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Ikaris

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when i watch my favorite tv show i have to sit through commercials because they pay for the show that i am watching; essentially it is free viewing. if i want to be commercial free, then i have to pay for a premium channel or buy the dvd, so that is not free. at the moment there are 78 bots online. that means $7800/yr going towards the financing of this game that i do not have to pay for. i believe for that price (free :P) i can sort through the ads on the market channel.

 

i am not opposed to buying or selling from bots. i am not above purchasing a c2 ring from Iduna to get to pv in a hurry.

 

lastly, the market channel is not the only venue for selling or buying your wares. there is a marketplace on this forum, and on most guild forums.

 

i apologize if this is a repeat of information. i read the first 5-6 posts and then got confused by all the quotes :P

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As a new bot owner I have sensed some of the irritation at bots.

 

Also, if i pm around as a reply to market 'wtb' posts to tell them my bot has that item, sometimes there is a newbie on the other side who hasn't got a clue how to work with bots.

 

This means, the market channel advertising is not very effective at accomplishing the goal that bots have, but it is the only means available to us right now.

 

Perhaps a new approach IS desirable; one that benefits both the bot owners and the people who monitor the market channel.

Edited by sithicus

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I have my bot in a ssh window, and it beeps whenever someone PMs the bot. I monitor the conversations, and PM the person if they are having problems, and explain what to type, or what they are doing wrong.

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Guest ohmygod

Have not read all the topic, because im going to work but i was going to start a topic like this myself because they are very annoying. i used to have the market channel open all the time now i have to close the channel when i am training because i get spammed a lot by bots.

 

I buy/sell regulary from/to bots but, to find the items i want i go to players on line to see which bots are on and do the inv/wanted command.

 

I would say remove them from the market channel and if possible have a command to list the store bot names so people can do the inv/wanted commands themselves.

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Same here, I used to have ch3 open most of the time no I just can’t be bothered. In my opinion a small change in removing all the unnecessary spam from bots would help a lot. There is no reason that the very same bot ends every message with service with a smile or whatever.

 

Just have a line like:

Buying 15 sr at 15gc each | Selling 134 beaver fur at 4gc each (inv/wanted/loc/help)

The (…..) part isn’t even needed if all bots use the same commands (which almost all bots do). That line would also be so short that it would fit in one line on most screen resolutions.

Edited by littlestar

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wow, truly insightful comment piper, it has 0% to do with the point of this. We do not want to boycott bots or something; I might want to buy something from a bot from time to time, but that doesn't mean we need to recieve soo many messages from bots on the market.

And, even if you space them well, its still annoying. At 30 bots posting every 15 minutes, that's two bot messages a minute.

Mar© already listed many of those advantages that bots have, they do not need to advertise four times an hour in addition, I think.

 

Honestly, I think BKC's suggestion was the best, simply output a list of all the bots that are online at the time and then people can do /inv (Or, separate the trade bots on the player online page, so we would not even need this line)

 

edit: Lastly, I am a bot owner myself (I spent almost as much as you did on your bot, LabRat.) But I'd rather loose a bit of buisness then get this ridiculous spammy crap on the market all the time.

Edited by Atlantis

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Dont want to listen to bots on market channel?

type #ignore botname

 

May I suggest that if people need to start #ignoring to stop bot spam is is proof that there is in fact a problem.

 

I would further suggest that it is not in the bot owner's best interest if market channel regulars are #ignoring their bots.

 

<soap_box>

As a consumer, there is a huge difference between me going to the market channel to try and buy/sell goods (like going to eBay or the newspaper classified adds) and having advertisements forced upon me (like e-mail spam, radio/tv adds, unsolicited phone calls, etc). Players posting in @3 are the former, bots doing it are the latter. #ignore side-steps the problem and simply says, in effect: it's easy to delete that e-mail or not answer the phone. But that doesn't address the root problem.

</soap_box>

 

Several good solutions have been posted that involved short, standardized messages (with common bot commands) at a reduced frequency. I believe there is a middle-ground that will help rather than drive away the potential bot customers on the market channel.

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The ONLY thing that is happening here is that players are complaining that market channel is not able to function as it was intended to. It is supposed to be where players come together to buy and sell. Players.

 

 

Bots are not "real players". This is true but the bots do represent "real players". Consider this... a guild with 15 members has a tradebot that advertises on the market channel once every 30 minutes. The total number of ads is 2 per ingame hour. If the guilds' "real players" advertise on the market channel the same items once every 5 minutes as currently allowed then that would be a total of 180 ads per hour.

 

As for having a preference of trading with a bot or a player well...

The number of times cheated by a "real player" is 1

The number of times cheated by a tradebot is 0

 

just my opinion on the subject :hug:

edited because of bad math...oh well

Edited by eoch

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Bots are not "real players". This is true but the bots do represent "real players". Consider this... a guild with 15 members has a tradebot that advertises on the market channel once every 30 minutes. The total number of ads is 2 per ingame hour. If the guilds' "real players" advertise on the market channel the same items once every 5 minutes as currently allowed then that would be a total of 75 ads per hour.
Are you seriously suggesting that guilds with trade bots don't post on the market at all?

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As i see it several things could happen:

 

1. Everything stays as is... People only go to the Market chanel when they are desperate to buy or sell something... Unfortunately most people that might trade with them are off chanel. Only Bots get the chance to make a trade if the person has not ignored that Bot yet..

 

2. Bot sales menu / weblink is added and Bots are restricted to one advert per hour on Market Chanel. Reduces Bot spamming by 75%.

 

3. Bot sales menu / weblink is added and Bots are moved to their own new chanel permitting them to advertise once every 5 minutes. Market chanel gets an automated message every 15 minutes encouraging them to check out the Bot adverts on chanel 88 (or wherever).

 

4. An informal Market Chanel rises up. Players advertise its new location every 5 minutes on Market Chanel.

Or maybe 10 players do that ... so every 30 seconds there is a hint to leave chanel 3.

Or someone buys a bot that advertises the new Free Market Chanel location every 15 minutes on Ch 3.

Edited by Ikaris

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Atlantis

Are you seriously suggesting that guilds with trade bots don't post on the market at all?

 

 

Atlantis how did you get that idea from my post? The topic was about the number of ads being posted on the market channel. I tried to point out the huge difference in the number of ads a player would see and the source of the ads. Tradebot - 2 ads per hour. "Real players" - 180 ads per hour. I unsuccessfully tried to show that the number of ads a player would be subjected to by the tradebot is the more preferable. Sorry for missing the mark. :hug:

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What you said in my quote was that there are less adds with bots, I think that is not true. (And even if it is, the bot adds are unneccesary. People can check the inv of the bot, their adds are completely not needed)

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I have to do this in 2 posts to be able to quote who I'm replying to, sorry

 

Before someone says "#ignore babblemouth" .... Many have earned the #ignore command. I am tired of adding them to my ignore list.
would you object if someone suggested an alteration to #ignore so you could ignore per channel? or even bots on @@3 if there is a list the client gets (suggested in this thread)? there are bots on @@4 as well, some of which get annoying too, but you could optionally leave those coming in. on the other hand...
All told both of those bots have $500 of real money invested in them.
those bots are probably paying for you to play the game. bandwidth isn't free, and the only accounts that have to be paid for are bots. EL shop and donations help as well, but bots are paying for bandwidth
not many people buy stuff from bots anyways
do you have access to the logs from a number of bots? results from those who do? or are you just wildly stabbing in the dark? my bot is getting trades, less often than I do as a player, but usually that's because people see the location (not a populous place) and then don't follow any further. yes, I have the logs to prove it. my bot is still pulling in the trades though
most bot overcharge...
if they claim that a high price isn't, that's lying, and bad. if they have a price that's higher than players, that's good! bots should not compete with players on price. they should be a middle ground between players and NPCs on the convenience-price scale. they have more items than players and are stationary, less stock than NPCs. given a choice at the same price, if the bot isn't hard to figure out (which, to some people, they are... then again, a similar number of people have trouble understanding english when I trade with them myself, so it's probably not the bot)
1. All bots be required to use the same command list and syntax (no more "#inv" for some and "inv" for others). If you know how to buy/sell from one bot you know how to do it with all bots (no need to check help (or is that #help?)).
vakana recognises commands starting with # or !... but those are optional in PMs (which, I think, is the best option). like coding for networks, you should be lenient in what you accept, make your best effort to decipher what comes in, but try to send the Right Thing
Example of spam (once per 15 min):

Vooten: SELLING: 1 Stars Medallion - 200gc | 1 Steel Chain - 850gc | PM me with HELP for more info or LOC for my location!

Example of information (once per hour) :

Vooten: I am a tradebot at your service. PM me with HELP for more info or LOC for my location!

having watch my bots logs, I can tell you that won't work like you think. interest in trade is highly proportional to the items advertised. if they're interesting, the bot gets PMs, sometimes a lot. if there's no interest in the items offered, they're ignored. no items at all may make people check, but considering people are inherently lazy (saves work), and there's a lot of bots to check, I doubt it'll go well

 

1. One bot every 15 minutes is not spam. 30 bots every 15 minutes is a wall of spam, no matter how it's timed.
then make it a little longer, if absolutely necessary... depending on the time of day, bots messages can be lost in the sea of player posts though
We the mods are yelling at people for double/over posting, yet who can blame them...they are getting lost in the sea of bot ads.
who can't? bots post once per 15minutes max. some are longer (mine is over 20min). yet some players post after 1-2 minutes, and frequently I see players posting after about 4min. and yes, that's watching the timestamps on the logs my bot throws out, so it's not guesstimation. this happens whether there's bot messages or not, it isn't causal
2. Tradebots get their own bot-market channel where, with probably VERY few restrictions, they can post away to their heart's content.
cool, all the bots get to jockey for the most recent/frequent post? uhm. no.
3. There be a listing ingame of all tradebots and a key command to get help/commands.
this one I like. but it means server dev work (probably. though some of the bots have this list too, even if it is a few minutes out of date, which isn't much of an issue)
3. They have a fixed location (no need for two players to arrange the meeting).
the rest of the above is mostly what I've been arguing about for over a year, as far as bots, but this point isn't completely true. my bot loses attention from a lot of people when they find out the location. not being able to meet at a storage and do a large storage trade can go against bots
I have my bot in a ssh window, and it beeps whenever someone PMs the bot. I monitor the conversations, and PM the person if they are having problems, and explain what to type, or what they are doing wrong.
I do the same, though it's 'tail -f stdout.log', so I can watch the log at a different computer and not need the window kept open. I try to avoid PMing people unless there's a need, though, it can bother some people Edited by ttlanhil

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I got up the courage to venture onto #jc 3, despite the spam there. Here's a little over a 5 minute sample.

 [23:21:32] Welcome to the market channel.
[23:21:35] Game Time: 01:54:51
[23:21:45] [Atlantis @ 3]: Buying Fire Essences.
[23:21:46] [Luxe @ 3]: I am selling 1 Titanium Shield for 26000gc each, come visit me in Nordcarn [75,161]
[23:22:47] [Titanta @ 3]: Selling 22 Pickaxes for 40.00 gc each. *I'm a bot too*
[23:22:48] [ceranthor @ 3]: selling all quartz pm me
[23:22:52] [KoS_Trader @ 3]: I have lots of nice Items, pm me INV to see what I have or go to http://www.other-life.com/el/StoreBots/KoS_Trader/inventory.php (Press F2)!
[23:23:46] [Karlin @ 3]: Selling 1 Steel Bar for 45.00 gc each. 
[23:23:46] [Shari @ 3]: Do you need to sell some items??  Pm me with "wanted" to see what I am buying or "inv" to see what I am selling.
[23:23:50] [Honor @ 3]: Looking for that special weapon, armor or potion and having trouble finding it? PM me with INV and see if I have it! Or PM with HELP for my Menu! 
[23:24:06] [Richery @ 3]: Come see my cheap exotic wares in Portland Bank! PM me for (inv)entory or (loc)ation.  
[23:24:33] [Lilandra @ 3]: Selling 213 potions of spirit restoration (17gc each), 9 raw meat (5gc each), 695 steel bars (44gc each), PM me.
[23:24:49] [darthballs @ 3]:  pc iron plate
[23:24:56] [gizz @ 3]: 8.5k
[23:24:58] [ariet @ 3]: 8-9k
[23:25:01] [darthballs @ 3]:  ok ty
[23:25:07] [CrazyGirl @ 3]: I would like to buy: fox furs (8gc each), brown rabbit furs (3gc each), rat tails (3gc each).
[23:25:29] [firevalor @ 3]: selling iron plate for 11k pm me
[23:25:33] [shadeslayer @ 3]: buying iron ore pm me
[23:26:04] [Agneum @ 3]: Selling 3 Leather Gloves for 50.00 gc each. *Info: I am a bot, hth*
[23:27:17] [C2_Trader @ 3]: Selling: 250 magic essences (7.6gc each), 4600 fire essences (3.65gc each), 497 raw meat (5.9gc each), PM me for other items!
[23:27:24] [darthballs @ 3]: selling iron greaves 4k
[23:27:50] [Quartermaster @ 3]: Selling 601 health essence(s) for 8 gc each. PM me with INV to see my wares. Service with a smile;)

Other than the price check, I count 4 lines of real chat, 12 lines by bots. Shortly after the sample ends is one of those "waves" of around 5-6 more.

If 12 messages are in 6 minutes, thats 120 in an hour. (Over 70% of the market text)

 

 

 

Channel 4 isn't much better. The only messages I've seen on there in ~3 hours are from gossip and vakana.

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Okay I will first say I tried to read everything in this thread but it's a lot to go thru.

 

Since WizzKidd left I have been put in charge of Charn. I have him set to say 1 message every 35 minutes. I remember when we were asked to stop boardcasting the Join Iron messages on ch 4 because too many people with bots started it. Change is part of this game, and if it is decided to remove bots from channel 3 then so be it, but I feel bot spam is no where near the problem of players spamming. I have seen the same player post the same message 5 times in the same minute, or if one player post they are selling an item for xgc then 5 other players post the same item for less.

 

and for the 12 messages in 6 minutes = 120 an hour. that is just poor math. those 12 bots can't post for another 30 minutes so it's only 24 an hour. it just happen those 112 bots (which I notice a lot of learner ran ones) just have similar timing. it's like when 5 people all post at the same time.

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and for the 12 messages in 6 minutes = 120 an hour. that is just poor math. those 12 bots can't post for another 30 minutes so it's only 24 an hour. it just happen those 112 bots (which I notice a lot of learner ran ones) just have similar timing. it's like when 5 people all post at the same time.
Dunno what you mean by 'poor math.' For one thing, these are not the only bots in the game. After these bots post more will come. Secondly, it is not like I camped out the channel for a while, looking for a high number or something. I simply sampled 6 minutes on the channel, to estimate for an hour.

 

edit: Tommorow (cuz its 2:30 AM) I will stay on for one full hour and find out how many messages on there are from bots.

Edited by Atlantis

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Here's an idea:

 

Instead of talking about "bot banning" from Chan 3, or creating a new "bot channel", or making new rules, or limiting content of advertisements, etc., etc..

 

Why don't we (as bot owners) just set up our bots to just post once an hour and see if that relieves some of the pressure off of Chan 3??

 

We should be able to work together (as owners) and relieve some of the perceived spam (Market ADS in a Market CHANNEL), and police ourselves a bit while making way for the increased number of bots coming in.

 

I'm not very willing to alter the content of the Advertisement, because most of the time, the content posted is what gets my bot inquiry "hits", and the "Market Channel" IS for Advertisements. :D

 

But, I'm very willing to increase the distance between Vooten's posts to once an hour if all other bots would increase theirs also. :D

 

So, instead of all this bickering, calling for total bans off the bat in a first post on the subject (i.e., this thread) when it could have easily been something like: "Is there anything we can do to relieve what I see as spam by bots on the market channel?", let's be polite and see if the bot owners CAN get together and all reconfig their bots to post a bit less often.

 

Sometimes, it does just come down to, "Just ask." :o

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Here's an idea:

 

Instead of talking about "bot banning" from Chan 3, or creating a new "bot channel", or making new rules, or limiting content of advertisements, etc., etc..

 

Why don't we (as bot owners) just set up our bots to just post once an hour and see if that relieves some of the pressure off of Chan 3??

 

We should be able to work together (as owners) and relieve some of the perceived spam (Market ADS in a Market CHANNEL), and police ourselves a bit while making way for the increased number of bots coming in.

Sounds like a plan ;)

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My bots post once an hour. Is everybody happy now?

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I don't really want to go to an hour, so as of next recompile, my bot will be posting on @@3 with a delay of 31min or so

 

@labrat: are they equally split, so you'll also have one bot post on @@3 each half hour? :hug:

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2. Bot sales menu / weblink is added and Bots are restricted to one advert per hour on Market Chanel. Reduces Bot spamming by 75%.

---and the sales menu/link would be a lovely feature to add to the next update.

 

Here's an idea:

 

Why don't we (as bot owners) just set up our bots to just post once an hour and see if that relieves some of the pressure off of Chan 3??

 

We should be able to work together (as owners) and relieve some of the perceived spam (Market ADS in a Market CHANNEL), and police ourselves a bit while making way for the increased number of bots coming in.

I'm not very willing to alter the content of the Advertisement, because most of the time, the content posted is what gets my bot inquiry "hits", and the "Market Channel" IS for Advertisements. :hug:

 

But, I'm very willing to increase the distance between Vooten's posts to once an hour if all other bots would increase theirs also. :cry:

 

All this might be worth trying.

(If it doesn't work ... there are other options like separate chanels etc...)

 

Unfortunately I think a rule change would be necessary to level the playing field. Unless all bots are restricted to one post an hour someone will just post every 15 minutes with the result that all Bots return back to 15 minutes per post. (Self-Policing is a nice theory ... but breaks down in reality)

 

Apologies to ttlanthil, but one post per 30 minutes is unacceptable from my point of view. We are trying to find a workable system here that both Bot owners and players can live with. As a player I would still #ignore any bot that posted more frequently than once per hour. This loses the Bot any chance to make a deal with me.

 

If we see Bots posting once per hour, the 'Bot Adverts aka Bot SPAM' will be reduced to an appropriate level. I will then unignore the bots and give them a fair chance.

Edited by Ikaris

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Apologies to ttlanthil, but one post per 30 minutes is unacceptable from my point of view.
fair enough.

but to counter, do you not mind if several bots owned by one person are posting, each at an hour interval, and hence far more frequently between them? :hug:

that's one issue. another is how the message is written. I find some bot messages irritating simply because of the format or whatever. I do try to avoid annoying messages where possible

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but to counter, do you not mind if several bots owned by one person are posting, each at an hour interval, and hence far more frequently between them? :hug:

 

I would not care (or probably even know) who owns a bot so I'd be fine with each bot posting once per hour. I can't decide if I want them all spread out over the hour (constant low-level spam) or all at once (30 adds at the top-of-the-hour, then nothing for 55 minutes).

 

another is how the message is written. I find some bot messages irritating simply because of the format or whatever.

 

I think the shorter the message the better. No cute "service with a smile" junk. No need for "use #inv to see inventory" if all the bots use a common syntax. Just a short, to-the-point message that's only one line long (at the larger screen sizes).

Edited by bkc56

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If someone owns several Bots... presumably all are bought and paid for so they presumably have a right to post hourly (if this change is made).

 

As to the messages ... I so agree with you ... the annoying style of some messages is part of why I call it 'Bot SPAM'.

 

Fortunately, if the posting rate was once an hour, the Bot owners would be trying to put as much valuable information as possible into their posts. If they want to post garbage ... at least I only have to see it once an hour.

Edited by Ikaris

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