Botters can be a hassle. Trust us, we know. We too have felt the sting of automatic programming when waiting for that quest monster to spawn, or for that rare monster pops up on the battlefield. Sure, we can report the problem to Game Masters for them to fix, but that's not even a full guarantee that the problem will be taken care of. Plus, don't you always love the satisifaction of dealing with botters yourself?
Now you can take matters into your own hands in YS Online, the currently Europe only MMO based off of the popular YS series of RPGs. YS offers all players the ability to carry items known as Auto Bombs, which are available from all vendors for 1 copper a piece. All one has to do is simply take the bomb and throw it at the supposed botter. Once it hits, they'll have a small window to complete a simple captcha -- a word shown in picture format that they have to type into the box below the picture. If they fail to complete the captcha, they'll gain a debuff where they can't do anything for 30 minutes. Painful, no?
Sure, the system isn't perfect, and we can see some exploiters making use of these from a mile away, but it is an interesting solution to a old problem and we have to give some applause to that.
YS Online is currently in closed beta and only accessible by select European territories. North American audiences will have to wait until the game is released by another operator, as Key To Play does not possess the rights to operate YS in any other regions.
Reader Comments (24)
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 7:06PM (Unverified) said
That's just AWESOME but yet it will cause a huge uproar. I already can see people doing it on purpose even though they are not botting. When they're fighting they bomb the person for kill stealing which causes the person to die when they are fighting >.
Posted: Jun 10th 2009 3:55AM (Unverified) said
Lol, people will probably use it in PvP, bomb them first then attack. :p
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 7:15PM nomoredroids said
This is a terrible idea, and is only going to be useful for griefers. A 30 minute debuff where you can't do anything? That's not going to stop the botters, but it will definitely stop a real player who decided to use the bathroom from enjoying their game.
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 7:24PM Keen and Graev said
Am I the only one who fails miserably at captchas and other image verifications? Takes me a few tries every time.
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 8:50PM Interitus said
I'm in this group. Some of them you seriously can't read, and then I sometimes wonder if I'm looking at a letter or a number so i try the audio one and it sounds like a cat in a blender and I'm sitting here thinking, am I supposed to be hearing letters?
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Posted: Jun 9th 2009 8:14PM (Unverified) said
looks like gamers would have to hide REAL well if they want to go afk for a while :D
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 8:51PM organiclockwork said
Wow. That's...absolutely idiotic.
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 9:09PM (Unverified) said
lol... then when your bored you can hunt for afkers. At least it makes the game enjoyable you have a purpose to carry out
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 9:15PM (Unverified) said
I like the idea of allowing players *some* reporting or enforcement powers when it comes to policing their own community but the described implementation is TERRIBLE for all of the reasons mentioned above.
ps. I HATE captcha's too possibly because I get them right less than half of the time and some are so bad I just give up completely.
ps. I HATE captcha's too possibly because I get them right less than half of the time and some are so bad I just give up completely.
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 9:29PM Halldorr said
That's a brilliant idea! Those complaining about the whole going to the washroom thing can always log out for a few minutes if they are going to be THAT long. I wonder how big the window to enter the captcha is- like how long it's open for.
Posted: Jun 10th 2009 1:24AM (Unverified) said
a few minutes of being afk is "long"? i think your missing the point here bro. this system is supposed to combat botters. but what it will primaraly be used for is griefing innocent players. a player shouldn't have to log out in fear of getting a 30 minute ban because they are going to be afk for a minute or two.
giving players the ability to temp ban other players is just going to end up turning ugly. what the bomb should be is a flag of sorts that alerts a GM that the character that got bombed might be botting so they can port in and investigate if any wrong doing was taking place.
you might say that that will still place a work load on GM's. but i'll put money on the amount of time responding to players that got grief bombed will be greater.
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giving players the ability to temp ban other players is just going to end up turning ugly. what the bomb should be is a flag of sorts that alerts a GM that the character that got bombed might be botting so they can port in and investigate if any wrong doing was taking place.
you might say that that will still place a work load on GM's. but i'll put money on the amount of time responding to players that got grief bombed will be greater.
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 10:34PM Lateris said
Nice
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 10:52PM (Unverified) said
I'm lousy with captchas, and sue software to solve them. Plenty botters likely use software to solve captchas too. I suppose it'll just get the ones in the cheap-seats.
Posted: Jun 9th 2009 11:58PM Graill440 said
Hmm, sounds good. Depending on the games mechanics maybe something else can be used instead of the verification, possibly a longer response time for folks doing something, something that requires a single physical keystroke. Then remove that particular keystroke from the game so it cant be used in scripting. Easy enough. All kinds of solutions are possible.
Posted: Jun 10th 2009 12:54AM RogueJedi86 said
Definitely a good start on thwarting bots. Maybe make the CAPTCHA window discreet so a guy managing several botting computers won't notice it and input in it quickly. But do make it readable, since I also have encountered unreadable CAPTCHAs.
If Ys has luck with this, I'd love to see other MMOs( like WoW) use it too. I hate bots.
If Ys has luck with this, I'd love to see other MMOs( like WoW) use it too. I hate bots.
Posted: Jun 10th 2009 7:16AM (Unverified) said
It's pretty simple - if you throw a bomb and someone enters the captcha, add a cooldown timer on that player(griefer) buying another bomb.
Problem solved?
Problem solved?
Posted: Jun 10th 2009 1:42PM (Unverified) said
That's a good idea. They could also change the penalty -- what if instead of a 30 minute no-action debuff it just logged the character off? I'm sure botters could get around that eventually, but it'd still kick them from the game for a few minutes. Someone who was afk would then just have to log back in instead of being unable to play for 30 minutes.
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