I have been playing this game since beta. I have dealt with bots and adena seller problems for most of this time. I have had bad experiences and good experiences with NCsoft Support and GM's in this game.
Within the last 6 months NCsoft has completely shifted my opinions on their support. I play on the Bartz server.
Us players are now co-operating with higher level GM's in getting these scum reported and banned. NCsoft does care officially. Many people on bartz have been in communication with high level GM's about dealing with these menaces and it has led to them being banned and rebanned and banned again and again as they have rerolled many times. The biggest success Basrtz has had is keeping the raid boss farmers banned frequently enough for them not to be a problem in taking all the raid bosses from legitimate players.
The catacombs and necropolis are cleaned frequently in a combined effort to keep bartz server clean from these adena sellers/botters.
I would also like to point out that NCsoft is now banning people that purchase adena. I think its great, so all you people that want to cheat by purchasing adena, remember NCsoft is now banning purchasers as well as sellers.
Just yesterday a high level nobless character was banned for purchasing adena on bartz, and they also banned his buffer accounts which included a 78 Shillen Saint.
The only way to deal with these farmers who are selling adena is to talk to lineage 2 support.
scroll to the bottom and click on ask a question. Work with the GM's to get your case looked at.
I would like to thank HGM SPam for putting up with my various insults directed at his team. I am sorry Spam but I was at the verge of quitting the game because I was so fedup with these non-legitimate players ruining my leisure time in Lineage 2.
I apologize for all the insults directed at your team, HGM Spam. I do realize you have a heavy workload but I am the customer, I feel obligated to complain until I receive the product described on the retail box for Lineage 2.
Keep up the good work and please don't slow down on your pace of work.
That is most exciting. Yes, the GM staff has been very responsive since, it seems, all of the meet and greets that have been going on. I know this is NOT the case, but outside perception is all I have to go on.
Go Go Go GM team.
do a fresh clean out of the Cats and Necs today (Friday) so we have the weekend clear and free of those nasty auto-bots (lol)....
I have been vigilant with reports to the support ticket system and in making in game petitions. I have not been bothering with the "wdurfgewrf" names lately. For the past 2 months I have been following specific groups (some tagged, some not) and reporting them, yet they continue to level and move to higher areas. Even one guy who loves to detag from his castle owning clan, level AFK for 2 weeks, then tag back up on siege day. When he isn't AFK he is now askign heroes to shout for noblesse items.
That's what we want to hear, success stories from players. Very encouraging.
I still petition bots if I see them, but they are still in such amounts on hinde that more often than not do you have to train and pk before getting a cata room, and 'famous' top players who openly admit to botting (because legit is nolife or whatever) are still active. I can easily spend all my petition tickets in 5 minutes by running around in low lvl catas and only reporting the leaders of each bot train.
I still think we could use some in-game GM presence, simply as a deterrent. I doubt botters would feel as safe as they currently do if they occasionally - even just once a month or something - saw a GM walking around ingame.
So what did you do ?
Go in cata/necro, take screenshot of bot party and post them on support ?
If it s that I will do some tour in bot spot with my main even if I don't understand why they don't do it alone.
Oh.. I don't know.. I report bots now and again on Lionna.. and usualy within a couple weeks I dont see those same bots again. There are exceptions of course.. but on the whole it seems to work when I take the trubble to report them.
Oh.. I don't know.. I report bots now and again on Lionna.. and usualy within a couple weeks I dont see those same bots again. There are exceptions of course.. but on the whole it seems to work when I take the trubble to report them.
Bot don't stay so much time on the same spot they are leveling you know ;)
Yeah, I did 3 reports in the last week. One looks to have been successful.
The other two, if a GM could watch me interact with the bot, they could see. One was an autorestocker sell-bot. The other is a player's bot train where I'm hunting that I killed repeatedly, and then rezzed when they ran out of their own scrolls until they moved in ultra slow-motion. I've done that particular group a couple days in a row now, as I really like their room. :) Maybe someday they'll get the ban, who knows.
But I'm not so naive to think it won't be immediately replaced.
thats what i was going to say. Bots arent stupid, and most bots now days arent the "chinese farmer" of the past. Most peeps that claim to be botting on the other boards, make the simple statement that they just move around alot and never get banned.
So, yes, you may see bot "X" today, and again 3 months later, but i'd bet its at a different location, or they left and came back
NCsoft just needs to give me a 2nd job... I wouldn't mind spending a couple hours a day baning bots, really the ones in clans (they piss me off the most). Just fix me up with a reaper lookng cloak, constant silence step, +250 run speed, instant teleport anywhere and a banning magic skill, zaps the bot and makes it explode... mawhahaha .... it would be more fun that grinding, and all they would have to do is pay me a $1.50... or maybe $1.55
NCsoft just needs to give me a 2nd job... I wouldn't mind spending a couple hours a day baning bots, really the ones in clans (they piss me off the most). Just fix me up with a reaper lookng cloak, constant silence step, +250 run speed, instant teleport anywhere and a banning magic skill, zaps the bot and makes it explode... mawhahaha .... it would be more fun that grinding, and all they would have to do is pay me a $1.50... or maybe $1.55
that topic is becoming a weekly topic, and derails any topic prior to it >.<
Nope, you need to have when you kill them, they pop like a pinyata all over the floor, everything in their inventory.
Well, on second thought, that may not be a good idea, the farmed items and adena stays in game...
Sorry, I will return you all to your normal shows :(
I find you get much better results by using their support site that i listed in the original thread. I submit their names and if it is a whole clan i submit a few names and point out it is an entire farmer/botter clan.
I think the players post up top is kinda like what you said. He gets a false positive, they just move somewhere else and it seems they have been banned. If they want to have the customers on there side they need to ac tlike othe ronline games do. They need to show up in towns and greet players. They need to walk around the dungeons and see first hand whats going on. Most NA jobs are outsourced so the reason behind them asking you to do there job is, because they cant log into the server and write ther names down or ban them. If they could log into the server, you would only need to tell them to come to you wehave Bots here! <-- like normal online games Do lol.
If bots make up 65% of the player base which they do on my server. Ncsoft would comite suicied by banning them. Even i would not ban them if i owned the company. Of course i would give you the illusion that i am by taking out a few. Yet i would do that knowning 50 to 100 more players signed up, that way i dont take a lose in profit. Thats just me thinking about the all mighty $ :). <--- they do too
I think the players post up top is kinda like what you said. He gets a false positive, they just move somewhere else and it seems they have been banned. If they want to have the customers on there side they need to ac tlike othe ronline games do. They need to show up in towns and greet players. They need to walk around the dungeons and see first hand whats going on. Most NA jobs are outsourced so the reason behind them asking you to do there job is, because they cant log into the server and write ther names down or ban them. If they could log into the server, you would only need to tell them to come to you wehave Bots here! <-- like normal online games Do lol.
If bots make up 65% of the player base which they do on my server. Ncsoft would comite suicied by banning them. Even i would not ban them if i owned the company. Of course i would give you the illusion that i am by taking out a few. Yet i would do that knowning 50 to 100 more players signed up, that way i dont take a lose in profit. Thats just me thinking about the all mighty $ :). <--- they do too
Hate to burst yer bubble as well, but L2 makes money if they ban the bots, the bot have to buy another account to get started all over again. So I see you was after the dollar, but yet missed the point on how to make more of it >.<
I think the players post up top is kinda like what you said. He gets a false positive, they just move somewhere else and it seems they have been banned. If they want to have the customers on there side they need to ac tlike othe ronline games do. They need to show up in towns and greet players. They need to walk around the dungeons and see first hand whats going on. Most NA jobs are outsourced so the reason behind them asking you to do there job is, because they cant log into the server and write ther names down or ban them. If they could log into the server, you would only need to tell them to come to you wehave Bots here! <-- like normal online games Do lol.
If bots make up 65% of the player base which they do on my server. Ncsoft would comite suicied by banning them. Even i would not ban them if i owned the company. Of course i would give you the illusion that i am by taking out a few. Yet i would do that knowning 50 to 100 more players signed up, that way i dont take a lose in profit. Thats just me thinking about the all mighty $ :). <--- they do too
Hate to burst yer bubble as well, but L2 makes money if they ban the bots, the bot have to buy another account to get started all over again. So I see you was after the dollar, but yet missed the point on how to make more of it >.<
they'd aslo make it faster.
$15 / month
or $15 * number of accounts banned / day
I think the players post up top is kinda like what you said. He gets a false positive, they just move somewhere else and it seems they have been banned. If they want to have the customers on there side they need to ac tlike othe ronline games do. They need to show up in towns and greet players. They need to walk around the dungeons and see first hand whats going on. Most NA jobs are outsourced so the reason behind them asking you to do there job is, because they cant log into the server and write ther names down or ban them. If they could log into the server, you would only need to tell them to come to you wehave Bots here! <-- like normal online games Do lol.
If bots make up 65% of the player base which they do on my server. Ncsoft would comite suicied by banning them. Even i would not ban them if i owned the company. Of course i would give you the illusion that i am by taking out a few. Yet i would do that knowning 50 to 100 more players signed up, that way i dont take a lose in profit. Thats just me thinking about the all mighty $ :). <--- they do too
I dont get false positives, we compete with these farmer/botters for hunting spots and raid bosses. These are lvl 78-80 nobless farmers I have seen get banned. The last 6 months or so NCsoft has been doing an excellent job banning them. Trust me they are gone. I even PM them in game to check if they are still around.
As for the lower level bots, the Catacombs and necropolis of bartz used to be full of them. Now you see very very few of them in any cat/necro. If you report them they are usually banned fairly swiftly (2 weeks).
If you report them they are usually banned fairly swiftly (2 weeks).
But in that time they have been running for 336 hours and i'm sure they have a net worth in the millions if not billions. By that time they have infected the economy...
Hate to burst yer bubble as well, but L2 makes money if they ban the bots, the bot have to buy another account to get started all over again. So I see you was after the dollar, but yet missed the point on how to make more of it >.<
Agreed. Though this only holds true for farmer/PL bots.
Hey all, myself and my siblings quit the game due to horrible support and crazy bot problems. I have been reading the boards lately and after hearing all this news about L2 GMs cracking down on bots has made me want to play again...
Just reactivated my account and my siblings' accounts. Anyways, just want you L2 GMs to know that when people hear you are taking care of this stuff, hope is rekindled and players will come back. :) SO KEEP IT UP!!
I have a couple positive experiences to share, myself.
A few days ago, I reported some bots in beast farm. I managed to typo the character's name (clever ******** really, the name was FIYgirl. Spot the trick?), so I just got a prewritten response saying such a name does not exist on this server.
I made a new petition containing pretty much only the correct spelling without saying it was a bot or anything like that, and I got the generic "Thank you for informing us of these suspected violators" (http://scrap.5elements.net/l2screens/Shot00193b.gif) reply. I just thought this was really reassuring since while the responses are prewritten, it's a confirmation that your petitions are in fact read and replied to by live people.
Another experience I had was when I reported some guy for having an offensive name and title. Later that same day (like a few hours later), he was walking around with a different name. I even got an email from ncsoft about it in case I wanted further assistance, since I guess it was filed under harrassment.
If you look at some of the less-official l2 forums, you'll see that there are several threads on people complaining about getting wrongfully banned. I can't comment on how "wrongful" it actually was since I don't know the people in question, but to be honest, I'd rather have "too many" people get banned and return the legit players their accounts after closer investigation, than have "too few" banned in the first place.
Another experience I had was when I reported some guy for having an offensive name and title. Later that same day (like a few hours later), he was walking around with a different name. I even got an email from ncsoft about it in case I wanted further assistance, since I guess it was filed under harrassment.
Thats good, thats definetly an improvement. I remember petitioning on a guy with an extremely offensive title "child humper" "child raper" or something along those lines...he still had that title almost a week later and I don't even to this day know if it was himself that changed it or a GM.
Good to hear that has changed.
Other than that I can't say I agree with that one. Sometimes it can be pretty devastating to the community when certain key people are wrongfully banned, especially if they do not get unbanned again.
Personally I think GM's should really just look at account/character ages...If you have a 3 year old level 60 character thats suspicious, just leave it be really and go for the 2 month old noblesse and stuff like that more heavily.
Too heavyhanded tactics hurt the game if it doesn't have a large increasing following (like WoW). Smart tactics on the other hand help smaller games.
Oh, yeah. I wasn't implying that banning too many people is outright better than banning too few. I guess I should have emphasized that that's only the case if they get unbanned again later. I think I would get pretty outraged if just one clan member of mine was wrongfully banned without having his account ever returned. Probably to such a degree that I'd quit myself.
I was just mentioning it since I wouldn't mind a couple weeks wrongful suspension if I got my account back when they had completed their investigation (I'd probably be crapping my pants until then but anyways). I think I'd be rather reassured that something seems to actually be happening now.
They don't unbanned people.
In fact even if you manage to get them on phone, and speak with them for an hour, in the end they say that before even calling you they had no intention to review the case. So why the phone call anyway lol.
They do. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to divulge (from gm's or the friend), but I had said friend get banned a few days ago for being an adena seller. He got his account back after closer investigation as his interaction with adena sellers was "minimal and likely not knowingly".
go for the 2 month old noblesse and stuff like that more heavily.
These are the types of characters I have been focusing all my reports on, and it doesn't seem to do any good. Hell, they would have to ban at least 3 entire alliances on the Franz server if they did such a thorough investigation. Franz launched at the beginning of October last year, and by February we had approximately a dozen heroes in full A Grade.
Franz has turned into this: Big bot train levels a bunch of toons up to 78. Then to complete normally hard 3rd CCQs, they are moved from area to area in these big groups. Hot Springs to Varkas/Ketra to Shrine of Loyalty. Repeat for Subclass. And poof suddenly a whole bunch of new nobles show up in clans.