Just Another 3rd party bot BUT 1000 TIMES WORSE

[Peregrine]

I find it interesting that with 180 replies, and this being such an important issue that there has YET to be a post from a moderator in this thread.

They stopped posting that the Square Enix takes Real Money Trading activities, use of third party programs, and cheating very seriously and asks for continued support of the Square Enix Task force in their ongoing endeavors to combat these issues....

Likely because you can say it once, and haha okay. Token used. But say it twice and it just becomes annoying.
Say it a third time, as the months and almost a year rolls on, and it's just reminding everyone of the primary problem, which is apathy and inaction.

Look at my thread. 8 videos of what a bot clearly is, does, and cheats at, months after the last video of that same bot, FOUR MONTHS after this EXACT NAMED BOT was reported by another user. If I made this game, that would embarass me. Just straight embarass me that that was MY product up there being just made a joke of by cheaters and the people watching me do NOTHING about it.

Topic locked. Not a word. Not one moderation. I didn't lock it.

What are they going to say? Sorry? At this point they're not sorry, or they'd have done something. Stop it? Good luck with that lol...telling real players, the only few left, that the bots have rights. What are they going to do?

Nothing.

Even if they're going to sting 10,000 accounts this weekend and just HAMMER them all as some sort of major sting operation...hello. Late. Damage done. Look how ****ed up shards, gil distribution, crafting levels, and everything is already.

If a major sting is in effect and that is the reason for the silence, they still fail because this should have been done back in January to send a message. Now better players have taken to cheating because **** it. Right?

Delay costs them real players. Real players quit the farce. Real players give up and take to botting themselves.

No one has apologized for how much of a joke this game has become in terms of rampant cheating.

It starts there. It ends with 10,000 players destroyed in one instant.

[SAMINUS]

I can see how very easily RMT is benefited greatly from bots. bots grind away at the supplies to sell, RMT guys sell the gil for real cash.

[Mortikhan]

Well you enjoy the company of the bots then I guess.
Your plan is failing. Has failed. Will fail.
This game is an integrity washout.
Some players like that I suppose.

What you consider proper evidence, I consider needless pandering to a population who needs to be shown the door.
It by no means gives people leverage to get people banned. If you're reported, you're looked into. If you're not cheating, you have nothing to worry about.

You type a bunch of fluff and meaningless content full of irrational fear and a hypothetical that doesn't exist, all for...what point again?

Whatever. Defend the mechanisms botters use to stay in the game, just to white knight some made up honest people who get caught in a crossfire. You're lying to youself. Your mentailty does not keep good players in this game. it makes good players quit in disgust. It only keeps and defends scum.

This game is looking more like an experiment in RMT and cheating toleration and less like a serious game every week, and you are enabling that.

I KNOW this population. You buy their bull****.

You're the guy who doesn't vaccinate their kid.
You're the guy who pickets genetically engineered corn.

Why? Because you believe things that aren't true about the reality you perceive. Your fears are irrational and biased. Kicking the **** out of these bots does not necessitate banning innocents. Never did. You're too gullible. Everyone in prison is innocent! Remember?

For whatever reason you just wish it does. I'll leave the why up to you to tell us.

Actually it is because I do not presume/assume guilt. I prefer to stay calm in the face of a problem and make an informed decision rather than making the wrong decision based on hysterical accusations that have no fact or proof to back them. Rabid dogs don't get fed, they get put down.

You will never have your way on this game Peregrine. SE would rather risk losing you than risk all of the negative press they would receive from banning even one legitimate player without proof. It is just a reality you are going to have to live with or quit the game and continue spouting your rhetoric elsewhere. You see, that is the biggest fundamental flaw with your argument...there is no risk involved for you. You becoming a victim of your own dragnet would only mean you lose your account on a video game. SE stands to lose millions if they misstep on this topic. That is the main reason they are being cautious. It is not just their reputation that is at stake.

Your analogy with the prisoner thing is cute...flawed but cute . Prisoners get a trial. A trial where they are entitled to a defense. I will not say that they always get a fair shake but they are in prison because they failed to defend themselves. Under your system players would not even get a trial or a chance to defend themselves...just off with their heads.

At some point Peregrine you are going to have to realize that your personal ethics, virtues and points of view have no bearing on SEs policies, procedures and code of conduct. They are running a business not a religion. People want to have fun here not feel like they are prisoners or have a gun pointed at them 24/7. I would not start a character on a server where I would constantly be at threat of being banned because of the accusations of a player and not have a chance of defending myself.

One last note...I am thoroughly enjoying your "If you are not with me then you are against me" speeches. It is just proving my point that you have no interest in making the game better or finding a solution but would rather preach about what the problem is over and over and over again. It is this logic that buries your arguments over and over and over again. At no point did I ask you your opinion about me or my friends but feel free to continue your assumptions about both. It makes your other points paper thin and easily refuted.

[Peregrine]

You prefer to deny the obvious is what you do.
Whatever.
We all see the truth you can't commit to.

They count on your hesitation and hem-hawing around, while they run circles around you.

You are a threat to the game, just like anti-vaxers are a threat to our society.

I mentioned your friends all of once, and you lit up on it like a beacon.

Lol how many friends have you lost to the STF?

I'm sorry to tell you. They were cheating.
They got their trial.
And BUHBYE.

And if it was you personally who was banned or suspended by the STF, you shouldn't have been let in beta. We don't buy your bull**** around here.

You were banned because you cheated, not because THE WORLD MISUNDERSTOOD AND YOU HAD NO DAY IN COURT!

Lol no one said you get a day in court here, just like no one said you had a right to not respond to a GM who checks you. This ain't soccer mom democracy. When a GM says something to you, your ass responds. Capice?

If we have to choose between banning you, who doesn't get that, and not banning 10,000 of them? I'm sorry. You're out of here lol.

You call it injustice. I call it Darwin.

[Rentahamster]

Inflammatory name-calling aside, Peregrine's not calling for a witch hunt that indiscriminately bans everyone based on mere accusations.

There are many ways to prove botting. Automated third party programs have a pattern to their behavior that is VERY uncharacteristic of a real, live human. Futhermore, it's pretty easy to tell if someone has made a simple input macro, or just taped down their turbo button since the inputs received by the server are always constant with no variation.

This information, in addition with multiple player reportings, along with actual GM observance and interaction makes a pretty irrefutable case for action to be taken against a certain account.

SE letting everyone bot to their heart's content is stupid.
SE banning people for the slightest of circumstantial evidence is stupid too.

No one is advocating any of those positions, although a lot of you seem to think the other person is.

You guys need to stop thinking that the other guys is arguing for one extreme or the other, because you're not.


Carry on.

[AngryNixon]

Inflammatory name-calling aside, Peregrine's not calling for a witch hunt that indiscriminately bans everyone based on mere accusations.

Why not, could be fun to RP some Salem action. All hilarious baseless witch hunts and subsequent unfounded condemnations and drownings aside, Hamster I don't know if you remember (because my memory is foggy in my old age) but was it not SE's old practice to do nothing for months and then take a "spring cleaning" approach to banning many accounts at once? Not really baiting you for an argument and it's kind of an incidental point to this thread but I'm just curious if you remember from the old days. I happen to remember, maybe incorrectly, that that was the way they did it. I think all these things getting reported will come out in the wash all at once at some point en masse. Just my thought though, maybe wrong.

[Rentahamster]

Why not, could be fun to RP some Salem action. All hilarious baseless witch hunts and subsequent unfounded condemnations and drownings aside, Hamster I don't know if you remember (because my memory is foggy in my old age) but was it not SE's old practice to do nothing for months and then take a "spring cleaning" approach to banning many accounts at once? Not really baiting you for an argument and it's kind of an incidental point to this thread but I'm just curious if you remember from the old days. I happen to remember, maybe incorrectly, that that was the way they did it. I think all these things getting reported will come out in the wash all at once at some point en masse. Just my thought though, maybe wrong.

Yeah, I know how they roll with stuff like the mass Salvage ban, but it also happens on an intermittent basis as well, just google for LM-17 and you'll find lots of feedback from players who weren't banned in any kind of mass purge. Whether it's negligent payment, botting, RMT, or whatever, it happens both en masse and on an individual basis as well. It also happens fairly, with lots of evidence to back it up, or unfairly (like that stupid one that banned ppl who were gardening on their alts)

But anyway, I'm kinda wondering if that's what you thought the main point of my previous post was, because I wasn't really talking about that.

I was talking about how there is a great deal of misunderstanding in this thread, and that each "side", so to speak, thinks the other side is arguing for an extreme version of what they're actually arguing for.

No one's arguing for extreme measures on either side (total bot freedom vs. draconian crackdown), but a lot of people in this thread seem to think that the other person is - which is the source for a lot of the unneeded aggression and hostility.

[Peregrine]

I'm sorry, the bot sympathizers are just plain intellectually failing at a simple task.
This isn't a witch hunt, because there is such a thing as a witch here.

Not a single one of you has been suspended or banned by the STF or a GM falsely.
Neither have any of your friends.

They were lying, you are lying, or you believe in liars.

This population of people who have been unfairly banned are lying through their teeth, and some in this crowd just lap it up.

Your alternative is...this pathetic mess. You happy?

[Peregrine]

There's no misunderstanding, Hamster.
There is only gullibility and lying.
The gullible, because they believed their friends when they said they got banned for no reason.
The lying, because the odds we actually have a cheater in this thread approaches 100%.

They are a threat to society like anti-vaxers are threats. Their irrational fear of the only thing there to protect them shows their ignorance and a true predisposition to bite what is trying to help them and hurt themselves.

Or in the case of cheaters, to help themselves while pretending to protect the innocent.

Their fears are the only imaginary witches in this discussion. The cheaters are real.

[Rinsui]

Peregrine, our drama-queen at her best.
Gogo, savior of the clueless.

...

Now I actually fear she might take that literally.