I'm not against spies in vendetta, I'm against hypocrisy, notably yours.

Also your post is once again light on solid facts and heavy on speculation. There is a way to login via the plugin API, no technical proof that logging in has any sort of server based burden more than firing a gat and if I'm so well known for having deceived people with spy alts in people's guilds, why don't you go ahead and prove it?

That ROC clause on deception quite clearly points at item scams to me. However, vendetta has a great history of heists, espionage and scandal which only adds depth to the gameplay. It would be a complete shame if we lost that because the devs took a broad interpretation of the rule and listened to the ridiculous quasi-legal vitriol of players like you.

Let's also note that Denro is TGFT

Why am I being hugged??

if the devs actively enforced the RoC, at least 50% of subs would be cancelled by now due to violations.

The RoC is, by design, worded both broadly and non-specifically. It's not that the Devs aren't enforcing it, it's that whether a violation has occurred at all is a matter of interpretation and discretion.

Anyone who claims to know with certainty that Rule X has been broken by action Y is full of shit.

lol.. you make it sound like the RoC just says "don't be mean". By any reasonable person's interpretation of the RoC it would follow that the Devs aren't actively enforcing them. I can cite a plethora of instances where 90% of people who have posted in this thread have committed clear public violations.

Only in rare and extreme cases have I ever seen a dev step in and actually do something regarding RoC violations - and typically it's only when it's something that might prove troublesome legally if they willfully ignored it.

This is not a general discussion of the ROC - please try to stay on topic...

Spy bots are not the same as Comm/info bots. This is like claiming Murder is no worse then a whoopee cushion.
As far as I know the only guilds that have run multiple bots are all pirate guilds. (Itan may have)
What it really boils down to is if spy bot networks give the users to much advantage over the other players and if that advantage is in the best interest of the game.

@Savet - I have no idea why yer being hugged, Perhaps you should wear a hazmat suit for everyones protection.... :P

Nobody has explained how they're giving an advantage that any organized group of players would be unable to achieve.

Well seems that the api allows switching characters as well as logging in. I would love to know where this is all documented.

In any case, have your fun with your bot network.

Heh. "This is not a discussion about the ROC, so instead let's make incorrect statements about the types of people who have made multiple bots, and ignore the fact that it too has nothing to do with the issue at hand of whether and in which capacity bots should be allowed or what matters should be taken to mitigate the annoyance they cause."

Really pizza? As far as I know only the rats have had spy bots posted at the worm holes for long periods of time

Itan may have had a "bot" or two monitoring the Pelatus WH area but I am not sure if those were actually bots or just spare alt accounts that they used during thier war with PA.

Can anyone cite any other known spy bots?

In any case theres a big differance between running one or two bots and the roughly 36 that this network has.
This level of monitoring allows the owner to target anyone that docks in grey space and other areas. The data collected is more then enough to determine where any player can be found and what activities they are engaged in.

Big Brother is watching....

You can crap on all day about whether or not people should be allowed to have massive networks of spy bots or not. But at the end of the day I think you're going to be extremely disappointed. Even a flat out ban is just going to result in more covert bots disguised as players floating around. I think the non-interventionist policy of the devs on bots shows wisdom and I expect you'll see it continued here.

As I said before, imposing limits would result in a RACE of bans, overrides, restrictions, circumvents... so on.

And I really prefer that those bots keep clearly identified as bots... while they are indirectly helping towards persistent NPCs...

Are you implying, PaK, that it would somehow be okay if a bunch of traders had been doing this for the purpose of avoiding pirates? Because if you aren't implying that, I can't see why it would matter, and why you would have digressed to comment on it in the middle of a post complaining about other people going off topic.

Pizza the traders dont have a bot net precisely because it is unfair but they are not going to continue to play in grey very long unless the balance is restored either by getting rid of the scin bots or we put up a net of our own to warn of of the location of every rat in VO....

Im sorry but no one in VO (except the devs) should know where eveyone is.
The Active Players List was removed so no one could determine who was on unless they chat or you actually met them online

What the Rats dont realise is the net breaks the game for them as well - they no longer will have anything to actually hunt. Omniscience is a two edged sword.....

And Dont worry about losing all the bots - I know a few ways to ruin thier network without disrupting more acceptable bots if they insist on running it. Renaming thier bots wont disguise thier behaviour either...

Ironically, this net is not controlled or monitored by pirates, and wasn't implemented until the traders started putting a bot in each conquerable station.

Exactly, that's my point. He is as bad as TRS about using deceitful tactics, and then has the gall to act like he has the moral high ground. At least TRS doesn't really pretend to have honor.

This whole thread is retarded. With the exception, of course, of my own contributions. Because I am the Space Savior, come to lift VO out of the unpopulated realms of damnation up into the crowded lofts of heaven upon my messianic back. Gaze in wonder as mine cybernetic wings flap flap flap through the simulated air and spacedust that so restricts our ships' accelerations. Feel the mighty harmony humming between the four dozen artificial hearts that let mine love spread even unto the furthest reaches of the web, instilling even the most obstinate of the sayers of nay with the urge to play, I say the urge to play and slay on this fine day. With my hooves of chocolate and my nails of galvanized steel, I will bait in even the very womenfolk who shun thine kind, and wall up the doorway behind them. Then, when all who are relevant are aboard the metaphorical ark of my imagination, we will lift off like the lightest of the noble race of dust-bunnies, carried into the sky on the easily swirling eddies spinning in the wake of the Celestial Broom of Sanchez, as was oft the case during the exciting times when the Celestial Vacuum Cleaner of Gawd was off adventuring in Nepal. Like a yak's hair we shall waft and swirl and otherwise gyrate up and up (in, you understand, a multidimensional context within which the opposite direction to that defined as "up" would be that pointing toward the desolate base of the Enemy, that is to say boredom, and colinear with tangent I have just now recited). When we reach that final lonely index in the the allocated memory of space-time, and the counter is on the very verge of overflowing down into an almost infinite wash threatening to extinguish the glaring, winking and twinkly fires of history, at that moment I will reach out my top-right-most wing and with one acrylonitrile butadiene styrene feather I will oh so gently nudge that glorious lever that will initiate a carriage return - the carriage being pulled by the sheer force of salvation that will be radiating from the depths of my big toe alone. We will journy upon the roof of this carriage, for it will be filled to the brim with the unshed tears of all alligators who ever became articles of clothing, that we may have sustenance on our voyage. This ride upon water will endure for forty and two days, and forty and two pumpkins (after all, the goddaughters among our numbers shall be innumerable), until on the passing of the final gourd we arrive at the illustrious Yellow Diamond Palace, which the archons assure me has sufficient pylons for all and sundry others. Thenceforthwithall, we will reside in a place wherein information is not only free and inebriated, but instantaneous as well, and c is able to retire from duty as a velocity, spending his days chilling with his pall ookies. We shall eternally recline in our own personal thrones of silicon as mere insignificant blips in the unimaginably high definition screen that is heaven's population, as so many more spectacularly meaningless peons fighting joyously for purpose in a wonderfully overcrowded server where there is no escape from constant interaction with all of the amazing people who share our new and ever so lofty abode. Paradise at last, my fleshy temporarily mortal comrades, paradise at last!

tl;dr

There's nothing deceitful about my deceitful tactics. I mean they're deceitful, but I do not deceive nor is anybody deceived about the deceitfulness of my deceit. That would be deceitful.

If I have a paid account with 6 characters, and I park each character at a different worm hole, and manually log in one after the other to see where the action is, what is going to be your complaint then?

I can log in. see you. fail to catch you before you get to the wormhole. log out. log in another character on the other side of the wormhole, catch and kill you. I can do it manually, on a paid account. What is going to be your complaint then?

I have yet to see a player run bot kill anyone. A bot can not see anything a player can not see. A bot can not log in or out significantly faster than a human.

I have a log in script. It works. I can have as many characters as I wish. I can camp every worm hole in the game. I can do it manually, or automatically. I can name my characters anything I want. You might not ever know who, or how many it took to kill you. What will be your complaint then?

Who cares if it is a bot or a script or trial accounts or lite accounts or alts. The rules are the same for everyone. If the rules are wrong for the bots, then the rules are wrong for you too. Fix the game. You will never fix the player. Never.

P.S. I do not use friend keys.