Blatant botting is completely out of hand

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by JeffHanson, Sep 3, 2019.

  1. Leerah Augur

    I just want to point out here that [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] is not a violation of TOS. You're at the keyboard and just replicating your keypresses.
  2. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    It has nothing to do with me. I just submitted a petition, told them the names of the characters I suspected of cheating, why I suspected them of cheating, the zone name, the time of day, the date, the location in zone, and supporting evidence. I took at 10 minute video of them and uploaded it to Youtube. Made the video Public - Unpublished, then linked the video to my petition.
  3. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    No, it hasn't. DPS race is like 4 years or whatever, came out due to TLP. Prior to that it was first to engage. If you out dps'd someone it was KSing and could get you suspended.
    Thancra likes this.
  4. Bardy McFly Augur

    Griefing and trolling was enforced with discipline back then, but FiF was more a GM thing on a per-GM basis. There was never any official rules of enforcement or discipline if anything became a legit DPS race. Heck, back in Kunark era raid bosses were ninja looted and the GMs couldn't even do anything about it. Had more than one CoF ninja'd from Nagafen and it was never restored to the raid.
  5. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    Here is a copy of the original PNP (Play Nice Policy) note the references to VERANT, to indicate how old this was.


    Kill Stealing

    Kill Stealing will now be regarded as disruption and will result in disciplinary action when witnessed by any EverQuest Customer Service Representative (EQCSR). The EQCSR will review these situations on an individual basis and issue a decision which is considered binding upon all parties involved. Kill Stealing is defined as the killing of a mob for any reason that is already fighting or pursuing another player or group.

    The intent of this rule is discourage and make note of habitual Kill Stealers, not to punish those who honestly try to work together or those who make an honest mistake. Its enforcement by the EverQuest Customer Service Staff will reflect this philosophy.

    Contested Spawns

    There are cases where two or more groups wish to kill the same thing. In these cases, the groups are required to compromise. If an equitable compromise cannot be reached between the players prior to EverQuest Customer Service Staff involvement, the EQCSR will mandate a binding compromise. Refusing to abide by a compromise mandated by an EQCSR will be considered disruption. It is therefore strongly suggested that the groups make every attempt to reach a compromise that they can live with prior to involving an EQCSR, who may mandate a compromise that does not suit you to the extent that a player-devised compromise would.

    Note: A "group" in this case is defined as a party of one or more characters that are united in a common belief or goal and are capable of completing that goal.

    Foul Language

    Excessive use of foul language in an inappropriate context, including swear words, real-world racial slurs, and other language that is not consistent with the fantasy environment and designed to hurt, will be considered a disruption. The existence of the filter (/filter) is not a license to be profane.

    Harassment

    Harassment is defined as specifically targeting another player or group of players to harm or inconvenience them. Harassment can take many forms, as it goes to the state-of-mind of the person or party on the receiving end of the action. However, in order to account for those who are excessively thin-skinned, the EQCSR involved will make a determination as to whether or not the average person would feel "harassed" and act accordingly.

    Zone/Area Disruption

    Zone/Area Disruption is defined as any activity designed to harm or inconvenience a number of groups rather than a specific player or group of players. This includes things such as:

    Monopolizing most or all of the kills in an area.
    Deliberately blocking a doorway or narrow area so other players cannot get past.
    Refusing to cooperate with the other parties at a contested spawn site after having been instructed to do so by an EQCSR.
    Making excessive and inappropriate use of zone-wide communications (/shout, /ooc, /auction).
    Reports of Fraud
    Fraud in all transactions between players will result in disciplinary action when confirmed by an internal EQCSR. Fraud is defined as falsely representing one’s intentions to make a gain at another’s expense.


    Guilds

    Disciplinary issues involving guilds will also be addressed on a broader basis. Guilds whose members habitually violate any of the Rules of Conduct or Play Nice Policies may be disbanded. In addition, monopolizing numerous spawn areas with the intent to exclude other players will not be permitted. If investigated and verified by an internal EQCSR, monopolizing will result in the disbanding of the guild.

    Training NPCs

    The intentional training of NPCs will result in immediate disciplinary action when witnessed by an EQCSR. We are aware that accidents often happen causing unintentional trains, and will scrutinize each report of this activity closely.

    Abuse

    Though the following have always been in the GM/Guide FAQ, this letter is probably a good place to reiterate some of the items that we consider abuse:

    Hate Mongering - participation in or propagation of Hate literature, behavior, or propaganda related to real -world characteristics.

    Sexual Abuse or Harassment - untoward and unwelcome advances of a graphic and sexual nature. This includes virtual , overt sexual overtures, and stalking of a sexual nature.

    Attempting to Defraud a CS Representative - Petitioning with untrue information with the intention of receiving benefits as a result. This includes reporting bug deaths, experience or item loss, or accusing other players of wrongdoing without basis for it.

    Impersonating a Customer Service Representative - falsely representing yourself to another player as a Guide or a Verant Interactive employee.

    CS Personnel Abuse - sending excessive /tells to a CS Representative, excessively using say or other channels to communicate to a CS Representative, making physical threats, or using abusive language against a CS Representative.

    Using Threats of Retribution by GM Friends - attempting to convince another player that they have no recourse in a disagreement because favoritism is shown to one of the parties by the Verant Interactive or Guide staff.

    - - -

    This was modified through the years, but almost entirely just changing the Verant Interactive to Sony Online Entertainment.

    When one of the TLP servers came out around 4 years ago they *specifically* stated that they were not going to enforce the PNP on THAT server only. Later they got rid of it on ALL servers. See the highlighted portion under Kill Stealing.
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  6. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    The top guild on my old server (The Rathe server, BotS guild) was disbanded by a GM way back in like 1999 or 2000 (they were Blood of the Spider and reformed as Brotherhood of the Spider) for training a Fear (I think it was fear) raid of another guild. So they took a dim view of it early on.

    They even took the time to program in things specifically for TLP servers, where if you engaged open world raid mobs on one of the servers, you could NOT attack it with another raid force, or kill maybe, but I think it put something under the mobs named indicating it was engaged and not allowing any other raid force from engaging.

    That wasn't too popular and don't think it was used on later TLP servers, afaik?
  7. Bardy McFly Augur

    Training is different than DPS racing.

    The TLP code was added because single guilds were literally griefing whole servers. It wasn't put in place to enforce a server-wide PnP.
  8. Bardy McFly Augur


    This was gone, at least in enforcement, by the time Kunark dropped on the servers that I played on. Even ask Guides that are still around from that era. They didn't enforce it (again, on any servers I played on - YMMV per what I said before about lack of consistency).
  9. Arctodus Elder

    I seen it enforced on E'ci & Zeb a few times up to Luclin expansion. Yet, this is when the game was at it's peak and the guide system was up and operational.
  10. Accipiter Old Timer


    I assume you are talking about the asterisk (*) flagging of a quest mob. Once you have done your turn-in, the mob is essentially locked to everyone but you. This is supposed to prevent griefers who kill others' quest mobs and/or who kill your turn-in mob because they goofed up their own quest. This is pretty recent (around a year?) and lots of quest mobs didn't receive this flag so there are gaps.
  11. Act of Valor The Newest Member

    Oh man, you were there too? That night was hysterical.
  12. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    Naw, I was pure casual, my Fear raids consisted of guilds using almost their entire 24 hour rotation allotment to try and clear to kill everything, always fall behind and have things respawn too fast to try CT. So 10-12 hour raid saturdays, passing our turn unless it fell on a weekend.

    Want to say maybe it was KEG that was the other guild? I can't remember its been 2 decades now. But that event reverberated as much as BotS waking the sleeper for server lore.
  13. Razorfall Augur

    I have tried that, but the videos are too large to attach, even after reducing the size of the video and playing with compression.
  14. Accipiter Old Timer


    Similar to my Fear raids on Xegony. Mine was:
    1. Form up.
    2. Wait for the "break team" to call all clear (1-2 hours).
    3. Watch as some fool runs the wrong way after zoning in.
    4. Wipe.
    5. Wait for the "break team" to call all clear (1-2 hours).
    6. Wipe.
    7. Wait for friendly guild to break if for us so we can go get our corpses and gear.
    Good times.
  15. Leerah Augur

    IF the GM saw you...

  16. Leerah Augur

    United Raiders of Norrath on Quellious:
    Plane of Fear. Woke up one morning and the CR had been going on all night.

  17. Thancra Loladin

    That's not how things are calculated, you can't buy your way into a game if you want a game worth playing for other players. Your logic is crap and totally out of touch about how gaming policies are enforced. You can't name 1 game where that kind of crap policy you describe is enforced. When you have no good example and a failed logic, why did you ever bother posting?
  18. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Im doubting they will micromanage something like this. DBG is still running things. The best we can hope for from EG7 is that they allow profits from EQ to go to EQ instead of siphoning it off in favor of other endeavors.
    Leerah likes this.