Cya Everquest

Again I kinda laugh at this because mercs are fully automated as well but that is acceptable and they provide no income to DPG. The issue EQ devs have had is the AFK stuff. I think its fair to say that the overwhelming majority of people DONT have an issue with the automation but rather the AFK play and Active Hacks (Warping etc). As mentioned before, the mainstream version doesn't allow use of active hacks. Yes, AFK is still possible but thats where guides/GM's come into play to see if people are violating things by being AFK. People are splitting hairs by talking about ISB vs MQWhatever, you can automate with ISB if you know what your doing and it still allows you to do things that a normal player cannot do.

The bottom line is a LARGE portion of the community dont want to be LFG for hours, enjoy boxing their own crew, and refuse to stop using said aids after 20+ years. Especially when the game is no longer being developed with new quality of life features to mitigate the loss of said software. People can troll and just say "Well enjoy the ban".... and perhaps that will happen but at the end of the day this will be the beginning of the end. Anyone who thinks losing a large portion of an already small player base would be catastrophic long term is in denial.

Ya, this is a good post.

This is where my thoughts are at this point, too.

So with your edit, if you show in a thread where someone attacked you, they will lock the thread? Honest question.

Not lock the thread, but suspend or ban the forum account. Threads mostly get locked for dupes or for a thread degrading to nothing but massive personal insults totally off-topic.

It depends.

Forum moderators tend to let discussion go as long as no one starts to call make implicit or explicit calls for censorship.

Once threads derails into quid pro quo attacks (calls for censorship, nasty personal attacks), then the threads get locked.

You just recently returned. Threads get fully locked.

The discussion is about to be derailed by calls for censorship. Please respond to the merits of each argument only.

One person can get a whole otherwise fine thread locked just by insulting one person in it? Yikes that's a bit overboard. Never used to be that heavy handed with locks in the past.

It quickly becomes a tat-for-tat and descends into nasty personal attacks.

Locking the thread ensures that both sides are punished (and not just one side). It also tells players not to descend into personal attacks in the future or they won't allow those types of discussions.

Le sigh.

Benito, with all due respect. I addressed the issues with how you respond to EVERY post and the lack of constructive content within those posts. I said my peace and moved on but now again today I see MULTIPLE people addressing the same issues with you. Its becoming very clear the pattern here, it involves one person. PLEASE either post content pertaining to the topic of the threat or keep the trolling/harassment to yourself.

Please cite examples. You are free to report any offending posts to the forum moderator. I get it. I have a huge target on my back. My speech doesn't help the pro-cheat/pro-automation agenda. The pro-cheat crowd wants to suppress my voice so they can run roughshod over the forums. If you have a right to post, then dissenting voices have a right to post within the confines of forum rules. (You are not the forum moderator to make any determinations or judgments).

Again, I can accuse at least 5 pro-cheat posters for trolling, harassment, and threats.

If people want to start litigating the finer points of personal offense, you are opening the flood gates of tat-for-tat censorship. The inevitable result will be thread locks and the end of discussions.

Also, maliciously using forum rules to threaten, harass, and troll, is not acceptable behavior in itself. The forum moderators are smart enough to see through this. You have no right to threaten posters by some usurpation of forum moderation.

We use software cause we DON'T want to sit for hours LFG, we want to do content that we want to do, we don't have 2-6 hours of interrupted play time (we're not 20 years old anymore, family RL) and MOST importantly this game that we love DOES NOT support solo play. Everything is locked behind group content. This game is only viable for solo/molo play past level 60 if you like pain... Most people that try out the game (new or returning players) never make it past level 60 solo/molo. I see that every single day i play this game, since i play on VOX server. EQ has to rebrand itself to cater more to 2022 MMORPG rather then this 1999 obsolete model, unless it wants to have 500 users left playing the game....

Have you ever gone back and re-read your posts? No one wants to "suppress your voice", they are just saying you don't need to reply to every single post in an unconstructive way.

I haven't seen any "pro-cheat" posts trying to sway people to use third party or shut down alternative thinking, the posts are almost always matter of fact and trying to inform that this isn't a black and white situation where every automation user is out there farming camps 24/7.

I can understand the anti-cheat point of view, I really do, but the posts like the above are completely pointless and do nothing to move this discussion in any direction.

Keep it up though, you seem like a really cool guy.

There is a lot of weird behavior going on in this thread.

"Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (often shortened to FUD) is a propaganda tactic ... is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt

Fear
- "If they ban all of us, EQ wont survive."
- "I'm innocent and got suspended. The same thing could happen to you."

Uncertainty
- "They're not telling us what is and isn't ok. They're not being specific. They banned and then unbanned IS Boxer. What about gamparse and GINA?"
- "It's a grey area. What's the difference between botting, boxing, and automation? What about key broadcasting? Who really knows what the rules are because they aren't clear."

Doubt
- "Their cheater detection has false positives. I stopped cheating and still got suspended.* I only cheated a long time ago.* I only use IS Boxer.* I was at my computer.*"
- "Is it really worth getting mad over? I think we should add the features to the game."
- "I've never been negatively affected by cheaters."
- "I've only seen a couple automated players in my time playing."

* The honesty of these statements is questionable.

You've posted at least 22 times in this thread, insist you don't cheat, have no active accounts or I S Boxer, and are out of touch with the modern game. You also insist there is a grey area about these programs. That add-ons for other games are great and EQ should have similar (there was a time in the past where some M Q developers pitched EQ Add Ons that were approved M Q features). You talk about I S Boxer not being unlike script-controlled positioning. You compare these programs to WinEQ that was previously banned and became a normal feature. This is.. confusing behavior.

I see a lot of angry posts from people who were "wrongly supsended" tearing down one person who is anti-cheating, and behaving admirably despite the onslaught. I've never cared to tell someone else on the forums (or the internet, for that matter) that I thought they were overdoing it by writing so many paragraphs about something that was clearly... so unimportant. People write a lot about things that are important to them. Your opinion on that is irrelevant to the discussion, and casts doubt on their credibility. Normally when people see something that is "TL;DR" they .. don't read it and don't respond to it.

This thread is not a discussion about how to improve the game. It's a discussion about cheating (discussion is a generous word). Someone is quitting because they were suspended, a lot of people are now throwing misinformation around about what, when, or why you would (or should) be suspended.

And, frankly, I remember a time when EQ did not allow discussion of cheating. Even saying M Q would get you a forum vacation. I find allowing this discussion quite dangerous, due to the free time suspended people have on their hands vs people who are not cheating actually playing the game instead of coming here to point out the myriad of issues with many of the posts in this thread. There is a reason you aren't allowed to post on the forums when you're suspended (at least I am guessing that's the case). While you're suspended, you are not part of the community. You've basically been thrown out temporarily for some type of issue. Instead, these people come here (and to the EQ Discord) to spew obscenities, lies, disinformation, cast doubt on DBG, people who hate cheating, 3rd party software, and other garbage, and they are pretty much not being stopped. There isn't enough time in the world to actually discuss all the issues with all of the people doing these things.

My opinion on what would improve the game?
Ban cheaters.

This thread has more interest than the new servers! Are we at the pinnacle point where the game company will publicly address us yet? We absolutely need a resolving authoritative answer on the swinging gate around programs that are allowed or not. For both LIVE and TLP.

I for one dont want to spend another moment in game with my 6 accounts , let alone commit to the new servers until we do. Im tired of the false reports i get because everyone that boxes is automating because some casual seen it once.

Thank you. You too.

I don't have a problem with most posters such as yourself. We debated and we reached an understanding. I have a thick skin (and most of us have thick skins) that I (we) won't complain about every slight or perceived offense.

I do have a problem when people start to derail discussions by maliciously citing forum rules to suppress dissent. They are not the forum moderators and should not be threatening other posters who have been careful to follow the rules.

People are 100% within their rights to report any offending posts to the moderator and/or ignore any individual that "bothers them."

Most games fix issues that cause disruption. If you cant fix it then you find ways to incorporate it on your terms. An acceptable CLEAR solution. Hiring the community as glorified rats is no way to conduct business and you have pit us all against each other.

couple of things.

1.) If you define Automation as 'pressing keys for you' then Key Broadcasting is absolutely cheating. You're supposed to press Alt-Tab to bring the next window into the foreground and wait for it to get the focus before you issue a command to that window.

Issuing commands with one stroke, to background windows you never took the time to bring forward, is absolutely a time saver, which is why people want to use it.

2.) Key Repeating is undoubtedly Automation, at least in the context of using it to repeat an action in EQ.

Both of these particular forms of Automation were Allowed prior to the March 2nd 2022 announcement (when you are behind the keyboard). The announcement changes that to Disallowed when you are behind the keyboard just like before.

Also keep in mind.

How you parse what 'Automation' means vis a vis Key Broadcasting doesn't matter.

The person who decides on punitive actions taken, or the person authorizing actions, may have changed their opinion on it. And that's all that matters.