how to handle gold sellers and bots at launch

ArchivedUser

i think bots and gold sellers will be a big problem at launch, i think they should host the game, like a prep-launch week or they do a test wee, the shut the servers offline for maintenance to do 3 things. Fix server stability. at launch games suffer from excess of players. Ban gold bot accounts, and lock character creation. temporarily locking character creation for a day or 2 will make the servers stable, let the game developers look for bots and look for exploiters. like theirs always a dupe glitch at 1st launch

ArchivedUser

There is an extensive alpha and beta phase planned that should have most of those issues worked out. Alpha and beta will also be wiped. The alpha/beta server will then become the test server. There most likely won't be bots in alpha/beta since those are paid packages. Come launch there will be a two day headstart on selected servers, once again, populated by those who bought packages with that access in it. Botting and exploiting are a huge issue for the developers who have outlined multiple known and secret ways that activity will be monitored. The whole premise of the game is the database is tracking your every move. Not too difficult to set parameters to look for certain behaviours. That, coupled with the 3rd party anti-cheat vendor we know about, in-game mods, and an active playerbase reporting, not too worried about it. Making it unprofitable for gold sellers to be able to spam accounts since there is no free trial is also key. Gold sellers will avoid a sub game just for that reason.

ArchivedUser

setting up a system to prevent botting is not always that easy, a machine has its limits and can do specific things atm, i believe the best way possible to prevent botting and any miss-behavior, is to have online mods, kinda like WoW system which actually has a Mod panel which allows you to talk directly to a mod who's online at that time, having a report system is more troublesome and takes much more time to fix the error you god, but having a mod online and talking with the players will solve more problems in less time, plus he will keep an eye out for any weird behaviors.
With that said, i want to point out that its not necessary to be a part of the dev team or be working in the company, you can hire people who are interested in doing something productive, for example i am studying computer engineering (software development) and i'd love to be able to help out a game even as a mod in game.

ArchivedUser

Panopticon Labs is working with us directly on crafting fraud prevention and detection mechanisms for use in Ashes of Creation. The systems they have designed specifically for Ashes are of paramount importance to the game experience we wish to create and we have made it a pillar of our design from a very early point in the development process to leverage their expertise in gaming, payment processing, and data intelligence.

Panopticon Laboratories’ is a publisher’s best defense against the cyber crime epidemic affecting the video game industry. Our suite of products uniquely identifies a baseline of normal activity for every online player within a game. By doing so, we help video game publishers proactively discover anomalous in-game behavior, such as an abnormal item or monetary transfer or withdrawal; or suspicious or erratic gameplay – with 99% accuracy.

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

There is an extensive alpha and beta phase planned that should have most of those issues worked out. Alpha and beta will also be wiped. The alpha/beta server will then become the test server. There most likely won't be bots in alpha/beta since those are paid packages. Come launch there will be a two day headstart on selected servers, once again, populated by those who bought packages with that access in it. Botting and exploiting are a huge issue for the developers who have outlined multiple known and secret ways that activity will be monitored. The whole premise of the game is the database is tracking your every move. Not too difficult to set parameters to look for certain behaviours. That, coupled with the 3rd party anti-cheat vendor we know about, in-game mods, and an active playerbase reporting, not too worried about it. Making it unprofitable for gold sellers to be able to spam accounts since there is no free trial is also key. Gold sellers will avoid a sub game just for that reason.

Wow is a sub game and there thousands of gold sellers.

ArchivedUser

Fleelix said:

Wow is a sub game and there thousands of gold sellers.

Not every game in development and going retail tries in advance to tackle the problem of gold sellers.  Intrepid is.  With the advanced techniques, live GMs and devoted player base the gold sellers aren't going to have it easy as in some games.  

ArchivedUser

I believe also another key factor is using the ban hammer swiftly and letting people know that it is being used on both the seller and Customer along with the software is about the best you can do some will always slip through the cracks but if you can stop the  majority of it that will have a huge impact on the economy. 

ArchivedUser

Fleelix said:

Wow is a sub game and there thousands of gold sellers.

Wow offers trial accounts till level 20. Allowing gold sellers to make accounts just to spam chat. They keep the gold on other accounts that they then transfer purchased gold to these temporary accounts that they don't care about losing to move to their customers. Wow never was set up to track interactions as small as player to player transfers. Wow has a very small active mod customer service base, because they just didn't care about gold selling, as long as their bottom line is getting met. Hence Wow Tokens and all the other RMT bullshit that is allowed now.
Active decisions to combat bots and gold sellers is being hard baked into the development of Ashes from the beginning. I in no way think they will be able to eliminate it entirely, but just like real life, you hope those around you aren't assholes, but one or two always manage slip by.

ArchivedUser

Whatever system EQ2 uses works beautifully.

ArchivedUser

Steer away from free to play system as much as you can, and don't just ban sellers in waves. This is massive if you want to keep game clean. For example blizzard does this very badly, they have waves every 6 months or so. And during those times, sellers are free to spam as they wish, or bot for that matter. 1. No f2p or trials, ever. 2. more bans, active tracking if possible for spammers 3. Good protection against botting. These are key factors when it comes against fighting botters. Some companies succeed on it, some are very lazy and fail at it.

ArchivedUser

- limit ability to post to public chat channels only to characters that reached certain level already

- make it hard (impossible) for low level characters to reach main cities, put main cities in higher level zones, and make it impossible for low level characters to reach there without agroing something and dieing in process (so gold sellers cant create bots that just run directly to main hubs and start spam)

- add special quests that need to be done to level up above each 5 levels, quests that bots cant do, quests that need human brain, so bots can just follow scripts to level up automatically

- implement right click + report option so players can report bots, and each X reports made for certain character automatically raises warming to GM to check

- and of course ban accounts found to be using bots, or gold sell spamming

ArchivedUser

You want to prevent gold buyers? Stop cheating and buying gold. Earn your place in this world.

~ Rhapsody ~

ArchivedUser

i figured since Ashes of Creation Devs are also Gamers, this was already planned before the Game was known

( They stated that they had already had roughly 1 year of development before annoucing it, right ? Around that timem i figured they'd already planned for that )

ArchivedUser

The problem they have in WoW is easy to fix for this game.

Have a free trial up to level 20. Prevent all gold transfers below level 21, meaning all gold transfers to and from the account.

I'm pretty sure the dev team has this kind of stuff figured out though. They know the game system better than we do and probably can figure out all this stuff ahead of time in cooperation with Panopticon.

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

There is an extensive alpha and beta phase planned that should have most of those issues worked out. Alpha and beta will also be wiped. The alpha/beta server will then become the test server. There most likely won't be bots in alpha/beta since those are paid packages. Come launch there will be a two day headstart on selected servers, once again, populated by those who bought packages with that access in it. Botting and exploiting are a huge issue for the developers who have outlined multiple known and secret ways that activity will be monitored. The whole premise of the game is the database is tracking your every move. Not too difficult to set parameters to look for certain behaviours. That, coupled with the 3rd party anti-cheat vendor we know about, in-game mods, and an active playerbase reporting, not too worried about it. Making it unprofitable for gold sellers to be able to spam accounts since there is no free trial is also key. Gold sellers will avoid a sub game just for that reason.

Oh lol what a bullshit , WoW and Albion both of them has gold sellers.

ArchivedUser

The way I see it is this,  gold sellers are like trolls, if ya don't feed them they will die sooner then later.  

Seriously, it's not every game, or many games for that matter that actually plan on trying to defend against gold sellers before the game even reaches the testing  stages. Intrepid is trying to stay one step ahead and with the numerous devoted players keeping watch and willing to help with OPTIMISTIC insights half the battle is won.  

ArchivedUser

Eleanc said:

Oh lol what a bullshit , WoW and Albion both of them has gold sellers.

And are you comprehension deficient? I specifically mentioned both of those games earlier and why they are plagued with gold sellers. I realize you're ESL and trying to troll as hard as you can, but pulling quotes out of context it an old trick that everyone knows.

ArchivedUser

One thing i learned across all the MMO's i've played: There is no way you can get rid of these spammers using only automated systems.

The only way to combat this is to have plenty of GM's monitoring the chat channels live, and to give them the ability to remove messages from said channels (so they don't stay on screen even if the spammer is removed). 

Most automated systems inconvenience the players more than they do the spammers anyway. Intrepid needs to be actively involved for a few days following the launch.

ArchivedUser

@Khrome Active GM's beyond launch has always been part of the multi-tiered approach they have stated. One of the things that game studios struggle with is staffing levels after the game has ended development. What to you do with the extra 3 artists from that section now that most of their job is just tweaking. While they plan on releasing new content on a robust schedule, those with downtime will probably act as GM's in addition to the actual hired and staffed GM's. It is all about managing that release bloat then the plateau at around 3 months when subs stabilize. An active community like many of the people here, who absolutely hate bots and gold sellers will help too. If people think that their reports of gold selling and botting activity are being actively taken care of, they will continue. If they think Intrepid JDGAF about it, then people CBF'ed.

ArchivedUser

Alts = Goldsellers

ArchivedUser

@Kadin Have seen you posting this today. How are alts equal to gold sellers? I like being able to play different styles of characters and have different specializations. If you are advocating that in a game with so many different class/racial combinations people be limited to a single character, I am going to have to disagree. Gold sellers don't like sub games because they lose their investment of $15 every time they get caught. The practice of having one account as a mule, and using other accounts to transfer the gold to people can be monitored. They have built a system from the ground up in Ashes that monitors every single action/interaction you do. Earlier MMOs did not do this to save on processing power/storage. Other systems like  https://www.panopticonlabs.com/ that are going to be used will help squash this even further.

ArchivedUser

Well they could just make it so gold is only transferable between only the players alts. Or maybe between guild members and say friends that are on your friends list and for say longer than a week.

ArchivedUser

Iscoed1815 said:

Well they could just make it so gold is only transferable between only the players alts. Or maybe between guild members and say friends that are on your friends list and for say longer than a week.

And then gold sellers just friend their clients and wait for a week before transfer.

Anything that will work for normal players WILL work for gold sellers / buyers as well.

ArchivedUser

The main issue is free accounts allowing farmers to just spam them over and over, also harsh penalties such as account suspensions or perma bans for people who buy gold if they are planning on implementing such a penalty is a huge deterrent, especially as people invest more time into their characters.

http://aocwiki.net/Main_Page -Comprehensive guide to Ashes of Creation.

http://imperiumaoc.com/ -Ashes of Creation Guild. 

ArchivedUser

UnknownSystemError said:

@Khrome Active GM's beyond launch has always been part of the multi-tiered approach they have stated. One of the things that game studios struggle with is staffing levels after the game has ended development. What to you do with the extra 3 artists from that section now that most of their job is just tweaking. While they plan on releasing new content on a robust schedule, those with downtime will probably act as GM's in addition to the actual hired and staffed GM's. It is all about managing that release bloat then the plateau at around 3 months when subs stabilize. An active community like many of the people here, who absolutely hate bots and gold sellers will help too. If people think that their reports of gold selling and botting activity are being actively taken care of, they will continue. If they think Intrepid JDGAF about it, then people CBF'ed.

Indeed this is so and with the great community of people just waiting for Ashes along with the plans Intrepid has to fight them,  half the battle is already won.  Many games don't bat an eye at gold sellers especially while in development.   

ArchivedUser

How do you think gold sellers get the ingame gold (and masses of it) to sell ?
Do you think those processes are manual or automated ?
How many legitimate bank account do you think a gold seller will use ?

ArchivedUser

@Rune_Relic
Its automated by complex bots, there are companys with subscription model who work day and night to improve these.. I had a friend who had his pc running 24/7 with 4-5 wow bots active, he made about 300-400€ a month through that. All he needed to do was updating/restarting the bot every morning at 4am and keep an eye on auctioneer prices to make the bot farm the expensive stuff.

ArchivedUser

Uao said:

@Rune_Relic
Its automated by complex bots, there are companys with subscription model who work day and night to improve these.. I had a friend who had his pc running 24/7 with 4-5 wow bots active, he made about 300-400€ a month through that. All he needed to do was updating/restarting the bot every morning at 4am and keep an eye on auctioneer prices to make the bot farm the expensive stuff.

Thanks. So eliminate automation is all you need to do.

ArchivedUser

Bots aren't difficult to recognize and easy enough to report.   

ArchivedUser

@Rune_Relic
you say that casualy, but these bots can even level from 1-max within 2 days while doing quests and stuff. The bot can even respond to chat because its linked to the persons smartphone.
The node system will make it harder to create such kind of bot however.
+ This game wont be as profitable as wow so gold sellers wont bother making such indepth bots i guess 

We're just doomed the moment someone changes the deepmind ai to farm gold in mmo's ...

ArchivedUser

@Uao
Deepmind lmao. The Good stuff.

There is ways to easily defeat bots because bots rely on patterns to function.
Even AI, however adaptive, must build familiarity before it can work properly.
They rely on familiarity with those patterns to determine their actions.
Disrupt the patterns and prevent familiarisation and they remain in an eternal state of adaptation unable to fully adapt and achieve recognition.

It is like the earth becomes hot when the suns out. AI will associate the sun with heat. If it gets hot 'and' cold when the suns out. The relationship is lost. There is no clear relationship between sun and heat. To learn requires understanding relationships. If you cant find any relationships, you cant learn anything.

So yes I say it casually. Bots succeed because they are allowed to succeed. And tools are only ever as good as the people that use them.