EQ on GeForce now?

So synopsis, EG7 owns the games at the top, including Everquest.

EG7 also owns 4GAME after buying Innova. A platform through which they distribute MMO, including ones that they don't necessarily own.

Last I checked a game has to be on steam to take part in this and they take a 30% cut of all sales in the game including subscriptions. That is a pretty big cut of them to be taking of the EQ money for hosting the launcher.

The "cloud" just means it is someone else's computer/network.

Pretty much. It's a little more like renting a streaming device.

(for playing games) It accepts input signals (keyboard and mouse) and sends back only video-audio stream.

You probably don't even get a command line to edit and change the startup shortcut.

Interesting question how they would handle the log. If it is written to on the remote machine, do you have access to the log while playing? Can you install things like GINA on the remote system? And have that be part of the audio stream coming back?

It's clear it will stop many kinds of cheating when you don't have direct access to the client machine.

Won't stop hardware cheating which is cheap, easy, and all over pc and console games.

*edit*
If 'stopping cheating' is your goal I don't see GeForce as an effective solution to that in any case.

It only stops the person who chose to use it from cheating, not everyone else.

What benefit are you gaining by using this service other than hard drive space for files you then can't edit?

Im not sure how cheating could be done reliable on such a setup to be honest.

There are basically 2 potential types of automated gameplay: (assuming the log-file is not accessible)

1) The "stupid bot" that just presses tab to select a target and start an attack macro blindly, repeat forever.
This could potentially work on a cloud service, but it will likely fail if something happens in the game that is not anticipated by the macro.

2) The "smart bot" that analyzes the video/audio-stream in realtime and navigate the zone based on the input, and hunt down the mobs.
This is still not technically feasible(just analyzing the video input is comparable to bypassing a captcha). "Understanding" the zone-geometry based on the analyzed input is "doable" but still pretty advanced(use the parallax effect to understand 3d-depth and utilize inverse rendering to separate polygon data from the textured/lighted scene)... Just recognizing 3d-shapes is hard, if you think about it...
Not to mention the AI itself.
It would be impossible to detect though, as it would be entirely "black box".

Wow no.

Super easy to set up camp bots. I have done this on low levels, summoning can be dealt with, other mechanics I'm not sure how much they would break the flow.

/tar a, /tar an, /tar thatspecificthing
Whichever is most applicable in your macro.

The box group just sits there and repeats the same actions over and over.

You guys are way over thinking the 'Screen Scraping'.

With EQ you can set up a window's exact location, text and background color. Then /loc get it?

Even that is way overkill. Can't you get values from the UI elements in XML? I've never tried, but just another vector of attack I can imagine off the top of my head.

**edit**
Keep in mind the best thing about it, it's not cheating.

The only time it's cheating is when you are AFK.

*2nd edit* I assume we're talking EQ not in a wider sense. Hardware cheating is already here and cheap in the context of modern games pc and console.

I assume the cloud service does not give any inputs at all, besides a stream of compressed bitmaps and sounds? Are there other options than screen-scraping? Do you have file access at all? is the bot-software running on the Geforce Now-client at home or in the cloud at Nvidia?

You can obviously use text recognition on the chat windows and have the bot react to that. But it sounds like you are in favor of the "stupid bot" approach, that doesn't "react" at all.
Everquest does not give a textual response when you bump into geometry, which would make navigation in zones pretty difficult...How does a bot handle that? Compare /loc output and see if it changes for each frame and if it doesn't, try a random direction?

Note, I have zero experience in setting up bots(it is cheating after all), Im just speculating.

What is "hardware cheating" ?

Not mentioned often, but something I'm fond of being an audio person, is Sound Scraping. With the configurability of sounds and audio triggers right in the game and then something like GINA on top, you can develop a number of dynamic game events you can respond to.

Keep in mind the programmable keyboards and mice are very powerful. You can record long sequences of mouse moves, key presses, pauses, random pauses, shift window focus, whatever. Then play it back on repeat. But also have different profiles that engage into a different set of pre-recorded actions based on an external event. So the 'bot' as you say, is not software running anywhere, it is mouse hardware sending out signals indistinguishable from you having hit that key yourself.

I see, you can install GINA and have it shout stuff, and then use that for voice-input(I think I S Boxer can support that?)which would make it a reactive setup.

That still assumes you can install those apps in the cloud... If I understand Geforce Now correctly, you can only install the basic game through Steam(and nothing else), which excludes thirdparty apps that needs file-access...Im not even sure you are allowed to upload your own sounds for ingame-AT use, which would limit your sound idea somewhat.

I'm not really sure how it will all work. I'm just operating on the assumption that you have access to nothing on the remote machine, and stating that a system I have tested will still work.

That is to say, no GINA, no responding to in-game events, just 'dumb bots' as you say. I can do a whole lot of no effort XP 1-60, at least, this way. But contrary to my portrayal on Forum Quest I'm nobody.

I am also saying, an internet sweat shop in some foreign country that just sold all their video cards because bitcoin mining was outlawed, would have no problem buying some hardware and programming up some money in a 'cloud based world'. I'm guessing.

TLDR..there will always be some cheating in some way, cloud won't stop that entirely.

In theory they could even block the stream of images being accessible by outside programs.

Movie streaming platforms do this with HDCP, supported by GPU drivers. To screen record some 4k movies from streaming sites, you actually have to use old GPU that don't support HDCP.

The HDCP GPU drivers literally blocks you from accessing the framebuffer. When you record the movie stream with a recording program, you just see nothing. HDCP blocks the whole access of the stream. From the memory to the GPU framebuffer, to the cable from the PC to the monitor, it's all encrypted and blocked.

This is especially true for laptops, where the whole HDCP system is integrated in the hardware from the get-go. Many people can't record 4k Netflix on newer laptops.


Note that GPU drivers capable of doing 4k Netfix streaming, force you to have HDCP compliant monitors that can block recording software.

How closely AMD and Nvidia work together with Netflix is rarely mentioned in the media, but a lot of driver updates are about HDCP updates and compliance, preventing people from recording 4k streams.




With gaming this will be harder to justify because you would also block streamers on Twitch, but if they wanted to block access to those bitmaps they could with HDCP.

You would be forced to tape your monitor with some exterior camera to get any data on the game.

Is it?

It injects into EQ memory. Totally against the EULA. That they have been allowing it lately is a different subject.

From the TOS: https://www.daybreakgames.com/terms-of-service?locale=en_US#section9

I assume "bots" means automation.

And they were right.

There are 14 streaming services with over 25 million subscribers.

What I'm talking about injects nothing into memory.

Mouse repeats button press as if you were doing it yourself. It doesn't even take a programmable mouse, you can use windows functions to lock a key repeat and set it's rate.

You are pressing a macro or series of macros over and over.

If you are behind the keyboard it's not cheating at all.

If you are not behind the keyboard it's totally cheating.

I'm not interested in your views on this subject because of your past post history. You say emqueue is cheating but I S B isn't because you don't use the former and you do use the latter. Regardless of your position, the use of these programs has been implicitly allowed by DBG.

You weren't talking about emque two?

No I was not. Read the thread, if you're interested in what silly thing I was specifically talking about.

If you have support for voice input(which I think is possible in I S Boxer), you can have "kinda" loops and "reactive execution" in your in-game macros.

You just need the final line in your macro to output a text string that triggers an AT sound, that can be interpreted as a voice command, that starts the next macro or the original macro again.

This allows for reactive scripts and loops without any of the known "botting software"-apps.
It is still automation, and is logically a bot. And is therefore cheating.

If you know your / commands in EQ, including some that aren't necessarily intended for players or possibly no longer supported you can achieve way more than you all are imagining.

You can stay completely in windows and hardware mouse, no third party software or memory interaction of any sort, and respond to events you've set up with in-game audio triggers.

This I have personally tested. At worst there is one / command that may have been stealth patched out. I haven't played in a while.