Cya Everquest

Furthermore, chase loot is so rare (Blood Soaked items) that it is nearly impossible to expect a drop (which can sell for months worth of membership) by manual play.

Again, botters are guided by power and wealth acquisition without competition from other players (rolling) and without the limitations of real world factors (fatigue, time management, social obligations).

I dont see your point.... who cares? I get that you want EQ to be more like WoW. No..Thank.. You.

Real world factors (fatigue, time management, social obligations) is a natural check on the negative externality of camp or mob monopolization.

Rule-abiding players log off when they are tired.

Automation short circuits this natural order.

Automated players can artificially extend their playtimes partially (being near the computer) or absolutely (away from home).

You cant afk kill raids LOL... what is this filth? Are you talking about botting or boxing at this point? Im confused

Furthermore, how does that affect your gameplay? Do you have a misguided view of being server best with minimal investment of time? Otherwise it shouldnt matter to you how quickly another got something compared to you. Only that you tried your best and enjoyed the journey. You should be in an active raiding guild instead of side lining everyone else. Then you would get items you desire quickly and wouldnt need to complain about "Boxers" who do side content.

Playing on Ragefire, nearly everyone here plays 3+ accounts. Speaking for our guild only, though I'm sure the other raiding guilds have similar set ups, we're all level 100 and we raid 4 times a week at the beginning of the expac, then slow down to 3 or so nights a week, with a couple nights for people to do other raids with their alts. The only reason why I would want to group, with either my own boxes or others, is to get max level, earn AAs, and get progression done, frankly that's a chore that I get out of the way ASAP. I don't need grouping as my social mixer. I get plenty of that on raids both in the chat windows and in voice chat. We also talk to each other out of game throughout the day/night with chat tools.

I like to box because I want to do fun stuff in the game at my own pace and not care how many times I die/recover. I don't want to be responsible for killing anyone else as I learn and I don't want to spend even more time in voice chat or group chat. I join in /gu as much or as little as I want and then go about my business.

In raids, the boxes most people play are healers (cleric/shaman usually) or bards. We do have a lot of main clerics, but sometimes we need more, and it's really nice if someone can play more than one toon on a raid. However, our voice chat often has 45+ people in it and we do need to make space for those that log in later, which is really nice this far into Ragefire progression.

Some of the third party software (TPS) offers QOL things that if DPG were smart, they'd contract the folks that work on these things to implement them in the game. We already know EQ DEVS put in place some things that TPS provided: automation of some attacks, in-game maps, extended target, mercs, the enhanced find, tradeskills, macros, advanced loot, etc. Most of the things in TPS are opensource even, so I don't buy it that EQ DEVS can't enhance mercs. If they enhance mercs so people can play how they want, then that means we pay for less accounts.Uh oh, can't have that!!

There's so many servers out there now that cater to the truebox philosophy. Target those servers for "anti-cheating detection" and leave the rest of the servers alone. EVERYONE knows that after OOW it's a lot harder to find bodies for grouping and raiding, so we adapted by adding boxes. And some people adapted further by finding tools to make it easier to play those extra boxes and do their own thing. In the real high level game, I find it hard to believe folks can't find a zone to group/raid in that isn't monopolized by a box crew. Especially even now with pick zones, instances, and agents of change.

DPG, if you want us to play multiple accounts so you can make more money, then make it easier for us to do so. I happily pay yearly subs for 3+ accounts. If you'd really rather us only play one account, then turn the switch to make ALL servers follow the truebox server rules.

ETA: Our guild is really quite diverse too: Grandparents, parents, couples, couples with young kids, singles, gay, straight, beyond the binary. Whatever. We want the server to thrive and we want to have fun.

You must play on TLP.

Live has previous expansion's raid loot on random trash mobs (non-raid zones). These items have like a .0001% drop rate. The Blood Soaked Summoner's Earring (EM) can sell in the range of 20-40 Krono.

At this point, Darkpaw might consider doing away with chase loot.

Ok so sounds like you don't want the AFK aspect of it. That's fair and most botters would agree with you. So them driving their crew they would still be limited by fatigue, social limitations, and time management. Or are you just upset that they are not stuck in the guild hall LFG all the time like you? There are many live and let live solutions but your hard line and hatred have blinded you from that discussion. And the more I read your posts the more and more I think you just want to win ForumQuest and troll.

Players who use automation software can artificially extend their playtimes even when at the computer.

This is an advantage not offered to rule-abiding players.

So the economic thought process behind chase loot. Getting rid of it could be good but for those that don't raid t3 crafted would be the top they can achieve. Or it forces them to join a raid guild. Sure it would hurt the KR market a bit. But most Bloodsoaked goes for between 2 and 6kr with peices such as the tower shield going up to 10 and pet earring up to 15 to 20. But then you have to ask who is buying these peices and would they still be in demand. If the supply goes down the prices may increase making them even more unaffordable.

How? If I have 3 hours to play that dosent extend because I use automation.

Two ways:

1. For a player who has no set time, they can gauge the length of their play session based on fatigue levels. Players with automation will be less fatigued. They are not constantly Alt-Tabbing and probably watching Netflix.

2. For a player who has set time, they can leave the computer for brief periods to accomplish other tasks (work, chores) which allows them to play even more later in the day or week.

Again, automation software is offering an advantage not granted to rule-abiding players. The negative externalities being camp/mob monopolization and wealth/power acquisition disparity to name a few.

Maybe they can make an in-game system where characters can shroud down to a lower level and help their friends level. Probably would solve all the LFG at lower levels

Seriously though, I am 100% confident that no matter what they do in the future, there will still be forum wars over it. As I have read all the posts on this thread, I can see why people are passionate on both sides of the issue of boxing and botting. While most that support box-tting are against AFK play, they cannot argue that those tools allow it to be done very easily. Quite more that the extent of just going AFK and letting your mercs and pets do the work for you.

Maybe they can make a premium Lore and Legends like server (link) for EQ and make it a no box server. Only one character active at once per person. If family members need to play on same IP they can get an IP exemption from a petition. If you are on a VPN you just get disconnected, if you are on the same MAC address or SystemID you just get disconnected. Load up any detected 3rd party software, you get disconnected. (They should implement this on live imo, if someone logs in with a program they do not want on their game it just disconnects that account until they log in clean.)

Then make an anything goes premium server where people can cheat and do whatever they like. Not a prison server like EQ2 had but one that is a progression server where only new characters can play. Would cut down on the FTP farmers as it would be a paid for server. Only gold paying accounts here!

These two servers would allow people, who just have to have it one way or another, to play on the one with the style they want to their hearts content.

When the rules are set in such a way, that almost no one is rule abiding, what do you do? I think you are vastly understating the amount of people who used box assist programs.

Sounds like a whole lot of speculation. Also your second example is AFK which we all have condemned. You have made statements based on poor speculation and generalities.

I asked Vumad if he was talking about key broadcasting or automation, he said he Alt-Tabs.

Key broadcasting is not like the other software that everyone is alluding to.

When you can't disprove an argument on its merits, call it speculation or generalization.

Because we can only somehow rely on the word of the individual who breaks the rule. "Just trust me, bro. I'm really at the computer; I didn't mow the lawn or go to the grocery store."

We all need robots, not to play EQ for us, but to go to the grocery store, mow the lawn and to go to work for us. This way we can have all the time to play EQ we want and not worry about how long it takes

In nearly all instances of sending a tell to an automated player, in my personal experience, the player would always gets back to me around 1-3 hours later and says, "Sorry man, I didn't see your tell. Yeah, I'm camping this mob."

We are expected to trust these people that they are exercising a more "ethical" form of automation? LOL.

I'm not sure why you guys are fighting over identification of botters. I'm nearly certain they know every single person using them. I wish they'd release the stats because it really feels like ~50% of the player base is using them on live.

Some people are playing on hard mode with 1 class/account. Some people are playing Baldur's Gate on a EQ engine.

Great point.

There is no "more ethical" form of automation if Daybreak already regards partial automation as cheating.