Regarding Third Party Cheat Programs

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by EQ Dev, Jul 18, 2018.

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  1. Dawdle Augur

    Not evil for the most part? Usually reasonable? Can disable and remove features if it's within reason and within your power to do so?
    Interesting that a third party would lay claim to having rights to produce something and that a Dev. should have to be the one to make contact.

    Away it's pretty simple, most of us don't like the cheating that takes place. DB should be doing more to combat this issue and this is a good start.
    Many of the botters will tell you they don't care about their accounts so banning people for running cheats is not hurting the game one bit. DB has even warned people and I think everybody knows whats "detrimental" to the game and whats fair to the player base.
    If there's some feature that should be added why not write some code then open a dialog with DB yourself and submit it. I would much rather have DB develop it and add it to the game then any rogue third party. Just my OP but the fact that DB is taking a stance on this is a good thing.
    xcitng and Ghubuk like this.
  2. Deillusional Augur

    First off I applaud DBG for doing this it shows they care about the game still.

    However, speaking as a guild leader could we get a list of programs ok to use? e.g. those that already been mentioned.

    Item collectors (magelo / lucy / eqitems etc) - items should be available on the everquest website anyhow.
    spell aa collectors (raid loot) - the information based on this should be available on the everquest website anyhow.
    gina - auto triggers - a comprehensive audio trigger "addon" should be available native to the everquest client.
    gamparse - parsing should have been available from day 1 with everquest.
    keyboards with macros (Razor/logitech). - handy for people with disabilities so they dont have to smash all keys all the time.
  3. JustAnotherHuman New Member

    I love EQ. It's a blast to play. I've been paying fairly close attention this whole time, and I'm about 100% certain they are primarily concerned with AFK farming of exp/materials/platinums etc.

    I enjoy boxing. I box to enjoy the game. Without boxing, the game is as much waiting around LFG as it is actually playing, on live servers its far worse than that. TLP servers that don't allow boxing (or whatever truebox is supposed to be accomplishing) is the most toxic gaming environment I've ever seen. It's like you gathered up all the fail and whine and put it one spot. And you STILL end up wasting forever LFG. It's dumb.

    I started on the Lockjaw server as a non-boxer. I was able to see all current raid content in era and beat it as part of a raiding guild. I joined the top guild on the server, Faceless, and we dominated the entire run of the server. I didn't have to be a cheating boxer to join the guild, and I didn't have to cheat, and I didn't have to box (though I did box a porter to help me beat all you scrubs to raid mobs). Regardless of any change DBG makes to the game, YOU will only get to experience the high end of EQ as "it was meant to be played" if you GIT GUD.

    About seven months after Lockjaw launched, I was diagnosed with a particularly horrific cancer that left me physically disabled to a degree that would make many lay down and die. In fact I did lay down and accepted death. One of the worst parts of the disability was the loss of virtually every activity I used to enjoy. I can barely manipulate a keyboard, and I certainly was unable to play this game as well as before I got sick. I was out of the game for most of Kunark and Velious, and when I tried to come back in Luclin, it was frustrating to be horrible at the game, because I just can't do as many APM as you need to play at the high end.

    EQ has virtually no built-in accessibility features. There's no voice command recognition, the basic movement and targeting functionality is essentially useless. The default UI is an abomination. The only real development of the game that is still going on, is happening by third party developers, essentially doing it for free and begging the current operators to incorporate it into the base game.

    Without third party programs, I wouldn't be able to play EQ, and I'm about 95% sure it kept me alive for significant portions of the past few years. The guy who set me up with the tools, custom built for me to overcome my specific disability, used to work for DBG. He is a giant among men, and one of the best people I've ever met. And most of you curse his name in game because you spend far too much time concerned with what others are doing, and no time at all looking at yourselves.

    There's a lot of contempt and hate shown in this thread for people who use other programs, but keep in mind, as one webcomic back in the day so eloquently put it, this game uses an awful lot of system resources to still look like something crapped out of a cat's as***le.

    And if you are someone who "never cheated and never will" just know that all of the people you play with, they probably do use that stuff and just don't talk to you about it for the same reason you've never been offered drugs at a party.

    The concerns expressed here about their algorithm reflects the true, actual history, of all of DBG automated ban activities in the past. Fully 1/3 of our guild has been banned in the past year, not for cheating, not for doing anything wrong, but because of false positives. As in, 1/3 of those bans were eventually reversed as the mistake was realized. But hardly any of those people came back. These are core players that are still sorely missed, even 9-12 months later. They will never be replaced, because every EQ player lost at this point is permanent.

    Having an account stripped like that is...severe. It's tantamount to physical assault in terms of the effect it has on the relationship with the customer. If even one of my accounts was banned for so much as an hour, I'd be gone and never come back, and I'm someone who pays for a lot of accounts.

    I don't cheat. This game barely functions is all, and I choose to "make do" with the tools I have available.

    But yea, I'm pretty sure they're talking about the AFK farming, where a group that is clearly AFK kills a handful of mobs every hour in some random corner of an unused zone. This activity drives me nuts, but I'd rather a thousand people get away with it then even one friend be lost forever because DBG is unlikely to do this well.
    Tegila, Vumad, Shanarias and 3 others like this.
  4. Aaluff New Member

    I am very pleased to see this move. Cheaters have diminished the game for too long. So many people fussing about what is allowed and what is not. Just play the game. For myself I have spent many hours tracking and reporting cheaters. I have seen some successes in getting them banned (not nearly as many as I would have liked). That being said I believe the devs are being as fair and accurate as possible in being positive the individuals questioned are actually cheating. On any given day you will find almost 25 folks in the valleys at the top of Dead Hills zone auto botting on EMarr. Frontier Mountains forts are full of cheating groups. Again I applaud DB for this move.
    VZRetro likes this.
  5. Sukidovi New Member

    If you are, or may as well be sitting there AFK farming or you are subverting mechanics to give yourself an unfair advantage then I would suggest other players might consider that you are cheating or ruining the market (even more).
    Not that mysterious surely?

    Suki.
  6. Dawdle Augur

    You talk about how many people are cheating and question whether or not something needs to be done. Drug comparison? Did you make a everybody's doing it reference?
    It really sounds like your suggesting everyone should cheat because that's what everyone is doing. This topic is so not about drugs at a party.
    You know I'm just tired of going to check camps for stuff I need and the same bots are there 24/7. I wonder how many of the people not willing to cheat have already quit?
    Trust your account to 3rd party software and other cheaters? I don't want to have to run 3rd party software to compete for camps or progression.
    It is against the rules to decompile the game and alter the way it's supposed to run.The people that are doing this are cheating. If I have to code to compete then we aren't playing EQ.
    Ghubuk likes this.
  7. Gromph Elder

    The fact there are so many complainers about banning people who cheat really makes me sad.
    VZRetro, Bella222, Sancus and 2 others like this.
  8. gaediil New Member

    its just like when they make a missions so easy & after 90% of all the hard core raids go thru it & then change it that no one can do it & all the other bugs they had in the game for mostly raiders to lvl fast & AA's & when a lot more people use them then will make them so bad in the XP that they are not worth doing anymore. They are not going to tell anyone what your aloud to use because if your not part of the click as saying then they can ban you even if your doing the same as some others. I remember when they was banning people for doing a mission from POK to do in RoF ( Zeixshi-Kar's Awakening ) & their was no programs that was the problem it was very bad LAG in POK & the More you hailed the more XP & AA's you got & then there was banning from the game from another mission from VoA that a lot of people got banned for nothing wrong doing from a mission in Argath ( Reclaiming Argath ). long story short they will pick how to band no matter what you use & even if they close eyes for others.
  9. Sultan Elder

    Well, there goes 80% of the games population then, bit late to be making these changes, 19 years after most of them were created and have been in a free to download capacity for that entire time also. If that's what you are aiming for, have fun with signing the death of the game.

    Alternatively, this could all be a big fat bluff in a bid to make it look like they care and in a hope people do the right thing and stop use cheat programs.

    Have fun with a dead game.
  10. Underscore_one New Member

    Monthly Recurring Revenue, almost always referred to as MRR, is probably the most important metric at all of any subscription business. It's what makes this business model so great. Once you acquire a new customer you got a recurring revenue, which means you don't have to worry about one-off sales every month.

    A revenue stream is a source of revenue for a company or organization. In business, a revenue stream is generally made up of either recurring revenue, transaction-based revenue, project revenue, or service revenue

    If you want to eliminate a revenue stream for DBG, go ahead. Cut your nose to spite your face.
    Boxing programs are a net positive revenue stream for this game. If one player has 1 sub and 1 purchase of an xpac, and a few microtransactions vs one player that may have 3 subs, 3 xpac purchases and several microtransactions which is more important to the bottom line?

    Before the devs start a banhammer waving contest someone needs to talk to your business manager. I can do basic math and if you want to lose money, this is a great idea. I am not even arguing the "morality" of boxing programs I am simply looking at this from a bottom line perspective. Let people argue about the idea of "cheating" all they want. If they want to keep playing a game they love, they might want to figure out who is paying the bills.
    Sultan likes this.
  11. Sultan Elder


    Only one of these things is bannable, and that is using keyboards with repeat automated macros that click for you in an AFK capacity. In other words, automating gameplay.
    VZRetro likes this.
  12. Ruven_BB Augur

    I applaud cleaning up the game, if this change eliminates auto afk boxers dominating content for out of game revenue activities, its healthy for the game. Keep in mind, those players generally are not paying customers, they use Krono to sustain their accounts from their nefarious activities.

    Here is the potential rub, the use common sense undefined argument for an formulaic screening that automates banning of characters forever, given DBG's track record, doesn't not make me feel warm and fuzzy.

    I would hope that whatever systems are in place, that a human is making final decisions that could potentially impact a player that is abiding by the rules, though they are not clearly stated. Further, I would strongly recommend without specific language to what is appropriate and what is not, a warning with or without a temporary consequence should occur first, with repeat offenders removed.

    Again, some of our characters represent a career's worth of investment (close to 20 years plus with 40+ hours a week). Scripting our future, should be treated with the utmost care. No tolerance for cheating is admirable, guilty until proven innocent (by an automated process no less) typically has been patterned by some of the worst systems known to mankind.

    Thanks for cleaning up the sludge, just make sure the sludge is what is getting removed. Don't go cheap on the implementation and maintenance of this project, or it could have some serious and dramatic consequences to the health of this game. Specially, accidental removal of players who are following the rules that have been flagged with a false positive, due to a process that may or may not have been fully vetted (if you question my concern, DBG track record of successful implementation of changes and patches) does not lead to strong confidence.

    Ruven
    VZRetro, Sancus and Delphi66 like this.
  13. Jimbob/Silvarfox Elder

    MY account was banned few years ago. had no idea why. so i sent in a ticket asking why. this was response:

    Greetings SilverFoxOliver,

    Thank you for contacting Daybreak Games. Please provide a detailed explanation as to why a proxy was necessary to play or make purchases with our games. Thank you for your patience and cooperation. If you have any more questions or concerns, please let me know.

    Regards,

    TSR Thomas N.
    Daybreak Games

    So i told them the truth that i had no clue what the hell a proxy was. etc. in the end me and the gm came to the conclusion that it was a tor internet browser that was opened while i was in trader mode that was the cause. next day i recived a respose again.

    Greetings SilverFoxOliver,

    Your account should be good to go now, so please try to access it. I've removed the ban from the account.

    Regards,
    TSR Gary B.
    Technical Support Representative

    I thanked them and got this response!

    Hi there,

    Thank you for being honest and understanding. Play Safe!

    Regards,
    Stephanie B
    Senior Contact at Daybreak Games Player Support.

    SO basically what im trying to say with this post is. If u rescive a BAN like i did. but you actually didnt do anything wrong. be patient and polite. explain yourself and there could be hope at being unbanned, people say it dosnt happen. well it did for me.
    Daybreak is resonable if you dont flip off the handle and act out in anger towards them..
    xcitng and Ghubuk like this.
  14. IrishLass77 New Member

    This could easily be resolved. Open a server and allow people to use all the cheats they want. Once transferred in they would be banned from ever changing to another server. Let them have their "fun" if it could be called such, but isolate them from those of us that want to earn our ways.
    VZRetro and Shanarias like this.
  15. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Don't think its just unattended game play they will be checking for but I guess we will find out once the bans start.
  16. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    I guess it is good we are getting a warning in advance. Just stop using the programs but I think I see your point people will quit anyway if they can't keep using certain software.
  17. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    If I was going to guess why this is happening now it is because the agreement to never modify certain software for the true box servers was broken and now the other side is hitting back. Don't touch the cash cow or fear the wrath of DB. Fair enough I guess.
  18. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart


    If he is spending 180 bucks just on subscriptions... how many accounts is he running?
  19. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    While I agree common sense can give you a good idea of what is cheating or not I think it would be prudent for Daybreak to give us something much more definitive.
  20. Darchon_Xegony Augur

    I think most people on these forums can figure out what they’re talking about.

    They aren’t talking about GINA or GamParse or ItemCollectors/SpellParsers.

    They are talking about programs that show live mob movement or allow AFK automated groups.

    But I think there are probably some people who use the later two programs not for things like AFK farming for weeks straight, but instead for some other features they offer. It would probably behoove the developers to see about incorporating some of these features to the game generally. For example those using the first program have a much better autofollow function than the in-game /follow. Maybe try to pull that into the base game so that characters don’t regularly get stuck on walls or fall into lava when autofollowing.
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