PATCH - Blizzard strikes back at WC3 hackers.

[Dr Super Good]

Blizzard has released a new patch to combat the crash hack that has rendered ranked melee unplayable.

Patch 1.24d

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patch 1.24d
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIXES

- Fixed a client crash related to queuing too many invalid build commands ("crash hack").

As people should be aware, earlier this month hackers released a tool which could be used to crash people from melee games and so earn free and unfair wins in ranked games. The crash used a long running fault, which many map makers may have encountered when triggering, to crash the game while their hack prevented them from crashing and so win by last man playing rules.

How this glitch worked...

The crash worked by abusing the finite stack size that the WC3 main thread had. Many people who map WC3 probably have noticed how triggers can only execute so much code in one batch before the execution stops whether or not the end of the code was reached. Getting too many operations to run at once will result in WC3 hitting its stack size limit and so prevent any further execution of actions.

The glitch that the hackers used to crash players was simply getting a unit to execute an order with a non positional exit and then que up approximately 10000 invalid build orders which will collapse instantly and so hit the main thread stack limit. When this stack limit is reached, the game crashes. The accompanying hack for this crash however made the cheater immune to the crash (by for example increasing the stack size) and then could be used to issue 1000s of invalid build orders to collapse instantly when ready. To get the orders to collapse, a building must be qued inside an existing building 1000s of times so they all the qued orders can collapse at the same time. This que is started by getting a unit to patrol or smart another unit in an order which only can finish when the unit dies and then, after queuing enough build orders, killing the followed unit so the builder tries to complete them. The hack helped here again by ordering buildings inside already built buildings which is impossible is normal WC3.

This patch prevents (or is said to) stack crash from occurring so melee ranked games should be playable again. However by fixing this bug they may have changed the mechanics behind certain systems of the game in a currently unknown way.

Currently I am unaware of how this fix was implemented so it may affect other parts of WC3 not directly related to the hack.

[Deaod]

Blizzard strikes back at WC3 hackers.

Should be: Blizzard fixes yet another embarrassing vulnerability.

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Originally Posted by Deaod

Should be: Blizzard fixes yet another embarrassing vulnerability.

Hey, you can't expect them to notice all possible hacks before release - yes, you'd expect them to find obvious ones but they may have gone without knowledge of this glitch for a while until someone complained about the hack.

[Craka_J]

Blizzard should fix crashing bugs when saving a map/campaign in the editor. That'd help me A LOT.

[MeKC]

Finally. - I got blood on my tooth every time a hacker crashed my warcraft.

Thx Blizzard

[DarkHorse08]

Atlast!! STFU Hackers!!

[debode]

Yay, another useless patch for those who don't play(or at least don't play ranked melee matches).

[FrIkY]

How many 1.24 patches can they possibly make... that's really absurd.

[Pharaoh_]

Hah, they still think of Warcraft III at least. Plus, you guys, they don't get paid for this game anymore, why would they release something serious? The only serious one was the 1.24 and I'm pretty sure there will be another one, in 7 months.

[Solecompanysole]

lol I saw in an internet cafe near me a guy tryed to hack I loled :P and just reported him :D

[tleno]

Originally Posted by Pharaoh_

Hah, they still think of Warcraft III at least. Plus, you guys, they don't get paid for this game anymore, why would they release something serious? The only serious one was the 1.24 and I'm pretty sure there will be another one, in 7 months.

Currently it looks more like they had forgotten about the WC3 and remembered again only after that map virus thing...
Hey, its quite off-topic and idiotic question, but is that posible for Bllizard to make something that there would be no triger leaks anymore? You know, those "trigering unit/region" ones...

[TheTerran]

Originally Posted by DarkHorse08

Atlast!! STFU Hackers!!

I wish I were so optimistic. Hackers may make a new version that does it again and Blizzard would counter too slowly coz hacks appear more often than patches.

I read lots of people complained of being dropped several times and this patch is finally a bnet improvement compared to the previous one. But there are the drophackers... I got drop hacked twice in a row in 1.24c.

[Narrator]

Finally. Now those r-tard hackers scratch their head saying: "omgwtf i not can crash maps imma stupid". Let's just hope they don't get some new hacktool.

[kevv2]

ever since the update i cant join games....

[Mulgrim]

never met one, and got to lvl 4 (or 6?) :D