Bots Will Rule This Game

Done arguing with you.

Gold sellers don't like competition, it cuts into their profit margins, makes them work more for less, and creates situations where they have too much inventory that may or may not ever be sold. I don't like gold sellers any more than you appear to, but if you're going to argue about them you should at least get your facts straight and pick a concern that has some kind of legitimacy.

 

WoW would beg to differ.

I welcome the bots. They can do the boring resource grinding for me. Spending days (full 24 hour days) in mines is not my idea of a good time.

 

Friend mode or SP online mode

 

Yes and that's the whole story.
If you don't do your homework you are easy to shoot down.

SPon = single player online
FPon = Friends play online

But let us go back to the punchline of your inital post.
You are worried about bots. For the wrong reasons. But your worries are right non the less.
And here is why: ressources carrie over from FPon and SPon.
So we won't see bots camping the spawning points. There is no need to do so because they can bot unatended in those two modes and without any competition. Nobody will report them because we literally can't see them. And when they are done botting they can sell the stuff in mmo mode.

But your ideas for making their life harder are good non the less.

 

deleted.

long night bad post sry

 

I know you state gold sellers, but since the OP seemed to be discussing gold sellers that employ bots, I was curious what costs you associate with bots used by a gold seller? Also, what work do you associate with running a bot?

 

Running bots is a against the EULA and those players should be banned. So that's not really something we need to argue about, it's just a matter of Portalarium doing what they say they'll do...ban them.

 

What do you mean will? They do already. They have been for a long time, now. I got home and in the game about six hours after persistence started way back when. By the time I made it into Soltown, I saw players that were already in magic armor. I could tell from the glow. This was about eight hours into the release. I'm never going to catch them. I'm never going to be able to compete with them. So I apply the three rules and do my own thing.

 

What kind of "glow" are you talking about? The enchantment/masterwork glow or the light source glow?

 

The yellow glow. It used to be yellow. It was crafted armor ten or so hours into the release.

 

There is no argument there, for sure. If I might summarize, I believe what the OP stated is that several aspects of the game make botting very easy to do and that it concerns him/her that this potential exists and that he/she would like to see changes to reduce the ability for bots to operate as effectively.

Bots are against the EULA and botting accounts should be banned. You are correct, there is no argument there. But I think it's important to recognize how difficult it has been for even the most well financed companies to combat botting. It continues to be an issue for almost every mmo.

For those that sell gold and other in game items for money that use bots, there is a strong financial incentive to create bots that are incredibly difficult to identify and while bans seem like a solution, they can also be used to make changes to a bot that make it less detectable.

We all respect the fact that Portalarium will do everything within their power to combat the proliferation of botting. I can sympathize with those that believe the promises of detection won't be enough based on the history of MMOs.

It's not dissimilar to DRM. With every advance, there are individuals who seek to circumvent it. Except in Portalarium's case there is a small team with limited finances to combat against people who have a financial incentive to defeat any safeguards put in place.

I'm not saying it will happen or even that it's a negative if it does happen. I'm only saying that the OP and those that are concerned about the impact of bots on a game have justifiable cause for concern when it comes to any mmo, Shroud included and that I believe his suggestions have value as a suggestion to work in a proactive way to deter bot use in conjunction with any reactive policies Portalarium has.

 

I'm just as concerned about bots here as I would be in any MMO.

I don't think it's reasonable to assume there will be more or less botting here than there would be in any other MMO. The static references in the OP may allow for easier scripting (I think that's true) but they're are not going to be botting more or less detectable, imo.


SPO scares me more than anything regarding bots. Want to improve the odds of detection? Take out SPO.

 

You know what else gold sellers do? Defend their practices on the forums and try to belittle and minimze their opposition.

 

I didnt think of that... well its even worse then I thought.

 

Dude. I've never sold gold for cash or bought gold for cash. Everything I've sold in this game has been for store credit and gone right back into supporting the game.

 

Thats what other game deleopers have promised to do also. But portalarium will run into teh same problem they did too... identifying who is a bot. They wont want to ban people willy nilly without making sure someone is really a bot. And the botters are very clever in tricking the people who are observing them. So in many cases, they dont get banned.

 

I think it is reasonable to believe that sanctioned RMT and an environment that eliminates player to player accountability with the existence of SPO create an environment where botting is a bigger issue than in other games. It may not be true, but I don't think it is unreasonable.

One thing I noticed you said I'm curious about:

You seem to be referencing the marketplace. Is that because of this

I'm assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that what you're saying is that the marketplace allows them to oversee who sellers are and this gives them insight as to who might be botting? That statement, taken in the broader context, doesn't seem to prohibit sales elsewhere, it only seems to prohibit sales to the market place forum as opposed to other forums on the site. The following sentence seems to support this by further elaborating that in game and chat aren't supported.

One could make the argument that the sentence says what it says, but Portalarium knows of numerous other sites that exist for the sole purposes of RMT exchange. shroudmarketplace is just one example of a site that is specifically for RMTs outside of the confines of the marketplace. I'd suggest the existence of such places means that selling outside the forums is allowed, and the way it's written suggests more a manner of organization and controlling where posts about exchanges go in regards to Portalarium controlled services (forum, in game, chat) rather than limiting RMT exclusively to Portalarium controlled services. Which would mean that the existence of the marketplace offers no use in monitoring botting, as RMT can happen on any third party site.

 

I understand that. I try to have realistic expectations about this problem.

The idea that they're going to remove all static assets is probably not something that is going to happen, but it's probably also something that (as I stated above) would stop botters or even make it more likely we could detect them. It's probably a lot of work that would go to waste, imo.

 

They also mentioned on the stream today about adding in item attachments to the mailing system. Yet another feature that botters/gold sellers love.

 

Non botters/gold sellers also love mailing system, too.