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Not all “bots” are bots some are actual people
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idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭FlopsyPrince wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »If it's a robot or human bot, doesn't matter. Report them anyway. If it's a person you have the bonus of making human exploitation harder.
How if they ignore it?
And why is it necessarily exploited if they are human? Should they starve instead?
Technically they do not ignore it. They just move slower than we would like. However, in the case of this thread, OP has told us the person is paying real-world money for in-game items. That alone is against the ToS and Zos has started looking into this and we know Zos has acted on this before.
LOL, A player discovered guild trader transactions that were far too high and reported it here in the forums. Not long after Zos inquired privately to get details some people had complained in other forums about the player exposing them. This actually hit the central players.
So Zos does pay attention but seems to only move fast for the big stuff.Edited by idk on August 20, 2020 9:14PM0 -
idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭DigitalHype wrote: »There are many people who are in-game gold poor, and real world "well off". These individuals are often buying Crowns to sell for gold so they can obtain something without spending any time in-game making gold.
The bot farmers are the supply side here. They are in-game gold wealthy. Those bot farmers become an indirect source of Crown purchases from ZoS. This is why ZoS looks the other way when it comes to the crowns for gold transactions. In reality, everything that isn't a BoP can be purcahsed with real money, even if ZoS doesn't put it on the store.
In a preverse way, I think they are generating revenue for ZoS. Thus, I don't expect anything to change.
Bot farmers are a direct cause of inflation in MMORPGs. They are unhealthy for the game no matter how it is spun.2 -
DigitalHype✭✭✭✭Blacknight841 wrote: »DigitalHype wrote: »There are many people who are in-game gold poor, and real world "well off". These individuals are often buying Crowns to sell for gold so they can obtain something without spending any time in-game making gold.
The bot farmers are the supply side here. They are in-game gold wealthy. Those bot farmers become an indirect source of Crown purchases from ZoS. This is why ZoS looks the other way when it comes to the crowns for gold transactions. In reality, everything that isn't a BoP can be purcahsed with real money, even if ZoS doesn't put it on the store.
In a preverse way, I think they are generating revenue for ZoS. Thus, I don't expect anything to change.
This is inaccurate, bots do not care about crowns. They sell gold for cash. The people who are well off and buy gold have two avenues to take ... either buy gold against the TOS, or buy crowns. Bots take away from crown sales.
I'm not convinced these are all gold-farming industry types looking to cash out. I'm pretty sure some of these are being used by actual players of the game that want crown store goodies, based on some out-of-band conversations I've had in other forums.
But, let's say all of these are just looking to sell for cash...
Then I guess it means one of these must be true, right?
1. ZoS is shooting themselves in the foot by not being more proactive at policing this. [snip]
[snip]
4. We're all wrong. There isn't a prevailing bot problem. ZoS is doing a great job shutting them down.
[Edited to remove Bashing and Conspiracy Theory]Edited by ZOS_ConnorG on August 21, 2020 12:48PM0 -
Blacknight841✭✭✭✭✭Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »Blacknight841 wrote: »DigitalHype wrote: »There are many people who are in-game gold poor, and real world "well off". These individuals are often buying Crowns to sell for gold so they can obtain something without spending any time in-game making gold.
The bot farmers are the supply side here. They are in-game gold wealthy. Those bot farmers become an indirect source of Crown purchases from ZoS. This is why ZoS looks the other way when it comes to the crowns for gold transactions. In reality, everything that isn't a BoP can be purcahsed with real money, even if ZoS doesn't put it on the store.
In a preverse way, I think they are generating revenue for ZoS. Thus, I don't expect anything to change.
This is inaccurate, bots do not care about crowns. They sell gold for cash. The people who are well off and buy gold have two avenues to take ... either buy gold against the TOS, or buy crowns. Bots take away from crown sales.
True, but assuming efficient markets, we can use data from one to extrapolate value on the other. If you want to convert cash to gold, you have two options. Sell crowns (seems to be okay with the TOS). Buy from gold farmers (against TOS, and should result in a perma ban after a public flogging). I am not saying they are identical, but i am guessing they are closer than most people think.
They can be identical, doesn't really matter. The bottom line is if you eliminate the ability for the competition to sell gold (the bots), then zos is left with the majority of the market.
And if zos is leveraging the bots to help the game economy and keep the value of items in check, then that is the equivalent of the government saying we are keeping the bank robbers out of prison so that the citizens will never get rich.Edited by Blacknight841 on August 21, 2020 4:13AM2 -
Blacknight841✭✭✭✭✭DigitalHype wrote: »Blacknight841 wrote: »DigitalHype wrote: »There are many people who are in-game gold poor, and real world "well off". These individuals are often buying Crowns to sell for gold so they can obtain something without spending any time in-game making gold.
The bot farmers are the supply side here. They are in-game gold wealthy. Those bot farmers become an indirect source of Crown purchases from ZoS. This is why ZoS looks the other way when it comes to the crowns for gold transactions. In reality, everything that isn't a BoP can be purcahsed with real money, even if ZoS doesn't put it on the store.
In a preverse way, I think they are generating revenue for ZoS. Thus, I don't expect anything to change.
This is inaccurate, bots do not care about crowns. They sell gold for cash. The people who are well off and buy gold have two avenues to take ... either buy gold against the TOS, or buy crowns. Bots take away from crown sales.
I'm not convinced these are all gold-farming industry types looking to cash out. I'm pretty sure some of these are being used by actual players of the game that want crown store goodies, based on some out-of-band conversations I've had in other forums.
But, let's say all of these are just looking to sell for cash...
Then I guess it means one of these must be true, right?
1. ZoS is shooting themselves in the foot by not being more proactive at policing this. [snip]
[snip]
4. We're all wrong. There isn't a prevailing bot problem. ZoS is doing a great job shutting them down.
1. [snip] also preventing themselves from being the major source of cash to gold via crowns, thus losing out on potential profits
2. If the choice is between fixing the problem and mitigating the problem then I agree, they are wasting their time. You either prevent the issue or you should let it run rampant. There is no point in watching a bank heist and saying, "we will get them if the do it too often", no, you either get a more secure bank, or you are wasting time and money
3. There is no situation in which zos benefits from this. If they use it to leverage the market and keep the economy in check, then you built a poor economy, and it could be leveraged by increasing and decreasing the drops of materials, like a normal game. The bots take zos's crown profits, plain and simple. The player base that is new to the game cannot find materials int he starting zones. The players that enjoy working hard to get ahead get screwed over by those that cut corners, and its even worse when this type of action is not only ignored, but reinforced by zos.
4. The bots a problem, otherwise it would never have been brought up on the forums. You don't see people complaining on here about the quality of life that fish live in eso and how they should not be confined to just fishing holes... because it isn't a problem and people do not get effected by it. Shutting them down is not the same as preventing them. You can not fix a leaking boat by using a bucket to get the water out, no matter how much water may be in the boat at any given time... the boat is still sinking.
The simple fact is if you are willing to let people cheat, more will do it. If someone were to come up ask, "how can you make gold the fastest", the easiest response is buy it, or buy the materials from the bots. And when that person responds, isn't that against the tos one can only reply with, "yeah but zenimax has ignored the problem for 6 years, dont worry about it everyone does it, and even if you you get caught, you will, get numerous warnings, and they never even take the items from your inventory!"
Its like walking up to person being mugged in the middle of the street and yelling for the cops, then having the mugger look at you and say "they don't care." You respond, aren't you worried about the law and getting caught, and the person just looks at you and says "NOPE!"
The problem is even greater on console as you do not have to buy a new license to the game, so the cost of getting banned isn't even making money for zos. A person can make 32 tags on an xbox, all with a single copy of the game.
[Edited to remove Bashing]Edited by ZOS_ConnorG on August 21, 2020 12:50PM1 -
Blacknight841✭✭✭✭✭In the world of bacteria, a disinfectant can kill 99% of the pathogens. However that 1% is resistant and will spread. So more powerful antibacterial disinfectants are created, which will once again kill 99% of the pathogens, and the cycle continues. This is how you fight a reoccurring and unsolvable problem. This is not what zenimax does. What they do is wait until the bacteria culture is so large that they can see it from a distance, and then they take the bacteria, scrape off half of it and burn it. Then they sit back and watch it repopulate. Doesn't matter how efficient the bacteria is or how resistant, they all have a chance to regrow. This is not a solution. They are not even making it more difficult to bot, the sad thing is that it is far easier to do it now than 5 years ago.Edited by Blacknight841 on August 21, 2020 4:53AM0
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FlopsyPrince✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Blacknight841 wrote: »FlopsyPrince wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »If it's a robot or human bot, doesn't matter. Report them anyway. If it's a person you have the bonus of making human exploitation harder.
How if they ignore it?
And why is it necessarily exploited if they are human? Should they starve instead?
Just because a person is willing to give up their humanity to survive, doesn't mean you should accept it.
So you would rather have them starve than go against your definition of humanity? That is a pretty harsh thing for those who don't have your "first world problems"!PC
PS4/PS51 -
FlopsyPrince✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Blacknight841 wrote: »FlopsyPrince wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »If it's a robot or human bot, doesn't matter. Report them anyway. If it's a person you have the bonus of making human exploitation harder.
How if they ignore it?
And why is it necessarily exploited if they are human? Should they starve instead?
Just because a person is willing to give up their humanity to survive, doesn't mean you should accept it.
So you would rather have them starve than go against your definition of humanity? That is a pretty harsh thing for those who don't have your "first world problems"!FlopsyPrince wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »If it's a robot or human bot, doesn't matter. Report them anyway. If it's a person you have the bonus of making human exploitation harder.
How if they ignore it?
And why is it necessarily exploited if they are human? Should they starve instead?
Technically they do not ignore it. They just move slower than we would like. However, in the case of this thread, OP has told us the person is paying real-world money for in-game items. That alone is against the ToS and Zos has started looking into this and we know Zos has acted on this before.
LOL, A player discovered guild trader transactions that were far too high and reported it here in the forums. Not long after Zos inquired privately to get details some people had complained in other forums about the player exposing them. This actually hit the central players.
So Zos does pay attention but seems to only move fast for the big stuff.
I have reported a bunch and I am fairly sure they were still there doing the same thing weeks later. I didn't write everything down, so perhaps I am wrong, but I did not see any action at all. I figured "why waste my play time".PC
PS4/PS51 -
Aideian✭✭✭Blacknight841 wrote: »Blacknight841 wrote: »CMDR_Un1k0rn wrote: »FlopsyPrince wrote: »This is likely against the ESO terms of service, but some of you need to get off your high horses a bit and realize even low wage farming work might be more than they could make otherwise.
Many do not think this through. Sometimes "slave labor" like this is better than starving with "no labor". Keep that in mind (do some research on the topic) before you have a knee jerk reaction against the concept.
It reminds me of the "dating" I see in a lot of fantasy anime and books/webnovels. Idiotic as only the modern age had the idea of dating, and that was very recent. Keep in mind that the world doesn't work as nice and neatly as us with "first world problems" often think.
That is true whether it is the past or other parts of the world.
I'm shocked by how few western people know about these realities. In the age of the internet it's very easy to find out about these truths. Communication has never been more accessible to us.
That’s kind of why I didn’t think I should bother sharing this, not only do people not understand or believe this unfortunate reality they also just don’t care either way and it’s not like sharing this is going to do anything but I guess it does let people who do understand this reality get a glimpse on what really goes on in video games because eso definitely isn’t the only one.
The core issue is that Zenimax promotes this type of action by not doing anything to prevent it. Prevent being the keyword, not just control the issue. The same way it is up to a jeweler to make sure that the diamond in your ring isn't stained with blood, the same way the developer should responsible for the injustice in their games.
I mean I’m sure they could ban this person if they wanted to, although I don’t have proof they could probably check their mail or any of their transactions and see something sketchy going on, or at least I’d assume they could, maybe they launder everything perfect where it’s undetectable from Zenimax.
There is no such thing as undetectable to zos, the game log is very specific and records everything that happens. If you look at other game logs, like BDO, you can see every transaction made on the account. -picked up 5 wood, -deposited 10 gold into bank, sent item to person.... and so on. If they wanted to trace it, they could go all the way back and find the oldest non destroyed items in the game.
Then I’m not sure why zos hasn’t banned them yet, I know I’m not the only one that has reported them. I guess zenimax hasn’t bothered looking into them and has no plans to.0 -
FlopsyPrince✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Blacknight841 wrote: »Blacknight841 wrote: »CMDR_Un1k0rn wrote: »FlopsyPrince wrote: »This is likely against the ESO terms of service, but some of you need to get off your high horses a bit and realize even low wage farming work might be more than they could make otherwise.
Many do not think this through. Sometimes "slave labor" like this is better than starving with "no labor". Keep that in mind (do some research on the topic) before you have a knee jerk reaction against the concept.
It reminds me of the "dating" I see in a lot of fantasy anime and books/webnovels. Idiotic as only the modern age had the idea of dating, and that was very recent. Keep in mind that the world doesn't work as nice and neatly as us with "first world problems" often think.
That is true whether it is the past or other parts of the world.
I'm shocked by how few western people know about these realities. In the age of the internet it's very easy to find out about these truths. Communication has never been more accessible to us.
That’s kind of why I didn’t think I should bother sharing this, not only do people not understand or believe this unfortunate reality they also just don’t care either way and it’s not like sharing this is going to do anything but I guess it does let people who do understand this reality get a glimpse on what really goes on in video games because eso definitely isn’t the only one.
The core issue is that Zenimax promotes this type of action by not doing anything to prevent it. Prevent being the keyword, not just control the issue. The same way it is up to a jeweler to make sure that the diamond in your ring isn't stained with blood, the same way the developer should responsible for the injustice in their games.
I mean I’m sure they could ban this person if they wanted to, although I don’t have proof they could probably check their mail or any of their transactions and see something sketchy going on, or at least I’d assume they could, maybe they launder everything perfect where it’s undetectable from Zenimax.
There is no such thing as undetectable to zos, the game log is very specific and records everything that happens. If you look at other game logs, like BDO, you can see every transaction made on the account. -picked up 5 wood, -deposited 10 gold into bank, sent item to person.... and so on. If they wanted to trace it, they could go all the way back and find the oldest non destroyed items in the game.
Then I’m not sure why zos hasn’t banned them yet, I know I’m not the only one that has reported them. I guess zenimax hasn’t bothered looking into them and has no plans to.
They could find them (easily?) if they wanted to do that, especially using Big Data techniques and such. They clearly do not prioritize that very high however.PC
PS4/PS50 -
Cadbury✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Quite a number of years ago, I read an article in a PC mag where they interviewed a guy who ran a business very similar to how OP describes it (hiring people to farm and promote his gold- selling business) in WOW. He flat out said he had disdain for those who reported bots and farmers. His reasoning was that by hiring people from third world countries he was giving them at least a semi-reasonable and safe job opportunity as opposed to working in unsafe conditions like a sweat shop. And by reporting them, you were making their livelihood worse.
"If a person is truly desirous of something, perhaps being set on fire does not seem so bad."0 -
FlopsyPrince✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Quite a number of years ago, I read an article in a PC mag where they interviewed a guy who ran a business very similar to how OP describes it (hiring people to farm and promote his gold- selling business) in WOW. He flat out said he had disdain for those who reported bots and farmers. His reasoning was that by hiring people from third world countries he was giving them at least a semi-reasonable and safe job opportunity as opposed to working in unsafe conditions like a sweat shop. And by reporting them, you were making their livelihood worse.
I could possibly agree with him, except that his "business" went against the WoW terms of service and thus was not allowed.
He may have been helping others, but violating the game's rights to make whatever rules in that area they want is not proper either.PC
PS4/PS50 -
Elsonso✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Quite a number of years ago, I read an article in a PC mag where they interviewed a guy who ran a business very similar to how OP describes it (hiring people to farm and promote his gold- selling business) in WOW. He flat out said he had disdain for those who reported bots and farmers. His reasoning was that by hiring people from third world countries he was giving them at least a semi-reasonable and safe job opportunity as opposed to working in unsafe conditions like a sweat shop. And by reporting them, you were making their livelihood worse.
I guess that makes ESO an almost perfect game for this guy. It takes a long time for ZOS to respond to automated bots, and I question whether the case where people are paid to farm even rises to a suitable level of awareness inside ZOS. As far as I know, someone would have to report them for ZOS to be aware of the situation. I know I am not reporting any human farmers, whether they are working for themselves or someone else. I only report automated bots.
Even if people get paid to tend automated bots, by the time ZOS gets around to banning the account, everyone involved has probably made some money.
XBox EU/NA:@ElsonsoJannus
PC NA/EU: @Elsonso
PSN NA/EU: @ElsonsoJannus
Total in-game hours: 11321
X/Twitter: ElsonsoJannus0 -
Eliahnus✭✭✭✭✭At this time some people are selling thousands of Heartwood in stacks of 200 at triple its worth in different guilds on EU server, and buy everything else below their price. It's very easy for ZOS to single them out and ban them; it's just a query in their database to find the bot accounts and the seller accounts they send their stuff to. Very annoying they seems to do nothing about this.0
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silvereyes✭✭✭✭✭
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A and C are dead giveaways, but B, by itself, isn't conclusive. The addon HarvestMap has a farming route feature, and sometimes it's faster to go run or ride up to the empty node just to progress the route to the next entry.VaranisArano wrote: »How I tell a bot:
A. Multiple right angle turns are a dead giveaway, especially in a group
B. Following a preset route that including jogging up to nodes I just looted. A human player would see there's nothing there and skip it.
C. A group running around in overland PVE with the sort of coordination my PVP raid leads would kill for.[PC/NA] @silvereyes | My Addons on ESOUI.com0 -
FlopsyPrince✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭silvereyes wrote: »
A and C are dead giveaways, but B, by itself, isn't conclusive. The addon HarvestMap has a farming route feature, and sometimes it's faster to go run or ride up to the empty node just to progress the route to the next entry.VaranisArano wrote: »How I tell a bot:
A. Multiple right angle turns are a dead giveaway, especially in a group
B. Following a preset route that including jogging up to nodes I just looted. A human player would see there's nothing there and skip it.
C. A group running around in overland PVE with the sort of coordination my PVP raid leads would kill for.
I wish that was on the PS4!PC
PS4/PS50