There have definitely been more bots in ESO than I've seen in other MMOs, but to put things in perspective, this is less than two months out of launch. This is the time that you will see a lot of botting and gold farming in MMOs. It usually drops off when some of the early adopters leave to try other games launching like Wildstar.

I'm no fan of these bots and would rather they be eradicated sooner rather than later, but let's be realistic - the reason bots are there are because: 1) there are unscrupulous people who use bots to generate resources, be that gold or character levels or gear; and more importantly 2) there are people willing to pay real money to obtain those services. In many cases these botters aren't even selling gold at all - they just have a website front to capture credit card information that they will then use for fraudulent purposes.

I think rather than asking "have the bots won" less than two months out of launch, we have to be realistic about what Zenimax, or any online publisher, can do. Until you remove the demand for these services people will just figure out ways to beat the system. No company has unlimited resources to police this 24/7, not when you have a subscription model game where new content needs to be worked on and pushed out and existing content needs to be refined and bug fixed, in such a short time out of launch. For every dollar spent on a GM being online watching for bots to ban them (which is like that little Dutch girl putting her fingers in the holes in the dike), it's a dollar that is not spend on those other things. This isn't a single player game with no demand for real money transactions. This is the real world where unfortunately crime happens despite our best efforts. Possibly the Elder Scrolls franchise, with its reputation for immersion, would have drawn a higher proportion of single player gamers for whom these bots are an unpleasant surprise which could account for some of the hysteria surrounding this at this early stage of the game.

Even WoW had bot problems for years. At one point during Burning Crusade I remember seeing gold sellers "advertise" their websites by coming up with dead gnome bodies spelling out the website in all major cities in the game. Even now in PvP there are a lot of bots grinding out honor points for gear. The powerlevelling bots have only just now dropped off because Blizzard is now offering max level characters for money on their own website, thus eliminating the need for botting for powerlevelling.

The main issue right now I feel is not so much botting, but MULTIBOXED botting - where you see bot trains running around zones. Haven't really seen those in other MMOs, particularly in quest areas where they can be easily seen by many. I must admit I haven't read through Zenimax's EULA to see what their policy on multiboxing is - in other MMOs multiboxing is allowed as long as it is a) player controlled and b) each boxed character is on a separate paid-for account. But in any case, it's the fact that you have multiboxed bots that makes this issue so noticeable.

Yes.

And by yes, I mean no. Days still young.

Can't even figure out how to report them anymore.

The other thing with LOTRO is that its game design worked against the mass botting we see. Questing was one time and repeatable quests instanced and required complex group mechanics to get through. Valuable objects bound on acquire and there were no huge gold sinks like respec and repair.

All MMO's should be defensively designed against gold sellers. Would ESO have been any worse if public dungeons had been non-respawning instanced for 1-4 players? Or if infinite loot dropping bosses didn't instantly respawn? Or if there was a limit on the number of toons you could delete a day?

Or if repair and respecs were 90% cheaper?

Or if there were level range restrictions for teleporting into a region?

Etc.

The reason this game is infested with bots is that its design left it both wide open for exploitation and demands insatiable amounts of gold for repairs and respeccing.

i voted yes.

because when they start making timers and loot nerfs that affect regular players they are winning in my book.

loot nerfs atm is debate able tho, as its said to be a conspiracy and others believe it is real.

basically all im saying is when bot behavior starts to have impacts on regular players that are "fixes" set by the Dev's, then the bots are winning.

guess we will have to wait and see if they put loot timers on regular mobs next, because bot trains farming high mob areas in quest and normal area's.

short term adaption is not equivalent to long term solution

zenimax reacted to bots swarming dungeon bosses , result no more bots swarming dungeon bosses

not a solution but it worked for most players

hauke wrote: »

bots can t change the game, bots loose

'Knock, knock.'

'Who's there?'

'Botswho.'

'Botswho what?'

'Bots who can fly, drop in infinite numbers from the sky, teleport from place to place and travel underground.'

The problem is that they are all too successful at changing the game if you ask me.

I played LOTRO for six years. I think the gold selling issue was far more a problem on the US servers than the EU ones. As an EU player I only saw goldseller spam after Turbine took central control of all the servers.

Also LOTRO has a significant number of servers. ESO has just two megaservers meaning any potential bot immediatley can reach and effect a larger playerbase at once.

LOTRO also has in game GMs. Or at least any GM seems to have the ability to go in game if they need to.

The central AH per server may also have helped keep people from wanting to buy gold as it was very easy to buy and sell the things you want and to see what things were really selling for across the server.

Gold was also pretty easy to get once you were past level 10. You could make far far more than you were ever going to spend. No need to buy from a goldseller what you can make by selling one crafted relic. It was also possible to mail gold and items to your own alts as long as you could get to a mailbox. A shared bank system came later, but each alt retained their own vault space too.

Sadly also LOTRO has been destroyed by Turbine's blazing focus on squeezing every penny possible out of the playerbase. No goldseller is interested in a very poorly MMO with probably a declining playerbase. Shame as it was a great six years. I'll pop back now and again but most of my kin have left and it feels like a very lonely world now.

AngryNord wrote: »

I've played through most of the intro areas in LoTRO, and have so far seen one gold spammer in in-game chat.

Lord of the Rings is a PC game, made by professionals, funded by Warner Brothers.

Elder Scrolls is a console game, made by rookies, funded by Zenimax.

You figure it out.

At the moment: Yes
In the long run? Who knows...

When they change boss loot tables the small dungeons and amend the loot percentage in drawers, chests, etc. the bots already have won some battles.
If then the Bots go outside and play in i.e. Coldharbor and run around in circles in groups of 5 players ranging between level 44 and vet 1 (even that they had reported some time ago already), the bots again have won some battles.
When the bots fly around Bangkorai in large amounts, doing the delivery-quests, they have won a battle.

On the other hand I see way less spam in zone chats than in the beginning, so I don't know if that is not already a good sign.

"michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO wrote: »

Lord of the Rings is a PC game, made by professionals, funded by Warner Brothers.

Elder Scrolls is a console game, made by rookies, funded by Zenimax.

You figure it out.

I have never ever heard any LOTRO player descibe either Turbine or Warner Brothers as professional - well professional money gougers maybe. I have heard them called many choice other things though .....

In the integrity stakes ZoS are about a billion miles ahead at the moment.

goldsellers are NOT the problem.

the problem is:

the engine allows to teleport/clip in each coordinate x,y,z (with memory editing) and no server check

nope, i am not a bot, but i am aware of zos´s fail


to specify that:
Client is x.y.z ........ client edits memory and ist x.y.z-50 and reports that to server
Server sais "ok maybe you had lag i take your new coords" (not checking if you clipped anything)
Client "muhaaaaaaahhaa"


and that is not just for some clipping but also for flying etc


just e simple but brutal engine fail by not defining "out of bounds" coordinates or simply not checking (needs serverpower)

...and i forgot, did you see the pricedrop on accounts

a normal account key is right now 20-30 bucks and descending ( 6 weeks after off release) ... compare that to the preorders (that should be cheaper than later accounts)

I think they are winning but they wont win the war, Bots cannot win. Either zennimax wins and gets rid of the bots or zennimax cant get rid of them, the game dies and everyone loses.

and yes, there are bots in v1-5 right now, just some , so i think thats some player scripts. (because they needed to kill molag bal)
and "omg" in v10 zones are scripted players too ( so this is not just a bot/chinafarmer issue) ... V1-10 are just keyboard scripted players, not the "hard bots "

the bot plague is still 1-50