Bring Out the Banhammer

  Even on my Spring Break I'm working like a madman with projects and getting time with my son.  But I still try to keep up with game stuff.

  Which is why I found this and found it hilarious. Apparently CCP is throwing the banhammer around a lot right now and people are noticing. And here I thought they were too greedy or didn't have the stones to do it. I haven't heard of them purging botters before but I have to give them kudos.

  This may or may not be a full sweep of botting accounts but any smaller number of botters running around is good by me. Fanfest propaganda that benefits the game is fine by me.  Do it in stages and perhaps the economic impact won't be too harsh. But then again, chances are those people will just buy up new characters and accounts. It's a sad cycle, but we endure for the game we love.

  Still have a nice story brewing for you guys when I get a minute to myself that isn't bathed in shame and stress for not working on one thing or another.

  Til then, fly dangerous
-Mem

A few excerpts from the E-O thread. Botting tears best tears?

"Just have two botting accounts banned and four others that were not botting. Usage about 10 hours a day.

Anyone else experience the banhammer recently?



Got 5 accounts down only one was botted with. Know of two others who got ban hammered also.


To add only one was botting anoms on VMware, was on at downtime but not on for the past 4 days. All accounts banned used sequential names and some on the same email didnt get banned as the names were not sequential.


Its a bot holocaust. I lost two accounts, one of which was running a brand new hbot account I just purchased today, ~10 hours ago. It had only been running for ~6 hours. Two other (non botting) accounts still up. It must have been something they did just prior to downtime.


Yeah, same here. looks like CCP did a purge. CSM minutes were a lie! 6 accounts down. several weren't botting.

Happy fanfest everyone!
Haha and again bans, I'm not gona tell you how they done it but script is pathetic.

If you know why wouldn't you say?


if this was "again bans" many of us wouldn't just now be experiencing our first, now would we? poster implies a scenario which conflicts with known facts, professes knowledge that he refuses to share

response: disregard



I'm curious to know if anyone running yesterday wasn't banned, what they did differently, and how the non-botting accounts that got hit were tied to the botting accounts

i.e. how can we game their heuristics to keep our bots running and get back to cheating with little risk to our mains


On Saturday and Sunday my bot was not running. I just launched it today at 7:00 EVE time. And I have 4 accounts banned.


Got hit too. Ran in an empty system, used all the human like characteristics and changed them regularly, varied my log off times and "only" ratted about 10-12 hours a day. First time I've ever been banned. Cry




As its fourth or sixth time i'm getting banned, lost count now, and evry time I tried something different, so its expensive knowledge which i'm not going to pass on public, also becouse CCP read those forums too. All I can say is that this time I got hammed 4 of 11 accounts.
6 accs hammed from 12. (Only VM clients.) Every clients on diff IP and shared between 4 corp/alliance.


4 ACCounts down 2 bots out of the 4. HAHa anyway to argue this out in a petition?


And yes indeed happy fan fest everybody!
Now is there any lawyer or experienced member that might want to contribute in how we can argue this using the rules? If this a ban wave there is no specific investigation i guess so i think there is a way to argue this out or try anyway?


6 accounts banned out of 7. Only 2 were bots. Running 23/7,buy plex with isk for all accounts, didn't rename h-bot.exe, vmware from same computer, same ip

Please re post with the time penalty you got banned and how many times you got banned already.

Mine was 10 days first time.
In normal circumstances
First you get warning
Second you get 2 week ban
Third you get perma ban


In fanfest circumstances
First you get 2 week ban
Second you get perma ban


So you couldn't get 10day ban ....
Only exception is RMT as they will be handle manually not by script but then you would get perma ban instant.


I am banned until the 7th of march so yes i got ten days
14 days, 1st offense :\
report botting function peoples

pvpers who cannot catch bots now report them, its being discussed on 'large' alliance chats to keep down the russain's income, thing is its not just ISK the russians are earning Tongue


i would say if u got banned, at least petition it, make CCP's wanker have to deal with it rather than ban and forget, say u rat and tell them how you do it! [well at least a 'legal' way], tell them your playing hours too and your lack of sleep Tongue dunno whatever works but be clever
So how many of he people who got banned also RMT? hmm



How many hours a day do you run your bot ? 23

Do you use the human like behavour settings ? yes



Anyone else find this ironic?
I would be interested in knowing what you guys with your bots. I only botted at most 8 hours in one day, over the course of last week. I might have botted 4 days. Generally I ran the bot when I was either at work, or asleep. Never both. Last week was my first week to bot. So I'm guessing their pattern recognition and analytics are checked over a 2+ week period of time.

I know there was a belt ratting bot that got banned in my pocket. He was an asshole who didn't use his chaining settings. I assume he got banned, because for the first time in forever, he wasn't logged in. People talked about him being a bot in local without any regard for him getting in trouble. He skipped the same belts as me (jammers).

I haven't run any anoms as a bot yet. I just don't have enough SP in the right places to trust the AI yet.

Sucks for the guys that got banned.
i lost ALL my accounts in a permaban last year

many not botting toons

WHY?

because i paid ISK for H-Bot thru this forum [with permission] and the guy got caught for RMT'ing and so i was linked to it and the ban hammer never lifted for me, 90m sp toons down the drain Sad
I believe that these actions are only fanfest propaganda. I don't have my accounts banned, never had. I don't RMT. I have 4 bots, my friend has more and also don't get banned. Maybe we will be banned next few days but anyway...whatever you do it's too late. IMHO they don't look for how long you bot, 23h or 8. Bots are pretty easy to find. Just look at tengu players that uses specific fit or at least subsystem, then check his wallet. You got list of bots, then ban few accounts that had money transfered. So we have multiple accounts baned wchich raises statistics. I think this move is not to ban us permanently but show society how good is policeman. In my country there are days called by policemans "blue days", where all forces are on the street. Just to show ppl that police is there and doing their job, so they can feel safe.

CCP as professional developer ended "hobby and cool game" stasis and entered "making big money" stasis. So remember that those guys from management have to show profit $$ at the end of month. So it's not interest to ban bots. Especially when Nex Store idea failed at start Cheesy.

But anyway, whatever will happen I will be pissed if my main get banned and I wouldn't be at PVP, even for a week.
Don't Hurt your brains on figuring out how they detect you there are so many ways of getting banned on your accounts simpler than all the questions asked here. My simple theory is i got banned in all my accs that i used while my vm is botting the only acc i did not get banned was the one i dont use while botting.

In other words any activity reported by the server by the same ip in a macro account gets banned, i always have my 4 accounts on but the one that is not active/on station mostly and less time online did not get banned. Is true people can multi client 2 accounts for ratting and do another thing but after they detect your pattern and you do this for an extended time and days... your accounts are banned. Just a theory there are many other factors but the simple fact that you operate multiple accounts in such a complex and clicks in multiple clients at the same time is the easiest way to detect that. Wink Other ways if you have multiple ips or pcs is to trace your wallet or trades.
I just checked my petitions and i got my second answer since DT. PEOPLE make a petition and complain first answer after a long wait was very unhelpful but after i got cocky and complain the GM told me they are getting many complains and they might fix some unjustified bans. Just ask for the info they have against you and menace them to stop playing with all your accs. There might be 0 hopes but give it a try.
e-lawyers commence

2 of my accs payped by Paypal. Banned also.
Petition that you want your money back. No matter you violated EULA, you have payed for a service and you don't get it. Every lawyer would win that battle in any case. But in fact it is a case not for court but for consumer ombudsman. So you don't have to go to court but report proper institution in Island. And that's all you have to do, they will do the rest, they will control CCP if they are doing something against the law.
2 of my accs payped by Paypal. Banned also.
Petition that you want your money back. No matter you violated EULA, you have payed for a service and you don't get it. Every lawyer would win that battle in any case. But in fact it is a case not for court but for consumer ombudsman. So you don't have to go to court but report proper institution in Island. And that's all you have to do, they will do the rest, they will control CCP if they are doing something against the law.
This isn't as black and white as you make it out to be. While there is the matter of getting what we paid for there is also the problem of the violation of the rules. I'd say this is an interesting case to test, however if everyone who got banned petitions their ban CCP might think twice next time they decide to get swamped.
While there is the matter of getting what we paid for there is also the problem of the violation of the rules.
It still doesn't matter. EULA is in fact crap because consumer laws are more powerfull. There are companies that make some agreements that are against the consumer law and they got punished for that. It doesn't matter you have signed up agreement that is against law, it's void because it's against the REAL LAW. Be aware that everything in EVE is CCP's, even your character, that's why you can RMT anything because your are selling somebodys property. So, I am not paying for my character, I pay for access to my account right? So if my access is taken and I payed for service that isn't served something really goes wrong. Ofc the way all game devs solve that problem is common and players don't argue about their laws and money. Want me to ban? Ok, I have violated EULA but give my money back.
yeah it does suck when u pile money into a game and the makers can take it away just like that, replace CCP with bankers and u got the current world situation atm, they basically own everything and can do what the fuck they want!
You're basically just "renting" the character and all of your "items" from CCP. Unless you had cash still invested in the game, such as a couple months of paid subscription service, I doubt you'd have any chance of getting any money back.

The amount of hours, work, or money you have put into the game so far means pretty much irrelevant in terms of financial compensation.
While there is the matter of getting what we paid for there is also the problem of the violation of the rules.
It still doesn't matter. EULA is in fact crap because consumer laws are more powerfull. There are companies that make some agreements that are against the consumer law and they got punished for that. It doesn't matter you have signed up agreement that is against law, it's void because it's against the REAL LAW. Be aware that everything in EVE is CCP's, even your character, that's why you can RMT anything because your are selling somebodys property. So, I am not paying for my character, I pay for access to my account right? So if my access is taken and I payed for service that isn't served something really goes wrong. Ofc the way all game devs solve that problem is common and players don't argue about their laws and money. Want me to ban? Ok, I have violated EULA but give my money back.
Slightly off topic but I'll indulge just to say that the consumer laws you may be thinking of do not apply to services - which is what subscription based games are viewed as.

If you breach the terms of the contract then the company with which you have the contract with is entitled to cease services without reparation. This is true as far as UK and EU law - regarding other legal jurisdictions I could not say."

Times Change

  Things change as time plods on and so I decided to keep with last post's theme of things that are shifting. Well this is more like a straight change. Session change to be exact!

  CCP vowed to make session change timers shorter and so they have. The newest round of trimming has gotten it down to 10 seconds. Now that may not sound like a big deal since most of you only see it in stations and the like. But in wspace, this could mean escaping and not. When you jump through a wormhole, the other side doesn't hear that activation until you've already loaded grid. Having such a short timer now means you don't even have to give them a chance to collect their thoughts as you wait out your cloak, you can just decloak and jump back immediately.

  It also means I don't want to see wormhole dwellers littering their POSes with ships. First of all, that's just lazy. I know it was a hassle before if you had ships just floating that you had to wait forever and a day to get out, get in, store, get out, get in, etc. Now you really don't have that excuse, so tidy up!

  It also gives bombers less of a chance to get a kill if their enemy is on a hole storing their ship in a carrier or the like, vulnerable as a kitten in front of an angry bulldog.

  Times change and we adapt. Or we die for not adapting. Your choice.
-Mem

Shifting Tides

  For those that live in player owned null sec, the flow of politics and tactics is an expectation. One system could be owned by a different group every other week and fleet compositions are always evolving to counter the FOTM ship type.

  Wormhole space is usually a different matter. Tactics can vary due to system effects, system size and what group you run into in your chain. This means you tend to have quite the closet of ships to be ready for anything. But it seems that views are changing in wspace and standardized fleets are coming into being.

  This hasn't just popped out of nowhere, of course. A couple of larger wspace alliances have does this for a while now, but after recently running into an Exhale. fleet I am observing an inclination for a specific fleet comp. Proteus heavy fleets with drone swarms assisted by triage carriers and webbing/neuting utility ships. It can be scary unless you understand what these fleets can and cannot do. And when you're in the unknown, intel is king.

  Take the Exhale. fleet for example. They found a way into our home system, a hole we quickly recognized and scanned down. They found it suitable to stick a HIC and a couple T3s on our side to see if they got a reaction. Our scout decided to poke around and took a look around their home. With nothing on directional scan in the entire system, there are a couple things left to check. If you know all their pilots you can see if they are all online. That can be a very hard thing to do, however, since they could be using a log on trap or just simply be offline. So that leaves another trick any decent wormholer uses. Deep safes.

  A deep safe is any bookmark in space that keeps a ship off of Dscan from any point in the system. Making them can be an ordeal, but their usefulness pays off quickly. Drop a few probes and throw them out at extreme range and see if you get a ping. In this instance, we found quite a few pilots sitting out in the black. After a bit of bravado about blowing up one of our POSes they decided to instead begin crashing the link since the jig was up. They didn't even want to wait a bit longer to see if we would engage. That's a different tangent, however.

  These fleets are meant for wormholes because most fights happen at knife fight range. While one must be wary of polarity timers on the wormholes, a smart fighter can keep a fight going to their advantage with the exit as a last ditch. If an enemy does not engage at the range they want, such as with snipers, they can leave at will. The Proteus is one of the strongest T3s, with a full dps fit getting 1k dps and even as a cloaky can get over 600 dps. Fielding 10 or more of these means you are facing 10k dps from their guns alone, but still keep in mind the amount of drones they also bring with them. That drone cloud can be assigned to one person, amounting to an alpha strike that is hard to counter without smartbombs. Add to that a couple of Bhaalgorns that are able to nuke capacitor out of any ship it sees and the webs of the Bhaal and any Loki's or Rapiers...well, you won't move very far and that 10k Prot dps catches up quick. It's meant to sit on a wh and chomp anything around. But who says you have to go to that wh.

  But I am also a pilot that loves ECM. My love doesn't seem to be shared by most other wspace alliances. As such, countering these massive fleets is not a terrible ordeal since you can just bring the jams. One can also bring the same comp with more numbers and simply fly better. Or one could engage at enough range to make a tasty target and pull them off. Or any number of things. You decide.

  What I don't like is mindset. It is another reason I love being the pilot I am, where I am. Adhocracy does not make standardized fleets, they are closer to kitchen sink fleets. It can be a boon as well as a downfall, but that all depends on how Leeroy Jenkins we are feeling on a particular day. Maybe what other groups are doing can be considered smarter or better. I don't think anything of the sort. It takes much of the thinking out of the equation, easier to get complacent. I guess that may come off as arrogant, but I hope it is understood that I care little for epeen. It's more about being creative and not just copying a simple tactic.

  What do you think of this type of philosophy?
-Mem

Deadline Death

  *tap tap* Anyone still there?

   I live! I do apologize for the lack of content the last few weeks. My son was born a week and a half early, I am in the last leg of my senior year with a thesis project that decides if I get my degree and playing Eve has taken a hit as a result. While I still log in when I can, not much has been happening. I have trained up Recon V with some other useful skills, shot some people but missed the shinies, lost my ECM Tengu after a very long run of awesome ewar, and forum warrior-ed a good bit.

  I have gotten used to the new neocom and flown most of the new stuff now so I will be able to give an opinion on that now. There is also some great stuff in the works, things that will make for stories full of lulz.

  I am also trying to get this sorted for a new podcast. We have recorded the pilot, of which I still need to edit, get hosted, etc. So if you missed my sultry tones, fear not for there shall be more! Hopefully podfade doesn't strike again.

  BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
-Mem