Curse

Div · Jun 15, 2007, 03:12 AM // 03:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by R_Frost

they wouldnt be needed if old farming areas that had been nerfed got un-nerfed and a-net undid the loot nerf. the harder it is for the casual player to get gold the more that person might consider buying gold.

It has nothing to do with any farming nerfs. Some people just aren't willing to go out and farm the stuff themselves, no matter how easy it is.

holababe · Jun 15, 2007, 04:40 AM // 04:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abarra

well for a start anet could try whispering the characters. Bots won't reply real players will, esp if it's from a GM. If they're afk they won't be moving in the set pattern so will not appear as the conga line bots anyway. I was farming outside bergen yesterday and the place was overflowing with bots. I bet a good proportion of those wouldn't reply to a whisp o_O

Not true.
There's one person watching many screens so that they will be able to respond to situations like these.

Sir Green Aluminum · Jun 15, 2007, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Granite citadel has a few of them. Did anyone try submitting a report and a screenshot with all of them running to the sign?

Patrick Smit · Jun 15, 2007, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

I just looked on ebay purely for any 2nd series skill pins, and all I find is people selling hack + bot guides. Maybe ANET asking EBAY to delete and even ban users selling these guides would be a nice thing to do?

This should be a normal way of operating on any second hand market (online). Illegal stuff is always removed on request or doubt of legality. I reported many a stolen labtop or request to steal one to buy one cheaply in the end. They always get removed from the marketsite. ANet asking EBAY to remove such things should be ok procedure. If there is no reaction then maybe u should send some lawyers to let them see the seriousness of your company.

You could make agreements on EBAYsending forward sales (to check for ANet) that include anything from GW, all sales are illegal, unless traded for ingame gold or goods.

MrFuzzles · Jun 15, 2007, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Coming from Lineage 2, I'm all too familiar with this problem.

Bots are automated, but not always unattended. A bot client can be similar to an irc window, where you have several tabs to monitor each character. You can set up alerts to different events like receiving pm's and such. One user can run dozens of bots while doing work in another window or something.

Yes, it's true that if there was no demand for gold, there would be no bots and no gold sellers, but the demand will always be there to some extent, unless you remove inter-player trading alltogether. As long as the game contains goals to achieve, there will be players who are willing to pay dollars to achieve them faster.
The best thing Anet can do is to keep adding 3rd party protection and banning as many bots as they can. The problem starts when they aren't able to ban a bot fast enough for it not to make a profit. I've played several games where bots don't mind getting banned, as the profit (in real world dollars) they make between creation and getting banned is greater than the cost of a new account.

About Anet going to ebay and investigating individual auctions, I'm no expert but I believe the legality of this is up for debate.

All in all I just wanted to point out that the problem exists because there is no easy way to just sweep them away, unless you want to get into conspiracy theories over how the company secretly wants bots because it means they sell more copies.

First post btw, sup all o/

Patrick Smit · Jun 15, 2007, 08:03 AM // 08:03

Why i think it is legal to go against EBAY is the fact that you buy a license, and u do not own anything, so u cant sell something that is not yours, even not the license itself. Cases of Licenses have allready been settled so there is no worry about selling them. The new problem mightr be how to deal with in game goods. I think it should be settled once and for all in courts by game companies, and then crush the market and people who use em. A game is mad eby proffesionals to be entertaining, not to be a source of income, or for third parties to make huge profit on (thereby destroying the economics of the game). If gold selling was not harm ing anything, then ANet could do it herself easiest.

The license is pretty clear on this stuff. And I realize this doesn't mean anything yet, i would like to see that these things become settled in court just to make EBAY and such stop hosting those advertisements. They wont risk their reputation and activities, by something like gold selling. It is just criminal money, and nowadays, every reasonable country has installed laws to monitor incomes, actions, and deposits on legality.

You can't sell what is not yours!

Gawa · Jun 15, 2007, 10:48 AM // 10:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir Green Aluminum

Granite citadel has a few of them. Did anyone try submitting a report and a screenshot with all of them running to the sign?

Yep. I have reported about 100 from Granite Citadel and i know someone else who said he reported 500.

I urge everyone to spend 5 mins reporting Bots once a day

IF Anet do act on this (which they say they do and i want to believe them though i guess it may just take a lot of time as i have seen ones i reported previously) then there is no way that the botters can keep up with the community reporting them.