State of the Bot Address

[Kir]

So, from the posts I've read, it seems to me like most people are into the idea of playing 2-3 characters at once, but no more?

Even though some people prefer to play more, I personally feel the 2-3 chars at once (im leaning towards 2) is a pretty good compromise for everybody. I feel like if the staff was nice enough to accommodate the player-base with this change, then the player-base should accommodate the staff by accepting larger penalties to those who still decide to cheat even after the Stox and Hoss hook us up. In my humble opinion, I feel like anybody who still refuses to follow these rules should be mass deleted on the spot, maybe even their entire clan with them. It'd sound harsh but I feel like huge and harsh penalties are the only thing that will make people follow the rules, and as players we should all agree to be ok with this and not blame hoss when he is deleting people.

Also, I truly feel that if we are going to test this multi-play thing, we should judge it AFTER a wipe and not before. Theres already too many highly ranked chars in the game which would make it too hard for people rolling new chars to multi with to get an honest feel for it (ie to not continually be tether-bombed or nightmare while in slig camp).

[Aristox]

There has been a lot said in this thread, most of it good and useful.

We have a lot to chew on and we already have some ideas on which way we want to go with all this, but nothing is solid yet.  Expect us to be more open about what is going to happen as things move forward.

That said, I want people to sit down and truly think about this question, do not answer from your gut, let it stew a bit:

If multiing/botting were allowed in any form (pick your favorite), would that make you more or less likely to play the game for a longer period of time each wipe?


I have other things I want to ask, but I want to keep this pretty straightforward.

[Boots]

Would it make me play more or less for the wipe.

I don't think it would affect how much I play, unless teams of 2 people start pillaging
everyone...

[gulca]

This is another question to ask.

If you are pk'ed by a group of legendary bots, will you still log onto your bots to play for the rest of the wipe?

To answer Aristox's question, I would play way longer and more often if the players behave nicer to each other.

ie, there is a time for war/pk, there is a time to zone/assist each other.

I want to log on to enjoy the game, and by enjoyment it means
1. being able to zone when I log on,
2. being able to take part in arranged pk fights (with no hurt feelings) and maybe zone together
3. being able to help any random ppl who got stuck in cr.

I do not want to log onto a game that has
1. 10 bot group waiting outside the inn aggro'ing all option anon char
2. Or a game where I can't walk off the seat for 5 min outside peace and come back to a startup screen
3. Or needing a tick timer every 3 sec spamming who list for a list of aggro ppl

[Willoe]

Personally I don't need to multi/bot in order to play so I don't think it would change my desire any...however I do know that there will be those that will play if this is something that comes to pass... as a resultI likely will be online more frequently.

[Davy]

I have never played a bot.

I like the idea of playing a Bot to help explore and learn so yes I would play more. I would also roll more then one character, probably 3 Cleric, Barb and Mage.

I think there should be a 2 character at a time policy with severe punishment to those found cheating ie deletion.

I think those who are PK bullies should also be punished maybe after your third PK battle over in a day you loose 20 mil XP per additional PK battle ie one PK battle equals one aggressor flag so you can kill like 10 in a battle but only three aggressor flags a day without penalty.

I think we would need to remember were a community and need to still group and play together.

[Jorquin]

my answer is: it depends!

one of the biggest problems (linking this back to something shesh said earlier) is with the weak ass pk tactics employed by a lot of people. personally i quite like fighting and pk in its purest form, that is, the actual act of fighting other players. the reality is that 99.9% of "fighting" on arctic is trash talking, avoiding each other, mind games, and... wait for it....  trash attacks - none of which are really fun.

yes im talking about the people who rock barbarian and healer combos that are both completely naked, speedwalk to lytburg to animate 3 double annihilaters and try some risk free trash attacks. im talking about the people who strip down scouts to try and use that hypnotize para thing so a semi-naked thief can stab them down and then run away. the people who log 4-5 semi-naked characters and run to a lockable, summonable zone and spam summons wearing lucky bone charms. create armies of trash mages (some to fight with, some as relo anchors so they can puff around to wear flags). i could go on, but i hope you get it by now.

botting really facilitates this kind of trash behaviour, because solo trash pk is kind of hard - no single character that has shitty equipment is particularly dangerous really. when you have 2 or 3 characters, it becomes quite effective. the last thing i want to see in this game is more people being even bigger pussies, hiding their equipment forever while trying to snatch shinies with risk free trash tactics and running off at the mouth in the process.


if you find a way to prevent these scenarios, i'd probably play for longer periods.

[Aemon]

Let me explain to you why any policy that has a bot limit of 2 or 3 per player is misguided with a simple illustration.

Assume there is a policy of 3 bots per player.

Say we have 3 players, Player A, B, and C. And each has 3 chars.

So assume Player A, B, and C are zoning together, so they have a 9-man group.

Assume Player A is the group leader. Maybe Player B needs to go to dinner, and Player C has to put his kid to bed. Both Player B and C want their character development to continue, ie, gain rank, experience, levels. So they both say, "just recall and rent my chars when done."

Player A is now leading a 9-man group solo.

This is why if there is a pro-bot policy, I strongly recommend no limitations on the number of bots per player. The scenarios like I illustrated above will occur quite frequently and will be difficult to police.

People who play together frequently like clanmates will likely standardize on a common scripting codebase, furthering the blurring of dilineation of chars per player.

Arctic and its players can adapt and police itself without any imm intervention. Both dele and BiA were able to adapt to my army.
Most of the recent cases of imm intervention I can recall have resulted in players leaving the game and moving on.

[reed23]

It would cause me to play deeper into the wipe because I will be able to log at any point in time and be ready to play. Daniel - ddidn't think you were a cry baby like everyone else.  I pk regardless of the gear I have.

[muddeer]

I am against allowing botting at all.  As Daniel argued there will be a lot more trash pking, even if only 1 bot per player is allowed.  Not many players can pk well solo, but anybody can with 2 characters.  I don't know how many players will come back if botting is allowed, but I bet we'll lose more due to the increased trash pking, especially newbies.  And it's not just because of being whacked everytime you are alone discourages you to play.  But they have to learn bot coding, in addition to learning a complicated mud.  Not many ppl have the patience for that.

[Jorquin]

i'm not crying about anything, just stating my opinion about whether or not allowing botting would be good or bad.

[Brafu]

@Daniel

I absolutely agree with you on every point.

@Gulca

I also agree with most everything you said. The only thing I might alter is that I also enjoy the unknown aspects to pk where you could get jumped at any moment. But, having said that I also don't want that every single time I log on or have to be so freaking paranoid that I can't enjoy the game for fear that someone will try to kill me even knowing I might have no eq worth taking.

@Aemon

"Arctic and its players can adapt and police itself without any imm intervention. Both dele and BiA were able to adapt to my army.
Most of the recent cases of imm intervention I can recall have resulted in players leaving the game and moving on."

That's only true for those few who are willing to dedicate their mudding life to fighting back and taking care of things themselves. CORE did a good job for years of taking care of its own and not letting people run all over us, but it wasn't easy and it took a lot of time and dedication by more than a few of us to ensure we were able to do that. It also meant more than a few people would simply stop playing (or at-least did so on secret alts that not even the clan knew about) while the war was going on and some of them just never returned.

You need to understand that just because a group of players can band together and crush some group of dicks, doesn't mean those same players will want to devote most of their gaming time to some idiots. What's more fun. Playing a game the way you want to, or the way some other people in the game force you to play? Just look at how small the player base is now and you can probably guess what the answer is.

@Aristox

In regards to your question, it's hard for me to say to be perfectly honest.

I might play more, and for longer, if I was allowed to play 2-3 characters at a time. I do enjoy soloing, so having such an ability would allow me to do more on my own and to actually learn some things that my risk adverse side is hesitant to do when I only have 1 char. But considering how it would also allow me and 1-2 friends to do more when we are the only ones on... I would have to say it would probably have an overall positive effect on me playing more often and for longer into a wipe.

But, to be perfectly honest, the main reason I'm not really playing right now isn't because of the game itself, since I don't mind soloing even with the increased xp table. I just don't like having to deal with people who's only intent seems to be to make life miserable for others. Still, all things considered it probably would make me play more often if for no other reason than I could make some unknowns, do my own thing, and just have some fun again.

[Hoss]

Keep on topic gentlemen.

[btown]

I used to play leviathan mud and bot like crazy and it was fun.  If arctic ever turns into that then sure.  But arctic is not like that.  There is still a player base.    The reason people keep playing is because the game has a certain feel to it.  You log on from your real life and feel some sort of power.  Typing EQ and looking at a full set of gear kind sometimes give you chills and you love it.  Bots water it all Down,  I personally think it could ruin the game and even to switch back you would have already lost its magic.  Not including John,  jt m brother Tim and my newbie cousin all thinks its horrible..  You see we have never botted.  The point is it will ruin this game for what it is. 

So with all that said I very much seeing myself exploiting it briefly then I see myself quitting forever because this game will be ruined.  That's my POV
P.S.  I am in a pool tournament and it has taken me 3hours to write this.  I hope everybody understands it lol.  But 4 real people very much hate the idea of bot mud

[DCPTY1986]

For the record, Aemon and I only used the bots in pk when we ambushed Dele in Silvanesti, BIA in ravenshadow, and the time we fought Dele/BIA on Lunitari.  I admit, I did use Alanis to tether bomb some MAZA at some point when Hoss was already hounding us and I was on the verge of quitting anyway.  Other than the aformentioned PK's we never had 10 man bot murder pk squads waiting outside of our enemies inn waiting for them to leave. Most of the SoB pks were either Essovius/me(chorillo) or Mumu and me or some other basher  who wasn't an actual bot. I would also like to apologize to the innocent lives that weren't  able to be spared, I don't like the idea of not killing someone that is barely suspect, I would love to see bots in pk but do agree with the others that its not cool to abide by the kill and ask questions later rule/tactic.

Anyway I thought I would put in my thoughts, I'm highly in favor of botting and think that I would definitely play longer in wipes because it has allowed me to learn things that I never would have in a regular group of people that don't have the patience of a bot.

-Dale C