In our ongoing efforts to combat RMT, the Lineage II team is embarking on the first phase of our plan by blocking IP addresses from China due to high RMT traffic. The block prohibits China IPs from connecting to the game, to the website, and to the account creation pages. As the account creation page is shared with Aion, it is unfortunately not possible for China IPs to create accounts for Aion use either. In the coming days we will closely monitor the effects of this action, and may block additional IPs that have prevalent RMT activity on a country-by-country basis.
We extend our apologies to any innocent players affected, and while we cannot whitelist individual IPs in this situation, we encourage you to contact the support team to resolve any outstanding issues.
Please note that proxies have become an integral tool for illicit behavior in MMOs, and as a result we do target them when we undertake anti-RMT efforts. However, legitimate latency reduction services are recognized, and a proxy will not be banned unless it is confirmed to be part of unsanctioned behavior.
This is indeed a very good step, hopefully soon there will be close to non RMT sellers.
Sadly, i personally think this will remove close to non, simply cause the people selling adena do this for a living, and therefore they will do whatever they can do bypass this, which is also done in minutes with a proxy.
However, the easiest way would be to simply flag every account connected to a chinese IP (as of right now), and then monitor those accounts after this "massive IP ban", which would work perfect even if theyre using a proxy to bypass it.
Just missing the most important too, having a online presence in the server and work on specific cases in the cities.
By entering, you have 1 or 2 RMT screaming, and you have several sending PM as well as several trading with RMT legend.
Yeah, just logging in, visiting every town for 2 minutes would be extremely cool, and then just send the RMT spammers to jail, would be awesome.
It is true that most bot trains are people from Europe/NA, however, these are not the people running the RMT sites, RMT site owners purchase their adena from players, and then resell, and most RMT sites are from China, just a simple WHOIS check will confirm it.
And if this works out well (i dont think so), i think we'll see alot less botters, some will stay around to get stuff for their mains, but some will leave, cause they bot just to make IRL money, so if they cant sell their adena.. well, 1+1=2
As of now, the bots who run on our servers, actually help stabilize the economy of the game, with the prices ncsoft creates inside its stores for some items and the complete lack of other certain items, leaves the farmers the only source of existence for the items people need. High end Weapons and Gear would not be in circulation for players who log on and play for 1-4 hours a day vrs some one who plays for 16 hours a day, the low Drop rate of items and money make the need for the farmers to sell items and work to help the players cause there is a NEED for them, People buy form private stores and the auction house because they need the item, most could care less where it comes from as long as it is available to them, thus creating the NEED to buy your in-game currency and to buy in-game items that are more rare and / or unobtainable, but legitimate players.
So taking this into consideration, if NCSoft really wants to put a end to the bots for real players, then get rid of the need for their existence, people would not need to purchase adena, if it was so abundant no one had to worry about saving, every drop they earned because the cost of items in NPC stores or Auction house / private stores were so high due to supply and demand. if all items were in stores at a reasonable affordable price that a legit player could afford then the bots would have no reason to be here.. You can not control an opportunist who will find ways to manipulate a system that has a genuine need, unless you remove the need.
My suggestions on how to remove the bots are the following.
Remove the definite need of Adena by raising the amounts people make. GOD raised the amount of Adena drops to where a player can make more adena in a week than they could in 3 months pre GOD, but you did not change corresponding items inside NPC stores and the amount of items to make up the difference.
Increase the drop rate so that there is more items to distribute with out the need of farmers farming an area to obtain the items to sell to the player base.
Create better rewards for instances and such that give gear so people can work for it and it is available to EVERYONE on the same merit and not based on how much time they play the game.
Inflation works in this game as it does in real life economies. Work it to help eliminate bots not give them a strong reason to be here.
Maybe change all gear to be earned through certain process and not even available for sale, thus leaving the adena for other things that could be more obtainable and everyone has the chance to be as ubber as the people that play for hours on end cause they have no life or a fat pocket book.
be true to your commitments and stop changing things around on your players so that after they work for months on something you change it and then they are left with something they cant even use and months of hard work rendered useless.
And on another note, this game was meant to be a player vs player combat game, and NCsoft made a promise in its pre advertisement for GOD, that the Ncsoft store would not effect game play in anyway. I find that statement to be false and appalling. Here is what the ncsoft store has done that has not effected in the game
No one gets killed by a +10 or higher R-99 Weapon ( sarcastic)
Everyone gains experience on the same merit (sarcastic)
No one can buy pots that make them better at pvp, or gives them health or cp in battle ( sarcastic)
Special Pvp Items such as the Rudolph Agathon, which was sold for real money only, does not aid, or enhance pvp or game play ( sarcastic)
Yes my last post was all in sarcasm but im a firm believer that you do what you say your going to do.
In finishing, you want to rid the server of bots and RMT, the eliminate the need and opportunity for them to exist.
This is called DISCRIMINATION!
I hope someone from China to sue you and will surely win.
You can not generalize starting from punctual problem!
STOP DISCRIMINATION
This is called DISCRIMINATION!
I hope someone from China to sue you and will surely win.
You can not generalize starting from punctual problem!
STOP DISCRIMINATION
this is called a solution, DISCRIMINATION for whom? for bot's ? its ok for bot's
Chinese prisoners forced to farm gold in WOW , I think that in Lineage 2 The situation was the same xD
I want to believe that not all Chinese are prisoners and farm adena all day.
Free Willy
With all respect, but i don't get even 1 good reason why some from there would prefer NCWest over L2 at Korea.
Good job NC!
50% locations clean from bot's and far fewer spammers, I counted about 20 total
What server this happened ?
Chronos server Lower Giant's Cave big room i know for fact 3/4 groups there are from very known site . www.******garden.com . I didn't post the full name for obvious reason. These groups are still there .
Did this thing with IP banning started already or will happen soon ?
Chronos server Lower Giant's Cave big room i know for fact 3/4 groups there are from very known site . www.******garden.com (http://www.******garden.com) . I didn't post the full name for obvious reason. These groups are still there .
Did this thing with IP banning started already or will happen soon ?
Apparently you're forgetting about the European / American adena farmer's aka bot :D
On naia i looking for fun on the locations, noticeably empty. But still alot bot's
Wow! Been waiting forever for this. I just wish this had been done back in 2005 when the problem started. Chinese residents can play/bot/rmt on their own servers instead: http://www.lineage2.sdo.com/default.aspx
We have a plans to put IP Ban system?
Ex.: 100 accounts on the same IP, 99 accounts botting, one safe account.
We have a plans to ban players with BOT relations?
Ex.: Execution grounds lvl 99 bot party: one player in bot and six players in a hardware based with attack assist command.
This will solve lots of problems, yes... but it doesn't address:
1) Non SEA farmers, current bots that not only farm and sell adena
2) Stop people from using a proxy. Imho in association with the IP block, you should see which accounts stopped logging and set a "SUSPICIOUS" mark on them.
One problem:
This can block game access to US/Euro that are stationed in SEA, due to work.
I guess none of Chinese players never played here as player they got Lineage 2 to China earlier also, also they can play in China at two different companies, they can play at the NCTaiwan too, at Innova RU and at Innova EU too.
Sace, even now may some people will flame me for this question, but what do you plan to do with Russia?
While I have more friends too from Russia who play always as legit players, but sadly if I look the Naia it is fact, that the Russian players even control more bot groups as the Chinese, while I guess the players can remind to it, that we got a lots of time different Adena Seller spam messages with Russian texts too.
After all Russian players have own Lineage 2 servers in their own country too.
Even the Chinese people made the biggest RMT on our servers, but those players who mainly destroy the game through their illegal action by my experience comes from the area of Russia.
Yes, from every country exist cheater players or RMT actions maker players too.
Yes, maybe it isn't the best solution if you would block Russia, because in another hand the Russian players also did a lot for the gameplay and community of the Teon, Naia, Franz, Luna servers.
I wrote my post like an experience and question, I didn't want to make discrimination or to hit with this anyone!
This is called DISCRIMINATION!
I hope someone from China to sue you and will surely win.
You can not generalize starting from punctual problem!
STOP DISCRIMINATION
Try to play on their servers and let us know how you feel then :P
This is called DISCRIMINATION!
I hope someone from China to sue you and will surely win.
You can not generalize starting from punctual problem!
STOP DISCRIMINATION
i hope that was sarcasm because this isnt discrimination. a lot of games do this and I for one am gald they are finally doing something
I didn't think I would live long enough to see this day come...
You and me both. I never thought this would actually become a reality. It's worth trying since obviously doing nothing hasn't exactly been good. I was hoping that there would be a crack down with more to come. I realize it'd kill the population,but these are North American servers therefore I'm not so much upset China is being restricted.
Mass bans and IP blocking... Hmmm are we getting an update soon?
Really though +1 to what troill3n said, the best way to combat RMT is to make gear earnable. I don't understand why l2 doesn't implement a quest for mats n craft system that's effective. I am happy to see this though... Maybe ill start playing regularly again :)
Typically I have nothing constructive to add, but I remember when Final Fantasy XI blocked chinese IP's years ago. Was actually pretty helpful. The problem though is this is a F2P game, with rmt coming at you in all countries hardcore like. And while you may block china altogether; and actively ban bots and farmers as you come across them (still not believing this), it is easier than ever to just roll up a fresh account using proxies and the same ol bot programs and continue spamming in towns or whatever makes em happy. This is a positive step in the right direction sure, but one step in a cross country marathon is nothing in the grand scheme of what needs to be done.
A cross country marathon that was ran years ago I may add.
x: hey, there?
y: ...
x: hello?
y: ...
x: u bot?
y: mi no **** americano
O.o
but to IP ban, good goin NCsoft, but last night i saw 4 parties up in ToI 10th
and 5 toons in Bloody Swamps autochanging mobs as soon as i start hitting them... hmm O.o
Any ideas what to do with (lets call it) European Adena bot trains?
They are maintained on scripts - lets take example of trains who are augmenting items or were going up to 40 lvl to make Adena :D
Server Naia is full now and I doubt it is explicit result of success of IP ban :o
Any ideas what to do with (lets call it) European Adena bot trains?
They are maintained on scripts - lets take example of trains who are augmenting items or were going up to 40 lvl to make Adena :D
Server Naia is full now and I doubt it is explicit result of success of IP ban :o
My idea what I wrote to this topic would solve this problem:).
LoL one small step at a time and people are complaining for more. You complain when they don't test things and jump right into the shark tank, now they are testing the waters with a small change to deal with bots and people are STILL going postal.
At least they are starting to do something, I didn't think I'd EVER see that!
very small step indeed and not taking care of any of the bots at the serious farm spots like LoA/Steel Citadel/MoS etc. etc.
even more fun is to see the Naia LoA farm boss posting here in this actual topic, another example of the fail bans as he got banned and then unbanned lmao
with F2P aka no charge on account creation any idiot that knows how to run 3rd party soft can run farm trains and as such this is done by ppl from many different countries so Good Luck with using IP blocks as a solution..
Bored on a sunday morning, just gonna comment on somebody's post
(blue are Troill3n's comments)
As of now, the bots who run on our servers, actually help stabilize the economy of the game, with the prices ncsoft creates inside its stores for some items and the complete lack of other certain items, leaves the farmers the only source of existence for the items people need. High end Weapons and Gear would not be in circulation for players who log on and play for 1-4 hours a day vrs some one who plays for 16 hours a day, the low Drop rate of items and money make the need for the farmers to sell items and work to help the players cause there is a NEED for them, People buy form private stores and the auction house because they need the item, most could care less where it comes from as long as it is available to them, thus creating the NEED to buy your in-game currency and to buy in-game items that are more rare and / or unobtainable, but legitimate players.
You are semi-correct, but with this mentality (making it easier for players to get items) we'll end up buying everything from a shop. The fact that you buy S weapons from the shop, or don't have to spend weeks trying to make a Dyna set is a disappointment to some people. Bots used to help keep MATS prices low, so we could craft. That was the only "positive" thing about them.
There are ways to make money, just have to learn some things about the game a little better, (not flaming ;) pointing out that most older players would agree that it's ridiculously easy now to gear up your char). Ever played on lvl 80 in DC robe for months and months? :D
My suggestions on how to remove the bots are the following.
Remove the definite need of Adena by raising the amounts people make. GOD raised the amount of Adena drops to where a player can make more adena in a week than they could in 3 months pre GOD, but you did not change corresponding items inside NPC stores and the amount of items to make up the difference.
Increase the drop rate so that there is more items to distribute with out the need of farmers farming an area to obtain the items to sell to the player base.
how would this stop the rmt? the bots would make even more. Yea, players would make more too but if bots aren't kicked out, there is no point i think.
Create better rewards for instances and such that give gear so people can work for it and it is available to EVERYONE on the same merit and not based on how much time they play the game.
see now u said it yourself :) right now, EVERYONE has the same posibilities, right? we all play the same game. I think you're coming from a right mindset, but you're focusing on the wrong problem. The game is correctly setup. Abusing it is what makes things go wrong.
Inflation works in this game as it does in real life economies. Work it to help eliminate bots not give them a strong reason to be here.
Maybe change all gear to be earned through certain process and not even available for sale, thus leaving the adena for other things that could be more obtainable and everyone has the chance to be as ubber as the people that play for hours on end cause they have no life or a fat pocket book.
It is "unfair" and pointless to just GIVE people good gear. Again that's not the solution. It's unfair because someone who wants to "build" something good for his char will farm a lot to get it, meaning he's more devoted to the game. So he would deserve better gear, see? ><
be true to your commitments and stop changing things around on your players so that after they work for months on something you change it and then they are left with something they cant even use and months of hard work rendered useless.
what r u referring to here? keep in mind that in all games once in a while chars and items get nerfed. Developers are not "god" meaning no matter how much u test drive something, it's different when u see it in action by players (who might do anything they can to abuse something)
In finishing, you want to rid the server of bots and RMT, the eliminate the need and opportunity for them to exist
that's correct >< just gotta determine what the source of the RMT is. (it's not the fact that it's "hard" to make items.. it's ppl's GREED, helped through tons of bot parties.)
in my opinion, a whole country ban is not the solution against the adena sellers and botting.
what will happen if the problem is not solved after all chinese IP is banned?
going to ban 1 country after the other?, to see which one was finally the responsible?
it seems like a plan on blocking all players and leave only the botters in game.
on the other hand i believe that changing some simple mechanics of the game would be a lot more efficient against botters, adena farmers, and character- adena sellers.
Increase the drop rate, better npc sell and buy prices, and events that are based more to skill than online status! these action imo would be a nice start. Make every items bound and the economy based on mats, scrolls, crystals and other consumable items! It seems you are not aware that the people who hold the most of adena in server are those who control the market price. there is no chance to find a cheap item, because people sweep it from the market and put it back with their price. check antharas earring!! except events its a number of people who have access to it , many many years now. and thats only 1 example. As i ve read on someone else's post, there is no way to ban all botters, but there is a way to make them useless.
but it seems none of the game creators have spent time in game , to see what it takes to play it and make a descent character to stand against botted characters, or those who can afford to buy a lot of adena.
this post came with the 2012 overview! which proves what i said above: none of you has played the game the way the biggest number of players (your costumers) play it.
this game is asking so much time , that only prisoners of china and botters can have!
[ my post is so similar to the guy's above mine, but it seems we were typing it at the same time]
This is called DISCRIMINATION!
I hope someone from China to sue you and will surely win.
You can not generalize starting from punctual problem!
STOP DISCRIMINATION
You guys "jumped the shark" with the incessant abuse of the chat system. Get over it. There's a reason why greed is one of the deadly sins. Nobody is going to sue NCsoft and "surely" win anything.
LOL ? Russian players much smarter and will use the VPN
Proxies cost money to setup and operate. Maybe not always for the end-user but for somebody. IP blocking by country followed by proxy identification and blocking is going to be highly effective in my opinion.
I don't understand.. really i don't. Isn't there a way to automatically NOT ALLOW bot programs? Can someone explain why this is impossible?
The RMT is CLEARLY from botting.
NCsoft made this game, is it impossible to NOT have a "backdoor" of abuse, and just make it NOT POSSIBLE to log with a 3rd party program? ANYONE that can give a technical explanation why this can't happen, please go ahead..
Yea banning the "motherlode" would help, but as you said, some innocent bystanders pay for it too. So why dont you attack the REAL source..? the 3rd party programs..
Proxies cost money to setup and operate. Maybe not always for the end-user but for somebody. IP blocking by country followed by proxy identification and blocking is going to be highly effective in my opinion.
No, that is not hard at all.
They do this for a living, do you really think this is going to stop them? :P
Funny because most of the farmers I've encountered in this game are not chinese. At least they claim to be but then failed to converse with me in chinese.
They may have been mostly chinese at the beginning, but due to the vastly inferior demand over here compared to the chinese servers, they left.
Funny because most of the farmers I've encountered in this game are not chinese. At least they claim to be but then failed to converse with me in chinese.
They may have been mostly chinese at the beginning, but due to the vastly inferior demand over here compared to the chinese servers, they left.
of course the farmers aren't Chinese, Russians elbowed them out back in C5. But the toons actually doing the RMT are mostly chinese. Way RMT currently works is insertrandomsitehere dot com buys adena from players (who are the modern day farmers) and resell it to other players, making a margin on the transaction. What NC are trying to do is block that, the pure RMT aspect.
However if you can confirm that to "create" a master account your account management system does NOT allow to use proxy(any kind from any country), this will help to solve the problem a lot better and is pretty easy to implement with php or pearl language.
Copy/past from a friend's forum over Chinese IP bans.
Chinese botters were never really a problem. Unlike the actually players in the game, they were actually respectful and would yield a spot to you for as long as you needed it and go sit in a corner. Then you could tell them thanks when you were leaving and they'd continue. The game was paid back then, and they didn't want their 9 accounts banned. When you activated 9 accounts that's like $450 up front investment. With the current F2P trend, it is much, much worse.
Most of the Chinese botters were one player playing one toon with a group behind him assisting, etc. That's completely different than the B.S. we have to deal with these days. Completely AFK players that just have their toons sitting there day in and day out.
If I had the choice between dealing with the Chinese botters and the crap we deal with now, I'd welcome the Chinese back with open arms. They didn't cause much trouble, IMO.
The bot trains aren't the problem. And blocking Chinese IP's won't solve the RMT problem either.
The only thing that will solve the players' problems is a couple of full time GMs per server.
That will probably hurt NCSoft in the short term, because lots of bots buying the runes from the NCStore will get banned. But in the long term players will be happier because the server will get healthy again. This means more players will join and happy players spend more money.
And what NCSoft probably forgets is that even if people spent years in this game...at one point they will get too sick of how things go now. So if they don't start thinking long term solution, the game will eventually die and NCSoft won't make any money at all.
And don't give me the 'It's a free game, deal with it' crap. There are loads of free games that make money off their in game store and because they actually act against illegal behaviour those games keep growing, while L2 dies out to be a small puddle of bots accusing eachother of being bots and trying to sell adena to other bots.
ok, Gameguard. It exists in L2, so how are people still using 3rd party programs? That's what i'm asking. If there is a way for the game to totally block any program. Is it technologically possible i mean..
The bot trains aren't the problem. And blocking Chinese IP's won't solve the RMT problem either.
The only thing that will solve the players' problems is a couple of full time GMs per server.
That will probably hurt NCSoft in the short term, because lots of bots buying the runes from the NCStore will get banned. But in the long term players will be happier because the server will get healthy again. This means more players will join and happy players spend more money.
And what NCSoft probably forgets is that even if people spent years in this game...at one point they will get too sick of how things go now. So if they don't start thinking long term solution, the game will eventually die and NCSoft won't make any money at all.
And don't give me the 'It's a free game, deal with it' crap. There are loads of free games that make money off their in game store and because they actually act against illegal behaviour those games keep growing, while L2 dies out to be a small puddle of bots accusing eachother of being bots and trying to sell adena to other bots.
Well yes, I guess much more legit player would buy much more NCoins if they would feel, that their rivals are 100% living players and aren't cyborgs (when sometimes the player plays sometimes its bot).
I think too, that even if it would result a painful financially start too, but NC should ban those too who botting, but buy a lots of NCoins and not just some of them, but as much as possible.
I hope the NCwest will does these actions too and not only make just partly useful actions like the IP ban of China.
ok, Gameguard. It exists in L2, so how are people still using 3rd party programs? That's what i'm asking. If there is a way for the game to totally block any program. Is it technologically possible i mean..
As long as Gameguard stays like this, there's no way to block Chuck Norris software and such.
Funny because most of the farmers I've encountered in this game are not chinese. At least they claim to be but then failed to converse with me in chinese.
They may have been mostly chinese at the beginning, but due to the vastly inferior demand over here compared to the chinese servers, they left.
Do you have access to the connection data? NCsoft does...
No, that is not hard at all.
They do this for a living, do you really think this is going to stop them? :P
Paying for a proxied connection or constantly searching for a new free one are bigger hindrances to doing business than being able to connect directly with no restrictions at all. And yes, an IP block plus aggressively going after the proxies and VPNs would be highly effective. If NCsoft limits their attack to just the Chinese or doesn't have the manpower to go after the proxies/VPNs then it might not have much impact on the overall RMT problem.
Well in all other games where bot programs are involved. The game company just goes to the bot company site and downloads the bot, then they reverse engineer the bot and ban anyone who has had any contact with the bot. It doesn't take very long once the game company does this.
So... Waiting on NCSoft to do that easy and simple task.
and ban anyone who has had any contact with the bot.
You do realize you can't tell for certain if you've had contact with a bot or who is doing it There are those instances where you can assume that's what they are doing. No L2 player can prove otherwise. You'd get people banned unfairly.
NC I know in the past would ban players for partying bot groups. Sometimes you don't know if the other people are using a program or not. There are times I've suspected,but if they respond how am I to know for sure?
This idea would need some major thinking over as to how you'd know to avoid them. There's simply no way for a player to 100% prove who is botting.
ETA: If you meant certain toons that deliver money then yes NC has used those as a way to see who is buying adena. They confiscate the adena and any items you bought with it and punish you with a temp or permanent ban. I don't know if they bother with it now.
You do realize you can't tell for certain if you've had contact with a bot or who is doing it There are those instances where you can assume that's what they are doing. No L2 player can prove otherwise. You'd get people banned unfairly.
NC I know in the past would ban players for partying bot groups. Sometimes you don't know if the other people are using a program or not. There are times I've suspected,but if they respond how am I to know for sure?
This idea would need some major thinking over as to how you'd know to avoid them. There's simply no way for a player to 100% prove who is botting.
ETA: If you meant certain toons that deliver money then yes NC has used those as a way to see who is buying adena. They confiscate the adena and any items you bought with it and punish you with a temp or permanent ban. I don't know if they bother with it now.
Yea um.. I meant the people who were using the bots.. DUH!
In our ongoing efforts to combat RMT, the Lineage II team is embarking on the first phase of our plan by blocking IP addresses from China due to high RMT traffic. The block prohibits China IPs from connecting to the game, to the website, and to the account creation pages. As the account creation page is shared with Aion, it is unfortunately not possible for China IPs to create accounts for Aion use either. In the coming days we will closely monitor the effects of this action, and may block additional IPs that have prevalent RMT activity on a country-by-country basis.
We extend our apologies to any innocent players affected, and while we cannot whitelist individual IPs in this situation, we encourage you to contact the support team to resolve any outstanding issues.
Please note that proxies have become an integral tool for illicit behavior in MMOs, and as a result we do target them when we undertake anti-RMT efforts. However, legitimate latency reduction services are recognized, and a proxy will not be banned unless it is confirmed to be part of unsanctioned behavior.
hummm.
hummmmmmm...
hummmmmmmmmmm...
i was in harnak 3 and killed a party bot then a full "BREGAN" party come and killed me (protecting theys paaaaaaarty ofc)
i was in harnak 3 (other day) killed a party bot a RENOVATION party full come and killed me....
hummmmmm...
hummm...... THEYS ARE NOT CHINESE!!!!!!
I WAS IN MONAS "up" I SAW A FULL BOT PARTY POWER LEVELING A PLAYMATE MEMBER.....
Sometimes I have strange feelings like someone 12 years old decides how to solve our problems :)
Why so hard RMT spam atm? Because too many ppl buy adena.
Instead of banning bot trains/adena buyers you blocking IP's ... Ofcourse, a very easy way to put some IP range in the list, but it's not working.
Demand creates supply.
From other side, even lazy and not so experienced with 3rd pty software ppl have atleast 1 bot train somewhere ... I don't say about professional farmers. But why? Why we have 4-5k bot's on Chronos and can't login during sieges etc.?
If IP block is country based.. it means that all ISPs from China will be blocked.. no matter which IP is blocked.. as long as it is Chinese.. it won't work.
Solutions are available easily.. and ofc those big RMT sites know all of them.
If IP block is country based.. it means that all ISPs from China will be blocked.. no matter which IP is blocked.. as long as it is Chinese.. it won't work.
Solutions are available easily.. and ofc those big RMT sites know all of them.
It will work if they don't stop to China. Now imagine IP block on, lets say, 2^32 IPs. All RMT will stop for sure! And nobody will use 3rd party software!
Well in all other games where bot programs are involved. The game company just goes to the bot company site and downloads the bot, then they reverse engineer the bot and ban anyone who has had any contact with the bot. It doesn't take very long once the game company does this.
So... Waiting on NCSoft to do that easy and simple task.
Easy, simple.
Hah!
Name one game company that has ever done this, please do.
This is called DISCRIMINATION!
I hope someone from China to sue you and will surely win.
You can not generalize starting from punctual problem!
STOP DISCRIMINATION
As far as i know and someone correct me if i am: Playing Lineage 2 is a privilege not a right !! As long as u don't pay for the monthly server care and maintenance, its a PRIVILEGE that some1 lets u play on HIS SERVER, THEIR GAME and THEIR MONEY.:confused:
You guys need a 3 guys working 8 hours shifts to cover 24 hours on each of the 4 servers = 12 people (can be low paid interns)
Just to be GMs present IN THE GAME so we have at least 1 gm per server all the time (bathroom breaks allowed) so he can BAN all the in town in your face RMT sellers shouting and sending PMs to everyone all of them are are bots btw.
Also to attend all the bots/rmt Reported by all the L2 community.
Is not hard. how can we take your word on this issue seriously if we see the chars(RMT/BOTS) in all towns and no one ban them?. Is like a guy with a big sign "I SELL CAMBODIAN WEED" in front of the police station and police do nothing. Is that bad.
I say for sure that If I do my job as NCSoft West does I will get fired within a month. true story.
NCSoft West please Take this not as a flame but as a constructive criticism from an older (than you all) tech professional.
Funny because most of the farmers I've encountered in this game are not chinese.
this.
of course the farmers aren't Chinese, But the toons actually doing the RMT are mostly chinese. Way RMT currently works is insertrandomsitehere dot com buys adena from players (who are the modern day farmers) and resell it to other players, making a margin on the transaction. What NC are trying to do is block that, the pure RMT aspect.
this. the chinese are now only primarily the resellers, the true farmers are not even chinese anymore. any player can sell adena to RMT site for irl $
And blocking Chinese IP's won't solve the RMT problem either.
The only thing that will solve the players' problems is a couple of full time GMs per server.
And what NCSoft probably forgets is that even if people spent years in this game...at one point they will get too sick of how things go now. So if they don't start thinking long term solution, the game will eventually die and NCSoft won't make any money at all.
while L2 dies out to be a small puddle of bots accusing eachother of being bots and trying to sell adena to other bots.
already is. oh and btw, since NC fails at banning, game won't die cuz, more and more former legits are taking up botting, because if there is no real penalty, why the F not. we will all be bots !
Only option is to ban directly the trains. Hard work.. yeah.. OFC it is!
oh no, I fear you nailed it on the head here. WORK dirty word to NC, actually going to look at some trains with 2 human eyes and getting some bans going ? Oh NOEEEEEEZ we can't do that...
my 2c which I said before: to stop SPAM, make a new account creation cost $5-$10 or so - some low, nominal fee that will be no deterrent to real players but will put a real dent into RMT spammer profits and cause them to slow/halt new account creation for spam purposes. GW2 has a real account cost, but there are TONS of ppl playing that game because it's still basically free with no subscription cost, which was the old killer of L2.
1.5 MILLION accounts created in L2 in 2012? I am surprised they even admitted this statistic, because any real player with half a brain knows that obviously the VAST majority of those were RMT spammer toons that have since been banned. Now imagine $5/ account = $7.5 million. And use the extra funds to hire more full-time bot train banners. /end
PS but it's near pointless atm to even ban trains as, most top levels are already 99 with red weapons so /yay
Ip Blocking is not a good solution for Illicit Behavior ! I have worked for A ISP for the last 5 years as network analyst and this will not prevent botters or hackers from accessing your network. A offender that finds that there ip is blocked will just change the ip ranger they access your network from. In the case of hackers you need to implement security measures on your network to prevent intrusion from any off network source. In the Case of 3rd Party program use or botters. To prevent the use of 3rd party software the best method is emplemting software that can detect the manipulation and injection of code into your client side software. This is most effect way of detecting 3rd party program use.
In the Case of gold farms and gold farmer bots they will continue to farm gold and spam chat with gold advertisements. In till you can actively block their l2 clients that are using 3rd party software to automate farming and spamming. to make these Enterprises less profitable you need to be able to prevent them from access the servers using 3rd party software or this will continue till the servers shut down for lineage 2.
My question for NCsoft staff is what are your plans for update or replacing Game Guard your only viable line of defense against 3rd party program use ?
The only way you're going to get on top of this is by some hard graft. Log into the servers, look at the multitude of bots running around in each area, check the accounts they log in with and keep deleting those accounts.
I don't know if there's a way of checking/logging the details for user accounts, see who they are passing money/items too and then deleting those accounts too. If they are passing money to non-botters, then those users have probably paid RL cash for them so they deserve to be deleted anyway. It's not going to solve the issue indefinitely but it's a good start.
Why not create your own "GM" bots? Is there a way to create a bot that runs around exp zones, asks a question and if there's no reply within 10 seconds, it boots that char? If you had one GM bot running round killing dozens of illegal programmers, that would reduce some of the pain?
another option would be to create a kicking crew. Recruit a group of regular, trustworthy players who have additional rights to kick bots if they see them. Obviously, if the rights are abused, remove them but if used properly could help piss the botter's off if they are constantly being kicked!!
another option would be to create a kicking crew. Recruit a group of regular, trustworthy players who have additional rights to kick bots if they see them. Obviously, if the rights are abused, remove them but if used properly could help piss the botter's off if they are constantly being kicked!!
Again... There's no in-game command for banning, much less for forcibly kicking people out of the server.
Again... There's no in-game command for banning, much less for forcibly kicking people out of the server.
create one, or use the "kill" command which basically kills the char there and then. As for banning, that obviously cant be done from the game itself, but in order to ban people, they need to log into the game and identify them.
IP blocking will only segment the market. Automated game play is the enemy. I find myself logging in less and less. Bots have alays been an issues for L2 and always will. Only time when there was new changes is when a new publisher took over and flexed there muscle for the first 5 months. After that bots were allowed to live on and on unchecked. L2 is awsome but ive moved on just watching updates. No more cash shop consideration from me. Why would I pay a publisher who is alwasy AFK from game exploits. Attacking automated game play will be much more effective then IP blocking. Besides all the bots are lvl 96 plus and i refuse to play anymore.
http://oi46.tinypic.com/fqtjd.jpg
the system you using is not working properly, alot of innocent players are getting random disconnections all time it can be noticed on the chart above from todays.
I hope you fix this or remove this system until its fixed... its annoying to have to log shops/raid cams/iss every hour or so...
your ip banning has made no difference on chronos.any village you go to there is nonstop adena spamming.the moment you log in you get non stop personal messages for real money adena sales(this can only happen,i think if your log in server has been acessed by the adena farmer,spammers).
often after blocking 2/3 i give up and log out, u cannot chat with ur friends cos of non stop spam.
since 1 started play in open beta,the situation has got worse,never any better,it seems to me(and i guess to other players,)you have no real intentention of dealing with this problem.
http://oi46.tinypic.com/fqtjd.jpg
the system you using is not working properly, alot of innocent players are getting random disconnections all time it can be noticed on the chart above from todays.
I hope you fix this or remove this system until its fixed... its annoying to have to log shops/raid cams/iss every hour or so...
Depending on what time you did that little graph it's maintenance day Feb. 6th. And the drop spikes look to be in very similar proximity of another. Depending on the population online on each server when the servers made the warning announcements,people started logging out and it reflects that on the graph. The graph doesn't tell you what time it was when you did it nor does it have any time stamps on it period. Just because people are in game doesn't actually mean they were playing. Lots of people AFK. That graph is too general to say it was people being dc'd that were out xping or doing whatever they do. For all you know the majority could have been botters.
honestly, this was one of the most dumb things i ever saw happening on l2.
really? ip blocking duo to adena sellers?
oh and it gets better.. most of the adena sellers are not even chinese! (speaking magmeld-wise)
instead of worrying about a couple of people who sell adena, why not worry about the SOURCE of that adena?? aka=bots.
magmeld is FLOODED with bots, there are bot parties EVERYWHERE... Mos, swampland, giants cave, guillotine Fortress and even seal of shillen..
NCSoft makes it EASY to bot on this game.. look at the areas.. MOS for example, NO live player goes there AT ALL! its even being refered to as a "bot zone"
the exp is crap, however, the adena drops are HIGH and the mobs are EASY to kill.. and with no real player going there duo not only every room being taken by bots but also very low XP, its a botting paradise. not to mention that useless trash software called "gameguard" that has been proved time and time again to not only be totally ineffective against bots, but also to cause alot of problems to real, live players.
now im wondering.. why not nerf the adena drop on that area and make it totally worthless so bots won't be able to farm their *** off in there?
same goes for giant's cave.. totally nerfing those 2 areas would be a huge step in reducing adena generated by bots.
but no, lets just IP block a whole country, why bother fixing our game? lets just prevent people from playing it, right NCSoft?
everywhere is so crouded.
bots are everywhere.
since you can't do anything
BRING BACK THE OLD PK METHOD !
IF YOU CAN'T BAN THEM LET US KILL THEM
Big +1, fully agree. The current PK system is simply a bot protection, many ppls don't want to make PK cause of this penalties. But without a PK penalties it would be a nice botcleaning. Look at those silhouette trains in Aden and Goddard running to SV and near Goddard... horrible...
I personally have an PK with an undestroyable gear and I am cleaning spots where I want to go do daily or grind. But on some spots (fe SV with silhouettes) they have botmama that kills everyone who is trying to kill their bots. Kill a PK with 80 pdef is not a problem. Sometimes I'm going to kill trains and bots, logging out and after 2, 3 hours when I am back I see that some of them still lying on ground on BB pot, but those major adenafarm trains wakes up and going back...
NCSoft makes it EASY to bot on this game.. look at the areas.. MOS for example, NO live player goes there AT ALL! its even being refered to as a "bot zone"
the exp is crap, however, the adena drops are HIGH and the mobs are EASY to kill.. and with no real player going there duo not only every room being taken by bots but also very low XP, its a botting paradise. not to mention that useless trash software called "gameguard" that has been proved time and time again to not only be totally ineffective against bots, but also to cause alot of problems to real, live players.
now im wondering.. why not nerf the adena drop on that area and make it totally worthless so bots won't be able to farm their *** off in there?
same goes for giant's cave.. totally nerfing those 2 areas would be a huge step in reducing adena generated by bots.
but no, lets just IP block a whole country, why bother fixing our game? lets just prevent people from playing it, right NCSoft?
MOS is wonderful for adena and very good for xp until 86. with quests, items drop and adena u can make a lot there in a day.
Same for antharas lair.
ppl dont xp there cause as soon they go someone from top clans shows up with reds to pk. and now with easy xp from raids theres no reason to be there.
i remember pre-god and a few later it always had pll xping there
Ok, i waited a little before post here to see some details.
1. Out of curiosity, I checked a few RMT sites since this announcement.
With 9 sites : 8 hosted in America, 1 hosted in Singapour... (i didn't post address for obvious reason or course).
I mean, i know that hosting has nothing to do with the IP connection to game server but, staff really think this method stop that ? Staff really think RMT will not find an alternative method to connect ?
2. It's nice to see that you're still looking for solutions. Lately, I started to believe that botting system was unofficially authorized by seeing the number of people who brags to use bots with absolutely no risk of getting ban since 1 year or more :(.
Seriously, RMT is very unpleasant but what about real players who use bots system. What will NCSoft do against these players? These players are killing the game as much as the RMT, maybe more ... and their excuse: "90% of the server bot .. so I bot" >< Serious, if someone shoots itself, you do ? Poor sheep ...
3. NCSoft has tried several ways to stop the RMT.
- Quest reward/10 from level 1 to level 40.
- Restriction to chat, it can be annoying when you return to a sub level too low
- Etc, etc ...
However, all these solutions have nothing stopped (at best, slow down a bit) and now, solutions are binding only for real players and can quickly discourage new players who discovers L2 for the first time ...
So, the staff will change something about it one day?
4. As has been said above, make the RMT useless might be a better solution.
Why not add the names of these sites to the list of censored words?
Seriously, RMT is very unpleasant but what about real players who use bots system. What will NCSoft do against these players? These players are killing the game as much as the RMT, maybe more ... and their excuse: "90% of the server bot .. so I bot" >< Serious, if someone shoots itself, you do ? Poor sheep ...
I'm really agree with all what you said but i want to illustrate just this part.