Bots are rampant on Spriggan (EU)

[Limiloo]

Seriously, anything would be better than this. Like Nemmar and others have said, the bots lag out all the instanced stuff and takes over parts of the games so people cannot get their quest updates.
If you need to, have an employee log into the game, go to the places where they aggregate, like the aetherytes, and manually remove them one by one. It cannot be that hard or take that long.
Hell, I would do it for free, gimme the power!

I am very happy with all the new player influx, I'm much less happy with all the gold spam and bots there arrived with them. Stop paying for outside gil, it is easy to make, and it is ruining our game. Kthanks!

[KageTokage]

I am thinking this is a consequence of the bots but the queue for the jumping gates in the gold saucer keeps not popping. Happened today and yesterday.

I reported one of the FC's of bots, but one just has to search the FC list on Spriggan to see multiple nonsense name guilds with copys of nonsense randomized named lvl50's that look the same across classes. Obviously exploits. No investigation should even be necessary. It is obvious. Just grab and ban them all.

The problem with that is that even if bans are being issued on a daily basis the bots are scripted to immediately create new accounts once the original ones are banned.

They need to target their methods. Removing gil drops from ARR dungeons and relocating the first chest in the Wanderer's Palace so it can't be obtained without clearing out the enemies would eliminate two of them.

There's still a whole mess of RMTers who make their money through methods like gather/craft botting, though, which are even less likely to be addressed.

[BLaCKnBLu3B3RRY]

Hey there,


I've just read this and the other responses and I am really not sure if you are for real or a funky hobby lawyer on an acid trip.


Before anything else: If you come up with "ToS", the ToS or EULA of this game says simply: "No cheating". So if Square Enix want to take action by taking down those sites and their tools, they can do it, as they are not the offenders. We are taking about the "potential steps", not what would be actually done here.


Then: Do you really think any court - if those bot creatores, Which are probably located and run in China, by Chinese people - would rule against Square Enix if they would reverse-engineer some of the tools (why would they want that in the first place, the simple advertisement of it being a cheating tool is probably enough to get it taken off the web) that are fraudulent and bad for business and reputation of a game/franchise, which equals to probably $xxx,xxx?


Terms of Services are always overriden by law. It would be kinda funny to hide the darknet behind a ToS saying: "No cops allowed", and the next time I create a funny website with fraudulent statements about persons or companies (accusing of rape, saying e.g. McDonald's has BSE in their beef etc.) a simple ToS entry saves me and cause billions of potential damage.


No, sorry, you weave back and forth of your statements, and I am pretty sure SE would out-finance every of those freaking criminal organizations that make their money solely by, uh, yeah, causing harm to another company. Or it must be a very good lawyer defending some random chinese farmbot organization to somehow make it clear they are doing good to the game..


Sincerely,

i get where you are coming from, but you are not quite understanding.

my reply was initially to a comment which seemed to have refereed to the process of reverse engineering software. it is possible to do this and learn more about how you can actually detect its usage. HOWEVER, software protected by copyright would be stated as such by any Terms and Conditions. heck, even the Terms and Conditions can be protected by copyright and is in SOME SENSE just as good as copyright law in of itself. almost all software that is accompanied by Terms and Conditions is protected against reverse engineering. if SE reverse engineers the software, then that would totally make them the offenders. in the end two key factors come into play that would decide if the bot owner(s) could actually do something. and that is going to depend the originating country of the copyright and the country in which the copyright was infringed upon. of course, assuming the bot owner(s) actually have the resources for a lawsuit, they would still need to provide proof of infringement. but then, even if the bot owner(s) win, there is a strong possibility SE will counter.

as far as cheating/hacking goes... depending on what the user does to achieve their goal, Square Enix may not actually be able to do anything beyond a ban. for example, a macro recorder. distributing such software for such purposes also does not infringe upon copyright. that is, as long as nothing is modified or injected. the software is also not allowed to read from a protected address space. depending on what is done, one would be merely breaking a rule and not any actual law.

as far as your darknet thing behind some ToS thing goes... yes, this is actually a thing. again, it depends on what is happening in what country. if some darknet out there happens to be selling American social security numbers, which is also an actual thing, the first approach would have to be diplomatic. if diplomacy fails then the only remaining option is likely war. this is assuming the country in question is not part of the UN. this is like saying parents aren't allow to serve their underage brats *cough* kids any alcohol. depending on where you live there are actual allowances for underage drinking. even though federal law overrides state law, these exceptions still exist. hell... in some cases such as this, not even federal law can do a damn thing to the family. for example, in matters of religion.



in the end... there are a TON of ins-and-outs and other nuances dealing with what we are talking about. there are literally hundreds of different scenarios for just one possible incident. there will always be a to-and-fro and a fro-and-to process. one scenario in one location of the world may have merit whereas in another part of the world it may have no merit at all.

[Nemmar]

The problem with that is that even if bans are being issued on a daily basis the bots are scripted to immediately create new accounts once the original ones are banned.

They need to target their methods. Removing gil drops from ARR dungeons and relocating the first chest in the Wanderer's Palace so it can't be obtained without clearing out the enemies would eliminate two of them.

There's still a whole mess of RMTers who make their money through methods like gather/craft botting, though, which are even less likely to be addressed.

There is no way to win with that method. These are cheaters and exploiters. If you remove those, they will just aim at something else. You have to stop them in the root. That is in account and character creation. If they make a "cooldown" on how often you can create one, it will slow them down considerably allowing for The Bans to come out at a faster pace than they can make new characters.

[KageTokage]

It's really not that uncommon for RMTers to resort to things like IP spoofing and proxies to get around any attempts to prevent their automated account creation.

While it is true that they'll likely just find some other source of gil to exploit if they patched the ones they abuse currently, it would at least force them out of instances and reduce the strain they're putting on the servers. It's unacceptable for certain instances to be rendered completely inaccessible at times because of them.

[Nemmar]

Just want to say that the wave of bans surely didn't do much cause i still see trains of bots going back and forth from the aftcastle is Limsa. Dunno exactly what they are doing but they go to the merchant, to the grand company quartermaster and out to the nearby zone. Must be farming something no doubt.