3rd Party Programs: Stopping an Exploit
SOE has tried to turn the other cheek on Multi-boxing, but players have been turning up the automation of these bot-controlled characters to 11, with armies of computer-controlled characters performing a level of interaction that can only be described as “fully automated gameplay”.
There was an exploit being taken advantage of by a top guild. Kander has posted this announcement that continuing to use this exploit will not be tolerated on the EQ2 Forums:
Using 3rd party programs to get character ID’s for use in macros is not okay. Due to the holidays, we were unable to address this in a timely manner. Consider any use previous to this post a freebie.
We will be taking action against those who abuse this in the future.
K. “Kander” Vallée
Lead Designer, EverQuest II
Sony Online Entertainment, LLC.
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Comments (36)
Jrral
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??? Character ID numbers can be used in macros? I was unaware of this. I thought it was only either names or group/raid slot codes. I can’t see any use for that in Profit though, the character-to-slot assignments in the group and raid windows are too fluid and the slot codes are more reliable.
Some people seem to have no grasp of the concept of subtlety. No matter what, they just have to push it and push it until the devs have no choice but to respond.
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Carnifex
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Honestly, cheaters just suck. Play the game as intended or play some solo game where you can do as you wish.
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Beyoncia
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Agree, I wish they’ll find a way to stop multiboxers. It’s a cheat imo.
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Tarb
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Multiboxing isnt cheating, botting is. Multiboxing takes alot of practice and skill to be good at it enough to accomplish most things.
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Miragain
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Little hard to kill multi-boxing without getting multi-player families don’t you think?
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Tank
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So your saying because i have multiple accounts and a good pc i cheat? Sounds like someone has a case of the mondays. Also how does anyone multi boxing hurt anyone else in these games? If anything it helps because they pay for them i assume. And as we all know they require revenue to maintain a game.
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Beyoncia
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Yes, because a pc, not you, controlls most of your toons. You are using macros and 3d party programs to get advantages in the game.
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Tank
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Its these kinds of silly assumptions that annoy me about the topic tbh
However that being said i would love to be able to do what you are saying.
Sounds awsome, and it would be a way to bring more revenue to soe and enjoyment for me. Also how does this hurt you? Seems like your bitter about the subject.
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Finora
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You have a false idea of what multi-boxing is Beyoncia.
Playing more than one character at once is NOT the same thing as using a bot program to control an account.
And in any case, it doesn’t seem Kander is talking about multi-boxing or even botting. It seems to be a very specific issue that they are going to be cracking down on.
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Tarin
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Pretty sure Kander’s post was directed at a certain guild that exploited Derig in the Temple x4 raid zone (some discussion that went down on flames).
Nothing to do with automation, boxing, or whatever else people will derail this into…
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Karsten
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If they don’t want character ID’s used in macros, they need to remove that info from the census data. As it stands, we can get our character ID’s legitimately from Sony-provided data via EQ2U. I hope they don’t remove that data, because some players use character ID’s to track unsavory individuals who change their character names.
A better fix might be to update the EQ2 client to disallow character ID’s in game commands. As Jrral points out, the existing raid- and group-slot references, plus aliases, are usually more than sufficient.
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Feldon
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If they removed character IDs from Census, then EQ2U would cease to function.
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Sievert
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They are not talking about PC character ID’s AKA your toons ID. They are talking about NPC character ID’s.
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Atan
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To be clear, they are talking about Actor ID’s. Character ID’s don’t do much for you at all.
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striinger
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I used to say burn them all like witches, but now I only care if I see them. *shrug*
Mercs sorta ruined my perspective on the topic. If people box as an alternative to mercs then I can tolerate it (until one of them kill steals or otherwise interferes with my happy day).
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Thait
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I think what they are trying to do is stop the people who are hugely abusing it, the kinds who will try to run half a raid force by themselves. I doubt they care much about the average person running two or three characters at once.
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Riven
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What harms EQ2 is people multiboxing and doing SLR. I know people with 18 accounts that raids and only gets loot for him, so doing that don’t affects economy or players (and paying 18 accounts x 15$ monthly helps SOE).
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Redfred
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I agree, I see everyone who multiboxes and SLR as denying 5 other ppl who are too retiring to start groups from joining in and encouraging others who might otherwise group to be lazy and sit in channel waiting to spend their plat on loot.
It’s not exactly cheating but it certainly is not in the spirit of multiPLAYER games.
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Foodcity
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For example…… Trakabot on Unrest.
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alQamar
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Tarin is right. This is about getting character IDs that could be accessed during the fight and getting them pre-pull. This is directly aimed at Equilibrium and not about botting.
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Rebelde
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11 chars? In Crushbone I know a guy that bot 18 in raid. Red Bull Raiding Team is his guild. You can check their progress in EQ-raiders.
Finally SoE open their eyes. It’s not fun see that 6 players fill a raid when other can’t do it without pick ups.
Yes Riven, doesn’t affect to the economy, but affect the game for sure.
Raids are the high end of the game. You can’t allow 6 players do it. It’s an affront to the guilds that fight to survive and raid day after day, always recruiting people to fill a decent raid.
This is against SoE EULA, even if they have higher earnings (only for the expansions, now it’s free play).
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Lol
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@beyoncia yeah cos no one in your Guild uses ogre, right? /rolls eyes
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Murfalad
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I don’t think SOE have any problem with someone multi-boxing, they were even keen on the idea of implementing multiple logins per an account (if they had time), at least the response at soe live was positive.
This problem seems purely aimed at the hitting side of things, as there has always been a red line draw with respect to using third party programs to control your character. So if someone wants to setup and run their own raid force that’s cool, just as long as they use the same controls for each character everyone else uses (my interpretation)
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Murfalad
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I meant “botting” rather than hitting, smartphone auto-mistake 🙂
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Malade
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It has to be something more than just replacing it in a macro, otherwise there would be no difference and putting the name in the macro would be ‘against the rules’ as well. They got burned on an exploit and this is there obtuse way of explaining why we are about to get some sucky changes.
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Feldon
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Confirmed that this has nothing to do with character IDs in Census.
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Betony
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Good to hear. I don’t think I could stand to lose EQ2U.
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Alphonsus
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Some 3rd party programs do use them. But they never cared if it was used to multibox, even 2 groups, 3 groups, and entire raids. Now that it was used to exploit a raid mob, It’s an issue….
*And by multibox I mean there is a difference between having some toons on autofollow, and having them cast, cure, rez, etc.
Sony loves multi-boxers. They pay for 6-12 accounts a month and buy just as many copies of each expansion. Although they pay for it with plat, they could care less who buys the kronos and gifts the expansions.
Back in UO days if a GM sent you a message and you didn’t reply, and your toon was still issuing commands: Instant Perma-Ban. None of this slap on the wrist 3-day crap.
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badcat
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Ok I got a question so I am in raid I have several macro’s set up. Got MT, MA, and OT macros set up, that way with one punch of a button I can change targets and dps, and or heal depending on my character. What exactly is this character ID, as I usually have macro set up by toon name. Then I got other Macro’s set up with %T for buffs. I don’t have any 3rd party software there been days I wish I had as it is a pain in my rear to log in the wife’s toon and drag it around, and have to get up go 18 foot to click her keyboard to loot a quest item.
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Loch
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If you don’t know what they’re talking about, then you’re fine. =)
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Benj
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Are they upset about multi-boxing, 3rd-party software, the use of character Ids, or the use of NPC Ids? These are very different things. I have multiple accounts that I multi-box occasionally where my paladin is an OP merc that can run the others through older zones. The majority of players use 3rd-party software such as Profit UI or ACT.
I don’t know much about botting, but I would assume character names would work as well as Ids, since they are guaranteed to be unique for each server. I’ve never had a problem with botters who stick to instances. They can’t bother me when they’re in their own little world. I would see a problem when these people find exploits.
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Bobby
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“We are Botters. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”
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Omgbots
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No one really cares about some “botting” if people aren’t being a douche about it. If people are being a jerk, taking mobs from others, if someone was trying to kill an avatar or something with a bot (or boxed/whatever) group, or if someone is monopolizing contested zones, etc, people will care, and SOE will ban them. If people are in instances (even instanced raids) no one cares and it’s not a problem. I know a lot of multi box (some use software, some don’t) users on the server I’m on, none of them do any SLR stuff either. If someone is using 2-3 characters, usually they are not using software, if it’s more than that they probably are using something to help (or have extra hands grafted on, I suppose). Some classes you can make a giant macro for and just use a key repeater, some you really can’t and would need software to control very well. Most of the SLR groups are higher end raiding players. All the bot stuff does that I know of is simply press buttons when certain things happen, doing exactly the same thing a player would do, only not as well (unless perhaps the player is a bad player).
When people think of WoW botters they think of people warping around the world mining the mining nodes under the world. That isn’t the equiv of what (at least what I know of) the eq2 “bots” do. If you did the equiv of what the “bot” users in WoW were doing in EQ2, you’d be banned very very quickly (thank goodness).
What people do care about are:
1. Actual hacks/exploits. Ie if you are warping around the map. Or, in this case, using software to do something that a player could not normally do. It doesn’t matter if you are using third party software to do this or an in game bug. In this case the players were using software to do something that a player could not normally have done, but it wasn’t as serious as someone using a more real “hack” like warping around the world or duping items, etc. Which is why no one was banned. When people were doing the krono duping they (thankfully) banned those people very quickly. I had friends who were ripped off by that hack, really horrible that anyone would do that.
2. AFK play. Whether or not you are using some 3rd party software to do this or not is not relevant at all. What difference does it make if it’s a program, a piece of tape holding a key down on the keyboard, a mercenary killing things for you, or a pet killing things for you? None. This was the same in EQ1, afk grinding up AAs with say, the mage epic pet, was not allowed. No one (and no GM) is going to care if you are AFK for a minute using the bathroom while your pet kills something for you. It’s someone camping in a public area with their pet, merc, or software, killing something in sebilis to grind AA up for hours when you sleep that is a problem. You don’t need to panic about afk’ing in the guild hall doing nothing, or AFK’ing during a quick fight while your merc kills something because you had to pee. That’s not what is meant by it.
3. Basically, if you are at all confused by this, you don’t need to worry, it doesn’t apply to you. If you are playing multiple characters at once (even with software help) it doesn’t apply to you either, unless you are being a jerk and doing things that common sense says you shouldn’t be doing, like 24/7 SLR, monopolizing mobs that other people want to use, etc.
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Gaealiege
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I don’t understand all the circumspect banter. They directly oppose ISX and ogrebot. Anyone trying to justify their use is an idiot.
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Gixx
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They will never ban the botters…. isxeq2 and ogre bot have been growing strong for years and not one thing done about it.. hell since 2009 I been botting raid zones and selling the loot for real life money.. prolly from 2005 to 2014 I was making atleast $800 a week steady income.. now they have another extension on isxeq2 bj bot.. that bot can totally run while your afk and do all of tov zones…and do all the quests from level 1-60 while your afk…….
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Gixx
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and yes you can thank me for selling over 5000 kronos on player auctions for $10 each…….but I quit back in march… I might come back in the new expac…
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