My theory on all this server crap - please read and comment!

[Orcus]

The last two days playing pso online have been a complete disaster. Lag is terrible, disconnections are not only frequent, but almost inevitable. I am a former d2 player, and blizzard once had a problem similar to these symptons and the problem was that hackers had sabotaged the servers. For this reason and the ones I note below, I believe that someone has, or has been trying, to hack the sega servers.

Besided the incredible lag and disconnections that I forementioned, five (5) very weird events lead me to this conclusion:

1. In the lobby, my guy started running around all by himself. I was not touching the controller and he was still running. I was able to make him fall down on purpose, but once he got up he started running again. It lasted for about 2-3 minutes. It was quite amusing actually.

2. I went into a game yesterday, and my character started talking by himself. He started saying things like WTF, and DIE, and then a bunch of blank messages. Once again very weird and quite amusing.

3. I was in another game, and someone joined. After waiting through the lag of nearly 5 minutes for the person to register as having joined the game, my screen all of a sudden flipped upside down. I was standing on the sky, and the forest was below me. I could not move from my spot, but I could move within the spot and access my menu. I was also able to talk to ppl and they were able to talk to me. It lasted for about 5 minutes before I decided to pull the phone cord out and disconnect myself before my dc reset and I lost some valuable stuff.

4. My equipped weapon kept changing on me. I had spread needle equipped, and next thing I know I was using my stag cutlery which was in my inventory. And then after a few minutes it switched back ? very weird

5. I called sega to find out wtf was going on, and they were very unimformative, almost secretive about it, as if they were attempting to prohibit information from leaking out to the press.

I have heard some people experience similar episodes of the running around the lobby, but has anyone else experienced any of the other wierd episodes on my list?

Before I get flamed, I should mention that my character is totally legit level 90 Humar, and every item on me and in my bank is legit. Also another note - before anyone asks - No i was not stoned or drunk, this really happened. lol

I welcome any comments, and or other theories. Thanks for listening

[Nynaeve]

On 2001-03-22 11:02, Orcus wrote:

3. I was in another game, and someone joined. After waiting through the lag of nearly 5 minutes for the person to register as having joined the game, my screen all of a sudden flipped upside down. I was standing on the sky, and the forest was below me. I could not move from my spot, but I could move within the spot and access my menu. I was also able to talk to ppl and they were able to talk to me. It lasted for about 5 minutes before I decided to pull the phone cord out and disconnect myself before my dc reset and I lost some valuable stuff.

Phew! I thought I was the only one this happened to! Last night I experienced this very same thing - I was on Forest Hard with another player, someone joined, next thing I knew I got thrown to another part of the Forest, my view switched to a first person mode, it looked like I was lying on the ground - the other player was calling for me to come back, I could type to him, I could set a pipe (I didnt' see it but he did when he came looking for me), I could talk to him and see him, access my Start screen menu, track him on the Area Map - he came looking for me, found the pipe I had just set, basically virtually stood on top of me, but did not see me or my stuff or anything. I quit the game which saved my char. normally, came back on and rejoined him - and didn't lose anything. Interesting.....

[TwiNCannoN]

Jesus, this game has some FRIGGED UP bugs. I mean, even the BSOD.. even though it has become famous, just stand back and look at it. The screen just turns BLACK, for no apparrent reason. w.. why? why not like, famous windows-blue? or just lock up then and there? Or disconnect you? how it is an UNSOLVABLE PROBLEM so sayeth sega?

/boggle

[Aberu]

dang man you had lotsa bad luck, i dont know exactly if this is a hacker but it may be possible the only thing is is that it would be way harder to hack into a dreamcast game than it would a computer game (as far as the servers go) and for your person walking around by themselves, that is a loading error, if you noticed it only happens after someone has jus joined the lobby. it happened to me a few times so i noticed that... i have experienced long load time for other characters in teams, dang i i have experienced most of those but the ones that seem like pranks (as in moving your character an all) are probaby one of these two things. loading errors or sega workers having fun in the hubs (server workstations). they can do a lot in the hubs. well good luck on figurin out wut this is and tell me when you do find out!

[ReikenFeralsbane]

heh..maybe sega's fukin with us or something..havin some fun...
anywho the only nutty thing that happend to me was someone was talking using my chat bubble, only lasted a min.but still...it's my chat bubble for christ sake...

[Arsenal]

I had the running around thing happen to me the other day. I went into the lobby and the went into a game and he was just romping like a baby deer around the shop. I initally thought that it the contoller thing that happens with the N64 and the DC, so I restarted and came back on and all was fine. It was weird..and the lag has been terrible.. I couldn't even get on for about 2 hours yesterday. It would get stuck on the screen where you first come into the lobby and after about 10 minutes, I got tired and cut it off and played offline, which I must say, with a level 15 HUmar in the mines on normal is not that easy by yourself. Well..that is my spill, clean it up

[ReikenFeralsbane]

heh..maybe sega's fukin with us or something..havin some fun...
anywho the only nutty thing that happend to me was someone was talking using my chat bubble, only lasted a min.but still...it's my chat bubble for christ sake...

[Spasm]

I have every reason to believe PSO servers are at LEAST being attacked. Anyone with a broadband adapter can resolve the IPs of the servers, and proceed to flood them with DOS attacks. Who knows what they could do with port sniffers. Probably alter packets en-route to foul up your game in the ways you described.

The good news is, all of these attacks are prosacutable as a criminal offense, so as soon as the catch em, someone's going to jail.

[TwiNCannoN]

Holy god Reiken, you just double posted and the posts were FIVE minutes between each other.. that HAS to be a record.

[Samuel-Vimes]

Let?s see, the past two days I?ve experience:

Frequent Disconnection
Extremely long loading time.
Chracter running around by his or herself.