Future Of Botting

[Kannkor]

This keeps coming up in IRC (mostly in #ogre), we've had some conversations, and I keep saying I would post so we could have a better conversation about them.

For sake of argument, these are my feelings/concerns, however they seem to be shared with the many. But I don't want to talk for other people, so feel free to add your opinion etc.

Generally speaking, I have made my opinion on good botting habits public and very clear.
I have a sticked post here: https://www.isxgames.com/f/threads/rules-of-fight-club-err-bot-club.5538/

The problem:
Some botters don't seem to care if the world knows they are botting, or what they are botting. They are very open about it, doing things they shouldn't be doing, and doing it to the whole server.

I'll clarify a bit more of what I mean.
SLRing: I've said it time and time again, that mass SLRing things that are 'hard' for real players/groups/raids to do, throws it in their face, and pisses them off. We see posts on the officially forums almost weekly now about these "people".
Is there probably some 'safe' SLRing? Probably.. but the 'challenging' zones should not be SLR period. ESPECIALLY THE RAID ZONES.

Contested rampaging: Some servers have botters who will farm the contested zones (Oss, for example). While I don't really agree with botters in contested zones, if it's empty.. well it's empty. But when a group of real players zones in, I would expect the bot group to leave. Some botters do not. They will just stream roll the group of real players.

AFK farming: Farming... afk... for hours and days on end. This has always been frowned upon.


The concern:
There's various levels of concern.
The more of a problem botters become, the higher chance they stop botters all together and just ban everyone. If you're just being careless, but NOT impacting anyone else at all, chances are you would be the only victim. You'll get suspended or banned. And in the above list, the only one that could maybe fall
into this category is afking. The rest you are impacting others. Many many others.

The true concern, is a few bad apples that are doing everything above, to the extreme, and pissing off as many people without a care in the world. This gets escalated, and instead of taking out those few people, they take out all botters because of the forum posts, the petitions, the reports that are being sent in multiple times for multiple people.

"Some people just want to watch the world burn".
Some people just don't care if our world burns... But some of us do care. I really enjoy playing EQ2, and botting it for myself to see what I can accomplish. I'd be really upset if a few bad apples caused this to be shut down, and/or all of us banned.


The solution (or lack there of yet):
This is obviously the most challenging part. Because someone has to make the rules.
This is where most of the discussion was on IRC.
How do we prevent the bad apples from causing an issue for all of us?
Discussion was we set some rules (generally speaking.. exactly what I mentioned above/posted in the Bot Club post). Set up monitoring, and suspend/warn, then ban people who do not wish to follow the rules.
Some examples of 'monitoring', monitoring groups/raids. When mobs die, when loot is dropped, when loot is looted, when people talk in channels (auction channel).
Another suggestion was, collect data (such as the above), and have users submit abusers, then match it up to the logs, and suspend/warn and ban them.
Another suggestion was, disable various aspect, until people could be 'vetted'/vouched for by other people. (Then combined with report people who are abusing).


The flipside:
While the majority generally agreed on all the above. Not everyone did. To super paraphrase, they do not believe there is a problem at all. What people are doing, including what I mentioned, is acceptable.
(I'd prefer if said people spoke for themselves, but that was my take on it).

Thoughts/Comments?


To Recap:
The goal here is to make botting as 'safe' as possible, for as long as possible.

 

[Anon]

Policing it isn't really the answer.

1) You don't have enough play time as it is I'm sure. This will only add responsibility and take up play time. Once you no longer feel it is worthwhile you'll quit it all.

2) You can't stop them, you'll create room for a competitor to accommodate them. For every way you block hydra will find another way around it.

3) in the process ppl who are not doing anything wrong will get stepped on.

4) You open yourself up to personal attacks.

5) Those ppl who want to watch it all burn will simply log in to burn it all down, emails to DBG with lists of ppl botting. You're not safe just because you don't spam in channel. It is not like you play the game in a vacuum, someone online knows you're botting, I don't care who you are. By banning them you'll give them cause.

 

[Sadoru]

I was there for most of yesterdays discussions and agree that something must be done.

“The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few” comes to mind. I don't want to lose me option to play a game where the automation possibilities are nearly endless. Games where I can't do that don't hold my interest for long.
That is selfish, but it seems most of us feel that way.

Primalz was arguing against disabling features for everybody (e.g. no ISXEQ2/ISXOGRE on TLE Servers) and in the meantime I have to agree.

The idea regarding

Some examples of 'monitoring', monitoring groups/raids. When mobs die, when loot is dropped, when loot is looted, when people talk in channels (auction channel).

would probably be best although the initial implementation cost may be pretty high.

In this case I also don't think that

in the process ppl who are not doing anything wrong will get stepped on.

would happen - bans can always be investigated and you won't get banned for inviting one of your own toons when you want to gear them up.
And as Amadeus shares our position regarding the "Code of Conduct" I don't think that someone else will implement ISXEQ2/ISXOGRE/ISXBJ all over again for an MMORPG with a market share that is not worth talking about.

Anyway, that is my 0,02€.

 

[Kannkor]

Policing it isn't really the answer.

1) You don't have enough play time as it is I'm sure. This will only add responsibility and take up play time. Once you no longer feel it is worthwhile you'll quit it all.

As least I have the option of playing right now. If we all go down in a fiery death, I don't have the option of playing at all.

2) You can't stop them, you'll create room for a competitor to accommodate them. For every way you block hydra will find another way around it.

Then so be it. I'm not going to fuel destruction for fear of competition. If someone wants to create a globally destructive system, if they want to piggy back on ISXEQ2, then they can deal with Amadeus if it's not within his code of conduct.

3) in the process ppl who are not doing anything wrong will get stepped on.

Unfortunately this always happens, but it can always be limited. At the start, there would be no automated bans. The system would review and send me emails to investigate, then review and go from there.
I would also argue the "not doing anything wrong" part... What part of the ideas are innocent people doing that would be caught in the cross fire?

4) You open yourself up to personal attacks.

I'm not really sure I follow this at all. Attack me for what.. my opinions/views?
If you mean Ogrebot, that's fine also. I'm pretty open about things and why I do them. Which is the exact reason I started this thread. When/if something is done, I'll be as open as I can (obviously I wouldn't give exacts if something is done, as that would make it easier to get around), but it would be clear what I was doing and why.
In the end, if you don't like what Ogrebot does (be functionality, or limits), then unfortunately it's not for you.

5) Those ppl who want to watch it all burn will simply log in to burn it all down, emails to DBG with lists of ppl botting. You're not safe just because you don't spam in channel. It is not like you play the game in a vacuum, someone online knows you're botting, I don't care who you are. By banning them you'll give them cause.

Fear isn't a good motivator... At least not for me. Being afraid someone is going to report you, to let them burn the place down doesn't make sense.. because once it's burned down, you have nothing.
I feel more safe if someone sends a list of bot names to DBG, than if botters take over the game.
A few botters sending in petitions vs mass people reporting botters in general.
(I have a feeling I missed the boat on this one).

 

[Isnewbie]

I am not sure if I am interpreting this right, but from what I gather, Ogre is capable of gathering information and spying on other people using the program?

 

[Kannkor]

I am not sure if I am interpreting this right, but from what I gather, Ogre is capable of gathering information and spying on other people using the program?

The simple answer is yes. Technically I could gather every single thing you do. Every key press, ever movement, every zone, every conversation, every fight, every attack, etc etc. I don't because I don't want any of that info, let alone to store it.

But if it means keeping us safe, then I'll do what I have to. Anything information passed is secure. For example, when you login (happens every time you load the extension, which is every single session), it sends your ISXOgre username and ISXOgre password to the server. It's all encrypted and uses SSL.

EDIT: Apparently this caused a few questions. Saduro explained more below, but I wanted to add. What I wrote is "technically" possible. I also want to add, that every single program, application, etc you have on your computer, can also "technically" do this.
This includes, but not limited too, isxeq2, innerspace, Everquest2, Chrome, Microsoft, instant messengers, facebook games, keyboard drivers, mouse software, etc etc.
Shit, any script you find here could also upload any of that data (but if it's open source, you could open it and see).
It's not a malicious thing. The question was asked if something was "possible", not if it's being done. I should have clarified my response. Running an application basically gives it full access to your computer.

EDIT2: Okay.. Based on being vague in the previous response..

Every key press, ever movement, every zone, every conversation, every fight, every attack, etc etc.

I do not collect any of that.

 

[Sadoru]

All that talk about there is no problem and so on led me to hack up a quick idea for a DB design.
Be gentle with me, haven't done it in ages and the tool is the first freeware I found.

 

[Tantroth]

I'm fully in support with whichever way you want to go, it seems like its getting worse lately with people being blatant about botting. I don't SLR period anyways, nor do any in my circle as we all agreed it was attention we could do without. I'd rather not lose the ability to do stuff in contested if possible, as theres still useful stuff in those zones, if your not retarded about it and its empty.

Will note I have seen a large drop in the actual SLR of items on my server, but it looks like its gradually picking up again, though its usually the lower tier stuff, not like Ritualist or such.

 

[Isnewbie]

I don't remember ever reading this disclosure when I subscribed, nor did I see any information on Wiki regarding this subject. If I did indeed missed it, then shame on me. However, in my opinion, it's absolutely unethical (irony) to not disclose this kind of information to the consumers.

I am essentially, paying for a keylogger with some very fancy features.

The simple answer is yes. Technically I could gather every single thing you do. Every key press, ever movement, every zone, every conversation, every fight, every attack, etc etc. I don't because I don't want any of that info, let alone to store it.

But if it means keeping us safe, then I'll do what I have to. Anything information passed is secure. For example, when you login (happens every time you load the extension, which is every single session), it sends your ISXOgre username and ISXOgre password to the server. It's all encrypted and uses SSL.

 

[Sadoru]

I don't remember ever reading this disclosure when I subscribed, nor did I see any information on Wiki regarding this subject. If I did indeed missed it, then shame on me. However, in my opinion, it's absolutely unethical (irony) to not disclose this kind of information to the consumers.

I am essentially, paying for a keylogger with some very fancy features.

OMFG.
Kannkor is not reading your keypresses and reporting them back to base. He just explained what would in theory be possible.

Innerspace could do the same, as could your AV and your mouse driver. And the next thumb drive that you connect to your PC could emulate a keyboard and format your PC.
So please, educate yourself before you use up all the tinfoil. Thank you!

 

[Isnewbie]

No one is accusing him of anything. But full scope of the program should be disclosed to the end users.

Also, it's not a theory. He stated, he can if he choose to poll your information, including private conversations, key strokes you use such as CC information if you used station cash, login info, address etc.

 

[Kannkor]

No one is accusing him of anything. But full scope of the program should be disclosed to the end users.

I added more information to my post above.
I'm not sure what more I could add as a disclosure to the end users..
"This is an application for windows, and it theoretically can do anything any other application can."
I'm sure that's not coming off the way I intend it to. But every single application falls into the same category.

 

[Kannkor]

Also, it's not a theory. He stated, he can if he choose to poll your information, including private conversations, key strokes you use such as CC information if you used station cash, login info, address etc.

I don't want to get caught up on which words we use, but I'd call it a theory, as the technology for the program exists, but it doesn't exist. Lets use a simple example. Ogrebot can send guild chat to the TellWindow. (It's intended use is if you have a character in a real guild, but you're on your tank, when someone tanks in guild, it shows up on your tanks screen). Lets assume I wanted to take that information. I can't do anything at all right now to take it. There's no magically button, or a switch to flip, etc.

I would have to code it, release it, wait for it to happen, then capture it, and upload it... The same if calculator.exe wanted to steal your information, someone would have to code it, and release it to you, and they could do the same thing.

 

[Isnewbie]

Thank you for the clarification. I am a computer engineer myself, and I understand the nature of programing. However, the statement you made in your previous post was incredibly precise and dubious at first glance.

Sorry to derail your thread, I'll let you get back to it.

 

[Anon]

Fear isn't a good motivator... At least not for me. Being afraid someone is going to report you, to let them burn the place down doesn't make sense.. because once it's burned down, you have nothing.
I feel more safe if someone sends a list of bot names to DBG, than if botters take over the game.
A few botters sending in petitions vs mass people reporting botters in general.
(I have a feeling I missed the boat on this one).

If you ban ppl from using your product, they could continue to play with the singular focus to ban everyone they can from the game for botting. You create the guy that sole purpose for playing is to hurt botters, reporting non stop and point it out to DBG.

 

[Bishop97]

I also support some sort of control. I don't SLR and I think the main issue people have on my server against bots is the blatant SLR'ing going on in obviously bot'd groups. Same people, same zones, same loot, day after day. Almost everyone I know boxes these days, so people understand the benefits of multiple accounts. I'm just not sure how any sort of regulation would be accomplished outside of just turning off some zones (like Avatars) or else hard-coding instant looting of fabled items (which would be workable in some situations (people who use the same accounts and thus will likely have a toon flagged as present during loot) but really hurt people who want to loot the item on an account not present in group/raid for whatever reason).

 

[sirduckzalot]

So i guess my question is have you done anything to OgreIRC? It used to work like a charm for HH raid and Zavith but now when i run the script for Grevog in HH the tank doesn't move into position like he used to. Just curious if you changed anything or if it's on my side. I was talking to a friend of mine that referred me to this setup and he's saying that it's different for him too. I by no means am trying to get it back for selling purposes. I'm more just trying to see if there is a way for me to fix this so i can gear up my group/alts. Any help would be amazing.

 

[Kannkor]

So i guess my question is have you done anything to OgreIRC? It used to work like a charm for HH raid and Zavith but now when i run the script for Grevog in HH the tank doesn't move into position like he used to. Just curious if you changed anything or if it's on my side. I was talking to a friend of mine that referred me to this setup and he's saying that it's different for him too. I by no means am trying to get it back for selling purposes. I'm more just trying to see if there is a way for me to fix this so i can gear up my group/alts. Any help would be amazing.

That's not related to this thread at all. IRC commands that used /irc will be fixed with next patch. If you want more info start a new thread please.

 

[Kannkor]

Random thought...
It's not very efficient, but could be effective and not intrusive at all.
Since (in theory) this is all about the top few abusers. We come up with some kind of.. what is acceptable and what isn't (for argument sake, lets say SLRing T2 raid mobs is not acceptable). And JohnDoe is SLRing them over and over. Provide proof (screen shots, in this case) of the actual SLRing.

I can review, then make a blacklist in the bot, and those people can't use the bot.. either in those zones, or at all period.

If that person isn't a botter - great, they aren't effected at all.
If they are, their bot quits working with some message explaining why, and they can contact me for more details.

 

[Sadoru]

Random thought...
It's not very efficient, but could be effective and not intrusive at all.
Since (in theory) this is all about the top few abusers. We come up with some kind of.. what is acceptable and what isn't (for argument sake, lets say SLRing T2 raid mobs is not acceptable). And JohnDoe is SLRing them over and over. Provide proof (screen shots, in this case) of the actual SLRing.

I can review, then make a blacklist in the bot, and those people can't use the bot.. either in those zones, or at all period.

If that person isn't a botter - great, they aren't effected at all.
If they are, their bot quits working with some message explaining why, and they can contact me for more details.

I like the idea although it is probably more interactive than you wanted.

 

[bjcasey]

I agree that something should be done to help protect the community from those who would destroy it. Whether that be through ignorance or a very self centered interest view point.

In the past couple of years, I've seen an increase in botters being much more open about their botting. It used to be that you wouldn't SLR every drop you received, you wouldn't monopolize contested dungeons and you wouldn't brag about your challenge heroic or raid accomplishments while botting. I understand that I am a bit on the paranoid side of thinking and that not everyone wants to play without many other people around, but I don't SLR, go into contested dungeons or generally interact at all with any non-botters on my server.

Kannkor's suggestion about SLR'ing raid loot is one of the better options I've seen posted. Each new content release of all difficulties should see a waiting period on SLR'ing anything from it. The more challenging an encounter, the longer the waiting period should be. All the way up to the most challenging raid content never being SLR'd within that expansion's life cycle.

With the TLE servers launching next week, I would like to see at least a 2 week delay between launch and OgreBot being able to be used on them. If you've been following the forums for the latest EQ1 progression servers, you'll know that bots were dominating the content, leading to many forum posts about it and DBG attempting to mitigate the issue. I don't want to see that happen in EQ2. Now, we still don't know for sure if ISXEQ2 will function as is on the TLE servers and if DBG will implement the 1 session per computer limitations that they did for EQ1, but if ISXEQ2 does work I would like to see the above limits in place.

I'd be open to suggestions on things that I could do with my extension/scripts to enforce 24/7 afk grinding. For those people that dislike the scripts logging what they do and when, what would be acceptable to you? Currently, ISXBJ does not collect any information about your play patterns. If enough people gave their support, I could monitor how long a character had Quest Bot actively running and place a hardcoded 24 hour limit. Anyone have some thoughts on that?

 

[Cheesy]

Currently, ISXBJ does not collect any information about your play patterns. If enough people gave their support, I could monitor how long a character had Quest Bot actively running and place a hardcoded 24 hour limit. Anyone have some thoughts on that?

24 Hours still seems an exceptionally long time to me. It shouldn't be longer than any real human could do in 1 sitting imo. Perhaps 12 hours max.

 

[bjcasey]

24 Hours still seems an exceptionally long time to me. It shouldn't be longer than any real human could do in 1 sitting imo. Perhaps 12 hours max.

I didn't mean 24 hours would be the limit. I meant X number of hours per 24 hours. The X is what I'd like feedback on along with any other options.

 

[Cheesy]

I didn't mean 24 hours would be the limit. I meant X number of hours per 24 hours. The X is what I'd like feedback on along with any other options.

Ah. It'd make more sense in my eyes to limit X numbers of consecutive hours. That way you don't impact upon anybody who does have a large playtime isn't impacted, but would stop long term AFK botting.

 

[Kannkor]

Ah. It'd make more sense in my eyes to limit X numbers of consecutive hours. That way you don't impact upon anybody who does have a large playtime isn't impacted, but would stop long term AFK botting.

To me, the biggest thing is being able to do it all afk the entire time.
I compare it to crafting writs. These are completely in your own guild hall, but they are limited because people shouldn't be 100% afk for long periods at a time. You should be at your computer, watching it, or doing something else, etc etc.
25 writs is what... About an hour worth of afk time? Sounds like a good starting point imo!

 

[Kannkor]

I like the idea although it is probably more interactive than you wanted.

It definitely would be more interactive than I want... but it could be a starting point. If there's only 2-3 per server, then it would be a bit of work, and hopefully people would see and smarten up. If it didn't help, or it ended up being too much work, then we could look at a more automated/aggressive approach. But this would be super simple to implement for now.

 

[Lars]

I think most or all already been written but here's my few thoughts on the matter:

I have noticed that there are loads of botters on my server, more of those then actual players as it seems, and I've also noticed players targetting what they think are botgroups in contested areas. It isn't fun being trained with shitloads of mobs when playing with my gf and kids.. But that's a sidenote...
Even though I too have bots and running my raids with my RL friend I avoid cont areas for this reason or for being reported. I understand the temptation for SLR as the price for kronos are twice it was before christmas and maintaining a bunch of groups gets expensive but as it's mostly the same players doing it and nothing done to hide that it's a botted raid I am surprised we haven't been slammed with a hammer yet!
I truly hope we won't see DBG's solution with one session per computer, also if they really would wan't to come down on us botters hard I am sure they can figure something out.
It's not the end of the world but it would be truly sad as I and those I know bot do it as means to be able to play when they can, help gear up main, get some extra manas to adorns etc and not to brag and slam the community in the face. I really enjoy EQ2 and I've been here since launch and with is,isxeq2,ogre and bj I can really enjoy another aspect of the game.

I don't think having Kannkor monitoring, banning, reading appeals, unbanning etc is a good idea mainly for his own sanity, better we all wise up and be more careful with what we do and how we do it.

 

[DiBi]

I was one of these ppls who "they do not believe there is a problem at all. What people are doing, including what I mentioned, is acceptable."

Well, I really haven't noticed any problems on my server (Splitpaw). When I said that, it means mostly that I haven't seen many complains in public chats about botters. Yes, it bubbles up sometimes, but as I see its like once in days and never more than 5 minutes of public discussion. So I round it to 0 in my mind

But, I don't really believe in people so it is easy to imagine some morons doing some bad things, like ruining contested zones for real player groups. Every family have a jerk. So I won't mind if they are being punished. But I also don't want it to be draconic for everybody.

UPD: Also in my opinion SLR isn't a bad thing at all. Maybe some extreme points are so (like hard raid mobs?), but I haven't seen them personally. Is there any botters who sells hard raid mobs stuff? On Splitpaw these are selled only from real-ppl SLR raids like once in two weeks, or I'm playing in a wrong time. As for easy raid mobs like CHH 2 nameds - its so trashy that can't piss anyone imo.

 

[Kannkor]

UPD: Also in my opinion SLR isn't a bad thing at all. Maybe some extreme points are so (like hard raid mobs?), but I haven't seen them personally. Is there any botters who sells hard raid mobs stuff? On Splitpaw these are selled only from real-ppl SLR raids like once in two weeks, or I'm playing in a wrong time. As for easy raid mobs like CHH 2 nameds - its so trashy that can't piss anyone imo.

There's two parts to it.

The one I think would come with the worst punishment, is SLRing "hard raid mobs".
The 'hardest' raid mob I have proof (screen shots) of botters selling, is Ritualist in Oss: CoB. Looking at eq2 guild progress, on the first page there are 23 guilds that have killed that mob.
Some servers only have 1 guild that have killed that mob, and it's the hardest mob they have killed. There are botters selling gear that only the best guild on the server can get, and they can't progress past it.
There are a few servers that have NOT EVEN KILLED THIS MOB YET, and it's being SLR'd by botters.

At what stage is it too much?

My opinion on the raid aspect is:
Botters don't take discos of loot from real raid guilds. Period. You wait. If you're on a server with shitty real guilds, then you wait, or you move servers. Or join them on a real toon and help them.
Botters NEVER kill a raid mob before a real guild does. (Assuming you were doing the above, you wouldn't be able to loot it anyways).
Botters NEVER SLR gear that isn't readily available/easy on their server. This is subjective, but I don't think you can call "only 1 guild on the server has killed this" as "easy".
Botters should STFU about what they kill. Kill it for yourself, gear up for yourself. Become an absolute fucking beast and enjoy the game, in secret.

Also in my opinion SLR isn't a bad thing at all. Maybe some extreme points are so (like hard raid mobs?)

To reiterate, this is all about the extreme cases. It's not the many that are causing trouble, it's the few. The extreme case few.

 

[popo]

I can't believe we're even having this conversation on an Eleven year old game.

All of us use this software because we live outside the normal..... You built a solid product that can be used many different ways, I don't want to be forced into using the software "like" everyone else. Maybe I want to sell an item or two to pay for my Krono??? Maybe I get pissed on PVP server and want to break out the team to mash someone (quickly and Logout). It's limitless, which makes the 11 year old game exciting. Having it locked down...will just bore most of us. Having monitors will just make us a bunch of sniveling snitches. I can just imagine how many False Reports you will have to sift through because of jealousy or malicious intent. Monitoring & Banning is BS in my humble opinion....Keep that shit for DB!

You got my vote.

 

[Eyedea]

All of us use this software because we live outside the normal.....
You got my vote.

Then do so quietly, IMO this includes not bragging on these forums or in IRC. I'm not naive to think that some of the people adding fuel to the fire in threads on the official forums are not botters, who are jealous of people clearing what they can not. Hell I'd imagine they themselves even start some of the threads. Greed is one hell of a drug...

Maybe I want to sell an item or two to pay for my Krono???

Its about what the few bad apples are selling, selling top end raid loot that the majority of guilds are unable to kill. SLR's in moderation from heroic zones or entry level raid gear isn't going to draw quite the attention compared to selling loot that one guild on the server has killed. Making plat in game is super easy even without spamming SLR for hours on end.

Maybe I get pissed on PVP server and want to break out the team to mash someone (quickly and Logout)

Sure, give said players a reason to /report/petition/screenshot. Its a game, you're the cheater, I just don't see it going well...

If anybody thinks DBG is not already aware of anybody that has loaded the game via Innerspace, wake up. They're monitoring us, and I'd like for it to remain just that, monitoring...

 

[appleuser]

My 2ct. There are a few really simple things we can do to not draw attention to ourselves.

Don't AFK with your bot group all stacked up outside zone ins, quest hubs, or at the gear tower in PS. If you need to AFK in between zones do it INSIDE your old zone while you wait for timers or just call to GH.

I also remove my guild flag as soon as we're all zoned, rather than advertize where I am.

Don't be the only person only the server selling Choir and RC CEH loot day in day out. Way to draw attention to us all.

Finally, don't be dumb and talk about botting in server chat, even if you think the server as a whole doesn't care. Just because a lot of people who do speak up say they don't have a problem, doesn't mean that the silent majority don't, and you can guarantee those silent ones are the ones who fire off /reports.

 

[popo]

DBG is already monitoring and in a few cases, Banned or Suspended for abusing the power.....

I'm just saying, let them continue to do their jobs. No need for our own network of botters to become the EQ2 Police. Again, this is an eleven year old game....who is going to be the Chairman of the Rules committee when a server is all Botters....are they not allowed to kill anything? Not something I would want to manage.

And...for those that think they stay in the shadows with little to no impact, your fooling yourself. Materials for those OP charms, Unlimitted mana's, 15000 arrow dumps on the market, the list goes on....are you going to police everything BOT's impact?

Easy solution, let DBG do their job....ISX / Ogre isn't going anywhere from people SLR's. And no, I'm not one of them. I'm just against increased policing.

 

[tarbasch]

The simple answer is yes. Technically I could gather every single thing you do. Every key press, ever movement, every zone, every conversation, every fight, every attack, etc etc. I don't because I don't want any of that info, let alone to store it.

Im in the camp of, if your not doing anything wrong you shouldn't have anything to hide so Im with policing it 100%
My opinion is that if we see other botters breaking our botting rules i think we should report them to Kannkor/Ama and then they can investigate and take appropriate action. I would definitely hate to see our botting come to an end because of some idiots that dont care.

 

[Sadoru]

Easy solution, let DBG do their job....ISX / Ogre isn't going anywhere from people SLR's. And no, I'm not one of them. I'm just against increased policing.

I don't want to let DBG do their job banning the obvious abuser, because they aren't doing it.

Weirdly I've not done any of the other stuff you're writing about either (15000 arrow dumps,...), so why should I have to suffer when we all get the banhammer?

 

[popo]

There isn't going to be any banhammer....that's my point, it's an old fk'n game. Ok, so we move into this "botters reporting botters" stage, how fun is that going to be? DBG is banning the idiots....Botters turning on each other is just stupid. Anyhow, I've been drinking all night and I've pretty much said all I have to say. I'm not looking forward for the first time someone reports me to Kannkor / Ama for selling a 200p item because they've been empowered to do so.

All I ask, Please don't over react.....

 

[Kannkor]

There isn't going to be any banhammer.

Think we can get that included in the EQ2 EULA?

On a serious note, the point of this conversation is to not over react. Now, we may all have opinions of what is over reacting, but I think my openness to discuss what to do, shows I'm not making it an impulse decision. It's a problem I personally believe we have, and trying to fix the problem with impacting the least amount of people.

 

[Lars]

, 15000 arrow dumps on the market.

Just a Quick note on that, a woodworker with massproduction creates 20k Arrows in one batch... No botting it's a AA tradeskill feature. So just because there's a crafter pushing loads of crafted pots, arrows, food, drink and so on, don't assume it's a botter... Sidenote...

 

[lixleon]

We are already cleared Ritualist in Oss, and killed 2 named in AoM, and will try last named in next days.
Sorry to see this rules too late, but we never trying to slr hardest loot in channel, and already hide everyone's information in eq2u, even disabled guild achievement.

We just curious how far a box guild can be done not for plat, considering transfer to other server next xpac. our server's progression is shitty

 

[lixleon]

BTW, I dont think ogre and isx are bot software, they are not really bot look like. they just make game from MMO-RPG become MMO-SLG.
As a bot you dont really need to do anything, bot will do everything automatically. While we are defeated heavy-scripted Named, we should manage everything more than other ppl, It can't be done by automatic.

 

[hastur]

Another suggestion was, disable various aspect, until people could be 'vetted'/vouched for by other people. (Then combined with report people who are abusing).

That would screw me pretty hard, I play on a mostly dead server and don't really have any friends among the rest of you.

I run a team of 6 when I have some free time, but for the most part I use ogre to help me raid at a level that I couldn't otherwise, because I cut off a few of my fingers a few years ago, and while they were able to reattach them, I have limited use of that hand. I already can't join my guild against the x2 avatars because of similar restrictions, it would blow if the screws were tightened even further.

 

[Eyedea]

That would screw me pretty hard, I play on a mostly dead server and don't really have any friends among the rest of you.

I run a team of 6 when I have some free time, but for the most part I use ogre to help me raid at a level that I couldn't otherwise, because I cut off a few of my fingers a few years ago, and while they were able to reattach them, I have limited use of that hand. I already can't join my guild against the x2 avatars because of similar restrictions, it would blow if the screws were tightened even further.

First, the restriction in PoP is not with ISXOgre, its ISXEQ2 and secondly, Amadeus updated it back in March to allow IS1 to function while in PoP so... you can assist your guild.

 

[hastur]

First, the restriction in PoP is not with ISXOgre, its ISXEQ2 and secondly, Amadeus updated it back in March to allow IS1 to function while in PoP so... you can assist your guild.

I had no idea! That's great news!

 

[eddie43302]

I had no idea! That's great news!

you do realize there is a program out where you can rename all your Windows is1 if you so wanted too

 

[pelly]

I am supportive of putting in some automation to address folks who abuse botting. Although, I didn't realize it was that big of a problem outside of the complaints on TLE servers. On my server, I rarely see anyone selling SLR outside of some noobs trying to sell worthless stuff that could be put on broker anyways. I rarely see complaints against botters in public chat. That said, my 2 cents:

• I would restrict the use of ISXEQ2 and Ogre on TLE servers. Botting seems to be getting some attention there and DBG seems to be trying to take the TLE concept somewhere. I'd hate for botters to get blamed if it fails. We have all of the other servers, so small trade off.
• Collecting statistics from our usage of ISXEQ2 and Ogre is fine, but I'd like to know exactly what is being collected. Using ISXEQ2 and Ogre shouldn't open our computers up to external auditing outside the intent of monitoring our play using the botting software. So if Amadeus or Kannkor decide to add this feature, then what is being collected should be disclosed.
• I don't support having someone vouch for my use of botting software. I use ISXEQ2 and Ogre discreetly and very few, if any, know who I am in game. I shouldn't have to find other players to vouch for me to get permission to play. That is a showstopper for me.

Many thanks for establishing this dialogue.

 

[blammo]

In truth, I'm not sure -WE- have to do anything about it.

• WE all pay something monthly/yearly for this combo stack of features.. (ISX + Ogre + BJ + ?)
• WE all use that combination of various things, from questing, to farming, to raiding.
• WE don't want to be monitored or restricted on something WE pay for, both for Accounts/Xpacs, and software stack.
  
• From other threads, it's been indicated that DBG can detect us if they wish.
  
• DBG has also indicated they're ok with Boxing, as long as we're not Bot'ing.

If someone is abusing the system, let the people who are actually offended by it, /report, and DBG will correct the issue. Hopefully they fix the user, and leave the product alone.

 

[Kannkor]

Hopefully they fix the user, and leave the product alone.

Or it becomes such a problem, that dealing with the individual user 30 times is too much and they just ban/close the entire system down. Then we're left sitting here saying "well shit, we should have did it differently".
I'd rather not have a discussion on what we should do to be more careful for the next game once we ruin this one. I'd like to keep this one.

 

[lixleon]

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...za-everquest-2s-new-community-manager.546259/

EQ2 and Me
As far as EverQuest 2 goes, I have been an avid EverQuest 2 player since way before I ever worked at SOE! I’m a bit of an alt-a-holic and I enjoy multi-boxing my whole group. Call me anti-social, but I call it efficient! I currently have a level 95 Defiler, Shadowknight, Dirge, Coercer, Inquisitor, Wizard and Paladin. I’ll be making a new public character that I hope to play with all of you!

Funny

 

[DaggerSplicer]

Strange, the new community manager for EQ2 just advocated boxing, maybe even botting with the openness of her statement. She openly admits to being a loner who plays 6 toons. I would put a months pay check down that she uses some sort of third party program to accomplish this feat.

 

[Kannkor]

Strange, the new community manager for EQ2 just advocated boxing, maybe even botting with the openness of her statement. She openly admits to being a loner who plays 6 toons. I would put a months pay check down that she uses some sort of third party program to accomplish this feat.

Well, keep in mind that post is a year and a half old, and she no longer works there.

"Boxing" has never been against the rules, it's the software people use to assist with boxing that has been against the rules.

 

[mamrono]

I see people in my server putting like 4 or more ethereals in the broker or trying to trade them in Auction with the same toon. I also see people that have all the collections/masters for sale and they are the cheapest one on every single one. You can tell who the botters are, I dont see any SLR in my server at all and Im very active, but doing things like that will pull a lot of attention to yourself.

 

[appleuser]

Heh, yeah captain obvious on my server spamming chat that he wants to trade multiple ethereals , and wants to buy multiple expansions for plat. Maybe it's time to implement an IQ test at point of subscription?

 

[hegvape]

Hmm... interesting thread. One should bot with common sense and not be obvious about it..
Just the other day I zoned out to Sinking Sands and found a group of PC that had just recently killed a group of bots, conversation from my log below... (names removed)

(1444401550)[Fri Oct 09 16:39:10 2015] The Sinking Sands 2: PvP Range is 8 levels
(1444401552)[Fri Oct 09 16:39:12 2015] YOUR Regrowth heals YOU for 222 hit points.
(1444401554)[Fri Oct 09 16:39:14 2015] \aPC PC1C1\/a says, "be sure to /petition these clowns"
(1444401562)[Fri Oct 09 16:39:22 2015] \aPC PC1C1\/a says, "they use Ogre BOT"
(1444401566)[Fri Oct 09 16:39:26 2015] \aPC PC2C2\/a says, "dont.. fever targets"

So my thoughts were that PC1 must have either used Ogre himself or heard about it from someone else and...
Secondly, how could he know for certain that the group they killed used Ogre?

I don't believe in any restrictions, let them have them banned but then again why petition when you can easily kill a bot group - Blue servers are of course a different story