16-Jul-2011 - Fighting the bots - An update from Jagex!

[Philoz 494]

We at Jagex are keenly aware of the botting issues within RuneScape and know how disruptive they can be to our game. Whether it's using a macro program to control an account or power levelling, it's safe to say that it's something that we're all united in fighting and from the support you give us on the forums, in game and when we meet face to face, it's crystal clear that it's something that you; the RuneScape community, also feel very strongly about.

That's why today we want to take a few moments to reaffirm our dedication to the removal of bots and cheats from RuneScape.

We are constantly looking into ways of making the game experience the very best possible for all of our players and as part of our on-going programme to rid the game of bots, Jagex is actively pursuing companies that support the macroing market as well as those who bot. As such we are currently pursuing various bot developers through multiple legal channels, although sadly we cannot yet disclose the full details of our actions for legal reasons. Separately, as part of normal legal process and procedure, we have also taken steps to acquire the details of all players who have purchased bots.
Once we have the information regarding the players involved we will take action specifically to ensure that these players are not compromising the game's integrity through the use of a third party programs. We are committed to undertaking various initiatives to identify players and companies who are using and distributing bots within RuneScape and will endeavour to inform you all of these efforts as we can.
In the meantime, be safe, don't fall to the dark side and we look forward to the positive outcomes of our actions ultimately making the game experience a better one for everyone.

Sincerely,
Daniel Clough

[Shortstuff]

They should name and shame

[Dvdrak]

The problem isn't the gold farmers or bot makers. It is the people within the Runescape community who buy the gold and use the bots. This is a futile jester by Jagex and a complete admittance by Jagex that they cannot detect or stop bots. Hope everyone is enjoying your unbalanced trade and wild.

[pi_stoff]

we have also taken steps to acquire the details of all players who have purchased bots

How are they going to do that? do you need to give your user name to buy a bot?

What jagex are saying is we cant stop you botting but hope to scare you into not botting anymore or buying new bots.

[Philoz 494]

we have also taken steps to acquire the details of all players who have purchased bots

How are they going to do that? do you need to give your user name to buy a bot?

What jagex are saying is we cant stop you botting but hope to scare you into not botting anymore or buying new bots.

It depends on how you bot, someone people buy botting system.

[Bass]

What are they going to do? Ban every proxy server ever made? Hope to god they don't have a Dynamic IP? It's obvious the real way to stop botters is to do things like they've done with moving the rope to LRC every few weeks, or randomly moving other clickable areas that they use. A real effort would do this with random instances of things moving around per week.

Also, a random system update per day will kill all of the bots that have been left by their owners while they're at school. That's a least one way they can make a visible effort to help us legit players have training areas to themselves for once.

But no, they're going to hope that humans aren't going to try to find an easy way to "win" something, which we've proven time and time again we love to do.

[TrixStar]

They should name and shame

exactly what shame is someone going to feel?

[TrixStar]

This was from 2007

11-May-2007 - Bots and Real-World Trading Update

In a follow up to last week's news post, we thought we'd let you know exactly what we've been doing in order to remove those who cheat from the game.

Firstly, we've been upgrading our detection software to ban the bots from the game. We've also been particularly focusing on cleaning up the members' version of the game. Bots on the members game are banned significantly more quickly. Of course, the free version has seen a fair share of bans, too.

The Investigations in the Community Unit (ICU) have worked hard, double checked all the facts to make sure we're only getting the cheats, and then have banned 19075 accounts for breaking Rule 7.

We've made significant progress over the last week, but there's still lots more for us to do yet.

[Diplomatt]

I think if you are reported for botting, they should unleash a 'bot police' random event where you have to type in a special code/ number given to you on screen. To stop idiots reporting you all the time, they can only do once an hour.

Andy

[Jesper]

I think if you are reported for botting, they should unleash a 'bot police' random event where you have to type in a special code/ number given to you on screen. To stop idiots reporting you all the time, they can only do once an hour.

Andy

I don't think that would work. Even though you can only report someone once an hour, with all those people these days who think you are botting it becomes an annoyance to enter a code over and over again. As soon as you do something repetitive (such as alching) they begin to say you bot.

And there's a possibility you are afk at that moment, so if you fail to enter the code it doesn't necessarily mean you're botting.

First of all they should ban everyone permanently as soon as they get caught botting. No second chances, no role-backs, no money transfer to restore your account. That'll scare most of the community and would make them think twice of using one. Though I doubt they will do this, because they'd loose a lot of money because of this. They used to ban every bot immediately, but I guess Jagex changed a lot.

They should also make a team to keep an eye on hotspots for botting and investigate every account that seems to be using a program to control their character. I'm not sure if they are already doing this or if it is too much work to monitor every world, but they can at least do this with a few famous places such as the living rock caverns.

All I know is that it can't continue like this and as much as I like free trade, if they can't handle the bots they should take it out again.

[benson300]

A simple restart daily would eliminate a lot of them!

[DoctorDRAG0N]

we have also taken steps to acquire the details of all players who have purchased bots

How are they going to do that? do you need to give your user name to buy a bot?

What jagex are saying is we cant stop you botting but hope to scare you into not botting anymore or buying new bots.

If you have noticed, many botting sites have been either bought out or aquired legally by Jagex themselves. In accordinance with many countries federal record keeping requirements, I.P. address snapshots are maintained (notice when you log into RuneScape "you last logged in earlier today from I.P. xx.xxx.xxx.xx") all they have to do is cross-reference thier I.P. log with that of the botting sites I.P. registry of those that downloaded a macro. So even if you never actually run a the program, simply downloading one from one of the many sites Jagex has taken over is enough to merit an account banning.