As I read through these posts, and read all the complaints about the gold farming bots, it amazes me that people don't understand one simple economic fact - The bots are the symptom, not the problem. At its core the problem is cheating players that buy gold. If no one bought gold, there would be no gold farmers. Every time a player buys gold, the gold must be gathered, and that means the creation of gold farming bots.
When free trade returned, I said it was going to be interesting to watch the inevitable cycle to destruction, and it has been. At first most players were rich from the non-free trade days, when it was really easy to make money. Everyone was so rich that not a lot of people bought gold. Then a few started buying it, and bots appeared. Prices got worse, and players got poorer, so more people bought gold. That in turn meant more bots, and worse prices, and poorer players, and more gold buying. In the end, the inevitable cycle leads us to poverty for most players, because players can't work as long and as hard as bots.
Can't Jagex ban the bots? They can, and do, but it's only temporary. As long as cheating players buy gold, the bots will return. Banning bots is kind of like mowing the lawn. The grass is shorter, and it looks better for a little while, but not very long because they just grow back.
What I want to see now is a weekly or monthly list of players banned for buying gold. Do that, and the bots will go away on their own.
09-Aug-2012 22:41:04