EVE General Discussion

I'm against having scarlet letters for botters unless they eventually fall completely off of your public record because I think it will not decrease the instances of botting and it will create an environment which discourages botters from mending their ways. Hear me out-

After a botter is caught the first time, one a of two things will happen:

1. The botter will learn that they can't get away with botting and stop botting
2. The botter will not learn, feel that it was a fluke, or that they might get away with botting using a different program, and will be caught again.

In the second example, botters will be caught again by CCP and I expect they'll be perma banned rather quickly. In this case the scalet B does nothing as the character who would have worn it isn't allowed to play the game anyway.


In the first example, a scarlet B would subject the now reformed player to harassment for the rest of their tenure in the game. I've heard no mention of time limits or even dates to record how long it's been since the Botter tag was "earned". I'm all for harassment of people who actively bot, but people who actively bot will be perma-banned in short order so the botter tag is wasted effort where they are concerned.

People who do one stupid thing but subsequently learn their lesson need to be able become productive members of the EVE community. A permanent botter tag would make that difficult which would in turn make the game more difficult and encourage them to risk a return to botting. You might as well just perma ban them at that point

Obviously CCP should keep internal records indefinitely so that people can't wait out a timer and then try botting again, but any public record must eventually disappear in game so that reformed players can become good citizens. It's easy to sympathize with corp HR people who want to be able to avoid hiring someone who's just going to be banned for botting, but with no expiration on the tag former botters will never be able to change their ways because player corps won't give them a chance no matter how long it's been since they broke the rules.



If your goal is to reduce crime, then you should do what is effective at reducing crime, and NOT do things which merely satisfy your desire for retribution--especially if that retribution encourages further crime.

There's a great book written on this very phenomenon in the real world
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime And Less Punishment by Mark Kleinman. I highly recommend you read it and internalize the psychology before implementing systems that will clearly encourage players to simply quit the game altogether instead of becoming good rule-abiding players



in b4 morons accuse me of botting because they want revenge more than they want to stop botting.

Why aren't you just banning botters? No reason to give them scarlet letters if they're not allowed to log in anymore...

Few ideas, mostly covered already but I think the are important to support this idea.

• Some corps would likely want to know this information for recruitment. Ie mining corps.
• Random players would like to know this before helping out some random person. Imagine three unconnected miners, two normal and one bot. One normal sees both needing help like hauling, killing rats, etc. who would you rather help?
• Selling accounts - great incentive not to bot
• It would be great to see this in contracts (highlight in red?) so you can ignore them for business.

One final thing I think this idea is good for is to turn the question back on CCP. While you have stats to see why it's good for you, your image would be visibly improved with the players who may not see the efforts you are taking with botting and may not believe you are being effective in your efforts. Giving botters a mark in game would be a welcome sight to many.

I agree that a sense of scale would be a good deterrent, but that can be better done through dev-blogs or other public places where aggregate data is shown. Letters on individual accounts aren't visible in aggregate, and won't contribute to the sense that one can't get away with botting.

at the very least this will give people who report bots some kind of feedback.

I'm really digging the "let the people sort it out" approach. All that would need to be finalized is the terms. I also agree with a graduated approach. Allow me to explain

Step 0) CCP receives multiple notices of a character (let's call him "Joe") who is displaying the typical bot behavior (warping to/from same stations and belt repeatedly, not responding to conversations/targeting/etc. [maybe we need more ways of verifying activity?]

Step 1) CCP, through their own methods, confirm that Joe is a bot. The character is given a modest bounty, in line with how much time has been spent and/or how much mineral/ISK has been earned as a direct result of these activities, and flagged as KOS to all EVE members. This bounty is made public, either through the current bounty system or a new one that is set up specifically for this purpose. ISK payout comes from CONCORD. Once the character's ship has been killed (should podding be allowed in this instance?) once (or more, this is expandable, but I wouldn't want it to overpower step 2), the flag is changed to yellow as a warning to prospective recruiters, etc.

Flags last for 3 months each (i.e., the red flag lasts for 3 months or until the character's ship is destroyed, after which the yellow flag lasts for an additional 3 months). While yellow-flagged, if the character is reported to have been botting again (same criteria as the original step), the character's status is graduated to step 2. If all flags expire without a repeat offense, flags are cleared and the process would start over. This gives the character sufficient time to recant on their ways, and at the same time, doesn't permanently scar the character

Until the character survives the entire process and gets "reset" back to a safe character, this character is non-transferable, until the time period passes. In addition, even if the character makes it the requisite time period, the character should still be white-flagged, notifying potential buyers that the account has participated in bot activity in the past, but has been cleared

Step 2) The way to get to step 2 is to commit a second botting offense while either flag from step 1 are still in effect. The penalties for step 2 are increased to the following

1 month KOS, no matter how many ships are destroyed.
- If the character performs additional illegal activities during this time period, a week is added, up to 3 months total time, after which step 3 takes place
3-6 months of yellow fla
- Same conditions as step

GLOBAL PENALTIES
Trade/Contract abilities remove
- Can't have them trading away their gains, or receiving new assets
ISK sending abilities remove
- I specifically limit sending because we don't want the character to be able to transfer whatever ISK they gain to someone else, but they still should be able to receive ISK. For those who argue that it will just be put to use for continued botting activity, remember that we as players can continue to blow them up, thereby wasting someone else's ISK
Clone purchase abilities remove
- If they keep getting destroyed and podded, this will severely limit their capabilities as character

Basically, send them back to trial status, without the skill limitations

Step 3) I'm torn here. My viable options are the no-holds barred permanent KOS, reclamation of any illegally gained ISK and assets, removed from current corp and placed in a special CONCORD-run corp that is, fundamentally, at war with everyone. I as a player want to be able to destroy and loot and salvage repeat botters until they quit or biomass. Step 3 proves they're beyond the point of reclamation as a character (and indeed, as an account, though I'm not sure what account-wide penalties to enact)

The other option is a forced biomass of the character. While that would definitely remove the scourge of the botter, it removes our player-run justice system


So that's my idea. Feedback and criticism are most welcome.

Long thread, ugh.

Accessible through an account's API, there should be a permanent record of all ISK removed from the account due to botting and due to RMTing. Corps that require API from applicants can check the character's wallet and see when and how much he has been involved with illegal practices, and make an informed decision based on that, and on the player's explanation and current attitude

- you can tell small time crooks and one-time mistakes apart from unrepentant felons
- players can choose not to disclose their API and keep their privacy (but by doing so they won't be accepted in many corps)
- (most important) the flag is not on the botting character, but on a character funded by botting

Only retards bot on their main, the botting accounts are disposable, we need to know where the money goes.

Please make it so.

Just like your employment history follows you, the same principle, create a criminal tab on the character sheet and mark their crime.

For those worried about the criminals feelings, maybe after a period of months they can pay a lot of ISK to have the shame removed? Sounds better than the joke of a bounty system that's in now. Maybe not perfected but a good start.

What, if any, is the legal, social, and/or public opinion impact of publicly "branding" a minor (an under-age player) as an out-of-game "criminal?"


/haven't_read_all_20+_pages_before_commenting

How about a full-fledged branding-system? Anyone who is undesirable should be branded as such. Bot-miners, Bot-missioners, Corp Jumpers, Corp Thieves and Corp Gankers are all examples of undesirable people. Let CEOs know what kind of people are applying to join them. I honestly don't think CEOs are very interested in hiring a pilot, who then turns out to be a Corp Thief, or even worse, a Corp Ganker. Of course, there should be some kind of measure in place to prevent players from abusing this just to grief someone they don't like.