Option to Stop Stealing My Bandwidth?

Hey, I was wondering if in a future update it might be possible to include an easily-accessible option to disable City of Heroes/City of Villain's stealth P2P process... at least when not actually patching/updating.

While I understand that this makes it easier for all the companies involved in CoX's creation to deploy client files, the fact that you're essentially using my LIMITED bandwidth for anything besides what is necessary to actually play the game is concerning. What's more worrisome is that this sneaky Process is so well-entrenched in the EULA that I've apparently missed it several times. It wouldn't have even been brought to my attention if it weren't for my oh-so-knowledgeable ISP.

I experience enough lag as it is without also having to worry about whether or not the idiots at my ISP going to forward me another DMCA complaint for having "among others, illegally downloaded Pioneer 1[sic], Xubuntu, Ubuntu, OpenOffice, and City of Heroes".

Thanks!

I *dare* you to make less sense!

1. There is no secret P2P module that CoH uses except for what is known as the client-server connection. What do you think is secretly being transferred in this way, copyrighted boombox tunes?

2. You can't have an illegal copy of OpenOffice... it's free.


Go back to your ISP and let them know that they have workers smoking crack on the job.

Sounds like your ISP has just installed new P2P sniffing programs that are over-aggressively tagging every program that leaves on open Internet connection as an evil P2P client. It's probably tagging the updating modules of those other programs and it's tagging a MMO, which must keep an open connection to work, as an evil P2P client.

There is no P2P module in CoH. Players have asked for a P2P client to make downloading files go faster through a peer network. But NCSoft doesn't allow that. There is only the client-server module and connection.

Tell your ISP to put it on their safe or white list.

And turn this around on them. They're complaining to you about improper use of the ISP. You go ahead and instigate a complaint against them for harassing you for using clearly non-P2P programs. You pay an ISP for access to the Internet and they're bothering you for... accessing the Internet.

^^ What he said. Seriously. Your ISP is doing things it shouldn't be doing *at all*. When did you give them permission to tell you what to run? Chances are they have a program that isn't even connected to a real person sending letters out. Demand a real person deal with it, first and foremost.

Because the server and client constantly send UDP packets between each other, it would be very easy for a poorly-written program to falsely identify CoX traffic as P2P.

That patcher itself only runs when you launch the updater, and should only be using TCP packets between the client and the patch server; no UDP, and no P2P are involved.

However, your other problem may be any wireless LAN you have on your router. Are you running wireless? Is it using any sort of security key? Are you sure your neighbors aren't leaching bandwidth off of you to run their own P2P applications? Or have you given neighbors permission to use your wireless LAN, and perhaps they're running P2P apps?

Perhaps it's not CoX at fault, but a lack of network security on your router? I'm not saying that's the answer, but you definitely need to make sure no one's on your network through a lack of security.

But it that's not the case, call your ISP, tell them that you're running purchased, license software, not performing an P2P, and demand that they stop harassing you.

CoX itself doesn't download while you are playing as far as I know BUT....The NCsoft Launcher DOES....

Do you have any other ncsoft games installed and are you using the launcher? I know for example that the launcher will download updates for Aion in the background as long as the launcher is active in the background. Might do it as well for some of the other games but I don't play those.

If you go to the settings in the launcher you can edit the autoupdate settings and disable them. Hope that helps.

AP

There is also the possibility someone, not the ISP, called them so that they would panic and give up their contact information etc. Nice phishing tactic.