State of the Bot Address

[reed23]

I think people need to read this thread, and stop focusing on bitching and crying about the past and post something worth while.

My vote is allowing 2 chars per IP address.  Now here is the real questions to all you studly botters out there.  I have never played more than 2 chars at one time, and they were always from separate laptops.  I manually typed each character with a few simple aliases.  That was kind of irrelevant, however, the question is, BOTTERS, are you going to be satisfied by playing only 2 characters, or are you still going to want 4-5-6 chars?  I cannot answer that question, because i have not gotten to that point.  My personal opinion, botters would tend to stay with the 2 chars for a while.  If you have a small friend group of 3-4 guys, that means you can have a 6-8 man in no time.  If you have a clan of 5-7 active players, you should have no problem forming elite zoning groups at almost all times.  I would also agree with Kir and like to see the group limit changed to 12 if we go the direction i am proposing above.

[reed23]

Also, from the non-botter party - I have heard 1 reason from Dyl that semi-made sense regarding why you don't want botting.  He said that his current playing setup wouldn't allow him to bot effectively, and therefore, it would put him at a disadvantage.  The rest of your from non-botter party, why don't you want the Imms to allow 2 chars per IP address?  What are your reasons for not wanting it?  If everyone was able to control 2 chars, everyone would be on the same playing field.  I want to hear your thoughts.

[Anaya]

Honestly Reed i have been playing this game for almost 20 years.  The only time i have played multiple characters is Chaos day when it was allowed.  With the current state of the game i would have no issue being able to play my Paladin and Healer at the same time so i could do small zones affectively.  My only issue is it is against the rules in the current state of the game.  When CORE was a strong group mudding all the time we could have 8-10 man strong groups with no botting.  However most of that group has quit mudding mostly for real life reasons including myself.  If they allow 2 chars per IP what stops it from being 4-6 would be this issue i would have then.  I myself have no desire to make up the aliases/triggers to control that many characters.  I personally have enjoyed the interaction with people from across the globe on this game and meeting new people.  To me the issue is growing the player base with actual players not growing the player base with bots.  That is all i have to say on the matter.

[Anaya]

I have no issue with people being able to play 2 chars if it is made legal in the game.  Short version.

[Willoe]

I personally tend to agree that having the option to being able to play one extra character will be great. There will be a lot of people(myself included) that will take advantage of this. This will make zoning easier as a result more people will likely play(and perhaps the need for multiple characters will be less).

As far as "what's to stop people from doing more"...nothing. They are already doing it. All this would be doing is leveling the playing field for those that aren't doing it right now because of this rules. Those that want to break the rules have been for years so it changes nothing other then giving those that do not want to be punished the ability to actually compete.

Short version - Yes to being able to play 2 characters from a single IP.

[Hoss]

Is it more of a "I need more characters, so I can go zone by myself", or is it "I want to multi"?

I see those as distinctly separate issues, the first we could solve with game changes, the second not so much. I also wanted to applaud those of you that have publicly admitted that you bot. We all know it happens and I really do think we won't make much progress until we can shed any pretence and have an honest conversation.

I will also lift the 'no flames' rule as long as it is focused at Willoe.

[Willoe]

For me it's more along the lines of not always having enough people to zone so having another character or two(depending on how many people are playing an extra character). Suddenly the "we don't have a main tank on, or we don't have enough heals" doesn't become an issue to zone. It let's people play the class they actually want to play instead of being forced to heal or tank. I don't know how many times this wipe I've heard John Douglas complain saying "wtf nobody on again" then log off. Or I myself log on after a long day of work and we only have the same 3-4 people on and are forced to run some boring crap as opposed to being able to run in to Blood Shaol or check out Sanjuro's new death trap. It provides a lot more flexibility for the declining playerbase. I think we'll find that once we do this, there will be a LOT more zoning, more competition, and more fun. This is what the game is about and we'll likely see some returning players thus the actual need for "secondary" characters will be reduced.

[Kir]

I agree 100% with Ilya. More characters = more people having the power to do stuff = more competition = more fights = fun.

Hoss, I completely agree with you questioning "how much is enough", and that's why I say make a game rule\policy that no more than one group of 10 per one side in a pk battle. So if Maza ambushes Dele, they can only bring 10 to battle, and Dele can only have 10 in zone so its not a problem. Its the best way to avoid some guy making 40 chars and abusing.

Gramm; as others have stated, this thread is not designed as a place to release your rage at others for botting. The actual entire point of this is to put people who follow the rules on an even playing field with the people who are going to bot regardless, and allow the people that only enjoy the game from a multi-play\botting perspective who don't pk\grief to relax and enjoy the game without constantly having to worry about being deleted.

[Gramm]

Only one way to prove or disprove anything is to open that door. Perhaps more will return and more will leave you never know. I can only hope you lads do the right thing. If it meant a higher playerbase that would awesome, if it meant easier scores for highly knowledgable players to abuse their abilities, not awesome.  There is of course going to be some pros and cons to what your discussing. Im not trying to cry you a stream of tears here. Simply stating that SOME well known players are going to make hell given this right.

[Gramm]

How about allowing it and forbidding bots in pk : p If there was anyway to police that id be all for letting the scripting geniouses have their fun loading their shinies and learning their zones.  That would remove any advantage some of the people that have countless hours to program pk bot assistants have vs the rest of the mud that have half real lives too : p

[Chisul]

Great thread and excellent dialog. Here are my thoughts.

Sounds like this is an issue less about botting and more about "anti-fun" actions of a few players. I think just about every player would be ok with bots...provided they were not used in a way that excessively ruins the game for others.

This reminds me of some advice I was given by someone I really appreciate. "Don't be that guy."

We have all known someone...or at times been...THAT guy. The guy that can't take a hint, the guy that over stays his welcome, that always orders the most expensive item on the menu EVERY time someone else is buying, the guy that crosses the line.

What we are dealing with is a small group of players, who are THAT guy.

Fortunately, most reasonable people are willing to listen and change behavior if someone can point out when the line has been crossed. "Hey, that was a pretty crappy thing you just did. We (meaning you) should probably fix it."

Unfortunately, we as players have not done a very good job of addressing our own issues. I'm just a guilty as the next person for not speaking up when I KNOW another player is being THAT guy. Sure, some of this crappy "win by ruin" attitude will exist at some level or another, but we need to change the way we handle it.

I'm calling out the clan leaders in particular here. You are quick to recruit one of these highly explosive players when the war is close and battles could go one way or another pretty easily. But once you have unleashed the hounds, you do very little to reign them back in before they become THAT guy.

I don't often see leaders take the high road and reprimand someone for crossing the line. And we ALL know when that line has been crossed. We aren't 15 year old kids mudding from the high school computer lab anymore. I guess what I'm trying to say is, have some common decency. Show a little respect among enemies, and for heavens sake DO something about problem players in your clan before Hoss or anyone else has to start deleting everyone.

Apart from that, I think a 5 level spread for PK would be a good idea. You cannot attack or be attacked by someone unless you are within 5 levels of each other.

Also, adding a "player problem" report function just like the typo, idea, and bug function would be good. Except rather than going to an immort, the problem gets sent to the clan leader. I would hope clan leaders would want to know when their members are being THAT guy.

Matt

[Jorquin]

playing more than one character by hand is quite difficult, especially in crisis situations.

i've always been pro playing more than one character when its human controlled. i've never scripted or "botted" as such, i don't use triggers to control either characters actions.  i guess i'm just multi-ing basically. i've been flamed for it and labelled a cheater, and that's fine. have you ever actually tried to play multiple characters by hand in a difficult fight or when you get ambushed? i can tell you, its no easy feat and neither character will be nearly as efficient as when a human is controlling one sole character. i literally have to move my mouse, click the other window, type some shit, move it back to the other window, do another thing, etc etc.

the point im trying to make is that i think that autobot style scripted things that control themselves are inherently bad. in a way i think allowing that sort of "botting" (which i think is the definition of a bot, something which controls itself) would basically follow the plot of terminator where the machines rise up against their creators and take over the world or some shit. that said, if you have the skill to control two characters (or three if you're some sort of jedi) then i don't see an issue personally. they'll never be as good as a human, and everyone i know would gladly have a human playing one character over their multi.   i actually get a headache from playing two characters for long periods because it's mentally taxing - especially when leading.

i posted this in another thread by accident, so i re-posted it here.

[Anaya]

Daniel have you heard of Alt-tab?   :)  And playing 2 chars without scripts i think would be hard depending on class.  Paladin and Healer not so bad.  Paladin guards the healer and you change screens to heal or buff up Paladin.  I have aliases set up for healing but still have to type something.  As i said in previous post i will never spend the time to script stuff to run characters so if i have 2 on at the same time i am Alt-tabbing between screens and typing.

Mike

[Jorquin]

yeah but i usually have other windows open, so its always been the click method for me.

[reed23]

The reason i played 2 characters for the last 8 years was for a few reasons.  When clan people were not on, i could take my barbarian and healer and go have fun.  I was able to learn CT, DKO, FT, Quali, Storms, etc. mid level zones with merely 2 players.  Whenever anyone else in the clan wanted to join, that was great with me.  It also added some excitement to the game.  Playing a healer in and of itself is sometimes boring, but when you add another char to control and learn, that was really fun for me.  All in all, it made the game playable from a smaller standpoint for me.

@Daniel - I also played my 2 characters via control, not scripts.  I play from a mac, and the client i use doesn't even save aliases or actions when i leave the game.  That was challenging to learn, but makes the game very fun.  I am not so sure though that disallowing actions and scripts would be policable.