Musician Archive
Thread: A solution for the AFK Bot Problem
Schardour
Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:57 am
#14
Oh, I understood 
I'm saying they do understand which exploits are being used, what we're doing to work around certain setbacks (perceived or real, such as "entertainer availability"), and how some players will do absolutely anything to gain that "edge." I'm in disagreement with your views of our development team. I'm positive that they know where problems lay, and I'm certain that they disagree with many of the practices. (AFK play, general combat exploits, use of 3rd party programs, credit duping, etc.) Their problem is in handling those "I'll do anything to 'win'" scenarios, not in recognizing the problem itself.
I'm saying they do understand which exploits are being used, what we're doing to work around certain setbacks (perceived or real, such as "entertainer availability"), and how some players will do absolutely anything to gain that "edge." I'm in disagreement with your views of our development team. I'm positive that they know where problems lay, and I'm certain that they disagree with many of the practices. (AFK play, general combat exploits, use of 3rd party programs, credit duping, etc.) Their problem is in handling those "I'll do anything to 'win'" scenarios, not in recognizing the problem itself. Looking through old dev posts, you'll note that several of them have mentioned the harm that AFK play can do to the game. They simply need to find a way to address it. We're hoping they manage to do that soon.
bcre8iv
Fri Jan 07, 2005 12:07 pm
#15
bfgdoom wrote:
bcre8iv wrote:
bfgdoom wrote:whats the problem? there is not problem.. some play live some dont... somtimes they do both.sometimes i play live as entertainer, or live as combat or whatever and when i go to sleep i leave it on AFK buff bot for the benifit of tired and weary hunters.
While you are in buffbot mode, can you enforce a price for your buffs? No. That means that although you probably do get tips, there are plenty of people getting buffs from you for free. Now, since they can get buffs from you for free, what is their incentive to pay for a buff from the rest of the entertainers that are just logging on when you go afk? None. So how are they supposed to make money? How are they supposed to support themselves? How are they supposed to buy a house and have the fun of decorating it and showing it off to their friends? How are they supposed to have cool clothes to try to entice more customers to watch them? I don't have a problem with you playing however you want to while you are actually playing. But please, if your character is in the game, PLAY!oh i see why some of you hate AFK buff bots now.... never really thought you could make a living at being an entertainer. Thats why I hunt too. SOE made some dumb design choices and the DEVS seem to now even know how we players play the game.
You're right, as the game currently sits AFK nonplay has made it so that entertainers cannot support themselves. However, I feel that one should not be forced to take up a combat profession just to be able to play the game. Maybe I'm just delusional.
bfgdoom
Fri Jan 07, 2005 3:11 pm
#16
Schardour wrote:
Oh, I understood
Looking through old dev posts, you'll note that several of them have mentioned the harm that AFK play can do to the game. They simply need to find a way to address it. We're hoping they manage to do that soon.
Yes, I agree about those problems and dislike those who ruin the game for others and give the DEVs extra work instead of taking care of stuff they really want to do to make the game better.
About the repeating macro, i think it should never have been put into the game in the first place. I am really surprised they didnt think about all those people who would abuse it... what was their intention for it anyway? I really cant think of any except to speed along the crafting grind or helping smugglers buy faction points. They probably could have figured out a better way for that without using repeating macro. Although I like repeating macro for flourishes, it make is easier to chat with people.
Keiner
Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:11 pm
#17
Personally, I think that Nifty's idea could work great! It wouldn't be a problem at all for a live buffer to do, and very difficult for an AFK buffbot to do.
Droidtechmaster
Fri Jan 07, 2005 7:53 pm
#18
I doN,t think SOE will change of idea concerning recursive macro. While, i don,t totally agree with it, it's still the best idea they got for the problem. Being fully entertainer and trying to make a living of this have made me go through many financial difficulties as well. I have a pretty nice guild behind me so i didn,t stay in trouble for long but for all of the entertainer with no guild, some must have it the hard way. And still, it'sm ainly those that are afker.
And removing that recursive macro will remove another problem as well... It will help SOE removing the lag of Coronet. That mean no more afker spamming. So they are making the best move they could.
As for nifty idea, it could have been good if it was in rl. In a game, it must have a pattern and a player will learn the pattern in time and it will start again.
Nifty
Mon Jan 10, 2005 11:22 am
#19
nah, using a good random number generator, there wouldn't be a discernible pattern. If random patterns were discernible in SWG, people would be dropping lots of money on the slot machines and jubilee wheels. 
As for why recursive macroing was implemented in the first place... it was assumed if it wasn't implemented, then people would use 3rd party programs to play AFK anyways. So they figured it would be best to give everyone the ability to recursively macro in game instead of having to police the use of 3rd party programs (like UO had to do with UO:Assist and UO:Extreme in the early days.)
Droidtechmaster
Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:10 pm
#20
Hum still there is nothingcompletly random in computer program.... Someone would figure it putting as much time as he could to find it.
Nifty
Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:58 am
#21
First, I don't know what psuedorandom number generator they use.
Second, I do know that a psuedorandom number generator is nothing more than an algorithm and therefore have patterns. I do know that the patterns are really,REALLY long. I do know that in C and C++ you must seed the random number generator so it starts the algorithm differently. I'm pretty sure that the seed can be from 0 to 65535 (that's16 bitunsignedintegers.) So that's 65536 patterns you have to pick from, plus, you don't know where the random number generator is in whatever pattern it's in when you start your AFK bot.
For fun, play around with javascript's Math.random() function. You can write a simple script to spit out 4 integers from 1 to 8 each time you refresh the page. See if you can find a pattern. 
WeltraumStreuner
Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:15 am
#22
it is not the fact that macros can have loops that enable buff bots, it is more simple, itare the macro-able "/join" and "/invite player-names" commands, make them non useable in the macro's and the bots will be gone realy fast ... put the "you are invited to join a group" in a popup box that tells you "if you want to join the grouptypethe random 6 digit number shown in the window (like if want to destroy houses/factorys) into the box and press enterto join. ... problem solved
Nifty
Fri Jan 14, 2005 8:54 am
#23
Only problem is that doesn't fix /setperform. AFK bots will still be able to buff, just not more than one character at a time. The only change is it will make the line a little longer for the buffbot.
Sunjammer
Fri Jan 14, 2005 11:51 am
#24
Plus, it does nothing to address AFK spawn camping, AFK spamming, etc. Remember, the devs aren't doing this for us. They want to stop AFK in general, not buffbots specifically.
Umi
Atanmir
Sun Jan 16, 2005 4:10 am
#25
you won't belive how could be the life of an entertainer if buffbots weren't around!
Yesterday Kynson, our local buffbot in theed cantina was not online most of the day. I was atk all day long since reset to 8 pm EDT. I never asked money for my buffs, but mostly noone forgot to tip something. I got 37 bank tips with values from 5 to 20 K, and a few more regulas tips, and since i'm only musician, the dancer playing near me got the same ammout of customers.
Let's say it's only 5k avrg tip and around 40 buffs in a day, htats equals to 200k a day, not a huge ammout of money like a fighter can make, but enough to us for live, buy food, an house and stock it. With a buff bot around our total income is usually 10-20k a day if we are luck and get a few tips for heals.
Fhtagn
Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:03 pm
#26
bcre8iv wrote:
However, I feel that one should not be forced to take up a combat profession just to be able to play the game. Maybe I'm just delusional.
in theory, the devs agree with you.... here's an entry from the Knowledge Base:
Question:
Is this game focused on combat?
Answer:
No, not at all. We know that many players will want to explore dangerous areas, participate in the Galactic Civil War, and engage in combat with a wide variety of enemies, so those options are available. However, players who are so inclined can mine, craft, entertain, own a shop, and help build the community, among other things. Players can improve their characters without ever fighting anything.
in practice, however, it's a totally different story... for example, I was told by a CSR that there's no way to correct negative faction except by hunting faction NPCs 
just how the heck am I supposed to do that, if I'm playing a musican/dancer with no combat skills? I didn't want any positive or negative faction, or combat xp of any kind -- but, thanks to a chance encounter in the streets of Bestine with a thug that my character auto-responded to (hey, why can't we turn that off anyways? I wanted to run away, not fight back...), I'm stuck with unwanted points and can't go places that I want to...
just how the heck am I supposed to do that, if I'm playing a musican/dancer with no combat skills? I didn't want any positive or negative faction, or combat xp of any kind -- but, thanks to a chance encounter in the streets of Bestine with a thug that my character auto-responded to (hey, why can't we turn that off anyways? I wanted to run away, not fight back...), I'm stuck with unwanted points and can't go places that I want to... /sigh