Ts_Stormrage

@Ginger: I'm thinking about not renewing more and more these days... @Killer: An amusement ride is an odd comparisson... But in your case; people would use the amusement ride to disrupt the fun for others in such a way that people who dont cause a fuss dont want to ride anymore...

Also read the remainder of my post... The rest in short is basicly: Should us honest players really be comfortable with Jagex' new attitude against cheaters?

This isn't just about the fraud, but about the general attitude of Jagex about botting and RWT has taken a turn towards...

Lemmy get one thing straight: I do not wish to change wildy. Things are fine the way they are if you ask me, except for the droptable of the PVP worlds... And while I have a sig that encourages free trade; I do enjoy the trade limits to some extend (sometimes they are neccisary to prevent scaming), as the limits are broad enough for anyone to trade with normally... So, you would expect me to vote no... (or not at all in this case) Now let me show you a few pics: Or how about this one Now, I already didn't like the fact that bots do not get banned instantly anymore, but instead get their stuff (XP/GP) removed... I couldn't even understand the decision to do this... Jagex' line of reasoning that people who normally get banned for cheating, and who now will not be... They say it saves money as more people will remain a customer, and at the same time give people a 2nd chance when they've somehow been lured into botting, or are doing it by accident... By accident? What... You tripped, landed on the exact keys on your keyboard and in falling down further you managed to click everything properly? GTFO... But ok... Money is tight (thats why they are giving away $120,000!!!), so I get the 2nd chance thing... But wouldn't all the peope that are now hired to make the call to decide between perm/temp ban, and wether or not to get stuff/xp removed from the account, and how much of each, cost WAY WAY more then a simple (and understandible) rule: Bot is ban! No, do not give me any excuses on "what if my account got hacked!"... 1. There is no such thing as your account being hacked... Rule 1 of the internet is that you must learn to work with your computer before connecting it to anyone elses... So if your computer is unsafe, its your own damn fault... 2. In most (all) cases, people have given out their password to someone else, or went onto a site promissing mountains of gold and they got keylogged... Again; your stupid mistake... So if the person on your account botted, you lose your account... 3. There is no 3... These are the only options on how someone could possibly get on your account... And now this... A newspost in which they say "Hey guys, our previous anti-RWT and bot-fighting game adaptions didn't work (gee, the rune/pure essence seperation wasn't obvious enough for you?), so we're goign to give that up completely"... One passage in particular of that newspost is what got to me:

This will probably already have been asked: But for voting (I didn't vote) people don't seem to need a password; just a valid RS name... This means a few people can enter A WHOLE BUNCH OF VOTES! I call fraud!

I also accept euro's!

So, party at the fremenniks... Whouldda thunk same thing happened in game :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUVx2-vDl2E Voices can be heard here...

Could also be just the followers of those 4 gods.... But if it is a Mahjarrat trapped there, it is likely a Zarosian Mahjarrat... Could you please link to Azzanadra's postbag thing you mentioned?

Didn't expect it to see this early in the thread, but it begs the question: Why are there ALWAYS some idiots about that think jagex might introduce new rares..? Useless bankspace occupier is ofc way more useful than a wieldable smithing/construction/whatnot hammer that people have been suggesting for ages!

...how? Zaros is trapped in another plane of existence entirely and wasn't around for the God Wars, I thought? That I didn't know. Who else is affiliated with the power of shadows and getting revenge? Sliske and General Khazard come to mind...

Here's something that jumped to mind... Jagex does this whole elaborate scheme now, that requires lots of time of their people to check each and every individual account that may or may not have botted, and then to determine how much xp/wealth and such there should be removed, and/or wether to give a temp/perm ban... Doesn't seem economical to me... Especially, when their attitude of actually BAN-HAMM0RING any person that even thought of DANCING like a robot, to create a more perfect community, was liked by many... And basicly made this game as big as it today...

Jonananananananananas: I know what you mean, and I know where this problem is... When writing like this, you got to create an image of these people in the readers' minds... One way to do that is with nicknames and/or references to his or her past... Since more than half of the characters are directly from the game, it's hard to do this while trying to tell your own story... Rest asured I will try to make up for this in the next and final chatper... And even if I fail there, the epilogue should make everything clear... (yes, 2 more issues to come) Low_C: the discussion must obviously be about the subject addressed in the Tip.it Times articles

Oh I dont like botters at all (or any kind of cheaters for that matter)... The problem is also that some people refuse to see the negative impact these bots/genuine players who bot have on the game... But give me the device to make it possible for me to wield an axe in the living room of a botter... And I'll cut their grubby little mits right off...

Forsakenmage: +1 There's a Dutch sayoing about someone who can no longer see the forest because of all the trees... People who instead of just point out the mistakes and post them (HA, not even PM them like they're supposed to) I can not accept, but still tolerate... But if you instead completely focus on the mistakes made rather than the message we as fan-fiction and fan-non-fiction writers try to bring across, then there's something wrong with you... Those people display one symptom of a troll, which is that they think the world hates them and therefor they must hate the world back... We've seen it in past Times' threads get WAY out of hand... I know not everyone is like that... Some people genuinly try to improve my writing and I appreciate it more than they'll understand... But one word, one hint of arrogance in your criticism and it becomes very easy to dismiss that criticism, even if it was written with the best intentions... Why is this? Simple... We write because we like it, and because we think others like it too... But if there is this "Pff, you suck!" vibe coming off of your comment, than do not expect a writer to listen to you, or even feel like writing another article for you ro burn down... I can take criticism easily if its justified or even brutalliy harsh, as long as it has suggestions on how to improve... Simply pointing out mistakes without knowing how to do it better yourself (and there are many people liek this)is a gray area, so all I can ask there is that you word yourself carefully... Jonananananananananas: I know what you mean, and I know where this problem is... When writing like this, you got to create an image of these people in the readers' minds... One way to do that is with nicknames and/or references to his or her past... Since more than half of the characters are directly from the game, it's hard to do this while trying to tell your own story... Rest asured I will try to make up for this in the next and final chatper... And even if I fail there, the epilogue should make everything clear... (yes, 2 more issues to come)

lol @ one of the FAQ: "At what point does Jagex decide that rollbacks are no longer an effective punishment for the account, and decides to ban them" The answer given is a standard "I cant tell you", but I think I can... The line is at the point when its clear that the offender has made it clear that he never has, and never will be subscribing to RS ;) Can I get a hell yea for capitalism? Btw; Those screenshots uo above are what some would say "leaked" from the forums us noobs have no knowledge of... Tip.it for Runescape's wikileaks?

Admittedly, for some of the characters I did not leave much room for some actual character building... But yeah; if you just dropped into the story its confusing as hell, especially considering we left Anders and Pieter in Keldagrim at the start of the 2nd chapter... If you want, I could give a brief overview of all the charachters (even though over half of them are taken right out of the game without any alteration), just to make it easier... I do intend to make up for most of this in the last part of the story; the epilogue :)

You pretty much summed it up for me, Das... I honestly do not care if I am seen as weak or as rotten as RoT... For me the joy I get out of my clan outweighs that... But yeah, this "weakness" comes from apathy... I used to stand for honesty and fair play, and I personally still do... But as a clanleader, if you enforce the rules for your clan as strict as we once knew Jagex to do it, then you're going to end up alone since nobody is goign to stand with you anymore... And I in turn partly blame Jagex for this as they seem (note: seem) to care less and less about cheating happening, and this fuels the culture that that very cheating is no longer frowned upon and most of the time not even punished properly... It's been a slow process and that is probably why so many of us have let it happen... But I've not turned a blind eye to cheating, not at all... If I find you cheating in my clan (in whatever form) and we have the option to report you (*), we will... But as I said; There is no 100% proof of someone cheating without seeing them banned... Everything can be faked these days... So do I have to take steps, where Jagex themselves arent even sure cheating did truly happen and therefor took no steps themselves? I don't think so... (*)You cannot always report someone... Trying to report someone for account sharing for example, can only be done if you have talked or traded with them in RuneScape itself... So this person can shout in my teamspeak, or post a giant picture showing he is in fact on someone elses RS account on these forums, in my IRC channel and even outside of Jagex HQ... I still have no option to report him...

Clearly you haven't the feintest idea how clans work... CLANS... Not the mere chatrooms that are in game, but the ones that have their own IRC, TeamSpeak, Forums and Site... Clans that you rarely see on this board, but all the more on a rivalling fansite... Clans that are almost a seperate community within RuneScape, and some of those clans are themselves a seperate community... I am not talking about an occasional lurker who may or may not be botting that happens to be in your chatroom on RS (it is afterall nothing more than a chatroom, but they've called it a clanchat)... If you knew anything about clans you would know that there is (or used to be) a vague line in the sand between Honor and No-Honor clans... The former is predominantly present, and publicly condemn some of the practices that no-honor clans have stooped to (see one of my previous posts)... I do not think Jagex expects me to remove people from my clanchat if they are botting, nor did I ever state that this would have any impact... But as clan leader, unless you WANT to attract the worst of the worst, are expected to stay on the moral highground at all times... This pretty much means you are implicitly expected to kick those people from your memberlists/forums/channels/teamspeak... But to do that hurts your numbers, and dwindling numbers means less wins in wars with other clans, which in turn means less respect for your clan... So the choice was once given to me and I'll rephrase it to use your metaphore of boss v employee; As a boss, you'll want enough qualified staff to run your business, and if one of them happens to deal in illegal substances on the side, you are expected to fire him if you want your business to be a reputable one... Knowing how big a portion of a clan's memberbase on average breaks the law, I'd be left without any personell to run my business... So I made the chocie to not fire them, but report their illegal activities to the police, and let them deal with it... Should the police (Jagex in this case) decide not to do anything, I do not feel obligated to do anything about the perp myself if he is not harming my business... I hope this clears it up for you, if not I'd be happy to explain it further as long as you refrain from pulling line after line apart from my posts and discuss the overall point I am trying to make... On the credit card issue (AGAIN - does anyone read anythign else in the thread other then the latest posts?); I know that was out of line and I apologised... I was quite intoxicated when I wrote that, and I honestly do not believe that it is a good solution... But I would like people to imagine some other solutions that WOULD be legal, and would still put said cheaters in the pillory... In the old days we used to be able to throw rotten vegetables at such people, surely we can find an online equivalent?

Right, point taken already about that in a previous post of mine :oops: ... I know its a very poor example, but as I said (in a somewhat intoxicated state, mind you) it was just an example of what one could imagine a punishment could be... And after that I asked what YOU thought would be an appropriate punishment... Next time, please read beyond the first post on a page :) Oh, and... I have never broken the rules myself, and I'll do anything possible to prove this if asked, let this be clear... But I've known for quite a while now that, if every clan leader out there would kick everyone out of his clan that cheats (from the not-going-to-be-banned-anyways botting, to the undetectable accoutn sharing, all the way to DDoS-ing other people and/or Teamspeak servers), Jagex might as well stop with developping that Clan Support thing... There would not be many clans left, and those that were left would not have many members in them... How do I know this? I do because people will not even hesitate anymore to admit they are cheating, and most of them are quite proud of the fact that they havent been caught... In my own clan I've come to terms with this in the form of a compromise... I'll try everything to convince people not to share their account, rwt, you name it, and if I catch them cheating I will defintily report them, as would pretty much most of my clan... But I will not kick them out... Jagex will punish cheaters according to how they think is sufficient, why should I as a clanleader be any stricter? Oh I'll laugh my ass off if someone rage-quits over his entire bank being party-roomed cuz he shared his account with one too many people, and I might have been the one that reported him too... But I see no reason why I should kick such a person from my clan if Jagex doesn't kick them from the game... As a clanleader you're always implicitly asked to have the highest moral standards, but I've known many leaders and even a tenfold of clan members, and the story here is true in many more places than you'd wanna know about...

And that pretty much shows the deviding line between us, doesn't it? It's ok though, I'm happy to agree to disagree with you both (obt and stone) at this point in time, but Ihave a feeling that there will one day come a day that I can put better under words (or someone else does it for me) OR the proper situation arises that will show beyond a shadow of a doubt why botting affects us all in such a negative way, that every single non-botter would rise up to defend the game against them... Right now its close to 4am in the morning and I've had a little bit too much of the good (or bad, depending on your position) stuff, so this will be my last reply for now... Bye!

ugh... As I said... its an EXAMPLE of how far one could let their imagination run wild in order to get back at the cheaters... I then proceeded to ask people how they would punish bots, hopefully to see where THEIR imaginations would take them, possibly spawning an awesome idea... (for awesome idea's, just watch this vid or this vid)

As for my examples on how to punish bots: Credit card data is just an example of how far one's imagination for bot-punishments could go (gotta cross the line before you know where it's at)... I hope you are all smart enough to know that these things may ALSO be stolen and if publicized would directly hurt an innocent person... But... How far would you go to punish a cheater?

I can just imagine how much money the kid who makes a Jad-hunting bot will make. And you think lvl 30's with firecapes are weird now? How about a few thousand of them? ...is true... How would you feel about your hard earned 99 ranks that were suddenly bot-able? Technology does not stand still, and eventually every aspect we currently know of RS will be bot-able... Wouldn't care. I don't play for others. If 20k people botted 120 DG tommorow, I would still get it. Even if everyone around you would proceed to call you a botter, just like most p120-DGers are currently acused of as nolifers? I know it will still be an achievement for you... But how would you feel if it was an achievement to be celebrated by you, and you alone?

Actually we may not... I believe we SHOULD shame those automatons... Throw them in the pillory... Publicize their emails, IP's, creditcard data and what not... Let the mob deal with it the way we would have dealt with bug abusers like Durial if we had the chance... I agree with Das... Jagex has put money over balls, but I fear that this is true pretty much evrywhere in the world... But letting the mob go after cheaters is the ONLY way to satisfy the anti-cheater feelings of the honest RS player's anger when yet another person has been find out to have cut corners on their way to the top... And until Jagex realises this (or the US govt if we're taking the wikileaks example) AND acts on it (like they used to), people will continue to express their anger into increasingly destructive forms wherever they can...