MacroQuest64

Before I put down my thoughts I want to say that MQ is a very nice piece of work. I do not have problems with it beeing used at all.

The basic question that drives us all nuts is, can we get caught? Can Verant detect what we are doing? Well, I have been visiting my hometown Kaladim alot since my cleric got his faithstone and every time I entered Kaladim there was and still is a dwarf sitting in front of the fletching-merchant, anon and afk.

He's been sitting there for at least one week I think. Now I got a little curious and watched him a bit. Almost exactly every 72 seconds he will buy/sell at this merchant. You can see this as the merchant gives out the text.

Now, how are chances that a human can do this for hours and days? Sorry, rhetorical question, the answer is: No Way.

Now lets think about what a Verant server basicly is? Its a database. Everything, every Item, every trade every combine you do will be done in this database. And I am preatty sure that as every database there will be a timestamp in the Verant one, too.

So, if Verant wanted to find this guy, all they have to do is to build a serverside program that searches for patterns like this guy in Kaladim. If they find a pattern repeated over days in almost the same interval they can be sure that this is a macroprogram and have a closer look at the guy.

And further in this thought lets take the example of Hero Brew. How much hero brew can a normal human combine per minute? How much could a mouseartist? Lets for the sake of the example assume a good brewer could make 10 hero brews per minute. Now, if your account suddenly start brewing 30 brews per minute this would be another easy to program search routine on server side...

My conclusions? If you do not want to be caught, try to make the macros a bit more "human", do not make them "too fast".

Well, this is just a thought I have.

A much "easier" detection mechanism would be buy/sell item count. A simple query to tally buy/sell per player/item per period can be implemented in minutes. Most results will be in the 1 to 10 range. Traders will be in the 10s to low 100s. MQ users will be in the high 100s to 1000s. It will not be hard to spot from that perspective.

An even easier one is to query the combine log. Each combine is send to the server and the server will send success or failure back to client. A simple log + query to count each item-combine per player will indicate who is possibly a macro user.

Then it all boils down to whether VI has the manpower and desire to do it.

Salutations,
But all this assumes that Verant actually logs the combines you make, merchants you open. If they are doing this, you would pretty quickly get a large amount of data in their files... My EQ log quickly reached several k after a 10 hour span of macroing... now if verant logged all combines, over 24 hours, for every character on one server... The log file would grow tremendously, In my opinion if i was running the logging of EQ serverside, i would go through a long debate in deciding wether or not to implement such a thing...

Well, I just asked myself what would I do if I were a Verant programmer with the job to detect Macroing...

It would not be needed to log all actions over 24 hours I think. First I would do some monitoring about the speed of actions one account does. As a previous poster said, every combine is sent to server, actually all is done serverside.

To just monitor these activities and set a flag when the number of combines per minute exceeds a given limit would not be too hard to program.

Once a account is flagged, you start logging it...

Yes, I am paranoid. I never said I was mentally sane )

AS long as Verant is not concerened about macroing, nothign will happen I guess. But we all know people, dont we. The more the word spreads about MQ, the more people will use it and the more morons will do so much abvious macroing that sooner or later Verant will be concerned about it.

(disclaimer: I did _not_ say MQ users are morons I just said the more peeps use it the higher the risk that some of those will be morons)

Salutations,
For now, I (personally) am following the rules. I am using macroquest while at the computer for a disability (the inability to combine 3 times a second)... lol

If any of have done enterprise level database maintenance you'd quickly realize that what you are worrying about is impossible.

First, if they already logged every combine made by every player on every server, the amount of overhead caused by this would be so immense as to be unmanageable.

Second, if they were to change the code so that it began logging every combine made by every player on every server, first they'd have to rework quite a bit of their code and the reworking would just add more overhead and more lag to the game....

Third, without the first or second being in place, they can't keep track of combine attempts made by a player in any amount of time. If you aren't logging something then the game isn't keeping track of it beyond the instant it happens. Unless every character structure has a member to store combine attempts, they can't watch it. And, logically, if every character structure had a member to store combine attempts...that would be a massive waste of system memory for any player who did a large amount of trade skilling (even without a macro program).

Be smart, you'll only get caught if you are stupid.

If you run your macro while you aren't at your computer -- you increase your chances of getting caught. All it takes is a GM to see the shopkeeper messages or a player to see them and petition about it and you are toast.

If you never move from in front of 1 vendor for days and weeks at a time -- you increase your chances of getting caught -- see above.

If you do nothing with your character besides macro -- you increase your chances of getting caught.

If you are a level 2 enchanter with only +CHA equipment on who is near specific vendors -- you increase your chances of getting caught.

Verant will be more than happy to revoke your account for macroing, pure and simple. But I don't think they are going to make code rewrites just to enable them to catch macroers. Verant also doesn't want to devote the manpower to the single intent of tracking down macro users, this is obvious by the fact that there are no longer server GMs. They are trying to cut BACK the manpower in patrolling the servers, not increase it.

Domosan

Ok we all know that we can get caught using a macro if we doo stupid things like stay at a merchant all day and night. But what about being caught using MQ for other reasons, like the enhanced /who or the /who npc to check what mobs are up in a zone? I dont do alot of trade skills and I really dont need any plat. I just wanna use MQ for the extra features it provides me. Also What about using MQ for the Druid.mac or monk.mac macros? My second comp is in the basement so I have never been able to "bot" another PC like so many of my friends can. They have 2 comps right next to each other and play both accts manually. Now with MQ I can start up a second acct and have a bot of my own....I hope safely. So what are the chances VI has or will have some way of detecting MQ? Maybe a GM can see what you type and if they see "/macro druid.mac" or some such that will get you busted?

As people have said before, macros are not "illegal" if you're there at the computer at the time.

Running a "bot" druid from a computer that's not in the same room is kindof a bad idea anyway ... you never know what might happen and you can't control anything :)

Salutations,
Whenever i have EQ up on another comp that I'm macroing on, I always have something so that all tells sent to it or major events (death, summoned, etc) are /tell to the main window i have open. Allows me to woof my ass over comp and reply or something...

This is the email I received from Verant after my "alt" account was temp suspended.

Make your own conclusions.

Greetings,



This account was suspended with review for banning for using a third party program to macro an exploit with an NPC to make a good deal of money. The use of third party programs to alter EverQuest is prohibited and stated in the EULA you agree to every time you log into the game.



Sincerely,



EqAccountStatus

Sony Online Entertainment

eqaccountstatus@soe.sony.com

http://www.station.sony.com



csr id: cd

L124RD wrote:Salutations,
Whenever i have EQ up on another comp that I'm macroing on, I always have something so that all tells sent to it or major events (death, summoned, etc) are /tell to the main window i have open. Allows me to woof my ass over comp and reply or something...

Ok That sounds like a good idea, Im a Idiot with programing though...Maybe you could post a example and how to place it into the druid macro?

Thanks

Regarding Cha-Ching's letter there and resposes posted so far -- I would offer my opinions as posted on another thread here:
http://macroquest2.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=266

Ways to auto-detect MQ by programmatically looking at players behavior is certainly an interesting subject. But I wouldnt worry about it if I were you; its way beyond Verants capabilities and/or willingness to spend programmer time on.

The only way you will be caught is:

A) Do something stupid like chain talking to a quest npc like the one in south qeynos.. Especially after its been posted on a board like this. Anyone getting banned from that deserves it for being criminally stupid :p

B) If you run a macro unattended and an observant person like schue comes along and reports you.

Also I wouldnt recommend running MQ just after a patch.. We know that they watch these boards, so there is a some risk that they will attempt to put in some anti-MQ measures.

eq_freak wrote: ...
B) If you run a macro unattended and an observant person like schue comes along and reports you.
...

observant person, yes. reporting... no... dont get my name into a sentence like this, people might misunderstand that



btw, another paranoid idea of mine:

What if Verant intentionally implements such "bugs" like the npc in qeynos cause the know that greed eats brain and people _will_ come and macro this ? okok, I did say, paranoid, didn't I

Hehe nod, didnt mean to imply you would report him. Its just that your average joe EQ'er would not notice these things, only informed/observant people would.