I’m was more of expecting that these kind of threads would pop out when the bots do end up plaguing the game during the EA or OBT.
Though I actually have yet to find a mod post any feedback in any of them.
The suggestions and criticism are good but if only someone ends up from IMC do take notice the their efforts wouldn’t be wasted.
I think i’ve seen a few staff comment the typical “Thanks for the suggestions! We are looking into it!” so at least there’s that.
I’m sorry if you found that offensive, that was not the intention of my post. All I’m trying to say is that I think there should be zero tolerance against illegal activity within the game.
To address the rest of your post I think only being able to trade with players within a guild would be a decent way of doing things, but I still think having free 1:1 trading without limitations is the better solution. There are better alternatives of dealing with bots that doesn’t include impairing the experience of legitimate players.
Hmm. I hope that actually is a good sign. I almost don’t even try to thread beyond the replies of such topics after reading the main one just because it feels like a chore to read replies of why this wont work, why this would work, and etc.
Wow… Great point… I never thought of actual account selling.
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You also make a great point cos. Buying a ready made account isn’t what most people want. Thus, most botters will be deterred. The only issue is that when these accounts are purchased, the buyer can simply transfer the gold and items to their main, pump their fist and say “mission accomplished.”
The good thing here, however, is that these individuals would have to spend 120 hours making that account eligible for trade within their guild. This would then deter gold-buyers! You’re better off just playing the game and enjoying the ride.
If anything, this only encourages botting more. Bots can acquire 120 hours of active time much more easily than actual real people. Real people have lives outside of the game, and need to sleep and eat, whereas a Bot can just walk around for 120 hours while in a Guild, and he’s done.
If trading didn’t exist in the game, I would still enjoy it. I think that by banning trading, the game will essentially have NO botters, which would be great. But it would suck for most people when they want to share their gold or items with friends. So I devised my initial post. Within a guild, players must be selective of the friends that they keep. In doing this, trading becomes available to them. If you allow any random player into your guild, you run the risk of losing the trading privilege.
Fear, in other words, is the method I want IMC to use, to prevent players from botting and gold selling. I wouldn’t go near any gold sellers or botters with my proposed guild trading model.
There is a topic that explains why that wouldn’t work.
to get rid of bots you would have to axe trade AND the market.
and at that point you get into a spiral. because i you do that other things like potential begin to serve little to no purpose.
You know people would abuse their power of guild invite/kicking to manipulate other people. Especially in this game where guilds can only be created by one class.
I think the guild thingy might got too far. What would solve half of our problems is what they have in guild wars2 - you can only trade major ammounts of money with friends you been having on your list for quite some time. This or account age. The 2nd half is what devs dont want to tell you guys - that they want to encourage you to get those tokens, spend money on item shop, thats why they are so eager go stick with em and their ways.
Not, really not, inefficient and poorly, but that:
4) Players need to reach level 100 in order to trade is awesome, but change the level to 250 and this can be perfect. To a bot reach to 250 is a HARD HARD work, this can be a solution. 
Agree, make trading available at 300 and everyone will be happy.
Max level 280…
but yes!! This is a solution!!
What exactly would be the criteria for “friends to keep”? What would make a member a “friend” and what would make a member “any random player”?
What about gold sellers? What stops someone from just legit leveling a account to 250 and then using that account to sell gold with others?
Or in some cases, some gold companies have hundreds of people that will hand level an account and then sell gold using that account. Ban 1? They’ll level up 3 more.
And it’s not that hard … these companies have hundreds of workers … so one worker will play for 4 hours, they switch out and another will play for 2, then another for 4 … and so on. They never have to log off.
Bots are hard to counter from the start. Hack prevention tools, all that won’t stop them. They are companies and they come prepared.
However they are easy to spot by players. All you need to do as a developer / admin / game master is actively ban them. You could even make it into a spectacle.
For instance you find a bot that’s stuck and roaming around. You file a report with a video, since the game has a one button record. Just filming this bot walking around like a nut case having default looks etc.
Game master sees it, comes to find bot, jails them.
RO was funny how they dealt with bots. They had an actual jail map. In this jail map no skills worked. Even back then the developers realized botting is impossible to stop, so what did they do? They jailed the bots. The bot wouldn’t know it was jailed and would basically stand idle for weeks in a jail cell with no way out.
Eventually the bots grew smarter and would just logout / delete their accounts as soon as they detected they got into the jail. The devs countered this by ever changing the maps name in patches.
In some games like ArcheAge when a GM found a bot they would publicly toy with them with global messages saying how they drowned 5 bots in the ocean before banning them.
But yeah, I think what devs need to do is not constrict the base game so it’s an inconvenience to the players, that’s really bad. You need to get some active game masters banning bots on sight. It’s all about PR. Bots hurt games, but are an evil that can’t be fully purged. Just make sure you never allow bots to get to the max level. It’s really annoying for someone who has spent months of their lives playing legit with restrictions caused by bots to see a bot higher level than they are leveling in their zones.