Regarding Third Party Cheat Programs

Nope, it was with all of the cheating programs; I think that you probably didn't see the actual official posts about it as they were actually rather clear on that. All of the cheat programs at the time agreed to help DBG be able to detect the use of programs like them on the Truebox servers as well as to not update their programs in order to work around the Truebox protections that prevent one from being able to log into more than one account on a single Truebox server from the same computer. In exchange, DBG would not apply what was shared or the Truebox cheat protections derived from what was shared to the other Live servers.

If true, that is extremely unethical and I would think actually illegal. It would be absolutely appalling as a paying customer on a live server that I am not entitled to fair play just because I am not on a TLP server.

I really hope DBG will reconsider this, I don't want the live servers to end up like Zek!

It would not be illegal............................................ Maybe unethical though, don't feel like arguing that point.

Maybe due to this announcement they'll make a live true box server for people that don't want it on their servers. I think people are misunderstanding this "agreement" - the programs were always allowed on all EQ servers but Daybreak wanted to experiment and make a few servers without those programs, these servers are what we call True Box servers.

It's not like Daybreak signed an agreement to ruin their live servers or because they wanted to hurt one group of people and not the other. Daybreak recognized A LOOOOOOOOOOOOT of people play their games using this software but only a small minority wanted servers without the software. Daybreak figured out how to please both crowds, True Box. It was a smart decision for them and one many of us hope they honor.

This also is something every single person here had the opportunity to figure out themselves so it's not even like it was secretive. When Daybreak made True Box servers with strict no third party software rules no one thought to ask if that meant Third Party Software was allowed for the other servers? (Read the Phinigel FAQ it makes it clear that it is) It was pretty obvious to a lot of people that it was, there's even guide websites which have information on how to setup some of the allowed programs.

It's not Daybreaks fault that people were unable to think for themselves and figure this all out.

It's not unethical at all. They made no changes to their existing policies at the time and did not get rid of any of the existing anti-cheating methods that they had already implemented. Nor did they stop creating new anti-cheating methods. DBG simply did not use any of the knowledge which they gained as part of the agreement on the Live servers. Likewise the cheat developers did not stop revising their programs to work around the new anti-cheat methods that DBG created. Had either side done so, then they would have been in breach of the agreement; so the cheat program developers would have quite quickly updated their programs to do work around all of those changes that they helped to implement as well as to provide work arounds for multi-boxing on a single computer, and DBG would have implemented what they knew on all servers. There would have been little to no difference today on the Live servers; but the Truebox servers would have been in considerably worse shape.

Most guilds I know, have zero-tolerance against cheating and botting. People are not using "game genie" because of "slot-colors".

I would really like DBG to post some numbers when they initiate ban-waves, that would clear up a lot of confusion.

I don't use any software to control a group of 6, have played up to 9 but that is work and not enjoyable. That said I have seen people that do use one program or the other to help them box, and I am fine with it. They don't grief me or make me jealous of what they can kill. They have laughed at me when my auto follow gets stuck in a wall though, why do we have this issue 20 years later... I take it as a challenge to see what I can do with alt-tab (probably to carpal tunnel issues). If there were no fear of bans for using it simply to enhance boxing and get a better follow (and easy enough to use), then I would use one or the other, one if just to have hot buttons to other screens (as I understand it) or the other that can be a merc or 5 in a box.

I think getting rid of true cheaters, those who warp or use software to play unattended for experience or farming should be the goal. Some of you purist should look at how the game has involved, we have mercs, offline bankers, good maps, etc. Just because you want to walk up hill both ways in the snow, don't be mad a those that want a more enjoyable game for them if they are not breaking the play nice rules and 24/7 camping items, etc.

Play on a truebox server or maybe DB makes a live truebox server for those that want the old school experience. Heck, disable mercs on that server, auto attack skills, trueshot, melody, autofollow, guild hall corpse summoners, PoK and guild hall port stones, all of it. Give them back death runs, staring at the spell book, remove the out of combat enhanced meditation/regen. See how many like the "good old days" for long or find themselves on a ghost server.

I am older and have less and less time to play. So I would personally like it to be enjoyable.

For me, it isn't about jealousy. It is about the fact that an MMO is supposed to be about a "level playing field". So when mercs were added, they were added for everyone. When offline bankers were added, they were added for everyone etc.
If someone is better than me because of skill (which is often I am certain), then great but when it is because of using a cheat program to run extra toons for them, that isn't right in my opinion. And even worse if Daybreak is making back room deals to allow this.

You're right, people arent using it for slot colors. That's relatively new anyway and not many people are even using it atm. As far as I know, slot colors hasnt even gotten an "official release"

There is no confusion though, all of this is easily researchable for yourself if you actually want to put in the effort to research it. You can google the program you speak of, check how large the community is, how many people actively browse those forums at one time, how many new posts a day and make your own decisions.

There is one guy on lockjaw who boxes 54 characters. In order to play on Lockjaw you are required to have a Gold Subscribtion. This one boxer pays more money than most guilds that you know to Daybreak. If you think this is the only guy out there who boxes 12+ Gold accounts you're completely wrong too, again, all of this is VERY easily researchable for anyone who actually cares to learn. Most people would rather just sit on the forums and complain than educate themselves though.

One of the biggest factors of Everquest that makes a player good is researching the game & figuring out which AAs to use, which skills to use, which spells to use, parsing your character and testing different theories.... This applies to programs too as it does to hardware for your computer, a good internet connection.

So far everyone I see here is looking to blame someone else but themselves. Instead of screaming ban the cheaters why don't you take this opportunity to do some research and figure out, for yourself, what's allowed and not allowed and if using it would help you play/enjoy your game better?

An online game where downloading cheating software is considered "A skill", is probably not what the devs had in mind when they designed EQ.
I sure hope that will be cleared up when the devs update this thread.

Time will tell...

While I am not going defend those who really cheat.(and i don't use the game genie software)

DB rules say no unattended game play. That means you can't have the game playing while no one is at the system. Now People can get in trouble for doing this without any 3rd party software.(going somewhere with mercs or pets and going afk and letting them kill all night can get you in trouble).

So it seems DB has no issues with people using a 3rd party to play as long as they are at the system and in some way in control of what going on(everyone I know who use the software to bot are controlling at lest one toon and only the alts are being controlled by the software and when they are done playing they camp out.).

Game genie in its basic setup is nothing more then this.

as for the unfair advanatage. Well we know they don't like wrapping or somehow bypassing other things in game.

in order for game genie to do this you have to get add ons. and if you know what your doing you can make your own as has been seen with this new software that the new guy made.

Now if you go to the website for this new guys software. He list a crap ton of stuff it dose that break the rules. and that in its basic setup.

can't be snared/rooted/mezzed/stunned. for example.

Dunno about you, but I consider educating myself and thinking critically a skill... A rather important one too.

It's been said multiple times that not all the third party software is cheating, which should be obvious by the fact that thousands of us have used it for years and we're still here talking to you.

I'm done arguing with you though because it's very clear you're one of the "I'd rather complain on the forums than think for myself" people I was talking about. In this scenario no one but you suffers/loses out. Daybreak isn't going to ban everyone using these programs; if they were going to do that they would have already when they made True Box servers. We saw what their decision was then, it was to create a server for the vocal minority that whines about people having an advantage and to leave the Third Party Software folks (their playerbase) alone.

People like you have two options...

1) Complain & miss out on enjoying EQ to its fullest extent because you want to take the moral high ground and deem anyone that does anything you dont like a cheater.

2) Take this opportunity to take a step back and realize that maybe you were wrong and that these programs are allowed to be used, while following the rules.

Unless you find complaining fun, what you're doing now sounds like a serious waste of time and energy.

Won't that make the AI-controlled alt, "Unattended"? There is a reason DBG isn't giving everyone 5 good mercs...

OK, not defending the use of software here, but there's nothing illegal about what you've described here. The ethics are debatable (though I think I'd come down on the ethical side there, as well, based on what I've learned in this thread), but no one is in any danger of being arrested or fined for this.

to start out what me and you think don't mean much. Its what daybreak thinks. And from what they have said all unattended game play means is there is no one at the keyboard to give commands and such.

https://help.daybreakgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/231115088-EverQuest-AFK-or-Unattended-Gameplay-

It is not ok for an account to be played unattended or AFK.
If you need to go away for longer than a few seconds please move your character to an empty part of the zone or log out completely.
If a character, including any pets or mercs, is found performing actions while the user is away disciplinary action will be taken against the account.
Disciplinary action for unattended or AFK gameplay can include, but is not limited to; account warning, account suspension, and account termination (ban).

that is right from the daybreak site on afk/unattended game play. as it reads it just means weather or not someone is at the keyboard. don't say anything bout having to be in control of the toons.

no weather or not it breaks the unfair advantage rules. That a different ballgame and its going come down to when they post what you can and can't use 3rd party software for.

We know using software to bypass game things such as being rooted/snared/mezzed/stunned or to wrap around zones or form one zone to another with a press of a button or to see what each mob is going drop is giving a unfair advantage. Ban them outright.

But the gray area that they need to clear up are as follows.

Is it ok to use a 3rd party item if it gives me access to something my toons already have. for example I box a druid. so would it be ok to have a tracking program running so i don't have to tab to the druid to track.

can a person use a 3rd party program to control some or all aspect of their toon(s) if they are at the system.(reason I don't use software that directly controls toons. I don't like giving up that much control on my toons I want to be able to decide when they do what and how).

and we have to remember there are people with medical issue that if they want to play a game like EQ using these programs are a must or they can't play. how dose daybreak deal with that issue.

I know this can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. I always interpreted "being away" from a character to also include having another character in the foreground, you are "away from the background character" so to speak. However with the non-automated boxing thirdparty software, you can "logically" have multiple characters in the foreground at the same time. I view this as a workaround for a "windows limitation" rather than an "everquest-limitation". So perhaps my old view was too narrow in that aspect...

Maybe having "that every character action must be a direct result of player input", would be a better rule, as this directly translate into player-skill and thus put all players in an even playing-field.

As you say, DBG has the final word here.

I imagine, that designing games with disabled users in mind, is an incredible tricky area, especially if you also want the game to be challenging to non-disabled users. It is probably one of the yet unsolved areas in game design, and I would be extremely impressed if DBG could come up with a good solution!

There have been first person-shooters with limited aim-bot functionality, but that is the only example I have heard of...

I said I was done arguing with you, but you show some signs of being a bit more open minded so maybe I was wrong and hastily jumped to a conclusion.

Let me put something to you for you to chew on with your brain (and something for everyone else to think about here). If you could be considered as "afk" for having a character in your background that performs actions, what happens if you alt tab during a battle or a raid encounter to look something up online? How many of us alt tab to look stuff up on ZAM while playing? Should that be a bannable offense?

Let's kick it up a notch. Let's say you have an ingame macro with multiple /pause and /cast lines. It casts 5 spells with 1 key press. You press the key 1 time and then alt tab to read the quest entry that you're doing. What should we do for players like that? If a GM shows up the second they alt tab and makes contact with the player and they don't respond, should he be banned for AFK play? They *did* cast 4 spells while the client was in the background and the player was, by daybreaks standards, afk.

This is a big part of the problem though. When you start allowing stuff that isn't done through the game itself, people start pushing the envelope a little more each time. Eventually you end up with the automated software again.

This thread is remarkably parallel and similar to the discussion that happened years ago when companies first implemented drug screening for current and potential employees and contractors. Back then there was an incredible amount of concern, and under the breath whining, by some workers.

You can reductio ad absurdum any argument though. It's the same as when people say get rid of all software ban ALL third party programs, eventually the game will be made unfun for so many people that it'll be a shell of what it once was.

The main program in question, that people call game genie here, does a lot of stuff like World of Warcraft's Addons do. It also does some stuff that many of us would agree is bad. We can't just penalize everyone, there are people who use it for methods that many here would not consider cheating. Then there are the obvious cheaters.

Many of you here who don't box don't understand how much boxers have to deal with. You think that they just sit around on their ivory towers and spit gold down at the plebs but we're often typically harrassed, called botters or afkers, told we're ruining the economy and all sorts of other stuff while we play. Even the people who aren't doing anything wrong. You might say well some of you are real poop faces and yes, you're right. Some boxers are evil and cause mischief and steal camps and are all around terrible individuals. But that doesn't mean it's right to penalize all of them. As a boxer I play in fear a lot of the time, fear that random people are going to report me and i am going to get banned for no reason. Why should I worry about being banned if I am playing legit? Because Daybreak's rules are ambigious as can be. What if he sends a character in my box team a tell that isn't my tank and expects an answer? What if I am alt tabbed for a moment like in my example above, reading a quest on allakhazam? Who plays EQ and DOESNT do that? Then an innocent person gets banned who is actually at the computer and playing. He's just focusing on his tank, who is fighting the monster in camp.

My point is, I see this thread as very us vs them. A lot of people are calling for bans but they don't seem to understand that you're talking about a lot of people's emotional well being. The rules daybreak already has in place are punishing and strict enough, I have had one or two friends suspended for "Afk" play because they sent the wrong character a tell or the GM showed up and spoke in /say in a zone where the mobs also speak in /say. As a boxer when you're pulling 10+ mobs and they all speak in /say.... well you dont pay attention to it. I can tell you first hand that when you get suspended for something like this, the person suffers a lot of stress. They *feel* like a criminal even though they aren't one. They *feel* like people in the game are out to get them even when they aren't and it creates a very toxic atmosphere.

When people go around saying stuff like, "ban the cheaters" or "ban everyone who uses that program". You're like an angry mob with pitchforks and you're scaring and hurting people. Innocent people. Even if you do ban/hurt 100 cheaters, if you hurt 10 innocent people at the same time, would that really justify everything? Just think about that.