I don't know how EME did it, but TERA NA was the most bot-free MMO I ever played, I saw maybe 3 total in the whole time I played.
1 cash spammer in global and 2 bots farming mobs in three towers spires over the 5 months I played. Sure, there was probably more but honestly, If I only saw 3 there weren't that many, I remember playing so many games in the past that were just flooded with bots, Aion, Runescape, even GW2 seems to be absolutely jam packed with them.
Just as virus/trojan developers tend to target the most successful OS, bot writers and gold sellers tend to focus on the most successful games. It's hard to know if TERA isn't overrun with bots/gold sellers because of the developers or because it's just not successful enough to encourage cheaters. I also don't now how the economy works in TERA.
Well in TERA gold is everything because of enchanting nonsense, people buy chronoscrolls from EME for $15 and sell them in-game for 1500g, which can be lost on two failed enchants in 5 seconds... I remember people found out the cash shop items could be put up on the broker(this was not EMEs intention) and everyone started buying them to sell on the broker for in-game gold.
You're right though, the game may have not been popular enough, especially now, but when it released there really was a lot of players and no cash spammers at all, something i'd appreciate in GW2, I get mail multiple times per day from bots and see it ruin the chat in all the major cities.
If we eliminate the client side I think they have a great shot but who is going to buy that game? It's like building a town but not allowing any people in it, it certainly wont have crime.
The lag would be horrible... and it would be exploited. There is no permanent solution, just compromises of varying degrees of effectiveness.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
If we eliminate the client side I think they have a great shot but who is going to buy that game? It's like building a town but not allowing any people in it, it certainly wont have crime.
The lag would be horrible... and it would be exploited. There is no permanent solution, just compromises of varying degrees of effectiveness.
Exactly what I was saying. The no client was a joke, any ui no matter how thin you try and make it is a client there is no way out.
If we eliminate the client side I think they have a great shot but who is going to buy that game? It's like building a town but not allowing any people in it, it certainly wont have crime.
The lag would be horrible... and it would be exploited. There is no permanent solution, just compromises of varying degrees of effectiveness.
Exactly what I was saying. The no client was a joke, any ui no matter how thin you try and make it is a client there is no way out.
Yes, I know we were in agreement. Interactive games have to be...err... interactive. Somethikng needs to happen at the user end and communicated to the server in some fashion... that can always be exploited.
Write enough delays and semi random emotes, dances and whatever into a script, make it a lengthy one and very few people would be able to tell that it's not a live player mashing the keyboard unless you stalk the toon for an hour and catch on to the pattern. I personally know a talented programmer/hacker who not only botted WOW but also one of the on-line poker sites. It wasn't a business for him--he just did it for his own personal enjoyment. It was the challenge that got his juices going.
We only notice the simple obvious ones.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
If we eliminate the client side I think they have a great shot but who is going to buy that game? It's like building a town but not allowing any people in it, it certainly wont have crime.
The lag would be horrible... and it would be exploited. There is no permanent solution, just compromises of varying degrees of effectiveness.
Exactly what I was saying. The no client was a joke, any ui no matter how thin you try and make it is a client there is no way out.
Yes, I know we were in agreement. Interactive games have to be...err... interactive. Somethikng needs to happen at the user end and communicated to the server in some fashion... that can always be exploited.
Write enough delays and semi random emotes, dances and whatever into a script, make it a lengthy one and very few people would be able to tell that it's not a live player mashing the keyboard unless you stalk the toon for an hour and catch on to the pattern. I personally know a talented programmer/hacker who not only botted WOW but also one of the on-line poker sites. It wasn't a business for him--he just did it for his own personal enjoyment. It was the challenge that got his juices going.
We only notice the simple obvious ones.
Plenty of people have botted poker. The sad part is a few years ago, last time I played some online poker, I looked at PokerStars rules and they flat out said you could use programs to help you make decisions as long as you entered the moves. This meant you could use strong software that flat out told you what to do, you could do it, make money and oh well to everyone else. And of course with how it is written, it makes it tough for them to say you had the program running playing automatically while you weren't there.
It was there way of saying they didn't want to deal with it so just do it.
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
So. Why bother worrying about bots at all? Or hacked accounts? Just let them run rampant.
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
Do you realize not all bots are for gold sellers? Theres tons of people spread amongst all the MMOs that bot for themselves so that they can let the bot do the work and level them up because they dont feel like doing it. Especially in F2P games because of their usual lengthy grind for levels.
Hell just look at private servers too. People bot there, but theres no gold selling going on. They bot simply to get ahead in the game without having to do any of the work.
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
So. Why bother worrying about bots at all? Or hacked accounts? Just let them run rampant.
Same reason they keep flushing away billions of dollars trying to win the drug war. You have to LOOK like you're doing something and you care, otherwise everyone gets mad at you.
If a company were to be honest and say "Listen, we can't stop the bots. It isn't happening. So we're simply not going to spend money trying so we can instead invest that money into more content and features for you" people wouldn't be able to handle it and they'd quit.
Seriously, if you think that botting can and will be stopped, you are being naive. They can fight it, they can lessen it a bit, but they cannot stop it.
The closest you could get would be to make an MMO where nothing at all was tradeable in any way shape or form. Despite how unfun that would be, it still wouldn't fully stop it because people who buy accounts/characters and they'd sign up for power leveling services the botters run.
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
Do you realize not all bots are for gold sellers? Theres tons of people spread amongst all the MMOs that bot for themselves so that they can let the bot do the work and level them up because they dont feel like doing it. Especially in F2P games because of their usual lengthy grind for levels.
Hell just look at private servers too. People bot there, but theres no gold selling going on. They bot simply to get ahead in the game without having to do any of the work.
This is my first day playing MMOs and I did not know people did such things, my apologies. Probably overly sarcastic but I don't think your first "question" was really necessary.
There is a difference.
First is the pure magnitude of it. Those botting while they're away to gain levels/resources are less than those who do it to sell gold. They also generally don't try to hack/steal accounts either.
Second: banning those accounts actually has an effect. It is a regular person who paid for this game and just lost money. They also lost time because even though they let a program level them up/gather their resources they just lost it all and would have to buy a new box/start a new sub and start over with the risk of losing it all again.
Those who do it for personal gain, don't steal accounts, don't sell gold are less of a problem and can actually be policed.
the only way to eliminate bots would probably be to encrypt the keystrokes, so that although a certain key always had the same action, the keystroke itself, was different, the token could very well be the time stamp, as without the encryption algorythm, any bot that simulated keystrokes would be useless. only problem is chat would have to be unencrypted at the server side too, as the keystrokes for regular chat wouldnt make sense as the keyboard would in effect, have been 'scrambled' the other problem of course would be the increase in the amount of lag between keystroke and action, due to the need to unencrypt them.
However, when you buy a product, it is yours. It no longer belongs to the seller. Many countries have that constitutionalized, including the USA. Therefor, banning bots simply for botting can lead to a huge lawsuit. Outright banning is not a viable solution. You can ALWAYS get your account back, letters of intent are great. But that issue is minor compared to the real issue: Retards.
Yes, retards are the main botting problem. Retards are the "computer programmers" that get hacked. The security experts with a password that they use on 25 other sites. They are the ones who actually give their accounts to botters, who then steal the gold and spam your chats. So Anet is actually trying to force everyone to have a unique password. This, after a hack, forces the user to choose a password not already in their password DB. In the long run, it will work for 75% (approx) of the botting problems. You wont notice it in the first year, as most retards use an old password that is already in the botter's database. Those databases have 10 million entries.
Following greatly based on GW2:
Making gold a commodity rather than a necessity, it'd solve a huge chunk of botting. Legendaries and the likes should literally be unlocked through achieving, along with the removal of the consumable achieves most games have. This would halt the use of botting because there would be nothing to bot for. GW2 already uses that kind of currency in Karma. Trading post should award Karma for items picked up from there based on rarity. Remove capitalism from the game, you solve the gold selling bots for good. Honestly, if someone bots himself to 500k Karma, I DO NOT EVEN CARE. PvP should have alternative pvp karma, as should WvWvW.
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
Do you close door to your apartment or your car?
Because you're aware nothing will stop robbing houses and robbing / stealing car?
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
Do you close door to your apartment or your car?
Because you're aware nothing will stop robbing houses and robbing / stealing car?
I have no argument either so I'll say something that doesnt make sense and doesn't apply to this line of thought.
Do you kill yourself because nothing will stop you from dying anyways?
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
Do you realize not all bots are for gold sellers? Theres tons of people spread amongst all the MMOs that bot for themselves so that they can let the bot do the work and level them up because they dont feel like doing it. Especially in F2P games because of their usual lengthy grind for levels.
Hell just look at private servers too. People bot there, but theres no gold selling going on. They bot simply to get ahead in the game without having to do any of the work.
This is my first day playing MMOs and I did not know people did such things, my apologies. Probably overly sarcastic but I don't think your first "question" was really necessary.
There is a difference.
First is the pure magnitude of it. Those botting while they're away to gain levels/resources are less than those who do it to sell gold. They also generally don't try to hack/steal accounts either.
Second: banning those accounts actually has an effect. It is a regular person who paid for this game and just lost money. They also lost time because even though they let a program level them up/gather their resources they just lost it all and would have to buy a new box/start a new sub and start over with the risk of losing it all again.
Those who do it for personal gain, don't steal accounts, don't sell gold are less of a problem and can actually be policed.
The thread is regarding stopping botting (as well as hacks such as teleport hacks & dupe hacks as stated in the OP), not just gold selling. You said botting will stop, when youre talking about something else (gold selling) stopping.
Yes there is a difference in the goals of the 2 types, but the means is the same. Bots & gold selling exists in F2P as well. How does your idea regarding "stolen" accounts and players having to buy a new game apply?
Same reason they keep flushing away billions of dollars trying to win the drug war. You have to LOOK like you're doing something and you care, otherwise everyone gets mad at you.
It's been a long time since anyone claimed we could WIN a war on drugs. We will never legalize Crystal Meth or hard drugs that ruin lives and families. It's our duty to do our best to keep them off the street.
It's in developers best interest to try and keep bots under control. Otherwise the game economy tanks and people leave in droves. There is zero reason why devs can't run software on the client that checks other running processes and at least prevent the public bots from running. There's zero reason why ANET can't prevent teleport or speed hacks.
Same reason they keep flushing away billions of dollars trying to win the drug war. You have to LOOK like you're doing something and you care, otherwise everyone gets mad at you.
It's been a long time since anyone claimed we could WIN a war on drugs. We will never legalize Crystal Meth or hard drugs that ruin lives and families. It's our duty to do our best to keep them off the street.
It's in developers best interest to try and keep bots under control. Otherwise the game economy tanks and people leave in droves. There is zero reason why devs can't run software on the client that checks other running processes and at least prevent the public bots from running. There's zero reason why ANET can't prevent teleport or speed hacks.
Let's say you do fully stop teleporting and speed hacks. Great you still haven't stopped botting.
Ok you check for certain running processes. The botters just change the processes constantly to beat your detection methods. You haven't stopped botting.
You can police it, you can ban some, but..... you will NEVER stop botting.
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
Do you close door to your apartment or your car?
Because you're aware nothing will stop robbing houses and robbing / stealing car?
I have no argument either so I'll say something that doesnt make sense and doesn't apply to this line of thought.
Do you kill yourself because nothing will stop you from dying anyways?
Many people live in a way to increase possiblity that they will live long by either avoiding dangerous situations or by eating and living healthy or by doing both of those things.
Remember I am against fighting battles that never can be decisilely and totally won, so your argument cannot be used against my reasoning.
The only way it would ever stop is for gamers to stop buying the gold/services. Nothing else will stop it.
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
Do you realize not all bots are for gold sellers? Theres tons of people spread amongst all the MMOs that bot for themselves so that they can let the bot do the work and level them up because they dont feel like doing it. Especially in F2P games because of their usual lengthy grind for levels.
Hell just look at private servers too. People bot there, but theres no gold selling going on. They bot simply to get ahead in the game without having to do any of the work.
This is my first day playing MMOs and I did not know people did such things, my apologies. Probably overly sarcastic but I don't think your first "question" was really necessary.
There is a difference.
First is the pure magnitude of it. Those botting while they're away to gain levels/resources are less than those who do it to sell gold. They also generally don't try to hack/steal accounts either.
Second: banning those accounts actually has an effect. It is a regular person who paid for this game and just lost money. They also lost time because even though they let a program level them up/gather their resources they just lost it all and would have to buy a new box/start a new sub and start over with the risk of losing it all again.
Those who do it for personal gain, don't steal accounts, don't sell gold are less of a problem and can actually be policed.
The thread is regarding stopping botting (as well as hacks such as teleport hacks & dupe hacks as stated in the OP), not just gold selling. You said botting will stop, when youre talking about something else (gold selling) stopping.
Yes there is a difference in the goals of the 2 types, but the means is the same. Bots & gold selling exists in F2P as well. How does your idea regarding "stolen" accounts and players having to buy a new game apply?
I'm not talking gold selling. I'm talking one type of botting, by far the most prevelant one, which is done to sell items for real world money. If no one purchased a single thing from them..... it would stop it 100% because there would be no gain to doing it at all.
Somehow you're trying to prove something I said wrong with your second sentence but you are really proving my point. My point was that there is little to no penalty to an item/gold selling botter when caught. They either hack another account or start up a new one and keep on going. Yes, with F2P where the accounts cost nothing to begin with so the penalties are even less -> increased botting.
A person who does it purely to get their character ahead is the easiest type of bot to police because a ban to them does actually effect them. Even in a F2P game, they just had all of their progress erased. If each time they try to bot up to max level/max gear and keep having their account erased. They give up and leave as it is not worth it. It is the far less common and intrusive type of botting (because it does have risks and because a lot of people simply don't have the desire to do it) and it is the only type that could actually be close to eliminated by policing/detection methods.
Let's say you do fully stop teleporting and speed hacks. Great you still haven't stopped botting.
Ok you check for certain running processes. The botters just change the processes constantly to beat your detection methods. You haven't stopped botting.
You can police it, you can ban some, but..... you will NEVER stop botting.
That's obvious, and I clearly should have worded things better. There will always be some bots out there. That's a no brainer. But Blizzard and ANET seem resigned to not even try to halt the public bots. That's really what I'm getting at.
Same reason they keep flushing away billions of dollars trying to win the drug war. You have to LOOK like you're doing something and you care, otherwise everyone gets mad at you.
It's been a long time since anyone claimed we could WIN a war on drugs. We will never legalize Crystal Meth or hard drugs that ruin lives and families. It's our duty to do our best to keep them off the street.
It's in developers best interest to try and keep bots under control. Otherwise the game economy tanks and people leave in droves. There is zero reason why devs can't run software on the client that checks other running processes and at least prevent the public bots from running. There's zero reason why ANET can't prevent teleport or speed hacks.
Let's say you do fully stop teleporting and speed hacks. Great you still haven't stopped botting.
Ok you check for certain running processes. The botters just change the processes constantly to beat your detection methods. You haven't stopped botting.
You can police it, you can ban some, but..... you will NEVER stop botting.
I think you miss the point. It is NOT about getting rid of the botting totally. It is about making it less common and minimizing it's effect.
You may not know but it is same principle that lies under fundament of law and law enforcement. You will NEVER be able to stop crimes or mistakes but that does not mean that there should be no police or that there should be no auditing.
Since people want to believe that botting can be fully stopped I guess there isn't much point in opening their eyes. But suffice it to say, they will be dissappointed in online games for the rest of their lives.
I will let them continue on with the amazing technology that an MMO company could implement, but for some strange reason won't, that will stop all botting and lead to a Hands Across the Virtual World day.
Same reason they keep flushing away billions of dollars trying to win the drug war. You have to LOOK like you're doing something and you care, otherwise everyone gets mad at you.
It's been a long time since anyone claimed we could WIN a war on drugs. We will never legalize Crystal Meth or hard drugs that ruin lives and families. It's our duty to do our best to keep them off the street.
It's in developers best interest to try and keep bots under control. Otherwise the game economy tanks and people leave in droves. There is zero reason why devs can't run software on the client that checks other running processes and at least prevent the public bots from running. There's zero reason why ANET can't prevent teleport or speed hacks.
Let's say you do fully stop teleporting and speed hacks. Great you still haven't stopped botting.
Ok you check for certain running processes. The botters just change the processes constantly to beat your detection methods. You haven't stopped botting.
You can police it, you can ban some, but..... you will NEVER stop botting.
I think you miss the point. It is NOT about getting rid of the botting totally. It is about making it less common and minimizing it's effect.
You may not know but it is same principle that lies under fundament of law and law enforcement. You will NEVER be able to stop crimes or mistakes but that does not mean that there should be no police or that there should be no auditing.
He's just arguing over semantics and absolutes. It's really pointless to discuss with him at this point.
Comments
Well in TERA gold is everything because of enchanting nonsense, people buy chronoscrolls from EME for $15 and sell them in-game for 1500g, which can be lost on two failed enchants in 5 seconds... I remember people found out the cash shop items could be put up on the broker(this was not EMEs intention) and everyone started buying them to sell on the broker for in-game gold.
You're right though, the game may have not been popular enough, especially now, but when it released there really was a lot of players and no cash spammers at all, something i'd appreciate in GW2, I get mail multiple times per day from bots and see it ruin the chat in all the major cities.
The lag would be horrible... and it would be exploited. There is no permanent solution, just compromises of varying degrees of effectiveness.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
That will NEVER happen. Ever. Some people have little time to play games but plenty of disposable income.
If that is your stance, we might as well encourage bots.
Exactly what I was saying. The no client was a joke, any ui no matter how thin you try and make it is a client there is no way out.
Yes, I know we were in agreement. Interactive games have to be...err... interactive. Somethikng needs to happen at the user end and communicated to the server in some fashion... that can always be exploited.
Write enough delays and semi random emotes, dances and whatever into a script, make it a lengthy one and very few people would be able to tell that it's not a live player mashing the keyboard unless you stalk the toon for an hour and catch on to the pattern. I personally know a talented programmer/hacker who not only botted WOW but also one of the on-line poker sites. It wasn't a business for him--he just did it for his own personal enjoyment. It was the challenge that got his juices going.
We only notice the simple obvious ones.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Plenty of people have botted poker. The sad part is a few years ago, last time I played some online poker, I looked at PokerStars rules and they flat out said you could use programs to help you make decisions as long as you entered the moves. This meant you could use strong software that flat out told you what to do, you could do it, make money and oh well to everyone else. And of course with how it is written, it makes it tough for them to say you had the program running playing automatically while you weren't there.
It was there way of saying they didn't want to deal with it so just do it.
It is not a stance, it is actual and undisputable fact. That is in all actuallity the only way that botting will ever stop. Nothing else, ever will make botting stop. EVER.
That is why my first post referenced the drug war. You can throw billions of dollars, lengthy jail terms and even death at people to try and stop something. But if there is enough profit to be made, they won't stop. With botting, an account gets closed so the punishment is far less and the profits are still very strong.
So yes, because there are a-holes who will always fund the botters, there will always be botters. It will never stop.
So. Why bother worrying about bots at all? Or hacked accounts? Just let them run rampant.
Do you realize not all bots are for gold sellers? Theres tons of people spread amongst all the MMOs that bot for themselves so that they can let the bot do the work and level them up because they dont feel like doing it. Especially in F2P games because of their usual lengthy grind for levels.
Hell just look at private servers too. People bot there, but theres no gold selling going on. They bot simply to get ahead in the game without having to do any of the work.
Same reason they keep flushing away billions of dollars trying to win the drug war. You have to LOOK like you're doing something and you care, otherwise everyone gets mad at you.
If a company were to be honest and say "Listen, we can't stop the bots. It isn't happening. So we're simply not going to spend money trying so we can instead invest that money into more content and features for you" people wouldn't be able to handle it and they'd quit.
Seriously, if you think that botting can and will be stopped, you are being naive. They can fight it, they can lessen it a bit, but they cannot stop it.
The closest you could get would be to make an MMO where nothing at all was tradeable in any way shape or form. Despite how unfun that would be, it still wouldn't fully stop it because people who buy accounts/characters and they'd sign up for power leveling services the botters run.
This is my first day playing MMOs and I did not know people did such things, my apologies. Probably overly sarcastic but I don't think your first "question" was really necessary.
There is a difference.
First is the pure magnitude of it. Those botting while they're away to gain levels/resources are less than those who do it to sell gold. They also generally don't try to hack/steal accounts either.
Second: banning those accounts actually has an effect. It is a regular person who paid for this game and just lost money. They also lost time because even though they let a program level them up/gather their resources they just lost it all and would have to buy a new box/start a new sub and start over with the risk of losing it all again.
Those who do it for personal gain, don't steal accounts, don't sell gold are less of a problem and can actually be policed.
Bots are easy to get rid of, programmatically.
However, when you buy a product, it is yours. It no longer belongs to the seller. Many countries have that constitutionalized, including the USA. Therefor, banning bots simply for botting can lead to a huge lawsuit. Outright banning is not a viable solution. You can ALWAYS get your account back, letters of intent are great. But that issue is minor compared to the real issue: Retards.
Yes, retards are the main botting problem. Retards are the "computer programmers" that get hacked. The security experts with a password that they use on 25 other sites. They are the ones who actually give their accounts to botters, who then steal the gold and spam your chats. So Anet is actually trying to force everyone to have a unique password. This, after a hack, forces the user to choose a password not already in their password DB. In the long run, it will work for 75% (approx) of the botting problems. You wont notice it in the first year, as most retards use an old password that is already in the botter's database. Those databases have 10 million entries.
Following greatly based on GW2:
Making gold a commodity rather than a necessity, it'd solve a huge chunk of botting. Legendaries and the likes should literally be unlocked through achieving, along with the removal of the consumable achieves most games have. This would halt the use of botting because there would be nothing to bot for. GW2 already uses that kind of currency in Karma. Trading post should award Karma for items picked up from there based on rarity. Remove capitalism from the game, you solve the gold selling bots for good. Honestly, if someone bots himself to 500k Karma, I DO NOT EVEN CARE. PvP should have alternative pvp karma, as should WvWvW.
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
Do you close door to your apartment or your car?
Because you're aware nothing will stop robbing houses and robbing / stealing car?
Deleting this seems harder than it should be.
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
I have no argument either so I'll say something that doesnt make sense and doesn't apply to this line of thought.
Do you kill yourself because nothing will stop you from dying anyways?
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
The thread is regarding stopping botting (as well as hacks such as teleport hacks & dupe hacks as stated in the OP), not just gold selling. You said botting will stop, when youre talking about something else (gold selling) stopping.
Yes there is a difference in the goals of the 2 types, but the means is the same. Bots & gold selling exists in F2P as well. How does your idea regarding "stolen" accounts and players having to buy a new game apply?
It's been a long time since anyone claimed we could WIN a war on drugs. We will never legalize Crystal Meth or hard drugs that ruin lives and families. It's our duty to do our best to keep them off the street.
It's in developers best interest to try and keep bots under control. Otherwise the game economy tanks and people leave in droves. There is zero reason why devs can't run software on the client that checks other running processes and at least prevent the public bots from running. There's zero reason why ANET can't prevent teleport or speed hacks.
Let's say you do fully stop teleporting and speed hacks. Great you still haven't stopped botting.
Ok you check for certain running processes. The botters just change the processes constantly to beat your detection methods. You haven't stopped botting.
You can police it, you can ban some, but..... you will NEVER stop botting.
Many people live in a way to increase possiblity that they will live long by either avoiding dangerous situations or by eating and living healthy or by doing both of those things.
Remember I am against fighting battles that never can be decisilely and totally won, so your argument cannot be used against my reasoning.
I'm not talking gold selling. I'm talking one type of botting, by far the most prevelant one, which is done to sell items for real world money. If no one purchased a single thing from them..... it would stop it 100% because there would be no gain to doing it at all.
Somehow you're trying to prove something I said wrong with your second sentence but you are really proving my point. My point was that there is little to no penalty to an item/gold selling botter when caught. They either hack another account or start up a new one and keep on going. Yes, with F2P where the accounts cost nothing to begin with so the penalties are even less -> increased botting.
A person who does it purely to get their character ahead is the easiest type of bot to police because a ban to them does actually effect them. Even in a F2P game, they just had all of their progress erased. If each time they try to bot up to max level/max gear and keep having their account erased. They give up and leave as it is not worth it. It is the far less common and intrusive type of botting (because it does have risks and because a lot of people simply don't have the desire to do it) and it is the only type that could actually be close to eliminated by policing/detection methods.
That's obvious, and I clearly should have worded things better. There will always be some bots out there. That's a no brainer. But Blizzard and ANET seem resigned to not even try to halt the public bots. That's really what I'm getting at.
I think you miss the point. It is NOT about getting rid of the botting totally. It is about making it less common and minimizing it's effect.
You may not know but it is same principle that lies under fundament of law and law enforcement. You will NEVER be able to stop crimes or mistakes but that does not mean that there should be no police or that there should be no auditing.
Since people want to believe that botting can be fully stopped I guess there isn't much point in opening their eyes. But suffice it to say, they will be dissappointed in online games for the rest of their lives.
I will let them continue on with the amazing technology that an MMO company could implement, but for some strange reason won't, that will stop all botting and lead to a Hands Across the Virtual World day.
He's just arguing over semantics and absolutes. It's really pointless to discuss with him at this point.