Curse

Kanyatta · Feb 15, 2008, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by You can't see me

Can we please focus on getting them out?

Well, nothing has been done about botters yet... in the history of Guild Wars, which is approaching 3 years. I guess you could make a case for loot scaling and farming code, but that hurt the actual players more than the farmers.

I've never heard of any mass account bannings like in WoW or other big-name MMORPG's. We must face the truth.

Any botter discussion can pretty much be left at this:

Nothing ever has been done, and nothing ever will be done

MithranArkanere · Feb 15, 2008, 11:26 PM // 23:26

The problem must be taken from how do bots work.

What do they do? They repeat sequences. So, how do you stop them?

- Preventing the sequence to start at all. This would be cutting the new botting accounts, the bot programs... something impossible.

- Breaking the sequence. This is a hard one. Most changes would bother a lot of players.

- Making the sequence useless. This would basically would be to make human farming work and bot farming never work:
** Do bot sequences identify items? If bots can't identify, then the key is making all unidentified items have value 0 or 1.
** Bot sequences can identify? Then what we need is a market to enforce player trading and making players get much more cash by selling to others than selling to merchants. Xunlai Market is not a definite solution, but a good help.
** Bot sequences cannot effectively salvage. Weapon upgrade traders and increased prices for savaged upgrades. That would really bring a bing.
** Bots sequences cannot recognize item types? Each merchant would buy the kind of items they sell for wise prices, and pay 1g for anything else. Players would be a ble to sell weapons to weapons crafters for 1..500g, armors for 5..400 to armor crafters, dyes for 50g..9k to dye traders, and items without appropiate traders would be paid with fair prices only by merchants (Alcohol, keys, lockpicks, etc) merchants would pay then 1g for anything that has its trader. That would KILL bots. A bit annoying, yes, but we already do for many dyes, scrolls, runes and materials, why not for weapons and armors too?

- Making the sequence impossible. This would be one of the best working methonds. Putting anti-bot creatures in every single farmed spot that players can easily avoid but bots can't, since and automated input sequence can't see the game. Like a creature that appear and starts activating and interruptable AoE skill that after 10 seconds kills every player withing earshot, players can see them and run away, but bots can't, even if they try to make sequences to 'run away' in certain spots, such spawns would be random.
You could call them 'Wandering Revenants'. They could have the 'passive spirit' model appearance, but with purplish skin instead of greenish. They would try to stay out of nearby range and could be easily killed with a single Holy wand and a couple of wandings in hard mode.

Here you are. The 'kill-da-bot Compendium'.
Let's make it bigger.

AuraofMana · Feb 16, 2008, 10:57 AM // 10:57

You mentioned all these possible flaws the bot script can have, you know it won't take long before botters realize this and change the scripts?

the_jos · Feb 16, 2008, 01:11 PM // 13:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kanyatta

Well, nothing has been done about botters yet... in the history of Guild Wars, which is approaching 3 years. I guess you could make a case for loot scaling and farming code, but that hurt the actual players more than the farmers.
....
Nothing ever has been done, and nothing ever will be done

Loot scaling and farming code hit part of the actual players indeed and for very good reason.
While as a side effect it reduced the income of bots, bots were never the main problem with the Guild Wars economy. But I doubt A-net will ever acknowledge that in public.

Sure, bots can farm 24/7, however, they have the risk of being cought before selling. And they probably don't sell 24/7.
Remember, bots can farm as many gold as they want, unless they sell their items/gold items there is no extra gold in the economy.

Now to the human players.
Human players could cause a problem, since the moment they farm they will bring extra gold in the economy. They don't need to sell on e-bay and don't have a ban-risk (I know some accidental bans happened).
How much gold did regular farming players introduce to the game compared to farming bots on daily basis? Even if the total number of players would bring in only 10 times more gold than bots daily (and that's a very low estimate) nerfing bots would not help the economy.

The value of an item can be roughly calculated by the amount of time it takes to obtain the item compared to the amount of gold that can be farmed in the same amount of time. If item is hard to sell, lower price with the amount of gold that could be obtained farming in that time. If item is hard to farm add premium.

The best example of this market mechanism would be the Factions green items and the crash of the market for some items after Hard Mode + exemption list.
The factions green items were a good example of overpriced items compared to the effort to get them and the price of their Tyrian counterparts.
Why? Because people could afford them at those high prices, since farming allowed them to gain their gold fast.
The crash of the market after Hard Mode + exemption can be seen with gold Dead Bows for example. The change made them drop 3x as often and exemption made sure they kept dropping even when Lootscaling was in place.
The reason? Higher supply and people had less cash to spend.

Now why was this change important?
The main reason is that players were forced to (solo)farm whenever they wanted to obtain anything besides merchant stuff.
The moment I got here on guru and said 'those prices on xxx feel a bit high', I was told 'STFU and go farm!'.
So people were 'punished' for playing the game with a team, because that would give them only roughly 1/8 of the gold they could gain by playing solo.
And prices on the market/traders were more or less targeted at players with 8/8 buying power.

This is also the reason why I said "However, I doubt the 'economy' is really bad atm" earlier in this thread.
Things improved a lot for the majority of players, specially that 80% that has less than 20k in storage.

Sure, the current income will attract some players to the dark side (e-bay).
The question is why? Did they not adapt to their new income?
Or would they have used e-bay in the first place because they want what they see, regardless of their game income? Zomg, I want that mini-panda, don't have time to farm but have $100 on bank. Let's buy one....

Bots can be nerfed, however, I doubt it's a high priority issue.
People can see bots running around a lot, but they can't see the impact of bots and e-bayers on the economy. How much do they farm, how much do they sell? And if A-net changes something, will it only hurt botters or also cause problems for regular players?

MithranArkanere · Feb 16, 2008, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by AuraofMana

You mentioned all these possible flaws the bot script can have, you know it won't take long before botters realize this and change the scripts?

It is impossbile to make a script for there unless they make a code to read the server output (Numbers in panels, position of enemies, etc)

Can't be done just with input copy scripts that currently bots use.

Kanyatta · Feb 16, 2008, 06:58 PM // 18:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_jos

. They don't need to sell on e-bay and don't have a ban-risk (I know some accidental bans happened).

I got my account suspended after a guildie gave me 20k to buy a Hall for our smurf guild, and I had a 72 hour suspension for buying gold. I have never bought gold in my life, and that instance had happened the day before, and I figured that had to be what it was. Although the person who gave me the 20k wasn't suspended....

It didn't seem so accidental, but, it's the first time I've ever heard of someone getting suspended for gold transactions.

Musei Karasu · Feb 16, 2008, 07:15 PM // 19:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zahr Dalsk

Just for the record, I don't give a shit about the high-end economy, it can crash for all I care.

You failed Econ in High School didn't you? If the high end market crashes so does the low end market.

Stockholm · Feb 16, 2008, 09:14 PM // 21:14

Bots = money for NC-Soft

Kanyatta · Feb 16, 2008, 11:59 PM // 23:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stockholm

Bots = money for NC-Soft

It would be funny if it wasn't true. But since it is true, it's not funny.

MithranArkanere · Feb 17, 2008, 12:03 AM // 00:03

They may mean 'money' but they also mean 'unsatisfied clients' and losing clients due to having bots it's worse than losing the cash from the bots.

Why? Because if clients get upset enough and leave, bots have no one to sell gold to, and you end up without clients, bots and anything else.

Stockholm · Feb 17, 2008, 12:14 AM // 00:14

This is from a tread in 2006, must have been a settlement since I have not been able to find anything more about the lawsuit.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...hlight=Bot%27s

Quote:

http://www.player2player.net/index.p...e=print&sid=91 (link has been nuked by webmaster)

Quote
"He states that he received in excess of 2000 petitions related to botting from characters but was instructed to only investigate the petitions and not to terminate any accounts. In Lin’s affidavit, he states “NC made it clear to me that they didn’t want to ban the bots because it would mean lost revenue for them. I think that the bots make up anywhere from 30 to 40% of the community. So banning the bots would result in a 40% decrease in revenue. Everybody knew this, and accepted it.” The affidavit also states that NCSOFT engaged in deceptive practices related to preventing the proliferation of bots in Lineage 2. Lin refers back to a memo he received, “The memo said that there was to be now public acknowledgement of the botting problem. Any public questions about bots in the game were to be answered with: ‘we’re working on it.’” Lin’s account of banning players detailed, “Anytime a player started making too much noise about botting or anything like that we banned them. I thought it was unfair but that’s what we were told to do. No player was allowed to talk about bots in the forums, or name a person that was botting. When a player always petitioned us, we would call them a “pet” and sometimes we banned them because they would rally other players to petition us about bots. We really couldn’t have that.”
End Quote

Scary stuff

Perkunas · Feb 17, 2008, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Stockholm, so that is saying, NC is not banning bots, but they will ban me for paying for their services?

MithranArkanere · Feb 17, 2008, 04:29 AM // 04:29

That was about Lineage or about Guild Wars...?

Hm...

You can't see me · Feb 17, 2008, 04:49 AM // 04:49

Things may not have been done about bots, but we now know that if there is enough QQing it will happen.

All we need is to get a brigaide of noobs on the forums and have them make whine posts in the wrong forums so Arenanet will finally do something.

MithranArkanere · Feb 17, 2008, 05:00 AM // 05:00

Hasn't that been done already a lot of times so far?

You can't see me · Feb 17, 2008, 05:06 AM // 05:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

Hasn't that been done already a lot of times so far?

Yes, but they were mostly in the right forums. We need to get them to post in the Campfire and Game Bugs.

Stockholm · Feb 17, 2008, 03:11 PM // 15:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by MithranArkanere

That was about Lineage or about Guild Wars...?

Hm...

It was about the company that OWNS both the games and their policy regarding Bot's.

the_jos · Feb 17, 2008, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stockholm

It was about the company that OWNS both the games and their policy regarding Bot's.

However, you are forgetting one thing.
Lineage is a game that requires a monthly fee, so disabling a bot would result in less income.
On the other hand, Guild Wars is a game without a monthly fee, shutting down bots and force them to buy an extra key would generate more income.

Unless NC operates the bots or generates income from them, in the case of Guild Wars shutting them down would be profitable, keeping them would only cost resources.

Same with sold copies.
If A-net closes down bots and the botters buy a new access key, it wil result in more copies sold.

Every way you can look at the issue in Guild Wars from a economic point of view there is almost no way you can think of a situation where keeping bots in the game would result in more profit for NC.

Stockholm · Feb 17, 2008, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by the_jos

However, you are forgetting one thing.
Lineage is a game that requires a monthly fee, so disabling a bot would result in less income.
On the other hand, Guild Wars is a game without a monthly fee, shutting down bots and force them to buy an extra key would generate more income.

Unless NC operates the bots or generates income from them, in the case of Guild Wars shutting them down would be profitable, keeping them would only cost resources.

Same with sold copies.
If A-net closes down bots and the botters buy a new access key, it wil result in more copies sold.

Every way you can look at the issue in Guild Wars from a economic point of view there is almost no way you can think of a situation where keeping bots in the game would result in more profit for NC.

Thats why they ban X amount of bot accounts every now and then but don't try to really fix the problem. How to do it have been argued back and forth here on Guru for as long as I can remember, so I'm not going in to it, but there was simple solutions.
Lets just say that people botting is profitable for NC-Soft both ways.

Chrono Re delle Ere · Feb 17, 2008, 11:01 PM // 23:01

oh! oh! I have an idea!

To pick up anything a monster drop you must first type in a code that is given to you by a NC soft employer that will answer you calling to the phone number written under that item.

ROFL XD

Btw, there is no way to stop bots, this should be something that everyone should understand. Should.