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Anti Botting System? Community Q&A?

This post is to seek answers from either the AOC Development Team, and or our Community members that have received official information.

<blockquote>Question for AOC Team:</blockquote>

Is the AOC Team working on ways to prevent players and gold farming company's from "Botting"? If so what are some of the step you may be taking to prevent this?


<strong>Lets keep this forum alive while waiting on official information, by also asking the community some questions </strong>

1) What has been some of your own experiences with a MMORPG with a "Botted" economy and community?

2) What advice could you give the AOC team on how to prevent "Bots"?

3) What advice could you give your fellow AOC community on how to fight "Botters"?

Comments

  • Community Questions.

    1) With my own experience, Botting is the number 1 thing to kill any MMORPG. Both the Economy and Community. Back in the day Runescape used to be an amazing community and very very alive. Now its a wasteland of Bots and silent players. (My opinion why is on question 2.) Once the Bots took over the gathering spots, which used to be full of people talking to each other, telling story's and cracking jokes to kill the time. The areas became silence and dull. Either the players are random generated Gold Farming Company Accounts. Players wanting to max there skills and leave bot scripts running 24/7, or players sick of nothing happening and are watching netflix from no interaction in game.

    2) If anything, these are 2 things i would give advice on, even though it does seem this game has alot of ways to prevent Bots. Such as weight limits, the Caravan Trade System, and Market Stands you have to Rent.

    *1: Please AOC Developers, do not put a Auction House in the game. This i have noticed has been the down hill spiral in any game. Once you place this in, Gold Farming Companys will sworm this game and start using Bots to flood the Resources and Economy. While Auction Houses make the game more convenient it can kill the community. Let people open market stands, or better yet another old thing in Runescape that was awesome. "Bank Sales" This is were players loaded there inventory's up stood in or outside the Bank, and used marketing communication skills to get people to come view there inventory and discus prices and bargain with each other.

    *2: To gather or craft, players should have to use tools. While at the same time, these tools have Durability and will break if not repaired. This will help prevent Botting programs because alot are set up on a single script to gather and store. If they are not able to gather because a hour after they started there axe or fishing pole will break, they will just stand there and or keep failing to gather.

    3) Advice i would give the community is to step up. One do not spread the poison and Bot to get a advantage. Two, do not ignore Bots. Report any bots to the AOC Team. either in game or in the forums. Take Screen Shots and or video clips. Help keep our servers clean.
  • Hi.
    first i would like to say, i've yet seen an mmo that wasn't plagued by botting so i have some concern about how this game is going to deal with that.
    as far as i know it doesn't matter how "complicated" a farm mechanism is, a simple script sometime coupled with some memory reading and a bot can overcome anything.
    the only true solution ive seen implemented to combat that and worked, is simply removing all tradable items/resource from game and make trade available only for a short amount of time between the party members that dropped the item, but that will kill only gold farmers and you still left with a lot of bot players that farm for themselves.
    a sherif system could be good to reduce those auto farming bots but it wont remove them completely.

    i think its a very good topic to discuss and see if the community can come with some good ideas how to deal with bots
    and devs response would be very appreciated as well.
  • I dont care how they prevent them just dont restrict players from some options if they are gonna be available example player trading. If you remember bdo turned off player trading option.
  • Xesor: You are right, i really hope the community comes together to discus this topic, i fear this is one topic that is over looked until its to late. I am also excited to hear a response from Devs in the future on this topic.

    Haki: Yeah ive seen free trade taken away from players before and it does really hurt other players. I dont think they would ever do this in this game means it relies heavily on trade. My biggest concern is a auction house, any game i played, once this is installed, things go downhill with the community but this game has so much high hopes i dont think these guys are fools and they are really listing to the people and know what makes a great MMO.

    Ashes of Creation: Make MMO's Great Again
  • I have alot of experience with games overrun by bots, looking towards Tibia. The game is a really old 2D game, and it has seen countless bot programs been made for it. It is extremely punishing in PvP and progressing the game is always a risk. Which makes botting all the more attractive. This game was ultimatly destroyed by botting. There were brazilian gold farmers and "guilds" who own entier servers, and they force you out of hunting spots, or make you even pay stuff to let you live. Without a bot you don't stand a chance, and the legit players just left the game.

    The game is still going, but close to a 100% of it's playerbase are either buying gold or botting themselves. It is extremely easy to detect aswell, as it is 2D and you can clearly see players following a pattern, or you could just say "Hi" a few times without reponse, then attack a monster which they are currently attacking and then get an immidiate response, because they have alerts when ppl are disturbing their hunting spots.

    [size=18]<strong>So after experiencing all this, the advice i would give to the developers is:
    Don't make botting/goldselling too attractive within the game. Don't ever have gameplay reward real money. Limit how much they can promote themselves within the game without taking away gameplay I.e having localized chats maybe? Have harsh punishments for both botting, selling and buying gold. Don't be afraid to make an example out of cheating players. I think going back to the all powerful gamemasters would be a good idea, Or maybe have them only dispense lighter punishents, like chat bans or short term bans.</strong>[/size]

    It is extremely hard to combat this kinds of things. But i believe it can be done if it is desierd enough. The story behind how this game came to be and how they go about developing it and financing it makes me confident that they will really try their best to not have bots/goldsellers ruining their work.
  • first off, The game is going to be an ever changing game. you can't bot if the mobs and material migrate between several places.
    second, The devs are going in all out war with bots. I'll help mess them up too by attacking the bots.
    killing the bots move them to the spawn point, also it'll help confirm they are actually bots, as a real player will try to flee or fight back. I don't mind being flagged as an outlaw for the community's sake.
    Overall, steven is bent on protecting the game from p2w trap, we as a community should further help him by not buying from bots, and reporting all bots we see.

    I have come from Toram online, the community and economy is considerably, but not fully destroyed by botting. I played for over a year, but I really couldn't get even one character halfway to the level cap, while there were rich players(not gold buyers or botters), who have 7-8 characters who are all capped. I met several, befriended them, and found that they pretty much had to spend almost all free time on the game to even hope to get useful items. Also, they had to make cash shop purchases for rare and useful items.
    trust me. a bot infected game sucks. it can be related to a disease. it attacks every game, tries repeatedly. only a firm community and good GMs can keep them out. toram had neither, so won't stay not p2w for long. being a free player I'd be at the bottom of the barrel.
    This is the game everyone was wanting for so long. please don't be a spoilsport if you don't get what you like and start spreading toxic bots over the community. leave that part of you with the other MMORPGs, ones that are spoiled. Also, lot of 'RMT' sites can just take your cash and never give you the gold.
    Everyone, this is a big project, loved by all. If any of you turn into gold sellers or botters, I promise you, THERE WILL BE BLOOD. and I(and intrepid studios) won't be the only one drawing it.

    Intrepid studios, this part is for you.
    I'd request add in the terms and conditions,botting, along with selling and BUYING gold with IRL money, can also earn you a temporary IP ban and permanent account ban.
    have the app scan the other working processes and crash the game if it notices any bot-like functions, or anything that covers your real IP, like a VPN.
    Also add in ToC that selling in game gold for real money is strictly forbidden and can lead to legal cases. Sue anyone who does gold selling and ensure you get hold of a large sum from them. this request is a tall order, I know, but if you take out even one, the others know what disaster they are heading for and won't even try. Plus, it'll give you more money to develop the game even further, money that would have otherwise gone into making more botting systems and further spoiling of games.

    make it impossible to make more than one account from any given IP unless one person from that IP tells you Specifically why you should allow multiple accounts, and how many should you allow. for example, I live in dormitories so I'll have to request you if my friends want to play with the same dormitory wifi. this will also help with tracking botters.
    ok, all regular bots and RMTs locked out. next, gold sellers who hack...
    well, for this, I'd suggest make it required to link the account with a mail, while it still has it's own separate signup and login system. no aspect of your mail should ever be displayed. so if a login in a different IP is detected, it'll send a mail, and only when confirmed can you login. this should help anti-hacks.
  • 1. Problem as above. Bots rely on scripts, which rely on repetitive patterns.
    Remove the repetition and you cant write a script.
    Not unless you want to make the bot AI as advanced as a humans.
    Captcha systems can be employed for one.

    2. Describing your anti botting / gold selling systems in public....also notifies the bots/sellers on the variables of the system they have to defeat. You have given them the information to work around that system. So I dont expect AoC to tell the public anything about their methods.

    Having said that, I too hope that gold sellers and bots are eradicated.
  • Go look revelation online general chat :D
    i dont know how but pls dont allow that
    Even in beta
  • [quote quote=11203]Xesor: You are right, i really hope the community comes together to discus this topic, i fear this is one topic that is over looked until its to late. I am also excited to hear a response from Devs in the future on this topic.

    Haki: Yeah ive seen free trade taken away from players before and it does really hurt other players. I dont think they would ever do this in this game means it relies heavily on trade. My biggest concern is a auction house, any game i played, once this is installed, things go downhill with the community but this game has so much high hopes i dont think these guys are fools and they are really listing to the people and know what makes a great MMO.

    Ashes of Creation: Make MMO’s Great Again

    [/quote]

    I believe they are making multiple local auction houses and NOT a global auction house. This would definitely help mitigate certain botting issues but there were some decent ideas BDO did to mitigate this like captchas and bid timers and pre-orders. But I agree that we want to keep marketplaces as free and open as possible but also find ways to restrict botting.
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