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SHAME ON YOU!


Itchy

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4 hours ago, Itchy said:

Setting up a sting against legitimate players isn't something i can agree with.

i will never agree with any method of punishing the live playing public for the actions of the bots.  t

so while i've agreed with much of what you've said @Lawman , i can't agree with any action NCSoft must take that would ultimately punish or limit real people playing this game.

Wow, we've found something we really disagree on strongly.  The people who buy adena with real money outside of the game are just as much cheaters as the bots are.  They are not legitimate players; they are cheaters.  A sting would never impact legitimate players, because they would never buy adena from the sting site, or any other site.  The other example you gave, chat limitations, does impact innocent players.  A sting would only impact cheaters.  Big difference.  

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9 hours ago, KIttyL1n said:

so maybe at the Olympics let's go on the scripts?

I know for sure that a group on scripts kills 2 groups without a bot

Thanks for entering the conversation.  It was beginning to get claustrophobic with only Itchy, November & I talking this out.

I don't understand your series of posts, though.  I'll try to address your points as best I can. 

One of my points is that we need to get rid of scripters as well as botters/businessmen.  Honestly can't tell from your post if you agree or disagree with that viewpoint.

I agree that big clans should war big clans and little should war little.  Unfortunately, game mechanics make it easy for any clan that wants war (big or small) to plant a spy in a clan (big or small) that does not want war, declare war and have the spy kill 5 from the warrior clan and start the war.  It would make more sense (and be an easy game change) to say that the clan leaders must agree to war, unless you believe that a clan should be able to force war on a lesser clan that does not want it.  If you believe that (and I disagree strongly with it) have the war start as soon as one clan declares. 

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1 hour ago, November said:

Well, to be honest what does it mean to be hero of a server of few? When you compare it to being hero of a server with a high pop? Frankly the allure of being hero is appealing (more so when you beat 10,000, rather than 300), the importance of it on 4 servers is diluted. Granted having 4 servers open gives you exposure to 4x the problems at 4x the discovery pace (Which they clearly are not ready for). Though, having 4x of everything dilutes it. Also, having someone come in second can be impact-full. Losing hero or by climbing the ranks. etc.

Also all of those things mentioned, happen anyway with 1 server or 4. There will always be losers, unless you want to build an "I just win game".

PS: No one likes losing, though it is part of the game and life.

The point you make is completely valid.  I don't believe, though, that in the beginning the heroes of the various servers felt like lesser heroes because theirs was one of the less busy servers.  I know the one time I was hero on Devianne I did not think, "Gee, I don't deserve this because Bartz is busier and its hero could probably beat me in Oly."  I didn't even worry about the fact that I was hero in part because I was fed some.  I just enjoyed being hero for a month. 

Anyway, your comment gives me an idea.  Why not keep the 4 servers and have the heroes from each compete against each other in a monthly tournament to determine the heroes of all of Classic for that month?  That gives you the best of both worlds and, I think, would be great fun for the heroes and exciting for the active players on the servers who would root for, and take pride in, their champions.  What do you think?

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1 hour ago, Lawman said:

The point you make is completely valid.  I don't believe, though, that in the beginning the heroes of the various servers felt like lesser heroes because theirs was one of the less busy servers.  I know the one time I was hero on Devianne I did not think, "Gee, I don't deserve this because Bartz is busier and its hero could probably beat me in Oly."  I didn't even worry about the fact that I was hero in part because I was fed some.  I just enjoyed being hero for a month. 

Anyway, your comment gives me an idea.  Why not keep the 4 servers and have the heroes from each compete against each other in a monthly tournament to determine the heroes of all of Classic for that month?  That gives you the best of both worlds and, I think, would be great fun for the heroes and exciting for the active players on the servers who would root for, and take pride in, their champions.  What do you think?

I have no issue wit this, it would just be for bragging rights after all. Unless the victor was the only hero of that class across all the servers participating.

Frankly, you are probably right given that the heroes of the servers don't come into contention with the other heroes. When I was on Bartz, I didn't think of any other server because it never impacted my play-style, performance, or experience. Though, if it did, it probably would have.

Would you not have felt a greater sense of importance or achievement if you had been the only hero of your class for a month?

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2 hours ago, Lawman said:

Wow, we've found something we really disagree on strongly.  The people who buy adena with real money outside of the game are just as much cheaters as the bots are.  They are not legitimate players; they are cheaters.  A sting would never impact legitimate players, because they would never buy adena from the sting site, or any other site.  The other example you gave, chat limitations, does impact innocent players.  A sting would only impact cheaters.  Big difference.  

we disagree! omgomgomg!   just kidding!

i appreciate that you have made a valid point.  however.... HOWEVER...  NCSoft made rules and policies for a reason, yes?  one of their rules is "no botting;" another of their rules is "no real money transactions outside of Lineage2."

that being said, NCSoft has clearly ignored their own rules on these two points.  bots infesting the servers, adena sellers spamming chat. both are blatantly against the rules, both are blatantly populating those roles and disrupting normal gameplay.

i do agree on the one hand that people who would spend copious amounts of cash on buying adena do so for the most part with the intention of gaining an advantage in-game, hence cheating, not all people who buy adena do so in such quantities.  the average joe who bumps along trying to make and save up adena by doing whatever people do to achieve this.  he sees adena being sold, he hears of people buying adena. he isn't the type of guy to actually cheat but he finally breaks down and buys a little adena to help him get ahead, just a little.  he doesn't have any kind of top grade gear or ++ weapons, he just wants a bit of a boost to help him along a little.  i think you would be surprised how many people do buy small amounts of adena in this fashion for those reasons.  of course we all hear about the whales who spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to be top tier in the game. yes, i agree, those are cheaters.

my point is that at the end of the day NCSoft made those rules.  NCSoft has clearly ignored those rules while at the same time giving us occasional lip service that they are doing everything they can to fix the problems. the problems aren't being fixed. but ultimately it is NCSoft's responsibility to enforce the rules that they made.  those rules aren't our rules, we had no input to them. but if NCSoft is so willing to overlook their own rules and allow the bots and adena sellers of course people who would not ordinarily be cheaters will "cheat" with buying a little bit of adena.  that doesn't make it right. but in my opinion that doesn't outrightly make them cheaters.  if NCSoft were properly enforcing their own rules there would be no - or very few bots and no - or very few adena sellers.  no bots, no adena sellers, no temptation for ordinary players to buy adena ergo they are not cheating.  bottom line, it is NCSoft's responsibility to eradicate these rule breaking opportunities and temptations from their game based on their policies.

to set up sting operations to catch and ban, whether perm or temp, people who buy adena is attacking the problem from the wrong angle.  the right angle is to get rid of the bots and the adena sellers then there is no need to punish or ban real live people.  get the problem at its root and leave people who genuinely love the game out of the equation.

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2 hours ago, Lawman said:

Anyway, your comment gives me an idea.  Why not keep the 4 servers and have the heroes from each compete against each other in a monthly tournament to determine the heroes of all of Classic for that month?  That gives you the best of both worlds and, I think, would be great fun for the heroes and exciting for the active players on the servers who would root for, and take pride in, their champions.  What do you think?

while this topic has nothing to do with the issue of botting (wink wink) i really like the idea of having a competition that includes characters from all the servers.  perhaps something similar to the dimension sieges we have on the live servers. 

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3 hours ago, November said:

Well, here's an idea... Why not toss up dozens of fake sites via some form of modular template. Do the Sting, though not for perma bans, yet to strike fear. So, people purchase, get a temp ban, lose what they bought, and get back into the game with a do not buy again or we will ban your account. This way, people will no longer have faith in the adena sellers causing fear... Ideally enough so they don't buy, though this kinda goes against some morals and ethics I believe.

The problem isn't a one way problem, it is bi-directional (with both botting and adena selling). You have several ways to tackle the problem in my eyes and im sure they have been mentioned countless times. Until both sides of it are address there will be always be a player who wants to buy and someone who wants to sell. Naturally, if there are no sellers, one cannot buy, and if no buyers one cannot sell. 

  1. Adena sellers:
    1. Legalize purchase of Adena through NC Shop
      1. at a severely discounted rate, making it highly dis-favorable for adena sellers to sell 
        1. This will eventually blowup the sever economy, though eventually it will stabilize at a much more inflated rate.
    2. Limit chat restrictions
      1. Highly unfair to the community and honestly the laziest way to delay the problem
    3. Run Scripts in the BG that search for key words and or phrases that auto ban
      1. Can be highly problematic if executed poorly
    4. Live GM
      1. For the love of all that is holy, we need this
    5. Punish Sellers
      1. This needs to be done timely and effectively
    6. Punish Buyers
      1. This needs to be done properly and transparently so that the community knows it isn't accepted nor acceptable
  2. Botters
    1. Legalize botting
      1. No, nope, no sir,
    2. Legalize Looping Macros
      1. See 2.1.1
    3. Ban Botters
      1. Seemingly they are working on it as fast as they can, though from player accounts the bots have a greater force when it comes to account creation than NC does when it comes to banning
      2. Some legit players are going to get caught in the mix, give them a healthy way to provide some form of proof that they were not botting.
      3. Some botters are going to pretend they are legit players, come up with some punishment / redemption system in the bg where GM's can take notes and apply bans over time properly again should these get through the appeal process
    4. Live GM
      1. See 1.4.1
    5. Ban the people selling accounts
      1. Shouldn't be that hard to spot
    6. Ban the people buying accounts
      1. Shouldn't be that hard to spot

Another unrefined alternative which could potentially work would be to open a transfer only server I suppose. Similar to a b2p system. Just a server that at level XX you can transfer to for a one time fee. This way a botter would have to reach a certain level, pay a transfer fee, and managed to not get banned. Should they get banned, they cannot create a toon on the server, it must be transfer etc. 

Please refer to my response to Lawman on buyers and sellers of adena.

i'm really not quite sure what you mean by the last paragraph of your post.  your last paragraph is intriguing, the concept of a transfer server.  i don't believe a bot is going to transfer server because they are botting on the server that serves their commerce. going to another server won't feed the adena seller on its server of origin therefore i guess maybe i don't understand what you mean here.

i completely agree with everything you outlined.  no, nope, no sir.  no bots, no botting, no adena sellers. no script programs, no looped macros.

i've said before and i say again, the problem lands in @NcsoftFTW's lap and is their responsibility to fix it.  if they care that little about their own rules, they really should just remove them from their terms and conditions.

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Day 10.. haven't really been out and about in-game yet.  going soon to look for and report my favourite bots for the day.  i've decided rather than reporting randomly i'll focus on lead characters in bot groups and report them daily for 10 days and see if what NCSoft said about 10 total reports equals ban is really true.  too bad it takes so long.

too bad NCSoft relies so heavily on its playing community to do its job for it.

too bad NCSoft hasn't agreed to put boots on the ground in the servers to hunt out and eliminate the bots themselves.  total time invested in doing my little bot hunt is about one hour daily.  i do have better things to do with my time but i remain so completely incensed about this botting thing that i'm doing this.

if yesterday is any indication of progress made in getting rid of bots there has been no progress.  fields continue to have no mobs because several bots will attack a mob immediately upon spawn.  there are more bots than mobs.  it's mind blowing to watch those fields for any amount of time.

bots continue to stream through dion daily for their little delevel exercises.  i stood in dion yesterday and watched no fewer than 30 of them.  i'm not doing anything a live GM couldn't do, except with their abilities and access to tools they COULD do it better.  but they don't.

so ten days into this thread, no response from NCSoft, no appreciable significant change in bot population in-game...

~still angry

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23 minutes ago, KIttyL1n said:

check sellers
if he trades in 2-3 games this is a bot

better join the clan leaders of large clans always trade
need to make a trade alliance and follow the sellers

this actually is not clear to me at all.  join clan leaders of large clans and follow the sellers?  how does this address bots and botting?

thanks

 

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9 hours ago, Itchy said:

how did i not see this when you first posted it?  in too much of a hurry i think.

setting up a sting against legitimate players isn't something i can agree with, Lawman.  if you're going to take action against the purchase of adena ban the seller bots.

NCSoft actually did this kind of thing on chronos a couple years ago. a couple of my clan members were caught up in a sting/ban exactly like this for purchasing adena.  i forget the amounts they purchased but it wasn't huge billions at all. a few hundred million if memory serves.

what happened was, they got banned. they were given an opportunity to appeal the ban.  the appeals succeeded and the accounts were restored however the adena they bought and/or the items they bought with the adena they bought had all been deleted from their accounts.  so the 10$ or 20$ they spent on adena was basically flushed down the toilet.

don't blame the players for taking advantage of something that is there. go to the source and cut it off there. ban the adena sellers.  theoretically if you ban the adena sellers repeatedly and make a statement they are not allowed the bots in the field are then working for nothing.  maybe that would make them go away. but i believe they should all be banned. bots in the field, adena sellers... ALL of them.  it is, after all, in the rules of conduct that NCSoft puts out there for us all to follow.  no point having these rules if they aren't going to enforce them.

geez, apologies.. i'm really starting to sound like a broken record here.

i will never agree with any method of punishing the live playing public for the actions of the bots.  the chat restrictions in "live" L2, can't talk to anyone until lvl 76.. is because of the bots spamming chats, PMs, mail with their ads.  NCSoft decided that by restricting the chats the adena sellers had to stop harassing players. however, restricting chats punished the entire playing community.  so someone starts new with L2, can't talk to anyone to get help so they quit.  NCSoft cut off its nose to spite its face with that decision.

earlier today i tried to count all the bots in dion running through to smack mobs, die and delevel.  i counted 37 however i ican't promise those were all unique. some may have been double counted due to the gibberishly similar names they have.  but it was a constant stream of naked or low-grade gear running from the center of dion, up to the gatekeeper then out to the fields on the north side of town.  it was C.O.N.S.T.A.N.T for hours.. some bots i've seen doing thjis at various times have later been spotted at Cruma Marshlands and Pains of Dion. both areas so full of bots they are unplayable by real people.(Pains of Dion was a deliberate misnomer).

so while i've agreed with much of what you've said @Lawman , i can't agree with any action NCSoft must take that would ultimately punish or limit real people playing this game.

i couldnt be more agree ...really u know alot of this game man ..wish i could have a guy like u to manage my company

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5 minutes ago, verloren said:

i couldnt be more agree ...really u know alot of this game man ..wish i could have a guy like u to manage my company

thank you for joining our discussion.

honestly what i have proposed here is simple common sense from my own perspective.  some may not see common sense as i do, and that's okay.

i have owned businesses in my lifetime, i am now retired.  i'm also not a man :D

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1 hour ago, Itchy said:

Please refer to my response to Lawman on buyers and sellers of adena.

i'm really not quite sure what you mean by the last paragraph of your post.  your last paragraph is intriguing, the concept of a transfer server.  i don't believe a bot is going to transfer server because they are botting on the server that serves their commerce. going to another server won't feed the adena seller on its server of origin therefore i guess maybe i don't understand what you mean here.

i completely agree with everything you outlined.  no, nope, no sir.  no bots, no botting, no adena sellers. no script programs, no looped macros.

i've said before and i say again, the problem lands in @NcsoftFTW's lap and is their responsibility to fix it.  if they care that little about their own rules, they really should just remove them from their terms and conditions.

So to refine the Idea bit more, In other words, NC could do something like this. Though despite this, it is still unrefined. To be fair, Im not sure they ever would, though this could be a potential solution to the Bot/Adena seller problem, since they semi double dip, if not directly...

  1. Transfer Server Only
    1. Goal
      1. To reduce the number of bots drastically
    2. Requirements
      1. 1 time payment (40 usd lets say)
      2. level 40 + second class change
      3. No Outstanding reports in the last week for botting
    3. What makes this stand out
      1. You are unable to create a level 1 character on this Server till you have Transferred a character over
      2. Should you be banned, you aren't able to log into this server without meeting the requirements
      3. Live GM 24/7 for the first Quarter
      4. Live GM after the first quarter randomly loging in for 8 hours +
      5. Boxing is Allowed (Current Limit would be 3 / PC)
      6. Active Support Staff with freedom to properly respond
      7. No Cash Shops
      8. Proper 1x rates
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23 minutes ago, KIttyL1n said:

I proposed to create a trade alliance
and check out the merchants in this alliance
make a reimbursement system
if the buyer is banned,
Alliance undertakes to take on the pumping of a new character to the buyer 

etc 

roleplay xD  Now a lot of anime on gaming theme

 

 

so what i'm hearing you say is that leaders of the large clans are operating the game as a business that could potentially ban people who participate in their business?  why would anyone encourage this?  what good is a trade alliance and replacing people's banned characters? how does that help eliminate bots as they are in the game right now?  i'm still not really clear on your point.

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1 hour ago, Itchy said:

NCSoft made rules and policies for a reason, yes?  one of their rules is "no botting;" another of their rules is "no real money transactions outside of Lineage2."

that being said, NCSoft has clearly ignored their own rules on these two points.  

It's fun to have a reasoned disagreement.  I think the above part of your quote exposes the flaw in your position.  The "no real money transactions" rule applies to buyers equally with sellers.  You are right that NCWest has done a poor job of policing both botting and the buying and selling of adena for cash outside of the game.  You are angry and believe NCWest should take action against bots and money sellers.  Yet you are not angry against, and, indeed, would protect, the buyers, who are violating the rules every bit as much as the sellers.

BTW, I am completely unpersuaded by the argument that many buyers are small, not whales.  Cheaters are cheaters.  Those who don't have the money to spend like the big guys are no less guilty than the big guys.  Your position is like saying that people who bot only to advance their own game should be protected because they aren't the big businessmen botters, who bot to earn real money.  Botters are botters and should be banned for cheating.  RMT buyers and sellers are both equally cheaters and should be banned as well.  No exceptions for the "Gee, I needed to cheat to compete" crowd.

Sorry, guess we'll have to disagree on this one.  It's differences that make the world go round.  

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3 minutes ago, November said:

So to refine the Idea bit more, In other words, NC could do something like this. Though despite this, it is still unrefined. To be fair, Im not sure they ever would, though this could be a potential solution to the Bot/Adena seller problem, since they semi double dip, if not directly...

  1. Transfer Server Only
    1. Goal
      1. To reduce the number of bots drastically
    2. Requirements
      1. 1 time payment (40 usd lets say)
      2. level 40 + second class change
      3. No Outstanding reports in the last week for botting
    3. What makes this stand out
      1. You are unable to create a level 1 character on this Server till you have Transferred a character over
      2. Should you be banned, you are to log into this server without meeting the requirements
      3. Live GM 24/7 for the first Quarter
      4. Live GM after the first quarter randomly loging in for 8 hours +
      5. Boxing is Allowed (Current Limit would be 3 / PC)
      6. Active Support Staff with freedom to properly respond
      7. No Cash Shops
      8. Proper 1x rates

okay. i think i see what you're saying now.

here is a scenario that comes to mind immediately.  i am a clan leader in Talking Island server.  I have some number of people in my clan, some who may be able to afford to pay for a transfer, some who may not.  i'm not comfortable transferring away from them.  unless all could transfer and rebuild the clan in the new server i wouldn't go.  i don't want to say that makes me stuck but.. well, it kinda makes me stuck.  it's a matter of clan leadery ethics, if you will.

while something like this may work for quite a lot of people, it wouldn't be an option for everyone. but i appreciate your thoughts on it.  :)

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2 minutes ago, KIttyL1n said:

This will help you to protect your accounts from the ban after buying game currency from bots

@Itchy I think what he/she/it is trying to say is that the way these botters / adena sellers are protecting themselves, are by forming major out of game alliances. By doing so, when one gets banned they work as a unit to quickly level it, and gear it.

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10 minutes ago, Itchy said:

i am now retired.  i'm also not a man :D

I'm also retired (guess that's why we have time to post walls of text, lol).  I am a man.  If I wasn't so happily married (44 years and each one better than the last) I'd say we should get together. 

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4 minutes ago, KIttyL1n said:

This will help you to protect your accounts from the ban after buying game currency from bots

we are not discussing protecting ourselves from ban for buying adena. we are actually discussing eliminating all bots and adena sellers from the game. they are against the rules. period. they need to be gone.  they are corrupting and disrupting the game.  NCSoft needs to get off its ass and fix the botting problem and if that eliminates all the big clan leader business people from the game then be it so.  it needs to be stopped. period.

i have never once ever purchased adena from any adena seller.  what adena i have i have earned on my own. i don't have much. i can't say i've never been tempted but i don't want to be one of "those people."  i play a clean game.  a lot of other people i know also play a clean game. we bump along and do the best we can for gear and items. we'll never be top tier but we will, by the gods, have some fun.

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4 minutes ago, November said:

@Itchy I think what he/she/it is trying to say is that the way these botters / adena sellers are protecting themselves, are by forming major out of game alliances. By doing so, when one gets banned they work as a unit to quickly level it, and gear it.

i think you're right. and that only feeds the problem even more in my opinion...

 

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4 minutes ago, Lawman said:

I'm also retired (guess that's why we have time to post walls of text, lol).  I am a man.  If I wasn't so happily married (44 years and each one better than the last) I'd say we should get together. 

congratulations on your many happy years! 

and yes, we will have to agree to disagree perhaps on this one topic.  i truly believe if there were no adena sellers in the game these people who would otherwise not cheat at the game would not be buying adena.  it all goes right back to the root of the problem:  @NcsoftFTW's unwillingness to enforce their own rules.

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Just now, KIttyL1n said:

this game is not as hard as you think
if play const group there will be a lot of extra adena

i didn't say it was hard. :D  all i said was by playing the game as it was intended to be played i'll never be a whale.  and i'm okay with that.

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Just now, Itchy said:

okay. i think i see what you're saying now.

here is a scenario that comes to mind immediately.  i am a clan leader in Talking Island server.  I have some number of people in my clan, some who may be able to afford to pay for a transfer, some who may not.  i'm not comfortable transferring away from them.  unless all could transfer and rebuild the clan in the new server i wouldn't go.  i don't want to say that makes me stuck but.. well, it kinda makes me stuck.  it's a matter of clan leadery ethics, if you will.

while something like this may work for quite a lot of people, it wouldn't be an option for everyone. but i appreciate your thoughts on it.  :)

I am a Leader as well on Gludio. I would have my own morals and ethics when it comes to issues with a transfer to a server like this. Perhaps they could have an option were someone could pay for your character to transfer (gift a transfer). I haven't given it much thought, this is something that I am just putting together on the fly. Perhaps they can have a clan petition system where everyone in your clan must not have a report or something.

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