Goblin Squad Member
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The other big distinction is between settlement resident and non-resident visitor. I guess in NBSI settlements, there won't be many non-resident visitors buying training at full price.
I think I remember hearing that resources will be geographically distributed, so that settlements, and later nations, will have to trade what they have in abundance for what doesn't spawn in their territory. Without the free ports mentioned earlier, in a fully NBSI world, I guess inter-settlement trade would be conducted by driving a caravan with your settlrment's goods to an NPC settlement, trading with residents of other settlements there, then driving another caravan with the things you bought back to your own settlement. Sounds like a great setup for banditry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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EVE allows manual reputation overrides. If alliance A cuts a deal with alliance B to set mutual blue flags, then they can enter each other space/installations. This of course involves real people from alliance A talking to real people in alliance B beforehand. So technically, both A and B can keep their NBSI policies while allowing "trusted" visitors in. The matter of deciding who's trustworthy and whose not is left to alliance diplomats/authorities.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So effective, big Settlements will constantly be trying to induce players to become members.
For what it's worth, this is the exact sentiment I was referencing when I said:
Ryan has previously given us reason to believe there will be a lot of pressure for Settlements to have a largely "open door" policy when it comes to allowing non-Member Residents.
I think I see where the terms I used gave Ryan pause, though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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NBSI and NRDS are both concepts from the player-controlled null security areas of EVE. In those territories, un-claim-able "wilderness" areas (NPC-controlled star systems) can be few and far between. Nearly all of the PC space nations have direct borders with their neighbors. Some border systems are loosely controlled, and might as well be wilderness, but other borders are patrolled and garrisoned like the Korean DMZ.
It sounds like PFO will be quite different. From what I recall, there will almost always be wilderness and monster hexes in between settlements and/or nations. The ability to travel from Point A to Point B without crossing through multiple player nation borders will make a difference in the way warfare, scouting, gathering, and trade are conducted.
A star system in the middle of a PC empire in EVE can be, paradoxically, one of the safest places in the game. If travel between two settlements within a PFO kingdom will always entail at least one jaunt through a wilderness hex, that will be different.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I guess PFO nations can try to enforce NBSI in wilderness hexes at the edges of their claimed territory, but that may require hiring patrollers of a different alignment than the settlement. Lawful good characters might be able to use their settlements' laws to execute trespassers in their claimed hexes, but in wilderness hexes, they would just be thugs killing travelers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@KarlBob, I think there's a chance a Settlement's Laws may extend into the Wilderness areas they control, perhaps dependent upon the right type of POI being built there - maybe a Watch Tower is sufficient.
That would definitely be something my company would target. Anything that would extend settlement laws into the wilderness would be an affront to the free people's of the River Kingdoms.
You may bring your armies, your patrols, but not your laws!
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Goblin Squad Member
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@KarlBob, I think there's a chance a Settlement's Laws may extend into the Wilderness areas they control, perhaps dependent upon the right type of POI being built there - maybe a Watch Tower is sufficient.
Nihimon, if that turns out to be the case, then PFO can eventually have the kind of contiguous borders that PC nations in EVE have. If a settlement or kingdom can't enforce its laws in wilderness hexes, then PFO borders may be very different than EVE borders.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just adding an alignment system makes NBSI a different proposition. It may be lawful to shoot every trespasser who crosses your border uninvited, but is it good? If you're chaotic, would enforcing strict border controls hurt your alignment on that axis?
Lawful neutral and lawful evil may turn out to have big advantages in territorial control, even if evil has disadvantages inside settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is death the only meaningful penalty in an MMO? No subdual and expulsion? No fines?
Obviously, imprisonment is unlikely to be tolerated by subscribers, who aren't paying to play a jail simulator, and death doesn't mean as much when convicts immediately resurrect, but it seems odd that a good society would punish all crimes by summary execution without trial.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I personally hope that there is a mechanic for settlements that basically allows you to toggle between NBSI, and NRDS. NBSI policies would allow you to shoot anyone who isn't in your settlement, allied with your settlement, or on a list of authorized individuals without reputation or alignment loss. People coming into NBSI territory would get a very clear warning, and people allowed to be there would be very visibly flagged.
NRDS would allow anyone in aside from declared enemies and people on the exile list, who could be killed without rep or alignment loss. Those individuals (while not disguised) would be very clearly flagged, and would receive a warning when entering territory they are exiled from. Killing anyone else would give the normal reputation and alignment hits. Even for the settlement owners.
Toggling to NBSI should have a very negative impact on your development index. At least as far as economy is concerned. It could possibly raise the security index.
@Ryan. TEO, TSV, and Pax have all declared the intention to go NRDS if not in those exact words. It may have bigger start in this game than you think it will.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Large, effective Settlements will extend their security policy as far from their "center" as they can project power. That includes into "wilderness" territories.
The thing that stops this from happening in EVE is Concord. Concord is the "police force" that appears and kills you if you break the law. In high security space, you'll die faster than you can run. In low security space you'll die unless you run (and you may still die if you can't run fast enough). In no security space, there's no Concord. If you try to enforce your security on others in low or high security, Concord has the effect of breaking your policies by killing your patrols and making it hard or impossible for those characters to carry out their killing duties and remaining in the secured space.
We expect to extend Concord-like security around major NPC settlements, which will not be contiguous. EVE space is a doughnut - the center is high security (but factionalized), surrounded by a ring of low security, surrounded by a ring of no security. Our system will be more like a sea with "islands" of security surrounded by a lot of no security. We are thinking we'll have to extend roads between the islands which may be our equivalent of low security; they're patrolled but breaking the law is not a guaranteed death.
The PC Settlements will be their own islands and the size of the island will be dictated by how far they can project power. Depending on lots of variables that may imply that there's a gradient of security from "they'll be able to kill you without much hassle" to "if you're fast/stealthy you might be able to get away before they can bring enough force to bear to nuke you".
These areas aren't delineated by visible geography, fences or signs. You won't know when you cross a border into someone's territory until you are confronted by the border patrol.
What we want to avoid is the problem in EVE where an Alliance can lock down the borders of its territory and thus "control" vast numbers of systems which are essentially empty and removed from the game. EVE's topography has choke points that facilitate this kind of control. If you dominate the choke point, you have de facto control over all the territory behind it. We want to make you have to live in and defend all the territory you seek to control.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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@KarlBob - the only meaningful penalty in an MMO is wasting player time. There's no "in game" penalty that matters. In a high intensity conflict there could be penalties related to the time it takes to enable a unit to return to the battlefield, but that's a special case.
The people we're meaningfully talking about don't care about fines, subdual or expulsion. They care nothing for these things because they have effectively unlimited funds, strings of alts (both ready to play and in long-term deep cover cold storage) and no meaningful connection between a human and a game character.
The way you affect these people's behavior is by making the human bored. Bans make them bored (they have to make new accounts and waste time with newbie things like tutorials and accumulating whatever starting stuff they need to get to where the player wants to be, etc.) Death makes them bored because they have to do whatever the game mechanic requires to negate the death, which cannot be too onerous or it drives away the casual players, or will just cause the player to switch to another account and/or character. So there's fine edge of how much boredom can be safely inflicted which varies from game to game, situation to situation.
But don't think in-game things matter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I personally hope that there is a mechanic for settlements that basically allows you to toggle between NBSI, and NRDS. NBSI policies would allow you to shoot anyone who isn't in your settlement, allied with your settlement, or on a list of authorized individuals without reputation or alignment loss. People coming into NBSI territory would get a very clear warning, and people allowed to be there would be very visibly flagged.
NRDS would allow anyone in aside from declared enemies and people on the exile list, who could be killed without rep or alignment loss. Those individuals (while not disguised) would be very clearly flagged, and would receive a warning when entering territory they are exiled from. Killing anyone else would give the normal reputation and alignment hits. Even for the settlement owners.
Toggling to NBSI should have a very negative impact on your development index. At least as far as economy is concerned. It could possibly raise the security index.
While I don't really like the monolithic switch you present here, I do want to see (preferably emergent) incentives for taking an approach closer to NRDS, and those incentives would need to be balanced against the obvious benefits of tighter policing.
As KarlBob suggests, there could be some kind of alignment shift for NBSI behaviour (whether that's on the individual players enforcing the laws, or the settlement as a whole which has a shift over time for as long as trespassing is deemed illegal), or some other impact over time that reflects the commoners' views. Settlements could change their laws and/or enforcement to be more strict in times of tension or war, and relax them at other times, as competing interests dictate. Evil, as always, would seem to have the greater freedom of choice, which is fine and part of the overall balance between the two.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Large, effective Settlements will extend their security policy as far from their "center" as they can project power. That includes into "wilderness" territories.
1) Will the game mechanics be able to detect this "projection of power"?
2) Can you tell us what (in the present dev thinking) is counted as "projection of power"? Is it patrolling the hexes 24/7 (wildernesses have no PvP window), owning a structure in the hex (watchtower, fort, hideout), or some other mechanic?|
Goblin Squad Member
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While I don't really like the monolithic switch you present here...It strikes me as the only rational switch. Effectively, it's either a Whitelist (NBSI), or a Blacklist (NRDS). There's really not another way to implement it, is there?
I meant that I didn't like it as a switch that automatically activates some hard-coded settlement bonus/penalty, like "[t]oggling to NBSI should have a very negative impact on your development index. At least as far as economy is concerned. It could possibly raise the security index."
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Goblin Squad Member
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I meant that I didn't like it as a switch that automatically activates some hard-coded settlement bonus/penalty...
I think I'm not understanding it the same way you are.
To me, it sounded like Andius was asking for a simple way to set Settlement Laws that would automatically flag (not pvp-flag, just flag as in identify with a flag) characters who were either 1) not on a Whitelist, or 2) on a Blacklist. That would be the extent of the involvement with the system. Everything else would be human beings reacting to the flag that's there to identify the other characters.
I totally agree that NBSI should probably have alignment repercussions. Ryan said as much when he said "some Settlement Alignments may dictate NRDS."
[Edit] 1 would be NBSI, 2 would be NRDS.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I meant that I didn't like it as a switch that automatically activates some hard-coded settlement bonus/penalty...I think I'm not understanding it the same way you are.
Sorry, let me see if I can explain it more clearly:
The quote you truncated - Andius suggested that clicking a checkbox somewhere in the Settlement UI would activate some penalty/bonus to development indices (as well as the flagging etc), that's the part I am against. I think any such impacts to settlement indices should be emergent from player behaviour, not controlled by a checkbox.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm fairly certain one if he Devs, during the Gobbocast interview, had mentioned in the settlement controls there would be a menu of options that could be toggled to create just such a list of activities, alignment or reputation levels that would be excluded.
The mechanic that actually flags violators of this is the discussed Trespasser Flag. I would imagine that before this flag is put into effect, the recipient will be given a warning. I would guess, and suggest if otherwise, a 30 second timer before you are tagged a Trespasser. This would give you ample time to turn away. There is of course the Disguise skill that is the counter to the Trespasser Flag.
I would like to make a suggestion concerning the penalty connected to the Trespasser Flag. There could different penalties based on the choice of the settlement manager's options.
1. Immediate exile to a random border of the settlement or its controlled hexes.
2. Fine, but allowed to enter (toll)
3. Fine, and exile
4. Flee or Die ( engaged by NPC wardens or PC guards).
All of these fulfill the requisite penalty that Ryan discussed as a time sink, the only real penalty that matters. But none too onerous that it will drive away the casual player or the determined traveler seeking entry.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm fairly certain one if he Devs, during the Gobbocast interview, had mentioned in the settlement controls there would be a menu of options that could be toggled to create just such a list of activities, alignment or reputation levels that would be excluded.
All of that is fine. It's the direct impact on the settlement DIs I objected to, but my initial post on the subject was rather too vague.
1. Immediate exile to a random border of the settlement or its controlled hexes.
2. Fine, but allowed to enter (toll)
3. Fine, and exile
4. Flee or Die ( engaged by NPC wardens or PC guards).
All of these fulfill the requisite penalty that Ryan discussed as a time sink, the only real penalty that matters. But none too onerous that it will drive away the casual player or the determined traveler seeking entry.
1. Abusable as instant travel.
2. Magical toll extraction from your purse as you're travelling through the wilderness seems kind of immersion-breaking. Also, what about travellers who can't afford the toll? On the other hand, some kind of head tax for entering the settlement proper would be a little more "in period". But a toll is not really a time sink, because as Ryan pointed out, "the enemy" has unlimited funds. Still, it may leave at least a transaction log for forensic purposes.3. Same as 1+2.
4. Basically the option we already have - leave or be killed by PCs (first part optional). Ironically, it's more of a time sink on the patrolling PCs than those trying to enter. To be honest, I don't know if there's any way of enforcing laws that ISN'T more of a time sink on the enforcers than the trespassers. The only reason it's done at all is because the alternative (just letting the trespassers in) costs potentially far more, depending on their intentions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ironically, it's more of a time sink on the patrolling PCs than those trying to enter. To be honest, I don't know if there's any way of enforcing laws that ISN'T more of a time sink on the enforcers than the trespassers. The only reason it's done at all is because the alternative (just letting the trespassers in) costs potentially far more, depending on their intentions.
If you have ever served in the military, you would know how true this is. Guard duty is 99.99999% time sink and the true enemies are boredom and drowsiness.
Sometimes you would wonder if you'd have more action fishing for shark in a rain puddle.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To be honest, I don't know if there's any way of enforcing laws that ISN'T more of a time sink on the enforcers than the trespassers.
Which is why I'm not begrudging those Enforcers the bonus rep they get for each hour of that work. I really don't want to play an Enforcer, but someone has to to keep the settlement safe.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Let us imagine BigTown. BigTown is run by a huge group of people from some other MMO who have been playing together cohesively for years, and know how to maintain that cohesion in the face of lots of attempts to disrupt.
They come to Pathfinder Online, and via brute force, pitch someone out on their ear and take a Settlement. Let's ignore how that happens for the time being and just say that it does.
BigTown has a guy who has proven to be ridiculously competent at security. This guy has seen pretty much every iteration of various exploration / discovery mechanics and has a "book" on how to min/max them. Call him Guardsman.
He's partnered up with BotGuy. BotGuy has learned how to break into the communication between the game client and the servers, and he's an expert at creating unlicensed, unauthorized programs that masquerade as legit clients. He does it so well that his stuff is almost never detected outright. His prime output is a "headless client" - essentially a program that interacts with the server but that doesn't have to display any 3D graphics. He can run hundreds of these things on a PC. With Amazon's AWS, he can run thousands with scripts and little effort.
Guardsman tells BotGuy: I need 24x7 coverage here, here, here, and here. I need a notification sent to the following hundred people every time a Not Blue character is detected. We need to know exactly where the detection was.
BotGuy creates as many alts as necessary, sets them up to exist wherever necessary, runs them with headless scripts. When a Not Blue is detected, Guardsman and his team log on (there are enough of them that they have 24x7 coverage), and they move by the fastest possible route to the location the detection occurred.
Guardsman has trained his team to seek and destroy. They find the trespasser quickly, and remove the threat. After a reasonable pause to ensure it wasn't a feint or a distraction, they log out and go back to whatever they're doing in their Real Lives.
In this way, BigTown has enforced security across a huge territory. To displace them, you have to break Guardsman's defenses. You can't do that solo. You need AnotherBigTown.
This is the problem everyone will face. These groups are ALREADY OUT THERE, and they'll come to our game as soon as we prove we're not another doomed to fail tiny MMO. They're good. They're well trained. They're cohesive. And they want your land.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you have ever served in the military, you would know how true this is. Guard duty is 99.99999% time sink and the true enemies are boredom and drowsiness.
Almost every mission I went on (5 years active Navy as flight crew, 5 more years active Army. Not infantry, but doing patrols.) was mindless drudgery. You began to imagine things just to keep your mind occupied. You covered the same territory many times and started to sleepwalk through your route (eyes open, brain off). (Ever wonder why the cop pulls your over at 3 am when you weren't doing anything?) It is the most boring thing you will ever do...until it hits the fan. You are instantly awake and reacting using whatever training you were given (makes you hope it was worthwhile).
You can't stay vigilant forever so you have short shifts, change direction, change duties, do drills, anything to stay focused on the task. Settlements will have to come up with a system to "mark" individuals or all members of a company.
Color coding has many possibilities: red (enemy, attack on sight), orange (suspect/potentially hostile), yellow (currently neutral PC), green (friendly), blue (allied), white (NPC/critter/neutral), gold (divine/astral/planar), prismatic (demonic). Some voluntary scheme would be helpful for settlement leadership to be able to assign relationships to individuals or groups aside from flags or war declarations.
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Goblin Squad Member
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He's partnered up with BotGuy. BotGuy has learned how to break into the communication between the game client and the servers, and he's an expert at creating unlicensed, unauthorized programs that masquerade as legit clients. He does it so well that his stuff is almost never detected outright. His prime output is a "headless client" - essentially a program that interacts with the server but that doesn't have to display any 3D graphics. He can run hundreds of these things on a PC. With Amazon's AWS, he can run thousands with scripts and little effort.
Sounds like BotGuy is a hacker and as soon as he is discovered he would be banned, along with all of his co-conspirators. Hope your IT security guys are good.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sounds like BotGuy is a hacker and as soon as he is discovered he would be banned, along with all of his co-conspirators. Hope your IT security guys are good.
Can't ban BotGuy, you can only ban the Accounts you detect.
BotGuy has learned how to break into the communication between the game client and the servers, and he's an expert at creating unlicensed, unauthorized programs that masquerade as legit clients. He does it so well that his stuff is almost never detected outright.
Sounds like he's not going to be stopped by detection and banning.
This is the problem everyone will face. These groups are ALREADY OUT THERE, and they'll come to our game as soon as we prove we're not another doomed to fail tiny MMO. They're good. They're well trained. They're cohesive. And they want your land.
This is going to precipitate a whole lot of ponderin'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you get a particular group come over from EvE, with its 9000+ members, they won't need bots or hacks to have 24/7 coverage or upper tier training and take whatever settlement territory they want, using the same Zerg tactics they used in EvE.
But the bottom line us this, where there us a will there will be a way. Only way to stop hackers or zergfest is to ban the hackers and grin and bear the Zerg. Face that Zerg with the will to fight and cost them as much as you can.
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Let us imagine BigTown. BigTown is run by a huge group of people from some other MMO who have been playing together cohesively for years, and know how to maintain that cohesion in the face of lots of attempts to disrupt.
They come to Pathfinder Online, and via brute force, pitch someone out on their ear and take a Settlement. Let's ignore how that happens for the time being and just say that it does.
BigTown has a guy who has proven to be ridiculously competent at security. This guy has seen pretty much every iteration of various exploration / discovery mechanics and has a "book" on how to min/max them. Call him Guardsman.
He's partnered up with BotGuy. BotGuy has learned how to break into the communication between the game client and the servers, and he's an expert at creating unlicensed, unauthorized programs that masquerade as legit clients. He does it so well that his stuff is almost never detected outright. His prime output is a "headless client" - essentially a program that interacts with the server but that doesn't have to display any 3D graphics. He can run hundreds of these things on a PC. With Amazon's AWS, he can run thousands with scripts and little effort.
Guardsman tells BotGuy: I need 24x7 coverage here, here, here, and here. I need a notification sent to the following hundred people every time a Not Blue character is detected. We need to know exactly where the detection was.
BotGuy creates as many alts as necessary, sets them up to exist wherever necessary, runs them with headless scripts. When a Not Blue is detected, Guardsman and his team log on (there are enough of them that they have 24x7 coverage), and they move by the fastest possible route to the location the detection occurred.
Guardsman has trained his team to seek and destroy. They find the trespasser quickly, and remove the threat. After a reasonable pause to ensure it wasn't a feint or a distraction, they log out and go back to whatever they're doing in their Real Lives.
In this way, BigTown has...
So what you are really saying here Ryan is people are going to come in here, they are going to hack and bot to get ahead and if we want to compete we are going to need to do the same?
I am slightly puzzled as to why you might not see this as somewhat of a disincentive to bother with PfO. I and many others here were sort of hoping that those sort of tactics wouldn't be necessary here. However if your security isn't up to it maybe we need to think about finding something else where they can actually stop people using this sort of tactic
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Goblin Squad Member
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...his stuff is almost never detected outright.
...
These groups are ALREADY OUT THERE...
I'm sorry for the pessimism, Ryan, but in the face of that, what incentive is left for those of us without the will, interest, or ability to do all that? Yours is the very first post that's made me despair for PFO.
Given non-detectability, what chance is left? Could you please elaborate a bit further down the path you've shown us?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think what Ryan is saying, is that our settlements need to be cohesive and we need plans in place to deal with these types of people.
If we put up a fight and make their lives hard, and the devs do things like ban/disrupt AWS address ranges, look for time sequenced commands, look for lengthy continuous logons from accounts/characters etc etc, plus if we flag obvious bots to the devs, the 'bad guys' will eventually get sick of PFO and leave. Or at least some of them will - you will never get rid of them all.
These types of players are in all MMOs, and in fact in all aspects of online activity. It's usually a matter of just being better than your competition and making their lives hard, so they decide to go elsewhere.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@KarlBob - the only meaningful penalty in an MMO is wasting player time. There's no "in game" penalty that matters. [...]Your reply has given me a lot to think about, thanks.
Me too. Thanks.
I guess imprisonment would just mean: "Time to switch to another alt until this character is released."
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Goblin Squad Member
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In this way, BigTown has enforced security across a huge territory. To displace them, you have to break Guardsman's defenses. You can't do that solo. You need AnotherBigTown.
This is the problem everyone will face. These groups are ALREADY OUT THERE, and they'll come to our game as soon as we prove we're not another doomed to fail tiny MMO. They're good. They're well trained. They're cohesive. And they want your land.
I'm going to assume you are NOT encouraging us to duplicate these nefarious deeds in order to combat such groups. Can you give us legitimate game tools that even the playing field (e.g. email/sms alerts generated by the game, npc spotters/sentries, etc)?
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think what Ryan is saying, is that our settlements need to be cohesive and we need plans in place to deal with these types of people.
If we put up a fight and make their lives hard, and the devs do things like ban/disrupt AWS address ranges, look for time sequenced commands, look for lengthy continuous logons from accounts/characters etc etc, plus if we flag obvious bots to the devs, the 'bad guys' will eventually get sick of PFO and leave. Or at least some of them will - you will never get rid of them all.
These types of players are in all MMOs, and in fact in all aspects of online activity. It's usually a matter of just being better than your competition and making their lives hard, so they decide to go elsewhere.
The point of the good botter is that he doesn't do any of the things you look for. Whatever you look for as positive evidence of botting is done exactly as often as a human does it, and whatever you look for as negative evidence of botting is also done just as often.
If you try to use network identification to catch them, they will use better network evasion to avoid detection.
There is, however, a simple way to beat such a group. Make it boring for them, and hard work for them. In the specific example provided, I'd do naked zerg waves, sending as many people as possible in a wave into the warded area, get wiped, and then wait until 20 minutes after the responders log off to repeat. When the responders stop responding because they are tired of our BS, then we start mixing in groups of people to do whatever it is we wanted to do that they didn't.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The other response is exemplified by PLEX. People are going to sell game cash for real cash. In response, CCP developed a safe, reliable way for players to convert real money to game money (buy a month's worth of subscription, sell it to another player who has plenty of in-game cash and wants to play without spending real-world money).
The equivalent counter for BotGuy is to have settlement/nation borders automatically notify the PCs when someone trespasses. It's not particularly realistic or immersive, but it means that if you don't hire BotGuy, your settlement gets the same info that his bots would have provided.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We will have groups like the Goons from Eve who will come over. I have seen the Goons in particular in any of the MMO's I have played.
MWO - yep, if you have played it, they start every match with an anoying SQEEEE
SWTOR - yep, on the PVP servers
WoT - yep
etc etc
PFO will have securities in place to detect things like he described. It may just take a while to put it all together and prove it. I have faith in them to figure it out.
Another thought, with NBSI expected in game, I am going to go with what was discussed in the PVP thread. The wilderness will be like 0.0 but not in a clump. It will be spread out all over the map. Which is cool, I like that part of it. It opens up all areas to both secure and non secure zones.
With hex placement as was discussed, settlements will have a border area then surrounded by wilderness hexes... There is no travel from settlement to settlement that will not cross a wilderness hex or be a safe route. The roads between NPC settlements will be rough, but not safe.
PC's will have to secure areas for their people. Sounds like fun.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think what Ryan is saying, is that our settlements need to be cohesive and we need plans in place to deal with these types of people.
If we put up a fight and make their lives hard, and the devs do things like ban/disrupt AWS address ranges, look for time sequenced commands, look for lengthy continuous logons from accounts/characters etc etc, plus if we flag obvious bots to the devs, the 'bad guys' will eventually get sick of PFO and leave. Or at least some of them will - you will never get rid of them all.
These types of players are in all MMOs, and in fact in all aspects of online activity. It's usually a matter of just being better than your competition and making their lives hard, so they decide to go elsewhere.
The point of the good botter is that he doesn't do any of the things you look for. Whatever you look for as positive evidence of botting is done exactly as often as a human does it, and whatever you look for as negative evidence of botting is also done just as often.
If you try to use network identification to catch them, they will use better network evasion to avoid detection.
There is, however, a simple way to beat such a group. Make it boring for them, and hard work for them. In the specific example provided, I'd do naked zerg waves, sending as many people as possible in a wave into the warded area, get wiped, and then wait until 20 minutes after the responders log off to repeat. When the responders stop responding because they are tired of our BS, then we start mixing in groups of people to do whatever it is we wanted to do that they didn't.
The thing with botters that get them caught, they have a schedule. Some are online at all hours, some log in and out at set times, and some are random. Its more difficult to prove the random ones, but they will still act like bots. Sit in one place for long periods, move to another, then sit again. There are alot of good methods to find them. Im sure Ryan can call up a couple of old friends at CCP and see what they are doing more recently.
The last couple years Eve has been banning botters like crazy. The mineral market went crazy for a while, and the prices are still high.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The thing with botters that get them caught, they have a schedule. Some are online at all hours, some log in and out at set times, and some are random. Its more difficult to prove the random ones, but they will still act like bots. Sit in one place for long periods, move to another, then sit again. There are alot of good methods to find them. Im sure Ryan can call up a couple of old friends at CCP and see what they are doing more recently.
The last couple years Eve has been banning botters like crazy. The mineral market went crazy for a while, and the prices are still high.
I'm certain that the exact methods used to ID botters are the among the most important secrets of CCP.
'Sit in one place for a long time, occasionally moving to a different location' matches what I would expect a human player to do on guard duty. Likewise with logging in and out at roughly the same time each day and week.
Try to imagine what you would do as a botter who was imagining what could be done to identify his bots.
I would go so far as to have someone on duty to provide responses to chat messages sent to the bots, pretending to have it open in another window while he does something else.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, I wouldn't worry about those guys. They make an appearance in every major western MMO. I have faith that GW will make every effort to take them out or slow them down without affecting normal players adversely. Beyond that, it's just something we'll have to deal with.
I have a feeling that things will be implemented in such a way as to negate most or all of the advantage they'd get by doing things similar to what was presented in Ryan's scenario. Even the fact that Ryan and GW seem to be aware of these guys and exactly how they operate is a huge positive in my book.
As a side note, and I think this was touched on briefly by Xeen, EVE has recently really made a dent in botters. I'm not sure exactly how they've done it but botting has really been hit hard. Maybe Ryan can talk to them and ask exactly what was done and that can be worked into the core design of PfO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know some people will disagree with me, but if a cheater can have a hundred bot border guards, I want the game to inform me when someone crosses my border. To me, purity of immersion is not worth giving a cheater an advantage. I don't mind if there's a toggle switch for automatic border alerts. If someone else wants to turn it off, fine by me. I'll keep it turned on. When Ryan and co. are satisfied that bot border guards are no longer a significant problem, I'll give up my alerts. Until then, I want to know just as much about my borders as the cheaters know about theirs.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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The way you defeat BigTown is by making AnotherBigTown. It's the reason there won't be a bunch of small boutique Settlements with NRDS security policies. They'll be rolled up by the first wave of organized external Guilds when they show up. By Open Enrollment, it's going to be Europe circa 1900, not Europe circa 0. Everyone who is SERIOUS about running a Settlement is going to be focused on size, cohesion, discipline and security.
We'll keep working on expanding the territory so there's always a place to go and plant a flag and start building, but I can tell you based on what I saw happen in Wormhole Space in EVE that the frontier is going to be claimed by the people who were 2nd best in the last territorial war, and if they learned a thing or two, they'll be even tougher than when they were last beat.
Settlement creation and administration is not a game for casual players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The way you defeat BigTown is by making AnotherBigTown. It's the reason there won't be a bunch of small boutique Settlements with NRDS security policies. They'll be rolled up by the first wave of organized external Guilds when they show up. By Open Enrollment, it's going to be Europe circa 1900, not Europe circa 0. Everyone who is SERIOUS about running a Settlement is going to be focused on size, cohesion, discipline and security.
We'll keep working on expanding the territory so there's always a place to go and plant a flag and start building, but I can tell you based on what I saw happen in Wormhole Space in EVE that the frontier is going to be claimed by the people who were 2nd best in the last territorial war, and if they learned a thing or two, they'll be even tougher than when they were last beat.
Settlement creation and administration is not a game for casual players.
Sounds good to me. I probably won't be in charge of AnotherBigTown, but when I'm not exploring the frontier, I'll march in AnotherBigTown's army.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Settlement creation and administration is not a game for casual players.
Essentially the whole game, to me, is settlement creation, administration...and support. It almost sounds as if casual play can't exist, except as the small mammal who tries not to be noticed by the dinosaur for a few million years before the big rock arrives.
Will we find ourselves going down the road to two extremely heavily armed camps--perhaps one Good, one Evil--each able to wipe out every settlement except the other one? That way lies madness.
But probably meaningful human interaction...for a time. Today's really put a zap on my head, man :-/.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Settlement creation and administration is not a game for casual players.Essentially the whole game, to me, is settlement creation, administration...and support. It almost sounds as if casual play can't exist, except as the small mammal who tries not to be noticed by the dinosaur for a few million years before the big rock arrives.
Will we find ourselves going down the road to two extremely heavily armed camps--perhaps one Good, one Evil--each able to wipe out every settlement except the other one? That way lies madness.
But probably meaningful human interaction...for a time. Today's really put a zap on my head, man :-/.
It won't be so bad. There will be an equilibrium state reached as settlements acquire new towns. Expenses are supposed to get ridiculous.
I think that will slow down the Empires a bit.
Holy crap! I am kind of disagreeing with Ryan! :(