Dead Hills: Why so many autobot groups?

Botters give Boxers a bad name. Isn't DB making a box/bot server? Maybe offer free server transfers to that server and the botters will migrate?

it really does not matter what server you go to... you are going to run into automated/afk groups at some point (some servers more than others i suspect). it is what it is and to be completely honest, i could care less if they are automating their groups or manually playing every toon with multiple computers, alt tabbing, or whatever. as long as they are NOT AFK and not warping across zones in any way other than CoH, druid/wiz port, or plain out running

most people ive run into with automated groups are actively controlling some aspect of the group and are quite nice for sharing things around where they are (may it be a named i need for hunter or kill credit for a quest or whatever)

as for the ones complaining that the AFK groups are flooding the baz with mats they farm and making it too expensive for you to buy.. there is a fix to that.. dont buy what they are selling and go farm it yourself... yeah, that's not as fast as clicking "buy".. but oh well... if the afk botters aren't making they're money off of what they have AFK farmed for however long.. the price would drop or they'd move on to another item.

as for things being done about it.. meh, beating a dead horse there.. just need to grow up and learn to live with it.... i also dont run into near as many afk botted groups as people complain about.. makes me wonder sometimes if yall are just following them around and then going *gasp! that bot group is everywhere i go* lol

Braveheart likes this post.

Don't like this post.

Rules are rules.

Funky, " meh, beating a dead horse there..just need to grow up and learn to live with it "

Back in the day, one would come up to me and say ' hey, can you download this auto forage and afk for me foraging so I can skill up my toons TS's ?'

No f off!

NOW it is, play while AFK! The ENTIRE 6 accounts playing while not in the residence? you could be 1000 miles away..
Sure beats an auto forage doesn't it.

But hey, ' grow up and learn to live with it'

It is against rules.

Funky, I don't know how long you have been playing... but I don't see you have any respect for history of the game and for those that have earned their place here.

... just pay your sub, it's ok.. ' learn to live with it '.

Sorry to get a little personal, but when I read stupidity.. yeah, go hug a tree.

Thank you for proving my above post.

As a note, being helpful, I know you need to go to this link.
The part that starts: When to capitalize

Now everyone makes mistakes, but ...wow.

Dead Hills is nothing. Go to FM.

30 people in zone.

"Camp check!"

*crickets*

what exactly does your post prove? the fact that i do not care if i am using capitalization or proper sentence structure? i do know how/when to capitalize but this is not a college paper or a work professional document.. so im just lazy with the typing.

you'll have to come up with something better than that to try and make me feel uneducated or whatever you are getting at

The post in question is one that was removed from a moderator here.

The EVE Online devs have been doing two things to counter bots. First, going after the money trails. Follow the money, see who ends up getting it, sieze and freeze their accounts. When they find active botters, they space warp them to a system they would never be able to go in their big expensive ships, and flag them criminal. Let the players in that system mete out justice in the cleansing fires of blaster fire. Then log them out and ban the account. Too bad there really is nothing to lose if your EQ account gets banned, since you can just make a new free to play account.

One thing that would be good is to have 'Krono a 1 time trade'. Then players can't 'campfire sale' to gain millions of plat, with their '3rd party program bots', to buy Krono from a player. Then, sell that Krono on a 3rd party site.
Maybe even the same with items.

Trouble is there are a alot, and I do mean ALOT of people who use automated means to assist their game play, there are definitely, sadly, many who also use said same tools to AFK play. The issue comes when you really look into the number involved and begin to wonder if at least 50% of the people still playing EQ are using these tools to aid their game play, we're not talking about a fringe group here, they literally have thousands of people using and playing with these tools and the impact of a complete ban would have far reaching consequences.

Guys, everbody thinks only about money and krono. But some are simply botting because that game has parts in it which are simply stupid game design. Grinding senselessly always the same stuff without real visible achievements (like the numb xp rate in ToV) does not belong to the part of fun, a game should stand for. I don't like botting. I even hate seeing it at real crucial areas of the game which are needed by every player. But at the 6th earring and the next grinding step I made a break, stopped "Gold" and made a fallback to "Silver" and played alts in lower levels because always the same grind is sooooo "not a game". If I imagine people skip these stupid steps so they can make things which make fun then I would not be surprised.... I never understood why people could be in any ways fond of stupid killing always the same mobs only to see a bar rising... it is like working at an assembly line... I am better off for progression with a bit more brains... it may be killing involved too but at least it is a task which is not so dull like only raising one number in ultra-slow-motion... its like tradeskill abilities, language learning... etc.. stupid repetitions without any diversification has nothing to do with a game...

If most are honest then the main reason to do it is only to be better at the real interesting things or challenges of the game. Else nobody would buy a Heroic Character...

If we like it or not, the rule is: As long as you are at the computer and replying to staff, you are ok.
Only if they were not being responsive to staff requests anything would be done.

This also is pretty much in line with the TrueBox ruleset on some TLP servers.

And if you compare the FAQ for servers - well ...

I highlighted the server categories rules apply to.
In general unattended is a nono on ALL servers. The rule for TrueBox adds two more things and this pretty much should explain why nothing ever happens after you /report and /petition (by the way: /report only reports chat-text).

As hard as this is to understand (or better: accept) - these are the rules that are in place.
Even if we don't like them.

The replies are basic hotkey responses.

Greetings Traveler,

First, we would like to thank you for reporting this suspected violation of Community Standards, and for helping us to enforce our Terms of Service and Code of Conduct.

Secondly, we can assure you that this situation will be investigated. If is determined that there is indeed a violation of our policies, and one which requires administrative action to be taken, it will be addressed appropriately.

As with all cases of inappropriate behavior, we cannot give out information regarding the actions taken against another player's account. This information is considered to be private information and will not be discussed with anybody but the owner of the account as per our Privacy Policy.

If there is anything else we can assist you with, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Yet, next day, same group doing the same thing. /petition .. same reply

Greetings Traveler,

First, we would like to thank you for reporting this suspected violation of Community Standards, and for helping us to enforce our Terms of Service and Code of Conduct.

Secondly, we can assure you that this situation will be investigated. If is determined that there is indeed a violation of our policies, and one which requires administrative action to be taken, it will be addressed appropriately.

As with all cases of inappropriate behavior, we cannot give out information regarding the actions taken against another player's account. This information is considered to be private information and will not be discussed with anybody but the owner of the account as per our Privacy Policy.

If there is anything else we can assist you with, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

6 months later, same thing.

My 2 cents.... AFK botters are scum. May they forever stub their toes on the edges of coffee tables and bed frames.

People who Bot the game while at the keys, are in no way an issue to me, my play style or my economy and they are not an issue to yours either.

From the Bertox server perspective, When reporting blatant AFK people something is done about it. While it may take a few attempts to get GM intervention it does occur. The downside is as mentioned, people just make new accounts and click a Krono.

When ranting on these AFK bot posts, dont challenge the system with "All botters need action" as I am sure you will hate yourself when the non AFK bot crews stop playing if their assistance gets shut down. Remember that this is a 20 year old game where the quests, tradeskills and leveling were all based on the idea that thousands of people are injecting the materials into the game. If all bot crews, AFK and Non AFK are removed, you are never going to finish content from any level range at the level range it is intended. You will never cap a single tradeskill, much less all of them. There are more repercussions that come from taking away all bot capability, these are just the ones that immediately pop into my mind.

Continue using your petitions for the problems. Just because you dont feel something is being done, doesnt mean its not. Some recommendations in this:
When submitting the petition, Include details. The exact character names, a mention to the tells sent, multiple interactions against multiple characters. The camp name/location in the zone, How long you attempted the interaction, etc. Just saying "theres a Bot group here in FM and they are AFK" wont achieve anything.

See:
Just because we as players say "this is against the rules" doesn't mean it IS against the rules.
Apparently it is not and is fully in line with the FAQ they have on the website.

So the deal is:
Accept it and keep on playing happily or don't and get upset every single time - knowing it is only against your rules but not against the game's rules.

I for myself decided to stick with "as long as they don't bother me i cannot be bothered".
Those that DO bother me are usually those who break the rules greatly (being abusive, ...) and those have been taken care of quickly in the past.

The next thing people usually start to complain is "but they stole my kill" - yeah well ... there is no such thing either.

I checked out Dead Hills yesterday on our server. There are about 45+ players all (ANONYMOUS). I checked into one group and they were all auto played.

Prove that

Read the rules - it is written there. I quoted them for you earlier. So ...
And if you missed the word "apparently": This alone proves it.
If you are getting anywhere with your cursade here: Good! Because it will make quite some fellow players happy. But from past experience, please don't be disappointed if you are getting nowhere.

As long as you are at the computer and your characters aren't doing anything that you cannot do using the gameclient ...

It is the same like "killstealing". Such simply does not exist per the rules and is just a player-made code of conduct that isn't enforced because it all is about DPS (you can find that here on the forums and the rules on the website).

But well:
Prove that!

Well, let me educate you. "Killstealing" was, first to agro it is their kill. Remember the day of proving /log files in petitions to get the drop? I remember GM's taking the drop from the offender to give that item back. "Hooded Cloak of Darkrights"(Spelling).

Have you played that long to remember?
IT sounds as if I you are a plat farmer.

The only program I remember we are allowed to use is Gameparse and GINA.

I would appreciate you to please refrain from personal insults or attacks that you cannot even remotely prove.

But let me educate you a bit more (and literally sum up the links you need to review):
- Policy on AFK play
- Difference between "true box" and regular servers
and last but not least
- Rules of Conduct

Here please pay attention to the "Play Nice Policy" dealing with "kill stealing":

But such stuff was discussed on these forums in the past ... so ...
Example
Example