Is there still cheating in EVE?

Dragim · November 2007

I remember when eve came out and I bought the game. I played it some, maybe for about a month, then decided to not play anymore, the game was a good game, just not my cup of tea. So I give my account and game to a friend who loves the game and decides to macro harvest. He got this program that basically had his ships mine asteroids while he wasn't playing, pretty much like any program used to farm in MMORPGS. Just curious if the company ever found a way to put an end to this. It just pisses me off that people have to cheat in ONLINE games like this. If you want to cheat go play a console RPG and get a game shark or something.

Eidelone · November 2007

As far as I know it is still possible to cheat using macro mining programs etc. Though when CCP find these in use in-game they instantly suspend that persons account and often delete em'.

However there are fixes that cut these bots down and disallow them from being able to be used in thier updates. Sad though that people cheat but whereever there's a way to become more powerful then other players, there will be players who take advantage of that.

P.S. If I'm wrong in the above please feel free to correct me but I'm pretty sure its right.

batolemaeus · November 2007

There are bots like everywhere else in the mmo-industry..

MR-Bubbles · November 2007

Well first of all most farmers operate with a trial account using the free key system to renew that account infinatly therefore meaning they get pretty good skill wise. But Trial accounts dont ahve access to the good mining ships so they dont do as well.

Also macro farmers are easy to spot.

And you can kill then in return for losing your ship unless you are in low sec.

So yea there are cheaters in EvE bu the effect they are having on eve is not really noticable.

Minsc · November 2007

Originally posted by MR-Bubbles

Well first of all most farmers operate with a trial account using the free key system to renew that account infinatly therefore meaning they get pretty good skill wise. But Trial accounts dont ahve access to the good mining ships so they dont do as well.
Also macro farmers are easy to spot.
And you can kill then in return for losing your ship unless you are in low sec.
So yea there are cheaters in EvE bu the effect they are having on eve is not really noticable.

err...afaik new trial key = new account. you can't just use the trial keys to give yourself unlimited 14-day gametime cards. every time you use one it would require you to make a new account and character.

Agricola1 · November 2007

Macro mining is more rampant in EVE now than at any other time, more subs and the fact that you can trade ISK for cash effectively has made it prevelant.

I know of many people that macro to pay for their EVE sub and they don't use trial accounts, they use alt accounts as the macro pays for both the miner and their main. Also CCP don't patrol space banning macro miners and in fact they're quite sqeamish about banning paying customers in real life. Yeah I know there's plenty of tough talk in forums but from what macro miners have told me aslong as you aren't stupid enough to admit to running a macro in chat then they won't ban you. In fact they do nothing, only the foolish get banned and apparently all the big alliances in 0.0 have hordes of macro miners which they encourage and perpetuate.

Not that I have a problem with it as friends who do it have told me that if they couldn't macro they'd quit as most of them believe EVE isn't worth paying for. I've heard EVE described as the best F2P MMORPG on the market right now!

qazyman · November 2007

"He got this program that basically had his ships mine asteroids while he wasn't playing"

Today.......If you do it in low-sec (where the real mining money is) your insane and won't last a week. It hard enough to mine in low-sec with an escort and watching every person that comes into local. It's possible, in theory, to do this in hi-sec, but in truth, you will always be on the run and will come back to a blown up ship more times than not.....Not a very profitable way to play. The truth is EVE is just to hardcore to leave a ship unattended and hope to make any money over the long term.

Thargor · November 2007

There are also programs for macrohunting...

Kyleran · November 2007

Originally posted by qazyman

"He got this program that basically had his ships mine asteroids while he wasn't playing"

Today.......If you do it in low-sec (where the real mining money is) your insane and won't last a week. It hard enough to mine in low-sec with an escort and watching every person that comes into local. It's possible, in theory, to do this in hi-sec, but in truth, you will always be on the run and will come back to a blown up ship more times than not.....Not a very profitable way to play. The truth is EVE is just to hardcore to leave a ship unattended and hope to make any money over the long term.

Yeah, I think most macro mining has to be done in high sec, or in 0.0 with the blessing of the alliance who controls that area of space. Even then, roving gangs make macro mining risky business....

someuser · November 2007

>> So yea there are cheaters in EvE bu the effect they are having on eve is not really noticable.

Are you even playing the same game? Every single belt in hi sec is farmed 24x7 by the gold sellers. All you will get as a player is some low value veldspar. You cant just kill them and lose your ship. Anything with enough firepower to kill them before concord blows you up is not worth losing. Banning them is pointless since they come back right away. The profits they make are laundered to bag men. This isnt done by simple ISK transfer, they will put up a ammo for 100 million masking the transfer as a legitimate trade.

Every single research lab is booked up 6 months too. They are monopolising resources at the expense of playing customers. The ISK sellers spam channels non stop. The price of ISK compared to the hours needed to farm that in game shows how good the macros are.

Its not even restricted to miners. Since missions are predicatable and easy to outgear ( a BS running level 1's) they even macro missions and run them over and over.

Eve simply doesnt handle security. Like all game hacks you just read the client memory and patch it. Or you can reverse engineer the client/server protocols and do away with a client all together.

The reason that all this exists is the boring nature of the ISK grind. Wherever you get an activity that is predicatable and repetative requiring only time investment you will get bots.

Lallante · November 2007

lol no

Sheista · November 2007

Originally posted by someuser

This isnt done by simple ISK transfer, they will put up a ammo for 100 million masking the transfer as a legitimate trade.

Even if CCP doesn't do much about the macroing itself, they -do- monitor huge transfers. If frequent transfers are happening for small items, they will look into it. Keep in mind they have a real economist working for the game, and I'm sure if he notices something fluctuating way more than it should be then they look into it. That and most gold farmers have stupid names that are just a bunch of jumbled letters. It's not hard to find them and ban them.

Sarge994 · November 2007

the problem is 100 mil is not a lot, they only monitor transfers of probably 5 bil +

MR-Bubbles · November 2007

Originally posted by someuser

Are you even playing the same game? Every single belt in hi sec is farmed 24x7 by the gold sellers. .

WoW really?

So your saying the 30 odd belts i regully patroll are not empty of miners then.

Really now its trolls like you that make me glad i dont play games with bad communities like WoW for example.

Coldmeat · November 2007

Originally posted by MR-Bubbles
Originally posted by someuser
Are you even playing the same game? Every single belt in hi sec is farmed 24x7 by the gold sellers. .
WoW really?
So your saying the 30 odd belts i regully patroll are not empty of miners then.

Really now its trolls like you that make me glad i dont play games with bad communities like WoW for example.

Agreed. If you're in Jita, or something, then yeah, it could be hard to find a belt. Most other places? Never had a problem. And the times I've found things stipped, it's been by legit players.

Never had a problem getting a Lab, Seen 1 ISK seller spam, one time in the last two months.

All in all, leave Jita.

Sarge994 · November 2007

Originally posted by Coldmeat

Originally posted by MR-Bubbles

Originally posted by someuser

Are you even playing the same game? Every single belt in hi sec is farmed 24x7 by the gold sellers. .

WoW really?

So your saying the 30 odd belts i regully patroll are not empty of miners then.

Really now its trolls like you that make me glad i dont play games with bad communities like WoW for example.

Agreed. If you're in Jita, or something, then yeah, it could be hard to find a belt. Most other places? Never had a problem. And the times I've found things stipped, it's been by legit players.

Never had a problem getting a Lab, Seen 1 ISK seller spam, one time in the last two months.

All in all, leave Jita.

pyramid ftw!!!

tbh if anyone is finding belts in jita I wonder where they are playing. (They were removed)

Anti-Fanboi · November 2007

Originally posted by MR-Bubbles
Well first of all most farmers operate with a trial account using the free key system to renew that account infinatly therefore meaning they get pretty good skill wise. But Trial accounts dont ahve access to the good mining ships so they dont do as well.
Also macro farmers are easy to spot.
And you can kill then in return for losing your ship unless you are in low sec.
So yea there are cheaters in EvE bu the effect they are having on eve is not really noticable.

How are they easy to spot in a game where almost everyone AFK mines to a degree when they do mine and the majority of players communicate via TS/Vent? Seriously what are the signs?

Anti-Fanboi · November 2007

Originally posted by qazyman
"He got this program that basically had his ships mine asteroids while he wasn't playing"

Today.......If you do it in low-sec (where the real mining money is) your insane and won't last a week. It hard enough to mine in low-sec with an escort and watching every person that comes into local. It's possible, in theory, to do this in hi-sec, but in truth, you will always be on the run and will come back to a blown up ship more times than not.....Not a very profitable way to play. The truth is EVE is just to hardcore to leave a ship unattended and hope to make any money over the long term.

If you are outside of Jita or any other major n00b gank spot you can get away with marco mining in high sec easy. It's not like in WoW were you can easily see a character who is botting via their awkward movements. The nature of EVE makes masking botting activity very easy compared to games that rely on WSAD movement for a character and not a ship.

qazyman · November 2007

Originally posted by Anti-Fanboi

Originally posted by qazyman

"He got this program that basically had his ships mine asteroids while he wasn't playing"

Today.......If you do it in low-sec (where the real mining money is) your insane and won't last a week. It hard enough to mine in low-sec with an escort and watching every person that comes into local. It's possible, in theory, to do this in hi-sec, but in truth, you will always be on the run and will come back to a blown up ship more times than not.....Not a very profitable way to play. The truth is EVE is just to hardcore to leave a ship unattended and hope to make any money over the long term.

If you are outside of Jita or any other major n00b gank spot you can get away with macro mining in high sec easy. It's not like in WoW were you can easily see a character who is botting via their awkward movements. The nature of EVE makes masking botting activity very easy compared to games that rely on WSAD movement for a character and not a ship.

I have an alt that has mined in EVE for a very long time and continues to this day... The most macros I've seen are the one's that are begging in chat because they came back to a POD. No matter where I mine I am constantly harassed by people checking to see if I'm a macro and continually have to defend my can. The Idea someone could make consistent money while being away from the computer just ain't happening....not in this game...not over the long term...no way.

If you logged in 2 hours before downtime and just mined then maybe....but I dought anyone is going to do that for very long.

My experience is that people call real miners macro's just for the heck of it, because mining isn't respected....this is a much more likely explanation...it's just 2 hard to keep your stuff from being stolen or blown up....you can protect yourself 95% of the time in hi-sec but you have to be there to do it.

MR-Bubbles · November 2007

Originally posted by Anti-Fanboi

Originally posted by MR-Bubbles

Well first of all most farmers operate with a trial account using the free key system to renew that account infinatly therefore meaning they get pretty good skill wise. But Trial accounts dont ahve access to the good mining ships so they dont do as well.

Also macro farmers are easy to spot.

And you can kill then in return for losing your ship unless you are in low sec.

So yea there are cheaters in EvE bu the effect they are having on eve is not really noticable.

How are they easy to spot in a game where almost everyone AFK mines to a degree when they do mine and the majority of players communicate via TS/Vent? Seriously what are the signs?

Severall things...

They often have very bad names like....dskbfkajbfka

They often consist of the following ships - one hauler - and at least 1 Retriver.

They have very robotic movements i.e. all warp in at exact same time all move to same spot all leave belt at same time. Hauler patrolls there jetcans all the time they are on.

They usually dont talk back to you.

If they do talk back to you they use the same sentences over and over as replies.

They sat on from surver statup till downtime every day.

Really this is elimentery stuff in EvE stuff everyone even newbies get told about so i wonder just how long you have played eve [if at all]. Also if you didnt post just to get a negative responce i will just point you towards this sites Search feature, as there are other topics on the subject of Macro miners as it was a hot topic a year or so ago before CCP started trying to nerf them.

MR-Bubbles · November 2007

Originally posted by qazyman

I have an alt that has mined in EVE for a very long time and continues to this day... The most macros I've seen are the one's that are begging in chat because they came back to a POD. No matter where I mine I am constantly harassed by people checking to see if I'm a macro and continually have to defend my can. The Idea someone could make consistent money while being away from the computer just ain't happening....not in this game...not over the long term...no way.

If you logged in 2 hours before downtime and just mined then maybe....but I dought anyone is going to do that for very long.
My experience is that people call real miners macro's just for the heck of it, because mining isn't respected....this is a much more likely explanation...it's just 2 hard to keep your stuff from being stolen or blown up....you can protect yourself 95% of the time in hi-sec but you have to be there to do it.

Yep well since CCP introduced can flagging baiting miners has become a valid tactic to get a cheap kill which is why the smart miner no-longer uses the old jetcan method and instead uses the new jetcan hauler method.

As for mining in low sec it is a smart idea to bring protection true it means less profit but the ore is worth more. Also its worth noting that can baiting is the best way to get some macro miners in High sec who are hiding in a NPC corp.

Player_420 · November 2007

Originally posted by qazyman

"He got this program that basically had his ships mine asteroids while he wasn't playing"

Today.......If you do it in low-sec (where the real mining money is) your insane and won't last a week. It hard enough to mine in low-sec with an escort and watching every person that comes into local. It's possible, in theory, to do this in hi-sec, but in truth, you will always be on the run and will come back to a blown up ship more times than not.....Not a very profitable way to play. The truth is EVE is just to hardcore to leave a ship unattended and hope to make any money over the long term.

This is really what it boils down to....if some cheating noobs wanna use cheat programs for veldspar then fine...but the real EVE requires a lot of being at your chair, because theres pirates and dangers everywhere.

ioryadragon · November 2007

the funy thing is that 70% of the procent of the eve players here, not even left empire once, and they know EVE...

Anti-Fanboi · November 2007

Originally posted by MR-Bubbles

Originally posted by Anti-Fanboi

Originally posted by MR-Bubbles
Well first of all most farmers operate with a trial account using the free key system to renew that account infinatly therefore meaning they get pretty good skill wise. But Trial accounts dont ahve access to the good mining ships so they dont do as well.
Also macro farmers are easy to spot.
And you can kill then in return for losing your ship unless you are in low sec.
So yea there are cheaters in EvE bu the effect they are having on eve is not really noticable.

How are they easy to spot in a game where almost everyone AFK mines to a degree when they do mine and the majority of players communicate via TS/Vent? Seriously what are the signs?
Severall things...

They often have very bad names like....dskbfkajbfka
They often consist of the following ships - one hauler - and at least 1 Retriver.
They have very robotic movements i.e. all warp in at exact same time all move to same spot all leave belt at same time. Hauler patrolls there jetcans all the time they are on.
They usually dont talk back to you.
If they do talk back to you they use the same sentences over and over as replies.
They sat on from surver statup till downtime every day.
Really this is elimentery stuff in EvE stuff everyone even newbies get told about so i wonder just how long you have played eve [if at all]. Also if you didnt post just to get a negative responce i will just point you towards this sites Search feature, as there are other topics on the subject of Macro miners as it was a hot topic a year or so ago before CCP started trying to nerf them.

Actually not all use random gibberish names.

Most don't use a hauler and miner setups.

You may have a point about warping in at the same time but then again there are bot programs that allow for jet can mining. So basically then miner never has to warp out until the belt is depleted and only the hauler is the one who warps in and out most of the time.

As for the lack of communication most people don't respond to tells in EVE from strangers. I sure as hell don't unless it's someone I know as 90% of my communication is done via Vent.

Anti-Fanboi · November 2007

Originally posted by Player_420
Originally posted by qazyman "He got this program that basically had his ships mine asteroids while he wasn't playing"

Today.......If you do it in low-sec (where the real mining money is) your insane and won't last a week. It hard enough to mine in low-sec with an escort and watching every person that comes into local. It's possible, in theory, to do this in hi-sec, but in truth, you will always be on the run and will come back to a blown up ship more times than not.....Not a very profitable way to play. The truth is EVE is just to hardcore to leave a ship unattended and hope to make any money over the long term.

This is really what it boils down to....if some cheating noobs wanna use cheat programs for veldspar then fine...but the real EVE requires a lot of being at your chair, because theres pirates and dangers everywhere.

I agree mining anything below 0.5 is not worth it if you are a botter. Most though don't just mine Veldspar though. Minerals like Scordite, Plagiociase, and Pryxoeres that can be found in 0.9 space can be very profitable once refined.

MR-Bubbles · November 2007

Originally posted by Anti-Fanboi

Actually not all use random gibberish names. No not all but most do seem to
Most don't use a hauler and miner setup. At least not the greedy ones. All of the ones ive seen have and from what i gather from certain ingame channels others tend to see similar setups too.
You may have a point about warping in at the same time but then again there are bot programs that allow for jet can mining. So basically then miner never has to warp out until the belt is depleted and only the hauler is the one who warps in and out most of the time. I belive i covered this in hauler doing patrolls. as in patrolling the cans and emptying its cargo hold at HQ.
As lack of communication most people don't respond to tells Yep thats true which is why you dont go with this on its own . I sure as hell don't unless it's someone I know though 90% of my communication is done via Vent. about 70% for me

In eve there are plent of established corps whose corp objectives include hunting Macro's and farmers wherever they find them and over the past 18 months they have developed ways of finding SUSPECTED macros and set up public channels there for people to share intelegence and ideas on sorting out macros and famers.

And just before i post this ill just say always petition a suspected macro befre stealing its stuff.

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Is there still cheating in EVE?

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Is there still cheating in EVE?

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV