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Constructive post: How to stop bots and gold selling in MMORPGs
zaodun
Member Posts: 39
Hi all,
I've been playing MMORPGs for... well... as long as there have been MMORPGs. And the common problem a lot of them have are gold sellers (who sell more than just gold) and bots (used by players and gold sellers). There are two simple design techniques a gaming company (like PWE) can use to shut them down permanently.
1. Consolidated Auction House Sales
Instead of each player individually selling their item for a price they decide, players simply put their items up for sale. The AH itself then takes over. It groups all items which are the same together, and decides the price based on the value of the item, and the quantity for sale. So, instead of seeing "Uber Sword X" listed 50 times for varying prices, you'd see "Uber Sword (50 qty): 56g" (buyout only, there is no bidding in this model of AH) Anyone that wants to buy an "Uber Sword" pays 56g. If you get one you don't want, you list it, and if it sells, you get 56g. The system uses a randomized queue to determine who's "Uber Sword" is sold. As quantity dwindles, the price goes up - as quantity increases, the price goes down. Yes, its simplified - but that is the price you pay (pun intended) to combat bots/gold sellers.
This this simple auction house model, you essentially shut down the kinds of pricing games, buyout/repost at higher prices, and other schemes that botters/sellers use.
2. Truly Random Placement Engine
Instead of monsters, chests, nodes, etc (aka xp or loot) being in fixed positions on fixed maps, you have to use a random placement engine to move things around. Most bots rely heavily on precise scripts which move characters fixed distances in fixed directions, or don't move at all and just spam keys which farm a node, or invoke, or whatever. By moving things around randomly, you shut down most bots immediately.
Now, they could go even further with these ideas:
3. Lock loot to a mob.
You cannot loot (whatever it is) until a specific mob is killed. i.e. no free loot. To prevent bots from scripting the killing of the mob, ensure there is nothing visual nor programmatic about the mob the loot is tied to. Worst case is the bot has to kill everything in the local area to unlock the loot, which will cut heavily into its efficiency in farming.
4. Wandering Uber Mobs
Have super powerful mobs wander every single area of the game (open areas, not instances). Have the AI of this mob be such that it gives a LONG warning to players to leave the area before it attacks. Bots, of course, can't heed the warning, remain, and get annihilated. Players just back off a bit, let it pass by, and return to what they were doing. For fun, allow groups to be capable of downing the mobs, and have it drop cool loot or just be worth a lot of XP.
5. Add bot detection scripts to the game engine
Bots move in really obvious and predictable ways. The keystroke and mouse click stream from the client using a bot is uniform and nothing like a real players key/click stream. Some very simple code can detect bots, and ban the accounts, or at least alert admins/support staff to review the activity and then ban after investigation.
I've been playing MMORPGs for... well... as long as there have been MMORPGs. And the common problem a lot of them have are gold sellers (who sell more than just gold) and bots (used by players and gold sellers). There are two simple design techniques a gaming company (like PWE) can use to shut them down permanently.
1. Consolidated Auction House Sales
Instead of each player individually selling their item for a price they decide, players simply put their items up for sale. The AH itself then takes over. It groups all items which are the same together, and decides the price based on the value of the item, and the quantity for sale. So, instead of seeing "Uber Sword X" listed 50 times for varying prices, you'd see "Uber Sword (50 qty): 56g" (buyout only, there is no bidding in this model of AH) Anyone that wants to buy an "Uber Sword" pays 56g. If you get one you don't want, you list it, and if it sells, you get 56g. The system uses a randomized queue to determine who's "Uber Sword" is sold. As quantity dwindles, the price goes up - as quantity increases, the price goes down. Yes, its simplified - but that is the price you pay (pun intended) to combat bots/gold sellers.
This this simple auction house model, you essentially shut down the kinds of pricing games, buyout/repost at higher prices, and other schemes that botters/sellers use.
2. Truly Random Placement Engine
Instead of monsters, chests, nodes, etc (aka xp or loot) being in fixed positions on fixed maps, you have to use a random placement engine to move things around. Most bots rely heavily on precise scripts which move characters fixed distances in fixed directions, or don't move at all and just spam keys which farm a node, or invoke, or whatever. By moving things around randomly, you shut down most bots immediately.
Now, they could go even further with these ideas:
3. Lock loot to a mob.
You cannot loot (whatever it is) until a specific mob is killed. i.e. no free loot. To prevent bots from scripting the killing of the mob, ensure there is nothing visual nor programmatic about the mob the loot is tied to. Worst case is the bot has to kill everything in the local area to unlock the loot, which will cut heavily into its efficiency in farming.
4. Wandering Uber Mobs
Have super powerful mobs wander every single area of the game (open areas, not instances). Have the AI of this mob be such that it gives a LONG warning to players to leave the area before it attacks. Bots, of course, can't heed the warning, remain, and get annihilated. Players just back off a bit, let it pass by, and return to what they were doing. For fun, allow groups to be capable of downing the mobs, and have it drop cool loot or just be worth a lot of XP.
5. Add bot detection scripts to the game engine
Bots move in really obvious and predictable ways. The keystroke and mouse click stream from the client using a bot is uniform and nothing like a real players key/click stream. Some very simple code can detect bots, and ban the accounts, or at least alert admins/support staff to review the activity and then ban after investigation.
Post edited by zaodun on
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Comments
Do not buy from 3rd party websites.
The rest of the comments, I don't really care about as they do not relate to producing many, many pairs of pants.
2. Can be bypassed, not trivial, but it's not exactly the hardest thing in the world.
3. That is a terrible idea. Think of what it would do to legit players.
4. The only problem with this being that bots CAN see the warning. See #2.
5. std::rand() is a thing.
Instead of having no control over your auction in the OP's suggestion, it just gives you a recommended price to sell at that's the same as everything else wants to buy it (has orders placed). If you want it to sell fast you post it at that recommended price. If you don't mind waiting and want more from it, you can play the market. So you can fluctuate somewhere between the buy now and sell now prices to get the exact level of involvement you want in the AH.
Not true. The lazy, more casual botters might have predictable actions. But professional botters, the ones doing this for a living are running much more sophisticated software with AI. It doesn't take much work to throw a little randomness in your scripts/software for botting.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
Unfortunately, this won't help against bots. There are some sophisticated bot software that uses object recognition and can actually PLAY like a player with some pattern, but they could be just a player. There are also advance code you can randomize to make it look like a real player. I remember there is a whole Ragnarok Online bot software that was pretty easy to use to hunt, gather, deposit into banks, crafting, and EVEN give responses to tells. Heck there was even a run away function where you run low on health and such.
This is a bad idea. Servers are not the most stable so what happen if you manage to kill something got some loot but didn't kill the adds? what if the adds are "stuck" in the wall (it happen) and you can't touch the loot? it would take some serious coding to ensure there are no stuck mob or "auto" kill mob if all their buddies are dead etc etc.
Even with uber mob, you need to a way to kill it. Bot can still kill these with help. If it doesn't drop loot, then regular players will complain since these uber mobs are hindering regular gameplay.
Good luck on this one. There are many anti-bot software out there but there will always be another one better. Even Call of Duty have aimbot that they can't go against.
It is like spending MILLIONS on DRM and people still pirate. The best way is to have 24/7 GMs that can screen reports and check for botters and manually ban then (don't have auto system like chat ban)
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.