Tip.It Times - 6th March 2011

[green9090]

A temporary change on one server that perm bans hundreds of bots is going to piss players off? Changing one tiny thing in the game takes over an hour?

 

What?

 

The main point here is if this happened regularly, pretty soon there WOULDN'T be a bot problem. Most of the people who bot would be permanently banned from ever making a new members account. Of course, F2P is still kind of screwed, but such is the nature of F2P.

[Sir_Squab]

A temporary change on one server that perm bans hundreds of bots is going to piss players off? Changing one tiny thing in the game takes over an hour?

 

What?

 

The main point here is if this happened regularly, pretty soon there WOULDN'T be a bot problem. Most of the people who bot would be permanently banned from ever making a new members account. Of course, F2P is still kind of screwed, but such is the nature of F2P.

 

How many places can you move a rope to the LRC before you have players needing to spend 5 minutes looking for the bleeding entrance? How many ways can you chance the rope click thing itself? If that number is finite, eventually the bots will be advanced enough to deal with every scenario.

 

And I can guarantee you there's a limited amount of tiny changes to the game that take 5 minutes to implement. Over time, the botters will adapt.

 

Your saying that you get a J-Mod to implement changes in the game to stop bots. Fine.

 

I'm saying botters can do the same thing to their damned bots. And as long as people have a motivation to bot, they will continue trying to bot.

 

Btw, did you know I can and have paid for my membership with pre-paid credit cards and ultimate game cards? That I've seen RuneScape game cards being sold in a location close(ish) to my house? That I could probably change my IP with just a few hours of messing around with my computer and google?

 

....What was the 3rd thing that you'd ban botters with to stop them? Pretty sure there are 3, and IP bans as we know aren't terribly effective, and I've just proven that credit card bans don't stop them. Not to mention credit card fraud which was what got rid of the wilde and free trade in the first place, although you could make an argument that times have changed.

 

Oh, and even if Jagex does temporarly get rid of most of the botters, except for the perserverent few who will change their IP, make new emails accounts for new accounts and change their IP as well as paying for membership with pre-paid cards, eventually botting will make a come-back because, well, parts of RS are a large grind-fest and people don't like grinding.

 

And please don't propose to not accept pre-paid cards as a form of membership payment. Too much collateral damage with that imo.

 

Lastly, I must ask how much programming experience you actually have. Because I doubt* you actually have knowledge of the king of programming that goes into MMOs. On the other hand, neither do I.

 

*I'm not saying you don't. Please correct me in a nice manner if you do, and I will apologize for that assumption.

[Bladewing]

Your saying that you get a J-Mod to implement changes in the game to stop bots. Fine.

 

I'm saying botters can do the same thing to their damned bots.

a bot that is being manually operated to adapt to a dynamic environment is not a bot

[igglescwich]

Your saying that you get a J-Mod to implement changes in the game to stop bots. Fine.

 

I'm saying botters can do the same thing to their damned bots.

a bot that is being manually operated to adapt to a dynamic environment is not a bot

He's saying they re-program the bot to click a different place if Jagex move the rope/door/wall/portal/whatever. :wall:

Also, they can:

1. Use overridable bots, so a human can control the character before telling the bot to continue from line 134 (or whatever),

2. Use bots that move the mouse over an area, and click when the ability to, say, open a door appears, and then move according to where they clicked,

3. Use bots that record what the human does, before repeating it themselves,

4. Use their imagination. There must be loads i've missed. :idea:

[Bladewing]

gl reprogramming your bot within a few minutes after a jmod replaces your wildy wall WHILE YOU ARE NOT AT YOUR COMPUTER and before the Jmod manually bans you

[michel555555]

Cool to know my article was liked :P

I'll adress a few things now.

 

 

second article- The cash could be being diverted to refilling their reserve money that was lost from mechscape. Jagex could not be lieing that it won't have an effect on rs but they just want to replensh their cash reserves incase of another emergancy. Another thing was left out was that jagex was also recently sued and they had to divert cash for that.

 

Quote from the article: Into the cash reserves emptied by the MechScape incident?

That covers your first part, and for the second part...I haven't read anything about that. Could you point out which lawsuit exactly you mean?

 

 

Ah, sorry, i missed that part of the article.

 

For jagex being sued :jagex kills a patent troll

 

 

 

first article- Cheating servers would never work. If jagex sells gold themselves then rwt sites will just lower their own prices. When jagex lowers the price to much then no one would buy gold from jagex because the rwt servers would be full. All the high level content that people bought would be full and there would be no point to doing them. Those accounts would then go back to rwt sites to get gold for normal servers where there is less competition. and everything goes back to normal.

 

Would you rather buy your gold from a shadey, possibly creditcard info thieving company that thrives on breaking the rules, or from Jagex themselves...

 

And full servers can't possibly be a valid argument... Just dedicate more to the cheaters, and voila...

 

Do you know how many servers you'd actually need?

 

Lets see, for bosses worth doing there are nex, bandos, arma, zammy, and sara god wars. Tormented demons and frost dragons might also be full depending on how much cash one actually spends on their account. People would do nothinng els if they could buy all their experiance for dirt cheap.

 

Lets say minimum of 5 man for nex, 1 for bandos and zam, say 1-3 for sara and armadyl, maby less. There's room for maby 5 people at tormented demons and another 5 or 6 at frosts. So intotal there would be maby 25 people per server not counting pkers. There might be the occasional person at ivy or lrc but they would be few. Find out how many people use bots then you'll find out how many servers you'd need. Any less then that and all the worthwhile bosses would just be a crash fest with everyone having claws, turmoil and ovl.

[Excels]

 

Erm, it doesn't really give any indication about who it is, but you'll have to trust me on this one. Or, if you really are nervous, it's the 5th photo on Jobs at Jagex's Wall.

 

 

This is the actual photo, but I have to admit it looks fishy. Were it not on Jagex Recruitment's facebook, I would call it a bad fake.

[Kthx]

If you need any greater example of the problems with Jagex, go to funorb.

 

The site hasn't had an update for almost 6 months.

 

Edit: Reading through the forums will give you even greater insight. Jagex isn't releasing any information about what they're doing, and the only mod left there (mod craddock) seems to be loosing his mind.

 

Ie: (hid this comment, but never hid the post that mentions the fact that he did): "There's nothing in the cards, so you might as well leave now"

[Naraku893]

funorbs a joke though

[zotto]

 

I don't want some random Indian who probably has a sparse understanding of English testing me for botting.

 

They have call centers in india because there are lots of indians who are proficient in English. Your fobia is not based on fact.

[Racheya]

 

I don't want some random Indian who probably has a sparse understanding of English testing me for botting.

 

They have call centers in india because there are lots of indians who are proficient in English. Your fobia is not based on fact.

Not really, they have them in India because it's cheap :unsure:

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

I do sincerely hope it IS my last time writing a Times article about it though

With this article I've tried also to get people off of the idea that there should be an in-game fix to the botting problem... This thread is evidence that I have failed...

 

But I do wonder: Why is quarantaining cheaters and removing any influence on the "real" game a bad thing?

 

First, I'm forced to agree with your stance - most in-game bot breaking ideas aren't really worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, we as players only have the one avenue from which to approach the botting problem. A cultural shift - such as getting players to abhor botting - is one that may exist, but would take a lot more work to be successful at dramatically removing botters than making major adjustments in-game.

 

Second, quarantining any of the troublemakers off onto their own server calls attention to them, and gives them essentially what they want - a place where their bots can level to their heart's content, as well as be absolutely rich. So what if it doesn't count in the real game? Self-satisfaction and instant gratification could be seen as the M.O. for most people that are willing to cheat.

 

i challenge you to reread (rather, read for a first time since it is painfully obvious you haven't yet) green's suggestion

+1

 

I challenge the both of you to prove the following:

 

- Adjustment of any resource by a JMod can reliably break *every* possible bot with a minimal disruption to normal players, everywhere. This also implies that a JMod doesn't need to be present at every location at every point in time.

 

- Updates to the game engine for this new JMod weapon would be proven cost effective and relatively painless to implement, as well as deliver flawless results every time.

 

- There would be relatively few staff required to fill this task; even though Jagex has 500+ employees doesn't mean that they're not all doing something.

 

Prove the above 3 to me, at least, or it seems like you've foolishly trapped yourself in a "perfect" solution to eliminate bots. Now I'm not trying to start an e-argument, since that's about as productive as a cram student at a frat party. But I want you to defend your position with reasons why it'd work. Good, sound reasons. Reasons that not only make economical sense, but programming sense. Just keep in mind, if you can't defend it, then there's no sense in cramming it down anyone's throat, or flaming anyone for disagreeing with it.

 

I wish you both good luck!

[mara_planter]

For jagex being sued :jagex kills a patent troll

 

I have a lot of sympathy for the Gowers after reading this article and related ones. Imagine you are a young man who invents a cool game that you like to play with your friends. You form a company so that it can become self-sustaining. Ten years later, you find yourself spending an inordinate amount of time fending off parasites who want to cash in on your talents. I would consider shedding the responsiblities (owning stock and being board member) that kept me away from doing what I love (making games). The terms of the sale probably included an agreement to continue working for Jagex for X years, and a non-compete agreement for Y years. But at least I would get to do what I love, and I could leave it to others like MMG to deal with the stuff I don't. MMG's quote about "patent trolls" probably sums up the feeling of the Gowers and Jagex staff. And while everyone has been ranting on the forums about how RS is failing, this is what they've been dealing with.

 

"Seven figures" - that's anywhere from 1,000,000 to 9,999,999. That's potentially a big chunk of corporate income. And I'll bet there are other Pal-Talks waiting in the wings - although Jagex's willingness to defend itself probably is a disincentive. Is it any wonder Jagex wants to generate the income that is needed to sustain the game by bringing back the wilderness? "Sustaining the game" now includes costs most of us haven't been considering.

 

~Mara

[Blyaunte]

It's interesting to see the link showing the Gowers's resignations as directors of Jagex as of last December, 2010.

 

Funny that Jagex hasn't mentioned ANYTHING about that?

[Ts_Stormrage]

Interesting? Disturbing is more like it... Only JUST AFTER the Gowers resigned, they started the poll to bring back the wild...

 

inb4conspiracytheories....

[Sir_Squab]

I do sincerely hope it IS my last time writing a Times article about it though

With this article I've tried also to get people off of the idea that there should be an in-game fix to the botting problem... This thread is evidence that I have failed...

 

But I do wonder: Why is quarantaining cheaters and removing any influence on the "real" game a bad thing?

 

First, I'm forced to agree with your stance - most in-game bot breaking ideas aren't really worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, we as players only have the one avenue from which to approach the botting problem. A cultural shift - such as getting players to abhor botting - is one that may exist, but would take a lot more work to be successful at dramatically removing botters than making major adjustments in-game.

 

Second, quarantining any of the troublemakers off onto their own server calls attention to them, and gives them essentially what they want - a place where their bots can level to their heart's content, as well as be absolutely rich. So what if it doesn't count in the real game? Self-satisfaction and instant gratification could be seen as the M.O. for most people that are willing to cheat.

 

i challenge you to reread (rather, read for a first time since it is painfully obvious you haven't yet) green's suggestion

+1

 

I challenge the both of you to prove the following:

 

- Adjustment of any resource by a JMod can reliably break *every* possible bot with a minimal disruption to normal players, everywhere. This also implies that a JMod doesn't need to be present at every location at every point in time.

 

- Updates to the game engine for this new JMod weapon would be proven cost effective and relatively painless to implement, as well as deliver flawless results every time.

 

- There would be relatively few staff required to fill this task; even though Jagex has 500+ employees doesn't mean that they're not all doing something.

 

Prove the above 3 to me, at least, or it seems like you've foolishly trapped yourself in a "perfect" solution to eliminate bots. Now I'm not trying to start an e-argument, since that's about as productive as a cram student at a frat party. But I want you to defend your position with reasons why it'd work. Good, sound reasons. Reasons that not only make economical sense, but programming sense. Just keep in mind, if you can't defend it, then there's no sense in cramming it down anyone's throat, or flaming anyone for disagreeing with it.

 

I wish you both good luck!

 

This is where I was kinda going with a lot of my posts. I don't think the above idea is possible. I really don't.

[Bladewing]

sigh

 

they do not need to be present at all places at all times for this to work

 

neither green nor i said it would be a "perfect solution to catch all bots" - we are saying it would be a good solution to catch a large amount of bots

 

i never flamed anyone for disagreeing with it - rather for disregarding it without reading it

[Ts_Stormrage]

The difference with your solution and mine is:

 

Mine addresses the root core of the problem to a certain extent...

 

While I would gladly see the occasional bot breaking update to replenish the population on cheat servers, on its own it is not a satisfactory solution...

[green9090]

Storm, your idea won't do a damn thing. The incentive to bot is to gain an advantage over peers, and that means trying to do it illegally on the main server. If everyone else can bot, there's no point. We'd be back to square one with a bunch of extra servers full of cheaters that Jagex is paying for.

[Bladewing]

jagex could legalize botting and RWTing on the main servers then

 

 

edit: actually i think i support them legalizing RWTing - it would make botting less desirable. why run a bot for 400k gp an hour to sell for money when you can play your main character for 15m an hour to sell for money? it would make bots unable to compete with "legitimate" players at RWTing

[green9090]

jagex could legalize botting and RWTing on the main servers then

 

 

edit: actually i think i support them legalizing RWTing - it would make botting less desirable. why run a bot for 400k gp an hour to sell for money when you can play your main character for 15m an hour to sell for money? it would make bots unable to compete with "legitimate" players at RWTing

Because you can't do Nex while you're asleep/at work/not at the computer.

[Bladewing]

i meant merchanting

[green9090]

Ah.

 

Can't really do that overnight anymore either. You can, but it's miserable profit compared to before the buy/sell limits were removed. Flipping is now a sit at the GE activity.

[Bladewing]

i make 5-8m an hour logging into runescape once every 45 minutes merchanting during class or studying

[green9090]

i make 5-8m an hour logging into runescape once every 45 minutes merchanting during class or studying

Not to call you a liar, but how much capital are you flipping with? I haven't been getting anywhere near that, can't get the hang of this newfangled free trade flipping.