Hacking activity in FM rooms CONFIRMED! Something must be done about this.

First of all guys, a little disclaimer so we can get these theories out the way:

-I almost never dc these days when I am randomly playing/training/FM spamming/afking/you name it. It happens, but on a much smaller scale than you think. Nowhere close to getting dc every hour.

-My internet connection is one of the most reliable (if not the most reliable) connections you can get today due to my occupation that demands to have one. When I work (from home) I receive huge amount of data from different sources every millisecond for many hours a day, mainly from the US but I don't want to get deep into that. My point is, if I really had such horrible connection that screws me up every half an hour, I would be broke and had no time to play Royals. Just trust me on this part.

So no, this isn't an issue on my/servers part!


So I have realized something strange in FM. Especially in rooms 1-2 on channel 1.

Yesterday, I've lost 4 spots in FM 1 and some in FM 2. In a very, very short period of time. Sometimes I even dced without getting my store open. But even if I did open it, the most I can hold is 1 hour but after that, I dc. Always, there are no exceptions.

@Sila have told me that one time right after I dced, some random guy have said "it's time to dc hack people" and she indeed suspects something.

I almost never dc these days when just playing, grinding or even afking in fm. But when I set up a store? rip after 30 minutes. ALL THE TIME.

However!

There is another odd thing that happened just today.
@Matt Have told me to disable whispers and tell him if the problem continues. So I decided to go even further - disable ALL invitations along with it. Now I'm safe! Or at least that is what I thought...

I have 2 different accounts. Let's call one account "mule" and the other "cleric".

I put up my store in FM 1 ch 1 top floor with my mule and went to sleep. I woke up after 9 hours and realized I didn't dc at all! WOOHO! BUT! Somehow I didn't sell anything except 2 scrolls from the first half an hour the store was open IN FM 1 CH 1!! From that moment, I felt that something is fishy here. I mean, come on, this isn't possible.

So I logged into my cleric via multiclient and went to fm 1 ch 1 only to realize my shop is long gone, along with the other neraby shops I saw with my mule client that is STILL OPEN ALONG WITH MY SHOP. My mule account was still connected and chatbox have said "You have played 10 hours blalalala" That means I dced, without my client getting the DC and still showing me old data! Now you tell me, how the hell it is even possible?! There is no way this is normal. There is no way some hacking isn't involved here.

I just wish I could have a picture of this...This was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.

Besides, I have noticed another pattern. It's mostly mules/random characters that get DC. It isn't only me, i saw it happening to other people as well..

BUT.

I keep seeing level 200/famous players for hours (more than 8 in a row) on the same spot and they do not DC. AT ALL. I think, the hackers are not targeting them because they (the hackers) think that the famous players can alert the GMs better than random players/mules. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

I refuse to believe it is just a coincidence. There are too many weird things together that can't be explained by anything that isn't hacking.

My point is, something is going on in fm. This isn't normal. There is a huge hacking activity going on and something needs to be done. I hope my thread will confirm this.

 

Quite interesting, i haven't tryed put my chars at poppular spots, but when i was playing GMS around this version (long time ago) Dc hacks were common...
i never understood them but i still thinking its quite intersting your feedback...

Lets see what anothers players say....

 

The most common method used to DC someone back in GMS was overloading a person's chat. Using a packet editor, a person would spam whisper or any form of chat to the person they are trying to DC. I guess a good check to this would be to have an autoban or auto alert if someone tries to spam messages faster than what is limited.

Another thing I would suggest while we're at it is to somehow detect spam inputs. Back in GMS it was far too easy to use a bot to auto-click/auto-type/auto-enter to open shops as soon as someone drops it. Doing this, someone could sit under a shop, set up a bot, and whenever the first shop drops, the user would instantly have his shop open (to the stage where you are putting items in the shop).

 

I did get a packet log saved for Kevin last night when I d/ced overnight. I sent it to him and we'll see what he finds from it.
The kind of crash I got was this: http://i.imgur.com/tw383B5.png
Twice.
Tonight I'm going to sit in a spot with all chats and invites disabled and see what happens, too.

I'm pretty sure something is going on, not sure just what. Definitely not some kind of bug, in my opinion.

 

I actually never had this kind of problem in GMS, despite more hackers being there. 90% of the times I set up a shop, it was up as much as I wanted it to be, once even 24 hours+. No DC no nothing. Maybe because I've played in the less popular worlds such as Bellocan, but still, hackers are everywhere right? We have a population of just 1.7k players anyway, it's not that big compared to old school GMS....I highly doubt it is a server bug.


@Sila This is almost the exact same thing that happened to me, but without the "maple royals stopped working" error. When you logged into your other char assuming you did not log out from your NL, your shop was gone right?


@Tylapia Well, I have disabled EVERYTHING including whispers to party/trade invitation. The issue still goes on...



Just opened a shop in room 5 ch 1. I will go afk for a few hours and will let you guys know if I'm getting DCs in less crowded spots...
My mules ign is SmellYaLater , if that helps.

 

I logged out of my NL but my friend confirmed my shop was gone already before I logged out anyway.

 

Just DCed from fm 5 ch 1. It was an hour and 30 minutes this time, my best result so far and on less popular location than fm 1 or 2. I bet it would be even faster there.

This time however, it was just normal dc, not something like what happened to me today earlier or to your NL. But still, I highly doubt it's server bug or regular DC issues. They occur too often and do not make any sense.

Hope it helped you somehow to find out the reason behind this issue!

 

Kevin said this earlier :
disabling invites shouldn't really do anything, the server would still send you the invite, your client would just know not to show anything for them

We'll see what happens overnight.

 

OK guys, just set out 2 fm stores on the same computer, one in ch 1 fm 2 and the other in ch 1 in an empty room no one cares about getting a spot there.

I will let you know what will happen after half an hour since it is the time I got dced from room 1 few minutes ago. I usually last 30 minutes to one hour and 30 minutes but after that I'm always done, no exceptions. If the unwanted spot won't dc, it will confirm the hacking activity.

 

Tbh i think you're just unlucky with the dc's. I've had a couple of dc's aswell at the beginning of the release, but now it seems to work fine for me.

 

Unlucky 10+ times in a row (trying AGAIN right now in ch 1 room 2, dced AGAIN after half an hour and I can guarantee you I will dc after one hour at best), each one of these never lasting more than an hour, while I see the same people holding their spot for 8+ hours, most of which are high leveled/famous players?

Give me a break...I can bet you any amount you choose that something is going on here. The hackers know you guys know the GMs better and will alert them faster. That means the ban is almost guaranteed so they won't target you. It is not the same with random characters and mules, most of which won't even bother opening the same thread I did.

I never, EVER dc that much. Not even when the server was at his worse condition. My internet connection is one the best you can get, it never let me down on the things I mentioned. Hell, even when randomly playing/grinding/selling in fm entrance I almost never dc. How can I suddenly become so "unlucky"?

You can try setting up a store with a random lvl 10 mule and see for yourself.


EDIT: Half and hour passed, got DCed AGAIN. Maybe I'm the next Nostradamus, who knows.

 

This instance actually happened to me right after the server check in CH1 FM1. My client was still open, announcements still occurred in chat, but one thing I did notice is that the rest of my items haven't sold for 6 hours straight, even though some of my items sold almost immediately.

So, I checked CH1 FM1 with my main and it so happened that my mule wasn't there anymore. I didn't think much about it at the time, but when you bring up hacking activity, I think it would make sense now.

I wasn't home when the instance occurred, so my internet could've cut off for all I know, but the weird part is that I didn't disconnect on my main, like I did with my mule (who held the shop).

That's just my two cents.

 

I have exactly the same problem which happens every 20-30 minutes. I hardly, barely, rarely ever get disconnected anywhere else, just in the FM so I suspect there must be something wrong.
Maybe the Hired Merchants will be a solution/good alternative.

 

OK, we both have set our stores at the exact same time in the same room in fm 1 if you remember - mine was just above the door.
My store was gone after one hour like all the 10+ previous times, but this time it was just "normal" dc. From what it seems as of now, your shop still stands....Along with most shops I have seen before in the same room.
So it might be an issue on my part after all.

Can any of you who are not experiencing the same issue of DCing every exact hour after being afk in a store shed light on what exactly you are doing?

Are you using vmware, or just your computer OS? Which OS do you use? Which compatibility mode?
Windowed mode or full screen?
Are you completely afk and not using the computer AT ALL for all these hours or you are moving the cursor/chatting with friends here and there?
Do you have any other programs or clients being open at the same time? If yes, how many?
Did you click the "items available" button while being in the store?
Did you ever re-opened the store, INCLUDING when it is not actually open?
Do you DC when you are just go afk in FM/town?

I think I just DC when I'm afk for far too long since I can remember it happening to me a couple times in a town/FM entrance, but who knows...
There must be something behind all this. I have a lot of stuff to sell and I don't have time to look for spot only to dc after an hour. These are the kind of things that make you want to quit.


@nhatwaly Hired merchants are nice, but they should not replace the regular stores. They both exist for a reason. For me personally, it's hired merchants who will sell the expensive stuff such as scrolled int gear/weapons/other things from 150m to 2b, while regular store mules will take care of the small items such as scrolls, orbis etc and more. I don't need to spend tons of NX every week just to unclog my use inventory on multiple mules. It's not worth it.

 

When I've got a spot up, I tend to be dual cliented doing something else. Sometimes I'm in a different game, sometimes just browsing youtube/forums.

 

I want to share my experience with GMS back in the day. Back then, I remember one time I was browsing FM 1 CH1 and 2 players showed up. One was instructing the other on how to do a DC hack to get a good spot. He did the hack in "To All" chat and we all disconnected. On my end, it looked like a giant message popped up (bigger than the screen) and then I DCed. I got curious about it and did some research on DC hacks.

IIRC, this is how it worked: We all know that in MS, there is a limit to how long a message can be. Well, that limit is client-sided. So people could use a WZ edit to remove the limit, or they could use a packet editor to send a message that exceeded the limit. The same thing goes for the message that tells you not to send the same chat too many times in a row. So people would spam really big messages over whisper to the person in order to steal their spot.

As silly as it sounds, this kind of DC could be avoided by setting your graphics options all the way to the minimum and putting the game in windowed mode. This is how hackers would avoid DCing themselves when using this exploit.

Another exploit I saw was one where they would spam a lot of party requests. That would crash someone very quickly. I don't know how they did this.

Another one involved sending a weird trade request. You would accept the trade request but be alone in the trade, as if the sender hadn't accepted the request. Then you would crash.

I hope that the admins here can resolve this issue, and I am posting this to help out. If this provides too much info, then GMs, please feel free to remove it.

 

Echoing this point because I was just going to ask about the computer setup for those of y'all who have been facing disconnect hack issues.

Because as for me, I've been holding a shop location in FM2 pretty solidly with no issues so far. And I'm a guildless no-name Bishop, so no one would need to worry about the consequences of DC hacking me. But I also just bought a really bougie gaming laptop recently with pretty solid RAM capacity, so I may have some sort of immunity. I'm in windowed mode with max quality settings.

 

I'd like to contribute to this thread as well. I've been getting these random d.c's as well probably couple weeks before shops were released. This would only happen to me when I leave maple up when I'm away from the computer for a while(2 hours or more). I would come back to not a frozen maple client but a client that is just stuck with the last instance it was working. Characters swaying and blinking, movement in the background. The only thing that isn't working is chat and key strokes. Once you try to move your character or click around the client acts up and the picture @Sila posted with the error would occur. I honestly thought this was just a hiccup on internet connection to the server. Now recently with shops now up I can afk in my guild FM and not be affected as much as before. Not sure if this helps any but from what I've read from this thread is that some are affected by this.

 

Coincidence, maybe.
Three nights of shop up in fm 1 with whispers enabled -> D/c
One night of shop up in fm 1 with whispers DISABLED -> no d/c.

 

Idk if this helps but before and after New Source I never really had serious dcing problems. However, mainly since like 10 months ago, whenever I afked at FM rooms I would dc after 30 minutes - 2 hours every time. My screen wouldn't show me that I dced tho, it would still show my character there (like you said when you didn't dc for 9 hours ago but confirmed with your mule you in fact had dced). I would just realize I dced when I tried to move and couldn't.

Long story short, I've had that problem even before New Source when I was just afking at the FM rooms, so I don't think they're hackers, unless someone has been hack dcing me every time since then.