Discussion about BOT activity
Posted: 07 May 2011, 14:46
Hello everybody, I've seen some BOT activity lately. I searched the forum and I've found that It seems to be a recurrent problem. I would like to propose a discussion about this issue, so we could share our thoughts about why people are doing this and what could be done to prevent or to make this activity becoming unnecessary. I hope that this discussion brings improvements to the game.
My point of view is that people use bot because the game is too mechanic and repetitive. If the game became more interactive and if it demanded more creative actions from its players, the probability that people would use bot should be lowered.
I'm not trying to defend the trespassers nor to say that what they have been doing is right. But as a behavioral psychology student, I must say that all living organisms (including human beings) react and try to adapt to their environment. If this environment demands a bot, them people will use it, despite what the rules are, because a "rule" is only a part of this environment, it's just one contigency that establishes and maintains people behavior. Unfortunately, it's largely known in psychology that only a "rule" by itself is not enough to keep people doing what they are expected to do. As a consequence to TMW, decreeing game rules will not be sufficient.
I also noticed that the community is trying to deal with this deviant behavior with punitive solutions. In my oppinion, char resets, bans and whatever punitive contigencies you may artificially try to sustain will not lower bot activity to a satisfactory level, it will only raise the frequency of avoidance behavior, for example, bot improvement behavior. Again, it's well known in behavioral psychology that punishment isn't the most effective procedure to change people's behavior (and that's why punishment is never used as an intervention technique in behavioral psychotherapy).
I decided to post this because I'm concerned with the fact that TMW is reproducing the same mistakes that other MMORPGs have been doing (which is a comon sense way of dealing with human behavior), and as a consequence TMW will be handling this problem as uneffective as other games currently do (for example, Tibia).
Well, that's what I have to say for now, to start this discussion. Please post your thoughts and points of view.
PS: I tryed to find the best place to post this discussion; sorry if it's not in the right forum and please move it to a better place.
My point of view is that people use bot because the game is too mechanic and repetitive. If the game became more interactive and if it demanded more creative actions from its players, the probability that people would use bot should be lowered.
I'm not trying to defend the trespassers nor to say that what they have been doing is right. But as a behavioral psychology student, I must say that all living organisms (including human beings) react and try to adapt to their environment. If this environment demands a bot, them people will use it, despite what the rules are, because a "rule" is only a part of this environment, it's just one contigency that establishes and maintains people behavior. Unfortunately, it's largely known in psychology that only a "rule" by itself is not enough to keep people doing what they are expected to do. As a consequence to TMW, decreeing game rules will not be sufficient.
I also noticed that the community is trying to deal with this deviant behavior with punitive solutions. In my oppinion, char resets, bans and whatever punitive contigencies you may artificially try to sustain will not lower bot activity to a satisfactory level, it will only raise the frequency of avoidance behavior, for example, bot improvement behavior. Again, it's well known in behavioral psychology that punishment isn't the most effective procedure to change people's behavior (and that's why punishment is never used as an intervention technique in behavioral psychotherapy).
I decided to post this because I'm concerned with the fact that TMW is reproducing the same mistakes that other MMORPGs have been doing (which is a comon sense way of dealing with human behavior), and as a consequence TMW will be handling this problem as uneffective as other games currently do (for example, Tibia).
Well, that's what I have to say for now, to start this discussion. Please post your thoughts and points of view.
PS: I tryed to find the best place to post this discussion; sorry if it's not in the right forum and please move it to a better place.
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