RuneScape celebrates 'bot-nuking day' this Tuesday

Last week we reported that veteran browser MMO RuneScape was losing its ongoing war on bots. Players have begun botting on a massive scale, and it's become increasingly difficult to distinguish bots from ordinary players. Developer Jagex asked for help from the playerbase in solving the botting problem and announced its intention to continue fighting legal battles against the creators of bot programs.

In a new community update this week, Jagex Chief Executive Officer Mark Gerhard announced the release of a new doomsday weapon in the war on bots. In an upcoming patch on October 25th, Jagex will be "launching our most formidable bot-busting weapon in our history, targeting what we believe to be 98% of the bots seen in game." This update permanently prevents reflection bots from working and the effects should be immediately visible in-game. To celebrate "bot-nuking day", Tuesday's patch brings four days of events and minigame bonuses for regular players.

[Thanks to David for the tip!]

Reader Comments (12)

Why tell the botters before it happens? Its like saying, "Here you go coders, you have 2 days to make this work using a different method." So yea, it will probably only make the game "bot free" for a week at best. O well, wish the player community the best of luck getting rid of these things for good though.

Maybe if it wasn't so grindy, people wouldn't feel the need to bot.

in 2 days we'll see a report: Some reason Runescape lost 95% of it's paying customer base...

I wonder if there will be any collateral damage? Like the patch nuking valid players by mistake.

I hope it stops the steady flow of RuneScape related junk mail I've been receiving lately too, especially since I've never even played the game.

@M1sterLee

I hear that! Between that and WoW, I'm marking a good 5 emails every 2 days as phishing scams.

While I don't play Runescape I really do hope that they will suceed with bot fights as I hate botters in any game.

Also imho think there won't be escape in future from games watching what programms are running on our PC WHILE we're playing their mmorpg. Like Rift and few other already have.

FPS games already have anti-cheat/bot programms like this f.e. Punkbuster and many others for years.

It is unavoidable and I welcome it - I really I am up for fighting bots.

I hope this works, I LOVE this game. While the bots don't bother me in my adventuring, exploring and trying a little bit of everything, I am sure there is plenty of damage being done.

And -- oh yeh -- I don't grind. Well, I should say that I will go through the process to make 1,000 arrows or something and then shoot those at things, but I never grind just to gain levels. I explore and socialize along the way. Fantastic game!

Beau

If you feel the need to bot in Runescape... holy crap. I remember reporting someone on my FL bragging about it, and he cried and cried. Then tried grabbing supposed "runescape-like" domains and trying to sell them to Jagex. If you have to bot in a game, you're not having fun, and should just quit anyhow.

That being said, I haven't played Runescape in years, but this sounds hilarious.

Free advice, daily updates with the proper software, takes an eyeblink, renders certain scripts and macros useless, and it changes daily so by the time the fix is in the third party has to redo it, pain for the people wanting to bot and big pain for the creators. Of course like a few smart folks pointed out, there goes your customers, heh.

One company already does this, can we guess who? (sadly they arent an MMO but they are a multiplayer entity that is quite poplular.)

I think this is OUTRAGEOUS!
Let's found a new political party for bot rights!
They can't simply shut down all those bots and their families, they have to pay their bot-bills, too!
Do you have any idea how much 24/7 bots pay for the power bill?
Bots have a heart, too, please don't shut them out of this game, it's their promised land, their Garden of Eden.
All those bot-kid tears will flow =/

@pid Occupy Grand Exchange!

RuneScape celebrates 'bot-nuking day' this Tuesday

Reader Comments (12)

Posted: Oct 23rd 2011 4:45PM nrfmartin said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2011 5:09PM J45neoboy said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2011 5:52PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2011 6:05PM Poordevil said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2011 6:24PM M1sterLee said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2011 6:41PM Tristik said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2011 7:34PM smartstep said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2011 8:06PM Beau Hindman said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2011 11:17PM OrangeGamer said

Posted: Oct 24th 2011 1:42AM Graill440 said

Posted: Oct 24th 2011 4:25AM pid said

Posted: Oct 25th 2011 2:42AM Snappyguy said

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