A strange detection question.

[Raistlin]

All,

A strange sniffer detection question...would Verant/Sony have a greater ability to detect sniffers in memory if EQ was running in a windowed environment than in a full screen mode environment?

Call me paranoid, but could the addition of the EQ Windowed mode be partly to help detect the various sniffers out for SEQ?

Yes, it adds a new feature to the program and that's good, but why after 3 years all of a sudden go back on their "No windowed EQ" without having some gain from it...

Just my paranoid self asking stupid questions again.

--Raistlin

[high_jeeves]

No.

--Jeeves

[e@tme]

The only reason EQ are progressing with the eq-windows alt-tab funciton is becuase Good Ole MS have said to sony that they cannot remove OS functionality for there games.

In other words, stop messing with the Alt-Tab, and put it back in )

[RavenCT]

Is there an article posted somewhere from MS that has that information about that? Interesting thought though.

[high_jeeves]

No, that isnt true. That was a bad rumor started a while ago. There are lots of games, and other apps that disable alt-tab. The only thing MS requires is that you cannot get the little "certified" sticker on your box, unless you allow alt-tabbing. Most software doesnt even bother with this certification.. it isnt a requirement by any means... 99.9% of the software out there that runs on windows doesnt care about the various steps required for this certification. Who ever said you need microsoft's approval to write your code however you want to?

I would suppose that the real reason that they are now allowing windowing is that most of the original game designers and "vision" people have left the company to other endevours.. The arguments against running in a window have decreased, and they have seen competition start to roll out games that can be run in a window... I think it is simply a market decision.

--Jeeves

[flobee]

I'm also willing to bet that since Dark Age of Camelot (they are testing their windowed mode as we speak) is letting their users go windowed EQ needs to step up and let it happen as well. It's about farkin time... I attribute all thanks to Mythic.

[Elmo]

I don't find this change surprising at all. Any of you who have been on SOE's mailing list have received multiple unsolicited account keys for free trials in an attempt to get you to buy more accounts. Clearly SOE sees this as a way to increase their subscriber base (read: profit) over and above whatever new players they can attract.

The biggest hurdle to 2-boxing is shelling out the cash for that 2nd EQ-capable PC. Making EQ able to run in a window and able to run 2 or more accounts at once means that more of their players can afford to pay for more than 1 account.

I agree that some of the old guard leaving probably helped, but they also probably woke up to the fact that the majority of people who used EQW weren't hackers, they were people wanting to run (and pay for) more than one EQ account on a single PC. Follow the money.