Main reason that I would remove /follow is because it is a primary tool of bot farmers and multiboxers, neither of which are good for the game. Rather than /follow it would be nice if there was a shareable mount or wagon vehicle that multiple players could get on. This would solve the primary purpose of the /follow command for legit users without having it useable in combat.
Yes /follow is always incredibly helpful, when used as intended. I know it saved my butt on many occasions.
I always find it amusing when people say that autofollow is the primary tool for botters and boxers.
1) who cares if boxers use it? Boxing is something that is allowed in almost everygame, and does nothing to break the rules. Stop thinking of boxers from eq and tlps that use 3rd party software to automate certain functions... those are not true boxers.
2) botters, are going to use any 3rd party tool that can assist them including any sort of autofollow mechanics whether they are in the game or not. These people should not be lumped in with player who are actually playing the game properly and just using more than 1 account.
3) there are countless reasons that a normal. Solo account player would need to use autofollow, and removing it would just be silly. Figure out ways to detect cheating as opposed to removing mechanics that players use but ALSO someone who cheats might use... that's just silly.
Porygon said:I always find it amusing when people say that autofollow is the primary tool for botters and boxers.
They say it because it was true. Originally, in older MMO's, gold farming botters used commands like /target XXX, /follow, /assist, /lootall, and so forth extensively and followed long keyboard macro programs to make them function like robots performing the same activity endlessly, in a loop.
In the more modern MMOs like AA, botting was mostly scripted hacks. No need to use in-game convenience commands anymore. You could program your bots to goto point x, teleport, target node z. Fight off mobs, and even kill players.
My friends usually /followed me as i have a knack for knowing where i am going. So i really never used it myself except on my box, but most of the time i lagged so much i would move 1 character at a time to my campsite.
Big different between botting and boxing. I used to 2 and sometimes 3 boxed depending on healing needs. I can tell you its not easy so i respect someone that can box effectively more than 3 characters. Botting is cheating by any means possible 3rd party programs, keyboard hacks, ect. I still remember my first experience with a bott'er. They were using oldschool keyboard duplication on 6 machines so every time they said anything 6 characters said the exact same thing. Every time they moved they moved exactly the same. So they didnt even use /follow.
My wife is pretty mobility challenged... at least in games. LOL She hates running places. Loved EQ and EQ2, played with me all the time, even on her own, but running anywhere was a complete turn off for her. She'd always autofollow and chat with people while we traveled. She's way more social that I am. I hope we keep it in the game so she'll be willing to play it... well, w/o griping constantly about all the running from place to place that is.
Porygon said:I always find it amusing when people say that autofollow is the primary tool for botters and boxers.
1) who cares if boxers use it? Boxing is something that is allowed in almost everygame, and does nothing to break the rules. Stop thinking of boxers from eq and tlps that use 3rd party software to automate certain functions... those are not true boxers.
The reason why some of us will only pay for a game that uses the subscription format is because it keeps everyone on an even playing field. You can't "buy your way to success".
Boxers, in essence, get around the basic assumption of a lvl playing field and do" buy their way to success". Boxing is the pay to win format that is available in subscription based mmos.
philo said:Porygon said:I always find it amusing when people say that autofollow is the primary tool for botters and boxers.
1) who cares if boxers use it? Boxing is something that is allowed in almost everygame, and does nothing to break the rules. Stop thinking of boxers from eq and tlps that use 3rd party software to automate certain functions... those are not true boxers.
The reason why some of us will only pay for a game that uses the subscription format is because it keeps everyone on an even playing field. You can't "buy your way to success".
Boxers, in essence, get around the basic assumption of a lvl playing field and do" buy their way to success". Boxing is the pay to win format that is available in subscription based mmos.
Let's make another thread. All you're buying is an opportunity.
As Porygon correctly pointed out, boxing often involves using two or more accounts each created in accordance with the rules of the game and each operated in accordance with the rules of the game.
This can be done with each account in a separate window on one monitor, each account on a separate monitor or most simply each account active at the same time with the player alt/tabbing from one to the other.
By definition there is nothing whatsoever wrong with this since the rules of the game permit both the creation of the accounts and their simultaneous operation.
Pantheon obviously will allow us to have multiple accounts if we pay the subscription for each - in fact a second account is a pledge reward. It will not and probably *can* not prevent both accounts from being played at the same time. Why would it want to - the whole idea is to allow us to play with friends or family mambers - but nothing in the pledge rules says we cannot or should not use the second account to play with ourselves. Did I just *say* that?
Botting is a really unrelated concept. It involves operating an account automatically using programs to run the character rather than the character being manually operated by the player. It does NOT require more than one account although many botters do use multiple accounts, thus the confusion sometimes shown between the terms boxing (short for multi-boxing, traditionally the use of more than one "box" or computer although today it can easily be done with a single computer) and botting (the automated operation of a character, the term coming from the use of the character as if it was a robot).
Apologies to those that knew all this and many of us do - I think there are some that are not familiar with all of the details.
One can argue that allowing a person to have two or more accounts gives them more of an opportunity but to put it mildly it is rather stretching things to say that letting me run two legal accounts without botting in any way is a form of "pay to win". It would be just as logical to say that allowing me to play with my spouse or friend is pay to win since two characters in a group can do things that a solo player cannot. Continuing the progression, I suppose one could argue that permitting characters to group is in and of itself unfair to solo players and a form of pay to win. Reductio ad adsurdtum (I didn't bother to check the spelling) of course - Pantheon's core concept is that we should group with eachother and do things that one character cannot do. I know of no game that prohibits two legally created and run accounts from being active at the same time.
Porygon did I focus on the points that you avoided lest you be driven to say something more ...intemperate ...than appropriate?
By the way I thend to agree with Philo - it does *feel* unfair to see two characters or more running around obviously operated by one player even if there is no indication that any character is being botted. But that doesn't mean it should be banned and as noted I'm not sure that it really can be.
dorotea said:Porygon did I focus on the points that you avoided lest you be driven to say something more ...intemperate ...than appropriate?
I literally could not have written it better myself. That's not me being hyperbolic. I literally could not have expressed my views that eloquently lol. Thank you.
philo said:Porygon said:I always find it amusing when people say that autofollow is the primary tool for botters and boxers.
1) who cares if boxers use it? Boxing is something that is allowed in almost everygame, and does nothing to break the rules. Stop thinking of boxers from eq and tlps that use 3rd party software to automate certain functions... those are not true boxers.
The reason why some of us will only pay for a game that uses the subscription format is because it keeps everyone on an even playing field. You can't "buy your way to success".
Boxers, in essence, get around the basic assumption of a lvl playing field and do" buy their way to success". Boxing is the pay to win format that is available in subscription based mmos.
I have to strongly disagree. I and many of my friends routinely used "boxing" to help us fill out a group, or aid in harvesting and other reasons to just enrich our gaming experience. Many MMO's put artificial limits on aspects like how many skills a character can have, or how much money you can keep (VG), how many houses you can own (VG), storage capacities.
We simply used in-game functions such as /follow, /assist. etc.
We were not hacking, power-leveling, selling items for RMT or any other shady reasons.
I am aware of players that take the multi-boxing to the extreme, such as in what DBG calls EQ1 now. Fielding entire groups of bots all controlled by macro tools to take down named monsters, dominate camps. But that is turning over your game to using a external software tool to turn characters into robots. Which is clearly in violation of the about any games TOS.
Brad and Co. have clearly stated in past game streams that players wanting to multi-box, and use the game commands as provided are welcome to, and fully within the terms of use.
Game commands that include (I assume) /follow, /assist, /target xxx, /loot, and so forth.
That does not mean you are ok to use a macro program that has your pocket cleric in autofollow routinely buffing, healing your primary characters in a non-stop endless loop, or some other automated fashion.
Of course people will, there is no way for VR to identify or block these kinds of programs/tools. What VR will try to do, is make is very hard for any programmed macro to be versatile enough to handle unexpected events, such as over-aggro from healing, or more random cool down timers, varying environmental effects, etc.
Bazgrim said:Well as of PAX East, it was in the game. And I can't think of a reason why they would take it out. Whether or not you use it is up to you ;)
Why wouldn't you? Some of the best disasters have been born from autofollow mishaps. Especially if it involves a levitation spell of some sort.
Multiboxing will be fine. People have been doing it for decades. Biggest thing to remember is multiboxing has nothing to do with botting. Botting scripts today are much more complicated and capable of going far beyond what we saw in the old EQ days. Botters simply have ZERO need to use /follow with the level of tech they have.
I know I plan to be multiboxing when the game launches as long as Brad and Company do not change the rules on it. If they say no, then I would not do it, but if there are no rule changes, I will be boxing from the first week off and on.
Thanks,
Barnum
Bronsun said:How did auto follow topic turn into a rant about mboxing? You should go meet in a coffee shop, share a lemon scone and wax philosophical there. :D
I know right. ;p Sometimes ya just gotta go AFK a minute while the group is on the move. And sometimes that just leads to hilarious disaster. Curtailing bots is going to take far more than removing a simple auto follow option anywho.