Botting

[gorboth]

Esteemed players,

Numerous indicators have surfaced that botting has become an issue that is
hurting the game. These indicators have ranged from things I have noticed
posted on boards, to player testimonials about how annoying it is, to even
having some players walk out of the game saying that they are no longer willing
to play in such an environment.

When I revised the document some months ago, a few issues which
had formerly been policed as cheating were removed because I deemed that it
was no longer in the best interests of the game to worry about them. As I hope
all of you know, botting was NOT one of the items that was removed from the
rules. Botting is something that VERY much hurts the game, and will not be
tolerated.

It is therefore important to have a firm understanding of what is meant by
the term "botting":

- Botting is the use of scripts or other means to have a client play
the game for you unattended.

It is a very simple definition, and revolves around a single critical issue.
This issue is whether or not the use of these scripts is UNATTENDED. Leaving
your scripts to, themselves do all the playing for you results in the
following sorts of things:

1. Shooting between room after room hour after hour cleaning up all the
npcs in them without lifting a finger. Highly profitable!

2. Speeding into one of these rooms where someone else is already engaged
in combat with the npcs, and stealing all of their kills from them.
When shouts of "Dude, get the !&*@ out of here! As you can SEE I'm
busy fighting THESE guys!!" greet the bot, the player is completely
unaware that they might want to take a different path than the one
their scripts are currently on.

3. Speeding into thses rooms sometimes results in the bot targetting a
player rather than npcs. Thus, shouts of "WTF?!? I'm a PLAYER not"
an NPC!!!" are not heard by the player, and when the unfortunate
target is killed, the player has no idea until an angry letter is
either mailed to the AoP who responds, or posted on the Sparkle board.

4. Gorboth might be waiting for the bot, with amazing wizard powers that
are capable of blocking all exits, and might ask the bot to answer a
few questions. When the embarrassed team who happen to be travelling
with the bot cannot seem to get the player behind the bots attention
either, Gorboth wields his amazing wizard powers again to feed the bot
to death as a tasty bot-gumbo-with-extra-cajun-spices. (NEW EXICITING
OPTION FOR WOULD-BE BOTTERS!!!)

So ... let me reitorate. Yes. If you bot, I will kill you. This has a bit of
a levelling impact on those tasty benefits from #1 above. Also, if you are
currently thinking to yourself, "Gee ... I've been botting pretty heavily
for the last few months. I wonder if Gorboth has heard about me?" then you
might want to start watching your screen more often. I have a short list of
players I am going to begin my tests on very soon.

G.