Anti-virus programs wreaking havoc on MMORPGs
March 12, 2008 by Joel Tan
Filed under Asian MMO, Asian MMO Players, Fly For Fun, Granado Espada, Gravity, Level Up! Games, MMORPG, MMORPG News, Ragnarok Online, Ragnarok Online II
I thought Granado Espada, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game published in Southeast Asia by Infocomm Asia Holdings Pte Ltd, was the only one experiencing problems with anti-virus programs interpreting MMORPG anti-hack programs as viruses.
It turns out the problem is universal that even seasoned MMORPG developers and publishers are being plagued by it. Take, for instance, the inclusion of RAG.EXE, the executable file of Gravity’s popular Ragnarok Online, in the virus database of AVG. The Waukster, Level Up! Games Philippines head honcho for Ragnarok Online and its upcoming sequel Ragnarok Online 2, has already taken a swipe at the issue.
Here’s the official announcement of Level Up! Games about the issue and a list of possible measures to counteract the problem:
AVG anti-virus issues and conflicts
To all Ragnarok Players,
We would like to inform you that we are aware of the AVG anti-virus issues and conflicts with regards to the Ragnarok.exe files. We advise everyone not to be alarmed, as the virus alert is merely just a false alarm.
We are already working with the developers of AVG to remedy this, but as a temporary solution we advise everyone to try the following measures:
1. You can turn off your AVG anti-virus (reminder: you will be open to any virus once this is done) before patching Ragnarok.
2. You can turn off your AVG anti-virus and replace it with another anti-virus for now.
3. If all Ragnarok.exe files are already in your virus vault, please uninstall your client then turn off your AVG anti-virus.
4. Reinstall Ragnarok client without AVG anti-virus.Thank you very much.
Not very reassuring, but at least they came out with an announcement, unlike another MMORPG publisher I know.
