After the unscheduled downtime on Sunday evening (Euro time), Teon was roughly 1000 logged-in people short. This might be partially due to the next day being the normal workday ...
Around 01:00 GMT today, some 800 (roughly) players logged out at the same minute from Teon. The same happened (with less people) just a few minutes before on Devianne, then Lionna. A few minutes later, more than 500 players logged off simultaneously from Franz. Other servers were not noticeable affected.
Teon has been "light" for the first time since years today morning (again, Euro time, and reboots excluded). This means less than 3000 players connected (normal was 4500-5500, depending on the time of the day).
I think it has happened. First time in my L2 life I noticed Teon *and* Franz showing "light" on the login screen. It was around 1:00 a.m. GMT time -- a time normally both servers used to be "normal".
Perhaps a Spring Clean mission so as these servers to open for more transfers. I have this feeling NC would rather have people move out from dead servers on their own and then they [NC] close down the said server, rather than go through a merging process.
Well, Gustin still has many 3rd party sell shops which are obvious ... like my 5y/o cousin could pick them out ... and everytime the servers go down, I get my hopes up, just to see these same characters are the first ones in, first to put up shop, and first to CONTINUE their shouts. Everyday for the past week I've petitioned 1 player in particular ... and guess what, still here ... So I think that rumor is crap. Or maybe not since there has not been a response from officials yet
The connection peak for Teon was ca. 4800 last evening - compared to 5900 during the days after the server transfer. So over 1000 players less during the peak hours.
My guess is that because Teon was VERY close to the player limit (5900/6000) for a few days after the transfers, they decided to "clean up" the servers a bit. They might have have waited until the next expansion normally, but the Teon situation most likely made them decide to do it now.
One good thing (apart from less bots) is that this very likely means Teon and Franz will be open for transfers again soon.
Well, Gustin still has many 3rd party sell shops which are obvious ... like my 5y/o cousin could pick them out ... and everytime the servers go down, I get my hopes up, just to see these same characters are the first ones in, first to put up shop, and first to CONTINUE their shouts. Everyday for the past week I've petitioned 1 player in particular ... and guess what, still here ... So I think that rumor is crap. Or maybe not since there has not been a response from officials yet
True about automated shops be still on Gustin, and I understand your frustration quite well. But I believe NC's priority are the two European servers at the moment, and as such they might have run the operation in question.
As for official response, I don't think they will come here and tell us. They never talk about these things -- which does not mean they have done nothing.
I can't say i'm surpised thwy haven't said nothing yet.
They are not exactly obliged to announce these things or provide the info when asked however nice it would be to hear. The best anyone wanting to know can hope for is for someone to say "yes we banned a lot of accounts recently"
To be honest though an official response isn't needed. It's as obvious as the nose on your face as you stare in the mirror that there was a mass ban.
There have been official posts from Alyra stating that "NCSoft will not discuss or disclose anti-3rd party measures" or something similar to that.
Nor should they.
So much for forum trolls from Bartz and Franz claiming their #'s were all superior! (lol).
The facts are in and after bot-bans, the population of Bartz and Franz isn't that much higher than Lionna.
Both went from Heavy to Light (lmao).
Of course since most bots are player-run, those players will respawn their bots by tomorrow on new game card accounts and both will turn up toward "heavy" again---at which point forum posters will immediately try to make their weak sauce case of superior 'real player' numbers.
Speaking about gustin : Varka farmers got banned , some powerlevelers got banned , a great load of cata trains got banned , very few random people got banned as well.
It was mostly farmers getting the hammer not players.
I hope they open transfers
yeah i have noticed the bans....or at least something
i usually run trains through all the catacombs just for fun and watching soullless players die and get the random pm cursing me out ....... but lately i have nothing to kill in any of the catas.... hc, branded, worshipers, apostate, do, witches.......nothing in them!
The word is a certain program is now pay to use instead of free so thats also freeing up some slots for those that cant play live :)
so true but you know that it will be only a matter of time before they crack that again.. so let's hope it's was the banhammer ;)
I think it is a mix of both - I have read that the "program" finally was able to close the security loop-holes they had for a long time, so it is now very hard to crack - woot!!! Now if only NC would hire the same people to fix the holes in L2.
After the unscheduled downtime on Sunday evening (Euro time), Teon was roughly 1000 logged-in people short. This might be partially due to the next day being the normal workday ...
Around 01:00 GMT today, some 800 (roughly) players logged out at the same minute from Teon. The same happened (with less people) just a few minutes before on Devianne, then Lionna. A few minutes later, more than 500 players logged off simultaneously from Franz. Other servers were not noticeable affected.
Teon has been "light" for the first time since years today morning (again, Euro time, and reboots excluded). This means less than 3000 players connected (normal was 4500-5500, depending on the time of the day).
I see a lot of numbers in your post, i just wondered how you came about getting them? How do you know 800 people logged out simultaneously and that 4500-5500 is "normal"?
Massive bannings on Franz. I've noticed it alot in the catacombs but they appear to be doing sweeps everywhere. If you know any farmers Im sure they've been saying they lost their accounts. Ofcourse some real players are also getting caught for their botting ways to.. but that's neither here nor there.
If they keep at it, they should turn a nice profit from new accounts being activated that they can .... BAN AGAIN! <grin>. Nice Going Ncsoft! Keep it up!!
I see a lot of numbers in your post, i just wondered how you came about getting them? How do you know 800 people logged out simultaneously and that 4500-5500 is "normal"?
Mole
(Devianne - noticing extra space in giran).
There's a nice site getting them through not-quite EULA conforming ways I'd rather not discuss on this forum (suffice to say, look up "l2stat" in Google). :) I don't have anything to do with the site or its administrators, but I like to watch my server on it closely.
They've said they have had mass bannings before. Hell, Spam's even tossed around numbers a few times... why cant it be different now?
Its pretty **** obvious that it was a massban. Login statistics show that clearly. Looks like almost 5000+ accounts or so... which is a pretty big chunk of change.
Question now is, can NCSoft keep it up? This isnt something you do one time out of the year and go "We fight bots!". Its something thats done every few weeks. By that I mean banning bots in that number. Until eventually it becomes too costly to operate.
and it is Chinese New Year - that always reduces the number of "friends" on the server. But I do hope that they are banning and they need to keep it up.
Anyone who has played the past 1 year and before that knows these bans only happen a few times a year it seems. If it only could happen once every 2 weeks to a month I would be really happy and my faith iin this company my go up a bit.
You can't really. You can't assume all bots come from the Chinese IPs and since RIPE and ApNet are so screwed up in their IP blocks, if you just did mass subnets, a lot of legit people would be lost too.
No, they must have found either the will or the way to do something different that allows Spam to be sure of what his team is doing is golden or he wouldn't be so quick to just play whack a mole.
I do not speak for him at all, nor do I know anything. Just thinking out loud.
well, Pakistan had an internet outage on sunday that saw most of southeast and eastern asia completely cut off from internet service when someone attempted to make a pakistan router connect to YouTube faster.
Good time to sell that hoard of seal stones. I'm just wondering what the cap is for seal stones. If you turn in 2 billion green seal stones then you'll have 10 billion adena and the system can't handle that much. Anyone who tries it gets GM status!
Green seal stones went from 14 to 15 on Devianne. No big increase but in large quantities it does make a deference. Makes no sense to me though, why buy GSS if you can buy AA for the same price and not have to exchange them. Still a decent price though still makes buying from Mammon and reselling profitable.
Have no idea what the above subject has to do with announcing bannings. Just resonding to other posts.
Umm look at the server populations, all servers went down byt 1000-1500 connections in the last 3 days, so either 1500 people on each server decided to quit simultaneously or ... they are banning.
PS Sieg/Erica/Gustin/Lionna are kinda funny, they can even break 1000 online now. Can you say mergers?
Umm look at the server populations, all servers went down byt 1000-1500 connections in the last 3 days, so either 1500 people on each server decided to quit simultaneously or ... they are banning.
PS Sieg/Erica/Gustin/Lionna are kinda funny, they can even break 1000 online now. Can you say mergers?
half the servers didn't have 1500 people to begin with...
Are we in negatives now? O_o
Good time to sell that hoard of seal stones. I'm just wondering what the cap is for seal stones. If you turn in 2 billion green seal stones then you'll have 10 billion adena and the system can't handle that much. Anyone who tries it gets GM status!
Would be funny, but i dont think so. I bet that they put something in so that you can't get above 2147483647, depending on the data type they used to count AA anyway.
Umm look at the server populations, all servers went down byt 1000-1500 connections in the last 3 days, so either 1500 people on each server decided to quit simultaneously or ... they are banning.
PS Sieg/Erica/Gustin/Lionna are kinda funny, they can even break 1000 online now. Can you say mergers?
What have you been checking? "All" servers didn't go down by 1000+.
Three servers did.
Lmao--Franz went from Heavy to Light!!!
I'd still rather play on a server with 1000 mostly real accounts than on a server with 1800 real accounts and 2200 bots.
You all can kid yourselves all you want that your "4000" (or whatever) isn't over represented by the soulless but these server number changes prove otherwise.
Teon, Franz, and Bartz fell the most--it wasn't even close. In Bartz's case, they went from bragging they were "3rd largest with over 4000" to not significantly higher than Lionna! C'mon--that's funny!
You're all welcome to come to Lionna. Castles are mostly up for grabs, the catas are open, and we're a lot more fun than all the other servers! ^^
What have you been checking? "All" servers didn't go down by 1000+.
Three servers did.
Uh... your completely wrong but whatever.
Sieg went from 1600+ to barely cresting 500. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but isnt that one thousand plus?)
Every server lost about a thousand give or take if you look at the data from last week vs this week.
You're all welcome to come to Lionna. Castles are mostly up for grabs, the catas are open, and we're a lot more fun than all the other servers! ^^
Some of us want to play a MMO, not a NWN2 server.
I mean really, your population is lower then **** near every free game invented. I think Neopets server has more population then Lionna and the others.
The fact is that the BIGGEST reductions occurred on Teon, Franz, and Bartz.
Period.
So, the most bot accounts were where?
So, the most inflation of numbers by bots causing a 'heavy' status prior to the bannings was on which servers?
The question stands:
Do you want to be on a server of 1500 accounts with 400 bots, or one supposedly at 4000 accounts where 2200 are bots?
I'll take the lighter one.
Seighardt had two reasons for losing players and still wasn't the biggest loser....Franz was. And yes, the most bots were there.
And your numbers are still wrong for everyone but Teon.
Bartz didn't even have 6000 before the ban--and they fell to the 2000 range after the ban.
That's not 2200 bots, friend. They were routinely posting about 4500 and were 1800 after the hammer fell.
THAT'S why it's a conversation now. The difference between Lionna and Bartz went from 3000 "accounts" to less than 1000.
So absolutely Bartz was over populated by bots compared to Lionna.
However, you cant deny there are more players as well... can you?
Bottom line is, farmers mantain a footing across all servers. They do hold more on the popular servers, because (hint) they go where the players go.
Also from my numbers saved last week, Sieg was the biggest loser. Losing far more then Franz. (This time last week, Sieg had 1600 +/-... now it cant even crest 500)
If you go back even farther, you cant deny that Franz, Teon, and Bartz gained a ton of subscribers from transfers. All 3 went up by at least 1000, Teon even hitting 5989 at one point in time... (11 short of being "full"), with Franz close behind hitting 5479 at one point (521 from being "full").
These were taken on siege times if appropriate, since thats when the most would be on. Whats lionna's pop on siege times? I bet its no where near.
I'm all for them banning the true bots, but now they need to focus on the toons that botted so they can be super l33t and pwn the server (btw.. those same toons die and die fast in PvP cuz they have no clue how to play).
Many of the debaters here essentially pull numbers out of their...um, out of thin air. Just ignore people who make up numbers to try to win points in an argument.
Many of the debaters here essentially pull numbers out of their...um, out of thin air. Just ignore people who make up numbers to try to win points in an argument.
I take it you havent seen the site that shows the numbers?
Or ran the program that actually *gives* you those numbers? ;)
half the servers didn't have 1500 people to begin with...
Are we in negatives now? O_o
Yes. From mathematical point of view, there need to be 300 more players online so that server has 0 population :)
Anyway, there were times when Spam or his boss angrily claimed here on a forum about how much they banned, but I doubt it will happen this time. Girans seem to be tiny bit less populated now, and there is overall decline of players, which I doubt most of them are due to GG error. Or I hope.
My theory...... The "missing players" are kids who were naughty and had their internet access cut off by their parents. Once they've served their 2 week punishment they will be back :p
I think you guys are looking at the loss of players in the wrong way. You need to look at %s and not straight up numbers. Bartz, Franz, Teon had more numbers to start with, so naturally they would have the highest number of lost accounts.
There are masses of bots on ALL of the servers. Anyone that tells you otherwise is either stupid or lying.
My theory...... The "missing players" are kids who were naughty and had their internet access cut off by their parents. Once they've served their 2 week punishment they will be back :p
Ya thats about how much time it will take to get back up to the lvl's needed for grinding the cats for good mats :)
It's a moot arguement really. Everyone knows there was mass banning and if you read other forums there is complaints about a 3rd party program that has been shut down/blocked for now.
The questions now are. How long will it take for them to recover? Will NcSoft do this more often? How will the bannings effect the economies on each server? Depending on the answers of those three there are several other questions and issues that will come up that could make or break the future of this game.
One thing I know for sure is that they need to remove the ability to im from trial accounts. I got home from work last night went to check my sell shop and I had 10 ims from adena sellers. I started blocking the names and before I could block the first 10 I had 4 more im's. THis is getting rediculas and needs to be addressed NOW by NcSoft.
Using the same tool you are, checking prime time (9EST for Sieg in specific)
What time did you take yours?
Well I usually take my notes around 6 pm EST but I guess if you want maximum then 9 EST is better.
Here's for tonight, SS taken (&enlarged) at 9 PM EST (4 AM GMT+3):
Well I usually take my notes around 6 pm EST but I guess if you want maximum then 9 EST is better.
Yeah I wanted to try to get maxium and it looked like most of the US servers hit it at around 9-10EST. (East coasters on, west coasters on a bit before dinner or after a early dinner I guess)
Girans seem to be tiny bit less populated now, and there is overall decline of players, which I doubt most of them are due to GG error. Or I hope.
Or it could be players like me who've had it with the frustration and decided to play another game while checking the forum boards from time to time to see when/if they reopen Teon for transfer...
After the unscheduled downtime on Sunday evening (Euro time), Teon was roughly 1000 logged-in people short. This might be partially due to the next day being the normal workday ...
Around 01:00 GMT today, some 800 (roughly) players logged out at the same minute from Teon. The same happened (with less people) just a few minutes before on Devianne, then Lionna. A few minutes later, more than 500 players logged off simultaneously from Franz. Other servers were not noticeable affected.
Teon has been "light" for the first time since years today morning (again, Euro time, and reboots excluded). This means less than 3000 players connected (normal was 4500-5500, depending on the time of the day).
Yeah, I logged in yesterdfay and was like "WTH, Teon normal, evey other server ligh???" It was 6pm CT.
Teon, Franz & Bartz are not light just from any bannings, they are light because it's very difficult for people to stay connected to the servers when Crit Errors happen nearly every hour. My freaking sell shop crit errors very frequently - usually I can be on only 30 mins-2 hours before a crit - unless I'm grinding which I can usually stay connected for the entire time, but in a sell shop it's not going to stay connected. It is affecting alot of people.
IMO, the lower number of people on the server or the instances where a large group disconnects at the same time is from people critting at the same time. Check it out.
Those crits are caused by the longer than normal spam messages done by a few advertising bots in Giran. Do /allblock or switch to party/clanchat window while being in shopmode. Works in most cases.
You would think the forum coordinator would say SOMETHING in this thread. Even a "we cannot discuss the issue," would at least dignify the customers with a response. This is a legit question after all.
I know its gettig a bit tough on Devianne. Not a single seal stone or AA could be found for sale on the server. Thats millions of AA out of circulation within days.
NC must have hired a new GM team and whomever they are must be former/current players that got tired of the SOS. Kudos to NC and I give them the clap. I mean, I give them the hand... a hand. clap clap clap clap clap
Back in c4 if i remember right they had dwarf bots running arround like roaches it was so eery at dark elf village. now you have less bots in game so it is obviuose they do do something about bots.