So Devs...Are we going to rule with an iron fist this time around?

By that I mean botting, rmt's, and the like...

Thanks:)

The reason RMT wasn't huge in XIV comparatively was because XIV had a different design to it, now, however, that they're making ARR a 'standard mmo', RMT will be pretty large, much larger than they'll be able to handle.

Botting however, they're allowing Add-ons, so they kind of told b-...end-game shells it's perfectly ok to script bots. Hopefully they'll enforce things more heavily, but as we seen with every MMO...it's inevitable to happen and it always starts with:

"It doesn't give me an advantage on (content), just (content.)"

And snowballs from there.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

The reason RMT wasn't huge in XIV comparatively was because XIV had a different design to it, now, however, that they're making ARR a 'standard mmo', RMT will be pretty large, much larger than they'll be able to handle.

Botting however, they're allowing Add-ons, so they kind of told b-...end-game shells it's perfectly ok to script bots. Hopefully they'll enforce things more heavily, but as we seen with every MMO...it's inevitable to happen and it always starts with:

"It doesn't give me an advantage on (content), just (content.)"

And snowballs from there.

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Jesus Christ there is so much wrong in this post I don't even know where to start.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Jesus Christ there is so much wrong in this post I don't even know where to start.

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It's ok to be in denial when you've never played more than 1 MMO in your life. We all know RMT didn't hit big in XIV till around the end of it's life span when it was a smart idea to start hoarding gil for the relaunch.

We also know botting doesn't exist in any MMO ever. You never hear about hacks or bots existing in MMOs. It's practically unheard of.

Till there will be people ready to buy Gils there will be RMT in MMO. Square-Enix should fight them, but knows that they won't never be defetead.

On the "botting side" there won't be a serious problem till people will start using Pull Bot against the other gamers, because this is the best way to ruin their game experience. I hope SE will do something for this.

Just report as many bots as you see every time you see them and we'll be good.

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Originally Posted by Malakhim

Just report as many bots as you see every time you see them and we'll be good.

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I did that once. Went there a month later and they were still farming Darksteel Beastcoins.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

It's ok to be in denial when you've never played more than 1 MMO in your life. We all know RMT didn't hit big in XIV till around the end of it's life span when it was a smart idea to start hoarding gil for the relaunch.

We also know botting doesn't exist in any MMO ever. You never hear about hacks or bots existing in MMOs. It's practically unheard of.

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Yeah, I haven't played more than 1 MMO in my life.

Fyi, bots aren't made using addon API, they're made as standalone programs that mimic button presses and as packet sniffers, which is what makes them almost impossible to detect programmatically, and require a human eye.

And it's not the "standardization" of an MMO that enables RMT, it's how much demand there is for RMT goods, which is a direct result of having rare, powerful and needed items be tradable between players and be easily monopolized. FFXI struggled with this for years before more Rare/Ex items were introduced as replacements or alternatives for things like Peacock Charm.

There were not a lot of RTMs shouting or advertising (that I saw), but there were a lot being PLed in Limsa Lominsa. There was one area I could not do leve quests in because there were so many RTMs there. It laged me to death. =(

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Originally Posted by Lillium

There were not a lot of RTMs shouting or advertising (that I saw), but there were a lot being PLed in Limsa Lominsa. There was one area I could not do leve quests in because there were so many RTMs there. It laged me to death. =(

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Yeah they were always at Cedarwood running Leves

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Yeah, I haven't played more than 1 MMO in my life.

Fyi, bots aren't made using add-on API, they're made as standalone programs that mimic button presses and as packet sniffers, which is what makes them almost impossible to detect as a program, and requires a human eye.

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This, we won't be able to have add on bots.. Even packet sniffers are hard to see to the human eye, as long as the users responding with real time tells then they're usually fine.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

The reason RMT wasn't huge in XIV comparatively was because XIV had a different design to it, now, however, that they're making ARR a 'standard mmo', RMT will be pretty large, much larger than they'll be able to handle.

Botting however, they're allowing Add-ons, so they kind of told b-...end-game shells it's perfectly ok to script bots. Hopefully they'll enforce things more heavily, but as we seen with every MMO...it's inevitable to happen and it always starts with:

"It doesn't give me an advantage on (content), just (content.)"

And snowballs from there.

---

Dumbest post I ever read. When FFXI had the whole market taken over by RMT like no other mmo i ever seen, and XI was far from what we call standard now.

I sincerely hate what RMT do to a game.
They ruin the economy and create huge, eliteists, separation gaps.
I hope for iron fist banning.
If you can't play fair..
Don't plat at all..

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Originally Posted by Solace

I sincerely hate what RMT do to a game.
They ruin the economy and create huge, eliteists, separation gaps.
I hope for iron fist banning.
If you can't play fair..
Don't plat at all..

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When people realize the problem is not RMT but the buyers, it's always people sitting there singing F!@# RMT when they are the ones keeping them around cause some of them are the buyers.

i do hope they take more of an active role in banning bots in rmt's, but i really doubt they do. with him allowing add-ons and all it seems to be more of a giving permission to do underhanded things.

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Originally Posted by darkstarpoet1

i do hope they take more of an active role in banning bots in rmt's, but i really doubt they do. with him allowing add-ons and all it seems to be more of a giving permission to do underhanded things.

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Addons are not an evil thing and should not be considered so, look at world of warcraft which I think I can use as an example without pitchforks spearing my rear. You have the basic default ui where your mana bar is in the top left corner and you are tired of dragging your eye there from the middle of your 42" to check it, well lets make an addon to move it, maybe even re-size it slightly larger and while we are at it lets close those gaps between the action bar and make them smaller since we already know what action is on what bar.

You guys are acting like addons are packet bots (nasa) and that dragons aery still exists as it did from 2003 to finally being changed to force pop. Don't confuse a customizable ui with a packet bot.

Ugh @ how many people do not understand the difference between an addon and a bot. It's surprising you people even figured out how to register and post on these forums.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Ugh @ how many people do not understand the difference between an addon and a bot. It's surprising you people even figured out how to register and post on these forums.

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I blame people naming their add-ons things like "Heal-bot" for this misunderstanding.

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Originally Posted by Treach

Addons are not an evil thing and should not be considered so, look at world of warcraft which I think I can use as an example without pitchforks spearing my rear. You have the basic default ui where your mana bar is in the top left corner and you are tired of dragging your eye there from the middle of your 42" to check it, well lets make an addon to move it, maybe even re-size it slightly larger and while we are at it lets close those gaps between the action bar and make them smaller since we already know what action is on what bar.

You guys are acting like addons are packet bots (nasa) and that dragons aery still exists as it did from 2003 to finally being changed to force pop. Don't confuse a customizable ui with a packet bot.

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no, i am not pointing and saying all add-ons will be bad. what i am saying though is with the addition of add ons it will become more difficult to determine which actions other players are doing is an add on and which is a 3rd party bot. bots run outside of the game and are really only noticed by other players and reported. if you see someone doing something in game you don't do then you will actually have to consider whether that different action is an add-on causing it or a 3rd party bot.

believe me i do basic programming on the side and it is very difficult to determine if something is sniffing packets and then doing an action or if you are doing it yourself. the only real way se would be able to determine if someone is using a 3rd party bot after the add ons are allowed is to have a program installed on the person's comp and then report to them what you are doing. that would turn into major lawsuits because of invasion of privacy.

i'm not going to club you over the head for bringing up wow. i know most add-ons are great additions. i also know that by allowing them people will press the envelope to see how far they can go with the add-ons though. once people get to the point they stop allowing add-ons to do things they will then continue making the 3rd party programs. by doing this it makes finding those 3rd party programs even more difficult to find and punish because there's already add-ons that do the basics that advanced program does.

edit: i'm not comparing an add on to a bot, but what i am saying is that people will try to push that envelope as far as they can. they will try to blur the lines between the 2 just as much as they can.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Ugh @ how many people do not understand the difference between an addon and a bot. It's surprising you people even figured out how to register and post on these forums.

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Hmm... Mad bro?

Addons are fully traceable because they need to access the game API. They are also fully dependent on what sections of the API are exposed and how the developers want people to use the addons.

Bots are not limited and unrelated to addons, because they do not use any API and do not interact directly with any game code in any fashion. They replicate human behavior via automated button presses and mouse movements. They are completely untraceable in any automatic way and require large amounts of human investigation on a case-by-case basis.

Games that expose their API and are smart about it in restricting their usage like not allowing API that performs character actions are no more at risk of having bots than games who don't have an API at all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Addons are fully traceable because they need to access the game API. They are also fully dependent on what sections of the API are exposed and how the developers want people to use the addons.

Bots are not limited and unrelated to addons, because they do not use any API and do not interact directly with any game code in any fashion. They replicate human behavior via automated button presses and mouse movements. They are completely untraceable in any automatic way and require large amounts of human investigation on a case-by-case basis.

Games that expose their API and are smart about it in restricting their usage like not allowing API that performs character actions are no more at risk of having bots than games who don't have an API at all.

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yes, this is true and this has nothing to do with what i am talking about at all.

yes, add-ons are tracable because they are actually part of the game. let's say for example someone makes an add-on to just kneel over and over. it is completely legit and does nothing wrong. i'm making an example and not saying se will allow any sort of player motion as an allowed add-on.

there are some of the more advanced crafting bots that when they run out of materials for one synth they stand to change to the next synth they want to do and then kneel again. if their list of items to create has used all of their materials then the bot kneels over and over until it is stopped.

when a person saw a character in the crafting position all day and then automatically start standing and kneeling over and over it was a good indication that the person was a bot. that was a pretty good indicator that they were botting and they should be reported.

now take that kneeling add-on i mentioned that is completely legit and is traceable by se. if you see someone just kneeling over and over you don't know if it's just that add-on that is legit or if it's the bot out of materials. that basic add-on has blurred the line on whether you should report that character or not.

that is just one example of what i mean by someone trying to blur the lines between legit add-ons and a bot because it has given some indecision on the behalf of the other players on whether it should be reported or not.

If only there was a way to track dirty money trades, they could put at least temp bans on people that buy from RMTs.

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Originally Posted by darkstarpoet1

yes, this is true and this has nothing to do with what i am talking about at all.

yes, add-ons are tracable because they are actually part of the game. let's say for example someone makes an add-on to just kneel over and over. it is completely legit and does nothing wrong. i'm making an example and not saying se will allow any sort of player motion as an allowed add-on.

there are some of the more advanced crafting bots that when they run out of materials for one synth they stand to change to the next synth they want to do and then kneel again. if their list of items to create has used all of their materials then the bot kneels over and over until it is stopped.

when a person saw a character in the crafting position all day and then automatically start standing and kneeling over and over it was a good indication that the person was a bot. that was a pretty good indicator that they were botting and they should be reported.

now take that kneeling add-on i mentioned that is completely legit and is traceable by se. if you see someone just kneeling over and over you don't know if it's just that add-on that is legit or if it's the bot out of materials. that basic add-on has blurred the line on whether you should report that character or not.

that is just one example of what i mean by someone trying to blur the lines between legit add-ons and a bot because it has given some indecision on the behalf of the other players on whether it should be reported or not.

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I really don't see that being much of an issue. WoW has a very liberal API for their addons and it was still really easy to pick out botters.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

The reason RMT wasn't huge in XIV comparatively was because XIV had a different design to it, now, however, that they're making ARR a 'standard mmo', RMT will be pretty large, much larger than they'll be able to handle.

Botting however, they're allowing Add-ons, so they kind of told b-...end-game shells it's perfectly ok to script bots. Hopefully they'll enforce things more heavily, but as we seen with every MMO...it's inevitable to happen and it always starts with:

"It doesn't give me an advantage on (content), just (content.)"

And snowballs from there.

---

add-on are UI base only so i don't think people can do much to make it work so you could bot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elexia

The reason RMT wasn't huge in XIV comparatively was because XIV had a different design to it, now, however, that they're making ARR a 'standard mmo', RMT will be pretty large, much larger than they'll be able to handle.

Botting however, they're allowing Add-ons, so they kind of told b-...end-game shells it's perfectly ok to script bots. Hopefully they'll enforce things more heavily, but as we seen with every MMO...it's inevitable to happen and it always starts with:

"It doesn't give me an advantage on (content), just (content.)"

And snowballs from there.

---

I bought gil one time in FFXI.. I swear when I did it, I felt like I had just committed a murder or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by darkstarpoet1

for example someone makes an add-on to just kneel over and over. it is completely legit and does nothing wrong. i'm making an example and not saying se will allow any sort of player motion as an allowed add-on.

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Well, supposing S|E exposes an API that allows emotes, and /kneel is an emote that plays the exact same animation as kneeling to craft, there'll still be a dead giveaway as to whether the player is kneeling by emote or kneeling by crafting: A chat message saying "Darkstar Poet kneels mightily", or some such.

So, if a player starts kneeling over and over without that message appearing in chat, they're likely botting.

I think it's unlikely that S|E would expose an API that allows automation of the crafting process. If they do, though, then I guess that would mean they're okay with bot crafting.

Back on point, though, I do hope S|E rules with an iron fist on this topic. I agree that RMTs are a scourge. If we're lucky, they'll implement a quick way of reporting RMT players by clicking on the player name in the chat box (to open a pre-filled confirmation window, etc), or something similar.

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Originally Posted by IndigoDarkwolf

Well, supposing S|E exposes an API that allows emotes, and /kneel is an emote that plays the exact same animation as kneeling to craft, there'll still be a dead giveaway as to whether the player is kneeling by emote or kneeling by crafting: A chat message saying "Darkstar Poet kneels mightily", or some such.

So, if a player starts kneeling over and over without that message appearing in chat, they're likely botting.

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Not if they use /emote motion.. only get the motion and no message in chat.

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Originally Posted by IndigoDarkwolf

Well, supposing S|E exposes an API that allows emotes, and /kneel is an emote that plays the exact same animation as kneeling to craft, there'll still be a dead giveaway as to whether the player is kneeling by emote or kneeling by crafting: A chat message saying "Darkstar Poet kneels mightily", or some such.

So, if a player starts kneeling over and over without that message appearing in chat, they're likely botting.

I think it's unlikely that S|E would expose an API that allows automation of the crafting process. If they do, though, then I guess that would mean they're okay with bot crafting.

Back on point, though, I do hope S|E rules with an iron fist on this topic. I agree that RMTs are a scourge. If we're lucky, they'll implement a quick way of reporting RMT players by clicking on the player name in the chat box (to open a pre-filled confirmation window, etc), or something similar.

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not completely true. if you are using the emote it is correct, but if you put in like "/dance motion" you will do the dancing animation without a message at all.

there's a few friends that have a macro that does a full story using /emote motions and it's actually quite amusing to watch. icehunter on the forums is one of them. his is friggin hillarious.

edited to get back on point: i was just pointing out a way in which players could press the envelope to allow more stuff to sneak by. i'm in complete agreement that they need to be much more active in finding and banning bots and rmt's. i wish they'd even go a step further and ban people sitting idle and leeching exp, but that's my own personal thinking. to me going idle and leeching exp while others do the work is the exact same thing as going idle and letting a bot exp for you. both ways you are getting exp for doing nothing.

For all we know they banned all the known bots when 1.0 went down so all their saved up gil is lost! HA HA HA!
Probably not though

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Originally Posted by Ricky

For all we know they banned all the known bots when 1.0 went down so all their saved up gil is lost! HA HA HA!
Probably not though

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now that would be absolutely hilarious and very welcome.

Huh. I'd never known about /emote motion. More reason for S|E to not expose an API for playing emotes.

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Originally Posted by Malakhim

Just report as many bots as you see every time you see them and we'll be good.

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Hopefully the RMT special task force is actually competent in ARR and actually bans cheaters and rmt. In 1.0 it seemed like most reports you sent them went straight to the recycle bin without being read or they just went to an inbox that was never, ever checked.

I remember back when I played FFXI, every once in awhile they would show how much gil was taken out of circulation and how many accounts were banned between this date and that date(or was it "this month"). I don't remember but I always felt some comfort in them showing us they were putting in some effort in banning RMT/third party tool users.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Botting however, they're allowing Add-ons, so they kind of told b-...end-game shells it's perfectly ok to script bots.

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i want to metaphorically punch you in the mouth every time you try to fallaciously connect add-ons with botting.

let me explain one more god damned time. it won't get through your thick skull, but i'll try regardless.

where does the word "bot" come from? it's a colloquialism for ROBOT. what is a ROBOT? a robot is a MACHINE that is either controlled by man, or designed by man to autonomously control itself.

add-ons like a distance plug in, quest tracker, map marker- these DO NOTHING FOR YOU. you aren't CONTROLLING anything. and there is NO AUTONOMOUS CONTROL OF YOUR CHARACTER as direct result of using the add-on. add-ons provide INFORMATION or ADDITIONAL VISUAL ENHANCEMENTS/CUES, and nothing more.

a program that fishes for you, though? yes, it's a bot. a program that farms for you? yes, it's a bot. a program that claims for you? yes, it's a bot. and yet, add-ons DO NONE OF THESE THINGS.

so why do you do this? why do you keep leaning on the slippery slope fallacy? why do you keep fallaciously connecting add-ons and bots as if they're the same thing? a bot is a bot. an add-on is an add-on. both are fashioned by third parties and the similarities end there.

and then there's the implication that endgame shells are botters. ok.

are you brain damaged? are you so stupid that you honestly believe the only people in FFXI who fishbotted were hardcore endgamers? does the alternate reality you live in have a name?

*DISCLAIMER*
I'm not telling SE how to run their business, I don't know the first thing about running a business, but this is just an idea. If it sounds like I'm ordering SE around, I certainly don't mean it, I just don't know how else to explain it.

Ok, so I think SE needs to put in bold letters "BUYING GIL IS AGAINST THE RULES, YOU WILL BE BANNED/SUED/CASRATED/DRAWN AND QUARTERED/etc IF YOU BUY GIL!" instead of that "Don't neglect your school, work, family, goldfish, antfarm, etc".

The RMT stuff is just buried in the EULA which noone bothers to read. I think some, not all but some, of the buyers are just stupid and don't know it's against the rules. You guys should know by now, I think people are morons, I make that clear. It's true to, people are effin MORONS. So, I really think SE should make it abundantly clear that RMT is against their rules. Put that up and FORCE people to acknowledge that it's against SE's rules.

That won't do much though. I remember that a loooong time ago, I started playing EQ. I talked with people whose parents bought them EQ and like 10000plat to start them off. Parents being parents probably didn't realize that was against EQ's EULA. This one I don't think SE can control. We, as the "good guys", have to educate other players to make sure they know so noone can say "DURRRRR I didn't know I couldn't do it". That may stop buyers from buying that crap. I think SE really needs to be more aggressive with bannings so that people will think "Oh gee, I better not buy this million gil cause SE likes to ban people....". SE should create a program, or alter their code that throws up a flag when a person's account gets a mass influx of cash. SE could investigate if that person just got lucky on the markets or if someone traded the gil. That's another idea, SE could record all gil transactions up to a certain point, maybe like a month at a time.

tl;dr version People are STUPID

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Addons are fully traceable because they need to access the game API. They are also fully dependent on what sections of the API are exposed and how the developers want people to use the addons.

Bots are not limited and unrelated to addons, because they do not use any API and do not interact directly with any game code in any fashion. They replicate human behavior via automated button presses and mouse movements. They are completely untraceable in any automatic way and require large amounts of human investigation on a case-by-case basis.

Games that expose their API and are smart about it in restricting their usage like not allowing API that performs character actions are no more at risk of having bots than games who don't have an API at all.

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kudos to you for explaining it much more politely than me.

the abundant stupidity in topics like this is bound to give me an embolism someday.

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Originally Posted by Lucke

tl;dr version People are STUPID

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Hehehe. You're really cute! :D

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Originally Posted by Firon

When people realize the problem is not RMT but the buyers, it's always people sitting there singing F!@# RMT when they are the ones keeping them around cause some of them are the buyers.

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That doesn't solve the problem. People need to get banned to make a point.
This is real world stuff here, social psychology.

In the real world people will push the boundaries until you make them stop.
If there were no laws, we would be lawless.
That is why they need to implement judges, that is why they need to implement bans.
You need to make a point.

Point being: "If you use RMT or bot, you will get banned. Period."
Unless that happens, there will not be a significant deterrent.

If there were no deterrents in real life, every store in the world would be looted.

Always look at the money, how many subs the RMTs hold compared to how many ppl will quit the game because of RMT botters. I bet SE will ban RMTs but not to the "Iron Fist" extent we honorable players expect; but more in line with making it more expensive for RMTs to have to buy a new key to continue their gold farming...