EVE General Discussion

A police officer sees a drunken man intently searching the ground near a lamppost and asks him the goal of his quest. The inebriate replies that he is looking for his car keys, and the officer helps for a few minutes without success then he asks whether the man is certain that he dropped the keys near the lamppost.

“No,” is the reply, “I lost the keys somewhere across the street.” “Why look here?” asks the surprised and irritated officer. “The light is much better here,” the intoxicated man responds with aplomb.

Sometimes you look where the light is better. If there are keys all over the place then you look where you know the most keys are. Funniest thing is asking yourself WHO the botters are. Who is behind the machines? Are they players? Or people farming our game for RMT and for the associated credit card scams? The Fanfest session was fun, worth watching if you haven't seen it yet. Do you honestly believe that hisec PLAYERS and Lowsec PLAYERS are responsible or is that just where the action happens to be.

Enough with the finger pointing and Grr Goons and Carebear epithets.


Botting is bad. It has some harsh effects on any part of spaces economy.

If missions had some more random to them then maybe they would be less botted.

If mining was less mechanical and mind numbing . . . and I run missions and mine.

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If only the thread had gone from that bolded angle instead of the polarized OP we got.

Read what you wrote again.

Well you could begin to show where I have come out and supported botting let alone botting in null sec.

Oh that's right you cant because I haven't

I am probably the hardest on CCP and botters when it comes to botting and RMT.

I have said numerous times in various other posts over the years that CCP are part of the reason why we have issues with botting and RMT because it is too damn easy to create untraceable accounts.

Also I would have a 1 strike rule... get caught once and your banned.. no exceptions but that is me.

What I hate is people like Dinsdale who have such a blind hatred of any null sec alliance that they keep this ridiculous narrative that we are all evil and we all bot and we all RMT and that we somehow control CCP, which actually detracts from the discussion about how is best to eliminate botters/RMT'ers.

The facts are pretty damn simple.

CCP have limited resources.
Most Botting occurs in HS.

With those two facts it doesn't take a genius to concentrate your efforts in eliminating as many of those bots that operate in HS as that will have the greater effect.

Its a numbers game. Why ban a handful of people when you can ban hundreds or even thousands?

The great thing with low and null sec is that we the players can actually do something about botters as they do not have concord to protect them and bubbles are a wonderful thing, again another reason why they chose HS.

Also logistically, HS is a much easy place to operate out of then null sec.

On top of that you will actually find most null sec alliances, including Goons will not have botters in their corps.

I actually know a lot about the most of the botting problems work because I have obtained copies of them and looked at the code that drives them. I often visit their forums often to see how people are using them and what kind of technical issues they are having.

That helps me understand where they are being used and how to combat them in game if I see somebody I think is botting.

The fact is botting problems DO NOT differentiate what space they are being used in. The more advances programs use local if you so chose to, so if a red enters system your ship will automatically warp to a safe spot and will stay there until local is clear.

The thing is you have to ask yourself, where will I make the most isk if I am botting. HS will always win.

Why kill a few rats in null sec when you can run mission indefinitely, earning both isk and lp and do not have to worry about who is in local or bubbles?

You know you are going to get caught at some point so you want to maximise how much isk you can earn in that time with as little effort as possible and since CCP have made so damn easy to simply create account after account after account, then HS is the place to be.

Create untraceable account.
Purchase Mission running toon
Run HS Missions for x hours per day in NPC corp and Concord Protection
Earn Isk + LP
Launder Isk LP
x amount of time later account is banned

Create new untraceable account
Purchase Mission running toon
Run HS Missions for x hours per day in NPC corp and Concord Protection
Earn Isk + LP
Launder Isk + LP
x amount of time later account is banned

Rinse and repeat.

You know a very simply way to stop most HS botters, simply make it a requirement that you must be in a player run corp to run Level 4 missions.

Watch those numbers tumble

if CCP want people to participate in the whole "player driven content" they need to motivate players to go to the areas where that's happening.

which sure as **** isn't some back water high sec system with a level 4 agent.

CCP have already done this on multiple occasions. On to the subject of the nullsec botting issue, the numbers provided at fanfest this year paint quite a different picture. While it can be argued that more bots would be banned in nullsec if the majority of alliances didn't kick out discovered botters, the truth is that the number wouldn't be significantly higher anyway.

Why shouldn't people in nullsec make more isk for the increased risks of living in nullsec?

I love this idea a certain subset of the EVE community has that alliances make their money from ratting taxes. This belief is one of the primary reasons that newer groups have almost no chance of surviving in nullsec.

I agree with Mike Azariah. Mining needs to be less mind numbingly predictable.

Add Loot Spew to mining 2014.

You have to admit, it would kill botting.

I'm sorry, I had to go to bed last night after my last post, so I haven't been able to keep up with this thread. I've read the replies, however, and I'm ready to admit it:

La Nariz, Prince Kobol, you guys have convinced me that it is a good idea for CCP to focus their limited resources on those aspects of EvE where large amounts of botting are occurring. Therefore, they should be focused on the alliance that has accounted for 21% of all bots banned in the past 16 months. At nearly a quarter of all bots banned coming from them, it is obvious there is a systemic problem within that alliance and CCP should address said problem by watching that alliance more closely than they do others. It seems unfair to other alliances, that have far far far less botting than this one alliance, if CCP would focus their efforts on them just because they happen to play EvE in the same sec status as the botters in this alliance. The first step should be to flag not only that one alliance that is responsible for a large chunk of all botting, but also to flag any and all corps and other alliances that are associated with this alliance for further investigation. Through the use of IP addresses and credit card information CCP could easily track customers that have multiple accounts and could flag where this alliance's players intersect in order to track them. This tactic would ensure that CCP's limited resources are spent wisely, by simply targeting those groups that participate in botting most often. I'm not sure which alliance it might be that is systemically corrupt and loaded with bots, but they obviously warrant more attention than the average player in high sec.

you say that like combat is any different.

both activities are limited to "lock target, hit f1, repeat".

mining isn't the issue; pve requiring nothing but shift clicking punctuated by the occasional f1 is the issue.

also, making an activity less interesting to "combat botting" just encourages botting. loot spew isn't an interesting or fun mechanic; that's why they want to remove it.