How to end unattended gold farmer bots...

No, that is Offline mode only. Any online mode your items and gold and housing is in the same world as the friends and open modes.

 

Selective Multiplayer is like matchmaking. There is a dual scale map and you enter hexes. Those hexes may be PVP or non-PVP: this is supposed to be a dynamic flag set by the server based on game events and your current quest. A hex is instanced so there could be both PVP and non-PVP instances.

There are 4 modes:

• Single Player Offline - No Persistent world. No going online with these character.
• Single Player Online - Persistent world: you see players houses and vendors. You are alone.
• Friends Online - Persistent world: you see players houses and vendors. You get matched only with your friends list.
• Open World Online - Persistent world: you see players houses and vendors. You are matched with Friends, people you have met, and strangers.

Players are able to switch between all online modes. How often is uncertain, but only in safe zones was mentioned. There may be a timer going from Open World to others.

This is why I don't think your system would work. Even if the farmer was in the Open World Online mode, you would have to 1. Be matched with them and 2. follow them into a PVP zone which the bot could avoid easily.

I see a Duel Mode unlikely as PVP status would be area based. Both players would need to go to a PVP enabled area to duel. There maybe some sort of non-lethal wrestling allowed in non-PVP areas, but that doesn't help against botters.

 

I think it might be best to not have the ability to switch between online modes while logged into the game. Based on the pre-alpha releases it looks like you have to log in on a particular mode. If you want to switch for example from single player online to open world online you would have to log off then log back in with OWO selected to do so.

I am not sure what the best method of controlling gold farmers is. Killing farmer bots would be about the only time I would be in favor of player killing (outside of a guild war). As pointed out bumping into a farmer in game would be very rare to even impossible. The only thing I can think of to help control gold farmers is to make money not as important in game. If combat is not going to be based on gear but skills then weapons and armor are going to be relatively inexpensive. So basically, having lots of money in game isn't really going to get you far. However, that doesn't solve the problem of bots farming resources as every crafter will need resources of some sort.

 

Seems to be 4 different modes hope we will be able to learn more about them

• Single player offline
• Single player online
• Friends only online
• Multiplayer online

How many different chars will we have if we play all 4 modes?

 

@curt,

Currently the plan is to only have 1 online character. You will probably be able to have as many offline character as you want. Even the ability to copy or move an online character into offlinemode, but that would be a one way thing.

@Furious Farmer,

As long as you can change modes in safe zones, like cities, this should not be able issue. Those would be places where you could logout safely anyway, so I not sure what the difference would be. Darkstarr did say there would probably be timers or some restriction going from Open World to more restrictive, but I am not sure its necessary.

The argument was always X person stole something and I need a chance to get it back or kill them, but if they go to a safe mode and logout that is no different than them switching modes in my opinion.

 

Hmm... Perhaps you meant to say "copy or move an online character into *offline* mode ?

 

Yes, thank you. I updated. Dyslexia is a pain.

 

Why would redPK even end up in the same instance in the wild (away from cities and towns) as a gold farmer? Vendors are house bound and not tied to PvP+/- instancing so there is no reason for Goldie McFarmer to ever go PvP+. RedPK will never see Goldie McFarmer outside of town.

So, you effectively have a system which does nothing to address the intended issue, but would work perfectly to make any AFK person killable in all sorts of unintended situations. Everyone would spend all day walking around challenging everyone, everywhere, because anyone who doesn't answer is AFK and thus cannot fight back. All reward, no risk for redPK.

You have just re-invented noto-PKing, but instead of hanging around waiting for someone to go grey, everyone will hang around waiting for someone to go AFK.

 

--hence the "timer" that has a long enough duration to allow you to get back from your phone call and select "decline".....this timer would be long enough to keep Red from just spamming the SPECIAL gold bot challenge to anyone standing still.
--But since originating this post, I have learned the different ways the game will work, and if all the Chinese gold bots friend each other, I guess they will get grouped together, and will only go to the MMORPG side of the game to transfer their gold.

 

I guess thieves would like this. If the only place where you could do gold transactions was a shady alley (where stealing was allowed)

 

--Difficult. Gold Farmer might just sell you a saw or hammer for 1,000 gold, making it look similar to a normal player to player transaction.

 

I'm pretty sure it won't be a huge issue. They will be selling gold in the Add On store if I'm not mistaken. This will allow them to control the price of gold as they can raise and lower it to squeeze out any gold farmers out there. There is a point where a gold farmer won't feel that it's worth their time to farm and sell.

I'm more worried about inflation.

 

--Inflation is an excellent excellent point. One thing I want to see as the population increases is a dependence on in game avatars instead of NPCS to provide items. "Taxes" could be imposed on every transaction.
--Taxes on commercial transactions don't cause the injury to casual players that "head" taxes and "property" taxes do. hmmmm I best not go off on a FairTax rant.
--Anywho, we all know that "gold sinks" are necessary to siphon gold from the economy. I wonder if SOTA will have some means of keeping us from ending up being either paupers or millionaires.

 

I am still hoping that gold will be rare. I guess if they end up selling gold in a cash shop, then it will not be so rare...Unless it's based on the amount of gold actually available to sell from gold sinks in game etc.

If player made things have value to other people, then I would suspect the economy would benefit. There are also things like, how hard is it to level crafting/cost of resources/availability etc. These things will also help the economy.

I loved the OP on killing unattended bots and folk who were just plain cheating...I haven't been able to think of a way that would disable their activity because the whole PK them idea won't work in single player online at all...So we can hope that the devs can make a game where gold selling will not work, or is not a valid option. If gold is indeed rare, then gold miners will have a harder time obtaining great enough quantities to profit and hopefully would move on to another game...

 

I know that in many instances Bots and Cheaters are easily detectable, but in many other instances they are not. It might be a miner who doesn't want to talk to you, or a gal who just happens to be way better at the twitch mechanics of the game than you. My point is that there should be NO instance where players are allowed to decide if someone is cheating or not. These issues should all be reported so that the SotA team can adjudicate the issue.

If reporting goes out the window, two things will most likely happen.

1 - Lots of PKing and feigning ignorance: "C'mon man! I thought they were a Bot!"
2 - Dev team will not be given all the tools to combat these Bots and Cheats. They need to witness the issue themselves so they can see how it's being done and act to block it permanently as well as identify other accounts that are doing the same thing.

I made this point a while ago, in a PvP thread I think, but basically it comes down to this: The Monkeys cannot run the Zoo!

P.S. - Sorry to anyone who feels offended by being lumped in with the monkeys, but I wanted to be sensitive to the mentally disabled and so I didn't use the Lunatics/Asylum version.

 

You are right Ned...players really are not the right ones to decide who's cheating. I just initially liked the idea (and still do hehe) because it would be fun to kill someone who I knew was cheating. (In FFXIV cheaters were able to teleport from node to node and you could see it everyday.)

I think what you have said is amazing! I just thought about that: The in-game mods could have the ability to go to any instance and investigate cheating...So that would be the perfect solution (if cheating does indeed being a big problem)

 

Oh, I agree! It would be freakin' awesome to kick the butt of a cheater! Kick it hard! Woo Hoo! Unfortunately our instant gratification would not help the game much.... Sigh, it's all for the good of the game!

 

Nobody will be cheating. Single player online is tailored for gold farmers and bots. Nobody to see them. Nobody to report them. Nobody will be cheating, well...at least, from what you can tell.