Enthrallment (China Anti-Addiction System)

⚠️ WARNING

The document is written by observing client patch 5517. There may be significant differences between client patches.

This feature exists in the client binary but is fully gated by a region check. This feature cannot be used unless the client is patched. It is documented for informational purposes.

Enthrallment is the client-side implementation of China's Anti-Addiction regulation, introduced circa 2007. Players in China were required to link their account with their personal ID card. Under-18s had strict online time thresholds which, when reached, progressively restrict game rewards and actions.

This entire system is gated on the client locale, which is found in a hardcoded value in GraphicData.dll. On Chinese clients this value returns 中文 (Chinese). On all other locales (e.g. English) the check fails and the system is entirely inactive; all messages related to Enthrallment are skipped.

The server tracks how long a player has been online and offline in a day (midnight to midnight). The server sends Enthrallment updates to the client via MsgUserAttrib.

States and Thresholds

From archived official documentation and reverse engineering the binary, the thresholds and states a player under 18 would reach are:

Translated Strings

The Chinese strings related to Enthrallment can be found in StrRes.ini. Using Google Translate, these strings translate to:

String 11060 (3-5 hours, Fatigue)

"Because you are under 18, you have been placed under the Anti-Addiction system. You have now entered fatigue game time and your game rewards will be reduced to 0. Please see details [link_redacted]."

String 11061 (> 5 hours, Unhealthy)

"Because you are under 18, you have been placed under the Anti-Addiction system. You have now entered unhealthy game time and your game rewards will be reduced to 0. Please see details [link_redacted]."

String 11066 (Status Icon Tooltip Template)

"You have been enrolled in the Anti-Addiction system. Current cumulative online time: %d hours %d minutes %d seconds, offline time: %d hours %d minutes %d seconds. Game rewards: %s"

String 11067 (State Label: Healthy)

"Normal"

String 11068 (State Label: Unhealthy)

"reduced to 0"

String 11069 (State Label: Fatigue)

"reduced to 0"

String 11070 (System Message Summary)

"You have been enrolled in the Anti-Addiction system. After 3 cumulative hours online, game rewards will be 0 and you may only chat and walk. Current cumulative online time: %d hours %d minutes %d seconds, cumulative offline time: %d hours %d minutes %d seconds."

Message Flow

⚠️ WARNING

The flow of the messages is inferred

On player login, the server sends two MsgUserAttrib packets: MsgUserAttrib: USERATTRIB_ENTHRALLMENT_ONLINE_TIME_SYNC to set CHero::SetOnLineTime(Data1) and MsgUserAttrib: USERATTRIB_ENTHRALLMENT_OFFLINE_TIME_SYNC to set CHero::SetOffLineTime(Data1), where Data1 is the player's accumulated online/offline time in seconds since midnight. MsgUserAttrib: USERATTRIB_ENTHRALLMENT_ONLINE_TIME_SYNC also sets CHero::SetEnthrallment(true) and records the synchronization time in CHero::SetLastSynchronizeTime(TimeGet()). Once both values are received, the System Message Summary and a Status Icon are shown.

The client starts its own timer for the Status Icon, but the server sends MsgUserAttrib: USERATTRIB_ENTHRALLMENT_ONLINE_TIME_SYNC periodically and when Data1 equals 3600 (1hr), 7200 (2hr) or 10800 (3hr) it triggers the System Message Summary to display again as a reminder.

When the player reaches three hours of accumulated online time, the server sends MsgUserAttrib: USERATTRIB_ENTHRALLMENT_UPDATE_STATE with Data1 set to 50. This sets CHero::SetEnthrallmentState(50). It also displays two dialogs - one to tell the user they are in the Fatigue state and another dialog with a countdown to teleport the player to Twin City.

When the player reaches five hours of accumulated online time, the server sends MsgUserAttrib: USERATTRIB_ENTHRALLMENT_UPDATE_STATE with Data1 set to 0. This sets CHero::SetEnthrallmentState(0). It also displays a single dialog - informing the user they are in an Unhealthy state.

At midnight, the server sends MsgUserAttrib: USERATTRIB_ENTHRALLMENT_RESET which clears both the online and offline accumulated time and sets CHero::SetEnthrallmentState(100) (Healthy).

Patching Script

To enable Enthrallment on a non-Chinese client, patch GraphicData.dll to replace the hardcoded locale string English with the GBK encoding of 中文 (\xD6\xD0\xCE\xC4), null-padded to the original length.

You should back up the original GraphicData.dll.

import sys

with open(sys.argv[1], "rb") as f:
    data = f.read()

idx = data.find(b"English")
if idx == -1:
    print("ERROR: 'English' not found already patched or wrong file?")
    sys.exit(1)

patched = data[:idx] + b"\xD6\xD0\xCE\xC4\x00\x00\x00" + data[idx + len(b"English"):] # 中文 + padding

with open(sys.argv[1], "wb") as f:
    f.write(patched)

print(f"Patched at offset 0x{idx:x}")

Usage: python patch_graphicdata.py GraphicData.dll

Other Chinese-Gated Features

The following features share the same 中文 locale gate:

PK Map Entry Notification: When MsgMapInfo arrives with PKType as 1 or 2, a system chat message is shown to say whether PK is allowed on the map or not.