ShowEQ users are bad, cheating, *ssholes? Huh?

[binky]

I keep seeing all of this talk on different forums etc, about how people who use ShowEQ are "cheating" and they're "bad" people (even "assholes") who are ruining the game for everyone, and how they'll have to learn to play the game how it was supposed to be played..

Well.. I really disagree with all of that because i use ShowEQ for the following:

1. Finding my way around a world which, because of lack of unique models and textures like a REALISTIC world would have, looks the bloody same and is too easy to get lost in.
2. Camp checking because 1/3 of the people don't speak English well and don't know what "camp check pls?" means. 1/3 of the people are rude and anti-social and don't respond. The last 1/3 of the people don't see the /ooc camp check because it's flooded out with battle spam.
3. Checking to see the exact level of mobs so i know what is single-pullable or not, because frankly the whole /con system is botched.
4. Monitoring for idiots training mobs.

Now what are those 4 things? Time savers. It's not cheating. It's not stealing anything from other players. They're at no disadvantage because of any of our actions. What, they want a whole bunch of people getting lost and training them? What, they want people arriving at a camp and compete for it and ruin the camp for both of them, when they could've seen the camp was taken with ShowEQ long before and gone somewhere else?

How annoying is it getting lost in a world that looks the same no matter which way you turn? How annoying is it to spend a lot of time getting to a camp you want, only to find that it's taken? How annoying is it for 2 supposedly identical mobs (blue con, they look the same) to not assist each other one time but then assist each other the next time, forcing you to run away or die and waste time? How annoying is it for idiots to train mobs over you and then you have to, again, run away or die?

Facts:
* Other people idiotically train.
* The /con system is botched.
* EQ is not big enough to accomodate everyone and you are forced to compete.
* EQ doesn't have enough textures and models thus making it too easy to get lost.

ShowEQ fixes those problems.

If you're content with paying SOE money for EQ "how it is meant to be", then you're pretty insane. Pay them money to compete for camps and waste of lot of time getting what you deserve as a paying customer? Pay them money to turn around and get smacked in the face by 10 dragons which some idiot trained onto you but didn't /shout TRAIN!? Pay them money to get frustrated losing yourself or your corpse or dying and wasting all that time?

I don't know about anyone else but IMHO, EQ + SEQ is the only way to play. When SEQ is broken it really just takes so much longer to get things done and it opens a whole can of frustration.

Pay money to get frustrated. Yeah i like the sound of that.

"Assholes" huh? No, ShowEQ lets me avoid all the assholes, save a little time, and lets me try to have some fun. I pay to play a game to have some fun. If i wanted to deal with assholes and time wasting, i'd just walk out the door and try to deal with people on the street.

Opinions? Please, i'd like to hear what other people think about the bad light shed on ShowEQ users.

Cheers.

[PlanetBOB]

Alot of the people callin SEQ users for aholes, believe seq does a whole lot more than just display spawns, whith accurate level information and such...

But no matter how much you defend your use of seq, its still cheating, in the most basic concept of the word.. you have an edge others dont have, which per definition you shouldnt have, even if you just use it for pur gps purposes..

Its arguable if it makes you a less cheater if you smart enough to make it work though with out whining, or borthering others, i believe sometimes it does..

[Exo]

It's more basic than that.

The people that make the rules of the game say you can't use ShowEQ. You use it and get away with it, that's cheating because you are breaking the rules:) If your gonna cheat at least be able to look at yer self and say, "What a wonderful cheater am I!" that's what I do :P

[LordCrush]

/agree Exo - it *is* cheating, but i have no problem with that...
I did change the games-save-files of Bardstale too... :D

[AbaddonxXx69]

Hehe, /cheers Lord Crush

Bards Tale II here, lol. I was able to buy all the 7 rod pieces from a store. I'm pretty sure thats not how that game was meant to be played.

[anon2]

Ohh.... I remember HEX editing Bard's Tale, and Might and Magic II. Gawd that was a long time ago :(

Anyone ever HEX edit Sim City to give yourself infinite money ;) ?
Ahhhh those were the days.

[binky]

True, true. What you guys say is right, it *is* still cheating, but not stereotypical "cheating". As i said, people seem to put all ShowEQ users into this "bad person" "*sshole" type category. Really though, there's a lot more decent people than there isn't who use ShowEQ, i am sure.

As i said, i don't use it gain any extreme unfair advantage over other people. I'm sure a lot of other people don't use it like that either. But it's extremely limited to what it can do anyway. ShowEQ is not even close to the same category that macro tradeskill pp making programs are put in, nor anything to do with item duping, or using any sort of strange modifcation to get skills or spells from other classes or anything like that. It's not a *huge* cheat.

There's two ways to cheat, remember. The first is to be an *sshole and disadvantage others, steal from them, annoy them, etc. A big problem in PvP huh? The other way is to passively improve your game while still respecting others and letting them get what they honestly earn.

As long as it doesn't affect other people, can it really be even called "cheating"? Barely, i guess.

Another thing i use ShowEQ for is to calculate xp gains and to look at combat stats. That's not "cheating", but it is "cheating".. You know what i mean? Hard to describe really. Only people who use ShowEQ would understand it.

"Alot of the people callin SEQ users for aholes, believe seq does a whole lot more than just display spawns," <-- I think that's very true and it's a shame those people can't be educated.

I'll admit to that using ShowEQ is cheating. Yes. But it's not even close to being that simple. There's a whole can of moral worms to be chewed on. I use ShowEQ to save myself time because quite frankly, the current "rules" of EQ are slow and boring. It's not really worth playing otherwise. Who here can tell me EQ isn't the biggest damn timesink since the beginning of time?

Cheers.

[smoothielover]

please do a serch on lawyer and read my opinion

seq does not BREAK eula

[binky]

I forgot to mention...

I'd like everyone to remember that i started this thread to discuss the issue of us being called "*ssholes", not whether it's "cheating" or not.

SEQ is cheating? Whatever. :D It's cheating if that's what you want to call it. But anybody with any skill other than grandmaster nitpicking (250!) will know that it's not as simple as that though. If you do think it's that simple then i'll quit EQ+SEQ and put you, along with people who macro to make pp, dupe, crash, annoy, KS, etc into a boat labelled "*ssholes" and stamp "cheater" on your forehead. ;) No, didn't think you'd want to be in the same boat as those cheaters. There is a big difference you see.

I'd also like to know what other people use ShowEQ for.

Cheers.

[binky]

Originally posted by smoothielover
please do a serch on lawyer and read my opinion

seq does not BREAK eula

Good post. ;) Not the direction i wanted this thread to go, but nevertheless, a worthwhile post with solid reasoning.

The URL for those who haven't trained Search at their guild master yet:

http://seq.sourceforge.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2239

Cheers.

[BlueAdept]

Most people dont know what ShowEQ is or does. It is like those people on SOE's message boards that say "Nerf this class it is too powerfull" or "Nerf this class because they can do this that my char cant do". Instead of complaining, try the other class.

I have to admit that on my first char, I almost posted one of those messages (3 years ago), but instead I went and played that class and liked it. Of my 12 chars, he is my highest one.

What got me into SEQ was Verants talk about how detrimental it was and how it would destroy EQ. At first I thought it was a good thing that Verant was going to try to put an end to it....until I actually researched and found what it does.

The first one I ran was the WinSEQ, but didnt really like it. Since I needed to learn linux for my work, I decided to set up the linux one and never looked back. Im kind of glad I did since about a month later, the mass WinSEQ bannings began.

Originally SEQ was more of a threat in the begining. Rares were pretty much everything. Now with the auction channel and the bazaar, rares are pretty much useless.

I use SEQ for navigation, avoidance of stuff, sometimes for finding stuff that is in my level range to pull, occasionally finding a specific NPC for a quest. I dont think that SEQ is detrimental to EQ. I think it is more of a handy tool rather than an exploit.

Heh...I used to play (and cheat) on bards tale on the apple. I was so happy when they finally ported it over to the PC. I liked Might and Magic over Bards tale though. Ultima 3 was probably by far my favorite game. I still play it on the apple emulator.

[three-p-o]

I cheat and I'm proud of it. :p

[fryfrog]

Remember that time you were level 12 and you lost your body in a new zone? You spent hours and hours looking for it, you learned that you should issue a "/loc" right before you die the hard way. Remember that person that finally said "/ooc hey, I just passed your body at about loc X,Y"... they were using ShowEQ. Wasn't it great having your body back without having to track down a bard or necro?

Remember when you were in dreadlands and you found this really great group? The puller was on top of his game, rarely pulling more than 1 or 2 mobs at once? Wasn't it great that most of those mobs were higher cons? The puller was using ShowEQ.

Remember when you and a group of friends decided to goto a fairly new zone, which none of you had experience in? You all wandered around and got hopelessly lost (or so you thought). When it came time to go home, one of your group mates just KNEW where the zone out was. Wasn't it great not being lost for hours when you needed to log because you were already late for work? Guess who was using ShowEQ.

Remember when the uberguild you were in was raiding that really cool uber mob? Do you remember how the pull worked very well and was coordinated between a few monks and other classes? Wasn't it great when it got to the right spot, didn't agro anything else and the fight was won and well planned? Yeah, guess who was using ShowEQ to coordinate the pull...

Remember when you went to fear/hate for your epic piece? A "tracker" told everyone that your mob was up, and you were very happy. The raid started, and eventually your epic mob is pulled and you get your epic part... someone there was using ShowEQ.

Do you remember KC? Boy, that zone is train city. Remember that time you grouped there but somehow managed to never train the zone, never pull more than was intended? Or maybe a train was approaching and the puller said "run, train". Did you really think he was just "narrowly escaping it" himself? He was using ShowEQ.

Remember when you were search for that rare spawn that drops a part for your epic, but EVERY time you stood a chance of finding it some druid or ranger was already there killing it and offering to sell you a cloak they didn't need for 10k? Bet you wish you had ShowEQ.

Remember when VI messed up that encounter, but refused to fix it because it was "working as intended"? Or when that skill/ability seemed to not really be doing anything? What tool do you think was mostly responsible for figuring out that something was truely wrong in the first place? Some hidden tool that VI uses? No, it was SEQ.

Will I quit because SEQ only works as a GPS? Probably not. I won't have as much fun in the game, I won't stand much of a chance against the uber guilds and the loot farmers. I don't think I will get lost, but I might run accross mobs that kill me.

What would it take to break ShowEQ perminently? Add some of its features to the game. A "Map Making" skill along with a "Map Reading" skill would remove the need for a GPS. Some way of actually losing agro when you finally outrun a mob would help. Tracking classes that had an instinctual picture of the close mobs surrounding them on their "map". Instead of trying to break ShowEQ with encryption and banning, perhaps focus should be spent on making the features of ShowEQ not needed.

[throx]

Someone made an excellent post on a board somewhere (forget where):

A game is defined by a set of rules. If you are using SEQ then you aren't playing Everquest because you are using a different set of rules.

In response to fryfrog, this is actually great material for those who want SEQ to continue to be broken. Each and every case given is a good illustration of the ways SEQ gives players an advantage over those who do not use it and continuing to extol SEQ's virtues in this way is the best way I can imagine to keep Sony's wrath focussed on it.

For me, SEQ was a nice technical project. I enjoyed both the defeat of the pseudo-encryption that Sony put into the products and the challenge of porting libeq.a to Windows every time it changed (a lot easier than it sounds, believe me). In may ways I'm glad Sony has finally figured out how to make decent encryption and shut it down. I'm not sorry to see it go and I think Ratt's post was childish at best - reminds me of a 5 year old threatening to hold their breath until you give in to their demand for more cookies.

[Virusmaster]

Lol. Those folks calling SEQ users names don't realize how many of their "friends" are using the proggie :)

[binky]

Originally posted by throx
In response to fryfrog, this is actually great material for those who want SEQ to continue to be broken. Each and every case given is a good illustration of the ways SEQ gives players an advantage over those who do not use it...

Actually, fryfrog's post clearly demonstrates quite well how *everybody* can benefit from *other people* using ShowEQ. Who benefits (as well as the person/people using it of course)? The people who you find corpses for. The group you pull for. The person who you lead home. The people in the raid you organised. The person you helped get their epic. The people who you warn about trains. Everyone who has a skill that is bugged and ShowEQ picks up this bug through analysis. Those are all very clear in fryfrog's post and i think it's a great post to show how the entire EQ community can benefit from ShowEQ. I never myself though about it like that because i never group and am not in a guild.

Cheers.

[Gullork]

I keep thinking that same thing.

Everyone on that message board is shouting to ban the cheaters. They don't realize how many of their friends are using it, and that it is why they don't die as much when playing with these friends. Their friends are probably as 'good' as they are, because they are informed enough to make good decisions. Some of them are probably ShowEQ users themselves, trying to deny their use.

Once their friends are banned however, I doubt they are going to like what is left. Many 'uber' guilds sure won't be nearly as big or efficient.

It is funny how much this program has benifited everyone in EQ. From revealing problems, to giving people the correct formulas for mana calculation, to understanding how exp really works, to just plain getting exp and not dying as much due to reduced trains and good pulls. Most of the decent information out there on the net that everyone takes for granted probably came from the hard work of these 'cheating' developers that selflessly gave of their own time.

Heck, just look at the beastiary in allak. How did they know ## mob was level 65 before pop came out? No one has a problem using the information gleened from this program, yet in the next instant, 'it is so wrong, ban them all'.

What was it, last month that the whole exp craze happened? Who gave them solid information? It got fixed? How quickly they forget, or choose to ignore.

[gezs]

I'm a cheater. I've never been caught. I'll never get caught. You may think you have caught me but you haven't. For how can you catch me if I will not admit that I am caught. The point you see is always being one step ahead of the game when it comes down to it I've always got an escape key. Thats the nature of the game. Sure it may make me a bad person in some peoples eyes. Personally I could care less what you think of me. I am my own person. I make my own rules. If my rules happen to coincide with yours so be it. If they do not so be it. Try to enforce your rules upon me. If you are lucky you may have the strength to stop me for a short amount of time, but in the end I will find a way to cheat.

In the end its all a game. Everything is a game. I play to win by whatever means necessary. How do you play the game?

[Haytrid]

/agreed

How many guilds are eternally grateful that one or more of thier members had this incredible TOOL to use.

EQ will be a sadly misinformed place when you are all relying on "i think" and "it doesn't seem". SEQ forces sorry ass developers to fix the broken ass code they pass off as "working as intended".

Much like the real world, if you don't watch the people who are supposed to watch you, bad things happen. If SOE tells you it's working, who are you to say "I don't THINK" it is. SEQ is your proof.

And the best part is this... for all the whinny bastards out there going "ohh cheater... loser...." etc. Remeber all the "secret" info someone has helped you with, and shut your piehole. Great post fry. SEQ is OPEN SOURCE. It's not like the Dev's sell it or make a dime on it. ANYONE can get it. Then you can help others enjoy the GAME more.

Haytrid
:mad:

[throx]

Actually, fryfrog's post clearly demonstrates quite well how *everybody* can benefit from *other people* using ShowEQ.

Fryfrog's post is equivalent to the Robin Hood argument:

"I robbed this bank but I gave most of the money to the poor and needy instead of leaving the rich bastards with it"

You can argue rationalization until you turn blue in the face but the fact remains that it *is* using information outside the rules created by Verant and therefore is not part of the game. Every one of Fryfrog's examples were basically:

PlayerXXX was benefitted because someone used ShowEQ.

Guess what? It's all saying that a person got an in-game advantage over someone not using SEQ. This type of comment is not going to make friends no matter how many rose-colored statements you want to garnish it with. Fundamentally it all boils down to "Look - someone cheated and their friends are better off".

Well, duh!

[baelang]

what is sad is that at least 3/4 of the people crying that showeq users are cheaters.....use EQW. or some form of data parsing.

showeq is just a data management tool.

it is not really much different than me keeping a notebook where i write down the con/level of every mob and it's name and compare notes with friends to narrow down the level of mobs, etc. or using paper maps avaliable on eqatlas (or buying the stupid guidebooks published by SOE and SOE partners)

[fryfrog]

your right, it is just warm arguments for cheating. i can't deny that. there isn't much to say, where do you draw the line? all the external sites with spoilers and maps are external things which enhance or alter your in game play. showeq can only show you what is sent to the client. its a different way of displaying the info. it truely doesn't harm anyone in the same way that invasive cheating can (*cough*macroquest*cough*duping*cough*exploiting*c ough*). you can't eliminate cheating unfortunatly. all you can do is make it harder and harder... unfortuanatly, i believe they have actually gone over a hump. it went easy, harder, harder, harder, BOOM impossible w/o sniffing memory... and introducing a windows client. perhaps they should not have over stepped that one final hump. i do agree that showeq has the potential to REALLY ruin the game, in the same way that wall hack and aim bots do. BUT i believe that has not happened due to it staying on the linux platform... if it moves to windows, the same people that aimbot and wallhack will use winseq. i'm truely sorry if that does ever happen, because it WILL be the death knell of playing eq as we know it.

every 12 year old with a warrior will be running straight for rares. it will suck.

[throx]

I can agree with that sentiment, fry. Personally I think the best thing to do is just let SEQ die. Sure, it was great while it lasted but knowing when to walk away and work on another project is a virtue that cannot be overlooked.

Should the memory sniffer be implemented, I wouldn't doubt Sony's ability to randomly move code and data around in memory to foil these attempts. Should someone have the bright idea of combining Macroquest with SEQ in a meaningful way then I'd expect some truly frightening responses from Sony - possibly all the way to a hardware crypto dongle for EQ2.

I say kudos to Sony for standing against what they believe is cheating (and what even people here admit is cheating) even if it does cost them subscribers in the long run. That's integrity and I'll respect that.

Ratt's tirade, as well as most of the "FU Sony" comments on this board however smack of a spoiled child who has suddenly had their candy supply taken from them. Like I said elsewhere I don't think it's going to win a lot of friends and quite frankly, Sony employees would be laughing themselves silly at the anger being displayed here.

[guido]

I think sony has made money from showeq. How? I know for one, I wouldn't be playign EQ without SEQ. I've played long enough without it. Without SEQ, the game is not fun for me and I would have ditched it long ago. With it working, they get my monthly * 3 accounts.

Cheers!

[Ratt]

Ratt's tirade, as well as most of the "FU Sony" comments on this board however smack of a spoiled child who has suddenly had their candy supply taken from them. Like I said elsewhere I don't think it's going to win a lot of friends and quite frankly, Sony employees would be laughing themselves silly at the anger being displayed here.

I don't think you understand the situation, Throx.

I have been and will always be for the players. This move by Sony doesn't affect me one iota. I can function without SEQ, because all I do pretty much is raid... I don't enjoy any other aspect of EQ anymore... SEQ is pretty useless in a raid situation if you aren't the puller, and I'm not the puller.

To add to that, _I_ can get my own SEQ working with minimal effort. What I can not do is stop people from making Windows versions, and that will, most assuredly, harm 99% of the EQ population. It won't affect me... I don't camp rares, I don't do anything that requires SEQ and my needs in the game come off mobs that I can not do anything about without a guild sized force. This isn't about me, or a spoiled child having their candy taken away, nothing is taken away from _ME_ ... it's taken away from YOU. YOU are the one that is going to have to deal with all the l33t 12 year olds with SEQ running around, not me.

My rant was about the bottom line treatment Sony is giving to the player base, it sure as hell isn't about me. Without this project, you would have seen a Windows version of SEQ much sooner, possibly a lot more "cheats" than you have now. By giving a central focus to the "hacking" community and a common goal to work on ... and being able to direct that goal in a responsible direction and manner, it prevented a lot of the headaches and frustration that plagues many other games... but now *shrug* ... now we're all screwed in one form or another... just some more than others.

[Ataal]

Well said, Ratt.

It actually sickens me to think of all the much more harmful 'cheats' out there that are completely ignored.

IMO SOE cheats in their own game:

60 lvl Wizard - PC = 1500'ish HPs and will whack you once per round with his stick for 20.

60 lvl Wizard - NPC = 32K'ish HPS and will double for 200+ with his fists.

So, I have absolutely no problem with looking on my linux box to see if the mob we're about to fight is classified as a warrior or a wizard.

It seems so political sometimes. There was a HUGE deal on EBAY, and the stuff sold there has been kept to a minimum. BUT, go to playerauctions.com and you'll see some hypocrasy.