Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
i am a long way behind un updating the stats - but I am pretty sure we have hit 20,000
Anti-Botting Agreement
- Thread starter Asamith
- Start date
I'm glad someone spoke up and said what I was thinking.
Not to disparage the original topic. Obviously there must be a problem if this thread gained so many replies. I totally understand why BOTS can be an issue in any online environment, as someone who endured the early days of IRC, BOTS contributed to the downfall of that media. I'd hate to see it harm this one. But is there proof of harm here?
Not playing in PVP ever!!! Can someone please explain to this simple country boy from New York City, exactly where the proof is in that BOTS actually exist in-game? Where do they exist? How would one know it when one came across one? "Enquiring minds want to know."Full disclosure, I'm not mocking this, I am looking to be educated on a topic where my understanding is obviously woefully behind. So please don't shoot!!!
Also, I'm presuming that this is solely a PVP issue? If not, please educate me as to how those of us who only play PVE might be affected if at all? As an example, if I use some level of key stroke automation like Voiceattack or Hotkey, to let's say, speed key strokes to ameliorate some of the awful UI grinding, is that considered cheating? If I'm only doing to to level up to gain access to some engineer or resource and nobody else is impacted outside of my private little PVE bubble, should it matter? If let's say I use some form of automation to advance in the game but that automation never is witnessed nor experienced outside of my own server instance, is there any harm.
Put another way, if a man is muttering to himself in the forest where his wife can't hear him, is he still wrong?
All software used to ameliorate grinding has to be sanctioned by FDev according to the EULA
Things like VoiceAttack etc. have passed such vetting.
What we are talking about is readilly available scripts and other software that can actually view the screen and be programmed to read text and recognise images on screen in order to work tirelessly to deliver goods or some PP commodity 24/7.
Don't doubt it exists because I, and others, have tested it and it works.
o7
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Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Gradually making headway in getting the data in. Not sure this means much - but I've done it so I thought I may as well show it.
| % systems | % of signatories | |
| Cooperative | 8.6 | 11.8 |
| Theocracy | 1.4 | 0.4 |
| Corporate | 29.9 | 20.9 |
| Anarchy | 3.4 | 0.1 |
| Patronage | 12.8 | 13.1 |
| Confederacy | 6.8 | 5.4 |
| Communist | 6.6 | 1.3 |
| Feudal | 6.0 | 1.0 |
| Democracy | 16.4 | 24.7 |
| Dictatorship | 7.7 | 20.5 |
| Prison Colony | 0.5 | 0.8 |
After all this time and all the discussion about botting is there a public place that lays out, in exquisite detail and with total transparency, the evidence of botting and how wide spread it is?
I'm talking names named and all the rest so it can be judged by independent, skeptical people. Real I.F. Stone levels of work here.
If not, why not?
I'm talking names named and all the rest so it can be judged by independent, skeptical people. Real I.F. Stone levels of work here.
If not, why not?
So you are informing us that those that have not signed up are still in the majority then?
To be honest I think having graphs of support is counter productive- by showing nice charts of support you give the assumption that support somehow is lacking within certain quarters, factions or superpowers when it should not matter (even if you don't sign up at all).
Personally, I'd not mention any numbers or breakdowns of factions. People are already wary of witch hunts and dodgy application of the 'rules'. At most it should be x people have signed up, some pointers to watch for and a link to FD. Anything more is too much.
Personally, I'd not mention any numbers or breakdowns of factions. People are already wary of witch hunts and dodgy application of the 'rules'. At most it should be x people have signed up, some pointers to watch for and a link to FD. Anything more is too much.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Actually, I was struck by how close to the composition of the game it is, but I take your point
I thought only Frontier applied the rules? And they aint dogdy, you just disagree with them. Its this kind of witch hunt that I dislike the most.
Examining it closely reveals it to be a blunt object disguised as a point.
Perhaps reading and thinking at the same time would help. I was talking about player imposed rules, and not those by FD.
But do carry on.
You mean rules like "You may not use Grom bombs or Premium ammo in PVP" type of player rules?
o7
I mean any rules that players impose or try to impose. Agreements like these are at best tenuous and open to problems- for example Powerplay had SCRAP, which was a cross group agreement to oppose 5C expansions. After about 6 months it broke down. The danger here is that you foster a platform of distrust that enables more mud slinging and interpretation.
I agree with you but youre giving the ABA too much power. Its just like signing up to a PG where you agree to abide by certain rules. Except in this PG you cant kick anyone out. So it doesnt actually mean anything apart from a statement. There are no rules here. Just an agreement that the EULA is more than the usual ToC to the signatories. It actually means nothing and is unenforceable and everyone knows that. Its a statement of intent not a legal requirement or a pre-requisite to play the game.
IF people start using it for witch-hunts or demanding people sign up Ill speak up, I havent seen that yet.
What I'm afraid of is that a fair amount of people, groups etc signed up not to look bad- in short a sort of peer pressure. The whole exercise is pointless really, because whats going to happen? Only FD can judge, and they never tell you the judgement. That leaves frustrated groups screaming BOT!, accusations and bad feeling.
If it were me I'd not have signing up, but instead publish a guide of bottish things to look for and report. Any more than that is just setting people up for disappointment.
Totally agree here.
Forgive me too if I think the disclaimers about "if you haven't signed this it doesn't mean you're a botter" fall flat. I've played against quite a few people on the list who demonstrated to me out of game they are not to be trusted.
Lay out the evidence. Name names. Let us see what it is you know in clear, precise detail. We can judge for ourselves and act accordingly.
What we need: a clear guide of what to look for, how to format it for FD and where to send it. Keep it simple, educate people.
Empower them. That's the way.
But the Elite community has never been good at that, has it?
I think it has to a point, but gets distracted by the wrong things. BGS players are great at educating (or are generally quite open) but trying to make some broad 'gentlemens agreement' is not going to work because you can't reach everyone. IMO its better to have a toolkit so you can watch for dodgy things, report them in an FD friendly way (i.e. monitor over a week for numbers, ships etc- not OMG BOTZ!) and where they need to go (and what to expect)>
actually i think that would be VERY helpfull. last time i tried to report an exploit recently (not bot) found by testing, i was close to giving up because none of the support forms did really fit.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator