Botting

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Cherek
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Botting

Post by Cherek » 08 Feb 2015 14:18

So...

Thought we could bring up this "fun" topic. So, as most of you know by now I am the new AoP, and one thing I have been considering is the topic of botting. I have been thinking of how to make our rules more clear. I personally think the main purpose of the AoP is to _help_ players, not hunt them around looking for cheaters. However, unfortunately this also comes with the job since sometimes players do cheat and abuse. That happens in all games, and sometimes also here.

Question is of course, where do you draw the line, because let's face it, if I started sending the bot-test on people on a daily basis, the Genesis jail would probably soon be full of people.

Most likely it would catch:

- People in teams who are being led around and have gone for a smoke, are on the toilet, took a quick trip outside to buy food, making dinner, watching a movie, working, etc ,etc. Because this is pretty normal gameplay for many, yet according to our rules it would in many cases qualify as botting.

- People who are solo and are letting their herb/combat/forge script run while doing anything of the above. Are you a botter if you let your herb script run while you go make dinner, and check your screen every 10 min or so? Good question. You'd be caught by the bot test though.

- Idlers. You're out grinding, need a break and go somewhere safe while going to the toilet, make dinner, etc ,etc. You could LD of course, but then you'd miss if someone tries to contact you though, or you're simply lazy and idle instead of LD. You're just gonna be gone 10 min anyway. Or, perhaps you're waiting for someone you're meeting to show up, so you idle in your guild waiting, with your EQ on, and doing something else iRL until your friend shows up. According to the rules... you're IDLE-botting. Or are you? Kinda hard to say isn't it?

So whats my point? Well, I think we could make the rules more clear. Are all of the above scenarios bots? Or are they not? Our rules kinda say they are all bots. But its pretty open for interpretation too. I think if I wanted to I could probably punish anyone who does anything of the above for botting. But that would also mean punishing half the game, which I doubt would be very useful at all...

So what's botting, and what's not? And how can we formulate the rules so that people who are actually doing _harmful_ botting are the ones to be thrown in jail, and so that you average player can feel they're not breaking any rules when going out for a smoke or going to the bathroom... because I really dont think that is the kind of player we mea when we say "bot"?

What do you players think? What rules should we have? Should the current ones be nicer? Harsher? Should we police botting more, even "semi botters" like the ones described above? Or should we even let botting free???

Thoughts?

Laurel

Re: Botting

Post by Laurel » 08 Feb 2015 14:49

The bot test in itself is easily triggered for sound or other effects to warn the user when the test comes up.

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Snowrose
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Re: Botting

Post by Snowrose » 08 Feb 2015 15:04

This topic is the nemisis of practically every game in existance.
any test that will catch botters is just as likly to catch people on the perverbial smokebreak
or who are looking away cause thier SIg other is showing them that cool thing on you tube
or thier boss is talking to them. or they were swiching from laptop to phone but game has not noticed yet...

i think the real difference is scale semi botters are gone 10-15 minutes they probibly dont move around to much
and they do check the screen most of the time. where actual botters are gone hours and hours but is it possible to tell
the difference with any test other than to follow a guy around repeting "are you there yet?" every 30 seconds untill he says get lost. I guess you could spawn the cadu moralist on all bot suspects...

But really is it worth the time and effort to hunt down this kind of thing when for the most part a lot of the game is " hurry up and wait" where 90% of this game is a matter of of typing kill mob or search here for herb once every so often then wait for loot. it can be debilitating to just watch that constantly especially in a team where your just spammed by text. (one reason i avoid those kind of teams) unless you can multi task, or chat with people.

also is it reasonable to expect people to take 2 boats back to thier guild evertime they need to hit the restroom. imho
unless somone is script botting for over 30 minutes or idlebotting more than 2hours( the time it takes to LD quit) its to hard to verify and really not a practical issue. it makes people seem more active and makes the game more enjoyable.

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Cherek
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Re: Botting

Post by Cherek » 08 Feb 2015 15:06

Laurel wrote:The bot test in itself is easily triggered for sound or other effects to warn the user when the test comes up.
Yes it pretty easy to get around. Although it might still catch people who have left the room/house/are sleeping hard, etc. And of course those who haven't set up triggers for it.

However, it's probably more likely the "real" botters have advanced triggers and alarms to beat the test, while your normal player who is scripting and just leave the room briefly at the wrong time miss it, or get caught up in work, etc, and we'll end up catching those "minor botters" and not the ones who actually hurt the game with their botting. If we start "hunting" botters more actively that is...

Laurel

Re: Botting

Post by Laurel » 08 Feb 2015 19:12

I'm earning my living catching the bad guys for the last decade. I have questions you might want to answer to yourself (not really in the public too) first:

1. whom do you want to catch? idiots who can't code shit but got some triggers/macros OR disrupters who can code better, but not good enough to not screw other people when not watching the screen OR the real coders who have a bot for everything? will you include autohunting-triggers into this? (it's a bot if you ask me)

next step, that you should already take into consideration while working on the above:

2. what do you want to do with those people - do you want to punish? should you write up a policy that will be clear, followed on every detected occurence and aplicable to everyone to the same extent? it should probably contain every single offense you want to punish with the punishment level described

and it all boils down to the single most important question: what player-behaviour do you want to reward?
the answer to this question however is not up to players AND should be followed in every piece of wiz-work that's done in the game

Chanele
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Re: Botting

Post by Chanele » 08 Feb 2015 23:23

You either play the game or you don't. If you are out killing\herbing\forging and fail a 10 minute test you bot.

Zar
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Re: Botting

Post by Zar » 09 Feb 2015 15:47

Chanele wrote:You either play the game or you don't. If you are out killing\herbing\forging and fail a 10 minute test you bot.
The questions is how do I know that I am tested.
If it is just a message... then I certainly will loose it in combat/moving spam.

It happened to me in the past that I missed bot checks in other mud because I wasn't watching my combat very closely.

Cherek, You need to make some comfortable solution for your bot checks.

Zar
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Re: Botting

Post by Zar » 09 Feb 2015 15:48

And why this thread in Board index » Genesis Web Client » General Discussion ?

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Alisa
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Re: Botting

Post by Alisa » 10 Feb 2015 00:28

I wrote a long post, and now deleted it.

Simply stating my view on the matter.
Cherek wrote:Question is of course, where do you draw the line, because let's face it, if I started sending the bot-test on people on a daily basis, the Genesis jail would probably soon be full of people.
I agree, and i feel you should change the rules.
Cherek wrote:What do you players think? What rules should we have? Should the current ones be nicer? Harsher? Should we police botting more, even "semi botters" like the ones described above? Or should we even let botting free???
No. Well perhaps...

1: People doing scripts are okay according to rules. Getting called away can happen, no way to determine if it is on purpose or by accident.
My solution, change in the bottest... if you script one area, and not respond untill area finished it is okay. If you script multiple areas without response it is not okay.

2:Allow people to bot, with a tag! So when you bot, you set the tag Botting, and become free target for others. Roleplaying wise, we could make it an event with for instance the darklings from Emerald have figured out a way to braincontrol people, and uses them for their own dark purposes. It gives the botters quite a challenge, and the rest of the players are still subject to the bottest

3: Use the wizard resources other places, and only check those reported to bot. And when Irk answers he isn't botting...(Sorry Irk, couldn't resist considering how many claimed you bot, and the wizzes had to actually write you were cleared)

4:If LD is acceptable for 2 hours, why is idlebotting not? People do LD, because then they can't get attacked... There is even a thread about making the LD period longer. I suggest same as i did in that one... If you are LD, idle-botting(either same room or only move/health commands) for 1 hour or such.... All your items are teleported to the racks of your guild(you should be able to set which guild)

5: Have fun..

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Cherek
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Re: Botting

Post by Cherek » 10 Feb 2015 01:30

zar wrote:And why this thread in Board index » Genesis Web Client » General Discussion ?
Uh yeah... good question. Heh, clearly the wrong place. I moved it now.

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