Publishing Global Offset XML File?

[EmilyStrange]

Clearly the offset/enumeration/structure should allow attaching of comments to describe what it is used for, e.g. STATIC_TARGET. Yeah, that's nice, but what is it and how do I use it? (don't tell me, I already know) The ability to attach "contains the GUID of the game object currently targeted by the player on the local game client" would be very useful.

Also, the database should support entering patterns of bytes for locating the TLS/player/pet/item name caches/etc that can just be plugged in your script to automatically hunt down the correct values.

[LegacyAX]

I do like the idea, having it so everyone can contribute to this 'global' file, making it truely 'public' or accessible by anyone even without an mmowned account I find a bit hasty... I think making it a bit less public would be the best bet, like having a certain rep or something of the sort. never the less id be happy to contribute what I could.

edit* anouther idea i had was instead of making it the updated offsets, rather make it a global XML with patterns for each address, id think it would be more 'cost' effective so it would only need to changed for big patches/changes. just an idea though.

[FenixTX2]

Having it so that only people with certain rep could read it would mean that the others would still fill the forums with questions about offsets. Perhaps make the whole memory-editing section protected. No Access untill you're read a certain set of posts (bookthread, how I handle Objects that sort of thing), no access untill a certain amount of time has passed and maybe a short quiz on programming.

[ramey]

It's a nice idea, but I hate the idea of relying on something. You will probably learn a lot more and benefit a lot more too if you make your own project which you can inject into a wow.exe and it will pattern find the offsets you need and then output an enum with like

enum eAddresses
{
Address_Pointer = 0x00000;
...
};

Or, you could create an IDA script, which does the same. Currently there are a lot of things which can be auto updated at patch, aslong as a pattern doesn't break, which is rare. For example, 3.2.2 I updated within 2 minutes with no manual work or looking here for VMT addresses for example.

I guess what I'm just trying to say is it's bad to rely on something that you don't need to

[wraithZX]

Or you insert the patterns and whatnot into your code, and forget about them until they break.
I only post my currently used offsets for the sake of others - function pointers and VMT indices are all determined at runtime upon launch - haven't had to really retrofit anything since 3.0 hit - just add new stuff when I decide to use it.

[ramey]

Originally Posted by wraithZX

Or you insert the patterns and whatnot into your code, and forget about them until they break.
I only post my currently used offsets for the sake of others - function pointers and VMT indices are all determined at runtime upon launch - haven't had to really retrofit anything since 3.0 hit - just add new stuff when I decide to use it.

Yeah, but I've got quite a lot of patterns and it takes a few seconds for it to inject so its starting to annoy me. Probably going to put them in a seperate project.

[Aleph]

Originally Posted by EmilyStrange

Finding offsets and updates is reasonably trivial if you have the proper tools

... and knowledge.

/signed

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is.”

I don't think that a offset file would be a valuable source of learning and if you take it away most of the folks would fall back into ignorance again.

Best resources for learning were: source code of people, who had done shitloads of research and some good articles on mmowned and gamedeception. All that stuff is just scattered a bit and takes some time digging to find the jewels ...

shutting down repetitive, ignorant questions would be rather easy:

• compiling the knowledge into a Wiki / FAQ and close those threads with a referrer like "read FAQ Question No. 283 ... WIKI article XY"
• hosting of an open source offset dumper / IDA Scripts with some articles
• hosting of an open source sample application (object dumper, radar, ... whatever)

it's more about gathering/finding/compiling good learning resources like articles and source code and give them a "starter's kit"

[Cypher]

Originally Posted by Aleph

... and knowledge.

/signed

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is.”

I don't think that a offset file would be a valuable source of learning and if you take it away most of the folks would fall back into ignorance again.

Best resources for learning were: source code of people, who had done shitloads of research and some good articles on mmowned and gamedeception. All that stuff is just scattered a bit and takes some time digging to find the jewels ...

shutting down repetitive, ignorant questions would be rather easy:

• compiling the knowledge into a Wiki / FAQ and close those threads with a referrer like "read FAQ Question No. 283 ... WIKI article XY"
• hosting of an open source offset dumper / IDA Scripts with some articles
• hosting of an open source sample application (object dumper, radar, ... whatever)

it's more about gathering/finding/compiling good learning resources like articles and source code and give them a "starter's kit"

I disagree.

The repetitive, ignorant questions have been on the rise recently, and whilst what you're suggesting would probably work, I think that it's going about it the wrong way.

People don't need to be spoonfeed an FAQ, if they're too lazy to track down the info I want (seriously, it's not hard, it's spread across two sites in highly-concentrated sections, both with forum search available) then they don't deserve anything.

The admins aren't willing to enforce a "no stupid questions" policy in this section, and a few of us got in trouble and got into a rather large fight with one of the admins when we took it upon ourselves to 'community-moderate' the section (i.e. scaring off the noobs).

The result of that was the section rules you see today, Apoc being tasked with actively patrolling the forums, and the aforementioned people (including myself) receiving infractions.

Quite honestly I think the section has "got what's coming" to it, simply because the newcomers are being "spoiled" and know they can get away with the constant spamming of stupid threads and questions.

Sure, before we got put on a tight leash there were still stupid questions, but there were less, and the people who asked them generally left very quickly due to their public humiliation. (Plus, we got to have a lot of fun)

I guess what I'm saying is, what you're suggesting will work in the short-term, but make things worse in the long-term. However I fail to see a long-term solution unless the admins are willing to do one of two things:
1. Implement strict rules for this section and actively enforce them.
2. Give us some more leash and allow some "community-moderation" as was the case previously.

/rant over

P.S. I'm speed-capped.

[jjaa]

Originally Posted by Cypher

I disagree.

The repetitive, ignorant questions have been on the rise recently, and whilst what you're suggesting would probably work, I think that it's going about it the wrong way.

People don't need to be spoonfeed an FAQ, if they're too lazy to track down the info I want (seriously, it's not hard, it's spread across two sites in highly-concentrated sections, both with forum search available) then they don't deserve anything.

The admins aren't willing to enforce a "no stupid questions" policy in this section, and a few of us got in trouble and got into a rather large fight with one of the admins when we took it upon ourselves to 'community-moderate' the section (i.e. scaring off the noobs).

The result of that was the section rules you see today, Apoc being tasked with actively patrolling the forums, and the aforementioned people (including myself) receiving infractions.

Quite honestly I think the section has "got what's coming" to it, simply because the newcomers are being "spoiled" and know they can get away with the constant spamming of stupid threads and questions.

Sure, before we got put on a tight leash there were still stupid questions, but there were less, and the people who asked them generally left very quickly due to their public humiliation. (Plus, we got to have a lot of fun)

I guess what I'm saying is, what you're suggesting will work in the short-term, but make things worse in the long-term. However I fail to see a long-term solution unless the admins are willing to do one of two things:
1. Implement strict rules for this section and actively enforce them.
2. Give us some more leash and allow some "community-moderation" as was the case previously.

/rant over

P.S. I'm speed-capped.

All in all i think the new rules have improved the section. Sure the old ways were fun (well i mainly just read the threads ) but you ended up having huge long winded threads were 90% of it was just arguing. In the short term that's fine. But once a thread goes to dust, and then someone who is actually dedicated enough to search for the information they want looks for something. They end up with a thread that takes them 5x longer to find what they want.

AFAIK Apoc is the only one who is really knowledgeable enough to moderate (correct me if i am wrong but this is the impression i get) this section correctly and work out what is crap and what is good information. Also i think "community-moderation" could get very messy. Depends on the implementation but.

P.S Get better interwebs you nub (or stop downloading so much p0rn!)

[wraithZX]

Considering the 3.2.2 info dump thread already has 1.5x as many views as the rules, I don't think saying it has "helped" is relevant.

Community moderation is not the answer - ego comes into it at some point down the line and it's game over at that point.

Unfortunately, there's no real solution that I can think of...

[Kuiren]

Originally Posted by jjaa

All in all i think the new rules have improved the section. Sure the old ways were fun (well i mainly just read the threads ) but you ended up having huge long winded threads were 90% of it was just arguing. In the short term that's fine. But once a thread goes to dust, and then someone who is actually dedicated enough to search for the information they want looks for something. They end up with a thread that takes them 5x longer to find what they want.

AFAIK Apoc is the only one who is really knowledgeable enough to moderate (correct me if i am wrong but this is the impression i get) this section correctly and work out what is crap and what is good information. Also i think "community-moderation" could get very messy. Depends on the implementation but.

P.S Get better interwebs you nub (or stop downloading so much p0rn!)

It's not that he has more knowledge(not that I'm questioning it.), it's that he can contain himself and be mature. *Looks at Cypher* Just kidding lol.

Moderators look bad flaming, period.


As for the above, you have to first find the goal you want to get a good end result. eg, Do you want the end result to be more knowledge shared between everyone? or do you want to not spoon fed the noobs and only have a selection of people who want to learn?

In this case, which development will be faster and more successful?


Of course I really shouldn't be talking because I'm not a programmer, just a Suparmawd.

[Apoc]

Hey now... I try my best!

On a serious note; I've been more lax as far as searching is concerned lately, due to the fact that the forum search is broken at the moment. (Eg; I haven't been infracting/deleting threads/posts immediately due to it)

However, as some already found out (ashleyyy) if you keep barraging this section with stupid questions that have been answered hundreds of times across 5 different sites, well, then I'm still a dick.

C'mon now... I let you guys have your freedom. I just step in every once in a while and clean threads up to keep them on topic.

As jjaa said; threads can be 10 pages of random dribble, and nothing about the actual topic of the thread. Which is why I'll step in and clean up threads. (If I remember correctly, there was one thread where I deleted 8 pages of responses because they just plain had nothing to do with the topic at hand.) I can give you some freedom, but in the end, I still need to do my job. If you have issues with how I'm doing things, by all means, let me know. I'm always up for some constructive criticism. If there's a reason why I can/can't do what you want, I'll let you know. (Eg; the searching issues)

I'm all for the idea of community moderation. However, if that moderation is flaming people until they leave, well, then that's a different story. I check these threads, often. If I see things getting way out of hand, I step in and clean up, infract users, and close/delete threads/posts. You guys have more freedom than you know. While I do delete the lolcats/motivationals/facepalm/etc pics regardless, that's only for your own protection. (Kurios will give you some hefty infracs, or I can just delete it.)

In short: I'm nice, until you piss me off. You guys actually have a very long leash, but I will snap it back if I need to.

If you guys want to start flagging down posts and whatnot, there's that nifty little report button up there ^. If you can't wait between reports (Cypher) then just MSN me, or PM me, or hell, just post in the thread, and I'll eventually see it.

@Kuiren;

We don't want to spoon-feed people who don't want to put in the work to understand why, and how things are the way they are. All that would create, is a giant cloud of idiots who don't know what to do with the tools they have, and we'll have a very large influx of horrible products mimicking each other. (See the new gather bot flood) Yes, we want people to learn, regardless of their skill level. However, as per the section rules (and bold header text in this section) certain skill level is required, and we don't take kindly to 'I'm new, how do I make a bot?' type questions. Especially when the question is "How do I find my health?". If we wanted to be a spoon-feeding, hand-holding, Teletubby group, we'd do that. But we're not. We're all developers, and reverse engineers. One of the more advanced niche's in programming, and computer science. If you can't help yourself, why should we help you?

[Kuiren]

Originally Posted by Apoc

Hey now... I try my best!

On a serious note; I've been more lax as far as searching is concerned lately, due to the fact that the forum search is broken at the moment. (Eg; I haven't been infracting/deleting threads/posts immediately due to it)

However, as some already found out (ashleyyy) if you keep barraging this section with stupid questions that have been answered hundreds of times across 5 different sites, well, then I'm still a dick.

C'mon now... I let you guys have your freedom. I just step in every once in a while and clean threads up to keep them on topic.

As jjaa said; threads can be 10 pages of random dribble, and nothing about the actual topic of the thread. Which is why I'll step in and clean up threads. (If I remember correctly, there was one thread where I deleted 8 pages of responses because they just plain had nothing to do with the topic at hand.) I can give you some freedom, but in the end, I still need to do my job. If you have issues with how I'm doing things, by all means, let me know. I'm always up for some constructive criticism. If there's a reason why I can/can't do what you want, I'll let you know. (Eg; the searching issues)

I'm all for the idea of community moderation. However, if that moderation is flaming people until they leave, well, then that's a different story. I check these threads, often. If I see things getting way out of hand, I step in and clean up, infract users, and close/delete threads/posts. You guys have more freedom than you know. While I do delete the lolcats/motivationals/facepalm/etc pics regardless, that's only for your own protection. (Kurios will give you some hefty infracs, or I can just delete it.)

In short: I'm nice, until you piss me off. You guys actually have a very long leash, but I will snap it back if I need to.

If you guys want to start flagging down posts and whatnot, there's that nifty little report button up there ^. If you can't wait between reports (Cypher) then just MSN me, or PM me, or hell, just post in the thread, and I'll eventually see it.

@Kuiren;

We don't want to spoon-feed people who don't want to put in the work to understand why, and how things are the way they are. All that would create, is a giant cloud of idiots who don't know what to do with the tools they have, and we'll have a very large influx of horrible products mimicking each other. (See the new gather bot flood) Yes, we want people to learn, regardless of their skill level. However, as per the section rules (and bold header text in this section) certain skill level is required, and we don't take kindly to 'I'm new, how do I make a bot?' type questions. Especially when the question is "How do I find my health?". If we wanted to be a spoon-feeding, hand-holding, Teletubby group, we'd do that. But we're not. We're all developers, and reverse engineers. One of the more advanced niche's in programming, and computer science. If you can't help yourself, why should we help you?

/Clap. Well said Apoc.

[ramey]

Perhaps an invite wiki is the way to go, or similar, like wiki and forums.

[FNOG]

Originally Posted by Robske

I'd rather not rely on third party for this. The leeching this promotes isn't exactly appealing either. Besides, it's a 30 minute job on max if you do everything by hand...

Can't wait till someone gets hold of that server and changes a pointer though (End of Text address comes to mind)

Edit: I am afraid that this will change the questions from "whats the G_ClientConnection offset" to "how do I use the G_ClientConnection offset"

Your right... Shareing with the community and teaching them how to use more advanced tech is wrong and EVIL.... We must NEVER allow people to have access to this information, because if we do.... something terrible might happen... people just might think of new ways of doing things and new lucrative exploits... that would indeed be very very bad.