Official statement on custom clients / mods

[sabinati]

If people prefer to automate their gameplay with some bot instead of playing themselves then I find it more of a design flaw, than lack of security.

luckily for all of us, this is one of jorb and loftars beliefs as well

[Wournos]

(This is what Jagex do, and the sole reason they've managed to minimize automation in their games like no other company has before)

I really don't think Jagex is a company anyone should praise (not saying you do) for their bot prevention. The common conception among RuneScape players (both current and former) is that Jagex don't get rid of the bots because they essentially pay membership, and everyone who has come across Jagex one time or another the past 2 years knows they are all just about the money these days. They have at least 1 Squeal of Fortune update for every other update they bring out.

On topic I can say that I would gladly stop using Enders if Vanilla had the minimap icons and the dig level tool. I feel that Enders clutter up the screen with one too many action bars (that only work for PC) and there's no good room to have the options menu (inventory, equipped, game options) showing at all times.

[L33LEE]

You're quite correct that these things take Time, Money, and Resources, none of which this development team has currently. Where you see these anti-hacks implemented are in large budget projects or through conglomerates (like Nexon) where a parent company develops the tools and methods and the game dev just needs to implement them at a fraction of the cost and time it would take others to get it done.

I know kinda a necro but i would like to add a possible suggestion then.

What does seatribe / paradox not then approach a company which already has such software, like you just said ? And purchase it from them at a fraction of the cost/time needed ?

[Procne]

What does seatribe / paradox not then approach a company which already has such software, like you just said ? And purchase it from them at a fraction of the cost/time needed ?

Fraction? I would be surprised if tool developed by huge company and used in large AAA MMOs costed less than Salem ate money so far.
Also, installing (sorry, forgot proper word) such tool into the game wouldn't be that easy.

[L33LEE]

What does seatribe / paradox not then approach a company which already has such software, like you just said ? And purchase it from them at a fraction of the cost/time needed ?

Fraction? I would be surprised if tool developed by huge company and used in large AAA MMOs costed less than Salem ate money so far.
Also, installing (sorry, forgot proper word) such tool into the game wouldn't be that easy.

Maybe, but it would still be "easier" than building it from scratch no?

That was my point, money + time saved, to impliment the system, as others have mentioned many companys do.

Remember, runescape started as 2 guys in a garage, something like what salem is now.

[imrielle]

Maybe, but it would still be "easier" than building it from scratch no?

That was my point, money + time saved, to impliment the system, as others have mentioned many companys do.

Remember, runescape started as 2 guys in a garage, something like what salem is now.

Also, a majority of the tools available for developers to license would turn off potential players, and not for the "I want to bot/hack/whatever" reasons.

Lets use nProtect GameGuard as an example. Right after I purchased Aion (yes, yes, most wasted 40$ in my life, I agree) I got banned. It took nearly two weeks to get NCSoft to unban me. What got me banned? The fact that I have a free web server software package called XAMPP running on my PC most of the time. The software saw Apache and mySQL as hacking software. Shaiya also banned me - but it saw my antivirus as the issue (and they never did unban me). If I see that a game is using GameGuard, I personally will not touch it, no matter how interesting or intriguing the game appears.

Added to that, the majority of these bot prevention systems act like a rootkit and they violate a users privacy. That turns off many, many people. And, in most cases, they are easy to bypass. Blizzards Warden? Cracked and bypassed a day after launch. I can think of two pieces of software currently used to cheat and bot in World of Warcraft right off the top of my head, that bypass the games protection.

[L33LEE]

Also, a majority of the tools available for developers to license would turn off potential players, and not for the "I want to bot/hack/whatever" reasons.

Lets use nProtect GameGuard as an example. Right after I purchased Aion (yes, yes, most wasted 40$ in my life, I agree) I got banned. It took nearly two weeks to get NCSoft to unban me. What got me banned? The fact that I have a free web server software package called XAMPP running on my PC most of the time. The software saw Apache and mySQL as hacking software. Shaiya also banned me - but it saw my antivirus as the issue (and they never did unban me). If I see that a game is using GameGuard, I personally will not touch it, no matter how interesting or intriguing the game appears.

Added to that, the majority of these bot prevention systems act like a rootkit and they violate a users privacy. That turns off many, many people. And, in most cases, they are easy to bypass. Blizzards Warden? Cracked and bypassed a day after launch. I can think of two pieces of software currently used to cheat and bot in World of Warcraft right off the top of my head, that bypass the games protection.

Yet every game / company you just mentioned are multi-million pound gaming empires with millions of players.

Doing something right no ?

Yet i agree, GameGuard is a piece of ****, but that is one of many which exist.

[imrielle]

The problem with comparing Salem, or H&H, with them is that those games were created with a very broad appeal in mind. Salem, on the other hand, is extremely niche. 90% - or probably more, really - of the people who play those games will never touch Salem. You would have to remove the majority of what makes both Salem and H&H appealing to those of us playing in order to interest them, and that is even before adding in various bot prevention code that would detract from this games appeal.

[darnokpl]

Custom clients and mods are fine as long as we all got access to them.
Imho Paradox should solve this issue by law, simply adding to EULA lines like (I am not lawyer):
"we do not encourage you to use custom clients or mods, but all that you can find on this forums are allowed (open source ftw)"
"any other clients/mods you may get from players are direct violation of Salem licence and will be punished"

From time to time Devs could run magic-script to check are we using allowed custom clients or not, also spies on different faction will continue to give away their secrets like custom clients and then responsible people should be banned for 1 month.

[Dallane]

Custom clients and mods are fine as long as we all got access to them.
Imho Paradox should solve this issue by law, simply adding to EULA lines like (I am not lawyer):
"we do not encourage you to use custom clients or mods, but all that you can find on this forums are allowed (open source ftw)"
"any other clients/mods you may get from players are direct violation of Salem licence and will be punished"

From time to time Devs could run magic-script to check are we using allowed custom clients or not, also spies on different faction will continue to give away their secrets like custom clients and then responsible people should be banned for 1 month.

then no one will talk about them and you will never actually know.