The Elephant in the room

I'm glad they took a stance. It's been so long I was beginning to wonder if it wasn't secretly allowed.

While this may sound like an interesting idea in theory legalizing cheats on a server like this just lets the cheaters improve the programs for use on non-cheating servers. Not to mention the rule set you propose is pretty bad with things that most players won't like such as the last 3 bullet points.

Just a point of perspective from a player that returned a year and a half ago or so.

It was very difficult to catch up as a solo player. I could not find groups for the reasons we all know. A couple of boxers showed love and got me some XP, tips for my class, some ta's, etc. Helped me get caught up. Due to those boxers, I refound my love for the game.

I have several accounts with all xpacs now, and have gotten a few friends and family back into EQ.

If it were up to the solo players who have their cliques, their pre formed groups, those who only log in for raids, I would have quit.

As has been mentioned, those who mass afk bot, taking whole areas, keeping quest spawns locked up...it's a bad thing.

To vilify all into the same category is a denial of what helpful boxers do for the health of the game.

I think one of the glaring inconsistencies with it all is that the mass armies of bots that advertise selling power levels still operate with impunity. Meanwhile, boxers doing dz's and doing progression have been suspended or banned.

In every ban wave there are innocents caught up in it. Nature of automation.

This is indeed a strange one. The person running the massive RMT PL operation on FV has operated in plain sight with shills parked permanently in bazaar and PoK (as well as spamming every chat channel you can think of via a script) for literally years now without any official interference. Even a cursory look at the various characters they use would show multiple owners yet another violation of the EULA that goes mysteriously unpunished.

My only rant is that it took them so long to do this!! You complain about cheaters going dark, I wonder how many legitimate players quit EQ because they saw no chance at getting camps perma-camped 24/7 by bot armies.

I have sped and even Cali rolled stop signs. You know what the difference is? I don't whine if I get a ticket for doing wrong, I know I deserve it.

They should have no access to kronos account wide. Not able to hold them, trade them, or use them for all access.

No one in this thread is talking about boxers, boxing is not cheating. It is perfectly possible to box without using any cheat software, and the majority of boxers does just that.

What can be confusing for some people just reading this thread, is that there is boxing software that is not cheating, and boxing software that is cheating. but due to silly forum rules we can not mention them by name, and communicate which one we mean.

But basically, if you use boxing software that lets your characters do stuff that they are not supposed to be doing(warping, or tracking for non-track classes), or control the characters for you(botting), then it is cheating.
If the boxing software just help you control your characters(you still have to control everything and initiate every character action), and can't enable extra abilities for your characters, then it is not cheating(unless you play on a truebox server ofc).

Not really a theory, they actually implimented this idea in EQ2 for a while, they used it to actually learn about the cheating software and once had a dedicated team investigating the cheating methods and how they evolved.

Indeed, as this thread is not about "regular" boxing, I thought it was self evident what I referred to. Text can be a strange medium! While a single person using 3rd party software to do progression alone and another with armies spread across servers advertising power levels for years are both in the same "cheater" category, the impact they each have on the game is dramatically different. When players over the years see no punitive actions and these large scale operations continue, that creates an atmosphere of hypocrisy that I believe is at the root of a lot peoples concerns...however you feel about 3rd party software.

Absolutely. However, when over the course of years a pattern emerges from a supposed random automation, that begs some questions.

I see your point! I agree if you use it, you do so at your own risk and should not complain if action is taken.

I do have what I think is a better analogy though for what people perceive is going on:

A huge convoy filled with trucks and cars and motorcycles is blasting music really loudly, going 30 miles over the speed limit, every vehicle in it. They continue on their way without being stopped, while cars and minivans doing 10 miles over the speed limit in the right lane are being pulled over and given tickets.

You are wrong. This isn't even an opinion. You are just wrong.

Truth: One is cheating, and one you really don't like. That's fine, you don't have to like it, but it's not cheating.

Challenge: Tell me specifically what about I*S*B lets you cheat.

There's nothing random about it. DPG has used automation to detect cheaters for decades. The issue isn't that it's automated. The issue is that it doesn't run in real time - my suspicion is that when DPG is about to conduct a "cleansing " they turn on expanded logging and then run the automation on those logs to detect anomalies. Then they review anomalies and give a Yay or Nay to a ban. All guesswork on my part.

Real time scanning is resource-intensive which could drastically impact server and network performance. Yeah, it's not perfect. Yeah it's a pattern. Yeah, there are questions.

Ho hum. If you got banned and are innocent, good luck with your petition. If you got banned for cheating, just desserts for you.

If 3rd party software allows you to automate ANY aspect of the playing of your character(s), that's cheat software...period.

If you use software that allows you to do things you cannot do with the tools provided with the game, you are cheating, no matter how harmless you might think that software is. Being able to hit one key and have that command go to all your characters may simply be making things more convenient, but it is blatant cheating.

That said, I'm all in favor of DBG developing their own system within the game to make boxing easier. Either build something from scratch, or buy out existing software and incorporate into EQ. But until that happens (we all know it won't), using outside software to automate boxing is still cheating.

Afaik key-broadcasting software like I-S-Boxer is ok on non-truebox severs, there have been post by devs where they specifically enabled it on one of the new non-truebox TLP servers.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...r-code-for-rizlona.266957/page-6#post-3924380
It is cheating on truebox servers though.

If it isn't completely random, then it's an even larger "elephant" when the known, most impactful, egregious, consistent, user(s) continually operate. We will never know the details of how they go about it of course, but it would be interesting to know! I know my server has enough lag and doesn't need any more resources going towards a "scanning" effort.
Edit: No this doesn't effect me personally.

What I find most annoying with these automated players is when they start to hog some of the decent camps.

Automation allows them to play at the same camp for hours on end.

Cheating is cheating. There is no gray area.

The thread about goods map pack was stickied on the forums by a community manager.
I don't think you can get a much bigger shout out that maps are perfectly fine than that.