Have the bots won?

Xilc

No

Kahlar wrote: »

yes, bots have won...
never before have i seen soooooo many bots (and farming accounts)
Zen/Beth must be desperate for subscriptions to put up with this.
the bots don't hide or fake anything...
always spamming/cheating/hacking right in the open.
often in groups of 3-6 ...
soooo blatant and uncontested *sigh*

Just because they haven't done anything yet doesn't mean they will.. :l

ShedsHisTail

No

Xilc wrote: »

Just because they haven't done anything yet doesn't mean they will.. :l

Not reassuring...

Sunrock

The war on bots is a bit like the war on drugs... A war that you can never win but never stop fighting either.

Can things be done better? Yes of course. It's just a question on how mush resources ZOS wants to spend on it.

PS: The poll is really stupid

starkerealm

Yes

dietlime wrote: »

Khandi wrote: »

redwoodtreesprite wrote: »

GreySix wrote: »

Mitrenga wrote: »

Imho, next month is very critical for ZOS. As many of us believe in this project, there are also many people share the idea that the game is not exactly what's been promised before the launch.

Have to admit - having a similar feeling that lots of folks are sitting on the fence, giving ZOS the benefit of the doubt to see what they'll do with just a little more time.

We are. My husband is ready to quit right now, he is so mad about all the bots and gold spam. And he has played ES games since Arena. He loves the Elder Scrolls world. Deeply. I have been playing since Daggerfall. Dedicated most of my free time for years to Morrowind modding. We REALLY want this game to succeed. But it is a sub game, and there are others we could choose to sub to instead. If things do not get better with the bots (and gear decay) within two months, we will take a long vacation from the work this game has become.

I just unsubed two accounts today and totally feel your pain.

Not a very good reason to quit. There are lots of things that would turn a player off to this game, but the bots in low level areas haven't impacted my gameplay at all.

I've experienced gold spam in every major MMO and they've managed to stop gold spam in the zone chats somehow, probably by manually banning people quietly.

I have never seen a game overrun this thoroughly. I've seen goldseller spam in every MMO, for the first couple weeks, but TESO is the first time I've ever logged in to see twenty goldspam mails in my inbox. I've never seen bosses spawncamped by bots, and I've never seen a game where quests were literally uncompletable because bots were camping the quest mobs.

Yes, goldsellers and bots are a fact of life in an early MMO... we're now past the 45 day mark; the bots are still here; and the goldseller spam is incredible.

canghai

No

i dont see the big deal about bots, not saying its ok to bot, but i see them and ignore them and go on about my gaming, whats the problem is?

ciannait

Yes

Sunrock wrote: »

The war on bots is a bit like the war on drugs... A war that you can never win but never stop fighting either.

Can things be done better? Yes of course. It's just a question on how mush resources ZOS wants to spend on it.

PS: The poll is really stupid

Pretty soon they won't have any subscribers left to pay for the programmers they need to actually fix this, so it would behoove them to do it sooner rather than later. If they don't want to spend the resources to fix it, that's fine, I'll just decide not to spend the resources to subscribe.

Loco_Mofo

No

starkerealm wrote: »

I have never seen a game overrun this thoroughly. I've seen goldseller spam in every MMO, for the first couple weeks, but TESO is the first time I've ever logged in to see twenty goldspam mails in my inbox. I've never seen bosses spawncamped by bots, and I've never seen a game where quests were literally uncompletable because bots were camping the quest mobs.

Yes, goldsellers and bots are a fact of life in an early MMO... we're now past the 45 day mark; the bots are still here; and the goldseller spam is incredible.

People have extremely different experiences with bots/gold spammers.

Yes they're a problem, but not a serious one anymore IMO.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, as I'll get between 0-2 gold spam mail in my inbox when i login. This is greatly different to the person I quoted having 20.

I also haven't seen bots camping a boss for a number of weeks now.

I've never experienced a bot that stopped my game progression.

The only two areas a saw bot trains was around the starting city and in Cold Harbor.

All this is hardly a major issue to me. Experienced worse in other games frankly.

starkerealm

Yes

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

Yes they're a problem, but not a serious one anymore IMO.

Honestly, if they are concentrated in low level zones, as the seem to be, they're a much more serious problem than if they were scattered throughout. This one's kinda simple, but, basically, if you just bought the game, log in, and your first experience, on getting into the world, is bot trains everywhere, that's going to color your opinion of the game.

When they were confined to the delves, even if their numbers were higher, it was less serious because, again, not the first thing new players see. They had a chance to get in, experience the game as intended, and then see bots. But, with them scattered all over the entry level zones, the bots pose a real threat to the long term health of the game.

Also, my luck is incredibly weird. Fantastic for some stuff, utterly *** upon from on high the rest.

Carnage2K4

Yes

Going by these Forums I'd even say they have won pretty clearly.
Lets look at an example:

OP

Well sat there and captured video of a group of bots in action, with the user name of a character at the head, just killing the same MOB over and over.......the question is where to send it????

Only thing in game is a screen capture.

Mod - ZOS_JasonL

Hey there, @Jday444_ESO‌. We ask that if you would like to report a player for inappropriate activity, you do so in-game by right-clicking their name and selecting the "Report Player" function. You can also submit a ticket if you'd like to report any exploits. Thank you for helping us keep ESO free of bots.

Me:

Please... don't bother even suggesting this.
1. with 20-30 bots in ONE area it's really hard to do ZOS's work for them.
2. these *** bots move SO fast, you can't report them a lot of the time.
3. most of them are being created, doing one mission (like the race quest in winterhelm) and then sending off the $$$ and deleting the character, making it a pointless waste of time to try and report.

Mod - ZOS_LenaicR

Hi guys,

We can confirm that we're working in order to fight the bots and the Gold Sellers.

Please, if you believe that you're encoutering a bot or a Gold Seller, we would like you to report them for innapropriate activity. You can do so in-game by right-clicking their name in the chat and selecting the "Report Player" function.This also can be done by getting close to the bot, and using the report system as action.

We really would like to thank you all for reporting exploits and bots!

In the mean time, this thread has been locked. We'd like to encourage you to stay polite and appropriate when chatting on our forums.

It's over... Bots won... even the bloody Mods are bots...

Cogo

No

david271749 wrote: »

Feel free to explain why you voted yes or no below.

A big Whopping NO.

HOWEVER, there has been sighted players who offers game items from real world money. That is as serious as bots.

Stop bloody buying stuff from these vermen. Play the game and get what you are after on your own work.

Every single person who buys a single thing from goldsellers/farmers, are creating at least 10 more of em. Report, let Zenimax kick em out And dont bloody buy gold you lazy humans

zhevon

Yes

dietlime wrote: »

Khandi wrote: »

I just unsubed two accounts today and totally feel your pain.

Not a very good reason to quit. There are lots of things that would turn a player off to this game, but the bots in low level areas haven't impacted my gameplay at all.

I've experienced gold spam in every major MMO and they've managed to stop gold spam in the zone chats somehow, probably by manually banning people quietly.

Oh ... really not a good reason to quit. Say you are happily playing a long and gee I need to get harvest mats. Well its generally getting more difficult because most I have run into have bots gathering resources and half the time they are under the ground. Oh I can get some mats by deconstructing dungeon stuff - on nohes they nerf'd those as well. Oh you need gold to buy storage, repair or respec - one of the only sure ways of getting gold is questing and mining/chopping. Its a frustrating mess.

zaria

starkerealm wrote: »

Loco_Mofo wrote: »

Yes they're a problem, but not a serious one anymore IMO.

Honestly, if they are concentrated in low level zones, as the seem to be, they're a much more serious problem than if they were scattered throughout. This one's kinda simple, but, basically, if you just bought the game, log in, and your first experience, on getting into the world, is bot trains everywhere, that's going to color your opinion of the game.

When they were confined to the delves, even if their numbers were higher, it was less serious because, again, not the first thing new players see. They had a chance to get in, experience the game as intended, and then see bots. But, with them scattered all over the entry level zones, the bots pose a real threat to the long term health of the game.

Also, my luck is incredibly weird. Fantastic for some stuff, utterly *** upon from on high the rest.

Agree here, I did not started doing public dungeons until level 20 or something as they looked too hard, going back to the level 5-15 area and doing them I saw my first bots.
Gold spam in chat was a major problem in the beginning but less now, spam mail is pretty stable, around 3-4 week, however this is an increase from 1-2 some weeks ago.

Has been some time since I have been in the starting zones so I don't know how bad it is however its no doubt bots has spread out a lot.
Solution is automatic systems, someone who has farmed jute for 12 hour non stop after starting the game and is still level 3 is an pretty obvious bot so the account can be disabled automatically.
Yes the bot makers will adjust but this will take time and probably also reduce the number of bot programs used

andreas.rudroffb16_ESO

Yes

i am still waiting for the forum announcement (the red box ontop) to be changed to:

"ZOS_VXXVXBHGHFUZI: Gold cheap, visit new cathegory keke_u_buy_here"

(satirical, but i am a sad panda looking at 15 bots just right now flying/clipping around, wile leveling my DK alt)

JoyEnergiser

No

The bots have won ? What a laugh. You speak as if no other MMORPG had bots in the launching months.

Get real and get some perspective

Silverose0

Yes

For now the bots are winning.
Resource nodes are so scarce now that the only way to get enough materials to craft is to buy them from the bot-running accounts. I will not do that, so once I run through my supply of resources, (gathered from the time before bots were everywhere and resources were plentiful) I'm done with the game until the bots are under control.

Spectrasoul

No

I voted no in the sense of "No, not yet."

I sincerely hope that they will never win. Right now I feel like we're on the verge of going one way or the other. Without a doubt how it is at this moment in time is unacceptable. I hope that the devs are working behind the scenes to combat this.

I truly believe that the gaming community as a whole, all the developers (ZOS, Blizzard, Jagex, etc.) need to come together and find a way to stop bots ruining their games.

Buying gold may seem harmless but it often funds real world crimes such as credit card fraud. It's not a few basement dwellers running a bot farm it's real world criminal gangs. I'm not saying this is true of every bot ever but for the vast majority it is.

Changing code or coming up with ways to temporarily disable them is ok for the short term but they always come back.

Everyone needs to come together and decide how to stop this once and for all. My personal thinking is to add a clause to the EULA which allows criminal prosecution for those selling for real world money, and anyone caught buying this gold is liable for a real world fine. Obviously there would be a lot of complications with this and I doubt many will agree, it's just a thought. But my point is that extreme action is needed by all the game companies, not just ZOS.

As for the present, simply put: This cannot go on. I genuinely feel for ZOS because time, money, effort and resources which should be going into further game content or new ideas is being wasted on combating this evil. It must be stopped though because it's out of hand as it is now and is getting to the point where it is having a detrimental effect on the real players.

Lodestar

Yes

Cogo wrote: »

david271749 wrote: »

Feel free to explain why you voted yes or no below.

A big Whopping NO.

HOWEVER, there has been sighted players who offers game items from real world money. That is as serious as bots.

Stop bloody buying stuff from these vermen. Play the game and get what you are after on your own work.

Every single person who buys a single thing from goldsellers/farmers, are creating at least 10 more of em. Report, let Zenimax kick em out And dont bloody buy gold you lazy humans

See, I spent a lot of money on this game. I am not going to hand over any more with good reason. And whether it goes to ZOS or another party, it still handing out more cash for the same game. I spent enough.

KerinKor

Spectrasoul wrote: »

My personal thinking is to add a clause to the EULA which allows criminal prosecution for those selling for real world money, and anyone caught buying this gold is liable for a real world fine.

I'll assume you're still at school and don't know how the law works .. a 'criminal' law is created a government not by company adding a clause to a contract.

waylander48

Yes

I was in the glister vale area of auridon today saw a jute node runs across to harvest as I was about to do so a little head popped out of the ground infront of me and got it first.

saw a iron node just across the path so I sprinted to it to get there before the bot I was too late.

if your like me and craft your own gear and use drops and quest rewards to research traits you cant do jack when you can hardly find any mats.

and for gods sake have a few GM'S in the starter zones to insta kill the bots new players see all the crazy bot stuff very early in the game not something that's going to make people recommend the game to friends and without new players the game will go the way of many others.

good thing about that is no players no bots which would be a shame for us that love the game.

starkerealm

Yes

JoyEnergiser wrote: »

The bots have won ? What a laugh. You speak as if no other MMORPG had bots in the launching months.

Get real and get some perspective

This is true. Also true that in the last five years, I've never seen an MMO this overrun for this long. Actually, I've never seen an MMO this overrun.

Bots hit every game, and the devs dutifully stomp them out in the first couple weeks... here we are over a month and a half in and bots everywhere.

kitsinni

Yes

I have seen more bots in the last week alone than in the last decade of playing MMO's. I would say they not only won, they have won the last 4 superbowls of botting.

ZOS responce .. we will only accept in game reporting through a system that the bots have found ways around. You will need to dedicate hours of your time to reporting them and we may still ignore it all. No other form of proof or reporting will be accepted. We will not implement any way to report anyone that you can't get close enough to, to see their name or hit F to report.

randomriffyrocksprerb18_ESO

If they win and we lost, then people would not play ESO anymore. If people don't play ESO anymore, then the bots will have nobody to sell gold to. Hence if they win, they will also lose.

I'd say the battle is in moratorium, since both bots and players still exist

steveb16_ESO46

Yes

When 12 bots are in fast movement, all occupying the same space, it is impossible to report them. The best I can do is catch a name and add on the report than there are a ton of other bots.

I'm crossing my fingers on an epic fightback. This is a fight Zen have to win, win big and win quickly. At the moment the actions they take just shift the problem around.

I'm playing the ArcheAge alpha at the moment and on launch the first thing that boots up is a Hackshield to screen client-server communications. It apparently works to pick up things like teleport and speed hacks.

I'm assuming we'll be seeing something like this here very soon.

Not that the korean original of ArcheAge is bot-free but hopefully Trion are ringing their experience to bear.

Go for it Zen!

Darzil

Not yet, but seeing VR1 bots running round areas in Coldharbour, with level 2 bots dropping from the sky and hitting level 3, and farming bots running across the sky you wonder whether they will. I cannot believe that farming bots can hit VR1 without getting banned, it's incredible.

siledre

Yes

I voted yes because unfortunately they've gotten a massive foothold in the MMO world, I think they even bought out a couple legit game sites.

zhevon

Yes

kitsinni wrote: »

I have seen more bots in the last week alone than in the last decade of playing MMO's. I would say they not only won, they have won the last 4 superbowls of botting.

ZOS responce .. we will only accept in game reporting through a system that the bots have found ways around. You will need to dedicate hours of your time to reporting them and we may still ignore it all. No other form of proof or reporting will be accepted. We will not implement any way to report anyone that you can't get close enough to, to see their name or hit F to report.

Plus if you dare post activity on these forums thread gets closed. hear-no-evil,speak-no-evil,see-no-evil. In addition ZOS refuses to make relatively simple changes to their in-game gold-sinks (at least temporarily) to discourage gold/resource buying from these guys.

jambam817_ESO

No

i trained a Bull Netch on a bot who got stuck on a cliff. It was funny cuz they died

StoneSilence

No

If it weren't for the spam mail I get, I wouldn't even know bots exist. They are more prevalent in <VR areas, but that is not a win.

starkerealm

Yes

siledre wrote: »

I voted yes because unfortunately they've gotten a massive foothold in the MMO world, I think they even bought out a couple legit game sites.

Oh?

twev

Yes

It makes little difference whether the bots make it to the Vet levels, for all those new players or lowbies who log in, see the swarms of bots vacuuming up all the bots, and unsubscribe before they get the chance to progress much.

Assuredly, this game will not survive on the backs of just the players who are vet subscribers or the ones who tough it out, if the lowbies don't stick around to do the heavy lifting to pay the subscriptions.