EQ TLP - Vaniki (Level-Locked Progression)
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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I agree.
If they are sure that a person is using cheat programs with enough confidence to permanently ban them, they should publicly post the banned account's characters and all the guilds they were in.
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Sieger
Trakanon Raider
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Yeah, I don't think anyone in this thread is really talking about SEQ use. While that is obviously a form of cheating, it's kinda w/e and almost all the serious TLPers use it. The reason we know they aren't actually targeting SEQ use in these ban waves is the numbers affected would be like 10-15x higher.
We're talking Macroquest here, people AFK farming Siren's Grotto on 80 accounts at a time across 5 picks for months on end, people warp training contested open world content, using far taunt to pull bosses in raids in ways they couldn't otherwise be pulled etc. There's also a program Abyss has out that does some of the more egregious stuff. The Redguides "release" of MQN is neutered of a lot of that shit in its default compile, but there are still people out there with the more active hacks and they have been active on every server.
Pharone
Trakanon Raider
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The easiest way to see how corrupt the inner workings of DPG (and it's predecessors) have been is the simple fact that EVERY single TLP server has had a 24/7 ice giant farmer and Sirens Grotto farmer. Every... Single... One. No human plays a game 24 hours a day 365 days a year. NO ONE. Anybody that ever says anything about them on the forums gets a "no name and shame" penalty thrown at them. Anybody that trains them gets seven days to think about what they did.
It does not take a rocket scientist to realize these are bots that are protected by individuals at the company. Anyone that defends them is either an idiot or a deflector for them.
Zaide
TLP Idealist
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I think actively working to prevent and punish cheating is always good. I wish DPG was more consistent and forceful in how they did this.
There can be downsides however specifically when it comes to devs who play the game and are active in top live/tlp guilds.
As a thought experiment let’s imagine that Niente was actually Sirene from Twisted Legion and was also an active raider in Silent Redemption which is a top 5 retail EQ guild. Imagine that in this scenario Niente was the developer who specifically on her own agenda put in suspension wave tickets to get a mass number of MQ players suspended.
On the surface it’s not a big deal but what if she started doing this specifically before every big live content release and she forewarned her EQ guild leader that this was going to happen?
Let’s make the scenario just totally crazy and imagine that Meeko was also in that same guild and would give the guild leader of SR lists of who in the guild had used Macroquest in the last X months. Imagine if the GL then had the power to warn those members to stop or remove those members from their launch raid plans entirely before the suspension waves even hit.
That would be a huge tactical advantage over other live guilds. Again if Niente and Meeko were in Silent Redemption and forewarned their GL that suspensions would occur the day before content drops which would then disproportionately impact their competition but not their own guild.
Anyway, thats just a thought experiment and I am sure Niente, Meeko, Narwhal and co are not in this guild or TLP guilds because that would just be crazy.
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Kharzette
Watcher of Overs
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I'd say 90% of the really great stuff that comes out of games was done without any knowledge or approval of the bosses (until it was too late). Late at night or at home or just being sneaky at work.
It becomes harder to do this when people don't have offices and are just thrown into a pit.
This is all speaking back to the days of game companies though. Nowadays if you have great ideas you just make them at home. Indie games are all crazy fun all the time, and AAA games just get more and more shitty and confined.
It becomes harder to do this when people don't have offices and are just thrown into a pit.
This is all speaking back to the days of game companies though. Nowadays if you have great ideas you just make them at home. Indie games are all crazy fun all the time, and AAA games just get more and more shitty and confined.
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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As a third party, even in this totally contrived and not realistic scenario the drama is totally worth how unprofessional it is. And this is a better scenario than the developers being disaffected and being happy to let the game go to shit because their game and tech ignorant boardmembers aren't forcing them enough to fight against cheating. So yeah, I'm all for the kind of loose dev power that's common in these old ass games with old ass devs who view their role as half-hobby, half-career.
Sieger
Trakanon Raider
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Nah, leaking customer data or putting your thumb on the scales for various guilds is worse than having cheater programs lol. We the playing customer base shouldn't have to tolerate rogue devs on the hope of getting cheat software banned.
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Zaide
TLP Idealist
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The point is we should be able to ban cheaters without all the other baggage.
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Rajaah
Honorable Member
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Yeah, I've had a ton of fun with shaman/necro EBolting in the past. Shamans also get Plague before 50, so they can double up their own DoT.
Even Venom of the Snake and Scourge are good enough to easily KS most mobs in the 30-45 range.
I guess the cat's outta the bag now that it's being discussed here.
Another thing is that I believe this only works with DoTs that do upfront damage. So I don't think it'd work with druid DoTs or Heat Blood / Darkness / Heart Flutter necro lines. Funnily enough, it will work with Enchanter DoTs...which absolutely suck and won't be KSing much.
Pharone
Trakanon Raider
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I'm sure I can not be the only one who has had a run in with certain assholes in EverQuest that acted as if the rules did not apply to them, and shotly after words crazy shit started happing to your character/account. I know I can not be alone in that experience.
I know one incident in particular happened on the Phinigel server. At least I think it was Phinigel. It was back when farming the beetle eyes in Paineel was a thing, and there was always a couple mages out there farming the beetles 24/7 non-stop.
My brother and I went out there to get some beetle eyes as well and see just how well it worked. Well one of the mages that was ALWAYS out there took offense to us being out there, and after we beat him on a few spawns (mind you they spawn like non-stop, so it wasn't a big deal), he told us off, and almost instantly we both got kicked to desktop.
From that point on, we were unable to play in the same group and zone together because any time we did, we would get kicked directly to desktop. Reported it to SoE/DBG (what ever they called themselves back then), and they just accused us of by passing truebox rules. I took VIDEO and posted it on Youtube proving that we were in fact on two completely different computers in the same house, and it would kick us from the game directly to desktop. We had video proof that we were NOT going against the truebox rules. They still claimed we were, and didn't help us at all. That ruined the Phinigel server for us, and we quit EQ for a long while after that.
After the next TLP server came out, we got the itch to try it out again just to see if they fixed the issue. The issue still happened for us. Instant kick to desktop if we were in a group together and in the same zone. The second we took any actions against a mob, instant kick to desktop.
I was just about to say "FUCK THEM" and be done with EQ for ever when a thought occurred to me. I went in to my router, and setup new static IP addresses for our computers. Loaded up EQ again, and the problem was solved.!
Point is, that asshole that was farming the beetles 24/7 some how flagged our accounts, and it was IP based. They claim there are no flagging systems in the game like that, but they are straight up fucking liars. There are account-wide flags that they can set that fuck with you. Piss off the wrong person, and your account becomes flagged.
I know one incident in particular happened on the Phinigel server. At least I think it was Phinigel. It was back when farming the beetle eyes in Paineel was a thing, and there was always a couple mages out there farming the beetles 24/7 non-stop.
My brother and I went out there to get some beetle eyes as well and see just how well it worked. Well one of the mages that was ALWAYS out there took offense to us being out there, and after we beat him on a few spawns (mind you they spawn like non-stop, so it wasn't a big deal), he told us off, and almost instantly we both got kicked to desktop.
From that point on, we were unable to play in the same group and zone together because any time we did, we would get kicked directly to desktop. Reported it to SoE/DBG (what ever they called themselves back then), and they just accused us of by passing truebox rules. I took VIDEO and posted it on Youtube proving that we were in fact on two completely different computers in the same house, and it would kick us from the game directly to desktop. We had video proof that we were NOT going against the truebox rules. They still claimed we were, and didn't help us at all. That ruined the Phinigel server for us, and we quit EQ for a long while after that.
After the next TLP server came out, we got the itch to try it out again just to see if they fixed the issue. The issue still happened for us. Instant kick to desktop if we were in a group together and in the same zone. The second we took any actions against a mob, instant kick to desktop.
I was just about to say "FUCK THEM" and be done with EQ for ever when a thought occurred to me. I went in to my router, and setup new static IP addresses for our computers. Loaded up EQ again, and the problem was solved.!
Point is, that asshole that was farming the beetles 24/7 some how flagged our accounts, and it was IP based. They claim there are no flagging systems in the game like that, but they are straight up fucking liars. There are account-wide flags that they can set that fuck with you. Piss off the wrong person, and your account becomes flagged.
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Should is a really important word there. Old EQ addicts should have access to relatively bot-free servers and a semi-aggressive GM staff that professionally beats down cheaters like people around the world should have access to clean water as an essential human right. Just like everything else that is fucked up about this game we love called Everquest we have to chose to tolerate the problems and enjoy the total result or chose to spend our money else where. That being said, I totally laud any attempts to take DPG to task for guild favoritism, the entertainment from that is part of the upside of the act in the first place.
Just as long as it actually happened and wasn't some rumor mill Suineg bullshit.
Rajaah
Honorable Member
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So is it safe to say that it's a lot safer to sell an account if you first make sure the account has a burner phone number and burner email address? What about debit card usage (i.e. buying exp pots)?
I never sold that spare Vaniki account (which is now going to sit unplayed with a max level character on it) because of what I read on here, but I might try and sell a few accounts on a future TLP. Sometimes I'll level up 2-3 characters for a TLP and then end up not playing it past Kunark or whatever, and that's hundreds of dollars of RMT dough laying around every year. I've seen level 60 accts going for like $400 sometimes on particularly hot TLPs in that era.
On a related note, reading the last couple days of this discussion has me now fearing for my accounts. Only ever had one other person use mine during a TLP launch (we cycled naps while someone boxed us) and he was a mature guy in good standing with a few top guilds who I don't think used any programs. Now I'm worried though. I've gone out of my way to never use programs even when it'd make life a lot easier, so if I ever got banned because of something someone else did who once boxed me for four hours, well, that'd be real retarded sir.
I never sold that spare Vaniki account (which is now going to sit unplayed with a max level character on it) because of what I read on here, but I might try and sell a few accounts on a future TLP. Sometimes I'll level up 2-3 characters for a TLP and then end up not playing it past Kunark or whatever, and that's hundreds of dollars of RMT dough laying around every year. I've seen level 60 accts going for like $400 sometimes on particularly hot TLPs in that era.
On a related note, reading the last couple days of this discussion has me now fearing for my accounts. Only ever had one other person use mine during a TLP launch (we cycled naps while someone boxed us) and he was a mature guy in good standing with a few top guilds who I don't think used any programs. Now I'm worried though. I've gone out of my way to never use programs even when it'd make life a lot easier, so if I ever got banned because of something someone else did who once boxed me for four hours, well, that'd be real retarded sir.
Rajaah
Honorable Member
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Zero misinformation from my part. If they use the detection I am mentioning, it has a 0% false detection/association rate.
MQNext is aware of this functionality, and bypasses it for itself, but not MySEQ.
src/main/MQ2DetourAPI.cpp · master · macroquest / next / MQnext · GitLab
We moved to github, go to https://github.com/macroquest/macroquest instead.gitlab.com
src/main/MQ2DetourAPI.cpp · master · macroquest / next / MQnext · GitLab
We moved to github, go to https://github.com/macroquest/macroquest instead.
MySEQ is 100% detectable this way. The launchpad has HWID tracking capabilities. The game client and game loginserver uses the same utility (it's part of a library) and allows them to track you across games.
They even left in the slash command (albeit not hooked up) to test this stuff.
View attachment 420620
Beyond that, there's the normal 'memory check' stuff that has existed since 2003, though they don't use it anymore as I think ASLR broke it, though it's still used on spellcasts:
View attachment 420621
View attachment 420622
That same functionality is used for checking to see if you have the proper eqgame.exe, spells, basedata, skill caps, newzone_info, player profile length received from the server, etc:
View attachment 420623
The string MQ2 uses to identify itself is part of this checksum, in fact.
Beyond that, the zone server can request this data as part of a network message:
View attachment 420624
I don't believe any of that is used anymore, but it's hard to tell without emulating it to see what MQ2 changes, or making a mockup of the functions in a standalone program.
That brings me back to my point: None of what I said was based on misinformation. There's multiple layers of detection and none of them are surface visible to the average MQ user. I've named a handful of them, and not all of them are clientsided like these examples are. Analytics is a big part of our industry, EQ is no exception.
Fairly high. This is why MMO companies tell you to not share your account, and why CSRs will often deny account change requests that can't prove they are actually the owner. It's a clusterfuck for CSRs to deal with if they arbitrarily allowed that shit. It's why account to account transfers require ownership proof. It's so they can take the burden of responsibility off of them and onto you, and why they have no qualms banning people based on detections on your account.
"Your account is your responsibility."
"Account to account transfers"
I'm a bit bleary because of dealing with RL shit all day, but what is that?
Just to confirm, there's definitely no way to move a character from one account to another, is there? It'd be great to consolidate my spare Vaniki char onto an account that's actually subbed. I'd pay $25 or whatever to transfer. Got proof of ownership of both accts obviously. But I'm guessing that's impossible.
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Correct. There used to be but they stopped that a few years ago and have said there are no plans to re-enable it.
Elderan
Blackwing Lair Raider
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On selo I was in Amtrak (as an anon nobody) and many of my friends were. We were told day one by a gm (in the guild) specifically who in the guild was flagged for vm, mq2, (other stuff i wont mention here). A ban wave hit about a month later and that heads up allowed me to "fix" things before it hit.
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Elderan
Blackwing Lair Raider
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The funny part about the vm banwave was how many false flags it had in it. The wave 100% hit a bunch of people who had vmware installed and running at the time a char was logged in but not actually logged in using the vm.
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Cupcaek
Molten Core Raider
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I always wondered who else had heard about this crazy scenario, i'd guess alot more people will now imagine this crazy theory.
Vaniki has shown me that being a "good" live player does not transfer at all to TLP servers. I'm sure its prolly true in the inverse as well but gawd damn some of them are quite terrible.
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