No, it's not the crapness of my graphics card that's at fault here. It's the fact that I cannot pronounce anyones name!
Is it just me, or are there more Bots than human players. I see them whizz around doing the same old routine over and over again. wiping out everything in the newbie fields.
It's really off-putting that whilst I'm trying to play a game that I have legally paid for and obide by the rules, when you have the majority of the poulation, spoiling everything so some dork can but Adena on ebay or whatever.
I'm sure it's all been said before, but what's the point of buying in game items in the real-world. to better your character in-game. As soon as you do that you are no longer playing the game. Where is the fun?
I've just started playing L2, this morning. This is the most infested game I've ever seen!
Are there any measures at all to put a stop to this? NC, please tell me you care about this situation, and are doing something about it.
I would have to say the number of banned bots are in the range of 100,000 by now. The issue is the some players that spend real money for game money that fuels this issue at hand.
Which is harder to crack down on.
***Edit*** Hey Mod, just lock the thread. Don't remove it
Alot actually are getting banned, it's just that as soon as they get banned the make another account, and start leveling a new one almost right after theyv been banned.
When will NCsoft ban the credit card numbers instead of just the accounts? Would make things alot easier...
I would have to say the number of banned bots are in the range of 100,000 by now. The issue is the some players that spend real money for game money that fuels this issue at hand.
Which is harder to crack down on.
***Edit*** Hey Mod, just lock the thread. Don't remove it
how do u know thats the truth?
we NEVER get any proofs that they ban any bots..
just cause they say they do it dosent realy mean they do it
I would have to say the number of banned bots are in the range of 100,000 by now. The issue is the some players that spend real money for game money that fuels this issue at hand.
Which is harder to crack down on.
***Edit*** Hey Mod, just lock the thread. Don't remove it
how do u know thats the truth?
we NEVER get any proofs that they ban any bots..
just cause they say they do it dosent realy mean they do it
The last week I have seen a noticable amount of less automated players on hindemith server, also a few less of the big named sellers in giran. Besides scrolls of enchants sky rocketing, the effects have been great. Thanks to the almighty ban hammer!
What do you guys want as proof ? The head of a bot controller on a stake ?
There is no way to proove it. And as I have said many times, giving numbers does obviously not have any effect. Surprising, that people do believe Blizzard, but not NCsoft. Maybe it is because the WoW-Bots are nicely hidden in instances, while the L2-Nots are visible ?
The doomsday talkers will never believe, that a bot was banned, until they bot themselves and get banned for it. And then there is much crying about how unfairly they were banned.
I would have to say the number of banned bots are in the range of 100,000 by now. The issue is the some players that spend real money for game money that fuels this issue at hand.
Which is harder to crack down on.
***Edit*** Hey Mod, just lock the thread. Don't remove it
how do u know thats the truth?
we NEVER get any proofs that they ban any bots..
just cause they say they do it dosent realy mean they do it
The problem is that no amount of proof is enough for players. The problem is chronic. There is no absolute cure, just a vaccine to help alleviate the pain.
If there were instances in this game then NC could claim they banished millions and how would we really ever know?
There is no way for them to prove it that would satisfy players and still allow them to follow rules such as not giving player names, etc.
No, it's not the crapness of my graphics card that's at fault here. It's the fact that I cannot pronounce anyones name!
Is it just me, or are there more Bots than human players. I see them whizz around doing the same old routine over and over again. wiping out everything in the newbie fields.
It's really off-putting that whilst I'm trying to play a game that I have legally paid for and obide by the rules, when you have the majority of the poulation, spoiling everything so some dork can but Adena on ebay or whatever.
I'm sure it's all been said before, but what's the point of buying in game items in the real-world. to better your character in-game. As soon as you do that you are no longer playing the game. Where is the fun?
I've just started playing L2, this morning. This is the most infested game I've ever seen!
Are there any measures at all to put a stop to this? NC, please tell me you care about this situation, and are doing something about it.
In before the lock also.
But to answer your question: it's simple economics. More accounts with valid payment methods = more $$ for NcSoft. It's why you see only occasional banning and activity to rid the game from our automated friends. They'd be cutting their own throats if they were to ban all the bots and/or say the IP's from a certain Asian country <cough CHINA cough>
I just really think that the L2/NCSoft business case is dependant on accounts, in any form even to the detriment of the game, to succeed for them to take real action.
They do throw us a bone every now and then but in reality they know full well the situation and refuse or are unable to take "real" effective measure to combat the problem.
My advice: Find another game or failing that get used to having to fight with Mr. gsadfgdgf for your mob. The issue only gets worse as you increase your level. If you think the bots are bad now wait till you see the ones that blatalantly run through town and hunt in packs of nine without any fear of GM's or other players.
What do you guys want as proof ? The head of a bot controller on a stake ?
I would take as proof, not seeing lvl 61+ bots. Almost every single one of the rooms inside Disciples on Lionna has a bot team. That's a level 70-80 cat. I can understand bots slipping into to lowbie areas, but for a bot to last long enough to get to noblesse status (and yes, there are some) means whatever system they are employing is insufficient.
My advice: Find another game or failing that get used to having to fight with Mr. gsadfgdgf for your mob. The issue only gets worse as you increase your level. If you think the bots are bad now wait till you see the ones that blatalantly run through town and hunt in packs of nine without any fear of GM's or other players.
It's really kinda of sad..
I've seen those. piccy 1 is about 6 clones standeing ontop of each other.
I hope the reason this thread hasn't been locked yet is because they are all out there with their 'sword of a thousand bans' wiping out bots. ;)
What do you guys want as proof ? The head of a bot controller on a stake ?
There is no way to proove it. And as I have said many times, giving numbers does obviously not have any effect. Surprising, that people do believe Blizzard, but not NCsoft. Maybe it is because the WoW-Bots are nicely hidden in instances, while the L2-Nots are visible ?
The doomsday talkers will never believe, that a bot was banned, until they bot themselves and get banned for it. And then there is much crying about how unfairly they were banned.
go go hypocrits.
Not banned Kitten
I disagree, blizzard at least communicate in this matter a lot. You play 6-7 Days L2 and every day you must see how people botting and you know:
"You see the same bots again and again."
But thats not the real pain for normal players, they botting fame and you see yourself on the "looser-street" again, they bot money and you are broke. They bot in an event, and you ask yourself why a botter get the lvl 12 crystal and you not.
You talk with everyone ingame not to bot ... expect thoose people which dont understand english ... great, they even DONT KNOW the EULA. And if you realy come to a discussion with a botter, he will tell you:
"you noob, everyone is doing it."
What do you answer? no it isnt so? My clan done it, until people saw: "we fooling our self". Yeah many are botting and the only ones who could support my clan and me, will ban me from forum because you discuss about bots.
If i stop playing l2 .. than ONLY because bots. The day will come i am tired to close my eyes ...
I disagree, blizzard at least communicate in this matter a lot. You play 6-7 Days L2 and every day you must see how people botting and you know:
"You see the same bots again and again."
That's not true. Sorry.
First of all, NC has stated for the record (several times) that they just don't see the need to announce every time they do a banning as they are always doing bannings. They have stated that "announcing bannings" essentially comes down to it being a PR ploy.
Think of it this way, if they said every week "we banned x amount of bots this week", then you would still see the same things but instead you will just call them a liar because you aren't seeing the results you want.
They have also stated, right or wrong, that it takes them about a week to do a full investigation and that there are reasons for this. They have also stated that they spend much too much time on this issue which takes away from doing other things such as events or what have you.
Also, I have reported bot trains and seen them gone. It does happen.
It's a no win situation for them. There is nothing they can do to satisfy players other than the total elimination of bots. But we know this isn't currently possible as there is a market for online game items and that most popular games have them.
So perhaps they should just add some instances? This way the bots can hide in their own little world and not bother anyone. Because short of that, or short of players losing the desire and need to buy online currency, there really aren't many choices.
come and play a round at teon. do you know how we get a room in a cata? We PLEASE a botgroup to stop playing, sometimes they agree and they waiting 4-5 hours until you are done. After that they continue. Or they take your room, all running in a line, for sure no makro-users ... for sure not.
Go at teon to alligator island and see people botting fame-chars.
Blizzard is no Angel, and maybe NC Soft is doing more. But the game is not designed to be a ruler because you bot. L2 is. So in L2 you must doing a lot of more actions against EULA Violaters.
My english is not good enough to argue with you, like i would do it in german, but the main problem is for me:
At Teon you cant report all the bots you see, because it takes to much time (i could write petitions 3 hours every day), i just need to visit some known areas.
If you report a bot group, NC maybe delete them 2-3 month later or so? in 2-3 month they bot 40.000 Famepoints .. thats enoug, because NC maybe delete the bots, but they dont delete the money or the fame they botted. or i am wrong?
And do you know why the people so angry? not because they hate NC .. its because they love L2 and that the best game ever gets hurt so much by bots.
come and play a round at teon. do you know how we get a room in a cata? We PLEASE a botgroup to stop playing, sometimes they agree and they waiting 4-5 hours until you are done. After that they continue. Or they take your room, all running in a line, for sure no makro-users ... for sure not.
Go at teon to alligator island and see people botting fame-chars.
Blizzard is no Angel, and maybe NC Soft is doing more. But the game is not designed to be a ruler because you bot. L2 is. So in L2 you must doing a lot of more actions against EULA Violaters.
My english is not good enough to argue with you, like i would do it in german, but the main problem is for me:
At Teon you cant report all the bots you see, because it takes to much time (i could write petitions 3 hours every day), i just need to visit some known areas.
If you report a bot group, NC maybe delete them 2-3 month later or so? in 2-3 month they bot 40.000 Famepoints .. thats enoug, because NC maybe delete the bots, but they dont delete the money or the fame they botted. or i am wrong?
And do you know why the people so angry? not because they hate NC .. its because they love L2 and that the best game ever gets hurt so much by bots.
Fair enough, and i think your english is fine.
I have no doubt that Teon has a greater bot population than Hindemith.
And your point is well taken that other games such as WoW don't really require the same lvl of competitiion which encourages botting.
But in the end, there is only so much they can do before they start doing drastic things like taking the economy out of the control of the players or introducing instances.
Of course, it does beg the question" why don't you just pk the bots and take the space? But then again there are many answers that would satisfy that question.
Of course, it does beg the question" why don't you just pk the bots and take the space?
/Thinking
Because they would be back in no time flat, and you gain nothing other then some karma. It's like throwing that one star fish back into the sea, fifty billion of them still died.
Of course, it does beg the question" why don't you just pk the bots and take the space?
/Thinking
Because they would be back in no time flat, and you gain nothing other then some karma. It's like throwing that one star fish back into the sea, fifty billion of them still died.
So you are saying that they would just come back into the room while you were still red? hmmm... maybe they would at that.
And it's that type of out look that i say is a bunch of BS.
Do you think they have a gray area in the EULA? No, it's white and black.
Bhahahaha...how naive. My friend either you are drinking the kool-aid that NcSoft is giving you or you are blind.
After 4 years(??) of PAYING and playing for this game AND having the SAME problems regarding our automated friends have made me a bit more realistic/pessimistic. If they were "serious" they could solve the bot problem in an hour. But it would be disastrous for the economy and for their business case.
And I not only think the EULA is NOT black in white I think it is many colored and varies with the players home country of origin. There are way way too many examples of biased bannings for it not to be any other way.
But whatever I still enjoy the game, for now, and TBH I am the bots worst enemy. I think at last count I've made well over 30 mil off bot drops. Prolly much more.
Sigh...you are missing the point. I've been game since open beta and I have toons from 23-65 all races almost all classes. And I very rarely go red on a bot. That would be an exercise in futility. I train them with mobs...sometimes over and over. IMHO Bots ARE the best drop in the game without a doubt.
I've given up on hoping that NCsoft will regain control on the situation I just moved on to train train train and sell sell sell. I look at it as playing the game the way I want. I am a BOT killer. Period.
PS. Ok three years four years whatever.. stop focusing on the meaningless trivia and start trying to understand the intent of the posts.
And then allow us to email them with jpg screenshots and or linkes to the screenshots.
and it'll be neat and tidy because they won't post the address on there website to prevent people spamming them, and it'll be mentioned in the servers ATTENTION message every time you fire up the game and log in.
Sigh...you are missing the point. I've been game since open beta and I have toons from 23-65 all races almost all classes. And I very rarely go red on a bot. That would be an exercise in futility. I train them with mobs...sometimes over and over. IMHO Bots ARE the best drop in the game without a doubt.
I've given up on hoping that NCsoft will regain control on the situation I just moved on to train train train and sell sell sell. I look at it as playing the game the way I want. I am a BOT killer. Period.
PS. Ok three years four years whatever.. stop focusing on the meaningless trivia and start trying to understand the intent of the posts.
Indeed, in an open PvP game, it's our best shot of getting something in return out of the automated friends population.
"If you bot, you loose your account, for sure, NC Soft dont sleep"
They already say such things as....
You break the games EULA, and you loose your account. What more do you want them to say? :confused:
not nc soft, the community Splatter. NC Soft repeat it with the same old words >> and ways << like the first day .. like i would do it, if the problem do not interesst me.
This type of back and forth is actually why the current message board policy (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=638759) about User Agreement violations is in place. It's not that we're trying to hide or censor anything, but that the conversation usually takes this same direction: "Do something!" "We are!" "Prove it! I want numbers!" "Here's a number: 50,000 in the last year." "I don't believe you!" and so it continues.
Let me repeat again for emphasis that we have banned 50,000 accounts for botting in the last year. We are serious about this and we will continue to be. One common criticism from players is that the process to remove a bot from the game takes too long, and we take that feedback seriously and continue to look at ways to improve our methods and efficiency.
The bottom line is that NCsoft wants to punish cheaters and wants to keep the game enjoyable for those who feel that cheaters ruin their gameplay. This issue has been and remains one of our priorities.
One common criticism from players is that the process to remove a bot from the game takes too long, and we take that feedback seriously and continue to look at ways to improve our methods and efficiency.
One question for you:
From the time I report a suspected bot that I can actually spell, how long is the process? Seems I have reported a number of them to only see them still botting anywhere from a day to 3 months later. If they are proven to be botting, how long does the process take? I would suspect that to be a difficult thing to put a definite time on but a rough estimate would be nice. I can see both sides of the coin on giving an answer on this though.
I just dont understand why we cant get a Chinese IP Ban then (that would be so easy technically). As we all know they have their own server, thus where is the problem (even korea did it)? Surely by now its also many us/euro player botting, but I think thats not comparable to the chinese farmer industry, and if those are filtered out you can easily catch the other violators too.
This type of back and forth is actually why the current message board policy (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=638759) about User Agreement violations is in place. It's not that we're trying to hide or censor anything, but that the conversation usually takes this same direction: "Do something!" "We are!" "Prove it! I want numbers!" "Here's a number: 50,000 in the last year." "I don't believe you!" and so it continues.
Let me repeat again for emphasis that we have banned 50,000 accounts for botting in the last year. We are serious about this and we will continue to be. One common criticism from players is that the process to remove a bot from the game takes too long, and we take that feedback seriously and continue to look at ways to improve our methods and efficiency.
The bottom line is that NCsoft wants to punish cheaters and wants to keep the game enjoyable for those who feel that cheaters ruin their gameplay. This issue has been and remains one of our priorities.
Maybe i am wrong, but didnt you post a statement, that your team will take serious attention to "fame botters"? I cant post the source, but i am sure, in one line you said, that you will take a special look at people which botting fame ... or?
C5 and the new Clansystem gave my team a new goal, pushing our fame. Because we are a small clan, we must do it with Seven.Sign Event and playing low chars. Do you understand what for a feeling it is, to see a lot of players "botting fame"?
All i please is, show us, that your team work at the problem, and not only a posting all 6 month. It would motivate my people to see a news, where you say:
"Deleted 1000 Accoutns because EULA Violating"
So we can refer to that news, if we have discussions about that problem. Keep us up to date .. so we can show every botuser we meet:
"NC Soft gets you too .."
maybe some people dont understand me, but it is not bad, to show the l2-world:
"We are hunting bots, and we show you weekly how many"
If somebody start playing l2 ... and he will see such news, he maybe do not using Bot-Tools, because he see:
"Hey NC Soft checking for bots daily, not all 6 month"
Although, I am becoming quite fond of bots. Where else am I going to get full drops as often as I do from when I train them and they can't force log fast enough? MUHAHAHAHAHAHA. (Only until the rumored patch of no item drops on death)
All kidding aside though - they do need to go away as I am tired of fighting bots for an area.
It's called Proxy jumping, or Multi Proxy jumping.
I can string up a slew of proxy servers in which no one would have a clue who the hell the source is lol..
Banning ranges of IPs hurts those that don't know, and makes it more difficult for the company that did the range IP bans more difficult in kicking the culprits, and continues to narrow the possible players.
You have any idea how many None "chinese" players are in china, or asia, or around the world for that fact that play on the NA servers? Comprehend it, please.
It's not that we're trying to hide or censor anything, but that the conversation usually takes this same direction: "Do something!" "We are!" "Prove it! I want numbers!" "Here's a number: 50,000 in the last year." "I don't believe you!" and so it continues.
Hello,
I have been around for a long time and this is so true on how these posts go down.
One question for you:
From the time I report a suspected bot that I can actually spell, how long is the process?
Does it really matter how long the process is? If it takes one day or one month is the time frame that important?
Just more of a curiosity. If the response was - say two days, and I see the bot a week from now still "botting" then that bot must have been proven "Not Guilty". Then I can report it once again. If it takes a month to prove it, then there is no point in reporting it, say two weeks from the first report.
Why can't NCsoft give us what we want, less bots and in game GM's. gives us Ingame GM's who sit in the starter town and while they deal with our in game requests they watch the botters de-levelling. after a short while to bots will find other guards to kill them but we the players will report them as we often do and the GM's can then move to the new death spots and collect more names to ban.
Now to me that sounds too easy, so what are the draw backs and why won't it work? care to comment Mistryl please.
make a new thread and let us make the suggestions and you tell us why it won't work as good as the system you have now.
There is another main problem, if you say you are trying to improve your efficiency and methods you should im improve it extremely. There are so many reports of trials to report abvious botters and bot groups which are well know between all people looking for them. They were reported massively by a large number of people and they ARE STLL RUNNING.
There are a lot of accounts getting banned no doubt on that, but sometimes it looks that those are accounts are the ones you "accidently trip over" .
There is much support from the cummunity, many people are good in identifying bots in seconds and they do report them day by day, what is the problem to watch those suspects to get your so called "doubtless proof" ?
Other thing is, that i doubt that there is anyone actually who does read the petitions that are written everyday. If you haven't enough GMs (which is actually a fact because whenever i type /gmlist no matter what daytime it always says "there is currently NO gm available) then improve the automatic scripts which are answering the petitions, and prove to the community that they come to anyones recognition.
Last but not least, even if you are able to detect abvious botters in a week or less, be asured that botted Academy characters need less than 3 days to reach level 40, and less than another 2 days to complete the 2nd occupation quests, after that they get deleted and replaced and all evidence is useless.
As long as you give the cheaters enough time to fulfill their goal you will never be able to dominate them.
You always tell the community that you take serious focus on dealing with cheaters, and the community always tell You that your actions don't maky ANY markable difference and has nearly no effect. No matter who believes who, that fact shows that something is going very very wrong.
From the time I report a suspected bot that I can actually spell, how long is the process?
It's hard to give an estimate, and we never want to give any possible tip-offs about how our methods work (including the time it takes). The best estimate I can give is to ask you to think of days, rather than minutes, for turnaround time if the character you report is confirmed as violating the User Agreement.
Maybe i am wrong, but didnt you post a statement, that your team will take serious attention to "fame botters"? I cant post the source, but i am sure, in one line you said, that you will take a special look at people which botting fame ... or?
I don't recall making any recent statement that we are focusing on "famous" players or clans. We investigate and punish everyone equally regardless of character or clan. I apologize if I caused any confusion about that.
"Hey NC Soft checking for bots daily, not all 6 month"
We do hunt and investigate bots daily -- not just every six months. :)
Last month I decided to take up the task of doing some house cleaning. I "industriously" wiped the dust off the monitor and continue to do so "daily". I have been "working hard" to clean house.
Let me repeat again for emphasis that I have "cleaned the monitor" 50,000 times in the last year. I am serious about this and we will continue to be. One common criticism from houseguests is that the process to clean house takes too long, and we take that feedback seriously and continue to look at ways to improve our methods and efficiency.
I just dont understand why we cant get a Chinese IP Ban then (that would be so easy technically). As we all know they have their own server, thus where is the problem (even korea did it)? Surely by now its also many us/euro player botting, but I think thats not comparable to the chinese farmer industry, and if those are filtered out you can easily catch the other violators too.
Regards,
Rin
Because most botters aren't chinese? That'd be a good reason not to ban those IP's.
You know, when it comes down to it, there's one reason there's so many bots. Profit. It would cost more money to do more about them. NCSoft thinks they've found the happy medium getting them, in the words of Terry Pratchett, "the maximum amount of milk with the minimum amount of moo". And then, they stick Mistryl here, and let the cows stampede her, because I'm seeing a lot of mooing.
I don't care how many bots they ban, I only care about the results. The results that are in game right now are that bots take up most of the space in catacombs, bots run the in-game economy, and bots facilitate the excesses of the powergamers (i.e. cheaters). NCSoft can say they've done whatever, but in the end, what they've done has been insufficient.
Why can't people ever get it into their heads that the problem isn't that NCSoft doesn't like bots, its that they're apparently incapable of stopping them with the allocated resources.
Why can't NCsoft give us what we want, less bots and in game GM's. gives us Ingame GM's who sit in the starter town and while they deal with our in game requests they watch the botters de-levelling.
Well, first of all, players delevel too, so that is not only bots do this.
To give you an example.
HGM Spam. The man himself, who plays this game, has indicated that he sees bots all the time when he is in game. he also has a pad of paper by his computer where he takes down every single one and then takes care of it.
HOWEVER, as he has also indicated, all such reports, regardless of who sees/reports them, have to go through the process that has been set up.
Why is there a process? Probably a huge slew of reasons, some of which can be legal.
Maybe i am wrong, but didnt you post a statement, that your team will take serious attention to "fame botters"? I cant post the source, but i am sure, in one line you said, that you will take a special look at people which botting fame ... or?
I don't recall making any recent statement that we are focusing on "famous" players or clans. We investigate and punish everyone equally regardless of character or clan. I apologize if I caused any confusion about that.
i guess there is some kind of misunderstanding going on :) Samadhi was talking about bots which belong to an academy and produce "fame" (Clan reputatio) for that clan they belong to.
I don't recall making any recent statement that we are focusing on "famous" players or clans. We investigate and punish everyone equally regardless of character or clan. I apologize if I caused any confusion about that.
Mistryl wrote:
I am sorry to sound like a broken record, but please continue to report those players to the GM team, especially the ones that you suspect of abusing the Academy system.
So in other words, even though they are banning people, you're still not happy? This is why we aren't "allowed' to talk about it because it goes nowhere. I posted this before but this convo
"ban bots!"
We are!
"No you aren't!!"
Yes we do all the time
"Pffttt not nearly enough!"
Other thing is, that i doubt that there is anyone actually who does read the petitions that are written everyday. If you haven't enough GMs (which is actually a fact because whenever i type /gmlist no matter what daytime it always says "there is currently NO gm available) then improve the automatic scripts which are answering the petitions, and prove to the community that they come to anyones recognition.
There are real live people who read every petition that players send in. :) It's been mentioned before but it's worth repeating; even though the /gmlist doesn't display any names, there are GMs providing service. The response to a petition reporting a player is always the same because the answer won't change -- the response indicates that all information was received, and we appreciate the report.
Samadhi was talking about bots which belong to an academy and produce "fame" (Clan reputatio) for that clan they belong to.
Ah, that makes sense. :) I did say recently that if you suspect a character of using third-party programs to abuse the Academy/reputation system to please report them right away. Thanks for clearing that up!
Is there any chance you guys can get in touch with Korea to modify the message "There are currently no GMs..." to read "The /gmlist command is currently inactive"? I think that would clear up a lot of things - many people who read that message don't necessarily come to the forums to find out it's meaningless.
If those are my choices, I go with "futile, limited and unprofitable".
Or
This is a battle that all popular games have. As was mentioned before, the very nature of L2's gameplay makes it attractive to use these services in order to stay competitive or to bypass seemingly boring or undesirable game play elements.
So, if you find it "lacking" and it seriously effects your gameplay then you have a choice. But we all have that choice.
I do wonder if NC was to take control over the economy and to add instances if you would see less bots because 1, there would be less of a reason to purchase online items and 2, you wouldn't see them because it would be easier for them to do what they want to do in instances.
But that would make it a different game and players might not like that.
You can't just take away gameplay elements to get rid of bots. That's like cutting off your nose to spite your face. And since there isn't a valid way to combat the secondary market (at this point) we just need to deal with it the best we can as players.
Other thing is, that i doubt that there is anyone actually who does read the petitions that are written everyday. If you haven't enough GMs (which is actually a fact because whenever i type /gmlist no matter what daytime it always says "there is currently NO gm available) then improve the automatic scripts which are answering the petitions, and prove to the community that they come to anyones recognition.
There are real live people who read every petition that players send in. :) It's been mentioned before but it's worth repeating; even though the /gmlist doesn't display any names, there are GMs providing service. The response to a petition reporting a player is always the same because the answer won't change -- the response indicates that all information was received, and we appreciate the report.
If there are real live people reading the petitions and give an automated answer manually, why did i receive an automated message (which aborted the petition and didn't accept it) saying >>Please enter the name of the Player which is suspected of using a third party program, petition again on this issue<< (not the same words but the meaning was like that).
I did enter the character name, i did add any information i had to this petition. it was refused only because i wrote "Character: xxx" instead of "Player: xxx".
So you really want to tell me real, life people aren't able to replace "character" by "player" in their own mind ? :) because i petitioned again and only replaced those two words, the rest was exactly the same, but this time the petition was accepted and the answer told me that this player will be investigated.
I know this theme becomes more boring for you everyday by each post that is added on this issue, but on the other hand the more boring it becomes to NC Soft the more serious it becomes to the community.
I am sure You are doing everything possible to get rid of cheats and their abusers, but I say your abilities and your capacity is way too less to dominate the problem, nothing more nothing less.
hmm they right most times this topics go downhill fast
they first do a invertigation to see if "weird" name is indeed boting if weird name replays to GM ->GM knows "weird" name is boting but he cant prove he is so "weird" name go free for time being
also keep in mind automatic friends are in ANY game just in some games they are more visable then others like Necro's just to small for bots and people so they are showed
Does it really matter how long the process is? If it takes one day or one month is the time frame that important?
It makes a difference in wether its profitable or not to run the bot. If it runs long enough to make more ressources than the account itself has cost, then its worth it.
I don't recall making any recent statement that we are focusing on "famous" players or clans. We investigate and punish everyone equally regardless of character or clan. I apologize if I caused any confusion about that.
You know, there's a reason why in professional sports they investigate the top players more rigerously than they do the little league games or Bobby and Joe's little soccer game on the field.
It is fact that you have a problem to ban all bots. It´s a lot of work to do that.
But there is a easy way to do that, everyone who loggin without an original client get bunned. Thats so easy, just check every loggin if the EXE is original. That should be the smalest thing for the programmers.
And you have another problem, if you dont fix it Lineage 2 will die. There are so many MMOPRGs comming out, if you wanna have a chance, fix the problem with the bots.
(excuse my bad english :D)
sorry wrong re, its for Mystril
It is fact that you have a problem to ban all bots. It´s a lot of work to do that.
But there is a easy way to do that, everyone who loggin without an original client get bunned. Thats so easy, just check every loggin if the EXE is original. That should be the smalest thing for the programmers.
That is a very good idea. The question is: is it possible to counterfit that?
Because I always wondered that myself. Why not make it so that the only way to access the game is with the original client ( *somewhere in Korea, a developer is reading this thread and slapping his head )
Mistryl, I still ask myselve, WHY not ban chinese ips? Wouldnt this be the smartest and easiest solution to this problem? Why can korea to that but not america/euro?
I am really curious, regards,
Rin
P.S. The problem with checking the exe is, this can also be counterfigt... the client just needs to validate itselve as the original client, which is surely not a big thing for a hacker. But still the devs could make ways to easly work against the bot programs. But they would have to adapt it every week and I guess its too much effort, even if I think it wouldnt be as much of an effort as to ban thousands of violators...
My suggestion would be (as I am a programmer myselve) -> why not build a little "login bit/message" into the original client which will be sent at the login process. But even if people use third party programs let them connect, but mark them as bot programs. So first people would not see any change, so they would still use the bot programs and would not adapt it to this new bit, because everything seems to works fine. But then, after a week you have a BIG list for a mass ban :) Do this at random times and pow finally they will stop as the money to buy new accounts is not worth the effort :)
Mistryl, I still ask myselve, WHY not ban chinese ips? Wouldnt this be the smartest and easiest solution to this problem? Why can korea to that but not america/euro?
Korea doesn't do that, they work on Korean SSN, as per Korean law.
Banning IP's is pointless, many don't have static IPs and even if they do, its fairly easy to change/fake.
If it truly was easy to do these things, don't you think they would have figured it out by now? MMORPG companies have literally worked the last 9 years on this problem and still there's no easy solution.
Also you have to remember that NCSoft NA doesn't develop the client themselves, they just localize it, they cannot make changes to the client like that.
It´s a lot of work to do that.
But there is a easy way to do that, everyone who loggin without an original client get bunned. Thats so easy, just check every loggin if the EXE is original
I thought about that....But all they have to do is just emulate the client then.
Another thing is, record the moving action of a player.
If he moves nearly 24 hours, it is easy to see that this is account sharing or botting. Both isnt allowed.
Or show me a player who can play 22 hours at one pice
To the client thing: every loggin change the EXE. Do this every day and it inst easy as before
Another thing is, record the moving action of a player.
If he moves nearly 24 hours, it is easy to see that this is account sharing or botting. Both isnt allowed.
Or show me a player who can play 22 hours at one pice
You cann't use the account sharing as a reason. There is nothing that says you cann't share, what it does say is. If there is any issues because of this it's your own fault, NC does this to clear themselfs.