Drunder - Pros And Cons

[Kannkor]

This topic keeps coming up every now and again. It was a hot topic when drunder first came out, but one of my biggest concerns was what happens if they decide to shut down the server next month, well it's been 2.5 years. I feel like that concern is minimal now.
You can see the previous topic here: https://www.isxgames.com/f/threads/moving-to-drunder-thoughts.7890/

I'm actually seriously considering moving to drunder. I've started making a list of pros and cons for moving.
I thought I'd share this with everyone, and have a discussion, before I make my final decision.

Pros - While this list is short, it's kind of generic.

• Can bot anywhere, at any time, as much as you want. This includes things like harvesting in PoM. Running afk quests in PoM.
• Can be open with botting. In this case, I fully plan on doing twitch streams of group-botting and raid-botting.
• Account consolidation. I know for me I have toons spread all over various servers. Nice (and free) way to accomplish that.
• PQs - Yup, can bot any and all PQs with your entire team without any worry about getting into trouble. Bring on the PQ rewards!

Cons - This list is longer because it's much more specific.

• If you move, you can never return to a live server.
• If they do close the server down and you voluntary moved, there may be a chance for them to revert your original toons, but you'd lose everything you did from the time you moved.
• No market (meaning no broker interactions, because there's basically no population).
• If you have any non-botter friends, you won't be able to play/interact with them
• No access to PGs/BGs, and likely any future this style of cross game thing.
• No customer service support
• No census (characters don't show up on eq2u)

For me specifically, I feel like the pros are pretty obvious. So I'll put my comments beside the cons and my opinions of them.

If you move, you can never return to a live server.

I'm trying to avoid real people, so this seems moot.

If they do close the server down and you voluntary moved, there may be a chance for them to revert your original toons, but you'd lose everything you did from the time you moved.

While this is still technically a possibility, the server has been active for around 2.5 years. Doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. So my concerns for this are minimal at best.

No market (meaning no broker interactions, because there's basically no population).

This one is likely the biggest concern. There will be no kronos for sale. So bring lots of kronos, or be willing to pay for your account with your credit card.

If you have any non-botter friends, you won't be able to play/interact with them

Non-issue. This is a group decision, and if we move, we'll all be moving.

No access to PGs/BGs, and likely any future this style of cross game thing.

PGs is a non-issue for me, as I have everything I want from them. If they add a new PG-style thing in the future, then I guess I'm SOL. Trying to predict the future seems silly, so this is a very minor concern for me at best.

No customer service support

When was the last time I had to contact customer service over an in-game issue? Seems moot to me.

No census (characters don't show up on eq2u)

I have my census turned off now so people can't search for me. Non-issue.


As you can probably tell, all of the cons I've listed, are very minor for me. So I'm leaning on moving there.
Feel free to add to the discussion, with thoughts, opinions etc. I'll update this when I decide, which may be in a few days.

 

[GamerMac]

Krono's would be the biggest issue for most of us, I suspect. I use them for 4 of my 6 accounts and while I have enough plat for probably over a year. I would eventually run out.

 

[Kannkor]

Krono's would be the biggest issue for most of us, I suspect. I use them for 4 of my 6 accounts and while I have enough plat for probably over a year. I would eventually run out.

I figure between game time and stored up kronos, i got 2 more years. So I don't have to worry about it for a while.

At this stage I think I'm just going to start preping to move. Benefits for me seem to far outweigh the cons.

 

[Tantroth]

If theres anything i can provide as for information, we've been on drunder for most of this time, voluntarily.

 

[Eyedea]

I figure between game time and stored up kronos, i got 2 more years. So I don't have to worry about it for a while.

At this stage I think I'm just going to start preping to move. Benefits for me seem to far outweigh the cons.

I'd imagine between the two of us we have enough to out live the future of this game...

 

[Eyedea]

If theres anything i can provide as for information, we've been on drunder for most of this time, voluntarily.

Did your houses transfer over with you?

 

[Tantroth]

Did your houses transfer over with you?

Houses did not transfer over, and actually, if you have anything like tradeskill apprentices or such, they need to come out or they'll bug out. If you have houses like the isle of refuge house, it won't be useable on Drunder unless you haven't used it yet, or possibly relinquished it beforehand.

 

[Billybob12]

Our raid entertained the option when this topic first came up. I am with you on all of your points and aside from the occasional account to account transfer I have never had to use customer service. I think it would be rad to populate a bot server. I know a lot of people rely on the krono system and as said before just bring a shitload with you. Historically I have always subbed 6 and kronoed 6.

On the flip side of the story. Our raid has only been brought into question 2 times in 7 almost continuous years of doing this. First time was in PoW when a well-known member of a WW top 1 raiding guild happened to be in Drunder when we were zoning in and reported us. Shitty thing is he was also a botter :/

This was a time when they actually sent customer service out to investigate. We were obviously botting (22 toons stacked on a dime for the Boar and 2 tanks ready for the pull.) when the CS rep starts talking to us in /say. We were courteous when he told us someone had reported us as bots and he openly asked if we were botting--Of course we said, NO! We interacted with him on a few different toons and he was satisfied with the results and told us to have fun. We sat there for another 30 minutes debating if we should pull eventually saying fuck it and clearing everything we could clear.

2nd time was last December. We were doing our first run in Realm of Despair and the trash at the beginning was bugged and being exploited for xp--WE DIDN'T KNOW!. We were ignorant and were like wtf this shit keeps spawning--so we kept killing trying to move on from the beginning thinking it was a ring event or some sort--lol. We finally killed the harbinger mob or whatever and it all went away and we moved on to the Dreamkeeper. After working on that mob for a little while we called to guild hall and were setting a flag for a different zone when we all started going LD. We only found out later when one of us got on the Raid Council (There was an obvious warning about it) that it was an exploit and we took a 5 day suspension for it.

Basically, I typed out all that to play Devil's Advocate and to say as long as you aren't doing anything to draw attention there is no real reason to go to Drunder. I mean if you get caught and they want to be shitty about it they will just send you there anyway. Right?

There is a better option IMO and there are QUITE a few of us already there. /wink

I would think if my buddy every happened to get sent there that I would make an effort to get transferred if he wanted to keep playing but for now I will just enjoy this little hole in the wall server and be content. I would also entertain the option if I KNEW full well there would be a FEW other raids to openly compete with. The only thing I am really missing is the shit talking that REAL guilds get to do when they kill a mob first.

With all that said, I would certainly entertain the notion of doing Drunder if it was at least populated with a few bot raids. Or the ability to join up with another raid.

 

[EmpireSec]

Cons -

Staff semi-routinely checking Drunder might notice the robotic activities. If that staff had even a modicum of initiative, they might study the isolated activity. And figure out better software methods of detecting that robotic activity/code on the live servers.

That's the bigger issue. The risk that the entire ISX related software suite could be immediatly detected, and stomped out.

Daybreak does somewhat monitor cheaters on H1Z1, and semi-blocks the cheat software. And manages to do that with cheats buried in hundreds of concurrent players. Imagine how easy it would be to study the likely only players on Drunder.

 

[Cheesy]

Staff semi-routinely checking Drunder might notice the robotic activities. If that staff had even a modicum of initiative, they might study the isolated activity. And figure out better software methods of detecting that robotic activity/code on the live servers.

That's the bigger issue. The risk that the entire ISX related software suite could be immediatly detected, and stomped out.

Daybreak does somewhat monitor cheaters on H1Z1, and semi-blocks the cheat software. And manages to do that with cheats buried in hundreds of concurrent players. Imagine how easy it would be to study the likely only players on Drunder.

Imo they have proven they can detect it and ban it instantly anyway with the RTT server or whichever it was.

 

[Eyedea]

Yep, people were getting suspended for simply logging in via inner space when RTT was active. Without any ISX extensions loaded up... They know you guys bot, guaranteed.

 

[Amadeus]

Yep, people were getting suspended for simply logging in via inner space when RTT was active. Without any ISX extensions loaded up... They know you guys bot, guaranteed.

Actually, Pygar assisted in confirming for me what it was that caused the false positive detection on the RTT server a couple years ago. Ironically, it was code that I had added FOREVER ago in hopes of fixing something ...but, it didn't ...and I just never removed it because I figured it was harmless. But, unfortunately, the "bad" hackers use a similar tactic for getting past some of their security measures.

So, anyway, I'm fairly sure I know what it was and it has all been removed. Given that the RTT "incident" was the only time since I released ISXEQ2 in 2005 that mass suspensions have ever happened. I don't think we'll see that again unless their philosophy changes. (However, you all should know that they were just as surprised by the suspensions as we were!)

Now, this isn't to say that they cannot do a manual search of logs and find out that you are using third-party software, etc. But, I don't think they have anything that automatically detects ISXEQ2 ....and I don't think they have any desire to do so.

 

[Kannkor]

Actually, Pygar assisted in confirming for me what it was that caused the false positive detection on the RTT server a couple years ago. Ironically, it was code that I had added FOREVER ago in hopes of fixing something ...but, it didn't ...and I just never removed it because I figured it was harmless. But, unfortunately, the "bad" hackers use a similar tactic for getting past some of their security measures.

So, anyway, I'm fairly sure I know what it was and it has all been removed. Given that the RTT "incident" was the only time since I released ISXEQ2 in 2005 that mass suspensions have ever happened. I don't think we'll see that again unless their philosophy changes. (However, you all should know that they were just as surprised by the suspensions as we were!)

Now, this isn't to say that they cannot do a manual search of logs and find out that you are using third-party software, etc. But, I don't think they have anything that automatically detects ISXEQ2 ....and I don't think they have any desire to do so.

Eyedea was referring to a different time, not the mass suspensions. They had a server that would detect if Innerspace was running and auto-suspended the account if you were logged into that server. It wasn't even checking if that session was logged in via innerspace, only if it was a process on your computer. So anyone that tried to play there legit, but forgot to actually exit innerspace, got auto-suspended.

Basically, I typed out all that to play Devil's Advocate and to say as long as you aren't doing anything to draw attention there is no real reason to go to Drunder. I mean if you get caught and they want to be shitty about it they will just send you there anyway. Right?

Well, that's the thing. I'm not doing anything right now to draw attention to myself, but on drunder I could do more questionable things (like harvesting in PoM). If there's contested mobs, could kill them.
They set up a server for people who want to 'cheat' so to speak. So why live in the shadows and do minimal, vs play in the light where you're allowed to do as much as you want (obviously there are limits, causing negative effects on their servers, but I'm talking automation here not hacking/exploiting).

At this stage, I'm likely moving there. I'd guess it'll take a week to get everything all packed up and ready if houses don't move. Kronos were the only big concern I had and I feel like I have enough of them, I can deal with it.

Then we can have some fun bot raid competitions...

 

[Amadeus]

Eyedea was referring to a different time, not the mass suspensions. They had a server that would detect if Innerspace was running and auto-suspended the account if you were logged into that server. It wasn't even checking if that session was logged in via innerspace, only if it was a process on your computer. So anyone that tried to play there legit, but forgot to actually exit innerspace, got auto-suspended.

Oh yea, I forgot about that.

Chances are that InnerSpace has the same things going on that I mentioned that I removed from ISXEQ2. In other words, I'm pretty sure I know what they're detecting. Of course, I can't make adjustments to InnerSpace, so yea, if they have another server that detects InnerSpace automatically, then you're all out-of-luck.

Did the fact that people could not run programs like InnerSpace significantly affect the population/success of the RTT server? Or, did it turn out exactly as DBG hoped?

 

[Kannkor]

Did the fact that people could not run programs like InnerSpace significantly affect the population/success of the RTT server? Or, did it turn out exactly as DBG hoped?

It's really hard to say, because I personally had no interest in the server itself.
But I personally feel like it was a complete flop. They wanted people to "race" to a goal. Instead it was a race for people to collection farm/level to 30 (or some other random goal) that gave you item(s) that could be sold on your main server for a shit load of plat.
I believe itemization was a bit fucked up, so the goal of killing trak wasn't even possible for quite some time.
I'd guess since we haven't seen another "event" server, and just a re-hash TLE (fallengate), it wasn't a success. Would they call it a failure? Not sure.

 

[Kannkor]

Added 2 new Pros (for me at least)

• Account consolidation. I know for me I have toons spread all over various servers. Nice (and free) way to accomplish that.
• PQs - Yup, can bot any and all PQs with your entire team without any worry about getting into trouble. Bring on the PQ rewards!

I put in a petition to move a random test account of mine, just to confirm the process works as expected (as I don't know of anyone who has ever volunteered to move there before).

 

[Tantroth]

Added 2 new Pros (for me at least)

• Account consolidation. I know for me I have toons spread all over various servers. Nice (and free) way to accomplish that.
• PQs - Yup, can bot any and all PQs with your entire team without any worry about getting into trouble. Bring on the PQ rewards!

I put in a petition to move a random test account of mine, just to confirm the process works as expected (as I don't know of anyone who has ever volunteered to move there before).

Theres about 7 of us who did volunteer We've taken advantage of not having to worry about anyone to do the PQ's, although we might actually run into each other doing them in PoP.

 

[Kannkor]

Theres about 7 of us who did volunteer We've taken advantage of not having to worry about anyone to do the PQ's, although we might actually run into each other doing them in PoP.

Well there you go! I didn't know yous had volunteered.

I'm not worried about running into people doing PQs, I was just always worried about running into real players and getting petitioned in PQs, so I never, ever did them!