Well my first suggestion in order to cut down the amount of time it takes to actually get into a server didn't go down as well seeing as you guys thought it was stupid - and I also learned it wouldn't work - so I decided to make another suggestion. You'll have to excuse my poor English =P
The main reason I'm making this is because I've spent the whole day trying to get on the Odin server and it has always had 5-6 players above the server limit, making it impossible to get on. I know I'm not the only one who has this problem, and I really don't feel like paying money for premium when it's the botters who should be suffering.
Objective::: To cut down the time it takes to get into the server
:: To cut down on the number of gold bots/bots
Suggestion::: Introduce a sort of "sub-admin" which has the ability to kick/ban bots from the server.
How it works:Well on another game I used to play, not only did you have the main admins (GMs in this case), but you also had sub admins who had limited abilities. These "sub admins" so to speak, would be taken up by actual players. This might be a little difficult to understand but I'll do my best.
Real players would be trusted with certain powers on the servers which would allow them to kick/ban anyone they see who they know is botting. I think it would be best just to give them a kick feature, that way there's no "admin abuse" and mistakes are less likely to be made.
The current problem that most people talk about is Joymax's lack of money. Lack of money = lack of staff and thus, more botters get to ruin our servers. The irony here is that if there were more Gms, there would be less botters, meaning more money =) Even though people argue that Silkroad make most of their money from bots buying Premium, they are not thinking about how much they are going to make LONG TERM. People have to ask themselves the question: Why do people bot? The answer is simple.
People bot because they want to be as high a level as all the other legit players who worked their asses off, however, they want to do it with none of the effort. But what happens when all the legit players leave and you're left with nothing but bots? Do you really think bots are going to waste their money on premium for a game that has no legit players? Nobody is going to want to play silkroad if it only has bots, and Joymax will slowly lose members and support. In the long term, if you get rid of bots now, more people will come back and they have a higher chance of getting legit players to pay money. It's all logic to me.
One way to reward these 'sub-admins' is by giving them Premium or gifts such as Silk etc.
Moderating it would be a difficult task, because LOADS of people will be applying for these admin positions once they know the rewards that are involved. However, if we could find one player that could lead the rest of them, it would be their responsibility to deal with the other admins along with the Gms. The criteria for becoming one would be based on;
1) How long you have been playing silkroad
2) You're past behaviour on the servers (i.e. if you have been banned before, or if you have been kicked/warned.
3) If the GM sees you as an honest person
4) [You can input your own here, I'm just giving some suggestions]
End ResultSo not only would this get rid of alot of bots on the servers, it would eventually free up alot more space so us legit players can enjoy the game. To be honest, I don't mind the bots and people reaching high levels without any of the work, it's the clogging of the servers I hate.
It would be worth trying out I feel, please discuss and give me some feedback. If you like this post enough that you think it should be implemented, please go to
http://www.silkroadonline.net/sro_board ... 043#241043 and reply to my topic. Other than that, send your suggestions to Silkroad. They'll probably just get put through the shredder but eventually they'll have to come up with something!