EVE General Discussion

I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine yesterday about the prevalence of botting and why it is not combated more actively. I am now aware that some alliances have "don't report bots" policies for a multitude of reasons, including avoiding drama (due to trigger-happy white knight types who report everything in sight, or due to actual abuse), padding alliance wallet, and "because it's not our fault CCP can't enforce its EULA".

This has left me rather disappointed, but I'm curious: how widespread is this practice? With all the bot hate everywhere, I would think there exist alliances with "zero tolerance" bot policies -- towards their own members, allies, and enemies. Do they exist or am I just living in cuckoo-land?

(No I am not looking for recruitment; I am simply asking a question)

Officially most alliances are probably anti-bot, kind of social suicide otherwise, so any answer you get here on an open forum will be irrelevant, tainted, flawed, outright lies.

CCP is getting better at it but they need to accept their limitations and involve the employers (corps/alliances) in the equation: Make employers partially accountable for employee behaviour and introduce some helpful tools (such as activity monitors) for corp/alliance admins to use to ferret out the culprits.

I'm not expecting any straightforward and true answers. Everything on these forums is to be taken with a sea-ful of salt. "Anti-bot" has multiple meanings though. In some alliances, you will be derided, fined, or booted if you're found botting, but you'll never be reported. Most alliances probably don't want you to report blue bots. Some may even encourage reporting all red ratters you find as bots.

I'm wondering if there's any alliance that actually has a policy to report any and all bots.

There are some people who wouldn't turn their brother or best friend in for a crime, but would gladly turn in a stranger. Then there's some people who would.

I am anti-bot but pro RMT.

Might be PL would kick any botting char that got caught and blown. Not because it is ~immoral~, but because he is stupid enough to do it on a main and not on an alt in a renter alliance in some god-forgotten null system.

And on a more serious note, the answer is yes, at least one such alliance exists.

the Ruskies/Germans dont give a damn. their alliances bot all the time.

I have spoke about this before.

CCP will always be in a no win situation in regards to the topic of null sec alliances botting and involved in RMT.

Since there is no way we as players can gain information on who has been banned because of Botting or RMT and CCP will never release this kind of information there will always be speculation.

On top of that we have the situation where there are members of CCP who used to be part of the Goons and other Null Sec alliances, add to that CSM members, both past and present, who are close friends to many CCP staff and you have a melting pot of rumours and innuendo.

Of course every alliance is going to claim that they are anti-bot and anti RMT, but since it is impossible to prove either way you the player will have to take their word.

The Goons will always be the number one target of speculation regarding this subject simply because of their close to ties to CCP Staff, The Mittani being the CSM Chair and their reputation and persona which they have created themselves of being lairs and cheats, not to mention their goal of destroying Eve for everybody else.

Also the Russians are always being labelled as Botters / RMT merchants yet unless you can provide 100% proof that the Alliance as a whole are in involved and not just a few rogue players then what can you do?

Its hard enough to prove 1 person is botting let alone a group of 50+

1 person is very good at keeping quiet, the more people involved the greater the risk of somebody getting pissed off and spilling the beans.

You also have the situation that if somebody creates a throw away alt on a throw away account to purchase isk, transfers said isk by purchasing goods at a vastly increased price from their alliance, if CCP catches this alt, the isk which is now in the alliance hands will not be removed.

After all, it is impossible to prove that this alt is in anyway connected to the alliance.

Scams happen everyday in Eve.

There are far too many ways for people to Bot / RMT on throw away accounts and transferring isk to their respective alliances with zero risk.

How can you change this.. I have no idea.



Damn forum

It's pretty simple: any Alliance that takes a strong stand against botting will lose the 0.0 game as a result and no longer be a viable Alliance in Eve. It's counterproductive for them to report on their own ISK making activities, so why would they? No, it's CCP that needs to step up their efforts against bots...but wait, then they'll lose real life sub dollars, so why would they do that?? A never ending problem...too many people are on the take.

CCP had a massive bot-banning effort in the past, in which they presumedly lost a ton of paying subscribers. I'm not too concerned about it being a conflict of interest for them.

It shouldn't be a conflict of interest for 0.0 alliances, though. I don't know how CCP can solve that.

Absolutely not.

I do not bot and nor do I condone it. But making subscribers police other subscribers for game mechanic failure exploits or suffer consequences is the most twisted form of anti-botting measure around. Good luck keeping the honest, non-RMT'ing people as subscribers if such a measure were put into place.

CCP owns this game and the servers on which it is run. This is their property to manage for better or worse.