As I said in one of my other posts, in a relatively short amount of time, the various bot programs have caused more problems for the game than ShowEQ could ever cause. The design, philosophy, and intent of these programs is completely different than ShowEQ.
Great point! I played AC2 during beta, as well as AC for a while. The thought of writing ShowAC or something like it never crossed my mind.
Why?
Because the game included the basic functionality of radar and a map...
Beyond that, it also had an opponent assessment system that actually meant something and provided useful information. I've always contended that as a player character progresses, their ability to determine an opponent's relative strength and characteristics would improve. Not in EQ! You get a simple level comparison your entire life. After a few levels, the comparison is meaningless because NPCs and PCs follow an entirely different ruleset.
After sorting through a plethora of comments, I just had to comment. It appears that the majority of people out there don't have a CLUE about what ShowEQ is and what ShowEQ isn't.
Verant, and now SOE, have had a burr in their britches about ShowEQ from the beginning. They continue to view ShowEQ as the "dark side of the force" while completely ignoring the FAR more egregious cheating tools out there.
On the "cheating index," I rate ShowEQ only slightly above EQWindows. In fact, I don't consider EQWindows cheating at all. That, however, is not SOE's opinion. An entire thread could be devoted to SOE's blatent disregard for Microsoft's development guidelines regarding Control-Alt-Delete and task-switching... Rather ironic. But I digress. More on the "cheating index" in a little bit.
MacroQuest, Xylobot, and a few others, active ALTER the client. They are the tools that have done FAR more damage to the game than ShowEQ could EVER do. People have used these other tools to flood the EQ economy with game money (plat) earned by automating the exploitation of various tradeskills. Heck, there are even macros out there that allow people to multi-box drastically easier than would normally be the case. Players can alter their run speed, have the client ignore rain in a zone to improve vision, and a whole lot more. Rumor even has it that people are able to dupe items using some of these tools. These are things ShowEQ simply can't and never will do. For those who are concerned about the integrity of the game, THESE tools are your real enemies -- not ShowEQ, not EQWin.
As a side note, even our beloved Magelo is more invasive than ShowEQ. Magelo sits on the client side and rips the character data out of EQ's process space. Of all the programs mentioned, Magelo is by far the most harmless in terms of game play.
EqWindows (EQWin) is also harmless in my opinion. It allows the user to run EQ in a window (scandal!!). What in the world is so bad about this, Sony? Ah! The argument has always been, "the player could use their computer to look up our secrets on the internet, or launch cheat tools in the background." Guess what? It is already happening and has been happening long before EQWin existed. By extrapolation, web sites like Everlore and CastersRealm are cheating.
So why are EQWin (which would be utterly trivial for SOE to discover without resorting to tasklist or disk scanning) and Magelo allowed to continue? Simple. SOE has concluded that these applications keep people playing (thus PAYING). ShowEQ, Macroquest, and the rest have a relatively high barrier to entry. Of these, ShowEQ has traditionally had the highest barrier simply because it runs solely on Linux. The fact that many people continue to play because of ShowEQ is conveniently ignored because of the relatively small number of people who use it. It doesn't matter if a few disgruntled SEQ users quit. Not enough revenue for Sony to care about.
Is ShowEQ cheating. Sure it is. It gives its user the advantage of knowing where in the zone you are, what critters are in the zone, and some basic information about the critters (notably position, movement direction, level, and class). Can it be used to give a player an advantage? Sure. However, the player using SEQ still has to have sufficient skill to actually leverage that advantage. You still have to be able to play the game with skill. To get "Mad Platz" using ShowEQ is limited to being able to find and kill rare spawns, etc. ShowEQ only helps with the find part. The player still must be able to do all the work. Ohhh look, Lord Nagafen is up -- I'm running ShowEQ, I can solo him. Don't think so. The various posts in this thread, along with the recent Cringley article show that this point is not well understood.
Heck, the in-game exploits that many players do give the player more of an advantage than ShowEQ. These exploits are typically pathing bugs that allow a player to wail away at an opponent without ever being hit. Some players have claimed being able to go from level 3 to 20 in a matter of a few hours using these exploits. In fairness, SOE does a decent job of trying to track down and clean up these exploitable bugs. However, the same pathing problems are perpetually ignored when it is to the advantage of the NPC...
This next point will cause some people to say, "look! A cheater trying to justify himself." Perhaps, but I want this angle of the story to be told.
* ShowEQ has exposed COUNTLESS lies and half-truths from Verant/SOE about the game. Many of the changes for the better that have been made to the game over the years are due to the persistence and vigilance of ShowEQ users (who, ironically, seem to care a great deal about the game.)
* ShowEQ has helped expose the incredible inequity that exists between the rules that NPCs follow and the rules that govern Player Characters. In essence, we've gotten a better window on the way the NPCs "cheat" us.
* ShowEQ and its users have been responsible for identifying and reporting countless bugs.
* ShowEQ users have done countless favors for their fellow players; leading hopelessly lost and frustrated players out of confusing, perpetually foggy and rainy zones, and assisting with the recovery of corpses that otherwise would have been lost.
* Directly or indirectly, ShowEQ has made Everquest more enjoyable in some way to *thousands* of players.
Bottom line is this: ShowEQ is FAR from the "Ultimate Evil" many have portrayed it to be.
I think a lot of ShowEQ users would abandon the use of the tool altogether if EQ included a mapping function, "heads-up radar", and an opponent assessment system that was actually worth something. I've played other Online RPG's that had these basic features, and the thought of writing a ShowEQ equivalent for these games never crossed my mind. It simply wasn't necessary.
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As I said in one of my other posts, in a relatively short amount of time, the various bot programs have caused more problems for the game than ShowEQ could ever cause. The design, philosophy, and intent of these programs is completely different than ShowEQ.
Great point! I played AC2 during beta, as well as AC for a while. The thought of writing ShowAC or something like it never crossed my mind.
Why?
Because the game included the basic functionality of radar and a map...
Beyond that, it also had an opponent assessment system that actually meant something and provided useful information. I've always contended that as a player character progresses, their ability to determine an opponent's relative strength and characteristics would improve. Not in EQ! You get a simple level comparison your entire life. After a few levels, the comparison is meaningless because NPCs and PCs follow an entirely different ruleset.
After sorting through a plethora of comments, I just had to comment. It appears that the majority of people out there don't have a CLUE about what ShowEQ is and what ShowEQ isn't.
Verant, and now SOE, have had a burr in their britches about ShowEQ from the beginning. They continue to view ShowEQ as the "dark side of the force" while completely ignoring the FAR more egregious cheating tools out there.
On the "cheating index," I rate ShowEQ only slightly above EQWindows. In fact, I don't consider EQWindows cheating at all. That, however, is not SOE's opinion. An entire thread could be devoted to SOE's blatent disregard for Microsoft's development guidelines regarding Control-Alt-Delete and task-switching... Rather ironic. But I digress. More on the "cheating index" in a little bit.
MacroQuest, Xylobot, and a few others, active ALTER the client. They are the tools that have done FAR more damage to the game than ShowEQ could EVER do. People have used these other tools to flood the EQ economy with game money (plat) earned by automating the exploitation of various tradeskills. Heck, there are even macros out there that allow people to multi-box drastically easier than would normally be the case. Players can alter their run speed, have the client ignore rain in a zone to improve vision, and a whole lot more. Rumor even has it that people are able to dupe items using some of these tools. These are things ShowEQ simply can't and never will do. For those who are concerned about the integrity of the game, THESE tools are your real enemies -- not ShowEQ, not EQWin.
As a side note, even our beloved Magelo is more invasive than ShowEQ. Magelo sits on the client side and rips the character data out of EQ's process space. Of all the programs mentioned, Magelo is by far the most harmless in terms of game play.
EqWindows (EQWin) is also harmless in my opinion. It allows the user to run EQ in a window (scandal!!). What in the world is so bad about this, Sony? Ah! The argument has always been, "the player could use their computer to look up our secrets on the internet, or launch cheat tools in the background." Guess what? It is already happening and has been happening long before EQWin existed. By extrapolation, web sites like Everlore and CastersRealm are cheating.
So why are EQWin (which would be utterly trivial for SOE to discover without resorting to tasklist or disk scanning) and Magelo allowed to continue? Simple. SOE has concluded that these applications keep people playing (thus PAYING). ShowEQ, Macroquest, and the rest have a relatively high barrier to entry. Of these, ShowEQ has traditionally had the highest barrier simply because it runs solely on Linux. The fact that many people continue to play because of ShowEQ is conveniently ignored because of the relatively small number of people who use it. It doesn't matter if a few disgruntled SEQ users quit. Not enough revenue for Sony to care about.
Is ShowEQ cheating. Sure it is. It gives its user the advantage of knowing where in the zone you are, what critters are in the zone, and some basic information about the critters (notably position, movement direction, level, and class). Can it be used to give a player an advantage? Sure. However, the player using SEQ still has to have sufficient skill to actually leverage that advantage. You still have to be able to play the game with skill. To get "Mad Platz" using ShowEQ is limited to being able to find and kill rare spawns, etc. ShowEQ only helps with the find part. The player still must be able to do all the work. Ohhh look, Lord Nagafen is up -- I'm running ShowEQ, I can solo him. Don't think so. The various posts in this thread, along with the recent Cringley article show that this point is not well understood.
Heck, the in-game exploits that many players do give the player more of an advantage than ShowEQ. These exploits are typically pathing bugs that allow a player to wail away at an opponent without ever being hit. Some players have claimed being able to go from level 3 to 20 in a matter of a few hours using these exploits. In fairness, SOE does a decent job of trying to track down and clean up these exploitable bugs. However, the same pathing problems are perpetually ignored when it is to the advantage of the NPC...
This next point will cause some people to say, "look! A cheater trying to justify himself." Perhaps, but I want this angle of the story to be told.
* ShowEQ has exposed COUNTLESS lies and half-truths from Verant/SOE about the game. Many of the changes for the better that have been made to the game over the years are due to the persistence and vigilance of ShowEQ users (who, ironically, seem to care a great deal about the game.)
* ShowEQ has helped expose the incredible inequity that exists between the rules that NPCs follow and the rules that govern Player Characters. In essence, we've gotten a better window on the way the NPCs "cheat" us.
* ShowEQ and its users have been responsible for identifying and reporting countless bugs.
* ShowEQ users have done countless favors for their fellow players; leading hopelessly lost and frustrated players out of confusing, perpetually foggy and rainy zones, and assisting with the recovery of corpses that otherwise would have been lost.
* Directly or indirectly, ShowEQ has made Everquest more enjoyable in some way to *thousands* of players.
Bottom line is this: ShowEQ is FAR from the "Ultimate Evil" many have portrayed it to be.
I think a lot of ShowEQ users would abandon the use of the tool altogether if EQ included a mapping function, "heads-up radar", and an opponent assessment system that was actually worth something. I've played other Online RPG's that had these basic features, and the thought of writing a ShowEQ equivalent for these games never crossed my mind. It simply wasn't necessary.