Lloyd Korn shuts down MapleStory hackers.

I don't see how you can state that hackers help the community though.

Why do you think stuff inflates? It's because of supply and demand. When more meso comes into the game, stuff inflates. How does more meso come into the game? Wolf Spiders drop mesos? What? Meso-Sellers? What?

Deflation, why does that happen? More supply than demand? Why in the world would that happen to Ilbis, as people obviously need more than 30 sets in their backpack?

Look more at claw 30%, shield mattk 60%, chaos and white (though they drop due to events now) and such, then you'll see what hackers have done.

This is for anyone who thinks hackers help deflate economy:
Before I go into any deep analysis, there are a few facts that I would like you to remember:

1. There is a theoretically infinite amount of mesos being produced everyday. Amount of total MS mesos available is not limited per say compared to real life government money printing.

2. Merchants who buy low and resell high are still functioning on this total amount of mesos available in the game.

3. Mesos drop more often than items. i.e. you don't have 1 Ilbi drop per 1 meso generated. This implies that the ratio of mesos available to items present is always > 1, and let's say that this is constant, since drop rates are assumably constant, with or without hacks.

4. The only way we bring this infinitely accumulating supply of mesos as stated in (1) out of the game is through either exploding the mesos into thin air (i.e. Meso Explosion, Dueying mesos to a character and deleting the package), giving out the mesos to NPC (i.e. buying potions, Secret Spell Scroll), or conducting trade and allowing the tax system to effectively take however little mesos out of the game with each transaction.

5. The basic law of supply vs. demand in the sense of inflation is this: If demand is constant, and if there is more supply, then an increase in supply (shifts supply curve to the right) will cause a decrease in price. If all other things constant, when supply of a particular item stays the same, then on a personal basis, demand of that item increases when one is personally richer.

6. Gachapon increases supply without increasing demand, and causes deflation.

Now with those 6 points laid out, I will like you to consider all 6 at once in analogy with hackers.

Suppose a hacker hacks at Wolf Spiders for one night. From past figures obtained through talking with hackers, they generate about 20 mil raw mesos per hour. Because the drop rate is logically assumably constant for both hackers and non hackers, that means that however many Ilbis (let's take this as the item of interest to analyze here) that this hacker finds in an hour is the same amount of Ilbis that the legit player would find eventually after having made 20 mil raw mesos at Wolf Spiders. Basically, the hacker just kills a lot faster -> brings more mesos and more Ilbis into the game.

So how would this affect the game?

For one, over night, the total amount of Ilbis and mesos available to the market would have increased about 20 times as fast as it should have. That is, merchants now have +20 mil to play around with and merchant with instead of +1 mil (theoretically that's how much raw mesos someone might pick up at Wolf Spiders in an hour). So what does that mean? It means that merchants get richer faster. What do merchants do with those mesos once they get rich? They have more power to buy whatever they want. So what happens if merchants gain more power to buy whatever they want? It means the common folks who do not merchant find themselves squandering the FM for the next cheapest item that is still being bought out by more and more merchants.

But wait a second, why would this be any different if a legit player were to kill Wolf Spiders? Ilbis would be much rarer, and incoming mesos rate is lower too. So shouldn't prices be unaffected? Aha! You're forgetting one crucial thing! Unlike hackers, legit players do not actually have the same ratio of amount of mesos made / items found. Why? Because we need to buy potions! Ask any legit player who trains actively and keeps track of mesos picked up vs. potion costs. Most will tell you that they either spend more each repot or they barely break even. It is only cases of say level 14x+ hunting at Wolf Spiders when amount of raw mesos picked up < amount of money poured into NPC for potions.

In other words, hackers allow the total amount of mesos in the economy to vastly go boom because they do not take the mesos out of the game, whereas a normal player brings more items into the market with overall zero economic profit (meaning, they break even in terms of total costs and benefits).

That above being proven, then you may ask me...how do I explain the recent deflation and inflation? What has been actually happening to the market if what I say is true?

Well, being a merchant and MS market analyzer, here's an explanation for every single notable inflation/deflation event there has been lately:

Q: Why was Horntail skill books so expensive in the past and not anymore?
A: Having from suffered from hackers bringing in vast amount of mesos into the game, it means that overall, people who merchant at all are extremely rich and have a huge amount of mesos to play around with. This means that, with the initial release of Horntail, since the demand for higher leveled skill books are extremely high, those who won the competetion for the skill books are the rich people. However, because the number of people who needs skill books increases daily (i.e. more Bishops leveling up -> needing Gen 30), this demand never really quite goes down at the rate that Horntail was being killed. However, with the surge of Horntail killers and Gachapon Box events, that demand and supply level were met, and prices fell accordingly now that less people need the books.

Q: So hackers brought down prices for HT books like Gen 30. They cause deflation, right?
A: Right and wrong in this case. Horntail, unlike other monsters, do not give an overly high amount of mesos (just count the number of 50k bags after HT is killed. lol) in ratio of raw mesos picked up to items dropped. This means that Horntail hackers were actually bringing in much more items into the game without raw mesos...that causes deflation. However, this is only the case of Horntail hackers. You must not forget the argument made above and proven about regular monster hackers. Continuing on this point, because there was a booming rate of supply to meet this demand, prices for books gradually went down (Gen 30 went from 450 mil in Broa to 280 mil by end of Horntail hacking), with still the rich people controlling the market.

Q: So what about scroll prices and Ilbis?
A: When Ilbis were originally 35-40 mil each, they dropped from Spirit Vikings only. This was back then 2 years ago during the first hacking outbreak. Apply what was discussed earlier, and you should arrive at the answer of why they were so expensive.

Q: Following up, so how come those prices dropped?
A: With release of NLC, Wolf Spiders dropped Ilbis at the exact same drop rate as Lycans (don't ask me where I got this info from, but it isn't out of thin air. ) This would obviously lead to an increase in supply. From here it should be obvious why we got our first price dip on Ilbis from 35 to 20 mil.

Q: So how about the second price dip of Ilbis to 13 mil? And then the final one to 7-8 mil of today?
A: Substitution effect. When Crystal Ilbis and Phantom Forest came out, Icicles were about to be bought for a measely 2k per set, and the more powerful Crystal Ilbis were able to be forged. For the low leveled folks, this lowered demand for Kumbis and Tobis (which is why Tobis went from 1.5 mil to 700k). Since star prices are all rather relative of each other due to the substitution effect, Steelies prices fell too (in conjunction with the fact that Leprechauns spit them out like candy to a baby too), and so did Ilbi prices. To reply to Stereo's post below, Crystal Ilbis was also something that allowed the higher levels an alternative to Ilbis, however, because each set of Crystal Ilbis required a set of Ilbis to make, it does not affect the overall stars economy by too much, except that the richer are pouring out more mesos per set bought, and that in itself leads to more mesos being brought out of the game due to the tax per transaction -> overall deflation. The last and final price dip is caused by the ability to easily create Balanced Fury Throwing Stars with the release of Taos from Gachapon event and then CWK PQ. Again, your basic substitution effect that Stereo explains nicely below.

Q: What explains the most recent deflation and inflation on certain scrolls (Cape prices dropping fast, while a few other dark scroll prices are soaring like crazy)?
A: For one, with the abundance of Chaos Scrolls, regular stat cape scrolls are demanded a lot less, so their prices are on the ever decline. Weapon specific scroll prices are soaring through the roof because of upcoming anniversary event and anticipation to scroll more weapons. However, generic scrolls like Glove ATK, Earring INT/DEX/LUK, OA DEX/INT/LUK are still fairly constant in price because of the relatively unchanged demand and supply.

Q: What should we expect to see in the future?
A: More deflation, if Nexon is on top of things. It is generally in their best interest to make things affordable for everyone. Reasons for that: cheaper scrolls and other "valuable" goods promotes better equipments and higher damage, which in turn leads to faster leveling and a more enjoyable experience of the game. More happy players = more NX buyers and less quitters = more money for Nexon. As we have seen in the last 4 months or so, Gach Box events was an obvious attempt to crumble the grips of merchants on the economy, the lately increased banning of hackers and meso sellers and this latest Gach Box event is bringing down prices even more. CWK PQ bonus awards some of the most sought-after skill books and players are no longer required to pay a hefty amount of mesos for them through HT killers. I would say it's pretty obvious at what Nexon is trying to do.

Just ask the merchants. They will tell you about the deflation they all feel (hell I feel it, that's why I'm selling certain things as fast as I could), and they will tell you how much they hate Nexon for Gach Box events.

Perhaps one day they will also sense how much more difficult it is to merchant without hackers inflating the economy...hm...I'm feeling that already. Is it a coincidence that they are being massively permanently banned? :o

The real reason Ilbis don't cost as much as they used to is because they're not the best star anymore.

Nobody aims to fill their inventory with Ilbis. If they have big money, they go for Crystal Ilbis and Balanced Furies, which stresses other things (Black Crystals are currently the primary component of B.Fury on Bera at about 20mil per forge for a 27mil item) More monsters drop Black Crystals than drop Ilbis, and of course Jump hackers probably deflated Black Crystal quite a bit, but even so... Ilbis are not being stockpiled anymore. They get resold because they can be replaced.

Plus of course Steelys drop from very popular 2nd job monsters (Leprechaun and the MP3 ghosts), meaning anybody can hunt those up and use them, making Ilbis less in demand.


I studied some of the meso seller techniques and I'd say a decent estimate is that they were pulling in 25mil mesos per hour per character. If they use half a dozen characters, that's 3.6 billion a day. I'm sure that influences the market more than any stars some hackers find >_>

 quote from mystichle

Still editing. Posted already to not lose information.

This is for anyone who thinks hackers help deflate economy:
Before I go into any deep analysis, there are a few facts that I would like you to remember:

1. There is a theoretically infinite amount of mesos being produced everyday. Amount of total MS mesos available is not limited per say compared to real life government money printing.

2. Merchants who buy low and resell high are still functioning on this total amount of mesos available in the game.

3. Mesos drop more often than items. i.e. you don't have 1 Ilbi drop per 1 meso generated. This implies that the ratio of mesos available to items present is always > 1, and let's say that this is constant, since drop rates are assumably constant, with or without hacks.

4. The only way we bring this infinitely accumulating supply of mesos as stated in (1) out of the game is through either exploding the mesos into thin air (i.e. Meso Explosion, Dueying mesos to a character and deleting the package), giving out the mesos to NPC (i.e. buying potions, Secret Spell Scroll), or conducting trade and allowing the tax system to effectively take however little mesos out of the game with each transaction.

5. The basic law of supply vs. demand in the sense of inflation is this: If demand is constant, and if there is more supply, then an increase in supply (shifts supply curve to the right) will cause a decrease in price. If all other things constant, when supply of a particular item stays the same, then on a personal basis, demand of that item increases when one is personally richer.

6. Gachapon increases supply without increasing demand, and causes deflation.

Now with those 6 points laid out, I will like you to consider all 6 at once in analogy with hackers.

Suppose a hacker hacks at Wolf Spiders for one night. From past figures obtained through talking with hackers, they generate about 20 mil raw mesos per hour. Because the drop rate is logically assumably constant for both hackers and non hackers, that means that however many Ilbis (let's take this as the item of interest to analyze here) that this hacker finds in an hour is the same amount of Ilbis that the legit player would find eventually after having made 20 mil raw mesos at Wolf Spiders. Basically, the hacker just kills a lot faster -> brings more mesos and more Ilbis into the game.

So how would this affect the game?

For one, over night, the total amount of Ilbis and mesos available to the market would have increased about 20 times as fast as it should have. That is, merchants now have +20 mil to play around with and merchant with instead of +1 mil (theoretically that's how much raw mesos someone might pick up at Wolf Spiders in an hour). So what does that mean? It means that merchants get richer faster. What do merchants do with those mesos once they get rich? They have more power to buy whatever they want. So what happens if merchants gain more power to buy whatever they want? It means the common folks who do not merchant find themselves squandering the FM for the next cheapest item that is still being bought out by more and more merchants.

But wait a second, why would this be any different if a legit player were to kill Wolf Spiders? Ilbis would be much rarer, and incoming mesos rate is lower too. So shouldn't prices be unaffected? Aha! You're forgetting one crucial thing! Unlike hackers, legit players do not actually have the same ratio of amount of mesos made / items found. Why? Because we need to buy potions! Ask any legit player who trains actively and keeps track of mesos picked up vs. potion costs. Most will tell you that they either spend more each repot or they barely break even. It is only cases of say level 14x+ hunting at Wolf Spiders when amount of raw mesos picked up < amount of money poured into NPC for potions.

In other words, hackers allow the total amount of mesos in the economy to vastly go boom because they do not take the mesos out of the game, whereas a normal player brings more items into the market with overall zero economic profit (meaning, they break even in terms of total costs and benefits).

That above being proven, then you may ask me...how do I explain the recent deflation and inflation? What has been actually happening to the market if what I say is true?

Well, being a merchant and MS market analyzer, here's an explanation for every single notable inflation/deflation event there has been lately:

Q: Why was Horntail skill books so expensive in the past and now anymore?
A: Having from suffered from hackers bringing in vast amount of mesos into the game, it means that overall, people who merchant at all are extremely rich and have a huge amount of mesos to play around with. This means that, with the initial release of Horntail, since the demand for higher leveled skill books are extremely high, those who won the competetion for the skill books are the rich people. However, because the number of people who needs skill books increases daily (i.e. more Bishops leveling up -> needing Gen 30), this demand never really quite goes down at the rate that Horntail was being killed.

Q: So hackers brought down prices for HT books like Gen 30. They cause deflation, right?
A: Right and wrong in this case. Horntail, unlike other monsters, do not give an overly high amount of mesos (just count the number of 50k bags after HT is killed. lol) in ratio of raw mesos picked up to items dropped. This means that Horntail hackers were actually bringing in much more items into the game without raw mesos...that causes deflation. However, this is only the case of Horntail hackers. You must not forget the argument made above and proven about regular monster hackers. Continuing on this point, because there was a booming rate of supply to meet this demand, prices for books gradually went down (Gen 30 went from 450 mil in Broa to 280 mil by end of Horntail hacking), with still the rich people controlling the market.

Q: So what about scroll prices and Ilbis?
A: When Ilbis were originally 35-40 mil each, they dropped from Spirit Vikings only. This was back then 2 years ago during the first hacking outbreak. Apply what was discussed earlier, and you should arrive at the answer of why they were so expensive.

Q: Following up, so how come those prices dropped?
A: With release of NLC, Wolf Spiders dropped Ilbis at the exact same drop rate as Lycans (don't ask me where I got this info from, but it isn't out of thin air. ) This would obviously lead to an increase in supply. From here it should be obvious why we got our first price dip on Ilbis from 35 to 20 mil.

Q: So how about the second price dip of Ilbis to 13 mil? And then the final one to 7-8 mil of today?
A: Substitution effect. When Crystal Ilbis and Phantom Forest came out, Icicles were about to be bought for a measely 2k per set, and the more powerful Crystal Ilbis were able to be forged. For the low leveled folks, this lowered demand for Kumbis and Tobis (which is why Tobis went from 1.5 mil to 700k). Since star prices are all rather relative of each other due to the substitution effect, Steelies prices fell too (in conjunction with the fact that Leprechauns spit them out like candy to a baby too), and so did Ilbi prices. To reply to Stereo's post below, Crystal Ilbis was also something that allowed the higher levels an alternative to Ilbis, however, because each set of Crystal Ilbis required a set of Ilbis to make, it does not affect the overall stars economy by too much, except that the richer are pouring out more mesos per set bought, and that in itself leads to more mesos being brought out of the game due to the tax per transaction -> overall deflation. The last and final price dip is caused by the ability to easily create Balanced Fury Throwing Stars with the release of Taos from Gachapon event and then CWK PQ. Again, your basic substitution effect that Stereo explains nicely below.

Q: What explains the most recent deflation and inflation on certain scrolls (Cape prices dropping fast, while a few other dark scroll prices are soaring like crazy)?
A: For one, with the abundance of Chaos Scrolls, regular stat cape scrolls are demanded a lot less, so their prices are on the ever decline. Weapon specific scroll prices are soaring through the roof because of upcoming anniversary event and anticipation to scroll more weapons. However, generic scrolls like Glove ATK, Earring INT/DEX/LUK, OA DEX/INT/LUK are still fairly constant in price because of the relatively unchanged demand and supply.

Maybe you should make a thread? or use spoilers...

one of the things i find that most effects the market is monopoly. people use their money to buy every single instance of 1 item in fm. then wait a few days while scraping up new occuring scrolls, then selling them for double or triple the price they were.

hackers really only affect the market either this way or through ore pq botting. this is disregarding any skill book prices.

Like many has already stated, whats going down must've gone up in the first place. When scania started out, a 12 def panlid (super uber shield back then) were gone for 50k. It inflates quickly due to hackers being able to farm meso non-stop. A major source of meso comes from hackers. That's what inflates the economy badly. They hunt at wolf spider, not for the ilbies but for the great meso drops.

Sure they deflate some items, but it was their artificial stimulation that skyrocketting things in the first place.

He is finding a new host for CEF in another country that does not have the DMCA laws.

Lloyd Korn attacked CEF by threatening the host, which make the hoster panic and stop hosting for Dark Byte.

Precisely my point, this is chilling free speech. That is not the intent of the DMCA nor is it a proper application of said law. The host is a peach for crumbling so easily without proof of copyright on certain articles (because you CANNOT use the Terms of Service as an argument in a DMCA complaint, that's a completely separate matter from copyright) such as Cheat Engine. They do not hold the rights to Cheat Engine. Nothing they hold the rights to is directly affected by Cheat Engine. Cheat Engine is a general purpose application that does not include any of Nexon's proprietary material - modified or otherwise.

Furthermore, this is causing provable damage to a party. Would you like to foot the bill to do what DarkByte is doing because Nexon is being overly zealous in its copyright infringement claims? No, you wouldn't. And you shouldn't have to.

In short, I hope Nexon gets it before someone has the resources to fight back. I'm not a lawyer, but even by the most reasonable current copyright law standards, this goes too far.

Private servers affect me in no way so I really do not care about them.

Incorrect. Even if you've never played on one, apparently they're "doing so much damage to Nexon" (even though this does not logically make sense) that Nexon is struggling to become, you know, a company that cares. That does affect every user playing the game. Whether or not that's a positive thing is another matter entirely.

EDIT:

I find this arguement that Nexon isn't within their rights to do what they are doing humorous. Maybe the challenges would hold up in court, maybe they wouldn't, but what is wrong with trying? It is blatantly obvious that the other side is causing harm to not only Nexon, but us as players. We should be thankful Nexon is taking out the stops to stop this.

When you get on a gun and step on the battlefield don't be surprised when the other side starts shooting at you. These hackers have gone to war with Nexon and now Nexon is returning fire. You may not like it, but that is the way it is.

They're within their rights to send copyright infringement notices to Cheat Engine's host and DarkByte. They exceed this boundary the second they mention the ToS and things that they do not have the copyright to (such as Cheat Engine itself). I've already specified WHY your mentality is a dangerous one. It's dangerous because you aren't caring about the future. Can you picture the precedent set when a gaming company says, "Well, hey. You know what? I don't like what you're talking about. Take it down or see us in court." Yeah, it might work for now. Nexon might never abuse this power. But eventually someone will. The fact is that when you give up rights, you can't take them back without a long, arduous, hollow fight. And this isn't about copyright, it's about the right to speech.

How about this one? Nexon is going to war with free speech.

After repeatedly being KS'ed by hackers at Big Foot, Anego, and Headless Horseman I have absolutely no remorse for hackers and the people/sites/institutions that make or promote them. Hackers are bad for the game. We don't want them. We aren't sorry for them or the sites that promote them. We are glad Nexon is playing hardball.

On the arguement that "Nexon should improve their game" to shut down private servers. That has got to be one of the most ridiculous statements I have heard. Nexon is improving there game, but no matter how much they improved it Private Servers would exist as long as they were allowed too regardless of the quality of Nexon's product. Private Servers exist because players want to altar the game experience. They want to take the short cut to getting to 200. I don't have a problem with private servers and player continued environments after the game has been discontinued and abandoned. As long as the company is still servicing the game allowing PS to exist simply is a cancer taking away from the game.

OH, okay. So it's okay for them to try to destroy free speech because you've been KSed a couple times. That makes perfect sense.

Free speech isn't about protecting popular speech (e.g. I don't like hackers, they ruin the game), it's about protecting unpopular speech (DarkByte's RIGHT to make and distribute Cheat Engine). Popular speech doesn't need protecting. Nobody cares if you have remorse for them, but if you don't respect and defend their rights, there will be nobody left by the time things come around to your rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

Thread officially Godwin'd.

FYI, don't talk about stuff you don't know about. I'm very familiar with private servers. Most people there are only there because they have complaints about Nexon. Some are stupid, i.e. "they won't let me hack," but the majority of the reasons involve how they run their game.

The fact that power guilds can KS for countless hours and get no bans (even after repeated offenses that Nexon took action on), the fact that their customer service is slow and automated ticket responses fly out left and right, and their next-to-0 GM presence... These combine to make up the majority of the reasons why people seek alternatives in the first place.

Would private servers exist if they improve enough? Yes. Would there be a lot of support for them? Not on your life.

Also, this man knows what he's talking about:

post

Pushing hackers underground means less hackers, but harder to patch hacks.

Then again, Nexon doesn't patch hacks regularly anyways, so I suppose it doesn't matter.

I don't see how you can state that hackers help the community though.

Why do you think stuff inflates? It's because of supply and demand. When more meso comes into the game, stuff inflates. How does more meso come into the game? Wolf Spiders drop mesos? What? Meso-Sellers? What?

Hackers bot at Wolf Spiders on every channel (or at least they used to). Yes they make many mesos just from the drops, which does cause inflation because the value of the meso is decreased and because there is then more money circulating. I know economics.

I was talking about the deflation aspect. I did mention that they are both good and bad for the game. I never said they were only good. I know they are bad because they do cause inflation and they steal channels and stuff.

However, they are good because their botting finds an abundance of rare items, which causes deflation, which helps the average buyer. This sucks for merchants, but is good for the average player. That is why hackers can be seen as helpful and not helpful at the same time.

Free speech isn't about protecting popular speech (e.g. I don't like hackers, they ruin the game), it's about protecting unpopular speech (DarkByte's RIGHT to make and distribute Cheat Engine). Popular speech doesn't need protecting. Nobody cares if you have remorse for them, but if you don't respect and defend their rights, there will be nobody left by the time things come around to your rights.

How does free speech apply to software? Particularly software that attacks other software and affects how it runs? What exactly is he saying? Why does he need to use software to communicate his "ideas"?

How does free speech apply to software? Particularly software that attacks other software and affects how it runs? What exactly is he saying? Why does he need to use software to communicate his "ideas"?

It's not free speech literally, it's his right to freedom of expression. Cheat Engine is a learning tool more or less, not just what you seem to view it as. Cheat Engine doesn't "attack" anything. :<

FYI: GameGuard is more dangerous than Cheat Engine any day. Ask anyone who knows it inside and out.

It's not free speech literally, it's his right to freedom of expression. Cheat Engine is a learning tool more or less, not just what you seem to view it as. Cheat Engine doesn't "attack" anything. :<

FYI: GameGuard is more dangerous than Cheat Engine any day. Ask anyone who knows it inside and out.

I hope you're more talking about its rootkit-like behavior and not its potential to boot someone off the game and red-flag them on a false positive.

I hope you're more talking about its rootkit-like behavior and not its potential to boot someone off the game and red-flag them on a false positive.

Perhaps both!
Not to mention it's potential to create logs of everything on your computer and send it all to Nexon, and to think you agreed to it all in the ToS. All it's missing is a keylogger.

XD

It's not free speech literally, it's his right to freedom of expression. Cheat Engine is a learning tool more or less, not just what you seem to view it as. Cheat Engine doesn't "attack" anything. :<

FYI: GameGuard is more dangerous than Cheat Engine any day. Ask anyone who knows it inside and out.

Great for him!

Now he can express his freedom of expression somewhere were it wont' affect my freedom of expression.

Great for him!

Now he can express his freedom of expression somewhere were it wont' affect my freedom of expression.

Cheat Engine has nothing to do with your freedom of expression, nor does DarkByte. Neither is used to make MapleStory hacks. :<

Cheat Engine has nothing to do with your freedom of expression, nor does DarkByte. Neither is used to make MapleStory hacks. :<

he's however arguing in the favor of letting CEF keep it's MS section.

D:<

he's however arguing in the favor of letting CEF keep it's MS section.

D:<

Actually, I think a few misguided souls got it wrong. He said he's not going to keep it open. XD

Actually, I think a few misguided souls got it wrong. He said he's not going to keep it open. XD

D: my poor misguided soul. XD

eh if he's not keeping it open then CEF can go back.

D: my poor misguided soul. XD

eh if he's not keeping it open then CEF can go back.

Yep.

Just to inform you, that the old cheat engine site will be back eventually (can take a few days or few weeks)

Also, there won't be a maple section anymore. Just to clear that up.

This definitely won't stop them, though. People are still trying to open MS-related topics. :<

How does free speech apply to software? Particularly software that attacks other software and affects how it runs? What exactly is he saying? Why does he need to use software to communicate his "ideas"?

How is writing software NOT speech?

Since you didn't look through the DeCSS link I provided, I'll quote it for your convenience.

This finding is contrary to that of the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals, who ruled in the Bernstein cryptography case that source code is indeed protected speech.

The EFF's site doesn't seem to be working very well at the moment, but when it's functioning properly, you can do more reading: http://www.eff.org/cgi/search-proxy.py?q...Search+EFF

Even if it wasn't protected speech, it's still a form of expression. This is a blatant attempt to control what he can and cannot do even though it has nothing to do with their copyrighted work.

Cheat Engine does nothing on its own, especially attacking other software. You can open it and run it all day long and it won't touch a single thing on your machine. Even if it did, the person running it knows full well what it is and is running it on THEIR MACHINE. You know, WHICH THEY OWN. WHICH ISN'T THE PROPERTY OF NEXON.

Novel concept. If Nexon wants that much control over what runs on your machine, they need to make it clear that they request that level of control in a contract. Not hidden among legalese. The point is that they're supposed to be understandable to ordinary people.

They're actually at an advantage in this respect, because they don't sell MapleStory's software. Other software vendors would need to prompt at the point of sale, but there is no point of sale for MapleStory's software.

And that is completely irrelevant to the argument at hand. It doesn't matter what Cheat Engine does - it matters that there is no possible copyright infringement argument in even the most ludicrous scenario I can dream up.

You might choose to express yourself with a paintbrush, you might choose to express yourself with T-shirts, you might choose to express yourself with music, I express myself with code. There's no difference. It doesn't matter what the code does. It matters that it's speech.

Mondays' post about the Economy should literally be a sticky. You've pretty much answered most questions that have been lingering in my head for so long. A HUGE ty. I'm sure others will ty as well. ^_^