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Same world, different game
All this posting lately about hacking and cheating and so on really has brought home how different EQ can be for people playing different parts of the game. It hasn't been that long since I played (January was the last time I was in EQ1 Norrath), but when I played, I really didn't see any of that stuff going on. I think it must be limited to people who want to have all the best stuff and are willing to cheat to get it. I didn't see those people down where I was at in the non-raiding world, and a lot of guilds simply won't tolerate even a rumor of hacking.
Heck, the guild I was in wouldn't use another guild's CoH mages to bypass the fighting in Plane of Earth (B?) because it was "cheating". Yes, they were still working on Time flagging. There are still guilds out there doing older stuff. You just don't see them unless you are in those zones at the right time. They were doing progression through the expansions IN ORDER as a guild. After I left the guild, they got to Time and killed Quarm, and moved on to GoD. I quit the game shortly thereafter, so I don't know how that's going or even if they are sticking to that policy. (I refused to go to anywhere in PoP because I was playing a relatively new character who didn't have any flagging at all and I just didn't want to do any PoP AGAIN when I didn't enjoy it very much the first time. I showed up for epic 1.5 fights and the Furious Jailor. That was about it. I wasn't a good fit for that guild. What can I say? I followed my husband and he was following guildies from our old guild who had all joined up...)
If you see a lot of hacking, it may just be the company you keep. Are you at the current end game? Are you playing with a lot of people who are really concerned with having the best stuff and keeping up with the top of the game? A lot of people aren't there with you. A lot of people are just plodding along, doing their own thing. For those people, hacking would completely defeat any purpose in playing at all. Maybe I am in the minority that didn't hack and was perfectly happy not seeing it. Maybe my friends were freaks like that too.
If I saw hacking in EQ, I wouldn't care as long as those people didn't bug me and stayed away from me. If it were as ridiculous as botting in L2 on some servers, in some places, I might feel differently. I saw the bots in L2, and chose to ignore them for as long as they didn't interfere with my gameplay. That was relatively easy for me on my main character on my main server. There were some bots, but there were also real people around in the newbie/lowbie areas where I was. It got to me when I switched servers and the newbie town for orcs was absolutely swarming with dwarfbots in a way that made me 
. I had a heck of a time targeting guards to get quests when I couldn't see them inside the swarm, and there were just NO real people there. That put a bad taste in my mouth, for sure. Maybe EQ is like that on some servers, for some people. How would I know? We might be in the same game world, but we're playing vastly different games.
I know some people are angry at SOE and some people detest what EQ has become. If I were in their shoes, I might feel the same way. Down here where we're wearing cheap Walmart flip-flops, the view isn't so bad. 
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This is where I draw the line: __________________.
Comments
Not to be an ass... but rampant hacking is ok as long as you dont see it?
If you hand around with hackers, yes your going to see hacking, however... hacking shouldnt be there in the FIRST PLACE!
If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it does it make a sound? Yes.
If a hacker hacks, and no one sees it does it still affect you, YES
My Friend, TRUST ME, it is NOT the company I keep.
I was able to observe all people, in all zones I was in, as to whether they were hacking or not. IT IS ASTONISHING! The number of people hacking, the community, is probably around 70% if not higher. The hacks and cheats come in many and varied forms from third party programs, to hacks, to various cheats, and so forth. The hacking also gives different abilities. The hacks or cheats I was using and able to observe others using allowed me to teleport to any zone in the game; allowed me to warp throughout a zone, so I would not have to fight in or crawl in a dungeon; they also allowed me to gate on any class; I could increase my swim and run speed; I could also use various speed hacks, but I never used them. There were others, but I did not use them.
I have since heard that people can still dupe pp and create items. You can also trade non-trade items using the hacks. However, if you decide to dupe pp, I heard they ban if you get caught. If you create items, I heard they also ban you. I know some one, years ago, that duped pp and was suspended. If you use other forms of cheats and hackings such as warping, speed hacks, etc. you simply receive a temporary suspension for the first, second, and third offense. I have heard the fourth offense, if you get caught, is a permanent ban.
The hacking is rampant, in many forms, and widespread. It is very sad.
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WoW and fast food = commercial successes.
I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
Btw, there are hacks that allow you to get instant AA points and levels. I have never used them, but I know people that were able to use them and they received no suspension or ban.
I also mentioned that in a Guild with a very strong anti-hacking policy, an Officer of that guild was one of the MOST obvious hackers I have ever come across. The Guild Leader of the anti-hacking guild had a husband who was a guild leader on another server, and the entire guild used hacks, cheats, and third party programs. I began to learn about the hacking and cheating from her.
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WoW and fast food = commercial successes.
I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
I didn't say that hacking was ok. That implies that I approve in some way. I said that I don't see it. Maybe it is there. How would I know? I can take your word for it, but for all I know, you may have your own agenda. I know I am a weird player, but I have to say that I was really shocked to read all these reports of hacking when that was something I never experienced. If I did see it, I'd avoid the people doing it. There are plenty of zones to go to that don't have any other players in them at all. Hacking destroys any purpose in playing at all. Buying items, pp, and accounts makes playing sort of pointless too. I wouldn't do those things. I wouldn't knowingly play with someone who did those things. (I don't really do PUGs, so that's not much of an issue.)
Am I supposed to get outraged and quit because people I don't know are doing something that I don't see that has no effect on my game experience at all?
It occurs to me now that there is a lot of instancing in the game now, so maybe all sorts of stuff is going on that I have never seen. People don't see me three-boxing LDoNs with my 30-something level characters, after all. It's the perfect place to hide how bad I am at it.
So, y'all may be right.
I didn't use the bazaar, so I have no idea how the game economy is. I can see how hacking would wreck it, though, for people who buy stuff from other players. Only wearing what I loot, quest, or can get crafted by a friend at a cheap rate by friends (providing my own items to be combined), was one of the ways I kept myself from getting bored with a game without doing any raiding to speak of. Did it disadvantage me? Yes. Did I care that I was not in top gear? No. I really don't care what other players are doing. Every single upgrade I got was a big deal to me, and that made it worth continuing to play when the game could have otherwise gotten very stale a long time ago. Sometimes you have to make your own fun.
I was very social with a few other married people about my age with kids, mostly in tells, mostly about out-of-game stuff, but otherwise, I didn't talk to many people. That, combined with the instancing, probably helped hide a whole lot of stuff from me.
Not that it matters to me. I don't play EQ1 anymore. I don't foresee playing any MMORPGs in my near future. I've got Shadowbane and VCO installed on this ancient laptop, but I haven't logged into either. What I've really been playing lately is Roller Coaster Tycoon. Perhaps I should just keep playing that until Spore is released, whenever that is, if the whole MMORPG genre, and particularly the game I enjoyed best, are so plagued by these problems.
(PS... I can see the temptation to use hacks that give you levels and AAs, since grinding that stuff out can get massively tedious. I know I hates it. I still wouldn't do it... but I can see why a person might want to.)
(PPS... Can you tell I am bored today? Nothing like starting a skirmish when you ought to be painting the dining room. Paiting makes my husband cuss, so I thought I'd do it while he's at work. Wish me luck. I suck at this too.
)
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This is where I draw the line: __________________.
The wife and I started over. We had one of those moments, yes, one of THOSE moments and decided that what we wanted was a fresh start.
We picked a server, almost at random. This way it's not one where we can raid the shared bank slot. We've never played on this server before, so the character slots are blank. We each picked a class that we wanted to play, but different from our mains.
She a Halfling, Druid.
Me a Gnome, Mage.
We opted to accept the default starting city (Crescent Reach), instead of our home towns. Then we decided to accept the Tutorial - for the newb gear. Then we started to play.
We spent about 3 hours in Glooming Deep and only grouped up for the last 45 minutes. During that time we saw appx 25 other players - at least one was new to the game (based on chat). Speaking of Chat, there was a constant stream of /ooc. Folks offering up rotting loot, offering groups for named encounters, and general food discussion.
During our 3 hours (appx), with about 27 players in the zone, we didn't notice anyone hacking. Only noticed one twinker. Didn't catch anyone or even hear of anyone ninja looting or kill stealing, or even cockblocking.
Neither of us died, so I can't speak of what the CR is like inside the tutorial - the wife did notice, when she dinged 6 (?) she got a message regarding having to do CR's now.
We have a few more tasks inside Glooming Deep, before we'll be ready for Crescent Reach. But from our cursory play, we didn't experience any of the negatives that I've been reading about.
Which doesn't mean they don't exist, and most certainly doesn't mean that I approve of them. It means, literally, that I didn't see it.
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
You most likely wouldn't see any hackers doing the tutorial zone. Anyone that is hacking and starting a new toon will have him twinked and most likely in a higher zone getting powerleveled.
I played up until GoD. My guild was leading progression on the server and then the hax started popping up everywhere. After a few more months it seemed like everyone I knew hacked or benefited from a hacker. It ruined the challenge of the game and I dropped it for DAOC I think.
I am surprised that you saw 25 noobs in the zone during your playtime.
Exactly right. It is really bad. In fact, it is astonishing the amount of hacking in EQ and how widespread it really is.
Remember, though, that the zerg-guilds (they want us to call them "uber," because they call themselves that) who opened the expansions first were using hacks to do it. The zerg-guilds were using a variety of hacks and cheats and third party programs to find rare mobs. Warp to them before others could. And so forth. It was an ego thing to open the expansions, a real-life ego thing. So, they were doing it, with the tacit assent of SOE, by using hacks, cheats, and third party programs. I say SOE consents to hacking, cheats, and third party programs because it is so rampant and widespread that there is no other way.
Nevertheless, make no doubt it, SOE will suspend you if you hack, cheat, or use third party programs. It is quite rare. I have met only a few people who were suspended. Some cheats like warping, teleporting/gating with any class, the ability to track with any class, and so forth are not even noticed and will not earn you a suspension. Other hacks and cheats will. You just have to be careful about it. It is not so much talked about in the game because it is sort of a hush-hush environment about it. I think SOE wants it that way. Luckily, MMORPG allows is to express the truth about how truly astonishing and widespread hacking, cheating, and the use of third party programs are in EQ 1.
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WoW and fast food = commercial successes.
I neither play WoW nor eat fast food.
A lot and I mean A LOT of people hack in EQ, it's much much worse than WoW.
But I'll keep you posted and we'll compare my experiences with yours
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
Well, you need a third party program to see the hacking.
People are not all using the same hacks, though. In Everquest, you have a variety of third party programs, hacks, and cheats. People are not all using the same ones. Some are more popular than others. However, a lot of people warp and teleport. Most people use third party programs to track with any class, teleport with any class, and to warp with any class. When you are able to observe the amount of people using this program, it is quite shocking....
Boycott EA Games. RIP Sim City.
I was just pointing out, as was neschria, that if what is quoted above were true... you'd think even we would see it - I haven't. Either at the high end of the game, with my main, or at the bottom end with my newbies.But I'll keep you posted and we'll compare my experiences with yours
Oh wow, if you can't spot it or haven't even noticed it yet, it's because you don't know how people do it or just unaware of it.
Tracking mobs is something that lots of people do, the program just gives you the list with mobs that are up or not.
Warping lets you warp to any spot you want , just type in location.
Underground killing lets you kill mobs underground where they can't hit you, you can kill raid mobs np with this, just go to an instanced zone and GM's won't even know you are doing it because they rarely check instances.
Bots lets you make combines while afk, just stack up on items and go afk.
etc..the list of plug-ins is huge, you can get anything you want hacked in eq.
There is more hacking in eq than in Lineage and WoW combined.
And the best thing of all this? You don't even get banned if they ever catch you, you get a warning lol. Even better is that there are so little GM's and so many ppl hacking that the chance of getting caught are so small.
I was going to post a log of my journey, with my wife, back up through the levels of EQ. But I see that this is such nebulos issue, something that can't be actually identified and listed out, that there is really no way to prove or disprove it.
You say it's rampant!
I say it's not!
You say it's allowed and tolerated.
I say it's bannable and you will be banned.
There is no way to clarify this issue. I'm going back to my original post/opinion:
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
What if, they gave us a new world and the same game?
The hacking bothers me, it's one of a few reasons I won't return. It's rampant. Still, I am happy that at one point in this game, I was almost god-like (in terms of power and status) - without the use hacks or buying plat or anything. Nothing since has compared to that feeling of uberness. I've come close in WoW, but not close enough. Oh well.
WTB time-travel to 1999.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
Here we go again lots of inuendo and a couple of anecdotes from a few anonymous internet posters who don't actually play the game anymore going on about all the hacking with completely unsubstanciated claims of such BS as 70% of the population hacking.
70% of the people playing these games are doing good to find the icon to launch the game yet we are supposed to believe that these people are going out and hunting down scripts and installing ShowEQ and taking the risk of baning.
I can easily beleive that there are cheaters in the game, there have been and will always be dishonest people. But claims of 70% or that hacking is rampant is simply rhetorical garbage not supported by reality.
I play at the highest level of raiding and I know not one person in my guild would dare admit to hacking it is that looked down upon. We ran the one hacker we caught in our guild off the server and still make jokes at his expense.
All I see here is a few people badmouthing a game that they don't even play. One of whom promotes a game that is essentially a great big pattent/copyright violation provided by people who are profiting off other peoples labors and then has the nerve to talk about hackers.
What I see the moore of is accusations of hacking generally by someone who's upset about others who are more capable than they are. While I haven't ever seen a hacker in action myself I've certainly been accused of it. Simply because I can play 3 toons effectively at the same time.
All I see here are empty accusations .
The game has problems that is admitable but hacking isn't any more epidemic in EQ than it is in any other MMORPG and Sony does indeed work regularly to try to combat the ones who do hack. Hell do to these threads I actually bothered to do a little research on the subject and atm ShowEQ is busted do to changes EQ made to their encryption algorithims to deal with the little script babies who were ghosting said changes have busted the linux version and most certainly killed the hacking you are talking about.
Regardless the reality is that there will always be a small number of people who are willing to break the rules they exist everywhere in this world and it is idealistic to the extreme to expect that aspect of life not to enter a video game.
All a game developer can do is make it as hard as possible to do so and punish the offenders when they are caught. There is nothing more they can do than perma banning them. At least at the moment cheating in a video game is not against the law so the most Sony can do in this case is perma ban those they catch.
And that is a daunting task because contrary to all the BS in these threads here it isn't really that common and also it can be dificult to discern legitimate play from hacking especially with all the eVigilanties running around tying up GM time reporting legitimate play becaue they just can't believe that some one could "Do that" when they can't. Such as the guy who accused me of macroquesting when I was 3 boxing a camp in NC.
The truth is that cheating just isn't that common sure it takes place but it sure as hell hasn't reached the epidemic proportions that certain posters in this thread claim.
What a bunch of BS.
Everyone uses MQ to look up spawns and tracks. Hacking is everywher in Everquest. Everywhere.
At night there is about 1GM for every server. 1 for 15 or so servers.
Everyone hacks in EQ.
Once again, I'm left behind!
I actually had never heard of MacroQuest until you posted it, I googled it... now I know.
And I don't use it. Never heard of it. Don't know anybody who does. And I'm not going to start now.
I did find it interesting, however, that this illicit application is threatening other illicit software coders with legal action, for duplicating their program <lol>
Newark
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My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me.
I have no ill feelings toward EQ1 - it was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. I have no desire to insult the game or it's players, but the unfortunate truth is that cheating is rampant. Until WoW came along, not only were we playing at the highest level ('yeah yeah', everyone says this you say), I was leading my guild at the highest level, the top guild (progression-wise) on my server for a period of time. I was blissfully unaware that my competition and even my guildies were sniffing packets, or blocking packets, or abusing the netcode in some fashion.
For a long time, I was as naive as many EQ players are now, who simply don't notice the cheating going on around them. Yet one day the bubble burst, and I discovered that virtually all end game guilds had at least someone - whether leadership knew it or not - that cheated on a regular basis, with direct benefit the guild.
The big problem is that some people don't regard what they're doing as cheating - ShowEQ, messing with packets, running macros, and other stuff is perfectly legitimate to them. They pay the subscription, so they play how they want. They're morons, but that's what they believe. They also attempt to legitimize what they do by reckoning that if everyone else does it, so should they.
Someone in my guild was suspended, though he wouldn't tell me why, and after investigation I found out this awesome scout for boss mobs (checking if they were up), wasn't quite so awesome. Instead of just ;tracking' the mob he'd stupidly done some dodgy warping or some-such to reach a place that couldn't be sneaked to, or tracked by normal means using some kind of dodgy variant of MQ, and he was caught.
Few people would admit to cheating in EQ, especially if they are still heavily invested in the game. In WoW, my old guildies would confide in me "I used show EQ all the time, how else did you think I knew when X mob was up?", "we used MQ to farm AA while AFK", and other such confessions.
Cheating is rampant in Everquest at the high end, the 5+ raids-a-week guilds at the very least. Macroing is also highly used by plat farmers, and multi-boxers. I actually had a conversation with someone who thought it was perfectly OK for them to be using macros to automate the cleric and the enchanter he was boxing because playing them was "boring", and thus wasn't cheating. Jesus Christ, and the MQ community wonders why everyone thinks they're retards?
Some players have a reputation in EQ for doing amazing things, for being amazing players. Some of them are geniune, other's aren't. I actually know names of a couple players that still cheat on my old server, and they probably deserved to be named, but it would just kick up a shitstorm and I have no real way to prove it.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
Man, I was just dropping in to see what was going on with EQ - this was the last thing I expected to read about - very very sad. I know back in the day I never heard about hacking or any of that stuff. The world was wonderous, large and awesome - now it's just hacks and after wow, seems so slow and dated. Too bad EQ I miss the wonder days...
Let me tell you about EQ 1 hacking as a former raid-guild leader.
To say I was shocked by the amount of people hacking is an understatement. Let me say a thing or two. I knew my Raid Officer hacked. As the Chief Officer, I would instruct him to check on raid mobs. I knew he was using some sort of hack or cheat. I never knew specifically what as he never told me, still has not although we since sort of "fallen out" after our guild merged with a different guild. The raiding in EQ 1 split guilds, and sometimes even families online. My official guild policy, in my own guild charter, was that "the use of hacks, cheats, and third party programs provide undue advantages and are not acceptable in our guild." I wrote it.
Edit: btw, he would check on other mobs for us as well such as the dragons that dropped Cloaks of Cyrstalline Waters, mobs for keying, and so forth. It helped our guild, and our friends, a lot. I do not regret it.
One thing upsets me about EQ 1 hacking. Well, a lot of things do. But what upsets me the most is how hush-hush everyone is about it. My own Officers, with the exception my Raid Officer, were all mostly using these programs, cheats, and hacks. They never told me about it. But they talked with each other about it. My Raid Officer knew who was and who was not hacking, but he never told me about it. These are people I have spoken with on the phone several times for at least over a period of two years. They kept hacking even from me. People whom I said were my "friends." When an Officer of mine, finally, later, shared with me the third party program that around 70% if not more of the server was using, I was and remain totally shocked by the amount of people hacking. It is almost unbelievable. If I did not see it with my own eyes, and how much in the dark I was about it, I would not have believed it.
Edit 2: one reason why I heard people are hush-hush about hacking is that sharing a certain third-party program, if they find out you share it, can get your IP address banned. Every time EQ 1 patches, the third party programs also update. And to update you need a subscription and they can see your IP address or something. At least that is what I heard. So they have an incentive. I never subscribed to a cheat, hack, or third party program web page. A friend of mine, an Officer in my guild, who did told me that. I believe him but never really looked much more into it.
The fact that at least 70 percent of EQ 1's population hacks, or uses some cheat or third party program, is simply shameful. I am happy I play on the FREE, hack-free, and "private" EQ 1 server. It is as close to a classic EQ 1 game as you can experience it.
Boycott EA Games. RIP Sim City.
lol yeah,
They can use the program to cheat, but anyone that actually gives out a fully compiled or altered version gets banned, and IP-banned like some other person mentioned.
There's tons of sites with compiled MQ2 versions though.
It's getting too much out of hand for me. Gear becomes more meaningless the more you start to realize just how many cheat and just how "hush - hush" everyone is still about it.
That's kinda the difference between eq and wow on hacking. In wow some cheat, but the ones that do, aren't all hush-hush about it, and everyone knows about it. In EQ, tons of people cheat, knowing everyone else does too, but it's still "hush-hush" attitude. That really got to me when I found out how many actually cheat.
You really can't tell unless you know how the program works, and you start to realise how people know mobs that are up so fast, how come noone in group finds it weird that the monk without track suddenly knows what mobsa are up....how come that person was on that spot a sec ago and is now on that spot a sec later....did he just lag or is he warping....etc.
People need the new MQ2 version every time EQ patches, and if they're banned from the site they won't get their updated MQ2.
There are more sites that are distributing the compiled versions now though, but most get it directly from the site, that will ban people if they speak about it in EQ.
Once agani just a bunch of empty rhetoric and anecdotes from a small number of people with a bone to pick. Absolutely no evidence to back their assertions up and a convineint conspiracy theory to explain the lack of said evidence.
The reality is simple the assertion that 70% of the people who play EQ hack is pattently false. Now there may be a lot of people who do run MQ or the windows version of ShowEQ (show EQ has actually itself been busted since the packet security changes made a few month back to stop ghosters) but to assert something as rediculous as 70% of everone who plays is a cheater/hacker is just assinine. It's something that is as obviously false as saying Unicorns are living in your back yard and you have about as much evidence to support the assertion.
You don't want to play the game because your afraid someone might have some sort of advantage over you or because you percieved alot of cheating going on around you that's fine. but to make some silly claim like "70% of all EQ are Cheating" is just slander. You are basically calling me and my guild and all hte other guilds and everyone else who plays cheaters.
Of course you don't include yourself in that 70% you imagine after all you only ever heard about cheaters and you were so agast after finding out that you not only couldn't bring yourself to play the game but ot go on a crusade to bring this knowledge to others while promoting a game that is nothing but a big hack anyway.
In case anyone happens to read this that hasn't already developed an opinion on the game. Just consider this are 70% of the people you know theives? Do 70% of them lie cheat and steal habitually? If so then perhaps you can buy into this 70% garbage. But as for me I'm not going to believe any baseless assertions that have no foundation outside of anecdotes of people with an obvious axe to grind and that flies in the face of observed reality.
In the end Observed reality trumps anecdote.