So...

This is absolute garbage.

I do not run Everquest in a VM. I never have and never will and I got a 7 day suspension. I'm guessing after 7 days I will get suspended again (if I'm still playing).

I'm self employed and run multiple VMs for my business. All VMs need to run 24/7. Now it appears my only option would be to buy a new rig and set aside additional space to accommodate this BS.

I won't be doing this. I lead an end game guild and I will hand it over to one of my officers and will go play something else. If an officer doesn't want it, I will dissolve the guild and people can decide whether they want to continue paying.

Daybreak - you are clearly taking advantage of your ability to snoop on your customers' computers. Why don't you spend your time and effort to actually get it right?

I never realized how many people had VM running and didn't know about it or never used it for EQ.

Lets get real here. You are trying to convince a bunch of forumquesters that you didn't use VM's for what reason? Do you think there will be a major public outcry and they will reverse your suspension/ban?

That's exactly what has happened several times in the past. Guys do legitimately have VM software for their professional employment on their systems. SoE at least in the past has recognized that and reversed some suspensions and bannings.

It's literally in the FAQ for every TLP announcement for like the past 5 years.

To use the most recent example from the sticked post in news about Miragul TLP

No one said they were playing on virtual machines. They have the software installed on the system for work, but play EQ on the main system. The client is now just looking to see if it is installed and flagging the account. Doesn't matter if you play EQ inside of a VM or not, just having the application installed is enough to suspend.

You missed the point. No one is arguing the policy about running EQ in VMs. It is well known that it is against the rules.

People are saying that the mere presence of VMware on their machine, used for purposes other than EQ, may have caused their account to be suspended.

There is nothing in that FAQ that says you can't run VMs for other reasons.

If they are banning machines with VM being used for EQ, thats pretty awesome... Bravo Daybreak, get em!

I haven't been banned. I don't run VMs at home, however I run them at work pretty much constantly, this means I can no longer play during my lunch break because daybreak don't want to pay anyone 10 bucks an hour to go round servers and find the obvious 15 boxers.

All you people deciding anyone running a VM must be a cheater must have jobs outside of IT, there are so many different reasons to run a VM.

As a developer, I have VM software installed and running on one of my machines 24x7, Docker is running, (on Hyper-V) Hyper-V is running a Unix VM, etc etc. If you use WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), then you have VM software running under the hood.

Never used it for EQ, can't see why you'd want to. Yet ONE of my accounts got banned, the one running on my new Dev Laptop with all that stuff installed.

I'm pretty upset right now.

I have zero indication why it was banned, and no clue from DBG as to what the actual offense was (other than 'cheating', so I could even try and rectify it. (Hyper-V running on the machine is an assumption, nothing more, as to the cause). All started a few days after starting on Miragul, and needed several PC's to play (which is fine).

So not only can't I play that 20 year account any more until its fixed (hopefully), I can't even take the risk of running up ANY other account on the same machine, because I can't take the risk with one of my other long turn accounts.

People need to know exactly what they did wrong, (not how it was detected, but what it was that was considered 'cheating', especially if it is something to do with misc software on the PC, and outside the game altogether).

I appreciate the forum-questers won't ever believe that people arn't doing what they were accused of. good luck to you.

Something terribly wrong somewhere. This one could be crippling.


I wish a DBG GM would pipe in here, though not holding my breath.

Apparently this time Daybreak just got it wrong?

Or did they?

Will this be Cacti gate 2.0? Maybe expansion key code gate 2.0?

This is my exact setup as well. I run my main account on my PC and my alt account on my laptop. I installed VMWare for some dev work 6 months before I restarted EQ a month ago. I have never run EQ in VmWare. My main account that I run on the PC where VMWare is installed was suspended. My Alt account on the laptop was not.

If you have VMWare installed, even if you never run it, it start 4 processes in the background that will keep running until it is uninstalled. Perhaps these processes have been flagging peoples accounts.

They don't even say "all rules" they say:
26. General Terms

26.2. Termination Daybreak reserves the right to suspend, restrict or terminate your access to or use of any Daybreak Game(s), at any time and for any reason, in its sole and absolute discretion.

But it seems this happens with every tlp server at some point. Makes one wonder if it is just the EQ ban hammer going off by accident as usual.

What is interesting is the server status pages.

Mangler is showing as a Medium Pop instead of High
FV is showing Low and has been all morning!!!! I guess this shows the actual number of real players on the server once you strip out all the botsnboxes.

It definitely looks like there's definitely been some waving of the GM magic wands.
Whether or not all are legit removals i don't know, but it's good to see some action being taken.
I'm guessing they're sorting through the ban appeal stack now.

FV supposedly went down.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/firiona-vie-down-why.260733/

It's certainly not down at the moment. Will see if it picks up later.

Ouch, that didn’t age well..,
But... but... people told us it was so “easy” we could just “google” it and “simply bypass”...
Lol at you all who fell for that bs. You deserve your suspensions.

Not true. The bypass works, all the cheaters that were sufficiently careful/paranoid are fine, check out the cheat forums if you don’t believe me.

People didn’t get banned for playing IN a VM, they got banned for playing ALONGSIDE a VM.

There is no question they CAN ban you for anything or nothing.

I just don't think they SHOULD ban/suspend people for merely having an app on their computer, which has many legitimate uses, is regularly used for technical people for work and hobby purposes, and has nothing to do with playing EQ.

The EULA / TLP Rules clearly state that "Playing on virtual machines." is prohibited.
No where does it say (that I can find) that merely having Virtualiztion installed is prohibited.

I have NO problem following the stated rules, but this interpretation is just wrong.

Accusing someone of Cheating, for having Virtualization installed for work & not in violation of the stated terms, is morally wrong, and frankly somewhat offensive. People won't take the risk their invested time can be lost on a whim for something so unrelated.


I'm sure some of the 'forum-questers' won't agree, or will continue to take counter arguments.

But I can only hope 'reasonableness' comes to whomever in DBG came up with this one, and they reconsider, otherwise this could drive people away by the masses.

Rgds.

PS: Its already affecting startup pop on Miragul. At least one major guild is reporting loss of key members to this one, which will affect their ability to start raiding in the next week. Others are commenting they won't risk it. Not sure anyone cares tho.