Quote Originally Posted by Yureina View Post
This is a utopian's hope. It sounds nice, but it will never ever happen and is not a viable solution to the immediate problem.
Oh, I know it will probably never happen. Cheating is too entrenched in society, especially over things considered unimportant like games. There are those who like to earn what they have - and those who will use any means to get it, especially if they don't want to go to the effort of earning it.

The problem is finding that viable solution to the bot problem.

SE is willing to ban cheaters. They post the weekly ban notice, which does occasionally list a ban other than for RMT related activity. We've seen the results when players complain about their account suspensions and bans. We've even seen posters in this thread state suspected bots on their local marketboard disappeared (just to be replaced by new bots a week or two later).

I think the problem might lie more in what they've set as the benchmark for sufficient proof. I know a lot of what I've seen listed in this thread and others as "proof" isn't any such thing at all. I could do the same things listed manually if I was inclined to, somewhat tedious perhaps but certainly possible. It doesn't mean the suspected players aren't botting, just what was listed wouldn't be sufficient evidence by itself to warrant an account suspension or ban.

SE can't go banning players out of hand just on suspicion without raising a huge backlash in the player community. There will always be that fear of a false positive leading to a player's own account getting banned and the fallout if and when they do happen.