Sony Webcast about cheating crackdown

[SiegeTank]

Not sure how many of you have watched this. It's kinda long, over 30 minutes, and the implicit gloating about the crackdown can be hard to stomach at times. But the Sony people make some interesting comments. They also make some surprising admissions... like admitting that they will never be able to stop cheating entirely, the best they can do is beat it down from time to time like they've done recently. They claim to "hate" plat vendors and make the surely exaggerated claim that "most" cases of account theft are committed by plat sellers who strip the stolen accounts of plat and tradeable gear and even sell the toons involved.

They admit that their goal isn't to ban cheaters immediately... in most cases they went with 3-day suspension, followed by 7-day and only a complete ban after that or in the case of extreme cheaters who they felt were "beyond redemption."

Wilcox, the CS director, says it wasn't unusual for a suspended player to call in, basically admit to their cheating and then threaten to cancel their account if Sony continues to detect and punish cheating! Hard to believe anyone HERE would be dumb enough to make that call!

Interesting discussion about requests for a "Discord" or indeed "Anarchy" server where cheating would be tolerated and GMs would be totally uninvolved except "perhaps" (and this was doubtlessly a joke) to log in once in a while and just randomly delete all the gear of some randomly selected players, presumably to make the server a true anarchic realm. LOL. I think a server this crazy would have some potential... at least, like Wilcox said, for the first few hours.

Check out the video. Given the stress this crackdown has caused our community, it's somewhat strangely reassuring to see the human beings on the other side and the fact that they come across as sincere in trying to keep the playing field level for all players. The webcast is on EQ's Youtube page,

www.youtube.com/user/soevideos

 

[Lorekeeper]

It amused me so hard how they called us idiots, yet they only got 1/33482934th of us? And I didn't even hide it!

 

[Fry]

This was very awkward to watch but very informative to know what the views they have on some of the subjects.

Think the best line of it was when the producer said there was lot of "whining" then backtracked and called it complaints. Then the whole double standard of you can get friends to powerlevel you, you can buy station cash items, but if you buy plat from a plat seller, or pay for powerleveling, you are getting an unfair advantage over players so you are in trouble but seemed they only cared about cleaning up spamming rather than plat seller/powerlevelers themselves.

In my view it really does feel like they are out of touch with the game. The whole thing made me feel a lot more confidant that they have no idea what they are doing in terms with catching cheaters. They are out manned, out smarted and out motivated.

 

[orion949]

Im sure everyone here already knows that the mantle of "Dirty Cheater" rests easy on my shoulders and I'll claim it all day long. Still, I dont mess with other players. Ever. Thats not why Im an MQ2er. I use MQ2 to run my box crew and eliminate as much of the mundane part of EQ as I can so I can enjoy the things I want to enjoy. As is the case with many many other MQ2ers out there.

So, that being said, as I listened to these clueless annoying ass douche wipes on this web cast I was actually brought to a state of anger. These ass licking, narrow minded, oblivious, condescending, morons need to be collectively dumped off a thousand foot high cliff. They have no fucking clue what the fuck they are talking about.

After listening to these slobbering fags (and the one annoying ass fat bitch) I can only conclude that either they dont actually play EQ or if they do play they sure as fuck aren't playing the same game I am.

 

[rob]

There is a lot of stuff there if you read between the lines. For example, the devs/business don't seem to care about plat sellers or PLers. Their biggest concerns seemed to be spam and fraud. The CS team, on the other hand, thinks plat sellers are the devil and will hunt them to the end of days.

 

[orion949]

It seems that far and away the biggest issue for all involved was the insane blatant hacking on the open world TLP servers. Dumb fucks actually warping to highly contested raid mobs to gank them and retarded shit like that which literally enrages other players.

It seems very apparent in this webcast that the open world TLP hacking led to a HUGE volume of CS complaints against hackers and general discontent and uproar within the non hacking EQ player base. So its the same old lesson here that we have seen over and over. Hack for your own purposes and leave other players game experience unaffected and I would bet SOE wouldnt pay an ounce of attention or one line of code to fight hackers because it would be a non-issue.

So to you stupid ass open world hackers, player griefers, ninja looters, and mob stealers......FUCK YOU very much!

 

[htw]

When I had watched it, I was either yawning and playing spider solitaire, or chuckling.

It wasn't very well ran or produced. Also, whoever owned the tech side, my 15 year old daughter could do a better job - I mean come on, guy #1 sound not too bad, guy #2 scratchy & cutting out, the woman talks and blasts hell out of me, etc.

I did find it amusing when the producer said there was a lot of "whining" about cheaters - OOPS! Ahem... 'complaints'.

Also, I wonder if non-cheaters believed it when they said, they have a hard time catching some, because when a GM zones in, the cheater gets alerted, and stops cheating. Whut? WHUT? LOL, we know better than that!

Oh well, it was amusing overall. I also won 4 suit spider 3 times during that 30 minutes!

htw

 

[htw]

It seems that far and away the biggest issue for all involved was the insane blatant hacking on the open world TLP servers. Dumb fucks actually warping to highly contested raid mobs to gank them and retarded shit like that which literally enrages other players.

It seems very apparent in this webcast that the open world TLP hacking led to a HUGE volume of CS complaints against hackers and general discontent and uproar within the non hacking EQ player base. So its the same old lesson here that we have seen over and over. Hack for your own purposes and leave other players game experience unaffected and I would bet SOE wouldnt pay an ounce of attention or one line of code to fight hackers because it would be a non-issue.

So to you stupid ass open world hackers, player griefers, ninja looters, and mob stealers......FUCK YOU very much!

Funny you say that, we were discussing that very thing last night in IRC. I have the same opinion. Evening chain zone was always said to limit its use on TLP. You don't warp past a zone of people, or a couple groups, and hit that named.

Hell, we even have had MQ2'ers here admit that they /report people like that - even though they use MQ2. Those are in fact the ones best equipped to notice other cheaters.

htw

 

[orion949]

It seems that far and away the biggest issue for all involved was the insane blatant hacking on the open world TLP servers. Dumb fucks actually warping to highly contested raid mobs to gank them and retarded shit like that which literally enrages other players.

It seems very apparent in this webcast that the open world TLP hacking led to a HUGE volume of CS complaints against hackers and general discontent and uproar within the non hacking EQ player base. So its the same old lesson here that we have seen over and over. Hack for your own purposes and leave other players game experience unaffected and I would bet SOE wouldnt pay an ounce of attention or one line of code to fight hackers because it would be a non-issue.

So to you stupid ass open world hackers, player griefers, ninja looters, and mob stealers......FUCK YOU very much!

Funny you say that, we were discussing that very thing last night in IRC. I have the same opinion. Evening chain zone was always said to limit its use on TLP. You don't warp past a zone of people, or a couple groups, and hit that named.

Hell, we even have had MQ2'ers here admit that they /report people like that - even though they use MQ2. Those are in fact the ones best equipped to notice other cheaters.

htw

It is just mind blowing the shit that I have seen and heard of people doing day to day but this whole madness on the TLP just goes beyond the level of retarded.

Honestly, how could the devs NOT take some kind of aggressive action to smack down cheating with crazy ass shit going on like this? Shit so stupidly obvious in a highly populated, completely open world, with massive competition for mobs/quests that enrages normal players and caused their already pathetically understaffed CS to get blown up with complaints?

I think, listening to how lenient they are openly being with the whole "we want you to stop so you get a 1st Warning, 2nd Suspension, 3rd longer Suspension, followed by last resort of a ban" deal, shows us that the only thing they really gave a damn about was the effects the hacking was having on real players and that has forced them to try and make it stop one way or another but with the banning being the very very last resort even still.

Probably the only logical thing said on this asstard webcast was when they alluded to the concept of losing the revenue of "real players" because of their pure frustration with hackers vs. losing some hackers due to huge bans.

This makes sense only when we are in a time like this when you have something like TLP where old school "pureists" have flocked to and alot of former players re-subbed to get that "old EQ feel" back and relive the glory days, only to discover that the place is infested with hacking, cheating, scum bags that make their game experience hell.

In a world where hackers "Cheat Smart" and the "normal players" dont even notice that we are even HERE because we mind our own business in empty zones or instances and never bother a soul. In a world where there are never any CS complaints lodged for having some dirty hacker fuck your game up, why would they ever ban us and lose our revinue?

Its so easy for them to detect the cheaters with log parses but they dont ever clamp down until things get too retarded/too public and then that pendulum swings in favor of the non-hacker paying player base as to just whose revinue they are in danger of losing.

So in essence, we are our only enemy here, because without us giving them a reason to target us, they never would. Certainly not on just the all noble and good "principle" of finding cheaters. The dont give a FUCK about cheaters. What they give a fuck about is cheaters messing with the other segment of their PAYING player base and causing asspain for everyone from the GMs to the CSRs.

 

[Dealings]

What they give a fuck about is cheaters messing with the other segment of their PAYING player base and causing asspain for everyone from the GMs to the CSRs

then go after those fucks, hell Id go further and say any asshat that is rocking the boat for non users AND users of MQ

send them on their way, black list them and be done w it in EQ and here.

Although this may be a site w hack or cheats associated in it the overwhelming majority arent fucktards out to piss on everyone elses coffee.

 

[Sum1]

What they give a fuck about is cheaters messing with the other segment of their PAYING player base and causing asspain for everyone from the GMs to the CSRs

then go after those fucks, hell Id go further and say any asshat that is rocking the boat for non users AND users of MQ

send them on their way, black list them and be done w it in EQ and here.

Although this may be a site w hack or cheats associated in it the overwhelming majority arent fucktards out to piss on everyone elses coffee.

That's why if I ever see anyone doing anything REALLY blatant or REALLY fucking with other people I will report/petition them. I don't subscribe to the whole "we're both cheaters, so I don't have the right to tell on you" ideal. If you're minding your own business, piggyzoning, warping across a zone or to a quest giver, etc you're cool and we're fine. If you use mq2melee and macros to automate a group, you're cool and we're fine. If you train, warp directly to named mobs, camp steal and then setup a 24/7 afk kill group, or any of a myriad of other assfuckery things, I'll petition your ass in a second.

Although, in the spirit of fair and balanced reporting, I will admit that may inadvertently draw some of that attention that was mentioned in above posts.

 

[Candygirl]

I only watched about twenty minutes of it. Curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to hear what they'd say this time, but really...it was a joke. I agree that the open world hackers, ninja looters, etc are the problem, nothing new. It's just a situation where MQ in the wrong hands is occasionally going to put a damper on things for the rest of us.

To me it's kind of like pot...can't eliminate it, may as well try to regulate it. Why can't they allow the use of MQ, but not the gating, warping, etc? It seems silly for them to insist we're all losers, and then you use similar shit in another game, tradeskill stuff, etc (Curse client), and no one cares. I just wish there could be a compromise and the use of MQ wasn't so vilified, but again....abuse of MQ negates any chance of acceptance.

 

[Zeta1]

The whole thing made me feel a lot more confidant that they have no idea what they are doing in terms with catching cheaters. They are out manned, out smarted and out motivated.

 

[devestator]

The thing that caught my attention was the statement that they said that less than half of 1% of the userbase were cheating. I find that incredibly difficult to believe, and attribute to them just not wanting to admit the real percentage and trying to make non cheaters think it's a miniscule number not worth mentioning.

We know from their gloat post on eqplayers that they suspended over 700 accounts, so if we said that 700 accounts was .5% of the player base, that means the player base of EQ is over 140k subscribers, I just find it hard to believe that they have that many subscriptions in EQ unless there are a LOT of subscriptions out there that don't ever get logged on.

Or maybe they were claiming .5% of cheaters across all SOE games, that might be more believable lol.

 

[JimJohnson]

The thing that caught my attention was the statement that they said that less than half of 1% of the userbase were cheating. I find that incredibly difficult to believe, and attribute to them just not wanting to admit the real percentage and trying to make non cheaters think it's a miniscule number not worth mentioning.

We know from their gloat post on eqplayers that they suspended over 700 accounts, so if we said that 700 accounts was .5% of the player base, that means the player base of EQ is over 140k subscribers, I just find it hard to believe that they have that many subscriptions in EQ unless there are a LOT of subscriptions out there that don't ever get logged on.

Or maybe they were claiming .5% of cheaters across all SOE games, that might be more believable lol.

The thing they used that to base it on was the number of people on forums.
I do not think that counts for active subs either.

 

[jjl7]

holy hell hahahhaa i think i just herd the guy say im ugly barbarian and i wasnt wareing my kilt to that woman !. i think that was his pickup line! hahaha wow thought this was a funny ass video watching how them sony nerds carry them selfs and how they think just fuckin amazingly hilarious imho. no offense to anyone that thinks they are a nerd . your only what you belive yourself to be.

 

[SiegeTank]

Sony should hire ONLY sleek, slim, very attractive women to give the illusion that playing MMORPGS is a good way to meet sleek, slim, very attractive chicks!

 

[cudacuf]

Sony should hire ONLY sleek, slim, very attractive women to give the illusion that playing MMORPGS is a good way to meet sleek, slim, very attractive chicks!

There are no women on the Interwebs.

 

[Biomedic]

It amazes me that these guys think they'll be able to keep up with how fast the crew here on MMO will circumnavigate this.

The amount of people who are on here and work out of sheer passion and personal motivation ---> Sony's staff

 

[almightymikeyp]

Progression

I can't help but think a contributing factor to the crackdown on the cheating is partly due to the fact that people are crying all day long on the progression servers. Some of the more retarded people on this site decide to form guilds that allow open MQ use during raids and what not, and they use it to jump other guilds for an opportunity at a raid target. I watched this happen on a regular basis when I played on progression until a couple months ago. The fact of the matter is that entire raids warping on top of a raid mob right in front of another guild while that guild has fraps and GMs laying in wait is ridiculous. Later in the game, what guilds choose to do in instanced raids is their decision, but when it adversely affects everyone else's experiences, that is when Sony has to get involved. Honestly, I can't say I blame them for the crackdown with the volume of petitions they get from the progression servers. It would piss me off too if I was working for them. The morons misusing MQ2 deserve to be suspended or even banned in my opinion, but the rest of us who don't bother anyone by using it quietly behind the scenes are paying the price for their idiocy.