Bot SPAM

[Ikaris]

Edited for clarity on the progress that has occured.

 

From Ikaris one of the 'de facto' Players representatives

 

When I started this thread I was at wits end. Fortunately, several of the bot owners communicated their side of the issue to me and others in this thread.

 

Through the discussion an understanding has been reached and a plan to aleviate the situation has been worked out with some of the Bot Owners planning to voluntarily change the posting interval of their specific Bots. Some will also try different approaches to advertising on the Market Channel to see what is more appealing to the community at large.

 

I applaud these owners for their understanding and compromise on a controversial issue facing all of us Owners and Players alike.

Your thoughtful postings changed my initial opinion. May we all co-exist peacefully and profitably on the Market channel.

 

Thank you,

 

Ikaris

 

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From LabRat --- one of the 'de facto' Owners representatives

 

Over time I have seen more and more tradebots come into the game. Some people like them, some don't, but most people can see they serve a specific role in the game - to make money for their owners.

 

The bots would not survive if people did not know of their presence - the only way to advertise their presence at the moment is by posting on the market channel. This does pay off, and the bots make money.

 

Almost every week a new bot comes into the game, and this leads to competition. The competition is not (as you may think) between the bot owners, but between the bots themselves to be felt in the marketplace. Very little can be done with one line of advertisements and this is where the bot owners try to be creative, putting a little message on their bot. We can all identify with the person that doesn't like to be meeped at, but who among you doesn't know exactly which bot does that? The same with the rash of "service with a smile" bots - this started as an attempt at humour that caught on with the bots early on in EL history, and has stood the test of time.

 

A number of bot owners have stood proud in this debate, willing to fight for their rights as bot owners, but also being prepared to do as much as they feel is appropriate to help the situation and correct the negative image that bots are being given at the moment.

 

The number of bots ingame has hit critical mass - with a little effort on a player's part they are very likely to find a bot that sells or buys most of the items ingame. Prices are set by the bot owners themselves, there is no great conspiracy between bot owners, and that is why there may be a marked difference between what one bot pays for an item and the price on a different bot.

 

Bots are often accused of undermining the market by buying items too cheaply and selling them too expensively. I see that in exactly the opposite way - if a player is willing to pay you more for an item than a bot will, by all means go ahead and trade with a human. If you can't find a human that wants to buy your 12 bones (for example) the bot won't complain, it will pay you a guaranteed price for something that may have ended up as yet another bag on the floor. At the other side of that is the bots selling items at above market value - sometimes the aim may be to collect them for the bot owner or a friend/guildie, other times it may be solely because of the location of that bot (my bots overcharge on pickaxes, but who believes they are ever going to sell enough pickaxes to make me as a bot owner rich? The reason they overcharge is simply to stop people coming along and buying 20 pickaxes a time for the sake of it, leaving the players that may badly need a pickaxe with no alternative than to walk across an entire map just to get one from storage)

 

I am pleased with the outcome of the events of the past few days, and especially with the game admins for allowing us as bot owners a little time and breathing space to come up with ideas for ourselves rather than just doing what usually happens and changing the rules immediately with no regard to our opinions.

 

I would like to thank everybody that was constructively involved in this situation for showing that occasionally the players can affect the game positively without the sword of damocles hanging above them to steer them in the right direction.

 

I hope that the other bot owners will follow suit and show their support with regard to changing their posting frequency and that the players themselves will allow the rest of the bot owners time to consider what is best for themselves in terms of posting frequency.

 

Let us see how the situation goes over the next couple of weeks or so.

 

Again I wish to express my thanks to all the players, admin and moderation staff and bot owners for contributing to making this game a more enjoyable place for everyone.

 

LabRat

 

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Original post by Ikaris preserved below for posterity's sake

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Enough is enough....

 

I have had it up to here with babbling Bots letting me know about their new wares, services, personal habits ... whatever...

 

Could we just get them banned from the major chat chanels and shoved off to an autobot chanel where they can babble away to their hearts content.

 

Before someone says "#ignore babblemouth" .... Many have earned the #ignore command. I am tired of adding them to my ignore list.

 

I'd rather log on to the babbling idiot (autobot) chanel if i want to listen to ads for overpriced commodities. Otherwise, I DO NOT!!!! want them spamming up my game screen.

Edited December 1, 2006 by Ikaris

[Atlantis]

I agree. There are times (at night, when only about 300 players online) where only 1 message every 10 minutes or so is an actual person, the rest are bots. I honestly think there are way too many messages from bots on the market, and that they don't need to be able to advertise.

[The_Knight]

Most posts on ch 3 are bots, a limit of one post per 30 minutes would be reasonable for bots, and not many people buy stuff from bots anyways, most bot overcharge...

getting annoying seeing this:

 

#jc 3

Welcome to the Market channel

[Person1: pc FE]

[Person2: fe=3-4gc]

[bot: Selling FE only 5gc per, cheapest in EL, pm me kkplzthx]

[bkc56]

How about:

 

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?)).

 

2. All bot adds on public channels are banned. Market channel is limited to real players only.

 

3. Once every 15 minutes a list of all sales bots currently on-line is listed in the Market channel. No more doing #inv (or inv) to every bot listed on the players-online page trying to figure out which ones are the sales bots.

 

This would cut the spam to one line every 15 minutes, make it obvious who the sales bots are, and make it easy to buy/sell from them should you choose to do so.

[Atlantis]

^ Good Idea

Btw, almost all bots use 'inv,' atm, only older bots were the ones that had #inv

[Atmo]

Maybe make a channel for bots so people who are interested in seeing what they sell can still check without the market channel beeing spammed

[Learner]

Maybe make a channel for bots so people who are interested in seeing what they sell can still check without the market channel beeing spammed

Currently, since there are only 3 channels you can tune to, that would be like saying bots can never post since most people wouldn't have enough channels to add one more.

[LabRat]

I currently own 2 bots, Agneum and Titanta.

 

All told both of those bots have $500 of real money invested in them.

 

Bot owners are a minority ingame, but I believe we have as much right - if not more - as any other player ingame to buy and sell my wares.

 

Already, bots are at a disadvantage: human players can already post 3 times more frequently than bots, cannot PM people when a player on the market channel wants to buy or sell something, causing lost trade.

 

Bots do not "spam" the market channel - one post every fifteen minutes is not unreasonable.

 

The problem people have is that many bots post simultaneously, but that is not something bot owners can really help - there are (at a guess) about 60 tradebots, and using that figure they will therefore generate 240 messages an hour, or 4 every minute.

 

Humans generate a hell of a lot more messages than 4 a minute on the market channel - currently there are 146 players on channel 3, and the vast majority of them will be players as bots should issue a #lc 3 at the end of each message. Even if we say that 120 of those are human, every hour 1440 adverts can be posted, along with maybe double that number when they ask for and reply to price checks - making a quite reasonable possible figure of 4320 messages per hour.

 

I have done all I am able to in an effort to ensure my bots do not post at the same time, even going as far as making one of them post slightly less often than the other.

 

In short, I am against any forced action that in any way punishes bot owners for doing exactly what the rules state bots are authorised to do, and considering the amount of money that has been invested by the other bot owners, myself and on behalf of myself to support the game I believe that any decisions taken should only be made after a full and open discussion is held between the management of the game and the bot owners, with all parties listening to reasoned arguments before we all decide on the most appropriate course of action.

 

Note I do not say that the rest of the populace of the game should be brought into the discussion as it would be pointless, and instead of a discussion it would probably just be a load of arguments and "me too".

 

Just my 50,000 cents worth.

Edited November 28, 2006 by LabRat

[Raz]

I personally do not have a problem with bot messages appearing on ch3. However I do have a problem with bots posting stupid prices as someone has already pointed out.

 

A bot message offering something for sale at a good price is a welcome addition to the market channel - and I often buy/sell to bots.

 

So should this not be a wakeup call for Bot owners to ensure that their pricing reflects the market, and their posts are relevant?

 

ie

 

Rr.

 

(Having said that - if a certain bot offers me 'cheap exotic wares' again I will scream)

[Derin]

Information is good, but there is a problem when that information gets to be annoying and/or too specific.

 

The trade bots are known to the community, trade bots do not need to tell the market that they have a random item for sale, in short - trade bots do not need to spam.

If such a thing would happen anywhere else you would go ballistic, and now it seems that a part of the community feels that the market channel is cluttered with not wanted ads. Information, however, is a different story.

 

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!

[bkc56]

Bots do not "spam" the market channel - one post every fifteen minutes is not unreasonable.

 

An understandable difference in perspective between the sender and the receiver of such messages.

 

But whatever one chooses to call it, the "frequent unsolicited offers for over market priced goods" have become enough of a distraction that I do not subscribe to the market channel. If I have some business to do, I'll join, make my buy/sell request, hang out for a few minutes in case someone responds in-channel, then leave (I'll typically try again a couple hours later).

 

I believe there is a problem and I further believe it's driving people away from the market channel.

Edited November 28, 2006 by bkc56

[Aislinn]

Issues:

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.

2. The number of bots will only get bigger.

3. This IS a game for real people behind the characters, when push comes to shove. 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.

 

Now don't get me wrong, trade bots add a huge service to players. In this post I am not suggesting what I suggest as a punishment, but a way to make everybody happy and get what they want. Right now all that is happening is players are #ignoring the bots and getting fed up. The goal is happy players, and happy bot owners who make gc.

 

My solution:

1. Tradebots are allowed to advertise themselves once an hour on jc 3.

2. Tradebots get their own bot-market channel where, with probably VERY few restrictions, they can post away to their heart's content.

3. There be a listing ingame of all tradebots and a key command to get help/commands.

[LabRat]

1. Tradebots are allowed to advertise themselves once an hour on jc 3.

2. Tradebots get their own bot-market channel where, with probably VERY few restrictions, they can post away to their heart's content.

3. There be a listing ingame of all tradebots and a key command to get help/commands.

1. By "advertise themselves" do you mean like Derin's idea of "Hey! I'm a bot!1!" or an actual advertisement?

2. Their own channel with hardly any rules - people complain at 15 minutes, never mind 15 seconds - nobody would join it - effectively excluding bots from the game - and as Learner said there are only 3 channels available, people just wouldn't join anyway.

3. bots should be standardised, it would not take a minute to put an || in the bot's if(command=="buy") routine to make them all equal.

I semi agree with the command ingame, but wouldn't a command such as #bots that shows a link to a web page listing the tradebots online and their locations be more reasonable - bots are static, so the page need only be updated once a day or so, [a cache timeout of now()+1 day sounds like a nice idea there to limit server bandwidth] maybe even only whenever a new bot gets introduced to the game or a bot changes its assigned location.

 

May I suggest that all bots have an "about" command that gives brief details of the bot - the bot owner, any web link to the bot inventory (or other web page), and a list of admins for the bot in case of problems?

[Aislinn]

1. By "advertise themselves" do you mean like Derin's idea of "Hey! I'm a bot!1!" or an actual advertisement?

I think advertise themselves, with location/key commands/services

 

2. Their own channel with hardly any rules - people complain at 15 minutes, never mind 15 seconds - nobody would join it - effectively excluding bots from the game - and as Learner said there are only 3 channels available, people just wouldn't join anyway.

What rules or guidelines would be worked out, I say hardly any meaning it would be for the bot owners to work out mostly. Of course people will go in there, lots of people want to buy from bots as well and this would give them a chance to get an accelerated listing of wares or whatever the bots are advertising.

 

3. bots should be standardised, it would not take a minute to put an || in the bot's if(command=="buy") routine to make them all equal.

Yes they should but that doesn't change the fact that there are just too many bots in jc 3 now (with MORE coming daily!!!).

 

May I suggest that all bots have an "about" command that gives brief details of the bot - the bot owner, any web link to the bot inventory (or other web page), and a list of admins for the bot in case of problems?

Also an excellent idea.

[DarElik]

Information is good, but there is a problem when that information gets to be annoying and/or too specific.

 

The trade bots are known to the community, trade bots do not need to tell the market that they have a random item for sale, in short - trade bots do not need to spam.

If such a thing would happen anywhere else you would go ballistic, and now it seems that a part of the community feels that the market channel is cluttered with not wanted ads. Information, however, is a different story.

 

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!

 

Well, first off (just to bring some facts inline), Vooten posts once every 17.5 mins, not 15. I was trying to space it out a little farther than most bots and he's been at that setting since he came online.

 

On it being spam, I think he DOES need to post "that they have a random item for sale". We're trying to SELL these items. It really does help when they post the item names and prices when advertising (and Advertising IS what the market channel is for, eh?

 

I do agree that with the sheer number of bots increasing and needing to advertise that our time limit could be raised to one post every 30 mins, but the content of the posts should remain unchanged. To facilitate this, I'm going now to change Vooten's post timing to one post every 32.5 mins.

[Puntif]

My storebot Salt is my proxy on the market channel. She is there mostly to sell the stuff I make and to buy some raw ingredients. Before I had a bot I watched channel 3 and replied to people who wanted to buy something that I make. Now that she is no longer allowed to tell people she has what they want I will probably have to add some code to advertise.

 

It never occurred to me that a bot might log into channel 3 just to advertise then leave the channel. Salt takes "buying" and "selling" messages on channel 3 (as well as PMs and local chat) as potential orders that she will attempt to fill the next time that person trades with her.

 

I'm sorry that some people don't like the prices. I set initial buy and sell prices based on price checks and prices from other bots. I try to pick prices that are not as high as the highest bot and not as low as the lowest bot. Setting selling prices lower doesn't seem to increase sales any so there's no point. Setting buy prices higher makes her run out of cash real fast. Salt also reduces sale prices for items that aren't selling at the current price so over time any prices that are out of line will adjust themselves. I don't know how a bot or a bot owner can set fair prices that won't be considered spammish by the people that are annoyed by those advertisements. I had been adding anyone that complained to her don't trade (ignore) list.

 

I do try to keep track of bot prices for certain items (both to gauge the market for stuff I make and to look for ingredients I need) and I am finding it hard to keep my spreadsheet current with so many new bots appearing.

 

I don't know what the solution is. I just wanted to address some of the points brought up.

[LabRat]

And what about the players that just get NPC traders and feel free to advertise the NPC's wares as and when they please? I believe that advertising for other players and bots is against the rules, yet for the past 6 months (to quote a player) he has been doing just that with not a word from the mods. Does this issue affect that too?

[Aislinn]

And what about the players that just get NPC traders and feel free to advertise the NPC's wares as and when they please? I believe that advertising for other players and bots is against the rules, yet for the past 6 months (to quote a player) he has been doing just that with not a word from the mods. Does this issue affect that too?

Actually that has come up with the mods and we determined that it would be allowed because these people are unable to code the NPC's so they can post for themselves. However, the people posting for them will be subject to the same rules and time requirements.

[Mar(c)]

Already, bots are at a disadvantage: human players can already post 3 times more frequently than bots, cannot PM people when a player on the market channel wants to buy or sell something, causing lost trade.

Now let's face the huge advantages that bots already have:

1. They are able to be ingame 24/7, so they're able to advertize and trade any time.

2. They are able to be available 24/7, because their only business is buying/selling, no unavailability due to training any skill.

3. They have a fixed location (no need for two players to arrange the meeting).

4. They are totally automated; the trade interface as well as the putting the ads at channel 3 (hugely convenient for the owner, and no hassle of negotiating).

5. They are already well-known by the players (unlike the random one-out-of-700 player who wants to sell his 100 srs or 1 isof), so buyers/sellers will come their way without countless ads @@3 anyway.

 

Bots at a disadvantage??! Not meant to be offending, but seriously, you must be kidding!

 

There are hundreds of players wanting to buy or sell items, and channel 3 is the only ingame interface they have to find eachother, and that is the most important feature of the market channel.

 

 

Bots do not "spam" the market channel - one post every fifteen minutes is not unreasonable.

 

The problem people have is that many bots post simultaneously, but that is not something bot owners can really help - there are (at a guess) about 60 tradebots, and using that figure they will therefore generate 240 messages an hour, or 4 every minute.

 

Humans generate a hell of a lot more messages than 4 a minute on the market channel - currently there are 146 players on channel 3, and the vast majority of them will be players as bots should issue a #lc 3 at the end of each message. Even if we say that 120 of those are human, every hour 1440 adverts can be posted, along with maybe double that number when they ask for and reply to price checks - making a quite reasonable possible figure of 4320 messages per hour.

1. One bot every 15 minutes is not spam. 30 bots every 15 minutes {=120 per hour} is a wall of spam, no matter how it's timed.

Actually, it's not that bad... yet.

(And imho, it's already hugely annoying...)

 

Small analysis:

Timeframe: 13 hours and 5 minutes (Nov 22 5:51pm - Nov 23 6:56am, GMT).

In total, 2911 lines were posted by 385 different players/bots.

978 lines were posted by the 25 bots.

So bots were 6.5% of the players, and they made 33.6% of the posts.

Together, the bots posted "only" 75 lines per hour (5 every 4 minutes).

(10 bots posted more than 50-53 times = max., 5 bots 40-49 times, 1 bot 30-39 times, 7 bots 20-29 times, 2 bots 0-9 times.)

 

And these figures will only increase more and more with the increasing amount of trade bots!

 

 

My solution:

1. Tradebots are allowed to advertise themselves once an hour on jc 3.

I totally agree with this.

About the content of the ad, I'd say anything that goes now.

They can take the opportunity to make themselves known, to characterize what kind of store bot they are, or post an ad about their main item(s), or a hot item, etc.

[LabRat]

The only way to stop the number of bot ads increasing is to stop allowing players to purchase bots, but I can't really see Entropy allowing you to push that through. Bots are a fact of life ingame, and as I already said, a unilateral decision will only alienate the people that invest in the game. We really do need to sit down somewhere and come to an acceptable compromise, not let the situation turn into a flame war like so many other subjects ingame.

 

I want to be part of the process of something that directly affects my property, just as in real life.

 

If I bought a shop and a council official came along out of the blue and restricted my ability to advertise in the local trade newspaper I would have grounds to appeal, but if the council official talked to me beforehand he may discover that there is an amicable solution for both sides that he had not considered.

 

Already the bot rules changed (when the $20 a year came in) and it was only when the bot owners were told about it after the decision had been made there was rather a large issue made of it. Imagine the difference if Entropy had made a post asking the bot owners' help with financing the new server and the other expenses before he went ahead and just changed the pricing structures.

 

I wish to state that one of the main reasons I personally bought my bots is to put a little (depending on your perspective, in total almost $600 to date is not chickenfeed) back into the game that has become an extremely large part of my life, and to show my thanks. I also have the added slight benefit of being available 24/7 in the form of the bots.

[Aislinn]

Nobody is arguing about the cost of buying/maintaining a bot.

Nobody is arguing that bots are a fact of life.

Nobody is wanting to get rid of bots.

 

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.

 

We all understand what goes into bots, time and money. We all understand that bots are convenient. We all want to be able to have easy access to bots and their information.

 

Please do not turn these into anti-bot suggestions. They aren't. They are suggestions to make bot usage and player sales work hand in hand in harmony, not discord. If you read clearly, and without anger, you will see we are making suggestions to help, not hurt, you (you being bot owners).

[Mar(c)]

... a unilateral decision will only alienate the people that invest in the game. We really do need to sit down somewhere and come to an acceptable compromise, ...

I totally agree.

 

My idea of what bot owners should get in return for the cut-down on market channel ads:

A buddy-list-like store bot window; a server-side maintained list of store bots, showing the online store bots.

Not many changes are needed, I think.

(And now I'm probably burning my fingers on the programming part again...)

We already have buddy list code (server and client), which I think can be used for the store bot list code with not that many tweaks.

One extra "buddy list" file (server-side) would be needed, with all store bots (only changeable by the admins of course).

 

When the main bots command are going to be standardized (help, info, loc, inv, buy, sell, ...), the store bot window can get a right-click popup menu for quick-access of those commands, for example:

- menu item "help" results in /botname help[enter]

- menu item "buy" results in /botname buy _

( _ = cursor position)

 

Of course we're talking about a future feature implementation, so a cut-down on market channel ads (to one per hour; enough to make your bots and their characteristics known to the public all around the clock) should wait until this is done.

But I want to know, is this a good solution?

- Bot owners, would you want something like this in return for the cut-down?

- Radu, is this something (relatively) easy to implement, and do you want it?

 

 

I also have the added slight benefit of being available 24/7 in the form of the bots.

*coughhugecough*

No but seriously, with the other benefits I mentioned, the advantage isn't just "slight".

[LadyReni]

Players are players, bots are bots

Interactions with players are different than 'interactions' with bots, I never trade with bots and I find their adv. annoying/not useful. However I am sure some people love them.. seperate channel for bots should satisfy both sides.

[Zamirah]

Give the bot messages another color, maybe purple, would be easyer for players to know if it's bots or not.

[LabRat]

A storebot buddy list window does sound appealing, and could be based on the rules window: a list of bots (rules) with a basic biography (owner, commands, location etc) as the clickable dropdown (rule definitions)

 

I would find this an acceptable tradeoff for changing the bot post to one per hour (maybe each tradebot could be assigned a different minute too depending on the number of bots)

 

I cannot and will not pre-empt other bot owners on this, but I can immediately see the advantages such a window could bring.