Slashdot: SOE vs. ShowEQ

[Windcatcher]

It indirectly concerns EQEmu, so I figured I'd post the link:

http://features.slashdot.org/features/02/12/01/1558220.shtml?tid=127

WC

[madborg]

I saw the article this morning because it showed up on my news block. In a short time it led me to the recent threads on showeq including the prospect of a windows version and also to macroquest.

So now a few thousand more people know about showeq and if there going to be a windows version, that a few million aolers will try to run it on their desktop.

showeq is the mother of all and an information source of a lot of places. I don't believe that it's a corporate Sony thing to play those encryption games, it's more a programmer or two who like messing with the showeq community.

[inkubus]

A very interesting article! I can't see how SOE will ever be able to stop someone breaking their code. It's just one of those things.

It seems unfortunate that they've targetted the ShowEQ community and will end up providing more EQ players with a resource that used to require at least some effort to install. Now we'll see most players using some form of ShowEQ like the UO mapping tool UOAutomap which has been around for some time.

At the end of the day it's just a map that displays valuable zone information and it's not being intended to be used for any milicious purpose. Get a grip SOE :) You've already lost.

[Trumpcard]

First off, let me start by saying I used ShowEQ for 2 years. I wouldnt have played EQ without it, I used it for mapping, and for rare spawns that I would have never found otherwise (anyone ever do the wakashi of frozen skies quest in Stonebrunt? Shessh)

With that said, there were plenty of malicious ShowEQ players out there. If I were someone who spent 20 hours hunting Quillmane or Stormfeather, only to have them stolen at the last minute by some Ahole who had alerts set for every rare spawn in the game, I would be pretty damn mad.

As I played on the test server where there was never any competition for anything, it wasnt that big of a deal, but on live servers I saw many a showeq'er run rampart on loot binges , cheating players who had been busting their humps for the same goals.

Is it fair? No, but lifes not fair, but then again, it is a service we were paying for and had rights to. Imagine you are standing in line at the electronics store , you've been in line for 3 hours and got the last PS2 for your kid for Christmas.. Some guy with a pistol walks up to you, takes it from you, shoves into line in front of you, and makes off with the goods you had tried so hard to get. Is he not at fault there? He can get away with it because you have no way to compete with him, he has tools you dont, hence an unfair advantage.

I don't blame Verant at all, if it were my company, and I were trying to protect the interests of my paying, average customers, who comprise the bulk of my profit margin, I would do the same thing. I think ShowEQ is now reduced to what the average ShowEq'er should still be happy to have, a mapping program, which is still a big boost in itself.

I dont buy that you shouldnt fight something just because you can't win against it. If that were the case, we may as well throw our arms up and never resist anything. At the end of the day, it's only a mapping program because Verant improved their encryption techniques, many seq'ers used it aggressively and without regard to other players. I can honestly say I didnt, and I would have been just as happy with it with spawn encryption disbaled (well, maybe not as happy, I did love using it to find blues while leveling)