Botting in Runescape

[Zerker_Jane]

Why do people care so much about bots...

they keep resources down so much...

 

i cant imagine how i would of got some buyable 99s :thumbsup: without the prices being lowered by them

 

but on the other hand i did make less on 99 fishing <_<

 

This -

 

That's part of the reason botting is bad. Now every low joe player can afford 99 prayer/99 herblore/99 smith when they were once respected 99's. Now the cost of them is less than 1/2 and they are extremely common(yea that might be because of overloads/turm, but they still cheap as hell now even with those added bonuses).

 

And also sometimes things that might seem like they're benefiting you in the short term really aren't in the long term.

 

I'd rather have to work a little bit harder than have the game swamped by more and more complex bots. Don't think for a second that resource gathering is the ultimate goal of botters.

[langer]

Interesting read, it's important to point how Mat K wants us to remember that the commercial aspect of the game is very important in their decision making process.

 

The problem has been in-game long enough for me to wait until their explanation is given and their action plan laid out before giving them props. For the time being, I will still consider that Jagex benefits from botters and gold farmers and that their focus are lead by which community generates more profit.

[Sly_Wizard]

A J-Mod can only ban 100 bots an hour? I could probably ban that many in 20 minutes.

[Awolo]

Yes it was an interesting read, but I don't think JaGex knows what they're up against

 

The biggest myth is that we make money from bots. This isn't true.

I can pretty much say that most of the people that actively play the game have botted at some point, not including gold farmers. It's pretty much gotten to the point where legit players are the minority. I highly doubt that half of their income goes to hunting down bots, otherwise we wouldn't have a problem, would we? Out of all my friends who bot, the only ones who have ever gotten a 14 day ban was because of using a AutoClicker. For those not familiar with bots, autoclickers dont have antiban and dont move the cursor. Jagex says they up their 'bot' detection, but then why hasn't one(out of 100 or so friends on my friends list who bot) of my friends been banned? I think he's mainly talking about gold farmer bots(accounts made soley to make RSGP and sell it IRL), and not player bots(players who bot their stats enable to boss, pk, max out, have some status, have max gear, etc.). I really don't think Jagex cares about real players who bot their stats

[Kimberly]

I really don't think Jagex cares about real players who bot their stats

 

Or use macro programs that violate the 1:1 guideline.

 

At least, that's my personal opinion. I think they do have that principle at heart, and they publicly say they care...when in reality it's very, very difficult to even stop that. And there are much larger issues at hand, so they get less attention. That whole FAQ Mat K wrote (and undoubtedly other staff contributed to) stressed usage of company resources, and using them efficiently.

[MightyMuddy]

I really wonder who buys all this runescape gold? I mean with the amount of bots we see there must be billions of rsgp being brought into the game on a daily basis... it's just crazy to think that they actually manage to sell that much gold for thousands of dollars. Really I can't see how so many people would be willing to buy that much gold.

[Jaffy1]

I really wonder who buys all this runescape gold? I mean with the amount of bots we see there must be billions of rsgp being brought into the game on a daily basis... it's just crazy to think that they actually manage to sell that much gold for thousands of dollars. Really I can't see how so many people would be willing to buy that much gold.

 

Although I doubt all of it is sold, I can understand players being willing to buy gold, especially since those bots who get the gold are the same bots who keep resource prices down, and hug said resources in-game. If a player used to make money by cutting yews, now those same yews are about 20% cheaper, and much, much, much harder to gather because of the bots who cut down the trees long before the player even gets a single log.

[Assume Nothing]

I really wonder who buys all this runescape gold? I mean with the amount of bots we see there must be billions of rsgp being brought into the game on a daily basis... it's just crazy to think that they actually manage to sell that much gold for thousands of dollars. Really I can't see how so many people would be willing to buy that much gold.

 

You have to realize that by gathering resources and selling it, they're bringing 0 gold into the economy - it's simply being redistributed around. Part of the reason there is demand for RSGP is because there's a market for it, essentially 'merchanting' real money using virtual currencies. Since a large supplier doesn't want to waste time with selling small amounts, they'd lower their prices in order to match demand, thus you see buyers who can purchase 10b+, perhaps up to 50b+.

 

The second reason is because there's many money based skills and items attainable, but at a very high cost - typically including Torva, Divine Spirit Shields, Partyhats, Third Age, Summoning/Prayer/Herblore/Crafting/Cooking/Magic skills, etc. With so much reliance on GP, and the willingness of players to cheat, there will obviously be an underground market.

 

Last but not least is the reintroduction of staking - some players prefer to start with a big cash-pile so it's easier to risk a little without getting cleaned, thus they'd buy a few hundred million worth of gold.

 

However, this doesn't mean that it's ethical, or morally right - it still violates the RuneScape code of conduct and it's ToS, so it's still not endorsed/encouraged.

[Star_Fox]

A J-Mod can only ban 100 bots an hour? I could probably ban that many in 20 minutes.

 

Because every bot has to look and act the same. :rolleyes:

[n64jive]

I'm going to go ahead and call bs on Mod Mat K's post regarding the fact that they have some plan on action in place and need to keep it hush hush.

 

Also I am going to call bs on the whole "bots cost us money". Sure, they can make it seem like it cost them money by saying that 1. They are losing subscribers. 2. To get rid of the bots, they would need to spend xxx amount of money. 3. etc.

 

It seems to me like jagex is "cooking the books" a little with this argument. I'd be willing to bet that over half the active players online at almost any time are bots. It seems like jagex has quit distributing funds for this effort to end bots a long time ago. Until they make me believe otherwise, i'm sticking with this mindset...

 

The only thing reason that I would believe they may be doing something is the fact that it has been only been 6 months since the re-release of free trade, and at my company it can often take longer than 6 months to fix major issues.

[I_am_Geed]

I hate bot threads more then bots. Theres already 10 "Jagex is liars and scum" threads out already and 9001 "bots are bad" threads out. Why do you feel the need to make yet another one

 

I hate people who come into threads like this and just spit hate and contribute nothing to the conversation.

 

EDIT: TIME TO NOT BE OT

 

What I dont get is when Jagex says "yes we have a solution for bots!"

 

The hell they dont, and if they do theres nothing im seeing that shows it.

 

Iv had I think 3-4 Nech tasks in the past week and the same bot has been there collecting the ashes they drop. Looked this player up, 80ish slayer, and all 90 melees. Everything else is unranked.

 

What does this bot have to lose by getting its exp halved? Theres already a slayer bot (theres a bot for everything) so all it does is it has to grind a bit of slayer before it can come right back to nechs and keep collecting the ashes.

 

Iv reported this bot every single time iv been there, yet nothing has happened. Im losing confidence quickly in Jagex (what little I had left) on their ability to stop bots.

[Jaffy1]

On a positive note(think I read this on Zybez), the botting site I'm talking about discontinued their autotyper bots in a response to Jiblex's video. It's still easy to get a autotyper, but I believe this is a step in the right direction

No offence, but what is that based on?

Why would a site that shamelessly puts bots throughout the game to advertise itself stop doing so when more attention is given to them?

 

Wouldn't that be the point of advertising in the first place?

[Blyaunte]

 

What I dont get is when Jagex says "yes we have a solution for bots!"

 

The hell they dont, and if they do theres nothing im seeing that shows it.

 

The worst of it is that, just prior to the rigged vote about bringing back the old revised wussified Wildy and Botscaping Free Trade, they said that we should not worry about "bots" because they had that covered.

 

:rolleyes:

[Jaffy1]

[hide=Anti-spam]

On a positive note(think I read this on Zybez), the botting site I'm talking about discontinued their autotyper bots in a response to Jiblex's video. It's still easy to get a autotyper, but I believe this is a step in the right direction

No offence, but what is that based on?

Why would a site that shamelessly puts bots throughout the game to advertise itself stop doing so when more attention is given to them?[/hide]

 

Wouldn't that be the point of advertising in the first place?

No idea why they would do that when they still offer bots to people. I think it was along the lines of them not wanting new players' experiences to be ruined by mass spammer right after they finish the tutorial.

 

Considering the resource gathering bots are much worse than a few random spammers, and many other such sites are still advertising using bots, that makes little sense to me. If there is truth to what you've read, that particular site has Jagex's talent for making sound business decisions. ;)

[Kimberly]

I honestly didn't think it'd be necessary to make any sort of announcement, but people will argue about anything it seems. I'll update the first post with this paragraph momentarily. First post updated. Hopefully this will allow matters to be put to rest and we can all happily get back on topic >_>

 

Following the feedback on this thread where the staff asked the userbase how threads about botting would be handled in the GD area, the concensus was to leave it unpinned and just direct other botting threads here. This is the approach we have since taken, and have repeatedly directed users who have made other threads about botting to this one. If you do not see these threads, it's because after a few days of being locked (giving both the readers and the topic creator ample time to realize where they should be posting) they are then removed from the index to leave GD as uncluttered as possible.

 

So please, feel free to use this thread for discussing botting matters. PM a member of the Moderation staff if you have any questions or suggestions--this change was brought about by listening to user feedback, so don't feel like we've stopped listening just because we're putting it into practice. We'll tweak it as much as necessary to best suit the user. Until then, feel free to bash your keyboards with me in rageresponse to botting in Runescape :P

Edited August 23, 2011 by Kimberly

[Awolo]

[hide=Anti-spam]

On a positive note(think I read this on Zybez), the botting site I'm talking about discontinued their autotyper bots in a response to Jiblex's video. It's still easy to get a autotyper, but I believe this is a step in the right direction

No offence, but what is that based on?

Why would a site that shamelessly puts bots throughout the game to advertise itself stop doing so when more attention is given to them?[/hide]

 

Wouldn't that be the point of advertising in the first place?

No idea why they would do that when they still offer bots to people. I think it was along the lines of them not wanting new players' experiences to be ruined by mass spammer right after they finish the tutorial.

 

Considering the resource gathering bots are much worse than a few random spammers, and many other such sites are still advertising using bots, that makes little sense to me. If there is truth to what you've read, that particular site has Jagex's talent for making sound business decisions. ;)

I decided to go find the thread on Zybez to find the botting site's News Post:

On 12-Aug-2011, Andrew Gower and Mark Gerhard announced that RuneScape has been nominated for a Golden Joystick award in the category "Best Free to Play Game". Following this announcement, there has been some controversy over the quality of F2P gameplay in particular as a result of advertisement bots used by gold selling websites.

 

(link to Jiblix vid was here)

 

We at *******(sites name) love to see people no longer spending hours of their time performing repetitive in-game tasks, and to see our software become more and more human-like. We're not intent on ruining people's experience of RuneScape when starting up their account, or taking part in activities with friends or clanmates. Our goal is to make our bots as seamless and human-like as possible.

 

Unfortunately, some people are fine with abusing automation software to spam their websites and have caused a spam-bot epidemic in F2P. Although Jagex is in the best position to end this activity, we don't want to assist in making this harder for them and as a result we have taken the following steps:

 

1. All scripts that support or encourage spam advertising are removed from our repository.

2. All scripts that are designed solely to "troll" or otherwise irritate legitimate players are removed from our repository.

 

3. All text input methods are added to our greylist and scripts will be rejected from the repository if they perform any of these actions (human-like talking is, of course, still allowed).

4. We will deny the use of [name removed] by account and network bans to users reported and shown to be performing any of these actions.

 

Although we cannot put a complete end to this, we are wary that our continuing additions to our minimal-cpu botting features should not be allowed to make this issue worse. We understand that the companies in question have access to other automation platforms, and encourage other websites to take similar action against these activities.

Edited August 24, 2011 by obfuscator
Bot name removed.

[Ezkaton]

Someone with more skill than me will surely manage to post the entire golden post by Mod Mat K on Page 103 of QFC: 14-15-305-63126133

 

However, here's the part of the post that pertained to me... Jagex don't even have belief that their system to catch bots will ever work - or so is my impression from what he said...

 

 

"Ezkaton - Mod Mat K, I am so so very disappointed in you with regards to the issue of bots. The fact that you openly contradict yourself on the issue is something to be absolutely astounded by....

 

Firstly:

 

"The biggest myth is that we make money from bots. This isn't true." <-- Page 128

 

Then later in that thread you claimed:

 

"We are more than confident in delivering a free trade game with practically no bots" <--- Page 192

 

"I suppose the ultimate aim is for the membership of the bots to pay for the team taking them out and keep them to such a low level that it doesn't inhibit legitimate players." <--- Page 192

 

These contradicting statements have made me angry beyond what words can express.

 

All three statements I made were correct, let me see if i can explain more. Firstly, right now we lose money on bots, plain and simple. As for the second statement, I am in no doubt that the game will never be purely bot free, so there will always be bots around. The ideal solution I can see is that there are so few bots in game that we do not need to spend the resource we currently do on combating bots and if we can reach a point where membership from bots actually covers that cost then all the legitimate players' membership can go to making the game better. Of course, this is under the proviso that the amount of bots is small enough not to impact on legitimate players. I don't know if we'll ever reach that stage, but time will tell."

 

 

This saddens me.

[Nopenope]

Seen these yet?

 

One of the Chinese goldfarming warehouses. All of these computers have multiple bots running at once. :shock:

 

 

Now, if this is just ONE of many goldfarm locations in China, how can they say they don't make money off these memberships? They must pay their anti-bot people a LOT of money.

[Jaffy1]

^ :blink:

 

I am lost for words.

[Amonitas]

I'm going to pass out soon D:

[Assume Nothing]

You haven't seen the half of it. There are bot armies that single people alone run, with over 1k bots harvesting 1.3b a day. It's not a joke, it's a problem. We need a solution.

[Pete Party]

I am thinking...why not label their bots note all their ip addresses and ban their ips, their bot tries to log in other ip...that ip gets banned.

To prevent the innocent people getting hurt you set a minimum of bots that need to use that ip at that moment be4 giving it an ip ban.

 

So you don't get banned if some guy at school bots and you happen to log in at the wrong time and you get banned.

 

Or you just send a missile to the bot farm.

 

Maybe a virus *oops*

 

 

I in no way encourage illegal activities, mkay

[Stev]

What about families where two family members use a shared PC?

 

And to the pictures a few posts above, yes that's bad, but I have seen far far worse. Only a few of those PCs running a good 10-20 bots each could pay one J-Mod's wages. Yep, they're losing moneys.

[LitterBug]

Rather then attacking this problem, (since it's obvious that Jagex can't hope to exterminate all botters) I think that Jagex should target the source of these bots.

For those hundreds/thousands of people that bot to sell gold - you can change how the game works such that people wouldnt need to turn to RWT to get money.

 

Or make games more accessible, I like a lot of the changes they're making to minigames and they should try to incorporate skills into them.

(Kind of like how dungeoneering does it only on a way larger scale) I wouldn't have a problem with constructing defense posts or whatever for construction exp in pest control, or something along those lines.

Sitting in a house, building/removing a teak is just how much patience you have and doesn't really contribute to the game.

[Assume Nothing]

Has JaGex ever thought 'What does the consumer want'? Right now, we don't have a botting problem. It's a gameplay problem.

 

@freestyler: Ip banning is extremely ineffective, and has many fundamental flaws that makes it an extremely inviable method of bot control.

 

First of all, it's very easy to evade and hide ip addresses, thus making the efforts futile. There's also the many associated problems with ip address detection such as when family members play on a shared connection through a wireless network. It would be extremely unfair to ban people on the basis of their ip alone, given that it's not even proof of botting - there are a whole spectrum of reasons why multiple players use the same ip address.

 

I don't see how your proposed method is going to work. You clearly need to rethink your supposed 'solution', and actually research what an ip address is.

 

EDIT -

 

Viruses are definitely not the solution. That would violate many computer misuse acts in the UK.