EVE General Discussion

People just don't seem to realise, CCP is not bound by EULA in the same way players are. It's a document to protect CCP legally, not a list of laws that CCP is required to adhere to. Tomorrow, CCP could just up and say "Hey, that section on botting doesn't apply to CFC, just coz we said so".

Pretty much the only thing you can do when CCP changes the EULA in a way you don't like, is to refuse to accept it. Doing so, of course, means you can no longer access Eve.

It's also to protect the player. Yes CCP can change it whenever they want to, as stated in the EULA, but CCP must adhere to the rules we have accepted at this point.

Problems with sharing public yes/no posts are for instance that the questions are written ambiguous, so even if CCP would read the question the way the writer intended, others may think something else is meant. Same goes for answers given by CCP. A lot of people (including me) would like to help and post whatever they think is right, which can be confusing if it ain't (completely) right. Outsiders tend to go off-topic, creating a needle in a haystack when people are looking for the answers. And on top of that it's not as easy to go in further on the topic by either parties. Check out https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=387571&find=unread which is as close as it gets to a public statement about this topic, excluding the EULA. Have fun reading every single post in that thread.

Long story short, read the EULA. If this doesn't answer your question (although it seems pretty clear to me regarding this topic), open a petition.

Removed an off topic post.

Which isn't that big a deal unless you give a really bad ruling that rapidly breaks the game. Because you can always post a later rule clarification saying "this is no longer okay".

Abrupt policy changes are much better than unclear policies.

I think the OP has a valid question, and I don't know what he (or anyone else) has to file a petition for an official ruling. If CCP has a macro policy they need to clearly spell it out for players.

I'm one of the people who have posted here on these forums and elsewhere that ISBoxer is not being banned, just those functions that violate the EULA. I don't think that James 315 will appreciate you comparing him to me. I think it's pretty funny myself

I also think it's pretty funny that you totally disregard anything that CCP Random might have to say about this situation. I think CCP Random is a pretty good authority on how CCP will enforce the EULA. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm pretty sure you're safe if you just use the hotkeys, but I wouldn't use any macros.

I will add this. I would strongly advise not relying on any post on the forums to justify any behavior or actions you take in game. Not only do I base that on what CCP Random said on Twitter, but on both CCP Logibro's and ISD LackofFaith's responses in this thread. I would do as both of them have advised and open a petition to get approval in advance. That way, if you get hit with the banhammer, you can copy and paste your petition response into your appeal.

I think that CCP is about to enforce the letter of the EULA, which means a lot of people who think they are really clever are going to get banned come 1 January. CCP is giving everyone a lot of advance notice. If you don't want to listen to CCP, it won't break my heart.

Actually, I see a different comparison. EVE is trying to make its EULA and compliance more in line with what NCSoft is doing, particularly with Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 is one of the more successful games of the past 3 years and NCSoft has banned input broadcasting in all of the games it publishes. As I remember, Lax was pretty upset when he found out that ISBoxer was all but banned in Wildstar. The same holds true in Guild Wars 2. CCP is going down that exact same line in EVE.

I think CCP is trying to appeal to the new users. They don't want people coming into the game thinking they need to use mods in order to be competitive. Also, they don't want new players thinking that bots are accepted, and to someone just passing through a system, a field full of ISBoxer miners doesn't look too different from a bot fleet. That whole Miner001, Miner002, Miner003 naming convention is used by bots in lots of other games. Sure, it makes things easier for ISBoxer users, but it just looks bad.

Don't knock the effect that botting has on retention of new players. 2014 has been a really bad year for new MMORPGs. One of the things that really plagued the big 3 AAA titles, Elder Scrolls Onine, Wildstar, and ArcheAge, were bots, hacks, and exploits. People just don't stick around games like that. The basic gameplay and the new player experience in EVE are bad enough (although getting better). I don't think CCP wants to throw looking like they can't control botters into that mix. It's bad for business.

When GW2 launched, they couldn't tell the difference between a bot running with 5 rangers following along behind or a multi-boxer using 6 clients using input broadcasting. So they just went ahead and banned input broadcasting, as they didn't see a difference between the two had on the game. Basically, CCP has had that same ban on input broadcasting in the EULA forever; they just didn't enforce it.

Look, we can agree to disagree. You say that CCP is succumbing to the mob. I think that CCP is making a cold-blooded business decision on what is going to get them more money in the long run. And in the long run, EVE needs new players. That's why we are seeing new types of PvE (the newbies are getting mining anomalies so they can finish the tutorials), that's why we will see a revamp of the NPE, and that's why we've seen CCP make a concerted effort to remove complexity that doesn't add to the game. And I think that eliminating input broadcasting is part of that direction.

I should add that if CCP really wanted to kill ISBoxer in EVE, they would just ban Inner Space. That way, they could also ban all the bots and hacks using Inner Space at the same time using a detection process. But since CCP is going to the extra work necessary to allow ISBoxer to remain, they must still see some legitimate uses for it that add to the game.

I think we're getting a little off-topic, which is helping Ducian make sure that using his Christmas present doesn't get him banned. I'm more conservative in my reading of the EULA than you, which means I agree that he should follow ISD LackofFaith's advice, which is mapping the function keys to the keypad, but don't use any macros. I think you would disagree about the macros. Either way, if he isn't comfortable about taking advice from strangers on the Internet, then he should submit a petition as advised by both ISD LackofFaith and CCP Logibro.

CCP isn't targeting ISBoxers, no matter how much propaganda is being spread around on that score. They would expend less effort if they just chose to detect Inner Space and automatically ban everyone they find that has the software running in the EVE client's memory space. THAT would be targeting ISBoxers.

Instead, they are targeting behavior that violates the EULA, in this case, Section 6A3. CCP hasn't changed the wording of the EULA. From my perspective, they haven't even changed the interpretation of it (remember, CCP posted that using "the multiboxing application" was a EULA violation in the Third Party Policies page back in April 2013). All they've done is clarified the policy (with wording I assume will be posted somewhere official) and changed their willingness to enforce their EULA. I have a feeling their willingness to enforce the EULA is related to what CCP feels is their capability to detect violations of the EULA.

That's why I would advise Ducian not to install any macros in his mouse. It's better to play it safe and read the EULA conservatively and not get banned than to play at the edge of the rules and have to go through the appeals process. Especially since a strict interpretation of Section 6A3 would say that using the macro Ducian used as his example would be a EULA violation. And that's why you submit the petition if not sure about something. So you have something to defend yourself with if a ban is imposed.

Yes, I'm referring to the accelerated gameplay clause. What I'm referring to is the use of macros. If the macro makes you more efficient than someone not using the macro, then CCP can use the banhammer. I wouldn't put much faith in that per-character vs per-human argument, especially if it was only on posts on the forums. If it isn't in the EULA, ToS, Third Party Policies, any new page CCP comes up with that is part of the Rules of Conduct, or in a petition response from CCP, for all practical purposes it won't save anyone from a ban. And I think a strict interpretation would be that any macro is bad that improves play. At least, that's my reading of the EULA and the recent Security dev blog.

Where is CCP going to draw the line? Personally, I'm not going to risk a ban to find out. Then again, I've never used macros or input broadcasting since, when I read the EULA, those things clearly violated it. At least in my judgement.

authCREST is online and I've been informed that EVE Central is online already. Also, the EVEMon data uploader still has an option for EVE Central, so it may be receiving scraped data still.

I thought that Steve Ronuken had converted Fuzzworks. I know that his market history feed pulls from CREST. I'll bug him on Twitter. I can't believe he hasn't converted yet.

For EVEMon, you can disable the market uploading feature, which I assume disables the cache scraping. I believe that would make it like ISBoxer. You can use it, just disable the part that violates the EULA.

I don't know about pytha. Does it do cache scraping? If it is only getting market information from EVE Central or some other market site, I'd think that would be okay. When in doubt, just don't use it when you have the client running.

In short, I'll really be glad when the cache is finally removed. Then we won't need to worry about this anymore. But yes, if using a site or app would cause you to violate the EULA, just don't visit it.

The thing is, yes you can mash F1-F8, but can you do that while manually piloting, cycling overheats, pressing D-scan and locking targets? Not without 15 fingers. Whereas pressing your macro only takes one finger giving you better chances to press all those other buttons.

Heck, if you measured the reaction time of one guy who has to press F1 when prompted and the other guy has to press F1-F8 the guy who only presses F1 is going to score better.

The "activate all hardeners at once" is an area where CCP has historically taken a loose reading of the EULA, but some GMs feel differently.