Regarding Third Party Cheat Programs

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by EQ Dev, Jul 18, 2018.

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  1. Levy Journeyman


    The reason was to give people a server where that program was not allowed and so they could play with like minded individuals in they way they wanted to play. I'm sorry that a program made it to it and I'm sure they will figure it out how to fix it.


    Again, you can't prove it's game genie and neither can I, but I bet I know more about the preventative measures that went into effect to block it from truebox that makes it seem unlikely. You are seeing features that were once associated with game genie and just assume it is the same which is your mistake. You realize there are multiple programs that can actively inject data right? How about reading pixels on a screen. Imagine the possibilities. Doesn't mean it's game genie.

    I know it's more than a facelift and not the same as wow addons, but my comment was before we crucify the program, there are some nice features. I clearly stated in my post there were parts that were abused.
  2. Cleaver Augur

    Just my thoughts but id bet a good % of TLP players actually play on live and just use TLP for something different. So they're getting that sub one way or another.
  3. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    I think you are underestimating the numbers on TLP.
  4. Notfair New Member



    I think you're missing the point with what people are mad about. You're not admitting that you are wrong when its beyond all reasonable doubt you are. With a quick google search your program can be linked to hacks and cheats.

    You claim that the new version of the hack/cheat software isn't yours. Let's assume this is true. What about the versions that are?

    Clearly one exists and clearly you are not doing anything about it. Your excuse was "because I have a deal with dbg" but clearly that deal isn't working since hacking/cheating still takes place in the game.

    Don't get me wrong, a lot of people here are treating you unfairly and I approve of third party programs for the game. What I don't approve of is someone trying to weasel their way out of responsibility and claiming that their program isn't being misused when it clearly is.


    Give us one good reason we should believe a word that comes out of your mouth when you can't even tell the truth...

    I think Jord summarized it well:

    All im hearing is lets leave the one website up that distributes my program despite it being cheating/hacking cause its $$ for me
    Ghubuk likes this.
  5. Roxxlyy Augur

    As a quick update, we're currently working on pulling together a list of acceptable behaviors that are allowed to be performed by third party programs, as well as a list of the opposite.

    We will be refraining from explicitly naming any programs, good or bad, as it's always possible for these third party programs that we have no control over to be changed or altered in disagreeable ways. Plus, like I previously mentioned, naming cheat programs will simply draw unwanted attention to them.

    There are a handful of people out of the office today (something about some weird nerd event happening downtown this weekend??? ;)) and I'd like to make sure it's as thoroughly reviewed as possible, so it won't be published before the weekend. I'm aiming to get it out sometime next week, preferably sooner rather than later!
  6. Ghubuk Augur

    Have to wonder why if you think that "game genie" is so "not hacking", you have a function to pause, quit the program if a gm shows up in the zone?
    As for how you know a gm is in the zone, I have no idea because I thought they were invisible.
  7. elumxe Elder

    A gm detection feature is certainly not part of core, In fact I would be opposed to that kind of feature since it’s not needed. It’s completely inappropriate and just hearsay to come here and say this and that can be done with game genie when in fact it’s not even a feature that comes with it. I talk to gm’s a few times and I have never given them any reason to ban me and I never lied about who I am.

    Out of all posts, this is the most asinine one, if there are thousands of players on truebox servers, and I was doing this for money, why the bleep wouldn’t I release and sell game genie for those servers myself then?
    Please. It’s ridiculous. Anyone that knows me knows I’m an idealist, I’m not driven by money but by creativity and it’s expression.

    I don’t own any websites and I certainly don’t charge for game genie, it’s available as a free zip download u can build it with free ms visual studio if you have the skill.

    Go troll someone else, there are valid criticisms of game genie you could pick from where I couldn’t possibly defend myself, and some aspects of it that I don’t even like, for example I really don’t like the map feature, but to pick money as if that’s what drives me is utterly ridiculous, and frankly I find it insulting when I spent at least 10 years working on a open source project completely free.

    There are a few forum warriors here that think they have the right to be looped in on every single decision the devs make, well, you don’t, and I can understand why the devs rarely comment on things like this, it’s well beyond your limited understanding of how these things work and how third party tools (or the lack of them) actually effect the business.
  8. Dawdle Augur

    Like I said already "I don't want to have to run 3rd party software and if I have to code to compete to get camps or do progression then we aren't playing EQ anymore".

    I haven't even bothered to look but if DB releases a list of programs they accept then what's stopping people from modifying the programs on that list to continue doing what they want?
    You might have to use Python to run some extra var. here and there but I'm guessing most the coding has already been done.

    Parse is in C# https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/dps-parsers.232663/page-2 and I am sure you think it's ok but then again DB doesn't say I can't modify this program because gamparse is not covered by the EQ user contract.
    I am only talking about gamparse because it's not actually doing anything to modify the way EQ runs, it's only parsing your log files into a more handy format to read. We cannot actually talk about the other programs that make this a major issue.

    If you decompile EQ to alter the way it's supposed to be running in anyway that's braking the rules and if DB doesn't crack down on it hard they just leave the door wide open.

    Example, subject X is cheating but gets caught. X writes support and asks why was my account suspended? DB says our algorithm booted you because it detected that you were running this or that. Subject X says I am not running that, the only things I am using are Y and Z. DB says hm that's weird because it says here that we detected you were running banned software. bla bla bla. Social engineering and you've given people a list to hide behind.

    It's the 21 century, we are not talking rocket science anymore. So many people know how to do this. I am all for EQ having more features but I'd like to see them added to the game.

    In the end if it gets so bad that you need to run 3rd party software to play EQ, make plat, do progression and there's no play nice policies the people cheating will win but how long will all the rest of the people stick around? I think DB is doing the right thing.
  9. Vegaroth Obscura New Member


    Thank you very much for giving us some information on your response. I appreciate it as I imagine many others do.

    I think it might be pertinent to add in some full explanations of unacceptable policies such as unattended gameplay and what constitutes that vs being within the guidelines concerning passive gameplay.
    Roxxlyy likes this.
  10. Vegaroth Obscura New Member


    Well, I mean, technically we do have a right to know what the devs are doing. If they do something that is against the design of the game and it's current form of existence without proper notification it can be subject to a lawsuit. In this case a back alley deal with an independent source granting an allowance to create a software that could potentially modify gameplay in a way that negatively effects the game and it's players or results in an influx of monetary gains with disregard for the state of the game or violations of terms of service agreements.(That's really just legal mumbo jumbo for if you give people outside of a company information or content from your game with the intentions of them creating a software that increases your revenue stream while also breaking guidelines given to regular players you have broken the law).

    It's why most companies do not make deals or talk to or give ANY information to outside sources. It could very VERY easily come back to cause legal problems.

    That being said - if the interactions between the DBG Developers and Yourself is limited to personal requests or things like, "Hey, you can't put this feature in there because it's against the ToS or EULA" then that is an OK interaction. It's not like "deals" aren't ok but it's the level of involvement of the deals. If DBG gave you any information in the form of code or perhaps legal loophole avoidance or the like beyond what they provide to their consumers(which I doubt they would do) to create the software that skirts the rules and increases their revenue, then that would be illegal too, I think...It's been awhile since I took my Business Law courses so I'm not 100% sure.
  11. Roxxlyy Augur


    This is exactly our reasoning for putting together a list of acceptable behaviors as opposed to a list of acceptable programs. :)
  12. Jord New Member

    If I remember correctly right around early Ragefire a mass suspension wave went out for people using game genie. This happened because DBG started releasing Ghost raid mobs to trick people using Game Genie or Harry Potter maps when a raid target was up.

    What happened is people were using game genie to target the ghost raid mob and hit taunt to make it appear for everyone else. This tricked hundreds of players into attacking the raid mob at which point everyone who hit the visible ghost raid mob was flagged for suspension.

    After DBG realized there was a lot of false positives they started changing the way they were catching people using game genie, some of the ways they were catching people were by checking how long it took someone to go from one zone to another zone. More false positives went out because people were getting randomly tells by GMs for accepting rezzes and getting CoHs with them asking how they got from Point A to Point B so fast.

    So DBG started to get smarter and smarter with how they were going to catch people using Game Genie.

    Your version of Game Genie still works on Ragefire correct? But not the TLPs right? It was around this time it sounds like you and DBG started to get into a discussion out of fear of them cracking down on bans and suspensions for people using your program.

    At this point you started to remove plugins from your program - but you still left some of the real bad plugins in your program. The only good thing you did was attempt to remove it from TLP servers because it sounds like you didn't have a choice otherwise the entire program would have been purged from being usable in-game.

    We aren't here trolling anyone, you're trying to cover your assets which I understand, but don't try to play the innocent card here. You know what your version of game genie is capable of. The big problem here is DBG had left this unchecked for a long time and as a direct result plagued every server with this program.

    This is just a guess though, but I think you left the map functionality in because there are Harry Potter maps available anyways. My fear is when other people start selling their own copies of Game Genie you're going to open the flood gates on your program or the mass is going to start flocking to someone who doesn't pretend to play the ethical card.

    This would be a PR nightmare if DBG actually had an agreement with you regarding the accessibility of your software. It honestly takes 5 minutes going through your website to find out all the insane stuff your program does to the game that should obviously not be allowed.
    Ghubuk likes this.
  13. Notfair New Member

    Cause then it would ruin your business for the other servers?

    I do know you, Ive been following this drama since day 1 when you and Almar said on a un named website that you wanted to make your program more publicly accepted. He told you multiple times that leaving the cheating website up was going to be a problem. I have no idea why he decided to endorse your program knowing that you were so deceitful, maybe he is as clueless as you. I bet hes too embarrassed to even post now which is why he hasn't said anything here yet.

    The reason I'm mad is because you put all of our accounts in jeopardy by doing this. I love playing EQ using the software you are a dev for. I wouldnt play it any other way. But your clearly wrong and motivated by more than just your ideals.

    If you cared so much about our accounts like you claim you'd aid in taking down the version of your software that's being used to hack and cheat in Everquest. The ONLY reason you aren't despite being told multiple times that it was going to be an issue and being called out on these forums by almost a dozen people is because your greedy and want that paycheck. Or maybe you just like the cheating and hacking that goes on in Everquest?
  14. Ghubuk Augur

    This is one of the things that really bothers me if this "deal" is true. Somehow those of us that play on live servers aren't entitled to "fair play"??
    Corwyhn Lionheart, xcitng and Jumbur like this.
  15. Levy Journeyman

    Ragefire is a TLP, I think you mean truebox servers. I'm just being nit picky...sorry



    That is not the reason the other site was left up. If you have access to the other website since you clearly reference that specific post, you should be able to read said reasons.

    Also...again, back to the whole this is a totally different program from game genie so I'm not sure how mule "did this".
  16. Levy Journeyman

    I'm curious, what is "fair play". Setting aside the RMT aspect or economy effects of increased platinum.

    Say someone wants to box their own group. Not afk farming your camps, or warping, or krono, I get all of those negatives. Just straight up playing their own group, on their own time, in their own way a couple hours a day. What harm does that do? I'm not asking to incite you, I'm really curious.

    I don't buy the less people to group with argument. Most of those people like doing things on their own. We don't all have time to play like we used to 19 years ago. Most of us have families or jobs. If I want to play my own group, and be able to randomly afk to do things around the house, I don't have to worry about upsetting other players for going afk (I'm talking about going afk still killing, literally just sitting afk somewhere doing nothing until I get back). Or maybe I only have 30 minutes and want to burn a quick lesson, but don't want to find a full group, and if I do find someone, have them be the person who randomly afk's during said 30 minutes.
    Adrienna likes this.
  17. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    We are not discussion boxing at all, we are discussing afk-botting and messing up the economy with 24/7 plat farming. Boxing and botting is not the same thing...

    This thread has never been about boxing software(afaik), but about botting and hacking(warping etc.)
    Ghubuk likes this.
  18. Levy Journeyman


    You're right, I derailed slightly because it's a question I've always wanted to ask. I don't agree with afk play or warping, but if I'm at the keyboard and said program helps play my group so I can enjoy the game in the ways I previously mentioned, I don't see why that's such a big deal. Ghubuk boxes and tabs through windows (I did that for a long long time) and seems very against any other way of playing multiple characters so I figured I'd ask to get the other side.
  19. Ghubuk Augur

    How about the fact that some will bot 15, 20 or more toons and take over a whole zone in the current expansion? By the way, this is happening, it is not me just making up an example.
    Again, I have to reiterate, that when you have a program botting even a 1 group setup for you, it is an advantage and when more and more do it, that means they are able to get aaxp/levels faster, plat faster than by normal means. This moves the bar for what the "normal" is and the game gets tuned around the "normal". It does put those that play legitimately further behind the curve.
    Corwyhn Lionheart and xcitng like this.
  20. Notfair New Member


    The reason the other website was left up is because he said that "if it were taken down, it would leave a gap in the market and i am worried someone else might fill it who i wont have influence over"

    Taht is almost word for word what mule said.

    As was pointed out earlier in this thread.... despite all of this and his best efforts to stop a hack program from making it to true box.... one has. That means his over all reason for keeping this other site online is irrelevant since regardless of that "deal" he made... a hack program still found its way to True Box.

    This derails his entire reason for allowing the hacking website that is distributing his program and is clearly calling it cheating software.

    People keep saying that "game genie" isnt responsible for this post... but no where throughout this entire post has Daybreak said that. Daybreak said Third Party Cheat software, and mule's software is labeled as that on google as has been said already....

    The *only* person who has said his program isn't responsible is mule himself. He's blaming this new hack which only has 15 sales/downloads. I really doubt Daybreak gives a crap about some hack that's only been downloaded 15 times in comparison to the one that boasts 40 + people currently in there Discord.
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