I think it would be good to change how chat logs and game logs are written.
Right now they update almost in real time, which makes it easy to use external tools for intel. These tools can alert players about incoming danger or attacks, full cargo, or when mining stops, even inside multibox preview tools where specific client thumbnails show this information automatically.
In my opinion, players should be responsible for what’s happening around them, not rely on programs reading logs.
Maybe logs could have a delay or only be written after the client is closed. That would limit these automated tools.
It would make gameplay more about awareness instead of automation.
inb4 everyone telling your that you should just arm yourself with 342312 bazillion out-of-game third party tools feeding you free intel instead of actually developing some ingame skill in scouting, baiting, escalating…
thb, that train has long left the station. all that third-party stuff should have been delayed by at least one hour right from the beginning, be it log-reading or API/ESI related. But good luck convincing anyone about it, people have become dependend on that ■■■■ and they won’t let go.
Problem is that you can’t avoid it. You have the information not only in your logs, but also on your screen - because you have to have to get visually it in order to play the game.
There are just so many screen reading and image recognition tools out there that is is very easy to just adapt them to extract the same information visually and trigger the same actions - completely undetectable by CCP because it is not interfering with anything.
So there is no way around that technically - you can only outsmart them by doing gameplay and taking into account what you know they do.
You also can’t avoid 100% of all accidents on the road, still you can take measures to make them more unlikely. It’s the typical “you can’t prevent 100% so just let’s do nothing fallacy”.
Like 90%+ of the players that today use free intel via API/ESI driven websites won’t use “screen reading and image recognition” software on their PCs to feed those sites with data. That creates a way higher level of uncertainty in the game, aka some “fog of war” again.
And even those who would use such software are mostly hardcore powerplayers (I personally know absolutely no one that uses OCR/IR software to play EVE). They are probably in the very low 1% range.
Besides that, CCP can just declare any tools avoiding that delay illegal and that they are physically “undetectable” by CCP doesn’t matter much. The end-result of their intel has to be at least semi-public for the group (corp/alliance etc…) using them. And at this point they can hold the leadership of said group responsible. It’s pretty much impossible to use a wide-spread tool among a whole alliance and at the same time keeping secret that it exists and how it works, because you need many people to feed such software, else it would be useless.
Sure, i just wanted to point out the mechanics and how easy it is. The log reader also needs a running client in the system you monitor. If you take away the log reading then the same information is still present in the graphics of the client and the software to evaluate it even already exists as you pointed out - the bots already do that.
You just need to add a trigger for discord or sound a chime or whatever you do as an action to replace the log reader.
So the technology already exists and is not doing any input to the game itself making it not illegal to use and in this case of graphics reading also not preventable. Therefore it makes no sense to close off the logs. It will not hinder those people to do their stuff that they do today.
whether its a bot or an afk acct…he is talking about the software required to upload to the software/site doing the reporting or pinging…if you are not running that software or installed then you are not adding to these intel tools…whther your playing, afk, or what ever…
and yo dont have to be a bot…just afk cloaked on a gate