PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Fish on January 01, 2005, 12:39:38 am
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So the question is.
Is the use of a nostromo keypad and/or any other keypad that has macro capability not legal in planshift?
I have asked several people that have seemed pretty darned disinterested in this. However, it gives you some pretty major advantages in gameplay. For instance, you can create a macro that will mind for you for as long as you want. The other deal is it will do any skill which requires repetitive actions to be accomplished for as long as you want. This means you can set your character on auto and go make coffee.
There are several ways to foil a gamepad. One is that a gamepad has no random number generator. Therefore, it operates at an exact time. Therefore, if you time actions they come out to an exact time. So, to get rid of the script kiddies you could merely have your code time the actions and then reject all actions were within .2 seconds and there you would have your gamepad people.
The second way to get rid of gamepad people is to mix it up a bit. This would entail a little code. What you do is make it so that it is a little different every time you need to run a trade skill that you have to give a little different response every single time. For a human that is not much of a problem. For a gamepad macro it isn\'t going to happen. Therefore, adding this would make it impossible for a gamepad macro to react.
Sorry if I just killed any chance of a gamepad macro of working.
The next point is a gamepad really a problem?
I seriously don\'t think it\'s much of one. If it is in fact a repetitive task you, the developers, need to know that. It doesn\'t help in roleplaying in anyway. And, afterall, this is a role playing game. Therefore, any repetitive task isn\'t really a role playing element.
Just thought I would throw this stuff out.
Fish.
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I got somthing to add to this. Is it illegal to make keybindings? ?(
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I don\'t think its a hack as long as it doesn\'t interfere with the code of PS.
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I think the best thing would be to made things like the current digging system useless. Because such a system really gives an unfair advantage to people with no life that can hit /dig for gold every 5 seconds.
I fully support smart macros as this doesn\'t give a training disavantage to those who can\'t spend their life on their screen (of course, these macros should be available on the main site so nobody is spoiled)
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Originally posted by elscouta
I think the best thing would be to made things like the current digging system useless. Because such a system really gives an unfair advantage to people with no life that can hit /dig for gold every 5 seconds.
thats / dig for gold or /dig for iron
that gets REAL annoying after a while. You waste a lot of time doing that. Should be allowd becuase it saves time and your temper especially when you get 1 gold out of every 15 trys... ;)
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No, it\'s not a hack, and nor is keybinding (otherwise why would they implement an entire Options page dedicated to binding your own keys? :) )
It is, however, botting, which GMs will consider against the rules.
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So is it legal to use the keybinding when you are at your computer but illegal when you are not, like its illegal to hold down your hotkey with somthing for dig which would be considered a bot but when your afk.
Sorry long sentance hope it makes sence :)
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They should really replace the digging system with a sub-window. This sub-window would contain a progress bar and a rock face. You click on the rock to whack your pick axe at the target area. If you *hit* you gain 20% mining progress, and it resets(to random) the location of the part you must hit. If you miss your pick loses a little bit of durability/sharpness.
Your mining skill would slightly increase the circle area in which you must hit(perhaps by 1 pixel), and would increase the amount of progress gained per hit(again, by 1%). The progress could also go up slowly, like by 1% per second.
Once it reaches 100, you successfully mined something. Yay, fun! :D
To further complicate it, there could be a cooldown time on whacking the rock - say (2.5 seconds - (Strength/100) seconds) This would make a weak mage able to whack the rock every 2 seconds, but a strong Kran able to every 1.25 seconds.
Then they could also change the hit-area sizes and the progress gained depending on the mineral being mined. Iron could be 30%, Gold 20%, Crystals 10%, \"Rarest-Metal\" -10%(meaning you\'d require 11 mining skill to even get 1% per hit. Ofcourse, if you gained 1% progress every second, you wouldn\'t need to hit, so it would have to be something like (progress you hit for)/60 per second.
Or I suppose they could even reset the progress bar every time you miss - that would be evil though, and would depend entirely on luck. :P
Just some thoughts.
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It would prevent the use of macro but still made it as boring...
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Originally posted by Myrtl
So is it legal to use the keybinding when you are at your computer but illegal when you are not, like its illegal to hold down your hotkey with somthing for dig which would be considered a bot but when your afk.
Sorry long sentance hope it makes sence :)
Yes, that\'s correct. :) Sure, it\'ll be boring to sit there mining. But hey, if you wanna be a miner, that\'s your decision to make... Letting a piece of code play the game for you while you go off doing other things is not \"playing the game\", so people who do not want to play the game are very much welcome to leave.
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Just curious... How would you know whether I\'m sitting behind my computer or not at any given point?
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A wonderful thing called chat. If you\'re mining away and don\'t reply to a GM if they try talking to you several times, they can assume you\'re botting. :)
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Originally posted by Moogie
A wonderful thing called chat. If you\'re mining away and don\'t reply to a GM if they try talking to you several times, they can assume you\'re botting. :)
And they\'ll put you in detention for a couple of days, or they\'ll just be fair and ask a dev to reset your mining skill and take away all your money and your mined stuff. :)
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I\'m definitely using a macro to mine while I watch TV. :D Then I can sit there and enjoy the show, and check the chat log every 5 or 10 minutes. :P
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That would simply be multi tasking.. I see nothing wrong with that. But I don\'t know how others feel.
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Originally posted by Moogie
A wonderful thing called chat. If you\'re mining away and don\'t reply to a GM if they try talking to you several times, they can assume you\'re botting. :)
What if I turned off the chat? :P
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The GM might think your are a bot and ban you.
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I see the main problem of mining to be repetitive. Sure, it is IRL, but OTOH, why not make the duration and the outcome of one single mining operation several 1000% more? That is, you\'d put your char against a wall, select mining target and zone, then activate mining and it\'s going to mine for, say, 10 minutes RL time. I don\'t see any advantage or fun in clicking the same set of options every 5 seconds. It\'s not gameplay and much worse than grinding IMO.
Summarising, I don\'t see this as botting, because IMO it should be automatically handled by the client anyway, in the way I described.
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where can i get a good macro :D
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Originally posted by Seytra
I see the main problem of mining to be repetitive. Sure, it is IRL, but OTOH, why not make the duration and the outcome of one single mining operation several 1000% more? That is, you\'d put your char against a wall, select mining target and zone, then activate mining and it\'s going to mine for, say, 10 minutes RL time. I don\'t see any advantage or fun in clicking the same set of options every 5 seconds. It\'s not gameplay and much worse than grinding IMO.
Summarising, I don\'t see this as botting, because IMO it should be automatically handled by the client anyway, in the way I described.
Like I said, if you don\'t like mining, you don\'t have to do it. That doesn\'t mean we\'ll let people bot it just because \'they think its boring\'. :)
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Originally posted by Moogie
Like I said, if you don\'t like mining, you don\'t have to do it.
Obviously. I wasn\'t going to be a miner anyway.
Originally posted by Moogie
That doesn\'t mean we\'ll let people bot it just because \'they think its boring\'. :)
It wasn\'t intended that way. I was trying to say that I think that the current approach to mining is wrong. I think there will not be many people mining because it really doesn\'t have much appeal to it. While that can of course be ignored, I think since there IMO is an easy solution to it, it shouldn\'t be ignored, for the simple fact that there is absolutely no reason for not doing so. It doesn\'t add to gameplay. It also doesn\'t increase immersion, since the repeated clicking will make the interface become very noticable, thus totally destroying immersion. It doesn\'t capture the player by fun, but by requirement.
If scripting is allowed while we\'re at the computer, then what is the difference between implementing this in the client itself and allowing external devices that detract from immersion?
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Why can\'t mining be fun? Could it not be turned into some sort of un-bot-able mini-game? Like some sort of Tetris or PPuzzle League (god that game was addictive). Dirt would be useless brown blocks while ore would be different shiny and puuurdy colors. Line up so many gold/iron/copper/etc blocks, they disappear, and you get one unit of that ore. Then you could mine for more than one type of ore at a time. If too many \'dirt\' blocks accumulate and reach the top, your \'mine\' collapses and you have to start over. Pick durability could affect the speed at which you can move or switch blocks. Race differences would effect this also (dwarves are little dirt grubbers after all :D).
This is just one example of how tedious tasks could be made fun. Who wants to spend hours typing \'/mine whatever\'. We are supposed to be role-playing here, not having boring on-line jobs, aren\'t we?
*edit* Hmm... this is a little off the original subject. I think I will move it to a new thread.
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I agree with you Seytra, that the mining system atm isn\'t too good. But it\'s a primitive implimentation of something I\'m sure they\'ll improve in the future.
We seem to be running against eachother alot lately, lol :)
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Originally posted by Moogie
I agree with you Seytra, that the mining system atm isn\'t too good. But it\'s a primitive implimentation of something I\'m sure they\'ll improve in the future.
I hope they will. :)
Originally posted by Moogie
We seem to be running against eachother alot lately, lol :)
Yes, I noticed that, too. Must be CB. ;)
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Simple question..... SOMEONE LIKES TYPING /dig for gold
every 10 seconds, or killing mobs ?!!?!?!?!?!?
I do this because this games are made in the way that you go with your friends you make them and have enemies, mining and killing enemies is the way to progress.. lvling up being stronger getting new things, I think the people likes to get new things, and see them, thats why the kill and mine for this long time. Just an opinion, if someone likes to do it I\'m just expressing an opinion.
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I don\'t think anyone mentioned this yet, but there is that little problem of not being able to mine in the same place twice. :rolleyes:
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Although last i checked you can mine by simply moving to the left/right [and digging] and then moving back to your original spot [and digging] ...and repeat the process. Essentially you just go \'left-dig-right-dig-left-dig-right-dig\' . So assuming most rockfaces are straight [only requiring a small move to the side] it would be just as easily bottable, albeit slower.
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mining needs random features that can happen to prevent the macro\'ing. you dont want the player to have to use their brain just a tad to mine, you dont want them to be able to go make a sandwhich while doing so.
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Originally posted by diabolus
Although last i checked you can mine by simply moving to the left/right [and digging] and then moving back to your original spot [and digging] ...and repeat the process. Essentially you just go \'left-dig-right-dig-left-dig-right-dig\' . So assuming most rockfaces are straight [only requiring a small move to the side] it would be just as easily bottable, albeit slower.
yes, it is very easily bottable, and it dosnt even make it slower cause you can make the bot move while waiting for the results of the first /dig.
I think its a bit mean of a dev to ban someone for not responding to chat, i mean what if you have chat off or you just dont want to talk to them? lol. But im not complaining cause i havnt actually seen or had this happen to me yet. I definatly think the mining system needs to be changed somehow, like you can only mine a certain number of times or something. Pretty much anything short of a seperate game can be botted.... even requiring the user to click in different places can be botted, it just depends on the skill of the programmer. And i think personally that making mining so repetitive is just an invitation for people to use scripts and macros, they cant really say they didnt see it coming. That said, the new mining system is at least a bit better, now that you have to move.
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Im just giving my opinions about this mining system or any for that matter. First of all, let me make said that ANY repetative action, no matter how complicated or unique, can be botted. Any time where you can sit in one spot/one area you can bot it, no question about it. My proposed solution to this nasty little problem would be to make it more involved and less repetative. Make you do more things, not over and over but doing more different things to add to the realism/limit the possibility of botting. I would suggest a system where you have to test the soil/search around and do some things before you are able to dig. And I feel its kind of weird at the moment to have to know what your digging for, why not just dig a hole in the ground and find out what you get? Why not make a system where you must search around and find a spot. Then once you found that spot you could dig a bunch of ore out of it (like a vein of iron or something) then once you were done with the spot you would have to do a lot more searching to find another vein. That would reduce the amount of botting a lot because of all the searching and interpreting of where the ore will be. Something that would take human thought and reading of what you get back from the searching efforts to do. But it would have to be rewarding after only doing it a little while, if it took too much time to do it would get boring and thus lead to more botting.
I suggest this method because of the fact that it makes you move and think about it. No matter how many workarounds and stops you try to put to botting you implement if you dont have to move around then botting can be done. And as I mentioned before if someone can do it but it doesnt take any thought at all, then a bot can easily be made to do it. One thing bots have a hard time doing generally is thinking and interpreting visual information smartly.
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I agree with Kunlock idea and here\'s an easy solution about how it could be done:
I think mining should be something similar to crystal hunting. So many people were enjoying it... So why did devs remove it?
People that want to dig would have to run around the dungeons or other areas where there are ores to dig and sometime find little pieces of ore getting out of walls and floors. That would mean there is one or more ore HERE. Then you click on it and try to dig it with your pike.
That way, bots would be much harder to build and could only help to dig everything on one spot. I currently get something every digging, even the most valuable ores and I only have 1 in the mining skill... So it should also be harder to mine something.
As mining would take much more time, of course the value of ores should be increased.
As the crystals spawn functions are already built and they work well, it would probably be a not-2-hard task to use it for ores and it would add some fun to dig. I also agree to the idea of monsters protecting ores, so the most precious ores would only be availlables to stronger players or, of course, miners that run the dungeons with some guards hired.
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I wrote a long blurb explaining a whole slew of things, but I have decided to just put the main points down here for simplicity:
*) Mining is and was not broken. It\'s only more annoying now. What is missing are alternative forms of income. People have no choice but be miners if they care to develop their character.
*) Implement a richer economy where complex tasks make more money than mining (e.g. once crafting items work, or killing special quest mobs loot for sensible treasures, ...), and the bot problem will be greatly reduced (without the need of unnatural restrictions).
*) Make a game that\'s good and fun for players :)as opposed to trying to make a game that is bad for bots :(. If you don\'t want people to stupid mine, give them fun alternatives as opposed to preventing them from trying to not waste their precious RL time. If bots are a problem then something else is wrong, namely there is nothing better to do and mindless repetition has too much reward in the game and interesting and diverse activities have too little.
Just my 2 tia,
-F
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It would be great if there was an RPG that allowed you to program your character to do things so he could play when you were not available. Role Playing is great but doing it in an online game is very time consuming and burdeonsome to someone who has a family, etc. - it would be nice if there were parts of the game that accomidated this, ie mercenaries for hire, you put your char in a certain mode that makes him avail to AI fight to assist others who need a particular quest done, or some healing power, whatever.
Out of the context of Planshift, think about it. You come back to take control of the character and someone sends you a tell who used your char to fight an epic battle earlier, they thank you for the effort. Maybe a new catagory of game, AI-RPG. RPG meets virtual pet??
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< rant >
One minor problem. Server load. I see no reason that characters who \'can\'t be bothered\' to play all the time should slow down the server for others. *chuckles* Not to put too fine a point on it.
AI generally uses a large amount of processor/memory overhead, as well as disk space. And I feel this place is for RP,not for players who \'can\'t be bothered\' to play. If it\'s time consuming and burdensome, then perhaps it\'s not the right game for you. In addition, the disclaimer that the game is pre-alpha is in there in the login. These people are devoting time (and time *is* money) server space, and bandwidth to the problem. ANd not even getting paid for it. In my opinion, not wishing to attack you in particular, having someone botting (even server side) is an insult to the art of both programming and graphical work that they put into it.
Now, that being said, if you have more important RL things, deal with those. Planeshift will be here when those things don\'t interfere. I sincerely *DOUBT* that planeshift will ever implement player botting, seeing as it\'s against the rules.
Yes, it\'s an interesting idea. No, it\'s not an RPG. As RPG implies human interaction behind the characters themselves, and some kind of emotional connection.
< /rant >
edit: Decided I might ahve been a bit harsh. *chuckles*
More or less, wanted to just say, that if you think it\'s worth the time and emotion to RP, then by all means, do so. Otherwise, if RP is cumbersome to you, and you\'d rather hack and slash or bot your way through, it\'s just not the right game. I love this place, some of the folks are like family already. So I apologize if I was too brutal with this, and very little of it was actually aimed at you, just was one of those things where frustration hit. *chuckles*
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so wait its ok to use a bot aslong as you are at comp? i mean using a bot could save you from getting arthritis in hands 20 years on (http://www.planeshift3d.com/wbboard/images/icons/smilie.gif)
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< kidding>
IMO the devs found the best way to prevent boting :
linkdead !
You need to restart your client (and therefor bot) every ten minutes, isnt that the best way to prevent boting ? B)
< /kidding>
1) Tetris-like mining skill ??? this is a RP game, supposed to look like reality, and even if I\'m no miner IRL I really dont think it looks like that...
2) If you turn your chat off when you mine then dont complain that mining is boring.... To me it would be like turning chat off in MB, the fun of this game is that it makes a great environment for RP, so guess what : just role play, you can talk while mining, chat with other miners... and with our dearest GMs, < flattering>they are sooooooo nice why wouldnt you want to talk to them ? < /flattering>
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This might not be a really good excuse but when you mine... you mine. You are in a hole in the ground and dig for minerals etc.
You are not a bartender who makes friends while working. You just... mine.
But that\'s why chat exists at PS, at least you can participate in a good conversation while digging.
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what no mining songs then ?
I\'ve worked in mines my whole life through
Dig
Got notting but Coal when searching for gold
Dig
Brought what I had to a smith nearby
Dig
Gave me some trias to buy some beer
Dig
It\'s no poetry but do this with enough people and you actually can have fun digging.
Then there\'s the dig square dance where everybody sets in columns and starts :
Dig and two step to the right, and dig and two steps to the left and dig and two steps backward and dig and two steps forward and ....
There are tons of ways for digging to be fun, just use your imagination.
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:) Nice song!
Originally posted by Darakus
Then there\'s the dig square dance where everybody sets in columns and starts :
Dig and two step to the right, and dig and two steps to the left and dig and two steps backward and dig and two steps forward and ....
That\'s what the bots do to circumvent the movement requirement. :) An army of botted miners, doing this exactly sychronised... must look interesting. Maybe add the song to the bots so the choir fills the talking range with literally deafening chant? :P