I agree that p2p is arguably a better business model. That’s really hard to implement with today’s players though. They see throwing $15 at a game every month as just a way for a greedy company to make more money. They completely ignore the fact that games cost a LOT to make and maintain.
Perhaps we will see a resurgence of P2P games in the future, but with the attitude of today’s players, it won’t be any time soon.
I hope so too, maybe a remake and a P2P but a remake might be asking too much. I know this game can be great.
Sheesh, if they had an inexpensive 12-month subscription (Under $300) I’d buy it…
Being a ingame GM is one of the things i would do for a job and not get bored. Running around maps for 8 hours banning obvious bots? Sign me up
24hr is more than reasonable. The damage done is 24 hours is likely small. Shortening the time to remove bots will likely require too much man power / cost.
Captchas, even server-side, leave residual data behind from their code, and there are programs that read that data to crack the code (whether image or text, the data is there) for you. Putting them at random spots is still determined by x/y coordinates, which again, is present in the code for Captchas. This coming from someone who has suggested Captchas in the past; they do nothing.
There are a few games out there that have a combat system in place that basically does not have a targeting system, which actually prevents the average botter from functioning (they’re not without some bots, though). With the directional attacks, and AOEs in this game, they could do that here… But then, there’s other software out there around that (targeting the enemy based Monster ID, or using image recognition software scripted into commands, for example).
There aren’t many “basic” things they could do to prevent bots. Also, for those suggesting it, programs HackShield doesn’t exactly do a bit of good if ANY of the data can be modified client-side (including the client itself), or if, ya know, they can just modify the client data directly to bypass even detecting the program. Setting it up to detect whether or not a file has been modified, adding file and code encryption, and restructuring if anything has been modified might help for a while, though… However, botters outnumber those trying to prevent them, and they pretty much have teams set up to counter any patch or any method put in place.
The only way to prevent bots, at least, RMT Bots, is to remove their reason for botting. Right now, that reason is because of all of the restrictions in place against players, making the environment almost P2W. While yes, the 48 hour wait time between market transfers, and preventing transfer of Silver through any other method makes some sense, the immense tax (10% is typically max in any game, and you sure as hell don’t have to pay to get it discounted to that price), the requirement to have Tokens to raise your amount of trades (in market or otherwise), and having trades restricted in the first place… Tokens are only valuable to the average user BECAUSE they increase trade limits and increase market slots. The rest of the stuff is meh, and totally not worth the $18 USD worth of TP (staff has said 100 TP = approximately $9 USD) for 30 days that they seem to intend on charging us.
You’re not just going to be running around banning people. You also have to do customer service related task out of game, at a desk, in a cubicle, with a phone you may have to take calls from…
Customer service and Helpdesk CS…and it SUCKS.
[Edit]
And more often than not, they’ll have you manually document EACH AND EVERY account you ban, why, what server, what channel, time, date…
->
I’ll reply to this with an image, because apparently people are still under the impression that “Server sided” means “something needs to be calculated on the client”…we may as well leave the login information on the client too if that were the case…
I’m not under that impression. Just mentioning it for people that are. It makes no difference when it comes to these things (Captchas), because the data is pretty much open access. Encryption helps, but can eventually be broken, considering there are programs out there that can decrypt them, and read information being sent to/from servers. 
Also, what image? o.o
That said, I personally don’t know much about servers (or honestly, networking, and very little about programming)… Only experience I happen to have was with preventing bots in a small team containing people that did know those things (yeah, I was the idea man, and the one personally tracking them down and getting rid of them, but it isn’t a useless skill), in another game, that didn’t exactly have this large of a population (was only 7,000 at peak)…
I’m not trying to start an argument here. Merely bringing up a bit of background about myself for context. Honestly, you might be able to teach me a thing or two. New info is always nice. 
I’m planning on making a Necromancer here, and RO1 was my second MMO (first was Runescape). Played it back in 2010. Thus the image. Wasn’t expecting anyone else to be using it, honestly. 
Yeah, I’m working a mindmap atm. It’s easier to visualize it.
What did I do now? o.o
Fair enough. I’ll wait patiently then.
This is literally what I’m asking about. I don’t see jack ■■■■ being done during the high hours of the server. Why?
How come asking a question is getting me flamed so much? Most hospitable community 2016.
Where the hell are you getting your numbers? I’m not going to just listen to you because you’re spouting “m-muh common sense”. Games like this aren’t made on magic, but they certainly aren’t running this on volunteer hours either. Prove to me that they are as far into the red as you think they are, because I think otherwise. I distinctly remember having to pay a price to play this game because they wanted my money to spend on bot protection. Where the hell is that?
But of course, it takes less effort to just sit there typing about how much I should just believe a random person on the internet because they’re “an adult”.
You’re expecting an MMO community to not have trolls, ragers, and general toxicity? Livin’ in a dream.
And speaking of living in a dream, that ideal itself is pretty damn naive. They’re not going to be at all the spots on most of the maps all of the time to take out bots as if they’re supposed to be some sort of live-time defense system. That’s just humanly impossible, honestly.
Why thank you!
/20char
I’d assume it’s because many MMO’s don’t ban bots En Masse at a daily rate like this, so this many at this rate is impressive. Expecting it to go even faster than this, with comments like “They’re not even trying”, will trigger people.
Also, the peak-hours for the West should be outside of their shift.
Also also, don’t underestimate larger RMT businesses. “Oh you banned me? I’ll just wait until it’s 10 PM there for you and then re-make all of my accounts.”