4 ms·

Cheating in RuneScape is what got me into programming. There was a program called SCAR (I believe) that let you write automation scripts in Pascal. That was a l

by rcme 4y ago

Cheating in RuneScape is what got me into programming. There was a program called SCAR (I believe) that let you write automation scripts in Pascal. That was a lot of fun.

pohl 4y ago
Noticing that others were scripting their labor is what got me out of RuneScape.
voxic11 4y ago
same here, I used https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/awt/Robot.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/awt/Robot.htm...
jeremysalwen 4y ago
Same here! It was also my first programming "job". I sold 4 copies of my script for 10$ each. My script would play one of the members-only minigames :D
- dayjaby 4y ago
  Which minigame? I made a bot for mage training arena for all rooms, but the most interesting one was the enchanting chamber: there were dragonstones with a very high, but constant respawn rate that were highly contested. My script jumped through different servers and after finding and collecting one, it remembers the time when it spawns on that particular server. It was very satisfying to watch it run there just few seconds before they spawned, leaving other players no chance.
torranceyang 4y ago
Same! Though I got in much later when it was Simba
openair18 4y ago
“Shit Compared To AutoRune”. I think Kaitnieks’ (creator) website is still floating around out there.
blairbeckwith 4y ago
Programming scripts for SCAR in Pascal was actually the farthest I ever got in to programming - those scripts were the first things I ever wrote, and also the last. I wonder why.
londgine 4y ago
I've wondered as a kid how those scripts work. Do you know of a good explanation? Would they move your mouse based on the GUI, or directly send packets? Also, while we're on hacker news, is it known how the party hat duplication bug happened? I like reading hacking white papers, but I assume nothing was published regarding that.
- gurchik 4y ago
  > Would they move your mouse based on the GUI, or directly send packets? Depends on the client that was used. AutoRune was a popular client that sent direct packets. The game client gathered metrics on mouse movement though, so if you used direct packet injection you still had to fake the mouse movement to some extent so you could escape this rudimentary detection. Or your bot could just control the mouse in a somewhat realistic way and avoid needing to do extra work. For reading game state, many bots in this time used color detection. So for example a flax picking bot might be coded to click on specific colors of cyan on the screen. Jagex would likewise respond with bot mitigation that was intended to fool the color detection system, for example by making flax have the same color whether it could actually be picked or not. Later, clients would be developed that used decompilation and reflection of the Java game client to directly read game state in the form of Java objects. This would then be able to be queried and interacted with by scripts via an API that the client exposed. So for example, a script could be written that queried for all the flax (identified by their object id) around the player and instructed the client to pick it; the client would handle exactly how to move the mouse and the camera to achieve that.
  - gurchik 4y ago
    > Also, while we're on hacker news, is it known how the party hat duplication bug happened? I don't know for sure but I understand a lot of early bug abuse was due to a failure to perform server side validation. So hypothetically you might enter into a 2 part trade transaction flow where you offer items for trade in the 1st step and then commit that transaction in the 2nd step. Server side validation might be done in the 1st step to make sure you actually own the item you declared an intent to trade, but none is done in the 2nd step. So you could declare an intent to trade a worthless item you possess, but modify the transaction commit packet to give away an item you don't possess. I was not part of the bug abuse community but I did find one bug in the game that involved multiple actions being done in a single server tick. As I understand it there have been a lot of bugs like this over the years. As a hypothetical example, it might be impossible to teleport while holding a certain item, but if you picked up the item on the same tick as you performed the teleport, the server might process the two actions in such a way that it allowed you to perform both.
Sikul 4y ago
Me too. I wrote one of the more popular script packs for AutoRune. Looking back AutoRune had a pretty cool event based language. I was a noobie to programming so I didn't really understand at the time.
philliphaydon 4y ago
Running an ultima online shard and taking myself to program to build new in game things is what got me into programming! Lead me to writing an auto hit bot for Mu Online.
alach11 4y ago
Me too! I was active on the SRL (SCAR Resource Library) forums and got my first exposure to programming in middle school by tinkering with scripts I found there. I wonder what this generations "gateway drug" to programming will be? Roblox?

by rcme 4y ago

Cheating in RuneScape is what got me into programming. There was a program called SCAR (I believe) that let you write automation scripts in Pascal. That was a lot of fun.

pohl 4y ago

Noticing that others were scripting their labor is what got me out of RuneScape.

voxic11 4y ago

same here, I used https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/awt/Robot.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/awt/Robot.htm...

jeremysalwen 4y ago

Same here! It was also my first programming "job". I sold 4 copies of my script for 10$ each. My script would play one of the members-only minigames :D

dayjaby 4y ago
Which minigame? I made a bot for mage training arena for all rooms, but the most interesting one was the enchanting chamber: there were dragonstones with a very high, but constant respawn rate that were highly contested. My script jumped through different servers and after finding and collecting one, it remembers the time when it spawns on that particular server. It was very satisfying to watch it run there just few seconds before they spawned, leaving other players no chance.

torranceyang 4y ago

Same! Though I got in much later when it was Simba

openair18 4y ago

“Shit Compared To AutoRune”. I think Kaitnieks’ (creator) website is still floating around out there.

blairbeckwith 4y ago

Programming scripts for SCAR in Pascal was actually the farthest I ever got in to programming - those scripts were the first things I ever wrote, and also the last. I wonder why.

londgine 4y ago

I've wondered as a kid how those scripts work. Do you know of a good explanation? Would they move your mouse based on the GUI, or directly send packets? Also, while we're on hacker news, is it known how the party hat duplication bug happened? I like reading hacking white papers, but I assume nothing was published regarding that.

gurchik 4y ago
> Would they move your mouse based on the GUI, or directly send packets? Depends on the client that was used. AutoRune was a popular client that sent direct packets. The game client gathered metrics on mouse movement though, so if you used direct packet injection you still had to fake the mouse movement to some extent so you could escape this rudimentary detection. Or your bot could just control the mouse in a somewhat realistic way and avoid needing to do extra work. For reading game state, many bots in this time used color detection. So for example a flax picking bot might be coded to click on specific colors of cyan on the screen. Jagex would likewise respond with bot mitigation that was intended to fool the color detection system, for example by making flax have the same color whether it could actually be picked or not. Later, clients would be developed that used decompilation and reflection of the Java game client to directly read game state in the form of Java objects. This would then be able to be queried and interacted with by scripts via an API that the client exposed. So for example, a script could be written that queried for all the flax (identified by their object id) around the player and instructed the client to pick it; the client would handle exactly how to move the mouse and the camera to achieve that.
- gurchik 4y ago
  > Also, while we're on hacker news, is it known how the party hat duplication bug happened? I don't know for sure but I understand a lot of early bug abuse was due to a failure to perform server side validation. So hypothetically you might enter into a 2 part trade transaction flow where you offer items for trade in the 1st step and then commit that transaction in the 2nd step. Server side validation might be done in the 1st step to make sure you actually own the item you declared an intent to trade, but none is done in the 2nd step. So you could declare an intent to trade a worthless item you possess, but modify the transaction commit packet to give away an item you don't possess. I was not part of the bug abuse community but I did find one bug in the game that involved multiple actions being done in a single server tick. As I understand it there have been a lot of bugs like this over the years. As a hypothetical example, it might be impossible to teleport while holding a certain item, but if you picked up the item on the same tick as you performed the teleport, the server might process the two actions in such a way that it allowed you to perform both.

Sikul 4y ago

Me too. I wrote one of the more popular script packs for AutoRune. Looking back AutoRune had a pretty cool event based language. I was a noobie to programming so I didn't really understand at the time.

philliphaydon 4y ago

Running an ultima online shard and taking myself to program to build new in game things is what got me into programming! Lead me to writing an auto hit bot for Mu Online.

alach11 4y ago

Me too! I was active on the SRL (SCAR Resource Library) forums and got my first exposure to programming in middle school by tinkering with scripts I found there. I wonder what this generations "gateway drug" to programming will be? Roblox?