Game Development: Death

[MagicManICT]

Maybe this isn't even solvable in a good way with just two people developing the game and we have to accept that it is what it is.

It's solvable by a one-man development team. You're not going to be able to enforce a "no bot" rule with a small team, let alone develop anything that can detect and stop them at the server level, but you can at least ensure people aren't running bots 24/7 to get the real advantages. Simply make sure nobody is AFK while running their scripts or they get banned from even logging into the game for 24/168 (week)/permanently. No, it won't stop people from running bots, but it'll cut down on the autocurios and such that do give real advantage to using bots over manually managing the game. It won't take but a couple of bans before people get the message.*

Thing is, we have a game with open PvP and permadeath. It's well within the players' ability to stop botting, or at least it should be. The problem is that it's just too much of a pain to drop the wall of anyone that does abuse the bots. Add on top of that anything that makes new players safe makes the bots safe. Anything that makes it easier to kill bots in game puts everyone else at greater risk.

*The one game I played with this sort of rule was zero tolerance. If you were running a script to do farming, mining, or such, even if you had to get up for only a minute and stopped the script, it was better to log out than go AFK as the sole developer would inevitably drop by to say "hello" while you were AFK.

[venatorvenator]

Maybe this isn't even solvable in a good way with just two people developing the game and we have to accept that it is what it is.

It's solvable by a one-man development team. You're not going to be able to enforce a "no bot" rule with a small team, let alone develop anything that can detect and stop them at the server level, but you can at least ensure people aren't running bots 24/7 to get the real advantages. Simply make sure nobody is AFK while running their scripts or they get banned from even logging into the game for 24/168 (week)/permanently. No, it won't stop people from running bots, but it'll cut down on the autocurios and such that do give real advantage to using bots over manually managing the game. It won't take but a couple of bans before people get the message.*

Thing is, we have a game with open PvP and permadeath. It's well within the players' ability to stop botting, or at least it should be. The problem is that it's just too much of a pain to drop the wall of anyone that does abuse the bots. Add on top of that anything that makes new players safe makes the bots safe. Anything that makes it easier to kill bots in game puts everyone else at greater risk.

*The one game I played with this sort of rule was zero tolerance. If you were running a script to do farming, mining, or such, even if you had to get up for only a minute and stopped the script, it was better to log out than go AFK as the sole developer would inevitably drop by to say "hello" while you were AFK.

I think that could be an efficient approach. It could also include the possibility of players reporting suspected botting.

However, any attempt to curb botting will lead to player count drop. I don't think any significant changes can be done in the game, even if they're positive, without losing players because of them. I suppose the devs' won't have much freedom unless they focus on getting new players.

[MagicManICT]

However, any attempt to curb botting will lead to player count drop.

What I'm suggesting isn't to stop botting. It's to stop anyone that is seen as running 24/7 bots that "get a game advantage" If you only have two hours of game time a night, you're not going to be able to farm a field that takes 4 hours to harvest and collect to make the massive amounts of cheese your village wants. You'll have to cut it in half or get someone else to help (or run two accounts, but that's up to the individual). With the automated farming, bots that can't be run while the player is offline or AFK gain no real advantage other than in the "stop to drink/eat" or "fill container/stockpile" period of the activity. People won't be able to use autocurio scripts to log in in the middle of the day to fill up studies without risking a ban on the account. Isn't this the only reason for autocurio?

Maybe it will lead to a player drop. Automating game processes with scripting in itself isn't breaking the game. It doesn't provide any benefit to the user other than saving keystrokes and mouse clicks. Running bots when the person wouldn't be (playing/doing something else) or can't be (work, school, sleep) in game is detrimental (though according to jorb and loftar, not against the rules as nothing is done to police the matter). I'm sure there's a few players that will look at this sort of rule change and throw a tantrum like a toddler because their favorite toy got taken away, but I think most everyone that runs scripts will either follow the rules or gamble with them until they get caught once or twice and then straighten up.

[Jalpha]

[burgingham]

Maybe this isn't even solvable in a good way with just two people developing the game and we have to accept that it is what it is.

It's solvable by a one-man development team. You're not going to be able to enforce a "no bot" rule with a small team, let alone develop anything that can detect and stop them at the server level, but you can at least ensure people aren't running bots 24/7 to get the real advantages. Simply make sure nobody is AFK while running their scripts or they get banned from even logging into the game for 24/168 (week)/permanently. No, it won't stop people from running bots, but it'll cut down on the autocurios and such that do give real advantage to using bots over manually managing the game. It won't take but a couple of bans before people get the message.*

Thing is, we have a game with open PvP and permadeath. It's well within the players' ability to stop botting, or at least it should be. The problem is that it's just too much of a pain to drop the wall of anyone that does abuse the bots. Add on top of that anything that makes new players safe makes the bots safe. Anything that makes it easier to kill bots in game puts everyone else at greater risk.

*The one game I played with this sort of rule was zero tolerance. If you were running a script to do farming, mining, or such, even if you had to get up for only a minute and stopped the script, it was better to log out than go AFK as the sole developer would inevitably drop by to say "hello" while you were AFK.

That policy is exactly what we have been asking for though. Still: "Too complicated to enforce yadda yadda" seems to always be the answer.

[Delamore]

Maybe this isn't even solvable in a good way with just two people developing the game and we have to accept that it is what it is.

It's solvable by a one-man development team. You're not going to be able to enforce a "no bot" rule with a small team, let alone develop anything that can detect and stop them at the server level, but you can at least ensure people aren't running bots 24/7 to get the real advantages. Simply make sure nobody is AFK while running their scripts or they get banned from even logging into the game for 24/168 (week)/permanently. No, it won't stop people from running bots, but it'll cut down on the autocurios and such that do give real advantage to using bots over manually managing the game. It won't take but a couple of bans before people get the message.*

Thing is, we have a game with open PvP and permadeath. It's well within the players' ability to stop botting, or at least it should be. The problem is that it's just too much of a pain to drop the wall of anyone that does abuse the bots. Add on top of that anything that makes new players safe makes the bots safe. Anything that makes it easier to kill bots in game puts everyone else at greater risk.

*The one game I played with this sort of rule was zero tolerance. If you were running a script to do farming, mining, or such, even if you had to get up for only a minute and stopped the script, it was better to log out than go AFK as the sole developer would inevitably drop by to say "hello" while you were AFK.

That policy is exactly what we have been asking for though. Still: "Too complicated to enforce yadda yadda" seems to always be the answer.

A problem with this sort of enforcement in a game where you can create and control your own areas so bots could be invisible to the normal population meaning the devs themselves have to check those cases.
Also if AFK botting becomes illegal, how would you punish it?
A farmer character that tends the fields 24/7 at a village and owns nothing itself, do you punish just the character or the village?
What about the same character isolated with its own fields, but transporting the result to a village?
Is the new generation running bots on light weight characters and moving the product of the work elsewhere?

[venatorvenator]

A farmer character that tends the fields 24/7 at a village and owns nothing itself, do you punish just the character or the village?
What about the same character isolated with its own fields, but transporting the result to a village?

Targetting the account and all IPs related to it. Proxies are possible but no one is expecting to completely eliminate botting. As for unseen bots, devs just have to regularly check large villages and their transportation routes. But with an attitude like "won't do it, too much effort", none of this conversation will lead anywhere.

[Delamore]

A farmer character that tends the fields 24/7 at a village and owns nothing itself, do you punish just the character or the village?
What about the same character isolated with its own fields, but transporting the result to a village?

Targetting the account and all IPs related to it. Proxies are possible but no one is expecting to completely eliminate botting. As for unseen bots, devs just have to regularly check large villages and their transportation routes. But with an attitude like "won't do it, too much effort", none of this conversation will lead anywhere.

I forgot to say, that of course the alt character is run in a virtual machine through a proxy.
The issue with a botting enforcement system isn't the effort to build it, it's the constant effort to maintain it which must either be done by the devs themselves or the devs must create a moderation team for bots which I doubt many players want.

[venatorvenator]

Sure, but as in real life, instead of punishing the bot immediately upon discovery, the devs could flag it and track its actions, where it goes, who is associated with it and who is profiting from it. I'm an ignorant in programming but it doesn't seem like a very demanding thing to do. Still, at the very least what they could do is make botting bannable. The currently policy is that "bots are impossible to solve completely so we don't want to make them against the rules".

[Turtlesir]

did anyone find the new lore event yet?