Taking down Gateway will do nothing to combat botting, and it sounds weird to me that it would make less stress on the servers to have all those bots using the ingame client instead. I thought this method was already tried last year when leadership was temporarily removed from the Gateway and it didn't work then either.
I did quick google search "neverwinter online bot" and looked at their forum -> about 100 members logged currently I still think that shutting down gateway won't solve problems, it's making things worse for those of who still like to spend time with this game.
We have decided that out wallets will not be opening up this week. We will have a more official announcement by the end of this week of what our plans are and will we leave the game for good.
Yep, close the gateway and offer the rewards that are available there in the TBS or other markets..(Of course for now you say no Zen Store). But how has that worked out in the past? Taking away another of the actual F2P features of the game that you can actually obtain useable items for the game for free (Just put in the time). You are in-turn making the game even more P2P...catering to just those that dump money into the game. And all of this in the name of "Combating Bots" is totally wrong. You are actually encouraging the situation especially to new players...forcing many to seek in-game currency elsewhere just to compete or progress. I admit that Cryptic does have to make money to keep the servers on... but come on, you advertise a F2P game, but is it really?
Would probably better if they make the profession feature a level 60 or 70 unlock and make it a end game feature. Design it little like reputation feature like on sto. Eliminate most of the grind through levels and just have 5 good long levels. No one really cares about the stuff at low levels anyway. It's all the high level stuff at the end everyone wants.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." "Great men are almost always bad men." “If God is all-powerful He cannot be good, if God is good He cannot be all-powerful!”
Just got out of the meeting and decided that Gateway will not be coming up this week. We will have a more official announcement by the end of this week of what our plans are and why Gateway has been down.
I also have a task to follow up on what to do with the things like the companion only gear, Lightfoot Thief and the companion we internally called 'Tank-dog' that will likely not include the Zen Market. Though I think the dog is in the Zen Market on Xbox since we knew we couldn't launch with Gateway.
The gateway was a differentiator for this game. All it was missing was a chat feature so you could chat with your guildies while out of the game. Very dissapointing to see that it has a low priority to the developers. Another strike against you.
No one really cares about the stuff at low levels anyway. It's all the high level stuff at the end everyone wants.
I disagree with that statement. I made almost 3Mil AD during the Gond event selling gathered items from leveling professions! Iron Ore, Wool Straps, etc
@panderus Thanks for the update. It wasn't much but it's something! I feel people are missing the fact that you did exactly what you said you would do and threw us a bone before and after the meeting! Please keep us in the loop as much as they will let you!!
It would be acceptable to remove the professions part from Gateway IMHO. Seems that this is the biggest botting issue? I would propose some kind of a profession queue system that requires logging minimum once or twice a day to manage the queue. Reasoning: what would be the point to have an employee that you have to micro manage IRL? Far better is to (according to the quality of your worker) delegate more tasks that they can do and let them manage their own time
The rest (as many above stated) quality of life features would really impact how I play the game. I have Gateway open while playing all the time and it is very annoying not having it right now.
No one really cares about the stuff at low levels anyway. It's all the high level stuff at the end everyone wants.
I disagree with that statement. I made almost 3Mil AD during the Gond event selling gathered items from leveling professions! Iron Ore, Wool Straps, etc
So sad i have to clarify my self all the time. Talking about Equipment, gear etc. Not materials or resources.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." "Great men are almost always bad men." “If God is all-powerful He cannot be good, if God is good He cannot be all-powerful!”
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andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
I also have a task to follow up on what to do with the things like the companion only gear, Lightfoot Thief and the companion we internally called 'Tank-dog' that will likely not include the Zen Market. Though I think the dog is in the Zen Market on Xbox since we knew we couldn't launch with Gateway.
Sounds like the Gateway will not be coming back. Or at least without SCA.
Or they will do something with SCA rewards, also possible. Of course anything that botters don't want... would anyone?
At least bring SCA back in its current state but with gear BtA? NO reason that gear can't be in more than one place.
It would be acceptable to remove the professions part from Gateway IMHO. Seems that this is the biggest botting issue? I would propose some kind of a profession queue system that requires logging minimum once or twice a day to manage the queue. Reasoning: what would be the point to have an employee that you have to micro manage IRL? Far better is to (according to the quality of your worker) delegate more tasks that they can do and let them manage their own time
The rest (as many above stated) quality of life features would really impact how I play the game. I have Gateway open while playing all the time and it is very annoying not having it right now.
It sounds like the profession part is not the major issue, but the automation of AH part - given the timing "massive botting" would not have been happening of professions but massive listing of goods makes more sense. As usual for us it's "wait for more information"
It would be acceptable to remove the professions part from Gateway IMHO. Seems that this is the biggest botting issue?
Not at all, from the sounds of things. Anyone still barking up that tree is very, very bad at inferring what's going on from context clues.
If Panderus has a task to figure out how to make the unique rewards from SCA available elsewhere, then there's a problem directly with SCA.
If Panderus has said "RP from Leadership is not having enough impact on the market that we need to change it" (paraphrase), then professions are not the first thing to blame.
I have a feeling there is something here we don't know...something that recently started that is impacting things. No other reason why they would bring it down without notice over a holiday weekend. We know it is working, as it was working fine after maintenance, so its not a technical problem, its an issue of something they wanted to stop.
We shall see. We got some information, but I still have major concerns about the "Fire, Ready, Aim" philosophy and their willingness to simply remove things from their game.
Just got out of the meeting and decided that Gateway will not be coming up this week. We will have a more official announcement by the end of this week of what our plans are and why Gateway has been down.
I also have a task to follow up on what to do with the things like the companion only gear, Lightfoot Thief and the companion we internally called 'Tank-dog' that will likely not include the Zen Market. Though I think the dog is in the Zen Market on Xbox since we knew we couldn't launch with Gateway.
can i attend to these meetings? ^^
i made a post few pages ago, just accept gateway / leadership as it is and open the gates for every average joe !!!!
Make a Auto profession feature in game, once everyone taps into the it, there wont be a need for bots.
Your suggestion indicates you have no place in their meetings because you don't understand the economics of Free to play gaming.
I disagree. It reduces the rate at which bot farms can make money, which reduces their income. Doing the same tasks in-game are far more time consuming/resource intensive, and and thus cause far less stress on the servers if the bot farms don't compensate. Botting 100 characters/hour with the gateway may only require 1 computer. Doing so through the game may require 10. If they only use 1 computer, it reduces the strain on the servers to 10 characters per hour. And either way the bot farms are making less money.
Now sure, it has no impact on the *casual* botter, but I'd be shocked if the devs are actually worried about an actual player botting his 10 characters (or w/e) while he's at work/playing one of them. Which is, incidentally, why the whole "automated profession" is equally pointless to the likely problem. Sure, that removes the need for the *casual* botter to bot, but it's highly doubtful that was the problem in the first place. Whereas the bot farm will continue botting. But instead of logging in to do a single mission on each of 100 characters every hour (or whatever), it'll log in to do 24 missions on each of 2400 characters every day. So congrats, bot farms get to make 24x as much money. Yay?
(Note: I have't used gateway, it's been down the entire time I've been playing, my assumption is time spent logging in/out isn't insignificant compared to the time it actually takes to start tasks)
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
(Note: I have't used gateway, it's been down the entire time I've been playing, my assumption is time spent logging in/out isn't insignificant compared to the time it actually takes to start tasks)
"Connecting to login server. Please wait."
(Aside from the fact that profession botting is almost assuredly not the primary reason for the site being disabled.)
*shrug* previous official statement said bots. I've not used the gateway, so maybe I just don't understand what else there would be worth botting, and most peoples comments about botting who have used the gateway seem to be in regards to professions, so it's quite possible I lept to conclusions.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited September 2016
I'll just leave this bit in.
We can wait for the official statement they're drafting and how much exactly they can tell us.
It would be acceptable to remove the professions part from Gateway IMHO. Seems that this is the biggest botting issue?
Not at all, from the sounds of things. Anyone still barking up that tree is very, very bad at inferring what's going on from context clues.
If Panderus has a task to figure out how to make the unique rewards from SCA available elsewhere, then there's a problem directly with SCA.
If Panderus has said "RP from Leadership is not having enough impact on the market that we need to change it" (paraphrase), then professions are not the first thing to blame.
Actually, professions are the current main cause with a secondary of the Auction House. Botters taking down Gateway has actually happened in brief bursts about once every 6 months since its existence and every time we have added extra prevention to help stop it.
My comments about the SCA items was to figure out long term plans, not that they were the cause. I probably shouldn't have said anything about them since it was misunderstood. Perhaps I shouldn't have said this either. I'm kidding... I think.
Personally I care deeply about Gateway and I have a section of my screen devoted to watching it and doing my Professions (all maxed on my main btw).
Anyway, please just sit tight while we finalize our official blog about this.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Yeah, sorry, Panda-man.
We'd all be pretty sad pandas if you have to deep six the site altogether.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Panderus, this post is mostly irrelevant speculation now.
Firstly, thanks for keeping us (a little) more in the loop. It goes a long ways.
Secondly, talking about moving SCA rewards sounds like one of the major problems is with SCA itself. When I was playing lately, I noticed some weird issues where sometimes the dice wouldn't update after re-rolling, or would take a few seconds, which would allow you to re-use the dice you used last round. When this was going on heavy, you could beat a fight with half the dice it would normally take.
I wonder if that was a deliberate effect botters were trying to get or just a random symptom of the broader problem. Hackers used to lag out servers like that in Diablo 2 in order to re-roll random stats on high-valued loot. It's possible they were doing the same to re-roll SCA boss drops for Loyal Avenger gear and Lightfoot Thieves.
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andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
It would be acceptable to remove the professions part from Gateway IMHO. Seems that this is the biggest botting issue?
Not at all, from the sounds of things. Anyone still barking up that tree is very, very bad at inferring what's going on from context clues.
If Panderus has a task to figure out how to make the unique rewards from SCA available elsewhere, then there's a problem directly with SCA.
If Panderus has said "RP from Leadership is not having enough impact on the market that we need to change it" (paraphrase), then professions are not the first thing to blame.
Actually, professions are the current main cause with a secondary of the Auction House. Botters taking down Gateway has actually happened in brief bursts about once every 6 months since its existence and every time we have added extra prevention to help stop it.
My comments about the SCA items was to figure out long term plans, not that they were the cause. I probably shouldn't have said anything about them since it was misunderstood. Perhaps I shouldn't have said this either. I'm kidding... I think.
Personally I care deeply about Gateway and I have a section of my screen devoted to watching it and doing my Professions (all maxed on my main btw).
Anyway, please just sit tight while we finalize our official blog about this.
We might be sitting tight but we sure ain't sitting pretty. Kittens.
It would be acceptable to remove the professions part from Gateway IMHO. Seems that this is the biggest botting issue?
Not at all, from the sounds of things. Anyone still barking up that tree is very, very bad at inferring what's going on from context clues.
If Panderus has a task to figure out how to make the unique rewards from SCA available elsewhere, then there's a problem directly with SCA.
If Panderus has said "RP from Leadership is not having enough impact on the market that we need to change it" (paraphrase), then professions are not the first thing to blame.
Actually, professions are the current main cause with a secondary of the Auction House. Botters taking down Gateway has actually happened in brief bursts about once every 6 months since its existence and every time we have added extra prevention to help stop it.
My comments about the SCA items was to figure out long term plans, not that they were the cause. I probably shouldn't have said anything about them since it was misunderstood. Perhaps I shouldn't have said this either. I'm kidding... I think.
Personally I care deeply about Gateway and I have a section of my screen devoted to watching it and doing my Professions (all maxed on my main btw).
Anyway, please just sit tight while we finalize our official blog about this.
We might be sitting tight but we sure ain't sitting pretty. Kittens.
That sounds fair.
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andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
The number of young nobles that have likely perished without their guards is truly a travesty during the last 2 weeks.
The number of young nobles that have likely perished without their guards is truly a travesty during the last 2 weeks.
Although my soldiers have been escorting about as many wizards to Saskatchewan as normal.
Mine have gone on strike. Just no time for all that now. Any time I log on, I have guild issues and whatnot to deal with. I end up forgetting to reset professions after collecting them and whatnot. It just takes a lot longer because I'm chatting in between.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
0
andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
Perhaps Cryptic has stock in a coffin side-business... because at the same time less nobles are being saved more elemental cultists are being massacred... I smell a RAT.
Comments
I still think that shutting down gateway won't solve problems, it's making things worse for those of who still like to spend time with this game.
a level 60 or 70 unlock and make it a end game feature.
Design it little like reputation feature like on sto. Eliminate
most of the grind through levels and just have 5 good long
levels. No one really cares about the stuff at low levels anyway.
It's all the high level stuff at the end everyone wants.
"Great men are almost always bad men."
“If God is all-powerful He cannot be good, if God is good He cannot be all-powerful!”
Are you having a Relapse?
@panderus Thanks for the update. It wasn't much but it's something! I feel people are missing the fact that you did exactly what you said you would do and threw us a bone before and after the meeting! Please keep us in the loop as much as they will let you!!
The rest (as many above stated) quality of life features would really impact how I play the game. I have Gateway open while playing all the time and it is very annoying not having it right now.
Talking about Equipment, gear etc. Not materials or resources.
"Great men are almost always bad men."
“If God is all-powerful He cannot be good, if God is good He cannot be all-powerful!”
At least bring SCA back in its current state but with gear BtA? NO reason that gear can't be in more than one place.
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
If Panderus has a task to figure out how to make the unique rewards from SCA available elsewhere, then there's a problem directly with SCA.
If Panderus has said "RP from Leadership is not having enough impact on the market that we need to change it" (paraphrase), then professions are not the first thing to blame.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
We shall see. We got some information, but I still have major concerns about the "Fire, Ready, Aim" philosophy and their willingness to simply remove things from their game.
Now sure, it has no impact on the *casual* botter, but I'd be shocked if the devs are actually worried about an actual player botting his 10 characters (or w/e) while he's at work/playing one of them. Which is, incidentally, why the whole "automated profession" is equally pointless to the likely problem. Sure, that removes the need for the *casual* botter to bot, but it's highly doubtful that was the problem in the first place. Whereas the bot farm will continue botting. But instead of logging in to do a single mission on each of 100 characters every hour (or whatever), it'll log in to do 24 missions on each of 2400 characters every day. So congrats, bot farms get to make 24x as much money. Yay?
(Note: I have't used gateway, it's been down the entire time I've been playing, my assumption is time spent logging in/out isn't insignificant compared to the time it actually takes to start tasks)
(Aside from the fact that profession botting is almost assuredly not the primary reason for the site being disabled.)
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
We can wait for the official statement they're drafting and how much exactly they can tell us.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
My comments about the SCA items was to figure out long term plans, not that they were the cause. I probably shouldn't have said anything about them since it was misunderstood. Perhaps I shouldn't have said this either. I'm kidding... I think.
Personally I care deeply about Gateway and I have a section of my screen devoted to watching it and doing my Professions (all maxed on my main btw).
Anyway, please just sit tight while we finalize our official blog about this.
We'd all be pretty sad pandas if you have to deep six the site altogether.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Firstly, thanks for keeping us (a little) more in the loop. It goes a long ways.
Secondly, talking about moving SCA rewards sounds like one of the major problems is with SCA itself.
I wonder if that was a deliberate effect botters were trying to get or just a random symptom of the broader problem. Hackers used to lag out servers like that in Diablo 2 in order to re-roll random stats on high-valued loot. It's possible they were doing the same to re-roll SCA boss drops for Loyal Avenger gear and Lightfoot Thieves.
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/