47 replies to this topic

[Shinji170981]

Ticket system is fast and efficient, you're all trolling.

Personally i have to second this statement but only based on the existence of the current system.

There could be alternative ways to report bots in a more efficient way but this would require Gravity to add code to the game.

First Way of dealing with bots in other games:
For instance, there are several games where it is possible to do a rightclick on a character and report him.
This character wont be banned right away though, because one person could be mistaken and reort another person by accident.
In addition, this system could be abused by large groups i.e. guilds and alliances.
Imagine that 2 players have a dispute and one is reporting his friend for botting and other players in his social surroundings follow his behaviour. With enough manpower, a player would be banned.

Conclusion: This system is maybe a very good tool but has also potential of power abuse. A GM would still need to verify every mass report and confirm and due to the mass abuse it could result in more work.

Second way of dealing with the Problem (Only Spam Bots):
Here comes the same principle to use. A lot of players report a player for spamming. With enough reports, the player will be muted. Same risk exists that a large group will spam report hated players. Player gets banned, the player files a complaint and the GM has to unmute the person again.

Conclusion: Same risks and benefits like in the first example.

Third way of dealing with the problem:
Ingame Verification during play sessions with logical questions. I have seen this method in only 2 or 3 games so far but i liked the feature. Every player plays normally and gives each player who is moving after a certain time duration a Quiz like "2+3-1=x" If the player fails to respond to answer the quest or answer wrong, means he is not present or a bot, the game will disconnect his client and block him for 5 minutes. A bot program will have too many attempts in reconnecting to the game and will crash.
Now for the nice part. Players that answer the question will receive a random 10 minute buff or 5 random standard potions. Nothing fancy and nothing selective.
This system was proven to be very successful in the games i saw it and was welcomed by the majority of the community.
Merchants wouldnt be affected, because they wouldnt move while having a shop open. So no harm in there.

Now, here is the problem. This system would need to be implemented by Gravity but given the age of Ragnarok, i doubt that their source code is suited for this operation but i could be wrong, since i am not a programmer.

Final Conclusion:
At the current state, we need to live with the fact that there is no guarantee, that all bots will be banned but as long as we report them via the Ticket System, there is a glimpse of hope to minimize their impact on the economy and the community.

P.S. A list in the forum with names would be name calling and thats a breach of the Terms of Service, everyone agreed to and would result in the issue that we, the posters, would be banned and the bots would continue to wreck havoc in the game

Regards

Shinji170981

[ryu888]

I feel sorry for those who actually paid to play, why should you be burden with the responsibility of ridding the bots? whats the money your giving them for?

Edited by ryu888, 19 May 2011 - 03:51 PM.

[morphine]

The bot situation in iRO is far from acceptable, but most of the suggestions from players seem like a huge turn-off to real humans without being highly effective. If only GMs worked for the same rates as those sweatshop workers, huh? In a perfect world, there would be in-game reporting and GMs on hand 24/7 to respond to those reports and patrol problem maps consistently, as well as some server side solutions to the spamming. In the meantime, I say you hang the players who buy zeny up by their toes instead of this slap on the wrist nonsense. Maybe if the farms don't have any customers to speak of, they might lay off the game on their own.

[Shinji170981]

The bot situation in iRO is far from acceptable, but most of the suggestions from players seem like a huge turn-off to real humans without being highly effective. If only GMs worked for the same rates as those sweatshop workers, huh? In a perfect world, there would be in-game reporting and GMs on hand 24/7 to respond to those reports and patrol problem maps consistently, as well as some server side solutions to the spamming. In the meantime, I say you hang the players who buy zeny up by their toes instead of this slap on the wrist nonsense. Maybe if the farms don't have any customers to speak of, they might lay off the game on their own.

Partly, i agree with you on the way dealing with the issue. As long as there are people buying the Zeny, the Farmer will continue to supply them with new funds. The problem here lies a bit deeper. I have first hand knowledge of gold farming prevention from one of my previous jobs.
The issue here is, that its a neverending task and takes a lot of manpower. A manpower that is far from being profitable for a company and yes, everyone is pretty much aware of the fact, that Gravity is running a business here
Those who aren't, should maybe considering their point of view on manpower in such an operation.
Not many companies have sufficient game surveillance, because there are two prime issues.
1. Finding good people. This job requires a lot of dedication and effort to control the issue with farmers and regular customers alike.
2. Finding a lot of the 1. point that work for a reasonable salary so therunning costs of the company dont explode.

Running a game service is a very expensive task and its not done with single installation.

But getting back to the problem with the zeny sellers.
There are ways to detect those zeny transfers in log files but its too much work for one or even 20 people, depending on the size of the game. Sadly i cannot go into detail how to detect these ways, because i would open the possibilities to the gold sellers and they could adapt their process to these methods.

The GM Team could solve the issue partly but not fully. This is simply impossible. I dedicated in my previous job almost a year, trying to eradicate bots in the game i was working for and the only thing what i achieved, was a break of 3 months. With the opening of a new server, they came back and everything started again with new methods to disguise their activity.

And for the factor of the money that people invest, keeps Gravity from laying of people for not having sufficient funds to keep people like Heim employed. They can do what they do, because some people pay for the game.
If no one would pay, they would lay off people and in the end the game would be flooded with bots until that point where the game isnt profitable at all and they will shut down the servers.
This day will come one day but depending on Community and Customer Service engagement, this day can be delayed.

[Sock]

They could always add that anti-bot program that I posted a picture of from a private server. Have it activate when players are created, when they leave the novice training grounds, and any time they enter a NPC shop. It's a sacrifice that far outweighs the cons.

[Kimoji]

Third way of dealing with the problem:
Ingame Verification during play sessions with logical questions. I have seen this method in only 2 or 3 games so far but i liked the feature. Every player plays normally and gives each player who is moving after a certain time duration a Quiz like "2+3-1=x" If the player fails to respond to answer the quest or answer wrong, means he is not present or a bot, the game will disconnect his client and block him for 5 minutes. A bot program will have too many attempts in reconnecting to the game and will crash.
Now for the nice part. Players that answer the question will receive a random 10 minute buff or 5 random standard potions. Nothing fancy and nothing selective.

Shinji170981

Completely vague. I think no one will feel like doing algebra while MVPing or getting mobed by monster.

[Ianflow]

Completely vague. I think no one will feel like doing algebra while MVPing or getting mobed by monster.

I don't think they'd be hard questions, or given at times that are completely innapropriate.
And, I mean, if someone doesn't feel like doing simple (basic) algebra, whether too lazy or stupid, that's pathetic.
I mean, 2+3-1=X?
Too easy. Maybe it's just me, but it's instantly 5. It's not really even algebra.
2+3-1(2)=x²
What is the value of x?
It's still easy, but is a better question.
Though, I think the x means, where the answer would be placed, so, there's in theory, no 'x', more, a blank box.

[Atha]

I mean, 2+3-1=X?
Too easy. Maybe it's just me, but it's instantly 5. It's not really even algebra.

Try 4.

[Ianflow]

Try 4.

Woops, you're right, forgot the one. My mind slipped. I feel embarrassingly silly.
Not too much, but enough to say I feel that way.
I guess we all make mistakes.

[Shinji170981]

In the games i tested, you had a 5 minute time window to solve the question, so you are not really under pressure
Besides it was just a suggestion of alternative solution but in the end Gravity will decide how the deal with the existing issue.

[Sock]

In the games i tested, you had a 5 minute time window to solve the question, so you are not really under pressure
Besides it was just a suggestion of alternative solution but in the end Gravity will decide how the deal with the existing issue.

Which means nothing will be done and they will waste their time on tickets regarding bots whereas dealing with them with anti-botting procedures would be 100% more effective.

[KingOfBabylon]

I can't condone a public "witch hunt list" that everyone gets to post up who they think are bots, for the precise reason that sometimes they aren't bots.

One way to tell if it's a bot is if it's made out of wood, and if it weights the same as a duck

Edited by KingOfBabylon, 20 May 2011 - 09:50 AM.

[Shinji170981]

Which means nothing will be done and they will waste their time on tickets regarding bots whereas dealing with them with anti-botting procedures would be 100% more effective.

Technically "they" when refering to the Customer Service Part, have no influence on the program part of the game
If someone is changing it in the game mechanics, its the Dev team and they are in Korea.
I am pretty sure that Heim is a bright person and also thought about solutions concerning the issue and reporting the ideas to the Dev team but in the end the Dev team will have to check the source and detrmine if its possible to implement such a function in a 10 year old code.

I started back in 2003 where the game still had a lot of potential and i worked the last 5 years for different companies in this industry and it always is the Devs last decision wether a change is possible or not and before they start implementing, the Finance Team will need to know how much time and manpower the project will consume. Depending on the cost, it might never leave the drawing board. They have their schedule for addons, fixes and other implementations, so they will probably never abandon a existing task for a uncertainty.

When it comes to money, all companies tend to go the most efficient and cost effective way. Considering that cost effective always comes first. I learned that much looking from the other side of the industry

[Sock]

Yet free private servers can afford it...

[Shinji170981]

Yet free private servers can afford it...

You are comparing apples and pears.

A game service from a company is not gaining pure profit. Long before the game existed, they were working on the game without making profit and i can assure you that we are not talking about 100$ or something like this. A game developement costs between 3-8 million $ and they havent earned a dime with it. Once the game is developed and put on Closed Beta Servers they have running costs of thousands of dollars a day for server farms, employees, electricity and office space rent to accomodate something like 20000 to 30000 players (That was the CCU in the closed Beta of Ragnarok in march 2003) This CCU is nothing you can run with a 100$ server, you rent for Counter Strike or Battlefield. We are talking here about cluster farms of 20 to 40 machines for one server or two. I am not sure how much Gravity needs for their game but its nothing what you can rent that easily. Data Centres that offer the hardware for these structures charge you roughly 5 to 10k a day for ensuring your security and a continious source of power for your service and of course 24/7 access, so the technicians can access the Servers in the data centre.
So far this is the regular setup for most companies.

Now you will ask, what does this have to do with the pservers?
Easy. They are running less capacity and they are not developing the game.
They just use the stolen source of the game and modify it to their needs and they do it in their free time.
So, they are not answering to a financial department or are concerned about their customer base.
They have no restrictions to do something and partly this is the good and the bad thing.
Players who have been playing on a pserver once and see that they have something the official servers dont, are usually the first thing, people will complain about when they are paying for a running service.

What most people dont understand, is the whole process, i explained in my previous posts.
The understanding for a system is the first step to cooperate and support a official service.
Some ideas will be adapted due to these complaints to the live server and i have to say it honestly to those who run a server for a game privately and complain about the big companies "stealing" their idea: "You stole the source code first. So quit complaining."
Pservers are partly good and partly evil, because they influence the developer to adapt ideas but also because they rob the official servers of their potential customers.

But to break that here, because this is going way off topic at the moment
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bots are a common issue for almost all games and it is up to the community to report them or leave them. If you dont take the 4 minutes to report a bot via the ticket system, then he will still be there 2 days later.

My usual procedure to identify bots is this:
1. i have a heal clip and i give a player a random heal^^ (thats social and funny, because people dont expect it and whats the 10 SP)
2. If the player doesnt respond, i will observe him a bit (Usually bots port away or dont respond to any action)
3. I say something in global chat and address him with his name (some bots port away at this point. They are sociophobic )
4. If he doesnt respond and continues to fight without interrupting, i am sending him a whisper message (some bots port away at that point)
5. If all of these actions dont lead to a response from the person while fighting several monsters, i am making a screenshot and send it to the support.

This has been so far a very accurate way to determine if a player is a bot or not, because humans usually respond right away and dont run away

[Ianflow]

One way to tell if it's a bot is if it's made out of wood, and if it weights the same as a duck

This will be the 1000% percent sureproof way to tell a bot.

[Sock]

Bots are so easy to identify its not even funny.

[meaning42]

So easy to identify but the GMs are too busy or too corrupt to do anything about them.
I'm guessing the latter.

[Pyrasia]

And, I mean, if someone doesn't feel like doing simple (basic) algebra, whether too lazy or stupid, that's pathetic.
I mean, 2+3-1=X?
Too easy. Maybe it's just me, but it's instantly 5. It's not really even algebra.

and... BWAMMMMMMM~!! Another bot get banned.

[ErosVice]

There's at least one bot on every dungeon map I've been on. I went into Pyramid lv 3, and there was a whole swarm of rogue bots running around. Move, pause, move, pause, kill-steal attempt, hesitate, linger around me till the monster's dead, then eventually walk away. There's a bot in Church yard 2 that's been there all night and got to 99 and is still killing mobs. Why can every other mmorpg figure out a way to at least keep the bot count down and not this game? It's old enough you'd think they would have the answer by now.

[Kiryu]

actually, I don't knowanymore, a guildie reported a bot player (high level/third class) since he finally got fed up with it since it keep ksing, so he reported, half an hour later the bot was gone and never connected again since a few days, also this was early morning.

on my side, I was setting up a shop and start seeing spambots dissappear in a really creppy alien-eske way one by one... xD gms are aliens on ro

[ryu888]

There's at least one bot on every dungeon map I've been on. I went into Pyramid lv 3, and there was a whole swarm of rogue bots running around. Move, pause, move, pause, kill-steal attempt, hesitate, linger around me till the monster's dead, then eventually walk away. There's a bot in Church yard 2 that's been there all night and got to 99 and is still killing mobs. Why can every other mmorpg figure out a way to at least keep the bot count down and not this game? It's old enough you'd think they would have the answer by now.

Its just that they don't care. The game company is a crook imo. Luckily I didn't paid a single penny, but my time :/

[KingOfBabylon]

This will be the 1000% percent sureproof way to tell a bot.

They turned me into a newt......I got better