The only reasonable thing Joymax can do to safe this game

[Quyxz]

Well, I thought of the following. If Joymax bans all bots, then they will lose a lot of there money, so that is not reasonable. But what if Joymax makes 2 new servers or so and bans all the botting players on that server. So Joymax let's everybody bot on the old servers. But on the 2 new servers Joymax deletes every char who uses third party programs.
I think this would be the only thing possible for Joymax to give us a smooth gameplay and that they will not lose money from silkbuying botters.

[SunUser]

Doubt they will do that anyway^^

how many posts you need too make own topic?

[Quyxz]

Doubt they will do that anyway^^

No I dont think they will, but we can dream about it.

how many posts you need too make own topic?

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=80322

[KKTHXBAI]

more bots == more money

[Barotix]

more bots != more money.
Ban the bots. All of them. Condense the server. Strict interpretation of the TOS/EULA. Change does not come without pain and the longer they "put it off" the more it will hurt them when they finally do "clean up their act." With a strict interpretation of the TOS/EULA the game will be purged of all unclean elements. Bring back silk assistants that report all their actions to the GM. Their only power is the power to d/c and their Silk Assistant account should be separate from their actual accounts. If the community of a server finds the silk assistant unfavorable then they should be stripped of their position by the GM.

No Pain, No Gain.

[ImmortalKiller]

more bots != more money.
Ban the bots. All of them. Condense the server. Strict interpretation of the TOS/EULA. Change does not come without pain and the longer they "put it off" the more it will hurt them when they finally do "clean up their act." With a strict interpretation of the TOS/EULA the game will be purged of all unclean elements. Bring back silk assistants that report all their actions to the GM. Their only power is the power to d/c and their Silk Assistant account should be separate from their actual accounts. If the community of a server finds the silk assistant unfavorable then they should be stripped of their position by the GM.

No Pain, No Gain.

Please, Barotix, work for Joymax. Make the world a better place.

[Drew_Benton]

more bots != more money.
Ban the bots. All of them. Condense the server.

Imagine if you dropped a piece of chocolate behind your desk. It sat for a few days before ants found a way in. One day you look down and see some ants so you kill them. The next day you see some more ants, so you kill them. Now, you can keep killing the ants every day, but they will always come back. But, if you were to find how the ants were getting in and why, then you could stop them for good.

Banning bots is analogous to killing the ants you see. It doesn't solve or address the real problem on hand. Sure it gives you the satisfaction of a short term resolve, but it is one of those things where you have to be in it for the long term. Here are some problems and solutions that Joymax could do to take care of this game better. I'm a programmer myself, so I understand the feasibility of everything I am presenting.

On client based bots:

There is not much Joymax can do in this area to prevent people from using client based bots. Any client side protections that they use, gameguard, hackshield, etc.. are just deterrents for the average person trying to mess with the client. The bot companies have skilled labor that specialize in reversing such technologies so their products work with them. If JM put a protection back on the client, it would disrupt client bots for a few weeks, and then they would come back in full swing. However, while the small % of client bots that are not being used are gone, clientless gold bots will fill those slots.

The best defense JM has against client based bots are server sided database heuristics. The most obvious one is the "both path". If JM were to add a few key trigger locations that if walked in a specific order, the account would be flagged to be banned, then JM could quickly wipe out a lot of player bots in one swipe. The obvious benefit of this is that once player bots start getting banned, people are less willing to bot. Plain and simple. It doesn't matter that the client bots would still be around, once faith in the bots is shattered like that, people will stop botting (and most of them will also leave the game).

The other subtle things JM could do is add some coordinate checking on movement packets. If the movement coordinates sent to the server don't match the map files, increment some number in the account. At the end of the week, accounts with a high ratio of invalid movement flags gets banned. The reason you have to set a cut off is because you can send invalid coordinates to the server. If you happen to click on a dock for example, the height will be of the docks and not the terrain. But, for most other areas that are simple flat lands, this technique would work,

The next thing ISRO could do is track "grinding time". vSRO limits players to 5 hours. I don't think something like that would fly in ISRO, but just by tracking how much time a day is spent actually attacking monsters, you can start to see accounts that are either being played 24/7 by people or bots. Of course that doesn't have a rule against it, so they would need to add some "acceptable play time" clauses. The client already has logging in it for play time, it's just disabled.

Joymax could add any number of client security features, such as process/module list handling, CRC checks, etc.., but it'd only work once. When the client remains unpacked, as it is now, those things are easily found and defeated; given you are looking for them. That pretty much sums up the client specific stuff. You can slow down botting, catch a few unlucky people, but overall, server sided analysis is the best technique.

On clientless based bots:

There is a lot for Joymax to do in this regards in banning clientless gold bots and other clientless based programs. Most of the traffic Silkroad has is from clientless gold bots. They far overpower the number of users that use client bots.

The easiest way to ban clientless bots and keep them from becoming so predominant would be weekly client updates. If one patch Joymax changed their security algorithms and accepted any packets, they could silently flag and ban accounts coming from gold farmers. Further more, they can do this over a few weeks and then perform IP bans to prevent those same networks from coming back. This would work once very well, after that the bot makers would know what to look for each patch, but be delayed more so than they are already on updates. Since weekly updates is never desirable, JM would have to invest in a more realistic update system. One that would patch the existing client rather than send a new client on trivial changes.

Packet opcode changing is another way to easily ban clientless bots. If a packet format is silently changed, they can identify, flag, and remove those programs. Couple that with the server sided heuristics of checking paths, they could force bots to update to make them less detectable. There are quite a few clientless bots that support image code detection, so Joymax could address that by changing their captcha to the captcha that is used on their site, if not a different style. If they change captcha styles, then there is no way clientless bots could auto login anymore.

The final grand scheme to ban clientless bots would be hidden packets in the client. Let's say one update JM adds a packet handler to the client that will send a response to the server when a packet is received. One day, they broadcast the secret packet to all connections. All accounts that are connected and not using a client would not send the opcode. This would be a dead giveaway in identifying a clientless bot.

One misc issue that I'll throw in here is how they can stop gold spammers in town. Each account could be given a "mute flag", in which their chat packets are only sent to themselves so they see their own chat, but no one else does. I'm pretty sure SRO has this already due to some error messages in the PK2 files involving GM chat blocking. JM could hop on every week, mute spammers and never have to worry about those accounts again. Of course, remember that gold companies pay game companies to advertise in their games and spare their characters, so I doubt this would ever happen. (See latest news on WarHammer's response to gold farmers)

Conclusion

So, Joymax could make some game architectural changes to save the game if they felt it was critical to take care of the current bot problem. That would clean up the game for a while. However, bots would eventually return. In that case, it is just a matter of consistent game maintenance to ban bots when found. No, they won't be able to keep them all out, but they sure could keep more out than they are doing now, if they truly wanted it.

Remember that Silkroad is a "free to play" game, and having studied their game architecture, it's not a cheap game to run. They have 32 servers now, so from a perspective of "success", they are doing quite well. All of the money they are making from people investing in Silk and buying gold for the game to attract players is getting the best of them. However, it is always important to understand that Joymax is a business, and they will run their business how they feel is in the best interest for themselves.

What I have written about is not the only way to make the game "better" though. I've only addressed making Silkroad more bot free, more or less the "how" in my ant analogy above. The "why" is something that would change the direction this game is going in. Party mobs, fortress war, and CTF are all things that help, but JM needs to do more in making the game "playable" and not just "grinding" (referring back to vSRO which only allows 5 hours of grinding, forcing people to job, cape, or guild war, or log off) We could speculate and offer ideas all day though, but there is little chance they would consider it.

Of course, we can all sit around and throw out ideas and fixing what we perceive are their problems, but until we are actually the ones in their position, we won't ever understand what they are going through or the reasoning for their actions. But hey, at least it makes for an interesting discussion.

[PrincessBoA]

more bots == more money

agree, the higher the server traffic the more premium will be purchased...
sell premium = earn big revenue..

[XMoshe]

So everyone should abondon their char and go to the 2 new servers then? I won't give up my chars lol >.>

[MissLe2]

ok here is another fix
joymax should sell gold themselves
they could easily do so, and make some good money
they could sell for cheaper than gold bots could sell for making the bots not a profitable business

i liked the idea of being only able to grind for a certain amount of time, here is another thing joymax could sell
make the grinding time 2 or 3 hours
then sell 3 hour (or 2 or any amount) grinding tickets that allow you to grind longer, they dont have to be expensive, just another cash cow for JM,
the game would still be free, but you can buy more for greater gaming experience

just some quick ideas, maybe they have holes, maybe they are great but they do make good conversation

[nohunta]

LOL? Pay to grind... LMAO

[Beto_Chavez]

Like he said...He was just throwing out ideas but yeh, I don't think any of us would want to pay to grind...

And like Drew was saying, the actions to clean things up need to happen server side. Until Joymax comes out of the closet nothing will ever change.

[Ragnorak]

If GM's actually care they would ban thousands of bots every week.
I mean all a GM has to do is log in, teleport to a town, Jangan, dw, ect,
pretty dam obvious to tell who is a goldbot by their obvious name and pattern, if a legit has a name like "dkfjs" "djsfskljf" "sfsokj" they deserve to be ban...don't really need the so call "investigation" that joymax does.
about player bot, well they pay Joymax>>>>banning them means 90% of the server>>>Greedy Joymax gets no/little income>>>>dead game, just the thought of 100 cap, endless grinding/farming will make the few 90 cap "legits" quit.

[StacE]

more bots != more money.
Ban the bots. All of them. Condense the server. Strict interpretation of the TOS/EULA. Change does not come without pain and the longer they "put it off" the more it will hurt them when they finally do "clean up their act." With a strict interpretation of the TOS/EULA the game will be purged of all unclean elements. Bring back silk assistants that report all their actions to the GM. Their only power is the power to d/c and their Silk Assistant account should be separate from their actual accounts. If the community of a server finds the silk assistant unfavorable then they should be stripped of their position by the GM.

No Pain, No Gain.

GOOD WORK BAROTIX! MORE OF THIS ATTITUDE IS NEEDED!

lol. You guys take shit way too seriously.

[Phaidra]

I just don't get why they seem to fail at banning goldbots. They crowd the servers and are the biggest problem in the game. The only reason I can think of is to sell there premiums I guess...

[the_wicked]

save the game? lol. nuke everything and start over with consistant bans and such. Tho everyone thats lvl 90 already would quit probably. lol

[ieatpasta]

In order to do that, they would have to pay more people to supervise their bot-free servers, therefore costing more money.

[-.-]

:S how does this even make sense lol

make 2 servers, 1 for bots and one for others... if they are willing to pay for silk to get "better" char, they will buy bot too if it's endorsed...

meaning everyone who buys silk moves to bot server, and other server gets shut down due to no funds

[KKTHXBAI]

more bots == more money

agree, the higher the server traffic the more premium will be purchased...
sell premium = earn big revenue..

Psssshhh revenue? How costly can it possibly be for Joymax to make and sell virtual items?

[NuclearSilo]

more bots == more money

agree, the higher the server traffic the more premium will be purchased...
sell premium = earn big revenue..

Not agree, they could decrease the server capacity to 1000 instead

Atm, we only need:
1. anti addiction tools
2. new PK system (both go pink if fight back), so that we can eliminate the bot nukers first.

In bottom line, JM dont want to fix. If JM fail to fix, they will lose and the game die. If they success, everything will be better.

[marjin_boo]

BOT = CAN'T LIVE WITH THEM, CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM.

[xxbrentonxx]

more bots != more money.
Ban the bots. All of them. Condense the server.

Imagine if you dropped a piece of chocolate behind your desk. It sat for a few days before ants found a way in. One day you look down and see some ants so you kill them. The next day you see some more ants, so you kill them. Now, you can keep killing the ants every day, but they will always come back. But, if you were to find how the ants were getting in and why, then you could stop them for good.

Banning bots is analogous to killing the ants you see. It doesn't solve or address the real problem on hand. Sure it gives you the satisfaction of a short term resolve, but it is one of those things where you have to be in it for the long term. Here are some problems and solutions that Joymax could do to take care of this game better. I'm a programmer myself, so I understand the feasibility of everything I am presenting.

Oh yes we know that.

I think it would be better if Joymax went straight to the source - the botmakers, loader makes etc.

That way joymax could get a big payout like Blizzard or go corrupt like Knight Onlines owners and make even bigger proffits without changing their attitudes (but extra $$$ from botmakers lol).

[ln]

Imagine if you ...

... interesting discussion.

well said. makes sense. i agree.

[BloodyBlade]

They are already doing these stuff.


Compare Venus & Babel.

[MyraSchr]

more bots != more money.
Ban the bots. All of them. Condense the server. Strict interpretation of the TOS/EULA. Change does not come without pain and the longer they "put it off" the more it will hurt them when they finally do "clean up their act." With a strict interpretation of the TOS/EULA the game will be purged of all unclean elements. Bring back silk assistants that report all their actions to the GM. Their only power is the power to d/c and their Silk Assistant account should be separate from their actual accounts. If the community of a server finds the silk assistant unfavorable then they should be stripped of their position by the GM.

No Pain, No Gain.

Barotix,

I agree on your statement on Silk Assistant monitor by GM. This idea was used by Joymax but abused Silk Assistants. With only ethics and trusts, would one ever trust another for the financial future of a profitable company. The answer is always "certainly" and always comes with the word "but". Silk Assistant idea would hold if
* Ethics is proven per user over time, and
* Trust is provent per user over reputable image.

My only answer to that is:

"With great power there must also come — great responsibility!", Uncle Ben.

Joymax could not use Ethics and Trust per user; hence, power given will be abused, if not later. I would not see that idea any time soon in the future.

All, I would also ask/add if "Joymax is a responsible company with Ethics and Trust". Would you take this job given per company?

Thanks for reading,

(Xian)Mishika

Is anyone ready for coffee shots? ^_^ C
'C' is for coffee, I used to sign with ^_^ V

[Timmeh]

That just wouldn't work. No one would buy gold off companies and eventually they'd go bust, because people would make their own private bots run all day and scoop up all the money they could ever want.

Therefore, Joymax would lose a lot of money and become angryz and ban us all, then commit suicide.

[Blinxx]

Drew_Benton that's some good stuff O.o haha thanks for giving the time to share ^^
and your way would eventually lessen the bots playing, and yeah ONLY if they wanted to.. lol

[Tyrax]

funny how JM acts like the game is perfect.