Botting in Runescape

[Will H]

What would that collateral damage be?

I assume the INSANE skyrocketing of various gear and items for one.

Isn't that a good thing?

It mostly boils down to whether it makes the game more enjoyable or less enjoyable. A lot of resources are really tedious and boring to get, and those are the things that attracted the bots. If the market is shifting towards boring things, it makes the gameplay worse. That can easily be remedied by Jagex making skilling more interesting, though.

[Guest jrhairychest]

I started a new F2P character today and on entering into the 'tutorial' mode, I found this. I have no idea if they were able to activate these or not because they were standing there for ages, but I was very disappointed that they are obviously getting through the first hurdle already. I have reported some of them.

 

 

<_<

[Saradomin_Mage]

I started a new F2P character today and on entering into the 'tutorial' mode, I found this. I have no idea if they were able to activate these or not because they were standing there for ages, but I was very disappointed that they are obviously getting through the first hurdle already. I have reported some of them.

 

 

<_<

Well, this depends on whether you think they're gold farmers putting bots/farming accounts into action, or happy optimistic new players getting into this game :P

[chenw]

Happy optimistic new players using a generic name differing only the ending number would be putting it even more optimistically :P

[Lose No Hope]

put it in realist terms please ;)

[Saradomin_Mage]

That's just a default name given to players still in the class selection screen, isn't it?

[Guest jrhairychest]

Well, this depends on whether you think they're gold farmers putting bots/farming accounts into action, or happy optimistic new players getting into this game :P

 

Meow!

 

Happy optimistic new players using a generic name differing only the ending number would be putting it even more optimistically :P

 

you dont get to choose your name till after the tutorial, this is what your name appears as during it. Although I wont deny that they could be gold spammers

 

Good point, never thought about that.

[Blyaunte]

Looks like some people are using bots at the Sorceress' Garden again ...

 

[Bouwzie]

Soooo, are the bots coming back yet? Doubt they will stay away for long.

[deyan2]

Maybe a stupit question, but is it true that 100% of the bots that exist now are memberbots?

So basically removing F2p's from the hiscores just pure and only gives even more % of bots in the hiscores?

[Tim]

What would that collateral damage be?

I assume the INSANE skyrocketing of various gear and items for one.

Isn't that a good thing?

Yes and no. For gathering said objects its now profitable again, but if your me, I want to get into serious boss hunting, but without Turmoil, EXT/Ovl and better gear then Rune, I might as well not make the effort to attempt as i'll easily be out-done by others, then to raise said skills, I need ingredients, which I sure as hell cant afford with 30m cash.

[Bxpprod]

 

Yes and no. For gathering said objects its now profitable again, but if your me, I want to get into serious boss hunting, but without Turmoil, EXT/Ovl and better gear then Rune, I might as well not make the effort to attempt as i'll easily be out-done by others, then to raise said skills, I need ingredients, which I sure as hell cant afford with 30m cash.

 

See

 

We are the reason dragon slaying is profitable. xD

[MRTF]

Btw am I the only thinks that a big part of rs players were botters ? If so i think there are less players/botters now in game which feels quite deserted game now :P also they ruined the market prices of all good stuff like herbs seeds, ores etc :thumbdown:

[MRTF]

Soooo, are the bots coming back yet? Doubt they will stay away for long.

 

remember that thing about Jagex saying clusterflutter only targetting reflection. Its true. Injection still works and color bots still work.

 

 

Injection cant be stopped, what Jagex did was make it harder to get the hooks for the bots to work, but its still very possible (it just takes your average person a month or so to get it working).

 

Color bots didnt get touched with this update at all

 

 

Some of my friends have said that this doessent affect "autoclickers" and "autotalkers" arent they bots as well? If so why aren't they removed as well.

 

My experience with auto typers have been annoying in f2p ge as they just spam there buying some freaking gold stuff.

[ilovecuttingyews]

Soooo, are the bots coming back yet? Doubt they will stay away for long.

remember that thing about Jagex saying clusterflutter only targetting reflection. Its true. Injection still works and color bots still work.

Injection cant be stopped, what Jagex did was make it harder to get the hooks for the bots to work, but its still very possible (it just takes your average person a month or so to get it working).

Color bots didnt get touched with this update at all

Some of my friends have said that this doessent affect "autoclickers" and "autotalkers" arent they bots as well? If so why aren't they removed as well.

My experience with auto typers have been annoying in f2p ge as they just spam there buying some freaking gold stuff.

The majority (98% according to Jagex) of bots before the nuke were 'injection' or 'reflection' bots. Essentially, they used a modified version of the Runescape game client to get into the game code its self and bot that way. Clusterflutter affected their ability to affect the game on the code level. Bots that work now like autoclickers, colour bots, and auto talkers don't use the game code at all. If you minimized the RS screen, they would keep clicking/typing on whatever you had open as they don't look for specific item ID's.

Jagex has taken a lot more action agaisnt autoclickers, colour, and auto talkers over the last few months, but none as succesful as clusterflutter.

[Kaida23]

Btw am I the only thinks that a big part of rs players were botters ? If so i think there are less players/botters now in game which feels quite deserted game now :P also they ruined the market prices of all good stuff like herbs seeds, ores etc :thumbdown:

As soon as the bot nuke went into effect it was very obvious that a very large portion of the "players" were bots. Now that there are no longer hordes of faceless drones flooding the market with raw materials, the prices on everything were bound to go up.

[pal2002]

A sizable portion of rs are still botters after tge bot nuke. Yes, bots (the program) stopped working but next to zero botters got banned. They kept pretty much all the stuff and skill they botted. That is billions and billions of gold anditem s farmed and millions of skillcapes.This taint on the game will never be gone.

 

That, and at least 20k peeps who moved to old school bots that jagex apparently still cant detect.

[sees_all1]

A sizable portion of rs are still botters after tge bot nuke. Yes, bots (the program) stopped working but next to zero botters got banned. They kept pretty much all the stuff and skill they botted. That is billions and billions of gold anditem s farmed and millions of skillcapes.This taint on the game will never be gone.

 

That, and at least 20k peeps who moved to old school bots that jagex apparently still cant detect.

I think most of them quit, to be honest. Don't ask me how I know, but traffic to certain parts of tip.it's website plummeted after the nuke.

[Guest jrhairychest]

Btw am I the only thinks that a big part of rs players were botters ? If so i think there are less players/botters now in game which feels quite deserted game now :P also they ruined the market prices of all good stuff like herbs seeds, ores etc :thumbdown:

 

I had the same feeling that this was the case. Considering the simplicity of the game its amazing that a sizable portion couldn't manage to play it by themselves :-D

[swagcake]

i still see a ton of people at sorc's garden everytime i past by it via broomstick.

how are those bots still working?

i havent noticed any other bots besides those ones. not paying particularly much attention though

[Stev]

If you minimized the RS screen, they would keep clicking/typing on whatever you had open as they don't look for specific item ID's.

A lot of your post was correct - except this part. It is still possible to write a bot/function that will interact with RuneScape even if it's not the topmost window or even visible. So, for example, I could tell my script where a tree is and it'll look for that tree, be able to watch my inventory for logs and drop them when the inventory fills. It wouldn't be the same method as before, but it still rather easy. You know when you put your mouse over the taskbar buttin of a window and can see a live/updating small preview in Vista+ even if said window is minimized? Coding wise, very similar. The bot would not use object IDs, but color/pattern recognition still usable. I've known how it's done without injection and reflection for quite a while (Mentioned it during the discussion of my functions when Jagex made an update affecting mouse clicks).

 

i still see a ton of people at sorc's garden everytime i past by it via broomstick.

how are those bots still working?

i havent noticed any other bots besides those ones. not paying particularly much attention though

Pattern recognition. Jagex thinks changing colors will break them; they're wrong. They are designed to look for patterns on screen - not specific colors. I did like the colorful bee-keeper random though... Thought it was cute.

[pulli23]

If you minimized the RS screen, they would keep clicking/typing on whatever you had open as they don't look for specific item ID's.

A lot of your post was correct - except this part. It is still possible to write a bot/function that will interact with RuneScape even if it's not the topmost window or even visible. So, for example, I could tell my script where a tree is and it'll look for that tree, be able to watch my inventory for logs and drop them when the inventory fills. It wouldn't be the same method as before, but it still rather easy. You know when you put your mouse over the taskbar buttin of a window and can see a live/updating small preview in Vista+ even if said window is minimized? Coding wise, very similar. The bot would not use object IDs, but color/pattern recognition still usable. I've known how it's done without injection and reflection for quite a while (Mentioned it during the discussion of my functions when Jagex made an update affecting mouse clicks).

That's not too easy, nor easily accessible for the average person; As runescape runs a 3d-screen, windows may decide not to render it anymore when it is no longer on top (and you have a full screen program running on top). - To save resources. With the Aero theme (and previews) this doesn't happen often, though it's no guarantee.

 

But everyone should understand that getting rid of the bots is not possible, and shouldn't be an aim. I've often helped people with game development, and a topic that keeps repeating is how to prevent people from stealing your game. - Well this isn't possible. The only reason why copyright protection is added to software is to make it more difficult: you wish to discourage the average user from using copied illegal software. Same is the case for bots: the only thing jagex should aim for is to discourage the average scaper of getting involved with bots.

Removing the fastest & easiest manner to bot (directly editing the client data) removes a lot of botters. As pattern/colour recognition isn't something "easy" - it is quite demanding on your cpu.

[Stev]

I was only using Aero as an example. It is possible to capture, monitor, manipulate, and send messages to windows that are minimized or not shown. Windows will not stop using this because every computer from 98+ comes with DLLs capable of such things. And if they cease to provide it, they still exist.

 

As far as the average user being able to do it... That's unnecessary. All it takes is one developer to write a basic library of functions in which other scripters can create bots with. All the average user has to do is DL the program and hit run.

 

^ Only a select few will know the real irony about me posting that paragraph... Lmao (Not referring to RS_Functions, if that's what you though).

 

As for quite demanding on your CPU, the DGSweeper monitors 3 different areas of your RuneScape applet every 50MS while drawing on two different canvasses, creating 2 different map bitmaps (with and without keys), calculating the timer, calculating position/size, etc... It'll never jump past 1% CPU usage on my machine. Some method, such as standard pixel searches will hog resources, but not if done properly. ;).

[Marduk_God]

A sizable portion of rs are still botters after tge bot nuke. Yes, bots (the program) stopped working but next to zero botters got banned. They kept pretty much all the stuff and skill they botted. That is billions and billions of gold anditem s farmed and millions of skillcapes.This taint on the game will never be gone.

 

That, and at least 20k peeps who moved to old school bots that jagex apparently still cant detect.

I think most of them quit, to be honest. Don't ask me how I know, but traffic to certain parts of tip.it's website plummeted after the nuke.

 

I don't know about that. Immediately after the bot nuke there would be between 40k and 60k players online during weekdays, whereas the past few weeks it's been as high as 80-100k (granted, the holidays might have something to do with that, but still). Some of those were new (p2p) players, but the majority would have been players who resubscribed. I'd wager not all of the latter have always been legit.

 

The past few weeks, for example, I've been seeing numerous of the generic level 90's/100's something again: those sporting herblore, mining, magic, construction, crafting, runecrafting, woodcutting or fishing capes with little or no other mentionable skills whatsoever (some of their skills don't even show up in the highscores, and they're not pures). In the case of buyable skills they may have obtained their wealth by dicing, but not in the case of mining etc. Those "players" were almost gone immediately after the nuke. One one occasion, I've even seen a few of the aforementioned individuals (conversation started out with 2, and two others joined in) chatting in my own language (Dutch) about how they used to bot and are glad they got as far as they did with it - they're now playing "legit". And, of course, some areas are overrun with the dragon med - granite body - dragon platelegs/skirts "people" again (not to mention the "repopulation" of Sorc's garden).

 

This a subjective experience, of course, and a number of individuals can hardly be called representative; but I believe it to be somewhat indicative of a certain trend none the less.

[MRTF]

It's true that there has recently been more activity in the sorceress garden, but i have also noted more people in God Wars Dungeon and hunting and maybe in some other skill related places :mellow: . If we could get rid of them the cycle of items getting cheap and then prices going up and down would repeat i guess. My biggest question is that if we stop them again does it really affect anything in the future if they still keep trying? :blink: