Can We Reduce "Botting" ?

[meway]

meway sighs .........blown off again

[Jumpy]

rewritten

[Doulos]

Population change? By that do you mean what Crush suggested?

And Doulos maybe not more GM's because a new one was recently added. But what if there was an admin rank under GM with only the power to warp a player to the bot check map? If the player then responds warp him back. If not leave him there until a GM can ban him for botting. If he isn't botting and needs to be removed he could contact a GM or a player with the power to warp.

Goku. Thank you for your post.

I must admit that this thought crossed my mind. If there are GMs (i.e., Sheriffs) in town, perhaps a few Deputies to search out botters wouldn't be a bad idea. Not fully GMs, but enough authority to deal with the dishonest...

I don't think this is a bad idea.

The topic is out in the open. We can allow the Devs & GMs to discuss this possibility.

[Crush]

I must admit that this thought crossed my mind. If there are GMs (i.e., Sheriffs) in town, perhaps a few Deputies to search out botters wouldn't be a bad idea. Not fully GMs, but enough authority to deal with the dishonest...

What exactly should the permissions and duties of a deputy be in your opinion?

When a deputy can punish other players there wouldn't be a difference between a deputy and a game master.

When a deputy would have no privileges beyond those of a normal player any player could do the job of telling game masters about suspicious players. Every responsible player should do this anyway, in my opinion. So there would be no reason to appoint any players for this job.

[Goku]

Can they not be given the ability to warp players? Like explained above.

[niels.ellegaard]

Just to satisfy my curiousity. How are botters usually discovered?

Is the GM wanred by a private message from a player, or do you have a some sort of server-site script that warns GM's about potential botters.

[meway]

ok deputes can have this ability a command that dose an auto bot check on a suspected player

3rd idea summary

1) the idea
This idea focus on getting rid of botters
basically i want the ability to say a /command and initiate a standard gm check on a botter.
this is how the commands actions would work in simple turms.

2) simple terms
first i type the command than the server checks to see if any gms are online and if they are
it tells them that someone would like to report a bot and cancels the following action.....
if no gms are online it sends the botting player a message every 2m for 10m until the player
responds telling them they have ben reported as a possible bot and have 10 minutes to respond.
a respond could be anything from saying something and or moving. ///side: note: but if u want it
to be moving as well make sure you direct the bot to direct the person to do so.

3) in a development point of view
A player types in this command /check <user name> and
after the /check (command)<server>run its own check to see if any gms are available. and this would send a gm a message:
example<doorsman>(gm) <meway>(player sent) would like you to check <user name> at this location (x,x) if no gms are available than this
happens: the server sends this message to the <user name> stateing <player sent>(example meway)
has initiated this bot check on you and you now have (x amount of minutes) to respond before you are ban for (x amount of minutes/hr's)
/////Note: a respond can be anything the player says like
//what?// for an example. .and or moves///

4) rules the script must force
(these rules prevents harassment form players who like to abuse there ability)
Rule 1) they can only use the command 1hr at a time which limits the to 24 and less times a day and the server would respond something like this
im sorry i have already helped you, you may try again later at this time (0:00)/////Side Note: to prevent this command being abused as well
make a certain job level that you have to be to use it,like the emotes, and sit command, so you can't just make a new guy and abuse it that way.
Rule 2) Some fun with it, if you call the command on yourself it says some kind of smart remark of your own making............................meway

[Goku]

Meway I don't think all of that is necessary.. Like Crush said the community of players should report botters anyways.. They could just whisper a GM.

And I don't think there is a script that searches for botters. Sometimes players whisper and repot them to GM's and GM's also check certain areas where people are likely to bot.

[Doulos]

What exactly should the permissions and duties of a deputy be in your opinion?

That would depend on what the game system allows.

I am not an apprentice programmer. Just a client beta tester. I make no pretense at understanding code or the deep dark internal secrets of what the server software can do. If there would be no tangible difference between a GM and a Deputy, then here's a thought.

A deputy system could involve nothing more than handing out a DEPUTY hat to certain players. This way other players (who camp and might be inclined to ignore others) would be required to respond to deputies as they would to the GMs. The deputies would not be able to ban through commands to the server, but their posted screenies would be taken seriously.

Oh, it's easy to say that anyone's screenies should be taken seriously. But I did receive this response when mentioning to GM on the IRC of the presence of a possible botter (and I carefully explained the situation: the auto-killing, the non-responsiveness for a period of over 5 minutes with polite requests, etc.):

"He may be just ignoring you."

Honestly? That's a very valid point. In many player's minds (and in possibly in some GM's minds) the word of a regular player carries little authority or validity.

The Deputy could be used as a GM-in-training endeavor. If the so-called deputies are overly aggressive by making their time in TMW a mere witch hunt, then remove their DEPUTY caps/status and be done with it. If they do a good job, filling in reports properly, etc., then they could be put on a list of likely candidates for GM.

Does this sound ... reasonable?

[meway]

yes this sounds very reasonable (and goku im going to assume you didn't read that hole thing threw because you missed its point so before you go post crazy make sure you know what to say.)

[Goku]

But then some how the whole TMW community would need to be made aware that it's not a good idea to ignore a "Deputy" and that even though they can't ban you if they ask you to answer within 2 mins you have to or else you will be taken a screeny of and eventually banned.

[meway]

yup thats what he said

[Goku]

I did read the whole thing through.

What is this /command you speak of? A regular GM botcheck? What would it do? There's no script that checks if someone is a botter.

And what good is the messaging part every 2 mins for 10 mins which eventually reports someone as a "possible" botter? Normal players as of now can do that..

(By the way it would help if you typed in correct grammar and spelling.)

[meway]

goku ok you read it the whole thing threw but you did not understand that this whole thing is a script to be written so it doesn't matter if a gm check is not created yet this whole thing needs to be written only the top paragraph and the second are for you. You are not meant to understand the /command the /command could be anything like /check and than the server would do all of the other actions you didn't understand such as the server checking for authority before it continues on to giving the botting player messages to move our get bann basically.

[Goku]

I'll try to make sense of what you just wrote right there..

So basically you want the dev's to write a script of some sort just for Deputy's to have a command for a "standard bot check" when GM's themselves don't have this?