How Would You Detect Bots?

[Nash]

ill never pay $10 a month for RS unless the game starts using arrow keys to move around and not the stupid mouse-click system they have now.

 

But the GM idea is a good one though. Maybe even a new era of Pmods designated specifically for bot/scammer hunting? food for thought.

[BioIce]

Arrow keys are overrated. Why not just hold down the left-click mouse button allowing your avatar to move in the mouse's direction until you let go?

 

And if you want to combat bots, study and bump up the experience rates in minigames to equal normal skilling experience rates. Less work all around for Jagex since it'd be a matter of tweaking existing code and allows diversity in training methods if you're not concerned about moneymaking a la chopping yews.

[Cup Lion]

Arrow keys are overrated. Why not just hold down the left-click mouse button allowing your avatar to move in the mouse's direction until you let go?

People wouldn't be able to move their character and work with things in their inventory simultaneously if Jagex did that, and that seems to be a big thing in boss hunting and pking.

[highlanders]

People bot because to gain xp in most skills you must do boring and mindless repetitive tasks. Tasks that are suited for robots, not humans. Dg is a step in the right direction, except the whole you must be in a team to get decent xp thing. If skills were grindable in a way that would challenge your mind (puzzles), reflexes (clicking skills? I guess), or were unpredictable that would already be a little better. The best way to eliminate botting is to make people not want to bot, ergo make grinding interesting.

 

But to answer the question, capchas and questions that require a brain like was said.

[BioIce]

Arrow keys are overrated. Why not just hold down the left-click mouse button allowing your avatar to move in the mouse's direction until you let go?

People wouldn't be able to move their character and work with things in their inventory simultaneously if Jagex did that, and that seems to be a big thing in boss hunting and pking.

 

Who said they had to remove the current way we walk/run right now, which is point and click instead of hold and click? They could just add it in to augment movement. There are plenty of situations where all you want to do is run.

 

Capchas are hardly rewarding. (Ugh, sleeping bags!) I'd rather they just boosted experience gains in certain minigames. And there are plenty enough that'd be turned off by brain-teasers, Highlander, though I personally would rather prefer that idea.

[Alphanos]

thank you for providing these methods,I like it very much and at the same time it is very useful.

 

I warned you not to give them ideas.

 

Please remove those links from your post-quote.

 

He's trolling. Nothing we've discussed here will be either news, or much help to any bot-writer. Jagex knows full well that security through obscurity is a failed model; our best hope against bots is for Jagex to implement traps which the bot-writers can know everything about, yet be unable to solve.

[No_M0re]

Seriously, unless you make it a pain the ass for every player then bots will always exist. Unless you make skills that reuire a human mind, possibly like dungeoneering but that gets botted aswell.. r0fl.

 

I'm suprised so many people care.

[Sephy_]

step 1: raise membership to $10 monthly

 

step 2: hire some GMs to break the environments of suspected bots, whereby the GM could determine if they were bots.

 

step 3: the bots would then be banned.

These two. Especially bring back the bans, preferably permanent. Making botting impossible isn't obviously going to work (for now) so atleast have some actual punishments. :-s

[No_M0re]

step 1: raise membership to $10 monthly

 

step 2: hire some GMs to break the environments of suspected bots, whereby the GM could determine if they were bots.

 

step 3: the bots would then be banned.

These two. Especially bring back the bans, preferably permanent. Making botting impossible isn't obviously going to work (for now) so atleast have some actual punishments. :-s

 

Yeah Fhagex must love bots because at the moment the punishments are jokes!

 

Do you know how it goes for 24/7 botters?

 

Temp ban ~ 14-21 days. After another temp ban for the same time and a rollback. After another rollback and temp ban and THEN after the fourth time they catch you botting they perm ban the account. Thats no insentive not to bot, you don't lose anything really. Im pretty sure you keep money and items when they rollback aswell, hasn'tr happened to me though so I dont know.

[Alphanos]

You emphasize banning the account as though there is some other option. In the majority of cases, IP bans only work so long as you're willing to ban not just a single user, but a decently large geographical area. When you're dealing with i.e. a forum that has a few hundred, or a few thousand users globally, that will probably work ok without collateral damage. However, in a game as large as Runescape, IP bans really aren't an option.

 

I do agree, however, that it seems Jagex has gotten far too lenient regarding botting. I'm not sure I can support instant perma-bans simply due to false reports, system errors, and various other factors, but there's also going too far the other way....

[No_M0re]

You emphasize banning the account as though there is some other option. In the majority of cases, IP bans only work so long as you're willing to ban not just a single user, but a decently large geographical area. When you're dealing with i.e. a forum that has a few hundred, or a few thousand users globally, that will probably work ok without collateral damage. However, in a game as large as Runescape, IP bans really aren't an option.

 

I do agree, however, that it seems Jagex has gotten far too lenient regarding botting. I'm not sure I can support instant perma-bans simply due to false reports, system errors, and various other factors, but there's also going too far the other way....

 

I don't know much about computers :oops:

 

Perhaps they should make their stance known though, at the moment most people don't report them because they see no point.

 

Although I still think that RS would be weird without bots now.

 

Also I swear they could just assign one bloke to finding bots ingame and on forums. I swear it's easy, I went on a botting forum and found out the name of serious weirdo individual gold farmers easy as pie. (they were lame, spent their whole month programming and botting to make ~1500$ :S )

 

But yeah one guy would cost them, what.. I'm assuming they don't really have to be that skilled so like 24k£ a year?? They could give him the power to clone whatever it is bots use to find their item and ban people quick. Would have thought in an 8 hour day you could at least ban 200 odd if you want to sorc garden or chins.

 

But yeah I think they get a hell of a lot of moeny from them so they probably won't change what they're doing now.

[langer]

I can see 2 actions that would significantly reduce botting activity and still give Jagex a nice cashflow from cheaters:

 

- Once a player has been detected as a bot, he can only train on a bot dedicated world (2000 population maximum, only one world available) for a month for first offence, 3 months second offence, 12 months third offence and lifetime at the 4rth offence.

 

- This player is erased from the highscore even though he keeps all skills and items in-game

 

Those punishment would make it so legit players get to keep their achievement valued at their real legit value. This would make a lot of cheaters think twice before botting and would make those who cheat in order to reach skills and items for the gameplay they want to play (pkers, MHers...etc...) still bot without highscore recognition (something I've been told by bot-apologists that botters don't care about...which I doubt).

 

These actions would be in-line with Jagex policy of milking cash from cheaters but not in-line with their policy of helping legit players, this is why I don't think this will be implemented.

[No_M0re]

I can see 2 actions that would significantly reduce botting activity and still give Jagex a nice cashflow from cheaters:

 

- Once a player has been detected as a bot, he can only train on a bot dedicated world (2000 population maximum, only one world available) for a month for first offence, 3 months second offence, 12 months third offence and lifetime at the 4rth offence.

 

- This player is erased from the highscore even though he keeps all skills and items in-game

 

Those punishment would make it so legit players get to keep their achievement valued at their real legit value. This would make a lot of cheaters think twice before botting and would make those who cheat in order to reach skills and items for the gameplay they want to play (pkers, MHers...etc...) still bot without highscore recognition (something I've been told by bot-apologists that botters don't care about...which I doubt).

 

These actions would be in-line with Jagex policy of milking cash from cheaters but not in-line with their policy of helping legit players, this is why I don't think this will be implemented.

 

Trust me almost noone that bots cares about highscores. Who does except the people who are on the front page, which is pretty much impossible for most people now.

[Blyaunte]

give players tools to pwn bots.

 

You can already plant flowers underneath red chin bots for example.

A single Cwars barricade would pwn essence mining bots as they run back and forth from the bank.

 

Jagex may not be able to field the man power, but there's plenty of botter hating gamers around.

and these players would change their strats just as quickly as the botters.

 

would pwn only a small portion of the bots, but, it's an easy fix that doesn't require constant input on the part of jagex.

 

the only problem with current bot slaying methods is that they're time consuming, and you can only feasibly pick off 1 bot at a time with say, dropping limpwurt roots at hobgoblin peninsula.

so it kinda depends on the tools provided.

 

granted, these tools could also be used to grief non-bots :P

 

^THIS^

 

Make it so that players can block the known *bot spots* using objects that would not have any effect on live players.

 

step 1: raise membership to $10 monthly

 

step 2: hire some GMs to break the environments of suspected bots, whereby the GM could determine if they were bots.

 

step 3: the bots would then be banned.

 

^AND/OR THIS^

 

 

Either that or break out the torches and pitchforks, or something. If Jagex doesn't get serious soon about this problem, they're going to have either (a) an angry mob on their hands or (b) a game entirely popluated with bots ...

[gago]

Bots give jagex money, therefore bots don't get banned.

[Blyaunte]

Bots give jagex money, therefore bots don't get banned.

I dunno about that.

 

If bots are not using browsers, as has been purported, then none of Jagex's (invisible in P2P) advertisements are getting "hits" which means that they're not earning that revenue off botters ...

[langer]

Bots give jagex money, therefore bots don't get banned.

I dunno about that.

 

If bots are not using browsers, as has been purported, then none of Jagex's (invisible in P2P) advertisements are getting "hits" which means that they're not earning that revenue off botters ...

 

I'm pretty sure chins bots, green drag bots, LRC bots and SG bots are members...

 

@ No More

 

That's not true, just look at the # of posters with stats signature and you'll see players care about their stats and ranks.

[langer]

edited in post above

[Blyaunte]

Bots give jagex money, therefore bots don't get banned.

I dunno about that.

 

If bots are not using browsers, as has been purported, then none of Jagex's (invisible in P2P) advertisements are getting "hits" which means that they're not earning that revenue off botters ...

 

I'm pretty sure chins bots, green drag bots, LRC bots and SG bots are members...

 

@ No More

 

That's not true, just look at the # of posters with stats signature and you'll see players care about their stats and ranks.

 

Yes -- and there are advertisements in P2P too -- only Jagex *hides* them under the main viewing screen ... <_<

[Markup]

Why don't CAPTCHA's work...

[Alphanos]

@ No More

 

That's not true, just look at the # of posters with stats signature and you'll see players care about their stats and ranks.

 

Caring about stats =/= caring about ranks. I know ranks are a big focus of the 200m thread, but most botters just want the stats; they don't have their 99s yet.

[All_Is_Great]

@ No More

 

That's not true, just look at the # of posters with stats signature and you'll see players care about their stats and ranks.

 

Caring about stats =/= caring about ranks. I know ranks are a big focus of the 200m thread, but most botters just want the stats; they don't have their 99s yet.

 

I've seen rc bots with capes. Maybe they do it for the money, but nats are so low now...

[Stev]

Bots give jagex money, therefore bots don't get banned.

I dunno about that.

 

If bots are not using browsers, as has been purported, then none of Jagex's (invisible in P2P) advertisements are getting "hits" which means that they're not earning that revenue off botters ...

They are still getting hits, just being hidden.

 

The botters are still paying their memberships.

 

Botters = money for Jagex.

[Blyaunte]

Bots give jagex money, therefore bots don't get banned.

I dunno about that.

 

If bots are not using browsers, as has been purported, then none of Jagex's (invisible in P2P) advertisements are getting "hits" which means that they're not earning that revenue off botters ...

They are still getting hits, just being hidden.

 

The botters are still paying their memberships.

 

Botters = money for Jagex.

 

Well poo ... <_<

:mellow:

[BioIce]

Heh.

 

IMO the game reached zombie stage shortly after the return of free trade. I wouldn't be surprised if bots outnumbered players now. As of the time of this post there are currently 72k players, which sounds about right considering the time of day, and it matches the pattern and numbers of people logging back in pre-FT.

 

It was double this number before the update. I'd have thought there'd be close to 110k people online again. But since bots take anywhere from an hour or two to update, well...that should speak for itself, I think.

 

ITT there are frankly too many ideas based on punishment here in an attempt to maintain the status quo during the trade limit era. While it's depressing to see so many bots, Jagex ought to break out content or tweaks that'll take us away from what causes people to bot.

 

The day they get rid of a majority of bots is the day I'll turn off my adblock when I play on my f2p accounts.