The Elephant in the room

Thing is DBG intentionally changed the shift of their focus on just AFK play and then didnt ban folks for using Mainly Queens unless it involved AFK play and rarely then. I petitioned afk groups for years and nothing happened most of the time. I gave up deciding DBG was fine with it.

This isn't about trying to enforce the rules 100% and failing. They chose NOT to enforce the rules most of the time. There is a big difference between them not successfully enforcing a rule and deciding not to enforce it or say change it to the deciding factor being AFK play.

I think it would be fair to say that years ago they lost control of cheating and eventually decided they should just live with it. Years of mostly just living with it is de facto acceptance even if it is not accepted de jure

But in the end DBG will do what they will do.

I was wondering what happened. I was helping someone do quests in GD and it was only our group and 1 other person. I reported a bot group the other day and they were gone within 10 minutes.

Is there a new sheriff in town? Or is this just a mass ban and we'll get the next one in maybe 5 years?

In any case, I have no sympathy for those who got banned.

GG

Get Rekt

No we don't need your money

We'll be fine without you

I know windows itself has a lot of handicap related features(like "sticky keys" etc) but I doubt they are tailored for games that requires quick reactions.

I am not in support of M Q, but one of the arguments I see in threads like these revolve around handicapped gaming.

I suspect that handicapped players is simply an overlooked demographic in the grand scheme, as it is difficult to to tune the game difficulty towards them and also make it challenging enough for non-handicapped players(except for singleplayer games sporting multible difficulties).

That said, I doubt that all the M Q users are handicapped, and that it is simply an excuse they use. It might be a legitimate reason for a small minority of them though.

Personally I think they should simply ask CS/GM for their stance on the subject if they have a legitimate need for a thirdparty solution for their handicap.
Asking is not against the rules. If they get a positive answer they might be able to avoid an otherwise automatic ban. And if they get a negative answer then at least Darkpaw know there is a need for accessibility options.

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I reported a bot group the other day and they were gone in about 2 hours.

Rules are rules.

And it sure isn't "de facto acceptance" among the common playerbase, even though some people claim that.
"Everyone does it" is the most overused excuse the cheaters have, but it doesn't make it true, no matter how much they repeat it. Don't fall for it.
There are many guilds where M Q usage will give you a swift guild-kick.

Yeah who knows. I know my key press profile looks like a manic monkey blindly mashing keys. repeatedly clicking my active disciplines for several seconds until it activates is my favorite.

How they differentiate that from a typical m q 2 user i have no idea.

Botters were "out of sight, out of mind" for years in EoK Frontier Mountains. I think few cared. They started to accumulate in ToV EW/GD and were emboldened to bot in CoV CS/WW. This started to disrupt camps (Type 5/7 aug camps).

If anything, botters should blame other botters for being so blatantly visible and reportable.

It could also be a change in direction/policy from EG7, Darkpaw, or management (JChan).

In before the lock!

Given the responses to the original premise of the thread, is an elephant really the best metaphor? May I respectfully suggest a hyena instead?

It feels like too long since we've had Forum-Quest gold like this. Grab your popcorn, comrades!

My oldest son, who does not play EQ, read part of this thread and had an idea. If they don't want to name those who are banned or suspended then perhaps just play a sound serverwide when the event happens. Something like:

I agree the overall player base would consider it cheating though in the end it is all what DBG says.

So it went from a dozen people to a dude on discord saying the sky is falling.

One dude gets his 6-box ban posted a rant in some discord channel and someone took the bait and made a thread about it. Got it, this gets better and better.

It's all about maintaining professional contacts at DPG.

It seems to be clear that this weekend has hit a ban and suspension wave not only Bertox.
May I ask which servers got bans and which servers got suspensions?
It seems on my servers there are still the SK afk autobots in older zones from HoT/UF upwards level 110 autobotting and warping around.

there are bout 4 raiding guilds and 1 open raid group on bert. each guild got 12+ people hit.

If that number is accurate (and surprisingly none of them have been raising cain anywhere but a discord channel makes that suspect). Then its still insignificant. I've literally have been part of pick up raids hitting epic mobs with more people than that in the last couple of weeks.

The toast and sauce are amazing.