harmony destroys servers

[Lysander]

Agnus, you sound like a butthurt Apple fanboy - overpaying for unnecessary features (that have been proven to not work properly), then gloating about your purchase to those that couldn't care less because they know it's a piece of crap. It's amusing you're getting upset at everyone bashing a product you put so much money into. Just because you paid $200 for it does not mean it's worth that, but hey, if it makes you feel high and mighty, more power to you.

On another note, why is it you've only used one person who didn't really even have that huge of an issue to build an argument? Not to mention the fact that Aurora very blatantly said to Sirius, to whom she was also polite, that it very well may have not been Harmony, she had simply been stating the fact that all she's ever run in to with it was issues.

But to see your first ever post be so butthurt was rather entertaining. I hope to see more from you.

[Agnus Dei]

Alright so you rather want frequent cheaters than an actual software that prevents some of them. You are by that thought actually supporting cheaters. RO will be all about the race to who is cheating more than the others =) sounds fun.

[Triper]

Agnus Dei, you may try to make people look retarded and you be the hero but you're just saying words when others have experience after XYZ servers with it and everybody that is post here know others/have evidence to corroborate that said words while you just have a small evidence of "It's working for me now, dunno why you're qqing".
Is your server on? How many months? Who is it aimed too? You've people who play WoE/PvP/BG serious?
It's this answers that make a difference. You know, if there wasn't even serious players at any game online this tools weren't even need since nobody would probably cheat or try to achive stuff easier or to look good throught them. If there wasn't even serious players and just casual players then every game looked like perfect until it got boring and people would change to another game.
People may hate but without someone being hardcore and playing every game pushing them to the limit you would never find that stuff can be better, improved and have flaws that need to be fixed.
It's the same reason for why the games have options to be chosen according pc, nothing is perfect, nobody plays by the same rules.
If you want to corroborate your talking then show us proof and answer the questions I ask and tell us, players, why is harmony better then others if people can evade such protection when playing serious and want to be better then the others that also use the same said tools.
Yes, there are players that don't use any tool that give players some advantage, others that use small grf edits to not lag that much or to fix some stuff that should be fixed by gravity and not be anti-player friend[as me] and others that just play the game for pvm fun but the world isn't perfect so not everybody plays the game for the same objective and play fair and square.

I still say that Harmony isn't super bad when configured by someone that knows who is doing but is just that, a plain ok.
People used to bot with ancient tools from the KORE forum[or whatever is the name of it, I don't remember it now and I'm lazy to check it] and now use AHK and other macro tools adapted to it because of this and other protection tools. Maybe is not in the right track at 100% but is going on the right track, the problem is just that while players evolve and change, software needs too and harmony need one too and the proof is that people still can bypass it nowadays without much effort[maybe it isn't that easy as it sounds but isn't super hard].

[leokimah]

Another thread that kills this game more by the minute =)

LOL. If you really think so...

Agree with the properly configuration statement.
I've played servers with it well configured and servers with it not at all. The second isn't very pretty lets leave it at that.

I know i've kinda bashed the program with my recent post, but it's really not a bad software (I wouldn't pay $200 for it personally) and i apologize for some statements i've made.

If there was a good lite version that didn't heavily cause problems it would be amazing. Even though i have not experienced most of the issues a lot of people here are having.

[Agnus Dei]

Agnus Dei, you may try to make people look retarded and you be the hero but you're just saying words when others have experience after XYZ servers with it and everybody that is post here know others/have evidence to corroborate that said words while you just have a small evidence of "It's working for me now, dunno why you're qqing".
Is your server on? How many months? Who is it aimed too? You've people who play WoE/PvP/BG serious?
It's this answers that make a difference. You know, if there wasn't even serious players at any game online this tools weren't even need since nobody would probably cheat or try to achive stuff easier or to look good throught them. If there wasn't even serious players and just casual players then every game looked like perfect until it got boring and people would change to another game.
People may hate but without someone being hardcore and playing every game pushing them to the limit you would never find that stuff can be better, improved and have flaws that need to be fixed.
It's the same reason for why the games have options to be chosen according pc, nothing is perfect, nobody plays by the same rules.
If you want to corroborate your talking then show us proof and answer the questions I ask and tell us, players, why is harmony better then others if people can evade such protection when playing serious and want to be better then the others that also use the same said tools.
Yes, there are players that don't use any tool that give players some advantage, others that use small grf edits to not lag that much or to fix some stuff that should be fixed by gravity and not be anti-player friend[as me] and others that just play the game for pvm fun but the world isn't perfect so not everybody plays the game for the same objective and play fair and square.

I still say that Harmony isn't super bad when configured by someone that knows who is doing but is just that, a plain ok.
People used to bot with ancient tools from the KORE forum[or whatever is the name of it, I don't remember it now and I'm lazy to check it] and now use AHK and other macro tools adapted to it because of this and other protection tools. Maybe is not in the right track at 100% but is going on the right track, the problem is just that while players evolve and change, software needs too and harmony need one too and the proof is that people still can bypass it nowadays without much effort[maybe it isn't that easy as it sounds but isn't super hard].

Alright someone who at least answers appropriately. You can think whatever you want about me, I couldn't care less but thats not really the issue here. I've had harmony configured very well on my previous server and it did work very well. I do have experience with harmony not working well when I tried to add harmony + project alchemy and eAmod at the same time. Back to the topic. You've mentioned GRF edits and in the harmony faq it clearly states that it blocks illegal modifications ( https://harmonize.it/faq#faq_15 ). Then you mentioned AHK of which Sirius_White answered earlier that it's not in harmonys listings. He answered and quoted:

$200 for a program that takes me about 3 minutes to completely bypass? You are getting ripped off pretty bad here.You can still ahk with this program either way ...

Take a look at https://harmonize.it/faq#faq_11 please. AHK is not listed in the features section for a reason.

By saying that harmony is bypassed by using AHK is by this post clearly not possible since harmony don't have protection against it. There are other varieties of cheating that is blocked by harmony tho. What I am saying is that it's better with some being removed than none at all. Ofc the scenario of all kinds of cheating would be disabled. The trick is to encourage that a potential protection for macros is made then, if I am interpreting you correctly? 

[Sirius_White]

rumor has it that having kaite on someone makes harmony's anti-speedhack go nuts and lag everybody because of the wierd wave graphic. does this have any basis in truth?

Graphic effects have no influence on Harmony. Plus Kaite isn't much of a special case in RO and Harmony does not handle Kaite specifically. I doubt that it causes lag.

when I used homunculus or mercenary AI in the past on lumina, harmony would think I was speedhacking and kick me from the server. has this been addressed?

Probably, alot of issues with speedhack detections have been fixed since back then. I'm using Homunculus AI stuff pretty extensively myself, haven't had problems so far.

Usually 99% when servers allow ahk they are allowing autopot. How can you allow ahk and expect people to not autopot? LOL.

Main reason RoMedic and AHK are one setting. But I've seen such requests, even the other way around ("allow autopotting, but prevent any other hotkeys").

you arent gonna stop people from using romedic or ahk.

True. I've seen people building keyboard devices for the sole purpose of hotkeying.

That is not a small price to pay for a starting server.  Is there any reasonable refund terms or 30 day money back policies if the buyer cannot configure Harmony to the way they wanted or found the product isn't what they expected it to be?

In general, yes. Refund rate depends on the degree of support provided, usually between $100 and $200.

If not, isn't there a huge risk to take when paying down this amount of money for an unknown product?  Is there a trial period or trial package to let potential buyer know what they are getting?

Not officially, but it's a case-by-case decision.

Seeing many servers just die within 1-3 months and the money got to waste like that.  I would think a monthly charge of $10~20 is more reasonable.  A lifetime price model does not fit the current RO "business" model at all.

Because it's pretty much a lifetime thing for me. 80% of the support efforts are within the first month. Suggestion noted though, I've been considering different licensing models for a while now.

Is the license resell-able or transferable?  What can someone get out of their lifetime license after they no longer host a RO server?  A lifetime license for software products like IPB are resell-able and transferable.

The license is officially bound to the customer, not a server. Reselling and transferring is not officially supported, but I can't prevent it anyway. I don't really mind if a license is passed on, as long as the required support is within fair boundaries. Someone selling his license and expecting me to provide 10 hours of setup support would be an example of unfair support usage.

players evolve and change, software needs too and harmony need one too

Yep.

[Triper]

@Agnus Dei: No it doesn't, I've used them before and no block if you know what you're doing. In fact it's so easy as one of the ways is using another grf that overrides the data of the grf used.
Harmony still checks for edits in the grf that don't exist but ignores the fact that there is another grf that overrides the grf that he needs to take in consideration but the encrypt of the grf is a cool thing just not good enough ;( Misses a ini check.

What I'm saying is that it works half ok but fails in what it says/claims because if we take into consideration the actual tools it kinda tell people lies since it's announced as an anti-bot[and more stuff but let's just look at this part for now] but it fails when people can use AHK to bot and other stuff. Yes, it's good be 50% secure then 0 but still... it's XXI century, people that know what they're doing know that using tools of last century sucks and they need to use actual stuff and then it fails hard in that aspect.

[yC]

Great answers Sirius_White.  Now I can see the problem with providing support all over again when the licenses are resellable/transferrable.  Maybe following the completion of your faq/knowledge base (I think I read somewhere that it is in progress...) it'll be less of a problem.

[Thoth]

Harmony still checks for edits in the grf that don't exist but ignores the fact that there is another grf that overrides the grf that he needs to take in consideration but the encrypt of the grf is a cool thing just not good enough ;( Misses a ini check.

I can add notexture grf to the ini and whatever just fine, but I couldn't overrun the stuff in the protected harmony grf. I got pissed about this kindof stuff once because it wouldnt let me change the frost joke text//scream text, hence ending my plans for psychological warfare.
being able to use custom grfs is important. for real competitive gvgs to happen, people need to be able to at least use some notexture and rcx or they'll just lag into oblivion.
if sirius wants to reduce the bad press, he should consider making the default settings to something that doesnt cripple woe.

does it stop most bots, wpe, and content stealing? theres always that one guy who's nuts enough to decrypt it, but you can change around the keys and use different ones for each server no?

[BooBooKitty]

$200 for a program that delivers what it says about protecting your grf and files and preventing hacks on your server is a fair price to pay.

However the issue lies with its compatibility with your server.  We used it on a previous server I was at and there were several issues that arose after beginning use of Harmony.  Many players were lost due to a server wipe which happened as a result of adding Harmony.

I think the cons out weigh the pros for most servers.  I've not personally heard of anyone having good results.

[BooBooKitty]

Not sure what everyone's problem is here, but for me and countless others, it worked as advertised, without issues, broke nothing, deleted nothing, and simply worked. I wouldn't dare dream of running servers without using Harmony on them.

It seems you were one of the lucky ones

As I stated, for what Harmony offers, its a great deal... If you can make it work with your server.
However, from personal experience and via others reviews, I still think the bad out weigh the good.

[DeePee]

Haven't had any real problems with Harmony. We've been running it for quite a while now and are reaching player counts of 1000+ (~350 vendors) without any real issues. There have been a few minor issues in the past, but updates are made quite often which solve these. What it exactly blocks in GRFs I believe is up to the server admins to decide. Some might block frostjoke, but you can pretty much decide not to, either. It's all down to how the server admin configures Harmony, pretty much.

It's not a perfect system, but it sure as hell helps reduce the amount of bots and other ways of cheating.

[Thoth]

Myself, Kisuka, TalonRO, LuminaRO, to name a few..

the head gm may be an airhead, but LuminaRO losing all its woe competition last january was NOT a good result.

[ragnazorg]

Myself, Kisuka, TalonRO, LuminaRO, to name a few..

Honestly, to me this boils down to people complaining about a system that does work, that you just have to take the time to adjust for your particular set up. Sirius provided two separate installations for me personally, and I performed the third with no problem, and had absolutely no issues that weren't brought on by myself. You can't expect to get optimal results if the hardware used isn't up to snuff, much in the same that you can't expect a car to get the best mileage using cheap, unleaded fuel.

Not sure what everyone's problem is here, but for me and countless others, it worked as advertised, without issues, broke nothing, deleted nothing, and simply worked. I wouldn't dare dream of running servers without using Harmony on them.

and my server too, add IntenseRO to the list.

[DeePee]

the head gm may be an airhead, but LuminaRO losing all its woe competition last january was NOT a good result.

From what I know, that was mainly due to bad management and not due to Harmony.