How long should a GM give you to respond to "unattended gameplay"?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Downtoplow, Jan 5, 2020.

  1. yerm Augur

    The GM is not going to spend hours on one ticket. They roll in, see someone appearing to afk farm, send a tell asking if they are there. Then they check the zone logs and find what, I assume, appears to be evidence of this person sitting there with their merc doing the killing and assume what most of us would. I assume it took them about 3 minutes in this case. No response, evidence of afk farming, so suspension. On to the next help desk ticket.
  2. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Churn 'em and Burn 'em. Every help desk. Everywhere.
    Truthfire likes this.
  3. That0neguy Augur

    Good job sumarizing the last 18 posts before you.
  4. Machen New Member


    Which would be a fine response if he gave him 2 seconds to respond, but he didn't. DTP is guilty as charged in this instance.
  5. Naturalist Lorekeeper

    Fully automated bot groups / armies on nearly every server. Including Test server, right smack dab in the center of NW Sarnak fort in Frontier Mountains. And it's funny when you watch them "scan" for a target, it's almost as if you can see the script running.

    I have also seen bot groups using instances which is a lot less disruptive to actual live players. That doesn't really bother me as much as setting up shop right in a high traffic area and saying "I could care less cause DBG isn't going to do anything"

    The crazy part is the armies on sub only servers, where you know that person is keeping 12-18 accounts or more subbed gold. It's a substantial chunk of their income I'm sure. They just need to incorporate full group scripting into the game...maybe that could be the next TLP full scripting allowed, no true box obviously, and free trade
  6. Querris New Member

    All we gotta do is somehow get a merc onto one of the super obvious abusive and disruptive macaroni quest box armies and they too can get punished for afking with a merc since they seem immune to every other rule.
    Truthfire and Naturalist like this.
  7. HoodenShuklak Augur

    By the time mercs arrive the krono ship has long since sailed.
  8. Scruff Elder


    dunno if this has been replied to yet, but that's blatantly false. we've had a player's mage account taken out back and shot in the noggin for 'unattended gameplay' despite never receiving a GM message in say or tells (there was zero GM/GUIDE tagged message in the account's log files) while actively being played to kill things in a contested area.

    the incompetence with enforcing rules has now spread to the incompetence of punishment for supposedly breaching them. players have been requesting more active GM support regarding others infringing on server rulesets, and for the most part it is backfiring horribly with ordinary players being put against the wall by a GM firing squad while the usual bot-farm zones remain fully staffed by automated characters

    this isn't some sort of crazy conspiracy anymore, we're rapidly approaching the point where the only winning move is just not playing lol
    Xanadas and Froger like this.
  9. WaitingforMoreEQ WaitingforTBC

    Honestly can't tell if you're joking or not
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  10. Scruff Elder


    ask the perpetual automated crews in siren's grotto and sebilis if the rekindled witch hunt for bad apple players is working or not, they'll be quick to text you an answer through one of their head characters after the alert is sent out to their phone
    Truthfire likes this.
  11. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Does mangler have the SG bot armies? I saw they had single players selling 1,000 stacks of inks... which is suspect and nearly guarantees automated gameplay. But I can't actually check since I'm not on the server. I haven't seen actual evidence though like we saw on selo.

    I've never seen botting that bad since returning to eq for agnarr.
    Truthfire likes this.
  12. WaitingforMoreEQ WaitingforTBC

    Again still zero clue if you're joking or not with your original comment
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  13. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    As others have stated, the GMs are not going to kick you off and ban you on your first offense, but on top of that they are not even going to spend the time to go look you up unless there was a ton of people who complained about you, and then they would spend time watching you as well as reviewing the logs of what has been going on for the last several hours. They don't have to actually spend hours there when they can review everything as it is documented on their servers.

    As for everyone complaining about supposed bot groups, the reason why they are not shutdown like this is most likely that they are not actually bot groups but box groups or even actual groups with people actually playing them. Boxing is not against any rules, and as long as you are not either automating gameplay (characters react without the player personally actively doing something) or manipulating data packets, then you're generally ok.
    code-zero likes this.
  14. WaitingforMoreEQ WaitingforTBC

    Not supposed bot groups. Obvious blatant botting that's been going on for over a 1 year and a half first on Corinav and then on Mangler. Just search for EQ Botters Mangler or Coirnav on youtube. It's blatant and obvious and in the same few spots always. The bot crews are even using the warp hack and are sophisticated enough that if you train them with enough mobs they will evac and then warp back a few mins later.
  15. Xeris Augur

    Automated 70 man bot raid guy on Mangler generates about $1,000/month for DBG, of we're looking at the value of a Krono. And that's just one; there's also the SG bots and other places. Botters probably generate more monthly revenue for DBG than some entire servers (i.e. Agnarr), so if I was DBG, I'd basically be faced with a calculation of how much, if any, revenue is lost via account cancellations that they can reliably attribute to botters (i.e. I will cancel my sub because of bots) and how much revenue these botters actually bring them.

    I'm assuming since major action hasn't been taken, we know the answer. If botters help keep the lights on, I'm all for it.
  16. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Two major things I see about assumptions we should make in this calculation...

    First of all, krono farmers don't directly give money to DBG. All they do it move around in-game currency. This is, arguably, a net bad thing.

    Furthermore, all of the krono they generate beyond paying for their monthly sub is directly sold back to the players on the black market, via a deep discount. Last I heard, it's about 2 for 1. So every krono a farmer sells, Daybreak is paying a 100% tax on that.

    Another issue is, we know for a fact that these players chase people away and hurt the in-game economy, thus the integrity of the game. We should assume this is a long-term cost, ala "watering down the soup."

    I'd love to hear a counterpoint how krono farmers and black market sales are net good for EQ, but everything says it's bad and yet, DBG allows them to thrive at the expense of the game we all enjoy.
  17. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Fixed.
  18. Machen New Member


    This doesn't matter. They still have to click 70 kronos a month to have access to 70 accounts. Those 70 kronos are each $18 that DBG received no matter how many times they've been passed around or sold on secondary markets.

    And I'm not arguing that this is a good thing, or that these players are a net positive... But a guy with 70 active accounts is bringing in a lot of money for DBG, period.
    Ashian and Rasper Helpdesk like this.
  19. Tobynn Augur

    I have never been a fan of this method of GMs afk checking players. You get some random tell from someone you don't recognize and its in your best interest to reply to said person on the offchance its a GM. I dunno why GM names aren't prefixed with GM- to avoid any possible confusion.

    GM-Gonnabanu tells you, 'hello, are you there?'

    vs.

    Tobynn tells you, 'hello this is GM Tobynn, are you there?'

    See, I can do that too.
    Xanadas likes this.
  20. Machen New Member


    You COULD do this, but it is also easy for someone to report you and have you banned for it. Impersonating a GM is against the rules and something they do still enforce.
    code-zero likes this.