As you have already mentioned, the dev team has PRIDE in their product. I am sure they have hard facts and statistics on how much damage a multi-boxer can achieve in a short window period.
This pride also carries over to their fervent desire to ruthlessly remove multi-boxers. I am not going to fault them for wanting to protect something they put hundreds or more man hours into.
Also, IP exemptions are not granted on an exact schedule, but whenever the person who does them (Amelinda I think) can get around to a batch of them. Forcing a volunteer to "respond to an IP exemption within 2-weeks time" is unfair of that volunteer.
The virus issue you heard rumor about was a false positive. In addition to their efforts to remove multi-boxers, the server staff has also been on a crusade against ShowEQ and MultiQuest, 3rd-party software that can also ruin the classic Everquest experience. One of their early attempts at cracking down on these programs involved modifying a DLL file (W32SOCK.DLL I think), which some anti-virus programs then flagged as a virus. This code did not harm a user's computer, it was a false-positive registered by the AV program. Server staff have since changed the method they detect these programs with, and I'm sure it's still a constant battle between MQ and SEQ users and P99 staff.
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