RMT and Botting Out of Control

[DSN]

Things have been done. Accounts have been banned thousands of them. Huge amounts of gil have been removed from the game causing the price of gil being sold to rise. Claiming nothing is being done is far from accurate.

and they come right on back, what is being done to prevent this? just banning accounts is a band-aid solution to the real underlying problems.

[Sixmp]

and they come right on back, what is being done to prevent this? just banning accounts is a band-aid solution to the real underlying problems.

So what would you suggest? I mean SE are doing what they can do. Please tell us what you would do?

[DSN]

So what would you suggest? I mean SE are doing what they can do. Please tell us what you would do?

Compiled binary code is harder to disassemble and reverse engineer than clear text .lua scripts packed in .dat files for starters.
Encrypted Signed Requests to and from client and server so they don't just accept any command given to them over a common web protocol that anyone can sniff and replay with a little know how - Similar to OAUTH or hell even FB API request signatures.
Protection of the shell window itself so any simple programmatic method to send keys to a external application are better detected and blocked.

[Sixmp]

Compiled binary code is harder to disassemble and reverse engineer than clear text .lua scripts packed in .dat files for starters.
Encrypted Signed Requests to and from client and server so they don't just accept any command given to them over a common web protocol that anyone can sniff and replay with a little know how - Similar to OAUTH or hell even FB API request signatures.
Protection of the shell window itself so any simple programmatic method to send keys to a external application are better detected and blocked.

Harder but not impossible? So wouldn't really stop anything then?
If it is as simple as you try to make out why isn't every MMO already doing this?

I won't try and pretend i even understand what you typed but the point remains that if anything it would just either
A) Cause more problems than it's worth.
B) Only slow the problem down to start with and make what looks like lot of extra work pointless.

[DSN]

Harder but not impossible? So wouldn't really stop anything then?

Part of the reason it is so out of control though is it takes little to no knowledge to reverse engineer how the game works and communicates with the back end servers. I get its not impossible to do the same with compiled code however if its not something anyone with a copy of VS can accomplish and it would help fight the problem and reduce the quantity of bots available on the market. The job of detecting and blocking them gets a lot easier when you have a few of them vs. hundreds.

[DSN]

Only slow the problem down to start with and make what looks like lot of extra work pointless.

Typically compiled binary code runs faster, when its interpreted code such as .lua there is a lot more to the process.

The client needs to load the file (Unpack it from the .dat)
Keep in memory or do this ever time (Your common stuff will stay in memory but uncommon things will be unloaded from memory to optmize performance)
The engine then needs to parse and basically compile the script to execute it.

Doing this over and over has a larger penalty on performance but made development easier as they could hire HS kids to write code for them.

[tymora]

There are bots in every MMO out there. You can't run from them ever.

[Sixmp]

Part of the reason it is so out of control though is it takes little to no knowledge to reverse engineer how the game works and communicates with the back end servers. I get its not impossible to do the same with compiled code however if its not something anyone with a copy of VS can accomplish and it would help fight the problem and reduce the quantity of bots available on the market. The job of detecting and blocking them gets a lot easier when you have a few of them vs. hundreds.

I do get where you are coming from, i can only guess that SE probably isn't using such preventions due to the probability of RMT companies probably hire coders with the know how to sidestep anything anyway. Seeing as the main problem is the RMT companies rather than some home made bot program they just worry about that instead.

It is frustrating, i just try to not let it get to me too much. I have been putting up with all kinds of in game cheats (aim bots, fish bots, etc) in games for 14 years now.

[GeilLega]

It is frustrating, i just try to not let it get to me too much. I have been putting up with all kinds of in game cheats (aim bots, fish bots, etc) in games for 14 years now.

Accepting the bot activity is one way of dealing with it, but I think what the thread is pointing out is that a lot of players won't accept this. My blacklist is already half full and to date exactly one of those 100 bots has been deleted. When my blacklist fills up and I have no choice but to listen to tells every 15 seconds for some gilseller, I'll quit too.

The things DSN has listed are very, very, very *basic* things that *anyanyany* client/server application should be doing. ANY. The database insecurities in this game are an absolute joke and something Sqenix needs to address very quickly, before any more economic destruction occurs.

[Sixmp]

Accepting the bot activity is one way of dealing with it, but I think what the thread is pointing out is that a lot of players won't accept this. My blacklist is already half full and to date exactly one of those 100 bots has been deleted. When my blacklist fills up and I have no choice but to listen to tells every 15 seconds for some gilseller, I'll quit too.

The things DSN has listed are very, very, very *basic* things that *anyanyany* client/server application should be doing. ANY. The database insecurities in this game are an absolute joke and something Sqenix needs to address very quickly, before any more economic destruction occurs.

Please do not misunderstand me, i do not suggest we just put up with it, i report and blist constantly myself. I just try to be patient and let companies deal with things. I guess in my case not understanding anything about coding i can only assume companies are doing what they can to cope with RMT.
If SE have dropped the ball as you are pointing out then they should be urged to pick it up and start running with it again.