Honest conversation about the cheating on TLP servers

It will never change its the EQ plaque and pathetic that most are adults that play and have to cheat at this game

I really suck at posting links. Trying to directly post the picture from that link into this thread but all I manage is the link to the pic. If anybody can put the link directly in the thread that would be awesome. People deserve to see it. And it's just the tip of the iceberg right there. It's "nothing" compared to the real nasty stuff being described in this thread and the original pictures that got edited/censored.

Well, in all due respect, you just heard someone say it then

When I'm going into a dungeon with just a couple friends - I'm not beating half of these botter groups that are 3+ mages. I'm not going to roll Wizards along with all my friends or something - just so that I can beat a mage bot team. Nor am I going to spend hours trying to DPS race and dealing with Drama over an item. So my group would be penalized because we are made up of classes we want to play rather than min/maxing everything to beat botters. Not everyone is "elite" - some of us really just casually play for fun.

And I get the impact on the Krono; but at least allowing instances on demand would permit us 'casual' players to play the game and not have to find some 'odd' zone to slowly grind in because every camp is being pulled by some AoE/botter type of group... and well maybe actually just get some items from the mob instead of paying for them.

But maybe it's not a bad idea to start addressing the problem right at the root. Why do people even buy a Krono? I'd say in 90% of cases they are buying a Krono to trade for cash that they'll turn around and use to buy gear. I've bought one or two over the years to just tradeskill, but usually - it's gear. In the case of gear, I'm just outsourcing my time farming gear really. The fast increasing price benefits me for sure - but I do agree that it's not a good thing at all.

And inflation isn't even a factor with certain items. The Pre-Nerf CoS, Fungi Staff and other similar items will be at least a Krono, maybe many more on day one of the expansion opening. But people are paying it because they value time. That's why I buy a Krono and then get a Pre-Nerf Fungi staff.

I mean - some of those items I've seen at like 15kr even more in some cases - and not talking about Epic MQs or anything either.

So instead - I just drag an x-pac behind so that it's not as much of an issue. The botters usually move to the newest stuff along with the try-hards and it leaves some room for us filthy casuals. But it would really be nice to go to a place like Sebilis or Droga while it's current content.

I'd love to see DPG address this all around, but at least instancing on demand would help alleviate some of the problems, for some of us. There are a lot of games out there - mostly; I prefer EQ.. but there's a limit of annoyance before EQ becomes no fun anymore.

It has been suggested many times on this forum by many people (Including myself) on the state of the krono. Personally, I'm fine with it in it's original intended use (Which is an item that can be bought from DPG's that can be exchanged in game for item(s) or platinum in exchange for 30 days of all access game time)

The problem is; And this is where the same few people will pop up and scream, yell and throw a hissy fit; it has become the gold standard currency of EverQuest (And EQ2 as well I presume). That item that somebody is selling for 2 krono? It now has a real world value to it ($39.98 to be exact).

Many of these botters have thousands of dollars worth of krono on their accounts (More if you figure in the third party sells), a typical krono can in theory go through several sales before it finally gets consumed for it's intended purpose. And a savvy person can very well indeed make a LOT of real world money off of a single krono.

The beef that I have with the krono is it's ability to be able to be continually traded. Myself along with others have made suggestions that to help reduce the kronolord bot farmers, make the krono no-trade after it's been traded once (Basically, Person A buys a krono from DBG's, Person A sells the krono to person B, Person B now has 30 days of game time but is unable to trade it any further).

So, I'm willing to bet a shiny copper that the next few posts beyond mine are going to be frothing at the mouth with the same ol tired excuses to heavily defend the third party RMT practices.

Kittany, as a person that has worked in currency arbitrage, I have to make you aware that making krono no-drop would have virtually no effect on RMT practices. Let me repeat that--virtually none.

Now the explanation, which is 2-fold. When we trade currencies on the foreign exchange markets, we trade them paired against each other. These are called currency pairings.

Then there are some currencies that are what is called "pegged" to another currency. The US $, being the reserve currency of the world, is a common currency for countries to peg the value of their currency to.

What you need to understand about krono is that it is functionally and in actual practice a secondary currency that is pegged to the value of platinum. The value of a krono on any server is effectively equivalent to the amount of krono vs. (pegged against) the amount of platinum in circulation. This is why as farmers begin to farm platinum on new servers, the price goes up very fast.

If you were to "nerf" the krono by making it no drop, you effectively alter nothing. The RMT practitioners merely resort back to using platinum as the primary method of RMT transaction. In effect, the ONLY difference is now players cannot buy the krono from DPG to turn it into plat. This will cause them to either go to 3rd party sites or effectively not participate in the RMT market.

From a business perspective, you can see that DPG will never, ever make krono no-trade because it would completely remove them from profiting off the RMT market, and the RMT market is impossible to stop. It existed before Krono. The only difference is krono is a currency pegged to platinum inflation that they can directly use to also profit off the RMT market. You are basically arguing for them to drastically reduce their own revenue stream. In a game with a small market cap like this game, it's not only unrealistic, it's impossible. Your suggestion could literally bankrupt their company at this point, without exaggeration.

And finally, making krono no-drop has very little effect on the economy other than removing DPG from the RMT market and the few players who absolutely refuse to engage in 3rd party transactions (these #s will be smaller than you think once they have no other option and they are properly motivated).

I'm not defending RMT practices. I'm saying it's impossible to stop RMT. Therefore, the company chose to profit off RMT through krono creation. You are being naive if you don't fundamentally understand that their company willingly and intentionally made that choice on purpose. They may never directly come out and call a spade a spade, but that's what it actually is. What you are arguing for is, from a business perspective, illogical and would lead to financial ruin. And from an RMT perspective, it just reverts the preferred method of exchange back to platinum, which did just fine before krono and would do just fine without it. The only entity that would truly suffer would be DPG revenue. They literally cannot afford to do it. Period. I don't care if you can rationally apprehend what I'm saying or not. These are irrefutable facts that are above your opinion and criticism.

This is inevitable and was certainly part of SoE's planning when they first launched Krono. When you create the ability for players to spend RL money to give something of value to other players, of course there will be a real world value to what goods and services they are using it to purchase. It can't be otherwise.

The krono isn't the enemy anymore it's just a revenue stream.

DPG relies on the revenue. I'm going to assume it's why they allow the amount of hacks and bots to freely run around current TLPs they are unsure how to combat it without a negative effect. So the solution has to be a transition away from toxic revenue generation over to something a majority of the players can use and pay for extras.

That most likely from my point of view is access to content in the form of personal content as in /private instances on demand & /reduced lockouts on raid content for a using some form of tokens or pricing scheme that adds up against the current situation.

Just my humble thoughts.

The vast majority of players are already using kronos, one way or another. You are solving a problem that isn't a problem from DPG's perspective.

Private instances on demand, if they are able to overcome the technical hurdles, may be something that would create an additional revenue stream, but it's not going to replace the current revenue streams.

If people couldn't sell the krono they would be selling the plat. It literally does nothing to the rmt game overall if you change krono. The only answer is gms that know the game stepping in and shutting down insane things like 40 man automated raids and automated 100 man farm crews that run uninterrupted server after server.

Using krono's and purchasing krono's are two different things.

I'm pretty sure the trend for krono buyers from DPG is heading down slowly over each TLP I've been on since RF. It's still quite large don't get me wrong but the buyers are less an less you can tell just in the amount of krono a heavy trader can store away during the classic - luclin run has gone down quite a bit.

Personal experience from myself and other traders I've discussed during those boring EC tunnel chats of seeing who can show off of the most krono in a trade window exchanges.

Cheating will never end... There are boxers everywhere, showeq has worked for 20 years now.. Myseq works perfectly... daybreak does not care if people cheat..
What's funny is p1999 fixed most of the cheating years ago and it works fine.. but a real full on company can't.

I've never played on p99, but my understanding is that unless approved, P99 servers only allow 1 connection per IP address right? Do you know if they do anything else outside of GM intervention?

You can get an exception to the one connection per IP if family plays. They try to do some verification of some sort, but it'll only stop so many. Plus, one could use a VPN..

Yeah for sure, and I bet they do.

The problem is that if there is $ to be made in RL, then there will be groups of people who will electronically farm that which makes them $ in RL. Especially if they are low income with low opportunities.

Well the main thing is, they don't mess around.. break rules you are banned.. i was messing around with speedhacks there which work great and within 20 mins a gm popped up and asked me to race he was funny.. i got a SMACK and a ban.. i deserved it..
On TLP if you want to box.. just use eqwindows.... I saw 3 6 box teams on mangler last night alone. I am not here to praise p99 cause i play there a bit and it's brutal as eq used to be and i'm too old for that now but at least the guys running it take rules seriously.

It's not for the mini's but they do for the bosses and the same crews that end up running the OW guilds do it every TLP ( not just PoP ) but what really can Darkpaw do about it? Most of the time the leadership shows a member how to set up the tracking on a alt act and they do all the work. I wont mention the map program but I am sure many know and they have it set to message ( twitter normally) them said boss spawned then leadership decides if they want to batphone it or wait until normal hours depending how contested.

this (someone 96 boxing last year on Selo server)
https://imgshare.io/image/100-boxer.4Q0gY

but ya lets worry about tracking in eq

Notice how the base pick is empty and there's exactly 24 in each pick. It was the same person controlling 24x4 toons in SG while no other player on the server was even bothering with the irrelevancy of the zone. This person hyperinflated krono prices on selos then immediately moved to Mangler. Their capabilities are really beyond ordinary mortals comprehension. Last I heard (about a month ago) this operator is still going strong on Mangler doing some kind of mix of raiding/solro/sg/god knows what else. DPG doesn't want you knowing or talking about this.

Yes, sadly. I mean - I won't buy plat or gear from a 3rd party site. I barely trust DPG with my credit/debit card info. Nothing personal against the company, I'm glad they took EQ over - but sites do get hacked. Sony certainly got hacked in the past.

The third party sites - I don't trust them at all. Not even in terms of hacks, I don't trust they aren't selling my info in the background. Plus, I like EQ so I'm going to support DPG by giving them my cash. They are the ones keeping this game alive.

But I have to agree fully - the revenue stream from the Krono is the driver behind the new TLP launches. No revenue - no EQ. It's why they keep launching them - good chunks of cash flowing in at once as people buy Kronos to gear up on new TLP servers. So this sad situation is probably also the lifeblood of this game now. I'm curious if the game would have outright died by now if not for the TLPs and Kronos.

Problem with it is that the people farming and selling most of the gear are then selling the Kronos for real cash along the way. Otherwise; what would be the point? I mean 300 free months of EQ isn't the why for most of them. I'm sure some farm enough to pay for their accounts and don't sell anything third party, but the ones providing the majority of coin and gear for sale are likely doing it for cash.

So people are buying the Krono to get gear and the people farming the gear are wanting the Kronos for RL cash. If you dry up the 'RL cash' part of this supply chain, the rest will slow significantly as well.

I'm not making excuses for RMT, just that's seems to be what's happening and DPG is making money from it. But then, if they aren't making money... well, I wouldn't show up at my job if I wasn't getting paid.

So that's why I support AoC/instancing on demand. I realize it might impact the sitting in a zone and LFG - but the LFG tool works well. That would allow people to play the game they pay for in the zones they like without being walked on so much. If nothing else - maybe drop the threshold for /pick zones dramatically.

And keep on driving the price of the Krono up!! Keep those RMT'ers working hard for the 10 bucks a Krono they get. Heck, for the 18 bucks a Krono from DPG, 27K or so is worth it to me. I probably made that 'working from home' as I type this

I suppose.. there is one alternative that would make a no-trade Krono work.. and that's to outright sell gear on the DPG store. Perhaps in-era TLP gear only. Could maybe buy a Fungi/Wurmslayer combo for a Krono or "X" dollars. Just take out the middle man RMTers. But I don't know what I think of that idea personally, I never cared a lot for the 'pay to win' concept, but that's where it's at now. However; I am curious if it would solve many problems too.. but then what might it do to the EC trade/bazaar? I suppose RMT'ers could just compete on price, but it would put some control in DBG's hands for sure.

honestly the amount of general stupidity the playerbase demonstrates about every issue related to TLP EQ1 is mind-boggling and wearisome to me. This post is plutonium. I wouldn't be surprised if they just ban me for saying all this in one post, because it's too much truth and "honesty" concentrated in too small a space. Don't believe me? Actually read something for once before responding! Issues most players don't understand include:

1) krono were created BY the company to profit off the rmt market. the fact they sub accounts is the incentive to help inject them into the market as a secondary currency pegged to plat and gives their product a relatively equivalent value to plat (the primary currency). they will never be removed or nerfed. Krono were created for the company to profit off RMT DELIBERATELY ffs. For obvious reasons, they cannot ever come out and directly tell you what I Just told you, but if you had 2 brain cells to put together you could see it's true for yourself.

2) there are MULTIPLE hack programs now, but only one of them is being advertised and distributed for TLPs (not the original macaroni one as most people wrongly assume). There's a 32 page thread on this that explained it which 99% of the people posting in the thread didn't understand either. Hint: the problem ISN'T macaroni on TLP. do a freaking google search. takes like 5 seconds.

3) Boxing is NOT illegal on TLPS! omg. BOTING is. Most players don't know the difference. Oh and It doesn't matter how you box on TLPs--you will be accused of cheating by ignorant people regardless.

4) Boting means a boxing operation being controlled by 3rd party software without user input. It's COMPLETELY automated and the elite users can do it while afk. If a person is at the keyboard manually controlling all the characters, there's a TON of software/hardware configuarations in the market that would make this possible. BOTing and active boxing are not the same thing ffs.

5) There are bot operations in excess of 30+ toons that always move to the most recent TLP (currently Mangler and soon to be Aradune). Here is a link of the biggest known operation on TLP last year. Prepare to have your mind blown:

6) https://imgshare.io/image/100-boxer.4Q0gY
--99% of players don't know what they are looking at in that image because they don't have a clue wtf is going on. what you see there is a server that's already moved past Velious content. The BASE zone of SG is EMPTY. But there's a player controlling 24 toons in 4 separate picks in an xpac the servers already moved beyond. It's all the same person. 99% of people can't comprehend this. It's beyond your mortal brain-power.

7) ONLY direct GM-policing of boting can fully address the problem. x-99 server proves this is insanely effective when you have a staff dedicated to it. the fact they can do it with no budgeted resources and a company cant is DELIBERATE. What do I mean deliberate? Not going to bother to spell it out. 99% of people are too stupid to figure this one out too. Internal policy and external PR are two separate things. It's time to grow up kids. THEY LET IT CONTINUE DELIBERATELY and you're too ignorant to understand why, and they ethically and fiscally cannot ever come out and tell you WHY it's allowed. Use your brain today. Try it.

8) most people reading this post have no idea what i'm talking about. fact. without an informed populace, democracy dies. rip.

These forums are just littered with the corpses of people caught in the past, reminiscing about a reality that no longer exists, deluded about the actual reality that now exists, and incapable of seeing reality as-it-is. I imagine this is true fore eq1 players about most domains/facets of life, not just eq. This is a game that encourages escapism, delusional thinking, magical thinking, fantasy ideation. I honestly feel sorry for most human beings' brains.