The Mana World Forums

Make the game less bot friendly and step up GM enforcement... also anyone found botting should have all known chars deleted even if they are on different accounts

Lord of the Flies wrote:

Len wrote:Make the game less bot friendly and step up GM enforcement... also anyone found botting should have all known chars deleted even if they are on different accounts

Why?

Because that's how I roll.....(can you be more specific)

Len wrote:stuff

How would that work?

Would you just ban by ip address. I can have 100 different ip addresses in 10 seconds. By banning all characters the only thing you would do make sure the botters changed ip address ever once in a while.

Lets face it, if the current set of professional botters do not tranfer goods, then they are just pretty sad.
There are two major reasons to bot. First is for money which can buy you items. The second is because it is really easy. Hell, after a certain point, botting is all you have left. Hit level 99 and be done with it.

You can get around botting with two major ways.

First have the server reduces the number of monsters going to a specific client by 1 per min until there is no monsters left. This would make the botters have to continuously move to kill. After a set time limit the monster would start reappearing. This would be harder and harder for them to "milk" one spot. Oh, I hear the screams from the players now.

Secondly, you can flood the new server with soo much new stuff, quests, maps, items, and events that botting is quite pointless and not fun.

This would handle 80% of your botters and make botting really hard.

But here is the catch to doing this. You actually have to have a live and functioning server. Not one trapped in grid lock.

It was ask 11 days ago to suggest a quest. I told them to reissued the tophat quest. 11 days and still grid lock. If the GHP can not do something as simple as reissue a quest that already has been done. There is no way in hell they are going to add anything new in any way. Lets face it. Botters are going to happen because a tophat is now 40kk. In order to get a top hat you must bot.

The group holding power does not care that the tophat is 40kk and there for does not care about botters. If they cared about botters then they would reissue old quests and keep the price of items low. But in order to do that they have to invent new items, new quests, and new maps.

The current GHP can not do any of that. All they can do is back stab and fight between each other. Mean while good players continue to leave in droves.

Arikels server has very little help from this community and is light years ahead in content. He has wings, fairies, and most of the items that are currently banned, like crowns and clothing.

All this server cares about is maintaining the current power system. Which is fine, you can turn you back on the community, but do not be surprise when you turn around to say you need them, you find yourself talking to no one.

To be perfectly honest, I really see no reason to stay on this server. Just a faint hint of what it could be, and ember of what once was.

Two angry camels in a tiny car, no door knob?!? WTF ! omg..theres cornchips in my cereal box but no ductape wrapping MJs flamingo! OMFG !!!!

DarkWater wrote:
The current GHP can not do any of that. All they can do is back stab and fight between each other. Mean while good players continue to leave in droves.

Arikels server has very little help from this community and is light years ahead in content. He has wings, fairies, and most of the items that are currently banned, like crowns and clothing.

All this server cares about is maintaining the current power system. Which is fine, you can turn you back on the community, but do not be surprise when you turn around to say you need them, you find yourself talking to no one.

To be perfectly honest, I really see no reason to stay on this server. Just a faint hint of what it could be, and ember of what once was.

Fantastic post DarkWater and I couldn't agree more. After exploring the other servers, which regularly add new content, new items, all the old quests for obtaining items such as Eyepatch, Top Hat, Mushroom Hat, are all in, new monsters, new maps, I really just can't fathom spending any more time with the official client any more. It's just....not fun, and boring. I only dropped in the last few weeks to see if any of my old friends were on, and sure enough, 2/3 of the people I used to play with had left.

The few players I remember, when I talk with them about new clients, and all they have to offer vs. the official client, all they can say is that they are "loyal to the official client".

If "loyal" means just sitting in town, pitching in a few lines when you catch an interesting discussion going on, well then, have fun doing that. But then all it becomes is just a glorified chat room, and not much of a game at all. I'm really shocked to see all of the new content such as the Hitomb areas being very active in other servers, and TMW just cuts off more and more quests.

Some special logic must be going on that I keep missing.

I have been on some other servers. As far as I can see all the 'new' art is either ripped, very poor quality or stuff made for TMW that hasn't been used yet. 'New' monsters are unused TMW ones, recolours of existing monsters, outfitted playersprites (wearing unused TMW graphics such as the Overlord Helm) etc. Maps are quick and easy, especially at the quality I have seen on alternate servers.

If the developers of those servers were willing to work on a project they didn't have control over, perhaps this server would have been developed a lot more (although they'd certainly need to polish up their skills a bit). But it's an open-source project with just a handful of people working in their spare time, and if every possible contributor who comes along leaves to work on their own server, how do you expect it to grow?

Anyway, I fully expect development for the official server to speed up from now on, what with proper planning and organisation.

poison_ivy wrote:I have been on some other servers. As far as I can see all the 'new' art is either ripped, very poor quality or stuff made for TMW that hasn't been used yet. 'New' monsters are unused TMW ones, recolours of existing monsters, outfitted playersprites (wearing unused TMW graphics such as the Overlord Helm) etc. Maps are quick and easy, especially at the quality I have seen on alternate servers.

well, let's compare tmw art, with taw art, for a second
tmw art: taw art: hmmmmmm . . . what were you saying?

Most of these are actually TMW graphics.

About the rest: I think I've seen some of them before in other games. Are you sure that these graphics aren't copyrighted? Other servers might be more carefree, but on TMW we aren't including anything which is not explicitely released under the gnu general public license - we don't want this project to die because of a lawsuit.

Crush wrote:Most of these are actually TMW graphics.

About the rest: I think I've seen some of them before in other games. Are you sure that these graphics aren't copyrighted? Other servers might be more carefree, but on TMW we aren't including anything which is not explicitely released under the gnu general public license - we don't want this project to die because of a lawsuit.

*They are from RPGmaker xp http://tkool.jp/products/rpgxp/eng/grassland.jpg
©ENTERBRAIN, INC
*The other tiles are from TMWs forest set and woodland set

*The monsters are player sprites with filters added to them

hmmmmmm . . . what were you saying?

poison_ivy wrote:I have been on some other servers. As far as I can see all the 'new' art is either ripped, very poor quality or stuff made for TMW that hasn't been used yet. 'New' monsters are unused TMW ones, recolours of existing monsters, outfitted playersprites (wearing unused TMW graphics such as the Overlord Helm) etc. Maps are quick and easy, especially at the quality I have seen on alternate servers.

Poison ivy's statement stands

DarkWater wrote:even more stuff

If you make it harder to bot by stepping up enforcement/punishment and making the game its self less bot friendly (In other words more likely to die if your not paying attention/death penalization). Botting will become less prevalent, I don't care if its still possible it simply wont be worth it. (with a game this small we could have GMs in the bat caves most of the time)

One example of making the game less bot friendly would be to spawn a powerful non aggressive bat every so often. Make this bat drop nothing and give horrible exp for its lvl (so active players avoid it), weighted players and some of the less intelligent macro programs will die not being able to tell the difference between the two (add death penalization on to that). This would not stop smart bots, but would all but wipe out weighted key players

poison_ivy wrote:I have been on some other servers. As far as I can see all the 'new' art is either ripped, very poor quality or stuff made for TMW that hasn't been used yet. 'New' monsters are unused TMW ones, recolours of existing monsters, outfitted playersprites (wearing unused TMW graphics such as the Overlord Helm) etc.

This is not addressed at you poison ivy, but you said my point. Ignore anything below this line.

Arguing with you people is like arguing with a group of armchairs.

If it is all just ripped off from this server, then why in the <edit> dont you release <editing> content on this <editing> server!

Let me restate what I just edited, why in the bloody blue hell do you release the content, that is being release on other servers, on this server?

I mean really? That is all you got? They are just ripping us off? It is called grid lock.

From what I see if I gave you guys 40 gallons of petrol, 1,000 full functional lighters, fire proof suits, and turn my back for 4 seconds asking for just a small camp fire, someone would go running past me on fire! You have all the items to make at least 10 new quest.

But you guys are in soo much grid lock about power, you can not get your <editing><edit> together.

Why was the last quest soo buggy? Because you did not ask people to test it first.


BOTTOM LINE.

Any conversations about about your content being ripped off by other servers is just <editing> bull<edit>.

The more I deal with you people the more I believe that I am dealing with American Politicians!

I will leave with a quote,

Bob Dole wrote:“Our intent will not be to create gridlock. Oh, except maybe from time to time.”

As far as I can see all the 'new' art is either ripped, very poor quality or stuff made for TMW that hasn't been used yet.

When Poison ivy said ripped it was in reference to the content from RPG maker and the like...

Three separate statements where made
*Content often comes from a ripped sources (rpg maker)
*Content is often of poor quality
*Most of the content released comes from or was developed for this server

These are all true statements (as yourmistakes unknowingly illustrated)

Anyways releasing unreleased content would hardly stop botting, although I do agree they should be released maybe as rare drops like the clover with a 0.01 drop rate. (I'm not big on quests items as that would make them near worthless overnight rather than slowly driving down prices to an acceptable lvl)

Len wrote: *Most of the content released comes from or was developed for this server

Wow you are just dense, a lounger of armchairs.

I was not talking about the ripped stuff, I was not talking about the poor quality stuff, I was talking about the stuff that is done, looks good, and has been developed by this server. And just sits on the shelf doing nothing.

Is that too hard to understand, that gridlock of the powers that be have created a game in which nothing is being done. But on other servers, they are using this server material. Stuff that is not released on this server, because people here can not stop fighting each other.

I just dont no understand why I like to point out things that are right in front of you guys.

IT IS NOT ABOUT OTHER PEOPLES STUFF. IT IS ABOUT THIS SERVER STUFF NOT BEING USED. PERIOD. FOR THE LOVE OF A PICKLE.

DarkWater wrote: Wow you are just dense, a lounger of armchairs.

I'm aware of the situation and I've even agreed they should be released... But its not my server and such discussion is not on topic.
"How to deal with people who create bot clients?"

Anyways people who merely complain are best suited for armchairs

Len wrote:
Anyways people who merely complain are best suited for armchairs

Or leave, how is whispers of avalon going?


99% of this forum is not on topic.

The only way to combat botting is to make the game too fun to have botters, if you focus all your attention of gameplay and not items, you will have less botters.

That can not happen on this server.

If you allow unobtainable items, like tophats, funky, elf... Then you are just encouraging the botters. You see it is real easy, if the only way to get a tophat is 40kk and the only way to get 40kk is to bot bats, guess what is going to happen, you are going to bot bats. By having soo much variety which actual quests attached to the items, you make it far less likely that people will bot just to bot.

But that is the rub in this game. There is so much that can be added, but anytime, anyone adds anything, they are completely shunned. It is not that the community is just sitting around complaining, they are forced into a corner in which no one does anything.

Look at your own project, you continue to add new things. Here we have gridlock, and the worst form of it.

I recall Platyna saying she wanted those items released, so I'm not really sure where the hold up is. Perhaps the conversation would be best continued in another topic.