Silkroad Online: It's all about the road
Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 9:36 pm
Little article written by me:
Silkroad Online – It's all about the road
Have you ever wondered where the bot problem of Silkroad originated? In the community, yes. Everyone wanted to be at the maximum level first, and if they had to use illegal programs to accomplish that, so be it. But Silkroad isn't about that. It's all about the road.
Remember when you first started playing Silkroad? The game's screenshots attracted you, or maybe a friend told you it was awesome. You logged in, after being annoyed by crowded servers, and started your first character. You didn't know anything about goldbots, player bots, bugs, full str, party play, alchemy or anything else. You probably just cared about having fun and spending your time with a game that has nice graphics.
Having fun is what Silkroad should be about. Not about being the highest level in the shortest amount of time. Yes, I agree, in iSRO it's pretty hard to actually have fun, because the bots are already accepted as everyday reality. And why is that? Because as soon as one guy found a way to reach the highest level faster than someone else, and thus defeat him in PvP, the other one wanted revenge. But since SRO has those nasty experience rates, he couldn't get it in a reasonable amount of time. So he asked the other guy how he did it. He used a bot. The word spread quick and the legits declined. With the fall of the Venus legits the last major group of legits fell apart. I'm not saying that they were the last legits, no, there are still some out there, but the last large group left SRO in spring of 2009.
But these guys that I mentioned soon noticed that there isn't much to do at the highest level. You can do PVP, go jobbing and that's pretty much it. Must be pretty boring after some time. And if you don't have an active guild, the time until you quit out of boredom is even less. If people realized, before they use a bot, that it will eventually lead them to quit, the temptation wouldn't be as great. Of course you always want to be able to compete with all those other guys up there – but what if the majority of them don't care if you're there? You're just another maxed guy that tries to stand out from the masses. All because some, dumb, guys decided to use illegal programs to their advantage over others.
Let's just imagine – imagine - a Silkroad without bots, from the start. Imagine Joymax has an update that prevents every third party program from the beginning. You can't even launch Silkroad with the bot.
Everyone would have to start from scratch on the new server, and – guess what – there might even be european parties. Sure, they wouldn't be too organized, because people would have to learn how to actually play a game – which everyone with common sense would do, instead of having your computer play the game for you. But after a while, people would get used to leveling up to yourself. The very active players would very probably get impatient and buy Silk to reach the next level faster, which is why Silkroad has those low experience rates. But they would never get to the cap, unless investing vast amounts of time. And really, that's OK. You're not meant to be capped in Silkroad. You don't have to have every skill maxed. If you do, you should be able to be proud of yourself of having achieved something others haven't. You should just be having fun, and everyone that has experienced lower level parties, jobbing and even PvP before, knows it's possible.
Unfortunately, the community simply will not realize by itself that this is possible, and as long as people are able to cheat their way up while others have to work for their success, they will do it. That's human nature, although there are still many people out there that don't think that way. They're called legits. Even bots are willing to get banned just to play the game in a fun way. Because right now iSRO is everything but fun. Joymax is already improving, they implemented active GMs, improved their events and even ban bots. But as long as powerleveling exists, and some people can still bot, you cannot have fun in the lower levels. Why play for hours on end to reach level 20+ when others can get there in less than an hour just by joining some random high level wizard that runs around blasting every monster bee in sight out of the sky and gets cash for that.
Now, you'll probably ask, what's the point of all this? The point is to let the Silkroad Community know that they don't have to accept things the way they are. You can make a difference.You are the people that keep the servers running. Joymax can't fix everything alone, although they can do a lot. Joymax can't fix people's behavior, e.g. teaming up in a party against one guy and perma-killing him. Or ks'ing others. Or buying gold from gold companies and as a direct result supporting them. There is a lot the community can do. Unfortunately the majority of the community won't even be able to read this article because they are not capable of speaking this language. But those who can, and I'm sure there are people out there that speak both this and their language, can spread the word. Spread the word that it's all about the road to the highest level, not about being at the highest level. It really is all about the road.
//Discuss
Silkroad Online – It's all about the road
Have you ever wondered where the bot problem of Silkroad originated? In the community, yes. Everyone wanted to be at the maximum level first, and if they had to use illegal programs to accomplish that, so be it. But Silkroad isn't about that. It's all about the road.
Remember when you first started playing Silkroad? The game's screenshots attracted you, or maybe a friend told you it was awesome. You logged in, after being annoyed by crowded servers, and started your first character. You didn't know anything about goldbots, player bots, bugs, full str, party play, alchemy or anything else. You probably just cared about having fun and spending your time with a game that has nice graphics.
Having fun is what Silkroad should be about. Not about being the highest level in the shortest amount of time. Yes, I agree, in iSRO it's pretty hard to actually have fun, because the bots are already accepted as everyday reality. And why is that? Because as soon as one guy found a way to reach the highest level faster than someone else, and thus defeat him in PvP, the other one wanted revenge. But since SRO has those nasty experience rates, he couldn't get it in a reasonable amount of time. So he asked the other guy how he did it. He used a bot. The word spread quick and the legits declined. With the fall of the Venus legits the last major group of legits fell apart. I'm not saying that they were the last legits, no, there are still some out there, but the last large group left SRO in spring of 2009.
But these guys that I mentioned soon noticed that there isn't much to do at the highest level. You can do PVP, go jobbing and that's pretty much it. Must be pretty boring after some time. And if you don't have an active guild, the time until you quit out of boredom is even less. If people realized, before they use a bot, that it will eventually lead them to quit, the temptation wouldn't be as great. Of course you always want to be able to compete with all those other guys up there – but what if the majority of them don't care if you're there? You're just another maxed guy that tries to stand out from the masses. All because some, dumb, guys decided to use illegal programs to their advantage over others.
Let's just imagine – imagine - a Silkroad without bots, from the start. Imagine Joymax has an update that prevents every third party program from the beginning. You can't even launch Silkroad with the bot.
Everyone would have to start from scratch on the new server, and – guess what – there might even be european parties. Sure, they wouldn't be too organized, because people would have to learn how to actually play a game – which everyone with common sense would do, instead of having your computer play the game for you. But after a while, people would get used to leveling up to yourself. The very active players would very probably get impatient and buy Silk to reach the next level faster, which is why Silkroad has those low experience rates. But they would never get to the cap, unless investing vast amounts of time. And really, that's OK. You're not meant to be capped in Silkroad. You don't have to have every skill maxed. If you do, you should be able to be proud of yourself of having achieved something others haven't. You should just be having fun, and everyone that has experienced lower level parties, jobbing and even PvP before, knows it's possible.
Unfortunately, the community simply will not realize by itself that this is possible, and as long as people are able to cheat their way up while others have to work for their success, they will do it. That's human nature, although there are still many people out there that don't think that way. They're called legits. Even bots are willing to get banned just to play the game in a fun way. Because right now iSRO is everything but fun. Joymax is already improving, they implemented active GMs, improved their events and even ban bots. But as long as powerleveling exists, and some people can still bot, you cannot have fun in the lower levels. Why play for hours on end to reach level 20+ when others can get there in less than an hour just by joining some random high level wizard that runs around blasting every monster bee in sight out of the sky and gets cash for that.
Now, you'll probably ask, what's the point of all this? The point is to let the Silkroad Community know that they don't have to accept things the way they are. You can make a difference.You are the people that keep the servers running. Joymax can't fix everything alone, although they can do a lot. Joymax can't fix people's behavior, e.g. teaming up in a party against one guy and perma-killing him. Or ks'ing others. Or buying gold from gold companies and as a direct result supporting them. There is a lot the community can do. Unfortunately the majority of the community won't even be able to read this article because they are not capable of speaking this language. But those who can, and I'm sure there are people out there that speak both this and their language, can spread the word. Spread the word that it's all about the road to the highest level, not about being at the highest level. It really is all about the road.
//Discuss
I guess bots are just something we'll have to deal with, like you have to do with in every game.
