Most players are discouraged to play the game when they know botting occurs, it makes them think their time playing is less valuable; why would I buy from you or Blizz when there is a black market selling for much cheaper?
So, Blizz has been appeasing players by doing ban waves.
But this type of action is called re-active, and it does not help the player at all. Some players promote the conspiracy theory that Blizz focuses on this re-active approach because botters generate lots of money for them, through License sales and AH transaction fees, personally, I find this theory interesting but cannot believe it without evidence.
But, it makes me think twice about this theory, because there is an incredibly simple solution to botters. Perhaps it is a bit crude, but it is a solution nonetheless.
Captcha for game creation. Plain and simple.
They could use Re-captcha, not only would this limit bot users to having to enter captcha's everytime they want to create a game (discouraging the botters from using their programs, instead of the player from playing the game) but it would also benefit the world at large (look up re-captcha if you are confused how).
So, why has Blizzard not implemented this if they are indeed interested in removing bots from the game?
Captcha would probably kill the game faster than any amount of discouragement botting gives. Having to captcha in every time to make a game would kill the sense of being able to log in and farm whenever you feel like it.
Second, a relatively patient botter could just manually log in the captcha, then sit back and sip his latte once the bot does its thing.
Third, spammers have known since 2006 how to break captchas. If they can figure it out, so can botters.
Reactive fixes may not be the perfect solution, but it's a damn sight better than squinting at those squished characters each time.
Finally, I haven't felt like it's been a real issue affecting me, and I'm sure the self-found players don't really care about botting anyway. Maybe it's more prevalent in hardcore, I don't pretend to know. But this isn't exactly high on priorities, far as I can tell.
you can bypass a captcha on a website because its implementation is much more "reachable". As the articale states is was using a glitch in the sessionID generation. Accessing your diablo3 login sessionnn would require you to manipulate your memory instead of pressing f12 and use chrome tools.
There certainly is a very secure implementation for server side captcha validation from within a clientside binary.
I also thought about that approach and asked myself why they are not using it.
My guess would be : They cant /dont want use it because it impairs a restriction on the user.
Combine this with the fact that 70% off all diablo3 players are casual gamers and dont even know about botters.
Thus 70% players would have to enter a captcha against things they dont even know. Which makes them very hard to justify - from a usability point of view.
A log-in capcha would give you the worst of both worlds. All you'd be doing is adding another relatively minor manual step to a botter's startup process, and the fact that it's only on login would mean that a bot being run for dozens (hundreds?) of hours would be less inconvenienced that those of us on log in more frequently and for less time.
Any system that requires human input that isn't part of playing the actual game would be much more of a nuisance to players than to botters. Most botters are either running a single bot while doing something else, or people running bot-farms... neither of which are going to suddenly give up just because they have to nudge the bot every so often.
Any system that requires human input that isn't part of playing the actual game would be much more of a nuisance to players than to botters. Most botters are either running a single bot while doing something else, or people running bot-farms... neither of which are going to suddenly give up just because they have to nudge the bot every so often.
I was actually thinking that adding a captcha would incentivize someone who is running only a few bots to start running more bots simultaneously for basically the same reason. Instead of one bot, run 25, and "nudge" all 25 at the same time. Then /afk and pick your ass or go to class or whatever it is that you do with your life.
It would be a real pisser if adding captchas actually INCREASED bot activity for that very reason. I couldn't say for sure that it'd happen, but it wouldn't totally shock me if it did either.
Unless you change the semantics of captchas on a daily basis, bots will have an easier time dealing with them than humans. Plus, it would be annoying as hell having to enter a captcha every time you want to open a game; I'm already annoyed enough if I have to pull my authenticator every now and then.
Nice idea, but doesn't solve anything, sorry. Researchers all over the world are developing services that can answer questions as if they were human (ask Google or Siri a question that involves difficult semantics, or just take a look at the new Google Maps beta). In the not-to-distant future captchas might become useless as a "bot block", but will still be around for reasons such as reCaptcha.
This issue has been brought up countless times already. There are open source libraries that can break captchas using OCR. As others have mentioned, botters will break through the contrictions eventually. Also, the 70% casual players arguement is more than valid. I don't know why Blizzard does not do banwaves on a daily basis, there is really no explanation for that except for going into conspiracy stuff which makes you look like an idiot. It's just the sad truth.
Like nearly every pro-active bot countermeasure, you will be inflicting more harm on the general users of the game, and hardly inflict anything on the bots.
And captcha's... really? Bots have been breaking them - or paying people to break them - for ages.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
And may the odds be ever in your favour. Emmo#2406
you can bypass a captcha on a website because its implementation is much more "reachable". As the articale states is was using a glitch in the sessionID generation. Accessing your diablo3 login sessionnn would require you to manipulate your memory instead of pressing f12 and use chrome tools.
Or just use some kind of autoit script to scan for the right image, capture it, feed it to the OCR, grab the result and feed it back to D3.
Guys, the OP wasn't even talking about having a CAPTCHA on each login. He says we should have a CAPTCHA on EVERY GAME CREATION. Which is even worse rofl, I for one would quit instantly, I get annoyed enough by CAPTCHA as it is and I have to answer one like once monthly on random sites.
Having CAPTCHA upon game creation would possibly stop botting; but it would also stop normal playing. So a horrible horrible solution.
Yep so do nothing and let bots destroy the game.
You guys clearly work for Blizzard with this kind of logic.
"OHH NO CAPTCHA WILL BE SO ANNOYING" said the fanbase that still has to take an average of 10 -15 seconds to create a new game, but its over if you add 5 more seconds to that time.
You also claim this will be "worse to players", what players? Bot and game design have squashed 10million accounts, and you think that having to type in a captcha once every game creation, which if you are playing the game as intended (building up 5 stacks of nv, farming, moving to next act, farming, ect, THEN NEW GAME) you wouldn't have to enter a new captcha for at least 30-45 minutes.
So in your minds, 5 second delay every 30-45 minutes would ruin the game, but having bots rape and pillage every feasible source of game progression for now over 1 year, that's "BETTER" than having to enter a captcha.
PLUS the mentioning of cracking software/paying people to crack captcha is the biggest LOL in this thread. Where are your references to captchas being "cracked for years"? Yes captchas are crackable, the same way your car is crackable and your house lock is crackable, yet you still lock them both everyday don't you? Is it a terrible inconvenience that you have to unlock those every time you use them? There has been so much research showing that EFFECTIVE captcha's, those that use rotation, different colors/backgrounds, blurs, and waves are nearly impossible for a software program to crack.
So point proven that no one here actually considers real life solutions to these blatantly obvious flaws in the game, like gold botting, how this is a problem in 2013 with a game that has had 11 years in development is mind boggling, and point proven again this this was presented as a "simple solution" not anything complex or in-depth, yet as a simple solution it could be implemented in a day, and stop 90% of automated botting. GG forum.
"OHH NO CAPTCHA WILL BE SO ANNOYING" said the fanbase that still has to take an average of 10 -15 seconds to create a new game, but its over if you add 5 more seconds to that time.
I'm sorry but I hate a single captcha to sign up for a fuckin forum once every few months. Once per D3 game? No thanks. If that's the ONLY way to combat botting and Blizzard implemented it, I would stop logging in.
There is no reason to penalize people who aren't botting by forcing them to dicipher captchas for new games. That *IS* bad design. The first rule of online games is never to punish people who haven't done anything wrong. I'm not botting, why should I be stuck muddling through captchas once per game?
I'd rather have botters "ruining" the game than dumbshit suggestions like this ruining the game.
Congrats on making a suggestion that is actually worse than the problem. And congrats on necroing a thread.
EDIT
Also, do you really think Blizzard hasn't weighed out the pros/cons on captchas? I don't see any other major online game requiring captcha on login or game creation. If it's such a good solution then I'd think other major developers would use it... yes?
There is quite a few different crowd sourced capta breaking networks out there.
I use to be part of one when cheating in Runescape classic. It was set up so that i had to be at the computer for 20 minutes every 3 hours, typing in captas.
And in return, my bots captas was added to the network queue when i was away. Simple.
Browser based game where source file of captcha can be grabbed. Not only that but it relies on other people to enter the captcha's for you.
Are you saying that the captcha would be a bigger inconvenience for you as a player than it would be for cheaters, despite the fact that without it, the gold economy has been destroyed completely?
"OHH NO CAPTCHA WILL BE SO ANNOYING" said the fanbase that still has to take an average of 10 -15 seconds to create a new game, but its over if you add 5 more seconds to that time.
I'm sorry but I hate a single captcha to sign up for a fuckin forum once every few months. Once per D3 game? No thanks. If that's the ONLY way to combat botting and Blizzard implemented it, I would stop logging in.
There is no reason to penalize people who aren't botting by forcing them to dicipher captchas for new games. That *IS* bad design. The first rule of online games is never to punish people who haven't done anything wrong. I'm not botting, why should I be stuck muddling through captchas once per game?
I'd rather have botters "ruining" the game than dumbshit suggestions like this ruining the game.
Congrats on making a suggestion that is actually worse than the problem. And congrats on necroing a thread.
EDIT
Also, do you really think Blizzard hasn't weighed out the pros/cons on captchas? I don't see any other major online game requiring captcha on login or game creation. If it's such a good solution then I'd think other major developers would use it... yes?
This is the ONLY way to combat it? NO, it is by far the simplest. and you would stop logging in? please enough with the bs lies, if after all this flaws in the game you still log in you wouldn't just "stop" if something meant to help normal players was implemented.
So you claim "The first rule of online games is never to punish people who haven't done anything wrong" I would love a copy of this documentation. But lets ignore the fact that you pull statements like this out of your ass, and actually focus on the statement. Am I doing something wrong when I double click my shortcut to play? NO? Why am I being forced to enter a user name and password though? WHY AM I BEING PUNISHED?
Ohh no I "necrod a thread" sorry to say that I stick to my points and reasoning months after I express those feelings. I saw no reason to create a new thread, yet have not see any suggestions even closely resembling anything to do with how to pro-actively prevent botting, so this is the appropriate thread to discuss it.
Who said they haven't thought about it? I asked why they haven't implemented it. And you don't see any other major game use it because they don't have a problem with botting, this is a simple solution to prevent botting. Other games don't have problems with bots because they don't create the environment for them to thrive in. Good job on pointless comparison.
Browser based game where source file of captcha can be grabbed. Not only that but it relies on other people to enter the captcha's for you.
A large amount simply use(d) the screen capture feature in windows to avoid touching active game files.
People are actually reliable when it comes to equal benefited cheating
Are you saying that the captcha would be a bigger inconvenience for you as a player than it would be for cheaters, despite the fact that without it, the gold economy has been destroyed completely?
I am not going to try and and answer a so ridiculously leading question.
So then what are you saying? All I can interpret is that you say captcha's can be cracked via crowd sourced networks. Not going into how long/unefficient this would be compared to having NOTHING, then your point is, don't implement it because ...?
fixD3... If they implemented captcha's I would stop logging in and that isn't a BS answer, it's perfectly truthful.
I hate them. I can barely ever read them and often have to type them in multiple times before I get them correct. I've even had sites temp ban me for getting them wrong so many times in a row.
They are the most frustrating pile of crap anti-bot mechanic out there.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
And may the odds be ever in your favour. Emmo#2406
fixD3... If they implemented captcha's I would stop logging in and that isn't a BS answer, it's perfectly truthful.
I hate them. I can barely ever read them and often have to type them in multiple times before I get them correct. I've even had sites temp ban me for getting them wrong so many times in a row.
They are the most frustrating pile of crap anti-bot mechanic out there.
So your alternative solution is, none?
If you would stop logging in, pray tell, why would you continue to try to use them multiple times on other sources? Ohh because it's not that big of an inconvenience when you need to use them to access something you want to access.
fixD3... If they implemented captcha's I would stop logging in and that isn't a BS answer, it's perfectly truthful.
I hate them. I can barely ever read them and often have to type them in multiple times before I get them correct. I've even had sites temp ban me for getting them wrong so many times in a row.
They are the most frustrating pile of crap anti-bot mechanic out there.
So your alternative solution is, none?
If you would stop logging in, pray tell, why would you continue to try to use them multiple times on other sources? Ohh because it's not that big of an inconvenience when you need to use them to access something you want to access.
No, my alternative solution is Blizzard get off their ass and improve things like Warden to actually catch the bots.
It's not a question of want. If I have to fail a captcha a few times on a website, that's fine, I only have to succeed once for that site. What you're proposing is ask me for a captcha every single game. There's annoying, and then there's just plain bloody intrusive.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
And may the odds be ever in your favour. Emmo#2406
Again my opinion isn't that a captcha should be implmented, it's that this is a simple solution. You 3 raise good points on how captcha's can be circumvented, but it still doesn't explain why NOTHING is being done about this.
I definitely see how the economy is setup to fail from beginning with no gold sinks, but the bots played a MASSIVE role in speeding it up, not a bit, not small, but HUGE. If botting was non-existant, I don't think gold would be at 10m for .25C only a year after release.
Again my opinion isn't that a captcha should be implmented, it's that this is a simple solution. You 3 raise good points on how captcha's can be circumvented, but it still doesn't explain why NOTHING is being done about this.
Saying that Blizzard does NOTHING against botting is just outright trolling, sorry.
I definitely see how the economy is setup to fail from beginning with no gold sinks, but the bots played a MASSIVE role in speeding it up, not a bit, not small, but HUGE. If botting was non-existant, I don't think gold would be at 10m for .25C only a year after release.
Despite the fact that it's pointless to make claims such as "oh, the botting problem is not small, but it's HUGE!" (what does that even mean) - you have no proof whatsoever (unless you live in some kind of bot-free parallel universe).
But the thing is, I've witnessed myself how economy actually improves itself spontaneously for long(ish) periods after each interesting/ big patch. There's a large influx of returning players, more demand, prices go up, economy becomes better, while the amount of bots is pretty much equal. I know I saw prices go up A LOT when 1.0.8 hit, the patch that brought me and 15 of my friends back, and I assume lots of like-minded people.
You think prices going up even further is good ? o.O
So, Blizz has been appeasing players by doing ban waves.
But this type of action is called re-active, and it does not help the player at all. Some players promote the conspiracy theory that Blizz focuses on this re-active approach because botters generate lots of money for them, through License sales and AH transaction fees, personally, I find this theory interesting but cannot believe it without evidence.
But, it makes me think twice about this theory, because there is an incredibly simple solution to botters. Perhaps it is a bit crude, but it is a solution nonetheless.
Captcha for game creation. Plain and simple.
They could use Re-captcha, not only would this limit bot users to having to enter captcha's everytime they want to create a game (discouraging the botters from using their programs, instead of the player from playing the game) but it would also benefit the world at large (look up re-captcha if you are confused how).
So, why has Blizzard not implemented this if they are indeed interested in removing bots from the game?
Second, a relatively patient botter could just manually log in the captcha, then sit back and sip his latte once the bot does its thing.
Third, spammers have known since 2006 how to break captchas. If they can figure it out, so can botters.
Proof:
http://www.puremango...ng_captcha_115/
http://www.nytimes.c...technology&_r=0
http://www.computerw...soft_s_CAPTCHA_
Reactive fixes may not be the perfect solution, but it's a damn sight better than squinting at those squished characters each time.
Finally, I haven't felt like it's been a real issue affecting me, and I'm sure the self-found players don't really care about botting anyway. Maybe it's more prevalent in hardcore, I don't pretend to know. But this isn't exactly high on priorities, far as I can tell.
There certainly is a very secure implementation for server side captcha validation from within a clientside binary.
I also thought about that approach and asked myself why they are not using it.
My guess would be : They cant /dont want use it because it impairs a restriction on the user.
Combine this with the fact that 70% off all diablo3 players are casual gamers and dont even know about botters.
Thus 70% players would have to enter a captcha against things they dont even know. Which makes them very hard to justify - from a usability point of view.
Also that money theory^^
Any system that requires human input that isn't part of playing the actual game would be much more of a nuisance to players than to botters. Most botters are either running a single bot while doing something else, or people running bot-farms... neither of which are going to suddenly give up just because they have to nudge the bot every so often.
I was actually thinking that adding a captcha would incentivize someone who is running only a few bots to start running more bots simultaneously for basically the same reason. Instead of one bot, run 25, and "nudge" all 25 at the same time. Then /afk and pick your ass or go to class or whatever it is that you do with your life.
It would be a real pisser if adding captchas actually INCREASED bot activity for that very reason. I couldn't say for sure that it'd happen, but it wouldn't totally shock me if it did either.
Unless you change the semantics of captchas on a daily basis, bots will have an easier time dealing with them than humans. Plus, it would be annoying as hell having to enter a captcha every time you want to open a game; I'm already annoyed enough if I have to pull my authenticator every now and then.
Nice idea, but doesn't solve anything, sorry. Researchers all over the world are developing services that can answer questions as if they were human (ask Google or Siri a question that involves difficult semantics, or just take a look at the new Google Maps beta). In the not-to-distant future captchas might become useless as a "bot block", but will still be around for reasons such as reCaptcha.
And captcha's... really? Bots have been breaking them - or paying people to break them - for ages.
And may the odds be ever in your favour.
Emmo#2406
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Taliesyn-2517/hero/66020932
Yep so do nothing and let bots destroy the game.
You guys clearly work for Blizzard with this kind of logic.
"OHH NO CAPTCHA WILL BE SO ANNOYING" said the fanbase that still has to take an average of 10 -15 seconds to create a new game, but its over if you add 5 more seconds to that time.
You also claim this will be "worse to players", what players? Bot and game design have squashed 10million accounts, and you think that having to type in a captcha once every game creation, which if you are playing the game as intended (building up 5 stacks of nv, farming, moving to next act, farming, ect, THEN NEW GAME) you wouldn't have to enter a new captcha for at least 30-45 minutes.
So in your minds, 5 second delay every 30-45 minutes would ruin the game, but having bots rape and pillage every feasible source of game progression for now over 1 year, that's "BETTER" than having to enter a captcha.
PLUS the mentioning of cracking software/paying people to crack captcha is the biggest LOL in this thread. Where are your references to captchas being "cracked for years"? Yes captchas are crackable, the same way your car is crackable and your house lock is crackable, yet you still lock them both everyday don't you? Is it a terrible inconvenience that you have to unlock those every time you use them? There has been so much research showing that EFFECTIVE captcha's, those that use rotation, different colors/backgrounds, blurs, and waves are nearly impossible for a software program to crack.
So point proven that no one here actually considers real life solutions to these blatantly obvious flaws in the game, like gold botting, how this is a problem in 2013 with a game that has had 11 years in development is mind boggling, and point proven again this this was presented as a "simple solution" not anything complex or in-depth, yet as a simple solution it could be implemented in a day, and stop 90% of automated botting. GG forum.
I'm sorry but I hate a single captcha to sign up for a fuckin forum once every few months. Once per D3 game? No thanks. If that's the ONLY way to combat botting and Blizzard implemented it, I would stop logging in.
There is no reason to penalize people who aren't botting by forcing them to dicipher captchas for new games. That *IS* bad design. The first rule of online games is never to punish people who haven't done anything wrong. I'm not botting, why should I be stuck muddling through captchas once per game?
I'd rather have botters "ruining" the game than dumbshit suggestions like this ruining the game.
Congrats on making a suggestion that is actually worse than the problem. And congrats on necroing a thread.
EDIT
Also, do you really think Blizzard hasn't weighed out the pros/cons on captchas? I don't see any other major online game requiring captcha on login or game creation. If it's such a good solution then I'd think other major developers would use it... yes?
Browser based game where source file of captcha can be grabbed. Not only that but it relies on other people to enter the captcha's for you.
Are you saying that the captcha would be a bigger inconvenience for you as a player than it would be for cheaters, despite the fact that without it, the gold economy has been destroyed completely?
This is the ONLY way to combat it? NO, it is by far the simplest. and you would stop logging in? please enough with the bs lies, if after all this flaws in the game you still log in you wouldn't just "stop" if something meant to help normal players was implemented.
So you claim "The first rule of online games is never to punish people who haven't done anything wrong" I would love a copy of this documentation. But lets ignore the fact that you pull statements like this out of your ass, and actually focus on the statement. Am I doing something wrong when I double click my shortcut to play? NO? Why am I being forced to enter a user name and password though? WHY AM I BEING PUNISHED?
Ohh no I "necrod a thread" sorry to say that I stick to my points and reasoning months after I express those feelings. I saw no reason to create a new thread, yet have not see any suggestions even closely resembling anything to do with how to pro-actively prevent botting, so this is the appropriate thread to discuss it.
Who said they haven't thought about it? I asked why they haven't implemented it. And you don't see any other major game use it because they don't have a problem with botting, this is a simple solution to prevent botting. Other games don't have problems with bots because they don't create the environment for them to thrive in. Good job on pointless comparison.
So then what are you saying? All I can interpret is that you say captcha's can be cracked via crowd sourced networks. Not going into how long/unefficient this would be compared to having NOTHING, then your point is, don't implement it because ...?
I hate them. I can barely ever read them and often have to type them in multiple times before I get them correct. I've even had sites temp ban me for getting them wrong so many times in a row.
They are the most frustrating pile of crap anti-bot mechanic out there.
And may the odds be ever in your favour.
Emmo#2406
So your alternative solution is, none?
If you would stop logging in, pray tell, why would you continue to try to use them multiple times on other sources? Ohh because it's not that big of an inconvenience when you need to use them to access something you want to access.
No, my alternative solution is Blizzard get off their ass and improve things like Warden to actually catch the bots.
It's not a question of want. If I have to fail a captcha a few times on a website, that's fine, I only have to succeed once for that site. What you're proposing is ask me for a captcha every single game. There's annoying, and then there's just plain bloody intrusive.
And may the odds be ever in your favour.
Emmo#2406
Again my opinion isn't that a captcha should be implmented, it's that this is a simple solution. You 3 raise good points on how captcha's can be circumvented, but it still doesn't explain why NOTHING is being done about this.
I definitely see how the economy is setup to fail from beginning with no gold sinks, but the bots played a MASSIVE role in speeding it up, not a bit, not small, but HUGE. If botting was non-existant, I don't think gold would be at 10m for .25C only a year after release.
Saying that Blizzard does NOTHING against botting is just outright trolling, sorry.
Despite the fact that it's pointless to make claims such as "oh, the botting problem is not small, but it's HUGE!" (what does that even mean) - you have no proof whatsoever (unless you live in some kind of bot-free parallel universe).
You think prices going up even further is good ? o.O
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Twoflower-2131/hero/47336841