33 replies to this topic

[brokenguy]

Do you have an ETA on this software that you said that was in the making? Probably one of item that is at the bottom of your list.

[yarumasi]

Do you have an ETA on this software that you said that was in the making? Probably one of item that is at the bottom of your list.

Do you really have to low brow beat him with that last statement? He's probably working on a priority, first come first server basis. I can 't answer for him but I'm sure it's on its way.

[brokenguy]

Huh? I know it's on its way but I would like a time on it, since the last time I heard about it is months ago. Just like you say, he is working based on priority and I just think this should or is at the bottom of the list. Never meant it to be in a rude way.

[Fureedo]

Considering the apparent lenght of heim's list, anyone's guess will probably be as good as Heim's.

I guesstimate that they'll try to do it by the end of 2014, but then it'll be a total failure like the multi-client prevention for non-VIPs from some time ago.

[GuardianTK]

What bot prevention program? O.o

[Talvis]

What bot prevention program? O.o

Heim mentioned a long time back that they're working on some anit-bot stuff.

[TrueMaster]

At least get rid of the spam bots on valk. that would be like the easiest crap ever and they are still around. you wouldn't even have to test them to see if they were a bot, because they show you that they are a bot.

[Kitten]

Do you really have to low brow beat him with that last statement? He's probably working on a priority, first come first server basis. I can 't answer for him but I'm sure it's on its way.

God forbid anyone ask questions!

Good thing the forum police are here.

[MeatyMoments]

At least get rid of the spam bots on valk. that would be like the easiest crap ever and they are still around. you wouldn't even have to test them to see if they were a bot, because they show you that they are a bot.

You could have a team of GMs banning spam bots 24/7 and it wouldn't solve anything. Simply banning spam bots isn't enough. They just create new accounts on a proxy and get right back to it. It would be extremely tedious to try to end the spam this way.

There needs to be a more permanent solution to this problem.

[Ralis]

You could have a team of GMs banning spam bots 24/7 and it wouldn't solve anything. Simply banning spam bots isn't enough. They just create new accounts on a proxy and get right back to it. It would be extremely tedious to try to end the spam this way.

There needs to be a more permanent solution to this problem.

Move the spam filter server-side rather than client-side.

Done.

[Wiggles]

Congratulations!

This is the 1 millionth thread regarding removing bots since Beta!

Sorry to be blunt with you, but its not exactly breaking news that bots are an issue. We've had them since Beta, and nothing has been done. What makes you think they will start now?

[brokenguy]

Congratulations!

This is the 1 millionth thread regarding removing bots since Beta!

Sorry to be blunt with you, but its not exactly breaking news that bots are an issue. We've had them since Beta, and nothing has been done. What makes you think they will start now?

example.. jRO has a bot prevention program that does work. I used to play on there btw. This is when exps in guild dungeon were the best and you get about 2-3mils an hr at the most with a big party in there. Also there's no kafra shop item back then.

[Wiggles]

jRO has a bot prevention program that does work.

If only they would have international support and not block whole countries IP's.

I wonder how many customers would be left on iRO if we were allowed to jump ship.

[AtlasThunderbeef]

If only they would have international support and not block whole countries IP's.

I wonder how many customers would be left on iRO if we were allowed to jump ship.

I think it's stupid that players on one server have it so bad that they want to move to another server with the stuff they want-

And the gm's on the first server still "don't understand" what they're not doing right.



@Heimdallr Why can't you talk to jRO about the bot prevention program they have? Is there some kind of taboo on asking other servers for these kind of things?

[Nilami]

...
The issue is when, and the answer is not yet. This is a far sight better than before when all we could state was we made request to change X, and they were being reviewed.
...

Seriously, asking the question over and over is not going to make it happen any faster.

All games have bot problems, especially RO - each RO has had to deal with it in a different way because kRO pushes updates and game enhancements and leaves it up to the local RO to fix problems. It would be nice to know if the GMs and Devs on our side (iRO) have any contact or communication with jRO regarding working together, but if you read some of the other posts by Heim you can tell they are actively working on stuff as best as they can.

[Wizard]

day after tomorrow...

[Ciler]

You could have a team of GMs banning spam bots 24/7 and it wouldn't solve anything. Simply banning spam bots isn't enough. They just create new accounts on a proxy and get right back to it. It would be extremely tedious to try to end the spam this way.

There needs to be a more permanent solution to this problem.

I dispute that.

Botfarms are ran by people that intend to make money. It is also not a particularly lucrative business: the only reason it works is that the products are produced at low price (low chinese labour cost) and sold at high price (high western living standard). The margings on any given game are low, it is the volume that generates the income.

Also note that succesful botfarms operate across multiple games.
tl;dr: zeny farms do not get banned because noone (neither gravity nor the players) have a real incentive in seeing them gone.

If you ban bots actively, you force them to recreate them. Now, arguably that may not take very long, but what you need to understand is that you don't need to ban 100% of the bots all the time. If you can ban enough that the time spent recreating them is worth more than the income they generate, they'll just move to another game. It's a simple incentive/reward ratio.


I personnaly believe that 3 GMs (on 8h shifts) dedicated to banning bots would be largely sufficient to deter farmers/spammers. Why doesn't gravity do it ? For the same reason as explained above, paying 3 guys just for that is probably a not insignificant amount of money, and potentially a not particularly effective use of resources. SO let's assume they do decide to make that investment, what's the reward ? Well not much, players will be happy for a while, but keeping players happy doesn't really make them put more money into the game. it's likely to be overall benficial in the long term, sure, but not that much. High investment, low reward: no real incentive.


And then let's face it, most players would probably quit if bots got banned, seeing as they'd have to actually hunt for their WoE supplies, or pay for them through the nose people who do.

tl;dr: Zeny farmers will stay because noone has a real incentive to seeing them gone.

Edited by Ciler, 25 May 2011 - 11:15 AM.

[TrueMaster]

I'm going down with the ship sadly. Seems like lately everyone is getting pretty restless for an update.

[sukidayo]

jro solved their bot problem early when they realized it was ruining the game. whatever investment they made paid off pretty well. iro and the rest never bothered. they used cheap techniques that dont work and let a minor problem become a major nuisance. its not too late to put anti-bot measures, but it might cost them more now.

[AtlasThunderbeef]

Hunting for items, that would mean the drop penalty has to be taken out.

With it in, no one would really go hunting for stuff.


However with no bots and people now forced to hunt for themselves or pay others to do it, a few things would happen.


1. People would use their resources more wisely instead of blatantly spamming, since it's now a bit more expensive and there's not as much of it all available.

2. Prices would go up. It's just natural when bots have been forcing it down.

3. We'd have an actual market and newbies have a good source of income.

4. The market would stabilize itself because if it's just people hunting you won't have 1 merchant selling 20k of one thing there won't be any sudden fluctuations.

[brokenguy]

I dispute that.

Botfarms are ran by people that intend to make money. It is also not a particularly lucrative business: the only reason it works is that the products are produced at low price (low chinese labour cost) and sold at high price (high western living standard). The margings on any given game are low, it is the volume that generates the income.

Also note that succesful botfarms operate across multiple games.
tl;dr: zeny farms do not get banned because noone (neither gravity nor the players) have a real incentive in seeing them gone.

If you ban bots actively, you force them to recreate them. Now, arguably that may not take very long, but what you need to understand is that you don't need to ban 100% of the bots all the time. If you can ban enough that the time spent recreating them is worth more than the income they generate, they'll just move to another game. It's a simple incentive/reward ratio.


I personnaly believe that 3 GMs (on 8h shifts) dedicated to banning bots would be largely sufficient to deter farmers/spammers. Why doesn't gravity do it ? For the same reason as explained above, paying 3 guys just for that is probably a not insignificant amount of money, and potentially a not particularly effective use of resources. SO let's assume they do decide to make that investment, what's the reward ? Well not much, players will be happy for a while, but keeping players happy doesn't really make them put more money into the game. it's likely to be overall benficial in the long term, sure, but not that much. High investment, low reward: no real incentive.


And then let's face it, most players would probably quit if bots got banned, seeing as they'd have to actually hunt for their WoE supplies, or pay for them through the nose people who do.

tl;dr: Zeny farmers will stay because noone has a real incentive to seeing them gone.

I dis-agree in a way. Sometime they would tell you they have zeny/gold/whatever to sell to you but never really have it on their hand. i.e. scram. I remember that post on here lol.

[Ciler]

I dis-agree in a way. Sometime they would tell you they have zeny/gold/whatever to sell to you but never really have it on their hand. i.e. scram. I remember that post on here lol.

No, same thing. If the word starts going around that you don't get zeny for your money with bot XXX, people will stop buying from bot XXX (and go to YYY instead).

I don't dispute that there are scammers around, but by definition, they can't be very efficient on a small population pool.

[Oda]

I would like to know more about the anti-bot program that jRO supposedly has, if someone can point me towards some concrete documentation on what they do besides restrict access by country and require a SS number to register I can send up proposals.

[Miyuki]

GungHo (jRO) didn't asked for an SS number when I made my "attraction account" a long while ago. Not even sure if jRO's doing the SS number thing. The only servers I know of that requires your SS number/citizen number is kRO and maybe twRO.

[brokenguy]

I would like to know more about the anti-bot program that jRO supposedly has, if someone can point me towards some concrete documentation on what they do besides restrict access by country and require a SS number to register I can send up proposals.

When I was playing there from "US" they setted the anti bot program in motion. When they announced that on the maintained notices, all the bot disappear. This is before the IP block.