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Bans, Boxers, 3rd party programs, and EQ

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Cheyana, Apr 4, 2022.

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  1. Svann2 The Magnificent

    No its more like the sheriff writing you a ticket for 100+ and you complaining that the law never told you which vehicles were capable of going over 100.
  2. Graytis Lorekeeper

    They're saying "We wont say Mitsubishis are fine because they don't have a flux capacitor" because you know as soon as they do, the next month Mitsubishis could absolutely have an easy way to enable flux capacitor capabilities... and they now have an "officially approved car" that is cheat-capable, and now they have to maintain a constantly updated list of what all the cars are capable of, and approval based on their (daily? weekly? monthly?) findings.
    minimind and Svann2 like this.
  3. Cadira Augur

    What's mind numbing is the fact that people think (or pretend) that most bot accounts are paid for at all in the whole "eqs gonna die without cheaters!" Argument.

    Or that all cheaters box in general. Plenty of cheaters play one toon, ya know.
  4. code-zero Augur

    There should never have been a policy that allowed enforced camps. DPS race should have been the rule from day one and we wouldn't be having some of the current problems that the game faces. Training should always be a banning offence though
    Bardy McFly likes this.
  5. Janakin Augur

    While that is funny I would not recommend doing that as you could be associated with that AFK group especially if someone came by and recorded you with it.

    From: https://help.daybreakgames.com/hc/e...ow-do-I-report-cheaters-botters-in-EverQuest-

    To report a player you believe to be cheating/botting, please submit a support ticket and include:
    • The character name of the player
    • The name of the server and the zone
    • The date/time of the incident
    • A link to a video of the specific incidents where possible, but please do not send video attachments
  6. Knifen Augur

    I don't care how people play the game they pay for, but for people who got actual Bans, I would be down to see Quarterly ran GM events ran with loot populated by their toons.

    Strip their toons bare put their loot in a pool and let us win it, here's hoping someone with a Mask of Tinkering and some Sinister Steamwork Chain Ornaments gets banned.
    Arkanny and Khat_Nip like this.
  7. Raccoo Just a raccoon

    If those people used RMT to get any of that, then yes, suspend them as well.
  8. Surfgod New Member

    Most of you are missing the OPs point. When you run a business, you don't start cutting your revenue, here in this case by suspending/banning people who are paying money on multiple accounts. Do you know why? Because you have to have that income to pay the developers and all the others and make a profit. Do you know what happens when a business income drops and drops? They have to let people go. Production suffers. The game you love to play ends. So all of you that are crying foul might want to help find a different approach as you are shooting yourselves in the foot. Here is a novel idea, have some servers allow both "boxers" we shall call them and non boxers. On certain other servers non boxers only. That way DB doesnt lose all the income they will if the boxers quit playing because it isnt fun for them anymore as it is a 23 year old game. Those that dont want to play on a server that has boxers can go to the soap box servers and preach on about the evil ways on the other servers. I'd like to see how the populations shook out after awhile! Peace!
    Bardy McFly and Cheyana like this.
  9. Act of Valor The Newest Member

    "Please think of the revenue, before the cheaters!" qq.

    Like Maedhros said, Daybreak calculated the money loss and thought it was a necessary sacrifice. Good for them.
    Raccoo, Xyroff-cazic. and Khat_Nip like this.
  10. Arkanny Augur

    I think alot of people on this forum overestimate the %of revenue boxers actually contribute to EQ. If you look at the financials published due to EG7 aquisition, EQ is actually performing very well, i'd say better than a lot of newer MMOs out today.
    I speculate that those numbers arent a reflection of the more hardcore playerbase (lets face it, if you're boxing 6 accs...) So dpg cracking down on a few hundred offenders to keep the health of the game for thousands more, is the right thing to do.
    And unlike us, forum speculators, they actually have all the data to go by and make their decisions.

    edit: spelling
    Janakin likes this.
  11. Sarrona Journeyman

    Easy for you to say this now however when they have far less subscriptions and far less expansion purchases it will be the remaining players that get hurt. When ANY company takes a revenue loss... they dont absorb it but rather pass it on to the consumer. Just think about our last few expansions:

    Copy paste content
    Minimal number of zones (generally 6ish)
    No new AA's
    Delayed and buggy raids
    Mass server lag
    No new spells
    Visuals (armor/weapons) that a 5 year old could draw.

    Now take away 40% +/- revenue and how do you think future expansions will be? Better? I think not, people should be careful what they ask for.
    Creative Sparks and Cheyana like this.
  12. verbatim Elder

    The puritanical anti "enhanced" boxing people in this thread are honestly more toxic than the worst of the worst hackers warping around ow to snipe mobs.

    The root of the problem is the game forces you to group in order to get anything done, while it simultaneously runs on a cycle of planned obsolescence that recycles the same players into new servers on an annual basis. People left on older tlps or stranded in sub 110 territory on live have to deal with the shrinking pool or non existent pool of players left to collaborate with, and one solution to this problem is boxing.

    Dbg could eliminate most of the temptation to use 3p tools by simply improving the design of existing classes to make them easier to box. Allowing for a driver toon to issue commands to another character, improving follow, allowing for melee toons to stick and maneuver to target mobs and behave more like pets- buff up ranger bowing over time etc. Alternatively they could attack the root of the problem: the basic hostility of the game to soloing.

    Either way boxing both by hand and in it's "enhanced" form are not ends unto themselves, they are solutions to a problem the game creates and the developer chooses to overlook. If you want less boxing, make it unnecessary, if you want fewer 3p utilities, make them redundant. Most boxers would rather not play the game with +5 additional subs, they do so as an adaptation which simply isn't necessary in other games.
    Cheyana and Sissruukk like this.
  13. Benito EQ player since 2001.


    Forum rules to end all discussion of 3rd party software incoming. If you have a concern about 3rd party software, contact your nearest GM.
  14. verbatim Elder

    One can only hope.
  15. Vumad Cape Wearer


    There is an irony/hypocrisy to the fact that a merc cleric will automatically target and heal but paying for a sub and having that sub do the same thing is cheating. Yet the merc cleric if gets lost on autofollow will warp to you but the cheater can not do that.

    To answer your question directly... A DPG supported feature would...

    Autofollow that works better, as the characters are all running on the same client, which would allow the host PC to control it instead of the server, reducing server load and enhancing performance.

    Hotkeys that control another character. ISB wouldn't be needed if you could simply create a hotkey on character 1 that allows the client to perform an action on character 2. It would eliminate alt tab.

    DPG could also control the automation if they allowed it. Meaning that the subbed box would perform in a similar way to a merc, but allow the use of AA abilities and such. Again, see the opener here. A merc rogue is 1200 plat/hr and is not cheating, but a bot rogue at $10-15/month doing the same actions is cheating.

    People can talk about cheating all they want, but at the end, cheating is only cheating because it is defined as such. I myself see no difference between a cleric merc automated by the server and a subbed cleric that is automated by a 3rd party. The outcome is the same. Bringing those features 1st party and requiring a sub and a box assist add-on generates revenue, eliminates the slippery slope of 3rd party plugins, etc.

    Edit, also note that if DPG controlled it, it would be checking input, meaning that one of the characters needs to be in controlled in the same way that mercs follow the owner. You wouldn't be able to AFK play because the player would get an idle prompt, then the assist would be shut down, like auto-merc passive. No keypresses for X amt of time and the assist shuts down until the keypresses begin again. It would also limit the number of characters that can be automated per client. (2 or 5 would probably be the answer). People trying to run multiple groups would need to manually control 1 character per group and have multiple PCs.

    Really I don't know why all mercs don't auto passive when the player has been AFK for X time and go active again when the player starts playing again.
    Cheyana, Zilkress and Sissruukk like this.
  16. Zilkress Journeyman

    Just because you don't like the discussion is no reason to scilence people. Having open and honest conversations about what is happening and why is really in the best interests in the game. We all have bad stories about some people who utilize 3rd party programs but that dosent innately make everyone who utilizes them bad. Some of the hate and toxicity I have seen is downright shameful when one can just as easily post their opinion and reason supporting that opinion such as "I dont like boxer automation because of X" or "I understand that people use automation because of Y" and understand both points of view are valid and warrant concern. We all LOVE everquest and want the best for the game. Why cant we try and come together and understand the validity of each others concerns?
    Bardy McFly and Cheyana like this.
  17. Benito EQ player since 2001.

    The same arguments are regurgitated by both sides. Sometimes you'll get a novel argument. The pro-cheat crowd are playing a hard bargain (change the rules). The community remains divided. People who come to the forums no longer talk about the game but about the politics of 3rd party software.
  18. Prepared Lorekeeper


    After reading through all of the various posts and references to the recent activities involving the current suspension wave, this appears to be the most accurate representation as to what has happened. The original poster of this message thread even admits the players were cheating and then goes into a lengthy argument involving good and bad cheaters.

    If a person cheats by playing while not at the keyboard (unattended game play), they should be suspended and/or banned depending on the severity and discretion of the gaming studio. It doesn't matter if they sometimes do it or nice to other players. _They cheated_

    By the way, I didn't know the Play Nice Policy went away. I thought it was always the way it is forever more. Why would it be removed?
  19. Vumad Cape Wearer


    Gone a long time. Takes a lot of resources to enforce I am sure.
    Bardy McFly likes this.
  20. Szilent Augur

    how about we don't, because what we're talking about already has a word to call them by: cheaters.
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