I told you, that you where wrong long before.
Truth is truth.
Doesnt matter who’s mouth it comes from.
You dont understand bots.
Returning to topic:
Botters, bots and how those two interface with each other in/with EVE as the third party is where solution lies. Wedging those three elements apart is key.
Bots have weaknesses.
Botters have weaknesses.
EVE has weaknesses.
From reading this thread I now have a better understanding of how a bot works. I do not expect you to have any understanding of this post due to your condition which makes you very difficult to talk to.
I already knew what you learned, and know even more than that.
What condition is that?
If you are referring to ASD, Ive been screened, and it is not the case.
This really validates my point: that you’ll react–i.e. try to adapt–to what CCP is doing.
Again, this is part of my point all along. That this process is one where both sides are reacting to each other…heck the botters are probably even reacting to the players as players will hunt them down too and impose additional costs on them. It is one where no single strategy will work. And even when a strategy does work it won’t work indefinitely. And when that happens then we’ll likely see a surge in botting until CCP adapts. And it is even possible that simple could re-emerge for a time being.
Stop that FFS. There is literally nothing in anything I have written in any post in this thread that suggests “do nothing.” Absolutely nothing. You cannot point to a single post to support this assertion. I am merely pointing out that this is a complex process and as a result we’ll likely see botting go “up and down” in terms of prevalence as strategies change and adapt over time.
Further, if anyone is expecting more information form CCP that is probably not going to happen. CCP would want to keep much of what they do under-wraps to keep the botters from gaining useful information for adapting their botting programs.
Here, let me give a IRL example.
Back a few years before the Great Recession, the financial rating agencys like Moody’s, Standard & Poors used models to rate financial instruments. These agencies, in the name of transparency, they released their rating models to financial firms. The financial firms in turn used that information to tweak their instruments to get higher ratings without actually reducing the risk inherent in instruments. Basicaly, they learned how to game the rating agency’s models so that they could sell lower quality bonds as higher quality bonds. It is part of what fed into what caused the financial crisis. See the work of Gretchen Morgenson.
The Wall Street firms learned how to massage these models, change one or two little inputs and then get a better rating as a result. They learned how to game the rating agency’s models so that they could put lesser quality bonds in these portfolios, still get a high rating, and then sell the junk that they might not otherwise have been able to sell.–Morgenson, Gretchen, (New York Times reporter), “Examining Goldman Sachs,” NPR
interview in Fresh Air, May 4, 2010.
Well at least there is something in place to fight this, I do know that some ccp staff can instantly see whats going on in any system very quickly.
The players have a bot reporting tool which will help CCP investigate possible bots, and also they can rely on data.
If they can query their databases to select players who have constant ratting rewards every 20 minutes for 12 hours straight then straight away they will have a list of possible bots they can investigate and ban if needed. I get that this will only bring ccp’s attention to the ratting bots and not the other types like noctis, mining and market bots.
Yes, so I strongly feel that the data is there to catch the bots, now the issue is if CCP has enough manpower to staff the department responsible for banning bots, also they must have the correct queries in order to query their databases.
I’ve learned from this thread that dealing with bots really must have real people constantly monitoring and investigating it as it appears no automated process can stop the bots.
So clear something up for me.
You identify a fairly large amount of things you consider are problems in the way CCP has successfully run their company for the last 15 or so years. After being around for less than 6 months, with no tracible game history bar 1 loss in lowsec a month after you started playing - you’ve got all the answers and CCP has been doing it wrong all these years.
Yet you offer no solutions other than to criticize the way others choose to play the game.
No I don’t believe multiboxing and Botting/Rmt are directly related - There are hundreds of games out the that don’t “allow” multiboxing that have major problems with botting.
Do you deny that policy choices damaged the potential experience as listed?
Who’s experience was damaged, potentially or otherwise? Eve was until recently one of the most difficult games to become a part of - Starting a character and undocking or completing the relatively new NPE does not make you a part of Eve and never should. Eve is about commitment for the individual, whether that be committing to casual play of 10 or 12 hours P/W or obsessive “part time job” with 10 characters is all part of the Eve experience - NO-ONE has the right to say “you can’t multibox” or “you can’t play Eve for more than XXX hours per week”.
EveOnline is turning 15 years old, is the ONLY game of its kind and still has dedicated players willing to put time and money into it - Even knowing there are cheats out the we still love our game and will support it. Some decisions CCP has made Piss me off and I tell them so as often as possible BUT I love those MFukin devs like they were my brothers and sisters.
EVE has always been a niche game, it has never been designed for the masses and this i believe is why the game has survived for so long - You love it and will put up with lots of things OR you leave and go play something else.
Personally I believe CCP’s biggest mistake of the last few years was dumbing down the game to try and appeal to the masses - This and this alone has encouraged the increase in botting and RMT. As I said, Eve was niche, it had limited market appeal due to it being a harsh place to live with a terribly hard learning curve and one of the most abrasive, competitive player bases of any game out there (today or in the past), this alone kept botting and RMT at minimum (controllable) levels because there just wasn’t a big enough market for RMT’rs.
Baba_Ji
All gaming companies do this now.Do you deny that all mmos have the intent to capitalize by way of multi client game play?
(Perhaps not all but in large nearly all.)
Not at all but then “Gaming Companies” are just that - Companies that set out to make money from people playing the games they own. Each and every individual has the option to play as they choose - You can have a single account with one character or you can have 20 accounts with 60 characters. The most I ever had was 18 but found i couldn’t run that many effectively so sold off a few characters (before extractors were a thing)
I would much rather have CCP make money out of multiboxing than microtransactions, the direction too many gaming companies have gone.
In those that use microtransactions a players (customers) gaming experience is based on how big their wallet is or what their credit limit is on a credit card - CCP allows us to play the game with a subscription by playing the game.
Stay around a few years, get involved with the community - aside from trying to tell it they are doing it wrong - Only after a few years can you form a valid opinion on Eve and those who play it.
Eve is unlike any other game out there and aside from CCP’s current push to appeal to the “instant gratification” crowd, it is still a game that requires a player, new or old, to make a commitment and NO-ONE has the right to tell someone else they are playing the wrong way.
Fluffy Moe
Obviously you seem to have reading comprehension issues. I specifically stated that automating the login process is botting, not you living or playing at reset times
Sorry but NO you didn’t;
You specifically asked where in the world I lived;
So I told you.
Do you either live in a timezone or have work / sleep schedule such that it allows you to log off and back on at resets ? If so where ? If not, then its botting.
I’ll tell you the same as I told someone else - Get to know people who have played Eve in different ways to your limited and very biased way.
I multibox, I have never automated anything. I own a JF which gets used a lot, without the ability to multibox my JF would NEVER EVER undock. I own capitals and a couple of supers, which again would see a lot less to no use if I or others in my alliance were unable to multibox.
There are a lot of activities in Eve that are designed around multiboxing - It has worked for 15 years.
If indeed Fluffy is an alt created simply for posting and you are indeed as you say “a long time player” (which from your comments I find extremely hard to believe), unless you have spent the entirety of your play time in highsec running missions you should have at least a small understanding of how Eve is played
From your final comment
To me, multiboxing…
Tells me you have no idea what a bot is or how they affect the game - You have even less knowledge on how a large majority of paying customers play Eve.
In my opinion (and that of many others). If CCP banned multiboxing and brought in a one person one account policy - The servers would shut down in a matter of months, CCP would go broke very quickly…
Multiboxing is the backbone of EveOnline, BOTS on the other hand should be eradicated.
I take offence only due to the narrow minded view you portray, you obviously have no understanding of the issues being discussed in this thread.
For want of a better word - You’re a forum “troll” and a bad one at that.
If CCP does not adapt, the bots will get more advanced, difficult to detect with current counter-measures, and numerous.
CCP must adapt and implement new measures to combat that.
From reading this thread I have learned a bit about how a bot works, With a punkbuster or warden solution CCP would install extra software on your PC which would have to analyse if another software program is capturing whats rendered on Eve if this is even possible, It would also have to keep an eye on if any Terminal Services/Remote Desktop Software is running. It would also have to scan the Active RAM to see if any software is controlling mouse and keyboard.
Now, I know some of you Techies can already see the flaws in what I’ve typed above which I acknowledge. I thought punkbuster would work as well but the after analysing it I am not so sure.
As Ive mentioned earlier I think CCP need a large team of people investigating bots, using carefully constructed queries from game data and player reporting I’m sure CCP can get a good list of possible bots to work through.
If we look at some figures we will see that it can get costly. Lets say CCP empl;oyed 10 people and paid them £25,000 each per year to investigate and ban bots 5 days per week, this would cost CCP £250k per year. If each investigator could investigate and ban 10-15 bots per day then I think this would make a huge dent to the overall bot numbers.
I think it would also be a good idea to identify the payment method that the botter used to initially join and then re-join Eve once they are banned. CCP should go ahead and ban paypal accounts, names and debit/credit cards. If they are still accepting a credit card used by a known and banned bot then this is where a large part of the issue lies.
It is possible that botting is used by people who RMT so the £250k i mentioned should be compared to how much revenue CCP lose through botting and RMT, I would think that CCP lose more than £250k per year so the cost of a team of bot investigators would be justified.
As you can see there is quite a lot they can do without automation.
Now that you mention it, it would make sense. It’s probably actually him lol.
Player farms are also a thing, alongside botting.
Fortunately Serenity was separated from Tranquility, or our situation here would be far worse.
You are still dragging behind in understanding the nature of the problem, but I am impressed and give due credit for your efforts to learn and understand what really is happening.
You’ve made a lot of progress, very quickly.
You are almost there.
Duh, I was here when the chinese server was separated.
Here is another idea, mind you this is just an idea. Make have a limited perma cloaked client, the limited client could not bump, use any modules or anything really, maybe have some basic text chat to convo people, even local should be read only on it and the account / character should not show its name in local. Provide the client with only 1 single ship, kinda like the new Monitor, but perma cloaked. There can be no other ships on the account except that one, so the account can’t be used for anything else. This account / client should also be unable to utilize the API.
Then hire 2-3 people to work 4-5 days a week a part time job in each major respective timezone. Since timezones overlap it is likely you could get away with just 6 people, covering 8 hours each for a sum total of 24 hours out of a day. Make it a perfect part time job for people looking for some extra cash.
The people hired could be minimum wage, thus providing considerable savings over other, specialized and more skileld employees whose time would be much better spent doing other things.
They would have 1 job, and 1 job only. Someone at CCP could go through lists of most player report flags for botting, hacking or whatever else, cross reference with some data collection, then forward the names to these guys. These guys in turn would do their 1 single function, that is to fly around and record anything from the list provided by CCP. Sometimes they would need to convo particular characters and record the replies, sometimes on different occasions over a span of a month or so.
Then CCP would just need to go over the recordings of anything flagged as suspicious or confirmed bot and just ban those players with evidence on hand. Any appeal by a given player to unban could be met with a reply showing the evidence instead.
This is still not free, but its better then any algorithm, any tools that would scrape memory, monitor network traffic etc. and in themselves be of dubious legality in many places in the world, and it would be cheaper then having full fledged devs or security techs on it.
1st thing that comes to mind here when you mention convoing particular characters over the span of a month - On most of my characters I don’t respond to convo invites from people I don’t know - Especially from people who are not in system.
If I were running botting software - I wouldn’t answer a convo request.
How do you tell the difference - Putting aside the whole “all multiboxers are bots” ideas you have. How would you tell the difference between a bot and a real person who just doesn’t want to talk to someone he doesn’t know…
Just to be clear. I don’t care,how others play given they do it within the rules. You are afforded that. The rest of your reply to me I’d rather not that I read it. It boils down to this for me. TMI If I were to break it down and contest it. It would be sad and that isn’t my intent all through out this thread. Have fun as you will.
I’m rather glad you brought this up. Here is why. Those who have offered ideas imo have readily enabled any Botter/RMTer to read this. By doing so it gives them insights as to what they can possibly expect in the future. By enabling their insight will no doubt prompt then to think and act. Act in a proactive way verses being reactive. This is why I haven’t offered any solution to this point. That means the escalation has already begun and puts CCP one more step behind.
I stated I concluded my thoughts on the subject and decided a solution was the next reasonable step. A step requiring its own thread separate from this one. This thread is only questioning are bots bad and if their is complicity on CCP’s part.
This below though is indeed a quandary.
Seeing as you know the situation it would behoove you to engage in a convo if it did seem legit(Meaning by CCP). Here is why. What you described could be understood and misunderstood. So I say this. If a duck walks like a duck it could be a duck. Hopefully CCP can tell the difference.
This is why the whole multi client aspect can be difficult. Surely by your statement you can see the dilemma. With that said,for me Botting and RMT are just bad for the players and the bottom line for CCP. I see no reason acceptable to allow Botting and RMT to remain solely due to the “exception”.
You can disagree and I’m fine with that.
it would behoove you to engage in a convo if it did seem legit(Meaning by CCP)
So you want these “employees”,of CCP who can perma cloak in a system and don’t show in local BUT can convo a player to establish whether or not they are botting.
What reason would I have for accepting a convo from some random person? Will they identify themselves as CCP employees or will I just need to accept random convo requests from anyone just to make sure.
If I were convo’d by someone I didn’t know who didn’t appear in local, I would presume it is someone who is in system and has found an exploit that hides them from local.
I agree botting needs to be stamped out, what I disagree with is you saying multiboxing makes someone a bot.
CCP is quite capable of dealing with the botting / RMT going on in game - they simply choose to do it in small increments behind closed doors, which makes it seem they are in some way complicit.
To sum up options presented in the thread regarding bots (in no particular order):
Implement mini-games that bots cannot complete.
Implement “punkbuster”/“warden” -style client based bot detection/prevention.
Increase the Security Team’s staff.
Implement a “heat map”, (ingame or in MER) so players can target regions with historically high bot rates.
Ban botters on first offense.
Permanently remove extractor capacity on accounts once caught for botting.
Implement a more efficient data crunching system on CCP side to flag potential botters.
Implement methods that recognize when a character/accounts activity levels are humanely unlikely/impossible without it being botting/account-sharing.
Incentivize using 2FA, either by carrot or stick, to help prevent account hacking/hijacking.
Do nothing, cos making changes will only encourage botters to adapt.
Did I miss any?
Why not summarize it this way:
Why does it need to be magical?
CCP has the tools to deal with bots, they banned 1800 in a few days after a player and media outcry. They are simply choosing not to use the tools they have available to them as optimally as they could.
Maybe the inflated PCU caused by botters is more important than dealing with the ongoing theft from every player and the company they pay to play as legitimate players.
Players themselves need to step up and deal with bots - Kill their income streams often enough they’ll get the idea.
And before someone says “what about those who look like bots but are real players” - They should be able to deal with raiders wanting to kill them, simply by using human skills bots don’t yet possess, warping off, watching intel (and docking up or getting safe) etc.
In all honesty, if a few legit ratters or miners die while someone is bot hunting - It is still good for the game overall.
We as players have the tools to hurt botters - Lets show CCP we are serious about wanting them gone by disrupting their income streams by killing them, camping their systems, telling our friends where they are, etc - AND report them And report them and REPORT THEM.
Yeah, that is really kinda magical thinking. That information will be available to botters too so they can simply move and or turtle up until they move.
This is kind of a Make America Great Again…a nice slogan I suppose, but how exactly. Alot easier said than done.
This is great for catching dumb bots, but it won’t work against a more sophisticated bot, IMO.