Bots and the nature of the game

[ven]

A few thoughts to continue the discussion of that other bot thread in another direction.

I'm always asking myself what kind of game this is. Officially, it's a MMORPG focused on survival and player-made content. In practice, the community's habit of using bots and alts makes it something else entirely. One could convincingly argue that it's really a RTS, and already on the way to devolve into a slightly complex MOB arena. It's common to see people with 8 combat alts and villages all over the map, self-sufficient lone hermits with 12 characters, murder alts, griefing alts, road-bashing alts, fake alts - just like a RTS. I dislike that, some people like it, and in theory that should be fine and the equation should balance itself. But the player count keeps dropping, so something must be wrong.

What I think is that we already have enough good MOBAs and RTS games to choose from. Cheaper, with greater tradition and playerbase, larger dev teams, and simply much better. To the point that haven can't reasonably compete with them for a place in the market. But the offer for survival MMORPGs is very limited; I don't think there's even 3 games like that for us to pick from. That's a whole niche that's still to be explored. So even though alts can be useful for the game in some regards, wouldn't it be interesting to turn this into a real no-alt no-bot survival MMORPG? Where people play a single character, rely on each other to survive and develop their chars, where death and village jobs have a meaning, and where the economy isn't screwed by botting and trade is an essential part of life?

[overtyped]

A few thoughts to continue the discussion of that other bot thread in another direction.

I'm always asking myself what kind of game this is. Officially, it's a MMORPG focused on survival and player-made content. In practice, the community's habit of using bots and alts makes it something else entirely. One could convincingly argue that it's really a RTS, and already on the way to devolve into a slightly complex MOB arena. It's common to see people with 8 combat alts and villages all over the map, self-sufficient lone hermits with 12 characters, murder alts, griefing alts, road-bashing alts, fake alts - just like a RTS. I dislike that, some people like it, and in theory that should be fine and the equation should balance itself. But the player count keeps dropping, so something must be wrong.

What I think is that we already have enough good MOBAs and RTS games to choose from. Cheaper, with greater tradition and playerbase, larger dev teams, and simply much better. To the point that haven can't reasonably compete with them for a place in the market. But the offer for survival MMORPGs is very limited; I don't think there's even 3 games like that for us to pick from. That's a whole niche that's still to be explored. So even though alts can be useful for the game in some regards, wouldn't it be interesting to turn this into a real no-alt survival MMORPG? Where people play a single character, rely on each other to survive and develop their chars, where death and village jobs have a meaning, and where the economy isn't screwed by botting and trade is an essential part of life?

The only way to make this a reality is by a rule where using accounts that arent your main permabannable.

[ven]

^^Yes.

[overtyped]

^^Yes.

I dont think its really possible however, since people can just use an ip changer, so really it's destined for failure, because there is nothing to track. You can track who a bots curios are going to, but you can't track someone using multiple accounts with different ips.

[ven]

If accounts only supported one char, if we had to pay for every account, and if alts were officially banned, I think that could work.

[overtyped]

If accounts only supported one char, if we had to pay for every account, and if alts were officially banned, I think that could work.

It doesn't because people would just pay for multiple accounts, and use an ip changer for each account. What are you hoping to link those accounts together with to get them banned?

[ven]

Absolute ban is impossible, what we should aim for is that alts are minimized enough to the point that is doesn't affect the game in a significant way.

If people buy several accounts, that means more money for the devs and the constant threat that, some day, they might be found out and lose their chars. One skype screen of them saying "it was my alt" or one day they forget to proxy could be enough for that to happen. But it's really impossible to control alts 100%.

[Ysh]

What I think is that we already have enough good MOBAs and RTS games to choose from. Cheaper, with greater tradition and playerbase, larger dev teams, and simply much better. To the point that haven can't reasonably compete with them for a place in the market. But the offer for survival MMORPGs is very limited; I don't think there's even 3 games like that for us to pick from.

How many other game to allow bot to pick from? I think maybe you lose argument to use this as point.

[Grog]

If accounts only supported one char, if we had to pay for every account, and if alts were officially banned, I think that could work.

It doesn't because people would just pay for multiple accounts, and use an ip changer for each account. What are you hoping to link those accounts together with to get them banned?

A problem within your own suggestion too, right?

[overtyped]

If accounts only supported one char, if we had to pay for every account, and if alts were officially banned, I think that could work.

It doesn't because people would just pay for multiple accounts, and use an ip changer for each account. What are you hoping to link those accounts together with to get them banned?

A problem within your own suggestion too, right?

unfortunately no, because you can track where the curios the bots make are going to.