Is Cheating O.K.?

[Strokker]

Nuf said Big-N I will not ask again as I do not want to be misconstrued as to wrangling you into a legal battle, nor do I want to put you on the spot. From this point on I will not AFK Forrage untill it has been proven that it does not violate the EULA, but I more than likely will be watching a movie...lol

[Twistagain]

Fact of life? That just reinforces the arguement that macros are being used too much and SOE is doing not enough about it. Keep the game clean, police up the peeps exploiting and breaking rules, and play honest....it's more fun because it's more challenging. 110p for fruit? Hmmm, my ranger would like that very much

Ah...but that wasn't the question I asked. I asked how you'd like to PAY 100p for fruit. Of course your ranger would like it.

[Maevenniia]

As Ngreth has said, cheating is NOT OK.

AFK auto-foraging is cheating.

Notice I said AFK...

I believe that SOE is not about to forbid the use of gamepads or keyboards that allow you to trigger a key-press automatically because there are people that truly need this, due to Repetetive Streess injury/Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, or physical disabilities (ex: arthritis, amputation, paralysis) that limit their abilities to a certain extent, and if they ban folks who use them they risk getting sued for discrimination...

So, they turn a blind eye to these devices, AS LONG AS THE PLAYER IS AT THE KEYBOARD.

And since you can't tell who is healthy and who is not through a computer screen, such devices will get used by people who don’t truly “need” them.

Personally, I don't afk forage, I'm too busy playing my wizard to level my baby druid up to forage in teh higher level zones, and since the druid is on teh same account as my wizard, it still wouldn't do me any good.

[Yammez]

Ah...but that wasn't the question I asked. I asked how you'd like to PAY 100p for fruit. Of course your ranger would like it.

Every tradeskiller has paid a ridiculous price for something that they were either too lazy to get for themselves or could not get it for whatever reason. Asking how much I will pay for fruit is ridiculous since it just conjures up the old, brow-beaten discussion of what is price gouging blah blah blah. Everything, except vendor bought items, are FREE. Just go out and get em, make a ranger/druid, and you won't ever have to worry about paying me 100p for my fruit

[Twistagain]

Asking how much I will pay for fruit is ridiculous since it just conjures up the old, brow-beaten discussion of what is price gouging blah blah blah.

Um...thanks. I don't believe it's ridiculous at all. I'm simply trying to show that the cheating that *IS* going on (whether it should or not is irrelevant in this example) already "influences" the market. The market we are used to (and price by) is partially based upon cheating prices (AFK-foraged items.) If you take this away, it will impact the market...just as you seem to think that the market will be impacted if they officially allow the behavior.

[Yammez]

If you take this away, it will impact the market...just as you seem to think that the market will be impacted if they officially allow the behavior.

Um, I never advocate cheating. Im lost as to how you deduced that I am. It's pretty clear from posts that I very much despise cheating since it degenerates games into crap by taking away the challenge inherent in the game. And, no kidding it would impact the market. It would make things a little more difficult to get, cost a bit more, and reinstitute the challenge of tradeskilling that the developers continually strive to provide. I say, get rid of the cheating and bring back a game full of challenges as it was meant to be and stop bowing down to the brats who like cheat codes and the fast-track to *uberness*. BAH I SAY! Work for it. While Im thinking of it, make me a GM to police people up hehehe. Now that would be fun!

[Twistagain]

Um, I never advocate cheating. Im lost as to how you deduced that I am. It's pretty clear from posts that I very much despise cheating since it degenerates games into crap by taking away the challenge inherent in the game.

I really have no idea where you got that I think you are advocating cheating. You are absolutely correct that it is pretty clear that you don't. (Which, I might add, is a reasonable viewpoint with which I don't disagree. I just don't think that some of the people who are screaming "BAN" are thinking through what this might mean to their ecomony. Especially when a lot of those same people are the ones complaing about the inflation of tradeskill ingredients. This would just make that inflation worse.)

As far as making the game more challenging...well, I don't think this has much effect in that arena. It just makes the foraged goods more expensive (or makes one have to create a forager to get them). I thoroughly DON'T get the call to make tradeskills "more challenging" by making them more expensive or requiring materials that are out of the reach of some (but easily obtainable by others.) Want to make it challenging? Do something along the lines of EQ2 (but different) where you have to stand over the stove, mix in just the right ingredients at just the right time in just the right amount, etc.

Challenging != more expensive (or more time-consuming).

That just makes the farming/foraging (for goods and/or cash) more boring.

[Sharrien]

Or perhaps it takes being on line at the right time after a borked up patch and lacking a moral compass that would say how wrong it is to buy tradeskill items from the beta venders who appeared in PoK today.

SHAME!! SHAME! Shame on all who debased yourselves today!

And go****** SoE, figure out how to fix this or roll it the hell back!

[Heynanni]

I was wondering how all of a sudden my buyer had bought 245 othmir furs from one person when I hadn't bought any for over a month. GRRRR If they don't fix this there's gonna be a lot of tradeskillers quitting...

[Maevenniia]

I was wondering how all of a sudden my buyer had bought 245 othmir furs from one person when I hadn't bought any for over a month. GRRRR If they don't fix this there's gonna be a lot of tradeskillers quitting...

Don't go using those furs. Write down how much you paid for them too, so that if they roll you back to take away the furs, you can verify that they also refund you your money. You didn't exploit this bug but you've been involuntarily involved in it.

See below, esp. the bolded part:

SOE posted the following:

This morning we had an error with the update that resulted in merchants, and subsequent items, in the Plane of Knowledge that should not have been appearing in the world. In order to address this we will be performing selective and aggressive rollbacks of certain characters throughout the day. There will be multiple phases and some characters may be subject to multiple adjustments. If you believe that you have been involved in any way (even indirectly) then please consider holding off your playtime until tomorrow. We apologize for the inconvenience and we are resolving this in the most complete way possible while minimizing the impact on the majority of the customers.

[Heynanni]

I appreciate the advice, though I don't anticipate getting the money back if I get rolled back. Last month I was transferring stuff from my buyer to my hubby's trader and money back to me- bazaar got laggy and the trade got messed up. We petitioned and never got any of it back (about 20K plat and 3 feran blood) They said they didn't have a record of the trade in their logs, which is odd because we had the trade window open for at least 5 mins trying to figure out why my hubby wasn't seeing the feran blood show up in the window when I saw it on mine. I'm not optimistic, but I wont play until tomorrow night just in case.

[mithridate]

From the initial post, it seems that the poster was in no way [negatively] effected. In the first instance, the alleged cheater left, and in the second, the alleged cheater was not shown to be connected to a bazaar seller. So, why waste any amount of time caring what someone who does nothing to slight either an individual or the world-at-large? Why the self-righteous indignation?

As far as SOE goes, I imagine it's simply a matter of priorities. I don't believe anyone at SOE should waste even a minute of time trying to stop AFK-foragers or other, non-destabilizing "cheats." That being said, I agree that cheats that could unbalance or negatively impact players should be negated. Also, people who use cheats to grief people or KS should be dealt with severely on a case-by-case basis, in my opinion. However, I wouldn't simply take some player's word for it, as many players cry wolf when they do not understand what all can be achieved legally with a bit of skill, gear, and knowledge about game mechanics.

Instead of catering to the very vocal, but very small holier-than-thou crowd, I think time would be better spent fixing bugs, addressing legitimate balance complaints or upgrading content -- you know, the real issues!

[Flatley]

Firstly, I don't agree with cheats, exploits and the like. However SOE seems to pay attention to what kinds of cheating takes place. Look at the changes in the game over the last couple of years:

1. Ranger Track
2. Tradeskill Interface
3. Autofire
4. PoK as an alternative to Druid/Wizard ports
5. The Bazaar
6. Guild Interface
7. In Game Mail
8. Guild Lobby corpse summoning
9. Vendor sold potions

Many of these used to only be available in some format as part of cheats. The ones that enhance game play rather than detract from it become incorporated in the basic load for the game.

Also Magelo is technically a cheat, because it uses a third party software. Now SOE has brought out EQPlayers with a similar feature.

Cheating IS wrong, but ir also seems to be part of what helps develop the game.

[Xenephex]

Or perhaps it takes being on line at the right time after a borked up patch and lacking a moral compass that would say how wrong it is to buy tradeskill items from the beta venders who appeared in PoK today.

SHAME!! SHAME! Shame on all who debased yourselves today!

And go****** SoE, figure out how to fix this or roll it the hell back!

I've got a little problem with the SHAME SHAME and I don't think that most people 'debased' themselves. Here's my thinking on the matter:

I was in PoK yesterday for about 15 minutes while the vendors were up, and I heard people ooc'ing about it. I didn't happen to be anywhere near the MB and I checked a couple of regular vendors to see what was going on, but it wasn't clear to me at the time exactly what was happening or that this involved new vendors rather than the existing ones, so I never saw the vendors before they were de-spawned and didn't buy anything.

However, if I had found them, I would certainly have checked them out and, since I'm currently working on skilling up smithing, if I had found the right items and put 2 and 2 together (something I don't always do well), I might very well have bought a bunch of stuff and headed for the nearest forge (as a whole bunch of other people evidently did from what I saw afterwards).

Here's what would have gone through my mind:

a) This is ALMOST certainly a mistake. Note the ALMOST. It seems clear in retrospect, but in the heat of the moment it might not be so easy to sort it out that quickly. There would have been at least some element of doubt.

b) Regardless of a) there are a whole bunch of other people doing this.

c) Sony has, in the past, had a mixed record on whether they fix/rollback things or simply shrug and move on from wherever they left off. And the latter course of action has been much more common than the former.

d) I've been working at skilling up my smithing so I can be one of the few GM dwarven smiths on my server and thus be able to make DoN cultural both for myself and also hopefully to reap some profits from my efforts. I have no idea how long these vendors might be in place or how many smart people may take advantage of them. I do know that the big guilds are probably already in the process of gathering everyone they can find to take advantage of it. So, there is some likelihood that at the end of the day there could be a whole boatload of GM dwarven smiths on the server AND that Sony may let that remain as it is.

e) I'm about as honest a person as I know, but given all the above, I would have to be more stupid than honest to not join in and start buying the stuff I need to skill up and head for the nearest forge.

f) I believe I would have (reasonably) cheerfully accepted any subsequent rollback and do and would have believed that it was the right thing to do.

Now, I am sure there are people who made some fairly extraordinary efforts to disguise what they did and move plat and items all over the place in hopes of escaping any rollback. THOSE people deserve a SHAME SHAME. I'm just not quite willing to condemn everyone else so quickly.

Not knowing for sure how this is going to play out, it is awfully difficult to stand there and watch a whole bunch of people take advantage of a situation and most likely gain a tremendous advantage over you, while you stand there and do nothing.

[Flatley]

I really have to agree that sometimes it is tough to gauge the intent behind some changes which make the game incredibly easier. The fact that monster missions are extremely easy experience to the point of seeming like an exploit is impossible to judge. Do you think being able to get to 70 without dying and losing experience once sounds reasonable?

If new vendors pop up with tradeskill items, especially rare items, don't we all want to be able to make stuff quickly and get into the bazaar to sell to all the people who are in barter mode before the crafted items drop to 50p each? I know I do. If SOE makes mistakes like this, they of course realize people are not trying to exploit the game, they are trying to exploit the marketplace (perfectly alright, especially for you folks with less the 3k in the bank). If I find folks desperately need clear mana for tradeskilling, am I going to wait two weeks to find out there was an exploit? Would I pass up on the opportunity to make 10-15kpp by doing this? Should I?

Now if the above occurred and it was clear that I make tons of money indirectly because of an exploit, I would be okay with a rollback on my character (though honestly I would prefer to keep the money I made honestly and stick the exploiter with all the clear mana). But it is hard, without improving my dubious psychic powers or developing an inside line to SOE to double check extreme changes to avoid reacting to those changes.

The folks who know/suspect they are exploiting are trying to hide their gains, the rest of us are just hoping things worked our way for once.