[Blacke]

Man... i hate B"word people..

Bagger's
Outta
Travel
Through
Time
Ever
Right..

trying to be clever.. Fishing and the economy, what do u Think has happened due to Botters?


note. I hate botters, think they should be banned permonently, and put in a un-padded room and slapped around by GM's.

[Geo]

Whats wrong with botters?
90% of all JP fishers bot.

[Undermind]

Botters for one, should be banned perm or atleast a long temp, and there gear and gil should be taken cause it was probably bought with the botted fish profit.

Botting takes the "fun" outta the game. Sure I would love to have the best equipment at my lvl, all the stuff thats 200k+ at lvl 20, but the truth is, if I botted it, It wouldnt be as worthful to me. I mean if I earned the cash and bought it it would be better....wait, im rambling

[wstussyb]

all the lvl 1 no sub job fishers with lu shangs
who make 500k a night with 3 chars and sell the gil
Kinda sucks when im there for 5 hours casting each line, and they are sitting behing a botting program sleeping.

[Ariesknight]

Yes it is damn annoying to get 2 catches in an hour and seeing 3 fully geared bot fishers across from you casting every exact 13 secs or whatever, and you know the person behind it is jsut sleeping and waking up to 500K when I get a measly 4K from the same time spent! Boters should be banned and their Gil spread to all citizens of their nation equally!

[PetriW]

who make 500k a night with 3 chars and sell the gil

You mean 250k every day.

casting every exact 13 secs or whatever

So you're one of those assholes who petition people just because they recast with a regular delay? HELLO! Some of us use our brains and have a in game macro (/wait 5 /fish is mine) to time when we can fish again.

Yes it is damn annoying to get 2 catches in an hour

And this would be caused by bots in what way?

[Funguwari]

Originally posted by PetriW
You mean 250k every day.
So you're one of those assholes who petition people just because they recast with a regular delay? HELLO! Some of us use our brains and have a in game macro (/wait 5 /fish is mine) to time when we can fish again.
And this would be caused by bots in what way?

You obviously don't know what a bot is, or you've had experience in using one.

But is it fair?

You know... if botting is so legal, why don't I just hack my characters stats and give him 9999999 in everything...?

EDIT: WE ARE TALKING ABOUT BOTS! NOT ABOUT FISHING MACROS. DON'T MIX UP THE TWO, THEY'RE DIFFERENT THINGS. JUST WANTED TO MAKE THIS CLEAR FOR SOME PEOPLE!

[Blacke]

Yea, but that isn't even possible to hack all your stats to 99999+
It is rather frustraiting with botting because I personally think that low lvl fisherman, see people botting, get discourgaged, and quite the guild...

On the economy ::cough cough orignal topic::
+ sides of it.
1. Moat Carb In sandoria sell like 10 secs after u put them up at Ah due to botters at AH buying them immediatly
neagtive side of that.... well just kind of cheap... but it is quick gill.

2. Other guilds are benifiting due to that fact that fish that are using in synthesis are easier to come by.
negative side of that... its cheap, and easier money making for botters.

- sides of it.
1. Aggervation, hello... yea WTF stupid JP's don't get banned, i've only heard of NA's getting things from it. Square doesn't care about Botter's, they think of it as "hey i'm getting like 100+ r/l cash off this guy with multiple characters, lets have him be happy.

2. low lvl fish in the past, taht low lvl fisherman cought, now sell for near to nothing due to the fact that Botters catch them so icnredibly easily.


I agree, Botter's should get there gear stripped away / gill given away and be sentenced to a year in Limbo.

(yea i'm a YuYu nerd)

ex. To clear any confusion, botting is when u use a 3rd party program to cast rod/real in fish, auto sort fish, change bait... so cheap.

[METDeath]

Kind of an amusing note... when I was reading these boards back during beta, there wasn't such a huge deal about fish botting... hell, I don't even remember seeing a thread about it on the "Get new" searches... then I stopped following it till I picked up retail in November. All I saw was "how to make money" and "stop fish botting" which i just find quite amusing, because fishing is a great way to make money.

as for fish botting, before the nerf there wasn't really a reason for me to not fish (normally), I'd do a boat ride from Mhuara to Selbina and have about a stack of bastoire sardines (150g to npc, 600g on AH) if not more. however when they adjusted the fish code, catches just died... it was quite annoying, i'd go skill up and get a full level of skill and yet only come back with six or seven fish, and this is over a two hour time period. so i got frustrated with fishing and sold my gear and gave it up, and i'm not going back to fishing for profit till i get really bored, which will be never, i have too many things to do in game as it is.

personally I don't have a problem with fish botting, it's NM bots that bother me, those are the ones that make more money imho, plus when i'm camping gear to use, it really bothers me more when i don't get it because some one is botting it.

[Whorbital]

As a mid level fisherman myself, I have also been frustrated and disgusted by the abundance of fishing bots present on the servers. And like many, (including some of the above posters) I had thought it was because of laziness and greed on the part of both Square / Enix and the players that the problem is still unfixed. Yet after reviewing some material, I can see why it is extremely difficult not to locate the bots, but to deal with them in a just and equitable manner. The major problem comes in ambiguity as to the actions of the botters actually being provably illegal according to the POL Member Agreement and FFXI User Agreement. Both the MA and UA have similar clauses regarding “Prohibited Activities�, yet prohibition against the use of outside applications to manipulate in game events or perform actions is absent. There are only two areas under these prohibitions where a case could be made against botters that are not seeking real world or outside compensation.

(from the Play Online Member Agreement)
https://secure.playonline.com/supportus/index03.html
4.4
(b) Interfering with or obstructing the operation of the PlayOnline Service;

Since I know nothing of the mechanics of the bots, I have no idea if they would deliberately violate this provision, which seems to target applications or actions that would inhibit normal program function. However, “interfering� could be interpreted as performing keystrokes or running outside input programs. This clause is absent from the FFXI User Agreement, so let’s move on to,

(from the POLMA, and the FFXIUA)
https://secure.playonline.com/supportus/index03.html
3.1 (In the FFXIUA)
(g) Use of any cheat codes or cheat devices.

Gotcha biatch. Bots grant users an unfair advantage over other players and that, while not the dictionary definition of cheating, serves for us. Running that application now gives S/E justification for kicking you off the servers and leaving you a misguided complaining troll on some message board somewhere. They own your character and everything related to them anyway, now they just have a good reason for deleting you. Good bye and good riddance.

However, it’s not that simple. If I use a voice activation program to hit CRTL1 from my couch, am I botting? What if I’m handicapped and can’t hit multiple keys at once for macros so I use the same program? If I run a third party fishing program, but am there watching it so I can respond and function as a normal character, is that illegal? If I simply hold a PS2 controller and hit a repeat fish macro, using the vibration to indicate bites while I watch TV, am I botting since I’m not watching the screen or responding to tells and communication? Is it the fact that the person is sleeping or away while performing actions, or that they are using an outside source to do it? Or is it the combination of the two? Do we just delete the level 1 bot or do we deactivate the content ID’s of the POL member?

I actually use my roommate’s character on the PS2 as a fisherman while he is at class, and have gotten tells before checking to see if I was a bot. I didn’t respond because I was using the vibration function to play so I could concentrate on my character. Was I botting? These are the kind of situations that a GM would have to deal with, often with little to no information, and the wrong choice could cost the company a legitimate customer and supporter. Not to mention the economic ramifications if fish bot gil stopped flowing in (there are quite a few botters who target fish that sell well to the NPC market, in essence generating a positive flow of gil into the economy from the NPC’s unlimited supply without dealing through the AH. And there are far more lucrative fish availible to them than moat carp.) Please provide examples if you can of times when a suspected botter has ruined an aspect of the economy, or to be fair, times you can observe their gil being used productively to strengthen it. If you are a fish botter, post what you do with your gil, and where you get it from. I will praise the day all the fish botters are drug out into the street and shot, but until we have some definitive numbers I would personally rather S/E treat the situation carefully.

One thing I have heard of that I couldn’t find documentation on is that you must be present at all times to answer any inquiry posed by a GM. Does anyone have any literature or precedent on this? It’s still not without its problems but it's a great step if the GM’s respond they way we hope they will.

[PetriW]

Originally posted by Funguwari
You obviously don't know what a bot is, or you've had experience in using one.
But is it fair?
You know... if botting is so legal, why don't I just hack my characters stats and give him 9999999 in everything...?
EDIT: WE ARE TALKING ABOUT BOTS! NOT ABOUT FISHING MACROS. DON'T MIX UP THE TWO, THEY'RE DIFFERENT THINGS. JUST WANTED TO MAKE THIS CLEAR FOR SOME PEOPLE!

Yeah right, 86 fishing and no idea what fishing bots are.
Since you didn't understand I'll say it a bit more clear for you: I fish again exactly 5 seconds after pulling in the line. For some reason a lot of newbies seem to think that this means I'm botting. I've been petitioned for this over 10 times already. 5 seconds is plenty of time to delete a rusty item and sort your inventory.

Originally posted by Blacke
I agree, Botter's should get there gear stripped away / gill given away and be sentenced to a year in Limbo.

If a botter is caught twice he's PERM banned, aka: account deleted! I doubt the level 1 in saru care much about this (except the 2.3mil gil loss) but at least that should keep people who fish on their main character away from bot fishing.

Originally posted by METDeath
as for fish botting, before the nerf there wasn't really a reason for me to not fish (normally), I'd do a boat ride from Mhuara to Selbina and have about a stack of bastoire sardines (150g to npc, 600g on AH) if not more. however when they adjusted the fish code, catches just died... it was quite annoying, i'd go skill up and get a full level of skill and yet only come back with six or seven fish, and this is over a two hour time period. so i got frustrated with fishing and sold my gear and gave it up, and i'm not going back to fishing for profit till i get really bored, which will be never, i have too many things to do in game as it is.

It mainly forced you to think a bit more about where and when you fish. I usually fish close to a zone line so I can run over every hour or so. Most of the "omg fishing was nerfed" people had never fished outside windurst anyway.

Originally posted by METDeath
personally I don't have a problem with fish botting, it's NM bots that bother me, those are the ones that make more money imho, plus when i'm camping gear to use, it really bothers me more when i don't get it because some one is botting it.

Yeah, to me it seems like noone cares about NM bots. Ok, fishing bots might add gil to the market but at least they don't prevent others from fishing. (If you think they do get your head examined.) NM bots can keep 100% attention for an eternity and provoke that NM on spawn EVERY time without fail robbing all legit campers from the spawn.

[PetriW]

Originally posted by Whorbital
One thing I have heard of that I couldn’t find documentation on is that you must be present at all times to answer any inquiry posed by a GM. Does anyone have any literature or precedent on this? It’s still not without its problems but it's a great step if the GM’s respond they way we hope they will.

Yes, this was posted in a news update a month or two ago. If you seek hard enough in the POL news I'm sure you'll find it.
How it works now is like this:
GM sends you a poll like question asking something like "Hello, this is a GM, are you there?" You can reply like "I'm afk", "Yes", "No". The options are randomized and the box is shown 3(?) times.
On some servers this little dialog box is used so much that legit fishermen are actually getting quite annoyed with them while on others almost noone has seen one.

^^ I've never seen this box myself, I've actually never met or seen a GM. (I guess they read my logs before bothering me and see I'm active in tells and linkshell.) But what this essentially means is that if you reply wrong once you have to explain yourself, reply wrong more than once and you're almost certain to get yourself 3 days in jail.

As for sarutabaruta fishers ruining the economy consider that a normal 50+ character with the proper job can make far more gil in 4-5 hours than a bot can do in a day. I doubt bot fishers affect the economy in any drastic ways, sure every little gil people get from NPCs is added to item price inflation but seriously, if you're hurting for gil you either:
1) Farm the wrong mobs for gil. Talk with your friends how they make gil.
2) Never saw the wonder of BCNM battles and non-bottable NM mobs.
3) Never tried fishing in the really profitable places. If you think afk fishing in sarutabaruta gives any really decent gil you don't know much about fishing.

On Ragnarok we have a bot fisher who's in Port Bastok fishing 24/7 and has been there for a few months. I've always marvelled at how stupid that is. You can get as much gil as she makes in a day in 1 hour in Rabao. The electricity bill for the computer is probably higher than the profit from selling the gil she makes online!

[Xccoortri]

Originally posted by Geo
Whats wrong with botters?
90% of all JP fishers bot.

Didn't your mother ever tell you, 90% wrongs don't make a right.

[D0oM]

other day i saw a guy fishing, next day, same spot, next day same spot. so i called GM, told him about him. that player hasnt logged in in over a week.

botting is cheating. it says in user agreement

basically state's. for fishing* if u dont have to be sitting at the pc pushing buttons to catch fish, thats considered cheating and u can be banned for it.

i dont think its fair at all. it doesnt matter if its helping other guilds out or not.

any of u play diablo 2 when there was ITH items? how long did that stay fun, kill everything with one whirlwind on a barb.

cheating *botting* ruins the game.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Geo
Whats wrong with botters?
90% of all JP fishers bot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if thats true, then i feel that 100% of the botter's should be perm banned.

[PetriW]

Originally posted by D0oM
any of u play diablo 2 when there was ITH items? how long did that stay fun, kill everything with one whirlwind on a barb.

Yeah right, good comparison. If there was widespread item duping in FFXI it'd be very different from how bots affect the economy.
Bot fishing while allowing a person to make quite a lot more gil than normally possible is still controllable. Item duping creates an unlimited supply instantly dumping prices on popular items rather than raising them slightly.