Chat lag bug abuse

[loftar]

the "fix" didnt fix anything, you can still fps lag people out via crash script and eventually crash them

How so? I'm fairly sure the client should be capable of handling a few messages per second. What would primarily seem to be the problem? The length of messages and/or the accumulation of many messages?

[ewlol]

Cool client Jiochan, who gave it to you?

[Kaios]

haha

[crfernald]

the "fix" didnt fix anything, you can still fps lag people out via crash script and eventually crash them

How so? I'm fairly sure the client should be capable of handling a few messages per second. What would primarily seem to be the problem? The length of messages and/or the accumulation of many messages?

It's both. What do you mean several messages per second? When is that ever not going to be abused? How fast can you type and what would you say over area chat so quickly as a single person?

Why don't you have a 100 char limit per message and one or two messages per second limit. More than enough space and a time frame to send messages, problem solved. Really should have been the fix first time around.

[shotgunn902]

It's both. What do you mean several messages per second? When is that ever not going to be abused? How fast can you type and what would you say over area chat so quickly as a single person?

Why don't you have a 100 char limit per message and one or two messages per second limit. More than enough space and a time frame to send messages, problem solved. Really should have been the fix first time around.

pretty much this. No one needs to talk that fast or really should humanly have the ability to.

[loftar]

one or two messages per second limit.

The fix I added was precisely to limit chat to three messages per second (with a temporary burst of up to 5 messages allowed). I think that ought to be enough for the frequency problem. Do you find this is not the case, or is the problem, indeed, the lengths of the messages?

[Valten21]

You can crash yourself with a message to long, if that's worth anything. We didn't actually try it standing next to each other.

[crfernald]

one or two messages per second limit.

The fix I added was precisely to limit chat to three messages per second (with a temporary burst of up to 5 messages allowed). I think that ought to be enough for the frequency problem. Do you find this is not the case, or is the problem, indeed, the lengths of the messages?

It is both. Think of it like this, if you need to sink a ship you can do it in several ways. You can hit many small chunks of ice until the hull is torn to shreds, hit several moderate iceburgs and crack the ships ribs, or hit one big iceburg and snap yourself in half.

The script Sarchi posted in Naowhut's thread doesn't seem to work as well now, but it still works to a degree. If you run a similar script with a larger text body and have it cycle faster, you crash the game just like before, no change.

A temporary burst of 5 messages is why your fix doesn't work, you can just compensate by spamming more data. With a fixed limit of three you'll likely make it so that only the person running the script will crash, but we can't test that unless you actually implement it.

If you limit both the message rate and char limit this problem will never arise again. It's a simple matter of removing the possibility of abusing the area chat system vs fixing a vulnerability in the chat system against one script of several.

Edit: To address Valten, if you run a script that's short enough not you crash yourself out, but still enough to abuse the system, you can crash other people. It's mainly trial and error and the sweet spot is rather wide. I'd imagine it is also dependent on your system and client.

[cobaltjones]

What the hell kind of voodoo language is this game written in that multiple strings of text are able to crash the entire client? I sure hope Salem isn't java based.

[MagicManICT]

What the hell kind of voodoo language is this game written in that multiple strings of text are able to crash the entire client? I sure hope Salem isn't java based.

It's no voodoo crap, but something every MMO developer has dealt with since before we knew what MMOs were. When you try to cram through larger chunks of text, you need to feed more packets through along with all the other data packets trying to get through. If you beat on the wall hard enough with a hammer, it's eventually going to break, including breaking the server. By your logic, what voodoo language is the internet coded in that Denial of Service attacks work?

Did you not watch the two interview videos on Salem? You're answer lies there. FYI, it's not Java that's the problem. I know some very well behaved Java based MMO clients.