Speedhack

[Kevin]

So this is a borderline post between a bug and how to hack the game and I plan to contact Blizzard about what I've found or think I've found.

OK. So at times I've noticed that I'm speedhacking. I didn't know how or why. This would also happen to Treesh at times as well.

The speed difference is huge. Treesh was able to run faster than a hunter with Aspect of the Cheetah up. mjdoom saw it when Treesh blew by him on her mount when he had spurs and carrot on and she had neither. I have done similar things.

Griffon flights are also faster on the client though you sit and hover over the landing site until the full flight duration should end. I've left Treesh in the dust a couple of times going from IF to SW only to sit and flap till she lands then I land.

Treesh and I both noticed that our local computer clocks run fast. Until we put a new bettery in Treesh's box it was gaining two hours a day. I was getting about 15 minutes a day. Treesh was seeing the speed hack a lot more.

There are a lot of other side issues with it as well. Timers on spells will say it is ready and won't be, monsters warp a lot more and some other things but, you do move faster and do have advantages with it.

We both have new batteries and our clocks are running closer to normal though I'm still gaining about 5 minutes every 24 hours and well I see the "speed hack" effects still, though not as obviously. Running the lenght of the Barrens in a straight line or as close to straight, north to south I can get out of range for a person to be able follow me still. This is with follow mode or driving the two players the same.

I'm convinced that the local time on the client has something to do with this. This is not just a client thing server positioning is updated others can see you moving faster.

There are ways that I could test this, and I plan on doing it, after I contact Blizzard, but that is something I'm not going to post unless a site admin requests it.

[Bolty]

Cool stuff. I'd be worried that if someone reported you for seeing you move faster than you should be able to, a GM might get you flagged for cheating.

Makes you wonder how many sanity checks the server has. I have heard of people hacking their client to let them fly in the air - if the server after all has no sanity check that says you must be on the ground, then there's not much stopping you from hacking your client to go for a flight.

-Bolty

[Kevin]

Cool stuff.  I'd be worried that if someone reported you for seeing you move faster than you should be able to, a GM might get you flagged for cheating.

Makes you wonder how many sanity checks the server has.  I have heard of people hacking their client to let them fly in the air - if the server after all has no sanity check that says you must be on the ground, then there's not much stopping you from hacking your client to go for a flight.

-Bolty
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I'm horribly worried about that which is why I plan to communicate with Blizzard as best I can about it. My clock issues have not actually been fixed. I've picked up 20 minutes today and I was speed hacking again today too.

[Ruvanal]

I am wondering if what is causing your 'speed hack' issues is not related to why you have semi-frequently had problems with a charge bug. Both are aspects of a client-server desync problem. I say this because in spite of months of using charge with Andar, I have yet to be a victim of the charge bug as you put. Currently I have noted no time variance on my system clock over more than a year since the last reset of it.

[Kjartan]

I am wondering if what is causing your 'speed hack' issues is not related to why you have semi-frequently had problems with a charge bug.  Both are aspects of a client-server desync problem.  I say this because in spite of months of using charge with Andar, I have yet to be a victim of the charge bug as you put.  Currently I have noted no time variance on my system clock over more than a year since the last reset of it.
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Not sure about that. My warrior can reproduce the charge bug at will in certain locations. There is even a spot in the Generals room in UBRS that will cause you to desync.. that was a fun wipe, after that I have always had a hunters pull that room and split it (good MC practice was my excuse). I've tried with three PC's so far and it seems pretty steady.

I've pretty much stopped using charge in groups as it frequently seems to cause weird problems. Lately I constantly experience the mob having run towards my previous position during a charge, causing panic as it looks like its heading for the rest of the party. After a while it runs back to where I expect it to be, during that time I can't hit it though and build up any rage/aggro and some mage has fireballed it and taken aggro and it starts to run away again. I'm just glad I have alchs who donate rage potions for when I lack that charge rage.

[Kevin]

I am wondering if what is causing your 'speed hack' issues is not related to why you have semi-frequently had problems with a charge bug.  Both are aspects of a client-server desync problem.  I say this because in spite of months of using charge with Andar, I have yet to be a victim of the charge bug as you put.  Currently I have noted no time variance on my system clock over more than a year since the last reset of it.
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It's possible. However my client clock was rock solid on my old motherboard that was replaced in late March early April, and I was hit with the charge bug on that system as well. But yeah it is a client and server positioning issue and likely hood of them being related are high in my mind as well.

The devs have also acknowledged that there is a charge bug as well. I think they claimed it was fixed in 1.6 (I'll have to dig through the warrior forums again) and I haven't actually been hit with it in 1.6 that I recall.

Still working on my test methods. They would be easier for me if I were running WoW on a *nix box. :)

[TheLuminaire]

It's possible.  However my client clock was rock solid on my old motherboard that was replaced in late March early April, and I was hit with the charge bug on that system as well.  But yeah it is a client and server positioning issue and likely hood of them being related are high in my mind as well.

The devs have also acknowledged that there is a charge bug as well.  I think they claimed it was fixed in 1.6 (I'll have to dig through the warrior forums again) and I haven't actually been hit with it in 1.6 that I recall.

Still working on my test methods.  They would be easier for me if I were running WoW on a *nix box.  :)
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This might be a little bit simpler. Perhaps the packets you're sending are timestamped by your machine. Since the server compares it's time to your timestamp, it tries to speed you up to match you accelerated clock. That seems oversimplified, but I'm sure the principle lies in there somewhere.

It would stand to reason, based on how I've seen them deal with hacks in the past, that all the packets are timestamped, but the game is only designed to account for hour differences, IE time zones. Small differences, in terms of seconds also don't matter. There's also a built in detection system against packet thieves, that would send too many, or too few packets to the server, essentially causing you to warp around. But I don't think it was designed to account for larger differences inbetween the two extremes.

Just a thought. I can't figure out any other reasoning why your system clock would change your gameplay, unless the server relied on information it was sent about your system time.

[Gorthag]

Still working on my test methods.  They would be easier for me if I were running WoW on a *nix box.  :)

I'm running WoW on a Linux box; If you have any specific tests you'd like to me to try I can try and help you out.

[Concillian]

Not sure about that. My warrior can reproduce the charge bug at will in certain locations. There is even a spot in the Generals room in UBRS that will cause you to desync.. that was a fun wipe, after that I have always had a hunters pull that room and split it (good MC practice was my excuse). I've tried with three PC's so far and it seems pretty steady.
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Yeah, I think charge bug is more related to terrain issues. Now that I've played a mage and experienced the Arcane Missiles bug, which appears terrain related, I am seeing similarities to where the two are bugging.

I was getting charge bugs very consistently in STV near the northernmost Troll camp, where the low level trolls are.

[Metrocube]

I always thought speedhacks were related to your cpu clock. Laptops are notorious for inducing speed hacks in other games, as they slow down the CPU in various ways to save power. Speed hacking ends up being a side-effect of the power-saving feature of laptop CPUs.

There was some Intel power-saving feature (speedstep, i think) that induced this in Counterstrike.

Out of curiousity, are either you or Treesh running overclocked computers?

[Kevin]

I always thought speedhacks were related to your cpu clock. Laptops are notorious for inducing speed hacks in other games, as they slow down the CPU in various ways to save power. Speed hacking ends up being a side-effect of the power-saving feature of laptop CPUs.

There was some Intel power-saving feature (speedstep, i think) that  induced this in Counterstrike.

Out of curiousity, are either you or Treesh running overclocked computers?
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Nope no overclocking for us.

And yes I can reproduce speedhacking at will now but will not be releasing details to anyone. My theory was correct though.

[Trien]

This reminds me of back in the day when the QuakeWorld source code was released, and various cheats showed up all over within a day. It had to do with the way the protocol worked... basically for each packet from the client, the time elapsed since the last packet sent is in there, so the server can sync things properly despite network lag, spikes in transmission time, lost packets, and varying rates of transmission depending on the size of the client's network pipe. (A differnet way of handling it is forcing and having the server expect a fixed update time... Diablo 2's fixed 25FPS, perhaps? Never looked into its protocol).

The same thing happened. Computers with sped up clocks, would have clients that ended up moving faster. And once people knew how the protocol worked, people would run modified clients that increased the delta time on purpose, and end up moving insanely fast. Or decrease it to zero, and they could then float in mid-air. Until we started patching the servers to compare accumulation of delta times to the server clock, to see if a particular client was accumulating extra time or losing time, since before the server would just trust the client on it (not always a good thing to do...).

So, my guess is WoW does something similar... you would think they would know not to trust the client like that... or maybe not...