Who thinks the bot problem is NCsoft's fault?

tvalentine

i was reading a thread on the L2 forums http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=1140309&an=0&page=0#Post1140309

and i saw replies where people were saying that the bot problem isnt ncsoft's problem ..... Who's fault is it then? I personally think it is their fault just due to the fact how many bots there are (so i hear), i just find it hard to believe that NCsoft has a hard time finding them.

Torak

I guess that depends on how you view it. Why single out L2? WoW glider is the most used bot program ever made. They even went to court with the makers of the bot, not that it helped.

Who's fault is it? That is a tough call in all honest because we (the players) don't know anything about their internal workings. What do they do? How many people are required to do "something" effectively. How many people do they have? What sort of software do they use, what counter measures are in place. What internal controls do they have? How is that all effected by falling subs and lay - offs and company consolidations and other projects?

You can't really say until you know those answers.

How much of it is the players fault? Well the majority I would thinkas you agree when you log in and click that EULA that you are not going to do it to start with.

So now as legit player, the majority of my monthly sub goes to paying for anti-bot measure rather then customer service and patches as it should.

So really whos issue is it? 

We know "something" is done because several poster HERE have been banned and its a regular complaint on L2blah.

So we can assume that "something" is being done by NCSoft. Of what, we can NOT define as we have no information to support any agrument. 

We can also assume the players continue to try to circumvent whatever the company does. Proof is in the very existence of bots in all MMO's.

So who's "fault" is it? Who writes the bot programs? Who updates them when anti-bot software is implemented? Who loads them and uses them? Who buys new accounts when theirs is banned for botting?

Its like saying that NCSoft is responsible for players buying gold. Its silly to hold them responsible for behavior the player KNOWS (they agree by clicking "I agree") is wrong and against the spirit of the game or the gold company that sells the gold who KNOWS its against the EULA to do that BUT they violate the agrement anyway and sell third party.

Its like saying the police are responsible for you speeding. You have a license, you agree to the terms of the privilage of driving, you see the posted signs on the road but you do anyway. Then you say its the cops fault when he pulls you over for violating the speed limit and you loss your license and have to pay a fine.

Its all part of the attitude of people not excepting self responsiblity and figuring as long as they don't get caught its "ok" then blaming someone else when there is a problem with said behavior by the individual.

I dunno, its a silly question IMHO but its an interesting topic as it has more to do with the moral / ethical behavior of the players more then the company and I'm looking forward to the replies.

 

 

tvalentine

Originally posted by Torak


I guess that depends on how you view it. Why single out L2? WoW glider is the most used bot program ever made. They even went to court with the makers of the bot, not that it helped.
yeah Blizzard is doing something, and i dont see threads on the forums everyday complaining about the number of bots, like in L2.
Who's fault is it? That is a tough call in all honest because we (the players) don't know anything about their internal workings. What do they do? How many people are required to do "something" effectively. How many people do they have? What sort of software do they use, what counter measures are in place. What internal controls do they have? How is that all effected by falling subs and lay - offs and company consolidations and other projects?
You can't really say until you know those answers.
How much of it is the players fault? Well the majority I would thinkas you agree when you log in and click that EULA that you are not going to do it to start with.
So now as legit player, the majority of my monthly sub goes to paying for anti-bot measure rather then customer service and patches as it should.
So really whos issue is it? 
We know "something" is done because several poster HERE have been banned and its a regular complaint on L2blah.
several posters? I am the only who has made a thread about being banned, ive never seen another thread like it.
So we can assume that "something" is being done by NCSoft. Of what, we can NOT define as we have no information to support any agrument. 
well you can always log on and try to level passed 70, i hear thats where all of them are.
We can also assume the players continue to try to circumvent whatever the company does. Proof is in the very existence of bots in all MMO's.
So who's "fault" is it? Who writes the bot programs? Who updates them when anti-bot software is implemented? Who loads them and uses them? Who buys new accounts when theirs is banned for botting?
lol so its the bots fault for botting?
Its like saying that NCSoft is responsible for players buying gold. Its silly to hold them responsible for behavior the player KNOWS (they agree by clicking "I agree") is wrong and against the spirit of the game or the gold company that sells the gold who KNOWS its against the EULA to do that BUT they violate the agrement anyway and sell third party.
talking about botting, not buying gold. One you can stop easier then the other.
Its like saying the police are responsible for you speeding. You have a license, you agree to the terms of the privilage of driving, you see the posted signs on the road but you do anyway. Then you say its the cops fault when he pulls you over for violating the speed limit and you loss your license and have to pay a fine.
this metaphor has nothing to do with what im asking/saying.
Its all part of the attitude of people not excepting self responsiblity and figuring as long as they don't get caught its "ok" then blaming someone else when there is a problem with said behavior by the individual.
blaming a game company for not banning bots that are reported every week/day ....... i dont think anybody is trying to pin the blame on anyone who does not deserve it.
I dunno, its a silly question IMHO but its an interesting topic as it has more to do with the moral / ethical behavior of the players more then the company and I'm looking forward to the replies.
 
 

 

i didnt say the botting problem in ALL games. Your first few paragraphs felt like thats what yu thought i meant. And i dont see how its the player's fault, when i see people reporting, killing, and doing all they can against bots. And they see the same bot, botting in the same area for months. You did alot of rambling about things that arent relevant at all for the question i asked.

Torak

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Torak


I guess that depends on how you view it. Why single out L2? WoW glider is the most used bot program ever made. They even went to court with the makers of the bot, not that it helped.
yeah Blizzard is doing something, and i dont see threads on the forums everyday complaining about the number of bots, like in L2.
Who's fault is it? That is a tough call in all honest because we (the players) don't know anything about their internal workings. What do they do? How many people are required to do "something" effectively. How many people do they have? What sort of software do they use, what counter measures are in place. What internal controls do they have? How is that all effected by falling subs and lay - offs and company consolidations and other projects?
You can't really say until you know those answers.
How much of it is the players fault? Well the majority I would thinkas you agree when you log in and click that EULA that you are not going to do it to start with.
So now as legit player, the majority of my monthly sub goes to paying for anti-bot measure rather then customer service and patches as it should.
So really whos issue is it? 
We know "something" is done because several poster HERE have been banned and its a regular complaint on L2blah.
several posters? I am the only who has made a thread about being banned, ive never seen another thread like it.
So we can assume that "something" is being done by NCSoft. Of what, we can NOT define as we have no information to support any agrument. 
well you can always log on and try to level passed 70, i hear thats where all of them are.
We can also assume the players continue to try to circumvent whatever the company does. Proof is in the very existence of bots in all MMO's.
So who's "fault" is it? Who writes the bot programs? Who updates them when anti-bot software is implemented? Who loads them and uses them? Who buys new accounts when theirs is banned for botting?
lol so its the bots fault for botting?
Its like saying that NCSoft is responsible for players buying gold. Its silly to hold them responsible for behavior the player KNOWS (they agree by clicking "I agree") is wrong and against the spirit of the game or the gold company that sells the gold who KNOWS its against the EULA to do that BUT they violate the agrement anyway and sell third party.
talking about botting, not buying gold. One you can stop easier then the other.
Its like saying the police are responsible for you speeding. You have a license, you agree to the terms of the privilage of driving, you see the posted signs on the road but you do anyway. Then you say its the cops fault when he pulls you over for violating the speed limit and you loss your license and have to pay a fine.
this metaphor has nothing to do with what im asking/saying.
Its all part of the attitude of people not excepting self responsiblity and figuring as long as they don't get caught its "ok" then blaming someone else when there is a problem with said behavior by the individual.
blaming a game company for not banning bots that are reported every week/day ....... i dont think anybody is trying to pin the blame on anyone who does not deserve it.
I dunno, its a silly question IMHO but its an interesting topic as it has more to do with the moral / ethical behavior of the players more then the company and I'm looking forward to the replies.
 
 

 

i didnt say the botting problem in ALL games. Your first few paragraphs felt like thats what yu thought i meant. And i dont see how its the player's fault, when i see people reporting, killing, and doing all they can against bots. And they see the same bot, botting in the same area for months. You did alot of rambling about things that arent relevant at all for the question i asked.

Bots are a huge problem in all MMOs not just L2. I illistrated that with Blizzards battle in court that yielded them nothing.

 

It is the players fault...they load the bots. How can you not understand that? Players = "fault" of botting. Bot makers = "fault" of botting. Owning company = does what it can with availible resources / budget.

We don't know what NCSoft does, we don't know how many accounts they ban. Its their game they can run it how they like. Like any customer you can show approval or disapproval with your wallet.

You are far from the first to post about being banned from L2.

I like to ramble and you enjoyed reading it, don't lie.

 

alakram

Yes it is NC Soft fault. I left L2 long time ago when I realized they were doing nothing against them. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

 

I was grinding near gludio and in a quiet place I found this scene: 2 bots. one of them was some type of warrior, the other one was a healer. The warrior was dead, and there was a spider attaking the healer. I asked if they needed help, they didnt answer. I waited, and the only thing the healer was doing was healing herself. After 1 hour or so they were still there, warrior dead, healer self healing. I asked again, they didnt answer, I said I was about to report both of them. Didnt answer. I reported both bots. The next day they were still there, warrior dead, healer selfhealing, exact same spot. I closed my account little time later.

isurus

First of all you have to understand that botting is not the problem.

The problem is that L2's design is extremely condusive to RMT. RMT = Real Money Trade, ie. farming adena and selling it for real life currency.

Botting is just a tool that the adena farmers use to collect adena to sell. Bot programs simply give adena farmers the means to control countless characters at once, maximizing the amount of adena they can farm for sale on Ebay, etc. Because of this you see temendous bot populations.

Which is where the conflict occurs...

As L2 is almost an entirely non-instanced game (which is a good thing), these bots clog up in-game hunting grounds in their endless pursuit of adena to sell for real money. So, real players often find that there aren't any adequate XP locations available because bots (adena farmers) have already taken them up. PKing the bots is useless because they always return (-4% means nothing when you gather XP 24 hours a day while AFK), and actually YOU get punished for going red!

So who is to blame?

The players who buy adena? L2 is a great game on many levels, but many players view its brutal, elitist economy as no more than a barrier to the "good stuff". Why spend countless hours leveling a dwarf and leaving a bloated L2 client connected with a buy/sell shop open in Giran every night when you can just drop a few dollars at Ebay on all the adena you'll ever need?

The adena farmers (botters)? They are just making a few bucks supplying a demand. The opportunity is there, the tools are readily available, it's easy and worth the trouble, why not?

The admin team? How many bots is it physically possible to ban per hour? How many GMs should the NAL2 team hire exclusively for banning bots? What is the false positive ratio for bans? What GM wants to get trigger happy with the ban button only to face a legion of legit, angry players who were mistakenly banned?

All these people share some blame. Greed, laziness. But the true blame falls on the shoulders of the dev team.

L2's bot epidemic is epic in scope. In what other MMO do RMTers play such a significant role in the game world? Adena farmers influence every player in every part of the game (well, at least after lv20 now in Gracia).

They dictate market prices on everything. They completely dominate the 7signs system in every way, gouging the price of Ancient Adena and Mammon consumables. They clog up all worthwhile hunting grounds. Especially dungeons. ESPECIALLY 7signs dungeons (I swear the 7signs system was specifically engineered for RMTers). I even see them in popular "outdoors" hunting grounds, 9-man bot trains competing with archers/nukers in VoS/FoTD/IoP/etc. The adena they sell leads to ridiculously overpowered items that often reduces endgame to an escalation of "who's willing to spend more at IGN.com".

Adena farmers have their tendrils in every aspect of the game and I blame NCsoft's dev team for deliberating pushing L2's design in a direction so susceptible to corruption.

So what do we do? At this point there's no going back. Bot subscription numbers undoubtedly provide an indispensible, irreplaceable source of income that, even if NCsoft was a company of integrity, will never get cut off.

As a player you can fight it, ignore it or give in to the dark side and buy some adena yourself. Most likely, all of the above.

tvalentine

Originally posted by Torak


Bots are a huge problem in all MMOs not just L2. yeah but im talking about L2s Bot problem .... thats why i made the thread in this forum and not in the pub.
I illistrated that with Blizzards battle in court that yielded them nothing. There isnt a winner in the case yet, and blizzard won the grand jury, or some part of the court. Time will tell if they win or not.

 
You are far from the first to post about being banned from L2.got any links? I never said there wasnt anybody else, i just said i've only seen one person come out and say they were banned
I like to ramble and you enjoyed reading it, don't lie. its what keeps me comeing back to the L2 Forum
 

 

UbahNecro

isurus you are 1005% correct. And I have posted that on many other forums. Lienage II is a failed game design.

Why do people always bring up every game having bots. EverQuest had farmers, and many sites selling plat, but there was almost no reason to get it, outside of buying a horse or some crappy Bazaar gears that you'd probably upgrade in a week or with raid rots...

You couldn't buy epic weapons with PP. You couldn't buy any of the uber Raiding gears with PP. You had to work for them.

Lineage II's "everything is droppable, even epics" system allows farmers to pretty much own the game. Farmers would perma-camp epics like Ant Queen, Core, Orfen, Zaken and sell the items for extreme amounts of Adena or RL cash to players (Adena that they probably had to buy from the same farmers, Gratz!)

They run toons 24/7 and have insane amounts of mats to sell. They buy out Real Player buy shops and instantly price the items up to laughable prices.

Farmers own L2NA.

Look at the new Euro Server they came out with: Luna. It is filled with players who don't even play their toons to level them. About 98% of the players on that server are AFK leveling outside of PvP functions.

This game is in a sad state.

Yes, NCSoft is to blame for the farmers. If they would have started early with banning them, botting wouldn't be so rampant in this game (players bot in the most obvious players, talk about it in game, and laugh at you when you threaten to report them) and they would have an easier time today keeping them under control.

Also, when players are fearful of being banned, they don't bot in the most obvious players (Varka, Ketra, Hellbound, Valley of Saints, Forest of the Dead, Beast Farm, Hot Springs, Entrance to IT [LOL]). They would all be fighting for spots in crappy obscure places like Swamp of Screams and Stakato Nest.

The L2 community also sucks too much to put pressure on NCSoft to do anything. People are too selfish in this game - and most of the players cheat anyways, so they don't care. Hell, if you kill a bot there's probably a factorable chance that a clannie will come and kill you on an untagged bot defender, Lol.

tvalentine

was just reading the L2 official forums and i guess there is a Adena duping problem in the euro servers now .....  Just wanted to give an update.

Torak

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Torak


Bots are a huge problem in all MMOs not just L2. yeah but im talking about L2s Bot problem .... thats why i made the thread in this forum and not in the pub.
ok, fair enough
I illistrated that with Blizzards battle in court that yielded them nothing. There isnt a winner in the case yet, and blizzard won the grand jury, or some part of the court. Time will tell if they win or not.
Exactly my point. Big fight, big drama, big money spent...will it accomplish anything? "time will tell" apparently its not so clear cut. Then someone else rewrites it and it starts again. You can't win against something like this anymore then you can stop RMT in MMOs.

 
You are far from the first to post about being banned from L2.got any links? I never said there wasnt anybody else, i just said i've only seen one person come out and say they were banned
nah, I've been trolling this L2 forum for years. I've seen it several times. Search it I guess.
I like to ramble and you enjoyed reading it, don't lie. its what keeps me coming back to the L2 Forum
 

 

 

Torak

Looks like as of today I stand corrected.

Blizzard not only won the bot case but got a cash award of 6 million in damages. Nice.

Maybe legally botting may be a thing of the past if this sets up a precidence.

www.massively.com/2008/10/01/blizzard-awarded-large-payout-in-wow-glider-case/

tvalentine

Originally posted by Torak


Looks like as of today I stand corrected.
Blizzard not only won the bot case but got a cash award of 6 million in damages. Nice.
Maybe legally botting may be a thing of the past if this sets up a precidence.
www.massively.com/2008/10/01/blizzard-awarded-large-payout-in-wow-glider-case/

 

legal botting? Blizzard was banning people using glider long before they took them to court. Unless you mean, like its illegal in some countries to bot ..... if thats the case then every form of botting is technically legal.

grimboj

I don't see how it's NOT NCSofts fault? They own the game, they maintain the game, they never implemented any anti-botting code even years after release!? There are only a handful of botting programs and it wouldn't take a genius to guard against them. I suppose it's the gold sellers fault for exploiting bad code?

Blizard bans bots by the hundreds of thousands and sues the makers of the programs - even if it doesn't work 100% atleast they're doing *something* about it! I very rarely see a Bot on Wow - maybe twice in the time it took to do 1-70.

HaltsTime

Originally posted by Torak


Looks like as of today I stand corrected.
Blizzard not only won the bot case but got a cash award of 6 million in damages. Nice.
Maybe legally botting may be a thing of the past if this sets up a precidence.
www.massively.com/2008/10/01/blizzard-awarded-large-payout-in-wow-glider-case/

 

Wow your absolutely correct this would set a new precedent for cases that are similar in nature to this.

How this will play out in future will be very interesting to see.

For those who don't know what Precedent means, is basically a legal term for (stare decisis) standing by a decision.  Precedent is basically common law, also known as judge/court made laws.  Where for example, a person steals a cow judge awards the wronged party 5gold piece, if a case similar to this happens again when someone else steals a cow, the judge would probably award 5gold pieces.

Precedent is a slow on going process, and something like this with no precedent is a huge step and can open many new doors for many other companys out there the possibility to do the same thing as Blizzard.

WSIMike

I think a solution to the botting problem is 2 fold, which I'll get to in a moment.

First... I think it's too far gone at this point.

Botting has been too entrenched in the game for too long and it's actually gotten to the point where the players *depend* on the botters existing to keep mat prices low. They pretty much dominate any manor with the best crop-to-mat return rates.

When players refer to NCSoft banning bots as "screwing the players over" because they know the prices of mats are going to skyrocket, that's saying something. When the players are actually eager for the bots to get back into the game and start farming again to bring prices back down, I think that's saying something as well.

The L2 community and economy is, by and large, dependent on botters.

Also, the game is losing steam. They've merged 6 servers down to 3 (never a good sign, population-wise, despite NC's claim to the contrary) and, from what I hear, players are still leaving.

So they missed that boat a long time ago, I think.

Now... what do I think they should have done?

1. Cracked down on the botters big-time before they became a problem.

2. Either, or a combination of the following:



A) Adjust the drop rates or otherwise increase availability of mats required for crafting.

Decrease the number of mats required for crafts overall (the quantities for some of them get pretty crazy by the time you get through crafting the component materials and such).

I dont' think they should increase drop rates to the point where they're falling off trees and littering the ground. Then it gets too easy and the items become almost worthless. But, at least to the point where a normal player could realistically farm for the materials and have a hope of getting what they need without spending days, weeks or months doing nothing but farming... especially knowing that they could fail the craft and it would all be for naught (100% recipes don't apply of course)

You know... so they could work toward crafting the items they want and still actually get some xp'ing, PvP, raid-bosses or castle sieges in as well.

That's my thoughts on it anyway.

 

 

isurus

WSIMike you couldn't be more right.

Finally, between you and UbahNecro this board FINALLY has some people who not only understand but can verbalise this fundamental flaw in L2's design.

Your two points are 100% correct.

One being that L2 is, at this point, dependent DEPENDENT on large scale adena farming, and a sad testament to this is the fact that the average L2 player understands it (excellent point).

Two being material drop rates (or item craft requirements for you demand-side economists). This is the one single reason why L2 is overrun by botters. The very first domino that tipped over and sent the whole thing spiraling out of control. Material drop rates.

Were mats (including L2's consumable recipes) realistically obtainable by real players and not farmed exclusively by 24/7 afk botters, L2 would be a completely different game.

There would still be bots. Enchant Scrolls, Life Stones and general laziness would always provide an RMT market, but it would be more like RMT in other MMOs and nowhere near the scale it's at now.

Were players able to fund their own equipment, without dwarfing it for countless hours, without getting a one-in-a-billion item drop, then the demand for RMT would fall like a rock, the bot population would plummet, real players would fill in the gaps, and L2 would be a much MUCH better game.

The solution to the bot problem is as simple as providing a dramatic increase in material drop rates (or decrease in item material craft requirements). And it's important to understand that we don't need an increase in adena drops or full-item drops, otherwise we might as well put S-grade in NPC shops.

The question is whether or not NCsoft will ever make it happen. Unfortunately I don't see any indication that they will. Bots make up such a huge percentage of their income that it might be financial suicide to go cold-turkey all at once.

But maybe, maybe if they combined a slow but steady increase in drop rates with an effective marketing campaign aimed at real players, it could happen...