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CCP Fallout	Posted - 2010.12.13 15:50:00 - [1] In his new dev blog, GM Grimmi discusses the ongoing efforts of Unholy Rage and the continued work towards removing macroers from the game and how we continue to work against real money transfers (RMT). Fallout Associate Community Manager CCP Hf, EVE Online Contact us

iP0D	Posted - 2010.12.13 15:54:00 - [2] Edited by: iP0D on 13/12/2010 15:58:03 Do you realise how close the relationship is between patterns of game design and factors that give way to botting over the past few years? The impact of removal of 30 and 90 day GTC codes? The impact of pushing PLEX purchases directly as the most visible method directly from CCP? The competition faced in many niches against the in game impact of organised RMT? How RMT has changed over the years, largely because of game design and GTC/PLEX changes? How organised RMT simply sidesteps the EULA? Just out of curiosity.
Evelgrivion Ignatium.	Posted - 2010.12.13 15:55:00 - [3] Edited by: Evelgrivion on 13/12/2010 15:56:25 The cancer is in item and ship sales - especially of super capitals, rather than in ISK trade. When it's $700 for a supercarrier and a titan, who on earth is going to pay $2,916 for PLEXs for the ISK you'd need to buy them? This devblog shows what some of us have been saying all along about the post Unholy Rage RMT fight; you guys are looking in all the wrong places.
Weltact INVICTUS.	Posted - 2010.12.13 16:03:00 - [4] If you still think it is about belts getting sucked dry by botters for rmt, you've got more problems than you think. Things have changed dramatically. That symptom is an extension of resource acquisition patterns as in game complexity, time consumption and volume variables of organisations have grown dramatically. Ever wondered where the insane influx of ISK that led to the statements at the CSM visits of "the EVE economy is badly managed" and "the EVE economy contains too much ISK" comes from? Go look at the drone regions, 0.0 NPC space ratting and missioning. Ever wondered why it is that so many new subscribers that come in from other MMO's come in with an acceptance of botting, and how this is reinforced by patterns of game design? Things have changed. Hard. And looking at it from the outside is no longer a luxury you can afford.
Batolemaeus Caldari Money Liberation Services Corp	Posted - 2010.12.13 16:04:00 - [5] Came expecting news on a crackdown on drone region macro alliances, super capital rmt rings, game design changes, public humiliation of the PI team. Left disappointed. You don't even have graphs, let alone good news.
Jason Edwards Internet Tough Guy Spreadsheets Online	Posted - 2010.12.13 16:06:00 - [6] Is it true or untrue that CCP is the largest RMTgroup making money? ------------------------ To make a megathron from scratch, you must first invent the eve universe.
Mashie Saldana Minmatar Veto Corp	Posted - 2010.12.13 16:09:00 - [7] Have you considered implementing something like Punkbuster to stop python injections used by more and more bots?
iP0D	Posted - 2010.12.13 16:12:00 - [8] Originally by: Mashie Saldana Have you considered implementing something like Punkbuster to stop python injections used by more and more bots? That's a bit of an arms race which is unlikely for them to really maintain. It requires a hell of a lot of effort into behing ahead of the curves, and requires anyway to get down and dirty in dealing with the origins of such crap like python injection. Think of it, they still seem to think that PLEX is an instrument in fighting RMT without looking at what keeps PLEX the default instrument and more expensive than RMT supply (ISK and ITEMS) and that higher PLEX ISK prices would be good for the economy since that has too much ISK .... Things have changed, a lot.
Garr Anders Minmatar The Red Circle Inc. Red Shift Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.13 16:15:00 - [9] Quote: Hundreds of accounts are banned every week for macro use and other RMT related activities Would it be possible to see a graph with (banned accounts) over (time)? ----- Garr Anders "The only winning move is not to play" is about the best damn advice anyone can get regarding arguing over the internet. - referring to the Movie WarGames 1983
protohuman	Posted - 2010.12.13 16:16:00 - [10] Originally by: Batolemaeus You don't even have graphs, let alone good news. Graphs, news ? A blog without numbers !
Max Kolonko Caldari Worm Nation Ash Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:19:00 - [11] You really forgot one thing here CCP - in all this "Buy PLEX instead of RMT" blog-kind-of-thing You forgot that RMT is, like whole EVE, working on supply and demand - if PLEX costs more than RMT money there will still be tons of people that will buy it - the main concern is not "getting people to start buying plexes instead of RMT", its making harder for sellers to acquire tons of money via botting, and in effect rising price of RMT money, and risk of running RMT operation. Work toward fighting botting and other aplications that interacts with EVE client (like PI clickers, Autopilot warp to 0km things and such). On a side note - how can You expect from players to obey EULA, when You intentionally ignore biggest EULA breaks - just so you get little more moonies. Originally by: Mynxee Agree with IPOD. It appears that all your efforts are conducted from the outside looking in. Might help to play your own game, CCP; infiltrate the major alliances and gather evidence firsthand about the RMT'ing of supercaps. If players can do it (and they have), so can you. And then you can act accordingly instead of doing nothing because "hearsay", "the logs show nothing", and "but we can't do anything about stuff that happens on third party sites". THAT is the kind of proactive behavior I want to hear that you're engaging in to stomp RMT into the ground. I'm really glad I see response like that from CSM member - go team CSM PS. no graph in blog?? What the hell? Max Kolonko
Razin The xDEATHx Squadron Legion of xXDEATHXx	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:22:00 - [12] Originally by: Evelgrivion Originally by: Razin Edited by: Razin on 13/12/2010 17:13:35 Man up and provide some proof or STFU. How about the 12 billion ISK a week per system, an amount impossible to meet without botting, that you were charging a few months back, for starters? I didn't think you had any. I do think that the most vocal opponents of delayed local are botters and RMTers. ...
Evelgrivion Ignatium.	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:25:00 - [13] Originally by: Razin Originally by: Evelgrivion Originally by: Razin Edited by: Razin on 13/12/2010 17:13:35 Man up and provide some proof or STFU. How about the 12 billion ISK a week per system, an amount impossible to meet without botting, that you were charging a few months back, for starters? I didn't think you had any. I do think that the most vocal opponents of delayed local are botters and RMTers. Except its most vocal proponents are the ones that stand the most gain from it. No matter how the client interacts with local itself, there is no getting around the fact that a client has to be updated for a new person in the solar system. Bots read directly from the client's memory. Adding such a delay only makes it more difficult for legitimate users to fight back against the RMT menace.
KOPOHA MAPCA	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:26:00 - [14] No solution of problem, no statistics. Only words. Absolutely useless devblog. You shurely read this articles, CCP - http://www.evenews24.com/2010/12/08/rmt-uncovered-the-interview/ - you know how large is problem. I don't need your words "we will win someday", I need fair play now! Please help us all to play fair, CCP!

Chribba Otherworld Enterprises Otherworld Empire	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:29:00 - [15] Glad to see things going on and hope to see a similar blog like the first Unholy Rage. Keep up the good work. /c Secure 3rd party service \| my in-game channel 'Holy Veldspar'

Razin The xDEATHx Squadron Legion of xXDEATHXx	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:32:00 - [16] Originally by: Evelgrivion Originally by: Razin Originally by: Evelgrivion Originally by: Razin Edited by: Razin on 13/12/2010 17:13:35 Man up and provide some proof or STFU. How about the 12 billion ISK a week per system, an amount impossible to meet without botting, that you were charging a few months back, for starters? I didn't think you had any. I do think that the most vocal opponents of delayed local are botters and RMTers. Except its most vocal proponents are the ones that stand the most gain from it. No matter how the client interacts with local itself, there is no getting around the fact that a client has to be updated for a new person in the solar system. Bots read directly from the client's memory. Adding such a delay only makes it more difficult for legitimate users to fight back against the RMT menace. This would obviously have to be fixed, as was MonkeySphere's wallhack. Nice try though. ...
Evelgrivion Ignatium.	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:35:00 - [17] Edited by: Evelgrivion on 13/12/2010 17:35:54 Originally by: Razin This would obviously have to be fixed, as was MonkeySphere's wallhack. Nice try though. If by fix you mean "re-design half of the client/server architecture in order to implement it" then yes, you're right. I'm not against a proper fix, but I know what kind of development effort it requires. There are much higher priority fixes than making an unexploitable local delay, with much smaller development costs and much better returns therein.
Razin The xDEATHx Squadron Legion of xXDEATHXx	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:39:00 - [18] Originally by: Evelgrivion Edited by: Evelgrivion on 13/12/2010 17:35:54 Originally by: Razin This would obviously have to be fixed, as was MonkeySphere's wallhack. Nice try though. If by fix you mean "re-design half of the client/server architecture in order to implement it" then yes, you're right. I'm not against a proper fix, but I know what kind of development effort it requires. There are much higher priority fixes than making an unexploitable local delay, with much smaller development costs and much better returns therein. That's just your opinion. And as we know, everyone's got one. As for it's usefulness, this thread has shown your track record to be less than stellar. ...
Gneissgrinder	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:39:00 - [19] Edited by: Gneissgrinder on 13/12/2010 17:40:08 Edited by: Gneissgrinder on 13/12/2010 17:39:37 hmmmm is this an informal reply to the following 3 part article on www.evenews24.com ??? hmmmmmm click here for link
Ren Nekk Caldari Science and Trade Institute	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:40:00 - [20] Pretty lame post tbh. Seems like it was written in 15 minutes. More importantly, it contains just about zero substantial content. "Way to go guys! Keep reporting those ISK spammers! The fight continues! Spread the word about PLEX! Don't let botting be YOUR fault! Hurrah!"
EdwardNardella Capital Construction Research	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:40:00 - [21] Originally by: Firartix So while i'm perfectly okay with banning anything like bots, RMT, or automated stuff, why ban macroers ? I don't really get it... Doesn't macro = bot? The only difference I see is that bot implies that the tool is advanced. CCRES is recruiting pilots who want to live in WSpace/Wormholes. Fill out an application here!
Grez Neo Spartans Laconian Syndicate	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:42:00 - [22] Why do GM's think that botters only bot for RMT? I'd imagine a lot of botters are simply those who don't want to busy ISK via PLEX or other means, but earn it for free by not being at their computer. Constantly acting as if all botters are part of the RMT scene will get you nowhere. ---
4Chan TubeChild Test Alliance Please Ignore	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:47:00 - [23] This is such a stupid ass blog. I can't even believe I still play this game.
Max Kolonko Caldari Worm Nation Ash Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:51:00 - [24] Originally by: Razin Originally by: Evelgrivion Originally by: Razin Edited by: Razin on 13/12/2010 17:13:35 Man up and provide some proof or STFU. How about the 12 billion ISK a week per system, an amount impossible to meet without botting, that you were charging a few months back, for starters? I didn't think you had any. I do think that the most vocal opponents of delayed local are botters and RMTers. Actually, I dont like idea of delayed local. And i'm not botting neither. It is simply something that is unique to W-space, and doing something like that in K-space is breaking the uniqueness of W-space. Max Kolonko
Missm Uppet Caldari	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:55:00 - [25] Originally by: KOPOHA MAPCA No solution of problem, no statistics. Only words. Absolutely useless devblog. You shurely read this articles, CCP - http://www.evenews24.com/2010/12/08/rmt-uncovered-the-interview/ - you know how large is problem. I don't need your words "we will win someday", I need fair play now! Please help us all to play fair, CCP! Agreed with this and other posts here that are similar. Very dissappointing devblog with hollow evidence of any substantial effort. Things have gotten out of hand again. When you tell us that you ban over 100 macro accounts a week and expect us to be happy with that data, it's almost insulting. With a blanket number like this we are forced to conclude that 99% of those are trial account spammers that you have continued to allow into the game because of your trial account policy. Banning them is of course needed as long as you keep your trial account policy as is, but they have little to do with the real macro problem. The perception from must of us here is that we're back to where we were a year and a half ago or worse. Indicating that little has been done related to updating your methods of enforcing fairplay. Macroing and RMT should take a very high priority - player perception of fairness is essential to the success of any MMO, but especially one that is player-driven more than any other.
Razin The xDEATHx Squadron Legion of xXDEATHXx	Posted - 2010.12.13 17:57:00 - [26] Originally by: Max Kolonko Actually, I dont like idea of delayed local. And i'm not botting neither. It is simply something that is unique to W-space, and doing something like that in K-space is breaking the uniqueness of W-space. I think w-space uniqueness is assured by wormhole only access and sleepers. Instant local provides magically effortless intel, limits play strategies, and allows complete safety to bots. ...
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:00:00 - [27] Edited by: Cyaxares II on 13/12/2010 18:00:52 had to laugh in a slightly hysterical fashion when I thought about what effect this "devblog" will have on the various GD threads. CCP, you could have just taken the easy route and invented some impressive number "<x>-thousand bots got banned during the last 12 months, <y> big RMT organizations were dissolved" and most people would have been happy. Instead you decide to go the hard way and pour some additional oil into the fire - #1 forum troll, CCP.
iP0D	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:08:00 - [28] Originally by: Razin Originally by: Max Kolonko Actually, I dont like idea of delayed local. And i'm not botting neither. It is simply something that is unique to W-space, and doing something like that in K-space is breaking the uniqueness of W-space. I think w-space uniqueness is assured by wormhole only access and sleepers. Instant local provides magically effortless intel, limits play strategies, and allows complete safety to bots. Yes, w-space is awesome for corporations that "automate" matters (actively and in the background), sharing software and forums and all these things. But let's be honest, w-space has definite attraction, but it is macro heaven for resources. Maybe if the population density were higher, but it is not designed to support that, and yeah well, it is heading the same way as Faction Warfare.
Aivars Terek	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:09:00 - [29] Originally by: Max Kolonko ...if PLEX costs more than RMT money there will still be tons of people that will buy it - the main concern is not "getting people to start buying plexes instead of RMT", its making harder for sellers to acquire tons of money via botting, and in effect rising price of RMT money, and risk of running RMT operation... true if GMT prices dropped, then the RMT would do so also drop prices or leave game... somehow i think it'd just mess up the market pricing to drop GMT, though i think it's a good idea
El Mauru Amarr Interwebs Cooter Explosion Important Internet Spaceship League	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:22:00 - [30] I imagine things like the incursions have got the potential to interrupt botting to a certain degree. BTW. There was a very informative video interview conducted about RMT btw and it mentioned Eve-Online. I can't link it because links to RMT sites are mentioned, should be up on youtube though - it was conducted by shattered crystal with a known reseller of farmed/botted isk. Most of the discussion was about WoW, but EVE got mentioned. Bottomline was: - EVE has a stable currency as opposed to WoW (only approx. 30% inflation as opposed to Wow, where value of currency fluctuates massively), potentially making it more attractive for farmers. - 80% of all RMT is still Wow, EVE is an absolute niche-market. - Botted ISK makes a comparably low faction of "ISK INFLUX" for botters. Most comes from stolen accounts. - Hackers aquire account details by hacking fan-sites/forums (i.e.: use different passwords for EVE and forums). - Macro botting on a larger scale (i.e. for isk-resellers) is only marginally worth it in Eve because they have to undercut PLEX-prices, deal with the fact that CCP actually penalizes players (as opposed to other MMORPGs) if caught and the fact that bots still loose ships to stuff + the required logistics train, driving prices up. - Banning the actual botters deals only marginal damage while banning holding alts would be a real game-breaker to ISK-resellers (i.e.: the guys handling transactions between the farmers and the end-customer). - The last Ban-wave nearly killed the RMT market for Eve, pushing prices for ISK almost to Plex price. - Stolen characters are frequently used as spam alts for RMT sites after having been cleaned out. - Most RMTers rely on announcements/temper in the community on when to go low-profile as to protect their holding characters. It seems as if the best course of action and the highest chance of success for CCP would be to strike when the whole botting discussion has calmed down again- and to investigate where the transactions between the individual botters and the holding alts take place (for example, freighter jumps from known macro-systems - loosing a JF alt must hurt) or the contract system.
Ben Derindar Dirty Deeds Corp.	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:24:00 - [31] A morale blog? I thought they died with ASCN. I am disappoint.
TeaDaze	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:30:00 - [32] As others have said, the CSM will be discussing this issue with CCP at the summit in a couple of days. Also please note that not all botting is RMT and not all RMT is botting. There is a connection in some cases, but just banning people for RMT doesn't stop other people botting for isk to fund other things in game. Coming up with ways to reliably detect botting behaviour in addition to the work against all forms of RMT is the only sensible course of action. Also CCP should look at lowering PLEX prices instead of attempting to find new ways to get players to spend them (which would put pressure on supply and drive up prices further, leaving more profit margin for RMT). TeaDaze.net Blog \| CSM Database
Myz Toyou APOCALYPSE LEGION	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:31:00 - [33] This blog is weaksauce CCP
Latrodanes Independent Combat Support Services	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:34:00 - [34] This article was not a Devblog. It was a puff piece. Where's the beef? Heck, I was absolutely stunned by the Eve News 24 reporting and based on this article, it appears CCP apparently remains clueless. Maybe the CSM can get them to understand RMT trading on such a vast scale undermines confidence in the entire game economy. <fingers crossed> ---------- http://latrosbunker.blogspot.com
Max Kolonko Caldari Worm Nation Ash Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:36:00 - [35] Originally by: Razin Originally by: Max Kolonko Actually, I dont like idea of delayed local. And i'm not botting neither. It is simply something that is unique to W-space, and doing something like that in K-space is breaking the uniqueness of W-space. I think w-space uniqueness is assured by wormhole only access and sleepers. Instant local provides magically effortless intel, limits play strategies, and allows complete safety to bots. You are right in that, but still, my opinion stands, that delayed local is part off W-space "all alone in a void" theme. And i have to agree with IPod Originally by: iP0D Originally by: Razin Originally by: Max Kolonko Actually, I dont like idea of delayed local. And i'm not botting neither. It is simply something that is unique to W-space, and doing something like that in K-space is breaking the uniqueness of W-space. I think w-space uniqueness is assured by wormhole only access and sleepers. Instant local provides magically effortless intel, limits play strategies, and allows complete safety to bots. Yes, w-space is awesome for corporations that "automate" matters (actively and in the background), sharing software and forums and all these things. But let's be honest, w-space has definite attraction, but it is macro heaven for resources. Maybe if the population density were higher, but it is not designed to support that, and yeah well, it is heading the same way as Faction Warfare. W-space provide great opportunities for botters - especially regarding PI. But still i like the concept of W-space, im living in W-space, and would like for CCP to fight problem rather than looking for work-arounds like delaying local in 0.0, the botters will just move to auto courier missions and mission running in empire or low sec. Max Kolonko
Netacq	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:40:00 - [36] Originally by: CCP Fallout In his new dev blog, GM Grimmi discusses the ongoing efforts of Unholy Rage and the continued work towards removing macroers from the game and how we continue to work against real money transfers (RMT). I'm missing the DevBlog - I found a "management presentation" which says nothing... Originally by: Mashie Saldana Have you considered implementing something like Punkbuster to stop python injections used by more and more bots? ... Do something here!
mkmin	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:46:00 - [37] When I read an informational article, I always try to get a picture of what I read in my head. I make a list of key points. This blog had only one major key point and it was only implied. The message: "When you bot for RMT, do it to buy PLEX." In the long discussion between players and CCP about bots, that is the message CCP has always put out there. This is a message as game breaking as massive lag.
Lykouleon Trust Doesn't Rust	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:48:00 - [38] Edited by: Lykouleon on 13/12/2010 18:49:10 This was... disappointing. No substantive content, *no graphs... Really, give us some numbers. Give us a graph of "this is how many people we've banned hammered since 2008" or "Price of PLEX in ISK in relation to price of PLEX in USD visible on RMT sites since Unholy Rage began." As well, GM Grimmi has completely missed the major complaint of the community at the moment. The problem isn't RMT and the people using it, its botters who then take their ISK and plug it into their alliance and their supercap fleets. I could honestly care less about RMT since I don't take any part in it. But I do enjoy PVP and have seen what the proliferation of supercaps recently has done to the dynamic of 0.0 and lowsec warfare. The ability to drop +25 supercaps onto a field and *-train anything under the size of a massive counter-blob is terribad. Of course, their are a good percentage of players that've dug into the game and invested a good deal of time and effort into getting their magnificent e-peens of and destruction, but with over 400 titans currently operating and the fact that SC losses have turned from universe-shattering events into farts in the breeze means something is not going according to plan Also, please CCP, don't let GMs do blogs on stuff like this...make it at least something from the Senior GMs or a developer currently working on solutions...we need substance; we aren't the WoW community Quote:** ImRedYoureDead > carebearing is when you make the other person's ship explode, right? ImRedYoureDead > I think they're officers or something ImRedYoureDead > they got names, they got to die
Solomunio Kzenig Amarr Amarrian Veterans Guild	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:48:00 - [39] Erh? that was a Dev Blog?
Firesh Etoilles Mortant Ltd. Solyaris Chtonium	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:54:00 - [40] Unholy Rage, my goodness - this sounds more like "Unholy Whimper"...
Enarem Kador	Posted - 2010.12.13 18:58:00 - [41] What a way to throw a bone... CCP is treating their subscribers like dogs. What is new?
MechaMouse	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:00:00 - [42] Glad to see CCP reads the news sites for EVE. Keep up the good...adequate for now... work.
Salpad Caldari Carebears with Attitude	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:02:00 - [43] Originally by: Smoke Adian In light of the recent EVE News articles, this dev blog is pretty meh. Team "We're Mildly Annoyed" is basically as effective as Pakistan against the Taliban. A very apt analogy, given that many of the Pakistanis, including som in the intelligence services and other government branches, and probably also the military, sympathize with the Taleban. -- Salpad
Aineko Macx	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:03:00 - [44] Your lack of rage is disturbing. ________________________ CCP: Where fixing bugs is a luxury, not an obligation.
CapnKellTainer	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:04:00 - [45] The blog is weak. On the other hand, CCP needed to get something out there to prove that they are, in fact, listening. They probably don't know what to do about it, to be honest. The problem as I see it is as follows: 1) EVE has a relatively small subscriber base, providing CCP with a relatively restricted cash flow. 2) Resources, as with all things in this world of ours, are finite. 3) PLEX can only be used for subscriptions and Fanfest tickets; sadly, Fanfest is in Iceland and it's cold and expensive with relatively limited facilities, so not that many people use PLEX to go to Fanfest. 4) The overall market for subscriptions is relatively limited. 5) Keeping all these things in mind, the supply of PLEX is relatively low (though increasing lately), but the demand for ISK is very high. There are a few general ideas for how to ameliorate the problem with relatively little pain. It will never go away as long as this game remains even slightly healthy, but you can make it better. 1) Lower GTC prices, increasing the competitiveness of PLEX with purchased ISK. 2) Run a statistical analysis at downtime (or after; whenever) to identify characters that are exceeding reasonable human limitations on gameplay. If Dotlan can get halfway there, I'm confident you have the logs to get the rest of the way there. 3) Offer for a fee a Blizzard-style authenticator. People with the billions of ISK that render them juicy targets for hacks would probably pay a $5-$10 premium to safeguard their assets and ability to play. 4) Look into the feasibility of implementing a Punkbuster solution to prevent external applications from reading and modifying game code. Each of these, however, has an opportunity cost. 1) would definitely make it less profitable to enter the RMT trade, but it would also drive PLEX prices down, as more people would choose to purchase GTCs and expand a supply that according to the QEN is already well above where it should be. I'll grant that then more people would choose to fund their accounts that way, eventually driving prices back up and expanding the overall subscriber pool. However, there's still an immediate loss of $5 on every transaction. 2) requires that you have Dr. Eyjo or a cheap American college grad with statistics experience expend labor on a task - meaning that you'll have to pay whoever you get to do it. 3) requires some initial capital, although I imagine if they go with the $10 price point it will become a minor revenue stream. 4) requires licensing costs, or requires the expenditure of man-hours to do the programming in-house. The question is, are any of the proposed solutions worth it? With a subscriber base that doesn't even crack a million, and given that there are already a lot of expenses associated with the game, it's hard to justify additional expenditures, especially as CCP is allocating resources toward the Vampire: the Masquerade MMO (Insert joke about sparkly Twilight vampires and/or teenaged girls here). The only way to get these changes to occur is to prove to CCP that they can make more money, or lose less money, by implementing them. That requires either statistical evidence of increased income, evidence that subscriber numbers will drop without the implementation of these or other measures, or both. TL;DR: So, I say, get to work, folks. Draw up those charts. Crunch those numbers. Talk to your CSMs. Talk to each other. Talk to CCP. If you want something done, you need to go beyond the usual grumbling and make this a real conversation.
Salpad Caldari Carebears with Attitude	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:06:00 - [46] Originally by: Evelgrivion Bots read directly from the client's memory. Adding such a delay only makes it more difficult for legitimate users to fight back against the RMT menace. If so, the obvious solution is for the server to generate fictitious player character at random, entering various systems in 0.0 (and low-sec too, if necessary). That'd make the bots paranoid! -- Salpad
Jay Wareth	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:21:00 - [47] Originally by: Salpad Originally by: Smoke Adian In light of the recent EVE News articles, this dev blog is pretty meh. Team "We're Mildly Annoyed" is basically as effective as Pakistan against the Taliban. A very apt analogy, given that many of the Pakistanis, including som in the intelligence services and other government branches, and probably also the military, sympathize with the Taleban. Indeed. I want to believe that CCP doesn't allow RMT to pad their balance sheets, but "devblogs" like this one aren't helping.
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:37:00 - [48] I don't care about RMT. There I said it. RMT impacts CCPs profits and its their problem. The incessant macro ratting however subjects every single honest player to a situation where they are worth LESS if they do nothing in game for 5 minutes. Every minute you don't earn, you are worth less. Remember that bounties are NEW isk, mined ore/ice isn't. Its a bit like printing money - people in UK/US ought to get that. As the blog is basically meaningless PR nonsense I think we'll need to see if we can get enough support to remove 0.0 bounties. It'll need a little tweaking but if we can come up with something that reduces the NEW isk entering the game from premeditated cheating then perhaps thats the only way to go. In response to the blog - way to go, that'll really discourage people
Zanes Shoubje	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:38:00 - [49] So I suppose Im the only one that thinks there might be some difficulty in actually proving someone is using a bot or is RMT-ing. I wonder what kind of **** storm would start up if CCP would start banning people they just suspect of wrongdoing. Im not saying enough, not enough or more than enough is being done about this problem. Just that it might not be as simple as throwing the ban hammer at anyone that is reported.
Assaj Ventress	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:40:00 - [50] Edited by: Assaj Ventress on 13/12/2010 19:42:34 Zero information in dev blog, but the message is clear - if you can't grind like botters 23/7, buy plexes only from us =) Originally by: Othran I don't care about RMT. There I said it. RMT impacts CCPs profits and its their problem. The incessant macro ratting however subjects every single honest player to a situation where they are worth LESS if they do nothing in game for 5 minutes. ... In response to the blog - way to go, that'll really discourage people so true -----------------
Simon TraderOne	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:48:00 - [51] The issue here is probably manpower... You could hire a team of 20+ people, and those people sole job would be to go talk to players playing more than 10 hours a day doing the same thing, and asking them human answerable questions.
Casiella Truza Ghost Festival Naraka.	Posted - 2010.12.13 19:50:00 - [52] Not what I wanted to hear. "Yeah, guys, if you'd just stop buying ISK, this wouldn't be a problem!" We know. We're the honest ones. (At least in the EVE sense. ) You don't have to convince US. But we're not convinced you get it. First, macros present a real problem. It's a source, and any of us who work IRL with fraud and intrusion detection can come up with half a dozen ways to start detecting the cheaters. I've no doubt that SMEs looking at the security of the client could do so in their domain as well. Second, please understand that macros and RMT, while related, are not identical. Somebody running a macro / bot is cheating and that makes the rest of us feel like our gameplay is wasted. I have every confidence that the CSM will continue to press this issue with CCP. --
SargeantNekkid DDS	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:07:00 - [53] Dear CCP, There's a REALLY EASY way to make sure, without a doubt, that EVERYONE knows that RMT will get you banned. On the log-in screen, in big, red, capital letters, leave burned in forevermore the following text: "BUYING ISK OR ITEMS FROM PEOPLE ONLINE WILL GET YOU BANNED. THE ONLY WAY TO LEGITIMATELY GET ISK FOR MONEY IS WITH A PLEX" <---and then linky the word PLEX to a PLEX article. Put it right next to the password field. Hell, put it in between the username and password fields just to make sure. Regards, The EVE community. TL:DR - CCP is either a bunch of lazy couchpotatoes with no sense of imagination or is lying.
Archestratidas	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:09:00 - [54] >>>ISK is sold because people buy it. lol, true, but why do people buy it? Because making ISK in-game is miserable and unfun and the typical person doesn't want to waste their free time on activities that just aren't fun. Blame your game design, not the "players" for buying it, kthx.
Terry Teo	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:22:00 - [55] Edited by: Terry Teo on 13/12/2010 20:23:29 That was anticlimactic. The Dev Blog I wanted would have said: 1 - If you're in any doubt please be aware that bots are forbidden by the EULA. 2 - Very sorry if you're using them, we're going to do everything we can to the client to stop bots from automating its functions.
Geanos Phoenix Tribe	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:30:00 - [56] This is probably the lamest devblog concerning a serious problem ever. For a game you advertise as being harsh and cold, where anybody can backstab or cheat other people, where whole alliances can be put down by a single man, you expect people to be honest and buy GTC's for ISK? I doubt there are so many role players out there . It's easier to say "better in my pocket than in CCP's account" you know.
Malcanis Caldari Vanishing Point. The Initiative.	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:31:00 - [57] Fail blog is fail. "We're totally doing stuff even though the game is infested with macros everywhere you look, plus it's all your fault for buying ISK anyway. To prove it to you, here are no facts whatsoever" D minus MUST TRY HARDER Malcanis' Law: Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of "new players", that change is always to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players.
Malcanis Caldari Vanishing Point. The Initiative.	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:35:00 - [58] Originally by: Archestratidas Edited by: Archestratidas on 13/12/2010 20:21:49 >>>ISK is sold because people buy it. lol, true, but why do people buy it? Because making ISK in-game is miserable and unfun and the typical person doesn't want to waste their free time on activities that just aren't fun. Blame your game design, not the "players" for buying it, kthx. THIS. MAKE ISK MAKING FUN, NOT A PUNISHMENT. Malcanis' Law: Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of "new players", that change is always to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players.
ArchenTheGreat Caldari Nomads of Zen	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:37:00 - [59] You call it a blog? Learn to write from your programmers! I always said PLEX is encouragement for cheating. If you want ISK go and play for it. What CCP should do: - remove PLEX - add punkbuster style protections (it will never be bulletproof but it will help) - make ISK-generating activities require brain - allow players to fight bots (remove NPC corps, remove local in 0.0) The last two are the most effective solutions.
Virtuozzo Against ALL Authorities	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:37:00 - [60] Zero feedback. Shame Well, reception of this devblog is pretty universal in its reception everywhere it seems. That is significant. @GM Grimmi. Don't misunderstand me, I fully appreciate the effort that went into the devblog, and the aim towards communications. But this, is, well, just a complete miss. Not by intention, obviously, but for method and aim and result. Look, Unholy Rage was not just awesome for action, but it had a tangible result. Since that time, things have changed. You don't have the luxury of staying on the outside looking in, I'm sorry. Doing that results into a perception of mere lip service. In spite of shared goals. EVE always evolves. Think of the old challenge of "adapt or ...". That is what customers do (if they are smart, and if they are lazy, and if they because of life do not have the time that game design imposes as demand), that s what EVE as a whole does. And unfortunately this is also what RMT does. I have no doubt that since Unholy Rage there has been a continued war against RMT, especially because of the initial battles following Unholy Rage with the account hackings and spamming. But while the volume of work in dealing with what RMT used to be has undoubtedly not decreased ... RMT itself has changed. You know this. You have had petitions on this, and not just the typical "reports". It has been published in community sites. It has been and will undoubtedly once again be in the mainstream media. It's in the blogosphere, on Facebook and on Twitter. What was once the default RMT, still exists but is merely symptomatic while the disease itself has changed and moved on. There is a requirement for a fundamental shift in managing perspectives for methodology. It will be worth listening to the CSM this upcoming visit. Not just for feedback "general", or milking their brains, but also for hands on solutions in methodology and expectation management offered. Same goes for investing in tools and instruments. It does not have to be a victim of resource allocation challenges. Remember, it is a battle, but one step at a time. Good luck. But please, no more of this "lolmarketing" Players across the board want to make stuff work, just as CCP does. As for the botting. There is no way to address that without combining divisions and departments and objectives and methods. This is not just metrics. Fundamental parts of it reside in game design. Both for the infamous mmorpg subscriber addiction curve (which has multiple cycles and points of entry) as well as for mechanics, features and all of that. These last three years, have had plenty issues in these regards. It is not a singular challenge, this is multi disciplinary. So, once again, good luck. ≡v≡ once was about internet spaceships. Then those became serious business. Now all that's left, serious business, and spaceships are docked for two years till after the Dust of Incarna.
Datcorinna Erunde	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:47:00 - [61] We really should help CCP in this matter, the seem so help- and clueless. Probably this is the very reason for this semi- devblog: they want advice from us how to find bots. So I want to try my best to explain it step by step for the interested guys on CCP. Step Zero Point Five Ask your customers how to handle the problem by throwing them a semi-quality devblog at their heads (already done). Step One Click on this link to dotlan and there you click on any of the "Region maps". Preferably on one that you guess it might be a 0.0 one (but others will do the trick too), let's say click on something like e.g."Malpais". Step Two You see a map of the chosen region now. On the upper right corner of the map you will notice two dropdown menus, click on the left one and select "NPC kills (24h)". This will change the map info layer to showing you the amount of killed NPC's during the last 24 hours. For your convenience the great Wollari even colored the shown systems accordingly to the amount of the occured kills. He colored it from white (like "almost nothing") via green, yellow, orange up to a fine, perfect visible shiny red (like "unusually high occurance of NPC kills in this very system OMG OMG!!!!!!11111" or, more fitting "look here CCP, here are the bots!"). Step Three Click on the red system wich you found to have the highest or second highest number of NPC kills inside the region, e.g. click on (by the time of me writing this) the system "RIU-GC" with an astonishing amount of 10282 kills in 24 hours (while every other system with an amount of 5000 and above kills would do fine too for our purposes). Step Four Grab your GM- tools and find out what are the names of the pilots, who killed these 10k rats in 24 hours. Wait until one of them is logged in for say one hour, then start to monitor him for some time without entering his system and do your usual stuff you always do with suspects to find them out and continue with Step Five. (If you don't know what to do with suspects to find them out botting or not, restart with Step Zero Point One and ask your always willing-to-help customers how to handle this by writing a new devblog about your small step accomplishments and the big problems in recognising usual bot behaviour.) Step Five Ban the crap out of them bot acounts and repeat from Step One.
Sturmwolke	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:49:00 - [62] Pathetic blog. You might as well not post it tbh.
Caiden Baxter	Posted - 2010.12.13 20:58:00 - [63] Holy Muppet what a fail blog. Worst blog in a long time, and they have been generaly good so far.
Abdiel Kavash Caldari Paladin Order Fidelas Constans	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:00:00 - [64] Quote: Also, use of the "Report ISK spammer" feature has been very helpful in the battle against RMT - also something we'd like to commend you guys for. Perhaps a "Report bot" feature would be helpful as well? ___________
Ab Tallen The Alphabet Soup	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:02:00 - [65] This devblog is depressingly devoid of any information. It's not as if nothing happened recently (like, for example, the Evenews24 article at the beginning of December and the preceding discussions it's based on). This just smells like the war on lag before Team Gridlock came up - which means there's no large scale coordinated activity within CCP regarding RMT and botting. A pity.
Mynxee	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:04:00 - [66] Originally by: Datcorinna Erunde For your convenience the great Wollari even colored the shown systems accordingly to the amount of the occured kills. He colored it from white (like "almost nothing") via green, yellow, orange up to a fine, perfect visible shiny red (like "unusually high occurance of NPC kills in this very system OMG OMG!!!!!!11111" or, more fitting "look here CCP, here are the bots!"). Third party tools to the rescue...again. Life In Low Sec
Furb Killer Gallente	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:06:00 - [67] Originally by: Malcanis Originally by: Archestratidas Edited by: Archestratidas on 13/12/2010 20:21:49 >>>ISK is sold because people buy it. lol, true, but why do people buy it? Because making ISK in-game is miserable and unfun and the typical person doesn't want to waste their free time on activities that just aren't fun. Blame your game design, not the "players" for buying it, kthx. THIS. MAKE ISK MAKING FUN, NOT A PUNISHMENT. THIS AGAIN. What needs to be added however is SCs (and to lesser extent titans). If you add a very expensive pwnmobile that you pretty much need to be strategically relevant, you are pretty much telling people to go bot.
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:11:00 - [68] Originally by: Mynxee Originally by: Datcorinna Erunde For your convenience the great Wollari even colored the shown systems accordingly to the amount of the occured kills. He colored it from white (like "almost nothing") via green, yellow, orange up to a fine, perfect visible shiny red (like "unusually high occurance of NPC kills in this very system OMG OMG!!!!!!11111" or, more fitting "look here CCP, here are the bots!"). Third party tools to the rescue...again. in-game map would do the job, too, in this particular scenario.
Max Kolonko Caldari Worm Nation Ash Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:16:00 - [69] Originally by: Datcorinna Erunde Edited by: Datcorinna Erunde on 13/12/2010 20:59:30 Step Zero Point Five Step One ..... Step Two ..... Step Three ..... Step Four ..... Step Five Ban the crap out of them bot acounts and repeat from Step One. And for the lazy: Go here, scroll down to "Most active systems 0.0" and use the right table for your investigations. Btw anyone noticed, that there are always the very same regions appearing in this chart? What he said! Originally by: Mynxee Third party tools to the rescue...again. What she said! BTW: Mynxee or any other of the fine folks at the CSM group - when exactly is the summit held (someone mentioned this week, but more precisely?), and when do You expect first information on how it went to be published? (meeting minutes or full report) Max Kolonko
Vincent Athena	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:31:00 - [70] My nightmare worst case for bots is: The bot manager runs 4 bots per computer, 8 computers. Each bot uses the actual eve client, not a thin client, in order to get around any self identification software added by CCP. Each runs in a sandbox, with the actual bot program outside the sandbox. Although the bot manager is running 32 clients, he actually has 48 accounts. Each runs for 16 hours a day to better simulate a person. There are actually two bot magangers, each taking 12 hour shifts. The bots are programmed to alert the manager if something happens that it cannot handle. Examples are forced convos with CCP, or a CAPTCHA added into the game. The bot alerts the manager and brings up the screen of the offending client. their manager clears the issue, and sends the bot on its way. The bots may be making isk for sale, or making isk for the owner's alliance, or just gathering minerals for ship production. Now, how do we confirm such a bot? We could say "it does the same thing day after day, week after week, so it must be a bot. Kill it" But each bot clears 500 million to 2 billion a week. I'm sure the bot owner is willing to have to replace the account every few weeks, especially the ones that are trial accounts. And banning IPs does not work, that can be worked around. And it could just be a person with no life. Bot like behavior is not PROOF of bot usage. How do we tell for sure? So, what do we (or CCP) do? Giving up seems like a real bad idea, we need ideas people! The only thing Ive thought of is to make radical changes to the game, turning it into a virtually continuous visual puzzle, making the entire game a CAPTCHA. I have no idea what that would look like. But I'm not sure the results would be fun to play. So, what is to be done? (CAPTCHA: Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart)
Virtuozzo Against ALL Authorities	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:31:00 - [71] Originally by: Max Kolonko BTW: Mynxee or any other of the fine folks at the CSM group - when exactly is the summit held (someone mentioned this week, but more precisely?), and when do You expect first information on how it went to be published? (meeting minutes or full report) I think some are already on route, and some departing to Reykjavik tomorrow. So should start the day after that? Could be wrong though. Am blond. Curious about the minutes and reports as well. I hope the holidays don't get in the way. ≡v≡ once was about internet spaceships. Then those became serious business. Now all that's left, serious business, and spaceships are docked for two years till after the Dust of Incarna.
Mynxee	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:37:00 - [72] Edited by: Mynxee on 13/12/2010 21:37:53 Originally by: Max Kolonko BTW: Mynxee or any other of the fine folks at the CSM group - when exactly is the summit held (someone mentioned this week, but more precisely?), and when do You expect first information on how it went to be published? (meeting minutes or full report) The Summit meetings are scheduled on Weds, Thurs, Fri. Trebor posted the planned session topics here. The economy / RMT discussion was scheduled for Thursday but things can shift at the last minute. Dierdra Vaal is chairing this Summit in my absence, and has told me he will try to post daily updates to give an overview of each day. However, that can be easier said than done when in the thick of the work/social stuff plus sometimes not being sure what is NDA and what isn't until CCP validates, so cut him some slack if he doesn't rise to the particular challenge of posting dailies. Life In Low Sec
Manfred Sideous H A V O C Cascade Imminent	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:41:00 - [73] #1 Wormholes I think have served as a good beta for removing local in other areas of Eve. I think the time has come to remove local from 0.0 and Low Sec. No data should be transmitted to the client when others enter a solar system. Perhaps a small rebuff to the scanner is in order adding more functionality to it. The trade off would be that constellation chat would function as local chat does now. #2 All moon minerals should be moved to planetary interaction. This takes the isk out of the hands of large corporations and alliances and places it in the hands of the player. Social paradigms in Eve will adjust to this change trust me. This will also strengthen the bond between Eve players and Dust players. Something I think that CCP would be interested in. #3 All production should be moved to player operated stations ( POS). Well they need some reason to exist now due to point 2. Having outpost in 0.0 increases the production efficiency of a POS. In empire or lowsec having standings to the owner of any production station increases the efficiency in which you produce from a POS in empire/low sec systems. #4 Lvl 4 and 5 Missions should be moved to lowsec. The reason being is once you kill the bots there will be hordes of mission bots created. With the nerf of local chat in lowsec bots simply wont be able to function. ( A side note once you remove local us PVP'rs will feast on anyone that tries to use a bot as they will be such easy prey. Jump into local warp cloaked once your target is scanned down. Approach to smart bomb range decloak and smartbomb before the bot can log causing aggression.) #5 CCP Chribba - Change the Eula make it illegal to trade sell supercaps without using CCPchribba. Hire a small staff with GM powers to hop to any system at any time. A fee is paid of 300 million isk or 14.99 and CCPchribba handles the transfer. Im aware all items have a unique ID and so do players. When a supercap is entered by a pod it is recorded. Should another pod try to enter a supercapital without CCPchribba facilitating the transfer it throws a flag to GM's . Punishment is then leavied for violation the EULA/TOS. Whola no more supercaps for cash. 300 million isk is the fee Chribba currently charges for transfers. I would think that you would need 3 full time employees and 2 part time employees to handle this operation. Each trade no matter how it is paid puts money in CCP's pocket. The only person adversely effected is Chribba. * Addendum - Players can have other characters that they themselves control added to the allowed list of character ID's able to inhabit a Supercapital they own. ( this is a pre-work around to the cries that will come from people who use holding characters for when there super isn't in use) This would be how I would curbstomp RMT and botting. I think these changes would seriously limit both operations and add more diversity to Eve. ♥ Manny
Salpad Caldari Carebears with Attitude	Posted - 2010.12.13 21:54:00 - [74] Originally by: Datcorinna Erunde Step Five Ban the crap out of them bot acounts and repeat from Step One. No, no, NO! That's wrong. The correct step 5 is follow the freakin' ISK, then once the money trail has been mapped out, get out the biggest banhammer you have. Banning single accounts won't accomplish anything at all. CCP has to follow the money trail and find the guilty players, rather than merely banning the guilty characters. -- Salpad
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.13 22:16:00 - [75] Edited by: Cyaxares II on 13/12/2010 22:17:01 Originally by: Vincent Athena good stuff admit it... you are just waiting for some botter to offer you a consulting gig and that post was your advertisement
Cato X	Posted - 2010.12.13 22:17:00 - [76] Last month I took my Stealth Bomber out to dronelands and anchored a couple of containers with supplies. I lived out there for a few weeks. Within a couple of hours I identified dozens of macro botters and even caught a few ravens with bubbles as they mechanically warped back to the POS. I went back an hour later and podded them--they where still sitting where my bubble was. I petitioned a half a dozen accounts with proof like this and added them to my watch list. To this day these toons are still logged on 23 hours a day grinding away isk for their master. When they log off, they all log off at once, and log back on at once--even though they are spread across many systems. CCP would have been better off not posting this blog, because it just confirms what we had feared and are now upset aboutout--that this is all BAU and nothing serious being done to address botting. Your not going to change the fact that black markets will always exist everywhere, so change what you can control--the client and the server software to make it difficult to bot. It's work but its not all that hard: 1. Make slight changes to memory assignments or variables names once a month that break bot applications. This will force Bot programmers costs up and force them to reverse engineer the client once on a month. It will also break the bot enough to turn off bot users. 2. Create a tool that profiles botting behavior/ Look for time online, repetitive commands, high NPC kill systems with low population, ect... 3. Create a tool that takes the suspicious toons from #2 above, and dumps information from the client that reveals if the client has been modified by a bot program--there is your proof. 4. Create a "cosmic disturbance" around asteroid fields, anomolies, and grav sites where, upon landing, the ship is scrammed and webbed until a piece of information is entered that is graphically displayed.--easy meat for anyone looking for a kill. 5. Hold corporations and alliances accountable for their members botting with heavy ISK fines. Fine the Alliance and the Corp 5 times the estimated one month ISK proceeds from the bot. There is no silver bullet, but by appearances the problem is being completely ignored. Do something--please.
Joshua Cy	Posted - 2010.12.13 22:21:00 - [77] Originally by: Manfred Sideous ---stuff--- #1. Removing local unbalances intel in favor of the invaders. EVE has enough bad balancing, we do not need more. In addition, it would make low sec even less desirable, and more of a wasteland. #2. Big alliances are just as capable of doing PI as anyone else. #3. So lets put production into the hands of big alliances? And leave the new player frozen out of production? #4. Mission bots do L1 and L2 hauler missions on trial accounts. Moving the L4 missions will mainly hurt legitimate players. Most mission runners I know will not go into low sec for any reason. If local was removed, even more would stay out. #5 Chribba is not CCP. And if bots mine all the minerals for the supercap, and the alliance owning the bots builds it, it never changes hands. All these changes would be little more than a bump in the road to the bots, if that.
Salpad Caldari Carebears with Attitude	Posted - 2010.12.13 22:27:00 - [78] Originally by: Joshua Cy #5 Chribba is not CCP. And if bots mine all the minerals for the supercap, and the alliance owning the bots builds it, it never changes hands. You completely misunderstood the #5 part of his post. -- Salpad
Black Dranzer Caldari	Posted - 2010.12.13 22:31:00 - [79] Okay, CCP, tip. If a dev blog doesn't tell the players anything they don't already know, it's a crappy dev blog. Here's what the players know: Eve currently has a macro problem. Not RMT, macro. Macroing problems have gotten worse lately The macroing is highly visible CCP aren't banning these highly visible macroers If you, the dev, are reading this and thinking "Hey, that's not true" to any of these, then you've got a broken assumption on your hands and you need to fix that. Because right now, the blog does nothing more than say "Hey, Eve has RMT! Hey, we don't like RMT! Hey, here are some of the things in the past we've done to deal with RMT! Thanks for your support!" \|24 Hour Plex\|Mining Makeover\|
Adunh Slavy	Posted - 2010.12.13 23:09:00 - [80] Eve doesn't need Sov to be fun, doesn't need Titans and SCs to be fun. We don't need officer mods that cost an arm and a leg to have fun. Want to stop RMT and bots, then get rid of the need for RMT and bots. Keep expensive needs and things will remain as they are. There there will be another Rage wave and maybe a few changes to game play here or there, but in the end, the need for huge amounts of ISK will remain, and a year later, we'll be right back here again. So long as there is a motive for a crime, there will be someone driven to commit the crime. Sure it will sound radical to some, but here's an idea. Limit an alliance to 10 systems max, get rid of Titans and MamaShips, get rid of officer drops or make them much more common so as to drive down prices (In all honesty, why aren't player made things (T2/T3/Tn) the peak of performance?). Move moon goo to the player level (PI like as someone suggested). Does having all this extra stuff make Eve more fun, or just more need to grind? The battle should not be against bots and RMT, but a battle against the need for grind. The Real Space Initiative - V7
Bic Pentameter	Posted - 2010.12.13 23:16:00 - [81] someone reading this that has been thinking "well maybe, perhaps, could be, i might try a bot". now they know that they are likely to get away with it. and even if they DO get caught nothing much will happen. people who are trying to be honest miners can easily come to the conclusion that they are fools for trying to be honest when there are so many people that take pleasure in their misery. if they are killed often by greifers, the game is ruined for them. if they are killed for being a bot they might actually make allot of money before they get killed. that along with this big advertisement blog might be too tempting for the weak willed. not only that they can sell isk to the isk spammers for real world cash. although i must say i see fewer isk spammers than in the past. so something that was done has helped with that problem, thank you CCP. i say recruit the greifers into this equation and give them what they want. a chance to ruin someones day. i say have a 72hour flag put on someone that is reported as a bot. for 72 hours of online activity their account activity is logged in minute detail. how many microseconds did it take to make a certain motion, and so forth. at the end of this log period, it should take more than 72 hours real time to collect this 72 hours of online data, it will be posted to some trusted persons email account to be looked over. if it is decided that they are a bot, than all people that reported the bot will get evemail telling them that there is now a bot bounty on that character. and 24 hours after that notification goes to the bot reporters, it goes on the billboards. anyone killing the bot in high sec or low sec or 0.0 space is not attacked by concord, and gains good reputation points with all major factions. this idea may have no chance of ever being implemented, but maybe it will be a seed for an idea that might lead to some workable solution.
Elzon1 Caldari Shadow Boys Corp Without Remorse.	Posted - 2010.12.14 00:12:00 - [82] Originally by: ArchenTheGreat - make PLAYING EVE require brain or a supercomputer or two to macro - make all means of making isk/getting epic items require brain, lots of planning, and causes centers of focus to form. With this as a strategy players and bots must gravitate to such sites in order to make their EVE living. - make it so that the more a system is emptied of npcs/roids the less it produces/they are worth - make npcs movable in that they try to put their resources away from player focus to avoid being farmed, why would an npc sit there and let you shoot them if they know they will lose... not an effective strategy - make overall bounty creation equal to or less than isk creation. Also, allow for more isk creation if overall trade increases (sales tax/broker fees, proportional of course) therefore allowing the trade to take place with sufficient isk. You wouldn't want to crash the economy now would you? - make mining more interactive in that you can choose which mineral you specifically want to mine out of a roid (that is rotating) and make us move our lazors around the roid to do it effectively/efficiently. This makes mining more cpu cycle intensive for bots and opens up more means of detecting botters based on their mining habits (humans don't always have exacting efficiency). - make more anti-blob mods like the "Remote ECM Burst I"... imagine if you could fit something like that on a falcon . CCP, make tech 3 falcon that can fit things like this! - make epic items like the previously mentioned mod fittable to new tech 3 ships and make them available only from the previously mentioned moving center of focus sites or from a mechanic from those sites in combination with player activity... can anyone say Jamyl Sarum's ultimate chain lightning weapon! Make counters to it of course... just make it require a brain to do so (incredibly cpu intensive for a bot to counter). FIXED
menotosiraireatue Bob	Posted - 2010.12.14 01:17:00 - [83] Please everyone stfu. if you quit yell and work together to pention then the world will be a better place. so if you want to "police" then get off your ass and police.
Elzon1 Caldari Shadow Boys Corp Without Remorse.	Posted - 2010.12.14 02:26:00 - [84] Originally by: menotosiraireatue Bob Please everyone stfu. if you quit yell and work together to pention then the world will be a better place. so if you want to "police" then get off your ass and police. First- "Troll detected" Second- "Nuclear missile launch detected" Third- Won't work, game mechanics make it difficult to detect botters. CCP's statement of 100's of botters banned every week has little effect on botters in general You can petition, but it has little effect overall Fourth- In order to slow down botting you must change game mechanics so that grinding is a more intuition or "cerebral" based activity. This basically means that in order to bot now it will require much more effort from a botter computer's capabilities. The harder a computer must work in order to bot the less profit their is. Less profit means less isk creation or less isk supply. And while isk supply will drop, the demand for isk will not. This makes isk worth more and therefore will lower the price for PLEX due to a greater supply of it. Overall, by changing game mechanics to be more human brain based CCP will get more of the isk demand through PLEX's, which means more money for them We will have to wait until after WIS though
Aquana Abyss	Posted - 2010.12.14 02:26:00 - [85] Your blog is fluff without any concrete statistics. ò Why not list how many get banned each day? ò Why not name and shame those characters caught in the act of RMT that get banned? Hard numbers and transparency is what I (and probably a lot of others) want here CCP, not vaporous statements like "hundreds per day". Post logs of bans. Thanks.
Zyno 04	Posted - 2010.12.14 02:40:00 - [86] I'm sorry but this borders on the surreal. The game client has been hacked. Apparently there are commercial bots that no longer need to run the eve client to operate. As exposed in the eve news article, this sort of botting isn't only widespread, it goes unchecked and pumps trillions in the economy. Entire 0.0 power blocs are demonstrated, through dotlan anecdotal evidence and other reports, as being strictly supported by RMT and botting. Trit and Ice are at an all time low. It's the players themselves doing the investigation and exposing to the rest of you the full the extend of botting in the current EVE universe. And you give us what? Plenitudes, and a "heck of a job brownie" pat on the back for petitioning? Is this supposed to be a joke? Don't you realize that botting is the biggest threat to EVE as a game? As players come to the conclusion that they are competing in a rigged environment, that spending those 4 or 5 hours ratting or mining for a couple of extra million actually makes you look like a fool when the guy next door just runs his bot and is never short on isk? Who wants to play in this sandbox? Why would any sane person ever rat or mine for isk when the payoff competes with 23/7 bots? I really don't thing CCP even realizes the impact bots are having on their game. Renting 0.0 space now surpasses the 10 billion mark simply because bots set the new standard, shutting real players out. Nobody actively mines. Prices are so low that you need a bot to actually pay off the effort. Missions rewards (implants) have recently returned back to the pre unholy rage price range, negating its effects completely. I know a good portion of the EVE player base couldn't care less about botting. The PVP crowd just needs cheap ships and a steady income to replace them so they aren't going to make a lot of noise about this. Same for CCP. I'm sure Hilmar nearly collapsed when he realized that unholy rage would mean 15k less paying subs. Bots buy plexes and plexes pay salaries. But my biggest gripe is with the CSM. Everyone threw a hissy fit due to neural remaps for plex, when those would still be available free to the player (once per year) and could be purchased through in game isk. But botting, which completely distorts and cripples this game, and is something that CCP has been ambiguous about (due to their own $ interest) doesn't top the discussions every single meeting? We are nearing a threshold here folks. When real players, specially new players, cannot compete in the sandbox unless they bot, and whats going to become of EVE then?
Komen Gallente Flying Target LLC	Posted - 2010.12.14 02:50:00 - [87] CCP seems to continue to conflate 'macro-user/botter' with 'RMT'. Of course there's overlap, but what I see a lot of us players griping about is the botters specifically (I'm just going to lump in macros and bots from here on out, as both are against the EULA and do more or less the same thing, as I understand it). The blog does mention that they understand that botting is not always RMT and vice versa, but the rest of the blog hammers on the RMT side without mentioning botters much again, except in context of RMT. I've never used a bot to play a game for me, and I think a lot of the upset is that there are so many who ARE botting, that it almost becomes pointless (or, even, IS pointless) to manually do these tasks - and yet from the outside we don't get to see much in the way of results - the same suspected characters keep doing what they do. So then we get this blog which reads like a morale speech - 'Stay strong men! The enemy are many but we are resilient! Keep buying warbonds! Also if you talk to the badguys they might steal your house, and all the stuff you store inside!' We hear your message, CCP, we've heard it before. Oh, and lastly, you mention in your blog that many claim ignorance of the EULA and your stance on RMT and botting. "Ignorance is no excuse." (yes, I'm quoting a fictional totalitarian gestapo figure). This is not a court of law. It's your game, it's your (and our) passion. Burn these mother****ers.
everto congero	Posted - 2010.12.14 03:09:00 - [88] Originally by: Zyno 04 I'm sorry but this borders on the surreal. The game client has been hacked. Apparently there are commercial bots that no longer need to run the eve client to operate. As exposed in the eve news article, this sort of botting isn't only widespread, it goes unchecked and pumps trillions in the economy. Entire 0.0 power blocs are demonstrated, through dotlan anecdotal evidence and other reports, as being strictly supported by RMT and botting. Trit and Ice are at an all time low. It's the players themselves doing the investigation and exposing to the rest of you the full the extend of botting in the current EVE universe. And you give us what? Plenitudes, and a "heck of a job brownie" pat on the back for petitioning? Is this supposed to be a joke? Don't you realize that botting is the biggest threat to EVE as a game? As players come to the conclusion that they are competing in a rigged environment, that spending those 4 or 5 hours ratting or mining for a couple of extra million actually makes you look like a fool when the guy next door just runs his bot and is never short on isk? Who wants to play in this sandbox? Why would any sane person ever rat or mine for isk when the payoff competes with 23/7 bots? I really don't thing CCP even realizes the impact bots are having on their game. Renting 0.0 space now surpasses the 10 billion mark simply because bots set the new standard, shutting real players out. Nobody actively mines. Prices are so low that you need a bot to actually pay off the effort. Missions rewards (implants) have recently returned back to the pre unholy rage price range, negating its effects completely. I know a good portion of the EVE player base couldn't care less about botting. The PVP crowd just needs cheap ships and a steady income to replace them so they aren't going to make a lot of noise about this. Same for CCP. I'm sure Hilmar nearly collapsed when he realized that unholy rage would mean 15k less paying subs. Bots buy plexes and plexes pay salaries. But my biggest gripe is with the CSM. Everyone threw a hissy fit due to neural remaps for plex, when those would still be available free to the player (once per year) and could be purchased through in game isk. But botting, which completely distorts and cripples this game, and is something that CCP has been ambiguous about (due to their own $ interest) doesn't top the discussions every single meeting? We are nearing a threshold here folks. When real players, specially new players, cannot compete in the sandbox unless they bot, and whats going to become of EVE then? I could not have put this better myself.
Mynxee	Posted - 2010.12.14 04:33:00 - [89] Originally by: Zyno 04 But my biggest gripe is with the CSM. Everyone threw a hissy fit due to neural remaps for plex, when those would still be available free to the player (once per year) and could be purchased through in game isk. But botting, which completely distorts and cripples this game, and is something that CCP has been ambiguous about (due to their own $ interest) doesn't top the discussions every single meeting? We are nearing a threshold here folks. When real players, specially new players, cannot compete in the sandbox unless they bot, and whats going to become of EVE then? Good post, but let me address your grip with the CSM. We have been expressing our concerns internally to CCP since the recent community posts about RMT sprang up not just here on EVE O but elsewhere. There has been some CCP response but with the Summit so close at hand, I imagine the parties involved are waiting for face time with the CSM to address the matter. As for "top the discussions at every single meeting", if you're talking about sessions at this Summit, well...RMT...as bad as it is for the game...is not a topic appropriate to every session on the Summit agenda. However, I expect it will come up in several sessions where it is contextually appropriate--including the ones on the economy, null sec, and game design which together comprise a significant percentage of meeting time. I have asked a few CSM members take thorough notes to make sure they capture as much of the details of RMT discussions as possible. Those notes will be vital in ensuring that the subsequent minutes illustrate the nature of the conversations and provide a thorough accounting of what was discussed (except for stuff that is determined to be covered by the NDA--some of which the CSM may question if the determination seems to be bull****). And as to your final conclusion/question? I totally agree with you on that. Life In Low Sec
BeanBagKing Terra Incognita Black Star Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.14 04:46:00 - [90] dev blog with no graphs, boooooooo!
Datcorinna Erunde	Posted - 2010.12.14 05:27:00 - [91] Quote: ...an hour later...they where still sitting where my bubble was... petitioned a half a dozen accounts with proof like this ... To this day these toons are still logged on 23 hours a day... Quote: ...honest miners ... are fools ... Quote: Don't you realize that botting is the biggest threat to EVE as a game? ... spending those 4 or 5 hours ratting or mining ... makes you look like a fool when the guy next door just runs his bot ... Until now CCP may think "ok, botting isn't nice, but each and every account from these bot users is nothing other than a paying account that generates income for the company, so let them do as long as no high sec casual is taking notice..." Dear CCP, EVERY ONE took notice now! Oh how you must hate this horus- like named guy now, he was cutting your income one way or the other. Either you go and ban those botters - you lose. Or the casual highsec dwellers leave by canceling them accounts - you lose too. Oh how you must hate this horus- like named guy now... Now it's time to make a serious decision: Is the amount of not-closed bot accounts from now on still compensating you for the amount of angry account cancelers that you will encounter in the future? Well, you won't tell us, but nevertheless we will see. Just by reading you next devblogs on this matter, you know... these blogs with the word "rage" in the title.
Shepard Book Imperial Academy	Posted - 2010.12.14 06:36:00 - [92] I am pretty sure this blog is to let us know that you know that we know that you know there is a problem. Forums have been raging lately and I think you want to answer them in one swoop. Some people are gonna rage either way. Design flaw that can be fixed? I hope so. You will keep fighting? I am sure you will. I think everyone will agree it sounds way to easy to use bots. I hope you will start looking seriously at system design and come up with a new plan because waiting for someone to petition someone is not working. One thing I do want to acknowledge is that Eve is not alone. ALL the companies out there in this industry have this problem. The client and local seem to be big issues that are raised over and over by customers of Eve. I hope you come up with a plan to address both. Thanks
Jaggins Ixion Defence Systems Test Alliance Please Ignore	Posted - 2010.12.14 07:35:00 - [93] A quick scan on Dotlan shows a few systems to start investigating: 1H5-3W 3H58-R RQOO-U 5-VFC6 IUU3-L C-NMG9 RIU-GC I'm sure CCP can monitor a system without trace. I just spent 30 seconds on Dotlan and can easily see where the macro botters are at work. From roaming through Drone space, we would notice the bots warp to a safe POS and log as soon as we entered certain systems around R-6KYM. The problem is interesting since players know where this is a major problem and anyone can filter Dotlan to show NPC kills in the last 24 hours to identify likely botting systems. The fact that these systems keep having huge numbers of NPC kills makes it seem like no one is interested in actually stopping the obvious problem. If CCP is actually watching these systems and verifying that they are not being botted, we would love to hear all about it in a Dev Blog. On a side note, rumor is some seriously sketchy stuff is going down in Assilot. Or so I've heard. I think it involves a kinky pink kitty bOOTY and a fleet of Thoraxi. You might not want to secretly spai on that station...
F'C	Posted - 2010.12.14 08:24:00 - [94] How dare you call this a dev blog?!
Sister Hypatia	Posted - 2010.12.14 08:24:00 - [95] I've reported several highsec mining bots (you know, 23/7 online ones). Still there and digging, so reporting bots is useless! I guess their logs show nothing. Devblog is useless and shows nothing too.
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.14 08:26:00 - [96] Edited by: Cyaxares II on 14/12/2010 08:26:00 I have said it before but let me repeat it: It is very possible that botting has become far too big to fail. If I were Dr. EyjoG the only way I would agree to a serious removal of bots is if I would get a "place covert NPC order" button in my EVE client in return. Spiking mineral/LP prices and a general tendency towards deflation would be a hardly predictable mix. Falling PLEX prices (measured in ISK) because of less demand by bots would only make RMT worse and cost CCP RL money. IMO economic turmoil could lead to much larger complaints than a few concerns about botting (a topic that gets some traction on the forums every few months and then gets forgotten again). So the only way I would feel safe about large-scale bannings of bots would be if CCP has the option to play the market by selling minerals, setting up PLEX buy orders with freshly created fiat money, ... (via straw man characters of course) and decides to use this option to enforce soft boundaries on possible extreme market reactions. not to mention that the 0.0 playing field would get even more uneven - if you nerf the ISK generation of alliances in general those that have an ISK advantage now (and manage to make this ISK appear legit before the eyes of GMs) will enjoy it for a very long time because everyone who is poor right now has no way to catch up (atm they can rent a constellation, bot the hell out of it and work their way up from there).
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 08:52:00 - [97] Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 08:54:42 Originally by: Mynxee Originally by: Datcorinna Erunde For your convenience the great Wollari even colored the shown systems accordingly to the amount of the occured kills. He colored it from white (like "almost nothing") via green, yellow, orange up to a fine, perfect visible shiny red (like "unusually high occurance of NPC kills in this very system OMG OMG!!!!!!11111" or, more fitting "look here CCP, here are the bots!"). Third party tools to the rescue...again. Indeed. Heres what 15 minutes effort shows..... Time to name and shame - these are the 15 most blatant botting systems in the game and if CCP can't deal with it then its time to pack up and find another game : 8OYE-Z : Cache (SOLAR WING) Y-OMTZ : Delve (IT Alliance) G2-INZ : Esoteria (Stainless) HHQ-M1 : Esoteria (Stainless) ROJ-B0 : Insmother (RED Citizens) VBPT-T : Insmother (RED Citizens) Y-770C : Oasa (Legion of xXDEATHXx) RO-AIQ : Oasa (Shadow of xXDEATHXx) G-B3PR : Omist (White Angels) UC-8XF : Outer Passage (Shadow of xXDEATHXx) F-HQWV : Perrigen Falls (SOLAR FLEET) W-IIYI : Querious (IT Alliance) WIW-X8 : The Spire (SOLAR FLEET) HM-UVD : Stain (AAA/AAA Citizens) 4F89-U : Wicked Creek (The Jagged Alliance) Oh and as an observation - looks like some alliances got told to stop botting for a while about 24 hours ago. Its very very clear when you look at the dotlan maps - pretty much all ratting activity ceased in certain eastern regions at exactly the same time.
Serpents smile	Posted - 2010.12.14 08:55:00 - [98] Something is wrong with page 1 of this thread, cannot access it. 500 error personal is warned etc error message.
Cresalle	Posted - 2010.12.14 09:17:00 - [99] This is not a dev blog. Nor are many of the entries you put under the heading of 'dev blog', such as that thinly veiled advertisement you published not too long ago. Knock it the **** off. Make a new blogging section for non-development stuff. As for bots and RMT, now that you mention it I have seen a lot of bottish behavior in nul lately. I like what that one guy did with the bubble. I'll have to try that myself next time I suspsect bots.
woodywilson2	Posted - 2010.12.14 09:35:00 - [100] The dev blog didn't really say anything new, and had the feel of playing to the peanut gallery.
Kuikiker	Posted - 2010.12.14 09:46:00 - [101] Edited by: Kuikiker on 14/12/2010 09:46:35 "Hundreds of TRIAL* accounts are banned every week for macro use and other RMT related activities"* Fixed. I want to see some data about those hundreds banned accounts CCP brag about, because I guess most of them were just trial accounts spamming ISK selling sites in Jita. I'm sick of seeing ratting/mining bots and reporting them seems useless. I'm really considering leaving the game... legit players cannot compete with that many cheaters out there. ZERO TOLERANCE must be applied to cheaters. No warnings at all... Cheat = Ban And if it's possible even trace cheaters down and ban all their accounts. Banning just their bot account is silly because they will gladly create another one with generated profits.
Silen Boon	Posted - 2010.12.14 09:55:00 - [102] IÆm a little disappointed with the Dev Blog; I donÆt believe that it really addresses any of the players concerns. The original Unholy Rage was very successful at banning a significant number of accounts that were using macros. This had a very clear effect on the Eve economy, and is evidence of the impact that automated ôplayö has on the game. I suspect that these early macros were fairly crude, easy to spot, and simple to disrupt. This type of simple automation can be partially policed by the player base; either through game play (blowing up ships) or by reporting offenders to CCP. There is now anecdotal evidence that the automation has moved beyond simple macros, to ôbotsö that can react to a changing environment. This allows the automation to be run in far more complex and dynamic situations i.e. 0.0 space. Unlike the early macros, these bots are far harder for the player base to police. One simple reason for this is the locations where these bots appear to be run; 0.0 doesnÆt have the diverse player population that could report possible offenders. Since the player base is not able to police the new wave of automation, either by game play or reporting suspect characters, the onus if now on CCP to investigate, report, and react. It is no longer acceptable to rely on the player base to report the use of macros or bots. So what is to be done? I would like to see CCP investigate the anecdotal evidence and hopefully produce another Dev blog with their conclusions. If wide spread use of macros and bots is found then I think there are a number of things that CCP could do.:- Account banning is the most obvious short term action. Employing a team to investigate unusual account behaviour and system characteristics would deter future abuses. Making Alliances and Corps more accountable maybe an option to reduce macros use. There are also game play changes that might reduce the use of macros and bots and improve the user experience. Removing ôlocalö has been suggested, but I think this would only be a short term solution. However the wormhole game mechanics is a good source for ideas. The more dynamic the environment, the harder it becomes to automate tasks.
Darth Felin	Posted - 2010.12.14 09:57:00 - [103] This is not devblog but a pile of bull****. No hard data, no actual actions even against obvious bots. No injection protection and it seems it is not even under development
Jekyl Eraser	Posted - 2010.12.14 10:11:00 - [104] The problem of RMT isn't because of players, it's like saying there are sometimes rainy days because of the evil oceans and sun that keep on providing the water to us. RMT will allways be there but you can affect how much power it has by changing the gameplay mechanics so that it requires player interaction instead of bot code! bots will move into areas where it is most profitable to keep em. At the moment mining and courier missions are where the bots like to be. second is basic mission running. I'd start making these more interactive... require mining some probing, require player to change crystals after every rock for optimal output(each rock is different), require courier missions to be done partly inside stations talking to the NPC(walking in stations), give rats better AI... and so on
RaTTuS BIG Majesta Empire	Posted - 2010.12.14 10:13:00 - [105] umm a bit on the weak side as a blog, I appreciate you don't want to give out lots of info, however some graphs - even with more cowbell would be better. but continue... -- Join BIG
Salpad Caldari Carebears with Attitude	Posted - 2010.12.14 10:23:00 - [106] Originally by: Sister Hypatia I've reported several highsec mining bots (you know, 23/7 online ones). Still there and digging, so reporting bots is useless! I guess their logs show nothing. Devblog is useless and shows nothing too. Could it be the case that CCP does not immediately ban bots, because CCP wants to follow the money trail, so that they can identify and ban the main characters of those who also run bot accounts? Personally, I'm disinclined to give CCP that much credit, but it could be the reason why those bot you reported haven't been banned yet. -- Salpad
Clone 1	Posted - 2010.12.14 10:37:00 - [107] Originally by: Salpad Originally by: Sister Hypatia I've reported several highsec mining bots (you know, 23/7 online ones). Still there and digging, so reporting bots is useless! I guess their logs show nothing. Devblog is useless and shows nothing too. Could it be the case that CCP does not immediately ban bots, because CCP wants to follow the money trail, so that they can identify and ban the main characters of those who also run bot accounts? Let's say that approach was true, and CCP have been doing it this way since the start then clearly that approach is not working, and there can be no greater indictment that the current state of bot/RMT. It seems that rampant bot use, is not directly linked to RMT and thus half of the 'devblog' is off topic. Also page 1 of this thread is cached improperly and get '500 - Internal Error' when logged in from ip range 86.45.x.x (ireland) BUT works fine when logged in from 174.36.x.x (germany). I got ganked at Za'Ha'Dum, but I am ok now.
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.14 10:57:00 - [108] Originally by: Clone 1 Also page 1 of this thread is cached improperly and get '500 - Internal Error' when logged in from ip range 86.45.x.x (ireland) BUT works fine when logged in from 174.36.x.x (germany). I get the 500 (since yesterday evening) when visiting the first site while logged in - if I am logged out I can view it just fine. 84.151.. (Germany)
Jaqel Broadside	Posted - 2010.12.14 11:39:00 - [109] I have got to say I am absolutely and utterly dismayed by the amount of macros and botters blatantly mining ICE in high sec. Simple facts: Why the hell is the CSM full of Alliances ? Why the hell can't I vote for more none Alliance characters ? 90% of players are in high sec, therefore a majority or at least half of the CSM should be made up of high sec players. If this cannot be done then get rid of the CSM altogether and replace it with a voting system. The CSM is a complete failure, it just cements the allaince domination of a few already very rich players who don't even pay to play into the development process. Well done for another EPIC failure to even bother with listening to your paying customers. Over the years I have seen all my mining friends leave - others have picked up on "my mineral prices", really they are mine are they ? Well CCP all I can see is legit players realising this "game" is friggin rigged and pointless and they left hitting your balance sheet - well done. As regards "my mineral prices" - let's just cast our eye over to what Alliances are doing. I see Alliances with 100's of capitals in their fleets and the majority being Titans and Super Capitals. And mineral prices are at their lowest price ever,,, is their perchance a small problem here ? Cos to my casual eye it looks like theirs one friggin EPIC problem. Yet I also weigh into the balance your own Development cycle: 1) Sovereignty which requires systems to be played constantly to be improved - botters FTW ? 2) New sovereignty system brought in to "open up" null sec, what a friggin EPIC failure again - botters FTW ? Just how many times have you changed this now ? 3) Sovereignty mechanics which require focused fleets which also bring LAG - do we see a pattern here yet ? 4) Planetary Interaction, so boring and repetative a real humans hand hurts and the goddamn mouse gets worn out - botters FTW ? 5) Ice mining, people have been asking for the mechanics to be changed for over 5 years - botters FTW ? 6) Mining, people have been asking for the mechanics to be changed for over 5 years - botters FTW ? 7) Ratting in null sec, now if this isnt botting heaven then I dont know what is. 8) Rats in high sec, they are so weak botters don't even bother with them. Normal players get rid of them regardless and I am sure wouldn't mind a challenge of waves of them every so often, maybe some cruisers ? No let's make it easy for the botters. 9) Missioning, you haven't even bothered to update this crap for years. Yeah you've put in some new graphics so what ? - botters FTW ? 10) Is there any correlation perhaps do you think between the ship of choice and weapon of choice of the botter and botting ? Missile always hit, they have no falloff, they hit at 0km to whatever range they can hit, and the Raven perma tank ? Why does this exist ? Botters love it for certain. 11) Missioning rewards being reduced, this plays directly into the hand of RMT. 12) Missions being set in lowsec, another RMT boost. 13) Faction missions set in low sec, oo I wonder what this would boost ? RMT perhaps ? 14) No real life player is going to take billions of ISK of implants and ships into low sec for anything, they'll cancel the missions and face not playing Eve instead, another RMT win. And no JC is worth doing and face another day of SP lost for a few ISK. 15) T1 production, it's static. In real life things change, change is something that CANNOT BE SCRIPTED, you know the old "A change is as good as a rest" ? Bring on T1.1 already. Humans don't like doing static stuff, we thrive on change. 16) Promotion of Caldari and demotion of other races and I mean like for YEARS,,, er why ? unless of course you want linear play -> botting 17) T2 BPOs, static ISK printing machines that promote one style of game play, well done - NOT. Every year I play Eve I hope and wish you guys will "Get it", WH space was a great step forward.
Lubomir Penev Sausages of Truth S I L E N T.	Posted - 2010.12.14 11:52:00 - [110] I like how this blog completely fails to see how PLEXes promotes botting, for RMT or not. PLEXes provide way for RMTers to have accounts not tied to RL identity, and PLEXes provide incentives for Joe Schmoe to bot in order to "play for free" (people can't read an electrical bill). Suppress plexes. Ban BUYERS... For people to stop buying ISKs they need to start losing accounts, not having one char put in the red. In 7 years you'd thought CCP would have understood putting people in the red wasn't nearly dissuasive enough. Fact is, CCP makes money of botters, or they think they do because they have no numbers on how many genuine players are put off the game by the rampant cheating (you got to jump in a 0.0 ice system and see 70 Machinaw to log out at once to understand the extent). So they pay lip service, like this blog. While they design new macro friendly gameplay elements like PI (so macro friendly in can only me played sanely while macroed tbh).
Oni Triad	Posted - 2010.12.14 11:56:00 - [111] Originally by: Jaqel Broadside 16) Promotion of Caldari and demotion of other races and I mean like for YEARS,,, er why ? unless of course you want linear play -> botting Are you ****ed? Seriously, are you ****ed?
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.14 11:59:00 - [112] Edited by: Cyaxares II on 14/12/2010 12:04:30 Originally by: Jaqel Broadside 90% of players are in high sec, therefore a majority or at least half of the CSM should be made up of high sec players. If this cannot be done then get rid of the CSM altogether and replace it with a voting system. - many high-sec players are just alts of 0.0 players. - 0.0 players actually vote for their candidates, apparently many high-sec players can't be bothered to vote at all. - Ankhesentapemkah showed that you can get enough votes for a CSM seat by spamming high-sec hubs. She also was stupid enough to get booted from CSM for a NDA violation (tough luck if your representatives throw away your votes like that). - nevertheless being backed in your candidacy by a large alliance makes things much easier (you cannot fail completely, have some additional manpower at hand for your campaign/forum support, ...) - high-sec players are split in much smaller groups than the alliances and powerblocs in 0.0 which makes it much harder for them to speak with one voice. (But that just means they fail at the organization/coordination game and is no excuse for them not being "properly" represented at CSM). - as one who currently has no affiliation with a 0.0 alliance here's why I would never vote for a high-sec candidate: I can trust just about any 0.0 dweller to be fairly knowledgeable and aware of most high-sec playstyles (doesn't mean (s)he supports them - but at least (s)he knows about them). I have met too many high-sec dwellers who know close to nothing about life in low-sec and 0.0 (scientists have postulated that there should be life in low-sec - however, direct evidence of it has yet to be found). edit: points 11-15 are stupid. the only way I can make sense of point 16 is by taking it as a reference to the Achura bloodline.
Shurikane	Posted - 2010.12.14 12:30:00 - [113] You guys realize they can't ban without irrefutable proof, right? Imagine if they really did ban on suspicion. That numbers above and beyond normality were considered a sign of botting and dealt with accordingly. OK. OK, let's do that. ... What if you do have that much time to spend mining and ratting? Are you screwed? This is a complete repeat of what happens in the FPS world: player has too many kills on the server, admin sees it, admin calls hax, admin instabans player without appeal. Great. Another one gets punished for the **-ups of others. And admins who do that practice are quickly regarded as complete ****s. You can't apply that to EVE. Not now, not ever, never will happen. If someone looks like he's botting but you can't prove he's botting, then your hands are tied. Imagine you're at a trial and you have to show the evidence. If you can't say "We found this* program running on his computer and it's a bot program." then sorry, nothing you can do.
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.14 12:47:00 - [114] Originally by: Shurikane You can't apply that to EVE. Not now, not ever, never will happen. If someone looks like he's botting but you can't prove he's botting, then your hands are tied. Imagine you're at a trial and you have to show the evidence. If you can't say "We found this program running on his computer and it's a bot program." then sorry, nothing you can do. if there would be any trial it would be about the ToS - but as long as these are compatible with law CCP has no need to provide any justification for banning you. besides... short of taking control of the customer's computer there is no way to "prove" that he is botting. It's always a judgment call based on circumstantial evidence.
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 12:54:00 - [115] Originally by: Shurikane You guys realize they can't ban without irrefutable proof, right? Imagine if they really did ban on suspicion. That numbers above and beyond normality were considered a sign of botting and dealt with accordingly. OK. OK, let's do that. ... What if you do have that much time to spend mining and ratting? Are you screwed? Heh nice try at muddying the water. CCP can ban you for any reason they can think of. Doesn't matter whether they have proof or not. So lets deal with "proof" shall we? There is a clear record of all bounties awarded for killing npcs. Start there with the banstick. Nice and easy - simply look at the obvious systems (I provided a list of 15) and look at who has been there lately. If anyone thinks its normal that a system way the hell out in the middle of nowhere has a rat kill every 7 seconds on average then I got a bridge to sell you. CCP KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. There's no way they can't know short of gross incompetence. Their choice as to whether to ignore it or not.
Jaqel Broadside	Posted - 2010.12.14 12:54:00 - [116] Edited by: Jaqel Broadside on 14/12/2010 12:54:53 Originally by: Cyaxares II I have met too many high-sec dwellers who know close to nothing about life in low-sec and 0.0 (scientists have postulated that there should be life in low-sec - however, direct evidence of it has yet to be found). oo look it's the promoter of Akita T, you know the one advocating legalising botting boring mining,,, Well let's take a quick look at what has happened by those who know all about low sec and null sec. Have they improved life in High Sec at all ? Have they reduced high sec income ? Have mission been forced into low sec ? Is there a continued effort to keep pushing what is left of high sec income down ? Your argument stands on it's head, the majority of players in Eve have a CSM dominated by null sec and low sec players. Are the majority of Eve players gonna get a good service from low sec and null sec alliances ? Really ? I mean it's not like alliances are reknowned for their generosity is it ? And you seriously expect low sec players to even think of playing "fair",, Obviously each CSM member has only looked after their own interests. CSM mechanics promote a CSM unfit for purpose, which should be to make a game better for everyone. Originally by: Cyaxares II edit: points 11-15 are stupid. Points 11 to 15 are real life facts of the CSM and CCP supposedly to change mineral prices because missioners were supposedly earning way too much ISK and causing mineral prices to fall. Good joke,,, and it looks as though mineral price support was like epic failure. The proof of the pudding is in the eating,,, CSM failure - not fit for purpose. And yet during all this time the Ice being bot mined has gone on and on and on,,, we've seen one after another of mining improvement requests posted in the CSM. A lot have been flamed and despite years of these requests going on we see no CSM action. The CSM by now should be self analysing itself to see how and why the core aspects of the game can be so destroyed while it exists, a process I expect CCP to also to go through. Failure by either organisation to recognise that actually they themselves have a large amount of blame to bare in this process is pure evidence of a lack of reality, complacency, arrogance, cultural failure and denial = or the fact they actually want the game we see today. Originally by: Cyaxares II the only way I can make sense of point 16 is by taking it as a reference to the Achura bloodline. Really ? Hmmm perhaps I should have said by race I mean specific factors like Caldari LP rewards like the god of Shield resistance faction modules, Faction Caldari Weapons being better than T2, Caldari Tanks, Caldari weapon mechanics, Caldari EW, Caldari Range, Caldari Battlecruiser tank, need I go on or are you really that blind ? Caldari Raven BS of choice for null sec botting. I mean fleets of T1 battlecruisers in null sec winning wars ? Caldari the only race with great EW ? The Eve map has shown this information for years,, jeez I would have thought by now you would have spotted that Akita T and all. But this is a diversion,, just another step in the direction of botters. Caldari FTW is just a CCP culture that makes the process that much more obvious.
Jack Gilligan 1st Cavalry Division Phalanx Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:12:00 - [117] Look, the main source of RMT and botting on massive scales is as obvious as the real problem with airline security. No one wants to openly admit the truth because it's politically incorrect, so we pretend the elephant isn't in the room while we devise clever schemes to repair the glassware it keeps breaking whilst searching the mice for glass cutters. CCP, look at the map, look at Dotlan, cut off the head of the snake. Anything else is an exercise in mental ************ that will require a lot of unnecessary work and yield zero results. Everyone knows who is sanctioning botters and engaging in RMT on a truly massive scale. Maybe they aren't the ONLY ones but no one is doing it on the same scale. Curbstomp them and set a precedent for what will happen to alliances and alliance LEADERS who sanction (and benefit) from this activity.
Shurikane	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:13:00 - [118] Edited by: Shurikane on 14/12/2010 13:14:17 Originally by: Othran CCP can ban you for any reason they can think of. Doesn't matter whether they have proof or not. They can. But they shouldn't. Unless they want to turn the "omg ccp iz doin nuffin" fanfare into a "omg ccp abuzin its powa" one. Originally by: Othran So lets deal with "proof" shall we? There is a clear record of all bounties awarded for killing npcs. Start there with the banstick. No. Originally by: Othran Nice and easy - simply look at the obvious systems (I provided a list of 15) and look at who has been there lately. Keyword: obvious. Instant red flag. "He gets all the kills as a sniper, he's obviously hacking!" "I looked at him for a whole round and he shot everybody in sight! His hack is sooooooo obvious!" "He knew where everybody was! I swear to God! It was so obvious!" No. Hell no. A million times no. You could go ahead and apply the banhammer anyway. You might score a real hack or a real bot, sure. But the moment you hit a legitimate player and he raises a **storm about it, you are proper *ed. Story time! Playing Battlefield 2142 - shootan' gaems - I entered a server on a fresh new round. In the course of the round, I took the lead and soon held it by over 50 points over the second place, 30 of these points resulting from kills. In a game where you get a point per kill and a point per teamwork action (flag capture, heal, repair, revive), that's quite a lot of work. So the admin on the opposing team looked at the scoreboard, went "This can't be right, he's leading by too much, he's obviously hacking." And bam, I'm back at the server menu. Now, what really happened: I had picked up one of the only two armored vehicles available on the map, and I was very proficient at this particular one. I went to town with it. I decimated entire squads from the safety of my metal plating and nobody made an attempt at taking me down with anti-vehicle rockets. I was a nigh invincible superman shooting fish in a barrel. I fought aggressively and chased soldiers as they sought to run away. It had been nothing more than skills plus a valuable asset. Imagine porting that over to EVE. I hop in my trusty Raven, wander my alliance's space, get a nice quiet system and go to town ratting while a corpmate trails behind in an industrial, quickly chaining my rats until I have almost nothing but the best and meanest pirate battleships with the biggest bounty. Oops! Too many kills in too little time. Too much cash in too few seconds. Botlike behavior. Banned! And once you reach the point where the decision is no longer based on material but on the GM's own judgement, where the hell* are you supposed to draw the line? For all I know, the difference between me playing and getting the boot could be lying in the concerned GM simply having a bad day.
Mashie Saldana Minmatar Veto Corp	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:21:00 - [119] If the bots are as complex as has been hinted it will be no way of telling who is a bot and who isn't unless the bot operator is stupid and leaves them running 23.5/7.
ArchenTheGreat Caldari Nomads of Zen	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:22:00 - [120] Originally by: Shurikane Imagine porting that over to EVE. I hop in my trusty Raven, wander my alliance's space, get a nice quiet system and go to town ratting while a corpmate trails behind in an industrial, quickly chaining my rats until I have almost nothing but the best and meanest pirate battleships with the biggest bounty. Oops! Too many kills in too little time. Too much cash in too few seconds. Botlike behavior. Banned! If you do this for 23/7 than you are botting. And if not than you need a ****ing life and CCP will do you a favor by banning you anyway.
Jack Gilligan 1st Cavalry Division Phalanx Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:25:00 - [121] Originally by: Shurikane Edited by: Shurikane on 14/12/2010 13:14:17 Originally by: Othran CCP can ban you for any reason they can think of. Doesn't matter whether they have proof or not. They can. But they shouldn't. Unless they want to turn the "omg ccp iz doin nuffin" fanfare into a "omg ccp abuzin its powa" one. Originally by: Othran So lets deal with "proof" shall we? There is a clear record of all bounties awarded for killing npcs. Start there with the banstick. No. Look at Dotlan. There are systems where there are such ridiculous rates of NPC kills in backwater drone 0.0 systems that botting is OBVIOUS. Example: 1. Map F-HQWV (Perrigen Falls) 9612 That system is a repeat offender... 9,612 NPC's killed in the last 3 hours equals 53, yes, FIFTY THREE NPC's killed every SECOND. Make an argument that there aren't bots responsible for that? Who is going to shoot virtually every NPC in a system practically the moment they spawn? Humans aren't going to do that, a system filled with bots will.
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:30:00 - [122] Originally by: Shurikane Story time! Your analogy makes zero sense in this context. The people concerned are running bots 23/7. That can be seen AND proven over a couple of weeks. So either they're botting or they are sharing the account. Either one carries a ban. Do keep on trying to muddy the water - I'm sure sooner or later it'll become obvious whose alt you are.
Mashie Saldana Minmatar Veto Corp	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:30:00 - [123] Originally by: Jack Gilligan That system is a repeat offender... 9,612 NPC's killed in the last 3 hours equals 53, yes, FIFTY THREE NPC's killed every SECOND. Math surely isn't your strongest side. It is 3600 seconds in an hour. hint
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:34:00 - [124] Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 13:34:17 Originally by: Mashie Saldana Originally by: Jack Gilligan That system is a repeat offender... 9,612 NPC's killed in the last 3 hours equals 53, yes, FIFTY THREE NPC's killed every SECOND. Math surely isn't your strongest side. It is 3600 seconds in an hour. hint ...and its not 3 hours either :) He has a point about that system though
Shurikane	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:36:00 - [125] Originally by: ArchenTheGreat If you do this for 23/7 than you are botting. And if not than you need a ****ing life and CCP will do you a favor by banning you anyway. Oh really? Okay. Okay. I do a full-day marathon of ratting, so I'm a bot. Yep. Oh, I went in and said "Hold your horses." so I'm obviously in favor of bots, yep. Eventually botters will code new versions that are increasingly humanlike in behavior until there's no longer any real difference. Hey, how about we ban everybody right now? It can not fail!
Oni Triad	Posted - 2010.12.14 13:42:00 - [126] Originally by: Jack Gilligan Example: 1. Map F-HQWV (Perrigen Falls) 9612 That system is a repeat offender... 9,612 NPC's killed in the last 3 hours equals 53, yes, FIFTY THREE NPC's killed every SECOND. I see 34752 in the last 24 hours. For 10 man ratting that's a rat every ~30 seconds. For 30 people ratting that's a rat every ~75 seconds. Surely you can find a better example.
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.14 14:11:00 - [127] Originally by: Jaqel Broadside Have they improved life in High Sec at all ? Have they reduced high sec income ? Have missions been forced into low sec ? Is there a continued effort to keep pushing what is left of high sec income down ? hmmm... I thought high-sec was the place were you can run your mission bots in complete safety?
Grady Eltoren Minmatar Aviation Professionals for EVE	Posted - 2010.12.14 14:17:00 - [128] Originally by: Manfred Sideous #1 Wormholes I think have served as a good beta for removing local in other areas of Eve. I think the time has come to remove local from 0.0 and Low Sec. No data should be transmitted to the client when others enter a solar system. Perhaps a small rebuff to the scanner is in order adding more functionality to it. The trade off would be that constellation chat would function as local chat does now. #2 All moon minerals should be moved to planetary interaction. This takes the isk out of the hands of large corporations and alliances and places it in the hands of the player. Social paradigms in Eve will adjust to this change trust me. This will also strengthen the bond between Eve players and Dust players. Something I think that CCP would be interested in. #3 All production should be moved to player operated stations ( POS). Well they need some reason to exist now due to point 2. Having outpost in 0.0 increases the production efficiency of a POS. In empire or lowsec having standings to the owner of any production station increases the efficiency in which you produce from a POS in empire/low sec systems. #4 Lvl 4 and 5 Missions should be moved to lowsec. The reason being is once you kill the bots there will be hordes of mission bots created. With the nerf of local chat in lowsec bots simply wont be able to function. ( A side note once you remove local us PVP'rs will feast on anyone that tries to use a bot as they will be such easy prey. Jump into local warp cloaked once your target is scanned down. Approach to smart bomb range decloak and smartbomb before the bot can log causing aggression.) #5 CCP Chribba - Change the Eula make it illegal to trade sell supercaps without using CCPchribba. Hire a small staff with GM powers to hop to any system at any time. A fee is paid of 300 million isk or 14.99 and CCPchribba handles the transfer. Im aware all items have a unique ID and so do players. When a supercap is entered by a pod it is recorded. Should another pod try to enter a supercapital without CCPchribba facilitating the transfer it throws a flag to GM's . Punishment is then leavied for violation the EULA/TOS. Whola no more supercaps for cash. 300 million isk is the fee Chribba currently charges for transfers. I would think that you would need 3 full time employees and 2 part time employees to handle this operation. Each trade no matter how it is paid puts money in CCP's pocket. The only person adversely effected is Chribba. * Addendum - Players can have other characters that they themselves control added to the allowed list of character ID's able to inhabit a Supercapital they own. ( this is a pre-work around to the cries that will come from people who use holding characters for when there super isn't in use) This would be how I would curbstomp RMT and botting. I think these changes would seriously limit both operations and add more diversity to Eve. ♥ Manny Holy %$#$ Manny - You are seriously one smart guy. To be totally honest these are some of the best ideas I have heard of to improve EVE in a long time and would like to actually see a CSM response. If not contact me ingame and lets push this on the Town hall in the forums. I really liked the part (As an indy. guy) of all manufacturing at POS's. This would really spice up EVE life and force people into getting used to POS's and thus low/o.o/WH space too if they didn't grind out the awesome standings to have a POS in empire. I could easilly see it going along with the flogging the dead horse POS thread too and adding much needed cohesion to building corps etc. GREAT IDEA. I also really like the Moon mins to planets for the DUST cohesion but also as it would be easy to regulate and keep prices of T2 the same. The market would take care of things, low sec would gain a boom again, and 0.0 would be for people that want their own space and the awesome plexes, ABC roids, and Ice, etc Aviation Professionals for EVE (APEVE)
Grady Eltoren Minmatar Aviation Professionals for EVE	Posted - 2010.12.14 14:30:00 - [129] Originally by: Datcorinna Erunde Edited by: Datcorinna Erunde on 13/12/2010 20:59:30 We really should help CCP in this matter, the seem so help- and clueless. Probably this is the very reason for this semi- devblog: they want advice from us how to find bots. So I want to try my best to explain it step by step for the interested guys on CCP. Step Zero Point Five Ask your customers how to handle the problem by throwing them a semi-quality devblog at their heads (already done). Step One Click on this link to dotlan and there you click on any of the "Region maps". Preferably on one that you guess it might be a 0.0 one (but others will do the trick too), let's say click on something like e.g."Malpais". Step Two You see a map of the chosen region now. On the upper right corner of the map you will notice two dropdown menus, click on the left one and select "NPC kills (24h)". This will change the map info layer to showing you the amount of killed NPC's during the last 24 hours. For your convenience the great Wollari even colored the shown systems accordingly to the amount of the occured kills. He colored it from white (like "almost nothing") via green, yellow, orange up to a fine, perfect visible shiny red (like "unusually high occurance of NPC kills in this very system OMG OMG!!!!!!11111" or, more fitting "look here CCP, here are the bots!"). Step Three Click on the red system wich you found to have the highest or second highest number of NPC kills inside the region, e.g. click on (by the time of me writing this) the system "RIU-GC" with an astonishing amount of 10282 kills in 24 hours (while every other system with an amount of 5000 and above kills would do fine too for our purposes). Step Four Grab your GM- tools and find out what are the names of the pilots, who killed these 10k rats in 24 hours. Wait until one of them is logged in for say one hour, then start to monitor him for some time without entering his system and do your usual stuff you always do with suspects to find them out and continue with Step Five. (If you don't know what to do with suspects to find them out botting or not, restart with Step Zero Point One and ask your always willing-to-help customers how to handle this by writing a new devblog about your small step accomplishments and the big problems in recognising usual bot behaviour.) Step Five Ban the crap out of them bot acounts and repeat from Step One. And for the lazy: Go here, scroll down to "Most active systems 0.0" and use the right table for your investigations. Btw anyone noticed, that there are always the very same regions appearing in this chart? THIS - LOL Datcorrina - Gee, I wonder what alliances/players this could be??? :) haha This post deserves bumping all day. Hopefully CCP listens to your well spelled out point. Cheers!! Aviation Professionals for EVE (APEVE)
Grady Eltoren Minmatar Aviation Professionals for EVE	Posted - 2010.12.14 14:47:00 - [130] Edited by: Grady Eltoren on 14/12/2010 14:49:30 Originally by: Jaqel Broadside STUFF Another great post...couldn't agree more. Last thought then I am done. If I might add to it too - reduce item drops to only named T1 so that the builders/market can take care of the rest. T2 entry reqs for skills should have been higher too I think (In most cases 5 days of training to get access to T2 version) and I think looking back on it now that hurts the economy/game. Not sure how one would fix this but hopefully someone gets my point. One last thought then I am done with this blog...Mining - fix it! Make it interactive like someone suggested sorta in a CAPTCHA way. Make the results not luck based but interactive to the point of that determines outcome maybe? I don't know how you would do this without making it a click fest (but yet strongly skill based) but maybe you could make it a click fest that didn't take HOURS so it wouldn't be so bad and make roids yield more so (like someone else pointed out) mining isn't a bore. Make Roids farther inbetween too. (I.e. low sec and o.o and wormholes with only a few in hi-sec available only through tutorials, scanning, or missions so that starting miners are not left out in the cold while cutting their teeth so to say). my .02 isk Aviation Professionals for EVE (APEVE)
Mjana Switzerland EVE Corp.	Posted - 2010.12.14 14:56:00 - [131] Originally by: Gneissgrinder Edited by: Gneissgrinder on 13/12/2010 17:40:08 Edited by: Gneissgrinder on 13/12/2010 17:39:37 hmmmm is this an informal reply to the following 3 part article on www.evenews24.com ??? hmmmmmm Link to an article that links malicious stuff removed. Spitfire Removing - or should i say censoring? - links to a news article that describes in detail, which tricks a person uses for botting/RMT seems a bit... well... like hiding the truth. And I haven't found any "links to malicious stuff" there either, only a ton of interesting information. I read the article yesterday, and it definately made me a sad panda, seeing how a single person (apparently from Italy, not China) is able to get not only hundreds of times more ISK than a normal player for himself to enjoy EVE (with a personal Titan, etc..) but, at the same time, also selling ISK for a monthly salary that I can only dream of. I still hope someone will tell me that the facts in the article are wrong and that it's not as THAT easy setting up ratting bots or at least that it's not as THAT easy transferring billions of ISK every month from bot-characters to player characters...
Oni Triad	Posted - 2010.12.14 14:58:00 - [132] Originally by: Grady Eltoren stuff Yes, you see miners getting captcha in mines and doing interactive stuff to pull more ore out :)
Di Mulle	Posted - 2010.12.14 14:59:00 - [133] To easy a mood out there, let's remember that Incarna will bring us no gameplay except showing your outfits in an empty stations. Now that is what can't be botted ! Or at least it makes no sense. Isn't it an ingenious move by CCP ? Sorry. I just couldn't resist. State of affairs is pretty sad right now, while CCP spends years for making a stuff without even knowing what to do with it. While the game has outgrown itself and is screaming for reshaping.
Soma Khan Caldari	Posted - 2010.12.14 14:59:00 - [134] Originally by: Othran Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 08:54:42 Indeed. Heres what 15 minutes effort shows..... Time to name and shame - these are the 15 most blatant botting systems in the game and if CCP can't deal with it then its time to pack up and find another game : 8OYE-Z : Cache (SOLAR WING) Y-OMTZ : Delve (IT Alliance) G2-INZ : Esoteria (Stainless) HHQ-M1 : Esoteria (Stainless) ROJ-B0 : Insmother (RED Citizens) VBPT-T : Insmother (RED Citizens) Y-770C : Oasa (Legion of xXDEATHXx) RO-AIQ : Oasa (Shadow of xXDEATHXx) G-B3PR : Omist (White Angels) UC-8XF : Outer Passage (Shadow of xXDEATHXx) F-HQWV : Perrigen Falls (SOLAR FLEET) W-IIYI : Querious (IT Alliance) WIW-X8 : The Spire (SOLAR FLEET) HM-UVD : Stain (AAA/AAA Citizens) 4F89-U : Wicked Creek (The Jagged Alliance) Oh and as an observation - looks like some alliances got told to stop botting for a while about 24 hours ago. Its very very clear when you look at the dotlan maps - pretty much all ratting activity ceased in certain eastern regions at exactly the same time. nc alt detected. indeed __
Tlar Sanqua Gallente Gallente Defence Initiative	Posted - 2010.12.14 15:19:00 - [135] This surely is a joke. This blog reveals nothing, does nothing and is simply a really bad attempt at damage control. What new methods for dealing with Botting and RMT have been implemented in the last year? You don't have to say the details, an overview and a statment of the number of new methods and routines implemented would be more substantive than this blog.
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 15:24:00 - [136] Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 15:24:59 Originally by: Soma Khan nc alt detected. indeed Nice try but no. Last alliance I was in was BDEAL, didn't suit me, left 5 months ago. I don't do PVE at all, took me a while to realise that PVE was the entire point of sov 0.0 - and it is I can pick out systems up North that are just as suspicious - its just that these 15 are ones where there's little to no argument to be had about occupancy levels being the reason. That's the reason for these. Oh and its worth noting that Dotlan goes back a LOT further than 48 hours......
Jaqel Broadside	Posted - 2010.12.14 15:48:00 - [137] Originally by: Cyaxares II And Akita's proposal of "just give us an official API to write our own bots" would level the playing field for this sort of metagaming (at the moment the risk vs reward equation is pretty unpredictable). If something can be automated that's usually a great thing and the competition for the most efficient automation can be exciting and extremely challenging. Telling people "no - you are not allowed to do this because I don't want to compete with you in that challenge" just seems stupid - in the end both parties could profit from less boring, manual work and more interesting metagaming. Do you seriously want to tell me that it's more fun to 0.01 ISK manually than think about the most efficient & robust trading algorithms and have your bots execute these? That it's more interesting to spend hours mining than writing mining bots that are "intelligent" enough to avoid even advanced detection measures? (or if botting were legalized - can deal with random NPC behavior, incursions, ...) omg,,, I wish there was a palm over face emote,,, Well let's take this epic mind fest to it's ultimate conclusion. You state an "efficiency programming war" of bots as the aim,,, er right. Eve servers can only work at a certain speed relative to their income, that's an obvious limit and if people are hammering CCP's income do you think they will be able to afford to even pay the electricity bill never mind new hardware ? never mind wages of the people coding ? But let's ignore the obvious and move on,,, this paradigm you envisage of coders being bothered to out wit the people who actually want to play a game,,, Who is going to win ? Those who can get the most hardware together to run the bots and afford to pay their electricity bill,, most likely not even connected to the meter. Quite frankly this train of thought is not gonna work is it ? Originally by: Cyaxares II why enforce dumbing the game down (by having people do all the stupid tasks manually) when you could raise it to a whole new level of intellectual challenges instead? Lol,, stupid,, define not stupid. Everything you've just posted destroys the frame work of the game - there would be no people who would want to pay for that scenario and the costs of running such an operation would be not be possible to recoup. Perhaps you would want to see an Olympic games full of machines instead ? Don't you think you are missing the whole point ? I once worked at a corporation where I was introducing a new computer system automating recipes etc,, they ran a canning line filled with local people packing the cans etc,,, looking at the operation I turned to the Managing Director and said - you could automate all of this. He said yes we could, but we have a social responsibility to the local community as the major employer in the area. Something I will always have respect for him saying. Automation is not an end in itself, at a certain point it is destructive, pointless and a waste of time. Ever wondered why council workers do pointless repetative tasks or the fact they employ consultants in each council doing the same thing that's being done in every other council by their consultants ? Some jobs are created just to give money back into the community, daft but it MAKES a society. People make a society, automation does not. The whole reason processes like mining should NOT be automated is purely because it is so friggin hard from a human perspective to keep doing and that in itself limits everything else that relies on it,, hence the game,, those tha can motivate have their role to play too. Much like a marathon racer, he has his own limits which are in turn affected by external events, his support team, the weather, the height of the course, the type of course, his clothing, etc, etc,,, my guess is you see someone doing something a motorbike could do far better - that isn't the point.
Soma Khan Caldari	Posted - 2010.12.14 16:05:00 - [138] Originally by: Othran Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 15:24:59 I can pick out systems up North that are just as suspicious - its just that these 15 are ones where there's little to no argument to be had about occupancy levels being the reason. That's the reason for these. 'scuse me if that reasoning sounds a little too self-serving to me __
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 16:12:00 - [139] Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 16:14:59 Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 16:13:20 Originally by: Soma Khan Originally by: Othran Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 15:24:59 I can pick out systems up North that are just as suspicious - its just that these 15 are ones where there's little to no argument to be had about occupancy levels being the reason. That's the reason for these. 'scuse me if that reasoning sounds a little too self-serving to me No problem, I can see how you'd be suspicious. Take a quick look through Dotlan yourself and pick your own top 15 based on npc kills over the last week. All I did to get those 15 was to only click red systems on dotlan, look at the last week/two weeks of npc kills/jumps and those were the most blatant. Edit 2 - with the exception of the Stain system. Nobody is going to convince me that CCP gives a damn until Stain is cleaned out. Edit - I could easily have made it a top 20 - or 50, just got bored. You feel the need, you go for it :) Do feel free to correct them - I'm sure there's plenty of cheating scum in whatever part of sov 0.0 you look at
P3k1	Posted - 2010.12.14 16:16:00 - [140] I really don't know how bots work. But if they are injecting packets in the ongoing connection between client and a server why just not encrypt the connection? Or did I misunderstand a few posts talking about injecting packets, and not needing eve client to run? Now I'm interested in getting a bot just to see how it work, and propose a solution :) (Maybe some DEV from CCP should get a bot and see how they work.)
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.14 16:30:00 - [141] Edited by: Cyaxares II on 14/12/2010 16:34:47 Originally by: Jaqel Broadside Perhaps you would want to see an Olympic games full of machines instead ? Don't you think you are missing the whole point ? (a) of course this already exists (various robotics competitions) (b) I heard doping was pretty common among athletes - similar game to botting in its present state if you think about it (only that the athletes don't risk an account but their one and only body while playing the game - otoh the possible rewards are much higher, too) Apart from the social aspects (alliance management, the spy game, more refined forms of fraud/scamming) the cap in player-skill in EVE seems to be pretty low. Take a logistics pilot (which is said to be one of the more challenging roles in EVE) and compare his work to that of a standard MMO healer. He has to manage his rack of 4 remote repair modules, 2 cap transfers and an afterburner - healers in other MMOs have about 30 different spells to pick from (and while you can maybe do your job ok-ish with using only 5 of them there's plenty of room for improvement and a great healer will be able to decide in a split second which tool out of his full arsenal of spells to use). No wonder people try to automate the logistics ships (with varying success). Take Starcraft as another example - you can spend years working on improving your own playstyle (and there are many different aspects to master) and AIs tend to be pretty terrible at the game (there are competitions for Starcraft I AIs but nobody in their right mind would try to "cheat" with an AI while playing against human opponents; the only thing I have read about Starcraft II was some guy using genetic algorithms to improve build orders). Olympics are interesting to watch because player skill plays a large role in athletics and the skill cap is extremely high. (Even in the highest of tiers you still have people like Phelps showing up and redefining skill ceilings). Formula 1 is probably the closest you get to an engineering competition in a popular sport. But if a competitive game doesn't leave much room for player skill the natural route seems to be to look for skill differentials in the meta-game. Of course I agree with your assessment rgd the profitability of a game as the one I had envisioned. MMOs sell that well because it is usually very easy to succeed at them in one form or another and very hard to fail (success more a function of time investment than actual mental or motorical skill). Skill caps are pretty soft - otoh when you turn the game into a competition over algorithms you introduce some relatively hard skill caps and many people wouldn't like that.
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 16:31:00 - [142] Originally by: P3k1 Edited by: P3k1 on 14/12/2010 16:18:36 I really don't know how bots work. But if they are injecting packets in the ongoing connection between client and a server why just not encrypt the connection? At the end, I'm sure that CCP will do something about BOTs. Encrypting every connection would cost a lot of cpu cycles at CCPs end. You'd still need to secure the client as well. Not trivial and not free to anyone in terms of cost. I rather suspect CCP will do nothing. Oh sure they'll ban a few thousand accounts but that's the tip of the iceberg. The Eve economy seems to depend on massive influxes of "new" money which is created by missions/killing npcs. I think the simplest solution may well be to stop paying bounties for npc kills in 0.0. It makes no sense in any "in-game" way, and if any bounties should be paid then the controlling sov entity should be paying them. Loot drops would have to be tweaked accordingly - and the drone regions would need sorting so it was loot. Everyone is on about RMT and PLEX and mining macros. Forget that. None of that generates NEW isk. For every isk that enters the game through a bot running missions/ratting then the rest of the playerbase becomes poorer. I'm sorry that your economy requires bots to generate new ISK CCP, but if you stand back a little you'll see it needs fixing. To CCP : Of course your own revenue stream is intimately entwined with all of this as YOU made PLEX fully "in-game items". Hoist by your own petard or what?
DaDutchDude Agony Unleashed Agony Empire	Posted - 2010.12.14 16:36:00 - [143] Edited by: DaDutchDude on 14/12/2010 16:41:22 I like the fact CCP posted this blog, acknowledging they are aware of player concerns, and this is a first good step. What worries me is how they seem to go about dealing with the problems. Trying to squash demand by statements that amount to as much as "drugs are bad, mmm'kay" is not going to change anything: like it or not, there will always be a demand for RMT. More importantly, RMT is only a small fraction of the problem, and it is more a problem to CCP then it is to players. The real problem to players is people using macros / bots to accumulate wealth and through that power beyond the capabilities of most normal players, skewing the game heavily in their favor and seemingly going unchecked. You can even make a case that CCP might actually indirectly benefit from these practices and therefor turns a blind eye, and even the appearance of that is very damaging to players confidence in CCP. Now that the issue is out in the open, CCP has acknowledged it and it has been put on the agenda of the CSM summit, I hope the attention CCP pays to this issue will be as impressive as it has been on the issues of lag since this summer and I look forward to updates on this issue. _______________________________________________ - Beware of programmers running with scissors -
P3k1	Posted - 2010.12.14 16:41:00 - [144] Edited by: P3k1 on 14/12/2010 16:42:52 Originally by: Othran Encrypting every connection would cost a lot of cpu cycles at CCPs end. You'd still need to secure the client as well. Not trivial and not free to anyone in terms of cost. You don't have to encrypt everything, you can probably do checksums to see if there was any packet injection. Neither you or I can tell how much CPU cycle would take to process 60000+ connections/players. Probable solution: Place a dedicated machine just to cypher/decipher connections between server and a client. There is always a solution :) Either way someone should get one of those bots and see how they work, so you can criple them. Arrggghhhh matey!
Haniblecter Teg F.R.E.E. Explorer The Initiative.	Posted - 2010.12.14 16:41:00 - [145] Removing local is a minor speedbump for rmt'ers. Think what it takes to circumvent it? A cloaked scout in scanning range of each gate, scanning every second. Simple little message or convo sent to the ratting bots that tells the python-injecting-program to scurry off. ----------------- Friends Forever
Marchocias Snatch Victory	Posted - 2010.12.14 16:48:00 - [146] Originally by: Evelgrivion Except its most vocal proponents are the ones that stand the most gain from it. No matter how the client interacts with local itself, there is no getting around the fact that a client has to be updated for a new person in the solar system. Bots read directly from the client's memory. Adding such a delay only makes it more difficult for legitimate users to fight back against the RMT menace. What the hell are you talking about? If you remove delayed local, the clients no longer need to know about everyone else in the system, so this info can be removed... that is EXACLY getting around your 'fact'. Secondly, as has been pointed out before, if the order of serializd fields is altered regularly, attacks which read from memory will also need to be altered, breaking bots whic rely on this. ---- I belong to Silent Ninja (Hopefully that should cover it).
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 17:04:00 - [147] Originally by: P3k1 Edited by: P3k1 on 14/12/2010 16:48:53 Originally by: Othran Encrypting every connection would cost a lot of cpu cycles at CCPs end. You'd still need to secure the client as well. Not trivial and not free to anyone in terms of cost. You don't have to encrypt everything, you can probably do checksums to see if there was any packet injection. Neither you or I can tell how much CPU cycle would take to process 60000+ connections/players. Probable solution: Place a dedicated machine just to cypher/decipher connections between server and a client. There is always a solution :) Either way someone should get one of those bots and see how they work, so you can criple them. Arrggghhhh matey! EDIT: Found link to tokens that I was talking about. link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_token I'm sure they have examples of bots - hell its not hard is it? Tokens - that's authentication, not encryption. Exchanging a token would (in theory) secure the client - simply run some of the critical files through a hash function. That has a client-side cost in cpu cycles and loading time. Depending on how the hash function is seeded its not 100% secure - it can be but remember this is just saying "hi, this is a real client" at login time. That doesn't secure the comms. The whole comms stream would have to be encrypted end to end as otherwise there is no point in encrypting anything. Its very do-able but it does have a significant cost in both development time, auth server/proxy cpu cycles and client cycles. Having said all that, it wouldn't stop most of the bots that are endemic to Eve anyway.
Crazy KSK	Posted - 2010.12.14 17:33:00 - [148] no one here seems to take the fact seriously that ccp actually earns money form people using bots and would loose money if they would do something against them because of that I do not think ccp does or will do anything against botting ever well maybe if 20% of the eve subscribers would quit over the curse of this month and then the impact on income would be significant enough then there would be maybe a change happening what I am essentially saying is that ccp is nothing more than a bunch of greedy people not more worth than the botters they support not caring about their players more than they need to to keep getting income ccp has so far not once proven that that is not the case and until they do not prove that eve is not solely there for money making now is the chance for ccp to prove that they are not just a bunch of greedy people remove all possibility to fully automate process in eve to make isk oh it is sure possible if ccp just would want to ^^
Daneel Trevize Black Viper Nomads	Posted - 2010.12.14 17:41:00 - [149] Anyone suggested just capping the amount of isk a character can receive in bounties per day/hour/sliding window? Bots would be forced to rotate through accounts. But doesn't fix drones mineral drops?
Marchocias Snatch Victory	Posted - 2010.12.14 17:45:00 - [150] Originally by: Crazy KSK no one here seems to take the fact seriously that ccp actually earns money form people using bots and would loose money if they would do something against them because of that I do not think ccp does or will do anything against botting ever well maybe if 20% of the eve subscribers would quit over the curse of this month and then the impact on income would be significant enough then there would be maybe a change happening what I am essentially saying is that ccp is nothing more than a bunch of greedy people not more worth than the botters they support not caring about their players more than they need to to keep getting income ccp has so far not once proven that that is not the case and until they do not prove that eve is not solely there for money making now is the chance for ccp to prove that they are not just a bunch of greedy people remove all possibility to fully automate process in eve to make isk oh it is sure possible if ccp just would want to ^^ You sound like you know what you're talking about. Oh it is sure possible eh? Explain how. ---- I belong to Silent Ninja (Hopefully that should cover it).
Darth Vapour	Posted - 2010.12.14 17:45:00 - [151] Just give all NPC rats a 200 km warp disruptor and let the players solve the botting problem.
FlameGlow Rebellion Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.14 17:46:00 - [152] Quote: While we have put much of our focus on the RMT related activities we do realize that botting is not exclusive to RMT in EVE and we do investigate reports and take action against players proven guilty of using macros for mining, ratting, mission running, market activities and whatnot. Only investigating reports? That explains why there are so many bots around working non-stop, while it would be quite easy to flag them for investigation automatically
P3k1	Posted - 2010.12.14 17:47:00 - [153] Originally by: Othran Having said all that, it wouldn't stop most of the bots that are endemic to Eve anyway. Would changing some of the game mechanic do the trick? Well I'm off to play da game :) fly safe
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 17:52:00 - [154] Originally by: Daneel Trevize Anyone suggested just capping the amount of isk a character can receive in bounties per day/hour/sliding window? Bots would be forced to rotate through accounts. But doesn't fix drones mineral drops? Drone mineral drops are meaningless. Mining bots are meaningless. Loot drops are meaningless. Why? They simply recycle the money already in the economy - there is no NEW isk being produced. Get a nice loot drop - you still have to sell it. Mine a million miles of veld - still need to sell it or what it builds. Missions and ratting are the only activities in the game that create brand new CLEAN isk from nothing. Null sec ratting is the ISK source (and RMT fountain) that needs dealing with most urgently. Simple reason is that a single system with a single bot can produce upwards of 10bill ISK a month. That's not ore you need to haul, nor loot you need to spam at Jita. That's GOLD. Just like every other game.
ArchenTheGreat Caldari Nomads of Zen	Posted - 2010.12.14 18:04:00 - [155] Encrypting connection will not solve bot problems. As far as I understood article at EVE24 bots inject client MEMORY with their own scripts. You can't really protect from compromising EVE client. You give it to players, and players can freely analyze and decompile it to learn how it works. Theoretically it's possible to create something like CCPs thin client. Bot communicating with servers using EVE protocol but without graphic overhead. You could run hundreds of them on single PC. So, if you can't protect clients from bots what can you do? You need to design game in such a way that no computer can play it. PVP works that way already, now it's time for mining and mission running. Treat it like CAPTCHA on steroids (and more fun). PS. to ****** who wants to introduce bots to EVE: EVE is a multi PLAYER game. Game for people not machines. If you want to play with bots go play chess against computer, see how much fun you will get from it.
Candente Caldari	Posted - 2010.12.14 18:30:00 - [156] The dev blog does reveal one thing, though: CCP is admitting that "fixing" the RMT and botting problem is something very hard to do. What would work better than complaining how much little information the dev blog revealed is to keep surpporting ideas like delayed/upgradable local in 0.0 at Assembly Hall or something. When demanding perfection of the system, please keep in mind that a popular MMO game will not be free of RMT and botting problems no matter how hard the developer tries. Anyway, thx for the dev blog for at least acknowledging the issue, CCP. It would be better if CCP will take time and response to player suggestions on combat botting/RMT via the CSM meeting. ------------- rawr~
cpu939 Gallente Unknown Soldiers The Spire Collective	Posted - 2010.12.14 18:46:00 - [157] Originally by: Manfred Sideous STUFF This would be how I would curbstomp RMT and botting. I think these changes would seriously limit both operations and add more diversity to Eve. ♥ Manny Manny while i do respect you some times i wonder what you are smoking. 1&4 - botters would just go to empire run lvl 3 missions or run dscan adding lag to the server. 2 - this i like and was going to post this in the idea forum but never got round to it. 3 - what to do about amarr station outposts. 5 - yes i can see a game bug or a gm not doing there job right might be due to an off day and a player being baned then free who every post hitting the forums. before we remove local lets get working on lag i do think bots add a lot to this its a hard job ccp has and i hope they can get on top of it Signature not EVE Related. - Adida
FlameGlow Rebellion Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.14 18:49:00 - [158] Originally by: Othran Drone mineral drops are meaningless. Mining bots are meaningless. Loot drops are meaningless. Why? They simply recycle the money already in the economy - there is no NEW isk being produced. Get a nice loot drop - you still have to sell it. Mine a million miles of veld - still need to sell it or what it builds. Missions and ratting are the only activities in the game that create brand new CLEAN isk from nothing. Bot for minerals, build ships, insure ships, explode ships - there, new isk from nothing
Crazy KSK	Posted - 2010.12.14 18:53:00 - [159] Originally by: Marchocias Originally by: Crazy KSK no one here seems to take the fact seriously that ccp actually earns money form people using bots and would loose money if they would do something against them because of that I do not think ccp does or will do anything against botting ever well maybe if 20% of the eve subscribers would quit over the curse of this month and then the impact on income would be significant enough then there would be maybe a change happening what I am essentially saying is that ccp is nothing more than a bunch of greedy people not more worth than the botters they support not caring about their players more than they need to to keep getting income ccp has so far not once proven that that is not the case and until they do not prove that eve is not solely there for money making now is the chance for ccp to prove that they are not just a bunch of greedy people remove all possibility to fully automate process in eve to make isk oh it is sure possible if ccp just would want to ^^ You sound like you know what you're talking about. Oh it is sure possible eh? Explain how. well I'm no expert of anything I just know that its possible to make things happen if you just want to and I know what ccp does not want to
oldmanst4r Minmatar oldmanst4r's Corporation	Posted - 2010.12.14 18:58:00 - [160] I take issue with just about every solution postulated in this thread so far. Why, because people are simpletons who underestimate the sophistication of bots. It is trivial to modify bots so that their behavior simulates that of a normal player and avoids even showing up on the radar for detection. This has been proved even in games that have sophisticated and super annoying anti-bot detection schemes (such as Runefail). Any Captchas, Punkbuster like programs, or anything else you put in to stop bots can be worked around easily by the bot creators, while making things much harder on the normal players. This then provides the illusion of mitigating the botting problem, without actually doing anything about it. The issue is that ISK making in EVE is inherently bottable. The tasks are generally repetitive, simple, and monotonous in nature, requiring little human input apart from a few clicks every now and then. This type of "isk grinding" will always be bottable and is why I can write a mining macro with only a few minutes of work. The only solution to the botting problem is to fundamentally change the way ISK is obtained in EVE, by making ISK generating activities require minimal amounts problem solving and critical thinking that are far beyond the capacity of any mere macro. Otherwise, you will never beat the botting problem, you will only get engaged in an unwinnable arms race where you are implementing dozens of annoying anti-botting "features" in a futile attempt to reduce the amount of macroers. Originally by: CCP Shadow snip Castration successful. Shadow.
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 19:02:00 - [161] Originally by: FlameGlow Bot for minerals, build ships, insure ships, explode ships - there, new isk from nothing Quite true but utterly trivial in terms of what is going on regarding new isk creation from macro/botter ratters. Its also controllable by CCP - and yeah I know they've never been much use at insurance, was the first rollback in the game (June 2003 IIRC) when CCP bolloxed it up and everyone got rich that weekend.
Othran Brutor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.14 19:14:00 - [162] Having seen this I give up : Worthy of any "we don't listen" regime Your choice CCP and seems like you made it.
lego brick	Posted - 2010.12.14 19:16:00 - [163] well the can of worms is open reminds me of the war in Iraq. The security minister trying to convince the population Iraq is winning the war, U.S tanks can be seen on the other side of the river......... I can draw a parallel here haha
Wiki Leaks	Posted - 2010.12.14 19:37:00 - [164] In between helping their own player accounts out, punishing whistle blowers and trying to protect StevieSG from all the negative press she rightfully earns, you cannot expect a GM to give a flying **** about the RMT that makes CCP so much money.
Wiki Leaks	Posted - 2010.12.14 19:40:00 - [165] Originally by: Trebor Daehdoow I am sure the CSM will have substantive questions to ask regarding RMT and botting at the summit this week, and we look forward to informative answers that reflect the intense interest of the players in this topic. You really are CSM material aren't you? That's an insult by the way. A bloody low blow as well. No you're not expected to understand.
Marchocias Snatch Victory	Posted - 2010.12.14 20:07:00 - [166] Originally by: Crazy KSK well I'm no expert of anything I just know that its possible to make things happen if you just want to and I know what ccp does not want to I just want to fly, without mechanical aid. Obviously this is possible. ---- I belong to Silent Ninja (Hopefully that should cover it).
Inanna NiKunni	Posted - 2010.12.14 20:24:00 - [167] Originally by: Lykouleon Edited by: Lykouleon on 13/12/2010 18:49:10 This was... disappointing. No substantive content, *no graphs... Really, give us some numbers. Give us a graph of "this is how many people we've banned hammered since 2008" or "Price of PLEX in ISK in relation to price of PLEX in USD visible on RMT sites since Unholy Rage began." As well, GM Grimmi has completely missed the major complaint of the community at the moment. The problem isn't RMT and the people using it, its botters who then take their ISK and plug it into their alliance and their supercap fleets. I could honestly care less about RMT since I don't take any part in it. But I do enjoy PVP and have seen what the proliferation of supercaps recently has done to the dynamic of 0.0 and lowsec warfare. The ability to drop +25 supercaps onto a field and *-train anything under the size of a massive counter-blob is terribad. Of course, their are a good percentage of players that've dug into the game and invested a good deal of time and effort into getting their magnificent e-peens of and destruction, but with over 400 titans currently operating and the fact that SC losses have turned from universe-shattering events into farts in the breeze means something is not going according to plan** Also, please CCP, don't let GMs do blogs on stuff like this...make it at least something from the Senior GMs or a developer currently working on solutions...we need substance; we aren't the WoW community Basically THIS !!! who gives a darn about some ruski or chinese guy making a few bucks - isk botting breaks the game - by allowing some alliances/corps to PVP with unlimited isk - while most of us have to grind for isk like mofos.
Miklas Laces No Second Prize	Posted - 2010.12.14 20:42:00 - [168] This dev blog is a nice collection of lies. CCP you used to be good, now you are just a bunch of m-o-r-o-n-s milking money from what is left of what was once a great game. nooblets ________________________________________________ CCP Claw > Sokata has been destroyed for boundary violation Drug Kito > Sokata you'll always be remembered as a noob in history of alliance tourname
Inanna NiKunni	Posted - 2010.12.14 21:00:00 - [169] Originally by: Cato X Last month I took my Stealth Bomber out to dronelands and anchored a couple of containers with supplies. I lived out there for a few weeks. Within a couple of hours I identified dozens of macro botters and even caught a few ravens with bubbles as they mechanically warped back to the POS. I went back an hour later and podded them--they where still sitting where my bubble was. I petitioned a half a dozen accounts with proof like this and added them to my watch list. To this day these toons are still logged on 23 hours a day grinding away isk for their master. When they log off, they all log off at once, and log back on at once--even though they are spread across many systems. CCP would have been better off not posting this blog, because it just confirms what we had feared and are now upset aboutout--that this is all BAU and nothing serious being done to address botting. Your not going to change the fact that black markets will always exist everywhere, so change what you can control--the client and the server software to make it difficult to bot. It's work but its not all that hard: 1. Make slight changes to memory assignments or variables names once a month that break bot applications. This will force Bot programmers costs up and force them to reverse engineer the client once on a month. It will also break the bot enough to turn off bot users. 2. Create a tool that profiles botting behavior/ Look for time online, repetitive commands, high NPC kill systems with low population, ect... 3. Create a tool that takes the suspicious toons from #2 above, and dumps information from the client that reveals if the client has been modified by a bot program--there is your proof. 4. Create a "cosmic disturbance" around asteroid fields, anomolies, and grav sites where, upon landing, the ship is scrammed and webbed until a piece of information is entered that is graphically displayed.--easy meat for anyone looking for a kill. 5. Hold corporations and alliances accountable for their members botting with heavy ISK fines. Fine the Alliance and the Corp 5 times the estimated one month ISK proceeds from the bot. There is no silver bullet, but by appearances the problem is being completely ignored. Do something--please. Those are all good ideas - excellent Post
Daneel Trevize Black Viper Nomads	Posted - 2010.12.14 21:48:00 - [170] Othran, you're right and thanks for eliminating that issue. So, why not just put a cap on how much isk each character can make from bounties & npc buy orders in a given time? You can still trade, nick stuff, etc, just can't farm endlessly from the isk faucets. And CCP tell us if there's an isk amount/range that no usual player would reasonably reach that should also be low enough to massively cut into the value of having to run several characters to work around the limit.
Ranger 1 Amarr Dynaverse Corporation Sodalitas XX	Posted - 2010.12.14 22:16:00 - [171] Originally by: Wiki Leaks In between helping their own player accounts out, punishing whistle blowers and trying to protect StevieSG from all the negative press she rightfully earns, you cannot expect a GM to give a flying **** about the RMT that makes CCP so much money. ===== If you go to Za'Ha'Dum I will gank you.
Siramar Thi	Posted - 2010.12.14 22:35:00 - [172] Remind me why RMT's r bad if it means more accounts and moneys for ccp?
Malcanis Caldari Vanishing Point. The Initiative.	Posted - 2010.12.14 22:37:00 - [173] Originally by: Siramar Thi Remind me why RMT's r bad if it means more accounts and moneys for ccp? 1/10 Malcanis' Law: Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of "new players", that change is always to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players.
Lofe sXe Caldari North Eastern Swat Pandemic Legion	Posted - 2010.12.14 22:41:00 - [174] one of the worst CCP damage control ever
Miklas Laces No Second Prize	Posted - 2010.12.14 23:02:00 - [175] the poster above me is a noob ________________________________________________ CCP Claw > Sokata has been destroyed for boundary violation Drug Kito > Sokata you'll always be remembered as a noob in history of alliance tourname
Black Dranzer Caldari	Posted - 2010.12.14 23:48:00 - [176] Originally by: Shurikane Originally by: ArchenTheGreat If you do this for 23/7 than you are botting. And if not than you need a ***ing life and CCP will do you a favor by banning you anyway. Okay. Okay. I do a full-day marathon of ratting, so I'm a bot. Yep. Firstly, even a one or even two day marathon is going to be broken up by your basic biological needs unless you have a laptop and you're exceptionally good at killing rats while wiping your own ass. Secondly, obviously a full day isn't enough for certainty. This is why you do background checks.* You check transaction history. You check chat activity in various channels. If you can rat all day every day only sending money to some other player whilst never talking to anybody in alliance corp or local? You're either a bot, or you're clinically insane. In either event, I'm not sure I want you in my sandbox. \|Bounty Fix\|Mining Makeover\|
gfldex	Posted - 2010.12.15 00:46:00 - [177] Originally by: Lubomir Penev PLEXes provide way for RMTers to have accounts not tied to RL identity, and PLEXes provide incentives for Joe Schmoe to bot in order to "play for free" (people can't read an electrical bill). Suppress plexes. Ban BUYERS... You got a good point there mate. Sadly you don't provide reason for CCP to change their policy. I might be able to help here. The real problem is the combination of red wallets and selling PLEXes. If you get your nice RMTed ISKed removed by a GM you have placed a bet and lost. That bet is that you have to pay less for your ISK then somebody who went with PLEXes right away. So if you get cought, _and_only_then_ you have to pay that little premium that is on PLEXes to do it legit. There is in fact no reason to avoid RMTers as you can all the time fix your red wallet with a few PLEXes if you get cought. Not much of a problem for somebody who bought his way into the game in the first place. On top of that the current practice is putting corps at risk. You can't really accept ISK donations if you can't see where the money came from. If you do, you place a bet, even if you have no intention to do so.
SyntaxPD	Posted - 2010.12.15 00:50:00 - [178] Edited by: SyntaxPD on 15/12/2010 00:53:15 1. Ban bots. Every banned bot brings you another 15$ when it's holder will go for new account. 2. What is your GMs salary? How many bots can be clearly indentified by one man in a standard 8 hours work day, let's say it's about 6. One man will bring you roughly 15622 = 1980$ per month. Average salary in Russia is not much higher 500$. 3. Ban bot chains and their isk holding accounts, this will not stop them, but they will go for more bots - more GTC sold, ban isk holder a bit harder but it will have stronger impact. 4. Ban ban ban. Make them subscribe more times and even if they still make isk of botting, they will not have heavy impact on eve economy. 5. How much time needed to train skills for one bot? If bans will follow each other it's a sort of headache for any botter.
Apollo Gabriel Brotherhood Of Fallen Angels Etherium Cartel	Posted - 2010.12.15 01:04:00 - [179] The Pink Bunny Test is the last, best hope for banning macros, here is how it works: 1) Allow GMs to turn off mining modules (and only mining modules) 2) Allow GMs to minimize all active windows. 3) Allow GMs to spawn a Pink Bunny over the module buttons. 4) Allow GMs to open a chat box irrespective of client restrictions directly above the modules 5) If the player reactivates their modules then bot, otherwise enjoy the funny conversation which will follow. ====================================== I used to be a nice guy, but the utter lack of common sense on these forums has turned me into a prick. NO YOU DON'T GET A FREE REMAP!!! Nothing changed for yo
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.15 07:28:00 - [180] Originally by: Apollo Gabriel The Pink Bunny Test is the last, best hope for banning macros, here is how it works: 1) Allow GMs to turn off mining modules (and only mining modules) 2) Allow GMs to minimize all active windows. 3) Allow GMs to spawn a Pink Bunny over the module buttons. 4) Allow GMs to open a chat box irrespective of client restrictions directly above the modules 5) If the player reactivates their modules then bot, otherwise enjoy the funny conversation which will follow. no way a programmer could teach his bot to react to this test by telling the GM a random variation on "f*** off" or "no english".
Lux Scindere Caldari Majesta Empire	Posted - 2010.12.15 08:00:00 - [181] Edited by: Lux Scindere on 15/12/2010 08:04:31 The blog post seems to be more of a statement of CCP's position on macroing and RMT in response to a recent thread on ******** revealing just how pervasive and common they both are and an alleged indifference by CCP. Whilst the forum thread was originally about how RMT dictates politics (read :trolling) and battles in 0.0, it soon become a how-to-guide and advertisement for botting software and RMT sites. Summarised on EVEnews 24 : http://www.evenews24.com/2010/12/04/rmt-uncovered-part2-introduction-and-examples/ Forum link: "expose on RMT" ******** : expose on RMT I won't believe CCP is truly concerned with banishing paying customers until they start talking about numbers and the impact of all this extra activity on EVE's economy and performance. Until they start talking about strategies and game changes. Every player has seen the low hanging fruit CCP could do something about. Those fleets of similarly named ships missioning or mining 24/7, the 0.0 systems with enormous NPC kill stats and ravens/carriers and hulks that automagically warp to a POS and log out in so many backwater systems. The army of recycled alts that do nothing but transfer ISK. I hope little flags are going up somewhere for GM's for the most apparent offenders. The problem is much more extensive than this but this is a good place to start. I imagine viciously stamping out this activity would stamp out a large portion of RMT'd funds - though not all. Sadly botting / RMT behavior done well is indistinguishable from normal game-play, fortunately there are many who do not 'do it well' but to exorbitant excess. EVE is fundamentally a competitive game, but how are you going to compete with someone who rakes in billions, a trader that can update prices instantly 24/7 or a missioner/miner that is willing to undercut any price. Macroers impoverish EULA abiding pilots and exacerbate grind by devaluing your efforts, driving yet more people to bot or RMT. CCP may even find there's much more to be gained in an EVE with less bots and more humans if they reconsider the problem. The question is do CCP really have the motivation or ingenuity to address the problem? edit: k-u-g-u-t-s-u-m-e-n is a censored word?
Darth Vapour	Posted - 2010.12.15 08:33:00 - [182] Edited by: Darth Vapour on 15/12/2010 08:35:29 Originally by: Candente The dev blog does reveal one thing, though: CCP is admitting that "fixing" the RMT and botting problem is something very hard to do. No it's not. Fixing the maxcro/bot problem while still making as much money as possible from PLEX sales is what is difficult. Quote: edit: Laughing k-u-g-u-t-s-u-m-e-n is a censored word? Censoring bad publicity is serious business, much more then banning bots. And don't give me that crap about bad links from the-site-who-shall-not-be-mentioned, through google ads a lot of eve-related sites have links to bad places.
Lubomir Penev Sausages of Truth S I L E N T.	Posted - 2010.12.15 09:47:00 - [183] Originally by: Mjana Originally by: Gneissgrinder Edited by: Gneissgrinder on 13/12/2010 17:40:08 Edited by: Gneissgrinder on 13/12/2010 17:39:37 hmmmm is this an informal reply to the following 3 part article on www.evenews24.com ??? hmmmmmm Link to an article that links malicious stuff removed. Spitfire Removing - or should i say censoring? - links to a news article that describes in detail, which tricks a person uses for botting/RMT seems a bit... well... like hiding the truth. And I haven't found any "links to malicious stuff" there either, only a ton of interesting information. I read the article yesterday, and it definately made me a sad panda, seeing how a single person (apparently from Italy, not China) is able to get not only hundreds of times more ISK than a normal player for himself to enjoy EVE (with a personal Titan, etc..) but, at the same time, also selling ISK for a monthly salary that I can only dream of. What? You can't hide a rotting dead elephant under a carpet? Someone tells CCP. There are no macrominers in EVE
mechtech Deep Core Mining Inc.	Posted - 2010.12.15 09:47:00 - [184] Not really impressed by this blog... Personally, I see the war on bots as important as the war on lag. First off, I don't agree on the viewpoint that the majority of the effort goes to fight isk buyers (in order to reduce demand). Sure, that's an important aspect, but tons of botting is done for personal gain, and to fund alliance operations. Guess which one aggravates legitimate players the most? Large scale macro farming operations and isk spamming are background noise for every mmo, but when players find start to suspect that the itans killing them are funded by macros, that's when the rage starts. We don't just need a war on RMT, we need a targeted war on bots. Sure, there will always be some sophisticated bots out there that don't get detected, but every bot has a signature, and not everyone uses the top of the line bot and keeps them updated. There should be a team 100% dedicated to developing and using tools to detect and ban bots. There are many initiatives you can take here, like WoWs warden bot scanner, and a robust system for players to report 'illegal' activity. Right now the main problem is that it's too easy to bot and not get banned, or at least that is the perception. You can almost totally eliminate bots with proper effort. Look at Pokerstart, they have an in house team dedicated to detecting the patterns and signatures of bots, and they will eventually ban a botter's account. It's widely known that they buy and test the botting programs themselves. If you aren't doing this yet, if you aren't monitoring the top botting forums and testing bots in house to find signatures, then you need to start now. The top botters will always be 1 step ahead of you, but if you don't stay 1 step behind them at all times the problem will get out of control, especially as the game grows. Stay 1 step behind the botters at all times, and leave a trail of perma-banned accounts in your unholy wake!
Bhattran	Posted - 2010.12.15 10:36:00 - [185] Originally by: SkinSin Well I read the devblog and the gist of it was: 1) We know about RMT. 2) We continue to do something about it. 3) We are aware of botting. 4) Buy plex. 5) Plex is good. 6) Buy Plex. It was a particularly unenlightening devblog and didn't add any more information than we already know. To be honest, GM Grimmi might as well have not bothered it was that pointless! After editing I feel your summation is now accurate representation of the spin control statement issued by the PR department and posted as a 'dev blog' which I awaited with some eagerness, no graphs, no numbers, no content. --WIS/Incarna/Ambulation where microtransactions come to play, and uh bars.--
Hethor Sebiestor tribe	Posted - 2010.12.15 10:46:00 - [186] While I do detest RMT, I have to also say that I find PLEX to be disgusting. The "solution" to stopping real money trading activities in EVE was CCP introducing a cash shop. So instead of people paying real money for isk or characters or items, now people pay real money for plex for isk, or characters, or items. What's the difference really? CCP by their own hand introduced a method for people with excess cash to instantly have years worth of skillpoints and billions of isk. People cry out when a free to play game offers any items that have a gameplay advantage if you pay real money for them. Then just look at EVE! It's a subscription model that also offers the entire market AND characters for real life money! I would much rather see them set their unholy rage against the botters and such, without introducing PLEX into the game. It would have kept the playing field even for legitimate players. The introduction of PLEX into EVE was a flawed, awful solution to a problem it legalizes instead of solves. It is by far the worst move CCP has done, in my mind.
Russian Mistress	Posted - 2010.12.15 11:01:00 - [187] I really like the proposals of Datcorinna Erunde about uncovering the bots and making their life miserable. Also I would like to add that CCP should read the petitions written when bots are detected. As an example: We had a bot in nearby system and petitioned CCP about it several times-no result. The petiton was just closed. We just bubbled asteroid belts and killed it. Also some of the bots can reply in local to answer simple questions. Some bots are using pixel recognition algorythm, so thee can detect some phrases also and give a quick reply, or just type anything in local. Some bots are having random login and logoff time, for example U input hours for botting and choose the required interval for it, also the bot can log off randomly and login to look like a real person near the computer. Some advanced bots are using bookmarks for belts instead of warping to belts at 0, some also use this bm randomly to insure different logs instead of belt 1-2-3-4-5 etcà I understand that it is a hard work to uncover them, but it is very much possible, if CCP really makes it a goal. 1. Most of the bots use a safe spot for warping and cloaking (easily can be seen in logs) 2. If the bots are using corp hangar on pos to unload salvage and loot and take ammo for next cycle (could be seen in logs as well) remark.. some bots take a random number of ammo to look like real person, but it is random between some numbers (like 900-1300 missiles for golem). 3. Bots mostly use a raven (if they dont have a pos in a system) or Golem (in system with POS) 4.Bots react faster than a human being (watch for logs) it needs 0.4-0.6 secs to react and activate warp command if they see anyone in local (I doubt that any real man can do this fast after ratting for 5-6 hours in belts, believe me) I can continueà The main thing FOR CCP IS: 1. WORKING BETTER WHEN BOTS ARE PETITIONED!! 2. MAKE a SOFTWARE, that can analyze the info due to steps, written by Datcorinna Erunde Also I would like to add, that DRONE russian regions are one of the most trouble in EVE. I will tell you whyà I huge part om RMT connected with super-capital production. Due to cheap alloys (I will tell why are they so cheap later), XDeath pets and XDeath themselves have the ability of making them nonstop and sell these for real money (like they did it to WN etc.) Why the alloys are so cheap in Drone regions?? This is a matter of expoit and unfair gameplay (not xdeath members guilty, but CCP, who gave them such an easy opportunity). The trick is very easyà smartbombing drone bs and structures in anomalies. How that happens: What we need: 1. abbadon with 8 EM large smartbombs passive tank 2. carrier(mothership, or rorqual). Rorqual is even better 1 energy transfer + 1 capital remote armor repairer+ 2(3) large smartbombs EM These 2 ships warp to anomaly (drone horde for example) at 0 and activate all smarts simultaneously. After 5 minutes the anomaly is complete, noobs collect alloys and salvage wrecks. Since the wrecks invulnerable to smartbombs, it gives ****loads of loot and easiest isk in Eve. If the CCP makes the smartbombs kill wrecks again, the RMT will decrease at least 1/3
Muul Udonii Minmatar THORN Syndicate Controlled Chaos	Posted - 2010.12.15 11:43:00 - [188] [Quote]We have by no means stamped out the whole of RMT in EVE Online. This is an ongoing struggle and the results depend on what we do - but they are also dictated by the conduct of you, the players. ISK is sold because people buy it. Players do business with the RMT element and that is why accounts are hacked, asteroid belts are sucked up by bots and it is why we find ourselves in our current situation. Confirming that it is our fault the game was built in a manner that allows botting, and that RMT is so easy to hide from CCP, and that the $/ISK exchange rate is so high it makes it well worth the risk for players to buy ISK from these RMT folks. Seriously guys, RMT hurts only CCP, while botting for ISK hurts everyone EXCEPT CCP. One other question however: Is GM Grimmi a Dev? As in a person who codes the game. Or is he the person who tells us that the logs show nothing? Because they aint developers.
gfldex	Posted - 2010.12.15 12:29:00 - [189] Let's see if you can censor faster then we can post: Nakit Emperor! To add a little more content to my post, I would like to raise the question how many sov bills are payed with bot ISK.
Apollo Gabriel Brotherhood Of Fallen Angels Etherium Cartel	Posted - 2010.12.15 12:37:00 - [190] Originally by: Apollo Gabriel The Pink Bunny Test is the last, best hope for banning macros, here is how it works: 1) Allow GMs to turn off mining modules (and only mining modules) 2) Allow GMs to minimize all active windows. 3) Allow GMs to spawn a Pink Bunny over the module buttons. 4) Allow GMs to open a chat box irrespective of client restrictions directly above the modules 5) If the player reactivates their modules then bot, otherwise enjoy the funny conversation which will follow. Self quoting for seriousness. ====================================== I'm a nice guy, but I'm not your mom. ======================================
gfldex	Posted - 2010.12.15 12:44:00 - [191] Originally by: Muul Udonii One other question however: Is GM Grimmi a Dev? As in a person who codes the game. Or is he the person who tells us that the logs show nothing? Because they aint developers. How can you question the success of an assignment to the department that requires the least skills to get hired in?
Kalle Demos Amarr Hysteria Nexus	Posted - 2010.12.15 12:51:00 - [192] Heh and here I thought I was the only one that wasnt impressed with the blog. Here is a small conversation Timmy and Billy have Quote: Billy: I am so useless and cant make ISK but I want to get stuff somewhat for free without doing work Timmy: Thats ok Billy, there is many ways you can undock in failfits without having to work for it Billy: Oh how? Timmy: Well Billy it will involve you breaking the EULA, are you prepared todo that? Billy: Yeah sure, I take it you want me to buy ISK using RL cash then? Timmy: No Billy that would be stupid, ISK is expensive to buy and you will get banned, you dont want to get banned do you? Billy: But I will be breaking the EULA, so I will get banned Timmy: You dont get banned for botting Billy: Botting? Timmy: Yes botting, a crappy software with so many requirements to the UI that does all your mining or ratting for you? Billy: Why wont I get banned from using bots? Timmy: CCP find it hard to deal with botters, so they are going to focus on RMT, little do they know RMT has dropped in the past year because it is cheaper and safer to buy and use a bot. Billy: Cool! So I wont have to play really and in a week I can finally get my failfit supercarrier Timmy: That is correct Originally by: Kool StoryBro <--- Originally by: CCP Spitfire Spam post removed. Random forum moments ftw
betty drunkenlord	Posted - 2010.12.15 12:58:00 - [193] First CCP thank you for a response. It was a good start to introduce strategic plan on fighting bots and rmt. By word 'strategic' I mean describing an action plan with activities on all fields that will stop spoiling the greatest game for many of us. 1. Change game mechanics/client-server communication/client internal behaviour to make difficult for botting programs to read and exploit the game. Just sum up all ideas from this and earlier threads, note cons and pros for each of them, then gather top coders/testers/GMs etc., choose top 10 ideas then start implementation. 2. Design and impose a clear communication campaign that bot is as bad as rmt since it hurts ccp, player experience, it is the denial of the very uniqueness of this game -> you need to work hard for long time to achieve results in this game (htfu/harsh envrionment pararells etc). For example some window in the start screen reminding that using macros or selling ingame isk for RL cash is bannable and criminal offence. For once stop with ambiguousness concerning bots that profits ccp. It's the other way round! 3. Get to know your players better, introduce at least periodical (every 2 month) surveys asking about different elements of the game, then create task force to report you findings of those. Right now you never now whether those 1000 players that quit last month just stopped playing because of RL issues or because they were really disgusted with bots or game mechanics. The faster you introduce such survey the more growth you generate more growth for your company since you will now 95% players that don't have that much time to communicate with you via forums/csm/alliance leaders etc. Simple as that. With all the consultation apply qui bono rule (who benefits from current state of affairs -> botters, rmters and RENTERS that is big alliances). These will be the people who openly or secretly oppose any change making botting and rmting more difficult. Let's remember: Bots crowds out most active players, they crowd out many highsec corporations from 0.0, they crowd out people from one of big professions in game i.e. mining making the game for all of those guys much less interesting.
SyntaxPD	Posted - 2010.12.15 13:03:00 - [194] by fact. EVE economy can eat all botter together also. If they bot isk - minerals will rise in price and more ppl or bots will go for mining and manufactuing, shifting prices down If they bot for minerals - they will fall in price and more ppl will go for isk, increasing incomes and buyers strengh and increasing prices for minerals. so bots or not bot will not have heavy impact on highsec player, but will strongly affect 0.0 map.
betty drunkenlord	Posted - 2010.12.15 13:10:00 - [195] Originally by: SyntaxPD by fact. EVE economy can eat all botter together also. If they bot isk - minerals will rise in price and more ppl or bots will go for mining and manufactuing, shifting prices down If they bot for minerals - they will fall in price and more ppl will go for isk, increasing incomes and buyers strengh and increasing prices for minerals. so bots or not bot will not have heavy impact on highsec player, but will strongly affect 0.0 map. lol, bots have a GREAT impact on all players who buy plex since they collectively increase demand for plex (+ some of them via rmt decrease supply of plex) -> bots crowds out player's accounts who are fed with plex. They have also great impact on high sec starter profession which is miner (less profit for players who want to be a miner).
Vincent Athena	Posted - 2010.12.15 13:17:00 - [196] Originally by: Apollo Gabriel The Pink Bunny Test is the last, best hope for banning macros, here is how it works: 1) Allow GMs to turn off mining modules (and only mining modules) 2) Allow GMs to minimize all active windows. 3) Allow GMs to spawn a Pink Bunny over the module buttons. 4) Allow GMs to open a chat box irrespective of client restrictions directly above the modules 5) If the player reactivates their modules then bot, otherwise enjoy the funny conversation which will follow. 6. Bot program, seeing something on the screen it cannot handle, brings the offending screen to the front and sounds an alarm so the bot manager can deal with it. This would stop simple "timed" macros, the more basic bots, and the bots run afk (but even those could just simulate a DC, leaving suspicion, but no proof). But the actively managed bot farms (30+ per person, person always there to handle issues) will keep right on grinding. Now if we could have a webcam looking at the keyboard....
gfldex	Posted - 2010.12.15 13:27:00 - [197] Originally by: Vincent Athena Now if we could have a webcam looking at the keyboard.... As it seams there are 2 bots out there right now. Not hard to sneak a little extra into a patch that has a look at the process list and forwards a tiny little wee bit of information to the server. Heck, even Blizzard is getting that done. CCP could have done that years ago. They don't care and/or fear they would have to ban halve of their ingame buddies. You can handle only so many MSN messaged per day, you know.
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.15 13:38:00 - [198] Originally by: gfldex As it seams there are 2 bots out there right now. no idea what game you are talking about but it doesn't seem to be EVE.
Mar'Ketalt	Posted - 2010.12.15 14:16:00 - [199] wow the dev basically pulled a DEA on us: "The drug war is only going on because you stupid people keep buying! Stop doing drugs!" Why not something a little more complex, about how you're examining the actual ways that RMT moves in EvE, through the 0.0 alliances at what not? At the moment, many people are convinced CCP is basically in bed with RMT, since it sells subscriptions.
Garia666 Amarr T.H.U.G L.I.F.E Talos Coalition	Posted - 2010.12.15 14:31:00 - [200] What i dont you guys team up with an 3th party security tool. scanning for known programs with certain specific data. LIKE the BOT TOOLS like example Battleye ANTI-CHEAT http://www.battleye.com/ Or build in your own secret scanning tool.. Do not click this ad.
Raid'En	Posted - 2010.12.15 15:01:00 - [201] Edited by: Raid''En on 15/12/2010 15:01:03 must agree that there's nothing we didn't know on this "blog" :/ there's not even a single number o_O ---------------- Wormhole Trading
Jowen Datloran Caldari Science and Trade Institute	Posted - 2010.12.15 15:13:00 - [202] Edited by: Jowen Datloran on 15/12/2010 15:19:46 So CCP is countering the constant evlving botting industry by doing the same as last year... Not surprisingly have you lost the fight a long time ago. Luckely, no matter how much people bot or buy titans out of their salary it will have no effect on the parts of the game I enjoy. Staying the heck away from no sec power struggles (aka. "pay to win") was indeed a wise choice. FYI: "Hardcore gamer" means borderline or full blown cheater in this day and age. -- Mr. Science & Trade Institute - EVE Lorebook - Mysteries of W-space
Razz XXX Minmatar Vashta Nerada Corp	Posted - 2010.12.15 15:47:00 - [203] Originally by: Jowen Datloran Edited by: Jowen Datloran on 15/12/2010 15:19:46 FYI: "Hardcore gamer" means borderline or full blown cheater in this day and age. Nice Quote!!
Kile Kitmoore	Posted - 2010.12.15 17:56:00 - [204] Wow, I really don't envy CCP's position in this whole RMT/Botter battle. If you start slamming the ban hammer to hard you catch a number of legitimate players/corps. On the other hand if you take a lighter approach to RMT/Botting it starts to spread like a virus, as players feel they have to join them to beat them. One thing is very clear, you have a difficult job ahead. This blog unfortunately is lacking both passion and substance for winning this little war. My biggest fear however is that some at CCP are well aware of large RMT/Botter activities but because these are attached to someone who may be well known or liked they ignore the player/corps. practices. CCP should not rule out that people in it's own organization could be involved. God I hope I am wrong on those last two statements. Proposals: 1. Who's in charge? Seriously, is there someone in CCP's organization that is responsible for combating this menace? If not, why not? If this person does not exist maybe they should and depending on how serious you take this matter will determine their qualifications. Personally, I would find someone who has the technical know-how to reverse engineer these little apps floating around and can create client/server side tools for detection. This person would also need to be able to analyze logs and track those RMT transactions back to their source. In the end, you have someone or a team you can actually hold accountable when the RMT/Botter disease starts to spread. I would also not rule out hiring someone who actually develops these tools, can't beat them get them to join you in your fight. Find your CCPCSI and give him/her the tools and authority. 2. Examine the way these activities are reported by the player base to your organization. If someone reports a bot through the petition system what happens, where does it end up and with who? Using the petition system may not be the best method for players to communicate these activities. If a new process for reporting needs to be created just take into account that some fools will abuse it. This system should have a way which people who do help report these activities are informed of both the status and outcome. Consider awarding helpful players. 3. Communication to the player base. Clearly layout what will happen to players for using botting tools or buying ISK's through non-approved sources. Clearly layout what happens to a corp. or an alliance who's leadership is aware of such activities. Communicate how the player's can help CCP police these activities, heck offer rewards. The method you use to communicate this information is just as important, forum posts and dev blogs will not reach the masses. Use e-mail in-game and out of game in combination with dev blogs. This communication should be ongoing and not when the masses huddle together with their pitchforks and torches. 4. Create a system that allows a player/corp. to appeal if they are unfortunately caught in a tidal wave of bans. Good luck in your fight, I look forward to reading CSM's discussions with you concerning this matter.
Altaica Amur Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters Important Internet Spaceship League	Posted - 2010.12.15 19:17:00 - [205] Quote: Manfred Sideous's post 1. Maybe, certainly doing something to change local so that it dosen't play into the hands of botters would be nice but at the same time I think better tools would have to be developed to counter logoffski and afk cloaking tactics from making you unable to use your own space. 2. I agree, moon mins getting into PI would be good to make it a more valuable activity but some changes would need to be made to the mechanics to reduce the prevalence of botting that's been reported. 3. I'm not sure force-moving it is the way to go but introducing a soft barrier to highsec production would be nice, simply have a % based fee that's based on the security of a system to allow POS production to become competitive, if not entirely replace, station production. 4. I'm not sure about this, it's very difficult since it would mean a massive cut to highsec income where there are still a lot of real players playing the game. That said I think it would be worth making some change to the code that would prevent most/all botting programs from operating just to get a sense of where the numbers of real players and bots are. 5. Interesting idea and certainly some sort of CCP endorsed way of moving big assets like this around would be good, though at the same time it prevents the sometimes-humerus scamming/trickery that might otherwise occur with someone who can't ban either party. Quote: Jaqel Broadside's drivel 1&2 Yeah I get this and there's a degree of truth to it but at the same time I prefer the current sov system to bashing towers forever, and no I don't bot, botting in my end of Provi would be bad in so many ways. 3. This has always been true and even outside of Sov we see an obvious trend towards blobbing up and numbers when fighting others I'm not sure what you expect them to do and no this isn't in any way part of a pattern that connects to botting RMT, fleet bots would be lol tho. 4. It's definitely grindy and lacks in value to make it all that worthy for human player's time. 5-7. True enough and I'd like to see some progress here 8. This is the closest you get to an actual solution other then saying 'lol everything's bad' and I agree that belt rats need more variety and having a random chance of 10+ BS spawning when you kill a belt rat would help improve the income for players while increasing the risk to bots who may not react appropriately to a changing tactical situation. 9-17. Totally going off the rails, you're confusing player competition with botting and creating a false association between lower security space and botting. Nullsec that's well controlled by the sov holding alliance is good for botting lowsec is laughably bad and much of more contested 0.0 is also quite bad. T2 BPOs make enough isk to be worth doing the human input required to take advantage of them anyways, if any part of this was to be botted it would be the materials collection. Your argument about Caldari is also laughably bad though, other then the Raven and the drake there aren't a ton of caldari ships used a lot in PvP, it's ECM was one of the few Caldari ships welcome in a roaming gang until the recent rise of the drake. Quote: Shurikane's post "Keyword: obvious. Instant red flag. "He gets all the kills as a sniper, he's obviously hacking!..." "Imagine porting that over to EVE. I hop in my trusty Raven, wander my alliance's space, get a nice quiet system and go to town ratting while a corpmate trails behind in an industrial" Right there you stopped behaving like a bot and any effort to build a circumstantial case for your behavior being botting should stop there. Even if you're doing a full day marathon of ratting as you mentioned later bio breaks should prop up in the logs as breaks unexplained by the presence of a hostile, furthermore I think the proportion of innocent players who Marathon a few days in a row is low enough to be worth the risk.
Deandra Walran	Posted - 2010.12.15 22:57:00 - [206] Maybe its time for CCP to actually get into the bot market themselves? It appears that they only care about the RMT side of things. So, why doesn't CCP create their own "authorised" bot (that mines, rats and missions) and charge an additional fee per month for its use (or double PLEX/month)? With this, CCP has a financial intrest in quashing all other bots. CCP seems to only act if they are the ones losing out on the money.
SyntaxPD	Posted - 2010.12.15 23:18:00 - [207] Originally by: betty drunkenlord lol, bots have a GREAT impact on all players who buy plex since they collectively increase demand for plex (+ some of them via rmt decrease supply of plex) -> bots crowds out player's accounts who are fed with plex. They have also great impact on high sec starter profession which is miner (less profit for players who want to be a miner). Think about it just same to international currency trading and global market. On the one hand we have EVE-inside economy, which will not hurt from bots (but 0.0 power balance hurts). And on the other hand we have PLEX, wild to EVE commodity, that comes from nothing and have significant value. Bots will trully affect plex only if amount of plexes per month would remain stable. EVE-inside economy is all about isk-minerals, this relations between goods and currency will always be at roughly same level or fluctuate slightly, coz ppl would go more profitable way, balancing both sides. Lets imagine how it could be, but first, think about it like about minerals-plex and isk-plex. And here we have some different scenarios: 1st: amount of plex remains stable, supply heavily restricted, prices for plex will go up,both in isk and minerals. In other words, PLEX seller could buy more ravens for single plex, this will attract more suppliers (and more isk buyers by RMT). 2nd: for some reasons, there is too much isk in eve, and what happen ? Mineral prices will go up and lift prices for other staff, what is very bad for new players, but it's only for first look. In this term players choose the way to get more isk and if the NPC cannot provide needed amounts they will go for other players. Mining is a market approved way of getting isk from players and not from endless can - NPCs. And what we see - balancing again. But thee are still 2 things which will hurt from botters really, not to mention your own ego (my roommate has titan and he's doing nothing, i play 20\7 and have not!!!ragerage). The first is CCP, as potential plex supplyers go for RMT and do not buy plex. But this will not really affect eve itself, for eve economy - doesnt matter if you buy plex or if you buy isk - you anyway get it from another player. The second is 0.0 powerblocks for the reasons i mentioned higher - naighbours have and we have not - the power of alliances.
Xel Ra	Posted - 2010.12.15 23:24:00 - [208] Originally by: 4Chan TubeChild This is such a stupid ass blog. I can't even believe I still play this game. So go play something else.
Cornwalace	Posted - 2010.12.15 23:50:00 - [209] IMO, the only solution is to keep everything that costs the amount of ISK that it takes for RMT's, would be to change things at an ongoing pace/faster. Whether it's moving Jita around (forcing people not to trade @ Jita for a time), Random NPC's putting hits out on pilots that are botting, or even the simple act of creating a rule that really makes it difficult (because, lets be real, it's impossible to stamp out completely) for bots to thrive. The theme behind it is just that the ability to make isk needs to be adjusted in an ongoing fashion, as to limit the amount of botting that does take place. Whether it's changing a character's ability altogether, or just being insanely proactive to accounts that have an unusally high flag's by players for being a bot or what-not. One idea I have for changing a character's ability altogether is an Amarr character agreeing to more rules/taxes, or a Minmatar character agreeing to random NPC hit squads or by the Amarr empire, especially if they make way more isk than usual. Another idea is having an actual concord fleet literally go after those people/associations/corporations directly, no matter where they're at. I'm sure it's not beyond ccp to find out what w-space or wheverever they're at and just have at it.
Jaqel Broadside	Posted - 2010.12.16 00:08:00 - [210] Edited by: Jaqel Broadside on 16/12/2010 00:09:03 Originally by: Altaica Amur Quote: Jaqel Broadside's drivel 9-17. Totally going off the rails, you're confusing player competition with botting and creating a false association between lower security space and botting. Nullsec that's well controlled by the sov holding alliance is good for botting lowsec is laughably bad and much of more contested 0.0 is also quite bad. T2 BPOs make enough isk to be worth doing the human input required to take advantage of them anyways, if any part of this was to be botted it would be the materials collection. Your argument about Caldari is also laughably bad though, other then the Raven and the drake there aren't a ton of caldari ships used a lot in PvP, it's ECM was one of the few Caldari ships welcome in a roaming gang until the recent rise of the drake. I think you miss the point of 9-17, I had to cut things short, my appologies, where I speak of low sec missions I mean a high sec missioner now faces low sec missions on a day to day basis - most people will not do them for various reasons. This leads to some lack of progression if you need faction standing or corp standing. But even with several accounts you can find yourself with nothing much to do for days if you are unlucky. Sure it may force you to look for alternatives in the game but ultimately it reduces your income, people with less income will look for sources of ISK for the new shiny they want and that promotes buying ISK, that was my point. That's why I deeply suspect people advocating knocking high sec income - especially when the stated reason of inflating mineral prices has failed epically. As regards a solution and not a whine. One immediate observation, nano ships required pilot skill - please bring in more pilot skill required for everything. CCP has some real problems. They code in Python yet the tools being used to bot are most likely coming from Microsoft - which can be programmed in Visual Basic, C#, j#, C++ and some new meta languages like F# - and in fact they all compile to one machine independant code base. I don't code in Python but I imagine it doesn't support the Microsfot tools directly. Python will ALWAYS be several steps behind simply because of the huge platform Microsoft caters for. Some suggestions perhaps are better not posted on a public forum - but I also wouldn't dream of trying to teach grandma how to suck eggs,, grandma knows very well what a mouth with no teeth can do. But THE biggest suggestion I can make is get in touch with Microsoft as I am pretty sure other software vendors have faced the same problem and, seeing as the tools are coming from Microsoft's own code libraries I'm pretty sure they will help CCP out. PS. I do hope CCP read this stuff and conclude that they also have a cultural problem in developing gank/repetative game mechanics rather than strategy mechanics, however they do also have some very good policies like options,,, keep providing people with options, that is infact the way to go and I love it
Santa Cluasewitz	Posted - 2010.12.16 07:12:00 - [211] Vague useless crap. CCP trying to shut up the 50 thousand people who read the RMT uncovered articles. This "devblog" can be summed up with "catching botters is hard m'kay!" It's not like they sit in the same systems every day logging on after downtime ratting the same belts for 23.5 hrs a day. On wait most of them do. Just write a script to see who made a billion isk ratting the last week and look at their activity.
mechtech Deep Core Mining Inc.	Posted - 2010.12.16 07:29:00 - [212] Bots =/= RMT. This is where CCP is not seeing correctly. They are both a problem, but most of us are more concerned about people who use bots for personal (or corp/alliance) gain vs 1T isk sitting in holding accounts. We need a targetted effort against botting. Who cares if it's for RMT, for personal gain, or just because someone likes cheating, bots need to be targeted and eliminated to the best of CCPs ability. Also, many botters get 3 day bans, this is not enough. Take isk away, even take SP away, temp bans are not enough for the first offence. Most bots use client injection. This is a client security hole and needs to be fixed. This would be the first step towards fighting bots, not just RMT.
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.16 09:03:00 - [213] Edited by: Cyaxares II on 16/12/2010 09:11:42 Originally by: Jaqel Broadside CCP has some real problems. They code in Python yet the tools being used to bot are most likely coming from Microsoft - which can be programmed in Visual Basic, C#, j#, C++ and some new meta languages like F# - and in fact they all compile to one machine independant code base. I don't code in Python but I imagine it doesn't support the Microsfot tools directly. Python will ALWAYS be several steps behind simply because of the huge platform Microsoft caters for. Some suggestions perhaps are better not posted on a public forum - but I also wouldn't dream of trying to teach grandma how to suck eggs,, grandma knows very well what a mouth with no teeth can do. But THE biggest suggestion I can make is get in touch with Microsoft as I am pretty sure other software vendors have faced the same problem and, seeing as the tools are coming from Microsoft's own code libraries I'm pretty sure they will help CCP out. argh.... you're totally wrong (well you might be right about you're grandma but that's sth I can't really comment on). Choice of programming language does not matter at all. The stupid "macro/OCR" approach to bots is always technically possible (if you allow multitasking). Hooking into other applications is something that is handled by the operating system and is possible in every desktop OS if you have admin privileges (because it is a functionality that is necessary for debugging tools). Now, Python can make it easier to hook into the client without going low-level but as the popular toolkit for botting authors advertises support for Age of Conan, EVE Online, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, World of Warcraft, ... (i.e. doesn't require Python and just uses plain Windows APIs) I doubt many people make use of this "weakness". People like to write code in C# or VB because it is easy (compared to C/C++) and because Visual Studio (Express) is such a nice (free as in beer) IDE. But if you are going to write a bot "from scratch" you'll end up calling the Win32 API (for which every major porgramming language provides wrappers) all the time and won't make much use of the .NET libraries. Language does not matter. Neither on the client's nor on the bot's end.
Jaqel Broadside	Posted - 2010.12.16 11:05:00 - [214] Originally by: Cyaxares II Stuff The Macro process you describe should be easy to spot. It's just a matter of knowing if the call was made internally by the client or not, then it is game over for all botting activity.
Max Cetera Capital Researchs Inc.	Posted - 2010.12.16 12:33:00 - [215] How to catch botters 101: 1. Release some small "client fix" patches that won't touch anything important and keep injection-bot without any update needed. 2. After a few normal patches, release the "Bot Trap" one as client fix #3 3. In that patch, duplicate all calls used by "mainstream" injection-bots : - Client is changed to use all the new ones - Old ones still produce the same effect on the game, except they send a warning about it to the server Wait 1-2 weeks, temp ban everyone who ran a bot, but perma ban the bot farms running 23 hours a day.
Jaqel Broadside	Posted - 2010.12.16 12:37:00 - [216] Originally by: Max Cetera How to catch botters 101: 1. Release some small "client fix" patches that won't touch anything important and keep injection-bot without any update needed. 2. After a few normal patches, release the "Bot Trap" one as client fix #3 3. In that patch, duplicate all calls used by "mainstream" injection-bots : - Client is changed to use all the new ones - Old ones still produce the same effect on the game, except they send a warning about it to the server Wait 1-2 weeks, temp ban everyone who ran a bot, but perma ban the bot farms running 23 hours a day. If there are any "Temp" bans then I want my money back for the last x years thank you for not having a game worth paying for.
Cyaxares II	Posted - 2010.12.16 15:57:00 - [217] Edited by: Cyaxares II on 16/12/2010 16:05:30 Edited by: Cyaxares II on 16/12/2010 15:59:20 Originally by: Jaqel Broadside Originally by: Cyaxares II Stuff The Macro process you describe should be easy to spot. It's just a matter of knowing if the call was made internally by the client or not, then it is game over for all botting activity. I think I am out of this discussion. I freely admit that my knowledge of computer security is a bit sketchy (but then I am an economics grad student) - however, from my POV the only way you could enforce your idea of "how things should be" would be in hardware. Your ideas require the operating system to lock down the computer nearly completely and require hardware to secure the operating system (hello Blue Pill). Of course that's the exact opposite of the purpose of a personal computer. So if you think "lockdown" is the solution to bots (or any sort of malware) I invite you to stop using PCs and switch to console games (and witness how even the most complicated "protection" schemes do eventually fall to the ingenuity of hackers). edit: if you would think through your ideas ("if I do x an intelligent bot author would do y, so I would have to do z to prevent that, ...") you would re-discover Trusted Computing after very few steps. By that point you would hopefully realize that even if you think Trusted Computing is a good idea it is a completely unrealistic goal given the culture that has developed around general-purpose "personal" computers.
gfldex	Posted - 2010.12.16 16:33:00 - [218] Originally by: Cyaxares II I freely admit that my knowledge of computer security is a bit sketchy (but then I am an economics grad student) - however, from my POV the only way you could enforce your idea of "how things should be" would be in hardware. Not even there. Any virtual machine can simulate any hardware. You can make assumptions about speed and rule a few bits out that way, but over the interweb that's a bit tricky to do so. The effect of punkbuster and friends is not caused by them being able to detect stuff. (PB works for 2 days for popular cheats, then those cheats are updated) The effect comes from the heads of folk that think PB _might_ catch them. You create an environment where only those who want to leave the game anyway would use it. (And a few idiots. Brains are funny things.) As a result you wont scare RMTs off with that. But I would be very surprised to see somebody risk his accounts to maintain sov with botted ISK. It's a bit counter productive the fight over space, just to lose it because you could not convice your alliance members to pay for it.
Andrea Griffin	Posted - 2010.12.16 17:15:00 - [219] For those who are promoting tools such as PunkBuster as anti-cheat measures, remember that even those tools can be fooled and it isn't particularly difficult to do so. Even Valve's VAC system can be bypassed. VAC does a pretty good job, but it never catches the recent tricks and is always a few steps behind the cheaters. It does make things trickier, but not impossible. Given that there are communities out there that share information on bypassing these systems, it wouldn't take long for the Eve bot creators to be active again. Perhaps this is the reason why CCP hasn't already implemented these measures. It would be a large cost for them for a minimal return on the investment, then you have ongoing maintenance costs as well. - "When I nerf something, it takes 2-3 months for your dreams to be crushed." - CCP Big Dumb Object
Dawn Harbinger	Posted - 2010.12.16 17:26:00 - [220] I understand the difficulty in addressing such a convoluted problem, but I would like to see this become a top priority for CCP and the CSM. After all, what's the point in playing when a bunch of cheaters and crooks are running the show?
Arithron Gallente Gallente Trade Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.16 17:43:00 - [221] It was a pleasent change to see (for the first time- never read it confirmed by CCP before) that Market bots are acknowledged. These buggers are the ones that really hurt the game and stop any sort of 'open-sandbox free economy'. Some of the earlier bots were easy to spot )and indeed fool quickly into making their owners large losses. However, they have got better and now are harder to detect. However, they must be accessing live API (?) or something also, as they are actived across multiple commodities at any one time. Why have live API...delayed is surely safer and as usable...??? The real problem with RMT'ers is that CCP are relatively powerless to stop them OUTSIDE of the game. I have reported one active on Ebay, who I estimate has made in excess of ú20,000 from selling isk the 'safe way'. It would be easy to stop this fella....contacting him covertly via MSN posing as a customer, enact a transaction and await the character trading within game. Once this info is known, other accounts etc linked can be banned. Why just a 3 day ban or warning? Perma-bans surely much more effective :) Forgive the ramblings... Arithron Vote Arithron for CSM! Check out my thread: http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=899358
Apollo Gabriel Brotherhood Of Fallen Angels Etherium Cartel	Posted - 2010.12.16 18:00:00 - [222] Originally by: Vincent Athena Originally by: Apollo Gabriel The Pink Bunny Test is the last, best hope for banning macros, here is how it works: 1) Allow GMs to turn off mining modules (and only mining modules) 2) Allow GMs to minimize all active windows. 3) Allow GMs to spawn a Pink Bunny over the module buttons. 4) Allow GMs to open a chat box irrespective of client restrictions directly above the modules 5) If the player reactivates their modules then bot, otherwise enjoy the funny conversation which will follow. 6. Bot program, seeing something on the screen it cannot handle, brings the offending screen to the front and sounds an alarm so the bot manager can deal with it. This would stop simple "timed" macros, the more basic bots, and the bots run afk (but even those could just simulate a DC, leaving suspicion, but no proof). But the actively managed bot farms (30+ per person, person always there to handle issues) will keep right on grinding. Now if we could have a webcam looking at the keyboard.... The difference here is that the Macro doesn't have to handle ANYTHING, but a player would react. ====================================== Want isk? So does everyone in Jita, so leave before they get yours. ======================================
Apollo Gabriel Brotherhood Of Fallen Angels Etherium Cartel	Posted - 2010.12.16 18:03:00 - [223] Originally by: Arithron It was a pleasent change to see (for the first time- never read it confirmed by CCP before) that Market bots are acknowledged. These buggers are the ones that really hurt the game and stop any sort of 'open-sandbox free economy'. Some of the earlier bots were easy to spot )and indeed fool quickly into making their owners large losses. However, they have got better and now are harder to detect. However, they must be accessing live API (?) or something also, as they are actived across multiple commodities at any one time. Why have live API...delayed is surely safer and as usable...??? What market bots are you talking about? I personally play games by listing 2-3 orders of the same good, and penny everytime someone pennies me. Or do you mean something else? AG ====================================== Want isk? So does everyone in Jita, so leave before they get yours. ======================================
Arithron Gallente Gallente Trade Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.16 19:19:00 - [224] These are the bots that buy a commodity and resell at 0.01 isk below top sell within 5 seconds of the sale and then match other players (or bots!) till product sells...across multiple products, so watching for 12 hrs straight and dropping 0.01 isk to match competitors vwery difficult (I have teamed up to find and watch such activity on some known bot characters). Behaviour is getting better at mimicing human players...so they obviously feel detectable... Also, drop the skill that allows one to post a large buy order (margin trading) without the isk to back it up is used often by bots...(but a few canny marketeers use it also!). Personally, I can't see the point of it tbh. Arithron Vote Arithron for CSM! Check out my thread: http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=899358
Bhattran	Posted - 2010.12.16 19:58:00 - [225] Edited by: Bhattran on 16/12/2010 20:02:18 Originally by: Arithron These are the bots that buy a commodity and resell at 0.01 isk below top sell within 5 seconds of the sale and then match other players (or bots!) till product sells...across multiple products, so watching for 12 hrs straight and dropping 0.01 isk to match competitors vwery difficult (I have teamed up to find and watch such activity on some known bot characters). Behaviour is getting better at mimicing human players...so they obviously feel detectable... Also, drop the skill that allows one to post a large buy order (margin trading) without the isk to back it up is used often by bots...(but a few canny marketeers use it also!). Personally, I can't see the point of it tbh. Arithron It's a trap to see how greedy and superior some people think they are to others. If you think the sell order for x at blank above their 'real' value when those are the only significant quantities available anywhere isn't a trap for the buy order with a minimum of Y units of X or somewhere very near the number of X units for sale at the outrageous price. The real reason is you can try to buy more than you can 'afford' at the moment as you can't/don't realistically get your orders filled unless you overpay which you wouldn't do on a buy order 99% of the time. As part of that you could have things up for sale so while your order is being filled your cash replenishes or you make more isk other ways, contracts, missions etc, the buy orders you can't afford allow you to utilize isk in more lucrative ways than being denied your isk without getting the item. TLDR: I've never been a victim of this scam and I've never done it to anyone but I like that it exists. EDITED to add: This blog stinks and the numerous ideas/suggestions put forward by members show that CCP hasn't spent much if any time fighting botting but rather 'react' to RMT bot accounts. Instead of trying to make the botters jobs harder by changing how the client works/accepts data etc they simply ban accounts if they manage to figure out they are a bot, at least according to them, but probably they only do that if RMT can be traced back to the account. --WIS/Incarna/Ambulation where microtransactions come to play, and uh bars.--
gfldex	Posted - 2010.12.17 00:39:00 - [226] Originally by: Apollo Gabriel What market bots are you talking about? Those maybe?
gfldex	Posted - 2010.12.17 00:42:00 - [227] Originally by: Arithron contacting him covertly via MSN posing as a customer, enact a transaction and await the character trading within game. Once this info is known, other accounts etc linked can be banned. That wouldn't work in germany. In fact, call the police or leave them alone.
Vincent Athena	Posted - 2010.12.17 00:54:00 - [228] You can got to google video search and look for "eve ratting bot" to see those in action too.
lateralvelocity	Posted - 2010.12.17 03:30:00 - [229] I am glad to see a response. I have personally reported and seen macroers banned. And I believe it is best to be very sure it is a macro before you drop the ban hammer, that isn't easy, in some cases. The key is getting them reported even if they happen to be in your own alliance or an allies. I expect some attention in the Insmother, scalding pass etherium reach area may be fruitfull. Its an uphill battle but every banned account helps.
Manfred Sideous H A V O C Cascade Imminent	Posted - 2010.12.17 06:18:00 - [230] Let me play this all out for you. 1) I drop my hiroshima on kugu 2) I sit back and flex 3) Events unfold like this devblog. 4) The inevitable happens next. 5) CCP is forced into dealing with it. Now for the peak behind the scenes. Does anyone recall what got the AOE DD removed from the game? There was a single event that was tipping point in CCP's mind. That event was the mass DDing in 49-U. Where PL/Goon/NC displayed how overpowered the mechanic was and to what lengths they were willing to go to prove it. Well I have seeded such an event as well. There are literally untold amounts of players now acquiring macros and bots. It has been illustrated to them how easy it is and CCP lack of commitment to stop it thus far empowers the player to go forth. As a capitalistic business CCP is only concerned with a quality product in so much as what maximizes profitability. So therefore there expenditures on quality and control will always stay within the bounds of forecasted effort for profits. In order to reach the result in which I feel most desire we must push things to a tipping point. At which point there hand is forced. Dear CCP Im controlling your game and Ive just set the stage for 5 moves ahead. PS checkmate ♥ Manny
Sister Hypatia	Posted - 2010.12.17 07:37:00 - [231] It's a shame what bot topics die without creating a threadnought. No one really cares? If so, the CCP can still do nothing and you Manny fail. Also - there is no bot in this system - just hunting without a pause
Zomg Panties	Posted - 2010.12.17 08:53:00 - [232] Originally by: Othran Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 08:54:42 Originally by: Mynxee Originally by: Datcorinna Erunde For your convenience the great Wollari even colored the shown systems accordingly to the amount of the occured kills. He colored it from white (like "almost nothing") via green, yellow, orange up to a fine, perfect visible shiny red (like "unusually high occurance of NPC kills in this very system OMG OMG!!!!!!11111" or, more fitting "look here CCP, here are the bots!"). Third party tools to the rescue...again. Indeed. Heres what 15 minutes effort shows..... Time to name and shame - these are the 15 most blatant botting systems in the game and if CCP can't deal with it then its time to pack up and find another game : 8OYE-Z : Cache (SOLAR WING) Y-OMTZ : Delve (IT Alliance) G2-INZ : Esoteria (Stainless) HHQ-M1 : Esoteria (Stainless) ROJ-B0 : Insmother (RED Citizens) VBPT-T : Insmother (RED Citizens) Y-770C : Oasa (Legion of xXDEATHXx) RO-AIQ : Oasa (Shadow of xXDEATHXx) G-B3PR : Omist (White Angels) UC-8XF : Outer Passage (Shadow of xXDEATHXx) F-HQWV : Perrigen Falls (SOLAR FLEET) W-IIYI : Querious (IT Alliance) WIW-X8 : The Spire (SOLAR FLEET) HM-UVD : Stain (AAA/AAA Citizens) 4F89-U : Wicked Creek (The Jagged Alliance) Oh and as an observation - looks like some alliances got told to stop botting for a while about 24 hours ago. Its very very clear when you look at the dotlan maps - pretty much all ratting activity ceased in certain eastern regions at exactly the same time. I laugh at how NC calls out there enemies because they failed to take southern territories. based on your lack of blatant proof/evidence and you're ignorance is unbelievable.... Like do you even have any viable proof to pull thesesystems out of your mouth, or did you pull it out of your ass because you feel you have to compensate for something? who the hell knows what a complete joke lol
Abinadi9	Posted - 2010.12.17 09:07:00 - [233] Originally by: Othran Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 08:54:42 Originally by: Mynxee Originally by: Datcorinna Erunde For your convenience the great Wollari even colored the shown systems accordingly to the amount of the occured kills. He colored it from white (like "almost nothing") via green, yellow, orange up to a fine, perfect visible shiny red (like "unusually high occurance of NPC kills in this very system OMG OMG!!!!!!11111" or, more fitting "look here CCP, here are the bots!"). Third party tools to the rescue...again. Indeed. Heres what 15 minutes effort shows..... Time to name and shame - these are the 15 most blatant botting systems in the game and if CCP can't deal with it then its time to pack up and find another game : 8OYE-Z : Cache (SOLAR WING) Y-OMTZ : Delve (IT Alliance) G2-INZ : Esoteria (Stainless) HHQ-M1 : Esoteria (Stainless) ROJ-B0 : Insmother (RED Citizens) VBPT-T : Insmother (RED Citizens) Y-770C : Oasa (Legion of xXDEATHXx) RO-AIQ : Oasa (Shadow of xXDEATHXx) G-B3PR : Omist (White Angels) UC-8XF : Outer Passage (Shadow of xXDEATHXx) F-HQWV : Perrigen Falls (SOLAR FLEET) W-IIYI : Querious (IT Alliance) WIW-X8 : The Spire (SOLAR FLEET) HM-UVD : Stain (AAA/AAA Citizens) 4F89-U : Wicked Creek (The Jagged Alliance) Oh and as an observation - looks like some alliances got told to stop botting for a while about 24 hours ago. Its very very clear when you look at the dotlan maps - pretty much all ratting activity ceased in certain eastern regions at exactly the same time. Othran, Why don't you actually post from a main and not hide behind your alt. Looks like you don't want to list any systems from NC... K-6SNI Morsus W-UQA5 Morsus XF-PWO Rage IR-DYY Rage RVCZ-C Rage 05R-7A Majesta S6QX-N OWN 3-QYVE Razor SV-K8J Razor 8MG-J6 Brick Squad So while these are 10 systems in the NC, when you have a bunch of people running the anomalies, it's not that hard to have it show up on a map in relatively unused and undeveloped space. This is by far, NOT PROOF, that anyone from NC/IT/AAA/WN/RA/SW/XIX or at the very least TJA is cheating. Anyone from CCP can contact The Jagged Alliance and look at if we're macro ratting, we invite it. So keyboard general, next time - man up - and post on your main. Abinadi9 The Jagged Alliance Diplomat
ghosttr Amarr ARK-CORP Intrepid Crossing	Posted - 2010.12.17 10:14:00 - [234] From Dev Blog Quote: PLEX is available on our website in handy packages of various sizes and once redeemed it can be traded for ISK on a fluid player driven in-game market. "You can have any amount of plex you want, as long as its in multiple of 2" is what should have been said GTCS, -60 day ones, can bought in any number you want. But plex however can only be acquired via a 60 day gtc. Which converts into 2 plex. If CCP wants to compete with the RMTers they need to give a cheaper option. RMT isk is available at a lower price, and while CCP cant control the in game market (and therefore the $ to isk ratio) they can control the minimum amout of $$ a person needs to spend to get isk (plex being the middleman). CCP why dont you either A:) have an option to buy 1 plex at a time, or B) resume selling 30d gtcs? Prospecting!
Stratego Ad Infernum	Posted - 2010.12.17 13:31:00 - [235] Originally by: Abinadi9 Originally by: Othran Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 08:54:42 Originally by: Mynxee Originally by: Datcorinna Erunde For your convenience the great Wollari even colored the shown systems accordingly to the amount of the occured kills. He colored it from white (like "almost nothing") via green, yellow, orange up to a fine, perfect visible shiny red (like "unusually high occurance of NPC kills in this very system OMG OMG!!!!!!11111" or, more fitting "look here CCP, here are the bots!"). Third party tools to the rescue...again. Indeed. Heres what 15 minutes effort shows..... Time to name and shame - these are the 15 most blatant botting systems in the game and if CCP can't deal with it then its time to pack up and find another game : STUFF Oh and as an observation - looks like some alliances got told to stop botting for a while about 24 hours ago. Its very very clear when you look at the dotlan maps - pretty much all ratting activity ceased in certain eastern regions at exactly the same time. Othran, Why don't you actually post from a main and not hide behind your alt. Looks like you don't want to list any systems from NC... STUFF So while these are 10 systems in the NC, when you have a bunch of people running the anomalies, it's not that hard to have it show up on a map in relatively unused and undeveloped space. This is by far, NOT PROOF, that anyone from NC/IT/AAA/WN/RA/SW/XIX or at the very least TJA is cheating. Anyone from CCP can contact The Jagged Alliance and look at if we're macro ratting, we invite it. So keyboard general, next time - man up - and post on your main. Abinadi9 The Jagged Alliance Diplomat I find it interesting that almost noone seems to be capable of reading... Originally by: Othran Edited by: Othran on 14/12/2010 15:24:59 Originally by: Soma Khan nc alt detected. indeed Nice try but no. Last alliance I was in was BDEAL, didn't suit me, left 5 months ago. I don't do PVE at all, took me a while to realise that PVE was the entire point of sov 0.0 - and it is I can pick out systems up North that are just as suspicious - its just that these 15 are ones where there's little to no argument to be had about occupancy levels being the reason. That's the reason for these. Oh and its worth noting that Dotlan goes back a LOT further than 48 hours...... So yeah, i looked at the same values, the easiest to spot system without a doubt, but if you guys want to NerdRage about this sure go on ahead. :) CAOD is this way btw...
gfldex	Posted - 2010.12.17 13:51:00 - [236] Originally by: Manfred Sideous As a capitalistic business CCP is only concerned with a quality product in so much as what maximizes profitability. So therefore there expenditures on quality and control will always stay within the bounds of forecasted effort for profits. I doubt that's the reason why they act as horrible as they tend to do. But it's for sure a nice excuse they can use to justify their actions. There are plenty of such excuses for their choosing. So I doubt it not for being a reason but for being a less strong excuse then the following: "EVE is just not everybodies game." "We are creating an online world, not a computer game." (Notice the nice contradiction that indicates cognitive dissonance. "With a single sharded game you can't replicate WoWs success." "There used to be only 5000 players on the server!" (Read: we started really really low and didn't improve much.) "Our subscriber base is constantly growing!" (How many of them are bots and/or alts? How the _player_ base looks like (and feels) would be the proper question.) Remember, cognitive dissonance is the most powerfull force on this planet. (Hi Obama! We are still waiting for that change!)
Lili Lu	Posted - 2010.12.17 23:00:00 - [237] Edited by: Lili Lu on 17/12/2010 23:02:28 Originally by: gfldex Remember, cognitive dissonance is the most powerfull force on this planet. (Hi Obama! We are still waiting for that change!) First part of that statment fair enough hyperbole. Second part is your opinion on entirely urelated matter, and in no way an example of anything. Find a politics thread on some other forum and jerk yourself silly on it.
Vincent Athena	Posted - 2010.12.18 00:17:00 - [238] I looked at a few of those high kill systems and I noticed that not only did they have alot of kills, they also had alot of jumps. I also remember hearing that once a system is suitably upgraded, it has an unending supply of anomalies to run. Which means that system becomes magnet for ratters. So just looking at the plots, I find several possibilities: 1 There are a pile of bots in there, killing and hauling loot. 2 The bots are killing, but players come in to do the hauling. 3 Players, knowing its a good system to rat in, fly there, run a few anomalies, then go home. 4 Some mixture of all of the above. So just looking at Dotlan I cannot conclude its bots, there is another possibility. But CCP has more complete logs, they should have a much better idea.
Konoch Caldari Northstar Cabal R.A.G.E	Posted - 2010.12.18 15:29:00 - [239] Originally by: Abinadi9 Othran, Why don't you actually post from a main and not hide behind your alt. Looks like you don't want to list any systems from NC... K-6SNI Morsus W-UQA5 Morsus XF-PWO Rage IR-DYY Rage RVCZ-C Rage 05R-7A Majesta S6QX-N OWN 3-QYVE Razor SV-K8J Razor 8MG-J6 Brick Squad So while these are 10 systems in the NC, when you have a bunch of people running the anomalies, it's not that hard to have it show up on a map in relatively unused and undeveloped space. This is by far, NOT PROOF, that anyone from NC/IT/AAA/WN/RA/SW/XIX or at the very least TJA is cheating. Anyone from CCP can contact The Jagged Alliance and look at if we're macro ratting, we invite it. So keyboard general, next time - man up - and post on your main. Abinadi9 The Jagged Alliance Diplomat I understand the tone of this post because i'm in one of those systems on a rather often basis for just that purpose. I can't say for the non RAGE systems however i am more than willing to provide proof of a Non-Bot presence in all three of the RAGE systems mentioned here should such proof be necessary. Actually the story behind one is a nice tale. If CCP wants to lurk and watch that's fine with us. We're just isking up for the next big thing.
gfldex	Posted - 2010.12.18 15:47:00 - [240] Originally by: Lili Lu Find a politics thread on some other forum and jerk yourself silly on it. You mean psychology thread. Well, politics is framed by psychology more then any other profession ofc.
Meridian Siri	Posted - 2010.12.18 21:05:00 - [241] Yup, pretty much a non-response from CCP. Let's face it, we can whine all we want about this issue, but unless the player base starts to vote with their feet, CCP will not act. With any luck CSM can beat some sense into them, but I am unclear on how much CCP pays attention to them (or the players for that matter). On the bright side; even if a ton of players leave the game, total numbers on TQ should remain stable due to the amount of bots running
Abinadi9 NerdHerd The Jagged Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.18 22:07:00 - [242] Originally by: Konoch Originally by: Abinadi9 Othran, Why don't you actually post from a main and not hide behind your alt. Looks like you don't want to list any systems from NC... K-6SNI Morsus W-UQA5 Morsus XF-PWO Rage IR-DYY Rage RVCZ-C Rage 05R-7A Majesta S6QX-N OWN 3-QYVE Razor SV-K8J Razor 8MG-J6 Brick Squad So while these are 10 systems in the NC, when you have a bunch of people running the anomalies, it's not that hard to have it show up on a map in relatively unused and undeveloped space. This is by far, NOT PROOF, that anyone from NC/IT/AAA/WN/RA/SW/XIX or at the very least TJA is cheating. Anyone from CCP can contact The Jagged Alliance and look at if we're macro ratting, we invite it. So keyboard general, next time - man up - and post on your main. Abinadi9 The Jagged Alliance Diplomat I understand the tone of this post because i'm in one of those systems on a rather often basis for just that purpose. I can't say for the non RAGE systems however i am more than willing to provide proof of a Non-Bot presence in all three of the RAGE systems mentioned here should such proof be necessary. Actually the story behind one is a nice tale. If CCP wants to lurk and watch that's fine with us. We're just isking up for the next big thing. Konoch, What I was trying to point out is that it's a blatant attempt by someone with an NC bias to point out "cheaters". I was just highlighting the fact that there are plenty of high volume NPC kills in systems around Eve Universe where people do not cheat. Abinadi9
captain foivos	Posted - 2010.12.19 03:18:00 - [243] "We're doing stuff. Against RMTing. RMTing is bad. Buy plex instead. Yay. We'll do stuff. We promise. Look at x number of accounts we banned last week." What a load of cookamamy BS. Originally by: CCP Zulu You're assuming I read threads before I turdpost in them :)
Brutus B	Posted - 2010.12.19 05:03:00 - [244] CCP should consider Pew-Pewing the bots; let me preface that I'm not completely certain about the legality of this issue, or the programming feasibility of this since I'm niether a lawyer, or a programer. My idea is simple: most programs have a user-agreement where the person using the program releases the developer from liability if harm befalls the hardware and software due to interference or other adverse reactions. What the eve-client needs is its own bot-defence system that would treat bot-programs as viruses and or spyware, communicate that to the OS, and force those programs to shut down. This system would require somekind of script that would be able to ID said-bots, and you'd need to develop a libary of the biggest offenders, not user-by-user, ip-by-ip but program by program. I don't think anyone develops programs to shutdown, disable, or delete other programs except Anti-virus companies, and Malicious Software coders. But it seems like if a company wanted to remove a cheating system from a gaming service they could take very serious actions to make their software agressively incompatiable with such botting programs by implanting a "spyware" that looks for and eliminates offending processes in the same way that a online casino would have a right to defend its systems/services from cheaters. If for some legal reason you can't eliminate bot-programs. There is a second solution when those programs are detected: KILL THE CLIENT! To prevent bypassing this sub-system, CCP could intergrate it into the client/server relationship in such a way that the client self-destructs if the subsystem is removed/offlined/manipulated to such a degree that a server-check identifies the client as invalid. Such a check would force a disconnect from server, then all attempts to reconnect to server would be denied until the client was repaired. I don't really see how it can be against the law for them to make the Client alergic to known bots in this way. The legal justification seems to be protection of CCP servers and IP since the cleint and server have a interwoven relationship that must be maintained for both to work properly, and since 3rd party malicious programs used for "botting" eve could appear to be interfering with licensed (intended) use by the subscriber. One thing is pretty clear: if CCP is extrememly serious about putting a dent in RMT--they cannot ignore botting programs because RMT'ers are just as willing to sell these programs they use to farm isk, as they are isk they gain from hacking people's accounts. It doesn't take more than one google search to find these programs for sale. I think the only real issue in doing this would be that it would make the client unstable in such a way that would make it vunerable to exploitation if corrupting the cleint was the intended goal, and not a side effect of using bots! So, this feature would deifnitely need a built-in quick repair that could be deployed as son as a machine was compliant, as well as easy-removal program that the user could initiate to bring the machine into compliance. TLDR: CCP needs it's own "spybot search and destroy" componet. And they could call it something catchy like "EVE-BOT PEST CONTROL."
captain foivos	Posted - 2010.12.19 05:51:00 - [245] Originally by: Brutus B Make EVE have Warden. Go. Back. To. WoW. There are many solutions that are far, far better than putting that kind of crap on everyone's computer. Originally by: CCP Zulu You're assuming I read threads before I turdpost in them :)
Shea Amara	Posted - 2010.12.20 00:21:00 - [246] I am against RMT and Boting. But I am not against Macro's. I know that kind of sound funny. But I'm here I play and I do use Macro's to play. I am just trying to save myself from my 3rd carpoltunnel surgery.
Deviana Sevidon Gallente Panta-Rhei Butterfly Effect Alliance	Posted - 2010.12.20 13:59:00 - [247] Edited by: Deviana Sevidon on 20/12/2010 13:59:39 Originally by: captain foivos Originally by: Brutus B Make EVE have Warden. Go. Back. To. WoW. There are many solutions that are far, far better than putting that kind of crap on everyone's computer. I am sick of the cheating and a tool like Warden would be a step forwardein stopping the cheating in this game Quote: Disclaimer: All mentioned above contains my opinion and is therefore an absolute truth (for me anyway, my universe, muhahaha.....ok, done
Vincent Athena	Posted - 2010.12.20 16:33:00 - [248] Originally by: Brutus B TLDR: CCP needs it's own "spybot search and destroy" componet. And they could call it something catchy like "EVE-BOT PEST CONTROL." The problem is the search part. The botters can run an unmodified client in a sandbox, with the bot outside the sandbox where the client had absolutely no way to detect it, nor can the client tell its in a sandbox. Or the botters replace the client entirely with a bot, and program that bot to give whatever reports to the server that will keep the server happy. Te absolute biggest issue for CCP is not what to do once a bot is found, but finding them and proving that it is indeed a bot.
d4shing	Posted - 2010.12.22 07:04:00 - [249] Originally by: Vincent Athena Originally by: Brutus B TLDR: CCP needs it's own "spybot search and destroy" componet. And they could call it something catchy like "EVE-BOT PEST CONTROL." The problem is the search part. The botters can run an unmodified client in a sandbox, with the bot outside the sandbox where the client had absolutely no way to detect it, nor can the client tell its in a sandbox. Or the botters replace the client entirely with a bot, and program that bot to give whatever reports to the server that will keep the server happy. Te absolute biggest issue for CCP is not what to do once a bot is found, but finding them and proving that it is indeed a bot. No. The absolute biggest issue is that so much of their game is so boring, repetitive, and undemanding of intellect that people pay to avoid it. Secondarily, they make it technically relatively easy to bot. Tertiarily, they make no effort to police any but the most egregious and stupid violators. I refuse to believe that 5 guys with the ability to run queries, gather data, and change client code couldn't shut down a large majority of bots relatively quickly. CCP either doesn't care to commit the resources or has a bunch of idiots doing such a laughable job of it that for all intents and purposes it is not being done at all.
Vincent Athena	Posted - 2010.12.23 21:33:00 - [250] Some people think that making the game more complex will defeat the bots. But consider; Bots can drive a rover on Mars, over complex, unknown terrain. Bots made by Google can drive a car in traffic. A bot is world chess champion. Bots are used in EVE for PVP. How complex would a game have to be for it to be un-bottable? Would it still be playable by a human? Would it still be fun to play? I doubt it. Eve could be modified to hamper the simplest bots, those that just repeat a set of keystrokes to a timer. But that would just drive the bot users to the more complex bots, the ones that can be programmed, use artificial intelligence, and think for themselves. The ones currently ratting trillions of isk in 0.0. No, CCP's biggest problem is how to find the bot user, not the bot. It would not matter how easy or hard the game is to bot, if every time a bot came on line, seconds later the bot user's account was banned.
StuRyan	Posted - 2010.12.24 09:57:00 - [251] Originally by: Vincent Athena Some people think that making the game more complex will defeat the bots. But consider; Bots can drive a rover on Mars, over complex, unknown terrain. Bots made by Google can drive a car in traffic. A bot is world chess champion. Bots are used in EVE for PVP. How complex would a game have to be for it to be un-bottable? Would it still be playable by a human? Would it still be fun to play? I doubt it. Eve could be modified to hamper the simplest bots, those that just repeat a set of keystrokes to a timer. But that would just drive the bot users to the more complex bots, the ones that can be programmed, use artificial intelligence, and think for themselves. The ones currently ratting trillions of isk in 0.0. No, CCP's biggest problem is how to find the bot user, not the bot. It would not matter how easy or hard the game is to bot, if every time a bot came on line, seconds later the bot user's account was banned. I have bolded the one point i took from this conversation. Doesn't Dotlan show this information? Infact doesnt the ingame map sgo part way to show this information?
Ranka Mei Caldari	Posted - 2010.12.25 16:17:00 - [252] Originally by: Vincent Athena The absolute biggest issue for CCP is not what to do once a bot is found, but finding them and proving that it is indeed a bot. And the second largest issue is that players refuse to accept any form of human response challenge system. They loathe bots, but at the same time want to cling to their 'right' to AFK mine and look like a bot. Something will have to give. --
Master Flakattack	Posted - 2010.12.25 17:39:00 - [253] If CCP doesn't get going soon, Unholy Rage is going to take on a whole new meaning amongst the players of EVE. You know, many of the new people who come to this game come under the impression macroing is allowed. That's how bad the problem is.
Consortium Agent	Posted - 2010.12.25 18:37:00 - [254] What I find most telling is that we're 10 days and 10 pages of comments in and CCP has remained absolutely silent. Not a single response from anyone at CCP in regards to what the community is saying about botting. First, let me also reiterate what many already have - this wasn't a dev blog. In fact, the message I got out of it was 'buy plex' - it was more of an advertisement to encourage players to buy plex than it was an informative piece telling your customers what you're actually doing to resolve the crisis that has enveloped all of New Eden. I've been playing Eve since 2004 and have been involved with numerous alliances in high-sec, low-sec and nullsec through the ages. Over the past couple of years the bots have proliferated to the point where they are now in nearly every single system in New Eden - high sec mining and missions bots, low and nullsec ratting bots and a generous sprinkling of everything in between such as PI. My issue in general with CCP is the fact that every single pilot in the game can point out at least one 'suspicious' bot. Play any system for a week and you know which toons are bots FFS. What is even funnier is that these guys are even being blatantly obvious - a horde of Amarr haulers in Heim always coming and going to and from the same handful of systems - all NPC toons, all sharing a simular naming scheme. That is the frustration we have as players - we see the bots everywhere we go and look, with few exceptions. I've taken the liberty of following some of these Amarr haulers as they traverse low-sec and putting a rather quick end to their botting day. I don't know how **ed these guys are when they return to their computers to find out their sitting in station in a pod, but given I shoot the same toons over and over again week after week - apparently it's profitable enough to buy another ship and move on. Heh... not being a total idiot I've also been building and selling Amarr haulers close to the point of origin for these bot toons - so I get them coming and going. It's painfully obvious why CCP doesn't care. Each bot represents cash in hand. Each bot represents another paying account. To ban all the bots, at this juncture, would mean CCP would have to take a substantial financial hit... and they know it. So, if you're waiting around for CCP to solve this problem... well, just don't hold your breath - you'll turn blue and pass out waiting. The solution, then, is obvious. For low-sec and nullsec bots the solution is painfully simple. If systems are polluted with rat bots then that would seem like an easy way to populate your killboard. Bots are pretty advanced, but as others have pointed out - throw up a bubble or two in nullsec and kick back and enjoy the fireworks - in low-sec simply follow the wrecks. Seriously, if players want to end the bot problem in low and nullsec it's as easy as sending a fleet of human players into the systems full of bots and doing what we do best. To hell with the alliances - if players are really that concerned with it - ban together and go kill the bots and anyone who tries to defend them. The solution for high-sec is, unfortunately, much more elusive. Given you cannot wardec NPC corps, those of us who really care enough are left with guerrilla tactics such as suicide ganking. Great for hulks and macks - worth the BS loss, but not so much for anything else. I'd personally like to see some kind of 'bot report' tool (like reporting ISK spammers) with the caveat that those who get flagged X number of times (at GM discretion, ofc, to limit social engineering) be turned red to the rest of us, acquire a bounty and do not receive any CONCORD protection. Bots will go away very quickly. Don't ban them tho... that's no fun... let us force them to ragequit instead. w00t! So, I say the players of Eve ban together for a 'Botageddon' - use Dotlan (thank you Dotlan! You Fing ROCK!) to find the systems in need of cleansing.* The solution in high-sec is not so simple.
Arrgon Juishan	Posted - 2010.12.25 23:31:00 - [255] Originally by: Cyaxares II Edited by: Cyaxares II on 14/12/2010 08:38:09 If I were Dr. EyjoG the only way I would agree to a serious removal of bots is if I would get a "place covert NPC order" button in my EVE client in return. Hmm. I actually thought this already existed. I had noted that there are several sellers of items that when you buy, the quantity for sale doesn't actually go down. I had expected this of NPC stuff, but I have also noted it when the toon isn't part of an NPC Corp, has employment history of multiple corps and has standings. While this is certainly within CCP's ability to randomly create, and I assume they are npcs, it has been something that I have found disconcerting. I mean a PC's stock should deplete and an NPC seller should be recognizable as such.
Ranka Mei Caldari	Posted - 2010.12.26 09:47:00 - [256] Originally by: Consortium Agent What I find most telling is that we're 10 days and 10 pages of comments in and CCP has remained absolutely silent. Not a single response from anyone at CCP in regards to what the community is saying about botting. I said it before, and will say it again. What CCP wishes to say ("We're not gonna act against botting because doing so cuts into our own wallet."), they can't say; and what they should say ("We're working on it!"), isnt true. Hence, we hear nothing. --
Lobster Man Pigs On Teh Wing	Posted - 2010.12.26 13:18:00 - [257] Edited by: Lobster Man on 26/12/2010 13:18:19 Originally by: Consortium Agent I've been playing Eve since 2004 and have been involved with numerous alliances in high-sec, low-sec and nullsec through the ages. Over the past couple of years the bots have proliferated to the point where they are now in nearly every single system in New Eden - high sec mining and missions bots, low and nullsec ratting bots and a generous sprinkling of everything in between such as PI. My issue in general with CCP is the fact that every single pilot in the game can point out at least one 'suspicious' bot. Play any system for a week and you know which toons are bots FFS. What is even funnier is that these guys are even being blatantly obvious - a horde of Amarr haulers in Heim always coming and going to and from the same handful of systems - all NPC toons, all sharing a simular naming scheme. That is the frustration we have as players - we see the bots everywhere we go and look, with few exceptions. I've taken the liberty of following some of these Amarr haulers as they traverse low-sec and putting a rather quick end to their botting day. I don't know how **ed these guys are when they return to their computers to find out their sitting in station in a pod, but given I shoot the same toons over and over again week after week - apparently it's profitable enough to buy another ship and move on. Heh... not being a total idiot I've also been building and selling Amarr haulers close to the point of origin for these bot toons - so I get them coming and going. It's painfully obvious why CCP doesn't care. Each bot represents cash in hand. Each bot represents another paying account. To ban all the bots, at this juncture, would mean CCP would have to take a substantial financial hit... and they know it. So, if you're waiting around for CCP to solve this problem... well, just don't hold your breath - you'll turn blue and pass out waiting. The solution, then, is obvious. For low-sec and nullsec bots the solution is painfully simple. If systems are polluted with rat bots then that would seem like an easy way to populate your killboard. Bots are pretty advanced, but as others have pointed out - throw up a bubble or two in nullsec and kick back and enjoy the fireworks - in low-sec simply follow the wrecks. Seriously, if players want to end the bot problem in low and nullsec it's as easy as sending a fleet of human players into the systems full of bots and doing what we do best. To hell with the alliances - if players are really that concerned with it - ban together and go kill the bots and anyone who tries to defend them. The solution for high-sec is, unfortunately, much more elusive. Given you cannot wardec NPC corps, those of us who really care enough are left with guerrilla tactics such as suicide ganking. Great for hulks and macks - worth the BS loss, but not so much for anything else. I'd personally like to see some kind of 'bot report' tool (like reporting ISK spammers) with the caveat that those who get flagged X number of times (at GM discretion, ofc, to limit social engineering) be turned red to the rest of us, acquire a bounty and do not receive any CONCORD protection. Bots will go away very quickly. Don't ban them tho... that's no fun... let us force them to ragequit instead. w00t! So, I say the players of Eve ban together for a 'Botageddon' - use Dotlan (thank you Dotlan! You Fing ROCK!) to find the systems in need of cleansing.* Right on, just reiterating the truth in this post I also think that an eve-wide anti-macro-farmer week might be fun too
Willenson Caldari GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2010.12.26 19:46:00 - [258] Point 1 and 4 are excellent ideas and it should not take too much code refactoring for CCP to implement it to great effect if they really wanted to go after botting and RMT. Originally by: Cato X Last month I took my Stealth Bomber out to dronelands and anchored a couple of containers with supplies. I lived out there for a few weeks. Within a couple of hours I identified dozens of macro botters and even caught a few ravens with bubbles as they mechanically warped back to the POS. I went back an hour later and podded them--they where still sitting where my bubble was. I petitioned a half a dozen accounts with proof like this and added them to my watch list. To this day these toons are still logged on 23 hours a day grinding away isk for their master. When they log off, they all log off at once, and log back on at once--even though they are spread across many systems. CCP would have been better off not posting this blog, because it just confirms what we had feared and are now upset aboutout--that this is all BAU and nothing serious being done to address botting. Your not going to change the fact that black markets will always exist everywhere, so change what you can control--the client and the server software to make it difficult to bot. It's work but its not all that hard: 1. Make slight changes to memory assignments or variables names once a month that break bot applications. This will force Bot programmers costs up and force them to reverse engineer the client once on a month. It will also break the bot enough to turn off bot users. 2. Create a tool that profiles botting behavior/ Look for time online, repetitive commands, high NPC kill systems with low population, ect... 3. Create a tool that takes the suspicious toons from #2 above, and dumps information from the client that reveals if the client has been modified by a bot program--there is your proof. 4. Create a "cosmic disturbance" around asteroid fields, anomolies, and grav sites where, upon landing, the ship is scrammed and webbed until a piece of information is entered that is graphically displayed.--easy meat for anyone looking for a kill. 5. Hold corporations and alliances accountable for their members botting with heavy ISK fines. Fine the Alliance and the Corp 5 times the estimated one month ISK proceeds from the bot. There is no silver bullet, but by appearances the problem is being completely ignored. Do something--please.
Convoy Hunter	Posted - 2010.12.28 15:59:00 - [259] Originally by: Lobster Man Edited by: Lobster Man on 26/12/2010 13:18:19 Originally by: Consortium Agent *So, I say the players of Eve ban together for a 'Botageddon' - use Dotlan (thank you Dotlan! You Fing ROCK!) to find the systems in need of cleansing.** Right on, just reiterating the truth in this post I also think that an eve-wide anti-macro-farmer week might be fun too I'm kinda new to Eve - have a couple toons been playing for about a year now. I agree with what was said here in many ways. I play hard to get a moderate amount of ISK and a whole lot of enjoyment out of Eve but everywhere I look I see toons like the other guy said - tons of Amarr hauler toons in Heimatar. I've been reading about bots, and the problem, and have been spending a bunch of my time in game lately studying the local system and have come to the conclusion that about 60% of the toons that reside in and around where I am are bots! Although, in my area, the owner of multiple bots has gotten greedy enough to put them in a corp - which I have taken the liberty of wardec'ing and will pwn the cr@p out of within the next 24 hours. I also have a suggestion for CCP, if they're even bothering to read these comments... Limit the available agents for those who reside in NPC corps to level 1's. It may not stop all the problems, but it will sure as h*ll make transport bots go away. Just my 2 cents on that. Anyway, if anyone else is interested I've got a PvP corp with the intention on making life perfectly miserable for... about 60% of the residents in my area :P Feel free to join up - the more ppl that ban together against these greedy people, the better off we'll all be! You play hard, I play hard - these guys set up computers with bots and print ISK. I agree with the agent fella there - let's start solving the problem ourselves! ;)
Jokerface666 Amarr The Warp Squad	Posted - 2010.12.29 20:53:00 - [260] I would really like a bottageddon season in eve, like if you convo someone and that person doesn't accepts within 30 secs = kill rights, then BOOM them outta space! this will also get some carabears into pvp every year, and make the life of botters verry hard for one month or so. and we all get some pewpew :-) Br, Joker o7
Bakkachan Caldari	Posted - 2010.12.30 14:37:00 - [261] Originally by: Jokerface666 I would really like a bottageddon season in eve, like if you convo someone and that person doesn't accepts within 30 secs = kill rights, then BOOM them outta space! this will also get some carabears into pvp every year, and make the life of botters verry hard for one month or so. and we all get some pewpew :-) Br, Joker o7 No legit player will even be able to pee without docking. I GOTS TA PEE! End of line
Cigano	Posted - 2010.12.30 15:23:00 - [262] Originally by: Bakkachan Originally by: Jokerface666 I would really like a bottageddon season in eve, like if you convo someone and that person doesn't accepts within 30 secs = kill rights, then BOOM them outta space! this will also get some carabears into pvp every year, and make the life of botters verry hard for one month or so. and we all get some pewpew :-) Br, Joker o7 No legit player will even be able to pee without docking. I GOTS TA PEE! pee to a jar
PC l0adletter	Posted - 2010.12.31 00:40:00 - [263] If you think that players can put a dent in bots running in 3200 nullsec systems that can run 24/7 and auto-safe up whenever a neutral enters the system, you might be stupid enough to work at CCP.
Zenst Hall Of Flame Chain of Chaos	Posted - 2010.12.31 11:39:00 - [264] Originally by: SkinSin Well I read the devblog and the gist of it was: 1) We know about RMT. 2) We continue to do something about it. 3) Buy plex. It was a particularly unenlightening devblog and didn't add any more information than we already know. To be honest, GM Grimmi might as well have not bothered it was that pointless! Nailed it.
Consortium Agent	Posted - 2011.01.01 00:44:00 - [265] Originally by: PC l0adletter If you think that players can put a dent in bots running in 3200 nullsec systems that can run 24/7 and auto-safe up whenever a neutral enters the system, you might be stupid enough to work at CCP. Evelan does not beget 3200 nullsec systems with bot problems, so you fail. Auto-safe has it's weaknesses, might I direct you to look at page 1 or 2 of the responses for an example of how to beat auto-safe. So, again you fail. Your need to try to make others feel stupid about their opinions is nothing more than troll behavior. So, you epic fail. And yes, I do think players can put a dent in the bot problem. I'm doing it every day. What are you doing besides nay saying something you haven't even tried to do yet? Nothing. You epic fail. Now go be a good troll on another thread. I popped 5 hulk bots just tonight on one of my toons. That's an ~850M hit to the bot runner. That is doing something about the problem. I've popped about 20 amarr hauler bots (which hail from Kronsur if anyone at CCP gives a rats a*) in the past 48 hours. That* is doing something about the problem. So STFU, man up and start solving your own problems you f***ing pansies. If I'm doing it given the current restrictions of Eve, what's your excuse?
Tetragammatron Prime	Posted - 2011.01.01 03:53:00 - [266] Excuse is we pay to play this game to have fun...fun isn't spending hours trying to catch a macroer.
KaarBaak Minmatar Seatec Astronomy	Posted - 2011.01.03 14:31:00 - [267] (How come I cannot access page 1 of this thread anymore?) If you've ever spent time browsing the web for these macro/bot programs, you'll find that most of the comments and support forums are chock full of what appear to be normal players. It leads me to the conclusion that a lot of the bot/macro users are people who use them as money-making alts. In none of those forums is there discussion of banning or legality...it's purely "where do I get the software" and "how do I do X?" Now whether the primary pilots using these alt-bots are PvPers (who often complain about the need to make isk to support their PvP) or Highsec carebears who see accumulation of isk as the "I win" for the game is a separate question...I suspect a mix of both. Regardless, I believe the market share of botting RMTers is diminishing with alt-bots increasing, due to the apparent lack of enforcement. KB Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances. --Herodotus, Histories
La Rioja	Posted - 2011.01.04 13:12:00 - [268] Originally by: KaarBaak (How come I cannot access page 1 of this thread anymore?) Click "first"
PC l0adletter	Posted - 2011.01.05 07:29:00 - [269] Edited by: PC l0adletter on 05/01/2011 07:29:01 Originally by: Consortium Agent I popped 5 hulk bots just tonight on one of my toons. That's an ~850M hit to the bot runner. That is doing something about the problem. The botter replaced them all in 5 hours while you (and he/she) slept. Originally by: Consortium Agent I've popped about 20 amarr hauler bots Amazing! How will a botter ever manage to replace 20 bestowers? Originally by: Consortium Agent (which hail from Kronsur if anyone at CCP gives a rats a**) They don't -- that's the point.
Transfer point	Posted - 2011.01.06 00:35:00 - [270] Originally by: Cato X 1. Make slight changes to memory assignments or variables names once a month that break bot applications. This will force Bot programmers costs up and force them to reverse engineer the client once on a month. It will also break the bot enough to turn off bot users. 2. Create a tool that profiles botting behavior/ Look for time online, repetitive commands, high NPC kill systems with low population, ect... 3. Create a tool that takes the suspicious toons from #2 above, and dumps information from the client that reveals if the client has been modified by a bot program--there is your proof. Let's assume that the botting is as bad as everyone claims. Let's also assume CCP steps up and provides the kind of code changes you're asking for and systematically drives botting to the point where the botters quit. Two things will happen; 1/ they will take a financial hit for it which affects them, 2/ the availability of minerals will fall through the floor and the price will go through the proverbial ceiling which affects the players as ship and equipment prices double or triple. I wonder how long it will take before everybody is up in arms that insurance isn't enough and something must be done about those damn industrialist who are screwing over the PvPers by charging so much. I enjoy most aspects of the game including mining, it's really not a bad thing to do when you're too drunk to PvP, tho there are quite a few times I forget to switch from 1 to the other, but I build most of my own stuff so the loss is minimal.
Pheusia Gallente The Initiative.	Posted - 2011.01.06 13:29:00 - [271] Originally by: Transfer point Originally by: Cato X 1. Make slight changes to memory assignments or variables names once a month that break bot applications. This will force Bot programmers costs up and force them to reverse engineer the client once on a month. It will also break the bot enough to turn off bot users. 2. Create a tool that profiles botting behavior/ Look for time online, repetitive commands, high NPC kill systems with low population, ect... 3. Create a tool that takes the suspicious toons from #2 above, and dumps information from the client that reveals if the client has been modified by a bot program--there is your proof. Let's assume that the botting is as bad as everyone claims. Let's also assume CCP steps up and provides the kind of code changes you're asking for and systematically drives botting to the point where the botters quit. Two things will happen; 1/ they will take a financial hit for it which affects them, 2/ the availability of minerals will fall through the floor and the price will go through the proverbial ceiling which affects the players as ship and equipment prices double or triple. I wonder how long it will take before everybody is up in arms that insurance isn't enough and something must be done about those damn industrialist who are screwing over the PvPers by charging so much. I enjoy most aspects of the game including mining, it's really not a bad thing to do when you're too drunk to PvP, tho there are quite a few times I forget to switch from 1 to the other, but I build most of my own stuff so the loss is minimal. If mineral prices were to rise to that extent, then I'd start mining again. Thus the supply would increase etc etc. Overall the effects would be nothing but good. Signed, Pheusia
Mookie Johnson	Posted - 2011.01.06 16:43:00 - [272] Originally by: Ranka Mei What CCP wishes to say ("We're not gonna act against botting because doing so cuts into our own wallet.") Yes, because people who use bots certainly don't use plex to pay for their accounts, thereby playing for free or even making a profit off of the game itself through RMT...
mkmin	Posted - 2011.01.06 18:21:00 - [273] Originally by: Mookie Johnson Originally by: Ranka Mei What CCP wishes to say ("We're not gonna act against botting because doing so cuts into our own wallet.") Yes, because people who use bots certainly don't use plex to pay for their accounts, thereby playing for free or even making a profit off of the game itself through RMT... D- for reading comprehension. Pay attention close, junior, because I'm about to tell you the crux of the issue that players have and you haven't quite grasped. PLEX = $ in CCP's pocket. CCP likes it. What players do not like is the botters who finance the 0.0 supercarrier fleets, and otherwise give an unfair gameplay advantage. The fact that CCP appears to support botting as long as it's not for RMT is frustrating to people who want the game to be played fairly.
Steve Thomas Minmatar	Posted - 2011.01.06 19:58:00 - [274] option 1 Comepletly redo the "Seeding" of roid belts on a semi randomised date every 1-6 days. Given what is known about the EvE server I ran a simulation of reseeiding it on a PC it took 107m21.032s on a laptop (to be fair I assumed that a total of 10,000 solar systems each got 100 roids belts consisting of 999 unique roids each with a randomly generated volume of ore(between 1 and 10,000 jumpcans worth of ore) in a volume of space 1000X1000X1000 AU asueming that each "Cell" on a grid was 200km you dont even need to do this on the eve server, just have a machine set to one side to do this every cycle option 1 Move all roid belts to the mission and exploration system. for missions just add a psudo belt of roids to missions that in the database termplate for that mission hold all posible roids will only spawn the correct roids for that solar system. Key roid spawning to "Misson completion. Option 3 Create more varants of existing missions including variants on the tanking and damage abilitys of the npcs, as it stands right now you can literaly build tank and weapon setups to match the npcs in a mission . . . . . . . . a (Long) Guide to Pi
Mookie Johnson	Posted - 2011.01.07 06:02:00 - [275] Originally by: mkmin Originally by: Mookie Johnson Originally by: Ranka Mei What CCP wishes to say ("We're not gonna act against botting because doing so cuts into our own wallet.") Yes, because people who use bots certainly don't use plex to pay for their accounts, thereby playing for free or even making a profit off of the game itself through RMT... D- for reading comprehension. Pay attention close, junior, because I'm about to tell you the crux of the issue that players have and you haven't quite grasped. PLEX = $ in CCP's pocket. CCP likes it. What players do not like is the botters who finance the 0.0 supercarrier fleets, and otherwise give an unfair gameplay advantage. The fact that CCP appears to support botting as long as it's not for RMT is frustrating to people who want the game to be played fairly. I'll type real slow for you "gramps": Player uses bot. Bot plays nearly nonstop, creating ISK for player. Player uses portion of ISK created to purchase PLEX. Purchased PLEX is applied to account. Player enjoys 30 days free game time. Please explain how that equals "$" in CCP's pocket, beyond the initial subscription? Hell, if you started botting with a trial account you could never pay for a second of game time. You think that these "0.0 supercarrier fleets" are being funded but the person/people behind it wouldn't take 2% of the cost of a Nyx and put it towards a PLEX?
mkmin	Posted - 2011.01.07 07:13:00 - [276] Originally by: Mookie Johnson Originally by: mkmin Originally by: Mookie Johnson Originally by: Ranka Mei What CCP wishes to say ("We're not gonna act against botting because doing so cuts into our own wallet.") Yes, because people who use bots certainly don't use plex to pay for their accounts, thereby playing for free or even making a profit off of the game itself through RMT... D- for reading comprehension. Pay attention close, junior, because I'm about to tell you the crux of the issue that players have and you haven't quite grasped. PLEX = $ in CCP's pocket. CCP likes it. What players do not like is the botters who finance the 0.0 supercarrier fleets, and otherwise give an unfair gameplay advantage. The fact that CCP appears to support botting as long as it's not for RMT is frustrating to people who want the game to be played fairly. I'll type real slow for you "gramps": Player uses bot. Bot plays nearly nonstop, creating ISK for player. Player uses portion of ISK created to purchase PLEX. Purchased PLEX is applied to account. Player enjoys 30 days free game time. Please explain how that equals "$" in CCP's pocket, beyond the initial subscription? Hell, if you started botting with a trial account you could never pay for a second of game time. You think that these "0.0 supercarrier fleets" are being funded but the person/people behind it wouldn't take 2% of the cost of a Nyx and put it towards a PLEX? F for understanding basic game mechanics. D- for understanding basic economics. Every single PLEX in the game was originally $. They aren't NPC seeds. Players give CCP $, CCP gives the player a plex. That player may choose to trade it with another player for isk. As demand for PLEX goes up, prices rise attracting people to buy a plex and sell it for isk than otherwise would. No matter what, more accounts = more $ for CCP. Even bot accounts. Someone's paying $ for it somewhere. Read a book occasionally.
Iraherag	Posted - 2011.01.09 11:09:00 - [277] Originally by: Mookie Johnson Originally by: mkmin Originally by: Mookie Johnson Originally by: Ranka Mei What CCP wishes to say ("We're not gonna act against botting because doing so cuts into our own wallet.") Yes, because people who use bots certainly don't use plex to pay for their accounts, thereby playing for free or even making a profit off of the game itself through RMT... D- for reading comprehension. Pay attention close, junior, because I'm about to tell you the crux of the issue that players have and you haven't quite grasped. PLEX = $ in CCP's pocket. CCP likes it. What players do not like is the botters who finance the 0.0 supercarrier fleets, and otherwise give an unfair gameplay advantage. The fact that CCP appears to support botting as long as it's not for RMT is frustrating to people who want the game to be played fairly. I'll type real slow for you "gramps": Player uses bot. Bot plays nearly nonstop, creating ISK for player. Player uses portion of ISK created to purchase PLEX. Purchased PLEX is applied to account. Player enjoys 30 days free game time. Please explain how that equals "$" in CCP's pocket, beyond the initial subscription? Hell, if you started botting with a trial account you could never pay for a second of game time. You think that these "0.0 supercarrier fleets" are being funded but the person/people behind it wouldn't take 2% of the cost of a Nyx and put it towards a PLEX? Where do you think the PLEX on the market comes from? You're not exactly the sharpest chopstick in the drawer, eh?
Morstrane	Posted - 2011.01.11 07:59:00 - [278] So... is it the case that people who pay real money for plex are abetting the botters (probably inadvertently), by keeping the plex supply available for botters to then buy plex with isk and keep playing for free? I suck at economics, but what might be the effect of a plex boycott? Anyway, I was really posting to say that I used to not really care about botting until I heard other players talking about it in vent. As in, what are good bots to get started with, how to use them, etc. Have to admit it bugs me to realize how common bots are now, and to know that what I thought were normal players are apparently running bot alts as if it is just the way things are now.
Bronzino Caldari GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation	Posted - 2011.01.12 16:24:00 - [279] Originally by: Morstrane So... is it the case that people who pay real money for plex are abetting the botters (probably inadvertently), by keeping the plex supply available for botters to then buy plex with isk and keep playing for free? I suck at economics, but what might be the effect of a plex boycott? Anyway, I was really posting to say that I used to not really care about botting until I heard other players talking about it in vent. As in, what are good bots to get started with, how to use them, etc. Have to admit it bugs me to realize how common bots are now, and to know that what I thought were normal players are apparently running bot alts as if it is just the way things are now. The effect of a PLEX boycott is that people who are playing legitimately but can't always afford the subscription cost (or just don't want to pay), like myself, would have to quit EVE. As much as I hate to say it, a human challenge/response system is probably best. Other MMOs allow the players to report suspected botters, and a GM will just send them a question or two. Since the game should be capable of distinguishing GM chat from player chat (I've never interacted with a GM in EVE but if there is no distinction right now it should be easy to implement), a player would know right away that they should reply. And it doesn't need to be a "you are scrammed and webbed till you answer this math question" type deal, because that will impact people who are in the middle of ratting. But if a player gets the message, finishes ratting the belt he's in, and then warps on to another belt and begins ratting again, it's a bit of an indication.
mkmin	Posted - 2011.01.12 19:02:00 - [280] Originally by: Bronzino Originally by: Morstrane So... is it the case that people who pay real money for plex are abetting the botters (probably inadvertently), by keeping the plex supply available for botters to then buy plex with isk and keep playing for free? I suck at economics, but what might be the effect of a plex boycott? Anyway, I was really posting to say that I used to not really care about botting until I heard other players talking about it in vent. As in, what are good bots to get started with, how to use them, etc. Have to admit it bugs me to realize how common bots are now, and to know that what I thought were normal players are apparently running bot alts as if it is just the way things are now. The effect of a PLEX boycott is that people who are playing legitimately but can't always afford the subscription cost (or just don't want to pay), like myself, would have to quit EVE. As much as I hate to say it, a human challenge/response system is probably best. Other MMOs allow the players to report suspected botters, and a GM will just send them a question or two. Since the game should be capable of distinguishing GM chat from player chat (I've never interacted with a GM in EVE but if there is no distinction right now it should be easy to implement), a player would know right away that they should reply. And it doesn't need to be a "you are scrammed and webbed till you answer this math question" type deal, because that will impact people who are in the middle of ratting. But if a player gets the message, finishes ratting the belt he's in, and then warps on to another belt and begins ratting again, it's a bit of an indication. When a GM convo's you it forces open the chat window. DOwnside of using GM convos as a test are issues on the GM's side. I'd just make a bot that replies to GM convos in a language not many people speak and then pretend not to understand the babblefish responses. Not to mention the manhours taken away from other petitions.
Vincent Athena	Posted - 2011.01.14 19:16:00 - [281] Originally by: mkmin When a GM convo's you it forces open the chat window. DOwnside of using GM convos as a test are issues on the GM's side. I'd just make a bot that replies to GM convos in a language not many people speak and then pretend not to understand the babblefish responses. Not to mention the manhours taken away from other petitions. CCP can work around even that. First, use the "appearance is truth" test for bots; deceptive or evasive responses are assumed to be bots. Also if the language of the reply is different from the localization of the client, assume deception and assume its a bot. CCP can even write all this into the EULA: when a GM calls, you got to respond in an intelligible way, or risk you account being banned. Don't like that clause in the EULA? Find another game. Also, CCP has GM's fluent in different languages. I have no idea how many are covered. So a full solution may be: Have players and a automated system identify potential bots. Have GM challenge those to see who needs a ban. Do code and content changes to make bots harder and less desirable. Do something to increase deterrence, like publishing the number of bans every so often. Something like "This quarter xxx accounts were banned for macro use, xxx of those were discovered via player reports". Give potential botters a little fear: CCP and legitimate players are coming for you.
cosmiclown	Posted - 2011.01.15 02:07:00 - [282] Great flame CCP
Malcanis Caldari Vanishing Point. The Initiative.	Posted - 2011.01.16 16:14:00 - [283] Let's try this one more time to see if it will stick: When PvE (ie: making ISK) is challenging, unpredictable and needs some actual intelligence, then we'll see a big falloff in botting. Eg: Rats that have faintly realistic fits and behave with a modi**of intelligence (sleeper AI is a big step forward here), including trying to escape when they're threatened. Eg: Rats that do not behave in very slow, completely predictable ways, and sometimes appear in unexpectedly large numbers, and pull stunts like try and decoy the ratter to one side of a site, so that hauler spawns or faction spawns can try and escape from another part. Eg: Belt and Anomaly spawns that routinely escalate, where one has to solve a puzzle to work out where the escalation site is. The escalation sites have the real value. Eg: Asteroid belts where the miner has to use some skill and intelligence to find the ore-bearing rocks Eg: Asteroids with unevenly distributed veins and concentrations of ore, so the miner has to skillfully aim his mining beams through a 3-dimensional volume to get the optimum efficiency out of them. Changes like the above would make EVE's PvE much more engaging and fun, whilst making life very difficult indeed for the bots. Double-win. Malcanis' Law: Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of "new players", that change is always** to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players.
mkmin	Posted - 2011.01.16 20:23:00 - [284] Originally by: Malcanis Eg: Asteroid belts where the miner has to use some skill and intelligence to find the ore-bearing rocks I like the idea of hiding a capcha on the asteroids themselves, so instead of picking your asteroids on the overview you have to look at the asteroid and it's skin tells you if it's real or a decoy.
Malcanis Caldari Vanishing Point. The Initiative.	Posted - 2011.01.16 21:35:00 - [285] Originally by: mkmin Originally by: Malcanis Eg: Asteroid belts where the miner has to use some skill and intelligence to find the ore-bearing rocks I like the idea of hiding a capcha on the asteroids themselves, so instead of picking your asteroids on the overview you have to look at the asteroid and it's skin tells you if it's real or a decoy. How good are macros at pattern recognition? Malcanis' Law: Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of "new players", that change is always to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players.
John Fistcram	Posted - 2011.01.17 03:28:00 - [286] Originally by: Malcanis Originally by: mkmin Originally by: Malcanis Eg: Asteroid belts where the miner has to use some skill and intelligence to find the ore-bearing rocks I like the idea of hiding a capcha on the asteroids themselves, so instead of picking your asteroids on the overview you have to look at the asteroid and it's skin tells you if it's real or a decoy. How good are macros at pattern recognition? Short answer: As good as the programmer creating macro. Long answer: Macros are good at patterns but not in the form of optical recognition this is possible but is more complex due to shading pixelation, lag, overlay and other interferances it also depends on what script code is avaliable, probably can be done with time but again its pattern would become obvious to CCP eventually.
Transfer point	Posted - 2011.01.17 03:31:00 - [287] You warp to a belt: 1/ none of the asteroids are named, 2/ you have to scan the asteroid to find out it's content (some roids are just husks), 3/ once the asteroid has been mined out a shell is left, once again, no name ~DT has the asteroids reformed, but not all of them ~Local NPC pirates also mine a bit, and they have security with them with frigs scram/webbing and cruisers present in any system below .8 Should mess the bots up enough as well as cutting their tank down.
Bhattran	Posted - 2011.01.17 14:10:00 - [288] Originally by: Malcanis Let's try this one more time to see if it will stick: When PvE (ie: making ISK) is challenging, unpredictable and needs some actual intelligence, then we'll see a big falloff in botting. Eg: Rats that have faintly realistic fits and behave with a modi**of intelligence (sleeper AI is a big step forward here), including trying to escape when they're threatened. Eg: Rats that do not behave in very slow, completely predictable ways, and sometimes appear in unexpectedly large numbers, and pull stunts like try and decoy the ratter to one side of a site, so that hauler spawns or faction spawns can try and escape from another part. Eg: Belt and Anomaly spawns that routinely escalate, where one has to solve a puzzle to work out where the escalation site is. The escalation sites have the real value. Eg: Asteroid belts where the miner has to use some skill and intelligence to find the ore-bearing rocks Eg: Asteroids with unevenly distributed veins and concentrations of ore, so the miner has to skillfully aim his mining beams through a 3-dimensional volume to get the optimum efficiency out of them. Changes like the above would make EVE's PvE much more engaging and fun, whilst making life very difficult indeed for the bots. Double-win. I'd gladly pay $1 every two days for PVE like that a month in advance. --WIS/Incarna/Ambulation where microtransactions come to play, and uh bars.--**
Zen Q	Posted - 2011.01.30 23:08:00 - [289] Anything CCP?
Crucis Cassiopeiae Amarr PORSCHE AG	Posted - 2011.01.31 07:02:00 - [290] Originally by: Transfer point You warp to a belt: 1/ none of the asteroids are named, 2/ you have to scan the asteroid to find out it's content (some roids are just husks), 3/ once the asteroid has been mined out a shell is left, once again, no name ~DT has the asteroids reformed, but not all of them ~Local NPC pirates also mine a bit, and they have security with them with frigs scram/webbing and cruisers present in any system below .8 Should mess the bots up enough as well as cutting their tank down. +1 Originally by: Zen Q Anything CCP? signed "Everybody's at war with different things... I'm at war with my own heart sometimes"
Mathazarn	Posted - 2011.02.01 10:17:00 - [291] Edited by: Mathazarn on 01/02/2011 10:18:10 I mine because it's easy and somewhat theraputic after a long day at the office. I dont need some shmuck telling ccp that it needs to be as god awful involved a process as the new PI system. For the record, there is no 'Design' of complexity that can secure against botting other than software that watches for code injection. Making the game more complex will not stop botting as macro's can be created to do what you do but better. Adding layer of so called complexity is a waste of time and energy.
Mikel Laurentson	Posted - 2011.02.07 19:43:00 - [292] Does Grimmi even read the forums? If so, why no replies? I'm more than a little peeved that there's been absolutely no official response to the questions raised in this thread. Why have a comments thread if you've no intent to respond?
Severian Carnifex Minmatar	Posted - 2011.02.14 22:34:00 - [293] 6 threads about Bots, Botting and Botters on the first page of EVE General Discussion forum and no single reply from DEVs...
Apollo Gabriel Brotherhood Of Fallen Angels Etherium Cartel	Posted - 2011.02.16 21:53:00 - [294] Oddly the 1st page of this thread is down, and I am not sure how to find the devblog, I wanted to compare it to the original unholy rage and see if there was any recycled text. Warning Signature Detected If you need to douche, please do it at home.
Anselm's MajorDomo	Posted - 2011.02.18 18:20:00 - [295] Originally by: Transfer point You warp to a belt: 1/ none of the asteroids are named, 2/ you have to scan the asteroid to find out it's content (some roids are just husks), 3/ once the asteroid has been mined out a shell is left, once again, no name ~DT has the asteroids reformed, but not all of them ~Local NPC pirates also mine a bit, and they have security with them with frigs scram/webbing and cruisers present in any system below .8 Should mess the bots up enough as well as cutting their tank down. This.I think this has real possibility without too big of a change. It turns asteroid mining from a task like mowing (suck down every roid you see) to a task more like prospecting ("there's gold here somewhere....ahhh! That's one with juice in it!"). To make it even more interesting, a certain number of random asteroids have impure ore in them. A scan makes that show up with your survey scan results, so intelligent players can avoid it/not mine it. If the macrobot ignores the "impure ore" result, and tries to mine it, it clogs up the mining laser or mining drones, in a manner akin to overheating modules. The overheated modules stop working, and must be hauled into station and repaired for an ISK charge. This also provides another ISK sink in the game, but one that will affect 'bots worse than aware human beings.
Miso Hawnee	Posted - 2011.02.18 19:56:00 - [296] CCP does not want to hold the ugly baby.
Apollo Gabriel Brotherhood Of Fallen Angels Etherium Cartel	Posted - 2011.02.18 20:34:00 - [297] did this blog vanish? Can someone link to it? *** Warning: Nuclear Launch Detected *** Trolls feed on trolls, feed on trolls, feed on trolls ... starve one today, don't be a douche bag.
xaja	Posted - 2011.02.22 15:59:00 - [298] Originally by: El Mauru I imagine things like the incursions have got the potential to interrupt botting to a certain degree. BTW. There was a very informative video interview conducted about RMT btw and it mentioned Eve-Online. I can't link it because links to RMT sites are mentioned, should be up on youtube though - it was conducted by shattered crystal with a known reseller of farmed/botted isk. Most of the discussion was about WoW, but EVE got mentioned. Bottomline was: - EVE has a stable currency as opposed to WoW (only approx. 30% inflation as opposed to Wow, where value of currency fluctuates massively), potentially making it more attractive for farmers. - Botted ISK makes a comparably low faction of "ISK INFLUX" for botters. Most comes from stolen accounts. - Hackers aquire account details by hacking fan-sites/forums (i.e.: use different passwords for EVE and forums). - 80% of all RMT is still Wow, EVE is an absolute niche-market. Given Blizzard's success with IP based account locking, a lot of new gold farmers may have been driven into EVE, causing that much more of a distortion, cause EVE is a much smaller game... Originally by: El Mauru - Macro botting on a larger scale (i.e. for isk-resellers) is only marginally worth it in Eve because they have to undercut PLEX-prices, deal with the fact that CCP actually penalizes players (as opposed to other MMORPGs) if caught and the fact that bots still loose ships to stuff + the required logistics train, driving prices up. The convenience and safety for RMT'ers of using Plex for transactions both ways, might easily make up for lower margins based on "having to compete" with CCP. Originally by: El Mauru - Banning the actual botters deals only marginal damage while banning holding alts would be a real game-breaker to ISK-resellers (i.e.: the guys handling transactions between the farmers and the end-customer). - The last Ban-wave nearly killed the RMT market for Eve, pushing prices for ISK almost to Plex price. - Stolen characters are frequently used as spam alts for RMT sites after having been cleaned out. - Most RMTers rely on announcements/temper in the community on when to go low-profile as to protect their holding characters. It seems as if the best course of action and the highest chance of success for CCP would be to strike when the whole botting discussion has calmed down again- and to investigate where the transactions between the individual botters and the holding alts take place (for example, freighter jumps from known macro-systems - loosing a JF alt must hurt) or the contract system. This last bit about jump freighters makes it sound like EVE players could actually get together and do something about it in-game, by blowing up their jump freighters... But then, as major alliances have come to depend on RMT'ers they'll shield them, especially since they are renters in their space, like someone suggested in an earlier post. A cap on how much can be charged for rented systems would be very un-eve like, maybe CCP has a better idea to prevent that kind of unholy alliance. ... _____________________________________ I'm Paper; Rock's fine, nerf Scissors
onyu	Posted - 2011.02.22 16:11:00 - [299] Originally by: Transfer point You warp to a belt: 1/ none of the asteroids are named, 2/ you have to scan the asteroid to find out it's content (some roids are just husks), 3/ once the asteroid has been mined out a shell is left, once again, no name ~DT has the asteroids reformed, but not all of them ~Local NPC pirates also mine a bit, and they have security with them with frigs scram/webbing and cruisers present in any system below .8 Should mess the bots up enough as well as cutting their tank down. From data I've seen in regards to RMT in MMO's, hacked, cleaned out accounts are 80% of the problem. So this won't do a whole lot, except reduce availability of easy targets... Madness is taking its toll, please have exact change ready.
Mikel Laurentson	Posted - 2011.02.23 18:52:00 - [300] Originally by: CCP Fallout In his new dev blog, GM Grimmi discusses the ongoing efforts of Unholy Rage and the continued work towards removing macroers from the game and how we continue to work against real money transfers (RMT). Quoting for people who couldn't make page 1 load.
TigerXtrm APEX ARDENT COALITION Controlled Chaos	Posted - 2011.02.24 09:34:00 - [301] Originally by: Evelgrivion Edited by: Evelgrivion on 13/12/2010 15:56:25 The cancer is in item and ship sales - especially of super capitals, rather than in ISK trade. When it's $700 for a supercarrier and a titan, who on earth is going to pay $2,916 for PLEXs for the ISK you'd need to buy them? This devblog shows what some of us have been saying all along about the post Unholy Rage RMT fight; you guys are looking in all the wrong places. Anyone who spends such numbers on assets in a video game should be dragged out of their basement and tied up in the town square with sign around his neck saying "I have no life, please give me one". That is seriously not healthy.
Mikel Laurentson	Posted - 2011.02.25 22:06:00 - [302] Edited by: Mikel Laurentson on 25/02/2011 22:06:23 Originally by: Zen Q Anything CCP? I suspect they have a reason for not communicating anything solid, despite clear and direct promises back in December. Namely, "they don't give a ferox". Sure, some CCP devs lied to their customers, and CCP GMs throw up a smokescreen and then never log into the forums, but that's okay, it's not like anyone is going to quit because cheaters prosper in EVE.
Xiao yatou Kashada	Posted - 2011.03.02 03:20:00 - [303] Dear CCP administrator. Hello，At present, there are many people in the game in use illegal scripts，Include automatic hunt pirates, automatic missions, automatic mining，Hope you as soon as possible to solve the ~ of the destruction to balance the game people to be punished。Thank you very much！
Soldarius Caldari Northstar Cabal R.A.G.E	Posted - 2011.03.02 04:58:00 - [304] I like the idea of removing the names from asteroids. Just name them all "asteroid". Make the composition of the asteroid only viewable using a composition scanner. People might actually fit those modules then. Wouldn't do much about macros though. 1. Click on survey module. 2. Match text results 3. Target and mine ABCs. 4. Profit Originally by: CCP Shadow ...I cannot guarantee (my) sobriety or decency.
Mavi Gioia	Posted - 2011.03.08 10:56:00 - [305] http://www.evenews24.com/2010/12/08/rmt-uncovered-the-interview/ I want 1.2 trillion isk or 55 thousand euros. Why should I play the game properly, without cheating, when it's possible to bot my way into being an Eve trillionaire in 9 months?

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