30 replies to this topic

[Vissen]

Question to the dev's, How come I can go into a map like the magmaring map and find tons of botters easily, yet they are not banned? O_o I remember back in the day they had the "Report botter" on thecharacter right click drop down menu. Why was this function removed?

P.S. (please swing that ban hammer around the magmaring map so I can level lol)

[BlackPotato]

Question to the dev's, How come I can go into a map like the magmaring map and find tons of botters easily, yet they are not banned? O_o I remember back in the day they had the "Report botter" on thecharacter right click drop down menu. Why was this function removed?

P.S. (please swing that ban hammer around the magmaring map so I can level lol)

go to anolians. better exp and drops really

[SirDillhole]

But harder to get to, since there's no direct tele there, even if you use Dungeon Scroll...

[Puppet]

Question to the dev's, How come I can go into a map like the magmaring map and find tons of botters easily, yet they are not banned? O_o I remember back in the day they had the "Report botter" on thecharacter right click drop down menu. Why was this function removed?

P.S. (please swing that ban hammer around the magmaring map so I can level lol)

there never was such a function. And frankly I never saw many botters on Ymir till Renewal when they started popping up, and once F2P the zeny bots started appearing on ymir. Frankly I expected this, when F2P and i dont expect anything to ever be done bout them, just like the many other things that will be going down hill from now on

[brokenguy]

Just a few hrs a day on maps that are bot-ed will get a lot of bot out of ymir and such. I just don't know why they do not have a person just for bot. Once receive bot report and just go out there and look at those player. Probably ban like 90% of them like that pretty fast.

[Zenosbleed]

On Ygg, please remove these.

[Fibrizzo]

They ban people that aren't even botting... xD

[Kiehl]

The issue seems to be that they don't have enough resources to effectively address bots on a regular basis.
If they put more persons dedicated to hunting bot then they won't have time to introduce new contents like...
ehm...
turn ins...
byalan VIP dungeon for lv 30-75...
more turn ins...
recycled quests...
even more turn ins...
...

[Oda]

The GM Team works off of the tickets they receive as these allow them to quickly target troublesome characters. In many cases, the tickets they get work well to find and catch botters but a lot of times we aren't getting bot reports. The GM Team handles Value Added Services, Hack investigations, bugs, investigating RMT, tech support, account support, payment verification and much more so they aren't able to patrol on a constant basis. They aren't just banging rocks together on the GM Team.

Now as a community/in-game guy, I have a little more freedom to do patrols and remove botrings. As I post in any bot related thread:

-Send me a forum PM if you have a bot to report, I don't need screenshots a name and class will do
-Mass bots I can remove in large numbers, give me one name and a dozen can be banned at a time

[kati3]

They aren't just banging rocks together on the GM Team.

Lets create Fire!!

[Kiehl]

I'm actually concerned that, unless the bot behavior is so evident (like farmer bots), if the bot owner is around he can easily avoid checks.
For example if they suspect to have been reported (like receiving chats/buffs etc...) they can easily change behavior or move before someone looks for them, making all the effort pointless.
A proactive approach would be better, but in order to be effective, this would require in my opinion real game experience from the player perspective, so that GMs can target the areas and scenarios that are more likely to be botted and that cause annoyance to real players. This would also enable them to better recognize bot behaviors, by comparing with what an human player would do in the same situation.
The same amount experience playing the game would probably benefit also the game development (both iRO and kRO) since sometime, especially with 3rd classes skill design and balancing, you wonder if they have a clue about how actually people play their game.

[Oda]

I can check a character's prior activity even if they log out when contacted or move maps. If somebody is picking up stems for over five days straight, well it doesn't matter if they are the kind of bots that alert the player.

[Korakoch]

I can check a character's prior activity even if they log out when contacted or move maps. If somebody is picking up stems for over five days straight, well it doesn't matter if they are the kind of bots that alert the player.

How do you identify between people who obsessed by the game, who play like 15+ hours per day, and a bot then? At least you should give an in-game visit to that character and see their behavior by yourself like GM of private server does. In sum, analyzing bot by server log only is too lazy isn't it?

[Oda]

Multiple methods are necessary, but I can tell the difference between a person who is as you say obsessed with the game and a character that has been on the same map, picking up the same items for over 48 hours without any change in behavior. The issue is that many bot programs alert the player when they are being contacted or teleport away/disconnect when other players come on the screen, necessitating other ways to test than talking with them in the game. Also, when I get a report about a suspect rogue with flidjepofsjfp as the name, who has s.kjel!@sdlfkjelk.com as the email, who has a dozen flkejslk01, 02, 03 brothers in the game I think they can be safely removed.

[AtlasThunderbeef]

But flkejslk01 was my main !

God Damnit, now I have to start all over again. I have to start collecting those 100k stems .. once again. Oh well, I'll just start the client and have a coffee while it does it's thing- Wait no I mean this is horrible I quit now and hate everyone.

[Viri]

I'm gonna make a rogue named asdfasdfasd01 and go hunt stuff and see how annoyed people get.

[Korakoch]

Multiple methods are necessary, but I can tell the difference between a person who is as you say obsessed with the game and a character that has been on the same map, picking up the same items for over 48 hours without any change in behavior. The issue is that many bot programs alert the player when they are being contacted or teleport away/disconnect when other players come on the screen, necessitating other ways to test than talking with them in the game. Also, when I get a report about a suspect rogue with flidjepofsjfp as the name, who has s.kjel!@sdlfkjelk.com as the email, who has a dozen flkejslk01, 02, 03 brothers in the game I think they can be safely removed.

Agree!! Since that's an obvious case. But in many situation, it is not that obvious right? Especially leveling bot. They keep changing the map and they also use the real email. Let's suppose you are a player and I am a GM.

Oda: Wait why don't you just give me an in game visit and see if I am a bot.
Me: Oh that's be cause the third party program can alert the user when some one talk to a bot. So it's not necessary for me to give an in game visit. Accordong to server log you play like 20 hours per day and that exceed the human ability.

One week later Oda create new character and then get banned again after playing for a while.
Oda: Hey why do I get banned now? I play only 10 hours per day.
Me: Oh that's because the third party program can set up the starting time for botting and can also automatically close itself for a given period of time.
Oda: What the !??

See? In game visit is a must for most case otherwise everyone, even they never do botting, can get banned using two simple reasons as above.

Edited by Korakoch, 04 May 2011 - 10:00 PM.

[Viri]

Pretty sure if you're on the same map moving constantly for 15 hours straight with no break you're a bot. If it took random few minute breaks and you know, logged off for 8 hours or so at a time for "sleep" it'd be harder to pick out.

[BlackPotato]

I'm gonna make a rogue named asdfasdfasd01 and go hunt stuff and see how annoyed people get.

nah. i dont think you are

[Puppet]

Multiple methods are necessary, but I can tell the difference between a person who is as you say obsessed with the game and a character that has been on the same map, picking up the same items for over 48 hours without any change in behavior. The issue is that many bot programs alert the player when they are being contacted or teleport away/disconnect when other players come on the screen, necessitating other ways to test than talking with them in the game. Also, when I get a report about a suspect rogue with flidjepofsjfp as the name, who has s.kjel!@sdlfkjelk.com as the email, who has a dozen flkejslk01, 02, 03 brothers in the game I think they can be safely removed.

You's knew once f2p happen bots where gona start poping up even more so I do not understand why you do not have more people to handle the bot pruning, Hell did just a few month ago heim say yous where gona hire on more people, or was that just more smoke and mirrors? and heim being the spin doctor for iro

[Tigra]

How do you identify between people who obsessed by the game, who play like 15+ hours per day, and a bot then?

I think if someone hunts stems for 15 hours straight they should get banned for a different reason.

[GuardianTK]

Oda, I hope you've checked my ticket for a certain botter that bots their entire guild. Nobody's even replied to my ticket saying they've received it either. Not even an automated message. xD

[Ultimate]

The GM Team works off of the tickets they receive as these allow them to quickly target troublesome characters. In many cases, the tickets they get work well to find and catch botters but a lot of times we aren't getting bot reports. The GM Team handles Value Added Services, Hack investigations, bugs, investigating RMT, tech support, account support, payment verification and much more so they aren't able to patrol on a constant basis. They aren't just banging rocks together on the GM Team.

Now as a community/in-game guy, I have a little more freedom to do patrols and remove botrings. As I post in any bot related thread:

-Send me a forum PM if you have a bot to report, I don't need screenshots a name and class will do
-Mass bots I can remove in large numbers, give me one name and a dozen can be banned at a time

Conscript me. At least for the zeny spammers.

[Xellie]

I'm gonna make a rogue named asdfasdfasd01 and go hunt stuff and see how annoyed people get.

Eyjafjallajokull

Edited by Xellie, 05 May 2011 - 03:32 AM.

[Pyrasia]

Alright, I will PM Oda a few bots. Then we will see how it goes



---

Reported 8 bots from Yggdrasil.

Edited by Pyrasia, 05 May 2011 - 12:31 PM.