Afk bots

And I don't mean to support griefing or malicious people. I'm glad that /reporting a player gets a GM response. I just wish it was because the player actually did something that hurt somebody else, and not just because they didn't want to grind or because they were being innovative in a game that actively encourages its players to find new ways to do things.

AFKing is innovative? Letting AI play the game for you is innovative? Passively gaining XP or faction or money through no player controlled interactions is innovative? I think the word you're looking for is lazy.

There is nothing lazy about botters. It takes a lot of time and constant maintenance to set toons up properly and then attempt to code in AI. Regardless of whether you like botters, at least give them credit where it's due.

Merc AFKing: You can't afk kill anything with a merc that would be of use. Maybe grind some AA exp while you are at work, so you can help out your guild on raid night a little better, but that's about it. But nobody's merc is going to "harass" any other player, because mercs are far less powerful than any real player.

Again, people perceive a problem where there isn't one. People want to believe that others are being "bad", but there is no good or bad here.

Yep, arbitrary, capricious and final. Unless you're a pet raid guild.

Replace AFKing with reading Cracked.com at work, "AI play the game" with delegating projects to interns, and "passively gaining XYZ" with "passively gaining promotion via above mentioned points".......... and you've just described about 90% of office jobs in the universe which all hinge on that last point of being 'lazy'. Oh... we were talking about AFK botting though.

People do it IRL constantly. Of course some would try and do it in a game too. Difference is in one you get banned, the other you get fired and then file a lawsuit.

Most botters just copy and paste what their wiser and more knowledgeable predecessors have already done... so the lazy aspect is debatable. Just sayin'

Ummm no hypocrisy here. Bazaar and Barter are game mechanics and there is no rule against them. Everyone who is all access has the same tools available. They do not distort server economies with large amounts of loot that mindless unattended bots accumulate. People aren't botting for exp they are botting for loots to sell 24/7 unattended game play accumulates those loots unfairly.

Most copy what others have done and if it wasnt saving them time and effort they wouldnt be botting. Once they have their scripts set up they just coast from there.

How do you guys have such intimate knowledge of how and why "most" botters do whatever it is that they do? I've never met one, so I am curious to know if you are speculating or know first-hand

Since we have an unlimited influx of pp (from krono), can you imagine how expensive items would be if there weren't bot farmers? I am glad if they bring lots of goods to the market. I think the only impact on the economy is positive.

Which is another reason I don't really believe anybody is bot-farming those 30 Purity augs. If they were being farmed heavily, I think there would be more of them in the /bazaar and the price would be lower.

This is easy to disprove. In the FV bazaar at one point a single trader had 11 of these augs from botting in Brother Island and more Tideworn Leggings than you could count with the naked eye. Anyone that has spent an extended amount of time in Brother Island knows that these augs are very uncommon and to accumulate the amount of leg molds you were looking at perhaps 70 named spawns as they don't drop every time.

Problem is Brother Island is a popular spot for those unwilling or unable to do TDS progression so eventually the teams of botters, genuine groups and fresh accounts being power levelled started to come into conflict and most of them moved on with one of the most infamous RMT "teams" setting up camp 24/7 at Emma, a True Believer in Demiplane of Decay (for whatever reason, she does not seem to have an especially attractive loot table.)

This flooded the market on Demiplane of Decay collectibles for a while.

Never met one? Yet you back them up so much... hrmm. Must be your toon./toons

Seeing a lot of something in the /bazaar is not evidence of anything (except maybe to be grateful that there is an abundance of items). There is no way to tell how any of those /baz items were acquired, so there is no way to associate them with botters. But even if they did come from botters, so what? How did that hurt you?

@Geri_Petrovna, I do not bot, specifically because I don't want to risk losing my account(s). But I absolutely would, if it was allowed. I think it should be allowed openly and I will continue to support efforts to that end. Ban players because they are mean, not because they are different than you.

It's called Human Nature and basic logic. You seem to have all sorts of ideas about botters. How did you get those? Silly rabbit Tricks are for kids.

Yes your positive effect on the economy means that those who work for items to sell playing fairly and by the rules get paid less then they deserve. "There is no such thing as a free lunch."

So, without being able to show any instances of a bot actually interfering with anybody, your entire body of evidence is based on your understanding of human nature and basic logic. Videos are great; I don't deny the existence of botters. But show us where they actually griefed another player, and then let's ban that player instead of labeling all bots as bad.

Your description of "those who work for items" getting "paid less then they deserve" is very quaint, in an Amish sort of way. My argument is that the time has come to embrace the fact that people don't want to farm items in a video game and they don't want to wait for you to do it the old fashioned way. Thanks to Krono, I'd pay you whatever the market rate, if you actually had the items in stock now.

if you break the rules you should be banned. It's pretty simple and easy to understand. And you are right take logic out of the picture and your arguments make much more sense.

I respectfully disagree. Some rules should be changed, just as the game changes. And any rule that targets an entire group of people, regardless of whether they are hurting anybody else, should be questioned, at the very least.

Targeting people that afk bot is only targetting a "entire group of people" in the sense that they are targeting cheaters.

They can trace VMs so why can't they do it with the others afk playing "tools"?

Previously AFK playing had not been addressed and people routinely parked in good spawn locations to allow mercs to kill for them overnight. With the addition of the Advanced Loot System /afk playing suddenly became a lucrative way to keep the mercs paid and pad the bank account at the very least and an open invitation to botters to abuse at the worst and that was exactly what you'd see happening. They are not going to "update" the rules to allow abuses such as this after having instituted them to deal with those abuses

So anyone who breaks the speed limit should have his car confiscated?

Depending on how seriously you broke the speed limit you will indeed have your car confiscated as well and lose the right to drive another car for some time. If an account is banned Daybreak nor any other game company has ever stopped the player from creating a new account and starting over the very next day.