Devs - Do people use VM ware for work?

I'm sure you are able to be very casual about this so called collateral damage because you weren't one of the people effected. Meanwhile from all I hear there are 1-man 16-box crews still doing their thing.

What you guys don't get is the people making noise or asking for clarification on the rules are actually working for your benefit too (and Daybreak's, for that matter). If it can happen to them, such things can happen to you. If that ever does, I promise I won't be one of the people here on the forums laughing at them, calling them a liar, trolling their threads, etc.

They aren't suspending/banning just for VMware.

Well i dont know what ive possibly could have done wrong.
I never have an argument with someone in game.
Havent used any programs other then Magelo Sync and Gina.
Mostly just on to chat or raid

Edit: and the answer i got was that it was VM related

Doesn’t matter if someone uses a VM to watch questionable videos on TOR networks and VPNs because they are worried about the NSA and aliens tracking them. What is run on your Pc that doesn’t interact with the game isn’t anyone business.

Are you suggesting that they are scanning your PC for everything that is installed/running on it?

Dunno if they are scanning processes, but they are checking your registry for installed VM's. (And leaving behind evidence on your system that they have done so, so I don't think it's inappropriate to mention this here.)

Along with what Machen said, scanning what’s loaded in RAM is pretty common practice. I just don’t know of any other game who’s anti-cheat scanners suspend people for having a VM running beside their game. (Running game from a VM sure).

So I mean can/does DBG know people are also running Show EQ, Emq 2, Multiplicity, etc. from scanning your RAM? Yeah yeah they do....just have never decided to care (which personally is bigger cheating that Truebox avoidance, but all should be punished).

Or maybe it's much simpler and DBG really just banned a group of cheaters, maybe with a few false positives, sure. It's a common scenario: An MMO (any MMO) does a banwave, and people flock to the forums to push the narrative that a huge number of players got falsely banned, trying to discredit the MMO company and pitch the playerbase against them. I've seen this movie many times.

Oh and we're also supposed to believe that the 6 box armies we see on Truebox servers, really are all played by people who are just really good at starting casts on 6 keyboards all in a fraction of a second. Sure.

Here's another scenario for you guys. Player A gets banned for VMs. But player B has logged on to player A's account. Now player B's PC is tainted and player B gets suspended. Whether you agree with that practice or not, such suspensions by association have been known to happen in MMOs, and account sharing is against the rules after all. This kind of thing is one of the reasons why.

Yet no one got suspended for multi key broadcast, the thing that actually lets you do that....

They should suspend/ban for that too, so I'm hoping that this was just the beginning. Of course it's DBG so who knows.

#CactusGate2018
#NeverForget

This keeps coming up, what was it about?

It would be much harder for them to do so. There are many ways to do key broadcasting, and a lot of them are undetectable (Hardware kvm is, and probably a significant portion of the player base could write their own key broadcasting software too, so DBG won't even have a list of programs to look for...) And, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that's how all the mages are standing up and nuking at the same time. It might be, but it is often more direct automation, and other times players using numeric keypads or keyboard setups that make it easy to hit four buttons at once. The fact that players can manually do this too makes it something DBG can't really suspend people for just because they see four mages nuke simultaneously.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/hortulanus-cryolex-in-overthere.246087/'

Basically tons of people were exploiting. They got caught exploiting. Got suspended. Then they proceeded to aggressively make pleas for their innocence because it was either "an accident", "they didn't know better", or they were "just cleverly utilizing the game mechanics."

The sky was falling. Daybreak was dubbed incompetent and unfair. And many loyal customers were cancelling their 37 gold subs.

Just a little update:

As mentioned in a previous thread, my coleader got suspended for having VMs on his PC but is only a single boxer. After a few back and forth with CSR, his suspension was reversed. It seems that their intention was not to punish those that simply has VMs on their PC.

There are a lot of cheaters our there that are doing anything they can to bypass truebox and get a leg-up advantage. There is a light at the end of the tunnel for those of you that were genuinely in the right.

Edit: DBG seems to be hesitant to officially publish their expectations on VMs and I highly suggest that many if the people trolling these threads lighten up until official and updated policy is released. We dont want some sort of mass exodus from good players that are following the rules.

There isn't going to be an official and updated policy. Players have been asking for it for seven years, won't happen.

I'm glad to hear this but there are others of us who haven't heard back yet beyond providing information as requested to Dreamweaver on Friday. Just curious do they intend to offer an apology to your guildy, or any free play time to make up for the 3-4 days he was suspended? Any mention on a clarification of what the rules are re: having VMware for purposes unrelated to EQ?

Nope, and they wont.

Actually, I just stopped playing on a truebox server... and running a VM is against the rules, regardless of the server or ruleset.

I've already stated on numerous occasions that whatever happened could have just as easily impacted me - if it was merely for having VMware installed. And I'm not "casual" about the collateral damage, but I feel it's realistic to expect it to happen.

I haven't caught up on the posts from the weekend, and I hope they've reversed whatever action was taken against those who truly were not cheating - but don't lump me into the "you guys" statement just because you don't like the way I phrased something, when I've been siding with you the entire time.