Stopping script-buying on the Auction House

[Chanele]

Cherek, AoP, yes it is in a rules. Unattended play is illegal. If you look, I bet you find already happen now.

And if they are using script to bid and are botting, as I said up abit .... the captcha will force them to give an answer at a random time (due to none knowing when next AH posting comes) and could show them to be afk while they are grinding.

This alone a bot check built into all AH bids to me makes Cots method very elegant. Though I was for the run to AH to bid method. This new insight seems very interesting too.

This solution sounds to good to be true. Problem solved and it will also prevent bots. Sweetness.

[Melarec]

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which would look better in game client and answer is 199139845

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199139845

[Sykil]

Easily converted by script.

[Jar]

Easily converted by script.

You are joking, aren't you? Or you are more skilled with scripting then other people.

[Sykil]

Only a bot player would say for us to believe simple ascii is not script possible. The only joke is you are laughing at us

[Cherek]

Cherek, AoP, yes it is in a rules. Unattended play is illegal. If you look, I bet you find already happen now.

Well I know, I was AoP and I re-wrote some of the rules myself. But this is one of those cases that is not specifically defined in the rules, and any player caught would most likely disagree, and argue that it is not clear in the rules, etc, and there would be tons of drama. Trust me, I know. That's how several players we caught for botting reacted even when caught breaking more crystal clear rules.

And even if we specify it IS botting to script-buy stuff while AFK we still need to catch them, prove it, go through hours of argumentation from the caught player, who will claim that they were just briefly away, only a few minutes for toilet break, putting kid to bed, kitchen caught on fire, or something else more or less believable... I know how the story goes with these things. Then there might be some threats of leaving the game, screams about how admins are incompetent, and similar, and we end up with everyone having negative feelings in the end... ugh...

Before I was AoP I may have felt like some posters here, "Let's make a rule for it", but please trust me, enforcing these rules are both time consuming and exhausting, and usually ends up with both an unhappy "police" and an unhappy "criminal" in the end. This is why I so strongly believe in coded solutions before rules if possible.

And like I said, I am not even sure we should have a rule against this either, or if it should be deemed "unattended play" or not. People have always liked to bend the idle rules in many ways, with automatic triggers for all sorts of things. Monks doing their forms for example, or people doing auto-trade triggers in trading events, or auto "stuff my turkey" triggers, or simpler stuff, like idling to check when an NPC spawns, or when whatever it is you are looking for in a quest resets, and similar, which also technically is "playing unattended". All of them files under "borderline botting" in my opinion, and are similar to idle-buying things from auction. So I am not sure if I agree it's crystal clear botting or not. It depends on if you see our botting rules in black and white or in shades of grey I think?

Btw, if you are such a skilled scripter Sykil, that you can easily script through captchas, I herby invite you to be captcha-tester, and help us design one that is much harder to break. Are you up for that? Ball's in your court!

[Jar]

I do hope we'll see a good, working solution with captcha soon enough.

Personally I have no idea if scripters would manage to bypass that somehow but Im pretty sure it simply wouldn't be worth risking since there would be even no win guaranteed considering draw feature.

[Sykil]

And like I said, I am not even sure we should have a rule against this either, or if it should be deemed "unattended play" or not. People have always liked to bend the idle rules in many ways, with automatic triggers for all sorts of things. Monks doing their forms for example, or people doing auto-trade triggers in trading events, or auto "stuff my turkey" triggers, or simpler stuff, like idling to check when an NPC spawns, or when whatever it is you are looking for in a quest resets, and similar, which also technically is "playing unattended".

Can I argue you are lying? Or say you don't know what is real? No, you seem convince this all occurs. I will take you word as admin for it is happen. You do nothing after finding and proving this? I say proving because you just prove it above, yes? That is sad. Why have rules? Don't make rules you don't believe in rules. Rules clearly say this is unwelcome in Genesis. All of the above. Unwelcome, but aop will do nothing and just let you even be caught doing so and say you are not doing. This is not good.

Btw, if you are such a skilled scripter Sykil, that you can easily script through captchas, I herby invite you to be captcha-tester, and help us design one that is much harder to break. Are you up for that? Ball's in your court!

You think you take me with this clever argue. yes? If I believe it is easily script, why would I waste all time when my propose solution is one line of code?



This is google captcha. It can already be broken. Early captchas image are all broken. You think you have an ascii solution you want to spend time on? Sounds not fun. Sounds easily scriptable. Sounds of jar laughing at you happy with random winner solution to pick from unattended players you never punish.

[Cherek]

Sykil: I am definitely not lying. What I listed was from my experience as a player. Remember I was not admin 2 years ago, and things I listed was stuff I saw as a _player_, and I think most players know these things happen. When I first became AoP most of my time was spent helping the massive influx of new players we got during that time, and quite frankly I had little time to hunt bots. When I did, I tried to go after the "big offenders", meaning the combat bots. I did expand the AoP team though, to better handle the workload, and together we managed to spend a little more time trying to enforce our rules, and caught a few bots too, of various types. Some forge, herb and combat botters were all found out. But it is time consuming, and we can never hope to catch everyone. But if you decide to bot, there is definitely a risk you will be checked eventually, and caught. My examples above was however examples of things that are not clearly defined in rules, and when it becomes a case by case judgement... IS it really botting to begin with, and then how bad is it, and what type of punishment would be suitable?

While I was AoP I tried to clarify the botting rules, and make the punishments clearer, and more in line with the crime, but in many cases we will still end up with situations where the AoP needs to make a case by case judgements, and the less such situations the better. Which is why I want to find a way around this AH scripting without more things for AoP to monitor.

I do not think simply making people go to the auction house to "buy now" is enough, as I feel there are too many ways to script around that, and even with a specific rule it will be yet another thing for AoP to monitor, and there's already plenty of things, as my examples above showed. I also think the "race to Sparkle" would be inconvenient and annoying for players.

As for captcha's... well, I do not think many Genesis scripters would beat ascii captchas to be honest. Seems like you are not up to the challenge though? *pout* Guess we will have to see if you can beat it if we decide to implement one!

Can you script around the current bot-check captcha?

[Sykil]

I do not think simply making people go to the auction house to "buy now" is enough, as I feel there are too many ways to script around that, and even with a specific rule it will be yet another thing for AoP to monitor, and there's already plenty of things, as my examples above showed.

You feel like you are helpless. You are not aop now. You don't have to worry this. I hope new AoP tries to discourage behavior even if they feel is futile activity like you did.

I also think the "race to Sparkle" would be inconvenient and annoying for players.

This is no more inconvenient than to go to sparkle to pick up your success purchase. It is not annoying to go to sparkle to get you item yes? What is annoying is lose opportunity to buy to scripters guaranteed. This solution of 5 min has offer to non-scripters maybe to have the chance of bid. It guarantees for scripters opportunity. You will have ~3 scripters and sometimes 1 non-scripter which mean the solution is continue to give auctions mostly to scripter (75% this example). It is very convenient for the bot-script-grinders to continue chance to win while never they stop to go to sparkle. Meanwhile situation is not improve for non-scripters and this is problem to begin discussion, yes?

Just because you feel impotent to punish them does not mean you must so heavy accommodate their uninterruptable play style.

As for captcha's... well, I do not think many Genesis scripters would beat ascii captchas to be honest. Seems like you are not up to the challenge though? *pout* Guess we will have to see if you can beat it if we decide to implement one!

Can you script around the current bot-check captcha?

Yes, they will. What else is to be said to you who ignore existing captcha beating news?

Please stop pretend this is a challenge to me. It is begin to be offensive. I told you no and my reasons.