The count of bots that have been identified and punished has risen to three.
The most recent case is one that I feel must be discussed a bit, for it is
a bird of a different feather - the so-called idle-bot.
An idle-bot is someone who has timed trigger events (most frequently things
like , , , , etc etc) that fire off regularly and
prevent the player from being booted from the game due to idleness.
I myself have been someone in the past who has argued that such "idle"
players (warm bodies) in the game actually helps more than hurts. After all,
if we get a truly new visitor, and they log in, do a and see a big
number for how many players are in the game, they might think to themselves,
"Ah! This place has some life! I should check it out." So, from a purely
utilitarian perspective, I've never been all that worried about idle-bots.
And then someone set me straight. The thing that happens all too regularly
with these idle-bots is that they end up acting as living droprooms that
cannot be pilfered. Its a simple concept. You take all your favorite
(presumably hard-earned) gear, find a safe room (most often, a guild
room) and go to bed RL. Ahhh ... there sits your idle bot, favorite weapons
and armours in hand. Great! Now there is no chance that some loser will
take the stuff you like to use and damage it, lose it, or worse. Plus,
now you can be even lazier and just wake up and go go go!
Awesome!!!
No. Not awesome.
This is the sort of thing that ruins the game. There you sit, with weapons
and armours that have a limited number of allowed appearances in the game,
and no one can use them since they sitting conveniently in your inventory.
It is for this reason - the living droproom problem - that I am no longer
going to allow idle-bots to do their thing unpunished.
The punishment for being caught idle-botting will be to be logged out by
me, and to have all of your gear confiscated. The second offense will lead
to a one-week suspension from play.
Not fun. Stop botting!
G.
p.s. The punishment for combat-botting remains ... DEATH!
p.p.s. Those of you who don't bot are cool. Ten points to Griffindor!
