WinSEQ

[Resiliant]

Hey...Ratt...

Im anxious! When is WInSEQ gonna be ready for prime time? :P

OH.. and also...

To SoE... who reads these forums regularly...

Hey guys? THANKS SO MUCH for making us go to packet sniffing! SEQ is just so much better a product now! Takes only a fraction of a second to get resolved. And... making me recompile made the new and improved maps available! All and all... a great improvement.

OH... and btw? My sniffer is undetectable by any software running on my PC.

Why don't you go do something useful with your lives -- like perhaps provide a Customer Service department that acutally provides Customer Service instead of just telling us to fix it ourselves? ORRR how about this for a unique concept? Instead of constantly trying to fix things that aren't broken... Make the things that are broken (like the infinite number of pathing bugs) UNBROKEN.

Geez -- user service -- what a concept! ... Im not holding my breath.

OH... and one more thing. As regards the whole 'cheating' issue. Its not. SEQ is not cheating any more than being a Ranger with tracking is cheating. It's an enhanced ability that comes as a result of a lot of hard work. Just like i work to level my characther, to improve my tradeskills, or to develop any other skill or character in game, the effort required to achieve SEQ ability is likewise granted after a fair bit of hard work and effort. Its just hard work and effort that SoE is incapable of providing in-game. You know what we call that in business? Its a value-added service. Not Cheating.

I say lets make this useful value added service available to all SEQ players... and i do mean ALL. I'd be very interested to see the consequence.

:)

[RavenCT]

You know what the interesting thing is, they could probably make a utility that does all that SEQ does and more, box it, market it, and sell it as an add-on to EQ...

Hell, with a product like that, even if it did require a seperate machine, I'd buy it pretty much so that I didn't have to worry about getting banned for sniffing the key from EQ memory, etc...

[Resiliant]

/agree Raven

Actually.. know what? I have mentally and emotionally achieved the point of view that if they ban me for using SEQ im going to cancel all my accounts and stop using EQ, and for that matter, any SoE product.

Bottom line tho, is they want us to spend money on EQ2 next year, and are trying to kill EQ i think.

[Cryonic]

or they are using EQ players to beta test somethings for EQ2 (such as this new encryption method). I'm guessing they REALLY don't want to see SEQ2.

[RavenCT]

I've also pretty much made up my mind that if I get banned (either of my accounts) that it would be time to close up the old EQ shop...

I really don't have an intention of playing EQ2, EQ has been enough for me.

I think I keep playing it so that I can keep up on SEQ :)

[Resiliant]

Um...

Well, forcing the existance of WinSEQ by breaking the social contract isn't going to help any in that regard. In fact, if WinSEQ happens, there will be a HUGE furor for the same in EQ2.. and know what? No matter what they do.. they can't stop SEQ because its driven by a programmer base 1000x larger than they have available to them.

The only way to win the game
Is not to play at all

[RavenCT]

It's pretty much all in how they coded the new game... If they made it so that you were given just a little bubble of information of what was around you and not an entire zone, that would defeat a good part of what SEQ does...

Who knows what else they have up there sleeve for EQ2. Maybe they even went as far as encrypting everying that comes over the wire (compressing it first then encrypting). That is what in essence broke SEQ as a completely passive app anyway.

Either way, like I said, I have no intention of buying EQ2. It's just interesting to see what ends they will go through to thwart a bunch of people (a very small percentage in the grand scheme of things) that are "cheating". I really wonder how many people at SoE are thinking of ways to try and "detect" key sniffers...

Anyone hear of anyone getting banned for using one yet?

[throx]

Resiliant,

i) SEQ has always used packet sniffing. It's now sniffing the key from memory. That's the difference.

ii) There never was a "social contract". That was a shared delusion of the SEQ community.

iii) Sony can detect your keysniffer whether you like it or not. If they can't, I'd love to know what makes you think that because the best techniques yet haven't found a completely foolproof way of doing it.

iv) SEQ *is* cheating. If you don't realize that playing outside the rules of the game as set down by Sony (ie only Rangers can track and only using the limited tracking window) then you're a complete retard. If "cheating" is too strong a word for you then think of it as playing a different game to the one everyone else not using SEQ is playing, just in a shared world.

Really, if you don't think you are cheating then you're in denial. Whether you think the cheating is justified is a completely different question but quite frankly if you're going to cheat, at least have the cojones to admit it.

v) I can't speak for Ratt, but I doubt there will be a WinSEQ from him. If you're so excited about it and have done so much "hard work" then I'm sure you won't have any issues writing it yourself. It's not like the decoding is any great secret any more - the libeq.a is just the same decryption engine you can lift directly from the eqgame.exe file itself.

[Resiliant]

throx

i) I'm aware of the difference between the old and new versions

ii) The nature of a 'Social Contract' is that its inspecific and not codified. Were it codified, it would be a written contract. There was, in fact, a Social Contract in that SoE could have taken steps to make it much more difficult for SEQ to exist a long, long time ago, and chose not to. That decision implies assent on their part, and hence the Social Contract.

iii) No they can't. Not mine. And if I told you why, then it would reduce its effectiveness. Sufficie it to say that your assertion is based on the premise that one piece of software running on a PC can detect any other piece of software, in memory, and/or not, and that premise is fallacious.

iv) SEQ is *not* cheating, because I choose to define 'cheating' differently than you. It's a semantic difference. I consider Sony's EULA invalid and illegal. The reasons for which would get us into a discussion not appropriate for this venue. Suffice it to say that putting up a screen and having people click on a button does not constitute legal license to violate my constitutional rights. If Sony's agreement does that, it is null and void under the laws of the United States. Further, what I do in the privacy of my own home is my own business, and neither Sony, nor anyone else cant dictate that.

v) As regards WinSEQ, I'm not so much interested in it for myself... I'm interested in it as a tool to teach SoE the realities of life. I'm quite pleased with the Linux version myself, although I've made several changes to it for my own use. No point in redesigning the wheel.

Finally... remember... this is a game... just a game :)

[throx]

i) If you were aware of the differences you'd probably get your terminology right. No matter.

ii) There was never a social contract. You *thought* there was. Big difference there. I will guarantee you that no one at Sony ever once thought there was a social contract. You see, a contract doesn't exist without agreement from both sides and until you can prove that Sony acknowledged any sort of "contract" then you have to admit is was a fantasy.

iii) Ah, the old "I can't tell you it's undetectable because that would make it detectable ploy". Sorry, but I don't buy it. What makes you think one piece of software is undetectable from another piece? I guarantee you that any code you write can be detected if the behaviour or source for that code is known. Maybe your code can't be detected by the *current* eqgame.exe but it can sure be detected if they want to.

iv) This is Sony's game on Sony's servers. If you don't like the EULA then you don't have to connect to their servers. That's what it comes down to. Sony aren't infringing on any of your rights by saying you can only connect to their servers under their conditions just as the government isn't infringing on your rights by saying you can only do 65mph on the interstate. Your amateur lawyer ideas are basically wrong.

v) SoE knows the realities of life. That's why they are making a lot more money than the SEQ devs are. You on the other hand seem ignorant of the realities of life. Sony owns the servers and can control access to them whether you like it or not. You can do whatever you want in your own home but as soon as you connect to their servers you sign up to their agreement. Don't like the EULA? Play ethernalquest and never connect again.

To quote you - remember it's a game. Sony's game, not yours. Their rules, not yours. If you don't like that then you have the right to not play their game. Somewhere I think you forgot that.

[MisterSpock]

I'm not going to enter the "social contract" or the "cheating" conversation -- not yet, at least.

I am going to chime in on the WinSEQ issue. I, for one, don't really want to see it. I'm fairly certain that I could code it, as could many people on here.

Let's be honest about the detectability issue here. No single piece of code is "undetectable." At the same time, though, we must not trivialize the complexity of the code required to do the detection. I have said this repeatedly in this forum. There are NOT 10 magic lines of code that can be added for detecting keysniffers.

At the worst, we're going to play a cold-war style cat & mouse game. They add code to detect a certain sniffer, we change our sniffer. They do stuff with the key, we reverse engineer it and move on. They try something else, we get around it... and so it goes. The bottom line is, detection just isn't easy. Period.

[The Sage]

<------------SNIP---------->
You know what the interesting thing is, they could probably make a utility that does all that SEQ does and more, box it, market it, and sell it as an add-on to EQ...

<-----------End------------>

Hell I'd buy it, so long as it were reasonable. Hehehe. But sony wouldn't dare release something like that. Woud cause WAAAAAY too many "Customer Relations" problems for them.

[Ratt]

I just want to address a couple points...


ii) There was never a social contract. You *thought* there was. Big difference there. I will guarantee you that no one at Sony ever once thought there was a social contract. You see, a contract doesn't exist without agreement from both sides and until you can prove that Sony acknowledged any sort of "contract" then you have to admit is was a fantasy.

I wasn't aware you were in on the discussions in the early days with (Primarily) Smed and a couple others. I seem to have missed you at those discussions, seeing as you seem to know everything that went on and was said, you must have been there, right? Just as you were at the impromptu talks over the past 2 years at various times, as well?

So, since you were the invisible fly on the wall, please, do tell how those conversations didn't constitute a social contract? I'll need some quotes (or at least fairly accurate paraphrases) of the discussion and analysis of said items of interest.

If, by some miracle or incredible intellect you are able to provide seemingly accurate paraphrases, I will produce the actual logs for people to compare your reccolections with reality.

As for SEQ being cheating... it is. The rules for what's "fair" and what isn't are laid down by Verant and are controlled strictly by Verant. That's fine.

But the simple fact of the matter is, I don't care (and neither does anyone else that uses SEQ) what Verant defines as cheating. Throughout my last three+ years of playing, I have been plagued by bugs, bad code, etc... and have continued to pay my monthly fees (I was up to 7 accounts at one point) month in and month out... only to be given extremely poor (or non existant) customer service in response. Thus, since I am not getting the service promised me by my payment(s) each month, I have two choices. Stop paying Sony for lousy customer service, or take matters into my own hands and handle the problems myself, or at worst, devise a method to recoup my *UNFAIR* losses. I went the later route, obviously.

If Sony played on the up-and-up consistantly, reliably and fairly on a regular basis, I may have some compuctions about using SEQ to my advantage. However, bottom line is, Sony only cares about the dollar and not the customer. That's understandable for a faceless corporation, but since it cares nothing for it's customers, why should the customers care for it? They shouldn't. Until Sony behaves in a morally correct fashion (as defined by me), I will continue to "force" (At least as much as possible) Sony to provide what they promise and I pay for. If Sony eventually bans me, so be it... that's 80 bucks less per month they'll get outta me and I'll move on to something else. Certainly not EQ2 or SWG. I swore I'd never buy another Origin product after the incredibly wretched treatment I recieved from the CS in Ultima Online.. and to this day, I have not. Sony is a step up customer service wise from Origin, and I am not yet to the point of saying I will NEVER buy another product. However, it would have to be an incredibly cool product before I would buy it over similiar competitors. SWG holds zero interest for me, and I have exactly ZERO desire to go through the punishing leveling requirements that I am sure EQ2 will require, regardless of what the public party line is coming from Verant.

I've digressed a bit, but I'm going to go further for a moment. EverQuest is unique and always will be, until we have real life virtual role playing in holodecks. It's a one and only product, and we will never see it's like again. Looking back on the last 3.5 years, I'm filled with a number of emotions. Anger, hatred, joy, contentment... It's fairly amazing a product, a game, such as EQ can evoke so many strong emotions. We will never see another product like EverQuest in the foreseeable future, there will not be another game that can enthrall so many, so tightly for so long. The past 3.5 years have been trying, and looking back on them, I have no desire to ever go through the hell that was EverQuest.

You may ask why the F#@% did you keep playing, then? If it was hell? Honestly, I don't know. There were times I got so frustrated, either with legitimate game play, other people, outright bugs, or stupid GMs/Guides that I was ready to pitch it all... but I didn't. Was it an addiction, like so many claim? No, I don't think so. I could have chucked it all, walked away and not had "cravings" to play. But I continued to play, partly for the people, partly for the accomplishments, partly for unknown reasons.

Why am I telling ya'll this? To illustrate a point... A lot of you are most likely nodding your ahead, having gone through similar times. But at what cost were those "best of times, worst of times?" It was a grave cost that only a few (or perhaps a lot) are starting to realize only now. The insult to that injury is that it's not a cost that could have been avoided. It's not Sony's/Verants fault. If not them, it would have been someone else. It was inevitable, as gaming matured. What was that cost? Burn out. Collective burn out.

The vanguard of gaming, the hard core players. The game driving people. The ones who push the technical, physical and content related limits of the system... they are all burnt out. Sure, you have a few stragglers that aren't burnt out. But everyone I've ever talked to, in every uberguild, *generally* says they don't want to do it again, ever. They are spent. That is the cost EverQuest exacted on the gaming public. We will never see another frenzy like EverQuest. Before EQ, we were teenagers, gaming in our FPSs, and fledgling online worlds (M59, UO, MUCKs, etc...), but upon passing through the gates of EQ, we are gaming adults now, as a collective entity.

As we, the gamers, mature along with the games themselves, we've passed into new paradigm of how online worlds must be to be sucessfull. They can't be punishing time sinks, the people who would play punishing time sinks have been spent by EQ. They can't be simplistic like M59, UO, and others. Our tastes have broaden and matured. They can't be shoddy quality, we're tired of that and won't accept it. They can't be content poor, we've had 3 years of EQ to gather our content expectations. What can they be?

Honestly, I don't know. I can't think of a game that I would be eager to play, like I was to play UO and then EQ. I've done it all... been there done that... the next step for me is a goddamned Holodeck, and I don't see that being a reality anytime soon. It's kind of dissapointing, and I hope some innovating individuals or companies out there can rekindle the gaming interest in Massively Multiplayer genres, and evoke the same kind of wonder, anger, hatred and joy that EQ has evoked... but we, the audience for such a product are jaded, and not so innocent. It's going to be a tough nut to crack, if it's even possible to do so.

Games in the future are going to have to rely on a gimmick or a hook, and not just sheer brute technological force. Content simply can't be created fast enough, no matter how much money you throw at it. To go the road of victory by content, someone is going to have to come up with an extremely robust AI system capable of creating content on the fly, without human intervention. The EQ method of content delivery is not viable in the long term. Human designed content will either be devored nearly instantly, or be such a time sink to prevent it from being devoured that it does more harm than good.

It's late for me, and I gotta work in the morning. I have more to say on this topic and a number of others. I may make a semi-regular soapbox where I can pontificate every now and then to discuss topics like this.

I just wanted to leave ya'll with the above thoughts on where gaming is headed, and how it's going to be vastly different than anything that's come before... and it's both a good and amazing thing, and also a bad, dreary and bleak thing.

Oh, and one more point I wanted to bring up for Sonys benefit. The only way I'll be playing EQ2 is if my time investment, which is ridiculously substantial, is not wasted. I know I am not alone in this thought. Ya'll have a chance here to make the moves you want, but only if you cease being so frigging shortsighted and greedy. You are killing your golden goose to get the eggs, whereas if you just fed the goose and gave it some TLC, you'd get an unlimited supply of those golden eggs. Don't make the fast grab for the quick cash... invest in the future of EQ and EQ2.

[RetroTZ]

Ratt that was a fucking awesome post. So true ...

[BlueAdept]

This is going back quite a bit. I swear that on the old HQ message boards (I dont seem to have a link for it any more) that JSmed said in a message that he would not allow any WinSEQ to exist. He didnt say that he wouldnt let ANY SEQ to exist, only WinSEQ was not to be allowed.

If anyone has a link to the OLD HQ message boards Ill look to see if I was right.

[RSB]

For those of you that think SEQ will be workable for EQ2 (and other newer MMPOGs you should look at how they are designing the games.

There is a strong emphisis on only sending the client what it exactly needs to know. This is for 2 reasons.
1) curbs cheating via a SEQ product.
but even more important to them is
2) cuts down the network traffic for them thus saving them bucket loads of money.

If you follow the SWG development they are purposefully providing in game functionality to do what they think people would try to hack and do. They are taking the approach of "If their PC has the data we should display it to them in some way"

If you don't need to know info they you won't get it. Thos 400 mobs that are in a EQ zone....you'll only recieve info about the ones that you'd be able to see.

Don't get me wrong I like SEQ and wouldn't play with out it but I don't plan to have anything like it in newer games and I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you for a SEQ2 either.

I'm less sinicle about playing EQ2 and SWG then Ratt, I understand his frustration but despite my frustrations with EQ I freely admit that overall it is a good game and I've made some friends. I've enjoyed most of my time in the game (as is apparent by me playing since release) and will try new products from Verant and Sony

NOTE: I am sorry for any spelling errors that are in this post, I'm a noted bad speller.

RSB

[S_B_R]

Well said Ratt, and RSB.

Ratt you have put into words what I have felt for a very long time. While I agree with RSB, that EQ has overall been enjoyable, without SEQ my enjoyment would have ceased long ago. I only hope that EQ2 will be as enjoyable.

SWG, on the other hand, holds no interest for me. I mean think of all the 31337 d00dZ in EQ, then realize how many are going to flock to SWG so they can be a "Jedi"...

[MisterSpock]

Ratt,

That was simply awesome. I may, however, need to go to the chiropractor to help ease the pain in my neck from all the head nodding that post caused. It was a wonderful expression of the sentiments that I'm sure many of us share. Thank you!

****

I was very much on the periphery in the early days. I was not a fly on the wall, so I won't pretend to have knowledge of exactly what happened. I *do* however, remember the threads from the old HQ boards.

My memory CLEARLY indicates that some form of agreement existed. Call it a "gentleman's agreement" or a "social contract," there was clearly communication and understanding between the two sides. Like I said earlier, there are probably dozens of people on here who could develope a Windows version of SEQ. WinSEQ development has been actively discouraged by the SEQ developers. Their words and actions have demonstrated that they have been good stewards of the social contract. Those that could have done WinSEQ did not out of respect for both the social contract and the SEQ developers.

Notice how people with Windows programming skills came popping out of the woodwork when Ratt wrote the "Dogs of War" post? This tells me is there is still tremendous unity within the SEQ community. This dog of war has been called to active duty and is ready to rumble.

Remember, it is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog....

[Ratt]

I'm less sinicle about playing EQ2 and SWG then Ratt, I understand his frustration but despite my frustrations with EQ I freely admit that overall it is a good game and I've made some friends. I've enjoyed most of my time in the game (as is apparent by me playing since release) and will try new products from Verant and Sony

I wasn't being really cynical, so much, as I was basically saying that my time investment in EQ is too great for me to wipe it clean and start over in EQ2. I am not yet to the point of saying I hate Sony/Verant because of the total lack of customer service, so it's not like I won't be buying SWG or EQ2 because of that. I simply have NO desire what so ever to put myself through the EQ hell... again. I did it once, I'm a better man for it. I feel like I did when I got out of the Army. I'm damned glad I did it, even though it sucked, and I'm a better person for it. But by god, I will NOT do that again. I've learned a lot about myself over the past 4 years, and EQ played a big part in a lot of that. It's kind of spooky when I think about it, so I try not to think about it too hard. Call me a loser if you want, or whatever, but EQ helped me grow as a person. That is a MAJOR investment of a personal nature for me (and I suspect anyone) --- and I'm not going to chuck it for EQ2. I don't need to go through that again.

Would I like to play EQ 2? Yea, I would... but not at the cost Sony is exacting for me to play it. I do not and did not enjoy the lower levels... even though I had some good times "growing up." For me, the game is about the end game, not the journey. But if every Tom, Dick and Harry can play the end game, then it's not an accomplishment, so they have to make the end game difficult to achieve in EQ2 ... which is an instant turn off for me. The only way for them to overcome those seemingly contradictory positions is to offer server(s) that you can pay to transfer your character from EQ1 to EQ2.

I don't think it would be right to throw noobs together with Insta-65 characters on the new server... but having servers SPECIFICALLY dedicated to the people who wish to "transcend" to EQ2 is a viable and LUCRATIVE option.

Here's the deal, and I know I'm not alone here:

I want to play EQ2, but I do not want it enough to start over, and I never will. Offering a set of servers for those of us who wish to transfer will provide a number of benefits, those are, in no particular order:

1. Increased revenue from people continuing to play EQ/EQ2 instead of leaving the game.
2. A quick cash revenue for the transfer service fee.
3. Lower operating costs for the EQ2 servers and infrastructure (make no mistake, EQ1 costs MUCH more to operate than EQ2 will, on a server by server basis)

If the EQ2 people are afraid of content being destroyed too fast by transfering a bunch of high level people over, then WAIT until most of the "fresh" servers get people of the equivilent level and start exploring that content... then offer the service. I can wait 2 or 3 months after the release of EQ2 before I transfer my character. Like I said, if I can't transfer my time investment to the new medium, I'm not going to be playing in the new medium anyway.

Anyway, I don't see SEQ type devices being very viable for any of the new games. Lots of lessons on both sides of the fence were learned with EQ ... and those mistakes won't be made again. The next step in "hacking" games is going to be on the front of AI. We already have Macros, some are fairly complex. The next step is going to be a full blown AI player. As ridiculous as that sounds (One computer playing the game against another computer) -- that's the next step, like it or not. That's how you will win an advantage in the next generation of games. A tireless, perfect (hopefully) player that won't quit until you achieve your goal you set for it.

[S_B_R]

Yet again, well said Ratt. I feel exactly the same way. Unfortunately I don't see them transfering characters from EQ1 to EQ2. From everything I've read the mechanics of the game are going to be pretty different. For example it sounds as though there is going to be a "Skill Tree" rather than the "Class" system that exists in EQ1.

They did make mention that it IS likely that current players of EQ will get to keep their character name(s) from EQ1. For me that will ease *some* of the pain associated with starting over.

I really wish they would have built an entirely new engine for a existing database. All the content, characters, and NPC would still all be exactly as they are now, but in a game world that uses modern technology (i.e. take the engine they are using for EQ2 and slap it together with the EQ1 database). I think EQ2 is doomed to be a mediocre MMORPG at best, nothing like the smashing success of it's forbearer... /shrug

[TheEntity]

Originally posted by BlueAdept
If anyone has a link to the OLD HQ message boards Ill look to see if I was right.

Think this is what you were looking for?

http://www.hackersquest.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?action=intro&default=1

Here is another blast from the past from smed on IRC and their upcoming encryption for Kunark.

http://www2.trifocus.net:8000/showeqsmed.txt

[BlueAdept]

Originally posted by TheEntity


Think this is what you were looking for?

http://www.hackersquest.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?action=intro&default=1

Here is another blast from the past from smed on IRC and their upcoming encryption for Kunark.

http://www2.trifocus.net:8000/showeqsmed.txt

Thanks Entity.

Heh...I havent seen some of those names in a long time. :) Ill see if I can find that post I was thinking of later. Got to get ready to go to my families home for Thanksgivings.

[RSB]

Ooops sorry for misunderstanding some of what you said Ratt.
I don't mind the journey. I have 2 high end characters but I don't mind starting new ones to much and have about 6 active characters under 55 spread across my 2 accounts.

I guess to me EQ also is a big chat channel and that draws me in to when I'm home alone at night instead during the week of watching tv and times like now where I've just got up after a big night out and have no ambition to open the curtians in my room and let the night turn into day 8P

I wouldn't mind a service you suggest Ratt but I'd hope they limited it to a server but then it doesn't make sense when (theroretically) even elves of EQ would be dead in the EQ2 time period. Also limiting it to high level EQ players wouldn't do much. I would be interested to see how many of the 430k active acounts are actually owned by different people/families then factor in how many of those groups don't have high level characters. I would not be surprised if 50 percent of the account owners had 1 or more characters at 55 or higher. That means high level content isn't a right of passage but rather a club of people that can afford to pay the fees. Again if it was limited to a particular server I wouldn't care if they charged a character creation fee and you could buy levels.

Personally I think the lower levels are needed to flush out how your characters potential works. Its obvious when you have E-Bayed or PLed people that don't know how to play there level 60 character because they have no clue on tatics which I believe if you spend real time with your character at low levels you'd have to be brain dead to not have absorbed some of that.

Also I hope the EQ2 is more than just a graphics upgrade of EQ so that mobs are smarter, react different and all ... meaning a group of level 60+s thrown into EQ2 would be as effective as a group of newbies attacking a dragon if they used tactics from EQ1.

Just my 2 cents. Everyone is entitled to their 2 cents and I don't think anyones 2 cents is wrong.......just some people 2 cents isn't worth 0.0000001 cents :) JK

RSB

[Zeppo]

Very well said Ratt.

Damn, Throx got awful quiet, huh?

[throx]

I got quiet cause I was away for Thanksgiving. Apologies to those who were hanging on my every word or took my silence as a retreat from my initial statement and sorry for interrupting your dancing on my grave.

I've been around for a while. Do some footwork and you'll see my name pop up now and then on the old hackersquest boards. I really can't be bothered proving stuff to you, Ratt, because it seems you want to make this some kind of soapbox.

I maintain the stance that there was no "social contract" between Sony and the SEQ team. I'm sure some of the devs hinted at it and I'm sure that private conversations with individuals suggested that it may exist. What I'm saying is that what people are mistaking for a "social contract" is the concept that SEQ wasn't a big enough problem for Sony to devote the developer time to squash. That's about the same social contract that a skinny wildebeast has with a lion when it points out the much jucier meat on others in the herd.

If you want to continue to represent the actions of individuals as a corporate policy of Sony then be my guest but I'm sure it will only result in a lot of anger and more "dogs of war" posts in the future.

I probably went a little far with my original statement that there was no one at Sony who thought there was such a contract (yes, that's a partial retraction of my original statement). Maybe some did and maybe others didn't. I don't believe there was ever a corporate acceptance of SEQ's existance though, just that it was something not worth their time and effort to pursue actively.

Is this an accurate summary of why you rationalize the use of SEQ: "SEQ is cheating and you don't care because you're feeling cheated by Sony." Frankly that argument stinks and is a completely amoral point of view.

I feel cheated by the oil companies. Do I therefore feel it within my rights to attempt to steal gas whenever possible? I feel cheated by the cable companies. Is it within my rights to decrypt the cable programs? I feel cheated by the record and software industry so is it within my rights to pirate as much of it as I want? I feel cheated by the government so is it ok to cheat on my taxes?

The only "honest" reason people use SEQ while actually playing is because it gives them an advantage over other people who play within the rules. I have no problems with people using SEQ in the same way I have no problems with people using aim-hacks in FPS games - admit you can't deal with the game using the rules everyone else plays with and face up to the fact you need to cheat for your enjoyment.

I can also see the use of SEQ as a research tool into decryption and anti-detection coding. However there's no reason to use it while playing your main character for that reason. Personally I've used SEQ on an alt to watch people wander around in Neriak Foreign Quarter on an alt. I don't use it on my main because I don't like to cheat.

You see, fundamentally ShowEQ doesn't cheat Sony at all. It cheats the other 98% of the population of EQ players that don't use it because it puts them at a disadvantage to you. I just don't follow the logic that says "Sony's CS bites so I'll keep paying them and screw over the other people playing". Before people chime in with the "but I help people when I use SEQ", it's still cheating those people who don't know you and don't use it.

It's like the fact that cheating on your taxes doesn't cheat the government at all because they simply tax everyone else at a higher rate to make up for it in the long run. Even if you give that money to charity you are still cheating everyone else not associated with your favorite charity.

I don't believe the self-inflating myth that the SEQ users are the core of EQ. I've spoken to many people in the top guilds on my server about it and they seem to agree that Sony cracking down on things like SEQ will actually make them more likely to continue to support Sony in their future endeavours. Fundamentally it seems that continuing to chase SEQ would gain support for Sony by the vast majority of hard core players that don't use it. I may have just spoken to the wrong people though.

Other than that, I must say I agree with your message to Sony about the future of online gaming. Personally I will try EQ2 because I like what Sony have done in PoP. They do seem to be trying more to please and I hope it reflects in EQ2. I won't play SWG, mainly because the genre doesn't interest me as much and I'm still enjoying EQ.

Thanks for the response though.

(edit: my grammar sucks)

[MisterSpock]

There is a bit more to the argument beyond, "is ShowEQ cheating or not."

Is it cheating? Yep -- sure is.

But cheating, as with all things. has many shades of grey involved. Cheating, in and of itself, is often hard to pin down. Fundamentally, cheating provides one player with an advantage that another player doesn't have. There certainly is validity to this definition. Still, though, this definition opens itself up to interpretation problems. At what point do you stop calling an advantage cheating?

I have a better internet connection than someone else, thus I get less lag and die less often to link death. Is my better connection cheating?

I have a better video card than someone else. Thus I can push my clipping plane farther out which allows me to see more of the zone. Is this cheating?

I have a faster computer than someone else. This allows me to load the game faster, zone faster, thus getting to rare mobs and "phat lewtz" faster. Is this cheating?

I have two computers. I use one to look at Everlore and EQ Atlas while I play. In doing this, I effectively bypass the "EQ won't run in a window" problem, albeit I do it at great expense. Is this cheating?

Speaking of which -- are the numerous sites that reveal detailed zone information, maps, etc. considered cheating? If I use them to study a zone, that gives me an advantage over someone else. Is this cheating?

What if I have faster reflexes, better eyesight, better memory, and flat-out more brains than someone else? These all provide me an advantage. Is this cheating?

I have an application that invades EQ's memory space and allows me to record and print-out my character's inventory (Magelo). Is this cheating?

My point is this: in cheating, as with everything else, there are varying degrees. Simply put, some "cheating" is worse than other "cheating." My point from the beginning has been that there are cheating tools and methods out there that are FAR worse for the game than ShowEQ.

Although I don't deny (and never have) that SEQ constitutes cheating, I maintain that it is among the most benign of the available tools and is one of the few (if not the only one) that has, even in some tangential fashion actually done things to improve the game.

[Resiliant]

I think I've been hijacked :)

But it has been an enjoyable experience. Kind of like getting on a plane to go to Newark NJ for a business meeting with the eastern sales force, and then being forced to go to the Carribean and sit on the beach sipping Pina Colada's instead :)

A couple of things.. and a response or two for Ratt.

First, a large *AMEN* to everything you have said, of course Ratt. Bottom line is... the definition of 'cheating' depends on a contract, and as you so aptly point out, SoE/Verant has abrogated that contract by not, in *any* sense delivering on either the content or the support portions of the agreement, imho. Since that contract has been violated (imo), none of the stipulations of that contract are valid.. and hence... there is no valid definition of what 'cheating' is.

Secondly, as regards EQ2 and the possibility of their being a SEQ for it. If there is a 'Track' ability in that game, if there are Ranger/Druid/Bard types with tracking ability, then the server *must* send the entire zone content to the client. Otherwise, every time a character with tracking ability moves, the server will have to recompute the visible track set for that character. This will cause a HUGE increace both in server load, and in com load.. and that's not going to happen. Tracking is a function that HAS to be performed client-side, and hence the sever *wants* to send the entire zone content and simply delta-update the client. Sooo methinks at least, things won't be tooo different in EQ2 from a SEQ point of view.

As regards EQ2. Simple statement. I totally agree, Ratt. I will not EVER move to EQ2 unless I can move all my characters AND THEIR EQUIPMENT to that game. (and.. as an aside.. why in the FRIGGIN HELL did SoE decide to transfer characters but not THEIR EQUIPMENT from server to server??! I mean COME ON GUYS! It's ONE FRIGGIN DATABASE RECORD! Another example of SoE not giving the customers what they want.)

Finally, want to know how to make an EQ follow-on product that would be immensly successful? Simple. I can say it in one sentence (and you sort of did, Ratt). Make an EQ follow-on that is driven by its users and not by its income. Funny thing is, the income will skyrocket as soon as SoE gets out of the Eastern mentality wherein those in power dictate what those using services will recieve. Instead of fighting against the 100,000 players of EQ, instead of engendering post after post after post complaining about the endless 'nerfs' and 'fixes' and 'bugs', and a total and COMPLETE lack of any form of customer service (btw.. another aside... get rid of the 'Guides'. They are useless and completely impotent to help with any problem that you might have. They can't give any essential game information, cant alter the game in any way, cant fix anything, and only serve as one more layer between the player and those that can).

LOL... anyway... instead of alienating your users USE THEM TO MAKE THE GAME BETTER. Ask THEM what they would like to see, and before you kill wizards or bards or rogues abilities, ASK YOUR CUSTOMER BASE HOW THEY WOULD FEEL, and then... DO WHAT THEY WANT!

OMG... consider this... an EQ that was actually *RESPONSIVE* to user needs... and that didn't constantly remove the *fun* so SoE can come out with a new expansion and make more money.

<Whew.... that felt good :)>

Res

[fgay trader]

I've got 2 cp to add to the conversation! :p


Originally posted by Resiliant
as regards EQ2 and the possibility of their being a SEQ for it. If there is a 'Track' ability in that game, if there are Ranger/Druid/Bard types with tracking ability, then the server *must* send the entire zone content to the client.
I have a feeling that EQ2 will do away with the "Track" ability. First off, from all the rumors I gather that the whole zone concept is being dropped also in favor of AC/DAoC-type "bubbles", which will negate the entire concept of sending the entire zone over the line. Second, the other rumor is that they will introduce a radar-type window for all players.

As far as SEQ2 being useless, I beg to differ. Although with the zone concept gone they will be sending much less information to the client, they will still need to send somewhat more than the client displays to have seamless transitions and to avoid lag due to synchronization. Even if they send only 10% more information than the client is showing you (although I suspect they will need to send anywhere from 50% to 100% more), SEQ2 will still be able to give you some advantage.


Originally posted by Ratt
I can't think of a game that I would be eager to play, like I was to play UO and then EQ
I have a pretty good idea of what I want from a MMORPG. DAoC came colse, but not quite there. From all the rumors, previews and beta-tester feedback, ShadowBane comes pretty close. In EQ I play on the PvP servers not because I like to grief players by corpse-camping them, but because I want more of a challenge that fighting the stupid, predictable, "if-you-can't-make-it-smart-give-it-1,000,000,000-hitpoints" AI. Unfortunately, EQ was never built with PvP in mind and it always was and always will be broken. ShadowBane on the other hand, is based solely on PvP. Time will tell if it lives up to the hype, but I (and thousands of others wanting more challenging encounters, I'm sure) will definitely give it a shot.


Originally posted by Ratt
my time investment in EQ is too great for me to wipe it clean and start over in EQ2
I'm hoping that with EQ SOE learned many lessons in terms of time commitment people are willing to put into the character development and will come up with more ways to "level up" than plain 'ole NPC hack-n-slash. I'm hoping that EQ2 will have the same captivating atmosphere as EQ1 was in the beginning, yet be different from EQ1 enough to make me want to explore and to advance "from scratch" and never think of it as a low level hell.


Originally posted by S_B_R
I really wish they would have built an entirely new engine for a existing database. All the content, characters, and NPC would still all be exactly as they are now, but in a game world that uses modern technology
I'd think that would be quite boring actually. Besides, they already tried that with Luclin and all the new models and textures. Without the new zones, items, mobs, etc. that expansion would be quite worthless. With EQ2 they are hoping to take some of the old content, but mostly create tons of new one.


Originally posted by MisterSpock
What if I have faster reflexes, better eyesight, better memory, and flat-out more brains than someone else? These all provide me an advantage. Is this cheating?
You cheater!!! :p

[Ratt]

Throx,

Are you adversarial just to be adversarial, or do you truely believe some of the outlandish things that you profess to believe in?

For example:


I maintain the stance that there was no "social contract" between Sony and the SEQ team. I'm sure some of the devs hinted at it and I'm sure that private conversations with individuals suggested that it may exist. What I'm saying is that what people are mistaking for a "social contract" is the concept that SEQ wasn't a big enough problem for Sony to devote the developer time to squash. That's about the same social contract that a skinny wildebeast has with a lion when it points out the much jucier meat on others in the herd.

If you want to continue to represent the actions of individuals as a corporate policy of Sony then be my guest but I'm sure it will only result in a lot of anger and more "dogs of war" posts in the future.

Do you understand the term "social contract" or are you operating under a misconception of what a social contract is? A social contract is an unwritten set of behaviors that are governed by society (hence the term social) and not by the letter or rule of law. Websters defines social contract as "An agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each."

Thus, the implication is that those governing, that being the people responsible for policing and/or maintaining the EverQuest environment, have agreed, either by action or inaction to let SEQ exist, in so far as it does not overly impinge upon the general populace. Whether it's written or endorsed publically by Sony is immaterial. Sony, as a corporation has absolutely nothing to do with the technical development of EverQuest, hence they can not make decisions of a technical nature. The developers are the ones that are capable of adhering to, or choosing NOT to adhere to a set of guidelines. If Sony corporate tells them to do something specific, then they will do it. However, if Sony Corporate does not have a stance one way or the other, the social decisions a left up to the developers. That's where the social contract comes in... if it was a corporate decision, it would be a "Policy," and not a "Social Contract." I have never stated that Sony has any official policy towards SEQ.


I probably went a little far with my original statement that there was no one at Sony who thought there was such a contract (yes, that's a partial retraction of my original statement). Maybe some did and maybe others didn't. I don't believe there was ever a corporate acceptance of SEQ's existance though, just that it was something not worth their time and effort to pursue actively.

Again, you are describing a Policy, and not a Social Contract, hence your arguement is rendered invalid.


Is this an accurate summary of why you rationalize the use of SEQ: "SEQ is cheating and you don't care because you're feeling cheated by Sony." Frankly that argument stinks and is a completely amoral point of view.

Is it? You use analogies that are so horribly flawed, I will address them as a whole, as opposed to individually, thus:


I feel cheated by the oil companies. Do I therefore feel it within my rights to attempt to steal gas whenever possible? I feel cheated by the cable companies. Is it within my rights to decrypt the cable programs? I feel cheated by the record and software industry so is it within my rights to pirate as much of it as I want? I feel cheated by the government so is it ok to cheat on my taxes?

You feel cheated by oil companies, so you imply that stealing gas is the same thing. Ok... those oil companies, did they sell you Gasoline with an 87 octane, but then deliver you water? No? Ok, then you got what you paid for. You explicitly bought 87 octane gasoline, and you explicitly got 87 Octane gasoline. If you don't like the price, go elsewhere, or MAKE YOUR OWN GASOLINE.

You feel cheated by the cable companies... yes the cable companies explicitly tell you EXACTLY what you are going to get for your money... and you pay it, getting EXACTLY WHAT WAS ADVERTISED. If you don't like it, then don't buy it... because you KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GETTING BEFORE THE SALE.

You feel cheated by the record and software companies... I see, and what part of those companies do you feel cheated about? Again, you KNOW what you are buying, and what is advertised either on TV, magazines, newspapers, or on the box itself, you are getting EXACTLY what you paid for.

As for taxes... well, that's a whole nother can o' worms, and I'm not sure I'm going to touch that one... but again, that anology doesn't apply.

See the difference is the fact that Sony offers a product, with certain things advertised, and then FAILS TO DELIVER... repeatedly and without remorse. That's the difference. If gasoline companies continually sold you water instead of gasoline, would you keep shopping there? No... probably not. A more accurate anology for SEQ is that we are filling up those tanks with real gasloine instead of shopping elsewhere. Six of one, half dozen of the other.


The only "honest" reason people use SEQ while actually playing is because it gives them an advantage over other people who play within the rules. I have no problems with people using SEQ in the same way I have no problems with people using aim-hacks in FPS games - admit you can't deal with the game using the rules everyone else plays with and face up to the fact you need to cheat for your enjoyment.

How do you know why I use SEQ? Well, I suppose you know why I use it, because I"ve stated it publically time and again. I don't use it to gain advantage over my fellow players. I use it because the game is unenjoyable for me without it. I like to know exactly where I am in the game and what's around me. A flat, 2D monitor does not impart the same sense of space that a real environment would. Do you honestly think I wouldn't notice something as large as a Wyvern tromping up behind me while I'm standing around? SEQ provides a method of further integrating your environment with the real world, making it more ... ahh realistic (I hate to use that term for a fantasy game though). Believe me, I am always aware of my surrounding when I go outside, and I know what's going on around me. The EQ client offers me a tiny little window, disallowing me to see from side to side, front to back, etc...

That's why I use SEQ... not to gain and advantage over anyone else. I raid, that's all I do. I don't hunt rares, etc... my whole EQ gaming experience revolves around raiding, and SEQ provides zero advantage to me, being the class that I am, other than a positional sensor and a better understanding of my environment.


I can also see the use of SEQ as a research tool into decryption and anti-detection coding. However there's no reason to use it while playing your main character for that reason. Personally I've used SEQ on an alt to watch people wander around in Neriak Foreign Quarter on an alt. I don't use it on my main because I don't like to cheat.

But you just said the only honest reason someone uses it is to gain and advantage over others. Now, which is it? If you are using it, you must be using it to gain an advantage over others, and not just because it's interesting to see what's going on around you, huh?


You see, fundamentally ShowEQ doesn't cheat Sony at all. It cheats the other 98% of the population of EQ players that don't use it because it puts them at a disadvantage to you. I just don't follow the logic that says "Sony's CS bites so I'll keep paying them and screw over the other people playing". Before people chime in with the "but I help people when I use SEQ", it's still cheating those people who don't know you and don't use it.

Tell me, how do I cheat the other 98% of the population as I sit on a long raid, and watch what's going on? How does that affect anyone? Just tell me how it affects ANYONE but me.

You use too broad a brush to paint SEQ users. Do some use it for evil? You bet they do, but it's always been my goal to keep that to the barest of minimums as possible, and I think I've done a bang up job so far. SEQ will exist no matter what, there's no way to put the SEQ genie back in the bottle... if you know of a way, please tell me.

If I said "OK, SEQ is done" today, and closed up shop, what do you think would happen? If I hadn't taken the reigns several years ago and tried to steer SEQ in a responsible direction, I think we'd see a pretty crappy environment today, versus what was have now. Irresponsible SEQ users would be far more rampant than they are now, and I also suspect there would be a number of account stealing versions of SEQ out there. As far as I'm concerned, the SEQ of today is the the least of all possible evils that SEQ could be. If we were to cripple SEQ so that some of the features that are used for evil didn't work, well... we saw what would happen when SoV came out (I kind of used that as a test) ... the entire frigging community came down like a ton of bricks and went around every obsticle that was errected to prevent it from working in a couple of fashions. _NO ONE_ can stop SEQ (short of re-engineering the entire protocol for EQ)... the best we can possibly hope for is to direct it in the least damaging way as possible, that's what I have ALWAYS tried to do. To keep this on topic, my point is that Sonys actions have tipped the scales in a direction that is worse for the game overall than anything else they could have done.

Are we, the Linux SEQ developers working on a Windows version? No, at least none of us are officially (as far as I know). Will someone else release one? Yes, I expect so... It's just a matter of time. I don't know how long it will be, but it's coming. Thanks to Zaphod and Fee, it really is almost trivial to port this to Windows. And a Windows version... that is something I will have no control over, which means that whichever direction it goes, it's going to go real fast and going to get real ugly... without any moderating controls on the development of a piece of software that can be used as such, it's not going to be pretty.

[throx]

Spock:

Nice post and I agree. SEQ is definitely not the biggest "cheat" program out there. They should be breaking and flagging Macroquest stuff as a priority infinitely above SEQ.

As to the "is this a cheat" thing, none of the things you've posted there (except Magelo) are against the "rules" laid out by Verant. The whole "no EQ in a window" is pretty retarded (in my opinion) but they wanna make that rule then fine - EQW is therefore cheating but 2 comps isn't. I even believe Magelo is marginally cheating because it gives you information not available in-game (ie haste%).


Resiliant:

Bet you think I'm a worthless tard by now, but here goes just for fun. :-)

If the bottom line of "cheating" depends on a contract then that contract involves your connection to the EQ Servers as well. Voiding the contract would mean no connecting to the servers and not playing the game.

What it really comes down to is you like playing the game more when you "cheat". Stop avoiding the issue though - you are cheating. It's just some whacky rationalization to say you aren't because Sony didn't do blah blah...

Tracking won't require a huge bandwidth to the client. The size of a packet containing the x,y,z location of mobs within your track radius isn't that large. Maybe the server will only send the data down if you're a tracking class. That would make sense to me.

The "transfer to EQ2" thing is just plain dumb. It's like asking for your Diablo 1 characters to be transferred to Diablo 2 - it just can't happen because:

i) The classes are different.
ii) The equipment is different.
iii) Character stats are different.
iv) Level progression is different.
v) Skills are different.
vi) Everything else is different.

To summarize, it's just not possible to move characters. You may as well ask for your DAOC characters to be transferred as well.

Aside from the lack of customer support (which seems to be inherent to all online games), I don't see what makes you think Sony isn't turning in the right direction. PoP is probably the best expansion to date because they are learning from their mistakes. If they incorporate the better features of PoP into EQ2 then I'm definitely going to support it.

[Resiliant]

Throx,

Bro, I think you'd better stop posting... cause the more you do, the more the aggregate estimation of your IQ drops. I won't respond to all of your trumped-up suppositions, just one...

Quote:
---------

"Tracking won't require a huge bandwidth to the client. The size of a packet containing the x,y,z location of mobs within your track radius isn't that large. Maybe the server will only send the data down if you're a tracking class. That would make sense to me. "

All right now... follow this if you can...

If you implement server-side tracking, then no matter how small each mobs packet description is, you have to compute the mob set that is within range, compute its conn for the player, compute its distance, and send down this entire set of information EVERY TIME THE PLAYER MOVES, for EVERY TRACKING CHARACTER IN THE ZONE. Suppose your a bard. Suppose you are a 60 bard with celo's on. You really think the server is capable of handling tracking display updating with an arbitrary number of trackers in zone? No designer with more than a third grade education would EVER implement that. Track updating is totally a client-side task. Either they do it client-side, or the don't do it at all. Get real!

Do the math bro.... and next time you post, instead of thinking up bizzare scenarios that have no relation to the real world, try to post something with at least a *smidgen* of intelligence in it... kkty!

--------------------

To Fgay...

For the reasons above, even a 'Map display' would be extremely difficult to generate server-side.

In any case, I'd rate the chances I'll go to EQ2 at < .001% right now, cause I really doubt SoE is going to allow us to xfer characters w/equip.

[throx]

Ratt,

Sorry for the separate post.

I believe most of the stuff I post. Sometimes I get carried away being adversarial but feel free to call me on that. I don't mind.

You've defined "social contract" very well, I believe. However you then fail to apply it to your example. As you said, "An agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each."

Now the government in Everquest's case is Sony. The devs aren't the government because they themselves are governed by Sony Corporate. Perhaps there is a social contract between the devs and Sony Corporate but there cannot be a social contrat between SEQ and Sony or the EQ Devs because SEQ (as you've taken pains to point out) is not governed by anyone except perhaps yourself (by defacto).

Now had you said you had a "Gentlemen's agreement with some of the EQ Devs" then I would be inclined to agree but your use of the term "social contract" is pretty much off base.

The only reason I can imagine the encryption was changed first to 64 bit and then to compress the entire packets was a directive from Sony Corporate somewhere to break SEQ. Devs don't do that sort of stuff without being told cause it's stupid to work on stuff you don't need to. How else do you explain it?

btw - I use the term "Sony" to refer to corporate decisions by the people in charge of the Everquest project, not for some person in Japan offering directives from the very top. You seemed to misunderstand that nuance.

Perhaps I'm stupid, but explain to me the difference between a "Policy" of the people running and maintaining Everquest to go after or not go after SEQ and this "social contract" you insist on? To me it seems you are just playing with words in just the same way I am.

For the analogies, let me take your quote:


Ok... those oil companies, did they sell you Gasoline with an 87 octane, but then deliver you water? No? Ok, then you got what you paid for. You explicitly bought 87 octane gasoline, and you explicitly got 87 Octane gasoline. If you don't like the price, go elsewhere, or MAKE YOUR OWN GASOLINE.

Ok... so Sony fails to deliver on EQ. As you said yourself, go elsewhere or MAKE YOUR OWN GAME. You see - you aren't making your own game. You're changing the rules and trying to get more from the existing game, much like someone may try to tamper with a gas pump to get more than they pay for.

You see, your own reply to the analogy shows the hypocritical stance you are taking here. If you don't like EQ then (by your own words), go else where or make your own.

I'm interested though - tell me exactly which statement on the Everquest box you feel Sony isn't living up to? You have legal rights if they aren't fulfilling them.

Take a cable ISP then. You sign up and don't get the bandwidth you feel they implied they would offer. You consider it a valid rebuttal to uncap your cable modem?


A more accurate anology for SEQ is that we are filling up those tanks with real gasloine instead of shopping elsewhere.

Please show me where Sony promised a radar display for every character. You aren't filling it up with gasoline, your effectively putting 94 octane gas in and then paying for 87 (which may or may not have been water).

Moving on:


I don't use it to gain advantage over my fellow players.

Ok. This means you should get no advantage out of a situation over someone who doesn't have SEQ. If you do then you have an advantage because you'll end up with better loot, less deaths or better chances of beating a mob than someone else. So, on to your statements:


I like to know exactly where I am in the game and what's around me.
Advantage #1. You get killed less and can spy on other guild's strategies.


A flat, 2D monitor does not impart the same sense of space that a real environment would. Do you honestly think I wouldn't notice something as large as a Wyvern tromping up behind me while I'm standing around?
No, but none of us can either so you have an advantage there.


SEQ provides zero advantage to me, being the class that I am, other than a positional sensor and a better understanding of my environment.
So SEQ provides no advantage, oh, except for these two advantages. Way to destroy your own statement.


But you just said the only honest reason someone uses it is to gain and advantage over others. Now, which is it? If you are using it, you must be using it to gain an advantage over others, and not just because it's interesting to see what's going on around you, huh?
Nice try, but failed. My original quote was "The only "honest" reason people use SEQ while actually playing". Now if you consider a Lv1 alt sitting in NeriakA "playing" then maybe you really do enjoy different things to me?


Tell me, how do I cheat the other 98% of the population as I sit on a long raid, and watch what's going on? How does that affect anyone? Just tell me how it affects ANYONE but me.
If you die less, know what mobs are coming, have advance warning of when to camp or what causes what to spawn then it means you progress through the game faster than others. It means you increase your chances of survival and getting to spawns over that of others. If you can't see that then you really need to take a step back and think about it. Increasing your personal chances of survivng decreases everyone else's chances of getting to whatever target you have.

I don't think I paint too broad a brush. I just think you want to read too much negativity into what I'm saying. Cheating isn't black and white (as Spock said) and there are certainly much bigger ways to cheat even with SEQ than what you profess to do. I personally live for raiding as well and can understand why you use it, but I resist the temptation to cheat and enjoy the game within the rules I agree to when I sign in. I'm not saying you should stop using SEQ, I'm just saying I grow tired of the "Sony sucks so I'll cheat" rationalization. It's simply false.

Face it - most people use SEQ because they enjoy the game more with it than without it, even though it is cheating. Even if Sony's customer service improved and they "delivered" everything you think they promised, do you really think you'd put down SEQ and stop using it?

Yeah - the genie is out of the box though. No putting it back in without rewriting the EQ protocol (which I doubt they'll do). I also think you've done an admirable job in guiding the SEQ project the way it's gone (hell, if I didn't I would have released my libeq.dll a long time ago). My pet project was maintaining my own working version of WinSEQ. You can believe it or not - don't matter to me.

btw - I'm not really trying to be adversarial. I'm just trying to point out the inherent flaw in the "They suck so I'll cheat on them too" argument.

[fgay trader]

Originally posted by Resiliant
If you implement server-side tracking, then no matter how small each mobs packet description is, you have to compute the mob set that is within range, compute its conn for the player, compute its distance, and send down this entire set of information EVERY TIME THE PLAYER MOVES, for EVERY TRACKING CHARACTER IN THE ZONE. Suppose your a bard. Suppose you are a 60 bard with celo's on. You really think the server is capable of handling tracking display updating with an arbitrary number of trackers in zone? No designer with more than a third grade education would EVER implement that. Track updating is totally a client-side task. Either they do it client-side, or the don't do it at all. Get real!

[...]

To Fgay...

For the reasons above, even a 'Map display' would be extremely difficult to generate server-side.
I totally agree with you here. You lost me with your 'Map display' comment though. Why would you need to generate a map on the server? Have you ever played Asheron's Call or Dark Age of Camelot? They use an "updatable bubble" technology, where each player is inside a spherical area which gets updated with new content when the player is moving around. This way the updates that are needed to be sent to the player are minimized to that player's "bubble". This eliminates the need for zoning, as your bubble will seamlessly update when you move around the world. What I was saying is that with the elimination of the zone concept and the fact that your client is only sent the information that is within your bubble's area (plus the radar window) will eliminate not only the need for tracking, but also the possibility of it (at least on the zone-wide scale as it was in EQ1).


Originally posted by Resiliant
In any case, I'd rate the chances I'll go to EQ2 at < .001% right now, cause I really doubt SoE is going to allow us to xfer characters w/equip.
In terms of character/equipment transfer, here I must agree with Throx. Everything will be just too different to allow any kind of transfers.

[throx]

Bro, I think you'd better stop posting... cause the more you do, the more the aggregate estimation of your IQ drops.

Sorry to hear that. I'll try to redeem my self. At least some of the coders here take me seriously.


If you implement server-side tracking, then no matter how small each mobs packet description is, you have to compute the mob set that is within range, compute its conn for the player, compute its distance, and send down this entire set of information EVERY TIME THE PLAYER MOVES, for EVERY TRACKING CHARACTER IN THE ZONE.

No, you don't.

First fallacy - computing the relative positions is an expensive operation. The mobs already do this and much more with their agro checks. Every player in the zone is tested for agro range, faction and con to every mob in the zone fairly often. Computing distance is a relatively fast operation (two independant addition/multiplications and a final addition - perhaps 10 CPU cycles at most) and suggesting that even with 300 people and 1000 spawns in a zone that this would take more than a tenth of a second of CPU time is naive.

Second fallacy - the list has to be sent every time. Even with your 60 bard (worst case), you only send updates when new mobs come into tracking range and don't update the position of old mobs when they fall out of tracking range.

Third fallacy - EQ doesn't already compute everything already said. EQ only updates the position of mobs close to each player at the moment. It is therefore already doing distance filtering you are talking about so your arguments are somewhat voided by the fact the code already works.

I did the math and I believe you'll find plenty of intelligence behind my reasoning for tracking working just fine filtered at the server. Please feel free to pick it to pieces though.

Cheers.

[Cryonic]

Originally posted by throx

Third fallacy - EQ doesn't already compute everything already said. EQ only updates the position of mobs close to each player at the moment. It is therefore already doing distance filtering you are talking about so your arguments are somewhat voided by the fact the code already works.


Minor nitpick, but the EQ zone servers only filter PLAYERS movements, not mobs when dealing with distances and updates. I can sit at one end of a very large zone and watch ANY mob that moves ANYWHERE in that zone. I can see it spawn, I can see it die and I can see it get removed.

[Indifel]

Uhm.....

Just so you know.... The track selection window in EQ only updates itself for two situations. One is that when something dies, the item is removed from the track list.

The other is when the player pushes their track button.

Make the track refresh time long enough, and you alleviate the server-side computational expense associated with computing the track list on the server.

[datadog]

The reason SOE doesnt want you running EQ in a window is because it gives you direct access to the game files and system memory while the game is running.

There was an exploit (probably many) a while back where you could hold any item on your cursor.. and as long as you knew its item number, you could search memory for it, and replace it with any other item number.

They have since implemented code to prevent this from working by cross checking your client side inventory with what is 'saved' on the server.


I believe there were some recent exploits that allowed someone to crash a zone.. i dont know the details of this one, but im pretty sure it required EQW to do.

Their reason for making EQW a EULA violation is to prevent this TYPE of exploit.

Personally i feel like I own a multitasing computer, and if I want to read my email, surf the web, or chat with my friends while Im playing EQ, i should be able to do this.

I dont use EQW because I have enough computer systems available that I dont need to, but i SHOULD be able to run EQ in a window if I choose to.

To be honest, i havnt decided if i am going to play EQ2. I hate SOE and the way they run their business. I will decide on EQ2 after I see how the content is, the support is, and probably most importantly, what that EULA says I can and cant do on my computer system when Im playing their game. Also, what 'rights' i give up in terms of personal privacy for 'accepting' it. I dont want them having access to my hard drive or memory outside of the areas used to play the game.

Basically their mentality.. that its THEIR game, and they are just allowing me the privildge of paying to play it.. as long as I agree to their terms doesnt sit well with me.

I paid for the game when I bought the software and CD keys, and I pay my $12.99 a month per account... Im paying for it.. it should be MINE...

[fgay trader]

Originally posted by datadog
Basically their mentality.. that its THEIR game, and they are just allowing me the privildge of paying to play it.. as long as I agree to their terms doesnt sit well with me.

I paid for the game when I bought the software and CD keys, and I pay my $12.99 a month per account... Im paying for it.. it should be MINE...

Well, it's THEIR servers you are connectiong to and your $12.99 is rent. As far as buying the original CD's and expansions - think of it as a "non-refundable security deposit" that you get hit by in most places where you rent an appartment ;)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending SOE, but they sure as hell know how to suck in 10's of thousands of paying people and keep them paying for 3+ years!

[Ratt]

You've defined "social contract" very well, I believe. However you then fail to apply it to your example. As you said, "An agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each."

Now the government in Everquest's case is Sony. The devs aren't the government because they themselves are governed by Sony Corporate. Perhaps there is a social contract between the devs and Sony Corporate but there cannot be a social contrat between SEQ and Sony or the EQ Devs because SEQ (as you've taken pains to point out) is not governed by anyone except perhaps yourself (by defacto).

No, the government of Everquest is NOT Sony, that's where you seem to be confused. Do they own the game? Yes... do they govern it? No. (Let me clarify that, I'm sure they DO make policies in regards to the game, but in relation to this debate, they do not). The government of EQ is the developers/designers and immediate supervisors. To be honest though, I'm not exactly sure how the corporate structure is laid out in Verant/Sony anymore... but the position I'm arguing from is that of the "original" structure, where the devs and such had pretty much sole control over EverQuest, with very little corporate involvement at all.

Your argument of "The devs aren't the government because they themselves are governed by Sony." is pure fallacy. That would be like saying that the City government isn't really a government because they are themselves governed by the county (who is governed by the state, who is governed by the nation) ... so are you saying there's no real government except the National government? Should we take that farther and say that the UN is the real government? Or perhaps we should just go to the source (for some people) and say that the only REAL government is that of God! Or if you're like me, you could just say it's nature. In that case, if that is truely what you are saying, then it's survival of the fittest and I'm using tools I have available to me to do what I want... and in this case, Sony is not the fittest, ShowEQ is... so we aren't doing anything morally or legally wrong.

But the fact is, the immediate people dealing with the "SEQ" problem are the only government that we are concerned with at this point. If a high level directive did indeed come down telling that level of government within the EverQuest structure to blast SEQ, then fine... but I've heard nothing to indicate that was the case. Everything I've heard has pointed towards a Development level decision to break SEQ, and the "social contract" was with THAT level of government. If that's not the case, and THAT level of government was forced from a hostile standpoint to move ahead with that, then I'll change my position slightly. However, judging from the gloating Patrick was doing in IRC, I seriously doubt it was a hostile move within the corporate structure.


Now had you said you had a "Gentlemen's agreement with some of the EQ Devs" then I would be inclined to agree but your use of the term "social contract" is pretty much off base.

See above... but in this case a "Gentlemens agreement" and "Social contract" are synonymous.


The only reason I can imagine the encryption was changed first to 64 bit and then to compress the entire packets was a directive from Sony Corporate somewhere to break SEQ. Devs don't do that sort of stuff without being told cause it's stupid to work on stuff you don't need to. How else do you explain it?

Man, you don't know the EQ Devs very well then, do you? There's a lot of extra cirricular programming that goes on there... and again, from everything I've seen up to this point, it looks like it was a "quicky" to blast SEQ. It's always been fairly easy to disable the methods we've been using... why choose now to do it? If corporate was going to get involved, they would have a long time ago.


Perhaps I'm stupid, but explain to me the difference between a "Policy" of the people running and maintaining Everquest to go after or not go after SEQ and this "social contract" you insist on? To me it seems you are just playing with words in just the same way I am.

A policy is something that's (most likely) written down and "publically" available for reference. A social contract (as I've already stated) is a unwritten set of guidelines people generally follow to promote harmony and a socially lubricated society. Breaking a social contract is socially unacceptable, but not legally. Thus, the worst that can happen is the person/entity breaking it is ostriscized by the rest of society. Obviously, that's impractical and doesn't particularly apply to this particular contract, but in this case, similar things can (and probably will) happen, in the form of more "SEQ Cheaters" using the application, and causing more mayhem.


If you die less, know what mobs are coming, have advance warning of when to camp or what causes what to spawn then it means you progress through the game faster than others. It means you increase your chances of survival and getting to spawns over that of others. If you can't see that then you really need to take a step back and think about it. Increasing your personal chances of survivng decreases everyone else's chances of getting to whatever target you have.

I get the feeling you aren't very familiar with the end game encounters. You may or may not be doing some of the harder stuff, but in the end game encounters, there is no camping out. There is no dying less. SEQ doesn't increase your chances of survival... SEQ provides nothing, except POSSIBLY to the pullers. For me and the 13 other classes in the game, SEQ provides ZERO tangible benefits to end game encounters (Which is all I personally care about). If a pull goes bad, everyone dies... SEQ isn't going to help you there, believe me. The only thing is does is show you your death rushing towards you at 250 MPH so you can brace for impact.


I personally live for raiding as well and can understand why you use it, but I resist the temptation to cheat and enjoy the game within the rules I agree to when I sign in. I'm not saying you should stop using SEQ, I'm just saying I grow tired of the "Sony sucks so I'll cheat" rationalization. It's simply false.

I don't enjoy the game if I can't see where I'm going and what's around me. Staring at my screen for hours on end seeing basically nothing is not very fun. I have an assist key, I can stare at wall for the entire raid and press a few buttons and do my job... boy, yea, that's fun. Instead, I am able to see (within limits) what's going on around me, and I find it very interesting the different goings on.

Just because YOU want to be deaf and blind does not mean I do. But because I have that information and you do not, does not necessarily impart and advantage to me over you. (Can it? Yes, it can. In _MY_ personal case, it does not.)

As for the "Sony sucks so I'll cheat" bit, I'm not using that as a rationalization. I didn't say Sony sucks, I said they advertise things they do not deliver (E.G. GMs available to help you. I suppose if you get technical, they ARE available... but not in a reasonable time frame. I've known people that have waited MONTHS for a GM to help them with simple matters). They also promised a number of things content wise that they either delivered ridiculously late, or not at all (Houses/Guild halls anyone?). I've lost a number of items and such to bugs, only to be told "Sorry" when I know very well they could check trade logs to see that it wasn't traded/dropped. I have a reasonable expectation that the things I do in the game will remain permanent until I do something to affect them... but that is not the case.


Face it - most people use SEQ because they enjoy the game more with it than without it, even though it is cheating. Even if Sony's customer service improved and they "delivered" everything you think they promised, do you really think you'd put down SEQ and stop using it?

Hmm... probably, yes I would. However, as I've stated above, my uses for SEQ have very little to do with actual gameplay itself. If they implimented a real time mapping feature on top of the promised features and fixed all the bugs, yep... I'd say I would put it down for good.

[fryfrog]

I would probably drop it if they added a half decent in game map, even if they didn't fix ALL the bugs. They would certainly have to give tracking classes the ability to see some (or all?) mobs on the map, imho... I think they could have a great go at mapping, introducing two new skills... map reading and map making. as your "skill" in one or the other go up, you get better at both reading and making maps. maps would be scribable to books or scrolls, and could then be traded. a 250 mapper could sell his great maps and perhaps only trackers could get 200+ in map reading. makes sense doesn't it? if they store all the info server side, you wouldn't even be able to cheat and use maps that you weren't given/sold. i have never understood why their "vision" involved people PHYSICALLY getting lost in a zone and wasting hours just trying to find their way out... assuming they didn't die while lost and come back BEGGING for someone to help them find their body.

[throx]

Ratt,

Apologies for the "social contract" thing. Seems I was off base and there was what I would term a gentleman's agreement between the SEQ devs and the Sony Devs, at least in the way you describe it. My misunderstanding was based around your use of the term without explicitly defining the "government" in question. The continued argument seemed to stem from your misunderstanding what I meant by "Sony". I don't think there's any real point in my arguing that line any further is there?

Here's the way I understand it: The original SEQ team had a gentleman's agreement with the devs and possibly some of the directors that as long as SEQ was kept underground and difficult to use that it wouldn't be routinely or permanently broken. You see that they broke their end of the "deal" when they permanently broke the passive decryption.

The real question then becomes one of what the agreement actually was and who broke it first. The thing is you can now buy a SEQ box from playerauctions and other sites and the install/build/update procedure is trivial enough for your average 5 year old to manage it correctly, let alone someone who can write a 3 line shell script.

As a small underground effort, SEQ was at the very best a minor annoyance. When you are claiming tens of thousands of downloads of libEQ.a then you can hardly term it as a minor annoyance any longer and effectively SEQ has broken the social contract to stay small and hidden. I think the sale of preinstalled SEQ boxes may just be a little beyond what you saw as the "social contract" in the beginning, no?

In the end, I see both sides abandoning the "contract". SEQ became too easy for the masses to use and Sony broke the passive decrypt. I still don't see any rational justification for the residual anger displayed to Sony - it seems that the SEQ devs only care about Sony holding their end of the bargain and ignoring their own responsibilities in this much lauded "social contract".


Man, you don't know the EQ Devs very well then, do you? There's a lot of extra cirricular programming that goes on there... and again, from everything I've seen up to this point, it looks like it was a "quicky" to blast SEQ. It's always been fairly easy to disable the methods we've been using... why choose now to do it? If corporate was going to get involved, they would have a long time ago.

EQ Devs sound no different to devs anywhere then. I think you need to check your sources again though because if you can't figure out why they tried to break SEQ on the release of a new expansion then you're certainly not thinking straight. I would have a strong suspicion that it was specifically requested by someone fairly high up, or by the zone designers to hide the content from the players. I can imagine devs doing extra-curricular stuff. I can't imagine them being dumb enough to do that without someone asking for it either officially or over lunch.


I get the feeling you aren't very familiar with the end game encounters.
Everything up to Tier 3 PoP (including VT). You?


SEQ provides nothing, except POSSIBLY to the pullers.
Assuming you aren't taking note of mob positions, levels, names etc. and offering suggestions to the guild or discouragement when you see an obviously bad idea then you have a point.

I am taking your word for it that you aren't using it during xp groups (which you must have done at some stage), shard camps, Emp Key camps, looking for mobs that are up and watching other guild's strategies to offer "suggestions" on good ways to do things.


I don't enjoy the game if I can't see where I'm going and what's around me. Staring at my screen for hours on end seeing basically nothing is not very fun. I have an assist key, I can stare at wall for the entire raid and press a few buttons and do my job... boy, yea, that's fun. Instead, I am able to see (within limits) what's going on around me, and I find it very interesting the different goings on.

So why are you playing a wizard or cleric? Sounds like you're building this whole thing up because you're playing a class that doesn't offer the fun you thought it might.


Just because YOU want to be deaf and blind does not mean I do.
And just because you cheat to get gratification out of a game doesn't make it all ok.

The problem I have with your argument is you keep switching positions trying to rationalize your behavior. First you claimed it wasn't realistic to not sense a mob immediately behind you and now you claim the game isn't fun when you can't see what's happening through a wall or around a corner. Make up your mind please - either you want realism in the game or you want a magic radar. I get the feeling the realism line was just an invention to make the magic radar concept sound less like cheating.


I didn't say Sony sucks, I said they advertise things they do not deliver
Are you deliberately trying to misunderstand me? I know what you said. I just summarized "they advertise things they don't deliver on" to "sucks". Is it really that difficult to understand?


I've lost a number of items and such to bugs, only to be told "Sorry" when I know very well they could check trade logs to see that it wasn't traded/dropped.
Sounds like the GMs on your server are just plain nasty or you've done something to piss them off. I've had plenty of friends get back stuff they've lost through bugs.

I'm still trying to figure out how "customer service sucks" leads to "it's ok to use ShowEQ". I just don't see a correlation between the two statements.


If they implimented a real time mapping feature on top of the promised features and fixed all the bugs, yep... I'd say I would put it down for good.
You mean with or without mobs on the "mapping"? I can see good things about implementing a mapping engine (like NWN or others) but fail to see how being able to see all the mobs in a zone on a radar is fair. Maybe a map which showed all *visible* mobs would make sense but I'm sure that would annoy those casters who are sheltering from AE who wouldn't see jack (which seems to be your primary purpose for using SEQ).

So, if there was a real-time map which allowed you to only see visible mobs, would you give up SEQ?

Cheers,

Throx

[datadog]

Why are you on Ratt's case? There are thousands of us using this for the same reasons Ratt does. Cuz it makes the game more fun for us.

Stop preaching. You have made your point.

Now go away!!

[S_B_R]

Throx,
I'm going to point out something you do not seem to understand. Whether you like, or accept it I couldn't care less.
And just because you cheat to get gratification out of a game doesn't make it all ok. Actually it does make it OK. It makes it OK to the only person that it matters to, Me. I don't care how you feel, I know I use SEQ responsibly. I've never abused the knowledge I have. Whether you believe me or not, it doesn't matter. Whether you think it's wrong or not it doesn't matter.

Your opinion means nothing to me (or anyone else here), I don't know you and you don't know me. It would be as if some total stranger came up to me and started spouting his beliefs about the world. I can accept that this stranger has an opinion, everyone has that right. However that's all it is, one man's opinion. The problem lies when that one man tries to invalidate my own opinion solely on the basis that his ideals are the only truth.

Now that being said, if you don't have anything constructive to say please leave.

[The Mad Poet]

/shrug

What is cheating? Well it's gaining an adantage over your opponent by using means they do not have.

Can anyone use SEQ? Yes - so is it cheaing against your other players? No.

Anyone can get it and use it - it's not a premium service or some special thing only the eliete have.

In the end what people drive at is this is cheating because we are not playing by Verants rules... This is fine.... it's really a moot point at this time.

I will admit - I am cheating - so how is that harming you?

Does the game look different to me? No

Can I do more in the game? No

Do mobs ignore me because of it? No

Do I change any of the rules? No

Nothing that I do can't be done with a pile of paper and a loc guide spamming a loc key over and over.

Nothing.

OMG I see a percentage of the mobs health while we kill it... wait the new UI does that.

OMG I can see a mob is up - big deal - if knowing that Trak spawned is so horrible to you that it ruins your playing then get a life.

Why does Verant hate SEQ? Well they have shown over the years that they can't stand when anyone beats them at thier own game. The entire dev team is very petty - as shown whenever someone finds a way to beat thier 'uber' enounter of the moment they have to drop the entire zone to remake it.

They constatly approch the game with an atittude that reeks of 'lets get those players'. Look at the horrible time sinks in the game... look at the responses to questions...

Verant gets *personally* offended when you do not play the game exactly how they want you to play.

They wanted a grouping game...

Soloing classes were then systematically nerfed over and over - mobs given insane resists - summoning - immune to snare - immune to fear - on and on...

You can not play your way - you must play *verants way*

This is the game we play - it is not *our* game - it is not *our* world - it is not a *living* world where innovation rewards those who are creative - it is a regieme of 'play this way or don't play'.

This is the reason so many casting classes are so upset all the time... all the best abilities have been removed or toned down or kept on such a tight leash to make it worthless...

Charm - trivialises content
Slow - '' ''
haste - '' ''
buffs - '' ''
CH - '' ''
Mez - '' ''
Snare - '' ''
Levitate - '' ''



Some zones you are not even allowed to cast levitate in because they don't want you to 'float' accross the zone and thus not have a chance to be eaten - but in the same zone you can succor from entrance to exit doing the *exact* same thing. See some spells trivialse content - while others which do the same thing do not.

That is verant - if they *think* you are doing something better than them - they will take you down.

Or try.

[fgay trader]

Throx,

I don't quite understand what it is you are trying to accomplish? Are you trying to make anyone feel bad for using SEQ? Why?

Is it because we're ripping poor SOE off? To tell you the truth, I kind of feel ripped off by SOE and their "Vision" and I'm sure I'm not alone. For us EQ is a game. For them it's a business model, which I believe is flawed. In order to keep their paying customers, instead of creating more content and coming up with more ways of character advancement, they deliberately limit it by:
i) inhibitting experience advancement with penalties (exp loss on death);
ii) artificially extending travel time by withholding proper tools (maps, etc), extremely long boat rides and teleport delays, etc;
iii) keeping the quest system unnecessarily over-complicated (no quest log, having to type key phrases, etc.)
iv) maintaining the crafting system tedious (carpal tunnel syndrome, anyone?) and under-utilized.

Bottom line is yes, we are cheating in regards to what SOE defined as rules. However, we are cheated as well when for our monthly fees instead of the promissed goodies like "varied character advancement", "player-run economy", "comprehensive quest system", etc. we get shafted.

[Ratt]

First off, let me start off by saying to everyone in general... I don't think Throx is "on my case" or anything. It's simply a debate... I'm sure if either of us wanted to tear into the other, we could do it pretty easily. Throx debate (flaming?) skills seem to be fairly exceptional.



The real question then becomes one of what the agreement actually was and who broke it first. The thing is you can now buy a SEQ box from playerauctions and other sites and the install/build/update procedure is trivial enough for your average 5 year old to manage it correctly, let alone someone who can write a 3 line shell script.

As a small underground effort, SEQ was at the very best a minor annoyance. When you are claiming tens of thousands of downloads of libEQ.a then you can hardly term it as a minor annoyance any longer and effectively SEQ has broken the social contract to stay small and hidden. I think the sale of preinstalled SEQ boxes may just be a little beyond what you saw as the "social contract" in the beginning, no?

In the end, I see both sides abandoning the "contract". SEQ became too easy for the masses to use and Sony broke the passive decrypt. I still don't see any rational justification for the residual anger displayed to Sony - it seems that the SEQ devs only care about Sony holding their end of the bargain and ignoring their own responsibilities in this much lauded "social contract".

I don't see this as the "SEQ" side of the house breaking the agreement... I've always publically denounced those people selling pre-made SEQ boxes, and limited the do-all scripts verbally. The problem is, I can't control everything... and to add insult to that injury, if I were to try, it would make the situation worse. The tigher you try to grasp information, the more it squirms through your fingers. Only by using a light touch can you hope to push and mold information in any coherent direction.

I hate those people selling SEQ boxes as much as Verant does, and if there was something I could do about it, I would. I even went so far (and the other devs will back me up on this) as to ask for ideas on how to break the current scripts/pre-made boxes with the next major SEQ release. Due to all the recent developments, that particular path has largely been forgotten though (and rendered someone void anyway).

_I_ and by extention, the SEQ project itself did not infringe upon anything that was within my reasonable control. The whole basis and point of my arguement is the fact that what's going on now simply can NOT be stopped, it can only be directed. Without direction, it will be flying everywhere and things will get bad, real bad, real fast. UO is a perfect, shining example of unmanaged information control. Diablo is as well. If either of those games had had a focal point for all the creative "cheating" that could be done, things would have lasted much longer and been a happier place for the majority of the people... but the reality is that the worst elements of every facit of cheating came out at the start, ruining everything for everyone before the devs could put any protective measures in place. With the modulating rod of the SEQ project, it gives a creative outlet for "cheating" as well as providing a responsible use scenario for the product, in addition to giving a lead time for the devs to put protective measures in place.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I think SEQ is a positive influence on the EQ world, for all it's 'evilness' (and I have never claims SEQ isn't cheating, contrary to what you keep implying that I am saying). Most of the major bugs that have been fixed in EQ were fixed because of SEQ.


EQ Devs sound no different to devs anywhere then. I think you need to check your sources again though because if you can't figure out why they tried to break SEQ on the release of a new expansion then you're certainly not thinking straight. I would have a strong suspicion that it was specifically requested by someone fairly high up, or by the zone designers to hide the content from the players. I can imagine devs doing extra-curricular stuff. I can't imagine them being dumb enough to do that without someone asking for it either officially or over lunch.

That's the problem... I intentionally had SEQ broken for the release of Luclin, and that was an unmitigated disaster, and was about as effective as holding water with a sieve. Again, obviously, the EQ devs attempts to accomplish the same thing was equally effective. (How long has SEQ been totally broken since the release of PoP?)


Everything up to Tier 3 PoP (including VT). You?

The same, exploring some Tier 4 zones now. If that's the case, then, how can you possibly say SEQ provides you an advantage in those situations?


Assuming you aren't taking note of mob positions, levels, names etc. and offering suggestions to the guild or discouragement when you see an obviously bad idea then you have a point.

I am taking your word for it that you aren't using it during xp groups (which you must have done at some stage), shard camps, Emp Key camps, looking for mobs that are up and watching other guild's strategies to offer "suggestions" on good ways to do things.

Nope... because I don't care. The people responsible for that sort of thing will handle that, not me. Do some of them use SEQ? Yea, probably (though I can't say for 100% sure). I don't have any interest in trying to direct people and orchestrate raids anymore. I just hang out and watch.


So why are you playing a wizard or cleric? Sounds like you're building this whole thing up because you're playing a class that doesn't offer the fun you thought it might.

I've played most of the classes in the game, with a few exceptions for ones I know I would not enjoy. The class I've settled on (I actually have 4 characters above 60) as my "main" is the one I enjoy playing the most. The class I'm playing is the class that's right for me... but that doesn't mean it's fun in raid situations. But I know that the other classes would be even LESS fun in raid situations.


And just because you cheat to get gratification out of a game doesn't make it all ok.

The problem I have with your argument is you keep switching positions trying to rationalize your behavior. First you claimed it wasn't realistic to not sense a mob immediately behind you and now you claim the game isn't fun when you can't see what's happening through a wall or around a corner. Make up your mind please - either you want realism in the game or you want a magic radar. I get the feeling the realism line was just an invention to make the magic radar concept sound less like cheating.

The problem is that you are seeing two seperate issues in a single, intertwined issue.

The "magical divining of knowledge" and the "realism" are two sides of the same coin. If the total immersion realism was there, then I wouldn't have time, desire or ability to handle the magical divining of knowledge (by having a birds eye view of the situation) ... because I'd have other things to occupy me (my immediate surroundings, etc...) However, since I don't have that, to supplement the realism, the _only_ thing I can do is have access to more information to keep me occupied than I would normally in a more "realistic" situation. Hence, it keeps my interest piqued.

There is no flip flopping going on, it's a case of providing the maximum (comfortable) amount of sensory input to keep my poor little brain occupied. Hell, even WITH SEQ, I flip to other windows or watch TV now and then (yes I use EQW).


Sounds like the GMs on your server are just plain nasty or you've done something to piss them off. I've had plenty of friends get back stuff they've lost through bugs.

I'm still trying to figure out how "customer service sucks" leads to "it's ok to use ShowEQ". I just don't see a correlation between the two statements.

No, a lot of GMs are pretty close friends, believe it or not. Yes, they'd probably shit a brick if they connected my two identities. I'm pretty well liked by alot of the GM staff, and yes, it has afforded me some leeway when there have been bugs/problems with my personal accounts. I'm not referring just to myself, but to the situations in general. Although, there HAVE been times when I've gotten a big fat rubber cock shoved up my ass when it comes to account problems.


You mean with or without mobs on the "mapping"? I can see good things about implementing a mapping engine (like NWN or others) but fail to see how being able to see all the mobs in a zone on a radar is fair. Maybe a map which showed all *visible* mobs would make sense but I'm sure that would annoy those casters who are sheltering from AE who wouldn't see jack (which seems to be your primary purpose for using SEQ).

So, if there was a real-time map which allowed you to only see visible mobs, would you give up SEQ?

Answering your question in the spirit I believe it is being asked in, yes I would. Given my current state in the game, I have no need for anything more than that at this point (and don't forsee ever needing it again). One caveat to that is, I'd also have to have absolute numbers for mana and possibly experience, as I believe those a perfectly reasonable things to know (especially mana).

I really, truely, don't have any need to know what mobs are up in the zone, only the ones in my immediate surrounding, so if they implimented a skill as you suggest, it would certainly limit my desire to use SEQ. However, given my position in the SEQ project, it would obviously make such a cut and dried scenario a bit more difficult. But for a great number of other people, I think it would indeed be a good reason to stop using SEQ.

[throx]

S_B_R: Good point. Can't argue with that one. Ultimately I *am* applying my own philosophy of what is right and wrong to others and you have the right to reject my philosophy if you want.

Poet: Cheating is going outside the rules defined by Sony, not just anything that gives you an advantage over others. In that way SEQ is cheating whether you use it to gain an advantage or not.

As for cheating because you feel Sony has cheated you, I don't buy into that sort of philosophy. If I felt cheated by someone then I take steps to not be cheated any more. SEQ doesn't stop any of the major issues people have with Sony's customer service or game design - it doesn't even come close.

The rationalization that you have a "right" to cheat because you feel cheated just doesn't work for me. If you are going to cheat (and admit it's cheating) because you prefer it that way then, as I said to S_B_R, who am I to judge?

Datadog: Not preaching. Debating. I'm not about to go away cause I'm not done helping with the stealth sniffer yet. What right to YOU have to tell ME to go away though?

Ratt: Thanks for your views. I think I'll end the majority debate here because there's really nothing in your last post I can find to rationally disagree with.

You are correct in that SEQ won't give a wizard any real advantage in a raid situation. It would only really be of advantage to the pull team. I can also relate to the boredom of raiding (/rude VT) so I understand what you are saying there.

I could understand an attitude within Sony to attack SEQ now that the "genie is out of the bottle". Maybe the SEQ team didn't break the "contract" either but it's difficult to attack the premade SEQ box industry without attacking SEQ itself.

Unfortnately (in my opinion) the original authors chose the GPL as the license for the SEQ code so there's no real way to put the genie back in. Sony is left in the position of having to attack SEQ to crack down on the "SEQ box" industry and the real value of SEQ as a research project alongside EthernalQuest has pretty much been lost.

My original purpose in posting was really to point out the hypocrasy in trying to rationalize the use of SEQ as "not cheating". I just don't see the point of rationalizing stuff.

Cheers,

Throx.

[Ratt]

I could understand an attitude within Sony to attack SEQ now that the "genie is out of the bottle". Maybe the SEQ team didn't break the "contract" either but it's difficult to attack the premade SEQ box industry without attacking SEQ itself.

Unfortnately (in my opinion) the original authors chose the GPL as the license for the SEQ code so there's no real way to put the genie back in. Sony is left in the position of having to attack SEQ to crack down on the "SEQ box" industry and the real value of SEQ as a research project alongside EthernalQuest has pretty much been lost.

My original purpose in posting was really to point out the hypocrasy in trying to rationalize the use of SEQ as "not cheating". I just don't see the point of rationalizing stuff.

Well, they could attack it directly, because attacking SEQ is pointless, really. As has been amply demonstrated, they can't kill SEQ. If we have the data, we can make use of it, that's the bottom line. The only way they can break SEQ is to change the data that's actually sent.

Without SEQ being GPL, we wouldn't have nearly as good a product as we have today. In fact, SEQ would have died and untimely death a long time ago.

Either way, there is/was a solution to the whole issue that would satisfy both camps, at least as much as both sides could be satisfied. Instead of fighting against us, Sony would have been better to embrace and extend, thus retaining some measurable control. What they did was the worst of all possible actions they could have taken... opening it up to the Windows heathens :) .

Unless their plan is to indeed introduce a SEQ like product by getting people use to the SEQ idea on Windows, they've done nothing advantageous, and only a) hurt the business by allowing a more readily available cheating method to be developed, and b) wasted resources on defeating a fundamentally undefeatable program.

They'd have been better served actually contacting me and hashing out a method of making SEQ useful, while making it next to impossible to provide "ready made" boxes. I can think of a number of ways this would be accomplished, and I would be more than happy to go ahead with plans, given certain restrictions, that would allow for the total exclusion of a Windows based SEQ client. With Sony cooperation, this could be achieved very easily, and a tighter reign could be kept on the whole business, as ananthema as that might be to some people, it honestly would be in the best interests of everyone involved.

[The Mad Poet]

Poet: Cheating is going outside the rules defined by Sony, not just anything that gives you an advantage over others. In that way SEQ is cheating whether you use it to gain an advantage or not.

Yes - that is why anyone that has ever read a stat off a web site or used magelo or looked at a map is cheating.

I did say I was cheating. I don't deny this.

What bothers me are the people who try to play both sides of the fence.

A) Going against the rules of Sony is cheating and cheaters should be banned.

or

B) The majority of the people in the game at some point have 'cheated' according to the rules Sony laid out - and therefore there are degrees of cheating, only those doing things that are 'very bad' for the game should be banned.

People cheat all the time according to A, and yet still act like that argument is a basis to ban *ME* because they don't happen to like what *I* do.

Fact is either you take A literaly and ban most of the user base or you *MUST* admit that B is correct.

Sony SAYS A but they practice B.

In my mind that is wrong - and IMO it could be argued that by not presuing agressive action against magelo and EQW and the users of those programs that they have given the right to persue actions against people who *view* the data in a non intrusive way.

What *HAS* Sony aggressivly gone after? Well MacroQuest for one - and there was another program a while back that ran as a app on your PC that would come up over EQ and let you see where you were on a map by spamming loc commands - it also amplified the gamma to let you actually see the game - I forget what it was called.

They *did* persue those programs and *did* ban anyone they caught useing them.

They *do* persue people that alter the data of the client and ban them .... if you doubt me get a $10 version of EQ classic and try a run speed hack - you will find the account banned shortly after without a word from a GM...

When case is brought to court - one of the things the court will consider is the application of a consistent set of rules - a company *will* get spanked if they persue some issues and ignore others that are similar because of favoritisim... a company must enforce the rules across the board - or not enforce them - they can not pick and choose when to use the rules and when not to...

This is one of the reasons that fan sites of Star Trek and such get shut down - because if Paramount lets *one* site stay up they know about - then they loose the right to persue any others.

People crying 'oh what a horrible cheating program' better take a hard look at what they do in game... maps not made by Verant and in game data on web sites may be forced to come down - maeglo may be forced to come down... they are all cheating according to the rules set by Verant.

[MisterSpock]

Good points Mad Poet.

I don't believe for a second that SOE will move against either the web sites or Magelo.

Why?

Because these clearly enhance their revenue stream. Or, from a contrarian point of view, killing them would hurt their revenue stream. Sites like Everlore, EQAtlas, and Castersrealm are the staples of most people's EQ existance. I can't even imagine the response from the EQ community if such came to pass. Even if they attempted to institute a "licensing fee," I'm sure many sites would be forced to fold up shop.

Magelo is a more available target. SOE made an attempt (albeit pathetically lame) to get into the mapping business with their "EQ Atlas" product. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if they came up with a Magelo-like product of their own. That would effectively kill Magelo. If they'd take their collective heads out of their butts and allow EQ users to select if it runs in a window or full screen (it's ALT-ENTER, SOE), EQW will be gone.

An interesting side-question comes to mind... Is it no longer considered cheating when you buy the SOE maps and use them to play, but it *is* cheating when you download the (vastly superior) maps from eqatlas.com?

***

On another side note -- from what I've read, the only MacroQuest bannings were done manually by GMs. They discovered some of the exploits to trade skills used to make obscene amounts of plat. They parked GM's at the vendors the macro'ers used, and caught 'em.

I know the ancient old speed hack was something they fixed and banned people for. I'm not familiar with the other programs you mentioned.

[RavenCT]

On the whole "your cheating" thing, I just wanted to add this...

I use SEQ, I don't deny that... But, I only have two machines here at home, so I can play one char and use SEQ or I can play two accounts at one time and no SEQ.

Well, I created a character and with the help of a level 55+ druid, I made (no lie) 12 levels last night! Now, where is that also not cheating? I had to do it since I only have the two machines and I was using not only a friend with his Druid, but one of my other alts at the same time.

So, in this case, when I com running back with seven or eight mobs on me that I only "hit" once, and then I let them beat themselves to death on the high level druid shield, does this count as cheating since NO newbie would have this kind of an advantage? I doubt that this was in the original intent of the EQ developers...

Cheating is a very gray state of mind. I use SEQ (as has been stated above, especially by Ratt) because it enhances my enjoyment of the game. Is it "rebelling against the man"? Well, you could say that. So is speeding, and that kills how many people each year? (Not counting drinking and driving, talking on cell phones, eating while driving, and general stupidity...)

I tend to agree with alot of various points here, but I have this to say to Sony... If you want my money every month (which I have been doing since 1999 now) for both of my accounts, if you don't want to give the user population what they want to enhance the game and keep it interesting, then I'll cancel my accounts tomorrow.

Yes, I cheat, there's no doubt of that. But have I ever run and taken a rare from someone else in the same zone as I right out from under there nose? Nope. Not once. I've gone into a zone to see if something is camped, or if a rare is there, but not taken one from someone else. Where is the fun to fight your way for half an hour or so to get to a certain place to find that the place holder is there or that there is someone else who isn't paying attention to the /tell's or /ooc's. I certainly don't find that very fun and as a matter of course, before I started using SEQ, I would RARELY try to go after any rare.

So, what is my point of all this? I cheat. Sony is laxidasical in what they give there customers for there money. I use SEQ to enhance my enjoyment of the game. I use it to save me (at times) large amounts of wasted time.

Yes, its a game... At times I may have to remind myself that its only a game.

[The Sage]

On the whole cheating thing . Of courseit is cheating. Who cares? IMHO the only people that should get banned, arethe ones dumb enough to get caught. Everything is legal until you get caught.

Just my two cents.

Why do I use SEQ? Cause I'm sickof being lost, and I love to know where I am. And when I die and have no idea where my corpse is, it comes in nice and handy for that too. Knowing where mobs are is a great thing to add to that, but it isn't necessary.

Another thing is those damn "Con COlors" are so phukt that is is nice to see if that blue mob is 1 level below me....or 15 levels below me. Do I pick and choose my fights? Sometimes. Does this give me an advantage? Sure. Am I invincible, or any more likely to survive than Joe Shmoe who doesn't use SEQ? Nope. In fact, I will probably die easier than Joe Shmoe because I won't really be paying attention once I am engaged. I may get an add or something, butbecause I'm staring at my SEQ box wondering if there are anyother mobs around, I'll take three or four hits before I can respond. *Shrug*

I think SEQ has saved my butt about as many times as it has gotten me killed. Hehehe, but then, I refuse to play without that map anymore. My SEQ box broke a while back (something got all farked up after the power went out once), and I did not play EQ until I got it back up and running. If nothing else I want the map...

Cheating? You bet! Proud of it? Not really, contrary to what it may sound like.

[datadog]

Originally posted by throx
Datadog: Not preaching. Debating. I'm not about to go away cause I'm not done helping with the stealth sniffer yet. What right to YOU have to tell ME to go away though?

I cannot speak for Ratt or anyone else. I personally freely admit that its cheating. Sony has every right to protect their game from cheaters, and for the most part they do a really good job.

As far as I'm concerned there IS no debate. I agree with you. Its cheating.

Bottom line is I DONT CARE. I have played EQ without SEQ and quite franky its not fun. Its really not that much fun anymore even with SEQ. I use a SEQ with a keysniffer knowing they could ban me if im caught. If that happens i'll take my 4 accounts and find something else to do with my time and money.

[throx]

Wow. I get all the "cheating" responses after I stop arguing the topic. Whatever...

Ratt: I agree that the only true way to permanently "break" SEQ is to limit the data actually sent to the client. I believe this is what most online games coming out now do and I'd expect EQ2 to behave this way as well. There's a number of tricks they could employ to make it far more difficult to reverse engineer the client but ultimately they are doomed to failure if someone is dedicated enough.

I don't believe the GPL itself was responsible for SEQ's success. It was the fact that the code was opened for community contributions that made SEQ successful. There are plenty of better licenses out there than the GPL which may have served the purpose of limiting availability - especially to the preinstalled sales market. Once the GPL was chosen there was certainly no way of stuffing the genie back in the bottle. That was one of the reasons I advocated NOT using GPL when the initial discussion was had on the hackersquest boards. Guess I wasn't vocal enough (only made one or two posts on the topic).

What I don't understand is the following comment:


I can think of a number of ways this would be accomplished, and I would be more than happy to go ahead with plans, given certain restrictions, that would allow for the total exclusion of a Windows based SEQ client. With Sony cooperation, this could be achieved very easily, and a tighter reign could be kept on the whole business, as ananthema as that might be to some people, it honestly would be in the best interests of everyone involved.

I don't see how the operating system actually matters from a technical standpoint. No offense but there's nothing special about Linux that makes it any easier to produce a product like SEQ on, in fact I'd argue that it's significantly easier to get a more versatile and useful product running under Windows than it is Linux (probably the reason the hackersquest folks actually used Windows for their initial work).

Do you really think loading up the decrypt routines under Windows is that difficult a project? ;)

Cheers,

Throx

[S_B_R]

Originally posted by throx
I don't see how the operating system actually matters from a technical standpoint. No offense but there's nothing special about Linux that makes it any easier to produce a product like SEQ on, in fact I'd argue that it's significantly easier to get a more versatile and useful product running under Windows than it is Linux (probably the reason the hackersquest folks actually used Windows for their initial work).

Ratt wasn't advocating Linux because it holds some inherant advantage to developement. He's advocating it because it increases the cost of entry for the user. The whole point was to keep every Tom, Dick, and Script Kiddie from using ShowEQ. Remeber the "Social Contract" came about because a windows version of ShowEQ became available and posed a much greater threat than the Linux version.

[throx]

I understand that, S_B_R. Maybe I read Ratt's post wrong, but it seemed to say that he had some ideas that could prevent:

i) Preinstalled boxes with SEQ being sold, and
ii) SEQ ever running on Windows.

I don't technically see how either is possible. When you look at it, the fact that libEQ.a was binary-only for Linux was a minor hurdle and now that it's been shown that key sniffing is entirely possible and in all probability too difficult to reliably detect to be worth the effort of trying, then any move that would completely remove the possibility of SEQ running on Windows would necessarily do the same for it running on Linux.

At the very best, SEQ gets into the same games Sony itself has to play to try to preven SEQ from working. You end up obfuscating things to prevent someone else figuring out how you did them.

Cheers,

Throx

[fryfrog]

i have a few ideas about how you could make it harder to install, harder to mass install or harder to update. making it depend on a difficult to install something or other, making it depend on something which has to be tailor configured to YOUR system. you could even go so far as to add something to CVS that you need to uncomment or modify after every change (dynamic) so that a script could not be made that would do a cvs compile and fetch of libeq.a. we aren't talking about making it difficult to use, just dificult to upgrade automatically.

i think you are dead wrong about the choice of the GPL though, without it we would have had no SINS to back port into seq, and thats if seq even continued after ashran got tired of it (or any of the other devs who have tired of it or gone on to vi).

[throx]

Sure you would have had the code if it wasn't GPL. Just because it's not GPL doesn't mean that backports or code availability isn't guaranteed.

Simple clauses in the license that prevented preinstalled binaries or automatic get/compiles from CVS would have helped stem some of the problems Ratt talked about.

I'm not saying a closed source license would have been better (which is what I think you are imagining), just one that limits the use of SEQ for the more abusive things that have been done.

Hope that makes sense.

Throx

[cide]

I personally cannot wait until WSEQ is widespread, then - alot of people will be using it


Either,

1) Forcing sony to drop the new idea.

2) Forcing sony to spend more money and resources on a new way to break it.

*2 is unlikly, there is not a better procedure out that I know of.

[sakshale]

In my house hold are two EQ players.

I have two accounts, with 33 being the level of my highest character. The other has three accounts, with 59 being the highest level character.

We have both quit EQ in the past. (Both started in 1999.) SEQ is the only reason we are still willing to play. Evertime it has broken over the years, we have come close to quiting.

We currently have NOT installed a key sniffer, but may be forced to by the MAGE epoch quests. (Anyone want to camp Quilmain on an older, production server?)

So, there are five accounts that are hanging by the SEQ thread. SEQ goes away, we go away.

[Sneaky]

If WSEQ becaomes common I forsee the following

Thousands of people installing and using WSEQ

At first SONY fights by changing things to try to put a stop to it

After every change the WSEQ devs fix it and the number of "cheaters" exceeds the Linux SEQ "cheaters" by 10 fold.

SONY gives up trying to break WSEQ and EQ starts to die at a faster pace.

This might be SONY'S intention anyway, trying to steer their customers toward SWG and then EQ2. They could use the current DEVs on other projects and not have to worry about EQ any longer. Yes they would loose money, but if they times it right, it wouldn't be that big a loss....If they release EQ2 while EQ was still in production, even dying to WSEQ, chances are good that their scheme would work....

[datadog]

I dont think EQ is going to go away any time soon.

EQ2 is scheduled for release in Nov 2003. No way EQ is shut down by then.

I suspect it will continue to decline.. There maybe some server consolidations and such as the subscriber base goes down. But it will not go away completely for a looong time.

They will stop adding content to it... (PoP is likely the last expansion). Might be some zone revamps.. maybe even a new zone or two.. to finish content that was started and never finished from previous expansions.

Once uber guildies and loot whores and leet punks get tired of it the folks that will be left will be those who play for social reasons. And.. with the aforementioned folks off playing other games it might actually be a fun game again in a different way.

I know a lot of folks who completely despise the game from 55+.. they are contantly starting alts and playing them 'at a pace'...

I see myself getting this way more and more as well. Not so much aspiring to break new ground.. just enjoying the game for what it was intended to be. An online fantasy RPG.

[Sneaky]

if you get tens of thousands of people running WSEQ the game will be ruined and no one will want to play any longer. A few thousand was one thing, but 50-75000 or more? c'mon that WILL cause problems.

[datadog]

Well i certainly dont question that if libEQ ever gets ported to Windows, there will be a BUNCH more folks running SEQ on windows. No question..

But as less people play the game.. assuming they are leaving to play something else.. there will also be less SEQ users..

[EQDoze]

I don't believe the GPL itself was responsible for SEQ's success. It was the fact that the code was opened for community contributions that made SEQ successful. There are plenty of better licenses out there than the GPL which may have served the purpose of limiting availability - especially to the preinstalled sales market. Once the GPL was chosen there was certainly no way of stuffing the genie back in the bottle.

[edited for brevity]


The GPL was reason for it's success, while at the same time being part of the problem.




What I don't understand is the following comment:

[edited for brevity]

I don't see how the operating system actually matters from a technical standpoint. No offense but there's nothing special about Linux that makes it any easier to produce a product like SEQ on, in fact I'd argue that it's significantly easier to get a more versatile and useful product running under Windows than it is Linux (probably the reason the hackersquest folks actually used Windows for their initial work).

Do you really think loading up the decrypt routines under Windows is that difficult a project? ;)


No, I think that was a really big part of the point of the whole "social contract" -- It would be substantially easier for SEQ use to spread if it were developed on Windows. The developmental resources (i.e. people) in the Windows community vastly outnumbers the resources in the Linux community -- that is, with specific regards to EverQuest.

The development force of Linux users overall willing to work on open source is probably greater, but the development force of Linux users willing to work on open source SEQ is much, much smaller.

Essentially, opening up the project to Windows can be likened to opening a floodgate.

After the first version of WinSEQ hits the streets EQ's developers will see the very definition of floodgate. The word will get out much more quickly about this "cool new thing" you can run along side EverQuest. What's worse... in the process I see EQW suffering in the aftermath.

That's a shame, because EQ is already tedious enough without having access to other things (like a browser, media player, etc.).

[Raistlin]

Originally posted by Resiliant
*Snip*

LOL... anyway... instead of alienating your users USE THEM TO MAKE THE GAME BETTER. Ask THEM what they would like to see, and before you kill wizards or bards or rogues abilities, ASK YOUR CUSTOMER BASE HOW THEY WOULD FEEL, and then... DO WHAT THEY WANT!

OMG... consider this... an EQ that was actually *RESPONSIVE* to user needs... and that didn't constantly remove the *fun* so SoE can come out with a new expansion and make more money.

Res [/B]

I hate to comment on something this old, and no, i've not read all the posts, so this might be a re-hash, but if I have one piece of advice for everyone is BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR. IMHO, NEVER ask your player base what it is they want. Your player base will consistantly scream for the worst possible changes then bitch when they don't turn out how they want. By and large, a playerbase has no VISION at all beyond their own particular character. You'd get ten thousand people shout "Increase the drop rate on the fungi tunic." Then ten minutes after that happened you'd get the same ten thousand of them scream "It's a piece of crap piece of equipment, everyone has one...I remember when only the leet had those, now it's available to any dumb n00b...FU <insert your company here>."

The reality of life, is people do not know what they want. Even when they do know, they never want the right thing.

Ever wondered why a "Three Wishes" episode of your favorite drama usually ends up with the last wish being "Get rid of all my other wishes and never let anyone have these wishes again."

I think before Sony/VI starts looking to their customer base for suggestions, they need to have some understanding of their own game first. Once they get an idea of where their game should be going and what each class should be doing, THEN they need to start listening to what the customers want and balance that with the betterment of the game for everyone.

There is no nation in the world that is ruled by the common man. Mob rule is always something seen as bad because mob rule = chaos, and chaos isn't productive. But more than that, it is because mob rule doesn't work...if it doesn't work in life, it won't work in simulated life either. Be careful asking for mob rule...that doesn't mean "your rule", or "the rule of those with intelligent points of view." By and large, there are more idiots than people with good sense, mob rule then can be defined as "Rule by Idiots".

No-one wants that.

--Raistlin

p.s. I'll get down off of MY soapbox now and leave the thread return to where it's SUPPOSED to go..:)

[throx]

Originally posted by Sneaky
if you get tens of thousands of people running WSEQ the game will be ruined and no one will want to play any longer. A few thousand was one thing, but 50-75000 or more? c'mon that WILL cause problems.

It won't cause "problems" as such. It just means everyone will effectively be playing a different game.

A decent version of WSEQ won't be a port of the Linux one anyway. It will be a window overlaid on your EQ display.

btw - libEQ.a isn't that interesting any more. Is there any real reason left not to just open source it and forget about the whole "magic binary" thing?

[Raistlin]

Originally posted by Ratt


I wasn't being really cynical, so much, as I was basically saying that my time investment in EQ is too great for me to wipe it clean and start over in EQ2. I am not yet to the point of saying I hate Sony/Verant because of the total lack of customer service, so it's not like I won't be buying SWG or EQ2 because of that. I simply have NO desire what so ever to put myself through the EQ hell... again. I did it once, I'm a better man for it. I feel like I did when I got out of the Army. I'm damned glad I did it, even though it sucked, and I'm a better person for it. But by god, I will NOT do that again. I've learned a lot about myself over the past 4 years, and EQ played a big part in a lot of that. It's kind of spooky when I think about it, so I try not to think about it too hard. Call me a loser if you want, or whatever, but EQ helped me grow as a person. That is a MAJOR investment of a personal nature for me (and I suspect anyone) --- and I'm not going to chuck it for EQ2. I don't need to go through that again.


And quoting this I would have to say Ratt, that I completely disagree with your VERY WELL WRITTEN post about the future of gaming. I do not see the future of "Gaming" changing. I don't believe we need a holodeck to have a good game. What I am hearing however is a bunch of people who have been swindled into believeing that EQ is the best it can get. A bunch swindled into believing that the "Endgame" as you put it is the ONLY place to be. And in EQ it is. However, i'm going to ask you Ratt (and everyone reading this post) to go back to your last session of AD&D (now D&D). What level were you? 30s? 20s? even 10s? More likely you were between 1 and 10. And what character number was this for you? 20? 50? In all the time you've played the ORIGINAL RPGs did you ever get tired of progressing from level 1 to 10? Did you ever dread "starting over?" You talk of the initial levels you went through being like going through the Army. Jesus, what kind of massichists are we here? Gaming has always been and will always be about having fun. About doing something interesting. The problem with EQ is that interesting is defined as "getting together with 30 of your guild mates and attacking mega bad-ass mobs for phat leut." And thus the piss poor planing on Verant's part is revealed. The low end game is work because ITS NOT FUN. In reality, the beginning game is nothing more than YET ANOTHER timesink, it's the ULTIMATE timesink, it's the amount of time you have to spend before you can start having fun. There is NOTHING to do besides level. Why else is it described as "churning", "grinding", etc.?

We don't need holodecks, we don't need flashy uber graphics. All the flashy graphics in the world won't correct what you're feeling Ratt, or what the rest of us are feeling. We need to have fun. We need to have something to do. Verant created a game with HUNDREDS of possibilities in the character creation process, then did what every other RPG has done to date...gave everyone the same goal and only one way to meet that goal.

Contrast this with your table top RPG days under a good GM.

It'll only take one company with foresight. One company with brains. One company that thinks outside the very very small box that are RPGs today to blow this wide open. One company with enough sense to treat characters in an online world the same as we treat people in the real world and to treat the online world the same as we treat the real world to give you a game that will play and act like an RPG, not a pre-written storybook who's first 200 pages are given over to describing the castle the players start in.

I lament the fact that I don't have the money or the technical know how to build this game, but I wait with eger anticipation for that one company with vision to wake up and realize that entertaining the RPG masses is NOT rocket Science.

The face of gaming hasn't changed, you just realized that the game you were being fed as the here all end all be all of RPGs is in fact almost as bad as the rest of them out there.

--Raistlin

[Notme]

<edit cause I cant type with out a spell checker. (or spell)>

I just entered this forum and the SEQ world and thought I would chime in with a couple thoughts. First, Great original post back in the middle of page one Ratt.

To the aspect of SEQ cheating. Yes, beyond a doubt its an advantage out side the core game that most others don’t have and cant get. But, there are aspects of how EQ works that "cheating" warrants bypassing the time drain that is EQ.

Camping a Quillmane in SK for instance. Core to the Mage epic. What F@#$ing joke. Its a great example on what’s wrong with the game.

For the most part the high level game isnt about camping NPC101 for endless hours. Its about group play with 40 or more players to kill a NPC that takes coordinated teamwork. A couple failures, and then you win! Showeq doesn’t really help here. IMHO it helps with time sync portion of the game that isn’t fun and should not be called a game. If its not fun, its not a game, its a chore. That’s not right.

Frankly a wide scale deployment of a WinSEQ in a overlay would rock. Hell, if SOE was smart they would make it a difficult AA ability and make it part of the core application. SOE is all about money. Period. A wide scale deployment of a WinSEQ would make them decide if they should ban 100's of thousands of users and lose that revenue, or comply and give everyone the ability.

Go for it I say. SOE will always make the move towards where the buck falls. Or not far from it.

Notme

[cattj]

Originally posted by TheEntity


Think this is what you were looking for?

http://www.hackersquest.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?action=intro&default=1

Here is another blast from the past from smed on IRC and their upcoming encryption for Kunark.

http://www2.trifocus.net:8000/showeqsmed.txt

oh man that really brings me back... QuadLynx ended up getting a job with Verant shortly after that happened... right before he dumped the MFC port of SEQ into my lap that we was working on for HackersQuest heheh... ah the good old days...