EVE General Discussion

Quite vague but I would like to reiterate that bots tend to be non-communicative and follow some pretty exact activity patterns that could probably be detected heuristically; if you are not already trying to do so.

Yeah, it looks real good for CCP, but how many of those 100s were actually botters authorized by CCP? None, it's just the little guys that get hurt. The one man corp botters. They take all the hits so CCP can keep botting those bots, all while making it look like they're actually working to stop bots. Which they may be doing, but it's just those bots they don't authorize that they're looking for. Can't have anyone cutting in on their profits now can they.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is a damn fool. PLEX is a clear sign of CCPs stance on RMT.

Report a bot doesn't do ****.

lol CCP Screegs coming on here saying the problem is the information from his presentations didn't make its way to the forums. Wrong! Problem is report-a-bot doesn't do anything and 3 strikes for botters while all of us see how bad EVE has caught the bot AIDS. It seems CCP has no problem flagging accounts for suspected rmt and suspending the accounts pending investigation. It would be simple to detect botting (or account sharing) server side by bounty logs. Why not??? We don't need more hot air...we need results.

Since CCP is active in this thread, I might as well ask a few questions myself...

I was wondering if there was staff actually dedicated to hunting bots? It's always been stated by CCP, do it yourself, and let us know. It's also very hard to do so in deep null. Any SOV holding alliance who has half a brain would setup their entry points like a fortress... (I know that my space is more open then my exes legs, but security isn't my job so I don't give a ****.) Which makes it very hard for a small group of players to go into deep null and "hunt" said bots...

Wouldn't any alliance with an open "do not report bots" policy in place be a big target for CCP to investigate? Not to name anyone here, but there's a few big alliances with that policy, and doesn't hide that fact...





Just to expand on this a little. (Just stating a point, not trying to **** anyone off) But on our end (and your IA department) this is even more harder, simply because any CCP employee can divulge information to the player base by non-EVE communication tools. Unless said employee likes his job, he's not going to go around to every player in the game flaunting their rank within CCP. If any CCP employee does do this act, it'll only be to very select players.

(this last point is more of a joke then anything else.)

But can CCP release a tinfoil hat in the NEX store?

Oh look. A thread full of tinfoil hat wearing ignorant people.

How refreshing.

Kitten -> Worst idea ever, you realise that a lot of the RMT sites are scams and will just steal your credit card info? Lets not have CCP encouraging people to visit these sites please!

Everyone else accusing people of Botting/RMTing, either show some evidence or shut the hell up please. You are just making yourself look stupid (or more stupid in some cases)

While I'm sure there are botters and RMTers in game, the number from what I've seen that I would even think are bots not players is in the 0.1% range, aka not a massive problem and eventually they will get caught. The reason you often don't see action on the 'report bots' is because when they find a bot, they want to find where the money is going. There is no point in banning the botting account without banning the master and control accounts which are holding the ISK and doing the sales. These accounts been shut down are what really hurt the RMTers and thats why CCP target them.

Gonna have to paraphrase you Sreegs cuz 1) it's fun and 2) I like reading between the lines.



- Less than we're proud of mentioning, more than comes to work without a hangover after the weekend.



- We do the usual, you know, when anyone starts moving in on our unofficially official friends' operations.



- Gotta give our FoC's (friends of CCP) time to prep new accounts.



- Never....again shall we ban +6,000 accounts. Revenue is important.



Regarding insinuations...please stop. It's important that we not highlight the implications of such large null alliances allowed to have rampant botting. I mean, how else does one explain it other than a complete and utter failure of policing or an acquiescence? Now, CCP is a very capable company. And we collect data on all activities. But, some how, we're totally oblivious to someone running 23/7 doing the same activity for that time period. The only rational conclusion is the latter. Do you realize how much money is involved in such activities? Instead of wasting resources on policing such efforts it's more profitable to make money on the front end (plex) and the back end (RMT). And we make it more profitable by policing competing factions who are not under our control paying up to the corp. So just stop making the insinuations else people wise up.

CCP Sreegs, when you get around to figuring out how to report information, think about what would generate deterrence. Right now there is little that deters a player from RMT and botting the first time. Once they get caught you have said the repeat rate is low, but what deters them form doing it the first time?

The EULA? If they read the EULA then they will see its a EULA violation. But not many read it and many who do may think its just empty words. News of bans and RMT isk removal? There is no such news. Dev blogs? All previous RMT and botting blogs are buried deep in the archives, and any new ones will join them a month or two after being published. Posts in the forum? Many do not read the forums and posts where the OP says they got caught are few and far between. Looking over the forums a player could easily get the idea that they will never be caught. Word of mouth? Again few talk about getting caught. If anything word of mouth revolves around how to not get caught.

My vote for deterrence is to have published information on the log-in screen about the anti-botting and anti-RMT effort, information that is always there, always up to date, continuous and persistent. Something like "Last week xx players were banned for botting, yy were banned for RMT and zz billion isk bought via RMT was removed from the game". That will make sure everyone is always reminded that CCP Sreegs and customer services will come for any EULA violator.

you realize that this thread was necro'd and that Sreegs wrote his replies 3 months ago?

have you seen the devblog he promised?

(neither have I)

derp