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Shivash
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Posted - 2003.06.26 10:04:00 -
[1]
I'm not mincing words here... Do CCP have plans to ban people using anything that speeds up the time it takes ( in real time - so for example mining non-stop 24/7 is a speed up over normal players who might probably average 7/6 ). I know CCP issued the warning but that didn't seem to point that they where planning on actually doing anything to catch the perpitrators.
If CCP are a bit stuck on how to catch these cheats then I suggest they contact the makers of runescape - They combat just the same type of lame cheating and do it very well ( getting caught results in a complete account reset - including paid accounts, RS having an unlimited time free section).
I hope CCP nip these lame childish tactics in the bud before they wreck the game (which they will in all sorts of ways - just imagine the extra minerals getting into the system if nothing else ).
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Lexs
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Posted - 2003.06.26 10:12:00 -
[2]
You've seen a bot that does automatic mining? I find this highly unlikely. Asteroids spawn randomly so there will never be an exact spot for an asteroid, thus, targetting it would be nearly impossible. But if you have in fact, found a bot that is capable of doing this, I highly recommend sending it to CCP!
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Shivash
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Posted - 2003.06.26 10:15:00 -
[3]
there have been several reports of programs that do automining. Not sure how they get round the roid popping thing - maybe you pre-survey the roids and select a route to mine. I'm not sure as I have no intention of letting one anywhere near my PC ( most as warned by CCP have Keyloggers intended to steal your username/password ).
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Axelay
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Posted - 2003.06.26 10:23:00 -
[4]
They go by pallett.
Just select a color, tell the program what to do with the mouse on the same color, and set up your dock bookmarks and such.
viola _____ m0o
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Xane
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Posted - 2003.06.26 10:23:00 -
[5]
The scanner is a static object, you can search for "asteroid" and pick the first line.
x a n e |

Molly
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Posted - 2003.06.26 10:25:00 -
[6]
Remove mining from game then. Scnr. ---
"Molly > funny thing is, if they warn me for attacking in 1.0, why does a GM wish me luck doing so? Jash Illian > perverse sense of humor? Molly > lol Jash Illian > honestly tho, because he prolly doesn't know bships" |

Xane
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Posted - 2003.06.26 10:37:00 -
[7]
Seeing as it is near impossible to work out whether actions are being automated or not, you may as well live with them.
I can't see how this is considered cheating, someone needs to put a great deal of time and effort to come up with the perfect keystroke sequences to enable perfect mining. You only need a cargo stealer or a pirate to turn up and it's all ruined really.
I'd rather CCP concentrate on the real exploits; those that ruin the game for other people, that badly upset the balance of the game or endanger the stability of the game.
You have to be quite inventive to come up with automated sequences, I remember doing macros for my Archer/Alchemist/Cook in Asheron's Call to make endless supplies of stuff, although admittedly I never let it run overnight !
x a n e |

Relic
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Posted - 2003.06.26 10:48:00 -
[8]
To fill in some of the questions/comments raised here
1) Rocks do spawn to the same point when a belt is reset. Also for noobe areas the belts are reset every day.
2) There are a large number of very powerful tools in the market place to allow the automation of windows based applications, so people can build very powerful robot systems.
The results are that such a process can be put in place by a player in a 1.0 system.
Relic
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Xylor
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Posted - 2003.06.26 11:07:00 -
[9]
I was quite disappointed by CCP's rather lame warning regarding macro usage. Basically, they are walking away from the problem and apparently either have no plans to enforce a policy which would prohibit macro usage or have no ability to detect macro use. Pretty sad really and may very well lead EVE down the wrong path.
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Lord Zap
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Posted - 2003.06.26 11:42:00 -
[10]
I find it hard to believe that some people view cargo containers dropped from the npc pirates as an exploit and yet seem to not mind the use of macros to enable afk roid munching. Weird
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Cezanne
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Posted - 2003.06.26 11:56:00 -
[11]
In answer to Mr Zap Esq:
Personally I think that massed cargo container assults and macro usage are both exploits.
Macros are much more clearly exploits though to me and should be a higher priority. There are also clearly active cheating. You can't accidentelly install and run a 3rd party program and its hard to imagine someone arguing that they didn't know it was against the rules.
The penalty for using macros should be a ban.
Massed cargo container assaults are more of a grey area. If they are being used to induce lag then personally I still think they are an exploit. However my prefered solution for these I think is a technical one; for example allow players to turn off rendering of cargo containers through the options panel; I am sure our 26th millenium computers can cope with the distinction.
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Lord Zap
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Posted - 2003.06.26 12:03:00 -
[12]
Cezzane I'd agree with you, though just for the record we didn't put the cargo containers there on purpose :)
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Scrapyard Jack
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Posted - 2003.06.26 12:08:00 -
[13]
Scrapyard Jack is confused... (Not exactly a foreign state of mind for Scrapyard Jack, admittedly..)
What's all t'kerflulffle about, eh?
So, yah.. Scrapyard Jack could rig a wee robotic whizbit to mine veldspar for 24 hours a day in a big ol' Hoarder, and assumin' that Scrapyard Jack's a wee bit more computer savvy that he's lettin' on, he could even rig the same robotic whizbig to ferry said veldspar back to base, empty it'n get back t'the field before minin' anew..
Assumin' a basic mining yield of 40 units/min, (400 veldspar/min), it'd take ol' Jack roughly 130 minutes to fill up his hoarder, and say .. another 10 minutes to dock, empty'n get back to the field. If ol' Jack is charitable with his statistics, that's 2 hours per hoarder load.
A hoarder load of veldspar would put an extra 116k in ol' Jack's pocket, or 58k per hour.
Well... t'ain't exactly gonna ruin t'economy, is it? .. heck, if ol' Jack did it for a full 24 hours, it'd net precisely 1.392 million ISK.
That's about 35 minutes of Bistot minin' for ol' Jack, ehehehe!
Yup, it sucks that people resort t'the ol' robotic whizbit to get ahead, but they ain't exactly gonna break the bank.
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Cezanne
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Posted - 2003.06.26 12:15:00 -
[14]
Mr Zap Esq:
That is exactly the reason why I prefer a technical solution for cargo containers.
If you are camping a particular stargate there is going to be a natural build up of cargo containers over time from the destroyed player and NPC pirate ships around the gate.
I can't see that as an exploit personally since it is the natural result of a legitimate play style. I also think it is a little unrealistic to expect blockading pirates to clear away all the cargo continers to make it easier for the people they are trying to catch and hence making their own task harder.
However some pirates are intentionally dropping a large number of containers to give a head start to this natural course of events. That is an exploit, in my opinion.
However given the difficulty of distinguishing the two, and the fact that both have an equally unfortunate and untimately unfair result for the inbound pilot, a technical solution feels best to me.
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Shivash
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Posted - 2003.06.26 12:50:00 -
[15]
@Jack
If you go for roids around the plagioglase level the amount of cash is noticeably more ( and available in the 0.9-1.0 areas IIRC ). Plus it's also a damned sight easier and safer to do. How many people actually SOLO mine bist and ark? 1, 2 maybe... Most bist and ark requires a lot of effort to mine ( and several people with haulers, pirate hunters and miners all involved. )...
Plus with your example you assumed ( essentially ) something like an exe mining the bist and a hoarder mining the veld. Replace the hoarder with an exe and recalculate. Suddenly you've got 5,6 or even 7 man hours of bist mining in your afk 24 hours... suddenly your making almost the same amount of cash... and a LOT safer.
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Brede Cleary
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Posted - 2003.06.26 13:06:00 -
[16]
LOL...Zap made a joke. Maybe he isn't such a bottom dwelling slime sucking Denebian gas filled scum bag after all. ;) Stellar Products and Quality Resources ticker: SPQR established 6-03 |

Levi
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Posted - 2003.06.26 13:20:00 -
[17]
omg - another cheat. yikes!
these are the people that need to be hunted down, and podded! or if caught with macro, spawn them to a 0.0 and let them auto-mine there! :P
if cheats aren't dealt with, immediately. it means that everyone will have to use the cheat, eventually, just to keep up!
at the end of armegeddon, we sat outside a station blowing up every npc that showed up, after about 30+ containers, my game started looking like the matrix. we never had time to pick up all the containers, there were just too many of them by the time you picked up one there were 5 more.
i don't believe this is completely an exploit, laziness - maybe, but not an exploit. ;)
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ABNTanker
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Posted - 2003.06.26 13:29:00 -
[18]
I tried telling someone ingame complaining about the cargo containers that if we were really trying to lag people out we could legaly use mines instead. He of course asked why we didnt. I guess he didnt figure out that we were to lazy to place mines so why would we place cargo containers instead?
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Levi
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Posted - 2003.06.26 13:32:00 -
[19]
LOL - lazy pirates, now that's role-playing in my book. ;)
Yaaurgh!
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Terrapin
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Posted - 2003.06.26 13:50:00 -
[20]
I decided to have a look at this 'Eve companion' program someone posted at Eve-I. The accompanying text would like you believe that it's safe to use this program;
"Unfortunately some a__holes thought it would be funny to put out some trojans (of course, right before we decided to make our program public), hopefully it wont raise any anxiety among people regarding our program."
This program _does_ however contain a trojan (duh!). Any decent anti-virus package will pick it up, but consider yourself warned (again) anyway. ---
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Crepiscule
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Posted - 2003.06.26 14:16:00 -
[21]
Quote:
I can't see how this is considered cheating, someone needs to put a great deal of time and effort to come up with the perfect keystroke sequences to enable perfect mining.
Bwahahaaa. Doesn't that just take the cake. I realize that his view may not reflect that of all miners but MY GOD MAN!! Ain't that the pot calling the kettle black.
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Animal Mother
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Posted - 2003.06.26 14:59:00 -
[22]
Lord Zap sez: "Cezzane I'd agree with you, though just for the record we didn't put the cargo containers there on purpose :)"
Yeah, that's what I would want the record to say if I had been cheating using cargo containers with 1 round of ammo each, too!
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Annis Drak
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:01:00 -
[23]
Other famous zap quotes include:
A dog ran out in front of me!
The cheque is in the post.
She said she was 16.
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Xane
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:06:00 -
[24]
Crep, what are you on about, I don't mine at all ?
x a n e |

WhiteDwarf
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:07:00 -
[25]
"I find it hard to believe that some people view cargo containers dropped from the npc pirates as an exploit and yet seem to not mind the use of macros to enable afk roid munching. Weird"
You mean the cans you drop Zappy?
"Trust No One" |

Rhonstet
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:10:00 -
[26]
This sounds like an exceedingly grey area.
The issue of autominers seems to be one of preference and definition. Since autominers don't directly detriment other players or game the NPC's AI (so far, the two things all exploits have had in common), they rest in a grey area.
If you want to define exploit as "Something that gives one player a decisive advantage over another player with no additional investment of time," then its not an exploit. It provides one player more money then another, but it does require time to prepare and setup the autominer, in addition to a keen understanding of how mining works and where decisions need to be made.
But if you define exploit as "Something that gives one player an advantage over another using unintended out-of-game functionality," (this is my personal definition) then it is an exploit, as I doubt CCP ever considered automining.
Does CCP have an official definition of the term 'exploit' anywhere in the EULA?
Edited by: Rhonstet on 26/06/2003 16:18:43 The Monkeysphere |

Aknot
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:11:00 -
[27]
I haven't downloaded any of these macro-utilities, but I guess the developers pack them with UPX or something, which in turn could show up as a trojan by some virus-scanners, when all they wanted was to hide the code so that others can't make a program as 1337 as theirs..
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Pann
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:15:00 -
[28]
Contrary to what has been said here, the truth of the matter is that we are investigating allegations of third party programs, people who have been accused of using them, those that promote them and those that solicit them to other players. We have taken action against people who have done it and we will continue to do so.
At the same time, however, we do not feel it is appropriate to make some public statement when an action is taken against a player. As I said yesterday in the Help Channel, "If you were being a cheeseball, would you want us to tell everyone about it?"
Don't confuse the absence of notices that someone was banned with there not being any bans issued. We will continue to warn our players about the dangers of employing the use of 3rd party programs, but we aren't going to announce it when someone gets busted and banned for it.
Eve Community Manager [email protected] CCP |

Rhonstet
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:17:00 -
[29]
Dropped cans cause a problem with lag, and are meant to be used in combination with an attack. If lag was not an issue, the can-drops would be irrelevant, and the tactic (or at least, the bug) would never work to begin with.
Roid munching does not cause lag, and is not directly intended as a hostile action. Its has two 'negative' effects:
First, it provides rewards to people who aren't actually playing at that moment. Which is exactly what the skill system already does.
Second, it depletes asteroids. But as these are self-replenishing 'public property' already, this is a non-issue.
But again, play balance is not the only issue to consider. Does CCP approve of third-party programs being used? Probably not. And if a team of people who play/design the game for a living say something is an exploit, I'd listen very carefully to what they have to say at the exclusion of other opinions.
Edited by: Rhonstet on 26/06/2003 16:50:39 The Monkeysphere |

Xane
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:21:00 -
[30]
But does it actually generate that much wealth ? As was pointed out, you can only do this in high security belts with no pirates.
x a n e |

GFLTorque
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:34:00 -
[31]
You know its amazing to me how ppl complain about the cargo containers, yet the same ones will place 12 drones around a stargate and camp it. Load lag is load lag.
Then they cant comprehend signal boosting and 1 second taget locks, with strong weapons. ROF of 2 seconds and 1 second lock = You get hit 4 times in the first 10 seconds. You lock 6 seconds ROF of 5 seconds = You shoot back 1 time in 11 seconds. Bingo! you get hit with 4x the damage.
Solution? Complain about something else.
Just my two cents,
BTW - BOT mining is outside the game rules imo, unless its a feature enabled that all could take advantage of.
4 out of 3 people have trouble with fractions
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Korban Dallas
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:42:00 -
[32]
I don't get what the big deal is.. Sure, distributing a program that intentionally harms a users game play or pc should be a bannable offence. But what's the big deal about macro mining low yield ores? I can see how ccp would be upset about a program directly interfering with the code of their client, but beyond that I can't see why this is such a hub bub.. There's no difference between a person sitting there and doing it manually, right? And if the question is whether it is kosher to do it while they arn't sitting there staring at it, what if they are mining remotely from work? Is that a 'cheat' or an 'exploit' too? Am I cheating or exploiting when I read a post on the forum that tells me a certain type of rat or roid is in a certain system, thus saving myself an inordinate amount of exploration time? Seems like alot of hub bub, and that a clear definition of what the real problem is needs to be defined.
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Drefsab
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Posted - 2003.06.26 16:56:00 -
[33]
Ok one thing I would like to know is do these programs actually exist (as in arnt trojans or at least dont apear to be and do work).
I understand that there is the issue of if macroing should be allowed bit as is often the case its easyer to allow macroing but not afk macroing. For those of us that play UO using uoassist will know what I mean. "Death Before Dishonor" |

Ywev
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Posted - 2003.06.26 18:04:00 -
[34]
I have a better idea, randomly drop newbie sectors from 1.0 to .4 so i can fly through and kill afk miners!
Pod ya later.. Ywev
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Drefsab
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Posted - 2003.06.26 18:07:00 -
[35]
thats almost what they did on UO.. GMs would pop up and try talking to you. If you didnt reaply within a certain amount of time and it was clear you were macroing afk they kicked your ass :) "Death Before Dishonor" |

Tyrellius
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Posted - 2003.06.26 18:18:00 -
[36]
Answer to mr. Zap:
http://www.terrajen-foundation.com/eve/combat.jpg
he he:) not on purpose:)
Edited by: Tyrellius on 26/06/2003 18:19:07 "Nothing is worth doing except that which the world says it's impossible..." |

Worrlock
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Posted - 2003.06.26 18:50:00 -
[37]
How about if all the dropped NPC loot were to go into the floatillas??
---------------------------------------------- When you die and die you will, you will die to the sound of applause.
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Shivash
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Posted - 2003.06.26 21:36:00 -
[38]
@Pann - fair response although please can you word announcements like the recent warning rather more sternly. It appears from your post you agree with me that these people should be banned... However the ingame news item just warns about potential trojans. It implies you can use them quite happily just be carefull. If I read your reply here correctly in face users face the possibility of bans. Please put such an announcement of that sort in. I am not looking for a list of people being banned. Just a warning that using such tools will result in one.. if caught.
@those who don't see the problem. It's two fold, in an autominer you generate isk at an accelerated rate. Plus the theft of account details with trojan horses and keyloggers creates more work for the support staff. Whilst their response will be rightly 'tough' they will still have to deal with the e:mails they get.
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Wil Rufus
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Posted - 2003.06.27 01:24:00 -
[39]
lol Never thought I'd see the day that I'd be agreeing with pirate players.
I've stated in other threads that I don't like a lot about PC pirates, their style of play and their attitude towards other players.
But the difference between them and exploiters is that what ever they do in the game is open for anybody to do. For example the cargo lag issue. It's not nice, nobody but the pirates like it, but at worst it's only unsporting play. Anybody in Eve can do it, there's nothing to stop a bunch of noob players even from doing it in the hope of catching out a pirate player passing through a system.
But once players start using third party software to help them make money, that in my book is just out and out cheating. It gaves you an advantage that not everybody else has access to.
The use of third pary 'macro' type software is the one thing that I hope that CCP jumps on hard and fast.
mOo I don't have to like in game, but they haven't done anything that anybody else could do if they set their mind to it. Somebody who cheats, no matter how much I like them should be removed from the game. Full stop.
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Molly
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Posted - 2003.06.27 01:28:00 -
[40]
"I have a better idea, randomly drop newbie sectors from 1.0 to .4 so i can fly through and kill afk miners!"
Lol, this is one of the funniest things I ever read.
I'm on the floor, help me up! ---
"Molly > funny thing is, if they warn me for attacking in 1.0, why does a GM wish me luck doing so? Jash Illian > perverse sense of humor? Molly > lol Jash Illian > honestly tho, because he prolly doesn't know bships" |

Pyroe
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Posted - 2003.06.27 01:52:00 -
[41]
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Riffler
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Posted - 2003.06.27 12:13:00 -
[42]
The best way to stop 3rd party program use would be to issue warnings over trojans, then clean out the account of anyone found to be using one - exactly as though it had been a trojan.
People would be too scared to use them.
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