EVE General Discussion

That depends on where you're from, in the UK either spelling is acceptable (albeit with 2 G's), although many consider the Z an americanism.

It still would not be "self-agrandising" but instead would be self-aggrandising. Good catch on the fact of the regional spelling, though, I hadn't thought of that myself. It's like rumour and rumor, both are perfectly acceptable spellings except in cases of regional school testing I assume.

I did specify 2 G's, and rumor, humor and honor are not acceptable spellings in the UK, ever.*

*Source, I have attended schools in both the US and the UK, amongst other countries. I was picked up on my spelling in the US, having come from a UK school, and vice versa upon my return to the UK.

True, but the thread is getting a bit overloaded with individuals wishing to push it away from the topic of bots, and onto the topic of me using far too many big words. If La Nariz wants to continue our argument he can always contact me and we can duke it out through Eve mails, in game chat or another thread. I just don't want things to further devolve into a mire of Marsha Mallow saying my posting the word "experience" is rumour mongering, or Ramona complaining about there being too many words on his screen or Lucas Kell needing me to explain that HTFU stands for Harden The **** Up. Really, things are getting way too far off topic and it's going to be difficult to continue the argument when we'd have to wade through 20 of their posts just to see our replies to one another.

Maybe you should have thought about that before posting walls and walls of garbage, or you know, taken the hints.

Everything you just said has been argued before, and no matter how many times you repeat it, it does not change reality. Now, I may be assuming quite a bit when I make an assumption about CCP's anti-botting activity, but you're making just as much of an assumption when you argue that they're doing it a different way, or that they should be doing it a different way.

As for having a good place to start looking for bots, well they already have that. They aren't(or at the very least I hope they aren't) going to be looking for bots in World of Warcraft. The bots we are discussing are those used in the game EvE Online, and since that is where they are being used(and it's also the game that CCP owns), it would seem to me that a good place to look for bots in EvE Online is in EvE Online.

That last part of your post is based on a lot of assumptions. You are assuming that all or most of the botters in that alliance have been banned. You're assuming that the alliance doesn't attract or promote botting among its members. You're also assuming that if they look in an area that bots were highly active in yesterday, that the bots will still be highly active in it today. Their having limited resources means they should not be spending them in a manner that will guarantee their inability to effectively combat botting that occurs outside of any one area. If they spend most of their time chasing bots between areas, they'll have far less time to spend catching and punishing the botters. EvE Online is, in case you don't know, a very open world. Players and bots can move between its multitudinous systems fairly easily. This ease of access means that if CCP is watching Caldari high sec most of the time, the bots can just move to Amarr high sec and greatly reduce their risk of being caught.

Sorry for the selective quoting, but your points raise a couple of questions.

What relevance does the opinion of the playerbase regarding where bots are located, who is operating them and how they should be combated by CCP have upon their detection and enforcement policies?

Do any of the comments made in this thread suggest the players have a more informed view than the security team employed by CCP?

We have the option to report bots for investigation as players. Information is presented to us with the statistics involved. As far as I'm aware that's the limit of our involvement as players on the process, other than via the CSM. Rumour mongering is rightly ignored without evidence, which can be presented via petition and has no place on the forum.

Are CCP answerable to the playerbase in terms of how they pursue botters? Or should they operate as they see fit in the interests of the entire population, using a policy of neutrality to prevent favouritism or harassment of particular groups?

Rebutting your remarks is not off-topic, nor is pointing out exactly where they are rule breaking. You'd have way more claim to argue you are being 'mired' in off topic posts if you hadn't posted 77 remarks (some of which contradict each other) in 4 days and resorted to openly abusing other people and telling them to HTFU :)

Where is the bot?

The opinion of the playerbase on where and by whom bots are operated is irrelevant to how CCP should combat them.

No, none of the players appear to have a more informed view than the security team at CCP. In fact, many of the comments here are from players that took one arbitrary piece of information provided at FanFest and attempted to extrapolate how botting occurs and how it should be fought. This is at the heart of my argument.

It is not rumour mongering to have an argument on how CCP should or does enforce their anti-botting policies. Player involvement is a huge part of CCP Game's framework on how to be successful, and as such our input seems to be quite important to them.

CCP should not have to answer to the playerbase in regards to how they pursue bots so long as their methods do not heavily favor one area over another. Again, this is at the very heart of my argument. La Nariz, Prince Kobol(though he has long since left the thread), Mallak Azaria and a few others have all been arguing that CCP should focus nearly all of their attention on high sec and give a fraction of their resources to combating bots in other areas. I have been arguing that that is both a terrible idea and that it is unlikely they actually combat bots in that manner.

Finally, none of my remarks contradict each other. All of my remarks have been quite clearly in favor of not focusing anti-botting enforcement on any one area of space and instead focusing it on botting. All of the remarks you quoted in an attempt to prove I've contradicted myself were examples I was giving on how you can take one piece of arbitrary information provided at FanFest and formulate an argument as to why CCP should only be looking at those that fall into that specific area of EvE. Also, I have looked through the rules for a third time now today, and I have been unable to find any of my posts that might break the rules except the one where I insulted Ramona for saying HTFU stands for hardeners. That could be construed as flaming or trolling, and it was not a constructive post at all. But, as I haven't heard anything from any members of the ISD or CCP, so I'd appreciate if you'd stop spreading rumours about me breaking the rules.

Such is the nature of the internet. The anonymity is what makes them brave, but they still want to be liked and accepted by others. The key is to just not care. I don't mean saying you don't care, and then getting upset when they make fun of you. I'm talking about actually not caring. Now, most people will argue that they don't care, but they're usually lying. Generally it's easy to tell who actually does care what people on the internet think of them, they're the ones that throw insults, like calling you autistic or a simpleton or implying that you might be mentally disabled, around. They become like small children in a playground, hoping that if they can call you a name that makes the other kids laugh everything will be okay again.