Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
July 05, 2025, 04:43:01 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  MMOG Discussion  |  Topic: Automated Bot'ing: WoWGlider vs Blizzard 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 Go Down Print
Author Topic: Automated Bot'ing: WoWGlider vs Blizzard  (Read 48797 times)
Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389


Reply #70 on: February 20, 2007, 09:46:31 PM

To eliminate botting of the kind we're talking about you'd need to remove farming and grinding entirely. If an activity can be done over and over again for any gain then people will bot it. You'd have to either remove advancement or have advancement be ala EVE where you just gain it over RL time or you'd need to make it quest based. No mobs could drop money or anything that can be used at all for that matter. Mobs would in effect have to become pure roadblocks instead of the loot/xp punching bags they are today.

I'm not saying that's bad, but it's a drastic change from the status quo.
Samwise
Moderator
Posts: 19323

sentient yeast infection


WWW
Reply #71 on: February 20, 2007, 09:50:57 PM

Or maybe you could design a game that's challenging enough that it takes more than four lines of scripting to beat it.   tongue
Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613


Reply #72 on: February 20, 2007, 09:55:30 PM

Or maybe you could design a game that's challenging enough that it takes more than four lines of scripting to beat it.   tongue

That's what I've been hinting at.  Damn you for saying it more concisely.

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
Chenghiz
Terracotta Army
Posts: 868


Reply #73 on: February 20, 2007, 10:26:48 PM

Better PVE AI?
Rithrin
Terracotta Army
Posts: 149


Reply #74 on: February 20, 2007, 11:10:01 PM

I would just assume that making combat be based off of reacting to the mob's actions would stop afk botting. Only reason people can do it now is because you just hit 2 over and over and over ...

The sweetest wine comes from the grapes of victory.
damijin
Terracotta Army
Posts: 448


WWW
Reply #75 on: February 21, 2007, 02:46:57 AM

Or maybe you could design a game that's challenging enough that it takes more than four lines of scripting to beat it.   tongue

May I point you in the direction of Lineage 2 bots "L2Walker" and "L2Superman", two programs which can run entire 9 man parties in such a highly organized fashion that they make actual players look like chumps. Both even include scripting languages (though superman's sucks tbh~) for writing your own custom scripts to move your train of automatons between town and your hunting spot without actually needing to do it manually, sell crap to stores, ignore certain loot (can't pick up those heavy useless arrows if you're going to be farming for 2 weeks without turning the bots off!), and other crap.

Automation is big business, especially with the RMT industry in it's current state. I know you were half joking, but really it's not entirely a design issue. Design plays a role, but if you make it more complex, the bot programmers will find it that more appealing to automate it and sell it to the farmers who will want the leg up on anyone doing the work manually.

Edit: What I'm trying to say is, preventing automation is not a good reason to make major design decisions. It's going to happen anyway. Theres certain systems that just beg to be automated which should probably be avoided, but you're not going to stop automation just by designing the game in a "fun" way. It won't be fun for everyone, and even if it is fun, some people will cheat just to cheat or be ahead of everyone else.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2007, 02:52:43 AM by damijin »
Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389


Reply #76 on: February 21, 2007, 03:49:31 AM

I don't think it would be possible to create PVE combat that would be impossible to bot. You could bot any of the the current fighting games, you can bot chess, you can bot FPS games. All of them are WAY more difficult than current MMOG combat, but they are not immune.
Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449

Badge Whore


Reply #77 on: February 21, 2007, 04:15:25 AM

I already said this.  EVERYTHING can be botted.  EVERYTHING.  The only exception I used to think was out there was FPS games, but even in that I'm pretty sure I was mistaken.

There is NO way you an come up with enough unique situations that they can't be botted.  Like I said before, it would become too byzantine or too much of a pain in the ass for legitimate players long before it was for the scripters/ programmers.

The closest thing to a solution is what Cal said, and I wouldn't call that much of a game.

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
Jeff Kelly
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6921

I'm an apathetic, hedonistic, utilitarian, nihilistic existentialist.


Reply #78 on: February 21, 2007, 04:29:24 AM

I already said this.  EVERYTHING can be botted.  EVERYTHING.  The only exception I used to think was out there was FPS games, but even in that I'm pretty sure I was mistaken.

Most people would even bot in real life if they could. When the first intelligent (enough) robot arrives then most people that can afford something like that will never ever work for money/do the housework etc. Hell most people would even break all of the rules if they knew they wouldn't be caught. There was once an anonymous questioning for a study. People were asked if they would break certain rules if they knew for certain that they wouldn't be caught. Most people asked even considered capital crimes like robbery or murder. Rules and their enforcement is important because without them you will only get the bad kind of anarchy.

We all want the shineys without doing anything for it be it game or RL and if we can break rules while doing that we will. An online game that doesn't consider that is doomed from the start.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657


Reply #79 on: February 21, 2007, 05:12:41 AM

I already said this.  EVERYTHING can be botted.  EVERYTHING.  The only exception I used to think was out there was FPS games, but even in that I'm pretty sure I was mistaken.
You can bot FPS games. In fact the first MP bot I came across was the "auto-aim" bot for Quake. That one you had to move manually but it would aim for you automatically, you just had to hold down the fire button. The early versions had some sync problems so it would fire "backwards" instead of spinning the character around if the closest target was behind the person so you would see lightning come out of the players ass and stuff. It was a small step from there to creating bots that could navigate on their own.
ajax34i
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2527


Reply #80 on: February 21, 2007, 05:18:31 AM

I already said this.  EVERYTHING can be botted.  EVERYTHING.  

It's like computer security, though.  Anything can be broken into.  The point is to make it difficult enough to bot that your botters drop to an acceptable percentage of the playerbase.  We'll disagree about what's "acceptable" and whether making it "difficult" negatively affects regular gameplay, sure.  Certainly, botting tools are very sophisticated.
Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389


Reply #81 on: February 21, 2007, 05:45:26 AM

The problem with that is that the tools are already there to bot. There's no need to have more sophisticated tools/methods to combat any increased "security" through complexity. All it would require is a more complex script to combat the change, and you can't change your game mechanics all the time or you piss off the real users. So once it's cracked, that's it. Forever.
Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389


Reply #82 on: February 21, 2007, 05:49:30 AM

The closest thing to a solution is what Cal said, and I wouldn't call that much of a game.

I don't know about that. If you cranked up the XP, cash, and loot rewards for questing in WoW you could axe monster xp and drops entirely in the outside world. Of course you'd have to deal with the hole that was once dropped crafting loot (essences, etc), and you could no longer demand farming timesinks through repairs and consumables for raids, but the 1-70 game would be unchanged for anyone that doesn't grind all the way.

EDIT: Argh! I fully intended to copy+paste this into an edit of my other post but forgot and double posted. :(
Numtini
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7675


Reply #83 on: February 21, 2007, 06:12:03 AM

Isn't wowglider a commercial program? That will likely be a factor I'd think.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657


Reply #84 on: February 21, 2007, 06:18:08 AM

Isn't wowglider a commercial program? That will likely be a factor I'd think.
Not really. bnetd was free but copyright infringement is copyright infringement even if the infringer isn't making any money off of it.
robusticus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 30


Reply #85 on: February 21, 2007, 08:04:16 AM

Isn't wowglider a commercial program? That will likely be a factor I'd think.
Not really. bnetd was free but copyright infringement is copyright infringement even if the infringer isn't making any money off of it.

I think it's hilarious a diku derivative that by all accounts offers absolutely 0 innovation is bringing a copyright case against a company that didn't copy a single line of code.  Further, they lacked innovation so bad in that round they even had to copy the obviously flawed business model and end up with the same old anti-EULA problems.

And I don't think it's about difficulty or random content or anything like that.  It is purely about the grind, about repetition.  That IV they've stuck in all of us feeds their subscription model.

For all the perma-ban advocates that recommend L2 as an alternative... no problem with that, but don't be supporting a contract interference case with that argument.  And keep in mind, L2's EULA is the same as WoW's.
El Gallo
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2213


Reply #86 on: February 21, 2007, 08:41:07 AM

Bashing TEH GRIND is hip and all, but calling the business model of one of the most lucrative products in the history of the entertainment business "obviously flawed" is teh stupid.

This post makes me want to squeeze into my badass red jeans.
Jayce
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2647

Diluted Fool


Reply #87 on: February 21, 2007, 09:30:20 AM

I think it's hilarious a diku derivative that by all accounts offers absolutely 0 innovation is bringing a copyright case against a company that didn't copy a single line of code. 

I can think of about a thousand things to say, but slog said it already and better.

However, I wanted to ask:  do you really thing WoWGlider is doing something innovative?  There have never been botting programs before?   rolleyes

Witty banter not included.
robusticus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 30


Reply #88 on: February 21, 2007, 09:53:57 AM

Bashing TEH GRIND is hip and all, but calling the business model of one of the most lucrative products in the history of the entertainment business "obviously flawed" is teh stupid.

Well, I'm glad it's still hip.  Not my motivation at all, given my household has www.runescape.com blocked at the firewall level.  I suppose obvious was a bad word to use because obviously it isn't obvious to the junkies nor the dealers.

As for copyright and bnetd... totally different case.  They actually copied the server and modified it, and allowed for copies of the client.  WoWGlider copies nothing, nor does it enable people to bypass the fees Blizzard charges.

And MDY isn't bringing a DMCA charge against anybody, so their innovations are irrelevant.
MournelitheCalix
Terracotta Army
Posts: 971


Reply #89 on: February 21, 2007, 10:28:19 AM

I know that a lot of people think this is going to be a slam dunk for Blizzard/Vivendi.  I don't think its a slam dunk at all for them.  In fact from the research I have been doing I think they are going to have a hard time proving a DMCA violation.  First off, it is worthy to note some of the facts of the case:


1.  MDY industries filed suit against Blizzard for a summary judgement.  The purpose of the summary judgement was to head off an impending lawsuit and effectively slam the door shut to any future law suit by getting a court to stipulate that Blizzard's copyright was not being infringed upon by this program.  You can see this here, I took this from MDY's forums:

http://www.wowglider.com/legal/Complaint1.pdf


2.  The plantiff which in this case is in fact MDY claims that their product doesn't break into any of Blizzard's server or architecture at all.  What it claims in fact is that it operates at the permission of the owner in the owners own personal computer.  I feel this disctinction is important because my understanding of the DMCA law is that previous precidents are based upon altering a chip which was already imbedded in a product.  This subsequent alteration allowed access to the product.

If the plantiff is right (I think its also worthy to note that Blizzard denies this claim on the grounds they they do not have evidence to support the claim), then I really don't see how Blizzard has any leg to stand on.  Blizzard's response can be found here:

http://www.wowglider.com/Legal/Feb_16_2007/AnswerAndCounterclaims.pdf

I know if I was a juror I would have a hard time buying the arguement of Blizzard that other software providers are bound to Blizzard's EULA.  That is in fact what Blizzard seems to be alledging here.  I can't buy it because, WoWglider if it is as advertised doesn't touch their machinery or hardware.  It in fact acts as a superuser and uses the processes of the computer to manipulate the process that Blizzard themselves gives the players access to.  Furthermore a precident for Blizzard in this case it would seem to me would place liability on Firewall, antivirus, and surf control software that ran alongside and blocked soemthing that Blizzard didn't like.  What if a firewall decides that warden is a virus or a malicious program and shuts it down.  Does this now mean that the firewall manufacturer is now liable because Blizzard's process is a process that was not deemed legitimate to the firewall?

I just don't think this case is going to be as clear cut and dry as most people here think it will be. 
« Last Edit: February 21, 2007, 10:32:51 AM by MournelitheCalix »

Born too late to explore the new world.
Born too early to explore the universe.
Born just in time to see liberty die.
El Gallo
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2213


Reply #90 on: February 21, 2007, 11:13:42 AM

Halfased reaction to those filings: Blizzard's tortious interference counterclaim (count I) looks pretty solid to me.  I don't know enough about how Glider works or copyright law to (even halfassedly) evaluate the copyright infringement counterclaims (counts II & III).  I don't know nearly enough about the DMCA to halfasedly evaluate count IV, but the text of 17 USC 1201 (a)(2) http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00001201----000-.html looks pretty damning for Glider.  I'm not sold on the trademark infringement because I don't think it's confusing to consumers, particularly in light of the fact that Glider openly admitted that its users could be banned by Blizzard for using it.

OMG add "tortious" to spellcheck.

This post makes me want to squeeze into my badass red jeans.
Hellinar
Terracotta Army
Posts: 180


Reply #91 on: February 21, 2007, 01:18:21 PM

I don't think it would be possible to create PVE combat that would be impossible to bot.

True. But it is fairly trivial to design a game that is not worthwhile to bot. Botting relies on a linear relationship between the hours you grind, and the amount of loot and experience you obtain. There is no reason at all why this relationship should be linear. In fact, at one point in the WoW beta, they had “rest” code that severely limited experience gain after a certain limit.

Suppose your code reduced experience gain as you approached 24 hours of grinding a month, and made it negative thereafter. People could play for much longer than that per month, but grinding more than that would be pointless. Botting just wouldn’t be worth it in such a game. Of course you would lose the people who grind large amounts every week. But I think you would retain almost enough casual players to offset that. And you would save huge amounts on content development.

I can’t see that happening though, because most MMOGs are designed by people who like grinding. A non linear time/experience curve seems “unfair” to them. But it is purely a design decision, not a necessity. And it is that linear curve that makes botting worthwhile.
Krakrok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2190


Reply #92 on: February 21, 2007, 01:50:15 PM

Isn't wowglider a commercial program? That will likely be a factor I'd think.
Not really. bnetd was free but copyright infringement is copyright infringement even if the infringer isn't making any money off of it.

It only matters regarding how much money they can rape you for. You can only claim vicarious copyright infringement if the infringer profited.

The Blizzard counterclaim is weak. Their entire claim revolves around the fact that they think Blizzard only authorizes users to copy WoW into their computer’s random access memory in conformity with its license agreement. If the user is not committing copyright infringement by executing WOW through WOWGlider then all of the other Blizzard claims fail. You can't have contributory, vicarious copyright infringement, or a circumvention device without the initial copyright infringement.

As far as the trademark claim goes I think it is bogus as well. WoW is not a registered trademark. WoW is not displayed with a (tm) by it on any Blizzard material that I can see which would give weight to it being a service mark. Additionally, they contradict themselves by claiming that MDY states WOWGlider violates the Blizzard EULA and then that the use of WoW in WOWGlider causes confusion.


Best part of the counterclaim:
Use of WoWGlider impoverishes Blizzard...
Oh the humanity! Think of the starving children!


That being said I still think Blizzard is going to win.
Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536


Reply #93 on: February 21, 2007, 04:16:01 PM

I already said this.  EVERYTHING can be botted.  EVERYTHING.  The only exception I used to think was out there was FPS games, but even in that I'm pretty sure I was mistaken.

There is NO way you an come up with enough unique situations that they can't be botted.  Like I said before, it would become too byzantine or too much of a pain in the ass for legitimate players long before it was for the scripters/ programmers.
You don't need to prevent botting altogether. You just need to make a game better so it lessens the compulsion to do it.

But it's NOT just better AI. That's a strong part of course, but you need to also, as has been said, remove the grind.

Kill-based XP is the root of botting. It drives the grind. If the entire game was based on quest-advancement with NO XP rewarded per kill, then you'd have the latitude to make better AI, more dynamic, change things up.

The other thing is alt-characters. Players get pissy when they can't play the game the same way through twice. So making mobs smarter would mean someone having to actually WANT to play through the game again as if they were playing the first time. The answer here is to reward them for their FIRST completion of the game by letting them roll high-level alts.

Finally, loot. For soloing and small groups, mobs can be dynamic. It'll piss people off who like predictability, but the game we're talking about here isn't for the WoW/GW crowd anyway. So you make mob behavior better and adaptive AND scale the quality of the drop appropriately.

You can't really have 40-person raids though unless every boss encounter is against many multiple mobs or something. 40 people constantly trying to learn and adapt to a learning/adaptive AI is a recipe for scores of wasted hours and pissed off players. But raiding isn't an activity with mass-appeal anyway.
CmdrSlack
Contributor
Posts: 4390


WWW
Reply #94 on: February 21, 2007, 04:38:03 PM

Useful links and junk.

Sweet, I was hoping someone would link to court docs so I didn't have to go looking for them.

Now I have some recreational reading for later.


I traded in my fun blog for several legal blogs. Or, "blawgs," as the cutesy attorney blawgosphere likes to call 'em.
lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021


Reply #95 on: February 21, 2007, 07:30:13 PM

The endgame if a lot of games is crap, I'd rather that *not* be the focus.
If the endgame is crap then your just playing an expensive and poorly paced single player game.  The endgame is what true game remains when the four years of premade content is burned away in the first few months.  The only reason to stick with a title once you have gotten to the top level (or gotten to the top two or three times for you die hards) is the endgame.  The endgame is the MMO.  If you don't like that it means the game sucks!  The fact that MMOs have gotten better and better at delaying your realization of that fact is not game design, it's fraud.

I agree completely.

People who play WoW 1-60 and find it fun obviously havn't played a decent RPG recently.

Of course, Dikus don't just have problem with levels. There's also the whole gear dependence thing too.

I hope Blizzard loses. Maybe then we'll see some game companies try tackle the problems with Diku instead of trying to rehash for the moneyhats.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2007, 07:37:31 PM by lamaros »
Azazel
Contributor
Posts: 7735


Reply #96 on: February 21, 2007, 07:58:07 PM

People who play WoW 1-60 and find it fun obviously havn't played a decent RPG recently.

Clarify, please. With examples.


http://azazelx.wordpress.com/ - My Miniatures and Hobby Blog.
Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449

Badge Whore


Reply #97 on: February 21, 2007, 08:42:53 PM

I already said this.  EVERYTHING can be botted.  EVERYTHING.  The only exception I used to think was out there was FPS games, but even in that I'm pretty sure I was mistaken.

There is NO way you an come up with enough unique situations that they can't be botted.  Like I said before, it would become too byzantine or too much of a pain in the ass for legitimate players long before it was for the scripters/ programmers.
You don't need to prevent botting altogether. You just need to make a game better so it lessens the compulsion to do it.

But it's NOT just better AI. That's a strong part of course, but you need to also, as has been said, remove the grind.

Kill-based XP is the root of botting. It drives the grind. If the entire game was based on quest-advancement with NO XP rewarded per kill, then you'd have the latitude to make better AI, more dynamic, change things up.

The other thing is alt-characters. Players get pissy when they can't play the game the same way through twice. So making mobs smarter would mean someone having to actually WANT to play through the game again as if they were playing the first time. The answer here is to reward them for their FIRST completion of the game by letting them roll high-level alts.

Finally, loot. For soloing and small groups, mobs can be dynamic. It'll piss people off who like predictability, but the game we're talking about here isn't for the WoW/GW crowd anyway. So you make mob behavior better and adaptive AND scale the quality of the drop appropriately.

You can't really have 40-person raids though unless every boss encounter is against many multiple mobs or something. 40 people constantly trying to learn and adapt to a learning/adaptive AI is a recipe for scores of wasted hours and pissed off players. But raiding isn't an activity with mass-appeal anyway.

That pie IS awfuly high up in the sky there.

Yes, Kill-based XP is the entire root of Botting.  That's why nobody botted in UO, or developed those aimbots.

So long as there's any type of advancement, and any type of persistance you're going to have bots because some segment of the population will say "that's boring."   Hell, so long as there's any type of competition it's going to be out there to varying degrees.  The more popular the game, the more bots/ scripting programs you'll find.

"Adaptive AI" will solve nothing, I can adapt my bot, too. Complete lack of predictability in AI behavior will get you a smaller playerbase than AC2.  That's sustainable, right?

Loot can be unpredictable, we've seen that since Diablo days.   You even see it in WoW, it's no big shakes if all 'uber' drops become unpredictable.  It DOES however, drive the incentive to bot up even more as while now it's once again time-invested = better drops it's completly untied to an area or an instance or anything else that lets you have some population control. 


The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389


Reply #98 on: February 21, 2007, 09:23:29 PM

If all advancement came from unique quests then the ability to bot advancement would be at least as much work as just going through it normally. I could make a bot that leveled up in WoW solely through questing... but why? It would take forever to just input all the waypoints. Then there's going to be tonnes of holes where what do I do if X person isn't there atm, and how to handle shitty deathtrap caves and whatnot, especially if someone has semi-cleared it a minute ago and it's all respawning? Maybe it would be worth it for a professional leveling service, or maybe you could write it and sell it, but the casual market would be destroyed utterly. I am an alt-aholic and a powergamer but I won't even write down the good quest progression for myself because it would eat up too much time, let alone write a questing bot as I go.
Venkman
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11536


Reply #99 on: February 21, 2007, 09:57:07 PM

I think the only reason you'd do it Cal is if you planned to sell the bots to people ;)

Quote from: Merusk
So long as there's any type of advancement, and any type of persistance you're going to have bots because some segment of the population will say "that's boring."   Hell, so long as there's any type of competition it's going to be out there to varying degrees.  The more popular the game, the more bots/ scripting programs you'll find.
Well, duh. But like I said earlier, this is not about preventing botting altogether. There will always be some who automate simply because there's a chance they can do it.

The point is to design games that drive down that compulsion (and/or its impact on players) down to a statistically irrelevant level.

You cite UO, you grinded the same way there for the same thing. Instead of 1 linear level progression, you managed 7 or more. Same difference, even though the terminology is different. Grind to advance to unlock abilities. AND they had loot drops.

Quote
"Adaptive AI" will solve nothing, I can adapt my bot, too.
Yea, sure, and this happens all the time in games with GOOD AI. It probably does happen all the time, for the 4 or 5 people who now consider it the height of challenge to spend all their free time trying to get a bot to game for them when they could be gaming.

When I think "adaptive AI", I think PvP. We all know MMORPG class ability sets are fairly limited in any given situation. But I'm trying to imagine dozens of bots running around a WoW BG. If someone could do that, they deserve the accolades. If that's happened already, I'd love to know about it.

But that's my baseline: when you can't tell the difference between a mob and a player. Maybe that IS pie-in-sky.
Margalis
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12335


Reply #100 on: February 21, 2007, 10:50:01 PM

You guys do realize that the game itself is bots right? You can't make a video-game un-bot-able because all the NPCs and mobs are just bots themselves. It's just a question of who has better bots.

---

WoWGlider will probably lose. Just as Kazaa and Napster lost. Kazaa has legit uses but was geared towards copyright infringement. The tricky thing here is that the people making Kazaa didn't copy anything, they just allowed users to.

Same deal here. The people making WoWGlider aren't breaking the EULA, just the people running it. However WoWGlider is clearly made to break the EULA. The question I suppose is does making something to specifically break a EULA compare to making something to specifically allow music piracy?

Given the history of DMCA crap, I'm guessing the answer is yes. Nowadays you don't have to break a law yourself, making it possible for other people to do that is enough.

Which is why class action lawsuits against gun manufacturers always win - oh sorry guns are real not bits in a computer, my mistake!

vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
robusticus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 30


Reply #101 on: February 21, 2007, 11:06:18 PM

Darniaq, I was with you until you lumped GW and WoW together.  I think most of the things you are describing pretty much could of been part of a Michael O'Brien design spec.  This is ArenaNet's reason to exist.

With the exception of the dynamic content theme.  RPGs really are media, wether it is 1 person or 2000 people consuming.  Some people enjoyed watching StarWars a thousand times.  Some people simply grind XP as a habit.  But for most, watching the movie once is quite enough, as is leveling once quite enough.

Players are the only way to have truly dynamic content that isn't cheesed somehow.

4 or 5 people and the height of challenge, huh?  You set the bar too low with the WoW BG, sir.  Let's think rather along the lines of taking over all of Eve, solo.  Teh SmithCorp vs Zergers R Us.  :P  Tempting, really, just to hear em cry to heaven, but that EULA is there to prohibit success.

Somehow through all of this reverse righteousness I still dislike the HL aimbots.  It seems different, probably because of direct competition, precision balanced mechanics and the ability for players to balance the numbers instantaneously.
Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449

Badge Whore


Reply #102 on: February 22, 2007, 04:18:43 AM

If all advancement came from unique quests then the ability to bot advancement would be at least as much work as just going through it normally. I could make a bot that leveled up in WoW solely through questing... but why? It would take forever to just input all the waypoints. Then there's going to be tonnes of holes where what do I do if X person isn't there atm, and how to handle shitty deathtrap caves and whatnot, especially if someone has semi-cleared it a minute ago and it's all respawning? Maybe it would be worth it for a professional leveling service, or maybe you could write it and sell it, but the casual market would be destroyed utterly. I am an alt-aholic and a powergamer but I won't even write down the good quest progression for myself because it would eat up too much time, let alone write a questing bot as I go.

Here's the thing.  Suppose Glider wins, botting is now an industry and more folks will be selling bots that do exactly this because there's profit in it, just like RMT.  In fact, I expect it to happen in that 'grey area' more and more regardless of the outcome because enough people have now heard of Glider and botting to get that bright idea.  "Oh crap, you mean instead of just making it  and keeping it to myself I can SELL it, and let OTHER people worry about getting banned?" /facepalm

Which of course, Darniaq mentioned.


I think the only reason you'd do it Cal is if you planned to sell the bots to people ;)

Quote from: Merusk
So long as there's any type of advancement, and any type of persistance you're going to have bots because some segment of the population will say "that's boring."   Hell, so long as there's any type of competition it's going to be out there to varying degrees.  The more popular the game, the more bots/ scripting programs you'll find.
Well, duh. But like I said earlier, this is not about preventing botting altogether. There will always be some who automate simply because there's a chance they can do it.

The point is to design games that drive down that compulsion (and/or its impact on players) down to a statistically irrelevant level.

You cite UO, you grinded the same way there for the same thing. Instead of 1 linear level progression, you managed 7 or more. Same difference, even though the terminology is different. Grind to advance to unlock abilities. AND they had loot drops.

Nothing's fun forever, everything gets repetative.  Two adages we've covered many times before.  Which means you also know the other one, people play LONG after they've stopped having fun.  If botting is in any way demi-legitimized I don't see it going to any statistically irrelevant level, but instead becoming accepted in the same fashion as RMT has been.  In fact, I predict shortly we'll have someone on these boards arguing about how good it is for the genre with the same fervor some folks argue for microtransactions.


Quote
Quote
"Adaptive AI" will solve nothing, I can adapt my bot, too.
Yea, sure, and this happens all the time in games with GOOD AI. It probably does happen all the time, for the 4 or 5 people who now consider it the height of challenge to spend all their free time trying to get a bot to game for them when they could be gaming.

When I think "adaptive AI", I think PvP. We all know MMORPG class ability sets are fairly limited in any given situation. But I'm trying to imagine dozens of bots running around a WoW BG. If someone could do that, they deserve the accolades. If that's happened already, I'd love to know about it.

But that's my baseline: when you can't tell the difference between a mob and a player. Maybe that IS pie-in-sky.

I don't believe it's only 4 to 5 people at all.  It may have been when scripting and such was much more complex but the tools keep getting simpler as people take previous bots alter them, then release them.  There were entire macro libraries just for legal WoW Add-ons, so I've no reason to believe that there aren't for bots as well.

As to a dozen bots in a BG, if there were enough reward to it, it would happen.  I wonder if it doesn't already, since the faction and Honor-grinding services have taken off.  You don't get honor just sitting there, but the price is so low I dobut even the chinese sweatshops can't keep people doing it for the time investment.

You guys do realize that the game itself is bots right? You can't make a video-game un-bot-able because all the NPCs and mobs are just bots themselves. It's just a question of who has better bots.

Good point.   So if the NPC Ai ever could achieve what Darniaq's proposing, there's nothing to stop a 3rd party program from achieving it as well, except time and the programmer's determination.

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657


Reply #103 on: February 22, 2007, 05:20:26 AM

Good point.   So if the NPC Ai ever could achieve what Darniaq's proposing, there's nothing to stop a 3rd party program from achieving it as well, except time and the programmer's determination.
Client-side bots can never do the same things as a server-side bot. A server-side bot has access to information that the client doesn't have and a server-side bot can be made to do things (e.g. teleport to a new location based on some sort of server-side trigger) that a client-side bot can not.
Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389


Reply #104 on: February 22, 2007, 05:42:47 AM

Here's the thing.  Suppose Glider wins, botting is now an industry and more folks will be selling bots that do exactly this because there's profit in it, just like RMT.  In fact, I expect it to happen in that 'grey area' more and more regardless of the outcome because enough people have now heard of Glider and botting to get that bright idea.  "Oh crap, you mean instead of just making it  and keeping it to myself I can SELL it, and let OTHER people worry about getting banned?" /facepalm

Agreed. I was never under an illusion that you'd be able to stop somebody from making and selling a bot via pure mechanics, you could only get rid of the casual botters. The more work it takes to construct the bot, the less worthwhile it is, or the less casual appeal it has due to the extra pricetag it would require. Right now a bot is comically easy to build, which makes even winning the case not so much of a big deal to Blizzard. If they win this they still have all the small bot communities and all the people casually making things like fish bots (my old guild used one a guildie knocked up in half a day). If they win, all the next game has to do is make it inviable for the casual market and go after any big fish that pop up.

It's going to be interesting how it turns out though. Like you said if they lose it's just going to be open season for botting regardless of what anyone does.
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  MMOG Discussion  |  Topic: Automated Bot'ing: WoWGlider vs Blizzard  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC