Bots in Games

[Gaidal Cain]

I'm curius -- is there any difference in your mind between using a bot or paying (real money) for an account/item?

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

I'm curius -- is there any difference in your mind between using a bot or paying (real money) for an account/item?

No, not really. Most companies have policies against selling items, saying that everything associated with the game belongs to the company. When you click the "I Agree" buttton agreeing with the terms and conditions of using the software by their terms. If you bought the item from the game company that would be a different story.

[Storm-giant]

When I was 16 I was playing Diablo II. It took me hours and hours to kill Mephisto 1500 times to get that valuable Shako. Lost social life and was becoming crazy about. Then I discovered the bot. He was running all the night for me, sometimes it killed my valuable characters but, overall, I was happy with. He was doing repetitive tasks.

I never played diablo II online, but I played in singler player two barbarians 80+lvl, 4 necromancers 75 lvl, a paladin and sorcerer with around 65 lvl, a 81 lvl druid, and some other minor characters and I never get a SoJ(Stone of Jordan). More than 600 baal nightmare runs, more than 100 mephist hell runs, more than 300 mephist runs on nightmare, and no luck ...
Concerning the bots, on single player can be ok, but on online games companies should go after bot producers and users-bots ruins the fun of a game not only to the people who uses them, but also to other people.

[Asheera]

Concerning the bots, on single player can be ok, but on online games companies should go after bot producers and users-bots ruins the fun of a game not only to the people who uses them, but also to other people.

Exactly my thoughts.

[Salamandre]

Jordan). More than 600 baal nightmare runs, more than 100 mephist hell runs, more than 300 mephist runs on nightmare, and no luck ...

exactly my thoughts: bad game, deserve a bot punishement.

You call it bad luck, I call it statistics. You have to do more than thousands Mephisto runs to have a valuable loot. Let the bot do that for you, and with loots then you can really enjoy the story.

[Kristo]

Yeah, that represents an item balance problem. If monsters have any chance to drop phat l00t (better than normal loot), then it won't be long before the phat l00t is the only loot worth using. In a semi-persistent world like Diablo, this problem effectively ruins the game for all but the most experienced players.

[Storm-giant]

You call it bad luck, I call it statistics. You have to do more than thousands Mephisto runs to have a valuable loot. Let the bot do that for you, and with loots then you can really enjoy the story.

Well, doing pindleskin runs on normal difficult I got four times the inmortal head...Between, I got twice the sharko and the wizard spike doing the nightmare baal runs...

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

We're getting a little off topic in turning this into a Diablo discussion but if you want a SOJ the best drop chance is off nightmare Andariel. She has a good chance of droping rings/jewelry but you'll still have to do a lot of runs most likely.

There is a Diablo thread here:
viewtopic.php?t=6022&start=240

[Jolly Joker]

It's just capitalism: As soon as something becomes laborious, let someone - or something - else do it for you, for a fee.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

As tempting as it is for me to respond to that comment let's not start a capitalism vs socialism discussion in the games forum. Save the political comments for a reopened Observatory.

[Jolly Joker]

I mean it just like I say it, as in, it's a natural development: the gaming industry is looking for ways to hook you deeper into it, especially in online games. Second Life would be an example. The counter reaction is to "hire" someone or something which does the laborious part, and as soon as there are people willing to pay for it, there will be something on offer. I'm sure you can hire people as well, playing for you, if the payment is right, but bots are cheaper.
In that sense, what you see is capitalism at work. If you find that negative, don't blame me. I didn't say, they should ban it or forbid it, did I?

[BoardGuest808888]

Using bot is not just cheating. It ruins the gaming experience as well, not just for the user, but more importantly, to others playing the game as well.

So game companies should go after bot users at most, because they're directly ruining the game (and by ruining the game, directly cause the game to be less profitable as well because the game is being less attractive to gamers).

Even if that's not possible, some kind of measurements should be done, like banning the bot user, or marking him/her as bot-user.

[BoardGuest808888]

I mean it just like I say it, as in, it's a natural development: the gaming industry is looking for ways to hook you deeper into it, especially in online games.

and so on...

I'm afraid it matters more than capitalism whatsoever.

If gaming industry make you hooked to their game, well, that's their way of making money. Whether you are going to be hooked or not, that's your own choice. If you don't agree with the game rules, then you can freely left it.

However, you can't ruin the game rules itself, because then you're causing damage not to yourself, but to others.

In this case, what-you-pay-is-what-you-get rule of capitalism is not entirely working, because you're paying to screw anyone else.

[Jolly Joker]

Yeah, so? You are talking about the INTERNET: Spyware, malware, virusses worms... bots. It's a jungle. Why would online gaming be different? That said, why would GAMING be different? I mean, with a simulation game, developing routines to do the laborious parts is part of the game anyway - most games allow the AI to handle routine businesses.

In an online gamr, IF it makes a difference of whether you play 6 hours or 12 a day it makes sense to develop a method to play it 24 hours - whether you are playing peronally or not.

If a bot can play the game better than a human the game sucks. Let the bots play the game against each other since it is a game for bots then.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

In an online gamr, IF it makes a difference of whether you play 6 hours or 12 a day it makes sense to develop a method to play it 24 hours - whether you are playing peronally or not.

If a bot can play the game better than a human the game sucks. Let the bots play the game against each other since it is a game for bots then.

IF you were only competing against yourself (like in a single player game) then you would only be cheating yourslef.

BUT if you are competing against other players then you are cheating the other players by using a bot to stay online 24 hours a day. OR using a bot to make use of the ability of a computer to react faster than a human player can.

A bot can react faster to pick up the goodies when fighting the bad guys with human players and a bot doesn't have to sleep or go to work. Bots are cheating.

Games don't suck becase of the possiblity of a computer (bot) being able to outperform a human being. Humans can't react as fast as a computer can. What sucks is people cheating to gain an unfair advantage over other people in a multiplayer game IMHO.

[Kristo]

I think you're both right. It is indeed the player's fault for choosing to use a bot to give him an unfair advantage. But it's the game developers' fault for making such an effort worthwhile. The problem concept is "more is better." If the purpose of killing bad guys is to pick up their phat l00t, then obviously more is better. If your ladder ranking is directly proportional to your playing time, again more is better. In both cases, a bot will outperform a human player. As JJ said, we're talking about the Internet here. There are always people out there who will choose to ruin the game for everybody else.

There's a (somewhat dated) website that talks about this issue in depth: http://mu.ranter.net/theory/index.html. I can't speak from experience (since I've not played most the games he mentions) but he seems to present a good argument.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

But it's the game developers' fault for making such an effort worthwhile. The problem concept is "more is better." If the purpose of killing bad guys is to pick up their phat l00t, then obviously more is better. If your ladder ranking is directly proportional to your playing time, again more is better.

Game developers try to prevent bots but the cheaters always find a way to break the code.

It is not a case of "more is better" exactly.

There are different types of games. Games that require you to spend time developing your character are not faulty games. They are a certain type of game. Many rpgs are like this. You go out and slay monsters and do quests to get money to buy better equipment/spells or to find better equipment/spells. This is not a faulty game type.

If I want the best gear available I will have to invest some time in exploring for the gear or getting enough in game gold to buy the gear. I don't see how that is a faulty game. That is typical of most rpgs and persistant online game worlds. If a person does not like that type of game they don't have to play it and can't justify cheating to gain advantages over other players.

[Gaidal Cain]

If I want the best gear available I will have to invest some time in exploring for the gear or getting enough in game gold to buy the gear. I don't see how that is a faulty game. That is typical of most rpgs and persistant online game worlds. If a person does not like that type of game they don't have to play it and can't justify cheating to gain advantages over other players.

But does the bot user having those items stop you from getting them? If not, what difference is there between running into a bot-user and someone who's been playing the game honestly for long enough to gather all that honestly? If it does, is that not a problem that could also appear when playing against other humans?

[Asheera]

If a bot plays better than a human it's a cheat. It's like having an auto-aim bot at shooters

[Kristo]

The mere fact that there exists a best gear is the problem. All other gear is useless except as a gateway to getting the best gear. It's the same way with character stats, spells, skills, etc. If players are able to watch their numbers increase, they will. Any game where you can exchange playing time for power will be exploited. I'm not condoning the cheating at all, I'm just saying that it's inevitable.

You hit on an important point that this is typical of most RPGs. That's because most RPGs are based on the RPGs that came before them. They're fine (and fun!) when you and a half-dozen friends are sitting around a table. But make a computer the referee and invite the whole world to play and you're asking for chaos. A truly innovative CRPG would have no visible stats and zero-sum-balanced weapons, skills, and spells. If you take away every incentive to get more/better, the game becomes about the shared experience - what it should have been all along.