The Bot's will always be ahead of the Dev's the Dev's cant prevent them until some one comes up with a way of telling if a key press was actually made by a human, or if it was faked by an application. and until that happens. we will suffer bots and the devs will strugle to ban them before they cause to much damage.
So basicly telling if the keypress actually came from a keyboard or not. It would seem to me there is a way to tell if input is coming from an external device (ie: keyboard, mouse, nostromo etc)
I know in that many programs will mimic these things but the actual input device isn't being used. /shrug
As far as detecting the bot programs, it is similar to detecting a computer virus. You have to be able to distinguish between legitimate software and bot programs. The bot programs can be adapted or changed very quickly to circumvent any detection software.
There are legitimate uses for external input devices such as Nostromo keyboards. They allow you to use a keyboard one handed which is great for people with disabilities who only have the use of one hand. Also, repetitive keying may result in a repetitive strain injury, so reducing keystrokes with macros reduces the risk of an injury or aggravating an injury.
If you exclude the use of macros and alternate input devices you may be discriminating against people with disabilities who cannot operate a normal keyboard efficiently. You may also be increasing the risk of an overuse injury.
If you think about it, bots can actually be profitable for the companies. Think about World of Warcraft per example, there are a shitload of bots there mostly used for gold farming proposes. Blizzard bans the accounts and they will most likely buy a new subscription to keep farming. This gets blizz a lot of new subscriptions.
I really don't think they're too motivated to stop them. One, people do buy gold and it keeps some playing and subbing longer. Two the gold vendors pay for accounts and make the game more popular through their underground industry. There are negatives but damn, all they have to do is login their 12 or so servers and see who's spamming. How long should it take to ban those names? They obviously don't care too much.
If you believe that many people will quit over the bot issue, you must be a bot.
I think you missed my point. mrwolf is saying that NCSoft has no incentive to ban bots because bots pay subscriptions. I'm saying that NCSoft DOES have an incentive to ban bots because the bots would have to turn around and purchase new retail box accounts. I didn't saying anything about quitting or not quitting...
Detecting bots is extremely complicated down to damn near impossible. An application could intercept the keyboard and make the operating system think that someone actually pressed the key. Remember any program that runs can be altered to override its behavior. It is an asymmetric warfare, Aion would need to deal with hundreds of bots, but each bot would only need to deal with Aion. So there.
One aspect that everyone seems to forget is BLACKMAIL. It is a lot easier to break than make. If NCSoft would drastically ban all goldfarmers, those could then in turn launch denial of service type attacks against Aion. That's something that could then screw us all. It is easy. It may be that they simply do not have the manpower to deal with a massive attack, thus have to make a pact with the devil.
So be careful what you wish for. Just block the goldspammers an be on with your life.
The problem with automated banning is the innocent people. Automated detection would need to be implemented and activly updated as the bots adapt to it. Observation is the key, what makes you think this guy is a bot? Could he be in fact just some guy grinding? The answers to those questions would determine what needs to be coded. The application would give you a list of people who need to be verified by a human. The client can't be trusted to run this kind of application because you can't make sure of what's running and or emulated on the client side.
The key to detecting a bot is predictability. If there is no mobs in an area and the player does the exact same path it's a bot. If there is no mobs and the bot does nothing for an extended period of time it's a bot. The player's reaction to a teleportation could also be a tool in determining his "botness".
-Would you like cheddar or swiss cheese? -Yes. -...
Something you all have to realize is that NCSOFT PUBLISHES the game, they do not MAKE Aion. They buy and maintain the servers, a customer support team, a localization team, and a GM Team. They mostly will translate whatever comes out of KAION, and put it in the next update. Right now, I'm fine with expanding my Block list every time I log on, but eventually they will need to do something about this, or risk losing subscribers.
Originally posted by gordunk Something you all have to realize is that NCSOFT PUBLISHES the game, they do not MAKE Aion. They buy and maintain the servers, a customer support team, a localization team, and a GM Team. They mostly will translate whatever comes out of KAION, and put it in the next update. Right now, I'm fine with expanding my Block list every time I log on, but eventually they will need to do something about this, or risk losing subscribers.
What are you talking about? Ncsoft is both publisher and developer of the game.
Something you all have to realize is that NCSOFT PUBLISHES the game, they do not MAKE Aion. They buy and maintain the servers, a customer support team, a localization team, and a GM Team. They mostly will translate whatever comes out of KAION, and put it in the next update. Right now, I'm fine with expanding my Block list every time I log on, but eventually they will need to do something about this, or risk losing subscribers.
NCsoft is a company based in south korea and they have HQs in seoul and seattle and yes they did make Aion..
I would figure two simple steps could keep both bots and gold spammers under control. Very active GM monitoring No cash drops from mobs. Loot items only, with weight. This would in turn make gold spamming sites more expensive and generate fewer costumers, the whole thing would dry up.
What the heck, companies are outsourcing all their customer service centers to places like Manila, why not set up a GM shop there who do nothing but look for bots and spammer and nuke them out of the game.
Labor costs would be low (my employer pays like 5 bucks an hour for this type of service) and it would probably work better than any automated solution.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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The problem with finding how a bot works and blocking it is that within hours of Aion blocking the bot program the program is back up and running again. The bot developers actually make backup copies of their software and send out updates when the game attempts to detect it. This costs MMO companies 10's of thousands to do battle with 3rd party software and 3rd party software will always be one step ahead.
The solution is to just keep banning but again gold farmers rarely pay for their accounts, they are usually stolen credit card information and stolen Aion accounts. When and if NCSoft bans an account usually it's charged back and they end up paying in the end and the botter gets off free.
Edit: They've updated their filters and have - for now - nailed 90-some odd percent of the spam. Hopefully this will last. Original post follows:
Going by what I see and what I've read from NC Soft.
What I Have Seen:
I created a character Siel, one of the most popular servers in the game. With no exaggeration, the first thing that I saw on logging in was the chat box scrolling so quickly that I could not read the text. The reason for this flood of letters and symbols? The bots that were spamming the various channels.
Note: In Aion, for those who don't know, you can include symbols (hearts, starts, so on) in your chat messages.
It took a good 6 or so minutes to scroll through the chat box to block all of those bots. I then proceeded to level my character a bit, but approximately every 15 minutes there would be another large flood of bot-produced text and symbols and another 3 or 4 minutes spent blocking those bots.
I have since noticed similar activity on my primary server, a lesser populated server called Yustiel. The bots primarily spam the LFG channel. This is probably because the LFG channel is a global channel.
What I Have Read:
NC Soft claims to have GMs monitoring the chat channels specifically to look for bots. Considering my above experience, how honest would this claim appear to you?
Also: NC Soft encourages players to use the /AutoReportHunting command to report bots that are farming mobs. Their claim is that they investigate these reports to ban the bots.
What I Have Seen:
Bots actively grind mobs next to cities (Morheim in Asmodae), as well as in other locations. Their names and their behavior marks them clearly as bots. If ever there is any doubt I will actually attempt to initiate a conversation with the character, giving them plenty of time to respond.
I have reported these bots using the /AutoReportHunting command. A week or so has gone by, and not only have the bots NOT been stopped at all, the bots have leveled and they are now moving into new areas. These are the EXACT same bots that I reported a week ago or more. I can't be the only player who has reported them.
In addition to leveling I have also noticed that the bots are selling items on the broker (note: the "broker" is Aion's version of the "Auction House"). This, I'm sure, aids in their ability to collect and consequently sell in-game currency.
Now, considering my experience with the /AutoReportHunting command and NC Soft's behavior, what would YOU think? Remember that at least a week has gone by since reporting those bots, and I did report those same bots on more than one day. NC Soft has had plenty of time to respond to the reports against them.
The Bottom Line:
As much as I don't want to sound conspiratorial, NC Soft appears to be encouraging the bots while putting empty words on their web site for the public to read. Just to clarify, by their complete inactivity (and almost stubborn refusal) to do anything they are encouraging the behavior. I'm not saying that they're working directly with the botters, although I'm sure that NC Soft enjoys the additional subscription revenue (if indeed the credit cards used by the botters & spammers aren't stolen).
The simple act of actually having a GM or two monitoring the chat would go a long way toward eliminating the bots. It's really not difficult to find the bots when they spam so brazenly that the text floods so quickly that it is physically unreadable.
The only logical - though somewhat disconcerting - conclusion is that NC Soft clearly has no GMs monitoring the channels.
The pharming bots are also easily found, observed, and would be easy to put down.
While a certain amount of botting and spamming certainly is expected in a MMO, the problem can not become the infestation that is seen in Aion unless the company is literally doing nothing to stop the activity. Therefore, what needs to be done to address the problem is something, rather than the (apparent) nothing is being done.
Remember, "actions speak louder than words", and what I have seen speaks a lot clearer to me than the PR that they've posted on their website.
The Bottom Line: As much as I don't want to sound conspiratorial, NC Soft appears to be encouraging the bots while putting empty words on their web site for the public to read. Just to clarify, by their complete inactivity (and almost stubborn refusal) to do anything they are encouraging the behavior. I'm not saying that they're working directly with the botters, although I'm sure that NC Soft enjoys the additional subscription revenue (if indeed the credit cards used by the botters & spammers aren't stolen). The simple act of actually having a GM or two monitoring the chat would go a long way toward eliminating the bots. It's really not difficult to find the bots when they spam so brazenly that the text floods so quickly that it is physically unreadable. The only logical - though somewhat disconcerting - conclusion is that NC Soft clearly has no GMs monitoring the channels. The pharming bots are also easily found, observed, and would be easy to put down. While a certain amount of botting and spamming certainly is expected in a MMO, the problem can not become the infestation that is seen in Aion unless the company is literally doing nothing to stop the activity. Therefore, what needs to be done to address the problem is something, rather than the (apparent) nothing is being done. Remember, "actions speak louder than words", and what I have seen speaks a lot clearer to me than the PR that they've posted on their website.
The bots maybe part of a larger organization that they are trying to eradicate entirely.
Once they find all the bank toons and delivery toon besides the farmer bots then they can make a mass ban but that might take upwards to 2 months to find all of them.
______________________________________
Not all bots have asdfgert names some have unusual names in an attempt to hide in public.
NCSoft is aware of this problem , but how well they combat it is still yet to be determined fully.
If your talking about creating a progrma to monitor what is said in chat channels and to detect bot controlled charecters, I can tell you as an amature programmer that it is difficult mostly because of the randomness of the messsages being generated. It is difficult to take into account all aspects of a message to determine if its gold spam or not. For example they cant just ban www.website.com links because what happens if someone that isnt gold spaming posts a link? They would get banned as well. Creating a smart bit of code to check if a message is spam or not is tedious work. And just when the developers think they get it right the damn gold botters take advantage of the website ban by doing something like this www(dot)website(dot)com. Or maybe leaving off www is enough to confuse the code. This is just one of the examples that must be taken in to account and I hope you can understand why it can be difficult. Determining every case of whats spam and whats not is a tough issue to resolve with creating a monitoring program. In terms of stopping botters from leveling charecters that is a different story. Most bots exploit the game using the same or near the same game vulnerabilities. It can be done though and many games have successful anti-cheat/bot systems. Most of the simple bots that are easy to spot are ones that emmulate the use of a keyboard virtually. In other words you have to put your skills in certain slots and the program knows which skill is which and monitors certain data in the game like your health mana and the mobs mana and presses the corresponding key virtually in game. Often times these are easy to spot. More advanced bots constantly re-evaluate situations, scan for enemies to fight, etc. In my opinion a solid GM crew to handle responses, ban spammers, etc is a great way to clear up the servers but remember the big thing is NCSoft would likely have to pay these people wages.
Every spammer and bot in the damn game all have names like Sdfdsd, aweswea, FrUiurf, GhjjH, VbncV, JHYu, Dsdf, Ghjfhfg, Dfedfe, Boooooooooo, Doodoodoo, or even Billbobjohnjacob. So tell me how are those hard to spot?
Oh and not to mention when they spam chat channels they use large colorful emote characters to decorate thier chat with tHAT REAL PLAYERS ARE NOT EVEN ABLE TO USE!!! Give me a break ban all that crap and either the farmers will have to start making regular sounding names. At least makes it harde for em to do. The way it is now it seems NC doesn't even care for the most part. Oh and you can't communicate with them in any way, can''t duel em, whisper em, invite em. I can spot em a mile away!
There are some areas of the game that is so infested with the obvious botters that you can't even go into, they know where mobs are gonna spawn before YOU will even see me and claim the kills. IF you could like pull several mobs to a bot and let them kill you it would be worth it if instead of running back to thier spawn points they would turn on the botter and kill it . Other games has done that why not Aion? AT least that would be ..something.
Here's the problem, any type of gameguard/ process checking program in a game can only legally check processes that are running with the game. They can not dive into and look around elsewhere.
This can only work to a certain point, a smart programmer that builds these bots be it what ever method will make it easy to change the process name or cloak it to be MS Paint or some normal app.
Beyond this I won't say all but 90% of gold farmers that advertise (not the ones that actually do the collecting/trading) are created by a keygen and within hours they can detect this delete the account which costs the gold farming company not a damn penny. They just open a new account. Ever wonder why they always have names like askhkhf? This is the exact reason it's illegal accounts that get canned fast.
Now then you'd say why can't they just find the ip and block it? The problem to that is the smart farming companies have proxies/ip cloakers that will ping around all over the world many times and would take forever(or some high tech software that NCSoft would not have) to trace to it's actual source. Blocking an ip also means that if the ip gets reset that someone else who is legitimately trying to play could get blocked if they managed to be in the area and get that ip when the box is reset or the isp resets the ips.
As far as the chat goes you can check www. etc. but you no the idiots will go www|whatever|com and there is no way of blocking that because what if a legitment player is chatting something out similar such as player1|roll for item or something like that. The point is you need to keep in mind that blocking the chat for bots could be blocking your players and that's why the chat is not touched more than it is.
In closing the only real way of getting rid of the bots that know how to get around everything but the actual game playing for them is a GM squad that watches areas. This costs money and development time and since it just launched not too long ago they may not have the resources or the crew to tackle this yet.
Hopefully they will do something about it, but the problem of the game isn't the bots it's the bore factor. That's why they already lost my subscription.
Anyway hopefully that answers some of your questions.
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
from a: software engineer/web programmer Here's the problem, any type of gameguard/ process checking program in a game can only legally check processes that are running with the game. They can not dive into and look around elsewhere. This can only work to a certain point, a smart programmer that builds these bots be it what ever method will make it easy to change the process name or cloak it to be MS Paint or some normal app. Beyond this I won't say all but 90% of gold farmers that advertise (not the ones that actually do the collecting/trading) are created by a keygen and within hours they can detect this delete the account which costs the gold farming company not a damn penny. They just open a new account. Ever wonder why they always have names like askhkhf? This is the exact reason it's illegal accounts that get canned fast. Now then you'd say why can't they just find the ip and block it? The problem to that is the smart farming companies have proxies/ip cloakers that will ping around all over the world many times and would take forever(or some high tech software that NCSoft would not have) to trace to it's actual source. Blocking an ip also means that if the ip gets reset that someone else who is legitimately trying to play could get blocked if they managed to be in the area and get that ip when the box is reset or the isp resets the ips. As far as the chat goes you can check www. etc. but you no the idiots will go www|whatever|com and there is no way of blocking that because what if a legitment player is chatting something out similar such as player1|roll for item or something like that. The point is you need to keep in mind that blocking the chat for bots could be blocking your players and that's why the chat is not touched more than it is. In closing the only real way of getting rid of the bots that know how to get around everything but the actual game playing for them is a GM squad that watches areas. This costs money and development time and since it just launched not too long ago they may not have the resources or the crew to tackle this yet. Hopefully they will do something about it, but the problem of the game isn't the bots it's the bore factor. That's why they already lost my subscription. Anyway hopefully that answers some of your questions.
Insert Partial Post: Beyond this I won't say all but 90% of gold farmers that advertise (not the ones that actually do the collecting/trading) are created by a keygen and within hours they can detect this delete the account which costs the gold farming company not a damn penny. They just open a new account. Ever wonder why they always have names like askhkhf? This is the exact reason it's illegal accounts that get canned fast.
I have seen the same name (Askhkhf) Spamming chat and run into the "char" in the area "Botting" away. And log out and when I log back in the next day or two, there he is still in the same place doing the same thing only a few lvls higher than he was originally. AND EVEN USING THE EXACT SAME NAME!
Botting is so easy now... everyone does it.. in wow its insane.. i botted 3 sets of honor gear for my druid, and recently was making 5k+ a day mining titanium ore while i slept.. i know one guy that makes over 20k per day. And the guys writing the "good" bots like pirox rake in cash.. it will never end, and there isn't anyway to stop it.. learn to live with it:)
Originally posted by Wrender Originally posted by Hashbrick from a: software engineer/web programmer Here's the problem, any type of gameguard/ process checking program in a game can only legally check processes that are running with the game. They can not dive into and look around elsewhere. This can only work to a certain point, a smart programmer that builds these bots be it what ever method will make it easy to change the process name or cloak it to be MS Paint or some normal app. Beyond this I won't say all but 90% of gold farmers that advertise (not the ones that actually do the collecting/trading) are created by a keygen and within hours they can detect this delete the account which costs the gold farming company not a damn penny. They just open a new account. Ever wonder why they always have names like askhkhf? This is the exact reason it's illegal accounts that get canned fast. Now then you'd say why can't they just find the ip and block it? The problem to that is the smart farming companies have proxies/ip cloakers that will ping around all over the world many times and would take forever(or some high tech software that NCSoft would not have) to trace to it's actual source. Blocking an ip also means that if the ip gets reset that someone else who is legitimately trying to play could get blocked if they managed to be in the area and get that ip when the box is reset or the isp resets the ips. As far as the chat goes you can check www. etc. but you no the idiots will go www|whatever|com and there is no way of blocking that because what if a legitment player is chatting something out similar such as player1|roll for item or something like that. The point is you need to keep in mind that blocking the chat for bots could be blocking your players and that's why the chat is not touched more than it is. In closing the only real way of getting rid of the bots that know how to get around everything but the actual game playing for them is a GM squad that watches areas. This costs money and development time and since it just launched not too long ago they may not have the resources or the crew to tackle this yet. Hopefully they will do something about it, but the problem of the game isn't the bots it's the bore factor. That's why they already lost my subscription. Anyway hopefully that answers some of your questions.
Insert Partial Post: Beyond this I won't say all but 90% of gold farmers that advertise (not the ones that actually do the collecting/trading) are created by a keygen and within hours they can detect this delete the account which costs the gold farming company not a damn penny. They just open a new account. Ever wonder why they always have names like askhkhf? This is the exact reason it's illegal accounts that get canned fast. I have seen the same name (Askhkhf) Spamming chat and run into the "char" in the area "Botting" away. And log out and when I log back in the next day or two, there he is still in the same place doing the same thing only a few lvls higher than he was originally. AND EVEN USING THE EXACT SAME NAME!
You will because the same name can be used once the illegal key is found and deleted because that name opens. What they really need to do is not allow names like akjfakslfj although where does that end. When they start using normal names they can't just ban those names as well. It's a losing war because of technology the only real way to fight is hard worked man hours.
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
Meh, it can only be minimized, rarely can it be fully stopped, because someone always finds a loophole. NCSOFT on the other hand, just doesn't seem to care. They seem to be doing the same thing they did with Lineage 2. I'm going to give it some time, at least get to max level and hang around for a bit. If nothing is done to minimize the incessant gold spam and botting I'll cancel my sub and turn my sights fully towards FFXIV.
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed: And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!" ~Lord George Gordon Byron
this. NCSoft does RMT games. No big mystery here. It's just too easy, for any dev that wants to, to make RMT unprofitable. If it's in the game, it's becuase the devs want it there.
This is what you get when you have a fail anti-cheat that is nothing more then a process scanner & root-kit.
It's the same anti-cheat as alot of leagues in CS:S use, and their horrible.
alot of bot programs, use , crypters, / maskers.
crypters make it so it can't be seen on the processes, nor on the memory. Because half the time, the bot uses little or no memory. Also, since it only scans processes, all you got to do is rename the bot to ventrilo.exe or some program, and you won't get banned.
for an Anti-Cheat to be good, it has to be updated twice a week, with new coding and everything. so then all the bot programmers, have to re-crypt and redo the code.
To help curve this problem all the Devs/Programmers/GM's/Whoever have to do is create in game characters. When they see people gold spamming in chat they get banned...When someone whispers to them.
All it takes is a little effort by the team to after the spammers. Since subscribers already pay for the game, most don't want spammers hounding them for MORE money. I'm glad I never purchased it, because in its current condition it has fail written all over it.
Our spirit was here long before you
Long before us
And long will it be after your pride brings you to your end
Its not just NCSoft fighting the bots and spammers, most major games are and have been for years. Its just more noticable right now in AION because of the sheer number of gold sellers flooding itno a new game. NC coujld ban 1000 accounts a day and it still wouldnt put a dent into the problem.
There is really only one TRUE way to stop them..and thats to simply not by game gold no matter how tempting it is..cause once you place that first order...you will get hooked on it...the thrill of risking it all for that massively overpriced weapon or armor set....greed and instant gradification trhills is what supports these companies. And no mater how many laws are made against them, their simply no way to enforce those laws enough to shut them down.
The only real deterrant and soluttion is you...dont support them no matter how tempting it is...this includes game time cards and cd codes which most of those gold sites now offer.
Comments
So basicly telling if the keypress actually came from a keyboard or not. It would seem to me there is a way to tell if input is coming from an external device (ie: keyboard, mouse, nostromo etc)
I know in that many programs will mimic these things but the actual input device isn't being used. /shrug
As far as detecting the bot programs, it is similar to detecting a computer virus. You have to be able to distinguish between legitimate software and bot programs. The bot programs can be adapted or changed very quickly to circumvent any detection software.
There are legitimate uses for external input devices such as Nostromo keyboards. They allow you to use a keyboard one handed which is great for people with disabilities who only have the use of one hand. Also, repetitive keying may result in a repetitive strain injury, so reducing keystrokes with macros reduces the risk of an injury or aggravating an injury.
If you exclude the use of macros and alternate input devices you may be discriminating against people with disabilities who cannot operate a normal keyboard efficiently. You may also be increasing the risk of an overuse injury.
I really don't think they're too motivated to stop them. One, people do buy gold and it keeps some playing and subbing longer. Two the gold vendors pay for accounts and make the game more popular through their underground industry. There are negatives but damn, all they have to do is login their 12 or so servers and see who's spamming. How long should it take to ban those names? They obviously don't care too much.
Banned botters buy new accounts
Incentive to ban bots > 0
If you believe that many people will quit over the bot issue, you must be a bot.
I think you missed my point. mrwolf is saying that NCSoft has no incentive to ban bots because bots pay subscriptions. I'm saying that NCSoft DOES have an incentive to ban bots because the bots would have to turn around and purchase new retail box accounts. I didn't saying anything about quitting or not quitting...
Detecting bots is extremely complicated down to damn near impossible. An application could intercept the keyboard and make the operating system think that someone actually pressed the key. Remember any program that runs can be altered to override its behavior. It is an asymmetric warfare, Aion would need to deal with hundreds of bots, but each bot would only need to deal with Aion. So there.
One aspect that everyone seems to forget is BLACKMAIL. It is a lot easier to break than make. If NCSoft would drastically ban all goldfarmers, those could then in turn launch denial of service type attacks against Aion. That's something that could then screw us all. It is easy. It may be that they simply do not have the manpower to deal with a massive attack, thus have to make a pact with the devil.
So be careful what you wish for. Just block the goldspammers an be on with your life.
The problem with automated banning is the innocent people. Automated detection would need to be implemented and activly updated as the bots adapt to it. Observation is the key, what makes you think this guy is a bot? Could he be in fact just some guy grinding? The answers to those questions would determine what needs to be coded. The application would give you a list of people who need to be verified by a human. The client can't be trusted to run this kind of application because you can't make sure of what's running and or emulated on the client side.
The key to detecting a bot is predictability. If there is no mobs in an area and the player does the exact same path it's a bot. If there is no mobs and the bot does nothing for an extended period of time it's a bot. The player's reaction to a teleportation could also be a tool in determining his "botness".
-Would you like cheddar or swiss cheese?
-Yes.
-...
Something you all have to realize is that NCSOFT PUBLISHES the game, they do not MAKE Aion. They buy and maintain the servers, a customer support team, a localization team, and a GM Team. They mostly will translate whatever comes out of KAION, and put it in the next update. Right now, I'm fine with expanding my Block list every time I log on, but eventually they will need to do something about this, or risk losing subscribers.
I would figure two simple steps could keep both bots and gold spammers under control.
Very active GM monitoring
No cash drops from mobs. Loot items only, with weight.
This would in turn make gold spamming sites more expensive and generate fewer costumers, the whole thing would dry up.
What are you talking about? Ncsoft is both publisher and developer of the game.
NCsoft is a company based in south korea and they have HQs in seoul and seattle and yes they did make Aion..
Wtf are you on about?
I'm guessing he meant plaync is a North American branch of Asian NCsoft.
-Would you like cheddar or swiss cheese?
-Yes.
-...
What the heck, companies are outsourcing all their customer service centers to places like Manila, why not set up a GM shop there who do nothing but look for bots and spammer and nuke them out of the game.
Labor costs would be low (my employer pays like 5 bucks an hour for this type of service) and it would probably work better than any automated solution.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The problem with finding how a bot works and blocking it is that within hours of Aion blocking the bot program the program is back up and running again. The bot developers actually make backup copies of their software and send out updates when the game attempts to detect it. This costs MMO companies 10's of thousands to do battle with 3rd party software and 3rd party software will always be one step ahead.
The solution is to just keep banning but again gold farmers rarely pay for their accounts, they are usually stolen credit card information and stolen Aion accounts. When and if NCSoft bans an account usually it's charged back and they end up paying in the end and the botter gets off free.
Going by what I see and what I've read from NC Soft.
What I Have Seen:
I created a character Siel, one of the most popular servers in the game. With no exaggeration, the first thing that I saw on logging in was the chat box scrolling so quickly that I could not read the text. The reason for this flood of letters and symbols? The bots that were spamming the various channels.
Note: In Aion, for those who don't know, you can include symbols (hearts, starts, so on) in your chat messages.
It took a good 6 or so minutes to scroll through the chat box to block all of those bots. I then proceeded to level my character a bit, but approximately every 15 minutes there would be another large flood of bot-produced text and symbols and another 3 or 4 minutes spent blocking those bots.
I have since noticed similar activity on my primary server, a lesser populated server called Yustiel. The bots primarily spam the LFG channel. This is probably because the LFG channel is a global channel.
What I Have Read:
NC Soft claims to have GMs monitoring the chat channels specifically to look for bots. Considering my above experience, how honest would this claim appear to you?
Also: NC Soft encourages players to use the /AutoReportHunting command to report bots that are farming mobs. Their claim is that they investigate these reports to ban the bots.
What I Have Seen:
Bots actively grind mobs next to cities (Morheim in Asmodae), as well as in other locations. Their names and their behavior marks them clearly as bots. If ever there is any doubt I will actually attempt to initiate a conversation with the character, giving them plenty of time to respond.
I have reported these bots using the /AutoReportHunting command. A week or so has gone by, and not only have the bots NOT been stopped at all, the bots have leveled and they are now moving into new areas. These are the EXACT same bots that I reported a week ago or more. I can't be the only player who has reported them.
In addition to leveling I have also noticed that the bots are selling items on the broker (note: the "broker" is Aion's version of the "Auction House"). This, I'm sure, aids in their ability to collect and consequently sell in-game currency.
Now, considering my experience with the /AutoReportHunting command and NC Soft's behavior, what would YOU think? Remember that at least a week has gone by since reporting those bots, and I did report those same bots on more than one day. NC Soft has had plenty of time to respond to the reports against them.
The Bottom Line:
As much as I don't want to sound conspiratorial, NC Soft appears to be encouraging the bots while putting empty words on their web site for the public to read. Just to clarify, by their complete inactivity (and almost stubborn refusal) to do anything they are encouraging the behavior. I'm not saying that they're working directly with the botters, although I'm sure that NC Soft enjoys the additional subscription revenue (if indeed the credit cards used by the botters & spammers aren't stolen).
The simple act of actually having a GM or two monitoring the chat would go a long way toward eliminating the bots. It's really not difficult to find the bots when they spam so brazenly that the text floods so quickly that it is physically unreadable.
The only logical - though somewhat disconcerting - conclusion is that NC Soft clearly has no GMs monitoring the channels.
The pharming bots are also easily found, observed, and would be easy to put down.
While a certain amount of botting and spamming certainly is expected in a MMO, the problem can not become the infestation that is seen in Aion unless the company is literally doing nothing to stop the activity. Therefore, what needs to be done to address the problem is something, rather than the (apparent) nothing is being done.
Remember, "actions speak louder than words", and what I have seen speaks a lot clearer to me than the PR that they've posted on their website.
The bots maybe part of a larger organization that they are trying to eradicate entirely.
Once they find all the bank toons and delivery toon besides the farmer bots then they can make a mass ban but that might take upwards to 2 months to find all of them.
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Not all bots have asdfgert names some have unusual names in an attempt to hide in public.
NCSoft is aware of this problem , but how well they combat it is still yet to be determined fully.
Every spammer and bot in the damn game all have names like Sdfdsd, aweswea, FrUiurf, GhjjH, VbncV, JHYu, Dsdf, Ghjfhfg, Dfedfe, Boooooooooo, Doodoodoo, or even Billbobjohnjacob. So tell me how are those hard to spot?
Oh and not to mention when they spam chat channels they use large colorful emote characters to decorate thier chat with tHAT REAL PLAYERS ARE NOT EVEN ABLE TO USE!!! Give me a break ban all that crap and either the farmers will have to start making regular sounding names. At least makes it harde for em to do. The way it is now it seems NC doesn't even care for the most part. Oh and you can't communicate with them in any way, can''t duel em, whisper em, invite em. I can spot em a mile away!
There are some areas of the game that is so infested with the obvious botters that you can't even go into, they know where mobs are gonna spawn before YOU will even see me and claim the kills. IF you could like pull several mobs to a bot and let them kill you it would be worth it if instead of running back to thier spawn points they would turn on the botter and kill it . Other games has done that why not Aion? AT least that would be ..something.
from a: software engineer/web programmer
Here's the problem, any type of gameguard/ process checking program in a game can only legally check processes that are running with the game. They can not dive into and look around elsewhere.
This can only work to a certain point, a smart programmer that builds these bots be it what ever method will make it easy to change the process name or cloak it to be MS Paint or some normal app.
Beyond this I won't say all but 90% of gold farmers that advertise (not the ones that actually do the collecting/trading) are created by a keygen and within hours they can detect this delete the account which costs the gold farming company not a damn penny. They just open a new account. Ever wonder why they always have names like askhkhf? This is the exact reason it's illegal accounts that get canned fast.
Now then you'd say why can't they just find the ip and block it? The problem to that is the smart farming companies have proxies/ip cloakers that will ping around all over the world many times and would take forever(or some high tech software that NCSoft would not have) to trace to it's actual source. Blocking an ip also means that if the ip gets reset that someone else who is legitimately trying to play could get blocked if they managed to be in the area and get that ip when the box is reset or the isp resets the ips.
As far as the chat goes you can check www. etc. but you no the idiots will go www|whatever|com and there is no way of blocking that because what if a legitment player is chatting something out similar such as player1|roll for item or something like that. The point is you need to keep in mind that blocking the chat for bots could be blocking your players and that's why the chat is not touched more than it is.
In closing the only real way of getting rid of the bots that know how to get around everything but the actual game playing for them is a GM squad that watches areas. This costs money and development time and since it just launched not too long ago they may not have the resources or the crew to tackle this yet.
Hopefully they will do something about it, but the problem of the game isn't the bots it's the bore factor. That's why they already lost my subscription.
Anyway hopefully that answers some of your questions.
Insert Partial Post: Beyond this I won't say all but 90% of gold farmers that advertise (not the ones that actually do the collecting/trading) are created by a keygen and within hours they can detect this delete the account which costs the gold farming company not a damn penny. They just open a new account. Ever wonder why they always have names like askhkhf? This is the exact reason it's illegal accounts that get canned fast.
I have seen the same name (Askhkhf) Spamming chat and run into the "char" in the area "Botting" away. And log out and when I log back in the next day or two, there he is still in the same place doing the same thing only a few lvls higher than he was originally. AND EVEN USING THE EXACT SAME NAME!
Botting is so easy now... everyone does it.. in wow its insane.. i botted 3 sets of honor gear for my druid, and recently was making 5k+ a day mining titanium ore while i slept.. i know one guy that makes over 20k per day. And the guys writing the "good" bots like pirox rake in cash.. it will never end, and there isn't anyway to stop it.. learn to live with it:)
Insert Partial Post: Beyond this I won't say all but 90% of gold farmers that advertise (not the ones that actually do the collecting/trading) are created by a keygen and within hours they can detect this delete the account which costs the gold farming company not a damn penny. They just open a new account. Ever wonder why they always have names like askhkhf? This is the exact reason it's illegal accounts that get canned fast.
I have seen the same name (Askhkhf) Spamming chat and run into the "char" in the area "Botting" away. And log out and when I log back in the next day or two, there he is still in the same place doing the same thing only a few lvls higher than he was originally. AND EVEN USING THE EXACT SAME NAME!
You will because the same name can be used once the illegal key is found and deleted because that name opens. What they really need to do is not allow names like akjfakslfj although where does that end. When they start using normal names they can't just ban those names as well. It's a losing war because of technology the only real way to fight is hard worked man hours.
Meh, it can only be minimized, rarely can it be fully stopped, because someone always finds a loophole. NCSOFT on the other hand, just doesn't seem to care. They seem to be doing the same thing they did with Lineage 2. I'm going to give it some time, at least get to max level and hang around for a bit. If nothing is done to minimize the incessant gold spam and botting I'll cancel my sub and turn my sights fully towards FFXIV.
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"
~Lord George Gordon Byron
this. NCSoft does RMT games. No big mystery here. It's just too easy, for any dev that wants to, to make RMT unprofitable. If it's in the game, it's becuase the devs want it there.
This is what you get when you have a fail anti-cheat that is nothing more then a process scanner & root-kit.
It's the same anti-cheat as alot of leagues in CS:S use, and their horrible.
alot of bot programs, use , crypters, / maskers.
crypters make it so it can't be seen on the processes, nor on the memory. Because half the time, the bot uses little or no memory. Also, since it only scans processes, all you got to do is rename the bot to ventrilo.exe or some program, and you won't get banned.
for an Anti-Cheat to be good, it has to be updated twice a week, with new coding and everything. so then all the bot programmers, have to re-crypt and redo the code.
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To help curve this problem all the Devs/Programmers/GM's/Whoever have to do is create in game characters. When they see people gold spamming in chat they get banned...When someone whispers to them.
All it takes is a little effort by the team to after the spammers. Since subscribers already pay for the game, most don't want spammers hounding them for MORE money. I'm glad I never purchased it, because in its current condition it has fail written all over it.
Our spirit was here long before you
Long before us
And long will it be after your pride brings you to your end
Its not just NCSoft fighting the bots and spammers, most major games are and have been for years. Its just more noticable right now in AION because of the sheer number of gold sellers flooding itno a new game. NC coujld ban 1000 accounts a day and it still wouldnt put a dent into the problem.
There is really only one TRUE way to stop them..and thats to simply not by game gold no matter how tempting it is..cause once you place that first order...you will get hooked on it...the thrill of risking it all for that massively overpriced weapon or armor set....greed and instant gradification trhills is what supports these companies. And no mater how many laws are made against them, their simply no way to enforce those laws enough to shut them down.
The only real deterrant and soluttion is you...dont support them no matter how tempting it is...this includes game time cards and cd codes which most of those gold sites now offer.
Also a player who just bought gold would less likely quit his subscription than a player who
-is constantly broke
-don't want to spend his 2-3hrs of gaming each evening with grinding gold only