We NEED a way to deter midges.

[DPblH]

They are unnecessary and serve no purpose.

Swamp bots.

[SnuggleSnail]

I don't care about midges one way or another, but there's literally nothing worth botting in swamps at any point in the game.
Ruby dragonflies maybe??? Unless you got a supercomputer there's probably something better to allocate your resources to.

[Agame]

Some people choose one character and say "this is the virtual me". And enjoy playing only one character. Sometimes using another alt they do not quite enjoy playing, but maybe they do need a key alt, a woodcutter to collect splinters in its skin which the main will study, whatever. Let's call them the 1 alt people.
Some people like having a character for everything. My gardener, my miner, my wood cutter, my cook, my tailor, my hunter, etc. Well, switching between them a lot, not remembering who had what food and what study table, this gets old really fast. So those people can only bot to play the game. After a while they simply settle NEAR but not IN their botting base and usually start playing 1 main character in luxury, without getting too many wounds on their main. Luxury offered by the bots.

Swamp having more midges is irrelevant, they are everywhere, not just in or near swamps. Midges are only really hurting the people who use the same alt for beehives/beeskeps, ants and walking around at night. In J&Ls opinion, those people deserve to die in pain. The 1 alt people, not the botters, since nobody uses the same bot for beeskeps and for ants. Only the 1 alt people will actually get those allergic reactions.

I wonder why J&L actively try to encourage botting (under the "you should learn to specialize and cooperate" mask) and deter non botters from playing. Does it have anything to do with the fact botters have more accounts, bots are present longer each day on the server than real players, creating the fake impression of a player-base much bigger than the true one? Does it have anything to do with the fact botters need multiple accounts and may feel tempted to subscribe and verify all of them?

Whatever it may be the reason, players beware: Since the last months of W10, (when domesticated bees started to bite harder and harder so who had 10 or more skeps needed alts to collect all of them each day,) who dares to play without botting, does it so against the will of J&L and will be punished more and more severely until either he understands and start botting either leaves this game.

I hope someone hears me and I hope the player base understand this rather sooner than later.

[DPblH]

I wonder why J&L actively try to encourage botting

I'm sure Jorb added them not against bot, but for fun only. But noobs like to cry '%faction_name% bots everything, thats why I cannot catch them!'. But in fact every good faction have simply more organized players. Create more shitty posts about 'botted everything' and we probably will get more fun things like midges.
And at the same time they using client with bots, yeah...

[Agame]

The problem is not that bots create a better quality of life than "primitive playing". Or at least I, alone, have no problem with that or the fact I lost the "No.1 W11" competition since day one. I would have never won it anyway, bots or no bots.

The problem is that J&L modify the game continuously adding new and new ways to kill only the characters that are not bots. They are nerfing the players, not the game, but in such a way that botters should be the least affected. They do anything in their power to make the average life expectancy of a 1-alt character lower and lower slowly, gradually, to not become obvious over night, but they are doing it. While at the same time taking good care to not interfere in bot mechanics in any way and to not put characters that do not do everything themselves in danger. Those "Luxury life 1-alts", if they would face the same dangers a 1-alt faces, would be pissed, and J&L do not want to piss botters.

To clarify: I'm not against botting, it's my RP choice to not use the bots that are already common knowledge and I can't pretend everyone should always make the same choices I do. To each his own.
My problem is this virtual extermination campaign, making the entire game more and more hostile but only to non-botters. I'm a non-botter. I do not want to face extinction of my kind.
I know you will say "Git good, bro!" but the problem is one has to git better and better each patch just to stay alive in this game. Technologies one needs get time-gated for longer and longer one behind another (shorter times if botting, of course, but this is irrelevant). When does it end, when do J&L start nerfing the game, not the players? Is it not dangerous enough for the so little satisfaction it gives, already?

[MagicManICT]

What's botting have to do with the idea "we need a way to deter midges?"

Midges have 0 effect on botting because bots won't stand still for them... at least those that are designed to move around, such as swamp and foraging bots. For labor bots and crap... who cares because they're going to be thrown away, or at least parked and only pulled out as needed.

Midges have an impact when you're actually trying to do work that requires you to stand in place (chopping trees, digging dirt or clay) which may or may not be botted, and it doesn't matter, because it forces you to either run off and drag them two tiles over or something stupid, or ignore the potentially significant damage you receive because you actually play the game without a bunch of alts and take a risk of allergic reactions. Yes, the damage doesn't last very long (overnight), but there's been more than a few people who choose to call it quits for the night because it literally means risking death if you get more than one or two allergic reactions and have any significant wounds you're trying to heal up.

More should be said about play styles and the meta such things as midges can potentially create if there isn't a proper game counter.