EVE General Discussion

No. There have been quite a few reply posts using the in-game client ability to form up fleets of ships then warp them all at once to a destination as an excuse to use ISBoxer software. There is no connection between functions that the in-game client allows you to do and what ISBoxer type software does to bastardise those actions.

For example if I watch fourteen accounts with pilots all in NPC accounts log on within 15 seconds of each other on my contacts I will be suspicious. If twelve of those accounts are piloting Skiffs and then turn on mining lasers within a few seconds of each other I will be asking for them to be banned.

A lot of ordinary non-CODE players of EVE have been hacked off at the amount of obvious ISBoxer use for ages. Members of the CSM have responded to this and CCP is doing something about it. I'm not sure whether CCP will lose out financially as a result of this decision or not. Not all decision can be just financially based though and it is good to keep the player-base happy by doing something like this.

Yes, they have been hacked off about the completely legitimate and explicitly allowed multiboxing application ISBoxer. But being hacked off at something doesn't mean the something is inherently wrong. Unfortunately lately it seems it means CCP will come in and nuke it without thought. People were hacked off about awoxing too. Lots of people are hacked off at wardecs, ganking, ninja salvagers and margin scammers. I suppose all of those should go too then, yes?

We'll see how happy "the player-base" (by which I mean "the vocal minority") is when they realise it doesn't suddenly mean all of the ice belts are empty of other players. They are happy right now because they think there's going to be a profound difference, which there won't be.

I guess we interact with different sets of the playerbase. I've seen more new players ragequit or leave after being ganked by CODE because they stood up to get a beer or haul the trash out than I have seen players quit after running into an ISBoxer. As mentioned earlier, there are distinct disadvantages and penalties players put upon themselves when they start ISBoxing. The fact that the average player is more content to run screaming to mommy instead of, heavens forbid, considering how to disrupt the ISBoxer is reminding me of The EVEOnion article regarding the new "petition fleet" doctrine. There are literally hundreds of options available to the average player when it comes to ISBoxers, from gank Catalysts to smartbombing Rokhs for clustered miners.

Are macro keys on mice, keyboards and headsets allowed to be used?
Is the program Voice Attack that gives ability to play EVE with voice commands allowed? This is a valuable tool for players who are physically handicapped.

I reckon, that would depend. What do your macros do?

If you press one button and your client does 5 things (or 5 different chars do one thing) it's probably not ok.

Same should hold for voice commands. If you tell your ship to warp to gate XYZ and all it actually does is warp there, it should be ok imhol. However, if you tell your ship "go rat in havens until such time that I return" while you go take a hot bath ... that's botting.

one button multiple mods activated on one client is fine.

do we have alliance wide bm's? (not a troll don't actual know)

Not yet, but rumors are "soon".

However squad warping bombers is a much safer way to operate when doing bomb runs

Pattern recognition isn't always about recognizing the pattern people think you are trying to recognize. I bolded where you avoided the original pattern and created another detectable one. I'm not saying CCP can police this 100% perfectly on the actual-positive and false-positive sides. I was just pointing out that the client can collect various things that not everybody would expect would be useful in detecting these patterns.

You've pointed out pretty clearly that you have workarounds for all of these changes, which is fine, you probably won't get banned due to those adaptations. But for those who refuse to change their behavior there is now a clear line as to what can get them banned. CCP isn't going to make promises they can't keep, that's why they banned the behavior based on how it appears on their end, not how you do it on your end. As such I'd be most worried about how my behavior looked on their end, and any changes they could make, without me knowing, to improve their ability to see what I'm doing.