Kotaku points the way to an MMORPG gamer who is really, really serious about EVE Online. Unlike most subscribers however, he doesn’t spend hours upon hours performing the same mundane tasks to farm gold and minerals. Instead, Zhek Kromtor has created a six-rig setup that allows him to access six separate characters and get the goods faster than the standard method.

Kromtor was originally kicked off EVE Online for software multiboxing: the act of sending a keyboard or mouse click to multiple computers or clients at the same time using software such as Synergy, Keyclone, and more. CCP banned him from the MMORPG for three days, citing “macro use.”

To get around the multiboxing software restriction, Kromtor has now created his current setup. The system consists of four wooden dowels draped across six keypads–each dowel has six screws that come into contact with the same keys on each pad. Also in the mix are six mice connected together with packing tape and skewers.

“Once you tweak it a bit and have the mice aligned properly (if they’re angled differently they’ll be moving the cursor in different directions) it’s not too bad to use,” he explained. “You have to use two hands on them if you want to click on 6 buttons, but you get used to that pretty quickly.”

The monitor setup looks a little like something ripped out of a science fiction movie: two stacked in the middle while a stack of three sits on the left and a stack of three sits to the right. Rather than purchase a monitor rack mount, he chose to create his own using conduit pipe.

As for the actual PCs, he stacked all six under the table however he didn’t reveal any actual specs. Nonetheless, the entire MMORPG setup looks impressive–it certainly doesn’t look cheap. Some may call this whole setup cheating, others may call it ingenious.

Last week reports of a “man-in-the-middle-attack” surfaced in regards to Blizzard’s MMORPG. World of Warcraft. Apparently hackers have created a tool that grants them access to accounts protected by an authentication tool. Once they are in control of the account, hackers can thus steal virtual gold and possessions until the account password is reset. Currently there’s no indication if the hackers gain access to data such as credit cards or other personal information.

The tool in question is a keylogger, possibly a file named emcor.dll which can be found in C:/Documents and Settings/Users/[username]/Application Data/Temp. Once the user launches the keylogger, the PC is infected and will in turn cause World of Warcraft to crash. Once the players re-start the game and log back into the account, the authenticator code is intercepted by the hacker. A different code is sent to Blizzard’s servers, locking the player out.

So how do players get the keylogger on their PC? It all starts with a sponsored link in Google showing up as a top result for WowMatrix, a free World of Warcraft add-on installer and updater. The problem is that the listing isn’t a genuine, leading gamers to the malware. “Several downloads are available and I decided to check out the installer / updater,” reads this forum post. “Results are pretty low at virustotal for the executable. The detection of the DLL hooked into our system is even worse, only 1 antivirus suspects some illegal activity.”

Because authenticator codes only last for 30 seconds, hackers have access to the WoW account until they log out. “This is still perpetrated by key loggers, and no method is always 100% secure,” Blizzard said in this forum post.

WoW gamers are warned to stay away from the following sites, which are actually based on legitimate WoW related sites with a typo at the end of each URL:

• wowmatrixf(dot)com
• Cursea(dot)com
• deadlybossmodss(dot)com
• gamesacca(dot)com

There is a game called Lineage 2, its a Korean MMORPG using the point and click movement, runs using the Unreal engine and is 3D and has been going in Pay to play now for many years, even longer then World of Warcraft by far. There is a Java Server server (the guys who wrote it only knew java) which allows anyone to run a server and play the game without paying a monthly fee for the real thing. This quick story is my few days stabbing at a laptop trying to get it to work.

The fabled Laptop

I have a Dell C840 which only works if you plug it in, the battery does not charge and is quite a chunky thing. It runs Windows XP Pro and has the correct set of program installed to allow me to update and run Lineage 2 Java Server. The server needs Java (free) development version, Eclipse to grab and compile the source code, MySQL to hold the database and a compare tool when I need to update it (Beyond Compare).

In times of old

The Server held my characters from years ago and the accounts of other people that used to play and I tried to first just update, build and run but a lot had changed, they introduced too much new stuff and finally I gave up and wiped the database. Game guard (which runs client side) had always been a problem but I always managed to find a way around these problems and play the game. I would always get bored after a few days and wonder why I had dug the laptop out and it would go back to the bag and Lineage 2 would once again be a passing fad.

A Fresh start

I updated everything, made sure everything was as it should be, configured the various files so it listened on the right address and run the server. The way the client works and how they manage to somehow not break the law is you edit your hosts file, this points the address which the client is looking for at your local LAN and thus oyu are now playing your server instead of the real one.

Almost working

The game started, I logged in (it auto created an account) and I made my character but as soon as I started to run around it was not long before I got a pop up in game from Game Guard telling me that I was running a hacking tool. At this point the game closed and I went off looking around for a fix. I found on the official L2J Forum basically them saying that the client was nothing to do with them and no talk of illegal fixes would be allowed. Now call me stupid but a server without a working client seems stupid to me, yes there is people and ways to get around it but every single time I have to find a work around just to get the game running – pretty sad.

Conclusion

Maybe before I might have struggled on and found ways around these problems but in my heart I know that even if I did get it working, I would have spent maybe one week playing it and got bored. I think it is a good time for this one game to remove the client (free up some space – its a big one) and wipe the laptop and put Linux on there maybe. I shall stick for now with WoW server, thats works all the time !

Mangos – the WoW Server Emulator

Mangos is a project written in C++ to emulate the servers and by and large does a good job, not everything does what it is supposed to do of course and it is updated many times throughout the day due to been open source but it does give people a chance to try WoW without paying into many months of subscriptions.

What Does 3.3.0A Bring?

The first ting I noticed was on-screen words telling me when I entered combat, which spells (including passive) were active and threat, all without a single plug-in been used. I can now of course update my add-ons to match the right version, before they caused problems.

More updates?

Of course with any major update on the server / client front – this means a lot of updates to get things working due to the update breaking many things (as they always do). I do not run a Public Server so it is only me that gets effected but it is nice to see we are moving forward again.

I seems Legend of Mir 3 although going offline from GN network has came back from Wemade themselves. It is in closed Beta and the moment and is due to move to Open Beta. The graphics back in the day (many years ago) were not so bad as they are 2D Isometric but it also means it runs on anything.

This is still “Prelude to War” but I don’t think that has changed much in Korea either.  It is an exact copy of Korean Mir (so no adjustments like Mir 2) and includes the new assassin class.  Everything seems the same as the Euro and the short lived US Mir 3 – they’ve even kept 99% of the same names for everything. It’s a bit on the laggy side but is playable – not ideal for a wiz though!

Not much else to say on Mir 3 since its identical to what we have seen in the past!  This is supposedly closed beta but they are not wiping the db at the end of it (like they have done with Mir 2) although they will be closing the server down for 2 weeks to fix the bugs.

If you were a fan before – this is now Free to play and probably means a death of Private server I imagine – why woudl you want to play a old / low populated private server when you can play something a bit more up to date and Free with many online?

Legend of Mir is a 2D Isometric MMORPG which has been running for about 7 Years now. Its appeal was how easy it was to pick up and play with only having 3 Classes to choose from (Wizard, Warrior & Taoist). It was said many times it would be loosing money by the number of cheats, people selling stuff on ebay and the private servers offering free play.

The long standing servers running Mir2, Mir3 & Myth of Soma will be closing there doors as posted on the GN Site:

Nothing can last for ever and in this day of 3D Graphics, better game play and longer term development – it was only a matter of time. If they could only post the entire files (wont happen) – people could run there own servers or a group form a big one for people to play on – this game is now offically dead.

In my Time I have ran “Legend of Mir 3″, “Lineage 2″ and “World of Warcraft” and each of them has been online / offline many times with varied player bases but what is common is that every single time – the server eventually died a death and went offline.

I can explain this easy enough with the likes of MIR3, this was more of me going through the files making sure it worked and was in English then wanting to run a live server. When I did run a Live server, too much of my time / bandwidth was taken up by people playing and finding bugs. Lineage 2 came and went many times – this one was different as the whole process is open source, so no translating required on my behalf. I used to update every single day and when I found nobody logged on for weeks on end (me been the only one to have played in over a month for example) annoyed me as I kept a computer running, spent time updating it and made sure I posted what had been fixed – so a complete waste of my time.

World of Warcraft though was not as bumpy as the rest – It was online and stayed there even when nobody was playing and only had one complete wipe in that time due to bugs coming across from old characters. I can predict what is going to happen as of now in fact though:

1. Lineage 2 will fall by the wayside as 50x Exp and played too many times means its only a matter of time before I get bored of updating it.
2. WoW has a much longer life span – I have done it all before though but the low exp will keep me playing for a while yet.

I can foresee that I will end of been the only one who will play and this is why it always ends off with the servers dying.

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Now playing: The Corrs – Silver Strand
via FoxyTunes

1. NPC which had Imp’s which normally do not attack you (as they are in fact an NPC themselves) did so and killed you. This was sorted by a big Database update.
2. The next problem was not coming Attack mode – this meant you did not heal and eventually died. This was fixed on a Mangos Update.
3. The Server would crash randomly – this was finally put to bed with a Aura been bugged.

I am at the moment updating every single night which is a bit extreme but I am hoping it will fix a lot of the busg we already found.

I want to explain the Nature that is Private Server – this is the method of a person obtaining the files in order to run a MMORPG Server which you normally have to pay for on a home computer running 24/7 and people (normally Friends and Family) play this game with of course Limited Numbers and many bugs compared to the real thing. What can happen (and does happen) is the person running it stops, the number dwindle to Zero or the database gets wiped and in turn all the time and effort spent playing is wasted.

The way I look at it is basically te first bit of “Wasted” time is download the client, this can often be very large spanning 2 DVD’s for example. Due to Lack of players, this can loose the interaction required and is also the MMO part of the title – it can get boring running about on your own. Bugs are a big problem and the server crashing, Quests not working, no mobs about and so forth only serves to highlight why it is not a good idea to play on these things.

Now the people writing the Server files and populating the database to match as close as possible the real thing does not charge any money an do so in there own free time, it advances as quick or slow as they dictate and the people who submit various code to fix things. It can happen quote often that something worked in one version, a change happens (such as going up to next major version) and this is now broke. I lost track of the number of times “Tame Beast” got broken. As the “Host” – I cannot play every single Class and type out there and cannot see any LAG that may be happened de to my crappy upload speed or if my line gets Throttled for example. I normally do not make a Games Master type char (God if you like) as I ant to be running about myself playing on a normal “none helped” Toon.

They say “you cannot please all of the people, all of the time” and this is very true indeed which I found when I used to run a Lineage 2 Server – the ex-WoW people hated this game and gave it no chance. Much is now the same as this Rappelz Player who fails to see the game as any good and gets bored within 10 minutes – such a shame.

I wish though to put out a statement:-
I am updating the server as required and can offer no assurance that it will be online at any given time due to me working of course and it may well crash. It is running from a Laptop and is left on 24/7 for all those that do play. I am not going to go out of my way to convince people that is it worth playing, they either want to play or do not want, not my concern if they feel the game is “boring”.

I was shocked to see that the Imp Minion which stood next to most Warlock NPC now attacked you and killed you dead – quite a serious bug I would say. Many of the quests including important ones which you need to advance your class did not work whatsoever. The strange thing about all of this – they all worked just fine before. I wondered at what point and what client it was all good? Will it get better again? Have I just come in at a very bad point in time?

I am playing only WoW and Rappelz at the moment – L2 and others have taken a back seat for now. I am aiming for 20% per night if possible on Rappelz for example which means pure grinding. WoW is more relaxed as no-one to catch up with.