Tag: Gold Farmers

Mabinogi Celebrates New Year: Offline Indefinitely


Given the recent malicious activity that has been taking place in-game, it is with much disappointment that we announce that we will take the Mabinogi game service offline temporarily while we work to remedy these issues.

This isn’t the first time Nexon has shut down Mabinogi to combat real world trading and bots, they did it back in October for somewhere around a week. Not that hearing one of Nexon’s games having problems with real money trading and rampant botting is surprising, to say the least, but hearing that the publisher is making some tough decisions to eradicate the trouble makers is worth an ear.

Mabinogi went down yesterday before 7pm pacific with no estimated time to return. We will update with a new post when more information is available.

Please do know that we do not make this decision lightly.  In light of all the tickets and forum posts (which we do read) of this malicious activity, we feel that we have no choice but to take the game down in order to prevent any further malicious action.

(Source: Mabinogi Website)

It's Bot Stomping Day In Runescape


It’s bot stomping day on Runescape, and that can only mean one thing: Celebration. Now, I’ll be celebrating in the usual fashion (cooking goulash and decorating my bathroom with crepe wrappers), but over at Runescape Jagex is celebrating with in-game events all week. Check out the announcement here, and prepare for a full week of extra experience, points, and more.

Yes, the servers are still down as of this writing, but what is a nuke without an accompanying electromagnetic pulse? I have a bit more coverage of Bot Nuke Day in Runescape coming up.

It’s Bot Stomping Day In Runescape


It’s bot stomping day on Runescape, and that can only mean one thing: Celebration. Now, I’ll be celebrating in the usual fashion (cooking goulash and decorating my bathroom with crepe wrappers), but over at Runescape Jagex is celebrating with in-game events all week. Check out the announcement here, and prepare for a full week of extra experience, points, and more.

Yes, the servers are still down as of this writing, but what is a nuke without an accompanying electromagnetic pulse? I have a bit more coverage of Bot Nuke Day in Runescape coming up.

Jagex Announced Project Clusterfutterer: Bot Nuking On Tuesday


Coming on the heels of yet another announcement to ban bots, Jagex has formally announced Project Clusterfutterer. Mark Gerhard posted an announcement on the Runescape home page stating:

Today, I am really happy to say we are in the long-awaited position of being able to announce that we’ll be launching our most formidable bot-busting weapon in our history, targeting what we believe to be 98% of the bots seen in game.

The initiative aims at “reflection bots,” so called programs that operate by reading the information being processed in active memory and act upon it, similar to how AI in a single player game always knows where you are because the active memory tracks your location. At least that’s my understanding of reflection bots.

Check out the full announcement here. Jagex is so excited, they have a plan of events next week to celebrate Bot Nuking Day.

Jagex Fighting Runescape Bots: Traps


I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge creative efforts by Jagex to get rid of bots, given all the grief I’ve thrown at the company over the past year or so. In today’s update on Runescape, Jagex specifically targets gold farmers automating the killing of frost dragons, a lucrative money maker for high level players. A few changes to note:

  • There is a bone pile in the corner of the map, which cannot be reached. The idea is that a bot will keep trying to reach the bones.
  • Dragons now have a new attack, where the player must stop attacking or be damaged.
Jagex notes that this is just the first of many planned updates to beat bots. I have a feeling that this system will be beaten within a week, but it’s good to see that the company is making changes that do not involve either restricting players or trumpeting ineffective ban numbers.

Video of the ___: Runescape, Cheater's Paradise


I care little for the inner-drama in MMOs, so the fact that the person who posted this was a player moderator, and had his status revoked afterward, plays no part in this video being posted here. With the overwhelming quantity of gold farmers that have infested Runescape since its reinstatement of free trade, Jagex has taken to issuing the usual “don’t look over there, look over here,” developer blog, promising that they’re doing something to stop the bots.

And more importantly: What is Jagex doing to keep the game from being swamped with bots and gold farmers like it was pre-trade? They seem to be very sure of themselves that their secret weapon can combat this.

I’m still waiting to see this secret weapon.

Video of the ___: Runescape, Cheater’s Paradise


I care little for the inner-drama in MMOs, so the fact that the person who posted this was a player moderator, and had his status revoked afterward, plays no part in this video being posted here. With the overwhelming quantity of gold farmers that have infested Runescape since its reinstatement of free trade, Jagex has taken to issuing the usual “don’t look over there, look over here,” developer blog, promising that they’re doing something to stop the bots.

And more importantly: What is Jagex doing to keep the game from being swamped with bots and gold farmers like it was pre-trade? They seem to be very sure of themselves that their secret weapon can combat this.

I’m still waiting to see this secret weapon.

Final Fantasy XIV Bots


I’m going to use these bots in a good way, and not just because I want to simultaneously annoy the people who believe me to be paid by Square Enix to prop up Final Fantasy XIV, but also to greatly annoy the people who think I’m getting paid to associate Runescape with the cheater’s paradise that it is.

I came across these bots in Final Fantasy XIV, and promptly reported them via the in-game support system. While I was taking down each of their names, however, it did dawn on me that these bots might actually be a good sign. Back when I played Tabula Rasa in its year of existence, there were never any gold farmers. I think, overall, there was one guy (not even your stereotypical gold farmer, it was some guy in Utah if I remember correctly) we all knew who tried selling currency and high level armor for money, and he was simply flamed out of global chat, and then his account would be banned. No, he wasn’t particularly good at it.

Granted, Tabula Rasa was not a game to gold farm. Gaining currency was easy enough that you would expect heavy inflation, but there wasn’t much worth buying from other players, so not much of a market formed. The player base was also tiny enough that there was no one buying. Now, I’ve spoken with other players who tell me that the bots I saw on my server (Karnak server) are much more prevalent on some other servers, and this tells me two things: Foremost, there has to be a decently sized community, because there is a market for currency/items. Secondly, Final Fantasy XIV has an economy, because there is a desire to buy gold to buy things with.

When the gold farmers leave Final Fantasy XIV, that’s when you’ll know the game is dead. Until then, however, this truck is still…trucking?

More Bots In Runescape: High Level Edition


It’s easy to be indifferent towards gold farmers when they aren’t affecting your choice of spots, so for boss hunters and high level NPC farmers in Runescape, brushing off the effects of gold farmers is a lot harder once those same bots start overrunning your high level training areas, as seen in the above video.

When a company like Jagex has the kind of profits, again like Jagex (almost $60 million annually, and that’s profit), you’d think hiring a dedicated bot busting team would be in the cards. But again, Jagex appears to have the same apathy toward combating bots that I have toward paying my auto-loan.

Thirty Thousand Man March: Chinese Aion Protest


Oddly enough, those are all on one faction.

Over in China, Aion follows the suit of many other MMOs: A major bot problem. This isn’t necessarily due to NCsoft “not caring” about the gold farmers, but rather the enormous market compared to services in the West that brings in a substantial profit margin and results in a flood of input into a system that is already large enough to explode. It’s important to remember a major facet of gold farming: If there wasn’t any demand, there wouldn’t be any market for supply. But there will always be a demand, proportional to the size of the population, and legitimate players cannot be blamed for the actions of those who do buy from these services.

Players in China, however, decided that enough was enough, and staged a protest. MMOSITE estimates that there were thirty thousand people in attendance, in a protest that spanned numerous cities and lagged those areas to a slow crawl. Players created new toons adorned with names like “no bots” and “ban the bots.” Eventually, at least four servers buckled under the strain and had to be taken down for maintenance.

Of course, this inevitably received the attention of NCSoft, who attempted to disperse the crowd by spawning several Grand Chieftain Saendukals (boss), which the swarms of players quickly overtook.

You can read the entire story here: http://news.mmosite.com/content/2010-04-12/30000_aion_players_protest_bots_led_to_servers_down.shtml#ue_pic

Hopefully this sent a clear message to NCsoft to ramp up the anti-bot operations over in China. Here in North America/Europe, the bot problem isn’t nearly as large and NCsoft has brought in the G-Unit to bust gold farming. I’m not certain if there is a similar system in China.

More in Aion as it appears.