Dealing With Bots

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

Still. It's like placing someone under arrest. You can't just go around arresting people here and there just cause they look like they are doing something wrong. You need proof. And district attorneys (Jagex mods) aren't going to investigate every case that comes along. You need to have proof beforehand. I just don't think that's the right solution. No matter how much power you give to pmods, you'll always have problems still.

Adbot · **Posted:** February 5th, 2011, 11:15 pm

trekkie · **Posted:** February 5th, 2011, 11:54 pm

well honestly, there are ways to know that if the player is a bot. one of the most famous was putting a cannon at a doorway. most bots are not smart enough to click through it.
i encountered a bot that somehow traded with me, and then he started running around a tree. like seriously around a tree again and again. and yet he is sitll not banned

Warren · **Posted:** February 6th, 2011, 10:11 am

It's a good idea assuming it all goes right... but player mods are rare to go right. Yeah bots are obvious when they screw up, but it's not like you see them breaking all over the place, the chances of a pmod encountering one is like nothing. Even if they each saw 1 break a day and banned it, overall that is like 0% impact and for every one they ban there is probably 2 more that are made so for it to be affective they would still need to be banning ones that aren't broken. I don't know how many mods would spend their time trying to break bots just to ban them either. XD

They would need to be banning ones that aren't broken so legitimate players are going to get caught in all of that. 24 hours is still a long time (time that you paid for too). Knowing Jagex it would probably be like a week for them to review it and remove the blackmarks or whatever they use now and that is if you are lucky enough for them to review it... but nothing quick enough to have it removed within the 24 hours.
If a mod was to come up to you and be like "Hey are you botting answer me or I am going to ban you" not giving them an answer they so deserve because of a silver crown that somehow entitles them to it would probably be enough to be banned. What if you were afk during it too XD Jagex would justify those bans that being afk is against their rules.

trekkie · **Posted:** February 6th, 2011, 10:56 am

could always do the old fashion way. switch an item with the bot, if they bot ends up putting on a pink skirt. it's botting ^_^

Taylor Swift · **Posted:** February 6th, 2011, 2:13 pm

I'm assuming you mean sending gifts, not getting gifts. Goldfarmers would be traing away their money, not receiving it...
Probably quantity of gold transferred would be a better metric, as opposed to how often the gifting occurs.

Jagex tried Captchas in RSC, the botters got past them. Researchers have managed to write apps which complete most captchas with a fairly good accuracy rate, even the difficult ones.

"The easiest way to prevent most goldfarming bots would be to look for any IP addresses that have over ten connections and block them temporarily. This limits goldfarming companies to ten bots, whereas they used to be able to have thousands."

Jagex do this already

I sometimes get the error message "too many connections from your IP." (can't remember exact wording, goes something like that), and have to wait. Dunno how it happens, since I only log into one account :S

If anyone hasn't heard of the "Banned Account Reinstatement" policy chance, now might be a good time to read it, since it appears to concern bots:
Quick find code: 129-130-874-6230162

trekkie · **Posted:** February 6th, 2011, 7:39 pm

"If Jagex bans any account as a result of your breach of the Rules of RuneScape and you have exhausted the Offence Appeals Process, Jagex may, in its absolute discretion, give you an opportunity to make a fixed payment to reinstate the account.

Any membership credit that is associated with an account cannot be used to pay for such reinstatement. Please note that throughout the period during which the account was banned, any membership credit will continue to expire.

Jagex is not obliged to reinstate any accounts. You are not obliged to exercise the option to reinstate your account. If you are offered the opportunity, it is entirely up to you whether you make any such payment to reinstate an account.

Any gains or advantages that Jagex considers were made as a result of using macros shall be removed from your account. You accept that the account will be returned to you, adjusted by Jagex to take account of the cheating offence, and no discussion will be entered into regarding the status of a returned account. "

from the horses mouth. so i guess it's okay to break the rulez, just pay us a bribe.
most believe that they will just erase all your stuff levels etc, but who knows how it is.

good way to make a little extra on the top. although i do wonder how much it would be.

Adbot · **Posted:** February 6th, 2011, 7:39 pm

Uncle Dano · **12 99's on 12/12/12!**

Ben wrote:

Some bots can do random events. So why not make a random event that no computer can solve on its own?.

Yes, I hate bots. Such a dishonourable display of laziness!

With respect to a random event that no bot could figure out, my idea is this:

All bots need to bank eventually. Every so often when you go to deposit at a bank teller, a particular random event teleports you to another bank in RuneScape. This would only apply to the most common banks that bots utilize, like east Varrock bank for ess mining for example. In order to get back to the original bank you were at before being teleported, you would have to invoke a screen similar to the screen you utilize to enter your bank PIN. Instead of having bank PIN numbers randomly appearing on the screen, and changing position, you would have various bank locations. You would just have to click on your original bank location, perhaps three times, and presto you are back where you were. If you failed, you would still be at a bank anyway, which wouldn't inconvenience real players that much. All botting scripts would fail, because upon exiting the bank deposit they would still be at a bank, but at a different location in Gielinor. The script would attempt to get the bot back to where it was, but because the bot is now somewhere else and not at the Varrock bank for example, it wouldn't be able to get back to the ess mine.

I hope my explanation is clear. What do you think? Do you think a bot program could get past this type of random? I think that I would like to submit this idea to Jagex for consideration.

RSgamer · **Posted:** February 20th, 2011, 12:25 am

While I agree with Seasonal Pmods (Like myself.. Going on 5 years this year) having the power to ban or even temp-ban autoers, it would be abused WAY too easily, and the signs need to be so obvious you can see them from space.

Some signs do include, but are not limited to:

- Repeated Patterns for lengthy periods
- No chat or any response via public or private chat (CC's included) within a time period, but this one has a flaw with the "Chat Off" function.
- Playing away from others, etc

I can go on about the signs that give away that the person is macroing, but that would be too long, even for this reply box.

IP bans? Won't happen. Too easy to change IP's and people who play from libraries, coffeehouses, or any place that offers free wifi would be, in a word, SCREWED.

Good topic for discussion though.

Smallfib · **Posted:** February 20th, 2011, 8:56 pm

I think that Jagex chooses to ignore much of the botting that goes on in the Runescape community. Silentc0re said (I believe) that 30% of Runescape players bot or have botted. If you think about it, if Jagex bans all of them, that's a third of their community, gone. That's a third of their revenue, gone. They brought back the wilderness and introduced ban appeals because they want more money, they're not going to cut out a third of it now.

but considering they are just bots, they can easily make a new account and pay again. the bots don't exactly lose a lot if they get banned.

thelion777 · **Posted:** February 21st, 2011, 6:50 am

I think it's amazing how fast the bots appeared when free trade came back. An example is in world 160 in the gnome stronghold magic and yew tree woodcutting areas. Since free trade has comeback, both the magic tree and the yew tree's have been mobbed by woodcutters. In fact, I have noticed the same two level three woodcutters cutting the magics since free trade. They don't move from that spot except to bank, they don't go to another tree to cut. And there's ususally a mob of yew tree cutter's, so a "real player" doesn't stand a chance of getting some decent cutting in.

I think more can and should be done to curb botting. Perhaps more P-mods with enhanced abilities. Perhaps an enhanced detection scheme that looks for certain obvious botting characteristics, such as a level three player, with high level in one or two gathering skills, that does no other activities. Sure there may be a handfull of legit players who play in that fashion, but by looking at how they play the game, you could pretty easily separate the botters from legit skillers.

Shreder · **Posted:** February 27th, 2011, 7:37 am

I believe that Jagex doesn't boost their bot security for money purposes. A good percentage of the member community are botters, if they started getting caught and banned frequently then they would then have less subscribers, Jagex isn't in it for the happiness of the players, they're in it for the money. I'm sure they've already considered most of the ideas that were posted on here, they just don't want to go through with it.

Stormtrooper · **Posted:** February 28th, 2011, 6:57 am

I disagree with most of your suggestions, so here are my arguements....

VAC. Need I say more?
This would be a major problem. Starting up RuneScape would take FOREVER. Let me start off by asking you a question. Have you ever watched how long it takes for your virus scanner to run all the way through? Let's assume that's an unfair analogy because your virus scanner would not only search files, but look for consistencies. Let's cut that time into a 3rd. Pretty rough estimate of how long it'd take if your virus scanner only searched your computer. That's still a LONG time. If Jagex were to scan your entire computer, or even HALF of it, it'd take you 5 minutes to log in.

Oh, three hundred people playing RuneScape from that house... Suspicious?
This one was simple to answer. What about LAN parties? You can't temp ban for multiple connections. I understand it's a rare occurrence, but multiple IPs logging from one location does not prove that someone/some people is/are botting/gold farming.

Sleep
I agree. Perhaps an auto-kick/temp ban (without a blackmark) for those accounts that stay on too long. Of course.. Jagex would require some heavy code for the servers to recognize your total session time instead of how long you have been playing for say a week at a time since they record by day.

Gifting
My friend just gave me 10 mil in two increments. Do I deserve a ban?

I am not good with computers!
I agree. A captcha would be handy. Except those who are visually impaired. If they mess up, are they entitled to a ban?

CPU intensive work
I'm not even going to comment on this idea. I'd rather stick my head in a toilet.

I think that wraps it up. Let me know what you think.

Stormtrooper · **Posted:** February 28th, 2011, 7:10 am

Uncle Dano wrote:

Ben wrote:

Some bots can do random events. So why not make a random event that no computer can solve on its own?.

Yes, I hate bots. Such a dishonourable display of laziness!

With respect to a random event that no bot could figure out, my idea is this:

All bots need to bank eventually. Every so often when you go to deposit at a bank teller, a particular random event teleports you to another bank in RuneScape. This would only apply to the most common banks that bots utilize, like east Varrock bank for ess mining for example. In order to get back to the original bank you were at before being teleported, you would have to invoke a screen similar to the screen you utilize to enter your bank PIN. Instead of having bank PIN numbers randomly appearing on the screen, and changing position, you would have various bank locations. You would just have to click on your original bank location, perhaps three times, and presto you are back where you were. If you failed, you would still be at a bank anyway, which wouldn't inconvenience real players that much. All botting scripts would fail, because upon exiting the bank deposit they would still be at a bank, but at a different location in Gielinor. The script would attempt to get the bot back to where it was, but because the bot is now somewhere else and not at the Varrock bank for example, it wouldn't be able to get back to the ess mine.

I hope my explanation is clear. What do you think? Do you think a bot program could get past this type of random? I think that I would like to submit this idea to Jagex for consideration.

This is flawed. Any interface buttons/options can be programmed into the bot. Granted, if Jagex did it, they could catch botters for the first few days... but they already do this. They switch around item ids, NPC ids and other things. Have been doing it for a while. I can't give away TOO much information, but I believe there may be newer and smarter random events coming soon due to the new version of Java that Jagex is running on.

orange275 · **Posted:** March 1st, 2011, 5:43 pm

i think what really makes me angry is you can go up to abbys in slayer tower and see a number of bots. Gets old because they have to be 85 slay, and fishing is crazy there is a train of like a hundred bots movin around

Dsstriker · **Posted:** March 12th, 2011, 11:22 pm

Quote:

VAC. Need I say more?
VALV^E Corporation has software that looks for commonly used cheating programs and bans anyone who uses them on a VAC-secured server. While RuneScape loads, Jagex can probably scan your computer for such programs and flag any accounts used on said computer as a possible bot.

Correction Jagex do have something like this inbeded in the loader the fact is that, people producing the bots make it so when the bot injects into the client loader its undetectable as they can posible be and when jagex are able to detect it they change it again...

Quote:

Sleep
If you don't sleep for ten days, you die. If you don't sleep for three days, you go insane. Nobody plays RuneScape for 100 hours in a week without having some kind of cheating going on. This would mostly catch hairy b0tters as goldfarmers would have many, many accounts they could switch between.

yes this is obvious and probly should be a insta ban.
but normal plays bot there account skills to and don't bot for 100 hours at a time.

Quote:

""""""""""Gifting""""""""""
If a single player gets ""gifts"" from more than twenty people in the course of a month, and this keeps on happening over and over, there's definitely something going on that shouldn't be. Nobody has a birthday every day. Only goldfarmers would receive that many "gifts".

Agreed though i my self transfer cash from my main alot tones of times a month to my ranger

Quote:

i am not good with computer
Some bots can do random events. So why not make a random event that no computer can solve on its own? CAPTCHAs could work to prevent botting.

You have no idea of how advanced bots are.
There able to take random brakes.
The more advanced ones never click the same spot
Hell theres a **** dungeoneering bot... That skill is complicated enough to do by your self and theres bots that do that skill flawlessly like O.o

But all in good suggestions.
Though with the ban of one bot account two more are made they don't care for these accounts.
and as the bots get more advanced there costing jagex more money to try and fight and in the long run it wont be worth it.