Bots, auto afkers on camps, Rules regarding.

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Rebik Botslayer, Jul 18, 2019.

  1. Rebik Botslayer New Member

    Recently I've been hanging out in the COS camp (droga). There are a disturbing amount of afk farmers on that camp. From auto atk mage bots to auto Pet atk macros. I'm in the zone for faction and the random drop or two. All that said... I had one of the afk camp farmers report me for training ( pulling to camp to kill) and griefing ( she died from afk in said camp). A GM tagged person spawned on me a few days later as I was grinding faction, took a look around and disappeared. Ignoring completely the 9 afk farmers within 50 ft of them + the other herbal mage bots in the zone afk killing. Do GM's now only respond to accidental deaths (caused by afking on a camp you are "actively farming") and have little to no intention of removing all the afk grinders?
    I feel like DB support is powerless to prevent these bots from setting up ( see any heirophant spawn in seb, all picks). What can we the players do (within the rules) to remove them from an area since reporting doesn't seem to do anything. I've reported botters countless times with extensive video recordings included. I found a few videos on youtube with these Herbal Mage bots going back quite a while.
    What can we do as players in this community to combat this?
    - side note -
    I found these herbal mages afking a farm in chardok the other day... Perma botters =(
  2. code-zero Augur

    You petition them if you think they are playing /afk and don't do anything else. Training can get you a vacation from the game
    aFTeRLiFe likes this.
  3. Rebik Botslayer New Member

    I've not trained them more than they sit where I'm pulling. I pull a handful of mobs and aoe them down. The room is small so there is the occasional side agro to a bot from time to time.
    Does it count as intentional training when they sit idle in the middle of the room auto attacking mobs and I pull 10+ mobs into said room to kill with my mage and their bot dies due to their targeting macro or whatever?
  4. code-zero Augur

    You have to ask yourself, do you really want to give the whole camp to them for 3 to 7+ days while you're away? Sounds like you are able to play around them so go with that
  5. Rebik Botslayer New Member

    Trying to grind the camp and mobs in the area without killing anyone who has their macro or whatever set to auto attack is difficult for sure.
    Threading the needle in a stack of needles. Would be better if there were more picks.
  6. pixels New Member

    You paid 1kr per month, they pay 9kr per month.
    So they are more important customers.
    aFTeRLiFe likes this.
  7. Ajjantis Elder

    They pay 9kr per month, but DBG loses 20+kr per month from people quitting.

    See what i did there?
    aFTeRLiFe and Dragon Jockey like this.
  8. code-zero Augur

    From the population showing on Mangler I'm pretty darned sure that Mangler isn't losing appreciable population for any reason.

    "Nobody plays on Mangler, it's too crowded"
  9. Rebik Botslayer New Member

    If there is no player behind the bot mages then could it still be considered training a "player" if they are always automated? This is still me pulling a large group to AOE down and their macro attacks random things and pulls agro on 15 of them =(.
    1. a PLAYER will move when they get over agro. These do not.
    2. a PLAYER will Tell you "hey this is my spot piss off". These do not.
    3. a PLAYER will ask for a rez or corpse assist if your pull accidentally kills them. these do not.
    4. a PLAYER (even the most hardcore) log out to sleep from time to time. These do not.
    Are they still players then?
    The rules that protect and direct players still apply to an in game character being directed by software 24/7? This may be more ideological than practical but I find it an interesting perspective.
  10. Duwikki New Member

    If you don't mind spending some DBC, can rename your pet to the start of the named mob.. Then they autotarget your pet instead of the named. Most I have seen are after the skins in droga/nurga..
    Graethos likes this.
  11. code-zero Augur

    There is no sort of justification that you can come up with that will get you off from a suspension for training. Everything that you've come up with has been used in the past and it's failed.

    I'm not defending botters or anything of the sort but it's a lot easier for someone to prove that you trained them than it is for you to prove that they were botting. It won't work
    Skewert likes this.
  12. Rebik Botslayer New Member

    Yea i'm gonna keep mass pulling the zone to the COS room and aoeing it down while hopping on a COS named or two. IF the afker's keep tagging the mobs and getting killed as a result I feel like that's the most we can ask for.
    aFTeRLiFe likes this.
  13. code-zero Augur

    Well, enjoy your vacation when it comes.
  14. Rebik Botslayer New Member

    It's not training, it's pulling mobs to camp.
    aFTeRLiFe likes this.
  15. Jendan New Member


    You're excusing incompetence/conflicts of interest (as far as DBG is concerned it is one of these options, obviously the latter) is what you're doing, which I'm not making a moral judgement on, but that is what you're doing.

    Some of us may not actually care about it, in my case it personally doesn't affect me, other than to call a spade a spade and call out misinformation. To be transparent, I suppose lately I'm favoring the idea of people finally dumping this company and moving completely to private servers as a community, but that's obviously not happening any time soon.

    Moving on, it's not hard at all to tell if someone is botting, or even easier, breaking truebox server rules. Even if you don't have any specific or technical knowledge of what they're doing, a shred of common sense will 100% suffice here.

    As far as proving training, if one has played this game since early days, what the company will actually do about training has shifted over the years and many times changed on a case-by-case basis (ie. it wasn't consistent at all), but it was never a simple /report to get someone punished for training, so no it's not easier.

    These botters and 6+ boxers are clearly using virtual machines, there is no way people with several groups are using that many single computers obviously so they are breaking the rules RIGHT THERE. Most people even with 1 group are also using virtual machines. There are guides out there to set this up with free VPNs on each virtual machine so as to not be detected.

    Many are clearly using other 3rd party botting (among other more active features) software, etc., it's not even a question (though most are smart enough not to use the more active features like warping often or at all as they tend to get punished for that). If DBG actually cared about it, they would've never made the rules as vague as they did in the first place. They have the ability to make very clear cut, anti-boxing or at least anti-botting rules. On private servers with a couple volunteers (often the devs themselves) and more clear cut rules, they can easily keep people from doing the disruptive stuff we're seeing on TLPs.

    My point with this post is to just get the few naive stragglers left out here to understand the writing is on the wall. DBG doesn't care and I would guess even further than that, higher-ups probably have data showing that they make more money with these RMT'ers around.

    They can shut down the most disruptive activity we're seeing by RMT'ers if they wanted to overnight, there is no question about it. They clearly don't want to.
    Death2Gnomes, aFTeRLiFe and Ajjantis like this.
  16. code-zero Augur

    So a video taken during a training incident and submitted properly with a petition isn't positive?

    I've seen plenty of so called "bot proof" videos and without a strong dose of confirmation bias they weren't particularly convincing. The first thing that CS does is determine that a character is being played /afk when they get reports of bots. If the characters are responding they aren't going to do anything until they catch that first.

    Throwing up a wall of text proves nothing and stating absolutes proves even less.
    Skewert likes this.
  17. Jendan New Member


    Let me try to hold your hand through this.

    Some "training incidents" are one-time incidents. Not everyone will be able to have video evidence my friend.

    What kind of proof are you looking for? I bet we could go watch that group, or another as I'm sure there are multiple (there's certainly plenty on Live EQ on every server), right now and determine within a few minutes or less that they're indeed botting. Some of these bot groups basically keep running until a patch day nonstop, in what way is it difficult to make a determination?
    aFTeRLiFe likes this.
  18. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000



    Afk botter's are part of the game all over on all servers get used to it til they decide to start banning people. What they should do is make every zone pickable or able to get a instanced version.

    Andarriel
  19. code-zero Augur

    Let me hold your hand and walk you through it.

    If they catch someone playing /afk they get the boot and a suspension.

    If they have evidence of training the trainer gets the boot and catches a suspension.

    The never go with "what's obvious" because CS and the devs all know that people can and do lie whenever it comes to a disputed camp. TLP software will catch simultaneous keystrokes and it can be a problem for people playing from the same internet connection and there are regular posts about it. I suspect personally that what most people think is bots are in fact crews of people playing 12 hour shifts in some sweatbox in a third world country making less in a day combined than a fast food service employee does in an hour.
  20. Hexus Journeyman

    You really should read more than you type on this particular subject because you've just displayed you know nothing about this.

    People in sweat shops playing EQ hahaha

    Yea that sounds so much easier than simply running separate instances of EQ in virtual machines with each running VPNs with different IP addresses so no it won't catch simultaneous keystrokes.

    Keep in mind individuals offering software provide easy to follow step-by-step guides on how to simply do this yourself for any boomers that have no clue how (I would suspect someone such as yourself).

    People purchase the software and begin automating all their characters by typing a command or clicking a button. It's braindead easy why would anyone bother running sweatshops lol.

    I'm not going to link the various websites offering this software/service here, all it takes is a Google search. DBG is obviously fully aware.