244 replies to this topic

[fuyukikun]

We all know that Buff Bots in Prontera that helps people and they got no benefit from running the bots. But somehow it is now become too many, now they opening a 'branch store' somewhere else. Look at izlude square, then in janeway. Im afraid the amount is too much and somehow it gives me the impression that iRO is 'bot allowed'.

What do you think?

Edited by fuyukikun, 14 December 2014 - 08:24 PM.

[Shippou22]

if they dont generate  revenue i dont see the problem, at least they force people to say please even if forced .

[AlmrOfAtlas]

Many pserver players already believe that iRO is bot-friendly, due to the fact that our CMs refuse to disclose any info on bot strikes and personal experience with ticketing suggests they never action reports anyway. Bots such as these, which are seen as benign, also help reinforce this attitude.

 

Random excerpt from somewhere RE botting, see bold parts:

 

 

I'm glad you brought up bots, actually, since there are a few points of consideration on that front. First of all, I disagree that "rampant botting or BG rewards" is a valid dichotomy. The reason we see bots run so rampant on iRO is because bots are legal over there, for one thing. But more to the point, players will attempt to bot in undetectable ways regardless--nobody is suggesting that battlegrounds should be able to replace all PvE activity, and why would they want to bot in a place they could so easily be caught anyway? You have on the one hand suggested that it is possible for bots to be completely indistinguishable from players, and then on the other suggested that all the botters you're worried about would willingly bot in a manner that would make them trivially easy to detect. Clearly these are not both true, as that would be absurd--if botters were that stupid we wouldn't even need to have this conversation.

 

So now let's assume that the bots we're worried about are the ones that are difficult to detect, since they'll be there either way. A lot of the problem can be dealt with simply by making them illegal, unlike iRO. If you tell people that if they're caught botting, they'll have all of their accounts permanently banned, then they'll be a lot more hesitant to start botting in the first place. And those who dare (and I entertain no delusion that there will not be many) will certainly be much more worried about being caught, and that's a good thing. We could easily have a structured roster of bot hunter GM's, characters who are scheduled to do nothing but warp around the world at their scheduled time of the day and look for suspicious behavior. This is simple to arrange--you can always find players willing to do this, and you could even offer them small incentives for flagging people who do turn out to be bots anyway in the interest of respect for their time. We could have a thread in the staff forum specifically dedicated to bot hunters, with reference information for players about which bot hunters will be on duty at certain times of day/week. Nothing is ever a perfect system, but that would be a damn good one and I'm convinced it would all but eradicate any potential problem with bots. 

 

But there would still be a few left. There would be the ones who are so cautious and so clever that they're never caught, but I submit to you that they are not a problem. Because the level of effort and stress on their part to avoid detection would be so high, there would be no way for them to bot in the systematic, large-scale, and economically-destructive manner we see in iRO. As you said, we would be left with those who remain at their computer while botting, watching a movie or something and yet still paying close attention to their computer. Their attention will be so requisite that you must ask what the difference, then, it makes whether they're botting. I, for one, don't care about the act of botting in and of itself--someone could make a set of Backstreet Boys Taekwon bots and put them in Prontera dancing, and I would just applaud them. I only care about botting insofar as it gives players an unfair advantage over others, and I submit to you as well that I can easily outfarm a bot manually while also paying as-close attention to a movie as a botter would be able to. The bots we would have left would not only be behaviorally indistinct from normal players, but also economically indistinct. They would be the ones botting for the sake of botting (and they will exist), and they would not be a problem for us. As I detailed in my last paragraph, we can easily exert sufficient pressure on botters for this to be so.

 

Edited by AlmrOfAtlas, 14 December 2014 - 08:39 PM.

[ChakriGuard]

^

Edited by ChakriGuard, 14 December 2014 - 09:05 PM.

[fuyukikun]

if they dont generate  revenue i dont see the problem, at least they force people to say please even if forced .

 

yeah i see no problem with that also. but somehow it gets me worried since the amount of buff bots become multiplied. i mean 2 bots inizlude square, then another bot in janeway, it just 10 meters apart!!!

i wonder how many more will pop on other city. even tho the buff bot itself doesnt get any profit, still, the impression that iRO is bot friendly is pretty likely.
 

[fuyukikun]

Many pserver players already believe that iRO is bot-friendly, due to the fact that our CMs refuse to disclose any info on bot strikes and personal experience with ticketing suggests they never action reports anyway. Bots such as these, which are seen as benign, also help reinforce this attitude.

 

Random excerpt from somewhere RE botting, see bold parts:

 

i wonder who said that and in what context

[hashtagmilkshake]

Bots are not legal. They have just always been a problem on iRO (and every official server I'm sure... except kRO.) Buff bots are even harder to get rid of, and I'm sure low threat on the list of bots. The bots that populate an entire map grinding for a certain item to inflate the ecnomy are far more threatening then the dude using a slave priest while playing 'legit'.

[AlmrOfAtlas]

i wonder who said that and in what context

 

Pserver player in the context of a pserver :v

[belenoi]

Well I think it's too late to have concerns about them now. If we had 0 bots on server and then suddenly buff bots appear - yes, you could say "what if everyone will start to create bots now?". But we had "evil" bots for ages, nothing will change if a few "good" ones will appear. They are a drop in the ocean.

 

Did you really have to create this topic? If my favorite "please" bot will get banned I'll hate you forever xD

Edited by belenoi, 14 December 2014 - 11:03 PM.

[myhearse]

let me say this. ragial.com was run up by bot. bot walking to certain checkpoint and update vendor then upload into website. i think GM allowed this, OH ITS FREE SERVICE AND I HAVE NO WORRIES.

[Facekiller]

all bots should be banned... period...

[Daray]

all bots should be banned... period...

You never use market websites (ragnastats, ragial) or ropd I should hope?

[Facekiller]

You never use market websites (ragnastats, ragial) or ropd I should hope?

 

i would be just fine without them... we DO have in game items that do the same thing as Ragial... and i have no use for ROPD...
 

[AlmrOfAtlas]

Thanks to Ragial and Ragnastats window shopping and seller reputation is no longer a thing, the in-game shopper catalogues are worthless, and people have all but ceased setting up vends in towns other than Prontera and Payon, not to mention the limited coverage has forced those players to completely overwhelm certain areas of those towns, and it makes you lag out pretty badly when you walk through them all.

 

I'd be fine without them. In fact shopping would be more of an experience like in ye olde RO, checking for the vends of trusted players and exploring to find bargains, and less a battle of data. I really miss those times :c

 

I know absolutely nobody is going to agree with this since optimisation with progress is better than stagnation, but w/e XD

[needmorezleep]

Would be great if those sites went down, prices would be cheaper, vendor name & location would mean a lot, People who risk the market would get better rewards, and newbies would be able to keep up. It would also be nice if all the venders were on the sidewalk in prontera instead of the walkways like fRO but w/e.

Edited by needmorezleep, 15 December 2014 - 12:57 AM.

[Nirvanna21]

Would be great if those sites went down, prices would be cheaper, vendor name & location would mean a lot, People who risk the market would get better rewards, and newbies would be able to keep up. It would also be nice if all the venders were on the sidewalk in prontera instead of the walkways like fRO but w/e.

 

Sadly I am one of those guys trying to encourage forum market scraping as a good way to sell items, so my reply to this may come as a "surprise".

 

But if Ragial goes down, then that is a double-edged sword.

 

Some things get better, some things get worse. Oddly enough, it is hard to pin point what an MMO is aside from grinding. Most would argue that while economy is a big thing, convenience needs to tie in with this. In Ragnarok Online's case, Ragial is an important part of the system; sure it leaves new players scratching their head when people rush to pay 15mil for a Giant Whisper Card; but even if Ragial didn't exist, it would not stop this from happening, it would just remove one layer of confusion and replace it with another layer of deceit.

 

So no, going back wouldn't be a good way to do things, it would just encourage more people to fill up Eden with chat bubbles!

 

Also re: bots (considering this thread is about them)

 

Bots are a tricky issue to deal with, take Diablo 2 for example.

 

Almost every Korean player in the Asian server is a botter. They don't deny, they flat out make a community out of it. They love their perfect items and how the bot does all the work; they even love just chatting to each other and every player who does play on the server while the bot kills away and loots the good stuff.

 

I asked a friend I made in the game, why does he bot? Isn't he afraid of getting banned and losing all his cool stuff? AND HE SAID!

 

Play the best... I kid... but he did say "I don't care, I will simply generate another key and play some more; mask my IP if they ban it or ask other friends for workarounds to play the game more". He also stated that they almost don't care anymore because the botting system in the Asian server is just so severe it is just a waste of energy for the devs.

 

Fact is, one cannot simply keep banning bots; it is just not a good system, because the amount of bots versus the time best spent elsewhere is justified. They would rather crack down on serious offenders such as MVP duping/seller etc.

 

Sure, maybe some days like the good folks in Brisbane culling the cane toads with their cricket bats; maybe they too cull the smaller offenders every so once and a while, but they probably don't care as much as the next; but not because it is not an issue, but that they have more important things to deal with (updates, serious offenders and sexy office parties)

 

-Mike

[belenoi]

I start to think that the main problem of IRO isn't bots, it's that some people can't deal with the thing that world changes everyday. Whatever you say about ragial, it's a progress. And people who invented it did some awesome job. We have a lot of cases on gaming history when game had some flaws and only modders managed to make it better, much better. So you don't like progress? Want to live in dark ages? Up to you. Don't use ragial, no one forces you. I just hope you won't drag us down with you.

[ilovemilk]

Whoever has enough knowledge to setup a buff-on-command AB slave also has the knowledge to setup a farming bot slave or waves of them. Does this mean that they do do it? It's highly likely .

[Exuro]

As far as I know, WP CMs have made agreements with those who run these "public service" bots to do their thing as long as it benefits everyone, and not just a small group or themselves. However, other kinds of bots are still illegal

[fuyukikun]

lets make buff bots in every city, and put 4 teams consisted of 2 ABs to be put in every corner of city. yeah! dont worry, it is LEGAL.

[AlmrOfAtlas]

lets make buff bots in every city, and put 4 teams consisted of 2 ABs to be put in every corner of city. yeah! dont worry, it is LEGAL.

 

Even better, we can just bot our Priests and have them autofollow us!

 

Since bots are now able to interact with players and be regarded as legal, why not? Just don't put them on share.

[Exuro]

No, they are not legal per se. If they are under an agreement, then there must be a limit as to how many they could create. And having a priest auto-follow you will then regard it as not a "public service" bot, but just a plain filthy support bot.

 

 

Whoever has enough knowledge to setup a buff-on-command AB slave also has the knowledge to setup a farming bot slave or waves of them. Does this mean that they do do it? It's highly likely .

 

That's true. But if they're trusted enough by WP and by the people then I'm pretty sure they only use their knowledge for the good. Some might have been ex-botters who have abandoned their old ways and have started using their knowledge to help out the server.

Edited by Exuro, 15 December 2014 - 04:36 AM.

[AlmrOfAtlas]

No, they are not legal per se. If they are under an agreement, then there must be a limit as to how many they could create. And having a priest auto-follow you will then regard it as not a "public service" bot, but just a plain filthy support bot.

 

That's the problem though; it's just one step away.

 

Bots used to be completely forbidden, in any form. An exception was made for the spam busters. An exception was made for the vend scanner. An exception was made for buffers. It's only a matter of time before someone spins it positively enough to create an exception for autofollower buffers (since autofollow is a client feature) since they only interact with certain players and don't grief.

[Exuro]

That's the problem though; it's just one step away.

 

Bots used to be completely forbidden, in any form. An exception was made for the spam busters. An exception was made for the vend scanner. An exception was made for buffers. It's only a matter of time before someone spins it positively enough to create an exception for autofollower buffers (since autofollow is a client feature) since they only interact with certain players and don't grief.

 

Vend scanners, public buffers and spam busters all have one thing in common -- they're available for use by everyone. Autofollower buffers, on the contrary, will only follow select players/certain groups and will therefore not be considered as "public service" bots.

 

If you're talking about "autofollowing priest bot service," then that's a different story and I don't think CMs will agree to that (I hope lol).

[AeroKrauger]

nvm

Edited by AeroKrauger, 15 December 2014 - 04:53 AM.