I tried doing a quest out at Wall of Argos and... due to all the bots... errr, I mean "Players Using Software Suspect of Illegally Engaging Skirmishes" (abbreviated as "P.U.S.S.I.E.S"), a quest that should have taken 15 minutes took more like 2 hours. *sigh*
Anyways, I was wondering...
If NC added an hourly prompt that appears on your screen where you use your mouse to type in a number sequence, such as the on-screen keypad seen when you first log into your account in game, to keep from being auto-logged off....
Would that help with the bot problem?
Sure, it would not eliminate bots... err, I mean P.U.S.S.I.E.S, but it might be able to inconvenience people running them to have to be in front of the computer every hour or so to keep themselves from being logged off automatically.
Since GMs won't put in the time or effort to manually ban accounts, and since new accounts are freely createable, the only solution I can come up with to dealing with bots... errr... P.U.S.S.I.E.S. is to add periodic, in-game measures to inconvenience them in such a way that they need to be in front of their computers and actually look at the screen from time to time.
I figure, perhaps the keypad appears every hour or so (or some interval that makes sense) and you get 5 to 10 minutes to punch in your code.
Too busy fighting or in a quest? No problem, you got several minutes to take care of clicking your code in. If you are idle or miss the chance to type in your code? You get logged out automatically.
Also, perhaps with an enforced 15 minute "cannot log in again" system, to keep botters from just being logged off and immediately logging back in and resuming what they were doing.
I tried doing a quest out at Wall of Argos and... due to all the bots... errr, I mean "Players Using Software Suspect of Illegally Engaging Skirmishes" (abbreviated as "P.U.S.S.I.E.S"), a quest that should have taken 15 minutes took more like 2 hours. *sigh*
Anyways, I was wondering...
If NC added an hourly prompt that appears on your screen where you use your mouse to type in a number sequence, such as the on-screen keypad seen when you first log into your account in game, to keep from being auto-logged off....
Would that help with the bot problem?
Sure, it would not eliminate bots... err, I mean P.U.S.S.I.E.S, but it might be able to inconvenience people running them to have to be in front of the computer every hour or so to keep themselves from being logged off automatically.
Since GMs won't put in the time or effort to manually ban accounts, and since new accounts are freely createable, the only solution I can come up with to dealing with bots... errr... P.U.S.S.I.E.S. is to add periodic, in-game measures to inconvenience them in such a way that they need to be in front of their computers and actually look at the screen from time to time.
I figure, perhaps the keypad appears every hour or so (or some interval that makes sense) and you get 5 to 10 minutes to punch in your code.
Too busy fighting or in a quest? No problem, you got several minutes to take care of clicking your code in. If you are idle or miss the chance to type in your code? You get logged out automatically.
Also, perhaps with an enforced 15 minute "cannot log in again" system, to keep botters from just being logged off and immediately logging back in and resuming what they were doing.
Thoughts?
Corset
Yet good idea that already been mentioned in the past with a hundred of other ones also.. NC simply doesnt care, just fyi..
But with this idea what comes in my mind, what if this pop-up appears during a mass pvp or smthing.. Panic! And btw this should be done with mouse writing like on login screen.. If it would ask for a code that could be written via numpad, then *legits* would simply put a script to give the code every 1hour for example that this pop-up window would appear.
To be honest "easy solutions" wont change anything, like the chat restriction of rmt-traders.
It needs active people to monitor these p1gs.. Since there wasn't ever any will from NCwest to pay employees to do that, then there is no chance to see any improvement on that part ever.
If you consider that these kind of ideas exist around all the community boards the last 10years, then you must start living with that.
Thats one of the 2 main reasons L2 is always dropping down in numbers of players, and these will be the main reasons of this company to totally shut down in the future..