RMT bots are now cloning player characters and names!

[Unaki]

I still get freaked out everytime I see a player running from mob to mob in Central Thanalan three times as fast as I can Sprint. Even worse when I see 6+ players doing it in unison. I'm no hacking expert, but my tummy is telling me that SE might want to try a little harder on the whole RMT/botting issue.

You can fix an issue or apply a new fix that prevents a bot from working but if someone really wants to bot then they're going to find a work-around or apply their own fixes to the bots themselves and start the whole process over again. You will never be able to completely stop this, only stifle it.

[Kosmos992k]

I still get freaked out everytime I see a player running from mob to mob in Central Thanalan three times as fast as I can Sprint. Even worse when I see 6+ players doing it in unison. I'm no hacking expert, but my tummy is telling me that SE might want to try a little harder on the whole RMT/botting issue.

They need to do better securing the client, or portions of it, at least, and securing the comunications between client and server. Validation on the server side would work, but it creates a large load that the server has to cope with in addition to everything else.

[Welsper59]

I think you're wrong there. I mean, yes, people manage to do various things, but they were not hacking the server, it was more of a man in the middle attack injecting new database commands or modifying legitimate ones 'in-flight'.

Other than a lengthy explanation, what would you classify that as? I mean, I also wouldn't consider it hacking the server or anything, which is why I used "mess with" in reference to the servers, but I would consider an altering of normally inaccessible commands to be a hack in this case. I've tested position hacks in games like XI, and while that wasn't hacking the server, I would still consider it a "hack" lol. That market board issue that happened early into ARR would definitely be a server side hit though, the one that was making players near a market board buy items without their actual interaction with it.

[MaikoRaines]

Haven't seen the issue on Hyperion as of last night. That being said, I'll log in tonight and stare my doppleganger in the face.

People on my friends list know me well enough not to spam nonsense. Hopefully the devs can get on top of this issue. As for hardcore hacking, I'm not sure about that. I think they could possibly be taking an advantage of an exploit. I doubt privacy is being compromised or our accounts will be flagged - my security token on my account keeps it safe for the most part.

[myahele]

I remember this happened years ago, too.

I am surprised this happened a few weeks ago and is currently happening now

[Nestama]

I remember this happened years ago, too.

I am surprised this happened a few weeks ago and is currently happening now

I don't recall this type of situation happening back in 2.0, but I do recall a time when walking by a market board would have your character spend over 3 million gil on a bone chip.

[Mimilu]

Here's a link to the Reddit Thread Link

[ExKage]

Here's a link to the Reddit Thread Link

The small 'issue' is that the reddit thread is almost 2 weeks old and Square Enix has had at least 2 emergency maintenances in the city-states, supposedly having fixed the problem. The new doppelgang'd person should try to post on Reddit again.

[Kosmos992k]

The small 'issue' is that the reddit thread is almost 2 weeks old and Square Enix has had at least 2 emergency maintenances in the city-states, supposedly having fixed the problem. The new doppelgang'd person should try to post on Reddit again.

One would hope that anyone who is a victim of this behavior would report the abuser to the GMs in-game, and get their friends to do likewise.

[Valkyrie-Amber]

so basicly if an rmt bot clones you and say sends rmt spam to all on server then suddenly people wont like you.... scary thoughts this is far worse than the old styled rmt crap and needs to be fixed like seriously...