Botting in Runescape

[Unb34t4bl3]

A nice little soultion might be a random that requires you to solve a captcha device, sort of like on forums but on a more frequent base, like every hour or so. Depending on the ammount of time taken to solve it, the frequency would decrease over time and would not deter actual legitimate players and could give a nice reqard such as a xp book or something of a more valueable sort. implement it secretly so that it would not be on the front page, and if the time taken exceeds, lets say 30 minutes, instant temp ban post investigation of the account for futher "botlike" review. And for this it should have thousands of possibilites for required input, so that it could not be scripted in any way. Like an actual RANDOM puzzle

 

CAPTCHA is circumventable. I'm more inclined to say bring back the old 'aggressive' randoms - river troll, tree ent, drunk dwarf etc.

 

With the item kept on death finally being fixed after all these years (ie you no longer lose a partyhat over your rune armor), I'd say bring them back, why not.

[lordkafei]

Jagex should just add ASIRRA to RS :P

 

You could still send a snapshot of the CAPTCHA to a crowdsourcing platform just like you can with alphanumeric CAPTCHAs, and probably figure out a way to read the results back into a script in short order.

 

It’s not just small-time gold farmers & botters that use crowdsourcing to break CAPTCHAs though. Here’s a recent article from O'Reilly that illustrates criminal uses for CAPTCHA crowdsourcing.

 

These sort of CAPTCHA reading things turn up on Amazon Mechanical Turk from time to time, though more of the people there have begun reporting this sort of thing to Amazon for job cancellation.

 

Because of the more overtly criminal uses of these CAPTCHA breaking schemes, crowdsourcing platforms are more alert to them and terminate them much more readily. The old “sleepwalker” method of third-party validation would be much less likely to work today, and in reality a RuneScape CAPTCHA might be worth trying again. At this point, what really do they have to lose?

[L2Pullout]

Jagex should just add ASIRRA to RS :P

 

You could still send a snapshot of the CAPTCHA to a crowdsourcing platform just like you can with alphanumeric CAPTCHAs, and probably figure out a way to read the results back into a script in short order.

 

Its not just small-time gold farmers & botters that use crowdsourcing to break CAPTCHAs though. Heres a recent article from O'Reilly that illustrates criminal uses for CAPTCHA crowdsourcing.

 

These sort of CAPTCHA reading things turn up on Amazon Mechanical Turk from time to time, though more of the people there have begun reporting this sort of thing to Amazon for job cancellation.

 

Because of the more overtly criminal uses of these CAPTCHA breaking schemes, crowdsourcing platforms are more alert to them and terminate them much more readily. The old sleepwalker method of third-party validation would be much less likely to work today, and in reality a RuneScape CAPTCHA might be worth trying again. At this point, what really do they have to lose?

How would it be less likely to work? Yes it would defeat really lazy people, but massive gold farming companys are going to hire one person to get all 200 of their accounts into the green everyday and not see a real massive loss. And it's definitly not going to defeat the person botting their main account trying to get to max skill total for prestige, or their pure for pking.

[NukeMarine]

Saw an interesting thread on RSOF. On it the player was suggesting requiring every skilled spot to have not only a skill level, but a skill total level requirement. He even thought some mini-game areas could have quest level requirements. Thinking about it, this seemed like an interesting idea. A targeted version of skill total worlds if you will. Technically, it's not anti-bot, but it works against your common gold farmers.

 

Anyway, what would botting and general player activity be on servers that required every skill level checked activity above 30 to also require x20 skill total (x10 on f2p) and x2 quest points (n/a on f2p)?

 

Ex: Wielding a weapon that requires 60 atk also requires 120 QP and 1200 Skill total. Chopping down a level 75 tree also requires 150 QP and 1500 skill total. Wearing a level 99 helm would required. Even certain monsters, activities and mini-games could have a "interaction level" requirement. So something like sorceress garden could require 80 QP and 800 skill total while killing dragons might require 100 QP and 1000 skill total.

 

Again, it doesn't stop botting, but it does add a time investment that deters most gold farmers. What's nice is it makes such servers still accessible to everybody, but limits activities on those servers that put in their time somehow (either legally or illegally).

 

Seems easy to program and can be applied to more servers since it's not exclusionary.

[rsboy]

Saw an interesting thread on RSOF. On it the player was suggesting requiring every skilled spot to have not only a skill level, but a skill total level requirement. He even thought some mini-game areas could have quest level requirements. Thinking about it, this seemed like an interesting idea. A targeted version of skill total worlds if you will. Technically, it's not anti-bot, but it works against your common gold farmers.

 

Anyway, what would botting and general player activity be on servers that required every skill level checked activity above 30 to also require x20 skill total (x10 on f2p) and x2 quest points (n/a on f2p)?

 

Ex: Wielding a weapon that requires 60 atk also requires 120 QP and 1200 Skill total. Chopping down a level 75 tree also requires 150 QP and 1500 skill total. Wearing a level 99 helm would required. Even certain monsters, activities and mini-games could have a "interaction level" requirement. So something like sorceress garden could require 80 QP and 800 skill total while killing dragons might require 100 QP and 1000 skill total.

 

Again, it doesn't stop botting, but it does add a time investment that deters most gold farmers. What's nice is it makes such servers still accessible to everybody, but limits activities on those servers that put in their time somehow (either legally or illegally).

 

Seems easy to program and can be applied to more servers since it's not exclusionary.

 

Great points I agree thank you for taking the time to write this.

[NukeMarine]

This adds on to the idea above about having skill total and quest point requirements for all activities in RS. I'd like to repeat the idea offered earlier about charging accounts more if they use more game time. The average player is not affected. Those that like to play more hours should have no problem paying extra for the additional hours.

 

Now, there's over 700 hours in the average month. For the average person they're sleeping 1/3rd of that time and having to do other things besides play RS (yes, there are rare major exceptions). I think it's fair that Jagex allows a membership fee or F2P time per month as 100 hours (this can be grandfathered for existing f2p accounts). The next 100 hours of gameplay that month can be purchased for $6. However, the next 100 hours (300 hours for the month) will cost $12. The 100 hours after that cost $24. So, if someone, for some reason, played that individual account for 700 hours they'd rent that last 100 hours for $192 or $384 total for the whole month. Obviously any account being played for 700 hours in a month is being botted or has multiple players. However, it's not too uncommon for some players to play 300 hours in a month, but that would only cost them $24 for 300 hours. Any unused hours (except the first 100 membership hours) would be rolled over to the next month.

 

Obviously, a gold farmer would not pay such a price as it's easier and cheaper to create a bunch of accounts and only use them 100 hours each. Problem though is if the skill total/quest point idea gets implemented. Now the gold farmer is limited how fast he can level all these small accounts. Your UBER player that likes to spend 300+ hours on the game can make the choice of leveling multiple accounts or stick to his one high level account. Something tells me a player this addicted to the game will pay the extra price (albeit complaining very loudly).

 

Both these ideas implemented (skill total/qp and time costs per month) would seriously hurt gold botting and normal botting efforts. It plays against the one thing bots can do that players cannot - give many hours of effort a month to the game. Might be a great thing to implement if Jagex ever created Servers that are economically cut-off from normal RS servers (only accounts created those servers can be played on those servers.)

[Bxpprod]

The issue with charging a varied rate for differing hours is that is will be entirely detrimental to the business. I'm not paying for another set of hours having paid AUD$9 already. And by limiting my hours I'm going to turn around and leave the game. I think you'd find many people who'd do the same and that means less money.

[konkar]

I like the way nuke is heading with his 'hours p/m' ideas, nice mate. Proberly wont happen, but still..

[lordkafei]

This adds on to the idea above about having skill total and quest point requirements for all activities in RS. I'd like to repeat the idea offered earlier about charging accounts more if they use more game time. The average player is not affected. Those that like to play more hours should have no problem paying extra for the additional hours.

 

Now, there's over 700 hours in the average month. For the average person they're sleeping 1/3rd of that time and having to do other things besides play RS (yes, there are rare major exceptions). I think it's fair that Jagex allows a membership fee or F2P time per month as 100 hours (this can be grandfathered for existing f2p accounts). The next 100 hours of gameplay that month can be purchased for $6. However, the next 100 hours (300 hours for the month) will cost $12. The 100 hours after that cost $24. So, if someone, for some reason, played that individual account for 700 hours they'd rent that last 100 hours for $192 or $384 total for the whole month. Obviously any account being played for 700 hours in a month is being botted or has multiple players. However, it's not too uncommon for some players to play 300 hours in a month, but that would only cost them $24 for 300 hours. Any unused hours (except the first 100 membership hours) would be rolled over to the next month.

 

Obviously, a gold farmer would not pay such a price as it's easier and cheaper to create a bunch of accounts and only use them 100 hours each. Problem though is if the skill total/quest point idea gets implemented. Now the gold farmer is limited how fast he can level all these small accounts. Your UBER player that likes to spend 300+ hours on the game can make the choice of leveling multiple accounts or stick to his one high level account. Something tells me a player this addicted to the game will pay the extra price (albeit complaining very loudly).

 

Both these ideas implemented (skill total/qp and time costs per month) would seriously hurt gold botting and normal botting efforts. It plays against the one thing bots can do that players cannot - give many hours of effort a month to the game. Might be a great thing to implement if Jagex ever created Servers that are economically cut-off from normal RS servers (only accounts created those servers can be played on those servers.)

 

I suggested something similar on RSOF (and possibly here) several months back. I suggested metered gameplay with a hard limit of time per month, after which the account would be unable to do any more playing until next month.

 

I got hugely flamed with only 1 or 2 supporters.

 

I still like the basic idea of taxing undesirable behavior.

[Ginger_Warrior]

I'd say you could limit the amount of time a paying account can be online for under a "fair use" argument. After all, when I pay for my Internet and mobile phone, there's only a certain usage I'm entitled to before they can turn around and tell me I'm taking liberties, and charge me for any further services. But you have to make that arrangement up-front. If I know I'm going to need 300 minutes of calling time a month, my network provider will find me a bundle that fits. They won't give me a bundle for 100 minutes and make me 'top-up' at hyperinflated prices for the other 200. If someone knows they're going to play for x amount of hours, offer them those amount of hours, not a lesser amount which they'll expire quickly and have to pay in the neck to exceed. Anything else is wholly unfair.

 

Furthermore, that idea recommends making repeat customers pay more for their service, when everywhere else companies offer repeat customers a better deal so they'll continue to provide their patronage. That's how businesses keep the cash rolling in. Doing the opposite is derisory and will only force honest players away.

 

It's (theoretically) an effective measure against bots. It's also completely unfair to the honest paying customer. The problem isn't in morals, it's in how to distinguish between a legitimate player, and a cheating bot. Both may play for very long periods of time, therefore this in itself isn't 'undesirable', and it shouldn't treated as litmus paper for trapping bots.

[Dragonlordjl]

The metered idea has some merit;

 

Make it where you can only play 20 hours a week on a F2P/normal member account but enable people to pay 12 dollars/mo for a premium member account without the limit. I'd think the increased cost would dissuade botters from doing it, since it would drastically cut into their profit margins. Initially it would be hugely unpopular and there would be the normal knee-jerk riots over it, but after a while I think people would become accustomed to it. That's still four hours a day, which is a reasonable amount of time for the average person.

 

No, it wouldn't solve the problem but at this point the problem cannot be solved. All that can be done is mitigating the problem, and I think this would work nicely.

[DarkDude]

Both ideas in the last few posts are absolutely ridiculous.

 

Having skill total requirements for certain activities wouldn't work, lots of people create accounts for specific activities such as pures for PvP or various skillers that are limited in combat level. QP requirements is also ridiculous due to the fact that to get any significant amount of quest points you need to do combat thus making level 3 skillers unable to access things. Although areas are already fenced off by quest requirements making random areas require a quest point (or item or whatever) is stupid.

 

For the limited number of hours per month is also a ludicrous idea. It's unfairly punishing those who have a lot of time to play for various reasons. 100 hours isn't THAT much in a month, that's just over 3 hours a day which is easily doable even with working full time. Punishing legit players is NOT the way to combat bots, especially when it comes to charging extra to certain people or limiting what some people can do in game.

[Ginger_Warrior]

The metered idea has some merit;

 

Make it where you can only play 20 hours a week on a F2P/normal member account but enable people to pay 12 dollars/mo for a premium member account without the limit. I'd think the increased cost would dissuade botters from doing it, since it would drastically cut into their profit margins. Initially it would be hugely unpopular and there would be the normal knee-jerk riots over it, but after a while I think people would become accustomed to it. That's still four hours a day, which is a reasonable amount of time for the average person.

20/7 = < 3, not four.

 

Ignoring that, I could point to other services where they give 20 hours for free (forget paying at all) and only then start charging. Spotify being one example. What you're recommending doesn't make business sense, and the current economic climate only amplifies that flaw. Right now, young people generally don't have $12 a month in their back pocket so that Jagex starts treating their custom with some acceptable level of respect and good faith.

[NukeMarine]

Both ideas in the last few posts are absolutely ridiculous.

 

Having skill total requirements for certain activities wouldn't work, lots of people create accounts for specific activities such as pures for PvP or various skillers that are limited in combat level. QP requirements is also ridiculous due to the fact that to get any significant amount of quest points you need to do combat thus making level 3 skillers unable to access things. Although areas are already fenced off by quest requirements making random areas require a quest point (or item or whatever) is stupid.

 

For the limited number of hours per month is also a ludicrous idea. It's unfairly punishing those who have a lot of time to play for various reasons. 100 hours isn't THAT much in a month, that's just over 3 hours a day which is easily doable even with working full time. Punishing legit players is NOT the way to combat bots, especially when it comes to charging extra to certain people or limiting what some people can do in game.

So you call the idea ridiculous, but offer no valid reasons why that is so? Seems odd, but let's take what you said on its merits.

 

First, this would be on certain servers, not on all of them so actually every argument is moot.

 

Second, people that choose to have low or no combat levels (pures and skillers) are not being catered to in this game, nor have been for years. Trotting them out do not help your argument. They could still play, but are limited at the high end of things to do is all.

 

Thirdly, charging people more that use the service more is not 'punishing' them. Trust me, make a cab wait for 10 minutes and make another wait for 30 minutes. You'll find making a cab wait longer (ie utilize it's service) will give you a higher charge. Anyway, YES, 3 hours a day is easily doable. So is 6 hours and 10 hours and 16 hours and even 24 hours in a day. However, if you want to use more of the service then be prepared to pay more. As pointed out above, people do this all the time with cell phones and internet providers.

 

Now will this cost customers? Yes. Will it cost so much as to be economically disastrous? No. Jagex can easily tell what percentage of its accounts play 100+ or 200+ hours per month. It can also tell when accounts that are indicative of bots and gauge their hours per month. For that, it's easy to tell if there's immediate benefits to either or both ideas.

[gda_scooby]

The biggest difference we could make to the community is to force the limit of one account logged in per pc, which is circumvented by botting scripts.

 

If this could be extended to block all accounts playing from a VPS (Virtual Private Server?) then we would see a huge reduction in casual to medium level gold farming accounts, where even one individual sitting at home can have 6 bots or more running simultaneously per pc.

 

I dont mind so much one account botting for their own exp/cash, its the huge numbers of slave accounts playing to fund one main account thats a problem.

 

G

[Ginger_Warrior]

Thirdly, charging people more that use the service more is not 'punishing' them. Trust me, make a cab wait for 10 minutes and make another wait for 30 minutes. You'll find making a cab wait longer (ie utilize it's service) will give you a higher charge. Anyway, YES, 3 hours a day is easily doable. So is 6 hours and 10 hours and 16 hours and even 24 hours in a day. However, if you want to use more of the service then be prepared to pay more. As pointed out above, people do this all the time with cell phones and internet providers.

Erm... no. Don't twist my words. The idea that you pay disproportionately more for using a service more (which is what you're recommending) is something I argued strongly against in that post. I argued if anything, it should be disproportionately less, which would be counterintuitive to your aim.

 

You look one way, you're punishing customers. You look the other, you're not disincentivising botters. Either way, this doesn't make sense.

[Sona]

Runescape is one of those odd games where certain demographics (pures) are seen as somehow viable in the game. I never understood it either, but I assume that the population is substantial enough to make it an ill-advised idea to even suggest it on the official forums.

 

What is economically disastrous is simply a player's alternatives. Runescape's biggest grab right now, other than it's free, is that the game content is substantial with a very low price tag associated with it. Can people shell out an extra 6 bucks for 100 hours? Sure. Are they really that willing? That is really debatable, especially looking at numerous alternatives out there.

 

The attractiveness of a subscription is just that - you can play as much as you want or as little as you want. It's a psychological sensation, and one that works because people want to get their "money's worth" out of a game, which in turn makes them more likely to renew a subscription. Companies understand this, which is why there are various incentives for them to make you continue your subscription. What's suggested here would be the first instance in which playing MORE of your game is punished, and that makes very little sense, as Ginger Warrior pointed out.

 

No matter what the situation may be, bots can simply generate more accounts, bot the allotted hour, and then switch to a different account. If anything, I'd think profit margins for gold companies will now increase, as reduced supply + unchanged demand = higher profit margin for gold sellers.

[DarkDude]

Both ideas in the last few posts are absolutely ridiculous.

 

Having skill total requirements for certain activities wouldn't work, lots of people create accounts for specific activities such as pures for PvP or various skillers that are limited in combat level. QP requirements is also ridiculous due to the fact that to get any significant amount of quest points you need to do combat thus making level 3 skillers unable to access things. Although areas are already fenced off by quest requirements making random areas require a quest point (or item or whatever) is stupid.

 

For the limited number of hours per month is also a ludicrous idea. It's unfairly punishing those who have a lot of time to play for various reasons. 100 hours isn't THAT much in a month, that's just over 3 hours a day which is easily doable even with working full time. Punishing legit players is NOT the way to combat bots, especially when it comes to charging extra to certain people or limiting what some people can do in game.

So you call the idea ridiculous, but offer no valid reasons why that is so? Seems odd, but let's take what you said on its merits.

 

First, this would be on certain servers, not on all of them so actually every argument is moot.

 

Second, people that choose to have low or no combat levels (pures and skillers) are not being catered to in this game, nor have been for years. Trotting them out do not help your argument. They could still play, but are limited at the high end of things to do is all.

 

Thirdly, charging people more that use the service more is not 'punishing' them. Trust me, make a cab wait for 10 minutes and make another wait for 30 minutes. You'll find making a cab wait longer (ie utilize it's service) will give you a higher charge. Anyway, YES, 3 hours a day is easily doable. So is 6 hours and 10 hours and 16 hours and even 24 hours in a day. However, if you want to use more of the service then be prepared to pay more. As pointed out above, people do this all the time with cell phones and internet providers.

 

Now will this cost customers? Yes. Will it cost so much as to be economically disastrous? No. Jagex can easily tell what percentage of its accounts play 100+ or 200+ hours per month. It can also tell when accounts that are indicative of bots and gauge their hours per month. For that, it's easy to tell if there's immediate benefits to either or both ideas.

 

Having it only on certain servers doesn't reduce botting at all, so why are you offering it in a topic about botting? There'll still be the same amount of botters on other servers and you'll probably still have botters in several places on the servers anyway.

Just because Skillers and pures aren't catered too doesn't mean they should just be ignored. It's a perfectly valid way of playing, if someone wants to max out their non-combat skills at level 3 and get past the challenge of doing so then great, they should be allowed to and not stopped doing something entirely non-combat related just because. Jagex have numerous times "celebrated" such players who do unique things. Players have a choice of how to play the game, they shouldn't be punished for choosing something that's not standard.

 

Access to Runescape and phone contracts are entirely different. There is a cost in phone calls and text messages whereas there is almost no cost for continued access to Runescape. The amount of bandwidth used per hour is low which is proved by the fact you can play the game on dial-up. For Spotify you're streaming music hence there's a bandwidth cost for them which is why they charge extra. For Taxis you're paying for their time along with fuel used, so of course you're going to be charged more. All you're paying for is Runescape is access to the members world, you're still able to play just as much on f2p servers which would have the exact same cost associated with them. You can't compare two completely different business models to say it works elsewhere. There's no such examples within gaming (except for a few Asian countries but that's due to other reasons) and there's a reason for that. It wouldn't work.

 

Jagex would lose a significant amount of money if membership gave people a 100 hour play-time per top up which rolled over. There are A LOT of people who don't play for 100 hours a month yet still pay for membership so when the second month rolled around they'd not pay money and that'd repeat for months. I imagine there's a lot of people with membership who play for 10 hours a month, so Jagex would be getting 1/10th of the membership fee that month. There would be a lot more people who pay money less frequently with this method than people who'd pay extra for going over 100 hours. Punishing your more hardcore players is not good in any way.

[NukeMarine]

Having it only on certain servers doesn't reduce botting at all, so why are you offering it in a topic about botting? There'll still be the same amount of botters on other servers and you'll probably still have botters in several places on the servers anyway.

Just because Skillers and pures aren't catered too doesn't mean they should just be ignored. It's a perfectly valid way of playing, if someone wants to max out their non-combat skills at level 3 and get past the challenge of doing so then great, they should be allowed to and not stopped doing something entirely non-combat related just because. Jagex have numerous times "celebrated" such players who do unique things. Players have a choice of how to play the game, they shouldn't be punished for choosing something that's not standard.

If it reduced botting on the servers changed, then it does reduce botting. If the "Beta phase" passes and it turns out such servers are viable it could be expanded to more or even all the servers. What you're saying though is "Hey Jagex, we know that botters are ruining the game and there's a statistically proven method that drastically reduces the common bot, but don't do that cause it'll affect the way a small subset of users play the game".

 

Access to Runescape and phone contracts are entirely different. There is a cost in phone calls and text messages whereas there is almost no cost for continued access to Runescape. The amount of bandwidth used per hour is low which is proved by the fact you can play the game on dial-up. For Spotify you're streaming music hence there's a bandwidth cost for them which is why they charge extra. For Taxis you're paying for their time along with fuel used, so of course you're going to be charged more. All you're paying for is Runescape is access to the members world, you're still able to play just as much on f2p servers which would have the exact same cost associated with them. You can't compare two completely different business models to say it works elsewhere. There's no such examples within gaming (except for a few Asian countries but that's due to other reasons) and there's a reason for that. It wouldn't work.

You just said it works. You don't like it cause the increase rental price is not related to an increase in cost of operation. But, you do agree that Jagex spends time and resources "combatting" bots, right? Well, here's something that works against how bots play. Does a small subset of real players get affected? Yes, but read above. If you're a guy that can afford 300 a month on a game, I think it's safe to say you can afford $24 a month. That's assuming such players don't pay money in RWT, which oddly has not been brought up. There are many, many players paying EXTRA MONEY for RS item, yet something tells me they'll yell the loudest on price rises on RS.

 

Jagex would lose a significant amount of money if membership gave people a 100 hour play-time per top up which rolled over. There are A LOT of people who don't play for 100 hours a month yet still pay for membership so when the second month rolled around they'd not pay money and that'd repeat for months. I imagine there's a lot of people with membership who play for 10 hours a month, so Jagex would be getting 1/10th of the membership fee that month. There would be a lot more people who pay money less frequently with this method than people who'd pay extra for going over 100 hours. Punishing your more hardcore players is not good in any way.

Here you're right. Group mentality is weird. Anyone that's read the book Freakonomics can see all the examples where the perceived is much different than the reality. Kind of like how a restaurant buffet can save money if they used smaller plates and cups. Yes, people could still eat all they want, but the mentality is just get a plateful which in turn meant less food is used.

 

As for your breakdown of rollovers, players still have to pay membership that month to use it. Granted, it could be there are no rollovers. I just threw that out there as it's a way to stop the "gotta use it all or lose it" mentality people have.

[DarkDude]

If it reduced botting on the servers changed, then it does reduce botting. If the "Beta phase" passes and it turns out such servers are viable it could be expanded to more or even all the servers. What you're saying though is "Hey Jagex, we know that botters are ruining the game and there's a statistically proven method that drastically reduces the common bot, but don't do that cause it'll affect the way a small subset of users play the game".

 

Or they could actual ban the bots and combat them in ways which DON'T have an impact on players. Instead of taking these drastic and stupid methods.

 

You just said it works. You don't like it cause the increase rental price is not related to an increase in cost of operation. But, you do agree that Jagex spends time and resources "combatting" bots, right? Well, here's something that works against how bots play. Does a small subset of real players get affected? Yes, but read above. If you're a guy that can afford 300 a month on a game, I think it's safe to say you can afford $24 a month. That's assuming such players don't pay money in RWT, which oddly has not been brought up. There are many, many players paying EXTRA MONEY for RS item, yet something tells me they'll yell the loudest on price rises on RS.

 

Where did I say it works? I didn't. It has never been done in gaming and there's a good reason for that (the reasons in a few countries is due to laws limiting play time and such, they're also entirely different markets). I imagine the people that RWT and those that play a lot are entirely different sections of the community. People normally pay for things in games because they don't have time to earn them themselves. If you could give me an example where a company has successfully charged for time played I'd love to see it. All the examples you've given so far have been involving a RESOURCE which for Runescape does not exist (the bandwidth costs as I said are effectively non-existent on a player to player level).

 

Assuming people who play for a long time have the money to pay for it is an assumption based on absolutely nothing. I personally can play 100 hours even while working full time and I would NOT pay more for membership and many many people would do the exact same thing. And I imagine a lot of people who can play that time are unable to afford it and only play RuneScape due to its price compared to other MMOs.

 

As for your breakdown of rollovers, players still have to pay membership that month to use it. Granted, it could be there are no rollovers. I just threw that out there as it's a way to stop the "gotta use it all or lose it" mentality people have.

 

Paying for access and then usage on top of that is even more ridiculous suggestion. So to play the game I have to pay for access to the members servers and pay for time on top of that? What about F2P? Do they have to pay for time too? Makes no sense and once again would not work as a business model.

 

If paying for 100 hours a month and you have a month to use it in could arguably provide health concerns from people who force themselves to use all their play time that month otherwise they'll lose it, which I'm sure is something Jagex doesn't want to deal with.

 

While having a limit on play time would do something to stop botting somewhat it would again punish pretty much all players in some way or another. As I said in this post already, there's other things they can do other than ruining the gaming experience and punishing the player base.

[NukeMarine]

Dark Dude,

 

Great idea, ban the bots. We don't need anymore discussion after that. Except there's one problem, we've got 16 pages of discussion talking about all the problems associated not just with finding bots to ban, but also keeping them off.

 

Bot detection - gets harder with every passing day

IP Ban - useless

Proprietary client - ruins the very thing that makes RS successful

CAPTCHA - By passed using a group of people that solve remotely for bots

Random Events - Actually easier for bots to solve (requires frequent updates to be really effective)

Game altering - Requires frequent reboots, usually patched within hours.

 

Now let's talk about the ideas of altering player habits. What's the difference with bot activity between F2P and P2P? I assume it's worse on F2P. What is the bot activity like on 1000+ and 1500+ servers? I assume there's less bots than on other servers. How about bot activity in areas that have higher skill total, quest or activity requirements. I assume these areas are less botted. What is bot activity like with changes to account creation? I assume more bots are created now. None of these things STOP BOTS in and of themselves. I agree that even in a skill total 2000 world you'd have somebody botting. However, it reduces or removes the really annoying Gold Farming bots leaving us just with players that leveled a high character and now doesn't want to grind his time away. I'd rather have the later cause at least there you have a player that cares about his or her account.

 

So yes, please, give an idea that won't be shredded to hell and back that's guarenteed to reduce bots without affecting normal players. By reduced, we're talking as much if not more than a mixture of: Lengthy account creation process, limited time per account on f2p, structured time use per account per month for p2p, more extensive activity/skill total/qp prerequisites on all actions.

[DarkDude]

Simple. Improve the detection system. How to do that? I have no idea, I don't know how their system works but clearly it works to some extent and it wouldn't surprise me if it's actually great at telling if someone's a bot but there's a lack of autodetection in the system so it's relied on player reports. Numerous people have been reporting (especially lately) that they've randomly gained 30k ranks in skills like fishing without gaining any experience so it's clear something's going on and that it's working however it's currently unable to cope with the volume of botters.

 

So simply improving their system to cope with a larger number of bots and to turn over bans quicker would be a great solution. They could also use more stat tracking themselves to see "Ok, this guy has gained a lot of ranged xp recently so lets track what he's actually doing" and such as well as tracking players who are logged in for a long period of time and investigating from there. None of these things change the game at all and are simple to do as I imagine that information is already being logged in some fashion it just needs to be improved upon.

[tomtiger11]

Bots, A Pain in the Arse

 

tbh anyone who bots, obviously doesnt want to play the game... :shame:

[h3art]

Alternately, doesn't want to play what they consider to be tedious aspects of the game (referring to casual bot users rather than professional Gold Farmers).

[pal2002]

I have always thought that jagex would at least put forward a good faith effort in anti botting..but definitely not anymore.

 

They really could do a lot of what everyone has mentioned...but instead they choose to stop perm bans, do multiple temp bans and rollbacks, sell banned accounts back, all at the same time qhene they bring back free trade and the huge bot explosion. In short, they no longer give a crap. No matter what mmg or the jagex propaganda wants to claim, jagex profit off bots. And profit is thef number one word of the day for jagex now.