Multi-Clienting Rule Changes

MelCyx - Lost City

billynormankk wrote: »

If multi clienting is ok to do now. How do you even do it???

^this

when i try to start the client a second time, it tells me that my client is already running
are we allowed to use a 3rd party program to open it a second time?

Lyritha - Heavens Tear

this is the best and what appears to be the only new feature of the new expansion that isn't a coin sink b:laugh

Devoted - Lost City

juanpancho wrote: »

I don't know what the official statistics may be, but multi-boxers under the original policie must be a very small part of the player base

I know more people that admit to multiclienting than those that refuse to. It was a pretty integral part of the top level game when I played. I can bet it's still normal. It's a habit to open 2+ clients when turning on your computer lmao.

juanpancho

Devoted - Lost City wrote: »

I know more people that admit to multiclienting than those that refuse to. It was a pretty integral part of the top level game when I played. I can bet it's still normal. It's a habit to open 2+ clients when turning on your computer lmao.

Absolutelly agreed, the thing is: how many people make that top level game you talk about? To have a quite objective idea don't think of the people you know and look at how many members form the dominating factions on each server. Now look at the total number of people playing the game.

Add to that the fact that you play in Lost City, right where the most competitive people, and possibly quite a few gaming addicts that don't hold back on their playing possibilites, go.

Also the F2P model, even with all the qq it gets, attracts lots of casual players that may not have the slightest idea of how to setup an actually playable multiboxing rig, or can't afford it, or just don't know such thing is even possible.

juanpancho

Annalyse - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I would just like to say... I do not play several chars, due to the fact that I only own two comps and one is only able to run a shop at best. So two chars is actually my minimum regardless. But I still think these new rules are a joke, and I have one question that I would like answered.

Why?

Would you please tell us WHY you have limited it to two characters only? I do have a good friend that has a three character playstyle, has poured a lot of time and money into it, and really enjoys playing that way. He helps out a lot of people running FBs, TTs, chrono quests etc. playing tank/cleric/DD and is amazing at it; he isn't hurting *anyone* by playing this way, but he most certainly would quit if you took it away from him. This is what you have been telling people is fine for years so this is how he developed his playstyle and poured his earnings into. Why is three characters so much worse than two? Please tell me.

I think a three to four character limit would be much more appropriate if you are insistant on putting a limit on things. You must know that these people that you *encouraged* to multibox for years have put a lot of money into a certain playstyle and you are now neglecting them that option. It really isn't fair to them.

The guy that talked about the merchanting issue got me thinking some people may actually create and log at once 15, 20 and maybe more accounts to have a presence all across the hot buying and selling spots on the map. That would be really excesive.

But with what you say I totally agree and hope these guys (PWI) may understand it and add one/two accounts owned and logged at once to the new limit.

Lady_Seolfor - Dreamweaver

For my own part , i LOVE this change. Finally beeing able to run a nearly fulltime catshop while also playing is good.

Way to go, GM's. b:victory

Promivius - Dreamweaver

Lady_Seolfor - Dreamweaver wrote: »

For my own part , i LOVE this change. Finally beeing able to run a nearly fulltime catshop while also playing is good.

Way to go, GM's. b:victory

You already could do that BEFORE the bull-droppings change if you had access to another physical computer.....

The rule only opened up being allowed to run 2 clients on 1 physical computer nothing more.

Before this change I was allowed to run 3 accounts on 3 physical computers all at once.
Now I cant.

Max now is 2 only.

Dumb rule by shortsighted Devs and close-minded management

Annalyse - Heavens Tear

MelCyx - Lost City wrote: »

^this

when i try to start the client a second time, it tells me that my client is already running
are we allowed to use a 3rd party program to open it a second time?

Not sure, when I heard about the change I just tried clicking it again in my quicklaunch bar and it opened for me. But some people are saying to go into my computer and open element.exe.

Promivius - Dreamweaver

Ever tried run as....

It works, just tried (already pretty sure it would as this is basic windows xp and up....)
or you can try running a client in a virtual PC session (was also possible before this glorious change).


I strongly believe the official version had issue's with bots. This will never be repeated by this administration I am sure.

Hence they issue a non-issue rule trying to solve that..

The rule however can never be enforced simple and this is what management never gets as they are into revenue and statistics.

Again silly rule and a non-brainer for the cheaters and bot-runners to avoid.

Nothing new but sad as the straight and near o player like myself gets kicked in the nuts by miss-management.

smoksi

wrote:

If you are an old player, you can have as many accounts as you already have. If you only ever had the one account, you may make another. If you had more than two accounts, you CANNOT make anymore accounts. However PWI is NOT making you delete your characters and all the hard work or money you spent, so you can keep all of the accounts you already had even if you had more than two. However, you can only log onto two of them at the same time to keep things fair to the other players who are only allowed to have two period.

Can a Mod or GM confirm this pls? Especially the part with the old player and more than 2 accounts. I currently have 3 and they all have the same (correct and real) personal information. Iv never played with more that 2 of them at the same time(different pc)
Should i worry about anything or i can safely keep playing b:surrender

PS-Sorry if this is already asked, just cant read 25 pages...

PPS-I have read the frankieraye post carefully.So we can keep all our accounts as long as we dont log more than 2 of them at the same time, im i right?

Drazomyst - Dreamweaver

I have no problem with it. b:victory

Layali - Harshlands

I would love to have an option to delete some old accounts i have and i dont use them anymore. For different reasons i prefeared to leave the main accounts and now i dont use them anymore, but i cant get them deleted. So why dont give us a choice to delete our own accounts that are already not in use?

Bearleeable - Lost City

SylenThunder - Sanctuary wrote: »

In reality though, the client picks up the MAC address of the network adapter it is using on your computer to create the connection to the server through. In this way, they can see the individual IP MAC address of the computer you are running on. Also it is very easy to see the IP address of your specific router, and from the client side, even your natted IP address within your home network. (open a dos box and type in "ipconfig /all" and you'll see some of the data that is available.) Also it is fairly simple to see what the IP address of your router is. http://whatismyipaddress.com/ is a good site that will show your router IP. Don't believe me? check the site, then go into your routers Status page and look at what it's got for your internet address.

It would be extremely simple for them to block either an single computer by Mac address, or an entire household via the IP/MAC of the router. This is likely the method that they are using to see how many PC's are connected in one house. They can either block by the PC's MAC address or by the routers. Especially since no two MAC addresses are the same. (unless you've done some hacking on your systems.)

So they can see, if two clients are running on one MAC address that you are multiclienting, or if you have 2 clients with different MAC addresses then it's multi-boxing.

Basically what they are doing now, is having software comb through the logs that contain the data of current connections, seeking for excessive connections from one IP address. When it finds something it throws up a flag and they check it out.

I'm sorry but your mistaken. On a Nat'd network this is not how it functions.
the standard alternative VRRP Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol, which allows multiple routers to share one IP address and MAC address to provide router redundancy, is the exact reason what your saying is false.
IF it is a single pc on a single modem, yes, what u say is true, but the minute someone turns on Network Address Translation which is the defacto standard now, the ability to see machine mac's stops, BECAUSE, you want only the ROUTER to know this for routing itself, First of all the Mac address is never transmitted over the net anyway, only the ip is, albeit it can be queried. Looking @ network info from inside the network is misleading. Secondly the minute the query hits my router the router would respond ( assuming they can actually query the ip of my machine, which is HIGHLY debateable (see https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 a well known security expert. They would receive either a 10.x or a 192.x ip, which would refer them back to their own machine since those ip's do not exist in the wild.
I'm not saying all this to explain how to **** cause #1 this ain't hacking it normal secure networking. And quite frankly anyone behind a router that is not doing this is very silly and / or intentionally bypass'd the normal security measures of the router.
look up bastille and hardware firewalls. I think you'll learn alot.
the bottom line is you have a single IP normally, and even that is NORMALLY a shared dynamic ip, ergo it changes, reasons for this is long and not relevant to this topic.
the router provides its mac address for any port needed work. Then it TRANSLATES that into a localized ip & mac address so it knows where to send that individual data packet to. Else you'd have a major traffic jam mess.
lastly, its perfectly valid, and frequently done in larger networks for a central pc to have more then one nic, ergo more then one mac. So again, not nat'n would result in a large mess.

Bearleeable - Lost City

oh, and just to prove what I've said, take a look. As far as the net is concerned my pc does not even exist!

so, give yours a try, see how vulnerable you are or are not.
If it says you are, then follow the instructions to fix it.

LappDance - Sanctuary

Bearleeable - Lost City wrote: »

oh, and just to prove what I've said, take a look. As far as the net is concerned my pc does not even exist!

so, give yours a try, see how vulnerable you are or are not.
If it says you are, then follow the instructions to fix it.

I'm not saying your necessarily wrong, but...

What you said in your last two posts is mostly correct. However, all bets are off once a device *inside* the network initiates a connection to the outside world. There is a lot more information available to software running *on* the device in question than there is to a random port scan from outside the network, and there is no way to stop that software from sending that information short of not allowing the connection in the first place.

NAT gives you "security by obscurity". It's a little like putting camouflage netting over your house and painting over the house number on the curb. Someone walking by looking for a house to burglarize will just pass on by. However, someone already *inside* the house... well, you get the picture.

By logging into PWI servers, you've already invited them into your house.

Mahiira - Archosaur

In my opinion, the rule should be changed to:

"2 accounts per computer, but if you have a second computer (or 3rd or 4th in my case) you can log in a 3rd account on a separate PC."

It sucks that I bought 2 other computers so that I wouldn't break the rules and now I have no use for them. Why else would I need so many computers >_<? They all do the same ****!

kenpachikensai

You can mail it to argentina since my computer is 4 years old .-. 1.9ghz 1gb ram g-force 7200gs o.o


Btw its me or since earthguard expansion the game clients takes more cpu usage?

Mahiira - Archosaur

Since the expansion, opening the game to that annoying little group of mobs dancing around a fire makes computers explode. IJS.

Bearleeable - Lost City

LappDance - Sanctuary wrote: »

I'm not saying your necessarily wrong, but...

What you said in your last two posts is mostly correct. However, all bets are off once a device *inside* the network initiates a connection to the outside world. There is a lot more information available to software running *on* the device in question than there is to a random port scan from outside the network, and there is no way to stop that software from sending that information short of not allowing the connection in the first place.

NAT gives you "security by obscurity". It's a little like putting camouflage netting over your house and painting over the house number on the curb. Someone walking by looking for a house to burglarize will just pass on by. However, someone already *inside* the house... well, you get the picture.

By logging into PWI servers, you've already invited them into your house.

pretty much agree with you... once you start pwi you do open a port, but afaik that ends @ the router as far as machine specific goes. Now ofc I could be wrong.... networking changes faster then my underwear b:cry

LappDance - Sanctuary

Bearleeable - Lost City wrote: »

pretty much agree with you... once you start pwi you do open a port, but afaik that ends @ the router as far as machine specific goes. Now ofc I could be wrong.... networking changes faster then my underwear b:cry

Just to be a bit more clear:

It's not the port you open up. It's the PW client sitting on your machine. All that info you can query at the keyboard? The client can query it, too. In fact, the client (like any other networked app) requires a good bit of it simply to function. What it doesn't require, you've given it permission to "know" by agreeing to the ToS.

This is where security through obscurity breaks down. (Although, to be fair, even the best firewall in the world would fail in this case).

So, while you may be "protected" from Joe **** the Ragpicker doing port scans, that ain't a gonna help you much when *you* are handing out the info you're trying to hide.

juanpancho

Bearleeable - Lost City wrote: »

pretty much agree with you... once you start pwi you do open a port, but afaik that ends @ the router as far as machine specific goes. Now ofc I could be wrong.... networking changes faster then my underwear b:cry

I didn't think I'd post again on this thread as it seems to me most, if not all, valid points that could motivate an amendment to the new rule (not a rollback to the old one) are already made. Wether PWI takes them into consideration or not is another issue and only time will tell.

However, this a technical subtopic for which I'd like to quote part of a post made by myself a few pages back in case you didn't read the whole thread:

juanpancho wrote: »

If you otherwise meant that they should be able to distinguish one pc behind a router from another and deny access according to any set policy then no, they can not see individual computers on the net that easy. However, MAC's, NIC's and IP's aside, the launcher and I think the client itself too, run as processes with administrative privileges so it would be quite easy to get a "footprint" of your hardware and attach it to your login information and determine whether you comply with their policie or not.

To break it down a little...

NOTE: I'm not saying this is the method used, but the following would be pretty reliable.

I say "MAC's, NIC's and IP's aside" because it's not a networking thing since the required info can be gathered by the launcher or the game client.

On the server side, your router's WAN address is part of how you even contact anything on the net as it's part of the header of every packet that goes out to the net through your router. This means that the systems "footprint" the client sends arrives through said connection and therefore they are matched "by default".

An adequate "footprint" in this case could be made up of the following two parts:

1) Concatenated CPU serial number + MAC address of the adapter used by the client + SSID (router level LAN name); this would identify each physical computer being used to log to the game.

2) LAN IP; this would be used to make a multi-client count if parts 1) and 2) repeat, or detect the use of a virtual machine if only part 1) repeats. Virtual machines multi-clienting could not be differentiated from physical machines multi-clienting, but that's beyond the point as you would get the total count (EDIT: of clients) from all VM's as just one physical machine anyway.

Each part should be one-way encripted so it doesn't become a privacy issue, and after all they don't need to know the info itself, just have a reliable method to compare it.

Now, while SSID's are not unique and LAN IP's are not static:

1) you can't change your SSID it without rebooting your router (EDIT: disconnecting your previous client sessions),

2) you can't change your LAN IP without disconnecting your previous client sessions,

3) even if you find a **** to pull out 1) and 2) such "footprint" could be periodically composed and sent by the client,

4) to use other type of hacks that could avoid this kind of control you would have to consider if they are 100% not detectable by network admins (risk of a perma-ban), or if they don't **** up your response time and therefore playability, etc.

So by now you should get the idea. It's actually possible, if not easy, to know how many machines on a single LAN behind a router are being used to log to the game, and also how many accounts are logged in each.

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple

LappDance - Sanctuary wrote: »

Just to be a bit more clear:

It's not the port you open up. It's the PW client sitting on your machine. All that info you can query at the keyboard? The client can query it, too. In fact, the client (like any other networked app) requires a good bit of it simply to function. What it doesn't require, you've given it permission to "know" by agreeing to the ToS.

This is where security through obscurity breaks down. (Although, to be fair, even the best firewall in the world would fail in this case).

So, while you may be "protected" from Joe **** the Ragpicker doing port scans, that ain't a gonna help you much when *you* are handing out the info you're trying to hide.

This is exactly what my point was, and what Bearleeable doesn't seem to be getting. If you are going to have a practice like this, you aren't collecting data from reverse-pings or traces. You're getting the data transmitted to you from the software that is installed on the users PC.

I'm double-natted between two hardware firewalls and a software firewall. I have no doubts though, that they can obtain enough informations to be able to tell that I am running multiple PC's from behind my router. (Which BTW, your router's MAC address can be discovered through a simple ARP command protocol.)

The only case I can see it causing the problem that Bearleeable described causing hundreds of users to be blocked would be multiple users connecting at a workplace, or in a college campus. (Although with any half-decent campus network even this would not pose an issue.)

Ursa - Dreamweaver

frankieraye wrote: »

Hey guys,

For a long long time, ever since PWI was first released in fact, we've always had the rule that you could only run one PWI client per machine.

The reasoning behind this rule was the fact that running more than one client could not be accomplished without editing the game files, and editing game files was not allowed.

This led to many players running PWI on a second or even third computer, usually to be able to run a cat shop while their main account actually played.

Some time ago, the client itself changed, and running multiple clients was possible without editing game files. For consistency's sake, we did not modify the multi-clienting rule, and what followed were a lot of questions as to its validity, now that the original reason for it no longer applied.

Well, we've talked about it, and we've come to a new set of rules for multi-clienting. It should be easier to follow, easier to enforce, and it will help level the playing field between people with one computer and people with multiple computers.

So here we go:

• You may only have 2 accounts per person, regardless of how many computers you own.
  
  There isn't a viable reason to create an excessive number of accounts, so any suspicious activity from now on will be fully dealt with. We aren't going to punish you for having existing accounts prior to this rule, but you can only be online on two at once at the most.
  
  *Note: Excessive account creation has been and will continued to be pursued. Provided you did not abuse this before, you should have nothing to worry about.
  
  
  
• You may only play on two characters at the same time, but they can both level up OR one can level up while the other is a vendor alt.

If you want to keep one leveling account and one vendor alt account, that's fine. You cannot, however, actively level two characters while having a third account to act as a shop alt. We will be actively enforcing this.

This new policy is in effect starting now, however, we will continue to refine and improve upon this, so this policy is subject to change. Read on for examples that may specifically deal with your situation.

*Example: If you're a family of 3 playing PWI, then you can have 2 accounts for each member of your family. You WILL have to prove this though if we notice any suspicious activity from your household.

*Example: You can actively have two LV 65 Barbs grinding on HT Server on the same computer, but no vendor alts online.

*Example: You (as an individual human being) cannot have 3 accounts active, it doesn't matter if you own 3 or 30 computers.

*Example: You cannot have two characters leveling at once if you also have a shop alt logged in.


Two characters maximum online at once for any situation.


Feel free to discuss your reactions to these changes, but please keep it civil.

Thanks!

Yaaaay, GREAT! Now you're making official something that rich and knowledgeable players have been doing for years (well, since Beta actually, if you really wanna know). Tip for you GMs: No,not by modifying any of the game files, just by simply renaming the element.exe process.
b:laugh

SinBall - Dreamweaver

Actually u dont even have to rename the element .exe u just run all the clients from elementclient.exe and u could open about 20 clients w/o any problem..as long as ur pc can handle it. In my opinion they shouldnt restrict the number of clients that u can play on 1 pc. more alts can mean more cash spent on the game + even though u run lets say 5 toons ( 3 buffers , main and catshop) dont make much of a difference when u can easily find guild mates that can 1h buff u . So what are u restricting actually, in my opinion u are cutting some of ur income . And personally i think u will never be able to stop this from happening, ppl will be multiclienting and if u drastically ban all that do that u will prolly lose all main cash shoppers ( which ofcourse a birdie told me never get banned).

And another idea. If ur client permits multiclienting w/o editing anything then why verbally say its bannable? just so naive pppl believe it and so limit by a few the ones that are really overdoing it. What about ppl that have 3 pc for example and dynamic ip conections on each pc...they can run 2 clients on every pc and ull just believe they are 3 neighbors having fun right?

Boogiepanda - Raging Tide

Ursa - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Yaaaay, GREAT! Now you're making official something that rich and knowledgeable players have been doing for years (well, since Beta actually, if you really wanna know). Tip for you GMs: No,not by modifying any of the game files, just by simply renaming the element.exe process.
b:laugh

just double click element.exe ffs

Summer_Blush - Heavens Tear

Boogiepanda - Raging Tide wrote: »

just double click element.exe ffs

lol this exactly, you didnt even need to change anything just click the element exe from the PWI folder

Dyskrasia - Heavens Tear

Ursa - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Yaaaay, GREAT! Now you're making official something that rich and knowledgeable players have been doing for years (well, since Beta actually, if you really wanna know). Tip for you GMs: No,not by modifying any of the game files, just by simply renaming the element.exe process.
b:laugh

Changing the name of a file is considered modifying it...

LenieClarke - Heavens Tear

Dyskrasia - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Changing the name of a file is considered modifying it...

eh, i can see that argument going both ways, myself... is the metadata describing a file part of the file's data, or not? part of my unix-programmer, geeky-egghead side wants to say no, that metadata is part of the filesystem's data and the file itself is just the octet stream of its contents. but i realize others hold a different viewpoint on that.

Dyskrasia - Heavens Tear

LenieClarke - Heavens Tear wrote: »

eh, i can see that argument going both ways, myself... is the metadata describing a file part of the file's data, or not? part of my unix-programmer, geeky-egghead side wants to say no, that metadata is part of the filesystem's data and the file itself is just the octet stream of its contents. but i realize others hold a different viewpoint on that.

I believe PWE defines modifying files as basically just... touching them at all. Moving them, renaming them, whatever. Doesn't matter if you alter the actual data of the file itself. Which is, I guess, why using hairstyles available to only one class on another one (by moving files around) is illegal.

LappDance - Sanctuary

Summer_Blush - Heavens Tear wrote: »

lol this exactly, you didnt even need to change anything just click the element exe from the PWI folder

I know it's been said before, but a little history is in order here:

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... You used to have to modify the client to run multiple instances on the same PC. Within a few months after release, this changed. You could run multiple instances simply by running elementclient.exe directly, without running the launcher. While you didn't have to modify any files to do this, you DID have to bypass the normal startup routine, and you were arguably "exploiting a bug" to do this.

Fast forward to current. At some point in the intervening two years, things changed so that you were able to run multiple instances simply by running the launcher each time (don't believe me? Try it. I have two instances running right now, both started by running the launcher).

This is why they changed the rule. It is now possible to launch two instances *accidentally*, something you weren't previously able to do. They had essentially three choices: 1. Change the files back to requiring modding for multiple instances, 2. Change the ToS to *explicitly* not allow multi-clienting (and thus have to define multi-clienting) and be in a position of trying to determine whether a second instance is "accidental", or 3. Say "**** it" and allow a second instance. It's a bit of a stretch to say you accidently opened three instances:)

#3 required the least amount of effort *AND* is the only option that required neither China nor the Legal department to get involved.