I used to play a game before EvE called Freelancer.
CCP in fact has modeled the market and the standings from that very game.
Anyone who has played Freelancer knows this to be true.

Remove local from null, players can then clean up the bot problem themselves.
As for high sec botters, I can't really think of a solid idea for them...make missions hard/more unpredictable and or unscripted so they are not always the same. Make it harder for programs to play for you. No idea how to disrupt mining bots though.

Remove local from null, players can then clean up the bot problem themselves.
As for high sec botters, I can't really think of a solid idea for them...make missions hard/more unpredictable and or unscripted so they are not always the same. Make it harder for programs to play for you. No idea how to disrupt mining bots though.

You can just google for bots and look at their websites, manuals etc to see that you're wrong. All the popular bots use local chat to detect hostiles. In fact I couldn't even find one that uses another method of detecing hostiles.

You never heard of a covert ops cloak?

Ever heard of keeping someone cloaked on gate?

I'd love to see how this would work. Would the bot just shutdown for the day if one hostile passed it's cloaky eyes? What a great money maker!

Remove local from null, players can then clean up the bot problem themselves.
As for high sec botters, I can't really think of a solid idea for them...make missions hard/more unpredictable and or unscripted so they are not always the same. Make it harder for programs to play for you. No idea how to disrupt mining bots though.

It's sad that CCP doesn't want to implement proper behavioral analysis but I can imagine that this is not only a matter of false positives but also of server-side resources (when the bot detection takes more CPU cycles on the server than the bots cause, the whole unholy rage argument doesn't apply anmyore)

There are ways to easily spot some of the bots anyway - Linkage

/c

You guys come up with the solution to their manpower issue and how to pay for it without cutting into their bottom line, and I would bet they would at least toss the idea around for a few minutes.

Now a very simple solution to how (in my view) to fix the problem. The problem rests with the game itself. Well, any game with a botting problem in general. If any game can be scripted to the point where a program can be written to play the game without fail. That's THE problem. The solution is very simple, randomize EVE. Don't have everything scripted. Not only would this kill the bot problem, but it would also bring new life into a boring game.

Now if CCP really wanted someone to help with alot of the issues that make this game less appealing and increase their subscriber base and do more to make their bottom line larger they know how to contact me via this account.

How do you know they are bots.

It's impossible to prove!

I don't think manpower is the issue.

Most bots use the local intel channel to operate, right?! So change local, simple.

No.

Don't try to cure the symptom, cure the disease itself.

It's like when your corn field has been destroyed by millions of crickets, you don't just plant more corn.

It's also funny how people think that bots use some type of python injection. All the bot programs I've seen so far are useless screen readers.

No you spray your field (the game) with insecticide (gameplay changes) to kill off the crickets (botters).


It's ridiculous to expect CCP and the players to actively seek out, identify and then punish the botters. They will just create another account.

You have to change the game mechanics to make it more difficult for the bot programs to work. Sure they will adapt eventually but that's what humans are best at.

The client has to be hardened and even if this results in an arms race (ISXStealth & RedGuard might be seen as evidence for this) the case of WoW shows that at some point the botting community becomes so secluded that "casual" botting is greatly reduced while the larger RMT outfits guard their private bots jealously from each other.

Removing Local from Null would be akin to hosing your cornfield down with Agent Orange in an attempt to kill a couple dandelions.

It's sad that CCP doesn't want to implement proper behavioural analysis but I can imagine that this is not only a matter of false positives but also of server-side resources (when the bot detection takes more CPU cycles on the server than the bots cause, the whole unholy rage argument doesn't apply any more)

Removing Local from Null would be akin to hosing your cornfield down with Agent Orange in an attempt to kill a couple dandelions.

If a bot is programmed to dock when someone is in local... Always have someone is local... This could be an npc that players could identify but bots couldn't. Just of of the many ways to combat a simple problem.

Totally awesome?

Anyway, local needs to go regardless, so if it accidentally kills a bunch of bots as well, that's just a bonus.

If a player can immediately identify you ghost local, then so can a bot.

Null needs a whole bunch of changes before removing Local wouldn't be massively harmful (you think it's depopulated since the sanctum nerf...), though I'm cautiously in favor of the idea.

Removing local only affects the human players and will have no affect at all on the bots as stated before, they have direct feed into the interface and will recognize the forced client update everyone gets when someone new comes into local.

So CCP could randomly update the client with a fake reading and the problem would be solved?

Why would the player even know about the false data. it's just code, right?

Removing local only affects the human players and will have no affect at all on the bots as stated before, they have direct feed into the interface and will recognize the forced client update everyone gets when someone new comes into local.

If the false data is identifiable by the client as false and not meant to be displayed, then the Bot who's looking at said data can also identify it as false and not meant to be displayed and promptly ignore it.

If the false data is not identifiable by the client as false, then the client will display that false data and **** off the real players.

Are you talking about a bot that is looking at the code and also has the reasoning capabilities to visually determine if a profile picture or character name displayed in local was legitimate or not?

If the false data is displayed, there would certainly be an instantly recognizable way for a human to tell that it's false. Most likely that would manifest itself as a certain name or coloration in order to prevent abuse. The bot would likely be able to notice that flag, either through reading the code or combining injection and OCR.

That's scary stuff man. Why don't Russian rots rule the world then? ... or do they?

One thing to consider tho... i doubt all bots are this sophisticated, therefore you would certainly disable a fraction of the botters.

Why do people keep suggest this as a way to stop bots? It won't at all.

Why? The reason is that the bots (sophisticated ones) are not just screen scraping the local window. They are performing python injection into the Eve client. This means they know what the client knows.

What does this mean? The eve client has to know about people in local/on grid etc... even if they are not shown in local. We see this in effect in a wormhole. Therefore, the information is still there for the to access. Its the HUMAN player that cannot know what is in local as the client doesn't tell them unless they hack it.

Removing local only affects the human players and will have no affect at all on the bots as stated before, they have direct feed into the interface and will recognize the forced client update everyone gets when someone new comes into local.

I recently read an article on EvE-O forums called "The #1 reason why CCP will NEVER ban bots..." by Mai Khumm

I used to play a game before EvE called Freelancer.
CCP in fact has modeled the market and the standings from that very game.

As for high sec botters, I can't really think of a solid idea for them...

The OP is pure balderdash. If CCP wanted no botting, CCP could code for no botting. It wouldn't take an army of enforcers to monitor the server night and day. If they wanted to close the hole, they could close it. A first-year computer science student could.

The OP is pure balderdash. If CCP wanted no botting, CCP could code for no botting. It wouldn't take an army of enforcers to monitor the server night and day. If they wanted to close the hole, they could close it. A first-year computer science student could.

No...what you fail to mention is members of CCP are botting as players. They're also in cahoots with friends of theirs in other corps and alliances who bot. It's, after all, their sandbox first and foremost.

The rest of us? They just want our money so they can keep the servers up and running...since all botters pay in PLEX.

It's not rocket science.

One way to annoy RMT botters is to carry out DDOS attacks on their websites and disrupt their services. I would like to see them effectively counter that.

Remove local from null, players can then clean up the bot problem themselves.

...
The rest of us? They just want our money so they can keep the servers up and running...since all botters pay in PLEX.

It's not rocket science.

Best option is to go for the player based solution, which tends to prove much faster and more effective than anything ccp could do. By this, i mean more players actively seeking out bots and blowing them up!

Every now and then something comes up as being simply impossible because of similar issues. I think POS code is mentioned every now and then.

I assume, then, that you're a first-year (at least) CompSci student, and are willing to instruct a group of professional programmers with nearly a decade of experience on how to do this? Even if they won't take your advice, please do enlighten us proles, for the sake of knowledge.

You so funny GI. I love you long time.

No...what you fail to mention is members of CCP are botting as players. They're also in cahoots with friends of theirs in other corps and alliances who bot. It's, after all, their sandbox first and foremost.

Tell that to Blizzard. They spent buckets of money and manpower on Warden and... surprise... the botters got around it.

If you had any evidence to back up your outlandish claims about CCP employees running (or knowing of) botting operations, I'm sure you'd have posted it, but just in case;

Do you have any evidence to back up your outlandish claim that CCP employees run (or have knowledge of) active botting operations?

]Wow. As if a Red Alliance aligned entity has any ground upon which to stand when it comes to botting discussions. Your space is filled with tengu and machariel bots that consistently produce 5k+ NPC kills per system, daily.

Revel in the ISK that you are making [for now] and stop pretending to own the high-ground in this thread.

Yeah, I've played this game before ad nauseaum, but,

What evidence do you have to back up your claims?

Furthermore:
A thread where another EvE-O regular and I tried to get someone making similar claims to back them with evidence for ~20 pages and he tried to weasel his way around the fact that he had none.

Not going to fall into that trap. Trolling 9/10.

CCP, as owner of the EVE IP and service systems, has all of the data available it needs to observe, document and take action on large-scale botting networks and yet they persist across vast regions of space and over the course of many years. It is CCP's choice whether or not they take action. From my perspective, it is clear what choice they have made: let the bot managers rule supreme.

You can just google for bots and look at their websites, manuals etc to see that you're wrong. All the popular bots use local chat to detect hostiles. In fact I couldn't even find one that uses another method of detecing hostiles.

The solution is to make Mining and other game mechanics that allow easy macro creation to be remade so you CAN"T mine without human intelligence.

TBH, I believe that CCP pays bot hunting lip service and turns the other way regarding the truly large botting operations in null-sec. The amount of botting subscriptions, whether they are funded with RL cash fees or purchased PLEX, allows Hilmar and his executive cronies those really nice rims on their leased Land Rovers. Plus, those investors need feeding every so often...

It's not rocket science to understand that EVERY PLEX was paid for with real money that landed in the pocket of CCP. Yet people like you fail to understand it.

Luckily that means I don't have to comment the rest of your post.

You can just google for bots and look at their websites, manuals etc to see that you're wrong. All the popular bots use local chat to detect hostiles. In fact I couldn't even find one that uses another method of detecing hostiles.

No, you just Fail period.

It is a know fact that many RMT Sites participate in acquiring goods using stolen credit card / banking details.

Let me spell it out for you step by step.

1. Create an army untraceable accounts by using a VM Hosting Service and fake details.

2. Use stolen credit card / bank details to purchase plex via 3rd party site

3. Redeem PLEX - sell for isk - transfer isk to idiot who has placed an order via your RMT site.

At which point does CCP receive real money.. that's right they didn't.

Also when talking about RMT Sites you will find that a large proportion of their stock of isk comes from buying isk from RL Players. This is much easier then having to employee people to farm 24/7 and if the botters are caught it has nothing to do with them.