While CCP actually needs to have some human to approve of the bans each time.
Creating a bot is a whole automated process. There is no need to get a person involved.
In fighting bots, there needs to be employed other tactics. Like identifying RMT networks and taking it all down at the roots. But to do that, one needs to let bots run so you can follow the ISK trail.
And yeah, I don’t give a rats ass about some random that whines here on the forums, that I initially just responded to cause he couldn’t understand that spamming forums with nonsense was not contributing.
But I like how you liken fighting bots to freedom fighting under WWII and somehow not giving a rats ass about a whiny ■■■■■ makes me a coward hiding under a bad while my countrymen are dying around me.
Seriously, some parts of this community are so ■■■■■■■ toxic. And it always seems to be those “fighting for the right and the righteous”. Maybe remember this is still just a game before you make your next analogy.
So just because I don’t agree with your whining, and because I believe there are other more effective ways at combating the issue, I must be pro-botting now?
How quick you seem to brand someone that disagrees with your views. I could use an analogy here that strikes very close to the one your friend used against me. However, I really tend to not personally attack some random stranger on the internet. So I will not start now. Honestly, I don’t know why we had to get so personal all of a sudden.
If you see the trail of posts, you will see I initially responded to a guy that spammed the forum with the same post, reopening it once it was locked. I have no issues with this thread nor the other one about FW bots. I think it’s fine that CCP gets to understand that players don’t accept bots.
I’ve even stated in this very thread, that I find CCP as part of the problem. However, botting is not a problem that operates in a vacuum. There is a reason for bots to exist. There is a reason why bots are so easily operated. I suggest, that maybe solving one of these two issues instead might be more productive, than banning accounts we all know will return again.
And part of the issue why botting is such a HUGE issue right now, is that literally any macro-program with OCR capabilities can be transformed into a 100m/hour nullsec ratting-bot within a few minutes.
That’s what most free AND paid bot-solutions out there are. Hell, i bet you i could setup a more advanced bot with Winautomation in a few hours than most paid botting solutions out there.
This is why a captcha would be a good answer, because it would seed away all of the macro-bots which represent the vast majority of botters in an instant. Yes, some of the advanced RMT-backed botting softwares may still work or may adapt to a captcha-approach, but that won’t change the fact that all the wannabes would be seeded out in literally seconds.
So even if (IF) a captcha would be presented to a non-botting player (something which should be pretty easily avoidable!) i believe that implementing a measure like this to counter the immediate thread to the game would be well worth it - and so should anyone interested in NOT having trillions of ISK pumped passively into the large alliances every month.
Captcha is a solution yes. Just not an elegant one. As Jonah has mentioned, it is a solution that comes at the expense of user experience.
A more elegant solution would be to implement it somehow into the game play itself. Or as I’ve suggested or at least hinted at, make PvE mechanics not so trivially easy. However, that requires a whole rewrite of PvE systems. Something not so trivial and probably something that will take very long time.
But killing the problems at the root is always annoyingly hard. I don’t envy CCP. This is not an easy task. It’s a situation they’ve made for themselves though. It’s like those dishes you delay for tomorrow. Eventually, the problem gets quite nasty.
Explain to me how you intend to “get better” and stop a clean alt getting in and then destroying your alliance like this.
Bets are you can’t from your reply already because it is impossible.
Then don’t let them in.
When in doubt act in self preservation.
I never recruited a botter or a cheater.
Because if I don’t absolutely know the person I won’t recruit them.
It isn’t my fault alliances feel they need to recruit bots instead of vetting properly.
But when you recruited them they weren’t a bot. They were an actual player.
So your solution boils down to ‘don’t recruit anyone’ which is not a valid answer.
One can only speculate why so many people in here are so busy finding problems for fixing botting, instead of looking for solutions.
“You’re going to pay their salary” is an hilarious comment to make, as if we should accept bots because it would simply be too expensive to get rid of them? Are you ■■■■■■■ serious? :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
I would think most see proposals that are childish and annoying and will cause people to get a bot to fill in the captcha.
I agree CCP should create a dedicated team of automation fighters that take on botting in a professional way. Not in the weird and inefficient ways you and the other kids propose.
Don’t mistake ideas for being inefficient or childish, because you cannot seem to comprehend them. Having a background in computer science and with running multiple large scale community websites, i can tell you that captchas are absolutely a viable solution to getting rid of bots. You guys talk about “just having a bot filling out a captcha”, while automating handling randomized captchas is a FAR more challenging task than setting up an EVE-bot, which can literally be done with pretty much any OCR-capable macro-software.
But you are probably the ones who are right though. Google, Facebook, Blizzard, EA etc. have all gotten it wrong man - captchas dont work!
Not having a background in computer science and no experience with running multiple large scale community websites, i can tell you that a captcha is used for ACCOUNT CREATION issues and will not just work in other circumstances. I will stop debating here as you are clearly trolling.
If only CCP implemented a captcha before every post reply… I hope they implement that… I really do but they know it will stop people from posting and not counter botting. Anyways, dream on, your solution DOES NOT APPLY. And with your background come up with better strategies and inform CCP.