Raids, lockout timers and exploits

[Danille]

The official word from SOE:

Dev-Ngreth
Developer (when speaking about SOE's opinion of the difference between group task adds alts and mains; and by-passing raid progression lock out timers)

We are not going to have a conversation about this, but I will say this and then lock it.

We consider it questionable behavior.

What we don't want is people that get the reward, not getting a lockout.

In this case all the people getting the reward (a flag, coins, exp, points and possible loot) are getting the lockout.

We would prefer that all people up to the reward fully participate. We would prefer that all people that participate get a lockout,

We are not condoning the behavior. I am not telling you to go out and do it. We actually do not want you to do it.

I know that this answer is "inexact" but it is what it is.

Yes there is a fine line of difference between this and a raid, but in a raid we do expect everyone that participates to get a lockout. And in many cases, people exploiting timers in a raid are not getting a lockout, but still getting the direct reward. This does not mean... "leave the people that are getting the reward in the zone to get the lockout" we consider the whole raid as getting the reward, even if only a few get an immediate reward. There is an expectation of reward at some point for your participation. There are all sorts of semantics that people can try and throw about, but it resolves down to the simple... we expect everyone who participates in a raid that completes to the reward point to get a lockout. If the raid fails and you leave, and they go again and succeed we do not expect you to have a lockout, only if the run you participate in completes to reward. Semantics around the reward part of it are just that.

We do not mind if people are added late to a raid, as long as all participants in the raid get a lockout. We are not saying you cannot add an alt later to give the alt the reward, as long as all participants in the raid itself get a lockout.
That is the line here. We want any group of people participating in a raid to only be able to do it once per lockout period. Once they get to the point of having the reward, they are free to do with the reward what they want.

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts ... _id=163389" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tweelis]

Yea, I read about this on the evilgamer.net boards. If anybody wants to see a multi-page thread about this head over there and look at the thread called "amusing" in the general area.

[Bastler]

Whole guild cheated got caught and now they are whining they were not the only ones?
Pathetic.
SOE should have banned them for a month, as a big warning for others.

[svenalo]

They aren't complaining that they were caught and banned, and are in fact happy to take their lumps. However they are complaining about there being an apparent double standard, that others are doing the same thing and are not being banned - and in my opinion, that position is valid. It's no different than if the cops investigated two crimes, had sufficient evidence for both cases, but decided to only take one party to trial. Double standards are wrong - everyone should be held to the same standard no matter their class, position, wealth, etc, etc.

[Bastler]

Yeah but Triality has a history of not taking the EULA too seriously. So whom do you nail first? The repeat offender of a first time culprit? Especially as nailing the repeater will possibly scare off the beginner while the other way round might not be be the case.

[Baramos]

Triality is the guild that, for many people, was "The Guild" in EQ by action, by achievement, by reputation. At least from the outside looking in.

Some people considered the guild Norrath Heroes, and held them to a high standard.

The fact that this particular guild did it, and with exclamations that "other people did it too", is disappointing, to say the least.

[Piemastaj]

Regardless if your a repeat offender or a first time offender; if one party gets suspended every party should get suspended if they are all doing the same illegal things. If SOE doesn't suspend other guilds that are doing the samething then they are hypocrits. I have a feeling they hit Triality first because of what Bara said, Triality to many was seen as the end all be all guild so then it would scare other guilds from doing this.

I am not saying I agree with what Triality did or anything just saying that SOE should punish everyone equally.

[Voragath]

Is anyone even positive that anyone else cheated? If they did, what made Triality different? Here's the thing, Triality got caught and they shoulda left it at that but getting on their website and crying foul falls on deaf ears. Lots of people get away with DUI, speeding, murder, drug trafficing, rape, etc. but it's the ones who get caught that pay the price. Not saying others did or not but if you get caught you should leave it at that. Sony may have still been trying to catch the others or the others may have not done it to the severity that Triality did. Suppose, Triality made four successful runs at the Beast one week, and x, y and z guild made two. Ok, not so suspicious, maybe Triality is that good. Next week, same, deal, yet x, y, z make only one run. Week 3, Triality makes 4 runs and x, y, z make 1 each. That'll get some attention. I don't know how or what sony uses or used to find out, what tipped them off, or what Triality was even doing (i.e. more than once in a night, more than once in a week). Something they did was either easier to notice or was more egregious than anyone else. Perhaps it was catching Triality at lots of stuff. Only two groups of people know what happened here and only one group of people know why Triality was punished and no one else or if even anyone else deserves punishment.

I think plenty of discussion has been had and I don't think we need to drag it to our boards.

[svenalo]

I am not saying I agree with what Triality did or anything just saying that SOE should punish everyone equally.

Exactly.

[Karian]

Most of those accusations are false(RoI hiding tanks for Beast, not winning on Queen etc) and makes me suspect that most of them are. Dalnoth's back to wave his dick, and they play off the victim role like anybody that doesn't know how to stand up and say "We messed up". Quarken and Abazz manned up on other threads, while their idiot members bragged about no big deal 3 days off and keeping their loot.They lost no loot, no time for this "punishment". They should treat us all equal, would be fantastic to get caught exploiting and then get the punishment reversed 3 days later because "We didn't know we couldn't do that".

They spread lies in an IRC chat about us as well which was pretty awesome, we had one member who takes himself to seriously go in there and stir up trouble, but its not as if we had our entire guild join their server's general channel to start things.(They did that to Druzzil) But basically there were a few members in their guild that I respected and tried to talk to. Mendix included, but now he's just proven himself to be horrible. I'm not going to chest beat and say we're coming for you blah blah, getting within 30 seconds of winning a broken raid and then discovering a new broken mechanic angers me more than this crap, but the very idea that people believe people who are known to cheat the system and lie to stay ahead is boggling.