[TERA PC & Console] En Masse is closing, but TERA lives on! We will continue to support TERA PC (NA) and TERA Console until service is transferred. Stay tuned for more information.
[TERA Console] The Grotto of Lost Souls update (v85) is now live! Read the patch notes here: https://bit.ly/TERACon_v85
[TERA PC] The 64-bit update (v97) is now live. Check out all the changes delivered on August 11 here: https://bit.ly/tera64_patchnotes
[TERA PC & CONSOLE] Summerfest Part 2: The Beach Bash is on from August 11 until September 1! Participate in event activities to earn tokens redeemable for costumes, consumables, mounts, and more! Details: https://bit.ly/tera_sf20
Comments
I don't think it's fair to blame the *brand new* CM for TERA's current problems, at least give her a chance and see how she reacts/learns in this role.
There's not really a win here for EME, because no matter what happens, nothing has been gained. If xign is removed, the game performs how it performed last week, but with more cheaters. If it's left in, the game performs worse until it's removed, and has more and more cheaters every day to get away from xigncode. At this point it's just triage. How long do you leave xigncode in while it's only function is to encourage people to cheat? That's eme's real decision here. Of course, what they'll most likely do is change the settings of xigncode so it doesn't hurt performance as much or stop as many people from launching, but the fact is that it will *still* hurt performance, and *still* stop people from logging in, and both of those things are just encouraging people to cheat or quit.
I wasn't referring to you specifically in my last post when I mentioned "you could do a reversal," I just meant other players.
EME is different, because they are controlled by BHS as EME is nothing more than a subsidiary. Sean is ignoring everything about Xingcode, because it's a done deal. I mean wake up already. You guys have made at least 20 post directly complaining that EME hasn't responded, and they still aren't responding. It's over.
We still don't know why they haven't responded to the fallout after it became apparent that xigncode killed the game experience for a signification number of players. Like I said before, xigncode prevents us linux users from even launching the client.
As to why EME still seems to be mum on this, I have a few ideas.
1. EME is afraid to respond to the xigncode fallout. I don't find this that likely, though. However, it is conceivable that they have been spooked by the fallout.
2. EME has been stunned into inaction by the fallout. This possibility would mean that they have been caught so off guard by the fallout that they haven't yet figured out how to respond to it. Basically, the deer in the headlights scenario.
3. EME is unable to respond due to something that is ongoing. This is the possibility that I'm hoping for since it means that they are doing something about the fallout but haven't reached the point that they are comfortable responding yet. I noticed there is a maintenance scheduled for tomorrow. Seems a bit early to me. Maybe they plan on doing something about the xigncode fallout then. If so, perhaps we will get an official response to the fallout by some point tomorrow.
They did screwed up by not telling this before hand. However, why would they? The result would have not changed at all, specially considering the community would have been insufferable either way. And by the way, I have been lurking here since before Tera Rising, and guess what, the community has behaved the same way year after year, there is a point where you will not care anymore about such disrespectful customers.
But oh well. Who cares right?
I disagree strongly with you. If it didn't appear like they were trying to sneak it in, the pre-xigncode fallout would have likely been avoided for the most part. (Of course, it appears that the post-xigncode fallout dwarfs the pre-xigncode fallout.) And no, the whole "BHS included this" notion is likely outright wrong. As far as I can tell, xigncode is typically done at the publisher level. It is possible that EME was pressured by Bluehole, though.
The lesson from this seems to be that it is a bad idea to add something like xigncode to a game after a player base has already been formed. Unless, of course, the player base is overwhelmingly demanding it to be added. The reason for this is simple. The point of xigncode is not actually to catch cheaters. Instead, it is to improve the game experience for the users. The problem is that this is a trade off. Xigncode is going to hurt performance and even prevent some from even being able to play the game. Include it at the start of a game and the player base will largely be composed of players ok with that trade off. Try to add it in later and the point of xigncode becomes a complete failure since many in the player base will not be ok with that trade off (particularly those who suddenly find that the game is unplayable).
It is something both EME and BHS would have agreed on. EME uses it for their other games and think it's fine to have, and BHS worked with Wellbia to have it work, as it is used in other regions for Tera.
"Wellbia is a reputable company that worked directly with the TERA PC Dev team for this integration to match their existing presence in Nexon’s and others’ versions of TERA." - Original Post
"I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get you a response to the initial topic for this thread... which is... as I see it... why XIGNCODE. I get it. It sucks. But cheating sucks more. No cheating fix is perfect, but we felt like we had to do something about it, and Wellbia, who are a reputable company who have been working on solving this sort of issue for numerous games (including TERA in other regions) was the best partner that we could find. They and we aren’t spying on you. We aren’t trying to steal your data (in fact, you’ll have just seen our updated privacy terms that we’re ensuring XIGNCODE complies with as well). We’re just trying to ensure that all battlegrounds and epic quests take place on a figurative level field." - Original Post
I'm not entirely sure why people are demanding answers for a question that's already been answered anyways.
We are waiting for a response in regard to the fallout that started after many players realized that xigncode hammered the game experience for them. Some players, like me, can't even get the client to run now. The statement you referenced was in regard to the earlier fallout. Not the current fallout. The current fallout looks to be much worse to me. Xigncode's purpose isn't actually to catch cheaters, its to improve the game experience. I'm not sure it can effectively be used for that purpose with an established player base unless said player base was overwhelmingly asking for it.
Again, "anti-cheat program that actively encourages people to cheat by only hurting legitimate players and not cheaters" is an accurate summary of xigncode. The only question is how long EME leaves it in and bleeds legitimate players while gaining more illegitimate ones. (Edit: this sounds like speculation on my part, but it's not. There's hard data, from one of the cheat devs, that shows exactly how many people have just started to cheat because of xigncode.)
Just want to point out that "modified the tera.exe" doesn't necessarily mean a source code level change. Some code obfuscators read in a compiled executable to create an obfuscated executable for instance. Does anyone here know how xigncode is actually added to an executable?
I really think you should watch the latest stream. You seem to think Sean actually cares about your concerns, so maybe watch that stream and see for yourself.
There hasn't been any fallout. For every one of us that leaves, there are 10 kids eager to replace us. This hasn't really impacted EME in any way. So there are three or four threads that they can't comment on, that's about it. The influx of new players during this time of year, will kill any hope you have of getting EME's attention. To put it bluntly my dear, they won't notice we're gone.
You're logic doesn't even make sense. If there were ten kids eager to replace us, they would have just joined TERA NA. With such demand the player base would have been exploding. That is clearly not the case. I mean its not like EME is blocking people from joining until someone leaves. This isn't a scenario where there is a reserve pool of new players that automatically join when someone leaves.
As for the fallout, it is undeniable at this point that there is fallout from the xigncode debacle. Thanks to xigncode, some people can't even launch the game or have performance so bad they might as well not be able to launch the game. Do you really think those people or going to play legitimately. No. Part of the fallout is that those people are going to either start "cheating" to play the game, or are going to leave TERA NA. "Cheaters" are also disincentivized to spend actual money on TERA NA since they could be banned for cheating. Based on the reports I've seen, the fallout has already been enough to cause a drop off of the player base at a time when new content was released. Normally, new content means a player base spike. So basically, what it appears xigncode gave us is a retracting player base that is more inclined to cheat and less inclined to spend money.
I agree with this.