The Elephant in the room

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by demi, Jul 30, 2021.

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  1. Gauss New Member

    It’s not based on the user base saying it is okay. It’s based on multiple employees of the company distinguishing automation from use of the program and saying ordinary use is okay. It actually isn’t that complicated. A lot of us have talked about it pretty extensively and most would be happy to just leave EQ if we had any unambiguous statement that running M Q at all is disallowed. It’s win/win for the antis since a lot of people you don’t like would just happily move on to other games.

    There’s a large community of people who primarily use it as a multibox assist tool and strive to restrict or refrain from using features deemed “bad” by the game community. Many of us would be perfectly content if the company’s ambiguity was removed with a simple statement saying “don’t use it.” There’s another community that has used it for ages specifically to do things broadly understood to be bad, griefing, RMT etc—those people will never leave because account bans are just a cost of doing business. But plenty of us would frankly happily move on to other games if told clearly what the rules are.
    Accipiter likes this.
  2. demi Augur

    M Q 2 as long as your not using the cheat parts of it and are at the keyboard you should be ok .. now dont quote me on that cause I do not know from this past suspension who all was banned or suspended and what they were doing .. if it was only people BoT armies and ones who were afk playing then ok , however if it was anyone who had M Q 2 just running and they were at keyboard then I would say scripted automation even if your at keyboard is not allowed..
    but like i said I do not know the details of the exact reason peeps were suspended/banned .. only a fellow dev can chime in on that one ..

    I myself dont feel there is anything wrong with scripted automated gameplay as long as your at the keyboard and NOT using the cheat parts of the software ie warping , live maps , and whatever else there is ..

    I want to re-iterate that I do not use M Q 2 only I s bxr .. and I s b x r is more than enough for me to be able to broadcast 12 keys for my lil box crew that I am at the keyboard at all times when i'm playing..


    my box group is casters mostly cause I dont want to take the time to tab over to try and manuever (sp) each melee toon .. I guess I could just position them so when I pull on sk i just run past them so mob is slightly in front of them then just /auto attack everyone ? but if pulling multiples and 1 toon is a bard usually bard would die from singing agro songs from mobs coming up behind him ..
  3. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Definitely helps, but Autofollow is still really bad in places, specific zones or areas within zones can be absolutely awful even without there being any of the kinds of things autofollow warns you about.

    I think Autofollow likely has the same issues NPC/Merc pathing does, it really depends upon the terrain/geometry and the pathing that was done by the dev who worked on that zone, I'm sure some zones a dev could spend a large amount of time working on the pathing and due to the geometry it still sucks.
    I think there must be lots of lessons about which kinds of structures/terrain/geometry cause major pathing headaches that have simply not been learned, or were forgotten or lost through layoffs.

    And all of that is before we start on the longstanding Z-axis issues EQ has and how Autofollow does no Z-axis tracking at all so following while levitated, while swimming or submerged in liquids are all problematic.

    If I could rip just that one thing out of LoserQuest and use it I absolutely would, but I have the coding skills of a drunken ocelot.
  4. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I used to box a caster group for the same reason but eventually moved to using melee as I found it a lot easier, max shrink of every character & never using selo while moving between mobs was the key to making it quite easy with the positioning.
    Doing it that way I mostly plow areas/dungeons pulling on my Ber or a Tank then as the mob reaches me I move to just the other side of it & all the other boxes are automatically right behind it, sometimes the pathing goes janky and you have to reposition but it is easy once you get used to that pattern of movement.
    I far prefer the plowing style play now than the pull to a camp style play I was used to playing in groups during the earlier expansions.
    Usually I don't need to split-pull much but the Bard is good for that.
    Accipiter likes this.
  5. Benito EQ player since 2001.


    Or, you can simply not cheat by automating your characters.

    If you can't play your characters, AFK and not kill anything.

    Even if people conceded the "at the keyboard" point (which is never), GMs do not have access to your webcam or computer processes (watching Netflix or playing Call of Duty).
    Velisaris_MS and Jumbur like this.
  6. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Exactly. And autofollow wasn't made with boxing in mind. In early eq there wasn't that much boxing going on. Early EQ involved LOTS of running and it wasn't uncommon for a group member to afk for a bio while on auto running somewhere.
  7. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Very true.


    I think Darkpaw will someday have to choose between the cheating community and normal gamers(and those 2 groups are not overlapping).

    Time will tell...
  8. Caisy Master

    I'm fairly sure, and someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they can see everything that is running on your PC while you are playing EQ.
  9. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Sorry this seemed like a very important post so I thought it best to put it all together in one message.


    Merged the post and response to get the full text being responded to. I think it is a pretty important post if considered an official response.



    Is this the new official position of Daybreak? Up until now it has not been. There have been extreme limits to what daybreak has done in the past to combat cheating and you have had many limits on what you will do to combat it in the past. Neither has Daybreak been willing to go through the meat grinder to stop it.

    So is this what you personally would do if you owned daybreak or is this a change in how things are being done in regards to cheating?
  10. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    I believe they can detect processes in your EQ client but not monitor your computer more broadly. You are probably thinking of P99 (which is intrusive and actually turns off people due to privacy/security issues).

    EQ does not load anti-cheat programs like Punkbuster or BattlEye. Though, people have mentioned this is EG7's intent once EQ is loaded to their platform launcher.
  11. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh


    Let us set aside the questions of "Is this technologically possible?", and "Is that something you agreed to in the EULA?", or would agree to in any EULA for any game.

    Imagine if you're a game business. Do you want the legal liability of being able to see everything every customer is doing on their personal computer?
  12. Benito EQ player since 2001.


    The P99 folks reportedly monitors your computer. That's why I would never join them.
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  13. Caisy Master

    From the EULA

    1. COLLECTION AND USE OF INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR COMPUTER

      We may collect certain information about your computer, such as the IP address, type of video card, size of hard drive, etc., and monitor the software and data on your computer, as reasonably necessary to assist us in optimizing the performance of our games and websites. We may also monitor the processes on your computer as reasonably necessary to detect unauthorized modifications to our game software and/or the use of software that enables or facilitates any kind of cheating.
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  14. Caisy Master


    Apparently, we've agreed to that in the EULA, yes.
  15. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    The language is qualified and narrowed by the phrase: reasonably necessary with stated purposes.

    I'm not a computer expert. I'm sure Daybreak would get into major legal/public relations trouble if computer experts (which some EQ players are) detected more broad, intrusive monitoring (i.e. looking at your internet browser).
    Alena likes this.
  16. Caisy Master


    I was merely replying to the statement that was made that they cannot see what processes are running on your PC. If they are browsing your processes to look for cheat software, I think it's reasonable that they'd see a Netflix or CoD process, not saying they'd log it or even care, but they can see the processes, I believe.
  17. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Without knowing precisely what Daybreak is doing, and what they intend to do, it's kind of hard to answer that in any detail. But, would I go aggressively after cheaters? My answer is yes.
    Jumbur likes this.
  18. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    We are speculating. They could have a prog/mod that narrowly looks for whatever M Q appears as. I'm not so sure that they have a Task Manager view (which would seem very intrusive and on legally shaky ground).

    Edit: Two other factors to consider:

    a. Daybreak does not want to advertise their cheat detection capabilities. So a narrow prog/mod - if explicitly stated - could be circumvented by M Q. Broad language helps to obfuscate their strategies and tactics.

    b. Daybreak does not want to be in the business of policing/reporting illicit activity on personal computers. (Though, it's possible that they have agreements with the government for national security issues).
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  19. Accipiter Old Timer


    It 100% is allowed on Rizlona. Now, you won't get anyone from DPG to confirm that because they always prefer to be vague.
  20. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Then how do you know it is allowed? :confused:
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