Several posts have been made along the same theme. Cheats, PLing, twinks, selling plat etc for RL money. Many are missing the point. One said they won't stop it until they put them in jail. First off none of this is illegal, only against SOE policy. They therefore can't charge them with anything. The agreement we click on allows SoE to ban or suspend people for breaking these rules. That's it period. Hacking can possibally be termed illegal if it is actual hacking and not taking advantage of mis-programing and hence subject to legal action but even selling accounts, which I have never done, is not only not illegal but probabally not even banable if someone wanted to fight it in court. I have 4 accounts and can, if I feel awake enough, play all 4 at a time. I usually don't as its to tireing. Basically it boils down to, enjoy the game for what you want and don't worry about what others can or can't do. Put pressure on SoE to get rid of the macros that allow people to purchase lower priced items while they are not even at the computer. And for them to continually monitor /bug and other cheat possibilities sent to them.

I seen lots of complaining about cheating and people buying plats online. But there is one thing you all have overlooked. this stuff didn't come from low level chars. In the bazaar the most expensive and best stuff isn't being looted by level 30 40 or 50. It is coming from high level char. I have seen people trying to sale EQ stuff for real money on website. Not one or two items but lots of them.
As for plats being sold on website to cheaters, not all this stuff is macroed (IMHO). Alot of it is from players who have taken their quest to make plat to the next level. They hire their service to companies that sell plat. EQ is now not a game but a way to make money in real life. These people now don't just farm things to make Plat in the bazaar, they take that Plat and turn it into real money and try to recruit other players so they can increase their total plat farming. The more plats you farm the more real money you make.
I seen almost everyone say that it was good that the people who bought plats, who hacked the game, etc were banned. But you missed the most important issue. This is like sending everyone who ever bought drugs to jail for the rest of their life, and giving your blessings to those drug dealers that sold it to them in the first place. If people are farming plats to sell to others players or selling EQ items, accounts, etc. They are more guilty than the ones buying this stuff. Everquest is no longer a game, it has become a real life community with all the real social problems from real life. You have people who are saints always trying to help others, to those who will do anything to get ahead in the game, to those who don't give a rat @#$% about anyone else.
As for those who say some people are lazy, that is not true. Even if you bought plats and have uber stuff or you transfer stuffs to your alt and are playing the game fair. you still have to go thru the pain-numbing work of leveling your char. Just because you put a 30del, 30dmg weapon or you gave your spell caster stuff that raises their intel to above 200. They are still limited by their lvl and the level of their spells. Your not hitting for 100 or more pts of damage with weapon or spells that do only 7 pts of damage at lvl 1. This is why people were getting high lvl buffs on their twink to make them nearly invunerable. lots of people were upset when SoE changed it to lvl 45+.
So why do some people cheat. Because they are upset at what they see in this game. If you don't have a friend or family members already in game to kick start you are starting out with crap. It is hard pill to swallow when you are working hard in newbie zone and along comes a twink with uber buff, or a high lvl buffer, healer is pling his guild mate. In 30 mins or less they hit lvl 7. In an hour's time or so they come back and are lvl 12 to 15. While in that same time you are only lvl 2 or lvl 3 because your lovely 1hs that you got is slow and does low damage. I saw this a few times for myself while leveling alt to try out other race,class combo. While most of us accepted that this is EQ and decided to play anyway not everyone is the same. Soe decided to make it eaiser in recent times for newbie by having mobs that drop items that sell for 1plat, so in a few hours you could make 60 or more plat by level 5 or 6. But just like everything else in EQ when people found out how easy it was for newbies to make plat prices starting going up. And just like now, when people got wind that there was something funny going on, all of a sudden they jacked their prices on some things to double to cash in on the extra plat in EQ economy.
It funny, they point their little fingers at people and say they should have been banned for buying plats, buying items in website. Hacking EQ, using third party software to make money, increase their lvling abilities, etc, etc etc. Yet they still cashed in on all the dirty crap that was going on. Lots of vendor in bazaar have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands plat extra because of this, yet they say these cheaters hurt the EQ economy, hurt the honest and hard working players. While Soe claims hundreds of char or accounts were deleted for life these so call honest people still lined their pockets and are still in EQ. Running to a bank where there is robbery taking place and selling said person stuffs doesn't make you less guilty. In this case, the robbers came to you and knowing there was something going on prices were jacked up anyways to take advantage of the extra rich economy. These are the same people who say powerleveling is okay and other forms of stuff is okay. Bottom line is that anything that gives you an advantage that other players don't have or can't afford is cheating. taking advantage of cheating even thou you didn't do it is cheating. Will Soe do anything NO!!!!! WHY first they are making good money on this game. If they weren't they wouldn't pay people to make new expansions if they thought there wasn't money in it. SECOND they won't change anything because players don't WANT ANYTHING CHANGED. SoE is not going to upset their paying customers, they need you to buy EQ2 and whatever else they have planned and they need your monthly money.
As for cheating. It is a fact of life. we're are stuck with it, so get used to it. Those that have have been banned from EQ have gone to others games to continue doing the same thing. It goes on in DAoC, Star wars, microsoft on-line games. I believe it goes on in at least 7 games on almost every server in those games.
Until the Gaming industry get serious about putting these people in jail, nothing is going to change. while you worked hard to level and save your plat to improve your char. In the end you will have nothing to show for your work except the personal satisfaction of having leveled your character honestly. others people don't feel the same way. They will do whatever it takes to get to level 65 in EQ or whatever levels there are in other games, and some are willing to pay hundreds of dollars or 1000+ dollars to have an internet store level their char to whatever lvl they are willing to spend. Depending on how rich your daddy is you can have a level 65 char delivered to you in about 2 weeks with full AA ponts, every tradeskill maxed out and the char personal skill maxed out like the testbuff char on test except max lvl.
So for those that say EQ or other online games are just GAMES. There is a serious darkside that is going on with online-gaming

A message for all, direct from customer service...
Power leveling and buffs are not bannable actions, only the useage of expliots like those people that make lots of plats and what not are bannable, "power leveling has been part of the game ever since" and it is something that is bannable. Dont shot me I'm just the messanger direct from customer service rep. CSR Mike L told me this info. just my two cents...

what about the people i see who say they were not cheating and have no idea why they were banned?? sound familur? Are we gonna get an EQ special police force to find the "cheaters"..who will throw the first stone.....getting scarey here peeps...(hope that someone does not accuse you of cheating) SOE thanks all of us for the "TIPS" ...Play your game, play it fair...have fun...stop worrying about what other peeps are doing.

I'm sorry everyone..but i just don't understand any of this....the economy must be really bad in the EQ world....but i have to make this point clear....when i started playing i was alone and had no idea were to go..i did what everybody did..i hunted and sold stuff till i could get better stuff...then i realized something....when i sold something to an npc vendor ie a gem or some fine steel weapons or whatever... i saw that they would sell the same stuff i just sold them for sometimes double or even triple what i recieved for selling it in the first place...now it seeems to me that this is exactly what has driven the prices up in the bizaar....a) person sells stuff to vendor, b) vendor sells same stuff at higher price to make profit... now if the npc's are allowed to inflate prices like this why isn't everybody? they are and that is why everything is so out of proportion lately.... so how can a noob be expected to afford anything between levels 1-20?...they arent supposed to...not afford anything good at least hence they have to play longer ie months, years, decades at a time and make more money for soe.... sony shoved this game onto the market and now are mad because they can't keep up with all the bugs...you know what thats their fault...if they weren't ready to handle all of the cheats and bugs and hacks and what have you then they shouldn't have offered the game....so i congratulate all the cheaters but at the same time I would appreciate them not complaining when they get caught...and hopefully someday i can sell something to a vendor and have them sell it back to me for the same price =)))

Yes, I finally recieved some responses to my
banning protest emails.

Only problem is - they are all 'canned' responses,
with the exception of one.

First Response:

======================================================================
Subject: RE: Account banned
Content-Type: text/plain
Message-Id: <739EBE3EB103C54F93F94ACC2B843542032C81CE@MAIL-SD4.station.sony.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Greetings Sir,

Thank you for emailing EQAccountStatus. According to our records you were
banned for transacting EQ items for cash. Unfortunately this is not
tolerated in EverQuest. As such your banning shall remain in place.

Thank you.

Regards,

EQAccountStatus
Sony Online Entertainment
eqaccountstatus@soe.sony.com
http://www.station.com
======================================================================

There were FOUR additional responses Identical to the one above.

Notice how it is 'canned' and not from any real person?


A Little while later I got this message:


=======================================================================

Greetings Sir;

Thank you for your email. According to our records your account has been banned for using a third party program to alter the game play of EverQuest, specifically macroing items to gain platinum. Please take a few minutes to review the EverQuest End User License Agreement which must be agreed to prior to entering EverQuest. For your convenience section six has been attached below:

6. We may terminate this Agreement (including your Software license and your Account) immediately and without notice if you breach this Agreement or repeatedly infringe any third party intellectual property rights, or if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us, or upon gameplay, chat or any player activity whatsoever which is, in our sole discretion, inappropriate and/or in violation of the spirit of the Game as set forth in the player rules of conduct, which are posted at www.everquest.com. If we terminate this Agreement under these circumstances, you will lose access to your Account for the balance of any prepaid period without any refund. We may also terminate this Agreement if we decide, in our sole discretion, to discontinue offering the Game, in which case we may provide you with a prorated refund of any prepaid amounts.

Unfortunately the decision to leave your account banned remains unchanged. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.


Sincerely,

Dustin Abbott
EQAccountStatus
Sony Online Entertainment
EQAccountStatus@soe.sony.com
============================================================================

So, is it because I used a macro?
or Purchased an Item?

Both?

Any proof or Evidence?
What about the other account that is used on the same computer?
That account has not been banned.






I have sent them reply with this:



Thank you for the reply.

I have a few issue's here:

1) I recieved several previous reply's that stated I
was banned for purchasing an item with Cash.

2) Your email stated I was banned for using a third
party program.


Please look into the details and
inform me of which situation actually resulted in
my account being banned.

If you can prove I purchased an item with cash,
fine, take the item away, give me a suspension,
lesson learned,
(I did NOT purchase an item with cash.)

I have never known, nor even considered using
a third party program to change my game play.


Please investigate further, either someone else has
used my account, or you have targeted the wrong
account, I have always enjoyed playing EQ and have
never had the desire or need to 'cheat'.



signature.

I just want to say that i am very sorry for all of teh people who cheat... you don't get any real,fun game exp...what is the use of getting to lvl 65 in 1 week... you change EQ from a role-playing game to a strangely,very real life game where everyone is always cheating and ruining everyone else's game exp.... i don't see the point of cheating. again i am very,very soryy for the cheaters for that reason an di also feel very sorry for all the people that have to come in contact with them or have to even just talk to them... thanks for listening good luck, have fun, and don't die.



FROGLOKS RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

concise! unlike the rest of those who must think that what they say is the MOST important thing in the world!!!

its a game! yes! its not yours! you didnt make it, yet you play it... you dont like it, leave and go play D2.

you dont like that you cant cheat, write to former president Bill Clinton. maybe he will hear your whining and do something for you.

jealous of the fact that some people work hard for their plat and are in uber guilds getting the "UBER LOOTS", well suck it up, look up some quests to do and start from there.

the "liberal" attitudes are going to put caps on xp, soloing(its already been done), prices to charge for items you deserved on hard raids, the items you create from your chars hard earned skill points... i could go on.

you cant have 65 in a day and if you do, then you put the rest of us veterans of the game at risk with your "noobish" actions.

so very sorry for you new players who get to 65 in a week or less, that the real 65ers know how the game is played and how the real plat is earned.

you wanna bust folks for something... bust the ones who try to sell their accounts in the bazaar. thats just plain wrong. i dont need the spam of some rip off artist clogging my screen.

This explains the doubling and sometimes tripling prices for items in the bazaar. If the money supply is high in any economy, you run the risk of inflation. Sony has thought up a few ways to take platinum out of the game over the years to prevent such inflation. Tradeskill componants from vendors, quests involving handing money to NPCs, and horses/lizards come to mind.

Banning cheaters and their duped platinum is a necessary step to normalize the market. Keep your eyes peeled for more ways to spend (not trade) platinum too. The changes to melee discaplines could incorporate spending chunks of plat for tomes. I'd personally like to see NPC buff merchants implemented. No more waiting around for someone to cast kei.

I only ever have a problem with cheating when it affects someone elses playing. If the guy next to me wants to PL, I say let him. Won't affect my game. If the guy next to me wants to twink his toon, he should go right ahead. Won't affect my game. But if the guy next to me makes it so I can't afford so and so item cause he manipulated the game to raise the prices for said item on the market, well, he should be beheaded. Heh. Go play FFXI you don't hear about this garbage there ^_^

Wow...took alot of time to read all those posts...one thing I haven't noticed anyone point out...the real cause of those higher prices in bazaar...GREED. These items that have gone thru the roof on price aren't being sold by hackers/coin dupers...they are being sold by the same people who always sell them. They get wind of an exploit and immediately start raising their prices in hopes of garnering more money from whoever will pay. Kinda like in the real world, the moment even the hint of raising minimum wage is brought up, check the price of your next cheeseburger...
Sure Joe Blow could go ahead and sell his Fungi Tunic for let's say, the going rate of 60k. But Joe thinks there're people out there who will pay him 120k for it, so he puts that price on it and, low and behold, some idjit buys it! Joe is happy...he tells all his friends his good fortune and increases the prices on nearly everything else he is selling. This affects the bazaar scanners who don't have much idea what price they should put on their items, but see Joe asking a fortune for his, so they figure what's good for Joe is good for them and WHALLAH! There go those bazaar prices thru the roof. What will bring the prices down? Not buying Joe's frikkin Fungi at 120k...or any of the other crazily inflated things out there right now. If you have lots of legitimately earned money atm and are concerned with the prices now, the best thing you can do is sit on your money until the merchants get the idea that their stuff won't sell at those prices. This could take weeks or even months of patience on your part tho, depending on how much "fake" or duplicated platinum has infected the various servers, and whether or not it has been stopped. Just keep in mind it's almost as much the fault of the greedy merchants trying to suck up as much plat as they can get their grubby little hands on as it is the @#$/! who have found a way to hack our beloved game. Don't feed the current crisis by panicking and blowing all your hard earned dough...

What is this about grouping PLing in with all the hacking/p duping and cheating? Pling is a natural part of the game. I made my Druid just for that. He is level 60 now and all he does is PL and port family around. We have GM crafters in all the skills are we cheaters because we make gear for our newbie players and Pl them to level 20 and send them on their way? If that is true then every one of you that pays for KEI and then goes and group Kills a red you could not solo are cheating too, lets not stop there, GM crafters that combine for other players are cheating and so on. It is part of the game to get to a level where you can do youself or someone else some good. If I want to get a Druid to level 60 so he can PL my Monk to level 40 then I can and will. If you want to put the effort and time into it then you deserve the same benefits. Nuff said...