Angrod Losshelin is the CEO of Oath of the Forsaken, a wormhole corporation in an alliance called WormHole Occupation and Resource Exploitation, corp ticker
Wormhole candidates always need to expand their electoral base, and Angrod is taking a unique tack. That's right, he is appealing to the ISBoxer community. In addition to his official announcement thread, he posted a thread on the Dual-Boxing.com forums:
"CSM rep for Multi-Boxers
"I know this is a horrible long shot. However, as I am considering running for CSM based on my alliance's pushing and nagging, I am feeling like we need alot better representation and PR with the rest of the eve community and devs themselves.
"My main platform will be wormholes as well as alternative game play styles, multiboxing included. I do not feel I can campaign strickly as a multiboxer, not enough votes, but it is a large focus since I am a multiboxer from various other gaming communities but relatively new to the eve multi boxing front.
"In regards to things I want to push for is:
- Greater respect for the multiboxing community.
- Better reception of legitimate CCP concerns about multiboxing.
- Easier ways to manage alts. (more income for ccp with more alts)
- Better static and defined rules in the TOS regarding multi-boxing.
- More recognition for multiboxing community concerns. (TOS, false reports, hate mail, etc.)
"If anyone is willing to help me with this campaign please let me know, I need alot of it. If anyone can get me incontact with CEO's of multi-boxing friendly corporations and alliances please also let me know.
"IGN: Angrod Losshelin - Host of Praise the Bob podcast and CEO of Oath of the Forsaken"
"Input duplication vs multiboxingIf Angrod were only engaged in scare-mongering and bad slippery slope arguments, I wouldn't bother writing a post this soon in the process. But what Angrod said in the podcast really grabbed my attention:
"Edit: a clarification for those trying to walk the line between multiboxing and input duplication. I realize ccp is banning input duplication, but I think that the other capabilities of isboxer and similar software, as soon as the mob gets worked up over it, will ensure that owning 2 accounts is 'unfair'. The main purpose of isboxer is input duplication, allowing you to control multiple accounts as if one person. Removing that feature is a huge blow and on the path to a complete removal of management of alts with any efficiency."
"You know, and I'm cop to it right now. I have botted games before. I've never botted EVE and I've never botted World of Warcraft, specifically, are the two I've never botted. But I enjoy botting. Games such as, you know, Everquest 2, I bot all the time there. So, you know, Sony, you can ban me if you find my accounts. Different games like RIFT; I've botted RIFT before. I find it almost more of a challenge once I've reached max level to bot and accomplish things automatically that it would take someone who's doing it by themselves a lot longer.Now, EVE Radio personality and occasional TMC contributor Dirk MacGirk, who appeared on the podcast to argue for why banning input broadcasting/multiplexing was a good idea, right before the above quote had just finished arguing that ISBoxer was not botting software. Why Angrod decided to make the comment about botting, I have no idea. Dirk, to his credit, tried to steer the conversation back toward the main issue: input replication. However, Angrod, possibly realizing he'd put his foot in his mouth, had a few more things to say about botting in EVE.
"And the major reason that I don't or haven't done that in EVE, is because, EVE is a game that botting isn't as effective as a lot of people would assume it is. Boxing is a lot more effective. And from a completely, you know, outside observer standpoint when looking at botting in EVE, the only thing that botting is really effective for is mining, efficiency-wise. You can have mission bots -- you can have all sorts of different bots that will be horribly less effective than players in EVE, mainly because of how the overview works. And, you know, a lot of kudos to CCP for hiding their memory values. It's ridiculously hard to find anything of value that a bot can actually use to react to something." (9:25-11:01)
"And, you know, botting in EVE isn't necessarily an efficiency thing, it's a time thing. I can accomplish all of this while I'm sitting at work, you know, I press play and it goes. Something like that. And I'm not saying anyone should ever condone botting in EVE. It's horrible, bad, and if you can figure out how to do it effectively you're basically, you basically had to purchase something from someone else. And I think that programmers who can figure it out how to do it in EVE and then sell their ideas, I think they're geniuses. But, you know, it's against the EULA, don't do it." (12:21-13:00)As I mentioned before, I believe this last paragraph was to cover up his indiscretion of revealing his true feelings about botting. He doesn't refrain from botting because he thinks botting is wrong. He doesn't bot because he makes more ISK multiboxing using ISBoxer. Then again, that is possibly true because he couldn't figure out how to bot himself. He did give CCP credit for making developing a bot difficult, which suggests he at least tried to develop his own bot. From my reading and listening of that section of the podcast, he doesn't bot due to lack of skill, not because he thinks botting is wrong. In fact, he admits to botting in other games, mentioning EQ2 and RIFT by name.
Let's recall, Angrod is a pretty non-repentant botter where EQ2 is concerned, challenging SOE to ban his account if they can find it. I guess Angrod doesn't know about all the SOE employees who play EVE. In fact, I know that SOE CEO John Smedley used to fly with EVE University, the CFC, and probably TEST. As of Fanfest in May, I heard that he still occasionally logged into his EVE account and was rumored to have considered attending the event. Oh, and I get the impression that Smedley and Hilmar get along pretty well. Good thing Angrod is living in a wormhole.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I played EQ2 for almost 3 1/2 years. During that time I leveled 9 crafting characters, one in each crafting class, to the then level cap of 80. To say that I don't like EQ2 botters is an understatement. One day I may even write a post about how botters and hackers in EQ2 fueled the fire that led to the anti-botting posts I'm semi-famous for in EVE. So to say I may have a bias against a proud EQ2 botter is a pretty good guess.
Setting my bias aside, once word of Angrod's botting history circulates among the ISBoxer community, I don't see how Angrod gets any significant support. Users of ISBoxer are trying to prove they wish to follow the rules. Backing a proud botter like Angrod seems counterproductive. Then again, maybe ISBoxer users really don't see anything wrong with botting after all. I don't think that's true of the vast majority of ISBoxer users, but I'm not infallible.
Needless to say, I am recommending that players do not cast any votes for Angrod Losshelin. I oppose botting and can't see how putting a botting supporter, even if he doesn't bot in EVE, on the CSM can do any good.
Good report and analysis, Noizy. This guy has zero chance of being elected to CSMX. More likely, he's now on CCP Games' watch list. He'd better keep his nose clean, or the anti-botting cops are going to bust him, hard. Meanwhile, I have a hard time seeing how he could muster enough broad support to earn a slot on the CSM.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work, Noizy - your reporting on the background and points of view of CSM candidates is very helpful.
The only valid concern I heard against the ban on input replication is that it won't really solve anything because VideoFX (and round robin) will still allow for very efficient multiboxing.
ReplyDeleteI still applaud the ban on input replication as a good first step, but depending on the results harsher measures might be needed.
Should this videoFX thing and other software that improves your ability to multibox be banned as well, but where do we draw the line then? Ban all client modifications?
I've never used ISboxer or VideoFX, but what I have seen from the videos using these features without the input broadcasting is very similar to simply having multiple monitors each with their own instance of eve. Granted you can run a lot more clients much easier than you could having a dedicated monitor for each client, but wouldn't you need to ban the use of multiple monitors if you advocate the banning of these features as well?
ReplyDeleteJust compare http://img.techpowerup.org/140409/Miningdoneright.jpg with having to move your mouse cursor all the way across multiple screens and having to look at each screen to see the information you want.
ReplyDeleteSorry for chainposting but forgot to credit the image source: Lucas Kell (http://indecisivenoob.blogspot.nl/)
ReplyDeleteJust remember, I'm basing my do not vote recommendation on the fact that Angrod is a proud botter, not that he defends input broadcasting/multiplexing.
ReplyDeleteFor the example shown, there are 7 miners. I can slightly offset 7 full eve windows on a single monitor, enable my mouse ease of access in the windows control panel (hovering the mouse for .15 seconds over a window activates it) and accomplish the exact same thing in ~30 seconds of additional input. In the time scale that mining a roid happens, an additional 30 seconds makes no impact on in game efficiency and the use can be argued as an ease of life for a miner as opposed to a boost in game performance.
ReplyDeleteHow does a setup like that impact someone doing a gate camp or a bombing run? I think that those are the arguments needed to support removing these programs. I don't believe it has a large enough impact on mining to actually impact in game performance while it will have a substantial impact on someone doing a gate camp. Bombing runs or non-static activities I'm not sure of. Do you know of anyone that uses round-robin or VideoFX for bombing runs without the input broadcasting?
I have never botted in any game; the most I did was dual-box two accounts on two machines without input forwarding, typically on games with recruit-a-friend deals. I would hate if this mob mentality went so far as to hurt dual boxers
ReplyDeleteI just don't see how what they did in another game should disqualify them.
Earlier this year, KS funded Camelot Unchained (from DAOC Marc Jacobs ) had a lot of videos on their BSC days (Bat S*** Crazy) and there was one of the security developers talking about how he used to bot (wrote them himself IIRC) 4+ machines in EVE. (I am old and old school enough to draw a big moral distinction from botting-for-programming-curiosity versus just botting-for-in-game-advantage) And so that they were working hard to make CU bot resistant. So I would hope and expect that CCP has employees working on more than bans but on hardening the software and that the majority of them have botted in the past.
This isn't what he did. He is still actively botting in other games and challenged a gave developer to catch him. That is an indication that he has a mentality that I don't want to see on the CSM.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that recent CSMs have done is get CCP to have more confidence in them. Angrod actively demonstrates that he does not care about any agreements he makes with game companies in connection with playing their games. Why should CCP have any confidence he will obey the CSM NDA? At the very least, I would expect Team Security not to share as much information as they have with CSM 9.
I actually believe that the best solution is for CCP to develop & provide in-game macro & botting tools for everyone, and redesign certain game mechanics accordingly, so that using third-party and out-of-game macro & botting tools have no advantage over the in-game versions.
ReplyDeleteAuto-pilot is a simple example. It already exists in the game, but because it drops you short of the next gate, it isn't as good as a macro. If it worked as well as a macro - ie. warp to zero - then no one would bother using an outside macro. (Side note: keeping the current AP system to allow gate conflicts due to pure player stupidity is nothing more than bad game design)
Flying a ship through multiple gates, flying a group of ships, doing repetitive tasks such as mining, updating market orders - all of these things fall within categories which can, and should be, done by in-game bots. The overall game design just needs to be updated to take these bots into account. Making it possible for everyone to bot ensures that the playing field remains level.
Banning is a much less effective approach - and ultimately costs more to CCP, since they need to keep staff onboard to investigate and enforce infractions.