but it took about 2 years to crack RO’s padded packets that allowed to write alternative client (a.k.a OpenKore).
Would it be too hard to change the packet encoding algorythm constantly to break the current OpenKore Implementation?
Edit: on second thought, I think I’m underestimating the power of open source.
Hum, Trickster Online, I does not remember seeying a bot or hack on it.
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hmmm idk if its count but i do remmeber to see a lot drill bots in the private server.
…not worth hacking?
The “most efficient way” is …
Don’t play this game at all. xD
perfect!!!
I believe most MMO is bot-able unless there isn’t enough player base where it doesn’t attract the hacker.
The Drill Bots are because of a Pet Driller, it gives a skill that makes your character afk drill.
I have a pretty simple solution. Require everyone to register with their credit/debit card to create an account, maybe charge a symbolic sum of say 1$ or whatever. Then when someone has been found out to engage in hacking/botting. Ban that credit/debit card owner since their real name and adress is known from the bank issuer its easy to stop them from accessing their account and from creating a new account to migrate to. How many people with the exact same name lives at the same place really? It will not stop botters and hackers completly but it will make the process of creating new accounts very limited and thus reduce the problems that many free to play games suffer from.
Basically you are saying that the game should have a subscription to solve all this? WoW stills suffers from boting and gold selling, and Blizzard is a huge company… your solution is rlly not well thought… The most efficient way is incorporating the community to the bot hunting system in some way, because i don’t see that IMC alone can control that (i hope to be wrong) but the idea of incorporate an skill to test if someone is a bot or just casually grinding is a good one, it just have to be done in a way that is not abused and instead of helping the community you actually end up giving a tool for troll entertainment.
No. Actually its about verifying that the user is not using multiple accounts. When a game is free to play* one can create an unlimited ammount of accounts. Usually one just have to fill in a new email adress, register and verify that he or she has access to that mail account. But the problem is one email adress does not equate to one person in reality.
But if the service provider knows who someone is due to their banking details having been disclosed at account creation. Banning people for hacking and or botting offences can be made permanent for that individual. Even if one has accesss to several credit/debit cards the owner is still the same. One can use others peoples cards but im sure few would have access to many outside their family anyway, thus limiting new accounts for those missusing the service.
The point is. If you have something at stake to loose and loose permanetly you will most certainly be on your best behavior. If you can just make a new account when one gets banned then you have no obligation to behave.
ANYTHING left in the hands of players will be open to abuse. ANYTHING!
Create new accounts for new bots? Create new accounts to make bot reporters, instant abuse to a “community bot hunting initiative”.
Have a skill to test a player for botting? Have a group spam the skill on a boss hunt or a solo mobber potentially killing a real player.
Credit/debit registration? Not everyone who plays (will play) the game will have those (specially if the target market is made up of kids).
Look at the source of the problem? That problem is BUILT into the game.
Why bot?
- Easy xp and money, plain and simple.
Why do you want easy xp and money? - Because more (and to that effect “easy”) xp lets you access more of the game (maps are level based).
- Because features in the game are increasingly expensive (repair, upgrading, attributes, pots).
- Because gear is design to be replaced, and that costs even more money.
Why do you want to access the games features? - Because they let you play more efficiently. Repairs and pots keep you in the field. Upgrading and attributes makes you stronger.
Why do you want to access more of the game? - Because that is the point of the game. Apparently the journey is more important than the destination since there is no “end game” to speak off.
Why do you want to replace your gear? - Because the gear in the game follows the tiered gear design where gear gets stronger as their level requirement gets higher.
I could go on. Bottom line, the developers built in the reason people want to bot. Lets look at a version of tos where these built in reasons don’t exist.
There are no levels therefore no reason to want (or even HAVE) xp at all.
Why go out of town?
- Because I wanna explore the game. I wanna see the story. I mean really, look at how the quests are designed. You are basically always “the same level” as the quest your are taking. If you’re not (basically too low lv) you either get your ass handed to you or you can’t take the quest at all. If you are basically ALWAYS the same level as your quest, why even have the quests gated by level? (To keep you from blowing through content too fast - which btw is just bad design)
- Because I wanna fight monsters. This ties in to monsters having loot (not xp) and imma talk about that later.
NPC’s don’t buy your sht because they don’t have infinite money to buy your sht
How would you pay for services?
- NPC’s could give you repeatable quests.
- NPC’s could “hire” you for some odd jobs that need not be specified (that would require being offline fo x amount of time much like buy in shops and merchant classes) for money.
Gear is not tiered
Where do you get the sense of progression?
- You don’t. What you get is a sense of value for your gear.
- You could upgrade you gear. Let’s look at the concept of gear score where the higher the level requirement, the higher the gear score (GS for short). The monster you wanna kill is another 5 GS stronger than you so you get 5 more GS by getting better gear. Repeat. If instead of replacing your gear for 5 more GS you could upgrade your gear for 5 more GS. It could be a quest.
- You could modify your gear. Gems already do this but the system could be more robust. Spend potential for a magnified version of gem stats. It SHOULD be a +1 - 1 effect so that gear basically stays equal.
See, it can be done. The devs just chose the design that attractive to bots.
Now what do bots affect anyway?
1. Economy
This mainly pertains to inflation. So long as NPC’s have infinite money to buy your sh*t, this is what botting will mostly destroy.
2. Player:objective ratio
The more players are around, the less objectives (monster’s and quest objectives like “harvest this plant”) there are for everyone.
Since tos has built in reasons to bot, how do we make measures to either eliminate or mitigate their effects?
I would say “tax the sh*t out of everything”. Give every single item in the game a tax value (fixed value + % value). Don’t prevent trading, just make it so “expensive” that you only do it when you really really have to (and the least amount of times). And by expensive I mean in relation to how much money the character has. You wanna be the richest bot in tos? You can, but trading is going to cost you the most. You wanna break up your fortune with multiple bot accounts? You can, but at some point you will need to trade with your main account. If you need money from multiple accounts, the fixed value tax is gonna eat you alive.
How would you avoid this “tax problem”? Consume your money. Don’t trade, consume.
"What do you mean?"
Use NPC pots, reagents and repair. These things make money disappear. Trading with an alchemist for better pots just circulates money. Buying from an NPC means that money is GONE and it can’t be taxed.
"Why don’t I just convert all/most of my money to consumables?"
Items will still have a tax. So long as they exist, you will be taxed for them when you trade with other accounts. There is also the risk of not having enough money for the next upgrade should you reach the level requirement.
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Before talking about the method, let’s see why there are bots, and exactly, what are they farming for.
It is clear that they are MAKING MONEY through RMT. Although the Korean Server prohibited 1:1 trade between players, there are still many bots, for they still can make RMT possible though market system by selling some items at a specific high price.
Banning does make a difference, but as long as they can get profit, they won’t stop creating and sending bots into the game.
Consequently, no buy, no bots. The best way to protect the game from bots is to stop RMT.
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i know, thats why i’ve said drill bots and not auto drill pets 
Yeah sure. And I say again “Tax the sh*t out of that!”. The higher the amount they sell in the market, the bigger the amount they lose. Every time money changes hands a portion of that disappears. If someone can come up with a formula for an increasing amount of tax the higher the amount of money traded, then all the better. If botters decide to make smaller transactions you can trace that too.
Btw, “trade” is not limited to 1:1 since potential can track trades via market.
I would pay once $10 ~ $15 bucks to play this game.
Once you have to pay once to play, I doubt cheaters will pay twice to use bots again.
The higher the tax, the more expensive the silvers can be sold though.
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B2P has never stopped botters/RMTers and never will as long as there is profit. A fine example of that is GW2.
Hopefully to the point nobody will buy.
Another idea would be to just murder the economy. Make money untradable. Remove the market. Wanna trade? Trade in kind.
The economy is already murdered when the silver is so expensive to be traded. In game money is usually sold with the same or lower price than how much effort you need to earn it.
When the value of traded silver is high, it means that the effort to earn silver from trading activity is high, thus no one will be bothered to trade, resulting in a single player game.