State of the Bot Address

[Hoss]

[sart]

Well written Hoss, I felt your surrender to this issue.  I could see your arms thrown up in the air.. and hear your audible exhale as you fell back into your easy chair.

Either allow it, and do not police ips.. thus taking the advantage away from the cheaters.

or

Mirror the server and make the second no_pk... and policed.

[Hoss]

I think that splitting the game would completely destroy the sandbox that we all know and love. One of the best parts of Arctic is that the players have a huge part in the dynamics of the game and branching into carebear vs hard-core pk just doesn't sit well.

[Dyl]

Adding another server is just going to cut the pbase in half.  Don't do that.

I don't like bots because of the advantage that I cannot take.  I play exclusively at work and on an android device.  At work I am often minimizing one screen when coworkers or bosses come in.  Kir suggests that botting at work is great because then Ill have triggers to continue playing, but thats not how I play.  If I were to bot I would want multiple client windows open at the same time taking up both of my desktop screens.  Wheres the database and unix connections?  They are minimized.  But, thats not the case.  In a 10v10 with bots allowed I might be able to lend a hand.. but in any other circumstance because I can't have 4+ other windows open I will be at a serious disadvantage making my method of play obsolete.

So go ahead and add bots... what started as 2 humans and 2 connections will become 1 human and 4 its not viable for me to play with one screen - be it a small jmc client on my desktop or the only connection I have at home - my phone.

[Kir]

[btown]

1.And make all eq unlimited
2.Spellbooks load 100%
3.Increase hpts by 50%

Lets just make it real easy

What would stop people from still botting 3-10 chars from proxy ip's?

[Hoss]

Do this, do that posts aren't really working for me. I think we need to still address the root cause before we evaluate any system. What I am eluding to, is that there isn't a systematic or design change we can make that can work while also keeping that selfish win at all costs mentality. Fixing one, will surely fix the other.

[Gnua]

I know that we won't entertain ideas or systems that would allow some people an unfair advantage to the game. It just isn't worth it and for every mousetrap we try to build there will be a better bot so following that system is wasteful energy.

If I understand correctly:
1. "we won't entertain ideas or systems that would allow some people an unfair advantage to the game" means that the status quo of having the botters having an unfair advantage over regular folks needs to go.
2. "for every moustrap we try to build there will be a better bot" means that it just isnt feasible to prevent the botters from doing their thing.

Does this mean that you are seriously considering giving regular law-abiding citizens of Krynn some sort of access to legalized multi-play to level the playing field?

[Gramm]

The problem here is people using their abilities for evil i think : p If people wanted to bot a healer so that their clan could actually run something other than low level zones when only like 2 or 3 people were on thats one thing, instead i see people attaching legendary bashers to legendary mages  and reigning hell upon the mud. Personally i can continue to go without seeing that. Using bots for pk is not cool. And especially using them to drop onto mid level players because you are done learning and bored with zoning is just pathetic. This was proven and has been time and time again. Botting in pk is why id hope botting doesnt go unpunished. I cant be the only one that witnessed the rape of our dear mud to it this wipe at least... Those that do use these brutal tactics have proven that it WILL absolutely be abused and a problem for a good portion of our playerbase. I bet if you posted a vote on how many people want to see a repeat of the poof, rape, loot and drop all gear onto an unknown level 2 or random mob, hide for 15, rent technique. There would be 4 votes for and 50 votes against.
Whatever chance you might have had i pray has been shot because of your inability to share the little sandbox pure pk scumms.

[Kir]

Hoss, I think this "Win at all cost attitude" you speak of is a bit overhyped. Two wipes ago, when RANK (now dele clan) was dominating the mud, they gave peace to any clan that asked for it. Even when they were stomping us (RISE), they felt bad and offered peace. We turned it down because its more fun to war, but nevertheless there was no "win at all cost attitudes". As I have previously stated as well, when I was leading RISE and SOB, there was never any instance that we had the "win at all cost" and "kill them into quitting" attitudes. We have never withheld peace from a clan that asked for it. If a clan asked us for a truce to start a wipe, or peace from war, we obliged. RISE\SOB have warred both Rank\Dele and wild clans, and even during the wars we have friends that are buddies and even irl friends with members of the opposing clans. There are several people who even continually clan hope from Dele to SOB or SOB to Dele just depending on who they feel like playing with. Heck, most of the current Dele clan play league of legends with SOB members and BSP members and there is never a problem. The inter-player douchebaggery is highly overrated and I'd say only about 1-2% of the arctic population actually falls into that category. The only people who quit because of one PK, usually quit because they were embarrassed, or because they value their eq way too much, not because of player attitudes. Heck when I was a noob, I wouldn't make level 12 in a week because I'd get pked 5 times a day in solace sewers.. the old days were much, much worse.

@Gramm while I agree with you that getting rape trained by bots is not cool, its also not police-able. I mean people were getting deleted from the beginning of the wipe, yet people still botted anyway. And if you get pked by a group of bots, guess what, there's no re-imbursement policy so it doesn't matter if they get caught eventually, you still died and lost everything anyway. Now of course if you had a healer bot to heal you when that happened, you probably would have survived, or at least had a chance being on a more leveled playing field.

I feel we definitely need a compromise of some sort, a halfway that will please the players who love multi-play and the players who are afraid of losing the advantage. Something needs to be done here because like I have said, the playerbase is dwindling way too much. And please do not tell me its because of being pked. The playerbase dropped significantly at the beginning of the wipe when people were deleted for botting and the wars hadn't even started yet.

[gulca]

Hoss, I think this "Win at all cost attitude" you speak of his a bit overhyped. Two wipes ago, when RANK (now dele clan) was dominating the mud, they gave peace to any clan that asked for it. Even when they were stomping us (RISE), they felt bad and offered peace. We turned it down because its more fun to war, but nevertheless there was no "win at all cost attitudes". As I have previously stated as well, when I was leading RISE and SOB, there was never any instance that we had the "win at all cost" and "kill them into quitting" attitudes. We have never withheld peace from a clan that asked for it. If a clan asked us for a truce to start a wipe, or peace from war, we obliged. RISE\SOB have warred both Rank\Dele and wild clans, and even during the wars we have friends that are buddies and even irl friends with members of the opposing clans. There are several people who even continually clan hope from Dele to SOB or SOB to Dele just depending on who they feel like playing with. Heck, most of the current Dele clan play league of legends with SOB members and BSP members and there is never a problem. The inter-player douchebaggery is highly overrated and I'd say only about 1-2% of the arctic population actually falls into that category. The only people who quit because of one PK, usually quit because they were embarrassed, or because they value their eq way too much, not because of player attitudes. Heck when I was a noob, I wouldn't make level 12 in a week because I'd get pked 5 times a day in solace sewers.. the old days were much, much worse.

@Kir

How did it feel when your whole clan got pzap?

How did you think the neutrals/carebears feel when they got pk'ed by legend chars?

You might argue it is not the same, in your case you had no power to fight back and in their case, it's grow up and be better and fight back.

Now, how often does Hoss come into the game and pzap you? How often did those neutrals get pk'ed?

The truth is, the feeling is the same. We all felt robbed and ended up with "quit" as the solution.

[Hoss]

@Kir: Good points, I am just going off what I have seen the last few wipes. That being a huge arms race right when we open from wipe which builds into a few fights until one side comes out ahead on gear, then the other side using griefing tactics to keep the other side from picking themselves up by the bootstraps and getting back into the fray.

To the second point (i.e. leveling the playing field): To what ends? Where does it stop? We allow everyone to have a multi and you run 4 characters, so the next guy runs 4 and then Reed runs 6...the escalation path and trajectory just don't seem a direction we should go.

[Gramm]

Right there that just shows you the difference in mentality even, not everyone on this mud just wants to pk the shit out of everyone else Kir... this wipe RGB/SOB combo was the golden example of why pk botting is the worst thing you could give arctic. We in myth asked sob to  take a step back and look at what they were doing... their response was give him a bunch of dams from the fight he lost them in or continue dying. I actually offered my whole set in response to the issue, which was a pretty nice set at the time and still that "nice guy" swibelgluck would have rather had my whole clan sit in the inn or not play than to just get past it and allow a good amount of players to come onto the mud. He is not overstating anything.. there is always someone that will abuse the power even if it isnt you or I. If botting is allowed it will be open season for exactly those kinds of "delightful people"  that have no desire to do arctic any true form of good. If your botting and not being a complete "hooti-nanne" than perhaps you might not be such an easy target to crucify. But most of the ones i see getting zapped have earned it.

[Hoss]

@gramm: Let's keep the thread clear of insults and personal attacks.

[Gramm]

Sorry, innsitting to bots for a good portion of the wipe has probably clouded my judgement on appropriate terms to call them. I will behave. My apologies. haha edited all insults didnt even know i could : )