From the Mailbag: hacking DDO
(Visited 15890 times) Game talk
Nov 212008
Got this via the website’s mail form:
Hi, Sorry to bother you, I was wondering if you would be able to help me. I play an online MMO Dungeons & Dragons Online and a program called windows packet editor recently came to my attention 🙂 I was wondering if you’d be able to spare a few moments to give me a better understanding of WPE and how it can be used to *ahem* alter packets of data so I might be able to say duplicate items or alter certain in game values in DDO. Kindest regards, [name redacted]
Sure, here’s the answer:
No.
The reasons:
- Unless there are egregiously bad security problems with the DDO protocol, hacking packets on your end should only change the way things look on your end. See my previous post “How to hack an MMO.”
- Virtual world developers do not actively help destroy the virtual worlds of their colleagues.
12 Responses to “From the Mailbag: hacking DDO”
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That is one very confused reader you have there.
Why did he think you would be an expert in windows packet editing anyway?
Hacks are a big problem is many games including my current one, WAR. Like you, I don’t really understand how the security can be bad enough that it is possible, but somehow they always seem to find a way.
Um, can you help me hack Metaplace? I really want to duplicate whole worlds. 😉
You know, this past week I’ve been working on hacking together an import/export script for Google Website Optimizer. Sounds like Metaplace could use the same thing. 😛
You were more polite than I would have been.
Arkenor:
Or maybe he’s just brilliant because I now see a “cheap ddo gold/platinum” ad here. 😉
Truly it is so. Raph is very super polite.
I would have given the chap some good advice.
For example, you’ll find that the program gives you packets in hexadecimal format, which is numbers ranging from 0-9 and A-F. (Basically 0-16)
14 15 15 00 15 15
Sorry, go ahead and moderate me!
It’s 0-15 Markimedes. 😛 0-16 would be 17 values. That being said, cute. 🙂
You are correct, realized that after I wrote it.
What?
The world is very different through the red portal.
Next time I’ll need to hack some MMO, I know where to go.
No, really, sometimes I just don’t get WHO writes these emails (and what the hell are they thinking), asking for items, gold, or levels. But they just keep coming.
And our erstwhile would-be hacker is thinking, “But… but… I don’t want to destroy the game world! I just want my character to never run out of gold/ammo/potions/life! What’s so wrong with that?”
And they never sit still long enough for you to explain what’s wrong with that.
“It’s not reaaalllly hacking, it’s correcting a design flaw. The flaw being that my fifth-level halfling rogue can’t one-shot the Demon Queen Lolth. My DM let me do it! Crit backstab on those cool ICE tables…”
Virtual world developers do not actively help destroy the virtual worlds of their colleagues.
After reading some reports on what WoW devs said about WAR and WAR devs about WoW, I’m not 100% sure of that one.