67 replies to this topic

[Zayik]

After having quit RO a few months ago, I decided to give RO another try with the emergence of the "new" super novice. I decided I'd try Yggdrasil and start fresh, to try and renew that spark of fun RO gave me. I swiftly dispatched a multitude of spores and rockers, and was excited to make my way to town. Figuring Pront would be the best place to go to see what the communities like, I was disheartened. Upon entering Yggdrasil, I was spammed my multiple bots, selling gold. I know its been a huge issue in RO, but, why hasn't it been fixed. If I had never played RO before(been playing since beta), I personally would have alt f4ed and uninstalled because those bots really set a bad image. I don't know how RO will ever expand when on Ygg, which isn't even close to as infested with bots as Valk, I was spam lagged. I mean no offense to the legit population that do play in those servers since it isn't their faults. The point is, is this the image RO wants to set forth for newcomers? That this game is run by gold bots, ill maintained, and its "o.k." to not only sell gold, but buy it. I know the Gravity team is always busy with new fantastic events and quests, and I know a lot of us enjoy and appreciate your hard work. But, how can somebody enjoy the fruits of your work if they don't stay to see this world you've made? To tell the new players to persevere through hoards of bots seems a lot to ask for somebody who can just as easily find a new game that isn't bot infested. I hope RO can find a better solution than manually banning bots and muting them. Hell, we even had a team of players warping bots out of town. Well, thanks for listening. I just wanted to rant a little because I really have had a great time playing RO. I just hate to see that opportunity vanish because of those who make spam bots and buy from them.

[Kadelia]

I agree with you 100%. I started playing Yggdrasil when it was a premium server and it was great. When it became f2p these bots game and really peeved me off. I can't do anything about them though other than mute them and I wasn't about to quit RO after playing 6 years. I wholeheartedly agree with you though that as a new player without as much investment into the game, these bots would be SUFFICIENT turn-off... I know other games I played out there that had these bots I didn't play long... :/

[nein]

why hasn't it been fixed

Because people keep buying it.

[NicoRawr]

Yea... This is my first time back on RO in like two years. I looooved this game. I wanted to cry when I saw Prontera. I couldn't even see the path in front of me due to all the venders. God knows I can't find half the NPCs under their spam... And the spambots... ugh. Not only do they lag me up but they prevent me from seeing anything that friends say.

I still love this game and I hope that the social aspect is enough to keep me around, because right now that's the only thing keeping me.

[firzen]

the GM team is well aware of how bad bots are for the game. That being said, they're tough to take care of. Present solutions, don't repeat problems

[Zayik]

I have yet to see a spam bot on Ymir luckily enough. I wish people didn't buy zenny from all these spam bots. Its like game terrorism. The sad part is is that people are funding these "game terrorists" and then wondering why there are so many spam bots or why RO's population declines here and there. But you know what Firzen, you're right. We should be presenting more possible solutions. Even if those solutions are not perfect, a multitude of flawed solutions with great ideals can be combined to make amazing one! The GM's certainly could use some more help, and use our brainstorm list.

[TheSquishy]

Key to getting rid of spam bots...

STOP BUYING ZENY!!!

[Mwrip]

Cost to enter Ygg = $0
Profit a gold farming bot needs to make, on average, before being banned = $0.0001
Chances of stopping them from doing this with vigilant GM action = Nil

Cost to enter Ymir = $7
Profit a gold farming bot needs to make, on average, before being banned = $7.0001
Chances of stopping them from doing this with vigilant GM action = Pretty much 100%

Gravity actually does a better job of banning bots than Bliz - WoW Accounts cost $60 and they still have rampant gold farming issues. At least Gravity has pretty much succeeded in annihilating them from the premium server.

Stopping them on the completely free server is, unfortunately, an excercise in futility.

That being said, it shouldn't be hard at all to write an anti-spam script, so even if they never fully get of the bot problem, they can at least instaban the spambots.

[Tkwan]

Cost to enter Ygg = $0
Profit a gold farming bot needs to make, on average, before being banned = $0.0001
Chances of stopping them from doing this with vigilant GM action = Nil

Cost to enter Ymir = $7
Profit a gold farming bot needs to make, on average, before being banned = $7.0001
Chances of stopping them from doing this with vigilant GM action = Pretty much 100%

Gravity actually does a better job of banning bots than Bliz - WoW Accounts cost $60 and they still have rampant gold farming issues. At least Gravity has pretty much succeeded in annihilating them from the premium server.

Stopping them on the completely free server is, unfortunately, an excercise in futility.

That being said, it shouldn't be hard at all to write an anti-spam script, so even if they never fully get of the bot problem, they can at least instaban the spambots.

The reason it happens in wow is because they get ahold of your account information somehow, and use your account to spam for them. They are difficult to deal with there because the accounts are hacked. Here, they just open up free servers and give random free vip/character creations like this which just invites the bot spammers in. They don't even need to go through the trouble/effort of brute forcing their way into someone's account. Don't try and compare wow's spambot problem to here. Here it's lazyness, there it's a hard to deal with hacking issue.

On the note of bots in wow too, they have sophisticated software and constantly active GM's keeping an eye out for bots. That is why you don't see them for more than a few minutes. In my 4 years playing wow I saw a total of 2 bots (not counting spam bots). Gravity just fails at creating effective anti botting means. That or they don't care/aren't allowed to develop software to do so. Either way, it still = Gravity fail.

[NicoRawr]

I was on a server once that had an anti-botting feature. After killing a random mob, you would have to answer a random question (usually a basic mathematics question). Failure to do so would result in... well, I don't know. I always got it right xD Basically, a bot wouldn't know how to answer a random question.

I have also noticed that, at least in the past, bots log on differently than normal players. It shows up in the admin's login history. Though, I believe this issue may have been fixed by-_- >.>" It's been a while, so I'm not entirely certain.

However, if we had a section of the forum to report these kinds of things, we could do so and have them investigated and then ip-banned...
=X

[Luckywhiterabbit]

How hard can it be to write a script that bans players who post unnaturally fast for an extended period of time, providing that the words posted are not /bingbing and /bangbang or super novice chants?

[Rutana]

Maybe because it's not really written down. Cause no player can spam the same text more than 3 times in a row (which is getting to my nerves sometimes when I try to reachsomebody and often try to whisper a "hi" to that name in, let's say, 20 sec steps.
There spams may be different from normal chatting.

[Talvis]

Both GMs and players have said that automatic anti-hack programs don't work. So, the only way to stop them is a 24/7 presence of GMs on all servers which Gravity either doesn't have the resources to do or just doesn't care enough to do it.

[Easly]

i really dont get why they cant implement a auto ignore function like rcx has

[Crabtipus]

i really dont get why they cant implement a auto ignore function like rcx has

Yeah seriously

[Unglued]

When I'm in prontera I use the /nm command. That will block all public chat.
Also Zayik, you could try Ymir, since you can create 1 char for free...

[NicoRawr]

The anti-spam feature is rather unfortunate. It's annoying to some players as was mentioned above (I know it bugs me a lot because I often repeat myself to different people or say "hi" a lot >.>") and because, without it, spam bots would be more likely to use the same phrase, which would make it easier to catch them on and ban a user that says the same thing 100 times >.>" lmao. Or another ridiculously high number of times that a user wouldn't do >.>" lol.
Oh well.

I'm still enjoying being here =)

[Scuba]

I love the new patcher notice.

Dont buy zeny for $$

[Wiggles]

I love the new patcher notice.

Dont buy zeny for $$

Funny. Reminds me of the Singapore Leage of Legends servers.

"Don't leave games or you WILL get banned" in big red writing before every game. First game I played, two people left.

[Inubashiri]

As far as I know, they are not opposed to implementing features of RCX, however they can't support it simply because they didn't create it and since there was some abuse with it it had to be put on the black list. If anyone has the source code to it, I know they are willing to work with the community to implement certain features like the ignore features and what not.

[Wiggles]

The source code for Dishonru's chat filter is open source, and has been available for a long time.

[Luckywhiterabbit]

I'm kind of appalled to actually see people in this thread who try to send the same 'hi' to a friend every 20 seconds. I don't know about you guys, but I would find that really, really REALLy annoying.

[Inubashiri]

The source code for Dishonru's chat filter is open source, and has been available for a long time.

I never knew because I never used it, but I'm just pointing out that IF people want this functionality I suggest they work with Heim or if anything else I (and/or other VMs) could work with said people and get a proposal together and discuss it with those whom it may concern. Food for thought. I happen to be a software engineer myself as well as an analyst.

Edited by Inubashiri, 24 August 2011 - 08:44 PM.

[Wiggles]

Feb 2010 it was released. So over a year and a half, the GM's have had the potential to implement it.

I'm not going to post the link to it here, because I don't want to get in trouble.
Heim or Oda if you are genuinely interested in stopping the spam bots PERMANENTLY... then, pm me and I'll give you the link to it.


It really does frustrate me that Heim talks about we are investigating this, we are doing that, blah blah. For like 3 years now and no action. But, one individual player was able to do it on their own.
Then, even when someone else does it, they still don't implement it.

They must have something to profit from these gold sellers. Theres no other reason why they won't remove them.

[Inubashiri]

Suit yourself, you'd be better off going thru one of us though who can keep a fire lite under them everyday about it, its one of jobs as it is.