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You all need to communicate more clearly. The people who want technical limitations to negate the specific instances of what we agree to be bot abuse (such as myself) have clearly and logically stated their view on what action they would intend to be taken.
Bot-killer agrees, but seems to have a position that all bots should be banned. He's not elaborated on how he would intend this to happen (including which kinds of bots would be targeted, if not all).
Everyone else has a position that simply isn't clear at all. No specifics, just a lot of counter-arguments that there's no difference between a player and a bot (and argument whose purpose nobody's clarified) and that people are simply too good in nature to use a trial account for a bot or to use bots for intrusive purposes.
To restate my position, the bots that should be allowed are communication, recreation, and player commerce (which I think sums up everything but the sector relay bots. The bots that should be made impractical are ones that give combat or logistics advantages that can't be gained through pure communication (among bots). I would intend to do this by technical changes in radar limitations and the details of how certain lua functions to work, all of which I have mentioned in first few posts.
Bot-killer agrees, but seems to have a position that all bots should be banned. He's not elaborated on how he would intend this to happen (including which kinds of bots would be targeted, if not all).
Everyone else has a position that simply isn't clear at all. No specifics, just a lot of counter-arguments that there's no difference between a player and a bot (and argument whose purpose nobody's clarified) and that people are simply too good in nature to use a trial account for a bot or to use bots for intrusive purposes.
To restate my position, the bots that should be allowed are communication, recreation, and player commerce (which I think sums up everything but the sector relay bots. The bots that should be made impractical are ones that give combat or logistics advantages that can't be gained through pure communication (among bots). I would intend to do this by technical changes in radar limitations and the details of how certain lua functions to work, all of which I have mentioned in first few posts.
people who don't want the change don't need a counter argument they can just say no
I don't know why you nerfers and haters always seem to think that if you don't drag everyone into a highschool style debate that you have somehow won when pretty much if enough people just say "no" you won't get what you want anyways.
"No"
that is all.
I don't know why you nerfers and haters always seem to think that if you don't drag everyone into a highschool style debate that you have somehow won when pretty much if enough people just say "no" you won't get what you want anyways.
"No"
that is all.
IMO, the original poster has a point. The problem is not that there are bot relays, it's that they are tracking players while effectively being permanently invisible; and the same is possible to do for players. The underlying cause is that even when a player is outside your scanning range, you can still see who that is. Personally, I agree that this capability can be abused and is unfair towards players who are tracked because of it.
I can see the counterargument that not being able to see anyone outside the scanning range will contribute to the already present sense of emptiness.
But instead of going all the way, if you could only hide the name of the player (but leave nation colour/boat type) until he gets inside the scanning range, this would solve the problem. It would have side effects too, like not knowing whether the target you see is a pirate waiting for you or not. There will be other situations where this will have impact, but I can't think of any side effect that would have a significant drawback; this is why I think this proposition makes sense.
(don't confuse me with Whistler, I am a different person, didn't know of him before creating the account)
I can see the counterargument that not being able to see anyone outside the scanning range will contribute to the already present sense of emptiness.
But instead of going all the way, if you could only hide the name of the player (but leave nation colour/boat type) until he gets inside the scanning range, this would solve the problem. It would have side effects too, like not knowing whether the target you see is a pirate waiting for you or not. There will be other situations where this will have impact, but I can't think of any side effect that would have a significant drawback; this is why I think this proposition makes sense.
(don't confuse me with Whistler, I am a different person, didn't know of him before creating the account)
haha oh wow tosh got his panties in a twist over being called dense which is hardly an ad hominem, especially when he is making stupid ass assumptions that no one can tell who is and who isn't a bot. Maybe if bot-killer said pretentious douche instead.
I'll state my position nice and clear. I think IRC is annoying but the constant tracking of players should probably go for the betterment of the game.
I'll state my position nice and clear. I think IRC is annoying but the constant tracking of players should probably go for the betterment of the game.
Fuckin dragging me into high school debates...*mutters and kicks the dirt*
The bots don't matter because any decent guild tracks EVERYONE far better with their guild plugins that they give ALL of their members, PA, TGFT, VPR, ITAN, Probably ONE and maybe even CHRN. We know what you do, where you do it, what you are doing it with and how often you do it in those particular places.
The first 3 have enough members that they are tracking you round the clock, the last 3 not so much
So lets start the oooohhh dddddd dears!
And the bbbbbban plugins!
And the <insert something else wusses come up with>
The bots don't matter because any decent guild tracks EVERYONE far better with their guild plugins that they give ALL of their members, PA, TGFT, VPR, ITAN, Probably ONE and maybe even CHRN. We know what you do, where you do it, what you are doing it with and how often you do it in those particular places.
The first 3 have enough members that they are tracking you round the clock, the last 3 not so much
So lets start the oooohhh dddddd dears!
And the bbbbbban plugins!
And the <insert something else wusses come up with>
PA does have such a plugin. Hardly anyone sees the point of using it, though, and haven't for several years...a simple "BT in H2" on guild chat does the job just fine and as for the rest, why would anyone care that pirate "X" logs on for 2 hours on alternate sundays and flies around Ukari in a valk or whatever...
Even if that's true Spence, we can kill them (or try anyway). They don't hide hours away. Simply being monitored isn't the problem with bots so much as not having a way to attack and disrupt the monitoring. We can attack those we believe responsible, but that doesn't disrupt it unless they get fed up and take it offline. And it's possible for one to be established anonymously, publishing the results to a public channel, so that the owner cannot be identified to be attacked at all.
Secondly, if a guild does monitor via human members, it requires that a guild member be in position. I fly around quite a lot without encountering anybody whatsoever. So it's definitely possible to slip through the chinks in their surveillance. It isn't constant like bots would be.
But like I said, the real issue is that we don't have a way to kill them. Being monitored is an in-game issue that should be able to be dealt with in-game. We shouldn't have to take it to the forums, other than the RP area to try to rally support in the war against it.
By limiting the sector list beyond distances in the tens of km, such bots would have to remain close enough that they could be located and destroyed if a person were willing to spend the time and effort.
I don't see what the problem is with not being able to identify people who are, say, 50km away. We're not talking about making it so you can't see the people on the other side of the asteroid field, just so you can't see (and be seen by) people who have flown way out into the middle of nowhere. I don't know which specific number would be best, but probably in the 10-15 km range. How often to people go farther away than that and actually still care about who's in the sector?
Secondly, if a guild does monitor via human members, it requires that a guild member be in position. I fly around quite a lot without encountering anybody whatsoever. So it's definitely possible to slip through the chinks in their surveillance. It isn't constant like bots would be.
But like I said, the real issue is that we don't have a way to kill them. Being monitored is an in-game issue that should be able to be dealt with in-game. We shouldn't have to take it to the forums, other than the RP area to try to rally support in the war against it.
By limiting the sector list beyond distances in the tens of km, such bots would have to remain close enough that they could be located and destroyed if a person were willing to spend the time and effort.
I don't see what the problem is with not being able to identify people who are, say, 50km away. We're not talking about making it so you can't see the people on the other side of the asteroid field, just so you can't see (and be seen by) people who have flown way out into the middle of nowhere. I don't know which specific number would be best, but probably in the 10-15 km range. How often to people go farther away than that and actually still care about who's in the sector?
I thought about reading this, and then saw that it the devs have not replied and this is probably just another rat or trader bitching and moaning. Same shit different thread.
Hmm, bots.
There is an old scots legal phrase " by habit and repute" .
The players of VO do not need bots to know what is going on : they just know.
So, bots are not for the players of VO, they are for the observers of VO.
On the plus side, folk making bots are doing a bit of lua, and learning things. On the negative side , some folk think that that their locations are known in ways they wouldn't otherwise be. So what ? Someone on IRC knows you passed through latos ? IRC kills nobody.
Perhaps we should turn all this around. Write interesting bots that interact. bots that talk to folk . Trade tips, mining tips , storm warnings. advice on dangerous sectors, recommendations for guild sites. Interesting stuff .
Slime is right , maybe 100 out of 7000 + sectors actually have things happening. So , why not make space seem busier by using bot making skills in two directions at once ? Part of vo is exploring and finding interesting stuff , lets use the skills of the playerbase to create interesting things to find .
There is an old scots legal phrase " by habit and repute" .
The players of VO do not need bots to know what is going on : they just know.
So, bots are not for the players of VO, they are for the observers of VO.
On the plus side, folk making bots are doing a bit of lua, and learning things. On the negative side , some folk think that that their locations are known in ways they wouldn't otherwise be. So what ? Someone on IRC knows you passed through latos ? IRC kills nobody.
Perhaps we should turn all this around. Write interesting bots that interact. bots that talk to folk . Trade tips, mining tips , storm warnings. advice on dangerous sectors, recommendations for guild sites. Interesting stuff .
Slime is right , maybe 100 out of 7000 + sectors actually have things happening. So , why not make space seem busier by using bot making skills in two directions at once ? Part of vo is exploring and finding interesting stuff , lets use the skills of the playerbase to create interesting things to find .
Bots suck, but they happen in most MMO's, no matter how hard some dev teams fight to stop them. I would like even IRC gone (I'm sure most long term players know my feelings on that subject) but I don't see a way except manually banning all proven bots. Which would take away what little time the devs already have to make the game better.
Nuff said, not worth it right now, shut it.
Nuff said, not worth it right now, shut it.
... or we could just display people out of radar range as "unknown" because that would be a cool and good for immersion anyway. (Smaug +1)
We will eventually be changing the way radar works in general, which will have an impact on this sort of thing. There are some extensive discussions on Suggestions about that.
Anyway, I haven't responded because we've been insanely busy this week with several big projects that will hopefully gain us some exposure this fall. So, I can't really form a cogent response at the moment, except that I think the radar changes will sort of render a lot of this "moot".
One interesting policy I saw (A Tale in the Desert) is that any player must be able to respond, if messaged by a developer or game administrator. This would have as much impact on innocent idlers as anyone else (and would no doubt cause some bot people to immediately integrate Eliza into their code ;). But I thought it was an interesting way of handling it.
There could also be an automated server message to players idle longer than X period (6 hours? something lengthy but not insane), that could try doing some sort of captcha. Of course, then the bots will simply not idle and fly around doing random things instead. Eh.
At the same time I've long thought it might be interesting to add a "real" bot API, via XMPP (Jabber) or some such, allowing guilds or whomever to create useful external functionality (perhaps sitting in their private stations), but within a limited framework to prevent abusive situations (like maybe it has no sensor data, and can't see general chat or whatever).
Anyway, our existing bot policy has been to "ignore it until it becomes an issue at some later point". I will take this thread into account as we consider policy changes over the coming months, and probably read it more extensively next week.
Anyway, I haven't responded because we've been insanely busy this week with several big projects that will hopefully gain us some exposure this fall. So, I can't really form a cogent response at the moment, except that I think the radar changes will sort of render a lot of this "moot".
One interesting policy I saw (A Tale in the Desert) is that any player must be able to respond, if messaged by a developer or game administrator. This would have as much impact on innocent idlers as anyone else (and would no doubt cause some bot people to immediately integrate Eliza into their code ;). But I thought it was an interesting way of handling it.
There could also be an automated server message to players idle longer than X period (6 hours? something lengthy but not insane), that could try doing some sort of captcha. Of course, then the bots will simply not idle and fly around doing random things instead. Eh.
At the same time I've long thought it might be interesting to add a "real" bot API, via XMPP (Jabber) or some such, allowing guilds or whomever to create useful external functionality (perhaps sitting in their private stations), but within a limited framework to prevent abusive situations (like maybe it has no sensor data, and can't see general chat or whatever).
Anyway, our existing bot policy has been to "ignore it until it becomes an issue at some later point". I will take this thread into account as we consider policy changes over the coming months, and probably read it more extensively next week.
funny bot forgot to leave group after critical hive mission..
well, Scipio Panzer is in 451km radar range, I am impressed.
My two cents:
I'll turn this around. Instead of limiting the sector list to those people who are in radar range, how about saying that if you are on the sector list, then you show up on radars.
After all, if you can be seen on the sector list, then you can be detected; there is (or could be) some software written to plot your location. So make it part of the standard client.
If you can be detected, then show up on radar.
I'll turn this around. Instead of limiting the sector list to those people who are in radar range, how about saying that if you are on the sector list, then you show up on radars.
After all, if you can be seen on the sector list, then you can be detected; there is (or could be) some software written to plot your location. So make it part of the standard client.
If you can be detected, then show up on radar.
That doesn't help. It would allow you to see where they are, yes. But if the bot has been turboing away for an entire day, it will take more than 24 hours to catch up with it (because the bot is still moving).
Hmm...
Maybe we need a high speed, small mass, capturing device that is easily defeated by persons...
A super high turbo speed weapon that just captures someone unless they type in a password.
... Yea, a capcha bot missile :-)
(Ok, feel free to ignore this one :-).
Maybe we need a high speed, small mass, capturing device that is easily defeated by persons...
A super high turbo speed weapon that just captures someone unless they type in a password.
... Yea, a capcha bot missile :-)
(Ok, feel free to ignore this one :-).
Heh, that's a funny idea. But no. It would be too easy to abuse (you can't type a password during a long PVP match). I also thought about suggesting some kind of super-long-range death-ray, but it would take so much effort to make it not be abusable that it isn't worth it. Much simpler to just put a 20km clipping radius on the sector-list, rather than designing a new weapon just to deal with this.
Or just crash the sector.
I think something needs to be done about it now that guilds are placing blatant irc relay bots in the stations which will alert them at all times. I recall this being an issue in the first stations where CHRN (i think) and some other guild VPR or TGFT i believe both had bots in the station/sector which was keeping the sector from resetting and those parties involved got quiet a talking too from momerath and it was agreed upon that bots would stay out of station sectors.
I don't think you really know what you're talking about.