Don't Cheat! Over 700 Accounts Suspended

Don't cheat!

On Friday, December 9, 2011 the first wave of accounts were suspended as a result of the new anti-cheating code in EverQuest. This included suspensions on more than 700 accounts for a number of days by way of a first warning.

After substantial review, we determined a small number of individuals who may have been mistakenly identified in the initial wave. We always give our players the benefit of the doubt and consequently, the affected accounts were unsuspended and received an apology along with additional time credit. Cheating is a huge concern that affects the entire community and therefore, must be addressed accordingly. Moving forward, we will continue to review and revise practices to make sure that our processes are efficient and precise.

Remember that these suspensions are merely the first wave, and further action is on the horizon. We will not rest, but will instead continue to gather data and take action as necessary on behalf of the entire player base.

Don't cheat - it's not worth it.

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700 suspended
# Dec 30 2011 at 1:11 AM Rating: Decent
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68 posts
Glad cheaters were suspended
Hmmm
# Dec 29 2011 at 10:19 PM Rating: Decent
12 posts
You know what sony should do is write a program that allows the convience that have been said in the above conversations. keep it seperate from EQ and then track it with how many players are using it so maybe they can tell that alot of people would really like the damn features in the game. You know they always say well we cant change that. Hell write a 3rd party program that alllows some of them changes then maybe they wouldnt be banning 700 accounts. Been playing for almost 9yrs and I finally am to the point that i box so I can at least do something. Mercs have made things easier but still there are times I would rather have one of my boxxes instead of a merc but cant play cause its to hard to control that many chars and get good dps or heal correctly.
Observed issues
# Dec 16 2011 at 7:17 AM Rating: Good
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108 posts
I've only been back for about 4 months after another year+ break, and honestly the only things I've observed that could be called cheating are:
1) Location warping across the zone your in or even across zones directly to a character or provided loc. Something only a GM could do as my ex used to be a GM and I thought it was the coolest thing ever to blink to places no one could reach. Had some great screenshots from her time. This is arguably the most broken of abilities, because it allows one instant passage, anywhere, to reach raid mobs, quest mobs, and loot without even earning the right to get there. Poof, steal a rot, kill a boss/named, turn in your quest, poof your gone. Had this happen a few times on Emarr, and even MT before that merge.

2) Autopull. Someone up top mentioned folks pulling an entire zone and killing it. It's a smidge annoying if they aren't respecting camps but it's within the bounds of reason. What they didn't mention was the guys that can pull that zone without moving or having line of site on the mobs they are pulling. No training, no effort. One button agro on every mob in the zone, even the ones you are fighting. If the tank can't hit AoE taunt fast enough you get to go play in another zone for 15 minutes cause there's nothing left in yours.

3) Mob warping. I have seen some truly amazing bards, SKs, and monks work for 5 to 30 minutes making impossible pulls through other mobs in areas where it should not have been possible. I applaud thee! I have also seen an asshat stand in one place with his group and have a named appear in front of them to kill it. Now this little trick did happen before I quit in 2009 and haven't seen it since, but since my group had spent an hour trying to reach this mob through trash and keys, and they're whole crew appeared at the zone in, summoned it, popped it like a zit, and left, i couldn't have been any more pissed off if I'd been punched in the face.

Using a 3rd party software to time stamp or calculate DPS? These need to be a feature in game. Please ban no one for something that should have been implemented in PoP.
Having a 2nd or 4rd account is what Sony is encouraging, but how can buying an account from another player that's done his time be wrong? Sony is still getting their money from monthly AND upgrading the accounts as stated up top posted, and it hurts no one in or out of game.
Ban the above that wreck and ruin the game for others, not the folks wanting to improve the quality of their time spent playing a game.
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Glance the Stabber, Raiding Rogue of The Last Revolution
Kaarse the Ash Warden, Striker of the Black Desert
Keonka the Mangler of Drenden and Kager Ironveins Paladin of Arathor
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"Doing the improbable daily to make the impossible seem easy"
Observed issues
# Dec 16 2011 at 7:59 AM Rating: Decent
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61 posts
I read the stuff and 1st one is plausible, though i dont see anyone killing a raid boss all by themselves

2nd one hit one button and u aggro the entire zone, Ive never even heard of that let alone seen it, try that in VoA see how far that gets you, hell even HoT t3 t4 (probably still now), your gonna get smoked. and insta aggrp EVERYTHING sheet i really cant believe that.

3rd one, mob warping, here is a some info and u can call this what you want

go aggro your mob (named, or summoning mob) outrun him , hate step (any variation there of, or bard speed , mount what ever

now find a good spot and sit.......................... there is a good chance that mob is gonna come right to you, the mob warped, u dont need a program or a cheat or a hack, ive seen this done.
Is it a cheat no, an exploit of otherwise ****** pathing, probably, should u do it, Im not here to beat my UN holier than though chest.
As far as hack to make named spawn in front of you, yea dont know what kind of GM powers your ex had but ive otherwise never seen that just happen, bat your eyes and pop..... yea not here, btw that little outrun and sit trick worked sometimes other times the named did come and so did a bunch of his friends...............

hmmmm
# Dec 15 2011 at 7:57 AM Rating: Good
20 posts

I'm just saying...

If some people can't play nice/fair...then they should have their accounts revoked. Watching lvl 95 players zone in to a lvl 80 HZ and immediately mass pulling the entire zone, training through areas where people are killing while using thier lotd's, camping, waiting for respawn and doing it again...over and over...tends to make players angry. If there isn't anyone there...there's no problem. BUT, these people show complete disregard for other players when they pull the entire zone leaving nothing. It's not right. It's clearly written in their EULA....I've read it.

If you can't play nice, then you need a time out.
hmmmm
# Dec 16 2011 at 8:16 AM Rating: Decent
22 posts
I go to hotzones every day to burn my lesson and usually pull most of the zone as an SK. Am I cheating? Hell no. You seem to act like level 95 have no right to enter a hotzone and pull mass mobs.
hmmmm
# Dec 15 2011 at 3:22 PM Rating: Decent
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61 posts
im missing the point of how people swarm killing or mass killing relates to cheating in game, i remember ae grps in sebilis, shakerpage grps, hell a strong dps grp w a chanter now

Yes they shouldnt take all the mobs in a zone but that has nothing to do with cheating, they are just alot more stronger players, usually raid geared folks w lots of aas etc.
Wow - 700 Accts
# Dec 14 2011 at 6:16 PM Rating: Decent
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15 posts
1st off cheating against the EULA is mostly using 3rd party software. so how many Zam people were suspended for that since their software info collector is 3rd party software.
700 accounts x about 6 toons per account = 4200 toons = about 1/3 of EQ
Wow - 700 Accts
# Dec 14 2011 at 7:57 PM Rating: Decent
9 posts
That's some pretty fuzzy math, 700 accounts isn't one third of EQ, it isn't even on twentieth.
CHEATING
# Dec 14 2011 at 5:42 PM Rating: Decent
Sage
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59 posts
ok they need to define what they concider cheating is haveing multiple accounts (cheating) i have a lot of time just do not want to spend it LFG for hours at a time so make my own group find a zone where no one is and play is that cheating. they do not need to use that term cheating they need to explain what they call cheating in a way that every one can understand.come on spell it out what you mean by the term cheating.
CHEATING
# Dec 16 2011 at 8:18 AM Rating: Decent
22 posts
Holy runon sentence, Batman
Level playing field
# Dec 14 2011 at 5:09 PM Rating: Decent
Sage
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318 posts
People keep using this term? many people out there spend real money to be rich in game...so if you don't have the money you can't compete with that!
There are many with no kids or jobs they have time to be kept in raiding groups who don't want anyone not regularly available to raid. Don't get to play at all if having to LFG hours...Can't compete with that?

I my opinion the game is not competitive for many, they are just playing when they get the time for fun. They are not changing anything for anyone else in the game by making their own group and running 6 chars and need a little help to accomplish this so that they get to play at all.

punishment doesnt stop at the suspension
# Dec 14 2011 at 3:57 PM Rating: Decent
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61 posts
oh also the punishment doesnt stop at the suspension, in my case I had coughed up the money to make a raf acct buy 2 expansion, pay for a transfer, and pay for 2 accts instead of one. The value of this, for all intents and purposes went down the drain: $25 (transfer) $40 (voa) and $15 (monthly), for a total of $80 wasted.

That was taken away, not as a policy but as a side effect, from what I heard of others opinions, basically I have no right to ask for it back, so I havent tried to ask.

Again in retrospect was a stupid thing to do, and my new endeavor to make the game more appealing, by not being LFG for hrs has lost its luster. Its gonna be back to soloing for me at best and see where that takes me.

All things aside, no mastermind here, no great overachiever via super powers gained, just a casual no raiding player that didnt have the time to play continuously in grps with out having to often take RL afks (kids wife RL). Now with RAF being stripped away Im sure SOE is victorious in making sure im cut down a few pegs permanently





Edited, Dec 14th 2011 4:58pm by seizmik

Edited, Dec 14th 2011 5:36pm by seizmik
Cheating
# Dec 14 2011 at 3:52 PM Rating: Decent
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428 posts
Hmm, I felt very cheated when I was informed that my cc number and login password were hacked... Can we fire some of those lame SOE workers in return???
mastermind cheater
# Dec 14 2011 at 2:44 PM Rating: Good
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61 posts
its using toons to heal you automatically or assist you and nuke automatically or get behind mobs

wait those are mercs

well the cheating they are getting rid of is the being able to get to a spot from across different zones

wait thats campfire

maybe they hack in a way so u dont bounce when you have lev on
oh wait they already added that

its gotta be that whole getting rid of the horse head in your screen
hmmm guess that was brought into the game now too

Gee so many common sense things that have been created by other 3rd party programs are now part of the game cause they make sense...........

Yes if you see a lvl 1 destroying end game raids, get all rabid and distraught, but if joe schmuck is not surpassing you not harassing you, not griefing the server, not destabilizing the game pls hire these inventive mfrs to make the game better.

Here so u all know i got a suspension, did I benefit greatly by what I did nope, did I unbalance the game, nope, did I gain some unfair advantage, nope, am I all powerful and have beaten EQ, not by a long shot. I took a shortcut, that If I wasnt such an unpatient asshat I coulda done on my own.

15 seconds saved, 96 hrs taken away and a brand of being a mastermind hacking cheating despicable cheater.

I got my suspension, learned my lesson, and for those with the all mighty moral authority, the closest thing I can compare this too is grabing a 5 cent piece of gum and getting thrown in jail, cause I was too lazy to make change.

I violated the EULA and have absolutly nothing to show for it, no gazillions of plat, no high end raid gear, no maxed out lvls or AA, yes ty vm for teaching me to not be such a cheater, did the crime and did the time.
mastermind cheater
# Dec 14 2011 at 3:11 PM Rating: Excellent
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113 posts
what shortcut did you take?
Would the EQ police please define "cheating"?
# Dec 14 2011 at 1:55 PM Rating: Decent
22 posts
I understand the desire to keep people from unfairly gaming the system, whatever system you want to speak of, but what is the definition of "cheating" being used here by the EQ police? Is it any imagined or suspected violation of the EULA? That might put all of us at risk. Would like some clarification!
Boot them all
# Dec 14 2011 at 1:30 PM Rating: Decent
Scholar
31 posts
That's quite a few for an "initial wave". Did not realize it was that rampant. I am glad they are getting these foks out of the game.
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Fabbon
so some innocents got caught up?
# Dec 14 2011 at 1:28 PM Rating: Decent
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654 posts
how did they discover the innocents that got caught up in the sweep? does this mean that more innocents will pay? 700 accounts are a lot-- i wonder if all of them are really cheaters or just got caught up in the sweep?

and what really constitutes cheating? is having zam's Lucy activated cheating? can you cheat without being aware that you are cheating? what criteria are they using to determine if you are a cheater? i understand hacking-- that one is easy to figure out-- but beyond that, what is cheating?

and if you "warp" by being succored, coth, or thrown to the succor point when trying to enter a zone that refuses you (happens to me a lot-- just yesterday as a matter of fact) will that be misinterpreted as warping and therefore cheating? how do you warp anyhow? how do you ghost? those are things i never understood the mechanics of.
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Success comes when preparation meets opportunity -- and EQ is no exception.
Get rid of them all
# Dec 14 2011 at 12:27 PM Rating: Decent
Time to crack down on these morons. My guess is, the same people who are cheating are the same ones who try and insult everyone in GC, kill steal, camp steal and pretty much are a pain in the rear for everyone else.
Get rid of them all
# Dec 16 2011 at 8:25 AM Rating: Decent
22 posts
Why is it that all the noobs that have yet to get maxed levels are always the one's kissing SOE's (you know) thinking their logic is so good? Sure, ban all the suspected cheaters then you noobs won't get any progression finished. They already took away your taskadd benefit.
wow
# Dec 14 2011 at 12:22 PM Rating: Default
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153 posts
oh snap, thats a lot of cheaters :P
About Time!
# Dec 14 2011 at 12:05 PM Rating: Good
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151 posts
Woohoo!

I love it when game makers target the cheats to make it a more level playing field. I worry though that a lot of the cheaters are multiple paid account holders which the loss of will ultimately hurt the profitability and therefore the future of EQ. Time will tell.
About Time!
# Dec 16 2011 at 8:26 AM Rating: Decent
22 posts
DING DING DING< we have a winner
About Time!
# Dec 14 2011 at 6:18 PM Rating: Good
Lets add this up. 700 accounts wave one. Probably expect twice that second wave. Total 2100 accounts.

EQ charges $14.95 / mo. per account. That is only $31,395.00 per month, or $376,740.00 year in revenue. Assuming other people do not get pissed off an quit EQ, which has been continually declining over the past 5 years. Proof are the server consolidations.

Nobody has any idea what obscure and ambiguous things Sony and their "I live in my Mom's basement" GM's are concocting.

What are they now considering as cheating? I do not know. Do you? what actions?

Sony over the years seems to be adopting the brilliant strategy of "Ignore your paying customers long enough eventually they will go away." See how well that works for NetFlix?

Heck lets tighten this G A M E up more and become thought police too...maybe they will ban me because I had impure thoughts, or they feel they can scan my personal hard drive for some email or paper I wrote with some material their purity police find objectionable.

Either way...I came back to EQ after about 3 years off. I have three accounts. Is that cheating? I 3 box, is that cheating... If I fall asleep in a remote area and my mercs kill all night, is that cheating? Hrm. falling asleep might be considered a "sploit".

Yes I can see myself quitting again over this type of craziness.

Go ahead Sony and you keep pushing away your paying customers...and your goal of having nothing to do at all will eventually come true.

About Time!
# Dec 16 2011 at 8:28 AM Rating: Decent
22 posts
It's sad really, A GM touched me in my no no spot.
About Time!
# Dec 14 2011 at 10:18 PM Rating: Good
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93 posts
CustomersSuck wrote:


Either way...I came back to EQ after about 3 years off. I have three accounts. Is that cheating? I 3 box, is that cheating... If I fall asleep in a remote area and my mercs kill all night, is that cheating? Hrm. falling asleep might be considered a "sploit".

In the official EQ forums Piestro has defined, albeit rather loosely, what they consider cheating. As for your examples, it has been verified by Piestro that AFK merc killing, as long as it isn't causing a zone wide disruption (camping a mob needed to progress, etc) is not cheating. Multiboxing is not cheating. Using autofire on your keyboard, as long as you are not AFK at the time, is not considered cheating.

They are going after users of a forbidden program, lets cal it Voldamort, who warp around and use active exploits to gain an extreme advantage. If you don't use Voldamort then you are safeish, although it looks like their tools need some fine tuning.

I would love to use Voldamort to allow old models to ride horses, report DPS on screen, look up items using the in game browser like in EQ2(for ZAM), allow my boxes to auto accept task invites, and insert a timestamp into my chat but I don't because I don't want to lose access to my accounts. Are these things cheating even though they do nothing to give me an advantage in the game? According to Piestro, yes. Do I disagree, yes. Will I load Voldamort anyway? No. Too much risk for not enough reward.

About Time!
# Dec 14 2011 at 10:32 PM Rating: Decent
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61 posts
Quote:
I would love to use Voldamort to allow old models to ride horses, report DPS on screen, look up items using the in game browser like in EQ2(for ZAM), allow my boxes to auto accept task invites, and insert a timestamp into my chat


see once again, these are relatively good ideas (the model thing gives u some advantage other than cutting down your lag?, whats the name of the parser that will spit out accurate DPS into your chat (game parse), pretty sure that doesnt provide any advantage (except catch people slacking in raids or grps etc), not sure what the purpose of looking up items in game is when u we have window mode (yrs ago there was a program called EQ play nice, the best feature amongst others that were in time incorporated into EQ, windowed mode to browse and look up stuff, and FPS (again a lag reducing feature).

As far as allowing your boxed toons to accept task invites, what advantage is there except not having to tab 2-5 windows to hit accept........ what about the timestamp (id love to hear the game altering use this has, I dont see any use for it but that wasnt the point.

For all those folks that think that there is some program out there that makes it so you dont even have to turn on your computer, you just do so to see all your toons in max raid gear, max aa max lvl, I for one havent found it.

Some of the petty **** that is actually out there is stuff that imo is just common sense stuff that is waiting to be a part of general EQ, hell Ive heard rumors of new CC mercs (chanters or shammies), imagine that some automated class making your play time (no one said raid time) more enjoyeable, here is your tank here is your cleric now here is your cc, pls enjoy the game.................................................
About Time!
# Dec 14 2011 at 10:57 PM Rating: Good
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93 posts
seizmik wrote:



the model thing gives u some advantage other than cutting down your lag?


No, I just hate the Luclin models but I have to use them on dark elves so I can ride my fraking SK horse. I just like the old models, more classic and better animation.


whats the name of the parser that will spit out accurate DPS into your chat (game parse), pretty sure that doesnt provide any advantage


Yeah, Piestro also said Gameparse and the other software that guy made is not cheating although Voldamort can put the numbers in the UI like some other games


not sure what the purpose of looking up items in game is when u we have window mode

It is so nice in EQ2; click an item and bam, you have the information right there in your window. You know its worth, what quests it is used for, its rarity, what it does, etc. No clicking in another browser to type in the name. Remember when we used to get an item in EQ and have to look it up on Allah to see what all it did? Now we can right click and inspect the item to get a lot more of that detail. This is just the evolution of not having to look away from the game. Since I could get the info from another window is using this portion of Voldamort cheating?

As far as allowing your boxed toons to accept task invites, what advantage is there except not having to tab 2-5 windows to hit accept

Just exactly that, it isn't a big advantage so is it cheating?

what about the timestamp

You can get a timestamp on all your incoming tells and all the messages on your chat. You go afk, get back and there is a tell on your window. How long ago did they send you the tell? Without a timestamp it is hard to know. Is it cheating to know what time someone sent you a tell?


Some of the petty sh*t that is actually out there is stuff that imo is just common sense stuff that is waiting to be a part of general EQ,

You have me exactly right sir, all of this should be in the game. But it isn't and I won't risk my /played on something that gives me no advantage other then convenience

About Time!
# Dec 15 2011 at 10:13 PM Rating: Decent
You may not be using them, but the program does give a lot of other capabilities that are most definitely cheating.
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Graeme Faelban, 115 Barbarian Shaman, Erollisi Marr
<Phoenix Ascending>
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