I'm tired of hearing about bots

[tymora]

Not botting related, but remember the Salvage bans too...haha...Some shells collapsed entirely from that.

[Dubont]

Ouchouchouch. You definitely didn't pass the economics exam, did you?
If he illegally acquires his crystals, which he otherwise would have had to buy just like anyone else, he gains an illegal monetary advantage of exactly the same amount as if he sold the crystals for cash in the first place. Basically he's printing forged money.

Illegally acquires crystals? You do realize that you don't have to buy crystals to get them...right? You can easily make them without a bot >.> If a botter sits his bot to grind crystals for 12 hrs, he will have the same amount of crystals as a person who sits and manually grinds crystals for 12 hrs (Give or take a few depending on the logic speed of the program being used)

they re-grow like a bad rash, that's true. But constantly cutting them down at least ensures they don't crash the economy completely like they did in FFXI. Until all of a sudden, SE decided to mass-ban thousands of them without as much as a warning in 2004.

I still remember the day when half of the endgame linkshell leaders suddenly and silently disappeared, hahahahaha!!!

cutting them down does help, but it also causes companies to make bad decisions such as the crafting/gathering mini-games. Companies think that this will cut down on botters, but really, it just makes the coding harder unless the botter designs a pixel bot. THEN, everything that SE tried to do just went to hell >.>

[TheVedis]

Illegally acquires crystals? You do realize that you don't have to buy crystals to get them...right? You can easily make them without a bot >.> If a botter sits his bot to grind crystals for 12 hrs, he will have the same amount of crystals as a person who sits and manually grinds crystals for 12 hrs (Give or take a few depending on the logic speed of the program being used)



cutting them down does help, but it also causes companies to make bad decisions such as the crafting/gathering mini-games. Companies think that this will cut down on botters, but really, it just makes the coding harder unless the botter designs a pixel bot. THEN, everything that SE tried to do just went to hell >.>

yes illegaly aquire them

any time you use a program to play the game for you, its done illegaly

is that really so hard for people to understand?

[HiirNoivl]

people have a very skewed vision of what bots really are.

A bot uses a third party program to do what's referred to as "absentee" play that is against the ToS and is a bannable offense.

The argument that there are "okay" or "inoffensive" bots is forgetting that important fact. All players agreed to the same ToS and have to abide by it.

The idea that a player thinks there is a legitimate reason or use for a bot program really illustrates my point on my previous posting. If SE does not enforce the rules, players think that it is okay to break them. It's frustrating for honest people who actually did sit there and craft crystals for 12 hrs to have to work in an game economy ruled by players who can't be bothered to play the game but are perfectly fine with ruining it for everyone else.

[Dubont]

yes illegaly aquire them

any time you use a program to play the game for you, its done illegaly

is that really so hard for people to understand?

Of course it is "illegal" in the terms of using a program to produce them, according to the ToS, but making crystals is not an illegal way of obtaining them, which is what the quoted post was trying to say.

A bot uses a third party program to do what's referred to as "absentee" play that is against the ToS and is a bannable offense.

The argument that there are "okay" or "inoffensive" bots is forgetting that important fact. All players agreed to the same ToS and have to abide by it.

The idea that a player thinks there is a legitimate reason or use for a bot program really illustrates my point on my previous posting. If SE does not enforce the rules, players think that it is okay to break them. It's frustrating for honest people who actually did sit there and craft crystals for 12 hrs to have to work in an game economy ruled by players who can't be bothered to play the game but are perfectly fine with ruining it for everyone else.

ah but not all botters are "absent." This is something that not everyone understands. No one is trying to say that bots are "ok," but what I AM saying is that grouping all botters into 1 category is kind of inappropriate. For example: A migrant worker comes over, illegally, but works and gains citizenship then helps boost the economy. Should he be grouped up with the same migrant workers who traffic drugs during their "crossing" to a different country? No. Most people do though. The same goes for botters. Not all of them are the "economy killers" that people make them out to be. I do agree that bots are wrong, but ONLY because the ToS says so. In games that don't have anything regarding 3rd party tools in their ToS, bots are fine =D

the fact still remains, though, that you will never get rid of bots unless you completely destroy the game...and that is exactly what happened on release...

[HiirNoivl]

Dubont:

Comparing Botters to "migrant workers" is a stretch of huge proportions even for the FFXIV forums.

Coming out in the defense of people who break the ToS is also pretty bold.

No one is disputing that there will always be botters. The OP is complaining that SE doesn't appear to be doing anything about them.

Dubont, if botters were all suddenly insta-banned, what would you think about that?

[Dubont]

Dupont:

Comparing Botters to "migrant workers" is a stretch of huge proportions even for the FFXIV forums.

Coming out in the defense of people who break the ToS is also pretty bold.

the name is Dubont, not Dupont. I'm not a paint company.

Comparing botters to migrant workers is a bit of a stretch, but it was just for a comparison between the 2 in regards to how the general public treat them. Both break the rules and both are usually shunned while only half of each group are actually bad apples.

I do not defend all botters. I only defend those that do nothing to directly hurt anyone in the game, but are still treated like serial killers for some odd reason.

No one is disputing that there will always be botters. The OP is complaining that SE doesn't appear to be doing anything about them.

Dupont, if botters were all suddenly insta-banned, what would you think about that?

SE can't really do anything about it at all. The only way to detect a botter is to send them a tell and see if they respond. If the botter is at his computer (which most are) then they will respond.

If botters were instantly banned (which won't happen) would it matter if I had a problem with it? It is against the ToS so those users took the risk. They knew what would happen if they got caught. Their loss.

[HiirNoivl]

Dubont: So you don't think the rules should be applied equally to all rule breakers? Sounds like you have a skewed idea of what rules are.

The only way to detect a botter is to send them a tell and see if they respond.

This is actually not the case.

If botters were instantly banned (which won't happen)

This is also not the case. See Rinsui's post.

I hope they wipe the servers of botters before the PS3 release.

[Dubont]

Dubont: So you don't think the rules should be applied equally to all rule breakers? Sounds like you have a skewed idea of what rules are.

read again what I said a few posts ago. It is against the ToS so I mind botters in FFXIV. In games that allow bots in regards to the ToS, I don't have a problem with it. BUT just because you don't favor something does not mean you should go around generalizing everyone into the same category. There are 2 types of botters and people still group them into the same category...just like migrant workers...

This is actually not the case.



This is also not the case. See Rinsui's post.

I hope they wipe the servers of botters before the PS3 release.

Yes, actually, it is the case. There is absolutely no way to detect bots in FFXIV without using a screen reader program which is 1) Illegal and 2) malware that will be flagged and deleted.

The only other way to detect a bot would be to use a file reader and see if any of the memlock files are attached to a hook...but I have yet to hear of anyone using hooks in 14...they were everywhere in 11.

[HiirNoivl]

There are 2 types of botters and people still group them into the same category...

Read the ToS and see how many types of botters it lists.

I hope that the task force really is doing their job and brings the hammer down on cheaters