No code reading, how come

[Xrazor]

<p>Quick question on gameplay.</p><p>I have noticed a lot of posts on how does haste work or how does weapon damage add up or how do things stack..etc.</p><p>Most of the replies are people thinking what it might be but no one seems to be totally sure.</p><p>Now I have played online games like Diablo and such for a long time and in all those games people new exactly how it all worked because they just went into the game files and looked at the programming code to see exactly how it is programmed.</p><p>Why does that not seem to be so with everquest, are most of these files transmitted only will playing...seems that would be laggy.</p><p>So why doesn't people with programming backgrounds just crack the code and say how it is programmed like with other online games?</p><p>I know this is a strange question, but I am just interested in how Sony keeps it so undercover.</p>

[Kellin]

<p>Diablo, huh?  Wasn't that game notorious for all the hacks and cheats people could do?</p><p>Because they could access the code.</p>

[DanaDark]

<p>Kellin has it. -cheer-</p>

[Freliant]

<p>it has to do mostly with safeguards placed into the game that prevent the game from being turned into a client side server through emulation. EQ1, WoW and countless other MMOs have lost some of their clientel to some savvy programmers that reverse-engineered their code and created their own servers which were free to people who would register to play them. These servers become fully player run, and require no monthly fee, along with having alot of player made content and GMs that actually do stuff. Sounds like a paradise for gamers, but the dark side is... that you don't get the update and support that you do in live games, and flaws essentially will never get fixed, and flawed mechanics never get revisited or updated. No new art and a whole slew of different things that just make the player run servers go down.</p><p>So that is a reason it is not as transparent. However, there are programs out there that can show you what is going on in combat in nice trackable graphs and charts. Look up ACT (Advanced Combat Tracker). Most people call it a parser, because that is what it mainly does.</p>

[Xrazor]

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>it has to do mostly with safeguards placed into the game that prevent the game from being turned into a client side server through emulation. EQ1, WoW and countless other MMOs have lost some of their clientel to some savvy programmers that reverse-engineered their code and created their own servers which were free to people who would register to play them. These servers become fully player run, and require no monthly fee, along with having alot of player made content and GMs that actually do stuff. Sounds like a paradise for gamers, but the dark side is... that you don't get the update and support that you do in live games, and flaws essentially will never get fixed, and flawed mechanics never get revisited or updated. No new art and a whole slew of different things that just make the player run servers go down.</p><p>So that is a reason it is not as transparent. However, there are programs out there that can show you what is going on in combat in nice trackable graphs and charts. Look up ACT (Advanced Combat Tracker). Most people call it a parser, because that is what it mainly does.</p></blockquote><p> Please don't think I want this game hacked....I was just amazed that they are able to keep it so solid....were others have failed.</p><p>I a file resides on your computer it can be hacked...so I was just wonder how they keep most data on there end but keep lag low.</p>

[interstellarmatter]

<p>The only data that needs to reside on the client to reduce lag is</p><p>1) The artwork...which you can clearly find in your program directory</p><p>2) The core graphics engine.  Which is compiled in the exe.</p><p>Everything else can be kept on the server.  The downside is the downtime in upgrading the server.  They have to bring the server down to update it with all the new info.  Instead of just having you download all the files for an update.</p><p>Keeping on the server helps stop the emulators.</p>

[Korpo]

If you're looking just for whether this stacks with that, most of it can be verified by downloading a modded Persona window that shows practically every stat in the game.