The amount of botting in this game is out of control.

Apricots I couldn't agree more...

Having petitioned about a dozen bot groups only to find them 48 hours later still botting in the same location, this should serve as a warm welcome to any prospective botters that it's fair game and DBG gives precisely 0 f***s.

Enjoy your scripts, enjoy your botting, but when you're sitting in a game full of exactly 0 players, know that you did it to yourselves.

The plethora of voices in this thread alone blatantly supporting the activity is bothersome in and of itself...is the atmosphere really so lax now that people brazenly advocate in its favor on the public official forums?

It is completely obvious on the bot groups. As some has stated, just watch them a few minutes if you are in question as to whether they are bots or not. There is no mistake.

I'll send a few tells at first just to see if I get a response. Then I always add them to my friends list after that just to see if I see them later on. Then I go forward with the petition. Some I have seen return and others have never returned. But I do know is that on Bertox, there is a guild(probably just one guy) that has his bot groups in EOK SW and FM most all of the time. If he gets banned, he simply rolls other toons and gets on with it. He does stay away from named camps and just tries to stay out of everyone's way, basically killing 24/7 in the hopes of getting a rare to drop

I do know that some of the bot groups that I have petitioned have been banned. So kudos to the GM's who have taken the time to investigate and rid the server of them.

I do this. I 3 box, shm, sk, bard. I don't need mercs so I don't use them unless I need to rebuff. But since I'm tabbing to each toon the always attack in the same order and the mob comes to the same spot so I don't have to move my toons.
I suppose I'm a lazy boxer, but I've found it works best for me this way.

I need this in my life

These rooms are test areas found in every existing zone and can only be accessed by GM's, however, they can then summon a player to that room and leave them. Any port item/AA would get you out. But it's funny. Of course there's always the /kick command to consider.

Well, what made me suspicious was that they were doing it for several hours without breaks. If it was a real grind group they would probably have pulled mobs faster, from a larger area, but again I can't be sure in that case, it just looked "off".

Funny I was on test server and there was a full blown bot group in a hotzone simply doing it to level their characters. Obviously no chase loot there, but set up right in the middle of the field in Sarith for days, he's probably still there now. So it is everywhere.

Funk, they most likely are after the alaran tablets for the aug.

But the tablets don't drop off the dogs out in the field, just the handful of trainers that are out there also. He had 2 mid 80's characters perma-invised leveling. If going for tablets you'd want to kill nothing but Alaran mobs. But still silly when the xp bonus on test makes leveling a breeze and you can basically do whatever progression or zone you want and level at a nice rate.

its not gonna stop or go anywhere folks, so for the love of pete just move on. Adapt and overcome.

If enough people make their dissatisfaction known, then maybe something WILL get done about. There is zero reason why people should have to adapt to cheaters.

plenty have made it know over a long long period of time. is what it is

QFT.

I /petition every bot group I come across (there are dozens of them on FV). The next day if they're still in the same spot botting (pretty typical), I submit another petition.

It's not ok just because they're "out of the way"...out of sight out of mind doesn't apply when they're getting XP while AFK that I have to get while grinding...they're getting chase loot while AFK that I have to get while grinding... they're killing named while AFK that I have to get while playing...

It's bad for the economy, bad for the atmosphere of the game, off putting for legitimate players, and overall distasteful for the game as a whole.

Funniest part about it is the argument I see a lot that "if DBG banned all the bots there would be nobody left" - I find this hilarious since your typical bot group only subscribes their tank...the rest of the characters are expendable F2P accounts.

A single GM could roll through a server and ban every bot group in a few hours without much headache if they just decided to put in the effort.

Glad to see its not just eq2 who gets these threads regularly.

What is needed here is a bigger stick... for the dead equine
Though the threads are always entertaining to read, I really doubt much will be done about it. Given the game is f2p should they be banned they'd just make another account and keep going...

Fun fact for those who wanna see one of these rooms, one of the ones I know about is in NToV right by where Vyemm spawns. If you look through the wall at the top of his slipper slope you'll see a test room floating in the 'void' nearby!

Not quite accurate. Most bot groups are able to sub most of the accounts by farming and buying Krono with the proceeds or PLing people for plat. What kills off some botters is inflation of Krono prices. That goes back to where you are accurate: These guys don't want to spend their own money on any of it. The game has to pay for itself as a bare minimum. Some even make a tidy side hustle out of it. Still if looting vendor trash 24/7 in a month won't buy 5-6 krono, that is pretty much the end. If you want to put a bite on botting, stop using Krono. Either for subs or to buy plat. That is the headwaters of the grey market that keeps botters afloat. DBG probably knows that as well, and its a revenue stream for them. Hence, they won't do jack "brown word that starts with an S" to fix it.

When you are botting solely to make RL cash you don't sub all your toons. Heck a lot of boxers who aren't botting don't sub all their toons. I think you could put botters into three categories.



Group 1.
Those who want all the easy play features. And to be honest I don't know what all the easy play features are but certain sites advertise some stuff as making game play easy but hard to be caught using.

No idea how large this group would be because they will be the hardest to notice as they will probably as probably won't see them botting for hours in zones.


Group 2.
Same as number 1 but also max their raiding play nd auto play most of their non raid activities plus pay for their eq and make a bit of RL cash maybe.

Some people will have free to play boxes some will be krono paid especially if they are raiding with the boxes. These guys are just after keeping their acounts paid any bonus cash is just them making a bit more then they needed while keeping some krono on hand for down times.


Group 3.
Their main goal is to make RL cash with spending as little effort as possible to maximize their profit margin.

These are most likely to be one krono paid account and 5 unpaid and possibly an additional paid account for a trader. If they get banned small investment loss and they can start over again. One year of krono for those other 5 accounts could be another 700 dollars in their hands. PLus if they get banned that is down the drain. They only time they will spend money on the none tank account will be if they are into selling accounts. They will still spend the minimum krono getting an account raid geared before selling it. Also most likely to put toons in multiple raid guilds if they can juggle the raid times. I would not surprise me if these guys had groups running on multiple servers.


Now these three groups are not sharply defined. Some may drift a bit from one group to another at various times.

Coming down hard on botting is going to have a different effect on the groups. Group three will be most likely to be caught they are at it 24/7. Unfortunately they are the group most likely to bounce back with the minimum invested in the game. Group 2 is the next easiest to catch as they may also spend a lot of time botting to pay for all their accounts and make a bit of extra cash. More likely to have more time invested in the game though too. A ban is going to affect them more then group 3 folks. Group 1 hard to catch if they are being careful and the ones a suspension might have sufficient effect on.

A prolonged campaign on botting that analyzed connected account activity could wipe out group 3 completely put a dent into group 2 plus put a bit of fear into group 1. The banning campaign would have to be prolonged quick to act though to get rid of group 3. They are like roaches and just bounce back far too quickly.

But I am guessing once you start using illegal software and enjoy the ease of play it is hard to go back to vanilla eq with no cheats. I use "in game" hot buttons and the in game macros (ie /cast and /pause etc) to make things easier boxing and I know I wouldn't ever give up using those. Going to be the same using cheats and not wanting to go back to regular eq I suspect.

As for telling people to stop buying krono to sell them for plat/gear well that is the whole purpose of krono in the first place.

That's just asinine. This isn't an all or nothing proposition. There is a middle ground where you actively try to mitigate the amount of botting for the health of the game. Of course it won't stop 100% of the botting at all times, but it will remove a significant enough proportion of these shady players and disincentivize would-be botters.

Please, most of you old fogies wouldn't know a top boxer using approved software from a veteran botter if they took your camp right out from under your wrinkly noses. Go ahead, act like you know while you play your one character killing names from the year 2000.

looks like someone wandered away from their TLP