Topic

Alts

It  may be my imagination, but, recently I've been getting the distinct feeling that there are alts and alt pairs mining with me in the popular mining areas.   Either the main account and the alt following in another window or sometimes it just feels like I'm mining with two robots who have no human presence behind them.   I can't explain it.  Maybe its the free clothes they wear or maybe its the methodical way they move in step.   I've only started noticing it in the last week.  It might just be new post-launch players getting into mining, but if so you'd think there would be more hesitation, breaking away to meditate or eat.    

Posted 14 months ago by Treesa Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Well TS has stated before that alts aren't against the rules, so more than likely yeah, what you're seeing is indeed what you think you're seeing.
    Posted 14 months ago by Piratice Subscriber! | Permalink
  • alts aren't against the rules, but bots are.  If you think you're seeing bots, use the Report Abuse button so staff can check it out.
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Sounds like folks who get together to mine, with one person being followed. There are groups formed up to cordinate the mining. Tried it, but didnt like the lag it seemed to cause me.
    Posted 14 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • its not like a group, I can tell that much.   Its probably alts, I noticed it in the middle of the night (PDT).   I wouldn't know how to tell the difference between bots and alts to tell the truth.   I often don't respond to IM's myself when the window is covered and I'm half busy (or half asleep) doing other things so sending an im wouldn't necessarily confirm anything.

    How do you recognize bots?   
    Posted 14 months ago by Treesa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Try talking to them?
    Posted 14 months ago by geoffreak Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If someone's working/watching something/generally busy while mining, they might follow a friend around to limit the amount of attention they need to pay to the game. I've done this with someone before. They might not respond to chat either in this situation, so it's not necessarily an alt, although that's possible. Still, if what you're seeing bothers you, you could always ask.
    Posted 14 months ago by Xacau Feera Blin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It doesn't bother me, I'm just curious to know if it is becoming more common to use alts to help mine.   
    Posted 14 months ago by Treesa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I saw one person who ignored me telling her three times the Rube was there to see her.. I even IM'd her with no response so I suspected the bots have arrived.

    I didn't know we were supposed to let devs know though so if I see that again I will report.
    Posted 14 months ago by Reni's Mum Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm very interested in seeing how Tiny Speck deals with the issue of bots(and or gold farmers) after watching Runescape be slowly overrun by them.
    Posted 14 months ago by Hameigh Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The best thing to do to help stop bots is to give staff a heads up each time you see what appear to be bots in-game.  Use the Report Abuse link for each character so that staff knows what to look for.

    There's no way staff can find  bots/spammes/gold miners etc unless we give them some assistance. 

    If they're a real person, nothing will happen to them, and they probably won't even know that  the question came up. 

    One way TS is dealing with it is by making a game where outside money (credits) has no impact in-game (currants) and vice-versa. Also, being a high level and having a lot of currants is pretty useless in themselves, since the only thing you can do with those is to help other players fight rooks.  Without being able to kill things, many of these 'farmers' will lose interest fairly shortly. 
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What use would a goldfarmer be here? I mean, what use do currants have, you can't *win*  the game.
    I don't think anyone would want to buy currants in this game?
    And bots... what is the purpose of bots?
    Gold-sellers, bots, it's all based on the principle on people wanting to get to the "end level" or have the most currants asap.
    Those people can't affect the world terribly with it, so let them.  So then they are highest level. Or have max currants. Then what? Then they'll be bored maybe, and quit.
    Anyonw who buys currants in Glitch is throwing money away, because if you don't like the ways you can earn money in Glitch, you don't like Glitch and there is no reason to keep playing. I think. The only reason I could think of is when you want to use it as a chat program - do nothing ingame but chat to other people. I don't think there will be many people interested in that either.

    I have an alt, created it in beta to do some more testing in different browsers and checking groups stuff, and used it now too to walk the world, and occasionally hit a rock when I encounter one. I am usually active in one chat or another, so can miss local chat or IM's, although I try to keep an eye on those. The reason for the alt is not to help mine - it was because I was curious about the way interaction looks between players and because I was curious if a certain bug was due to the type browser I used or something else. (And I didn't want to log out- log in to another browser each time.) Furthermore, I was interested in other houses, in the herb plots, other skills first. Most people I meet know I have an alt (Wassilissa), and I usually mention it when someone talks to either one of us and we are in the same street, because I sometimes respond with the wrong person. (E.g. Miri responds to something that has been done to Wassi, like a hug that's been given or some item.)

    I can be as much afk with one alt as I am with two - I am distracted, browsing, watching tele, doing other stuff, and then remember I was logged in to glitch and move to the next street. I do try to check for IM's once in a while though.
    Posted 14 months ago by Miriamele Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I suspect that part of the reason the the AFLC frog flies in to a not-entirely-predictable location and requires you to click on him to get your auction pickups is to make bot-automated gaming of the auctioning system (buying undervalued items and immediately auto-selling them) tougher, but it's interesting that nothing like that is implemented to make mining difficult to bot. Has TS said anything in particular about how and if they plan to identify and ban bots?
    Posted 14 months ago by Meso Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Athanasius

    No website will ever give you information about how they plan to identify bots or spammers.  They've got a lot of powerful computer algorithms that can spot some of it, but they aren't going to reveal it to the bot programmers. 

    In the meantime, we can help refine those algorithms by spotting newly evolved bot processes in game.
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I hope we aren't goong to assume anyone wbo ignores chat is a bot. I rarely read and respond to the chat, especially when mining, since it's cluttered with all the mining messages, so a regular chat line gets lost. By the time I might notice, Either I'm gome or they are.

    I say don't worry about it. Play your game, they will play theirs, we'll all be happy. :)
    Posted 14 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • How would you even plan to tell a bot apart from someone who just uses 2 browsers? I use 2 browsers when mining, my second character set to follow, you walk past the ore doubleclick the pick and that's that.

    I've been in Ajaya and Neva doing this quite a bit the past few days, while I made the bot originally to test going full Mining because despite me Mining for money I had went full AK, I ended up using it in a second browser to help with everything.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink