Petitioning and warnings

[Inactive]

Hey guys,

Im a long time reader of these forums and have been multiboxing in EQ2 for quite awhile now. Thanks for a fantastic resource and forum.

I use an ISBoxer setup and run all my 5 toons on the same comp. Ive gotten pretty damn effective at controlling all 5 with one keyboard and have numerous times recieved tells from (rude) concern players that thought i was botting, i have been very polite and explained to them i use one keyboard for all five and given them the link to the thread with the SoE CS response posted by Khar. So far most everyone have realized im not botting and moved on, until yesterday where i recieved my first standard issused warning for botting from SoE.

Last night, I made 5 toons on AB. Was gonna start up a new team to play with a friend. I hadnt even moved beyond the tower on the Outpost before i got petitioned.

Since i am (was), very convinced im not breaking the EULA i responded to the GM who had issused the warning asking him to lift it since i know for a fact im not botting. They got very offensive and i was probably arguing a lost cause at that point. Basically i ended up with a Lead GM telling me to use 5 keyboards since they consider 5 chars doing the same action (jumping) at a time, automation.

Im very surprised by this and i think i ended up with this response because i was pushing too hard to have the warning lifted (I'd like my account to be in good standing)

My question to all you is,

How do you guys deal with petitions and warnings?

And what should i do from here on out? Ive decided not to play on the AB server since the community there is obviously extremly hostile towards boxers. Should i just continue playing my normal team and hope i dont get banned all of a sudden?

Ive definitely leared not to try and have a warning lifted, even though they were very very quick to state i was automating (I hadnt even setup my keybinds besides space lol). They basically just concluded it based on that petition is my guess since i couldnt get any of them to tell me how i had violated the EULA, not even the lead GM. He just said in the end to use 5 keyboards (lol?)

Hope for some help / feedback on what to do, im lost and cant decide if i should just keep playing or if i should petition and try and get a response allowing me to use the same keyboard. Id hate to get banned out of the blue

Regards,
Inactive

[Khatovar]

This Lead GM is more than welcome to look up SOE Tickets 090210-001499 and 090306-000046. I was very specific with my questions, clarifying between hardware and software multiboxing and even listing and linking several softtware multiboxing programs, including Innerspace. For referance, the original letters I sent are

Here

and

Here

I would petition through the support page rather than the ingame GMs.

[Inactive]

Ah,

I was trying to find a ticket number for reference earlyer.

I'll try and send a petition through the support site

You think i should just ask if its allowed etc, so i have something to refer to if there is trouble again, or should i mention i recieved a warning and make my petition in reference to that?

Thanks Khat!

[victor]

that sucks! you know it's always in the back of my mind that some nerd will get hurt / jealous about the whole boxing thing and report me. I hope you get that resolved. That GM is probably just a butt hurt regular nerd player with a lot of free time to be a GM. It's not good business to discourage and ban boxers. Each 1 boxer generates $1080 per year for their accounts not including station cash / expansions and so on. I'll never understand why people think it's cheating. It's a game!! not a lifestyle.

anyway, good luck Inactive and let us know the results of your further petitions.

[Inactive]

Thanks, i'll make sure to post any updates.

I opted not to respond to the last response the ingame GM send me last night and instead made a new petition through the support site email system basically asking if i should fear a ban or if im good, not requesting a lift of the warning as i did yesterday. I referenced the tickets from Khat so hopefully they will help clear some up if the guy reading my petition is unawake of how it works.

And about the GMs who handled my petition. Most were fairly clueless and stuck saying that ANY third party software is not allowed. I kinda started arguing and tried to explain that im not altering the client and that by his definition programs like ACT would be an offense as well.
He then forwared it to a second GM who said that they considered the same characters doing the same action at once (he said jumping) automation since it was very unlikely it was 6 different people jumping at the same time. Basically saying that you are only allowed to control one account at a time. I asked how a manual action could be considered automation and refered to the first GMs response saying multiboxing was fine without automation.
He THEN refered my question to a third GM who refered me to their lead GM right away.
The lead GM misunderstood (read: didnt read through it all) and thought i was asking if it was ok to automate using macros. I told him he misunderstood and then i boiled my question down to if i could control more than 1 char with a single keyboard, whereas he told me to use 5 keyboards.

Im amazed at the extremly poor CS on all this, and i really hope i was just unlucky and got an untypical stupid GM since it was late. And that the email i send through the support site will be forwared to someone who actually knows what the hell they are talking about lol.

[Iceorbz]

So it's been a long time since I was a guide in everquest.
Are you 100% sure the people you spoke to were Game Masters? Not, Guides, Senior Guides or SWAT (roaming senior guides). Their rules are pretty straight forward and guide program is solid, as far as a warning goes its nothing more then a note on your account. It's all freeform and we could look up anything that went on with your account.

You can always speak to the accounts people, it would for sure help to have previous GM answers. I would think if they altered something along the way you could prolly find grounds for 30 day refunds.

If some of these people throw a fit like this just as a suggestion just tell them your a hardware boxer.... and you can explain it as simple as I have multiple keyboards that are on the same radio frequency.

If blizzard changed their TOU and altered their stance on boxing, I would take that as a breach of contract. And speak to the Navy Legal Department if they didn't want to at least refund my game purchase price.

[Twiz]

Hope everything works out alright. Like others, stuff like this is always at the back of my mind. Thankfully, I play in early mornings around 5-6ish pacific; not a lot of folks online at those hours.

G'luck!

[Ualaa]

It is quite possible the in-game GM has not dealt with this before.
Or has not had instruction from the developers or high ups in the company.

Given that boxing has been popular in EQ / EQ2 in the past.
And that there are GM responses saying its fine to do.
The responses these GM's gave seems quite wrong, unless company policy has recently changed.

While any given boxer, is a drop in the sea, as far as revenue goes.
There are quite a few boxers out there, in various games.
A company policy to preclude them from your game doesn't seem a wise option.

I'm playing Warcraft myself.
If Blizzard changed the policy, so boxing was not ok at all.
I doubt I would continue to one-box warcraft.
As I got into boxing, when the game was already becoming stale as a one-box option.

Anyway, see what the GM's say, given they have previous GM approval in the question.

[Khatovar]

Yeah, these GMs don't sound like they have a clue. I really don't think you can get much clearer than the response I got from GM Spadaccino. Sony was actually very good about actually reading and responding to my e-mail {both times} instead of scanning for keywords and spitting back random EULA sections like many other companies did. I would be very surprised if they suddenly got this close-minded.

[Inactive]

Send CS an email, but was told to reply to petition i had going with that other GM. Ive given up and are just gonna wait and hope i wont get another report.

Thanks for all your replies