Should bots be able to send messages in local chat?

[Dilly]

Is it simply vanity that makes an autonomous program speaking ones name seem enticing? Or am I missing something?

 

You seem to be missing the fact that quite a few of the people that bothered to vote and reply in this poll actually value a little personal touch in the game. just something harmless, that can easily be ignored by the people that feel annoyed by the exact same thing.

 

I understand, and respect that there are indeed people that see this game as just a thing for themselves to do and they don´t necessarily care for those extra gestures, or a little motivation towards eachother. I also think, there should be some limitations. But calling the people that do appreciate it 'vain'.. no. it's just our way of enjoying the game.

 

A little understanding towards eachother, and some compromising goes a long way

How is it even remotely personal? It's a bot. If my washing machine decided it would note my presence every time I entered the laundry and "greeted" me, I would very quickly be searching for the voice unit of the washing machine and dismantling it. I would also resent having to go to the trouble to do that.

 

Like has been said in previous posts, it would be personal if the bot owner spoke to you. It is not personal if his/her bot speaks to you. At any rate, if your idea of a close personal interaction is to have a bot speak to you, why can't it be in PM? Is it not as cosy and personal any more? Or is it that you wish others to see that the bot deigned to speak to you?

 

*Gets the sledgehammer and heads to the laundry*

 

Of course a bot speaking to you isn't personal, but it's roleplay of some sort. Bots are our merchants, and in RL when I go to my saturday morning town market I actually DO appreciate the fact that the fruitstallguy greets me. And when the flower guy pays me a little compliment, it brings a smile to my face. And when Lionsguild shouts at me.. but it would be the same if I were to get a PM from him, I honestly don't mind a bit.

 

I wouldn't mind PM, as said, I agree that there should be some limitations, and I actually think the pming bit could be a great solution for all.

Edited November 25, 2008 by dilloesional

[korrode]

If the rules are going to be changed to say that bots are allowed to spam talk in local, i think the rules should state that all bot software that talks in local must provide opt-out list functionality.

 

EDIT:

oh, and no, not "#ignore ftw".

Edited November 25, 2008 by Korrode

[Learner]

I don't think they should talk in local, but can PM the player friendly greetings etc, as long as they are self limiting to avoid spam.

[Inglor]

I would have voted yes if there was a limit to how many messages they can send per hour, say 2 period. Would hate for every BOT in NC to greet me as I walked by. NO

[DarElik]

Why not just go ahead and make #ignore_bots ignore them in local also?

 

While I would have rather had longer time limits on posts in the market channel in another discussion we had on that, #ignore_bots got implemented instead.

 

Why not in this case also? Then there's no voting for this, voting for that, deciding on what limit for event msgs, what limit for greetings, sales hawking messages, limits on per hour or per day, etc., etc., etc..

 

Just make #ignore_bots cover local chat also and be done with it. It sure seemed quick and simple enough to cover official channel chat before.

 

Then, bot owners can have their bot continue to chat and send their greets in local if they want and ppl that don't wanna hear it can have it their way too. (Though it would still be courteous of the bot owner/programmer to self-police the amount of messages anyway)

[Ateh]

Why not just go ahead and make #ignore_bots ignore them in local also?

Just make #ignore_bots cover local chat also and be done with it. It sure seemed quick and simple enough to cover official channel chat before.

 

bravo

[Vanyel]

I can only hope #ignore_bots command will start working in local too if bots are allowed to chat. Otherwise people like me will be forced to go through all Players Online bots list and ignore them one by one.

 

 

Why not just go ahead and make #ignore_bots ignore them in local also?

Just make #ignore_bots cover local chat also and be done with it. It sure seemed quick and simple enough to cover official channel chat before.

 

bravo

 

Isn't it just common sense?

[Aislar]

you'd think

[Hadrion]

I voted yes with no limits, but I would have liked to have voted yes with a few limits. Saying something every bag of gold or wall collapse would be irritating (unless you had 1000+ random responses to each one...), but a simple greeting (no more than once per hour) or gratz for something special should be easily ignored. (At least, I don't find it annoying...)

 

I do think that when a bot says something, it adds a personal touch to the game -- not by the bot, but by the person who programmed the bot. It's kind of a way of saying, "Even though I'm not here at the moment, I'm still thinking about you and trying to make your gaming experience more enjoyable."

 

That's my 2gc, anyway.

[Michic0_oL]

Make bots chat in local... why not remove all the players ingame just put bots, ants and let the game evolve and see how it will become ?

 

There are already too many bots imo, too many bos on maket etc i don't want to have bots starting to talk in local chat, this would be annoying.

 

In my opinion a bot is not here to talk with u, if u think so then u are mentally sick.

[Shujral]

I'm not sure people understand that bots already talk in local chat...

[Ermabwed]

I'm not sure people understand that bots already talk in local chat...

And according to Radu, that's against the bot rules (see original thread).

[littlestar]

A normal day mining coal in ws walking to nc-sto

 

[21:53:29] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:12:19] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:21:50] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:30:47] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:31:45] Bot: Hi Person 1

[23:25:06] Bot: Hi Person 2. KLÖFF!

 

Bot is obviously not the name of the bot, just as person 1 and person 2 isn't the real player name

Edited March 26, 2009 by littlestar

[Learner]

A normal day mining coal in ws walking to nc-sto

 

[21:53:29] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:12:19] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:21:50] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:30:47] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:31:45] Bot: Hi Person 1

[23:25:06] Bot: Hi Person 2. KLÖFF!

 

Bot is obviously not the name of the bot, just as person 1 and person 2 isn't the real player name

And that is exactly the type of spam that could get a bot locked.

[DogBreath]

A normal day mining coal in ws walking to nc-sto

 

[21:53:29] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:12:19] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:21:50] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:30:47] Bot: Hi Person 1

[22:31:45] Bot: Hi Person 1

[23:25:06] Bot: Hi Person 2. KLÖFF!

 

Bot is obviously not the name of the bot, just as person 1 and person 2 isn't the real player name

And that is exactly the type of spam that could get a bot locked.

I've asked people using our service to turn greetings off until I can put some anti-spam protection in. As far as I know that's the only local chat our bots do that is automatic... While I'm not sure I see the harm in the greeting, I can see the issue of the person passing the bot several times in a short time period causing 'spam' and will try to correct this.

 

Have we decided on what a reasonable time between greetings might be?

 

I realize the vote is for no controls but I also understand spam isn't a good idea.

[Vanyel]

I realize the vote is for no controls but I also understand spam isn't a good idea.

 

As far as I understand the voting has no meaning other than presenting the community opinion. This and similar decisions are made by Radu and Roja and only by them. I'd insist we'd rather let them decide. It's not democracy.

[DogBreath]

I realize the vote is for no controls but I also understand spam isn't a good idea.

 

As far as I understand the voting has no meaning other than presenting the community opinion. This and similar decisions are made by Radu and Roja and only by them. I'd insist we'd rather let them decide. It's not democracy.

Yes, I understand that, but Radu was the one that suggested the vote in the post linked in Ermabwed's reply above...

[SirCamolot]

People don't want to be bombarded with bot spam, thats the reason there is a Ignore bots command in game. Could you Imagine walking through NC with all the bots talking in local, how annoying would that be ? Make it so I could Ignore them and I have no problem with the Idea. If I cant Ignore, I will avoid that area all together as i am sure many people will. I voted NO to bot spam !! Keep El spam free, so people can Enjoy the game.

[DogBreath]

People don't want to be bombarded with bot spam, thats the reason there is a Ignore bots command in game. Could you Imagine walking through NC with all the bots talking in local, how annoying would that be ? Make it so I could Ignore them and I have no problem with the Idea. If I cant Ignore, I will avoid that area all together as i am sure many people will. I voted NO to bot spam !! Keep El spam free, so people can Enjoy the game.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that you shouldn't be able to ignore them. I also don't think anyone's suggesting that the bot should 'talk to' just anyone walking past them either. I think this is more about the 3rd party standing around hearing the bot talk to the people it's instructed to (but the bot is overdoing it at times...) As well as messages for events and such...

[nathanstenzel]

A bot sees people.

The bot adds them to a list.

The bot deletes them from the list when it does not see them anymore or greets them.

 

The bot checks the list every X seconds or X minutes and greets people on the list via a local message.

 

This should not be a difficult thing to implement.

 

Normally, I would post this in the bots section, but it seems appropriate.

 

If gestures were to get into the game (I guess it is taking a little bit to get the animations done or something) then they could give you a greeting gesture instead (ie tipping their hat, bowing, etc).

[bkc56]

A bot sees people.

The bot adds them to a list.

The bot deletes them from the list when it does not see them anymore or greets them.

 

The bot checks the list every X seconds or X minutes and greets people on the list via a local message.

I don't think the problem is with a bot greeting someone as long as they're in-sight (which could be solved as you suggest). The problem is with bots greeting someone every time he walks by (which could be a lot if they're muling stuff on a path that goes by the bot). This requires a list of people seen that's retained even after they walk away with a time-out set for entries of an hour, or day or something. That way no matter how many times they walk by, they're only greeted once (until the name times-out).

[gilhad123]

I realize the vote is for no controls but I also understand spam isn't a good idea.

 

As far as I understand the voting has no meaning other than presenting the community opinion. This and similar decisions are made by Radu and Roja and only by them. I'd insist we'd rather let them decide. It's not democracy.

Radu makes the rules. Comunity have an opinion. If Radu (for example) would rule, that bot can say "Hi" on local chat every minute, but no more often, and comunity would say, that most ppl would like the hear the "Hi" avery 15 minutes or so, guess, what i would do? I will take care to not break the rules (so not be banned), but ALSO i would try to please my potencial customers so my bot would not scream every minute as officially allowed, but rather every 15 minutes, as ppl are more apreciating. And i would try to make more diversity and randomly choose from a range of greatings too

 

You must follow written rules, but it make a lot of space what to do. In this space is good to know, what others want and stick with it is possible. And that is, where the votes and polls fits - to know, what other thinks.

 

(Yes, rules allow BJing too, but not many ppl actually love to be BJed and i did not hear anyone saying "Please BJ me, so i would have more fun", so i do not it. )

[Pyewacket]

Any of you egghead bot coders worked out yet how much spam traffic these local messages amount to over the course of any given "day"? And does it affect bandwidth at all? I am unsure if this is even relevant or not but if it IS, then surely the pr0est approach would be to eliminate as much of the spam as possible for the good of the game. Silent running FTM.

[Vanyel]

I can imagine walking from WS to NC storage (same in PL recently). Let it be 3 people walking next to each other. 15 bots. 45 messages in 30 seconds. Way to go.

Bots shall stay silent or use PMs. #ignore_bots command should work not only in channels, but also in local chat, PMs, and any other way of communication that isn't covered yet.

[Khalai]

#ignore_bots command should work not only in channels, but also in local chat, PMs, and any other way of communication that isn't covered yet.

 

But blocking PMs from bots would also ceased business messages and would render trading not feasible.