It's not that simple to be honest. Most BOTers smart enough to BOT use an API that basically cracks eso.exe without the server detecting the anomaly. So even with a check-sum on start-up and certain protections up, the eso.exe is still client based and therefore a free game to reverse engineer and crack.

Basically, anything Zenimax does client sided, will be cracked and bypassed the next minute. You have the forces of Zenimax at one side numbering a limited amount of people due to costs and such, and on the other side you have the hacker/cracker community that numbers a whole lot more than Zenimax have. Zenimax can't fight a war against BOTers on the client side. They have to fight it on the server side.

And implementing something on the server side, means that the client and the server has to communicate and at least Windows has limitations on what can be programmed in to be "monitored" without the user's consent, and that means bypassing a lot of the security grid in Windows just so the client and the server can "talk" freely. That is not going to happen any time soon due to laws and Zenimax can't enforce that either.

So how do you battle BOT programs then? That's the million dollar question to be honest, and a major problem for any MMO companies. And another hurdle is that the company have to consider their costumers, BOTers doesn't have to do that. I think that the future in MMO is cloud gaming, meaning that you only have certain files on your computer while the rest is based on servers. We already have cloud gaming, but not on a scale operational for an MMO. This is also due to internet infrastructure as most people don't have access to fibre connections yet. But give a few years and it will catch more and more on. For now however, I don't see any solutions to BOT problems other than what they are doing right now.

Edit: And ToS and all that documentation is not legislative and won't hold. Here in Norway per example, they are not allowed to monitor anything that goes on on my computer, not even peaking. If they do that, I can sue their behinds off, and being a citizen of Norway, they would have to abide to Norwegian rules. Also, on principle, you as citizen can't write away rights you have per law, lessen what protection the law provides you. Not even by a ToS document or EULA.

LexonLightbringer wrote: »

I am 99% sure they do not have the capability to track software. I am beginning to think Zenimax thought they were exempt from botting, seeming how it was an elder scrolls game. In order to truly track and monitor this software, I think they have to disable Add-ons! I have never seen a company so open to add-on support, most companies do not willingly promote add-ons but allow there existence.

Heh, your dead wrong on that one. Back in EQ days they had the ability to remotely view what software was running on your system, not your screen, just the task list of what was being used at the moment. ZOS has way more capability now....

I wonder what kind of response my security would have on a software that sticks it's cyber nose into my PC business.

there was an anti bot thing that a free to play game had and it worked very well. It would pop up a small window with an easy yet random question such as "what is 1+10" you would put in the answer and it would not bug you for another 9 hours. If you got it wrong how ever it would lock your account until the GMs looked in to it. Its not fool proof but it did keep the bots down a large amount. Mainly because the questions were never the same thus the bots never knew the answer.

Theyre quite binding here in the US and theres a clause for people that like to do what youre describing.

Shut off your account and refuse to do business with you.

No court in the world can force a private company to do business with you.

Zenimax Media and all of its subsidiaries are privately owned. No public trading and shareholders to appease.

That said, go look at EQ2. Only botters Ive found are folks using ISBoxer to run 5 mans solo.

Why?

24/7 live GM monitoring. Everywhere.

Of course, ZOS wont do that. It costs more.