RuneScape Forum Archive | How to detect bots in clan

Zori

Posts: 838 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Ok thanks all for responding.

I guess with a clan of nearly 500 and lots of active players it can get hard to keep a track of every single person and their xp gains. Runeclan also seems to be a great tool for tracking xp.

Do you actively seek them out to find out if they are there? Seems like the only way so far

28-Mar-2016 12:26:41

Vera

Posts: 16,334 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Woah, as the deputy owner of a small clan, I had no idea the extent of this issue, reading these stories.

Kera

, that's insane how you had someone who would pretend to head off for the night but actually bot the night away.

Zori

, I don't know how the rest of your clanmates feel about botting, but making it clear to them that botting is not okay is something I would do multiple times, so that everyone is on the same page. I would also deliberately make people feel comfortable asking questions, either in pm or in the clan channel, since some people don't feel the same way against botting as others do.

That's why I included my explanation of Jagex's stance on botting, even though you already knew about it; providing an explanation to your clanmates as to why botting is such a serious infraction would be respectful, and would help them understand the validity of your concerns.

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28-Mar-2016 13:53:04

Dec

2011

Archaeox

Forum Moderator Posts: 53,398 Emerald Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Zori said :
My question is for every clan leader or past clan leader, how do you detect botting or auto-clicking?

Know each and every one of your members.

Which is obviously easier in smaller clans than larger ones.

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28-Mar-2016 14:34:55

Mar

2018

Scret

Posts: 25,434 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Macka said :
Where there's a will there's a way. Bots will always be a problem and hard to tackle for any game as we all should know.

We can only be all vigilant ourselves to help Jagex tackle the problem. With the millions of accounts worldwide, the bot wave's of bans will only be temporary so instead of arguing about the problem just be thankful that you have made a difference to make the game a better place.

I alert my members to be all on their toes and report accordingly when it comes to this issue. The only way we've been able to detect it is if we try to speak to everyone and see them in-game. As we are a close-knit clan this is easier to do as compared to larger ones. Just be sure to log all individual issues.

They will be less of a problem if the bans are more appropriate, people bot because they know the consequences for getting caught are not that severe.

Cant tell you how many people i come across every now and then that we once banned for botting from the clan still playing the game. You might want to defend that but im certainly not going to.

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28-Mar-2016 14:49:27 - Last edited on 28-Mar-2016 14:53:49 by Scret

Oct

2005

Dracae

Posts: 3,827 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Interesting subject.

I have decoded a while ago that we, as clanleaders, are not ' Jagex-police' , as mentioned before we do not have the tools to know without a doubt that a person is a bot.
So, my solution is simple: report people that you are reasonably convinced are botting and let Jagex sort them out.
If they , after several reports, even by P-mods, are still around then Jagex seems to deem them fit to be in the game, so I deem them also fit to be in my clan.
One exception: people that admit they bot, sometimes even brag about it. I do not want that in the clan.

Then a few relevant anecdotes.

A clanmate was playing, but did not react to any communication in teh CC, while they were also offline in PM, after a few days of that we were convinced he was botting. I demoted him to recruit, planning to talk to the fellow leaders about a kick. Purely coincidentally my wife ran into him, on RS the day after and he did talk to her in public, we found out that the person had turned all his messages off, because he was not in any mood to talk, but had not left the cc. I don't know if you even could step out of the cc back then. He simply did not see us talking to him, even though he was in the chat.

28-Mar-2016 17:23:28

Oct

2005

Dracae

Posts: 3,827 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

A highly ranked clanmate of mine has been accused of botting a lot, he has the opportunity to play and work at the same time, but does not pay attention much to what he is doing on the game and he also refuses to talk to people acusing him in public. We have had people from other clans come in our cc and accuse us of being a bothaven because of him, these people seemed to believe spamming a clanchat with insults IS correct behavior..
Now, the way he plays would actually make me wonder where it not for the fact that this person has been accused of botting many times while I myself or other clanmates were talking to him in PM or on skype.. As far as I know bots do not answer pm's , he has also shown me screenshots of the abuse he has had to deal with in public chat, from his accusers, who even though he does not react still shout all kinds of insults at him. Kinda silly, because if he really was a bot .. what use is shouting at him?
Even my wife, who is a rather dedicated grinder at times has been accused of being a bot and insulted while she DID ANSWER THEM!

Lastly on this side of the argument, I have had 2 ex-clanmates, both wanabe P-mods, hunt actively for bots al the time , only to see a screenshot of an skype conversation between them and their ' friend' in which they talked about how they had found this awesome botting program, that was undetectable..
Reminded me a lot of these holier then thou politicians always preaching family values, while **bleep**ing their mistresses.
Like many of these politicians, they, at least temporarily , succeeded and became P-mods and members of an ' elite' clan.

--

Al this is what lead me to stop judging potential bots and refer it to Jagex, by way of reporting.

28-Mar-2016 17:32:38 - Last edited on 28-Mar-2016 17:37:42 by Dracae

Oct

2005

Dracae

Posts: 3,827 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

To balance this a lil, an anecdote about a clanmate I did ban.

This dude botted a skill to 99, then made a big deal about getting this 99 at the 99-party of a clanmate who had gotten it herself. He not only admitted botting, but also defended himself by saying that he worked hard for his money, while the girl who got the 99 honestly did not have a fulltime job. So him paying for a sophisticated botprogram, with his ' hard earned' income meant he had earned the 99 fair and square.

Now, don't let all of this , while I admit it seems a little one-sided, convince you I like bots.. I hate bots and all other ways of gaining unfair advantages. Even though micro-transactions are legal, I also hate them as a way to gain an unfair advantage.. but I have learned to live with that.. The thing is though, I also hate people innocently punished and blatant hypocrisy!

On a personal note, I don't see how anyone can have any pride from or fun with 'stolen valor' .

Oo and Archaeox, I 100%agree with you, if in any way possible, clanleaders should try to get to know all their members! I have 450 and still meet every one of them for quite a long talk.

But, the reality is that we can and will never truly know for sure who is at the other side of that computer screen at all times. it would be rather delusional to think we could .

28-Mar-2016 17:34:14 - Last edited on 28-Mar-2016 17:50:10 by Dracae

Apr

2006

Esploratore

Posts: 1,675 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Today I'm waterfall fishing to train invention. Just like I did yesterday and the day before that. As an older player, my preference is to play with public chat set to friends some of the time since I'm not all that interested in the public conversation topics of some twelve year old boys or those of e-daters.

I took a break from fishing to check the citadel earlier. On the way back, I picked up some seeds at the g.e. I paused at the base of the waterfall to disassemble the seeds. While there, I noticed someone standing next to me and turned on public chat to see if they were talking to me. In the time it took to do this, the player was already asking me if I was botting merely because I didn't immediately reply to a question he had asked.

Why some players are so quick to accuse others of botting is a mystery to me. I've never botted and if I was bored enough with the game to be tempted to do it, I can assure everyone on this forum I would quit playing before resorting to that.

The point is: Don't assume others are botting simply because they choose not to talk to you. Players don't have the tools to prove someone else is cheating. That remains the responsibility of Jagex to monitor and enforce the rules.

I used to track clan members who we suspected of botting years ago. After reporting them, I never once saw any results from the effort. It came to the point of wondering why I should even bother, especially when I couldn't be 100% certain of a player's guilt.

The only time I will kick, ban and report a clan mate for botting now is if they were to blatantly brag about it in the cc.

28-Mar-2016 21:03:37

Zori

Posts: 838 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Dracae said :

But, the reality is that we can and will never truly know for sure who is at the other side of that computer screen at all times. it would be rather delusional to think we could .

This and I think I understand your point. As for those that were kicked, they were bragging about it in-game and on our TS. So I think it was very justifiable.

Thanks for the stories, they actually helped.

28-Mar-2016 23:28:13

Mar

2018

Scret

Posts: 25,434 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Esploratore said :

Players don't have the tools to prove someone else is cheating. That remains the responsibility of Jagex to monitor and enforce the rules.

Not entirely true, being able to break bots with vex and other items is possible

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29-Mar-2016 00:45:18

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