Get better macro protection..?

[jorb]

(lots got posted while I was writing, replying to a post dissing my snide comment somewhere up yonder)

Merely pointing out that you are not considering all the externalities of your suggestions.

I've been running an alt for a while now. Since I found my mine (obviously). While I first intended him as numb and dull drone to do my main's biddings, he has kind of taken on a life of his own. Now that he's been through some stuff, gotten a few scars and gotten alot better at what he does, I have actually started to feel a bit for him. Rather than having "an alt" I would argue that I have two characters. I wouldn't want to lose that, nor would I want to deny players the ability to play like that. Haven is basically a huge doll house (action figures! ), and having more dolls in the house can obviously make for a better experience, even if you are playing by yourself. Even the alts help populate the world and make it more civilized and neat. Though it might sound weird, I do feel a little less lonely at my little settlement.

Now, obviously, there are differences between what I do and what a script does (playing, for one). Many scripts, for example, seem to be operating on the logic of digging holes and filling them in again, only to gain stats, which is, for lack of a better word, boring. You can however argue that the ability to do so and benefit is poor game design on our part. There are also tragedy of the commons aspects to be considered with macros. What if somone runs over 9000 scripts and clogs up the entire server with drones? There is also a part of me that feels that the ill-gotten gains of others do not hurt you, so it doesn't matter. Let them cheat if they want to. Unfortunately there are obviously circumstances where said ill-gotten gains can hurt you quite badly, and that is obviously a bad thing. Yes, I understand your concerns. Yes, I have them to some extent myself, but this is not as simple or straightforward as some want to make it. The dangers of bureaucratic inertia are *very* real and need to be guarded against *at all times*. Fortunately I am extremely lazy.

Atherman suggested in a PM that we have the server throw modified captchas at people every now and then, and while that is one of the less unappealing ideas (And we have, obviously, considered it), we have to come to terms with the fact that the machine will at some point pass any Turing test we can devise. When Skynet goes active, the Matrix will be playing us.

So there's obviously loads to be said on this subject. I think I have exhausted my own thoughts on it for now. I am not saying that the subject doesn't merit some thought, rather that it merits more thought than some of you put into it.

Also, stop using percentage numbers for how many alts there are running unless you make it explicitly clear that it is your ass talking. I do not know how many alts/scripts/macros there are running, so how the fuck could anyone else?

Stay strong.

[DatOneGuy]

Yes D1G, you've made it very clear you like progress quest so long as it keeps getting bells and whistles added. You've also made it clear that in your opinion, it's no big deal, and there's nothing anyone could possibly do about it anyway.

I like to think I have now made it clear that I don't think they should be policing game mechanic abusers in an alpha game. For one they're in development, and thus should be concentrating on developing. For two, it allows them to determine what kind of abuse people will try to use if the game ever goes live.

I'd be interested to hear why you think they should police it if you think they should, but you clearly don't, so if you could stop repeating the same post worded differently every few hours that would be awesome, thanks. It's getting in the way of discussing things like artificial freedoms, or game vs mechanic.

I'm particularly interested in the game vs mechanic discussion. Generally when a player on a football field elbows someone from the other team in the face, we don't look up to him for getting away with it because the referee was looking the other way. We don't blame the game for not having enough referees. We accept that it is a limitation of the system that the game can only have a limited number of referees, and expect players not to take advantage of that fact. We expect them to play the game, rather than the system.

As I've stated, I think it should be policed, however I don't believe it's worth the devs time to do so and in the end will bring more problems than it will benefits.

You could have GMs, but most players advanced enough to be able to do such a thing are in a major town thus politics would ruin everything.

As it stands I cannot think of any actually 'good' ways of policing macroing that doesn't involve wasted time on devs part for something that will eventually be bypassed, and I'm not going to insult them by spitting out half-thought ideas without knowing what I'm talking about. I may have made many macros/bots, and I may have knowledge in that area and getting around protection, but I don't have much knowledge on actually protecting it, java, or both their limitations, so my suggestions are of little worth on the subject as are pretty much everyone's in this thread. "Well just set up X!" doesn't work, think it through, from all points of view.

How long will it take 'cheaters' to get past it?
What problems does it pose for non-cheaters?
Should I bother if it poses a problem to them?
How long will it take me to do it?
How long will it take me to 'up' the ante when it is passed?

These are just the absolute simplest of questions you'd have to ask when considering this. As I've said, if no one macro'd neither would I , I don't want an unfair advantage, however with what I've read in the many 'hey macros' threads in the Inn and elsewhere, it seems many do, so I feel as if I'm simply climbing the hill to attempt to reach their level, not surpassing them.

As far as your Game v Mechanic goes, that's a poor comparison, in football you are expected to play against others, you 'win' or 'lose'. You just play.

[Atherman]

I had written up some post in answer to some of the responses before Jorb's post, mainly to Spectacle and DatOneGuy. I don't really feel right posting that rant now, but it went on about how I personally feel macroing is more important than new content and that though it is entirely possible to be strong in this game without cheating, macroers are devaluing that hard work everyday.


The one thing I love about this game is how free form it is. Anyone can come along and wreck my place and my character. I can go ahead and try to do the same to other people. Nobody is going to page a GM and get me banned, nobody is going to cry and get their stuff returned to them. But I honestly feel in our sandbox that scripting is taking away from that, not adding to it. If scripting were a lot more limited and some behemoth guy came crashing through my wall I could think "Damn he's tough, we're screwed." But if someone did that tomorrow I would realistically think "Fucking macroer" and log off. I truly wish everyone's effort would count for the same and that we could all play by at least the same basic game mechanics. But the game is split in half now, people that want to do it by hard work and people that want to cheat through it.


That's why the modified captcha idea, pretty much just a couple colored buttons and a randomized sentence telling you which one to push, would keep away the threat of policing while hopefully cutting down or even eliminating the macro using. I dunno how perfect it would be, but I do know that it's worlds more difficult to develop a color recognition and sentence recognition script than it is to make a digging script. And my biggest concern was how annoying would the macro check be? I personally wouldn't want to type shit. A click, I could deal with. Especially if it somehow fit in with the game's lore, like some sort of magical or malevolent force.

[DatOneGuy]

That's why the modified captcha idea, pretty much just a couple colored buttons and a randomized sentence telling you which one to push, would keep away the threat of policing while hopefully cutting down or even eliminating the macro using. I dunno how perfect it would be, but I do know that it's worlds more difficult to develop a color recognition and sentence recognition script than it is to make a digging script. And my biggest concern was how annoying would the macro check be? I personally wouldn't want to type shit. A click, I could deal with. Especially if it somehow fit in with the game's lore, like some sort of magical or malevolent force.

Again, poorly thought out.

1)This problem effects everyone and will be a problem to non-macroers more than it is to macroers who only have to bypass it once and not care, as opposed to the rest of us who have to see it all the time.

2)It's a constant reminder of annoyance and the first people complaining are usually non-macroers once it's implemented.

3)It's ridulcously easy to bypass.

4)The current 'digging' or whathaveyou script will still work on image identification to combat the lag spikes, this won't make it any more complicated at all.

You're doing nothing more than disrespecting the knowledge of the developers by posting ideas without thinking them through properly or knowing what you're talking about.

[Atherman]

Again, poorly thought out.

1)This problem effects everyone and will be a problem to non-macroers more than it is to macroers who only have to bypass it once and not care, as opposed to the rest of us who have to see it all the time.

2)It's a constant reminder of annoyance and the first people complaining are usually non-macroers once it's implemented.

3)It's ridulcously easy to bypass.

4)The current 'digging' or whathaveyou script will still work on image identification to combat the lag spikes, this won't make it any more complicated at all.

You're doing nothing more than disrespecting the knowledge of the developers by posting ideas without thinking them through properly or knowing what you're talking about.

I'm not sure how you're saying 'Again' when you haven't spoken about my idea before. Been talking to yourself again, have you?


As a normal, hardworking player, I can see this posing NO problem to me. Clicking a button takes me a milisecond. Now I see why it can pose a major problem for a macroer like you.

(*Le gasp* His post history is chock full of him admitting how he uses macros on a daily basis and is trying to make new ones)

Because where you had trouble making a script to feed your chicken coop, now you'll have to dabble in color recognition software which is most likely completely beyond you. Your half assed attempt to make my idea seem insignificant and your consistent disagreement with anti-macro statements, along with your history of openly admitting you abuse macros, has led me to the conclusion that you don't want them to implement any captcha or anti-script measures because you don't have the capability to work around them and don't want your exploiting to come to an end.


You're very easy to read. And now that I think about it, the only tough opposition to anti macro measures in this thread has been from you, a macro abuser.

[Atherman]

You know DatOneGuy, you actually had me convinced for a bit that you were really worried about the developers not having enough time to work on content.
Such deceit.

If selling hacks/bots was still as profitable as it was 5 years ago I'd actually still do it.

I was probably 'in the irc', but not actually there sadly, but yeah that would be interesting. Really simple to do too. I played around with AHK and it's similar to something I used back in the day, ImageSearch and GetPixel pretty much solve everything, and the :afk command means you can go days without having to even eat.

If you see a macroer it shouldn't be too hard to mess with them.

I've been testing one out recently and just made the whole thing image-based (pretty simple in AHK), but even then I see a bunch of holes.

As for loom-bots, for the most part unless they can properly place a loom, close them in construciton signs, get 15 branches, and fill their loom up. Now they're fucked.

[Jackard]

Listen, you guys are making this a lot more complicated than it need be.

Policing in game takes time, effort, and saps the energy out of developers who could be otherwise doing neat things like this recent Symbel update.

It's an alpha, there's really only a few options here
1)They waste time on silly macro protection, it wont work, it's also very boring
2)It goes on as it is, you shut up

[DatOneGuy]

@Athermen - Out of contest, you still don't know what you're talking about.

Thus, please stop responding maybe you'll look back in a week actually read every post in this thread and realize something.

[Jackard]

Atherman suggested in a PM that we have the server throw modified captchas at people every now and then, and while that is one of the less unappealing ideas (And we have, obviously, considered it), we have to come to terms with the fact that the machine will at some point pass any Turing test we can devise.

played a game like this, it's incredibly fucking annoying and whoever suggests it is a terrible person

[DatOneGuy]

Atherman suggested in a PM that we have the server throw modified captchas at people every now and then, and while that is one of the less unappealing ideas (And we have, obviously, considered it), we have to come to terms with the fact that the machine will at some point pass any Turing test we can devise.

played a game like this, it's incredibly fucking annoying and whoever suggests it is a terrible person

Oh please no, if it was anything like DFO... just no...

If you're too strong (not even hacking/botting) you will literally get the captcha EVERY monster you kill, all it takes is a +20 or so weapon for this to happen.

The game pretty much says "Hey, you got strong? Well screw you!"