Bots

[jorb]

The primary method being having a fair amount of emergent complexity and marginal utility prioritization decisions in the resource trees. There are a couple of payout loops that can be meaningfully botted I'm sure, but, well...

Obviously hay's use as fertilizer is the real problem. Not the fact that people bot it under the present regime. I don't blame them for that.

[jorb]

If I were to build a retarded mechanic for character development -- lets say everyone got a certain number of points to use for levling every time they did anything in the game -- wouldn't I very much have myself to blame when people then build machines that dig holes only to fill them back in again to get rewarded both ways?

I think I would.

[jorb]

All that being said I'm ultimately pessimistic about humanity's chances to win the more general war against the machines long-term. I don't see any reason why artificial intelligence shouldn't eventually come to eclipse human.

[harflimon]

All that being said I'm ultimately pessimistic about humanity's chances to win the more general war against the machines long-term. I don't see any reason why artificial intelligence shouldn't eventually come to eclipse human.

Personally I'm still holding onto the belief that a hybridization between the two of us will ultimately be the victor. We have yet to fully understand our own biology and form of intelligence, in terms of evolutionary theoretics there might be something about it that is more capable of adapting to change than any purely logical AI would be able to. I now have an erection.

[MagicManICT]

We have the tools at hand to make an AI and have had programs that could fool people in a blind testing session (look up the program "Eliza" for an interesting read on it) since the mid 1960s.

As far as "cheating," most of you need to understand that it's only cheating if the game disallows bots. After that, it's only sensibility. Is it really sensible to let bots run around unattended in a permadeath game, especially if it requires you to develop the character any at all? In Haven, it was (still is?) sport to kill bots on the spot. The need to attend to your bots to make sure they're not getting slaughtered left and right limits the number you can run.

As far as the game economy goes, I've not found a game one with a properly working economy that was ruined by bots. I've found that others willingness to use bots keeps prices down and frees my time up to do other more interesting tasks that the "farming" level industries. FYI, those that are having issues have a huge economic issue to begin with in the amount of in-game currency/items produced. Again you can blame the game designer for a ****** game.

[Kaol]

So are bots frowned upon or not?

[MagicManICT]

Yes, in that jorb realizes he hasn't done a proper job at designing a concept and would prefer that bots wouldn't be needed. Also other players, in general, dislike others automating things and might kill on sight. No, they aren't explicitly against the rules. (Reality is one would have to lock down the client better to even try to prevent them.) Rules are subject to change in the future, of course.

[Sevenless]

Ragnorok online was completely dominated by bots I believe. It was completely unrealistic to try to earn any money in that game without botting yourself.\

Most games, even if they get crippled, will manage to recover by changing up mechanics.

[jaychaulives]

he also doesn't know there are bots in that game farming IP

and? it doesn't affect me one bit if they play only against computer. In over 900 matches played, never encountered any bots. This game, botting gives huge advantage.

[gregl26]

So let's get some bot trades going.