SRL Archive - Bot Information and Spottings

It is now one week after bot-any-day. Bots are still everywhere, with the same obnoxious names, walking the same tiles, making the same crazy profits, botting 24/7. Is this Gajex fail? Are they still "gathering data"? Will the nuke come?

The more I think about this the more I tend towards concluding that Gajex deliberately keeps the bots alive. I mean it is easy enough to ban bots. right?

• a manual J-mod ban,
• IP ban,
• name ban,
• unknown client ban,
• unbalanced trade ban,
• 24/7 online ban,
• one-activity ban,

and many more obvious botproperties can be given, that should be fairly easy to implement into the game engine.

So, why dont they do this? Why do the expel legits and favour bots? Clearly, not because they can't (see arguments above) but because they won't. They need the money. Simple as that.They are not interested in the rs-economy, legits complaining, their game ruined…….they are interested in money. Thats all. That is priority number one and all the rest is of no importance.

Back to hardcore botting. Correct me if I am wrong.

It's a bit sad, to me it appears that it was a bit of a scare tactic to threaten and deter bot users…

They'll have to take serious action to prove that it wasn't just a hoax…

I'm a bit upset really, I would have thought all the gold farmers would be gone and I could finally play a bit to make some cash.

Me too, everyone at first wouldn't bot, but a week later and it's back to what it was. I do hope there is some sort of nuke soon. It's out of control. >.<

It's hard to make any conclusion as to if they intend to really actually ban bots at this point.

I presume that they just want to prolong the suspense and progress very slowly, so as to avoid banning too many players and hope that they get scared and stop botting (but continue paying) rather than just one shot ban every bots (albeit a temporary ban), which usually cause ppl to quit (and stop paying).

Here is their official cover-up:
http://services.runescape.com/m=forum/forums.ws?15,16,502,64017607 (Quick find code: 15-16-502-64017607)

When will the new system be 100% running? When can we expect to see all of the bots gone?

Mod Cloughie: Recent events go to show that with a system such as BotWatch, even the slightest mistake can have major ramifications. It should serve as a reminder to everyone (ourselves included!) that we need to take the roll-out and testing of this system slowly and carefully.


Is the new system only able to catch auto talkers? When will the annoying resource grabbing bots be banned?

Mod Cloughie: As part of the roll-out of this system, we will be expanding to further in-game locations over the coming weeks. Once again though, we want to move methodically and carefully before deploying this system to cover more activities and locations.

I'm always amazed by the way they cover up these things. They have been working on this for over a year so it shouldn't need that much testing. Who knows though, what if Jagex is really capable of making a very well working bot busting system? I think we can stay under the radar, but you never know. I honestly think they aren't banning some people just for the money income. We'll see in the next few weeks.

I agree, simple scare tactic, worked for a few days, now we are all back to botting, personally, i only stopped botting for 1 day. back to 20/7 botting!

By the sounds of it,you're only more likely to get banned if you bot in these areas of high bot concentration. So your best bet is to bot in the eastern lands or in the middle of the wildy

i just want goldfarmers banned like yt1uf2t3
not ppl who bot for lvls

C'mon Fawki, you should remember from the Aryan days and beyond, this is Jagex tradition. They like to cause the banning numbers to go amass, so they can make a big announcement and make it look like they're doing something.

If they were really looking at this for the money. I would say that their player base would reduce gradually, and over time, there will no longer be much legits playing the game. This would then cause the prices of gold to errode, and sooner more than later, will bots shift over to another game. And when that happens, RS would just be a whack and no one will play it anymore. If they really are going for the short term motivation of profit, I would say in time to come, maybe 2 years or less, they will drastically lose popularity. It is already happening, but I forsee that if this botwatch system comes as a failure, then the number of legits would decline rapidly. Just my two cents

From: Daniel
C'mon Fawki, you should remember from the Aryan days and beyond, this is Jagex tradition. They like to cause the banning numbers to go amass, so they can make a big announcement and make it look like they're doing something.

And kaboom they made a mass ban, thanks to Regex I think?

~Home

From: Home
And kaboom they made a mass ban, thanks to Regex I think?

~Home

I don't think that's gonna happen. Jagex has changed from those days and they even mentioned they'd give two warnings before perm ban.

Sounds about right..

The thing what ive never understood is manual banning, why don't they hop round each world banning every bot at green drags or something if they kept doing it it would put off ALOT of people botting.

From: Ollybest
The thing what ive never understood is manual banning, why don't they hop round each world banning every bot at green drags or something if they kept doing it it would put off ALOT of people botting.

Jagex isn't a very big company. It would take a lot of extra staff to do that, which would in turn cost them a lot of money, and we all know Jagex likes money, a lot.

From: Richard
Jagex isn't a very big company. It would take a lot of extra staff to do that, which would in turn cost them a lot of money, and we all know Jagex likes money, a lot.

BS. I could get paid 20$ an hour to hop worlds and insta-ban all the green drags. It'd take about 5 hours and no more green drag bots. Then I could move to the next hot-bot-spot and do the same for every world.

Jagex doesn't care

From: footballjds
BS. I could get paid 20$ an hour to hop worlds and insta-ban all the green drags. It'd take about 5 hours and no more green drag bots. Then I could move to the next hot-bot-spot and do the same for every world.

Jagex doesn't care

this. People would do this for min wage easily. Would only need a team of 10 to fully stop all hot spots. Even 1 guy doing it would work well.

Jagex actually used to manually ban scar users. I remember when I had botted mining guild with stupidoos miner like 20 hours non stop. Mod Paul Teled to me and followed me and asked if had ever macroed. Luckily I was there to answer but I got banned few weeks after because I just kept bottling.

From: footballjds
BS. I could get paid 20$ an hour to hop worlds and insta-ban all the green drags. It'd take about 5 hours and no more green drag bots. Then I could move to the next hot-bot-spot and do the same for every world.

Jagex doesn't care

^ I agree that's easy money lol hop worlds click every obvious bot, job done.

From: weequ
Jagex actually used to manually ban scar users. I remember when I had botted mining guild with stupidoos miner like 20 hours non stop. Mod Paul Teled to me and followed me and asked if had ever macroed. Luckily I was there to answer but I got banned few weeks after because I just kept bottling.

They always have done "bot busts" but they've never been consistent (and big enough) for people to actually think about them.

Back to botting sure, but not what I'd call hardcore, although what I call hardcore botting, I also call suicide botting.

They wont ban p2p bots I think, they really need the money. Thats my opinion aswell. Back to botting. :)

From: WT-Fakawi
I mean it is easy enough to ban bots. right?

Um, no?

From: WT-Fakawi

• a manual J-mod ban,
• IP ban,
• name ban,
• unknown client ban,
• unbalanced trade ban,
• 24/7 online ban,
• one-activity ban,

With the amount of bots online at any given time. Manual J-Mod bans would require a ton of manpower.

Risks banning legitimate accounts.

Risks banning legitimate accounts. 100's and 100's of stakers use names like lLllLl1Ll1, for the reason that it makes it hard to find them on high scores.

Risks banning legitimate accounts. There are quite a few foreign language clients, and Swiftkit clones, that aren't used for the purpose of macroing.

Risks banning legitimate accounts. Gambling, while definitely frowned upon, isn't a bannable offense as far as I know. Banning unbalanced trades risks banning anyone whose gambling with any sort of trust trade game.

Online time should definitely be looked at.

Eh, when I used to legit way back when, there were definitely spans of a few weeks were I would log in and do the same activity. I imagine it's the same now with pures at SW/PC, skillers at Runespan/FF, etc etc.

Attempting to ban the bots is a huge undertaking. Anyone expecting it to work overnight is incredibly naive and shortsighted.

From: footballjds
BS. I could get paid 20$ an hour to hop worlds and insta-ban all the green drags. It'd take about 5 hours and no more green drag bots.

Until an hour later, when there's 20 more bots there per world. Going around manually banning everyone would be a temporary fix at best.

From: Stray Bullets
Until an hour later, when there's 20 more bots there per world. Going around manually banning everyone would be a temporary fix at best.

i can man ban faster then they can train a bot to that lvl. trust me.
then i can look at the ip for all their bots and perma ban every account that used that ip for more then 4 hours straight. lmfao

jagex needs to think outside the bun

From: footballjds
i can man ban faster then they can train a bot to that lvl. trust me.

How would you distinguish between bots, and legitimate goldfarmers? Both are obviously frowned upon, but can you really ban a player that is playing legitimately? Even if the reason that they are playing is, well, not so legitimate? Also, there's no telling how many of these accounts are stockpiled. It's not as though you need high stats to kill green dragons. One or two days of powerlevelling, and you're good to go.

Plus, I doubt hiring a team to run around ingame and manually ban accounts is something Jagex want's to really fit into their budget. Going that route would never solve the bot issue. Too much ground to cover.

From: footballjds
then i can look at the ip for all their bots and perma ban every account that used that ip for more then 4 hours straight. lmfao

Probably never going to happen. You'd risk banning legitimate accounts. For instance I bot multiple accounts. My roommate doesn't bot at all. We're on the same IP. What about people who access their accounts on public networks? It's also not exactly hard to just bot on a VPS.

From: footballjds
jagex needs to think outside the bun

Agreed.

The thing about "gathering data" is that maybe Jagex HAS already infiltrated our computers with a snake to find .simba files. They are working up individual account cases? They could simply find your bot file of any kind and then ban every account you have on your IP. Boom bot nuke. I think there is a more clever approach jagex will be taking. When we all lie belly up, we can then say how dumb jagex is and how stupid and useless this botnuke is?

From: ___
The thing about "gathering data" is that maybe Jagex HAS already infiltrated our computers with a snake to find .simba files. They are working up individual account cases? They could simply find your bot file of any kind and then ban every account you have on your IP. Boom bot nuke. I think there is a more clever approach jagex will be taking. When we all lie belly up, we can then say how dumb jagex is and how stupid and useless this botnuke is?

Lol, no.
They don' inject your computer looking for .simba files.
It's an invasion of privacy and they can get sued. If you have a .simba file, does it make you a botter? NO! It can be used for other games.

From: ___
The thing about "gathering data" is that maybe Jagex HAS already infiltrated our computers with a snake to find .simba files. They are working up individual account cases? They could simply find your bot file of any kind and then ban every account you have on your IP. Boom bot nuke. I think there is a more clever approach jagex will be taking. When we all lie belly up, we can then say how dumb jagex is and how stupid and useless this botnuke is?

Even the worst antivirus would detect something in the Jagex cache scanning your computers files. If they were to do that, which I don't think is even a remote possibility, we would have been notified about a TOS change I imagine.

From: Stray Bullets
Even the worst antivirus would detect something in the Jagex cache scanning your computers files. If they were to do that, which I don't think is even a remote possibility, we would have been notified about a TOS change I imagine.

First: Jagex is a multi-million dollar company, the worst anti-virus's are not multi-million dollar companies and don't have the resources to find the newest forms of worms.

Second: Every time we play RS we agree to their TOS regardless of if they updated it or not, it said that when we registered our accounts "We may not be notified of changes".

Not saying Jagex would put worms on our computer, lol they would be sued left and right if caught.

From: NKN
Lol, no.
They don' inject your computer looking for .simba files.
It's an invasion of privacy and they can get sued. If you have a .simba file, does it make you a botter? NO! It can be used for other games.

On the subject, this is the most I could pull out of reading both the Runescape Privacy Policy as well as Terms & Conditions:

From: Jagex

We use cookies, collect and store IP-addresses, alphanumeric IDs and other unique identifiers in order to identify specific computers that access our websites. We identify and store the versions of Java and .NET (if any) on your computer along with your browser and operating system, and details of your device's hardware and software specifications.

…

If our client software held on your computer fails, it sends an automatic error report to our server to help us fix it. This error report only includes information about the internal state of our own client software and which browser/java version it is running on. It does not include data from elsewhere on your system and so does not reveal personally identifiable information to us.

Whatever their Privacy Policy states, Blizzard was (is) able to monitor its' users' running programs to spot out macros ect… I've never read their policy (nor played the game for that matter) but somehow they got away clean with it, even in court. I wonder if Jagex would ever go that far, it's obviously proven successful; why wouldn't they?


But from the looks of it you're right NKN, they repeatedly state they do no such thing of monitor players' computers in such a way. Atleast, currently…

From: Flight
On the subject, this is the most I could pull out of reading both the Runescape Privacy Policy as well as Terms & Conditions:



Whatever their Privacy Policy states, Blizzard was (is) able to monitor its' users' running programs to spot out macros ect… I've never read their policy (nor played the game for that matter) but somehow they got away clean with it, even in court. I wonder if Jagex would ever go that far, it's obviously proven successful; why wouldn't they?


But from the looks of it you're right NKN, they repeatedly state they do no such thing of monitor players' computers in such a way. Atleast, currently…

Solid detecting here Flight, you did manage to clear that up pretty well..

Following up on this, how good are Jacmobs skills at potentially upgrading the RS Client to log the different client addresses. He had an amazing understanding of RSBuddy, and he is still a 'Fellow' on Powerbot which I understand used the same source code as RSBuddy so surely he would be able to work out who was using what?

From: Stray Bullets
Even the worst antivirus would detect something in the Jagex cache scanning your computers files. If they were to do that, which I don't think is even a remote possibility, we would have been notified about a TOS change I imagine.

You'd be surprised. With Java, they could take a screenshot of your computer, and then have it sent to their server, and it wouldn't even be vaguely detected as it's client side code, and we let it do whatever it can when we tick that box for the certificate. This is why we used to change the name of the SCAR window, just in case :p

From: WT-Fakawi
It is now one week after bot-any-day. Bots are still everywhere, with the same obnoxious names, walking the same tiles, making the same crazy profits, botting 24/7. Is this Gajex fail? Are they still "gathering data"? Will the nuke come?

The more I think about this the more I tend towards concluding that Gajex deliberately keeps the bots alive. I mean it is easy enough to ban bots. right?

• a manual J-mod ban,
• IP ban,
• name ban,
• unknown client ban,
• unbalanced trade ban,
• 24/7 online ban,
• one-activity ban,

and many more obvious botproperties can be given, that should be fairly easy to implement into the game engine.

So, why dont they do this? Why do the expel legits and favour bots? Clearly, not because they can't (see arguments above) but because they won't. They need the money. Simple as that.They are not interested in the rs-economy, legits complaining, their game ruined…….they are interested in money. Thats all. That is priority number one and all the rest is of no importance.

Back to hardcore botting. Correct me if I am wrong.

You do know that an Investment firm has controlling stock in Jagex now right?

I would guess that they are gathering data on most people to perfect their new system. You cant just ban everyone before learning from them. They have done that in the past and look how it worked out for them. Don't underestimate there ability, after all they have re-wrote the code to work on html5!

They initially stated that this botnuke would be many months ago. Since then they have supposedly been "gathering data to perfect their new system". They rolled their new system out and here we are still watching worlds full of bots. Gold-farming bots what's more.

From: P1ng
They initially stated that this botnuke would be many months ago. Since then they have supposedly been "gathering data to perfect their new system". They rolled their new system out and here we are still watching worlds full of bots. Gold-farming bots what's more.

I've noticed that SOME goldfarmers have been taken care of. LRC is a bad place to be. Which kinda sucks since that's what I want to bot but I'm scared since it's probably the next spot to be nuked.