Originally Posted by Sotan

I'll see your pointless, nonsensical demand and raise you one that makes sense. Show me where there is an official written doctrine of the game that any item or ability in the game must only be used for the specific purpose for which they were originally designed. Show me anywhere in the rules that prohibits players from being creative and using their items and abilities in ways that dev did not foresee. Show me any statement from SOE or dev, anywhere, that says players are required to finish all of their quests and that holding onto and continuing to use quest items they find useful is a violation of the game rules.

Time to put up or shut up. You're the one who's making the positive assertion that this is an exploit, so you've got the burden of proof here. Provide some fucking quotes from the EULA to support your position, or STFU.

Originally Posted by Sotan

Yeah, that's what I thought. After being shown that you were talking completely out of your ass, you backtrack from your claims and change the subject. READY! FIRE! AIM!

Moving on.

Originally Posted by Talonis

Who needs to quote the EULA? The item is getting changed. Apparently NOT working as intended. No aggro-free harvesting for you. Apply direct pressure between your legs to stop the bleeding. What part don't you get, little one?

Originally Posted by Sotan

The part where you persist in failing grade school English by continuing in this fantasy world where I give a shit whether or not they change it.

You really are the dumbest ankle-biter I've ever run into on the internets. Most people stop making demonstrably false assertions after they've been publicly humiliated. It takes a special combination of stamina and stone-cold short-bus stupid to stick with the same tired and debunked line of attack the way you have.


Have a cookie.

Originally Posted by Serathe

12. You will not exploit any bug in EverQuest II and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant the user unnatural or unintended benefits in game), either directly or through public posting, to any other user of EverQuest II. You will promptly report any such bug via the in-game "/bug" command. You may also report any such bugs/exploits by submitting a customer service help ticket through our in-game petition process.


I'm bored, that help any?

Originally Posted by Pinski

Since the ability to harvest while under the illusion is being removed, then yes. It is an exploit.

Originally Posted by Sotan

Intended usage? No.

Intended functionality? Yes.

Exploit? No.

Unethical? Why?

There's currently a fairly heated thread on the official forums about this, and I'm one of the people who have pretty strong opinions. It's not that I would cry if they changed the illusion to break on harvesting. It's convenient, but that's about it; there are plenty of other places to harvest with little or no risk.

The main source of my ire is that I have little tolerance for people who self-righteously denounce as an exploit any kind of tactic or strategy that they don't happen to like. It pisses me off regardless of whether or not I have a dog in the fight.

First of all, you need to separate intended usage from intended functionality. They are not the same thing.

The item is functioning 100% as intended, based on the description of the item. It specifically cancels the illusion if you receive hostile action or cast any spell. It works only in this specific area. It lasts for one hour. All of these things are in the description, and all of them work as intended.

The intended usage is another matter. I think it's probably self-evident that dev did not intend for a player to choose not to complete the quest, instead keeping the item and using it to harvest. This, in and of itself, does not make it an exploit. Players have come up with all manner of creative ways of using items and abilities that give them an advantage, methods which were not the intended usage of an ability which is nevertheless functioning exactly as designed.

Fae glide is a perfect example. There are any number of places in the old world where fae glide will bypass gated areas and aggro mobs, or allow you to access geometry that a pre-EoF character cannot. This can be a huge advantage in PVP. Even in post-EoF areas, glide allows you to do a lot of things that could not have possibly been intended by dev, due to the advantage they give in completing a quest or bypassing deliberately-placed dangerous mobs.

Another example is Surveil. Before it was nerfed, Surveil was an uber pulling ability. Dev clearly did not intend it to be able to accomplish all the things it did. We know this because they nerfed it. Was it overpowered? Absolutely. Was it an exploit? No.

Or what about people who suicide in order to shave time off their Jboots runs? Coercers who abuse the sick damage output of corpse candles/flames? People who mentor down to lowbie friends/alts in order to farm low-level named?

The fact that a given usage is not intended by dev does not make it an exploit.

The fact that you do not like it does not make it an exploit.

The fact that something gives a player an advantage over others does not make it an exploit.

If a dev states that this is not an acceptable usage of this item and that they will fix it, I will stop using it this way, regardless of whether or not they actually fix it. I could use the AA exp, but right now the convenience of the illusion outweighs the minimal exp from one quest.

This isn't some clearly broken item or feature, where the bright line is obvious. This is an item that is working exactly as the description states it should, that is being used creatively by some people. Until a dev comes out and says that this is an exploit, people who claim the authority to know that it is are talking out of their ass and mistaking their opinions for fact.

Originally Posted by Cochy

Rollback all the offenders.