THE ADDON
Reads combat log, displays who’s nearby. Was in vanilla, but not as good nor as prominent.
PvP DEGENERACY:
The honour system benefits degenerate behaviour, so people grinding honour purposefully do degenerate PvP to min/max the honour gained, ergo ganking (unfair PvP advantage) pretty much every time all the time, and avoiding ganks such as a 5 man avoiding a 6 man group and ganking a 4 man group etc.
WHAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH SPY:
This degenerate behaviour is further re-inforced by an addon that locates every vulnerable, or threatening enemy player in the vicinity. However, its accuracy is unbelievable to the point that despite it claiming it ‘reads the combat log’, is capable of scanning people on flight paths or who are purposefully avoiding the combat log.
CONSPIRACY THEORY:
One more thing I’d like to add is that the combat log visible in-game details your interaction in combat, however I am starting to suspect the Spy addon actually steals information from the shared data in other addons like threat metres and Details to maintain more accuracy, because of its ability to scan seems unnaturally accurate, at least from the visible interface.
IN CLOSING:
In summary I finish with 2 questions to open debate.
Should this degenerate addon continue to be allowed to exist?
and is it stealing data from other “essential” addons without informing the populace?
I noticed that thing about the flight path, and I’m like, why would the addon spot a player in the combat log over there. I’m pretty sure a player does not appear in the combat log when flying but I have to test that.
Just a heads up
Some things pop up even when you trying to be silent.
couple examples
You bandaged earlier, not you have gone to a little spot, hiding bothering no one.
Your aura of recently bandaged drops, guess where that pops up at?
Yep, in my combat log
You are on a boat, stealthed, minding your own business.
When boat reloads, your stealth refreshes even though you did nothing (not just your stealth mind you, other peoples stuff too)
Poof, into the combat log it goes.
Lots of other trivial stuff, a buff drops, well fed drops etc.
You actually have to think a minute sometimes to remain totally quiet (and then some passing friendly buffs you gaaaahhhh)
If doesn’t
Addons are not obfuscated, you can load them up in notepad or notepad++ and see line by line exactly what they do. (Can rewrite them too if you really want)
Cant really hide anything in an addon.
Ah, thank you! The discussion helps this information become more public, since it’s not easily available currently (emphasis on ‘easily’). Can I ask though, how is it that in-game you see what you and your enemy does in the combat log, but you can’t see other players? Is it hidden… because I thought it worked like threat metre in which you can’t see other player’s threat that don’t have the addon. So how are combat logs being shared?
The combat log can see in a 200 yard radius around you.
Even if you can not physically see me, if i do something, it will flash in your combat log, friend or foe.
You can set filters on your combat log for what you visually see to cut down spam and clutter, but the combat log function (as opposed to the display) still sees everything.
lots of things in the game qualify as an event of some sort that appears in the log, even though it is not Combat per se.
You cook fish, you make a bandage, you mine some copper, it logs.
I am not sure if there is actually a definitive list of what all actually appears in it.
Threat is a separate thing, the API has no value for threat in classic (In retail it does) Threat addons in classic use math based on abilities used etc to estimate threat since there is no actual value communicated via the API, again, in retail this is different and there is an actual literal threat value to read.
Anyways, being that the threat has no real value in classic, the addon
has to talk to the others in the raid/party and trade info.
Would actually like to see someone actively test if it only reads combat log information.
The amount of times I’ve been swarmed from nowhere without performing any action or having buffs active or entering combat has been ridiculous lately.
Being out in the open I could accept but people tracking me down in totally obscure areas when I haven’t performed a single action (including health regen) in over 5 minutes repeatedly when I’m completely obscured from vision in the direction they come from seems very fishy.
I keep telling people, and no one listens, Spy is just LUA
It is not obfuscated, it is plain text, all addons are
Anybody has complete ability to read it verbatim and see exactly what it does.
There is absolutely nothing hidden in it at all.
You could even rewrite it, in notepad, and have it do something else, like have it tell you every time a priest bubbles.
How does that clarify? How can you absolutely “prove” that it only grabs information from a combat log, nothing else?
If that is the truth I am being extremely unlucky to be consistently tracked and harrassed on a low pop server when it is 100% impossible for any action (due to lack of it) to be shown on a combat log.