Where do we draw the line?

[CallakDW]

I've heard some disturbing news about sertain player Customizations. I don't mind if a player wants to modify their own client so that appearances change so much to them. (sound enhansements or even making dragons invisible and such)

But I recently caught wind of one paricular that allows you to change the size of allmost any object in the game including your charactor. I would have been ok with this accept for the fact that I also heard whatever size the client sees is also the size that the server sees. This allows the player to become big enough to not drown in the sea, or small enough to be able to pass through openings that they should not be able to. This makes Kutit form obsolete and in my opinion creates a possible disruption of emersion in the game for players that would rather not hack their client.

[Seranthor]

I've heard some disturbing news about sertain player Customizations. I don't mind if a player wants to modify their own client so that appearances change so much to them. (sound enhansements or even making dragons invisible and such)

But I recently caught wind of one paricular that allows you to change the size of allmost any object in the game including your charactor. I would have been ok with this accept for the fact that I also heard whatever size the client sees is also the size that the server sees. This allows the player to become big enough to not drown in the sea, or small enough to be able to pass through openings that they should not be able to. This makes Kutit form obsolete and in my opinion creates a possible disruption of emersion in the game for players that would rather not hack their client.

It is called /setscale, and unless someone tells you that they are using it then there is no way that you personally can see it. There are in fact limits to it, as I recall the smallest you can make yourself is 1/10th your normal size and I think the max is 2-3x your normal size. Hardly enough to prevent you from drowning unless its shallow water. Perhaps further research on the subject will answer any questions and allay any fears you may have about its use. It's also quite useful for looting that one mob in the pile of mobs that you just killed.

[CallakDW]

What I know of it comes from a guildee that has it. And these are the things he stated it can do. I'm just conserned of things like this that can effect game play for others, not just the client user.

I don't want some day to see an ancient dragon wedged in a redicuous place (because he can fit there on his client, but all I see is an ancient overlaying some other structure), or a biped suspended in the middle of the ocean (because he can survive it on his client and the server is accepting it). The obvious bugs that are allready visible in the game are hard enough on emersion without players purposly attempting them with hacks.

And this is just one example. If this is allowable, what else is going to be alowed?

[AA0]

One day? this has been allowed for 2.5 years. Just because you are only finding out about it now...

[CallakDW]

I took a 2 year break to go off to WoW in there, before that I never heard of it.

[Jayne]

it does affect another persons view of the game. It does allow people to do certain things that they can't normally do

[tramsan]

It is purely client-side. To the server you're still as large as life. Also, it seems that sometime over the past months the client started scaling your movement speed down (not up) with your size, so the only possible exploit is gone.

[CallakDW]

If what tramsan says is true, then I have no further argument here. Though I don't think the client scales your movement speed at all with your size, just your animation speed, due to the fact that it would look funny for a large creature to have the same pace as a smaller one. This can give it the elusion that you are moving faster or slower, but actually you are moving at exactly the same speed.

[tramsan]

No, Callak. At thimble size I most definitely barely move at all. You used to be able to move around as fast as normal when scaled down. My character peddles his legs just as fast as normal, but he doesn't even move as fast as his tiny little legs should carry him. Like I said, he barely moves at all.

Though I might be mistaken and this was just due to a slight incline I was trying to run up - just a few degrees steep. I haven't done very extensive testing on it, you might run as fast as normal on flat ground. This takes care of the small exploit just as well, though.

[Jayne]

Yes your run speed is normal, well at least when I used it

[Valornyx]

Setscale is an extremely useful command - it allows for the looting of stacked corpses, and shrinking of adult and ancient dragons that you may not otherwise be able to see around.

It also allows for the shrinking of mobs so that you can select one which is obscured by others but not the nearest one.

The areas that it allows "cheating" are in that an adult dragon can shrink himself/herself and thus walk through doors without khutit form - or shrink / enlarge the building itself to allow access to the machines - which now appear outside the walls.

It is client side only - certainly not server side - no one else can see what scale you have changed objects to.

You have to change a def file in order to use it - but the changes to do so were provided by the devs.

As a general rule, I often shrink adult and ancient dragons on my screen so as to be able to see around them .. especially after landing on a pad to find yourself in the middle of a dragon. I also use it very extensively when looting corpses - either shrinking looted corpses to get them out of the way or expanding little ones like necroflies so as to be able to find and select them.

As previously stated by someone else - a lot of us have been using this feature for years.

[CallakDW]

If it allows dragons or anything to pass where they should not otwerwise be able to then yes, it does affect the server, and what everyone else sees in the game. But that was what Tramsan was saying that it could not do if I'm not mistaking.

[tramsan]

No, it wasn't... Because collision detection is entirely client-side as well. It allows characters to pass where they "shouldn't" - but this isn't really a problem, since there's no great benefit to it than some time saved.

It does not compare to, for instance, being able to walk under water.

[CallakDW]

Playing devils advocate against my own argument:
There is also cenario that a ancient kutit could go into a place then shift back to dragon and accomplish the same effect.

So I guess other than making kutit form obsolete, there really isn't much point to this. Kind of a shame though, I kind of liked the idea of shape shifting dragons, but if no one is going to use it anymore.... *unhappy shrug* Kind of like turning off the environment so you don't have to use a sunscope.

[Seranthor]

CallakDW, as explained already by others there are many good uses for it. How would you recommend folks deal with the things they use it for if you succeed in getting it removed?

[CallakDW]

It's not the good uses that consern me it's the bad ones. But if you read my last post, you would realize that I'm realizing there isn't really much point in removing it anyway, because the same situation I'm worying about can be achieved in other ways. Besides, most of the issues that it helps with should be addressed by the devs in their own code. Like allowing players to select an option to destroy corpses.

[CallakDW]

For the first time since I started this thread, I just saw a dragon fly through a wall today. When I asked him how he did it, guess what his answer was? He was using this mod, and he flew through one of two slit windows in Augundell. These windows are too small for even a hatchling to fit through. This is the kind of stuff I was conserned about.

[tramsan]

Well, stop worrying. He saved maybe ten seconds and didn't harm anyone. When you see someone gaining an unfair advantage at the expense of someone else then you can start worrying.

[CallakDW]

If I see this happening all the time, I consider it at the expense of my gaming experience. But I guess no one cares about rollplaying or the physics of the world anymore. The more I see of this kind of stuff the more I want to give up MMORPGs all together, because everyone is just conserned about playing a game and making it easy instead of rollplaying it. Might as well go back to playing Oblivion huh? At least most of the time NPCs don't break game physics, and play their part as best as a computer can make them do it.

[Seranthor]

If I see this happening all the time, I consider it at the expense of my gaming experience. But I guess no one cares about rollplaying or the physics of the world anymore. The more I see of this kind of stuff the more I want to give up MMORPGs all together, because everyone is just conserned about playing a game and making it easy instead of rollplaying it. Might as well go back to playing Oblivion huh? At least most of the time NPCs don't break game physics, and play their part as best as a computer can make them do it.

NPCs breaking game physics? You mean like mobs that walk up cliffs, mobs that walk through walls, mobs that dont drown, mobs that run through trees?

If your desire is to see everyone, players AND NPCs alike follow the same rules of 'game physics' then perhaps your campaign should be to get a world model with collision detection.