What confuses me, is the project has been going on for years, was a major thread in the "Developement custom Code" section, has an entry on the EQEmu Wiki, and now it's own forum subsection. Furthermore, several servers have started saying things like "Server Name --- Custom Legit --- Bots Enabled!" or "we have bots!"
Regardless of all this, you (KingMort) acts like this is a surprising new development that suddenly arose from nowhere, rogue coders trying to impliment devious code to ruin EQEmu. And rather then do a little research to confirm these suspicions, your first response was to post a rant here about how this horrible practice shouldn't be allowed. Unless of course, you actually have no idea what we are actually talking about, but hope some other horrible practice shouldn't be allowed, and are confusing that one and this one.
Here, let me explain it.
What bots do is allow you to summon a raid force of bots; up to 71 of them; of class and race composition up to you. They start naked (no free gear, unless you're already playing on a freedom server) and they are made to behave as much like 71 random players as possible. They buff their own groups, but won't buff out of groups, don't use discs very effectively, can't use some AA's, Clerics won't make complete heal chains...but on the bright side, they don't Ninja AFK.
So instead of playing as an indivudual, you play as a raid-leader of a raid guild, as much of EQ content was designed for in regards to the Velious, Luclin, and Planes of Power content. Rather then making content easier or trying to come up with the numbers required (hard on any but the most popular servers) you can actually play through EQ as if it was live. The project is referred to as "EQOffline" as it allows a person to set up their own server offline and still run a raid (but several online servers offer the same option)
Perhaps not surprisingly, this has nothing to do with Macroquest. On the bright side, you had the foresight to apologize, if not to refrain from making the post.
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