Hacking the PS client

[gogg]

[pre-note: This thread is about editing (hacking) the PS client for increased productivity. NOT cracking the PS servers, client, etc. Thank you.]

I was wondering if anyone else had edited their GUI. Right now I\'m working on custom menus and dialogs and I wanted some pointers and ideas. Thanks.

[acraig]

Well, you should be careful here. We have totally ( I mean totally 100% ) changed the GUI system so would be bad if you waste too much time on this.  But if you design some graphics then should be no problem to incorporate them into the new system.   The new system has much of the gui defined as XML which will make it much easier to design custom GUIs for people to share with each other.

[gogg]

sweet. I like the idea that the client is skinable...

[Moogie]

People dabbled with this quite a while ago, myself included. I created a \'Kitty GUI\'. All orange and furry and kitty footprints everywhere.

Likewise you can create character skins, you can skin buildings, the sky, weapons... everything.

[_Yuhevon_]

I was wondering since this is open source... what prevents people from hacking into the code and modifying their stats, money, etc.

[Kiern]

Well, I don\'t know much about that stuff, but I don\'t think that would affect the server in any way, so wouldn\'t that just show up on theirs?

[Davis]

Originally posted by _Yuhevon_
I was wondering since this is open source... what prevents people from hacking into the code and modifying their stats, money, etc.

That\'s all on the server, the client doesn\'t handle that.

[Xandria]

Pretty much all the handling of information is done on the server.  All the client does is relay information from the server to you computer, and send the actions you perform via the client.  So your computer is not responsible in any way for spawning loot/items (if it was then, yes, PS would be full of uber-1337\'s the day it came out)

[Ele]

Well.. whats to stop someone hacking the client so it sends to the server.. say the action that they\'ve just picked up 20 rubies or whatever?

Oh and something I was looking around for in the PS config files.. some games such as Quake III have a variable you can set to dictate how many kilobytes/second the client connects to the server at.. is there any way to change that?  Since I get really bad lag problems I was thinking if I lowered it I would get a better connection. And is there a button to access a console in PS to do that kind of stuff?

[tangerine]

You can\'t pick something that doesn\'t exist on the server.

[Xandria]

Ele,

tangerine answered your first question.

I don\'t think you can change your connection speed, but I wouldn\'t worry about it; everybody has lag in MB right now.  Just hang in there and wait for CB, and see if it works better

And PS doesn\'t have a console; any commands that can be run are typed into the chat box.

[gogg]

Well, while we\'re on the topic, couldnt you edit stuff like how high you jump? I\'m pretty sure world physics like that arent checked through the server.

[acraig]

Originally posted by gogg
Well, while we\'re on the topic, couldnt you edit stuff like how high you jump? I\'m pretty sure world physics like that arent checked through the server.

All data will ( eventually ) be validated server side.  So even if we don\'t track everything at the moment we will some day.  So if there are people that are thinking about cheating then don\'t be suprised if you get banned one day when those checks are in place.

The fact that this is a free game means that we have the possibility of attracting many people that will try to \'ruin\' the game for others.  The fact that it is open source makes this even more so.  But we are commited to crushing those type of people as best we can though server side checks, GMs and general self-policing of the community

[AryHann]

Isn\'t easier for the people able to read the code to know where are the respawn points and how to solve the quests?

Also, the Kitty GUI is lovely.. can I have it ?! :-)

Ary

[acraig]

Originally posted by AryHann
Isn\'t easier for the people able to read the code to know where are the respawn points and how to solve the quests?

Also, the Kitty GUI is lovely.. can I have it ?! :-)

Ary

Well, a lot of PlaneShift will be data driven.  This means the game will run depending on what data that we place in the database.  So all the stuff like NPC dialog, spells, weapons, quests, spawn points, etc will all be stuff in the database on the server.  It will also be data that is NOT open to the public to view.