Runes of Magic US / AU

If I remember correctly ... people are already IP banned if a permanent ban is achieved on an account.

China should already be banned from accessing the FEU servers. I do remember a guildie saying they were going to China for business and couldn't log onto their RoM account.

As much as I would like to see botters gone. You cannot do anything about it. Blizzard has trouble with them, how do you expect Runewaker to battle them?

Quoted from "mrmisterwaa;528935"

If I remember correctly ... people are already IP banned if a permanent ban is achieved on an account.

China should already be banned from accessing the FEU servers. I do remember a guildie saying they were going to China for business and couldn't log onto their RoM account.

As much as I would like to see botters gone. You cannot do anything about it. Blizzard has trouble with them, how do you expect Runewaker to battle them?

I'm not going to divulge too far into this, but it is possible with minor tweaks on your side of the computer to bypass international bans. Not saying you should as it would be stupid to risk what you have spent so much time and money on to create (your toon)

In truth their really is no sure fire way of getting rid of botters or permanently banning someone. I'm not sure anymore but not too long ago the attitude with banning Gold Spammers/Sellers/Buyers was to ban every account with "bad" gold. The problem being is so much bad gold had made it's way into the game I'm willing to bet, well over half the player base would be banned, innocent or not. It's sort of like how nearly 90% of US currency is said to have Cocaine residue on it.

There was an idea that was kicked around a lot on Palenque, which was to 0 out everyone's Gold (which would piss off the masses) but may deter and crush their business. Another idea was for Frogster to start selling Gold as they do Diamonds.

Either way you look at it, getting rid of botters, gold spammers etc.. the player base will suffer, as we will loose privileges in order to make it happen.

Could be pain for people in college dorms, and some small towns have the same IP for everyone in them.
IP's are easily changed, so a ban is easily worked around. A serious botter would regard it with about as much concern as you would look at relogging for siege

Quoted from "MegaMouseSEC;528989"

Several fo the ideas that were shot down have been succesfully implemented in other free games (the Bot-Bomb is a prime example), and if coded right cannot be abused. Looking at some of the other bot killer ideas here is what I learned:


1 Players either refuse or do not want to have an ingame captcha interupting their grinding/questing.
Why?? I would love to have something that randomly checks to be sure a player is real or not.
2 Players are afraid that something like a Bot_Bomb would be too easy to abuse.
If coded corectly and settup like the original post on it said it should be then abuse will be a non issue.
3 Players are afraid that they will be targeted while in a town. Just make all towns safe zones. Send all pvp type of combat outside of towns completely.
4 Players feel they will be wrongly accused of botting. If you are not doing what is obviously botting then you ahve no worries.
I believe that those that are vehemently against anti-botting attempts are in actuality botters that do not want their livelyhood interupted.

Bot farmers are a pain and pretty tenacious.
I do feel something should be done to combat them, but feel it should be left up to Frogster and RW to deal with, not by putting something in the players hands that could easily be misused.

The drawback to an ISP ban is that it could lock out players who's only connection to the botter is their geographic location. It would be like the police giving you a speeding ticket because you were on the same road as the guy driving 120mph through a school zone. Support would be swamped with legitimate players asking why they can't log in anymore, while the botter is right back to work in 5 minutes or so.

Bot bombs have a very high abuse potential. A player spends time forcing a boss to spawn and just as they move in for the kill they have to answer a captcha while they watch another player take the kill?
Or, as happened to me, buffing up to make a kill, and suddenly I'm a frog watching a rogue kill take my kill. Whether I was sitting helpless as a frog or answering a captcha, the results would have been the same

Most important point to make here is that simply because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they are botters, it just means that they know there are players who will abuse anything that will give them an advantage.

An option would be to assign a unique seriel number to each download, or create an ID for each rom installation using something like the computer hardware hash and download date/time etc, then if a botter is proven, ban any accounts using that installation. It may not completely eliminate botting, but having to download, reinstall and create a completely new set of accounts, and potentially losing the toon that benefits from the botting would serve as a deterrent. Even just setting it up so rom won't run on a computer known to run bots would work. How many people would bot if they had to buy a new computer or rebuild one when they got caught?

Quoted from "refugee;529028"

Even just setting it up so rom won't run on a computer known to run bots would work. How many people would bot if they had to buy a new computer or rebuild one when they got caught?

This would not work, as it would just take someone that can blast a image onto the computer again. New OS in a matter of 2-5 minutes. The best way to do this would be to record the mac address of the computer and ban that, they would have to buy a new NIC card or modem if you could get that mac address. The other thing they can do to get around this is to run a cleaning program to clean out the registry, that would also fix the values put in by the game that would stop you from playing the game.

I do that last option when trying a game or application out. Even though they put something in registry, uninstall the application or game and run a registry cleaner and then reinstall the game or application. Works like brand new for 30 more days, while keeping any and all saved work.

its done already in some games...perhaps rom as well Oo. ex. just mac address altered with a unique id off maybe the south bridge and cpu?

sadly enough not effective afaik, same for anything ip based. between onion networks and cute cloning tricks i wouldnt imagine the main botter problem would even blink. the gold farmers dont do anything but ks/clops farm/vendor so no one even notices them it seems. in the time it takes for a gm to ban entire pages of them, they've already made 3-5 more pages.

None of these idea's would work at all. Trying to ban anyone based on a single aspect of their system won't work, here is a few reasons why:
1. Proxies. Most, if not all botters, use Proxies, many of them have no idea what they are doing and are easily found, others can make it next to impossible to trace them (There was even a kid who used the US DOD in his proxy line).
2. Spoofing. Its not that difficult to write a section of code that "spoofs" information anything is looking for. The person who is physically at the computer has the power to make anything happen against software as basic as RoM.
3. Abuse. Any form of Bot control that relies on players is a terrible idea. I know I for one would likely abuse the system now and again, just to mess with people (Just being honest), and if there is even 1 person willing to abuse the system for teh lulz it won't work, period.

Just set daily quest items to only drop if you have the quest active.

Or you could just make all daily quest items bound, but that would destroy a good part of the game economy.......

Just making the daily quest items bound would do nothing but make the botters move to other items, or just create programs to auto run instances. You can never solve a problem created by people by banning an item, they just move to another item. It is the people who are the problem not the items and you must take action against the people not the items. Banning IPs, servers or even hardware when it can be is the only solution and that will take a lot of gms.

Quoted from "MegaMouseSEC;529541"

This one has been suggested and shot down by the ones botting, and using the quest items for easy gold. I do agree though that ALL quest items should have either been made bound, or made so they will not drop unless the person has the quest, or even set it so they do not stack over the number needes while at the same time if the person drops the quest the daily items go poof. Too many people complain about how they buy daily items jsut so they wont have to actualy PLAY the game due to tehm not having enough time. I say to that MAKE TIME OR DO NOT PLAY.

So, you're saying that making daily quest items bound would *only* affect botters? Or are you saying that *everyone* who farms daily quest items are botters? Which is it, Mega?

I'd like to know, since at least one of my toons regularly goes up to the Inferno Gardens and semi-farms dog meats, while doing the butterfly daily quests. After all, there are some days when I just don't have the *time* required to do a series of ten or twenty dailies, and having two or three stacks of dog meats available for quick turnins (DailyNotes FTW!) is really handy.

So, am I a botter?

Be careful with blanket statements.

Quoted from "Malignatus;529617"

So, you're saying that making daily quest items bound would *only* affect botters? Or are you saying that *everyone* who farms daily quest items are botters? Which is it, Mega?

I'd like to know, since at least one of my toons regularly goes up to the Inferno Gardens and semi-farms dog meats, while doing the butterfly daily quests. After all, there are some days when I just don't have the *time* required to do a series of ten or twenty dailies, and having two or three stacks of dog meats available for quick turnins (DailyNotes FTW!) is really handy.

So, am I a botter?

Be careful with blanket statements.

Its what he does, if you disagree with him, you're instantly a botter.

Quoted from "MegaMouseSEC;529541"

This one has been suggested and shot down by the ones botting, and using the quest items for easy gold... I say to that MAKE TIME OR DO NOT PLAY.

This is exactly why nobody takes you seriously, I could link to the countless posts where you've accused anyone who disagrees with your outdated mode of thinking, of being a botter.

Every single idea you've provided in every post has been destroyed in every single way imaginable, but you cling to them and ignore the evidence provided like a faith driven zealot.

Bot bombs, Abuseable, period. Any method of Bot control that relies on players WILL get abused.
Mass IP bans, Spoofable, Proxies. Need i say more?
Captcha, interrupts people and will drive even MORE players away.
Binding quest items, people sell them for cash. I for one used to farm GDM for gold. If those were bound it would be revoked faster than the %mana cost to all spells back in Ch2
Only making quest items drop when you have the quest, Some people just like to farm the crap out of lower level dalies for their alts or for their Guild. I for one have spent multiple days farming materials to help old guildies overcome the hump of 40-50 a bit quicker.

So instead of blindly typing blanket accusations (Which nearly every post of yours regarding botters is) take some time to absorb the information being provided so you don't look so ignorant.

Also, your signature just screams for people to ignore you.

Edit: You can claim all you want that "If bot bombs were coded correctly, abuse isn't possible!" This is false for 2 reasons;
1. Any method in which a player can do something that negatively affects another player will be used, abused and broken.
2. As it has been shown by the current status of the game, the developers can barely code anything right as it is.

Quoted from "MegaMouseSEC;529541"

Too many people complain about how they buy daily items judt so they wont have to actualy PLAY the game due to them not having enough time. I say to that MAKE TIME OR DO NOT PLAY.

Wow. Really? Go farm daily items as a P/K and then tell me that. That is just.. rude and stupid. God forbid we feel like doing something else in this game besides sitting there for an hour farming daily items every single effing day. I'll buy some items off a newbie and do it in a minute or two.

I get my dailies done, the lil guy gets some gold. Winwin for me. Doesn't make us lazy or bad players.

There's a reason nobody listens to your suggestions.

Quoted from "MegaMouseSEC;529626"

My post was meant mainly thit botters in the wallet and not for someone that is farming mats. Only to those that use a broken mechanic to get one over on others. Only RoM has it set so that Daily quest items drop all the time and can be sold. No other game I have played has this settup and personaly I think it caters and promotes botting. Noone can say that botting is not a problem, and those that don't believe that botting is a problem need to get their heads out of their tailends.

I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a "broken mechanic". More that some have either found a way around it, or a way to exploit a rather open system. Now...

Okay, let's put just a tad bit of perspective on this argument (bind all daily quest drops, especially dog meats, since they're botter-fodder).

Long before dog meats were around, somewhat more than *three years ago*, there were botters in RoM. What did they gather? *Materials*. Specifically, ore, wood, and herbs. And they *still* do that, in most zones, since every one of those materials are useful as 1.) crafting items and 2.) gold mines.

Who were the first (and continuing) botters? The gold sellers. The *professional* gold sellers, not the amateur copycats. They're still active, and generate a crapton of gold for their operations. They, as a whole, not as individuals, have wormed their way so deeply into the fabric of the game that it's virtually impossible for the GMs to eradicate them. And why is that? The earliest gold seller accounts are about as black and secret as they come. There are so many different and varied "cutouts" in their web(s) that the master accounts are effectively invisible. What the *players* see, WRT the pros, are the hunter/gatherer bots, and the spammers. They might see (literally) the cutouts that stand next to mailboxes. They'll also see, perhaps, the cutouts that list their wares in the AH. Maybe. I haven't checked lately, and it's possible that instead of seeing materials listed by "ghjsoiugh", they're using somewhat more thoughtful and fitting character names.

And then, there are the occasional bots in "minor" instances, such as Pasper's, Mystic Altar, or somesuch. They're more of a nuisance, really. The ones which generate the largest amount of gold for the pros are, obviously, the material gatherers.

And now, let's focus on *your* main concern--Inferno Dog Meats. In my opinion, the overwhelming majority of the bots that kill and gather dog meats are amateurs, not pros. They're out to profit for themselves, either to turn the meats into gold (selling to players such as yourself) or to mail them to a main account for leveling. I have suspicions about every WC, Trade, or Zone shout that offers dog meats for sale at <insert price per stack here>, just on general principles. Why? Because most end-game or near end-game players are unlikely to waste the hours it takes to farm up 10, 15, 20, or more stacks of dog meats. (Presuming that there are no competitors, it takes *me* at least couple of hours to farm up *two* stacks of dog meats. That's two hours I could be doing something far more productive, even if outside of RoM.)

So, focus more closely on the amateurs. They've already gone so far as to search out, find, and either download or copy 'n paste the routines for their botting programs or extensive macros. I hope they managed to acquire some malware for their troubles. *Using* the botting programs or macros is a violation of the ToS, in several different ways. And if they're caught, the toon and account gets suspended or banned. That works for me.

Now, how does all of this affect *you*? Well, if you don't buy dog meats from channel sellers or the AH, not at all. If you buy from a channel seller or from a listing in the AH, and that toon/account gets suspended...tainted gold remains tainted. *You* might find yourself penalized in some way. Caveat Emptor, baby.

The only other way this can affect you is...you run into botters when *you*, as a legit player, are farming dog meats. Or other daily quest mats. Or crafting mats. So what? Do some kill stealing in front of them. If you get complaints, then maybe it wasn't a botter after all. Or it's one of the few "smart" ones who actually sit and watch their bots. (Smart botters? Isn't that an oxymoron? I dunno.)

Bottom line here? Botters are a problem, yes. Report the ones you *think* you see and let the GMs deal with them. As for farming dog meats, other daily quest drops, or materials? I've already given you options which *work*. Kill steal and take the chances that someone will complain to you about it. You'll have the opportunity to argue with *them*. Change channels. Find another time to do your farming. If you're in it for the daily quests, do a different daily quest--there are *three* other dailies @ Frontline Camp which pay the same amount of XP/TP as the guard dog quest does. If you're in it to make gold, go find something *else* to farm.

And no, "bot bombs" are *not* an or the answer. Too much opportunity for abuse.