Your "assurance" means less than nothing

[Sp1cyryan]

Wow. I'm sure today is the day you convince anyone, OP.

[Velner]

If you can actually name 1,000 bots right now, you should be able to understand right there why the STF might struggle. . . that's 1,000 accounts and logs to analyze to determine whether it is truly a bot. Sure, it's easy for you to confirm it without having to do anything of consequence, but the STF has to actually follow protocols and absolutely verify with data that a character is botting before taking an action. If they have to then prove it to you after the fact, that will just slow things down further.

[Uriah]

No analyzing required, obvious is obvious. They don't do it, not because it's hard, but because they choose not to.

It would be a significant hit to the fake sub count and profit. It would be foolish for them to do it. And that's fine, it's a business decision. If they would stop being disingenuous about it I wouldn't care.

[Alhanelem]

Still waiting for them to actually make a list of 1000 bots and prove that every one of them is active.

Don't have to put it here, make a link to it.

[Uriah]

Make a mule on asura. Tour Doh, Woh, Sih, Moh, KRT, CN_S, Cirdas, Reisenjima, Escha-Zitah/Sky Promivion zones you'll find a thousand any time of day

Go anywhere spheres drop, you'll find a killing bot (or multiple) and a synthing bot. Go anywhere in adoulin to find 10-20 synth bots. They don't even try to be discreet.

1 bot in QSC, 2 bots in SSG, 1 bot in Rancor

18 bots in South Gustaberg, on every server, level synced to 10 thursday-sunday (sometimes on wednesday) 18 bots in Ronfaure, on every server, same set up.

10-20 yell bots advertising RMT for the bots in Doh/KRT/CN_S

3 or 4 sets of 6 anon bsts spam HTB Avatar fights all day every day.
3 or 4 sets of 6 anon pups, same thing

Party of 6-8 bots kill Morta 24/7

1 or 2 packs of 6 bots spam V2 Ambuscade all day every day

20+ bots spam salvage all day every day

4 or 5 bots spam legion all day every day

Never not 20+ bots in old dyna

There's packs of 18 hiding in sih/moh/yahse/GC/Boyahda/Gustav/Kuftal Pling new bots/collecting sparks

Dozens of reive bots that just stand on reives and kill them every respawn.

Packs of bots run Vagary/Delve/Incursion all day every day

[Velner]

Again, you have to substantiate each one of those suspected bots with data. It requires reviewing the logs or having some level of interaction with each character to ensure it's a bot. It would not be prudent to just immediately ban anybody suspected of botting with "obvious is obvious" because innocent people will get swept up. That takes time and manpower that XI unfortunately doesn't have any longer.

[Uriah]

It takes no manpower at all, stop making excuses for the billion dollar company. They're fully capable.

Absolute worst case it would cost a single 8 hour shift, and a janitor could do it. (I'll do it for FREE)

They WONT because it will lose millions. Don't conflate it with CANT. It is a choice.

[Alhanelem]

Absolute worst case it would cost a single 8 hour shift, and a janitor could do it.

yeah, that's not how it works. Even if they are intrested in banning bots, they still need to investigate to not issue false bans. If you go "look the way that guy is moving, BAN" "that guy has gibberish name BAN" "That guy is AFK near an NM spawn and only acts when a placeholder's up BAN (which still takes a minimum amount of time to determine)" you are going to catch innocent people in with our wild swinging. By taking the time to investigate anyone they do ban will have no case for an appeal and so they don't have to deal with or really even have an appeals process.

Even if they DID do it your way, it would STILL be a never ending whack a mole game, in the hours it takes you to get though thsouands of suspected bots on a server, more will spring up. The only real consequence might be RMTs charge more for their services.

Having been the "police" for many a forum in my day, and one or two relatively small games (where while it wasn't really my role specifically, I would have people constantly telling me about cheaters etc). I know with certainty that it isn't as easy as you want it to be.

Also: the same people who handle this stuff are the GMs and support staff who handle customer support as well, and given your attitude and approach, well... GM Dave comes to mind (who remembers that?)

[Uriah]

They've never cared if they banned innocents before, they aren't concerned about it now either. It's purely monetarily motivated.

[Dzspdref]

Also: the same people who handle this stuff are the GMs and support staff who handle customer support as well, and given your attitude and approach, well... GM Dave comes to mind (who remembers that?)

This made me absolutely chuckle, so I HAD to go to [GM]Dave's blogspot and read through a good amount of stupidity calls and how he handled them. I needed those laughs! Thanks!!
If you need the link I can post it here for you
"Fafnir hits Player [Uriah] for 8,452 points of damage." comes to mind.