Another Perspective

[jimthayner]

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.

Above is quoted from Everquest's End User License Agreement. With all the drama relating about bans and cheating, I wanted to offer a another perspective and play Devil's Advocate.

1. We are all cheating. We are cheating Sony out of their rights to control their own intellectual property, created through years of R&D and most likely millions of dollars spent. With Uthgaard's (and others) seemingly ultra-conservative "Law & Order" stance toward cheating, they should take a good look at themselves before getting up on the soap box about using ShowEQ and other third party programs.

2. "Players need to use their common sense here and not do unethical things for personal gain." This is quoted directly from the "Server Rules" thread here: http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1057.
Once again, I'd like to point out that we are all doing an "unethical thing" by violating Sony's EULA for Everquest. We are stealing Sony's intellectual property for the personal gain of playing for free and getting the classic EQ experience. Hypocrisy strike #2.

3. "DO NOT post copyrighted materials, links to get copyrighted materials, or discuss illegal methods to obtain copyrighted materials." Once again, quoted from the Server Rules. We are all violating this rule just by playing P1999! Where is the "ban the cheaters crowd for violating the server rules?" This whole server, and game, is a copyrighted material and we are using this message board to discuss methods to illegally obtain copyrighted materials (from downloading the version of this game required to play to the actual hosting of this illegal Everquest server).

In conclusion, the ultra-conservative stance of "ban the cheaters" is parallel to (I said "parallel to", not "equal to") the "Law & Order" political right's stance of "hang 'em all." Now, I'd be absolutely thrilled if P1999's player base was generally Republican/Conservative, but I have a feeling that the majority of P1999's player base is Democrat/liberal. "Hang 'em all" has never been a philosophy subscribed to by rational, free thinking people.

In the end, the Admins of this server have every right to ban anyone they want, for any reason they decide. The Supreme Court case involving the Boy Scouts and their policy of of discrimination against gays reinforced a citizen's Constitutional (and God given) right to control their property (and in this case, the P1999 server's access).

However, I think that those who subscribe to a "ban them all" mentality need to take a good look at themselves before they post photo shopped images supporting a 'ban them all' policy. They need to take a good, honest, look at their own hypocrisy when it comes to unethical behavior and infringing upon Sony's right to not be *cheated* out of their right to profit from their own creative work...before they post flames/rants/really lame photo shopped images.