I prefer to put such a test after every death. It'd be too easy for a Botter to just solve that puzzle at the beginning, then just let the bot go.
*sings* "I like Gammera! He's so neat!!! He is full of turtle meat!!!"
"Hah! You are doomed! You're only armed with that pathetic excuse for a musical instrument!!!" *the Savage Beast moments before Lonnehart the Bard used music to soothe him... then beat him to death with his Fat Lute*
But the issue isn't being ignored. It's just nothing near as trivial as any player without programming experience realizes. If games which had bots within them didn't go live they would never go live.
It's an industry wide battle that has no easy solution. It plagues independent MMO's as well as the massive power-house MMO's. It's a fight Cryptic takes seriously and is going to continue to fight but the problems will not vanish overnight and frankly never will completely.
The better protection against bots any company makes the more advanced and complex to detect the bots become.
Why is it an industry wide battle? Why do people care if someone automates their play experience? If a game is adversely affected by something like a character harvesting 24/7 or running around doing nothing in a PVP event then its a design flaw. Maybe someone could explain to my Iraq War Veteran friend who lost an arm why he must click a mouse like the rest of us.
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited June 2013
Because botting is cheating. And cheating is bad.
It's the same reason that sports don't permit players to use steroids. You can argue all you want that they could make it so everybody could use steroids and then it would be fair but it will never happen because then the game and effort invested into training becomes trivialized.
In order to respect their own effort put into MMO's others can't cheat to gain the same items quicker or easier. If you spend weeks or months working to do or obtain something that has to feel like an accomplishment but that accomplishment is belittled when players can use bots and obtain the same goal in a much shorter time with next to no effort.
Simply put: Bots only exist because cheat codes don't exist in MMO's. If you want cheat codes to be added the best advice I can give you is to play a single player or co-op game because botting is 100% synonymous with cheating.
Cheating doesn't matter if you're playing with friends but it matters when you play with any organisation.
I'm sorry about your friend but the integrity of the games come first. The only viable rule which is fair for everybody is no cheating to get to the top.
Why is it an industry wide battle? Why do people care if someone automates their play experience? If a game is adversely affected by something like a character harvesting 24/7 or running around doing nothing in a PVP event then its a design flaw. Maybe someone could explain to my Iraq War Veteran friend who lost an arm why he must click a mouse like the rest of us.
Easy. Because most people that play MMOs, do not respect, nor enjoy playing, with cheaters.
Many botters/exploiters/gold farmers do not care about the game economy, only in THEIR ECONOMY. They are not contributors, they are leachers. This mmo, must be shared by everyone, so the great majority of the playerbase, who plays the game the way it was intended, will come into contact with the minority of the playerbase who cheats for their own gain... whether its for the cheater's in-game enjoyment or real life bank account (yes, some people actually play to earn a living).
Therefore, its in PWE/Cryptics best interest to go all out to support the portion of the playerbase that actually PAYS FOR THE GAME... the greatest majority... who plays the game the way it was intended to be played.
PS: In this game there's an additional problem for cheaters. The majority of the D&D pnp playerbase (huge in this game) comes from a time when we gathered our friends around a table to play a game. Cheating was not only not allowed - blatant exploitation could not/would not happen, regardless how easy it may have been to cheat.
The majority of D&D folk, many of which have created awesome Foundry content, or have friends (or made friends) in this game are duly invested in this game's success. They do not want to see the game hurt or go south because of cheaters.
Therefore, in this game especially, expect to see groups of authentic players chase out/turn in the deadbeats at every turn. There will always be more honest players than cheaters/botters/exploiters.
As for your Iraq War Veteran friend, please thank him for his/her service. Quite a few in the community wish to see features added to make gaming in Neverwinter possible, or easier for those in need, myself included. In fact, helping active duty/retired veterans as well as other adults with disabilities find comfort playing in Neverwinter is one of the goals of our guild.
Add a REPORT button next to peoples names in the "X" menu.
Click report select "BOT".
The next time the player who was reported dies he is given a capcha to solve. If he passes the capcha the player who initiated the report is also sent a Capcha and warned that falsely accusing a player of bottling can lead to a temporary ban. 3 False bot reports in a 24 hour period = 48 hour ban.
1000 in an hour. Wow, that is one fast DM. 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour. 3600 seconds in a hour. That is 3.6 seconds per bot. Assuming it takes 2 seconds to permaban an account and block ips (a big assumption), that leaves 1.6 seconds to determine if a character is a bot or not. A human can't make a decision to wipe or not after a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in 1.6 seconds, much less determine if an account is live. In such a scenario you would need 50 Customer Service reps alone just to deal with the appeals process from all the people you banned wrongly, and that would not include the 100s more to deal with the bot runners that will argue they didn't know any better.
Plus I am not sure I want a DM in the game who thinks he is capable of making such a harsh decision in 1.6 seconds, that dude much like anyone who thinks you can ban 1000 players an hour would be a total a-hole
In GW2 the bot hot spots were well known and openly (blatantly) being used for all and sundry to see,you could go to these spots and guarantee that most all there were bots,simply stating in zone as a DM,that anyone not botting please move your *** to the left would have guaranteed you got the bots and not a human players.
Zones were completely and utterly infested with bots,even in WvWvW (queues were clogged),made any open world event they camped utterly pointless for a player the appropriate level to participate in.Yes botting in GW2 was that obvious.The bot count in a lot of zones was higher than the actual player count.
I don't know whether you've used good DM/GM tools before,but it would've been quite possible to suspend that many accounts at that so early stage of GW2s life.
Most vet MMO players can smell a botter/multiboxer pretty easily and if someone feels they've been treated wrongfully,I'm sure a good support team will have it sorted in no time.Which is why I said DMs/GMs with a good support team.
EDIT: As has been mentioned by our friendly and very helpful community managers,everything comes at a cost to the developers.And there is no easy solution.Just keep in mind that diminishing returns on YOUR loot/XP/ and withdrawn content is all a reality in the low cost world of MMO RMT fixes and doesn't deter the RMT crowd one bit.
It's the same reason that sports don't permit players to use steroids.......
Steroids increase a player's abilities. Automating simply schedules existing abilities to execute. I feel that is a big difference. In most cases, botting would lessen your abilities, not increase them. Any advantage one would gain, such as the ability to say play 24/7, can be easily addressed by proper design. Example, in ArchAge, they are using Labor Points for harvesting. This completely removes any benefits of running a harvest bot 24/7, as you are gated to how much you can do in a day.
In order to respect their own effort put into MMO's others can't cheat to gain the same items quicker or easier. If you spend weeks or months working to do or obtain something that has to feel like an accomplishment but that accomplishment is belittled when players can use bots and obtain the same goal in a much shorter time with next to no effort.
I do not feel belittled when someone without a job or life gets to end game 5 times faster than me. I do not base my accomplishments on comparison to others accomplishments. But even if I did, I would think I would appreciate my accomplishment more than against someone who botted.
Personally, I find automation to bypass content I enjoy playing. Therefore, I do not engage in it. I believe games should be designed to reward skill, not amount of time played, be it from automation or simply not having a jobor life and playing 20 hours a day at the keyboard grinding "accomplishments".
Easy. Because most people that play MMOs, do not respect, nor enjoy playing, with cheaters.
.
I do not enjoy playing with cheaters either. I will leave a group if they are exploiting content. I do not consider a botter a cheater anymore than I consider someone with a G15 keyboard macro a cheater. If automation allows for some sort of advantage, that advantage should be addressed by game designed. i.e. not giving rewards for simply being alive in a PVP event or not allowing a player to harvest 24/7 without risk.
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited June 2013
The key issue is that it's your opinion.
If you want to cheat or don't care if your friends cheat you are better off with a single player or co-op game.
That topic is really not up for debate. Botting is cheating. You can choose not to care. And I promise as much as you don't care there are people who go red faced with rage at the cheating. In fact I have to close dozens of threads a day that are written by people who are merely upset that their hard work is belittled.
And when it comes down to it, as Aandre said, the games are designed to be played. If you're not playing then don't play because when you are benefitting while not playing you are, whether you agree or not, belittling the work of those who are playing. And that's not how the games were intended to be played.
The kicker is that MMO's do have real economies. Bots ruin MMO economies as much as governments who print money ruin real life economies. If you don't care it's your own personal decision and one which isn't good for a healthy MMO.
EDIT - Botting is completely different than short term macroing.
At least with a g15 you have to be there but a bot will, for instance, run around 16 hours of your day while you're sleeping and at work and gather skill nodes while you aren't anywhere near the game.
That's a lot of extra loot you absolutely 100% didn't earn. Do it and expect a ban with zero chance of forgiveness.
Cryptic, you really need to address the bot problem in dominations. Tonight I experienced three consecutive matches with two plus bots on my team.
How do I know they're bots; well they run the exact same path after rezzing at the fire, one even kept dropping in and running circles into the wall. Some are a bit more advanced and will actually attack nearby enemy players, heck I even watched from the campfire as one bot even killed an actively playing player. I lol'd that was kind of funny actually.
Seriously though, this game is going live?...with the bot problem as rampant as it is? I have to believe your programmers are somewhat knowledgeable about how to detect bot programs. Do you not even care about this problem, or is PVP so low on the totem pole of issues that it will likely never get addressed?
While i agree that they shiuld do all they can to stop bots i will point out that its no simple task. Some of the bot programs are way more advanced than they seem and every program they stop another better one comes up. Wow has been dealing with this for many years and theyre not much better off then where they started, except for that fact that some bots are actually not a complete drain on the team. Hopefully over time it will get better here on neverwinter, but i doubt bots will ever be completely gone. Lets just hopw they have a good team working on it so it doesnt make pvp unplayable.
Paul 60 guardian fighter on mindflayer.
Rising Star, fun friendly, community focused guild on mindflayer. We strive to help each other and enjoy the game together. Talk to me for info, or feel free to check and join our community at risingstarneverwinter.enjin.com
0
jpnoleMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Theres one thing i notice...as someone with 4 lvl 60s......
The bots and such are a plague MOSTLY pre-60.
After 60 i VERY RARELY see bots.
Just giving an observation.
Exactly. People are botting to level since PvP gives the fastest xp of any activity in game. It doesn't pay to bot farm glory as PvP gear is not in demand on the AH.
That just shows you did not even bother to read this thread before posting.
Umm....I have read the entire thread. And I still say the only way to be rid of bots in PvP is to strip rewards from it.
Think.
People are botting to get rewards with absolutely no effort. Take away the reward, and what will their reasons be to bot?
PvP is its own reward. Yes. Not only that, but once there is no reason EXCEPT PERSONAL ENJOYMENT to PvP....then and only then will PvP begin to grow and flourish.
Think about this. When Halo first came out with it's PvP...what "reward" was there, other than teabagging your enemy before respawn?
It seems to me that those players that love to PVP have always done so because they like it. PVP has always been a reward in itself. Now I’m not a big fan of PVP myself because for one as I’ve never seen it implemented in a way that makes sense from a lore and role-playing perspective(and because I'm terribad at it.) but most PVPers/PKers enjoy it because they love affecting a real-life person at the other end of the computer. Quite simply they find it fun. PVPers never needed rewards, trinkets and such to participate in PVP in previous decades, why then do gaming companies suddenly find it necessary to bribe players into engaging in PVP?
Okay... now I'm sure there are Bots capitalizing on the Valindra event. Just now I saw an entire cluster of characters moving together, attacking the same mobs all at once. They didn't move at all like seperate players. Rather, they were all following one player. Not saying names, though. Couldn't do it anyway as it was impossible to see which player the mass of characters were following (and it's AGAINST Forum policy).
*sings* "I like Gammera! He's so neat!!! He is full of turtle meat!!!"
"Hah! You are doomed! You're only armed with that pathetic excuse for a musical instrument!!!" *the Savage Beast moments before Lonnehart the Bard used music to soothe him... then beat him to death with his Fat Lute*
I do not consider a botter a cheater anymore than I consider someone with a G15 keyboard macro a cheater. If automation allows for some sort of advantage, that advantage should be addressed by game design....
Well luckily for those who believe as I do, you do not get to decide what is cheating and what isnt cheating then.
These lines in the Terms of Service invalidate your line of reasoning:
(k) Cheat or utilize unauthorized exploits in connection with the Games or the Service;
(l) Using or exploiting any bugs, errors, or design flaws to obtain unauthorized access to the Service or to gain an unfair advantage over other players.
Furthermore:
PWE may take any actions and impose any penalties we deem necessary to discourage and punish any violation of these terms or any other illegal or inappropriate conduct, all without prior notice or warning. The determination as to whether a violation has occurred and who is responsible for such act is solely within PWE's discretion, and is based on what we deem best for the community and the Website.
Botting is a bannable offense. If you need a more specific answer please send a ticket to Customer Support.
Comments
"Hah! You are doomed! You're only armed with that pathetic excuse for a musical instrument!!!" *the Savage Beast moments before Lonnehart the Bard used music to soothe him... then beat him to death with his Fat Lute*
I would prefer a CAPTCHA everytime you get hitted by the enemy. If you solve it wrong, you die instantly.
Why is it an industry wide battle? Why do people care if someone automates their play experience? If a game is adversely affected by something like a character harvesting 24/7 or running around doing nothing in a PVP event then its a design flaw. Maybe someone could explain to my Iraq War Veteran friend who lost an arm why he must click a mouse like the rest of us.
It's the same reason that sports don't permit players to use steroids. You can argue all you want that they could make it so everybody could use steroids and then it would be fair but it will never happen because then the game and effort invested into training becomes trivialized.
In order to respect their own effort put into MMO's others can't cheat to gain the same items quicker or easier. If you spend weeks or months working to do or obtain something that has to feel like an accomplishment but that accomplishment is belittled when players can use bots and obtain the same goal in a much shorter time with next to no effort.
Simply put: Bots only exist because cheat codes don't exist in MMO's. If you want cheat codes to be added the best advice I can give you is to play a single player or co-op game because botting is 100% synonymous with cheating.
Cheating doesn't matter if you're playing with friends but it matters when you play with any organisation.
I'm sorry about your friend but the integrity of the games come first. The only viable rule which is fair for everybody is no cheating to get to the top.
Easy. Because most people that play MMOs, do not respect, nor enjoy playing, with cheaters.
Many botters/exploiters/gold farmers do not care about the game economy, only in THEIR ECONOMY. They are not contributors, they are leachers. This mmo, must be shared by everyone, so the great majority of the playerbase, who plays the game the way it was intended, will come into contact with the minority of the playerbase who cheats for their own gain... whether its for the cheater's in-game enjoyment or real life bank account (yes, some people actually play to earn a living).
Therefore, its in PWE/Cryptics best interest to go all out to support the portion of the playerbase that actually PAYS FOR THE GAME... the greatest majority... who plays the game the way it was intended to be played.
PS: In this game there's an additional problem for cheaters. The majority of the D&D pnp playerbase (huge in this game) comes from a time when we gathered our friends around a table to play a game. Cheating was not only not allowed - blatant exploitation could not/would not happen, regardless how easy it may have been to cheat.
The majority of D&D folk, many of which have created awesome Foundry content, or have friends (or made friends) in this game are duly invested in this game's success. They do not want to see the game hurt or go south because of cheaters.
Therefore, in this game especially, expect to see groups of authentic players chase out/turn in the deadbeats at every turn. There will always be more honest players than cheaters/botters/exploiters.
As for your Iraq War Veteran friend, please thank him for his/her service. Quite a few in the community wish to see features added to make gaming in Neverwinter possible, or easier for those in need, myself included. In fact, helping active duty/retired veterans as well as other adults with disabilities find comfort playing in Neverwinter is one of the goals of our guild.
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
Click report select "BOT".
The next time the player who was reported dies he is given a capcha to solve. If he passes the capcha the player who initiated the report is also sent a Capcha and warned that falsely accusing a player of bottling can lead to a temporary ban. 3 False bot reports in a 24 hour period = 48 hour ban.
Problem solved.
In GW2 the bot hot spots were well known and openly (blatantly) being used for all and sundry to see,you could go to these spots and guarantee that most all there were bots,simply stating in zone as a DM,that anyone not botting please move your *** to the left would have guaranteed you got the bots and not a human players.
Zones were completely and utterly infested with bots,even in WvWvW (queues were clogged),made any open world event they camped utterly pointless for a player the appropriate level to participate in.Yes botting in GW2 was that obvious.The bot count in a lot of zones was higher than the actual player count.
I don't know whether you've used good DM/GM tools before,but it would've been quite possible to suspend that many accounts at that so early stage of GW2s life.
Most vet MMO players can smell a botter/multiboxer pretty easily and if someone feels they've been treated wrongfully,I'm sure a good support team will have it sorted in no time.Which is why I said DMs/GMs with a good support team.
EDIT: As has been mentioned by our friendly and very helpful community managers,everything comes at a cost to the developers.And there is no easy solution.Just keep in mind that diminishing returns on YOUR loot/XP/ and withdrawn content is all a reality in the low cost world of MMO RMT fixes and doesn't deter the RMT crowd one bit.
Steroids increase a player's abilities. Automating simply schedules existing abilities to execute. I feel that is a big difference. In most cases, botting would lessen your abilities, not increase them. Any advantage one would gain, such as the ability to say play 24/7, can be easily addressed by proper design. Example, in ArchAge, they are using Labor Points for harvesting. This completely removes any benefits of running a harvest bot 24/7, as you are gated to how much you can do in a day.
I do not feel belittled when someone without a job or life gets to end game 5 times faster than me. I do not base my accomplishments on comparison to others accomplishments. But even if I did, I would think I would appreciate my accomplishment more than against someone who botted.
Personally, I find automation to bypass content I enjoy playing. Therefore, I do not engage in it. I believe games should be designed to reward skill, not amount of time played, be it from automation or simply not having a jobor life and playing 20 hours a day at the keyboard grinding "accomplishments".
I do not enjoy playing with cheaters either. I will leave a group if they are exploiting content. I do not consider a botter a cheater anymore than I consider someone with a G15 keyboard macro a cheater. If automation allows for some sort of advantage, that advantage should be addressed by game designed. i.e. not giving rewards for simply being alive in a PVP event or not allowing a player to harvest 24/7 without risk.
If you want to cheat or don't care if your friends cheat you are better off with a single player or co-op game.
That topic is really not up for debate. Botting is cheating. You can choose not to care. And I promise as much as you don't care there are people who go red faced with rage at the cheating. In fact I have to close dozens of threads a day that are written by people who are merely upset that their hard work is belittled.
And when it comes down to it, as Aandre said, the games are designed to be played. If you're not playing then don't play because when you are benefitting while not playing you are, whether you agree or not, belittling the work of those who are playing. And that's not how the games were intended to be played.
The kicker is that MMO's do have real economies. Bots ruin MMO economies as much as governments who print money ruin real life economies. If you don't care it's your own personal decision and one which isn't good for a healthy MMO.
EDIT - Botting is completely different than short term macroing.
At least with a g15 you have to be there but a bot will, for instance, run around 16 hours of your day while you're sleeping and at work and gather skill nodes while you aren't anywhere near the game.
That's a lot of extra loot you absolutely 100% didn't earn. Do it and expect a ban with zero chance of forgiveness.
While i agree that they shiuld do all they can to stop bots i will point out that its no simple task. Some of the bot programs are way more advanced than they seem and every program they stop another better one comes up. Wow has been dealing with this for many years and theyre not much better off then where they started, except for that fact that some bots are actually not a complete drain on the team. Hopefully over time it will get better here on neverwinter, but i doubt bots will ever be completely gone. Lets just hopw they have a good team working on it so it doesnt make pvp unplayable.
Rising Star, fun friendly, community focused guild on mindflayer. We strive to help each other and enjoy the game together. Talk to me for info, or feel free to check and join our community at risingstarneverwinter.enjin.com
Exactly. People are botting to level since PvP gives the fastest xp of any activity in game. It doesn't pay to bot farm glory as PvP gear is not in demand on the AH.
Umm....I have read the entire thread. And I still say the only way to be rid of bots in PvP is to strip rewards from it.
Think.
People are botting to get rewards with absolutely no effort. Take away the reward, and what will their reasons be to bot?
PvP is its own reward. Yes. Not only that, but once there is no reason EXCEPT PERSONAL ENJOYMENT to PvP....then and only then will PvP begin to grow and flourish.
Think about this. When Halo first came out with it's PvP...what "reward" was there, other than teabagging your enemy before respawn?
It seems to me that those players that love to PVP have always done so because they like it. PVP has always been a reward in itself. Now I’m not a big fan of PVP myself because for one as I’ve never seen it implemented in a way that makes sense from a lore and role-playing perspective(and because I'm terribad at it.) but most PVPers/PKers enjoy it because they love affecting a real-life person at the other end of the computer. Quite simply they find it fun. PVPers never needed rewards, trinkets and such to participate in PVP in previous decades, why then do gaming companies suddenly find it necessary to bribe players into engaging in PVP?
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
"Hah! You are doomed! You're only armed with that pathetic excuse for a musical instrument!!!" *the Savage Beast moments before Lonnehart the Bard used music to soothe him... then beat him to death with his Fat Lute*
Well luckily for those who believe as I do, you do not get to decide what is cheating and what isnt cheating then.
These lines in the Terms of Service invalidate your line of reasoning:
(k) Cheat or utilize unauthorized exploits in connection with the Games or the Service;
(l) Using or exploiting any bugs, errors, or design flaws to obtain unauthorized access to the Service or to gain an unfair advantage over other players.
Furthermore:
PWE may take any actions and impose any penalties we deem necessary to discourage and punish any violation of these terms or any other illegal or inappropriate conduct, all without prior notice or warning. The determination as to whether a violation has occurred and who is responsible for such act is solely within PWE's discretion, and is based on what we deem best for the community and the Website.
Botting is a bannable offense. If you need a more specific answer please send a ticket to Customer Support.
http://support.perfectworld.com/
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!