It might have been forwarded to Team Sec before, but if it was a couple of years ago, then it was before my time and I can’t answer this, sadly.
I’ll just add it to the pile of poor communication and put all future requests as tickets
1 Like
"You may not use your own or any third-party software, macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play.”
That last chunk is incredibly open to interpretation. What on God’s green earth is this “an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play” metric supposed to be!?
Are bot/macros that obviously exceed the human reaction times with their automation and client side speed hacks the only things that break TOS???
Is the only part of a bot ishtar or miner that breaks the TOS the part where they initiate warp on the same server tic as a non-blue showing up on local? Nothing to do with them botting to generate isk at a similar or slower rate as a skilled player at the keyboard, but automated?
That language can also be extrapolated to outlaw wormhole mapping tools, as it’s not possible for a person to memorize the snake-like labyrinths that can be created from wormhole mapping, as well as the ability to convey that information within a corp to facilitate a quick fleet response which would not be possible with in-game tools only.
Also, what does CCP plan to do about intel bots? Bots that sit in a system and have 3rd party software report character and characters to another 3rd party software used by the corp to track targets and hostiles in their area?
These bots do more to protect the other bots that directly generate wealth than any of the FC’d response fleets, and provide a very unfair advantage to the groups who live in the area against those roaming through.
2 Likes
Oops 
To be clear, I prefer that the option in clause 11 remains available. Spending isk on eve related services has been a thing for a long time. (art, website functionality like advert removal, that kind of thing.)
And, in fact, is required by CCP on some pursuits. According to previous guidance, for example, writing news articles for a fansite (as opposed to say, Massively) gets paid for w/ISK.
Hi,
A lot to unwrap, but the bottom line is “do not bot”. As most of the user agreements, EULA needs to cover as much as possible in a short amount of words and in the comprehensive manner (more or less). Hence the choice of words.
I personally think that this quote is rather self-explanatory, and accelerated rate means, well, the automation. Simple example: it might take a human to win a game of chess in 2 minutes, for bot it will be half a minute. Same here.
You are absolutely correct in your observation, automation exceeds the human input tremendously. And it is very much visible. There are many things that are considered EULA violation and botting is one of them.
It does not matter what exactly Ishtar does. It can engage in PVP, it can go search for drifters, it can dock and undock just for the sake of it. But if automation is used in any of those actions - that is considered botting. The gameplay as a whole is important, not the action itself.
We don’t really differentiate. No, actually that’s not right… We do differentiate the bot types, but again, the botting itself needs to be confirmed within our inner tools. When it does - we certainly take action.
3 Likes
I know what you mean!
That’s probably for the other teams to be discussed, but I’ll certainly bring it up and see if something can be done 
And a bot will take X seconds to undock, clear a site, and warp to the next site, or report hostiles, with 0 human input, while a player at the keyboard will take an infinitely long time to do any of it with 0 human input. So it’s still an accelerated rate! 
That’s not exactly how botting works in EVE, but who knows, maybe one day it might. Personally I have never seen the bot doing all of this together. Bots, or rather the human behind them (who is creating them) usually have very clear goals and rather simple means to achieve them.
But the phrasing of accelerated rate is absolutely correct, you are right.
I have a few questions, not because I’m a devil’s advocate or something, just out of curiosity and nothing else.
1
I’ve heard of a guy sold all his assets for cash while quitting EVE. The buyer might be punished (hopefully), but what about the seller and the confiscated assets? His assets were legit, not from hacked accounts, bots or any illegal sources. He was so determined not to go back to New Eden that he rather chose the quick cashgrab.
2
What happens if someone mass (mostly false) report bots when they feels like it? One of my past corp members was a bit racist and reported nullsec ratters of specific nationality. Does it violate any ToS?
As long as you keep regularly sending us nullsec bots to nuke in Yulai, I’m happy. Especially the ones from a certain nullsec alliance. You know who you are…
5 Likes
Good questions, thank you!
-
This happens, of course. This is no secret and I see no point in making this topic taboo of some sort. There are very different scenarios for this situation. Some of them are covered in the blog, it’s the part about ISK selling and possible consequences for individuals. Ironically, in this case the seller is more in danger from other capsuleers than from us. ISK selling is such a slippery slope, the initial success leads to eventual mistakes and, well, consequences.
Besides, those people who are determined to get rid of anything, might have change of heart later on. But the assets are gone and, well… the account is kind of damaged already. -
Easy answer - nope, it does not. It brings some level of frustration to the team because we investigate the big amount of reports, and if there is nothing to act upon… well, what was the point of those? But again, reports on its own do not do harm, if the ratters did not use any modifications, they have nothing to worry about.
3 Likes
We definitely try! Always fishing for those big sharks out there…
4 Likes
Hello,
besides all the discussion I want to honestly thank you for the time spent explaining these things. One of the most prominent accusations always is that “the devs don’t care” and “CCP doesn’t talk to the players” or “GMs only give scripted answers, the logs show nothing…”.
What you are doing right now - the real interaction with the players - is a big service for your company and your player community. Probably more valuable than most announcements or blogs. Thank you.
10 Likes
rain falls on the temple…
1 Like
The emails sent to security@ccpgames.com were forwarded to Team Security.
But we decided to slowly transition away of reporting any violations in the game to that specific email, as it was setup for something different, like InfoSec.
So now the best way to reach Team Security regarding botters, fraudsters, RMTers and hackers is via a support Ticket. This for sure will end up in our queue and get attention it deserves.
1 Like
Great article.
I have one question, one i wished i had asked at FF2022, but forgot.
In the figures of players online, can you see where the fight against bots and RMT started to work. In other words, is there a correlation between the amount of accounts banned and the sometimes lower amount of players online.
My gut feeling says it should be visible as space feels more lively then before (which would mean more people playing, bots lack liveliness).
1 Like
That is a good question and for that we will need to pull out the graphs of accounts banned from this years Fanfest 2022
To be honest with you, I see no correlation between the amount of accounts banned for Botting or other violations and the sometimes lower amount of players online. I think it has more to do with the real world situation, as pandemic is slowly going away and people are spending more time on different activities rather than video games.
Especially, the numbers of the suspended accounts are kinda huge, but when we brake it down to what we have said at Fanfest, the bigger portion of those numbers where actually not players, they were those sophisticated bot farms that were in the game just for one purpose, generating ISK to be sold on the back market. The same goes for fraudsters, they create accounts not to play the game but to move the stolen goods to the buyers and etc.
So while the suspended numbers are kinda huge, the amount of suspended actual players (and here I am speaking of those players who are / were active members of the EVE Online community) are relatively low and do not explain the sometimes lower amount of players online.
1 Like
I think it has more to do with real world events, such as the pandemic and certain countries not playing anymore…
3 Likes
“The EULA is dark and full of terrors…”
Indeed.
4 Likes