MapleStory game issues
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As with most MMORPGs, MapleStory has in-game bugs and people who exploit them. There are also many programs created to simplify gameplay for players, which make the game unfair to other players and are against the rules when playing the game. To combat these programs, various security measures have been implemented such as GameGuard and a PIN requirement.
Scamming
Scamming is rather common in MapleStory, as in most MMORPGs. The most usual scamming type is tricking new players into selling items for several times less than their actual value, buying items for several times what they are actually worth, or by stealing their items. Scammers do this by daring other players to drop valuable items and then picking the item up before the player has a chance to pick it up again. This was later addressed by the MapleStory Global staff to be the "drop game". In an older variation of the drop game, the player being scammed would be told to drop an item and type /mapclone, /mapsuperitem, or /map100 et cetera, causing the server to kick the user (and in some cases crash the client), allowing the other player to take the dropped item.
A scammer may also take advantage of the victim's lack of game knowledge or user interface. This includes asking victims to press a series of keys, or perform a certain action that benefits the scammer. For example, a common scam is "tab tab space enter". To perform this scam, a scammer will open a trade window with the victim, ask him or her to show the scammer a rare item, and try to get the victim to press this combination of keys. The key combination moves the cursor to the accept trade button and accepts the trade. (Although in MapleSEA, this command leads to the report screen.)
A common way of tricking the victim also includes telling the victim that a glitch or problem would occur if one does a certain action, and the curious victim would perform the action. For example, a scammer can tell the victim that there is a glitch which "duplicates items" (which is not true), by putting up a trade, putting a rare item, pressing "OK", then type "COPY" (the letter "Y" triggers the "OK" button, performing the trade).
There are also some people who scam about faming (the act of increasing one's fame) since players cannot trade fame in a secure trading window. One will ask to buy or trade fame with other players, under the condition that the other player will fame them first. When the scammer receives the fame he/she will then leave without finishing the trade. There is not much a MapleStory player can do about this since trading and buying/selling fame is not encouraged by the creators of the game.
In the Cash Shop, there is a "Gift" feature (currently in GlobalMS this feature is disabled). A player can buy that item and give it to another player. Players would trade in-game items for the Cash Shop items. Since there is no trading window the items must be traded one at a time. Similarly to fame scamming, the scammer would take the other player's item first and not give the item they promised, either from the cash shop or the in game item. It is difficult to catch such scammers, as trading of Cash Shop items is deemed illegal, and players who get scammed dare not report them. Any user caught doing this will be banned if they are caught. Another scam is when one player types "click on the picture of the husky or something else in my wishlist to see something funny." Clicking the picture of anything in anyone's wish list will cause the game to crash. This bug is now fixed.
There are also some people who try to scam people together, as in one person hiding while the drop game is happening and jumping out and stealing the victim's item. There are also some cases where people in trading areas are trading something highly valuable for something of less value, and usually have a partner who is selling the item the person is looking for at a highly inflated price on the other side of the map. Both characters log off when the item is bought.
Another technique that people use to gain money is to show someone a scrolled item. The person buying it will offer their price and put up the money. The person with the item could then say something that will allow them to close the trade. Later, the person with the item will re-trade the buyer and tell them to put the money again. The item-holder will then put up an item with worse stats and accept the trade. The buyer could forget to check the stats and trade, thus losing money. A similar scam is using scrolls, since all scrolls with the same percent work-rate all look the same.
A less plausible technique would be to unequip all items, weapons, and clothing, and claim to be hacked, and has lost all their items and/or mesos (in game currency). They would then request people to donate items or mesos, and once the items/mesos are received, they would simply leave the area in the search for another victim, or re-equip the weapons and clothing to spite and mock the person who has donated. This technique is, however, unlikely to succeed given the harsh approach to money and item requests within the general MapleStory community.
Another scam is through guilds. A guild master with powers to invite/kick someone from a guild will allow someone into a guild for a fee (usually between 50,000 to 100,000 Mesos). The person being scammed will pay, and then the guild master who invited the member will expel the person from the guild.
One type of popular scam is to have a friend hide somewhere where their character and name can't be seen. The unhidden character then finds a victim usually by saying that they are quitting Maple Story. They take them to where their friend is hiding. Then the unhidden character has the victim stand relatively close to the hidden character and has them show them their weapons by dropping them. Usually saying that they want to know if they are worthy or not of having their weapons. Then the hidden character runs out and grabs the weapons. The two people then run away or change channels in search of another victim.
External programs
There are a number of hacks that one can use to "enhance" his/her gameplay. Such programs are used to make the character invincible or give the character the ability to fly. These programs are against the rules and are reported by players who spot these hackers, which lead to their inevitable bans.
Another problem that has become more common recently is keylogging, but the risk of losing one's account to keylogging has been decreased significantly due to the Security PIN feature that has been added. The keylogger record all keystrokes typed by the person and send a log back to the hacker who then uses that username and password to log in to that account and steal everything. As keyloggers only track keystrokes, and not the mouse (which is used to input the PIN), the addition of the PIN system added an extra defense that could not be logged. However, keyloggers need to be installed into a computer for it to work and are usually contained in computer viruses.
- A note on what has been written about keyloggers
Although the PIN system worked for a brief time period in stopping keyloggers, scammers have already become too sophisticated to be stopped by something as simple as a PIN system. Newer versions of keyloggers are now set to take screen-shots of a player's screen once per second when the application "maplestory.exe" is running. The screen-shots are then sent to the computer that remotely installed the keylogger. With only a one second interval between shots, the scammer can usually make out which number their unsuspecting victim is going to click before they actually click it. A new addition to the PIN system is needed in order to make keyloggers ineffectual once again.
Memory Editing Hacking
Memory editing hacking can freeze a value such as a timer or alter a value to a custom number to, for example change the location of a map's walls to create a vac hack.
Vacuum hack acts like a vacuum which suck all the monsters and/or characters into a specified area, allowing the hacker to level up quickly by killing these monsters in the same spot and splashing instead of walking around all over the map to hunt monsters. There is a new type of vacuum hack that is less conspicuous than the old vacuum hack. The new one basically teleports monsters to a set position on the map, making it less noticeable than monsters flying around. The vacuum hack is achieved by changing the ingame boundaries, which results in monsters being placed into the new boundaries when there is a new spawn. There are many types of vacuums: Wall Vac, DupeXMonster, DupeX, PerVac, FreeVac, dEMIVAC, and some other unannounced, private vacuums.
Godmode hack which makes the player unable to be harmed or invincible. There are 2 types: "melee godmode" and "full godmode". Full godmode is self explanatory prevents all damage to the hacker. Melee godmode only prevents damage from touching the monster (melee damage) and not magic damage. The Godmode hack is achieved by changing the conditions of the game, where the condition of "is hit" has been frozen.
Miss hack is similar to godmode hack; except monsters will always miss you instead of you walk through them as if they weren't there. The character also avoids all magic attack. The miss hack is achieved by changing the conditions of the game, where the condition "hit or not" is changed so that the end user will never be hit.
Fly hack which allow players to travel and jump with unusual nimbleness. Usually used for doing jump quest or going to areas that would normally be inaccessible. In beta gMS, it is often called as Gravity hack. The fly hack is achieved from "noclip", where the action of stopping a jump is removed, resulting in a continuous action of jumping.
Tubi hack is a term that refers to the hack that increases your item pickup speed. The tubi hack is achieved from freezing the action of waiting before picking up the next item.
No-breath hack is a counter-measure of game's interface to prevent hackers from hacking. Originally, the game developers implement breathe so that whenever you attack or take damage, you cannot perform actions such as changing channel, throw items to the ground, or going into Cash Shop. (Note: You can log off from the game without regaining your breath) This stops hackers from running away so legitimate players or GMs can have a chance to look at the hacker's username. No-breathe hack eliminates the breathe message and nullifies the prevention of changing channel. It is used in conjunction with other hacks since this hack does not benefit hackers directly.
Teleport hack causes your character to teleport to another part in the same map as the user wish to. Notice that this teleport moves much further than magician 2nd job's teleport skill. The Godmode hack is achieved by freezing the character's X and Y coordinates to where the hacker wants to appear, so that went the character reappears from teleportation he is in the X and Y coordinates he wanted.
"Sit anywhere" hacks allows the hacker to sit anywhere at any time. (Characters gain health points at a faster rate while sitting as opposed to while they are standing). However, the "sit anywhere" hack is commonly confused with when a player sits on a chair, and a monster knocks the user off the chair, while remaining in a sitting position.
Speed hack speeds up your walking speed.
Skill hack is a hack which makes a player's stats (STR, DEX, INT, LUK) drops below 4. It is very easy to be detected and this hack has been patched permanently.
Trade hack existed in gMS beta but has been patched permanently. Inside the trading window, when a player (Player A) puts up an item that he/she wishes to trade with, the trade hack will move the item to the other player (Player B). Then Player B cancels the trade and receives Player A's item without paying anything. Player A loses the item and wonders what happened to the item.
- A note on Trade Hack
As stated in the Summon Hack section, Trade Hack is once again performable through more advanced packet editing. It is not patched as has been stated.
Packet Editing Hacks
Packet editing is simply the darkest side of online-games hacking. When a hacker packet edits, it means he stops the packets that are being sent from his computer to the Wizet servers and changes them before they are sent. With packet editing a hacker can do anything he would like to if he knows what he is doing. The most famous packet edits are:
Scroll hacking makes any scroll the hacker uses unable to fail.
Infinite MP Hack makes a certain skill work with 0 MP used.
Spawn hack makes the hacker able to replace any monster in the map with a different one or can make the hacker able to choose how many monsters will be in the map at the same time.
Non CRC check hack makes the hacker able to stop the client from performing CRC checks and disconnecting him when using a hack such as fly or speed hack.
Inventory hack is where a hacker can "make" any equipment he is able to wear, even scrolled equips.
Item vac allows a hacker to pick up all of the items in the map, even if the items Do not belong to him.
Technically, with packet editing everything is possible. You can change your own level from 1 to 200 in a second if you know what you are doing. All the known packet edits listed above are still working as of today (GMS v.0.30). Packet editing is of uncertain legality and unlike regular hacks which will get your account banned, if you're caught packet editing you can be IP banned from maple for life and Wizet has the right to sue you and track you by your phone number and address. Also, if you live in USA (Wizet’s server’s location) there's a small chance you will get fined.
Macro Hacks
Macro hacks are programs that can perform simple key pressing tasks without the user needing to do it for himself while also being faster than a normal user.
Auto loot hack allows a player to pick up the loot without pressing the pickup key (usually achieved by pressing the pickup key repeatedly using a macro)
Auto pot hack or referred to auto potion hack, is used so the computer uses potions for you when you are low on HP or MP so that you can put your mind to something else. This hack detects the values of the HP or MP usually with pixel detection, and automatically presses the corresponding keys to the potions when the HP or MP hits a certain percentage or value.
Auto clicker or abbreviated as AC, is very popular when doing accompaniments (commonly known as party quests). It clicks the NPC that transports the hacker into the party quest at a very high speed, so the hacker has a very high chance of getting into the party quest while legitimate party leaders do not have a high clicking speed, which causes them to "miss" in entering an accompaniment.
Botting is where, through a program or a physical manipulation of the keyboard, an action, mainly attacking, is repeated without the user. This is normally restricted to warriors, as no other class can deal the same damage without using a skill, and don't have the HP to survive for long. This is currently remedied with two things: firstly, if you stand in one spot and attack without stopping, you will automatically stop attacking, and cannot fight for a while. Secondly (this feature was introduced very recently [and supposedly temporarily] in gMS), there is a 'lie detector'. It gives a suspected botter a small task that can only be completed by a player, such as determining the larger number of a pair. If completed successfully, the one who was tested receives 5000 mesos. If failed, then the "botter" loses an amount of his current mesos to the person who lie detected him, and is transported to the nearest town so they may no longer take advantage from botting.
The true use of botting lies in its relationship with hacking. Hackers are not subject to the Unlimited Attack block, and they also have botting programs that will use potions for them. Also, because of Godmode, HP potions are not needed, meaning the bot only needs to use MP potions for the character while it attacks a "vacced" mob of monsters.
The Lie Detector was removed because players were abusing it. Higher leveled players used it against others that were training on strong monsters. Whenever you are tested by this, a screen pops up, and the player being testing must try to answer the question, or risk being killed. Since higher leveled monsters' attack powers are high, death is almost a certainty if you are not paying attention to your character. You cannot move your character while being tested, so this was taken away.
Glitches
Corner fall-through
If one jumps slightly above the vertex of a wall and the ground, somewhat like stairs, there should be a crevice, at which the player can actually fall through the ground. While feasible, it is difficult to perform voluntarily, as it requires the correct angle and location of a fall. You essentially need to fall down towards the vertex but move in the direction of the wall a little bit, so as to fall directly down along the wall and through the floor. Generally, a rope or platform to fall from is needed, unless your character has the haste ability and jumps at the right angle. The L-Forests near Kerning City, which are meant to be extremely tedious to navigate through, can be very easily navigated by falling through the correct corners. The reason is because the way the game is designed is to set boundaries on Top, left, right, and bottom. The developers did not intend to allow people to fall in between those areas.
Jump/Tele shot/cast
Magicians and archers are plagued by immobility as they attack, but using a movement function simultaneously with an attack, the player is able to jump and attack at the same time. This is also compatible with teleport; one can simply teleport whilst casting a spell. It differs from "telecasting," where a player teleports in the time periods between attacks, as it is moving while attacking. Assassins still have an edge in aerial attack, as they can strike from the peak of their jump, but archers' and magicians' attacks still come from ground-level, as the attack button was pressed on the ground, and only the attack animation is playing in the air. Nevertheless, it is an invaluable evasive skill.
Sealed-area Teleport
There are many places where Game Characters aren't meant to be, but a Magician in the second job defies that. Places such as counters in stores and ticket booths at stations are supposed to be impassable, but a wizard or a cleric can teleport in and out at will. Invisible walls can't stop them, either. Even Haste cannot get someone past these impediments, but since teleporting is dematerializing and re-materializing, theoretically, no physical barrier should stop it. Technically, Chief Bandits can abuse this with their Assaulter skill. They just need to use a summoning bag to spawn a monster to use it on. Assaulter deals damage while dashing through the monster like a teleport. So it too can be used in that way.
Sleepywood Hotel
As of patch ver. 0.24 (June 7), in GlobalMS, the dungeon town of Sleepywood has become home to a very serious glitch. Players who entered the Sleepywood Hotel would become "stuck" and disconnected instantly, and any further attempts to play using the glitched character will again result in disconnection. Wizet has recently warned players from entering the hotel [1]. Anyone who does enter the hotel will either have to escape the hotel through exploits or wait until this glitch is corrected in a future update. Although this has since been fixed, there is a chance that this glitch could be resurfaced by any ambitious vacuum hacker, as described below.
It was later revealed in the hacking communities that this was, in fact, not a glitch, but rather an attempt to promote chaos by a hacker. Using an advanced vacuum hack, they were able to move all the non-playable characters (NPCs) in the game into the sauna, causing anyone to enter the sauna to instantly become overloaded and disconnect. The hacker revealed himself to go under the alias of "Exidis" and announced publicly the servers and channels he targeted next.
This issue has occurred not only in GlobalMS, but also in betaMS version before. It shows that Wizet hasn't found a permanent way to solve this problem. They only use patches to temporary fix the problem. And the problem will return sooner or later when the hacker moves the NPCs again.
Independence Day Event
As of patch 0.25 (June 28), there are 2 additional quests in GlobalMS. On the first day the quests were released, there was a glitch where the quest items were not removed from the player's inventory after completing the quest. This resulted in users sharing quest items to complete quests, and users creating gaming mules to obtain rewards with the same set of items. This problem was recently patched in the Emergency Server Check [2]
Chair Jump
This glitch does mostly nothing, but it looks cool and makes people think you are an experienced hacker or something along those lines. People can jump while on their chair by pressing the jump and chair hotkey at the same time--hard to master, but it looks good once you have. You will still be on the chair, and will jump into the air. As of patch 0.30, this glitch has still not been fixed.
Kerning City Construction Site
Recently, the Kerning City Construction Site map just outside of Kerning City has been "corrupted" so that all the monsters spawn on the lower half of the map on one of the steps. People say that someone is vac-hacking, but it's on all twenty of the channels, so it is more plausible that the map got corrupted somehow. An Ice/Lightning Wizard would be needed to go right, where there usually are no monsters, to the left of the portal to L Forest I, and keep using Lightning. Then once all the monsters vacced there are destroyed, the 'vac' at the stairs would start. Not only all channels, but in every single world, and an NPC would be were the octopuses would be, but this has since been fixed.
Other issues
Another issue about fame is "mass defaming". When one person wants to "mass defame" another character, the player calls upon their friends or any other characters they may have to defame the other character, decreasing the victim's fame stat significantly. Although a defaming may not have any lasting effect in the game (as it is possible to buy fame from other players), some players threaten others with mass defames in the hope of intimidating others to do what they want, particularly to drive away other characters in the same training area.
Another issue is the existence of fake GMs (Game Masters). These characters are ordinary players who imitate names of GMs and claim to have GM powers. Some of the names include, but are not limited to, Wiznet, CapriccioMS, GlVl, GMDiddy022 and names with GM in the end. They pretend to be GMs and ask for money, items, or passwords, and threaten to ban players if they do not give them what they request. There are many ways to find out if a character is a GM. GMs always have a floating "GM" sign on top of their character and always type in a distinctive blue text. It is impossible to view the character information of a GM. If players spot a fake GM, they are able to alert a real GM by using a feature called "Alert GM", which they can access by right clicking on the character. Wizet states that all GMs are full time employees.
Similarly to other MMORPGs, the MapleStory economy has experienced a vast amount of inflation since its beginnings, which some users consider to be a problem. With the intent of curbing inflation, Wizet recently installed a tax system. This system taxes a certain percentage of money from transactions. A percentage listed on a window below the trade window shows the amount deducted for trading amounts larger than 50,000 mesos, 100,000 mesos, and so on.
Security and reporting abuse
Recently Wizet has added a loader called GameGuard, created by nProtect, to protect the MapleStory client from modification in the Global, Japanese, South East Asia and South Korea versions of the game. Most of these autoloot programs have been blocked by GameGuard, which is also used by Softnyx for its Gunbound, Rakion games, Webzen for its "MU Online" game, and FlyFF, by Aeonsoft. Although GameGuard stops many hacks, hacking is still a problem. Though many players are skeptical of this, Godmode (invincibility) hacks still work under certain circumstances. The players who use this hack most likely train in obscure spots, or use Godmode to reach areas most people avoid. Contrary to popular belief, these players can be hard to catch, as GMs tend to stay in areas that have more people, and Godmoders can sign off or quickly and constantly change channels if they notice someone approaching. Lag also contributes to making them harder to catch, as if someone sees another player walk through an enemy undamaged, they will most likely think it was only because of the lag between the two characters.
The "Alert GM" feature can be accessed by right clicking on a character and selecting Alert GM. A window pops up that lets one choose the situation they want to alert this person for. An alert to a GM can be made only once a day. Too many false alerts from a player could result in penalties (such as suspensions like a banned account). This feature is more updated in the South Korea version, where now a player can report specifically what the abuse was.
The latest security measure implemented by Wizet is the "Security PIN" feature, which is currently implemented in the Global version. A keypad will appear on the screen and the user has to enter their PIN by clicking on the numbers with their mouse to access their account. It has been implemented so that hackers using keyloggers that only monitor keyboard button presses are not able to get into people's accounts. The numbers change position as well so that tracking the mouse will not reveal the PIN either. More advanced keyloggers will take a screenshot whenever the left mouse button is clicked. However, every time the user presses a key, the keyboard changes completely randomly so it is harder to figure out what the PIN is. Lost or forgotten PINs can be recovered, but unlike usernames or passwords, this requires sending Wizet (through the email of enquiry option on the site) all information that was used to register the account, including name, secret question answers, username, and password. Some players opt to enter all the PIN codes possible rather than wait for Wizet to send them their PIN code because it can take a week to three months.
Website requirements
The MapleStory Global & MapleStory South Korea website will only allow access from the newest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, although Firefox users can access the page (in a limited fashion) by disabling JavaScript or by using the NoScript extension or the IETab extension.
Macintosh users cannot access the website, even using Microsoft Internet Explorer for Mac.
Various problems with newer versions of Windows
Up until early April 2006, Maple Story would not run on computers running Windows XP Professional x64. GameGuard would prompt that the user was running an incompatible version of Windows despite the fact that XP Pro x64 should work fine with the game. The new clients released since fixes the issue and would allow the game to run on Windows XP Professional x64.
Also, on Windows XP Professional 32 bit machines, players would not get background music unless they are logged in as the Administrator or a power user, discouraging the safe computing practice of logging in as a limited user for non-administrative activities. The workaround for the latter issue would be to run the game in Windows 98 or Windows 2000 compatibility mode, but doing so could potentially expose the system to vulnerabilities.
Unusability behind proxy firewalls
Maple Story, like many MMORPGs, uses an anti-hacking system. The particular system is called GameGuard and it is designed to sniff out hacking programs and bots, refusing to proceed with the game if such a program is found running. Unfortunately, this includes proxy relay applications like SocksCAP and FreeCAP, which are needed for people behind proxy firewalls, as MapleStory does not natively support traversing such firewalls if it's played on a network with such protection. While it is understandable that some people might use such software as a method to get around server regioning (see below), it has become a bane to people who legitimately need to play the game on a network with such firewalls (i.e. players who are afraid of being hacked and thus have hardware socks firewalls in place).
Server regioning
Due to "licensing issues", players in certain countries are IP-blocked from the global server, usually because the country has dedicated servers for the game. For example, Malaysian, Singaporean and Thai residents who use ISPs in their respective countries are blocked from the global server, being forced to use the SEA server instead. Korean, Japanese and Chinese players are also blocked from other servers, being forced to use the servers in their respective countries instead. Similarly, people from any other parts of the world are not allowed on the Korean, Chinese, Japanese and SEA servers. Many international online committees with members from all over the world find this move distasteful, as it prevents members from such communities from meeting in-game. Likewise, it also backfires when a person from a country served by one region moves into another (i.e. moves from Malaysia to Australia) and finds that he or she can no longer log in to the game. Certain servers (Korea, Japan, etc.) block certain countries because they cannot support the required languages.