Yep indeed
I just went to a RMT site referenced in that infamous reddit thread to see if anything was different, and sure enough, most of the stuff that was listed two weeks ago was gone. There were literally 50 listings from about 10 different sellers, and now down to 4 from 2, so I have to give them a well done on this latest round of bans.
Distro mission bots, however, are more problematic. They are flying T1 industrials, which are dirt cheap, and takes zero time or injectors to skill into. I’m guessing they also are all Alpha accounts, so even if or when they ban all these, it won’t be long until a new fleet of them are up and running. IMO a game with such a player driven economy such as this one should never, ever have gone F2P.
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Can confirm the distro mission bots. The lanes between Jita and Osmon are full of bot Wreathes.
I’ve not heard his voice…
so I’ll just substitute Morgan Freeman’s.
–Gadget hears the words of God
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f2p/alpha clones has nothing to do with bots, they were there long before alpha and 99% of them are still being plexed anyway.
Somehow,I feel like Obi Wan just waved his hand and it didn’t work as I can plainly see the droids.
You are right. Gaming companies struggle to deal with bots. Current solution are massive ban waves which in theory should prevent bot makers to find out how they been exposed (which imo doens’t work) and to catch them as many as possible before bot makers improve them.
That however let them screw us all for a long time and in the end it has the same effect as banning on sight had in past. I believe it is not about efficiency or anything, but rather convinience - it is easier to game makers to do it this way.
As long as the gaming companies will use software to deal with bots it is just going to be about who can make updates faster/better, bot makers or game makers. And bot makers always wins in this fight.
I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to leave it to players. We can determine botting better than any system can. And if you ban bot based on actual player report there is no way how can bot maker avoid it.
If the reports we send to CPP were processed in days instead of months and CPP banned accounts that were reported by us I believe that we wouldn’t be in these deep shits we are now.
My suggestions:
- make something like CSM and hire players who want to hunt bots - there are players who will want to help with that
- verify their reports and ban bots they report immediately
The problem is, how do you prevent abuse? This is EVE after all. The Meta game is strong and well… Are you reporting me as a market bot because you truly think I am one or because I see you trying to actively under cut me by .01 isk and you are mad that I am being successful?
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thats why i am suggesting to form something like CSM for this
Ive read this thread and the proofs against bots provided here are rock-solid. Or does anyone doubt about it?
Surely, the ban can’t be handled just because 15 random players marked someone without any actual proof. Yes that would be too easy to abuse.
No, seriously, just no.
If you give players the power to ban people they will abuse it. And even if we assume, which is already rediculous, that everyone would act in good faith, most people are just too stupid to notice the difference between a bot and a player.
I have been accused of botting because people did not understand bookmarks, or fleet warp. You want people like those calling the shots? I rather don’t.
CCP has access to far more data and they should be the only people with the power to ban.
But if they only have time on the weekend to hunt bots, then maybe that is the problem!! Hire some people to maintain the game we pay for CCP!!!
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Given the amount of risk confiscated from various bots and banned accounts, couldn’t there be monthly contests where players are encouraged to hunt botters and potentially come up with ideas and/ or programming to detect bots? CCP would give confiscated ask to some of the more enterprising players. Several thousand heads coming at the issue is certainly better than the 5 or so they have at CCP (maybe less?).
Indeed. I originally posted CCP should hire 2 people dedicated to it. In retrospect, it should be more like 6 or 8. Even then we are only talking about 250-300 hours a week of bot-hunting time, which seems like a drop in the bucket.
I was waiting for the thread to reach the climatic point I describe as autistic Wabi-Sabi madness. It has as if on cue.
Using a minimalistic approach will yield better results. By stripping back the successive layers until the problem no longer exist will eventually show where the true problem lies. Only by then can you address the identified problem and proceed with a solution.
Unfortunately this will not happen. The players won’t endure it because the mental anguish will cause them to cry out as if it is actual pain.
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This only shows that you had the means to defeat the problem long ago and yet never did it. You could have killed those thousand accounts last weekend, or the weekend before.
It’s not like botting is a “new issue”.
Want to earn the respect of your playerbase back? Make that 1000 accounts every week. Reincarnate the Spanish Inquisition and crush the bastards.
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IMO the concept that a player (or a CSM) is tied to one kind of space is ridiculous.
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CCP can’t conduct public witchhunts against some of its players.
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I reviewed the entirety of this thread and one question and one declaration came about.
- Does anyone know how the market bots are doing?
Ramona and Salvos,I can tell you two will become the greatest of friends. 
Bots are on the run. Give them no quarter or respite.
Thank you for the update CCP Falcon. It has been an interesting subject. Best wishes for CCP and their pursuit of botting. It’s also nice to see players reporting such activity.
Quickly ban some bots so we can silence the angry mob!!!
After several years of silence you report baning 1k bots over a weekend because you’re getting bad rep.
If you guys at CCP(crowd control productions right?!) want to impress us devise a long term solution to hunt bots one of which was have volunteer players help gather data or hire a few more people for it.Unless I’m mistaken your 2 man security team also has to deal with hacked accounts not just bots and rmt.
It’s also kind of hard.