Daybreak - Communicate with your player base!

For me it was just accounts that were in a raiding guild that were suspended.

I have stopped using the 3rd party program since but they suspensions are trickling in after the fact on more accounts.

There is too much confusion with the suspension/ban strategy.

Daybreak should take legal action against the 3rd party program distributors and experts.

They can't do that. The software is not owned by anyone and I doubt they want to pay legal fees to fight these sites. Hollywood and the RIAA couldn't stop music and video sharing. They don't even have the manpower to put in Type 3 augs lol. They just need to work with these guys and stop the AFK, farming garbage, warping etc.. Having software to help someone box normally doesn't seem like a big deal. I would love to have something to help box, other than ISB. Maybe their new UI will be more box friendly and people won't need other software to help. Most people aren't looking to cheat, just make boxing easier and more fun. This is a GAME and supposed to be fun, not frustrating. It's 23yrs old, time to adjust a few things, the game has changed.

Daybreak and EG7 are large entities with in-house counsel. They seem to have taken a more aggressive approach to counter cheating. The calculus is whether the publicity costs of suspensions costs more than targeting the source (distributors and experts).

It's only EverQuest with a very narrow range of cheat software. They would only need to target the few distribution and support sites with a cease-and-desist letter or threat of legal action. The site hosts or developers are probably established individuals who originally created the software as a hobby and would be more than willing to cease hosting and support upon being confronted with pending legal action.

Activision seems to have succeeded with their lawsuits:

https://www.polygon.com/2020/8/31/2...ne-modern-wafare-activision-sues-cx-cheats-pc

https://www.polygon.com/22868456/activision-call-of-duty-cheat-lawsuit

Few players would want to risk their expensive gaming rig and digitized personal information by downloading software/malware from unverified sites.

Well. If that is true (I believe it to be), and anyone based in the EU who has been suspended, go through a data subject access request for GDPR and get all your data - whatever has been monitored, for a period of months, and you'll know. It's your right to do so as an EU citizen after all!

Why does this feel like Gamer Pandering to avoid any news about touching women?

Log files only exist in order to allow players to parse. When this game was released the function did not exist. Thank Romidar and Graal and I'm sure others back in 1999 for their efforts to get them to add it.

Well Activision was massive and now owned by some tiny corp called Microsoft. Also, that software was not open source and made specifically for those games. Who are the gonna sue, the sites that hosts the files that aren't copyright infringements? It will never happen.

Doesn't matter the real problem is that people are older now, have less time and want to just box a group when they have a chance. Boxing is annoying and frustrating and they want a way to make it easier. The problem is EQ needs to accept that people want to box and make it easier for them to do that. You don't need 3rd party stuff, if they would make it easier for people in game. Stop pushing the grouping stuff, that's long gone now. Work with the community to figure out what they want.

EG7 has a $2.66 billion market cap. They can afford legal services.

The sites are few and well known. Pending legal action could spook the sites to stop distribution and support. (They are probably run by older, established individuals - "hobbyists" who do not want legal trouble - and not the "young hacker" above-the-law stereotype).

I don’t think the idea of suing the makers of the software is a new idea for them and a thread suggesting it isn’t going to be the trigger for action.

It is probably a calculation. Now that Daybreak is taking cheating and hacking more seriously. They need to weigh the negative publicity of frequent suspensions/bans versus going after the source.

Market cap has nothing to do with available cash. Market cap just means how much the stock is worth - stock that is primarily owned by other parties.

It was a rebuttal to a point that implied EG7 is too small to afford legal services.

Not sticking my toe in one side or the other here, but since you made the Activision comparison..

Activision raked in 8B$ USD last annual report in profit. EG7 posted losses against expected revenue in their last 3 Quarters, equating to just under 125M$ USD. Market cap is well and good, but it truthfully may be they may not have the money to do it. They may have the money, but if you're trying to stop the bleeding this isn't worth pursuing financially. DBG was purchased for only 300M.

Daybreak would be pursuing legal action against individuals with limited financial means. For all intents and purposes, they are not suing another corporation or rich individuals with war chests. If there is a third party corporation involved (web hosting site), there are channels for communication and resolution. It's more than likely that these cheat sites (fan hobby or initiative) will fold at the inkling of a legal challenge.

And that means that they won’t make any of their costs back which makes the return on the lawsuit pretty bad.

I don't disagree in principal, you're probably right it would dissuade plenty of them. But, you highlighted a problem with this in your post. It's not a corporation in one jurisdiction, it's multiple. Not even taking into account international, just having to take the time to put together documents that are legally sound in multiple states is expensive and time consuming. They certainly aren't hiring a UCSD student for 19$/hr for this. Just putting it together to even be able to legally file and have some formal action is costly and time consuming to put together, and not guaranteed to get anywhere. Plus, EG7 doesn't know Macaroniquest vs Cheesecake quest. It's the games duty to enforce and not one they're going to see as valuable at investing capital into even just the beginning proceedings of anything formally legal.

These types of lawsuits (Activision lawsuits above) are not for financial gain. They are to end the distribution of malicious software that hurts their business (either through settlement or court-imposed order).

When I say the opposing party has "limited financial means", these individuals won't be able mount a costly legal defense and will be encouraged to settle (shut down their site).

Activision's threat of legal action forced a cheat website to settle and shut down:

From Polygon:

Yes, you've posted that before. You're talking in circles. But, again, Activision makes money, and has significantly more of it than EG7. The threat ended it, but that threat still cost them money to put together. That wasn't free on their part, which is what I am trying to convey to you. Activision has had ban waves in their games that are 3-4x what EverQuest even has as a total including F2P, not just looking at subs. The financial line DPG/EG7 has for Everquest are significantly tighter due to scale which makes this not as simple as you seem to think.