Talonis

Exploits. Cheats. Shady tactics. Not working as intended. We've heard them all. Some of the juiciest drama ever to touch this game is born of this stuff. Anybody else remember the first time you heard of the Stein of Moggok money maker or the early instances of gold duping? I do. There are a ton of those examples by this point in the game.

I was following the thread about DA and AM in Veeshan's Peak and thought to myself how similar the underlying argument is to prior 'events'. Few will disagree that EQ2Flames is the epicenter of hardcore raiders engaging in discussion about encounters and mechanics. Sweep away the poop, boobs, and noobs and you've got some great entertainment in these threads, especially if you are somewhat of a gaming 'purist'. It would have been interesting to see some of the early Darathar discussions in an EQ2Flames format. Fast forward to EoF and the WW1st-ing of a priest of valor, lol. How about the Rumbler? Pick any version of Mayong. AoM. Now to Druushk. Dozens of others in between.

When is your kill good enough? Should it be standard to post logs and parser SS to validate kills? Probably not. Maybe.

A game as complex in design as EQ2, there are going to be things discovered by the playerbase that got missed by the devs, duh. The magnitude and frequency of this is not really the topic, but the propensity of the players to find and make the conscious decision to utilize the 'holes' in the code is the topic. Yeah, plausible deniability and genuine/fake-ass ignorance have their place also. 'Scrub Guild X' can't possibly beat 'Uber Encounter B' without some kind of cheat or exploit, right? Perhaps, but what if they just got lucky? What if they have a member that possesses a knack or skill at discovering the 'holes'? What if the majority of the guild embraces a culture of finding the easy way around?

We're in year 4 of the game and there are without doubt some extremely accomplished exploiters. Are the players as a whole getting better at exploiting or is the quality (or lack thereof) of the game to blame? It could be argued both ways, I guess. The game is long in the tooth and the players are better versed in the ways of the cheat and where to look for the 'holes'. It is what it is. Deal with it. Just be prepared to face the music if you choose the dark path of the exploiterer. While some have gotten better at exploiting, others have gotten better at identifying people using those exploits.

It isn't typical for the devs to intend a strat that neuters a mob into a loot pinata. If history (and present) is any indicator, not everything live is meant to be beaten, lol. That doesn't stop guilds from finding those strats and using them tho. The implied difference is that if an encounter is beaten straight up and did not appear to work correctly, the guild is given a 'free pass' if it is brought to public attention immediately and /bugged in game. Use any argument to legitimize or claim of ignorance and you should brace for the drama floodgates.

The race to be the first to beat an encounter is one of the main motivators in raiding. To be recognized on a WW level. Few care about subsequent kills after the first couple of kills, but the unwritten rules still apply to a lesser extent, it would seem. The first kills are always scrutinized more, and for good reason. It is certainly worth noting that properly designed and tested scripts are less likely to fall victim to exploiting, but from our side of the screen, that is yelling at the rain. Sure does make validating/legitimizing kills easier though.

- Are the exploiters getting better and growing in numbers?

- Is this a testament to a growing 'cheating culture' or merely a reflection of shoddy development?

- Which is more important to the community: Doing it first, or doing it right?

- With so many unresolved issues with game mechanics (and the growing number of instances they are misused) are kills perpetually doomed to be judged by the community on a case-by-case basis?

It just seems like there are fewer cut-n-dry legit kills anymore. Guilds caught with their hands in the sploiter cookie jar have cast a shadow on raiding accomplishments forever. Is it unreasonable for the community to be left to decide such things in the face reduced-quality encounters?

Discuss.

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Zahne

To be honest, doing it first is always going to be impressive. Doing it right, or repeating it successfully is pretty freaking sweet.

It's one thing to take it down, it's another thing to farm it.

There's a pretty fine line between "omg exploit" and thinking outside the box as well. Quite frequently world firsts are easy kills due to broken game mechanics.

I can't really fault a guild, when the entire nature of the game involves pulling something over and over to find that chink in it's armor. Sometimes what's a valid strat today, may very well be taken out of the game tomorrow.

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Laxx

with this piece of shit expansion you can clearly see no one gives a fuck anymore.

Snark

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Niber

I agree. Since progression no longer means anything, I personally don't care. No self-respecting guild is touting world firsts anymore legitimate or otherwise. There are only 2 types of raid mobs in RoK, impossible or too easy. With maybe 1 mob in between.

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Slippery

There is no progression. Some of the Avatar kills may mean something, but that is yet to be seen (and even then, not a lot due to spawns). Trak and Tangrin may mean something, but that is probably going to be another example of everyone kills it in short order after a change.

osibia

exploiting, buying / selling plat, using the account of someone else, whatever you can think off that people would have asked you to be shot for irl at launch is allready accepted to a certain degree and it will only get worse as the game gets older, it has been that way in every mmorpg and is also going that way in eq2.

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Soe please upgrade your servers, this would be a good start.

Faeth

This is an interesting question. And definitely one people seem to have differing opinions/attitudes on.

An example I remember from a while back - not a "WW first" kill, but a mob needed for an update that would be a first for our guild - Talendor. Many guildies needed this - and at the time it had proved a struggle to kill. One night - call it luck, call it buggy - whatever - we managed (not by trying to) - to get a pull on Tal where he didn't cast his AE, and so no annoying blob adds spawned - voila - easy street kill.

One officer was all "WOOT we finally got him - RAR!" - the RL was all "not really - yes ppl got their updates, but we didn't kill him right, we just got it easy coz he bugged out" - there ensued a little arguement over whether this really mattered. RL refused to count it as a successful kill to advertise on the guild website until we had done it "properly".

I guess it comes down to the type of person you are - I agreed with the RL - it didn't feel like an achievement properly. Yes it was the first time we'd managed to beat him, but we hadn't really achieved beating him at proper difficulty, so for me it didn't count.

Suffice to say we went back and beat him without him being bugged - and this felt like the "first" in my eyes.

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Meta

QFE. Who cares anymore?

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Edwin Ahe

QFE

QFE x4

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