Your opinions on attended fish botting.

[Autumn]

I suggest talking to a few GMs in the game and asking them if they suspend (or warn) for ANY kind of botting - attended or not. Rules are rules ... period.

[Irinicus]

Oh boy LawDawg is at it again. do you ever get the feeling that where ever you go Dawg you always manage to 'Step on someones Toes'? Maybe you should think before you write.

[Macht]

Originally posted by LawDawg
if you create your own fish botting script, would it still be considered "3rd party"? (legally, i don't think so). And if you want to get "technical", using a turbo control is, "technically" using 3rd party software. The control is manufactured by a 3rd party, and the software (yes its software, embedded software) is created by a 3rd party!

More importantly, I believe in the Absentee section of the Rules of Conduct, it states something along the lines of as long as you are at your computer ready to take control of your character, then there is no problem. but i dont have FFXI available now, so /shrug

Well I do agree the terms are against 3rd party use, but it isn't for the purpose of botting they are against. The purpose is a 3rd party giving your character abilities beyond the fantasy's intended design. So if a 3rd party program is running that ends up making you move faster, take less damage, do more damage, evade more, block more, levitate/fly, teleport without use of scrolls/spells/other items/other game set methods, etc... are the 3rd party programs they are referring to.

A fish bot as long as the player is present means they are still interacting with the game. They are still capable of responding to other players if a tell is sent to them. If they were to be playing a gameboy or doing something else while being present with the bot running then "technically" they are not present and run the risk of being punished for botting while unattended.

In this manner unattended is referring to the concious state. If the person's concious is not focused on the game then thier character for all purposes is unattended, even if they are physically present to the medium running the game.

What all this boils down too is if you are going to fall asleep, or want to play another game, or read a book, or anything else that takes your concious presence away from the game then you ARE BOTTING. If you do end up doing something to take your concious presence away from the game and tested by a GM to see if you are present and fail that test then the invoked ban is completly your fault.

[LawDawg]

please explain to me how a GM would know someone is botting if they are attending it? no please, I really want to know. Then I will crush your argument by telling you that you can add randomness to your script....

[LawDawg]

yep, what Macht said is correct. I have nothing against attended botting, but I am against unattended botting (if you happen to read my other posts from the Crafting Forum thread) regardless, if you dont want to accept the fact that attended botting is fine, and actually smart, then dont do it. No GM will ever be able to suspend someone who is "attend botting" because there is no way to tell the difference between someone who is attending a bot and someone who is fishing without a bot.

[Autumn]

Oh my... this is STILL going on? Random script or not - there's still a PATTERN to what you're doing and a GM in the game can see that - easily. They have your logs and actions at their disposal. I'm not going to go into detail, but there's a pattern to everything - even if you made it random, there's a pattern.

The point is, again, it's against the rules irregardles of any rationalization you can TRY to give it. But as I said, talk to a GM on your server and ask them what the protocol is for botting - both attended and unattended. Your arguemt will end when y uoactually *DO* that and realize the facts. Until then, it's an endless cicle I refuse to add to over and over again.

Unless something NEW is brought to the table here, this conversation is "dead" - the circle's been completed ... nothing else to add from "Autumn's End". (how many of you get that pun?)

[Macht]

Originally posted by LawDawg
yep, what Macht said is correct. I have nothing against attended botting, but I am against unattended botting (if you happen to read my other posts from the Crafting Forum thread) regardless, if you dont want to accept the fact that attended botting is fine, and actually smart, then dont do it. No GM will ever be able to suspend someone who is "attend botting" because there is no way to tell the difference between someone who is attending a bot and someone who is fishing without a bot.

Well there is a way to tell actually, especially if it's a really bad designed bot. You do know every echo command you do or any key commands you execute that ends up putting text in that chat box is recorded. It is personal data however so GMs are not allowed to look at it unless given cause to do so (Accused Harrassment statements, Repeatedly foul Language, or other abuse).

[LawDawg]

tell me, If i add a randomness factor to my bot, for example, if I know it takes 13 seconds before I can fish again, but instead I do something like:

fishAgainTime = 14 + getRandom(-1,1);
fishIn(fishAgainTime);

Then I add this randomness to every aspect of the bot, ie, moving once in a while, changing bait after a random period of time (after bait runs out), changing pole after a random amount of time (after pole breaks), etc. how the hell is the GM going to be able to tell that you are botting? Especially since fishing is such a boringly repetitive task, that requires no skill besides smashing buttons, please, (no really, I would really like to know) tell me how a GM would be able to tell between two people. A attended fish bot, and an regular fisher.

to Autumn: I don't get whats over. Your argument is that GMs say its against the rules. First off, show me where in the rules it says you can't use an attended bot, then explain to me again how GMs know everything? You really have added nothing except claiming that GMs can see all your actions (actually only some can, and only in special circumstances), and then determine that you are botting? Please tell me, what is the deciding factor to distinguish between a fish bot and a real fisher?

[Macht]

Originally posted by LawDawg
tell me, If i add a randomness factor to my bot, for example, if I know it takes 13 seconds before I can fish again, but instead I do something like:

fishAgainTime = 14 + getRandom(-1,1);
fishIn(fishAgainTime);

Then I add this randomness to every aspect of the bot, ie, moving once in a while, changing bait after a random period of time (after bait runs out), changing pole after a random amount of time (after pole breaks), etc. how the hell is the GM going to be able to tell that you are botting? Especially since fishing is such a boringly repetitive task, that requires no skill besides smashing buttons, please, (no really, I would really like to know) tell me how a GM would be able to tell between two people. A attended fish bot, and an regular fisher.

to Autumn: I don't get whats over. Your argument is that GMs say its against the rules. First off, show me where in the rules it says you can't use an attended bot, then explain to me again how GMs know everything? You really have added nothing except claiming that GMs can see all your actions (actually only some can, and only in special circumstances), and then determine that you are botting? Please tell me, what is the deciding factor to distinguish between a fish bot and a real fisher?

Yes, that would be a decently done bot. However most cases it isn't movement but timespan doing 1 particular thing. That is the basic initial test to find a botter, they check who's been there the longest after that a few tells to question them and test if they really are present. For the sake of finding a potential bot they can also throw out a random test here and there to players who's time span is long enough that if they are botting while unattented that it can throw the game out of balance.

Anyways for anyone who wants to keep debating the matter between botting while present or not as opposed to what justifies a present botter just look at this link.

Square-Enix Q&A to Absentee Play

[LawDawg]

thanks macht!! that was the exact link that I was looking for. I do agree, that there are some tests that a GM can use to test for unattended botting, but for attended botting, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to detect a well designed attended fish bot.

[Alucath]

What everyone's saying is basically... "it's against the rules, but omg i ken do it so i wanna"

Well, you know, tough luck. You wanna ruin the economy by spending hours and hours and hours staring at your computer screen and just sitting in one spot instead of actually doing the work yourself. That's your deal, you can do that if you want. The entire POINT that you should realize is that, even unattended botting is against the rules. It doesn't matter if they'll catch you. I could shoplift something and I wouldn't be caught if I do it right, does that make it legal? No, I think it's wrong to steal. I think it's wrong to bot, it's stealing money from NPCs practically.

Technically, if you wanted to be smooth about it, you could program the bot to parse incoming packets (because that's what it does anyway) and recognize /tell's, and respond to them psuedo-intelligently. But I'm just saying, bots are still wrong.. why would you want to do that anyway? >.<

[Macht]

Originally posted by LawDawg
thanks macht!! that was the exact link that I was looking for. I do agree, that there are some tests that a GM can use to test for unattended botting, but for attended botting, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to detect a well designed attended fish bot.

That's the trick though, it has to be a well designed most fishing bots I see work to optimize your fishing, so they will periodically do a series of /fish to find what the shortest time they can wait till you can fish again. That series of /fish is all a GM has to look for if they wanted to actually ban all present botters.

Originally posted by Alucath
What everyone's saying is basically... "it's against the rules, but omg i ken do it so i wanna"

Well, you know, tough luck. You wanna ruin the economy by spending hours and hours and hours staring at your computer screen and just sitting in one spot instead of actually doing the work yourself. That's your deal, you can do that if you want. The entire POINT that you should realize is that, even unattended botting is against the rules. It doesn't matter if they'll catch you. I could shoplift something and I wouldn't be caught if I do it right, does that make it legal? No, I think it's wrong to steal. I think it's wrong to bot, it's stealing money from NPCs practically.

Technically, if you wanted to be smooth about it, you could program the bot to parse incoming packets (because that's what it does anyway) and recognize /tell's, and respond to them psuedo-intelligently. But I'm just saying, bots are still wrong.. why would you want to do that anyway? >.<

Yes you can do that with /tell's but again it's only a psuedo-intelligent responce, the right questions and/or length of questions asked would reveal it as a bot still. And yes even though an attended bot is basically legal to do (Your conscious presence is still payment for doing it, so it isn't at all like compairing to shop lifting) the thing you can debate I just thought of now looking at it is weather or not it is morally right to do.

[Klades]

The only real difference between unassisted fishing and attended botting is the latter has to *gasp* hit less keys.

Oh no, they will incur less wear upon their keyboards and ruin the keyboard market of the world. THEY MUST BE BANNED.

Sarcasm aside, I don't see an issue here. Nothing stops non-macro fishers from doing something else while fishing. It's not especially hard to keep an eye or ear on the game while playing GBA or reading a book. It's not like fishing macros magically increase your fishing skill or anything. The bot will not pick out the perfect bait, rod, location, and time for you to fish, and then begin fishing at twice the rate as a normal fisherman. You could just get a few of those drinking birds and get a similar (if less complex) effect, provided your keyboard keys aren't hard to press :D


As for the "series of /fish", I don't think that would work either. Frequently I misjudge how much time it's been and end up hitting /fish repeatedly until it fishes.

[LawDawg]

hm... whenever I fish, I typically guess around 10 seconds, and then start mashing my fish macro at a steady rate until it fishes.

Another thing I would like to point out, is that in that link, it specifically says that Absentee Play is only considered for "long period of time" only. That means you can keep your bot running while you play a game, read a book, go to the bathroom, etc, as long as you are periodically checking on the status of your character, and can "react to anything that happens to the character during the game" within a reasonable amount of time.

For all who dont understand, "If you leave your game for any period of time, be sure to turn off any macros you have running." basically is allowing any type of bots....

[Macht]

Originally posted by Klades
The only real difference between unassisted fishing and attended botting is the latter has to *gasp* hit less keys.

Oh no, they will incur less wear upon their keyboards and ruin the keyboard market of the world. THEY MUST BE BANNED.

Sarcasm aside, I don't see an issue here. Nothing stops non-macro fishers from doing something else while fishing. It's not especially hard to keep an eye or ear on the game while playing GBA or reading a book. It's not like fishing macros magically increase your fishing skill or anything. The bot will not pick out the perfect bait, rod, location, and time for you to fish, and then begin fishing at twice the rate as a normal fisherman. You could just get a few of those drinking birds and get a similar (if less complex) effect, provided your keyboard keys aren't hard to press :D


As for the "series of /fish", I don't think that would work either. Frequently I misjudge how much time it's been and end up hitting /fish repeatedly until it fishes.

Yes, but the series is different then a frequently misjudged time and hitting /fish repeatedly. When you hit the /fish repeatedly there is bound to be a difference in the amount of time you press the key 1 time then repeating for the second and so forth key press. A series in order for it to actually "optimize" the time has to be precise amount of time between each action, so in the logs (Which I'm sure will have a timestamp, would be a silly log if not) will show the time between each /fish series being far more perfect sequence then what a player will do hitting the /fish repeatedly.

I agree with your point to the difference between a player using a bot attended or hitting the keys themselves. That's the whole point of why it isn't considered illegal, because the only variance there is the amount of keys pressed. It's a totally different story though for them to be absent and a macro running, that is basically cheating.

Again like I said the term for absentee as far as Square-Enix can tell is if you are consciously present. You can play a GBA or do something else being within pysical range of the game, however you have to be paying attention to it in some conscious manner in order to detect anything that occurs. No tell is going to give you a sound or anything to let you know something was sent to you. So if you do something like play GBA and such you run the risk of being absent while the bot is running, which by technical terms if your are not consciously aware of it then you are absent.

It's like a person day dreaming in the middle of a meeting, he is physically there but he's not paying attention to what's going on that makes him absent.

EDIT:

To further help my case in what I'm saying here is a defenition you should find in a Webster's Dictionary about Absent.

Absent: adj 1: not in a specified place physically or mentally. 2: lost in thought; showing preoccupation; "an absent stare"; "an absentminded professer"; "the scatty glancing quality of a hyperactive but unfocused intelligence"

That's what is key in what they mean by Absentee player.