Jita Park Speakers Corner

First I find cheating despicable, if you cannot endeavor to succeed in the sandbox with the provided sand you should not be permitted to use Elmers glue to make your sandcastles invulnerable to get an edge up, unless we all get the same glue provided in game.

The distinctions as far as I can tell:

1. A butt, in a chair, occasionally.

2. Bot farmers mess with the economy by mining Millions of units of ore an hour, and reduce prices by flooding the market with consumables for construction while AFK. ISBoxer can do this as well with an occasional click of a button (see #3) In addition to besetting on other players for "One-player multi-toon synchronized Gang bang Combat" (Note: Best analogy I can come up with).

3. AFK Bot Farmers usually belong to a corp and mine resources to provision the corp USUALLY for the purpose or fuelling POS and making money to buy plex to hold up their accounts. ISBoxers can do the exact same thing, with the same number of accounts with a group of Mackinaw's and be AFK fro 29 Minutes at a time, come back and literally click one button to mine the next rock/ICE berg to extinction, back to the party set watch timer.

CCP says that 3rd party app using AFK BOT miners are a big NO-NO and that 3rd party ISBoxing is not.

The major variance that I can see, is a butt ..in a chair, every 29 Minutes between ore/ice OR using your app to put 240 guns in the hand of any single player that can afford to get the accounts started.

To me this seems like a way to license "Win" via a third party app in both cases. What am I missing? Perhaps the CSM or any random CCP developer or personnel can explain the difference that makes one safe and sane fun, and the other a no-no?

And I refer to the following as to my confusion about CCPs permissive nature on the matter fromt he EULA ...
3.You may not use your own or any third-party software, macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play. You may not rewrite or modify the user interface or otherwise manipulate data in any way to acquire items, currency, objects, character attributes or beneficial actions not actually acquired or achieved in the Game.

4. You may not use the Software, or any information accessible through the System, to bypass the System login architecture or create or provide any other means through which the System may be accessed and/or the Game may be played by others, as, for example, through server emulators.

I read that the EULA is speaking to an unfair advantage provided by 3rd party applications here, not a "Can you replicate the function with sticks and tape" kind of question? Am I wrong in that assessment?

Is it that we are allowed to purchase applications to give each of us 20 hands, but not AFK hands or AFG hands. Could I hire my neighbor say to play my toon, set up an AFK Macro miner, and have them just sit in the chair incase someone wanted to chat with the account?

To say no one would know would be an understatement as long as they were there to converse. Not really playing, Macro doing the work but ... butt in chair in case anyone checks in. In this example I have replicated a player playing but used software to actually do the work, is that acceptable? What about an auto reply that could do the same thing " I'm sorry but were mining right now and don't have time to chat." Automating the response that hides automating the macro that disguises that I am eating ramen when I mine and my hands Cant leave the chopsticks!

Fecal mincing of words to permit unethical behavior.

AND... that the ISBoxer website has a post from a GM that explains with some really nice euphemisms and fancy footwork HOW this permitted. (Bottom of page here) http://isboxer.com/multiboxing/is-isboxer-allowed

Admission: I have 2 accounts, I do not IS Box, I spent $300 on a really nice video card to play the game on my dual monitors, My toons live on opposite side of the galaxy and have done 1 mission together in 4 months.

Please advise on how it is expressly permitted to attain an unfair advantage from an out of game resource in one instance and yet not another, without using the word "grey area" or "otherwise physically replicable advantage" or synonymous statements or euphemisms.

Thank you,
Humbly and sincerely seeking a meaningful CCP/CSM response.

I think you are attempting to mash several issues and terms together when they are quite separate.

Being AFK is one issue.
It is not a problem though, in general it has no impact on anyone - perhaps afk cloaking is an exception to that. People have to be allowed to be afk for a reasonable period of time, the phone can ring, the door can knock, who knows. It is not reasonable to suggest that players should only enter the game if they can guarantee that they will not be disturbed in the real world.
The design of mining seems to aim to serve that balance, the addition of a dead mans switch would not improve the activity but would make the game quite irritating as well as making it inaccessible to a lot of people.

Bots are another issue.
There is a lot of propaganda floating about Eve that is largely generated by a single organisation and aims to impress upon New Eden their ideas and aims such as;
1. AI designers are so moronic they would be able to implement a mining bot but not be able to make it run away when a Catalyst came near.
2. Approaches to detecting an AI are contrary to common sense.
3. An AI has an ego that can be diminished by shooting at it.
4. Diminishing the likelihood of the community reporting suspected AI use to CCP.
and so on.
A bot is a program that can play the game instead of a human, where the human is at the time the bot is playing is quite irrelevant, it has nothing to do with being AFK. Being at the keyboard does not prevent you from using a bot, that is typical of mis-information that is widely promoted by certain player groups. There is also an idea that the most harmful use of automated gameplay would be in an asteroid belt with blind ignorance as to the far greater risk that they pose to the market.
There is no question that automated gameplay is against the rules, what a player is supposed to do when they suspect they have discovered it would benefit from being reinforced as CCP have to know about it if they are going to be able to do anything about it. Detecting the fingerprint of a bot is potentially challenging, it isn't something that could be done rapidly with any degree of certainty although it seems players desire FPS like instant gratification rather than it being dealt with properly, there should be an understanding that things cant happen instantly and that any process must be a considered one.

Multiple clients is a separate issue.
Obviously you cant be paying complete attention to more than one client at a time. If more than one client is allowed to be running at a time then it follows that a player will not be paying attention to them all, reinforcing the need for the game to allow for players being 'afk' in some form. In itself it makes little difference how many clients a player is allowed to have active as they can only focus on one at a time like everyone else, that effectively disadvantages them in many situations. A single person having a hundred accounts is therefor not really an issue as in itself it is entirely impractical.

Macros are a separate issue.
They are really a grey area when they are used as part of a piece of hardware and allowed in many games. A reasonable solution would be to ban any third party macro but provide an approved set in order that there was control over what was allowed to be done but also balance in allowing people to make use of fairly everyday gaming hardware. Simplifying is not really an issue unless it gives you an advantage, a single button that emptied the contents of a freighter into a station would not alter the balance of the game for example but one that lined up a queue of enemy ships and fired on each in turn until destroyed would not be fair.

ISBoxer is again a separate issue.
It alters how many clients a single player can focus on at a time which seems to have few drawbacks but many benefits. Strapping Mice together is impractical for most and is not a perfect solution, ultimately it is not how it is done but what is done that is the issue.

I don't think the problem is helped by CCP's attempt to maximise income from existing players rather than focussing all effort on recruiting new ones, the diminishing circle approach is not renowned for longevity and the use of the CSM almost suggests that it might also be present as a development method.

Whilst I do think you should be able to have multiple clients I don't think that you should be able to simultaneously interact with them via the use of additional third party software or hardware. If the facility to do that were a built in part of Eve then perhaps there is scope for a debate but as it stands it is the use of third party software to gain an advantage in game. I don't see that as being within the remit of fair play.

By your definition, eve survival, eve central, the eve wiki, and all other web sites should get you banned.

It's great you have an opinion on what is and isn't acceptable, unfortunately, we all have to live with what CCP deems is acceptable.

TBH as much over-powered as ISboxer sounds I have not seen it used to any extent that is game breaking. One of my corp mates uses it to multi-box hi-sec gank catalysts and listening to him fiddle around getting the accounts logged in, the settings right for 30-40 minutes then warping to the target to find one of the clients had it's overview sorted wrong so it landed on the wrong gate and randomly agressed some pilot at the top of the overview list.
We also had a visit the other night from Legion of Alts with a horde of ISboxer'd tornados. We shipped down to frigates and camped him in a station for 3 hours. For all it's advantages, ISboxer-type software can never compete with the same number of ships piloted by individual pilots.

It has its niche uses but IMO most of the drama is hyped up bs. ISboxer barges are prime canditates for my corp mate's ISboxer'd catalysts (and our individually piloted catalysts too!), and ISboxer alpha Tornado's and BS are easily countered by t1 frigates. Rock Paper Scissors intact.