EVE General Discussion

at least one GM is clear:

[Tuesday 10 September 2013] [15:04:08] <[GM]XXX> the "why" didn't change. We still don't care if you activate all your modules with a single keypress. Activating all modules on 20 clients at the same time with a single press goes far beyond that, though.

[Wednesday 11 September 2013] [12:29:42] <[GM]XXX> and it's pretty similar to the AP0 hack thing. Just because we may not necessarily take immediate action doesn't mean we still tolerate it. And the current EULA imho pretty clearly forbids mirroring keystrokes (and would have done so for the past 1.5 years)

He is also misinformed in his opinion.

Since mining requires one keystroke every 45 minutes — automation or not — such a method would be supremely incapable of detecting anything of value.

Actually, it doesn't. The opinions of GMs are 100% irrelevant. What matters is the policy. If they misread that policy, they can have any opinion they want and all that means is that they're worthless GMs.

Sure, some people might get nicked by this incompetence, but it's still just incorrect and irrelevant opinions.

Oh sure. But if they want to toss people out on the basis of the “because I say so” rule, they should do it while referring to the “because I say so” rule — not some other, completely incorrect and irrelevant rule.

My point is mainly that arbitrarily enforcing non-existing or unknown policies that go against the long-established and well-known policies already in place smacks of incompetence and unprofessionalism. As it happens, few things will so thoroughly headshot every last shred of integrity and trust in, not just the enforcers of the rules, but in the rules themselves is incompetence and unprofessionalism in that enforcement.

Soon enough, players will just go “eff it, who cares what the rules are — the GMs certainly don't — so let's cheat our asses off.”

the thing about broadcasting it that CCP has no say in the matter. they don't have to "allow it", it is already... the software doesn't modify, the memory region the client runs in, the software doesn't modify or read the eve cache. the software doesn't even know what is happening inside the window...

there's nothing to allow.

broadcasting enables control of multiple accounts, control that cant be taken away unless they change the eula to only allow one instance of the client to be running at any given time (something that thanks to copyright law can easily be enforced), or they allow only one log in per IP.

and as soon as you suggest that, you realize 80% of the player base will tell you to **** off.

oh and for clarification, we are not "players" we are "users" if you get shoot by 10 arty ruptures in a gate flown by 10 players, you got killed by 10 users. if they were all controlled by one player... you still got killed by 10 users.

the idea of having the client somehow measuring the amount of keystrokes, sharing such information between processes and do... something with it... breaks so many privacy laws worldwide that its not even funny.

and this is all before we even consider the question of , "what is it to you?" it doesn't affect you, at all, if some dude wants to fly 10, 20, or 500 ships. any complaint you might have about the power multiplication effect of "many ships" is a complaint about the eve game mechanics.

if you don't like blobs, don't engage them.

Hello there,

To make a long story short, automation of gameplay is not permitted; players must be manually issuing the commands to control their character(s) at all times.

Our stance on programs such as Synergy and hardware/software combination such as the G15 keyboard is that they can be legitimately used as long as gameplay isn't automated. Synergy allows you to move your mouse cursor to multiple different monitors which are hooked up to different computers and we do not have any qualms with players using the program for this purpose. If Synergy was used in some way to control your accounts for you without a need for you to be at your keyboard, then that would not be allowed, but I am not aware of such a functionality with this program. If Synergy is used in conjunction with some other program to automate gameplay, it would not be permitted. G15 "macros" which allow you to group different commands into one keypress are allowed. For example, setting your G1 key to press F1, F2, F3 and so on for you with one key press is allowed (although this specific command is not as useful as it was before now that we have weapon grouping).

An exceedingly complex G15 macro which would effectively automate gameplay, such as mining, without a need for the player to be present at his keyboard would be against the EULA, regardless of whether the player utilizing said macro is sitting at his keyboard at the time!

Lastly, multiboxing is allowed, and programs designed for multiboxing in mind which allow a player to manually issue the same command to multiple game clients at the same time are allowed. In the same vein as what has been stated above, the player must be manually sending the commands; if a program is automating those commands for you, then it would be considered a breach of our EULA.

I hope this clears up this matter.

Best regards,
Senior GM Lelouch
EVE Online Customer Support

Addendum by GM Lelouch:
This post was originally written almost three years ago and as software/hardware evolves, so must our stance on what goes within our game. It has become increasingly difficult for us to track the capabilities of various pieces of software over the years as their number, as well as the features they offer, increase greatly in number.

In other words, it is unfortunately impractical for us to evaluate whether specific pieces of software can be used without breaking EVE's EULA/ToS. This post should not be taken as endorsement for utilizing specific pieces of software/hardware with EVE, but as a guideline to what is acceptable.

Our general stance towards the concept of multiboxing has not changed but we cannot guarantee that the EULA is being upheld should you use any of the software/hardware mentioned by name in this post, nor will we at EVE customer support be able to officially endorse or sanction specific third party multiboxing programs.

Players wishing to multibox are responsible for familiarizing themselves with our EULA and Terms of Service, the following clauses in particular are of much relevance to this topic:

EULA:
6. CONDUCT
A. Specifically Restricted Conduct
2. You may not use your own or third-party software to modify any content appearing within the Game environment or change how the Game is played.
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.

ToS:
21. You will not attempt to decipher, hack into or interfere with any transmissions to or from the EVE Online servers, nor will you try to create or use any third party add-ons, extras or tools for the game.

The old, out of date, post can be seen below as it originally appeared:

Yes, that 2010 post is great and all, but as the TOS and other services specifically justify CCP staff being able to change policy as they see fit, and a GM publicizing his opinion (an opinion that matters as he has account power) it becomes a matter of believing in a grandfather policy, or an ever changing policy.

In short, it makes it worse =(.

EDIT- Is GM Lelouch still around btw?

Hello ya'll, hope you're having a good day.

CCP Stillman recently wrote a dev blog about client modifications and our stance towards them. The dev blog also touched on the subject of third-party programs and I feel it is very relevant to the discussion in this thread. I encourage those of you who haven't read it to give it a look, this blog actually makes for great coffeetable reading and those of you who've already indulged may even want to print out your very own copy to share with friends and family!

Multiboxing is not inherently in violation of our EULA, a player is not breaking the EVE game rules by virtue of simultaneously operating multiple accounts alone. Multiboxing software can however be in violation of the EULA.

CCP can and will not officially endorse or condone specific pieces of third-party software and ISBoxer is no exception to this. I will make this very clear: CCP does not officially endorse ISBoxer or any other multiboxing software. Use of third-party programs is, as outlined in Stillman's blog, done entirely at your own risk and we'll quite simply not be able to state outright that this software or that software can be legitimately used under the EVE EULA since they are after all third-party programs.

Let us make an example to illustrate why:

'Hypothetical Software v1.0' is released to the joy of all and is eventually endorsed by CCP as a fine supplement to EVE; the program is officially declared to not be in violation of the EVE EULA/ToS. Some weeks later, the developers of 'Hypothetical Software' releases an update, version 1.1, an update which adds macro mining functionality to the program's existing features. Automating the mining portion of the game is obviously in violation of the EVE EULA so use of 'Hypothetical Software' would suddenly become a EULA violation despite prior endorsement by CCP.

There are a lot of great third-party developers creating fantastic tools to supplement the EVE experience and this is all fine and dandy. As EVE grows, so does the amount of third-party programs developed for EVE and we cannot realistically review and condone these tools on an individual basis and use of such programs is therefore done at your own risk.

We can prohibit and warn against the use of software which we know without a doubt to contain components which violate the EULA. Any program which enables the Autopilot to 0 client modification falls under this for example: if you use a piece of software which enables you to autopilot to 0, you can expect a permanent suspension of your account as you are in gross violation of the EULA.

In addition to CCP Stillman's blog which I linked at the top of this post, I'd also like to bring your attention to the following page which outlines our official policy on third-party programs:
Third-party policies