Anti-bot idea that could actually work

[Thai_tong]

Excelent idea. Maybe you should post it on rsof.

This would stop frost dragon bots because you can choke them when they bank, perhaps not tzarr bots because the bank is in a combat zone (even though nothing can get into that area I think)

As for afk players. The 2 most afk things are ivy and rocktail you can't really afk for longer than 3 minutes without the ivy/fishing spot vanishing but for players who click to fish then come back 4 minutes later knowing that they will have stopped fishing could be a problem. If you made it longer than 3 minutes maybe... 10 minutes it would let bot owners regularly check up on their bots but that would be inconvinient for them aswell as not being able to run them as they sleep. Also very inconvinient for them to run multiple bots.

[Thai_tong]

I have an idea to fix the afk problem.

After a player tries to choke the bot the question screen pops up the next time the player interacts with the game. So if the person is afk the screen will pop up when they come back and click the ivy or the fishing spot.

[TTanT]

I have an idea to fix the afk problem.

After a player tries to choke the bot the question screen pops up the next time the player interacts with the game. So if the person is afk the screen will pop up when they come back and click the ivy or the fishing spot.

Brilliant. This works way better than my idea, okay. I'll be changing the main post soon to accommodate this.

[Thai_tong]

1 thing I see wrong with this is that it's just like a random event every 10 mins. Bots can do most randoms these days. If you are using repeat questions like your example I like X what do I like? bots may be smart enough to solve them. However the advantage of this over randoms is that Jagex dont need to spend a month making graphics ect for a whole new random event. 1 new question every 2 weeks would keep bots at bay I think (by new I mean not a repeat question).

[TTanT]

1 thing I see wrong with this is that it's just like a random event every 10 mins. Bots can do most randoms these days. If you are using repeat questions like your example I like X what do I like? bots may be smart enough to solve them. However the advantage of this over randoms is that Jagex dont need to spend a month making graphics ect for a whole new random event. 1 new question every 2 weeks would keep bots at bay I think (by new I mean not a repeat question).

Well as far as that goes Jagex can play it by ear. If bots start increasing in number, then change the question format straight away.

[Cheefoo]

Here's an idea: Add these questions to random events. If they really would work against bots, just put them in random events, so they can function as bot stoppers like they were origianl envisioned. But honestly, I think it would be a better idea to just use "captcha" phrases instead. I believe they work pretty damn well.

 

I just really don't get why you'd have to "choke" bots. Seems silly, and would be abused to annoy even legitimate players. Hell, someone could make a bot designed to follow around players, choking them every few minutes. One players should be able to be choked once every 8 hours or so. The concept just seems pointless. It would only function as a more frequent random event of sorts, but relies on other players to take the initiative and actually go out and choke every bot they come across. Just beef up the current random events with better bot-proof questions such as captchas.

[TTanT]

Here's an idea: Add these questions to random events. If they really would work against bots, just put them in random events, so they can function as bot stoppers like they were origianl envisioned. But honestly, I think it would be a better idea to just use "captcha" phrases instead. I believe they work pretty damn well.

 

I just really don't get why you'd have to "choke" bots. Seems silly, and would be abused to annoy even legitimate players. Hell, someone could make a bot designed to follow around players, choking them every few minutes. One players should be able to be choked once every 8 hours or so. The concept just seems pointless. It would only function as a more frequent random event of sorts, but relies on other players to take the initiative and actually go out and choke every bot they come across. Just beef up the current random events with better bot-proof questions such as captchas.

 

Adding the questions to random events would mean possibly ruining an afk player, or otherwise merely delaying the bot until it's owner decided to check in on it and answer the question.

 

Captchas can be decoded by bots, and as far as I know Jagex actually sued captchas once and it failed miserably. Unique questions however can only be answered with a sense of reasoning that can only be accomplished by living beings and the highest tiers of computers (which it's safe toa ssume will not be what bot crators have access to, due to the sheer amount of computing power required).

 

Having the players "choke" bots is a simple way to overcome the man hour issue. Players will enjoy finally being able to fight for their resources, and massive choking attacks on botting areas could be organized. As for the possibility of trolling, being choekd once every 10 mintues doesn't sound terribly annoying to me, and it's unlikely that a bot qould be made for that purpose, as there is simply no benefit in using one for gold selling sites and the like (and one could simply choke the choking bot to knock it out of business).

IOf players could only be choked once every 8 hours, there is a high chance that gold farmers would simply log into all of their bots once evry 8 hours and get themselves choked (whether using multilogging or another goldfarmer) to gain immunity.

Judging by the massive lengths many community members currently go to to combat bots (Karamja scorpion luring and ranged guild luring? I think this would be effective enough). And as I said earlier, captchas can easily be subverted by bots, and thus would have to be constantly altered, which requries far more effort than simply having a Jagex developer thinking of a new obvious question everyday. "55+72=992 Now what number how many times did the numeral 5 occur in that equation?" <-albeit the language used in that example may be too high tier, but you egt the point that millions of random obvious questions could easily be made. It's simply a simpler solution, and one that requires less long term programming overall.

[Thai_tong]

(and one could simply choke the choking bot to knock it out of business)

Lol'd at the irony of that

 

The punishment with current random events is "not a life sentence" as Prison Pete puts it, it is only a 1 hour ban (I think) or being teleported to a random spot which shows that Jagex thinks that players can still fail at simple tasks. Personally I don't see a problem with teleporting the bots to the top of falador castle, as long as the bots are constantly being made useless bot owners will give up. It would also mean Jagex has to pay less to punish bots.

I think number questions are bad because there is too much logic behind it and too little reasoning. Not that it matters, its up to Jagex what questions they have.

[Helm_Lardar]

Here's an idea:

 

Let's pretend I run a business gold farming with 10 different bots. Because I live in the appropriate time-zone to do this, I get 5 of my bots to choke the other 5 and vice versa immediately after the reset. As a result, they can't be choked during the day. At all.

 

1 day is far too long for a reset, but 10 minutes is a complete pain. Noobs will annoy people who are grinding, or who don't answer their questions by choking them. Famous players might be paused every 10 minutes by some j(ch)oker-which would ruin the game for them.

 

I think an hour or two would be a more appropriate reset length.

[Lep]

I see no reason why JaGeX can't have implemented a system that asks every player online a question in their chat box every hour on the hour. However, JaGeX would simply have ONE single person making up whatever questions he wants for every hour; no automated questions that can be botted. He could set question to: How is runescape spelled? And set answer to: runescape or crap.

 

Next hour he decides to make question to: what is 9000+1 and set answer to: over 9000 or 9001.

 

Voila, I just solved the entire botting problem.

 

Ya, really hard to implement, I know. :rolleyes: Every hour wouldn't even be annoying, and it would be in the chat box so there wouldn't be pop-ups. You'd have to be botting and still be at your computer to bypass this. Anyone who doesn't answer the question correctly within 20 minutes gets temporarily banned for 24 hours. Tada! And it's not stupid, because if you're not looking at the screen at least once in 20 minutes then you're botting.

[Thai_tong]

On the hour is too predictable and bot owners can just check thier computer.

Also wondering what happens if an afk player gets choked and then logs out after 5 mins of doing nothing?

 

 

Also just wanted to say these are the kind of questions that would work best

 

Without me you cannot survive, but fill a room with me and you would surely die. What am I?

1. Banana

2. Water

3. Toast

 

 

(yes I did get that from the enigmatic hoardstalker)

[Thai_tong]

On the topic of annoying top players

 

 

Slayer - in combat so people cant choke

Runecrafting - zmi is a combat area, mostly trained with effigies anyway

Agility - ok they can follow them at barb advanced

Fishing - can camp at bar fishing spot

Fletching - they can fletch anywhere they want so its easy to tele to burg de rott and fletch there

Woodcutting - ok they can camp at arctic pines/teaks/ivy

Firemaking - should be done in your house with a pyrelord so people wouldnt be able to follow

 

 

 

Hunter - if they wanted to annoy players they could just set up traps around theirs anyway

Herblore - could camp at the bank but its easy for them to get to burg de rott bank

Thieving - pyramid plunder and monkey knife fighters are in a combat zone

Mining - lrc is a combat zone

Smithing - could follow them at varrock anvils

Magic - trained during slayer/fishing/woodcutting/mining so no new areas for this + ice barrage training would be in combat

Farming - high level players would be farming at random hours in the day so they couldnt be followed anyway

Summoning - could be a problem

Prayer - cant reach them in their house, could pester them at castle wars

Construction - trained in the house

Cooking - same as herblore

Crafting - same as cooking

Dungeoneering - cant reach them in the dungeons

 

 

So the only problems are agility, fishing, summoning, woodcutting and possibly prayer, cooking, herblore, crafting.

 

They don't really spend much time not training skills

[Bruhx]

There are some flaws in this, but this is a pretty good idea.

 

You would have to make it replace randoms or something amazing like that. I hate randoms.

[Jonanananas]

....Or you could just use captchas. Jagex did use captchas one, but they were at an early stage and not randomly generated. If captchas were so easily solvable, multimillion dollar companies as e.g. amazon wouldn't use them. The only problem you'd have are colorblind/seeing impaired players.

 

 

"coming up with new questions" seems easy at the start, but it won't be easy for long. Bots can easily be programmed to solve "I like ____, What do I like?" questions all at once. So every new question would actually have to be unique and not use the same system as before. It would keep up for a few weeks at most, then it would be useless again.

[Thai_tong]

Captchas were discussed earlier, you should read the whole thread

[TTanT]

 

"coming up with new questions" seems easy at the start, but it won't be easy for long. Bots can easily be programmed to solve "I like ____, What do I like?" questions all at once. So every new question would actually have to be unique and not use the same system as before. It would keep up for a few weeks at most, then it would be useless again.

I'm ignoring the capchas bit because you ignored most of my arguments against them, and them singling out solorblind players is a big problem.

 

Okay, I'm going to make a bunch of questions, ready?

-I like cabbages. What do I like?

-What letter does this sentence start with?

-If I like cabbages what do I like?

-Does a person who likes cabbages like cabbages?

-If the answer is "yes" what is the answer?

-What number comes after 2?

-What is the third letter in the alphabet?

-If I am an elephant, what am I?

-If elephants run by, what ran by?

 

The only things that stopped me from making more is that I'm a slow typer. Chnaging the wording of the question even slightly would screw bots over (the wording of the template, that is), and after enough templates can be sued, they could even be repeated occasionally.

After all, as long as Jagex doesn't SAY that it's repeating templates, it would be ahrd to find out, and thus a botter would have to be truly dedicated (keep a list of every question thusfar and program bots to answer ALL of them). And even then the bot would STILL be caught most days and thus never be able to reach high skill levels or profitability.

 

Jagex could literally tell four of their employees (literally any would work) that they'd get a small bonus for making up five unique questions a day each.

Jagex would then pick one question from each one and implement it, and save the other sixteen for future use.

Hell, jagex could probably even egt away with putting the questions on loop, as long as it was a 1 year+ long loop, they lied through their teeth about it, and they were ready to mix things up if the loop was cracked.

 

 

And I'll likely be posting this on the RSOF tomorrow. (Is 1400 skill total enough for a F2Per to post on the RSOF?)

 

EDIT: Jonanananas, your signature is setting off my antivirus :shock:

[Thai_tong]

Still wondering what happens when I leave myself logged in for 10 mins expecting to be auto logged but I'm actually choked. And what happens if I'm choked in a forgeign world and cant read?

[TTanT]

Still wondering what happens when I leave myself logged in for 10 mins expecting to be auto logged but I'm actually choked. And what happens if I'm choked in a forgeign world and cant read?

Choking would either be A: impossible to use on a person unless they were performing and actiong, or B: the interface would only pop up once they clicked somehwere on the screen.

 

And I guess a little line of flags would have to be in the window for you to choose a language.

[Powerfrog]

Totally impractical.

 

If jagex actually wanted rid of bots they could easily replace randoms with a capcha you must answer. No bot can read a capcha, that's the entire point, so the bot would fail, and the player would be banned if they failed several times. It would not rely on player reports or 'choking' and it would be expected and tolerated by legitimate players, just like random events are now. Many websites do this to stop bots, why don't jagex?

 

Simple. They WANT bots to pay membership fees. They need this money to survive as a business. Why would they kill of a large % of their 'players' just to make the remaning few happy?

[Thai_tong]

Totally impractical.

 

If jagex actually wanted rid of bots they could easily replace randoms with a capcha you must answer. No bot can read a capcha, that's the entire point, so the bot would fail, and the player would be banned if they failed several times. It would not rely on player reports or 'choking' and it would be expected and tolerated by legitimate players, just like random events are now. Many websites do this to stop bots, why don't jagex?

Dat fail capcha

Imo player run choking is good because the bots get targeted (more). Legitimate players wont get choked that much (after players settle down 2 weeks or so after the update). Whereas with a random question replacing random events everyone gets hit by them equally. You could even set it so that the time limit between chokes is about that of randoms (2-5 hours?)

 

Simple. They WANT bots to pay membership fees. They need this money to survive as a business. Why would they kill of a large % of their 'players' just to make the remaning few happy?

Make choking ftp only!

jk

 

 

Give us the qfc when you put it on forums :thumbsup:

[Powerfrog]

Totally impractical.

 

If jagex actually wanted rid of bots they could easily replace randoms with a capcha you must answer. No bot can read a capcha, that's the entire point, so the bot would fail, and the player would be banned if they failed several times. It would not rely on player reports or 'choking' and it would be expected and tolerated by legitimate players, just like random events are now. Many websites do this to stop bots, why don't jagex?

Dat fail capcha

Imo player run choking is good because the bots get targeted (more). Legitimate players wont get choked that much (after players settle down 2 weeks or so after the update). Whereas with a random question replacing random events everyone gets hit by them equally. You could even set it so that the time limit between chokes is about that of randoms (2-5 hours?)

 

Simple. They WANT bots to pay membership fees. They need this money to survive as a business. Why would they kill of a large % of their 'players' just to make the remaning few happy?

Make choking ftp only!

jk

 

 

Give us the qfc when you put it on forums :thumbsup:

 

This relies on players choking all bots. Not going to happen. The worst bots are the combat bots, and those would be impossible to choke. We have been dealing with random events for years now and they do NOTHING towards 99% of bots. Why can't we do a capcha instead? It would be easier for a legit player to solve than a random event, and it would be impossible for a bot.

 

Bot problem solved.

[Thai_tong]

Read the rest of the thread before you suggest capchas. Combat bots can be choked when they bank. In the past I have had trouble reading capchas when registering.

But the reason I think Jagex would be against it is that there is no "fun" in answering a simple question. There is a bit of fun in being teleported to a magical land of frogs and kissing a frog princess as well as nice graphics.

[Powerfrog]

Read the rest of the thread before you suggest capchas. Combat bots can be choked when they bank. In the past I have had trouble reading capchas when registering.

But the reason I think Jagex would be against it is that there is no "fun" in answering a simple question. There is a bit of fun in being teleported to a magical land of frogs and kissing a frog princess as well as nice graphics.

... Wheres the fun in choking people? Unless you're a serial killer of some sort. Wheres the fun in reporting people? It's not about fun. It's about improving the game.

 

You would have no idea who is a combat bot in a bank and by the time you ask if they are one they already tele away. And some combat bots never bank such as rock crab bots.

[Thai_tong]

Obviously there is fun in stopping bots in their tracks. The name has nothing to do with how fun it is. It is more fun than typing a name into a box because you can see the result (the bot is paralysed instead of hoping Jagex will do something). If you are fighting over frost dragons with a bot you can teleport when it teleports and then choke them and you get a spot without competition for a bit. People who want to stop bots can just stay in falador bank and choke people wearing suspicious armour. And i realise it wont stop all combat bots.

EDIT:

To make my point about fun more clear; to me it was fun using a cannon to make essence bots stuck in the house, it was fun to trap essence bots in the house north of the rune shop, it is not fun imo to type a player's name into a report box because they continued to try and hunt chins despite someone laying their own traps on top of thiers.

[Hakaan]

Rather than having a time limit set on how often you're able to choke, make it an XP value. Like every 50k or 100k xp a player gains they're able to be choked again.