FFXI Apocarypse Nigh?

[miokomioko]

No, character info is stored serverside.

As is pretty much everything that makes this game work aside from the oibvious models/textures/text/sprites/sounds/engine. Private server... lol Why not just make your own MMO?

[phlux]

Well, this both is and is not OFN... Cliff and at least two other people have cracked the encryption scheme before. They haven't released the info, though, and there are some things that can be done with it that would be extremely damaging to the game.

Here's what Cliff had to say about the possibility of creating private servers for the game though:

Interestingly, one of the most simple things I could do (in terms of time required) would be to write a private server base for FFXI. Turns out, though, that this is rather stupid. FFXI is incredibly static, moreso than any other online game in existence, and you wouldn't be able to change the game at all. At most, you could tweak monster stats, and change what people say. But quests? static mobs/npcs in a zone? Items, doors, etc? The zone layout itself? It's all completely static and would require massively complicated client side changes to change anything. So basically, you'd be able to recreate FFXI as it is, with all its flaws. Don't kid yourself into thinking you could make it less laggy or anything. The reason for the lag and problems is completely due to fucking ridiculous clientside and network code.

Something to think about.

[Sykes]

Cliff cracked the encryption months ago ... he talked about it in this thread and gave enough information about the encryption to give any hacker worth his mettle a decent starting point for breaking the encryption themselves.

That said, the usefulness of decrypting the packets is extremely limited and the exploits that come from it will be patched pretty quickly if they ever get released in to the wild (which is probably why the authors will keep the exploits a secret).

Personally, my inclination is that Cliff has been using this for a while to power ffxiah.com so that his app can query AH data directly from the server and insert it in to the database without logging in to FFXI ... which is probably why it has been broken much longer than it should be if his utility just crawled using the FFXI client itself.

[Eltia]

What exactly can be done that is extremely damaging to the game with this knowledge?

I don't quite agree with what Cliff said. From a programmer's perspective, he is probably right--this game has relatively few things that he could customize without access to the client source and to him, it is probably a stupid idea to have a private server base.

But from someone who plays games on a regular basis, I would probably come up with new ways to make use of Vana'diel (ok, I don't mean cyber in hostel, because that probably has been done). For one thing, people could tune down the time requires to gather exp and make it more friendly to people who have to work. For another thing, RMTs would be relatively meaningless. And private server could be a good thing to people who just like storyline.

Anyhow, I still have my doubt about what kind of damage this knowledge could bring forth aside from giving a push to private server development. One scenario I could think of is that someone discovers a bug in the network protocol and exploits it. SE would probably just counter by disable the affected feature and release a patch later on. To me, these don't seem as damaging as the various job nerf SE has done before, or CoP for that matters.

[Lokim]

Unfortunately, many of you over-estimate the amount of server-side processing FFXI does. It's true that stored values such as current gil, experience points, job levels, etc. are all stored on the server. As such, there is no direct way to manipulate these.

However, as we all know, you don't just stay at your current gil amount, job level or number of experience points. These values grow, and they grow in amount that are either determined by the client (such as sending gil through the delivery system) or by amount that are determined by the server but requested by the client (such as killing a monster for exp).

You have to understand: the FFXI servers do not have the processing power to calculate every battle by 2,000 people. Because of this, the servers have no choice but to "trust" the client when it tells them certain things like the amount of damage done by an attack, the rate of an attack or the fact that a monster has been defeated. The reason the server trust this data is because it has been encrpyed - theoretically, if a packet arrives that has the correct format the only way it could have been sent is by the client itself.

Unless, of course, someone has broken the encryption scheme.

So, yes, it isn't possible to just tell the server that you have 999 million gil or that all your jobs are level 75. On the other hand, it's quite likely that you can tell the server that you just killed an IT++ monster, at which point the server rewards you with experience. Write a little script to do that every couple of seconds for a few hours and you've got the best merit party ever!

If you're interested in how having packet encrpytion broken can destroy a game, feel free to google Phantasy Star Online and read up on its torrid history. Anyone who thinks that this sort of thing doesn't have the potential to destroy a game doesn't really understand the situation.

[Nodachi]

You have to understand: the FFXI servers do not have the processing power to calculate every battle by 2,000 people. Because of this, the servers have no choice but to "trust" the client when it tells them certain things like the amount of damage done by an attack, the rate of an attack or the fact that a monster has been defeated. The reason the server trust this data is because it has been encrpyed - theoretically, if a packet arrives that has the correct format the only way it could have been sent is by the client itself.

I don't care about post count, but seeing the type of topic this is, and that you have 1 next to your name. I can't help but feel this was to fuel this BS. The server can and does calculate everything by those 2,000 'people'. It just doesn't keep the info stored that long. Regardless of how long it's stored, it is stored.

It may be wishful thinking on my part, but for all the problems there are in this game, I really don't think it's possible to turn it into say a PSO or Diablo when it comes to cheating. The whack ass MCs can stick to their windower and .dat swaps, but I don't see you being able to hack your gilcount/exp/items.

If, however, it is possible to directly adjust your gil/earn items/hack exp, I'll quit flat out. Relic weapon and all, I'd be out'a here.

[miokomioko]

servers have no choice but to "trust" the client when it tells them certain things like the amount of damage done by an attack, the rate of an attack or the fact that a monster has been defeated.

Complete bullshit.

[ertyu]

Unfortunately, many of you over-estimate the amount of server-side processing FFXI does. It's true that stored values such as current gil, experience points, job levels, etc. are all stored on the server. As such, there is no direct way to manipulate these.

However, as we all know, you don't just stay at your current gil amount, job level or number of experience points. These values grow, and they grow in amount that are either determined by the client (such as sending gil through the delivery system) or by amount that are determined by the server but requested by the client (such as killing a monster for exp).

You have to understand: the FFXI servers do not have the processing power to calculate every battle by 2,000 people. Because of this, the servers have no choice but to "trust" the client when it tells them certain things like the amount of damage done by an attack, the rate of an attack or the fact that a monster has been defeated. The reason the server trust this data is because it has been encrpyed - theoretically, if a packet arrives that has the correct format the only way it could have been sent is by the client itself.

Unless, of course, someone has broken the encryption scheme.

So, yes, it isn't possible to just tell the server that you have 999 million gil or that all your jobs are level 75. On the other hand, it's quite likely that you can tell the server that you just killed an IT++ monster, at which point the server rewards you with experience. Write a little script to do that every couple of seconds for a few hours and you've got the best merit party ever!

If you're interested in how having packet encrpytion broken can destroy a game, feel free to google Phantasy Star Online and read up on its torrid history. Anyone who thinks that this sort of thing doesn't have the potential to destroy a game doesn't really understand the situation.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...lolcano3zt.gif

[Khamsin]

You have to understand: the FFXI servers do not have the processing power to calculate every battle by 2,000 people. Because of this, the servers have no choice but to "trust" the client when it tells them certain things like the amount of damage done by an attack, the rate of an attack or the fact that a monster has been defeated. The reason the server trust this data is because it has been encrpyed - theoretically, if a packet arrives that has the correct format the only way it could have been sent is by the client itself.

I don't care about post count, but seeing the type of topic this is, and that you have 1 next to your name. I can't help but feel this was to fuel this BS. The server can and does calculate everything by those 2,000 'people'. It just doesn't keep the info stored that long. Regardless of how long it's stored, it is stored.

It may be wishful thinking on my part, but for all the problems there are in this game, I really don't think it's possible to turn it into say a PSO or Diablo when it comes to cheating. The whack ass MCs can stick to their windower and .dat swaps, but I don't see you being able to hack your gilcount/exp/items.

If, however, it is possible to directly adjust your gil/earn items/hack exp, I'll quit flat out. Relic weapon and all, I'd be out'a here.

Well, for one, it never is calculating battle numbers for 2000 people, not even Besieged.

Each zone has its own server, and at most, the server is only calculating 700 people's worth of battles... and that's a rather extreme situation that only happens in one specific scenario. On average, a zone might have 100 people actively fighting on a night when there's a lot of xp/merit PTs around. That's about the high end of the average number of calculations the server might be doing at once during battles. The server load likely isn't as much as you think it is, even if it does handle everything for you other than your movement.

[Celeras]

If nothing else, it was highly amusing to read the bullshit mumbo-jumbo being spewed in this topic to try to convince the ignorant.

[Matricide]

each region has a server, not each zone, from my understanding..

breaking the encryption publically would break ffxi, any way you slice it.

[SephYuyX]

Anyone hear about the 'Herr Schmerz' hack?

The people who dev that, boast theyve broken the encrytion and made a windower that has hacks built into it (pos, claim, etc) and it can also send packets on the fly.

It supposedly has a nice GUI and can visually edit the games details. ie. targeting a door, it will send a packet, and it will remove the door both visually and whatever needs to be done on server/client side to just walk through it without opening it. The door in Oz was the example.

[Priran]

each region has a server, not each zone, from my understanding..

no

[Sykes]

each region has a server, not each zone, from my understanding..

It's not quite as granular as this, but you're pretty close I think. Depending on the region and how many people Square-Enix expects to be in the zones in the region, there can be multiple servers (in some cases one for each zone) in a single region. For example, I'm pretty sure that Jeuno has a different server for each zone (or at least it did before the entire FFXI population moved to ToAU). You can see evidence of this when one fo the zone/region servers crash and only the people in Port Jeuno DCs, but Lower, Upper, and Ru Lude are fine ... yet in other cases everyone in the Ronfaure region will red disc at once, but the rest of Vana'diel is fine. I'm not even positive that the zones have to be geographically close (eg. in the same region) to be on the same server.

It supposedly has a nice GUI and can visually edit the games details. ie. targeting a door, it will send a packet, and it will remove the door both visually and whatever needs to be done on server/client side to just walk through it without opening it. The door in Oz was the example.

Because position is one detail where the server trusts the client almost 100% (to prevent lag) this is all possible without any packet manipulation at all. If the client tells the server that you're on the other side of the door, then the server believes you're on the other side of the door. There's a pretty good chance that the server doesn't even know or care that the chracter shouldn't be able to walk right through the door ... it just tells the client that the door is there and it is closed, and the client's clipping is what prevents you from walking through.

[Tymon]

I'll reactivate if they get a private server working. Otherwise fuck FFXI all the way down south to alabama.

Hey I resent that, I'm as far south in Alabama as you can get.....

Not possible. South Alabama ceased to exist about a year ago this month.

[Kyreth]

Anyone hear about the 'Herr Schmerz' hack?

The people who dev that, boast theyve broken the encrytion and made a windower that has hacks built into it (pos, claim, etc) and it can also send packets on the fly.

It supposedly has a nice GUI and can visually edit the games details. ie. targeting a door, it will send a packet, and it will remove the door both visually and whatever needs to be done on server/client side to just walk through it without opening it. The door in Oz was the example.

Googling that points to a forum on FFXI Hacked. Registration only though.

[Eternus]

That might be the hack that would allow someone to hack into lets say a KS99 Behemoth and ninja jack the loot via treasure chest lol. Damn that might fuck the game up and the whole 3 Kings BC thing BRP came up with, well as long as they don't make the BC have a treasure chest/coffer and have it drop off of the actual monster. Still.. someone could go in and possibly flail someone fighting Fafnir in a BC technically and steal the mob and kill it at 1% and gank the loot.

[Lokim]

Heh, sorry for the "first post" phenomenon, I thought that might be a problem when I was typing it up but I went ahead with it anyway. I can only offer my assurances that I wasn't trying to fuel the BS - I have no idea if rz950 has cracked the encrpytion or not.

However, I would like to point out a small flaw that I think might be contributing to the misunderstanding here:

It just doesn't keep the info stored that long. Regardless of how long it's stored, it is stored.

It isn't a question of storage, at least not long-term storage. At about 27 cents per gigabyte, hard disk capacity is not the problem. It's a matter of CPU cycles per second.

I won't bother creating a new in-game example, instead I'll ask you a question: if you were writing a game like FFXI and you had an encryption system that you thought was unbreakable, would you design all of the calculations to be server-side?

Of course you wouldn't - it's an utterly ridiculous waste of resources. There are a lot of CPU cycles on all those client machines, and moving every single calculation to the server would cost far too much to be feasible. Given that you know your client sends encrypted packets, you can be relatively certain that these packets are legitimate.

Programming is all about tradeoffs...sometimes you do things that seem ridiculous (like putting character locations in un-protected memory and then trusting the client to tell you where it is) because doing it the right way costs too much (in this case I'm referring to algorithmic cost, not dollars).

The debate is really pointless - either things will break, or they won't. Sorry for stirring up so much resentment, but feel free to do a little research on PSO if you're curious - I think you'll be shocked.

[aurik]

I won't bother creating a new in-game example, instead I'll ask you a question: if you were writing a game like FFXI and you had an encryption system that you thought was unbreakable, would you design all of the calculations to be server-side?

Of course you wouldn't - it's an utterly ridiculous waste of resources. There are a lot of CPU cycles on all those client machines, and moving every single calculation to the server would cost far too much to be feasible. Given that you know your client sends encrypted packets, you can be relatively certain that these packets are legitimate.

Programming is all about tradeoffs...sometimes you do things that seem ridiculous (like putting character locations in un-protected memory and then trusting the client to tell you where it is) because doing it the right way costs too much (in this case I'm referring to algorithmic cost, not dollars).

The debate is really pointless - either things will break, or they won't. Sorry for stirring up so much resentment, but feel free to do a little research on PSO if you're curious - I think you'll be shocked.

Stop pretending to know what you're talking about.

[BRP]

Still.. someone could go in and possibly flail someone fighting Fafnir in a BC technically and steal the mob and kill it at 1% and gank the loot.

If that doesn't ban a player, I don't think anything will.