would need to make a comment about that if it's possible. Or some other programmers.

Brightxdawn wrote: »

Zenimax polices the forums more than the game because they dont want any potential new buyers to read how the game is actually functioning. They don't want to lose sales. They need their numbers up to satisfy their masters.

I think it is that editing the forums is easy. Fixing the netcode is hard. Not everything is restricted to financial motivation.

Ryuuhime wrote: »

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arena25 wrote: »

dagonbeer wrote: »

Hopefully everyone will have a great holiday, and return with banhammer at the ready and a quick resolution to the problem.

Wednesday: Arrive early in the morning armed with banhammers and begin the solemn process of permabanning those who used the exploit.

The thing is, there seems to be so many people using that exploit (at least from those youtube videos and threads about the NA server - I personally haven't seen anything happening in the EU server so far) that I don't think ZOS will perma ban them all. Imagine how many players they would lose if they permanently banned everyone who cheated like this. Wouldn't they end up losing a lot of money like this? Unfortunately, sometimes money talks louder than justice and ZOS has proven several times before that to them, it talks very loud.

The game is dead if they don't perma ban them.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

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Tandor wrote: »

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

For those of you wondering about the lack of reaction from ZOS...at least some of that is because today is a holiday in the US. Though if they have any sense, they'll buff their support staff for future three day weekends.

Those who believe ZOS have not reacted need to check the Dev Tracker - they responded on this yesterday.

Thanks, @Tandor - everyone please remember to check the Dev Tracker. These forums are busy and threads move fast. We responded to several threads about this yesterday (and even more PMs), confirming that we are investigating this and those involved. Everyone who can work on this has been. We've had all hands on deck to get this handled, despite it being a holiday weekend. We'll have a more detailed update tomorrow.

Thanks for the update, it is much needed.

Ackwalan wrote: »

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Ryuuhime wrote: »

arena25 wrote: »

dagonbeer wrote: »

Hopefully everyone will have a great holiday, and return with banhammer at the ready and a quick resolution to the problem.

Wednesday: Arrive early in the morning armed with banhammers and begin the solemn process of permabanning those who used the exploit.

The thing is, there seems to be so many people using that exploit (at least from those youtube videos and threads about the NA server - I personally haven't seen anything happening in the EU server so far) that I don't think ZOS will perma ban them all. Imagine how many players they would lose if they permanently banned everyone who cheated like this. Wouldn't they end up losing a lot of money like this? Unfortunately, sometimes money talks louder than justice and ZOS has proven several times before that to them, it talks very loud.

The punishment for the writ survey exploit was very lite If ZOS doesn't take a very clear and visible stance this time around, not only will that encourage more cheating, people will abandon this game in droves.

Pretty much. It wont kill the game since console is thriving. But if people thought it got quiet over the summer after release on PC, theyre in for a surprise. PvP can not survive, forget lag and balance, when players can blatantly cheat and not be punished. There is no use in loading into Cyrodiil when all you can expect is unlimited meteors and god knows what else.

PvE has it coming too. Any sort of competitive portion of the PvE side of the game will collapse as not only players outright cheat on the leaderboards but accusations become the norm between anyone that comes out on top. I have yet to see a game maintain any sort of PvP/Competitive PvE when blatant cheating become the everyday experience.

Almost always the games competitive players, which brings the most attention to the game over social media are the ones that will back out of such games and go elsewhere. The casuals might stay but theyll dwindle over time. Itll surely limp on. But things like this can turn games into directions no community should want it to be steered towards.

Nifty2g wrote: »

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stevepdodson_ESO888 wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Buffler wrote: »

Repost vids, send in vids via tickets and dont name players then the thread wont get locked

I think when players are hacking, then videos are fine, I don't see why we can't name and shame. We don't want to hide the toxic players in the community, why are we protecting them. Get rid of them once and for all.

As for the Maelstrom Arena before that gets out of hand, I've been seeing players all day getting high scores who are mainly unnamed/unknown in the realms of PvE.
But honestly the players who held #1 are my friends and my guild mates, they have put countless hours of effort into keeping that spot, to have someone come in and ruin it is just disgusting behavior because they know nothing will happen to them. If I was #1 I would be completely pissed that I would be unable to grab a screenshot to show the achievement before Dark Brotherhood goes live because someone had hacked and gotten a seemingly impossible score. (which is actually a 29 Minute clear.)

As for PvP, I know it has less of a direct impact like PvE leaderboards do, but players should also get punished thinking how they can get away with such *** I don't understand how time after time you allow players to exploit, no more 3 day ban, stand handing out permanent bans, especially to those who have received one before and decided to come back and disrespect the company outright.

It's sad to say, but this now becomes another problem...you say that you and all your friends with high scores are legit, but who will believe they are now?
And who will believe that Hodor (EU) are always first to complete trials due to being good or because speculation and hearsay may also point to it being a guild of cheaters?

Once the poison of cheating sets in and the finger pointing starts then where does it go from here? There will be a witch hunt.

I enjoy playing this game and basically have given up on large parts of it due to all the cheating...the spoilers are spoiling it for the rest of us.

Good luck with trying to keep your name and the that of your friends untarnished by this. If I were you, I would no longer put your "World Best" scores in your signature as no one will believe it anymore.

I have videos online of my all my scores, so do hodor. theres no cheating like that, please dont say that kind of stuff when guilds/players go through a lot to prove their stuff is legitimate

Funny story about Major Update 6, because we had such a close compeititon with HODOR we had to both agree that we're allowed ot use the double mundus exploit so that we can keep a fair competition. Sucks when that happens, but when an exploit like double mundus goes viral you have to all agree to do it so no one is on the upper hand.

You went on and on about how legit your scores are and then outright admitted to cheating and how the lot of you colluded together. You guys are like all the cyclists using PEDs. You embrace the cheating because "everyone is doing it." Well, sorry, Lance Armstrong, it's still not okay.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

...

permanently banned 43 players in the last 24 hours who were found to be cheating

...

THIS is what we wanted to see! Thank you very much and keep up the good work!

I hope the team working on this is aware that the hacking program in question can do very subtle changes that have likely gone on for over a year. Might actually have to revisit the logs for hacking/exploiting complaints well in excess of a few weeks, just to be safe.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Just a quick update for everyone regarding the recent influx of those using third party tools to cheat in ESO. We've adjusted our automatic anti-cheat systems to focus specifically on the cheats we've seen in the last few days, in addition to launching investigations on specific players. We've permanently banned 43 players in the last 24 hours who were found to be cheating. We don't take cheating lightly, and will continue to ban those who are found to be cheating. We'll be going back through game logs to identify players who were violating our anti-cheating policies in the hours before we performed the automatic cheat detection adjustment.

In addition, we're working on a number of fixes and improvements to prevent this kind of behavior from happening in ESO in the future. We'll provide more specific details about this tomorrow.

We want to thank everyone who has helped us identify those who would ruin your game experience by cheating, and the means by which they were doing so.

I...

Never...

Wanted...

So...

Much...

Popcorn in all my life

Finally some justice

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Just a quick update for everyone regarding the recent influx of those using third party tools to cheat in ESO. We've adjusted our automatic anti-cheat systems to focus specifically on the cheats we've seen in the last few days, in addition to launching investigations on specific players. We've permanently banned 43 players in the last 24 hours who were found to be cheating. We don't take cheating lightly, and will continue to ban those who are found to be cheating. We'll be going back through game logs to identify players who were violating our anti-cheating policies in the hours before we performed the automatic cheat detection adjustment.

In addition, we're working on a number of fixes and improvements to prevent this kind of behavior from happening in ESO in the future. We'll provide more specific details about this tomorrow.

We want to thank everyone who has helped us identify those who would ruin your game experience by cheating, and the means by which they were doing so.

YES!!, THANK YOU @ZOS_JessicaFolsom & everyone else working at ZOS on this, It is much appreciated seriously.
It further shows that the exploiters will not get away or continue to get away with things now. So Thank you. I do sympathize that you had to do this on a holiday, I wish everyone there gets another day off because of this whole mess.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Just a quick update for everyone regarding the recent influx of those using third party tools to cheat in ESO. We've adjusted our automatic anti-cheat systems to focus specifically on the cheats we've seen in the last few days, in addition to launching investigations on specific players. We've permanently banned 43 players in the last 24 hours who were found to be cheating. We don't take cheating lightly, and will continue to ban those who are found to be cheating. We'll be going back through game logs to identify players who were violating our anti-cheating policies in the hours before we performed the automatic cheat detection adjustment.

In addition, we're working on a number of fixes and improvements to prevent this kind of behavior from happening in ESO in the future. We'll provide more specific details about this tomorrow.

We want to thank everyone who has helped us identify those who would ruin your game experience by cheating, and the means by which they were doing so.

The feeling this gives me... its.. This is like waking up Christmas morning, unwrapping your present and it being exactly what you wanted.

sadownik wrote: »

Heh 24 h ban and people jump with joy? And hmm... automated anti cheat system? So why now and not before?

Permanent bans were made in the past 24 hours, NOT 24 hour bans.