1. Here you will find official announcements and updates. These announcements are also linked in the Official SotA Discord server.
    We encourage comments from the community! To keep the announcements official, we ask that comment threads be created in the General forums for player input.

                                                 Thanks!

Recent Bans for Botting and Exploiting

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Berek, Oct 21, 2016.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Themo Lock

    Themo Lock Avatar

    Messages:
    4,891
    Likes Received:
    17,639
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Australia
    No, she did not get banned for any reason.
     
  2. Asclepius

    Asclepius Avatar

    Messages:
    1,650
    Likes Received:
    6,029
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Perth West Australia
    I think I know of whom Majoria is speaking - an absolute pillar of the community who would never knowingly or intentionally put a foot wrong.
    The take home message for me is whether you are a dev or a community member, jumping to conclusions is dangerous and can cause a lot of hurt.
    I totally support this initiative, as long as checks and balances are in place to prevent innocent people from getting hurt.
    Fortunately the situation was resolved quickly - full credit to Port for that.
     
    Kaisa, Moiseyev Trueden, Bom and 9 others like this.
  3. Kara Brae

    Kara Brae Avatar

    Messages:
    3,872
    Likes Received:
    12,189
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Bavaria
    Although I like to visit my favorite nodes, I would gladly give them up if it would help to curtail exploiting. Thinking back, didn't the devs once say they were planning on having random node locations for this very reason? I seem to remember them talking about this many, many releases ago, but I can't find the source.
     
  4. Ravicus Domdred

    Ravicus Domdred Avatar

    Messages:
    3,708
    Likes Received:
    9,037
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Location:
    Get In MY BELLY!
    It was long ago. Chris talked about the node harvesting being random in the sense that if you just harvested a node it would not respawn there right away. It would spawn in a different area. Richard wanted this as it kept you adventuring and moving around and not just statically harvesting the single node.
     
    Elwyn, Nhili Dragon, Kaisa and 6 others like this.
  5. lollie

    lollie Avatar

    Messages:
    493
    Likes Received:
    1,552
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Brittany
    That could be a problem with the way we have to harvest (only being able to harvest a node from one exact position and having to slowly move to that certain position). Some random spawns would likely end up in inaccessible places for harvesting.
     
  6. Gideon Thrax

    Gideon Thrax Avatar

    Messages:
    2,497
    Likes Received:
    6,771
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    You might get a banhammer if:

    your 18 month old baby steals your game access and logs in and grinds out 1M gold for you in an hour... banhammer

    a Yeti logs in with your game access and GM's your avatar 100 times over the weekend because he likes you... banhammer

    you log into SPO thinking you can do whatever you want - oh no! it's a honeypot for exploiters... banhammer

    a dev zones in and starts beating on you while you're grinding and you just keep grinding because you're a macro... banhammer

    the Hamburglar breaks into your house over the weekend to play SotA while you're away at spacecamp... banhammer
     
  7. Parson Barr

    Parson Barr Avatar

    Messages:
    342
    Likes Received:
    657
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Gender:
    Male
    When I think about it there has to be an official way to notify a player of an infraction. Like your home address, every player has a virtual address they call home. For some it's a phone # for texting. Others use Facebook Messenger. Others use Snapchat.

    Since it's impossible to know what method a gamer uses for communication in the real world, the only reliable way Portalarium has is the game client. It's not unreasonable to expect official communications from Port to come via the client. That said, it won't be truly effective until the chat interface is overhauled.
     
    Bom and ThurisazSheol like this.
  8. MrBlight

    MrBlight Avatar

    Messages:
    2,388
    Likes Received:
    4,452
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Any chance of getting a exploiter / bot kill count? ;)
     
  9. Visaard's Producer

    Visaard's Producer Avatar

    Messages:
    15
    Likes Received:
    39
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    france
    is mining at the third floor copper room of etceter mine an exploit? (cf markee video) , is getting group xp afk an exploit ? plz stop the xp pool.. make it gain xp only for the skill you are using.
     
  10. ThurisazSheol

    ThurisazSheol Avatar

    Messages:
    2,309
    Likes Received:
    3,988
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Location:
    The Drowned Mountains
    Most fplks here seem to be getting a bit confused on a small yet important piece of info.

    Exploitation is the deliberate use of a flaw in a system, for profitable gains. Bots tend to have macros set for specific actions in the same precise order. If even one of those actions is designed to circumvent the desired design of said system, to obtain different results, you are then obtaining extra gain, and thusly exploiting the system, bot or not.

    If you find that weak link in the chain, you are supposed to cease using it, and report it. The continued use is what is considered Exploitation, and looks worse on you if you did not report it.

    The sad reality is, some people pay less attention to the details, so they keep doing the same things for their profits, not even knowing that they are gaming the system in the first place. They are the ones that "fall through the cracks" and get banned for what they honestly thought was fair play. I have seen some really OCD players be very precise in their movements, and be very efficient to where if i did not see them on my side of the fourth wall, id have sworn they were bots.. Devs coming with a good set of checks and balances for vetting people in this situation is kinda difficult to do right the first time.

    The dev team should (i do not know if they do or do not) acknowledge this, and have a simply navigated SOP for the legit folk to follow to get reinstated, and that methodology should include some vetting, so botters cannot circumvent it too.


    _______________________


    Ive been saying this for almost three years... The tech is achievable, ive seen it, but it is kinda tricksy to implement well. I hope they decide to put some devtime towards this goal soon.
     
    Moiseyev Trueden and Hornpipe like this.
  11. ThurisazSheol

    ThurisazSheol Avatar

    Messages:
    2,309
    Likes Received:
    3,988
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Location:
    The Drowned Mountains
    The tech for this would mark zones and elevation for node spawning. Those zone marking would be the most devtime consumimg part, because a dev would have to manually set them on a topographic map that uses loc coords in a db to draw the boundary lines. Plus theyd have to spend even more time with walking it like a collision test.
     
    Moiseyev Trueden, Solazur and lollie like this.
  12. Alrik Doom

    Alrik Doom Avatar

    Messages:
    125
    Likes Received:
    275
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Really, it is extremely important to rid the game of these actions prior to launch! Cheating is Cheating period, I'm sure Port takes every avenue to make sure the ban is appropriate, IMO a much needed action because it is disheartening to see players cheat and gain gold/xp for finding a bug. Exploiting can destroy the game faster then some players feeling upset because they can not macro! It feels to me your not seeing the bigger picture and the fact we are persistent gives your, we are in development, not an excuse to exploit! This and any post to follow that supports the players that were banned should be considered for a suspension as I believe you are also part of the problem! Play the game within the rules, find a exploit, report it, it is that easy, players trying to cheat, I say perma ban. As a supporter/shareholder of sota, I don't want these cheating players here!

    Thanks Port/Devs for acting upon this, it was clear that players were cheating/macro/botting! As a player, this news comes with welcomed ears, I was getting right pissed watching day after day some players cheating and doing nothing but destroy the hard work done by others. We have investments here and am happy you take that seriously!
     
  13. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

    Messages:
    10,347
    Likes Received:
    24,869
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    United States
    lol well that is so not true. I have not been banned or cheated.
    Except it is not a game yet and there are not rules put in place. We are in the testing phase. I have been here since 2013 so I do know some things. I am not condoning anything. You misunderstand. I talk about making sure there are not mistaken bans for people who have done nothing except accidentally find an exploit and then they get an automatic instant ban no warning. They should know of their discovery. I am not talking about botters but people I know getting accounts kicked out of the game without warning, so we do not talk about the same thing, but no worries. There are no rules yet to know, this is my request to figure all that out before the games release.
     
  14. MrBlight

    MrBlight Avatar

    Messages:
    2,388
    Likes Received:
    4,452
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Id be really surprised if they are actually perma banning on * someone finding an exploit unknowingly*. This is definitly targeted at the group (20% of the economy? ) that is finding and exploiting the exploits and bugs for profit.
    Rules are pretty straight forward.. they ask you to report this kind of stuff everytime you open the game. Its pretty common knowledge that if you find a silver ore node that never runs out or disappears , its a bug. If someone isnt smart enough to realize that farming this thing for 3 weeks straight and never typing /bug or reporting it.. and then selling this unlimited silver for profit.. that they might be punished for it? Comeon. This isnt elementry school, its pretty straight forward.

    That being said im sure if there IS some accidental or actually arguable bans, the devs will be on top of sorting it out with anyone who contacts them over that. They are pretty good for responding.
     
  15. Kara Brae

    Kara Brae Avatar

    Messages:
    3,872
    Likes Received:
    12,189
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Bavaria
    This is not correct in my opinion. It is a game and the game is persistent, so what happens now affects the post-official-release economy. There are definitely rules to know, and they need to be enforced. We are indeed testing. The ban hammer is being tested, too.
     
  16. Net

    Net Avatar

    Messages:
    3,727
    Likes Received:
    11,178
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Banning botters and exploiters is a good thing. Especially now the game is persistant, this kind of behaviour cannot be allowed.

    That being said, the macroing is way too easy. The game consist of a lot of mindless clicking and watching progress bar, especially when gathering and crafting. I do not enjoy repeated actions and watching progreess bars to fill. I can certainly understand why people would want to macro it so they get only to fun stuff. I think the challenge here should be to make the game challenge so easy macros will be useless. The game should require active input from players. It should keep palyer engaged all the time. When macroing is nearly impossible, there will not be many botters.
     
  17. Cambion

    Cambion Avatar

    Messages:
    40
    Likes Received:
    32
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Good and Loyal , sorry I want to see the people cheating banned. Pretty simple the game is persistent now ... my understanding is that people with the bans have gone above and beyond to cheat after it is obvious they are exploiting or mining 38 hours straight ... !! Whats interesting for those of us who aren't playing the game as a business it doesnt really matter because these people are irrelevant .
     
    Nhili Dragon, Xandra7 and Koldar like this.
  18. Gideon Thrax

    Gideon Thrax Avatar

    Messages:
    2,497
    Likes Received:
    6,771
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    As soon as we hit persistence, it became a live game. The economy is taking real shape and growing. And the raffle is the biggest gold sink in the game. It's the real deal with a prize pool that adds up to around a quarter of million dollars if you value each deed with its full add-on store price. The player market is growing and regional economies are taking shape. This game is live and anyone hitting exploits hard enough to risk collapsing the economy need to be dealt with swiftly and harshly. If there was a someone that feels like they got caught in the crossfire, they should contact customer support and try to sort it out that way.

    Also, at the next telethon - I think we should get a BANHAMMER decoration that we can mount on walls... or (even better) use to kick people off our properties or out of our towns. :D
     
    gtesser, Solazur, shathiell and 2 others like this.
  19. rild

    rild Avatar

    Messages:
    1,220
    Likes Received:
    2,485
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Portland, OR
    This was discussed heavily a couple years back, and I was a bit disappointed it didn't end up in the game. Random allocation could end up with clusters that are closer than would be preferred, and as mentioned, could put them in un-harvestable locations. On that note, I'd love to see more nodes in hard-to-reach places, encouraging exploration - some of us enjoy the challenge more than the quantity. Tech-wise, wouldn't it be possible for the level designers to mark node locations just as they do now, but mark say, three times as many, and set the spawn to populate 33% of them at a time?

    Similarly, maybe a node has a certain threshold of max resources - for instance a gold node might give 1-4 ore at a time, and have a max threshold of 100 ore. When the threshold is reached the node is gone and the respawn occurs in another location. That threshold could be any number. A system like this would also allow the devs to use a "reset" button when they suspect botting is occurring, and shift locations of nodes. I wonder how a bot would behave when it loses access (I'm woefully uninformed about these things). Is it possible to block a character's access to a specific node or nodes (as a test measure)? For gameplay and to help with bots, it would be great to have a dynamic resource system. However, I'll leave it to the devs to decide what is most appropriate and do-able with dev time/money.

    Finally, it might just be that a banhammer is the most effective and easiest way of dealing with this. Even with automated systems in place to prevent exploits, people who enjoy that type of play or do it for personal gain will continue to attempt to find new exploits. For this reason it is important to have a clear policy and demonstrate enforcement of it. I am very glad to see them reigning in this behavior - in a game that is extremely liberal in many of its policies, total lack of policing could ruin it for the masses (see original UO).
     
  20. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

    Messages:
    6,331
    Likes Received:
    12,109
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    5 pages because of '**** happens' wrong bans? Did the 'pillar' of the community get his account back? The answer is yes.
    We should be happy that Port treats everybody same.
     
    Solazur likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.