Multi-ing / Botting

[Bedal Brightblade]

I don't post much, but I need to state the obvious here. The thought of making botting legal is to make the game more acessable to the solo/two/three man groups, correct?

Instead of doing this and making it a nightmare for a player to enjoy the game with 10 man bot pk groups, why not just lower the difficulty of the game?

Make max group size 6, lower all mob 'difficulty' by say 30%. Now people can do high end zones without having to form a 10 man with a low player base, forcing people to play stratigaiclly instead of strength in numbers, which is what Arctic was 10 years ago.

Did I mention a ridiculously less amount of spam?

[Kir]

Personally, i think that if you made botting totally legal, everybody would be running around with there own 10 man which could be bad when you have a clan of 20 people rolling in with 200 characters for pk cleaning out the mud.

However, I like the idea of each person playing two characters or better yet, each clan having 1 dedicated bot, like a heal bot that has to be registered

[newbie123321]

The imms would be able to tell if you were using more then 1 bot and probably get deleted of course in the instance that they allow everyone 1 bot <bot>, but I think that may also be bad since most people just follow so many people may not get in the main group because of this so possibly allowing a clan to have up to 2 bots or maybe just 1 bot per group would be nice, but yeah to see more then 3 ten mans running around mud! bots or not, would make my day because remember if we all can use them no one has an advantage the smarter strat./leader will win.

[newbie123321]

For sure some rule that only a ten man per clan can attack another clan would be good so a clan cant just do what guy said about 200 people walking in a room and killing another clans group

[relethane]

I think people like to multi right now because it is cheating and gives them an unfair advantage, and it is fun to have an unfair advantage.  If multi-ing is legal, then everyone will have to multi to stay at all competitive, none of the cheaters will have their unfair advantage, and everyone will be unhappy because it is a pain in the ass to multi. 

I agree with punkmasterm in that you could get the same effect of allowing multis by just making the game easier, plus it would be more fun to boot.  It seems that in the era of massive pk leveling and equipping was easier and death hurt much less...

[Oligo]

it is a pain in the ass to multi. 

My solution is thus. 1 char online per unique ip. Every char online must have a unique ip. If you can amass 100 unique ips, and play 100 chars at once, power to you. If you want imms/staff to police the mortal playerbase, then guess what, this new admin staff is not going to be any better than the last admin staff.

The real issue is, people are so attached to their shinies and characters that they are afraid to die now and fear pk.

People speak of various doomsday scenarios like 40 level 1 bots camped outside the inn ready to thornspray you to death. But the reality is, controlling more than 3 chars at once is very hard and tedious unless you have some sophisticated scripts. Your average assist bot won't do the trick. And any bot group will lose in any large scale pk. I can point to numerous pk logs I've seen from the bot perspective. Bots are hard to ambush but easy to pk. And bots are not creative like human pk'ers can be.

The reason why most folks have suggested an arbitrary number of 2 bots per group or whatever is because that's what they have experience playing with and controlling. The reality is once you scale to 5 chars or 8 chars at once, it's pretty hard without sophisticated scripts and programs which is why you don't see armies of bots running around today. Only PoG maybe in years past, and they never fought straight up 10v10.

[kanu]

Honestly, my only reason for wanting a bot is so that I can practice inspire and march and finally legend my DK whereas otherwise I have to group and I honestly cannot find a group all of the time.

[Kadaj]

One problem I do see that hasn't been addressed with the two characters per person. What a player has a main char and a bot.....but also has a proxy "bot" who also has a hot registered. There is just so much to take into consideration.  Idc either way.

[eddiex]

One problem I do see that hasn't been addressed with the two characters per person. What a player has a main char and a bot.....but also has a proxy "bot" who also has a hot registered. There is just so much to take into consideration.  Idc either way.

Kinda a moot point don't you think? People already violate the rule not to have any multi's/bot's.

Allowing 2 chars per IP is a compromise (since imms cannot effectively police multiing/botting), which gets the law abiding players closer to an equitable situation with rule breaking players, while not just allowing a free for all.

My solution is thus. 1 char online per unique ip. Every char online must have a unique ip. If you can amass 100 unique ips, and play 100 chars at once, power to you.

Can you clarify the logic behind this? Seems to only benefit those who have experience logging through proxies, which are the people who are already abusing the system. 

I don't understand why it matters if you log 100 from 1 ip or 100 different ips.

[Oligo]

Can you clarify the logic behind this? Seems to only benefit those who have experience logging through proxies, which are the people who are already abusing the system. 

I don't understand why it matters if you log 100 from 1 ip or 100 different ips.

There's actually a real big difference between a 1-to-1 online char per ip and 10 chars per 1 ip.
The reason it matters is because of actual real world monetary cost. Proxies cost real money as do other more advanced forms of multiing. If you log 100 chars from 1 ip, that's 0 cost. But if you require and enforce 1 online char per ip, then at a certain point the person has to start paying out of pocket.

It's also technically more difficult to coordinate 100 chars from 100 different ips.
Even a novice can easily control 100 chars from 1 ip with the same client.

So limiting 1 online char per 1 real ip functions as a natural deterrent towards botting and offers a number of benefits

• the policy is easily enforceable and understood by both the staff and the players
• it's technically a little more difficult to multi from multiple ips than one ip
• there will be real world cost constraints at a certain point that will deter players

[Dyl]

What about in game mercenaries/mobs you can quest for or hire rather than multiple connections by the same person.

[Kadaj]

Kinda a moot point don't you think? People already violate the rule not to have any multi's/bot's.
[/quote]

Then why are we even having a discussion of allowing botting or not. If people will just find a way, I don't see why there are 2 pages full of discussions on something that people can do anyway.

[Oligo]

If people will just find a way, I don't see why there are 2 pages full of discussions on something that people can do anyway.

Agree.

[Thymorical]

I feel like I should say something..
botting is bad?

[eddiex]

I'd imagine it's because there are many players who choose to abide by the established rules regarding this issue. A change in rules does not matter to those who already circumvent the system only those who abide.

The only people effected adversely by the multi/bot prohibition are those who follow the rules because as imm stated "impossible to police". Furthermore, the absolute prohibition has resulted in inequitable enforcement and punishment in the past which strained player/imm relationship.

Therefore a compromise in the interest of those who abide by the rules is proposed.

Oligo is like the guy who runs a marijuana grow syndicate and doesn't want it to be legalized unless he stands to benefit, since it infringes on his business.

Are you going to start renting out ips and bots in your proposed pay-to-multi scheme?