Runefest Anti-Botting Presentation

See, the thing is you are claiming this as a victory when it's unclear if this will last. To use your analogy, it's like saying "Well it looks like we are going to capture France or end the war just because we got a foothold now." Again, it's great they are saying all this stuff, but I'm going to guess that they are only assuming and going off projections of how many this has effected and how many it will continue to effect. I want to see the real raw data that shows the difference being made. I'm not going to take their word for it. Granted, I haven't been in game in a while and I'm sure you are seeing fewer "people" online after this update, but I want to see what has really changed, not hear it from them. If memory serves, there are over 100 million runescape accounts. A supposed 7 million is nice, but I'm sure there are a hell of a lot more bots out there (not to mention the continued capacity to create more bot accounts). To me, their word is about as good as any corporation's in America. Perhaps they are genuinely concerned on the inside, but you people need to remember first and foremost that Jagex is a business. Just like Blizzard, Infinity Ward, Ford, McDonalds, Bank of America, etc., they are about the money first and not the players. That's not just being cynical, but practical. If bots had little impact on the game, do you think they would be worrying about them? If they kept receiving membership money and the same amount of memberships each month despite bots, do you think they would have any incentive to make the game better? The answer to me is no. Thus, they must be recieving financial pressure from botting to have to deal with the problem now. Also, why wasn't this a priority in the early stages of the game? Who cares if the problem was as apparent or large as it is now. They had to see it coming on the horizon. Yet, it's not until almost a decade later that we are seeing this progress. This only enforces my belief that Jagex is acting on financial interests more so than on player interests. Again, you may read that as cynical, but to me it seems quite practical for Jagex.


I actually have to side with Creepy on this one. And his voice is just as valid as anyone else's here. In this topic, you need someone being pessimistic and pointing out the shortfalls of Jagex from past experience. Creepy may be negative about everything or nearly everything, but that doesn't mean he's wrong either. He, as well as I, has reason to be negative and pessimistic about an update like this and the claims being made by Jagex. Gone are the days when you can take someone at their word and gone are the days when bots were simple. Botting has had just as much time to develop and change as Jagex has had to deal with it. What reason is there to think that just because of one update or a series of proposed updates is going to solve the botting problem permanently when all their other attempts have come up short? It's like "Well, it didn't work this time. But now we have something else that will work and we know will work and will stop bots. But we can't tell you what it is...just believe us when we say it's working or that this many people have been banned." Also, I believe that the wording they used in the stage questioning was "set bots back." Setting back bots is not solving the problem, just as borrowing more money to solve our debt problems in the US is not solving the debt problem, only delaying it or avoiding it for the time being. Yes, I pay close attention to how they choose their words and what it says about how they are handling this problem. Jagex has to choose their words carefully when talking about how this whole botting thing is playing out.

We can argue semantics and complain that this is "a decade too late", or we can objectively look at this as a positive step, both in their communication with the player base about the bot situation, as well as showing concern about how they are ruining the integrity of the game. If anything was made clear from this insider session, it's that they see bots are bad for the game and that they cost Jagex a hell of a lot more than what they bring into them. As Mark Gerhard said, if they were a bigger corporation and didn't care about the players, they wouldn't have done anything. This game is the livelihood of each and every employee at Jagex and they want it to be as profitable as possible. Keeping bots only makes gold selling companies money and their players more *****. It isn't like they woke up this month and said, "Well, we better do something about these bots so we can have some proof that we care at Runefest". Their concern for bots began from the beginning of RS2. Just because they didn't have anything up-front for players to view doesn't mean they haven't been working on it. Mark Gerhard also said they have come out with numerous patentable tools to stop bots. You don't make this claim without something to back up - why would they?

Also, there's no sort of Board of Directors at Jagex. It's Mark Gerhard and the Gower brothers that there is to answer to. They are privately held, so no Board or Shareholders to satisfy. Check out The1Kingio's Youtube channel where he exclusively interviewed several Mods, including Andrew Gower. He even asked Andrew if there was anything he would like to change, and he responded with "If there was anything I wanted to change, I would have done it by now!". Does that sound like a business that has some sort of Directors hidden off somewhere calling all the shots, or is it really that hard to believe that there is a corporation that actually does care about their consumers?

So in short, you are, in fact, cynical - at least when it comes to Jagex.

There are 60% less people playing RuneScape since the cluster flutterer. 90% less f2p players. Now tell me again that this is a PR stunt.

There is a board of directors. I presume the video you watched is out of date. The gowers aren't even on the board. In fact Andrew set up another business so you have to presume hes involvement with Jagex is limited.

"Investors and management

On 23 October 2007, Geoff Iddison, former European CEO of PayPal, replaced Constant Tedder as CEO in order to "accelerate international growth." Iddison resigned as CEO in January 2009, and was replaced by Mark Gerhard, who had been Jagex CTO before his appointment.[8]

Jagex received an investment from Insight Venture Partners in October 2005. The company had been self-funded before this investment.[16]

In December 2010 The Raine Group and Spectrum Equity Investors invested in Jagex, while Insight Venture Partners increased their investment.[8] Andrew Gower, Paul Gower and Constant Tedder left the board of directors at that time. Though Andrew Gower is currently listed as Jagex's principal architect,[17] it is unclear how involved he, his brother, and Tedder still are in the management of Jagex."

And as RS has gone down the toilet and started becoming a crappy version of WOW i can only presume that last bit about it being unclear how involved they are now is there not involved. There simply cashing the cheques.

Just to really nail my negativity down. And as I've already been told I'm negative about everything ever that's possible to be negative about I thought I'd live up to my reputation and really show up this PR stunt. Cause that's what it is.

Just to address this first;


That's the point of a PR stunt. It's a big BANG and flash to get your attention. Or in this case distract you from the problem. And it's worked wonders. Because you're here saying WELL THE NUMBERS ARE DOWN! Well woopey. I could sit in Jagexs offices for the day and reduce the number of bots they'll still be back tomorrow. On a much smaller scale than this of course.

So as i have nothing better to do in my life than to sit in a dark room slitting my wrists and hating on everything in the known universe and the unknown. I thought I'd do some research and see how the cheaters and such are handling this crack down and how there responding to Jagexs mighty battle of good verses evil.

Obviously I've edited out any info that might lead you to the site and/or help you cheat. Not that it matters if you can use google you can pretty much cheat anyway but you know - for the sake of not being banned cause even though I'm negative about this site i want to stick around. I'm complex like that. If i have missed something in an image feel free to remove it.

First things first i found this;


Strange. It would seem there mocking them to me.

Heres a lovely letter to there loyal customers about Jagexs war on evil and shutting down sites;


STRANGE! They don't seem too fussed. In fact they call them the mighty jagex. Again it sounds oddly like there mocking them don't you think?

Six years they've operated under that site and they've got around it by changing 1 word. Another 6 years resting easy then? Do you people see what i mean by it's a waste of time trying to cut the head off this thing? You can't. Blizzard can't do it and they rake in a lot more than Jagex. They've also got the legal power of Activision backing them. Pointless. They need to concentrate on banning the players. Cut the numbers down and continue to be persistent.

Well that's the gold farming front covered. Jagex are ***** money down the drain and getting absolutley no where. Guess that's why we're getting 1 real update this month again.

Lets see about those nasty botters shall we? That's what this update was really aimed at anyway. Heres a quote from a popular bot maker:



I bolded the parts you should pay attention to. Hes reversed most of the stuff they did. Amusingly he claims to have reversed there **** same day it launched. Take note of the last part bolded. It's not a matter of weeks. Or months. But days.

Interestingly after half hour of browsing forums and such a lot of these bot makers are causing more problems for each other than Jagex thmselves are doing. If comments are to be believed they regularly DDoS'd each other and several was racing to get there bot programs up and running first purely for bragging rights. It's almost like a game to them. They also compete to be the "best" out there motivating them to continue improving there program. Think of it like the console war but..well RS bots.

Heres a blog post from a bot maker:
http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo304/sadisticham/img3.png

They also forced a known bot maker into revealing emails of all there clients and are now sending them threatning emails telling them there going to be sued. Good luck with that.

MOAR;


Also cause it's funny;



As i thought. They slowed them up for a week or two. Or if you're to believe the above they didn't even do that. Waste of time and effort. Total PR stunt. You probably missed out on 2-3 updates last month as a result of that PR stunt too.

I can't link my sources because it's against the rules. I also can't provide proof that the bots work without breaking the rules. What you're asking of me is impossible.

However the users involved in these discussions said they was running. Not the creators the ones actually using the program. You'll excuse me for not bothering to screen cap every single post/thread i went into. I simply couldn't be bothered to screen cap, edit and upload all of that. I admit it. Forgive me. I'm lazy and negative.

The images i posted with release dates you would presume are all ETA's. Most bot programs are either in beta and working (with bugs/problems) or are up and running properly. Several are out and claim to be out for 2-3 weeks and one owner said he hasn't got a clue how to fix it. And at least one was never effected in the first place. Again you will excuse me i simply couldn't be bothered to edit down and upload all of this. I'm too busy being negative about things to sit around for hours boring myself with screen caps.

It's not the weeks and months we need to watch. It's more than obvious in the here and now this hasn't really done much other than reveal just out of hand the bot situation is (by looking at the amount of users that are online compared to before the nuke) and how jagex really hasn't been in control for a long time. That's why i don't play. Whats the point when cheats go unpunished and are allowed to progress past me.

NO ONE really knows right now if the bot problem is fixed. Until enough time has passed where we can see how effective the measures Jagex put into place really are, neither Jagex nor the bot makers can do anything but make claims. The game has just started and both sides still have cards to play.

My hope is that Jagex is letting bot makers waste time on an update before making additional changes to maximize the effect of the bot nuke. Keep the bot makers constantly having to update and frustrate the players weak enough to use them. At least that attacks on both fronts.

I think Runescape is low on the list when it comes to MMOs. What I mean is that a game like WoW is so popular that you are going to see more progress quicker on bots than on Runescape if there was a crackdown simply due to the demand for bots and the popularity of the game. Also, there hasn't been an effort like this by Jagex that I can remember. It may have caught quite a few bot developers off guard. But just because you haven't seen a response doesn't mean their won't be one. Just as Jagex needed time to make this update, bot developers will need time to work at it and try to get around it. But to think that a bot response won't come is foolhardy. There will be a response. And that is the question at hand. Can Jagex keep bots away for a long time if not for good? Or will bots just re-take over the game and continue on, business as usual?