Silkroad Online Forums

A Follow up to these threads:

viewtopic.php?f=72&t=84281
viewtopic.php?f=72&t=84061
viewtopic.php?f=72&t=83961
viewtopic.php?f=72&t=83827
viewtopic.php?f=72&t=81441
viewtopic.php?f=72&t=79811

Those threads claim botting doesn't hurt any one and is O.K. in some cases. Well, I can confidently say they're wrong:

Why Botting is a Social trap and why being Legit is better for not only yourself, but everyone else. by Barotix

First I will assume not everyone knows what a social trap is, so I'll take the time to summarize it here:

A Social trap is defined as an act done because it gives a short term aid or satisfaction to the individual, but in the end hurts said individual and others.

The basic example of a Social trap and what it is generally used against: The basic example is that of the commons; take for example a rural area. In this rural area there is a town commons (a commons in medieval times would have been the area shared by the community). Four grazers have access to this commons each of the grazers own two sheep, the commons can only sustain twelve sheep at one time. I'll use an Illustration (coupled with text) to explain the next point:

*Farmer 3 adds one sheep; Farmer three gets the immediate benefit of having an extra sheep. Who receives the backlash? The other 3 farmers/grazers

*Farmer four notices farmer 3 has an advantage, farmer four then adds a sheep of his own, farmer four gets an immediate benefit. The other 3 farmers receive the backlash

*Farmer one now at an obvious disadvantage adds another sheep to be put on par with farmers 3 and 4, farmer one gets the immediate benefit of adding a third sheep, while the other farmers get the backlash

*Farmer two does the same to keep up with the other farmers.

The Farm is now at its limit of 12, but it doesn't stop there.

*Assume every farmer adds another sheep one after the other: The end result will be overgrazing which leads to weaker sheep; the farmers to compensate for the weaker sheep will add more which leads to even weaker sheep (lack of food). No one benefits once this cycle starts, but it appears as if one does. The farmers keep adding sheep until there is no more grass to sustain them all, because collectively the damage done out weighs the individual gain and once all start adding sheep there is no stopping because now there is constant competition to make the most use of the land.

Conclusion:
Collective loss due to greed outweighs individual gains.
Each farmer gained "2 points", but collectively lost 7

7>2 Therefore everyone loses.

That basic example is usually used against socialism to show why it won't work.

Now how social traps apply to SRO:

A Legit is leveling and buys some silk the legit collectively helps everyone first by paying for the game (aids everyone) and secondly helps himself by increasing his leveling speed (buys GT and Monkey). This Legit knows the market well and has saved up a vast sum of Gold. A Non-Silk buyer sees the gains and in order to help himself buys a GT as well as monkey to increase his leveling speed. He directly helps himself and indirectly helps others by funding the game. This Legit also has a vast sum of gold saved by playing the market.

Now imagine if others started copying this pattern: Result; more money for Joymax, and more players because of advertisement via word off mouth/text. This leads to crowded servers, but the servers are crowded with legitimate users rather than gold bots and/or player bots. This then compels others to buy a premium GT because others have it and they want to log in, image verification wouldn't be needed nor would the client need to d/c and everyone benefits, even the non-silk buyer. Everyone starts doing this and soon you have a game where everyone, including the company benefits. This creates a cycle where more and more players buy silk to keep up with each other and only those deserving of (insert highest level) reach it. This increases the value of a level (insert highest level here) character and increases the amount of respect that comes with. More frequent updates.

Now, let’s see how it goes when things go slightly different.

A Non-Silk buyer sees the advantages a legit silk buyer gets but does not see the indirect collective gains. The Non-Silk buyer guided by greed finds D/L and uses a free bot, the non-silk buyer gets obvious advantages, but doing this helps no-one. In fact it robs others: It takes a server spot for nearly 24/7 preventing vets from taking that spot, preventing people from a different time zone from playing, and preventing new comers from taking a possible free spot. Because of the 24/7 grinding the botter levels to fast to keep up with his leveling speed, he/she then buys a large (abnormal amount) of gold from Chinese (human) gold farmers to compensate for the leveling speed, he/she then comes to the conclusion that he/she shouldn't pay for a free game and starts using multiclient + clientless bots to farm gold for him/herself, he/she sells gold to other players. This one individual gets immediate obvious results that benefit him/her only. Its also causes server inflation from creating an excess amount of Gold, it crowds servers with non-paying clientless botters, it prevents others from logging in, and robs possible revenue from the company.

Now imagine if every person did this, while ignoring the long term losses, because the individual short term gains are so great. This creates a destructive cycle because all players keep doing this to compensate for the losses resulting in:

1]No more/Minimal new blood
2]Inflation
3]24/7 crowded servers
4]Real Legit players leaving
5]Less real players
6]Gold selling companies adopting clientless bot to compete with players that sell gold and to satisfy the needs of a goldbuyer majority
7]More gold bots
8]Less silk sold

Players keep botting and buying gold and running multi client/clientless to keep up with other players who do the same, this chokes the game resulting in a dead empty game not worth playing.

From this you can conclude:

1. The best short term choice, for the individual, is to cheat
2. The worst long term choice, for the individual, is to cheat
3. The worst choice, collectively, is to cheat.
4. The best choice, collectively, is to be Legit and for a number of Legits to buy silk

And we all know collective gains or losses always mathematically and realistically outweigh individual gains.

Do the right thing: Play Legit, its far more fun and better not only for you but for the game, company and others. Botting and Gold buying hurts you and others in the long run. Don't think of the short term gains. We can make a change, but only if we think in long term collective goals, rather than short term individual goals.

Well said,
Good reason for anymore closet botters to stop.

Nice post, great examples, but we can only dream of this happening..

true nice work


but its only a dream

First off: Three of these are laid out clearly well. However, I failed to see the second point argued. Second, the botter model leaves out other kinds of botters, especially those who buy silk.

The ultimate dilemma is the subjectivity in benefits, mainly entertainment. Silkroad Online is a videogame and it's primary purpose is to entertain us. When an individual finds the lack of neophytes and legitimate players, the increase in inflation and goldbots, the crowding servers, as minor problems in his/her gameplay, he/she will continue botting, especially when he/she defines entertainment as having the most money, almost invincible in PvP, and/or having the best gear.

Great work by the way.

It pretty much sums up the bot problem, but no botters will admit it or even if they do they won't give a damn.

First matter: We all play Silk Road Online, the Long Term Losses should be evident. Second matter: For the botter model silk buying is irrelevant because the silk and the collective benefits that come with its purchase are heavily offset by the damage done to the community through Illegitimate actions.

Your second paragraph leads to a never ending process to seek euphoria, which, will never be reached for long. You may reach it at one point (then it balances and you seek it again), but at what cost? Because of Greed you now have no-one to PvP, no-one to show off your gear to, pixels worth nothing because of corruption, and with most players gone you have billions of gold to buy tons of NPC gear.

Take the example of a parasite that needs its host to live: The parasite will keep sucking from its host until finally, the host is dead. The parasite will either A]Die with the host or B]Find another host to suck dry.

mmm, tell all of these things in a legit forum will help anything...?

1] Minimal problem
2] This hardly matters to a botter who runs multiple goldbots
3] Premium
4-5] Most botters have shaped the game for themselves to be botters vs. botters (e.g.: The gross competition between Hera's MARVEL and Spiritus). The lack of legit players hardly matter.
6] See point 2. A never ending cycle that can be terminated by inflation.
7] See point 2&3
8] This maybe the only point that can ultimately influence the player longterm. The decrease of income for Joymax may even force the game to be shutdown. But then again, Silkroad is not the only source for entertainment.

The longterm losses are evident - for legit players like us.



Got it.



We all fall under this never ending process. Some of us can do it efficiently with just one game - Silkroad. Others require multiple games across different platforms. Botters exhaust most benefits, usually at a shorter timespan, and move on to a different game.

EDIT:



Posting this on a botter forum will most likely result in immediate banning. This thread can be targeted to closet botters in this community.

can you summarize into shorter format

I don't think botting hurts everyone as you claim.
If you were a member of oh.. let's say, 0x33, you'd notice how much the people love the game, barely any complaining..
Botting hurts legit players, that's about it.

dont bot or the boogeyman will eat ur nutz

nice work . but not every legit will buy silk. and not being able to log in matters more to legits than botters (no-dc client).

Thats how it appears at first glance, but when you set collective damage against individual gain an obvious self-destructive pattern is made evident. (Refer to sheep and grazer example)



Summary: When you get past the simplicities of SRO and the key reason for botting (lazyness), it becomes evident that botting doesn't just hurt legits or a minority group, but collectively hurts everyone including the botter, who will type one of two things: 1]A Justification of botting or 2]How botting doesn't negatively effect botters. Both those options only look at short term gains (virtual power with little to no effort) and ignore long term effects.



The model does not require every Legit to buy silk; It requires Joymax to remove image verification (as it does not help any one) and remove the D/C variable in the client (once again; it helps no one).

The Four models don't occur in the same reality that Isro is actually taking place in.

Long Term gains from many Legit Silk Buyers > Long Term gains from many Botting silk buyers. Botters don't need most of the things us Legits see as a neccesity.

very nice thread
though making this thread wont stop the botters or foreigners
thus usless thread

damn foreigners, I hate them all, they shouldn't be allowed on the intardnet, SPEAK WHITE BITCHES

You do know you are playing iSRO (INTERNATIONAL SRO)... right?

=o don't take it (the game) too seriously.

lol.. says "Mr Wannabe Japanese".

I remember the good ol days with only a very few sox. If you had one, you were known throughout the server. Now a sh1t load of ppl have them due to bots. They were suppose to be for making a player stronger and giving them an advantage they derserved for being lucky enough to find one. Now in pvp and unique hunting, it's to boring cause everyone has them. First time i fought urichi it was a hell of a long fight and really fun cause their was no one 20 lvls above to kill him. It took forever to kill his ass. Now you can get to 80 in a month with. Hardly gives a chance for any legit to have fun. The probably even have a bot for hunting uniques Getting sad. I hope a better game comes out so bots can infect it and leave sro lol.(Just not Rohan). The balance of "power" in the servers will pretty much be equal, giving no room for fun trying to kill someone stronger.

Dude. It's just a game.


Link

You've turned this whole situation into something it's not. It's great you have an opinion but it has nothing to do with morals and your personality. I know someone who's a psyciatrist, and bots. This social trap bs is going too far.

Seriously, cut it off.

I didn't mention personality or morals. I simply stated the facts about human nature and how it is applicable and obvious in every sector of life including gaming.

I expected the argument "It is just a game" and I can (will) flip this on you.

To Botters: If it is "just a game" and has no value to you, why waste money botting and goldbuying in something that by your definition has no value. This game is entertainment and it just so happens that other people play it. What do you gain from ruining something you don't even consider worthwhile? What is your reasoning? Oh wait, thats right there is none; you just couldn't get past level 40.

"It is just a game" The catch all argument when all other valid arguments fail. Botting, and Goldbuying both by definition social traps, there is no "bs".

Well Written and 100% true.
You have earned my respect
Maybe you can send this to joymax with a small hope that it will open somones eyes. Not that they would read it.

Good work
this reminds me that someday, i was talking with poseidon and i was asking him, what's the point of all that shit since there's no challenge anymore, how can it be fun..
Meh.

Barotix, you should add in there something about how supporting/accepting bots in SRO is almost as bad as being one. It is why SRF has a no bot policy.

I think that When new members sign up, they should be directed to the rules page instead of the index or whatever.

First of all, well said Barotix. Secondly, How many of you thinking playing this game for say next 10 years
PS: If you say "YES" then my hat off to you

I fail to see a 'flip' here. Because someone choses to play in the way you do not approve of; it means they're lesser than you? How, in any situation, is taking advantage of something that is a wide open hole in a GAME, translating to reality? It's a game. Until there's a bot that makes you do laundry and cleans your house and has sex with your (in)signifigant other, there's no real comparison to be made. People take advantage of a situation every chance they get. By saying taking advantage of something is bad for even the person who has the advantage, you're saying that buying items from a store thats going out of business is bad as well? You're saying that if someone was to give you advise/tips that would give you an edge in a job interview- this would be bad for you?

I'm not pro bot, I dont really care that you will say I am. I'm just saying the comparison is stupid. Play how you want- but it's Joymax's decision on whether to enforce their own rules. A botter isn't a foul, manipulative person in all cases, as it seems like you're making them out to be. You can't really blame the botters for Joymax's negligence, and allowing them to get away with it.

It's a game. Chill out.

Comparing a game to any real life situation, as well as fapping to a game, living in a game.. there's something not right with that. WoW, SRo, Rohan, CS, whatever. Keep reality and the game separate.

@Nightbloom
Having your own opinions and thoughts/not hopping the bandwagon = you deserve to be banned? Get real.

you are now aware that you will die vergin