Banning all scripts

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Should scripting of any kind simply be banned to solve the botting issue?

Yes.
18
40%
No.
27
60%
 
Total votes: 45

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OgreToyBoy
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Re: Banning all scripts

Post by OgreToyBoy » 03 Sep 2012 17:00

Right now there are 5-6 players playing (killing). Those 5-6 lead other semi-attentive players about
on grindfests. They do not speak to anyone but their specific team-mates, ever. Other players
are ignored or killed as they are competition for their kills. Of course all other grinders are bots
except your team. I've tried to play with the ultra-grinders and talked a bit in group, the only one who
rarely or never talked was the leader (names left out to protect the innocent). I assume it was because
he/she was occupied tapping the keyboard . Eventually however every teammember went silent due to the
immense spam.

Laurel, if you are unable to spend time in the game without using scripts or elaborate triggers, it may just
be that you can't play. Right now you and your teammate is pretty much just a name on who list if you are
not attentive to anyone when you trigger away on trolls, of course watching the screen at all times.

Laurel

Re: Banning all scripts

Post by Laurel » 03 Sep 2012 17:09

Guess it's time to withdraw from this forum again, to keep a healthy mind.

edit: can someone PLEASE repost the link to this awsome article with a MUD population breakdown and it's intricate balance? it would be quite good for some people to re-read it and take one (or a few) steps back, before forcing their vision as the ultimate solution for everyone (or the game itself)
Last edited by Laurel on 03 Sep 2012 21:58, edited 1 time in total.

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Kitriana
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Re: Banning all scripts

Post by Kitriana » 03 Sep 2012 20:02

I need to agree with Laurel and Cherek on this one .. I think its a better idea to reward positive behavior and create reasons for people not to bot. Sadly, because of the increased number of titles to reach, even the most hardcore RPer feels inclined to grind away endlessly because the word of their character means nothing if it can't be backed up in action. How much respect would you have for a titan Morgul Mage King? I doubt much.. We've given people a very good reason to grind endlessly trying to reach Myth. What reasons have you given people to do other things and interact??

I'm not saying I'm for all types of botting.. however I think the solution will be better found not policing everyone, but instead in finding creative solutions that get people to step out of the grind. IE -- maybe more events? That tends to lead to more interaction.
If something I wrote sounds confusing ... assume you misunderstood it.

Rincon
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Re: Banning all scripts

Post by Rincon » 03 Sep 2012 20:04

I think that sharing your opinion, while at the same time understanding that others are also entitled to an opinion, which holds the same value as yours, is very healthy :)

I like Targun's idea of seperating speed walking from slow walking.

Though, in my opinion, auto following your leader through bushes/up a ladder/down a hole should not be punishable. The point of leading a team is for your team members to follow you everywhere. Wizards can always create a risk factor when climbing cliffs or other stuff, e.g. falling down and hurting yourself/becoming exhausted (roc on Icewall), so if someone fails numerous times while climbing on triggers, he will eventually die or become an easy target to kill.

Uther
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Re: Banning all scripts

Post by Uther » 03 Sep 2012 20:12

Targun wrote:The question is tough, as it requires to determine what a script is. Do we consider a script a trigger that collects money from a corpse or use of an ingot? From my experience going absolutely drastic does little to no good. If we're talking about single, repeated and mundane operation, such as looting a corpse or assisting in a fight it's pointless to forbid it. You can train a parrot, chimpansee or any other pet to tap this one key, pick coins or assist. And suprising as it might sound I do not believe the game should be aimed at pets rather than humans ;).

This being said, and being aware of Gorboth's post on limited man power; it is vital to keep in mind that at a steady pace that can be reached with limited resources, game should keep on turning towards being interesting, _challenging_ and punishing botting behaviours, scripters etc with it's design. With a huge credit to players who whined for years and who in my opinion were vocal minority- that with some sick urge to boost their ego in most awkward way pushed the line further and further to a point where Genesis almost ceased to be a game for humans and turned into...

No human can compete with a robot. I covered this in a post in another topic, trying to point out how to cut off robotic behaviours. If we loose botters/scripters who just grind 'being by computer' don't talk to anyone and their only contribution to the game is clearing the grounds that could be cleared by a team or some players who actually play the game I say- Genesis looses nothing. Harsh as it may sound. I honestly do not care if there are 10/30 or 70 people online, when 20 out of 30 or 60 out of 70 are running on a script. Truth to be told it's better to have 10 players who actually play and enjoy the game, rather than 10 who play and 60 who bot. At least those few will care and won't be exposed to such a deterrent.

Where to draw the line then? I'd say any script that emulates taking a decision instead of a player should be strictly forbidden and punished with erasing all combat experience or deletion.
Therefore, a script that:
* wanders through an xp ground, - eresal XP, second time- deletion
* follows the leader in all sorts of holes, through passageways, bushes, into caves, climbs etc. - punished by death, following offences- eresal XP, deletion
* searches for herbs - erasal of XP
* decides where to flee if attacked etc - deaths, XP wipe, deletion
* AUTOHUNTS (follows the attacked and fleeing target on a script)- instant deletion
* Gives control over chat to another player (famous ask gorboth climb stairs;climb stairs;climb stairs- get all from corpse; whistling innocently leave whereabouts of Minas Morgul) - deletion to both players involved

The whole thing with being able to 'be at computer' is just ridiculous and stinks with hipocricy.. With todays computing power I can easily write a script for a ground that will beep while I play another game or am at work, whenever I receive message other than standarized for the area. So every time Gorboth comes, I will respond, which means my char can grind for hours without me even taking a peek. If youre not controlling your char directly while it is grinding you are botting, therefore either log off- as you're not playing, or get deleted.This is how I see it.
SPEEDWALKING
Cost to move should be determined by the pace you're moving between rooms. Insane paces of double clicks on the mapper, should be getting player exhausted after ~20 rooms. Period. You don't want to type every single direction? Fair enough, set your mapper to walk at a pace of 2s per room. You'll be able to notice who you pass and won't be teleporting all over the instantenously. Not to mention PvP implications where you need to think how, and where you want to flee, or how can you exhaust the perrson you are chasing.

Poll: I chose 'Yes' with the exceptions included in the post.
errr NO! I will explain my view on it.
* wanders through an xp ground, - eresal XP, second time- deletion
Ehhh NO! I understand your view of it, but I don't agree completely.
I walked manually almost all the times, due to *censored*, but we wanna prevent robot behaviour,right ? Non attended playing that is, if you ban scripts,
people will just make a trigger that trigs on a trigger that trigs on another trigger. And triggers are allowed. Easy to get around.
If you want to get rid of all scripts and such .. only allow strait telnet.. but that will kill the mud. And who can check that ?
* follows the leader in all sorts of holes, through passageways, bushes, into caves, climbs etc. - punished by death, following offences- eresal XP, deletion
It is a trigger, and triggers are allowed.

And so on ...

Well Targun as I said. I DO understand your point of view regarding the scripts. And I agree to some point.
But today people have developed scripts due to the clients on the market. It ease up their playing, and that is appealing for them. Instead of working backwards,
against the "scripters" as you say, you need to work along them in someway. How I haven't thought up yet. Perhaps someone else has some great ideas?
If youre not controlling your char directly while it is grinding you are botting, therefore either log off- as you're not playing, or get deleted.This is how I see it.
So you wanna delete people who surfs on the internet while playing and the Mudclient ends up in the background. Oh kids comes and ask you something or you need to talk to the kids or suddenly have to change a diaper, and you kill some rooms, what does that matter ? Seriously ? According to your note Targun, I interpret that while you PLAY Genesis you are not allowed to do anything else on your computer, since you would be botting then.

So if you wanna delete 90 % of the playerbase or make them stop logging in due to they are not allowed to use their scripts while they kill, please go ahead.
Do you think it will bring back others? Or do you have 30 people waiting outside for the "botters" to be deleted so they can start playing?

Of course I do agree that botters shall be punished, second time caught botting remove serious amount of EXP that will take ages to regain. Then deletion. Or just delete one player to state an example. To add more there are players on the mud that will attack botters on sight. Doesn't matter guild affilations.

But if you gonna delete one player for botting, you need to at least let him/her/it do it 4 times and get caught all 4 times, before deletion. Cause there are players out there, with proof, that still are in the game even though that person(s) broke the rules 4 times with more sever things then botting.

But this has soon turned into a witchhunt. We all know who the "botters" are.

Bringing more players to the game will get rid of the botters, cause there will be more active people around and they have to pay attention
if they don't wanna play poker with Lars. 30 more active people in avg would do it. So what we really should be focus on is to bring more players
to the mud, but also keep up with the rules that are valid in the game.

Atm I see it like better to have 20 semi active, halfbotters on the mud "playing" as you say, then having 5 superactive, manually playing players. I mean what mud would you
login to ? A mud that has 25-30 online or 5-7 ?


P.S Gorboth, nice comment, you are smart....
All comments are made by the player behind Uther, NOT THE CHARACTER UTHER!

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OgreToyBoy
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Re: Banning all scripts

Post by OgreToyBoy » 03 Sep 2012 20:28

Bot move automatically to a new room when finished killing in previous room.
You are unable to make triggers that does it for you, well you can but it would be stupid and require a TON of work.
Enter a room manually and start killing and let triggers mop it up is ok, if you need to leave for a diapier change or whatever
condition you may suffer from you take the chance of getting killed. You won't make any xp during the afk time, apart from
whatever monsters were left in the room currently occupying.
Really can't see any real reason to allow scripts that vacuum areas, those defending it either use these scripts themselves or
rely on other ppl who use them. If you need to play while spending 75% of the time looking at or doing something else, WHY
should you make xp like you were 100% present?

Arcon

Re: Banning all scripts

Post by Arcon » 03 Sep 2012 20:50

Of course it is much better to award positive gaming than punish negative but right now how are we supposed to change the whole game to do this? There are three(?) wizards active? Several guilds without their updates and a ton of other things to do. There just are not enough people to make those changes so the second best thing would be to force the changes on the game. Sad but true.

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Cherek
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Re: Banning all scripts

Post by Cherek » 03 Sep 2012 21:02

arcon wrote:Of course it is much better to award positive gaming than punish negative but right now how are we supposed to change the whole game to do this? There are three(?) wizards active? Several guilds without their updates and a ton of other things to do. There just are not enough people to make those changes so the second best thing would be to force the changes on the game. Sad but true.
I posted a list of ideas before, things I just came up when giving it a few minutes thougth, and some are fairly easy to implement. I am sure we can figure out much more good ideas that are fairly easy to implement that would aid game interaction.

I am not so sure hunting botters and scripters, and dealing with complaints for punishments etc, is less time consuming...

Targun
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Re: Banning all scripts

Post by Targun » 05 Sep 2012 17:41

Uther
You completely misuse the meaning of 'script'. Every script can be sequenced into a set of triggers/variables/aliases. The way it is solved technically remains completely irrelevant. What I'm concerned with is the effect. I tried to give somewhat loose definition of a script in my previous post:

If it performs a repeatable simple action with an effect that can be pricesely predicted prior to the firing and as I said, can be replaced with a parrot- then it is perfectly fine (i.e. looting corpse/ assisting). However, when it takes a decision instead of a player, it should be illegal. E.g. it chooses from a number of lets say 50 commands, including more complex situations. The effect: participation- without your knowledge or action. This is robotic behaviour.

Also, I'd like to ask you not to use famous- due to The Big Bang Theory- reductio ad absurdum. I do not forbid anyone browsing internet while playing. I believe it should be forbidden for a script to control your char while you are browsing the net. You control your char through a number of commands, which serve _YOU_ a player to take decisions 'in its name'.

Generally
I believe some of the approaches presented in this topic are a perfect example of a spiral which brought the game to its current shape.
*I've got to play 'X' hours and I can only achieve that with a bot- Is somebody telling you to 'play' 6 hours? To keep up with whom? Other bots? Or a person who actually plays 6 hours and rightfully diserves what he has earned?
What would be a reason for that? You don't play anyway. You talk of few active wizards. The direction Genesis is heading, with ever increasing participation of bots, makes it impossible for almost any number of wizards to deal with. It would require them to ever update the envirnoment to the strength of bots, who are grinding at amazing pace? What for? So they can bot through new or updated grounds? Sure you can make some twitches every 3-4 years, but the lvl inflation is insane and this is one of the reasons- not only mind you- that the game is not challenging.

Fast travel in other games. This is just striding as far from the truth as possible. It takes a lot of time in WoW to travel on long distances- even with mounts.

Finally, imagine how much the gameplay would change with this sipmle 'cost to move' based on speed. Suddenly you'd be playing the game, because you'd need to regularely check, if your char didn't get too tired, and is open to potential attack. Consider who is online and which route to take, or whether ever take the risk to travel somewhere. Often you would invite a friend, as it would be safer. Skills like hiding or tracking would get back their meaning. You're a wizard- you add a donkey, that would carry extra weapons/armours. Yet, unloading the donkey takes time and it can only go at a certain pace, so once you are attacked- yes you are lighter, so get better chances of fleeing, but perhaps need to leave your donkey behind- again another reason to travel with a friend.

After you had been chased away from an XP ground number of times, you'd start plotting the revenge, try to pull your enemies into a trap. Killing a player would be a combination of planning, cunningness, utilizing skills like tracking and nimble fingers. And this is just one simple, little change that would demand completely other attitude. Perhaps it would get you excited, or anxious or require you to think while playing the game. Of course it wouldn't happen in a day or a month. Perhaps through a year, or two. Yet, slowly, but steadily Genesis could be getting back to the definition of game that you actually play- with excitment.

Answering the question about number of players. Yes, I believe we forgot about the quality and all we've been talking is quantity. I'd rather have fewer players that are dedicated to roleplaying their chars and play 1-2 hours a day and play fairly, rather than 60 that bot or semi-bot and jsut clear xp grounds day after day for no apparent reason. And you want to invite new players and say what? 'Hey, we're a bunch a botters, come on and play?- pun intended.

Fairlight
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Re: Banning all scripts

Post by Fairlight » 10 Sep 2012 20:13

I might be slow here, and a few days off, but I guess that comes with age.
However, the amount of BS I've read is laughable.

It seems some of you are are hellbent to discuss and nit-picking everything.

If a script is giving you an advantage, where you aren't required at the keys,
yet still gain something from it. Then, you are botting! Wow, how easy was
that. We aren't talking about simple combat triggers that will make you
fight a room, and ONE room only mind!

Now, someone would prolly say "yeah but you can create a script that makes
you run from the Huge sign in Bree to the gates of Mordor", then that is
botting too. Well, be my fucking guest!

In times past some people got a penalty for buying pigeons and killing them
on triggers, since it helped with the grunt title. Others bought torches and
earned a few coppers selling them. This was a punishable offense.

Now please, for the love of God, add a little common sense! If something is
too good to be true. Then it probably is! And if you got caught then pay
the price.

Also, if in doubt, contact a friendly neighbourhood wizard, and ask if you
are bordering to do something which strides against the rules!

FLT.

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