Idea to fight bots, really simple

[xencosti]

Simple solution. It won't work all the time though. But it may slow it down a little. No global chat until lvl 10. 

[DeadBonez]

Just now, xencosti said:

Simple solution. It won't work all the time though. But it may slow it down a little. No global chat until lvl 10. 

do u know how ez it is to get to lvl 10?? bots are already getting to lvl 15 so they can trade and not have to pay for mail system.. sooo no .. this has worked on other games before but will not work at all here

[CT]

At the very least expand the current maximum 50 block list. Bot use all sorts of chats, be it Global, Realm, Faction, Party. I have block 50 and could no longer block more. Something could have be done?

[2501]

I believe global chat is already restricted to level 10.

 

They're using bots to reach level 10, then spamming. Otherwise, it'd be trivial to create accounts and we'd see thousands of them.

 

The ONLY way to prevent gold spammers is to parse messages and ban for any type of spam (repetitive strings, or parts of strings).

 

Essentially, spam is spam, gold or not (shouldn't even attempt to discriminate the two). Then you don't need to filter for website/gold/currency symbols/text either...

 

As for bots, GameGuard can be bypassed. I know of software which can. The ONLY way to prevent bots are server-side sanity checks on player actions, position, and timing. Anything else is a joke unto itself, only preventing legitimate software from functioning properly.

[Melfice]

This brings me back to the days I used to play Runescape years ago. There was a time where the game was absolutely rampant with gold farmers, gold sellers, and other bots; literally 20 of them standing around in every city in the game of nearly every server; and Runescape is (or was) a browser game. For those of you who don't know, Runescape back then had a pretty massive playerbase (though I cannot say where it stands now). The bots were ruining the games economy and people were hacking/buying gold left and right. It was a mess.

 

And suddenly, out of no where, Jagex said "We've got an update incoming that will wipe these guys off the map" and no one believed them. They said it had taken them at least a few years to restructure their systems after taking time to study the bots and the programs they were using. Sure enough, every single bot in the game was gone the day that update rolled out. I think it took months, if not a full year before I saw another bot in that game. Last time I checked they were still pretty scarce.

 

Moral of the story: As an MMO developer, you have to design your own anti-bot/cheat system server side; anything else is a complete and utter waste of time. Put enough resources into a team to develop a good system that can detect and ban bots and it will pay for itself in the long-term with players who will be more willing to populate your servers and spend money on your game.

[PinkB0baTea]

Runescape still has a few bots :v

[Melfice]

3 minutes ago, PinkB0baTea said:

Runescape still has a few bots :v

 

Can't be nearly as bad as it once was. I think at the point before the Bot Update nearly 1/3-1/2 of the playerbase was bots. It was pretty insane.

[Keawen]

Actually to speak on zone chat they have to be level 15 so level 10 would be even lower then what they have right now.Only other channel they can use b4 15 is faction and possibly clan.

[Serati]

There is no simple solution for this but NCSoft really needs to step up their bot hunting game. It's getting out of hand. It's not a good first impression if you get spammed by dozens of bots the minute you log in.

[CT]

Actually, this mainly happened in Bamboo Village so still not as bad as I thought.

[Kyrrua]

- chat level min 15 (also for faction chat)

- Same for whispers

- Auto Mute someone from chat after a high amount of report (like 25 or 50) letting the time for mods to check.

And in case these reports are abusive, downgrade from level 45 to 20 every player abusing it. (preventive rule) But auto mute is better than auto ban at least.

[Ildur]

The solution is to hire actual human GMs who can keep an eye on the chat. How many HUMANS would name their characters "aisoahpaj sgjsiajg" and stand all together in same space as other characters named in such a fashion?