job terminal botting

[skitszo]

I have to say if this is going on i flat out want to say i want the person banned.

Its unfair to those that actually are playing the game to waste more time trying to level fighting botts at a job terminal.

VT job terminal is camped....i get it...but if someone that can easily use 105 job terminals or even 135 job terminals but beacause they can run a bott for VT its wasting others time and is d*mn selfish. I veiw it as cheating. selfish, and an MMO hate crime for your fellow gamers.

Please do not allow macros to be allowed.

[Palimow]

if you have hard proof i suggest filing a ticket rather than coming on here and posting some vague description. I don't get what you're trying to do here but i do agree no bots should be allowed.

[skitszo]

[quote name='Palimow' timestamp='1320622340' post='48153']
if you have hard proof i suggest filing a ticket rather than coming on here and posting some vague description. I don't get what you're trying to do here but i do agree no bots should be allowed.
[/quote]


Vague? How is this fague? I specifically didn't mention names.

and proof? how would you get hard proof? poeple that want proof are the guilty that want to get away with something cause it can't be proved.

As far as a "general" topic of discussion; i'm pretty sure this is the general thread.

As far as rules go they say that you have to respond to a GM with in 10 minutes if contacted in game thus essentially making botting and macroing legal if your sitting on your butt scratching it close enough to here the chat sound that you've been PM'd. But my opinion is that it shouldn't be allowed.


What am i trying to do? add a topic for conversation and air my frustration that i do believe someone is job botting and it is effecting my game experience.

as this is a stress test....i'd rather figure out what will stress me and others out; and botting is one of those things.

[Kyp [LDEV]]

We don't have enough staff to enforce above and beyond what we already do. Sorry, unless we had the kind of money to pay full time staff for it, that's not likely. If we did make that much money, I think EA would actually take an interest in stopping us. Therefore, sorry dude, we'll do what we can, but we can only stop what we suspect, much like a police officer.

[Palimow]

[quote name='skitszomm' timestamp='1320622973' post='48155']
poeple that want proof are the guilty that want to get away with something cause it can't be proved.

[/quote]

lol ok i guess you're taking this a little personally and if this quote were true (and not just an absurd, poorly thought out comment) then i guess our whole legal system is a complete joke and anyone can accuse and sentence anyone else on a whim huh?

[skitszo]

[quote name='Palimow' timestamp='1320628849' post='48161']
then i guess our whole legal system is a complete joke and anyone can accuse and sentence anyone else on a whim huh?
[/quote]


humm..... this happens all the time.


can't a person express a frustration without thier **** getting jumped on.

As far as enforcement...i made no recommendations nor demands. I'm only expressing my opinion.

[Palimow]

[quote name='skitszomm' timestamp='1320631965' post='48163']
As far as enforcement...i made no recommendations nor demands. I'm only expressing my opinion.
[/quote]

read your first sentence of the opening post. sounds like a demand to me. you set the tone. i am only responding how one does to this kind of opening.

[skitszo]

your just one of those....

[Mattsacre]

Sniping from the shadows is easy, just look at the crap going on right now in the media with Herman Caine and "anonimous" accusers. The talking heads are scatching their heads why his polls go up, when they have "evidence" that he is some ill defined "sexual harrasser". People in America operate under a system that (while of late has been warped and under assault by slime) demands 2 things :
1. You are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
2. You have a right to confront your accuser(s).

It is what we deem a minimum of fairness to do in U.S.A., and when people sit in the shadow and try and ruin a persons reputation we feel it slimy and tend to discount such claims.

So Skitsz: I rarely use the terminals, and when I do for sure don't bot, in fact have never botted and never will on ANYTHING. But since I'm

"your just one of those...." after asking for "proof", people tend to discount a rant without it.

And if you are reading this and are a botter...shame on you.

As always: stand forth in the light, make whatever claims you will, it will be given its just creedance by its merit. And stand forth in the light and defend yourself if wrongly accused, lies and slander don't stand the sanitizing light of day.

[Palimow]

[quote name='skitszomm' timestamp='1320649776' post='48170']
your just one of those....
[/quote]

one of those people who doesn't like what you just did then yes i am. just because you cannot defend your actions does not mean i am wrong for calling you on it. Yes botting is wrong and if i ever saw anyone doing it i would notify the proper people. Not jump on the forums and post a rant with vague accusations. I suggest you take a time out and think twice in the future if you have the sudden urge to jump on a forum and make a baseless accusation. no one wants to read it or hear it. Edited November 7, 2011 by Palimow

[Mimir[IS]]

[quote name='Palimow' timestamp='1320681812' post='48178']
one of those people who doesn't like what you just did then yes i am. just because you cannot defend your actions does not mean i am wrong for calling you on it. Yes botting is wrong and if i ever saw anyone doing it i would notify the proper people. Not jump on the forums and post a rant with vague accusations. I suggest you take a time out and think twice in the future if you have the sudden urge to jump on a forum and make a baseless accusation. no one wants to read it or hear it.
[/quote]

I do

but I am weird that way.

[Lot]

Jobs all getting instantly snatched from the VT terminal?! The emulator ... emulates live!

In live you almost had to own at the least your own macro to take jobs at VT to beat the competition otherwise you'd never get any jobs at all. I guess the only "fair" way settle this competition is to offer jobs per user instead of a pool of jobs for all users to grab from. It won't stop the macros but it'd be a step forward.

[skitszo]

1) I really am clueless why this turned into a flame.

2) Yes i feel palimow turned this agressive when that really was not the goal.

3) I specifically made this non specific so as to talk about the issue and not try and accuse anyone; if they want to bott please go find some innocuous terminal no one goes to.

4) matt: my comment about "one of those" is the point that palimow seems to need to have the last word. whether he is a botter i could only speculate cause he seems to be anti anti botter conversation bent. why he would feel so strongly in trying to bash me for bringing up the topic is a bit baffling.

5) kyp brings up the very valid point that it would be nutty to expect to be able to try and enforce police this; so the only real way is to bring it up in conversation and hope that anyone that would like to do that would be considerate of others and not do it or perhaps show that they are considerate and use a terminal that's not populated with others.

6) I'll take the accusation that i'm a bit of a paranoid person, but i get that way when people don't respond to me in game and ignore me, that's my issues to try and control. but being self-deprecating don't take that as an admission of guilt nor an opportunity to rip into me. Its an attempt at self monitoring, which would be nice if others would do the same.

7) me botting.... that's why i bring the topic up; chat in game to much; go to all the terminals and get frustrated with them all and go back to VT knowing i will get annoyed with the same toon i keep seeing there. If they at least would say something in local when i attempt to make fun at having to fight the terminal with them i really wouldn't think about them botting. I would move to a different location and let them have the terminal; but i'm sure they can use a higher level terminal and wish they would. soon as i can use 105.s i switch and know where i am going.

8) Its a conspiracy-- i know it......

[Yargnit]

As someone who has sat at the VT terminal for periods of 8 hours straight before (In the last 3 months), I actually have never seen anything that made me think it was being 100% macroed. Keep in mind when you dock, your character doesn't always land in the same spot. This alone means its would take a significantly more sophisticated macro to be able to AFK the terminals.

Now could someone be macroing certain parts of job runs, yes. But the whole thing, unlikely. What's far more likely is that they are simply multitasking while jobbing. Either surfing the web, or running multiple accounts. If you get good at jobs, it can look an awful lot like macroing to others because they are so repetitive.

If you *really* think someone has the VT terminal 100% macroed, what I would suggest doing is sitting in the docking bay and watching them cone into the station. Any 100% macros would have to be making use of the /starbase reset command to warp their character to a pre-defined location for the macro to work from. No (obvious upon watching someone for any length of time, no afk macroing. It's that simple really)

Now the warping in space, or the clicking of the jobs, those parts are much easier. But w/o having the entire run macroed, they really can't leave the computer and still be efficient because the runs are so quick. (You'd only get about 2 minutes of afk time in a row) And as macros if you're sitting at the PC aren't even against the rules, I don't see an issue besides the general need to re-work terminals so people aren't directly competing with each other.

[Terrell [BT]]

During Live there were macros that could do particular (trade) job runs, with you 100% afk as long as you had all the navs on the way between the 2 stations you were going to and you could input whether or not you were a JE (wh skill). It used the starbase reset slash command to position your char where he could walk to the job terminal, would pick the particular jobs you wanted, do the jobs, and return to the job terminal to repeat.

It may be more difficult to do them in emulator since said jobs aren't as limited in locations as in live and don't give the full information at the terminal as in live, for trade jobs. But I do think that someone could make one for Explore jobs the way they currently work if they so chose. Not to mention in Emulator Explore jobs are better anyway.

[Amethyst]

I believe I have seen botting. You stand there with one other person and then suddenly the jobs come up, and before you've had time to read one, six jobs get taken. But the person stands there - probably just discarding the jobs they dont want, and guess what - when the next job list comes, six suddenly disappear like lightning. Eventually the person gets all their jobs in Swoop or wherever and off they trot. Very clever use of macros to get the jobs first, but not very nice game play. I just go somewhere else and do something more productive.

Occasionally I have also seen miners who mine is a trancelike way. Most miners tractor the ore and within half a sec we are off to the next. The botter program has to ensure all the ore is collectted and there is an un-natural 15 secs wait before they retarget, warp and mine the next roid. Again, not very nice gameplay.

I guess its down to us to challenge those we suspect.

[Palimow]

skitsz

again you fail to see how you opened the "discussion". it was hostile and you get upset when others don't like it? now all of a sudden im being hit by your accusation bat because i chose to call you on your explosive opening statement. im sorry if you cant handle that. I for one get fired up when people start throwing around baseless accusations and have nothing to back then up with. there was no other reason for your opening post. also, just because i spoke up does not mean im included. im surprised you were not able to make that distinction.

Referring you #6 of you list, people dont want to read angry and demanding posts so please spare us and exercise some self control.

if, as you say, you wanted to share an opinion then great, you should have done that. id be more than happy to have a civil discussion with you and anyone else who chooses to join in. there are non threatening ways to express yourself and engage others.

now lets please end this and go our separate ways (or in the same direction).

pali

[Rezwalker]

Suffering from arthritis, carpal tunnel, stenosis of the spinal cord and living on pain meds, leaves me with no option then to use macros to do highly
repetitive tasks in order to play the game. I spend a good ten hours plus a day and when I feel the need to rest my hands I run a macro, as far as I know attended macroing is legal and will use them as I see fit. If and or when it becomes illegal to use them, my only option would be to stop playing the game that I enjoy and love so much.

[Tienbau]

I have an idea ...

how about if we make the 'Judo' and 'Backflip' (or more hilariously the 'Pirouette') emotes a little more interactive ... so if someone is suspected as botting the job terminals you can judo them off the terminal during the wait. If they walk back to the terminal, it's not a bot, so stop doing it.

Also with job terms I noticed the way the original game dealt with botters was just to list all the lower level jobs as well. This way, a macro will be able to grab jobs and will still work fine, but they won't be taking all the high level jobs, just one or two.

I think most people running macros wouldn't have a problem with this because it would mean players who play live would get the best jobs and not hate them, but they would still be getting good XP over time.

PS I'm kidding about the 'Judo'! Well, actually, half kidding ... It would quickly lead to 'heavies' lurking around job terminals, and although funny it might get frustrating.

Anyone 'Judoed' could stumble around with the 'drunk' and 'sick' emotes running for a while.

[skitszo]

I love to get a banana stuffed in someones tailpipe emote; or maby a little nintendo 64 banana toss and ship out of control action.

I'll let palimow have the last word; even though others agree with me.

[Lot]

[quote name='Tienbau' timestamp='1320733844' post='48198']
Also with job terms I noticed the way the original game dealt with botters was just to list all the lower level jobs as well. This way, a macro will be able to grab jobs and will still work fine, but they won't be taking all the high level jobs, just one or two.

I think most people running macros wouldn't have a problem with this because it would mean players who play live would get the best jobs and not hate them, but they would still be getting good XP over time.
[/quote]

Those macros could read the screen looking for values for example on the VT - Net7 runs the 5791 valued jobs and select and take just those jobs -- all faster than the human eye and hand could have moved.

I think EA tried to prevent the star base hack from working but don't know if they had any success (the hack allowed a single reset to place a character in a position in the current zone facing a direction both chosen before the reset).

It's pretty tough to stop macros the best you can do is make it possible for non-users to not have to compete with them.

[BrixunMortar]

i like TB's judo move but with a 2 min timer so no-one can can use it again in that time but can waste energy trying! *rolls eyes*

[Mimir[IS]]

So here is a solution... How about as soon as a player botter or real comes into the job terminal's range the first x jobs are given. the next x and so on until they are all gone. This would give everyone the same chance to get jobs. You can always cancel the ones you don't want. Oh and you must move away from the terminal (possibly into the bazaar or to your ship and back to reset your ability to get jobs.

[Tienbau]

[quote name='Lot' timestamp='1320782808' post='48232']
Those macros could read the screen looking for values for example on the VT - Net7 runs the 5791 valued jobs and select and take just those jobs -- all faster than the human eye and hand could have moved.

I think EA tried to prevent the star base hack from working but don't know if they had any success (the hack allowed a single reset to place a character in a position in the current zone facing a direction both chosen before the reset).

It's pretty tough to stop macros the best you can do is make it possible for non-users to not have to compete with them.
[/quote]

the macros can read the job levels?? I didn't realise they were that advanced. So they take a screen shot and read that?

Yes I agree with your point, the best thing is for 'live' players not to have to compete with them. I think the least I can do for now is to slow down the rate at which jobs can be snapped up, and also fill each player at the terminal's job lists more slowly and in different orders.

I'm not saying we should stop job terminal macros, after thinking about it all I came to the conclusion who am I to dictate how someone plays their game? I find E&B relaxing to play and enjoy the atmosphere, but everyone's different, and like Rez said he has a very genuine reason for using macros. We just want to make sure people who play the game don't get a negative experience due to bots. I think once that happens the macro hatred will be eased somewhat.

EDIT: just read Mimir's post - essentially I'm talking about the same idea as that.

[Terrell [BT]]

I used one on Torrie in Live, Tein, and it was pretty advanced. Don't know if it is still around, but it was downloadable during live, and I used it after EA dropped the rule against unattended macroing. The Draconis Hatchlings were probably meant to discourage macroing the Chavez in Freya and other locations. They were CL66, and there was a point made in the patch notes that nothing of value was ever recovered from one. (February 5th 2004 patch)

What I'd do was take Torrie to Arx Ymir and put her in the hangar, the macro would walk her from the hangar to the job terminal, then it would pick only L75 Trade Jobs to Aragoth Station, said macro would then fly her to Aragoth Station, go to the job terminal there, where she'd take 2 L75 Trade jobs to Arx Ymir and fly back. It wasn't flawless, but it did work quite well was good for getting EL/TL while I was asleep.