Everquest Utilities & Sundries

Back in the good ol days of EQIM, I wrote a channel-bot that made item links, quoted spell data, did DKP/attendance numbers, AND the nifty feature of keeping www.ecipublic.org's raid channel clear. It used the EQIM-IRC bridge written byu some fella I forget the name of. But it was neat, and new. Shiny and powerful. And kickass !
But then came the dawn of UCS, and the old gods of EQIM wept.. for there was channel mastery no more, and the power to keep miscreants from a channel was verboten, swept away to the anals of EQ Lore, and had to be manualy done, by hand. Along wiht all the toher nifty tricks.
It was a sad day, a sad day indeed v_v

Fast forward about 18 months. I played some WoW. Read about Linky of EQII fame. Learned more programming mojo.
Figured out that if I did it write, I could indeed try and bring back my channel master, ressurect him from the grave and give him new powah!
So, I wrote a perl script that interfaced with the Everquest Client in September of '07.
It reads the log file as input, and types out information based on that - sad to say it will never be able to link item, because there is no way to type out an item link in Everquest. But it can tell DKP information (grabbed live from your guild's website) manage a channel (supports standard IRC Channel features such as MOTD & banning) and could be extended to a few other tasks!

Is this going to get you banned if you run it?

On the 15^th of October, 2007 Longbot was petitioned. The end result was Sony's employees & managers took a look at Longbot's sourcecode, and said it was fine to use it.
Ahh, the sweet beauty of Open Source code? I got NUFFIN to hide. I do usualy end up around the bot as it does it's duty - sometimes when someone says the wrong command, I'll be reading and catch it, and correct it (I don't leave longbot unsupervised - just like you're not supposed to leave a bazaar trader logged in and unsupervised!)
However, for your enjoyment, and for you to decide for yourself, I've got the notes from the petition.

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All following dates are from 2007
At about noon Oct 15th

quote:
Originally posted by GM Deodan:

Hello Longbot, GM Deodan here, and I regret that I must contact you via our petition system to advise you of a serious matter. Recently, your character was /reported auto-responding without attending your keyboard. I attempted to contact you personally several times as your character had finished stood motionless in Cabalis.

This is indicative of either 3rd party software usage, or use of a device to 'macro' your keystrokes though you are not available at your keyboard. Please know, we take these offenses just as seriously as other exploitive behaviors, and if it continues, we may regretfully need to consider further disciplinary action with your account such as further warnings, and/or possible suspension of your EverQuest I account (which we would prefer not to do). Please consider this message as a warning for this activity, and heed this warning with utmost care. No reply to this advisory is necessary. Thank you for your time.

If you need any further assistance with any other concern, please feel free to send a /petition in-game or offline via the link:

http://support.station.sony.com/petition

I do bid ye Safe Journeys and Happy Hunting.

Deodan the Blueberry Muffin Man of Stormhammer

Looking for answers? Try our online Knowledge Base! http://www.station.sony.com/kb

about 6PM Oct 15th

quote:
Originally posted by Longbot:

Hiya!

Sony's End user License Agreement found at http://help.station.sony.com/cgi-bin/soe.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=16210
states the following in regards to 3rd party software:

9. You may not use any third party software to modify the Software to change Game play. You may not create, facilitate, host, link to or provide any other means through which the Game may be played by others, such as through server emulators. You may not take any action which imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure. You may not buy, sell or auction (or host or facilitate the ability to allow others to buy, sell or auction) any Game characters, items, coin or copyrighted material.

What is happening has nothing to do with changing or modifying game play.
The software running is an open source tool that is incapable of autonomous game-modifying or game-changing behaviour.

Pursuant to section 9, no action is possible that will affect game play, nor allow another person to control or cause to effect game play.

Pursuant to section 7, the account & the everquest game are:
1. Paid for, and have never been transferred
2. Unmodified, in the same state that is sent out by Sony via "Updates" to said game.
3. No reverse engineering, decompilation or other violation of Intelectual Property has taken place.
4. No attempts at circumventing Sony's protection have been made.

The software may be found at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sot/ if any Sony departments needs to examine it.

Functionality wise, the software provides the ability to do the following:
1. Manage raid channels (to prevent untoward behaviour)
2. Count DKP off

After the software has been examined, please let me know if you still believe it to be in violation of the End User License Agreement.

I am a long standing player & end game raider. I agree it is within EQ's best interests to prevent in game abuse, but this account does nothing either abusive, nor in violation of the EULA.

I would prefer to come to an amicable understanding of this event, to avoid any disciplinary action or loss of Everquest access, as my behaviour (pursuant to Everquest's End User License Agreement) is appropriate.

Please, contact me after your devs or legal department have examined the License Agreement & the software available at the above link, to let me know its status.

Respectfully,
Longbot

About 6:10 Oct 15th

quote:
Originally posted by GM Dinnap:

Greetings Longbot,

This is Game Master Dinnap from Sony Online Entertainment following up on your petition.
I am escalating your petition to a Senior Game Master for review, as they will be in a better position to assist you. You will receive a response from one of the Senior Game Masters as soon as possible.
If you face any in game issues in the future, please feel free to contact us again.

Safe Travels in the world of Norrath!

Game Master Dinnap
EverQuest Customer Service
Sony Online Entertainment
Looking for answers? Try our online Knowledge Base! http://www.station.sony.com/kb

So, what do you think will hapen next?
cross yer fingers =)

Update:
At 7:45 PM Oct15th

quote:
Originally posted by GM Zyryth:

Greetings, this is GM Zyryth here.

I am going to escalate this issue to a manager to look into, at this time please do not use the program. It may be some time before we can have this fully reviewed but do appreciate you informing us exactly what you were doing and why you feel it is not against any rules. Once it is reviewed, we will get back to you on any decisions made.

If this issue was resolved there is no need to respond. If you still need assistance, please send in another question.
Thank you, and Safe Travels!
Senior GM Zyryth
Sony Online Entertainment

at 7:55 PM Oct 15th

quote:
Originally posted by Longbot:

Thank you Zyryth,

I would like to request temporary leniency in continuing to maintain this.
The account is on for a bit of pleasure - but it is mostly on to help safeguard a raid forces' chat passworded channel from intrusion of malevolent (but mostly harmless) players. It helps cut down on irritations and distractions from enjoying working together as players in the everquest gaming & raiding evnironment

It also does DKP lookup.
DKP is tracked on webpages - normaly EQ players who choose to raid must tab out of EQ, and stop playing long enough to figure out their DKP and other information, information that prevents them from enjoying the marvelous atmosphere of Everquest.
With this tool, Everquest players are no longer having to leave EQ to go look up their DKP in game, allowing them a more relaxed experience.

I humbly await your responce on wether or not I may (temporarily, barring final decision) continue running this tool.
And I look forward with eager anticipation further discussion on the EULA & how it pertains to this tool, after a manager or other sundry Sony employees have had the time needed to ascertain the true nature and status of this.

Thank you again for your time, Zyryth,
Longbot

At About Oct 10/25/2007 02:24 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Lead GM Encegawi:

Greetings,

I show your account is currently active and playable. The way the matter was perceived by customer service is that you were using a third party program to auto-respond to a tell. While this in and of itself is not a gross violation of the user agreement, without us knowing the exact program you are using and for what purpose we can only come to one conclusion. If the chat program you have does report DKP for players that's fine, but it shouldn't be set up to automatically respond to a players tell with the information. You can be at the keyboard and manually give the player the information, but not have your character logged in 24/7 for this purpose. Please let me know if you had any other questions regarding this.

Lead GM Enceagwi
Customer Service Supervisor
Sony Online Entertainment LLC.

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Pure and Simple - Longbot, the epic saga!

Is this going to get you banned if you run it?