wow Extreme Measures: Player Suggest Toy to Combat Bots and Multibox Abusers

[Starym 3,775]

 

As you can plainly see from the many recent posts and massive community uproar in general, bots and multiboxing are a very sore subject as they bother many, many players. Postfu has taken this antagonism to the next level, as he's designed an in-game toy that could be used to detect and punish those he deems worthy!

While the name is certainly snappy and on-topic, and the descriptive text is very goblin-y, the actual feasibility of an item like this is... not quite there yet. While it may be useful for bot detection, it would be very annoying and problematic for... well literally everyone else playing the game. Even if you ignore the infinity potential for abuse, even legitimate use of it would be very tricky. Postfu is already coming up with tweaks in the reddit thread, however, so head on over there and join in the discussion if you want to poke holes in the idea or improve it!

In general, players resorting to drastic measures/ideas like this showcases the high levels of frustration the community feels on the botting/multiboxing subject (and many still confuse the two) and we certainly hope Blizzard continues to improve the situation, with recent changes having been received very well by the community.

[FireLordJohn 91]

Hmm. I say go for it. Make this a thing. At the very least, it'll expose botters.

[Joffinator 2]

Ha! I reported these druids on Aman'thul. dodgy SoBs.. There was another group nearby with a Shadow Priest using a monks totem to AoE off.. bodies piled high.. Made it hard to complete my quest when the mobs died instantly...

[mrschishi 1]

0 points, 10 comments, all saying how bad this idea is.

Starym: "Yep, this is newsworthy enough for icy veins!"

[Starseed 113]

i have to say nice concept and i am all against bots and multis but what i hate even more are things that you can abuse to f up other people and be real no two days after this baby hits the servers there is a article about how you can disturb the normal folks with this thing

[Starym 3,775]

49 minutes ago, mrschishi said:

0 points, 10 comments, all saying how bad this idea is.

Starym: "Yep, this is newsworthy enough for icy veins!"

Yes, it is newsworthy. You know how you know? People are responding to it and talking about it, even with nice feedback. Even if they weren't I'd still think it's interesting as the point is the frustration players feel about the subject and what they're resorting to, not this one specific toy in particular (although I also think the toy i cool if problematic). Also the fact it's bad is ALSO newsworthy, nowhere does it state this should be done or is a good idea.

You can totally disagree whether YOU are interested in something, saying it's not newsworthy is just objectively incorrect.

Oh and if you genuinely really value reddit posts by the number of upvotes and comments... you must REALLY not know reddit much at all.

[durdyenglish 298]

57 minutes ago, mrschishi said:

0 points, 10 comments, all saying how bad this idea is.

Starym: "Yep, this is newsworthy enough for icy veins!"

It's not CSPAN, it's Icy Veins. They're just highlighting community creator content, ease up.

[Lithari 194]

I would say, find another idea?

I mean, this would tick me off and i never multi-box, paying 1 sub is enough money to Acti-blizzard in my opinion and i would really, REALLY find it annoying if i am just playing the game, killing mobs and skinning them in a area for x amount of time only for this annoying field to come about have me stop doing what i am doing to just interact with a toy......nah.

[mrschishi 1]

1 hour ago, Starym said:

Yes, it is newsworthy. You know how you know? People are responding to it and talking about it, even with nice feedback. Even if they weren't I'd still think it's interesting as the point is the frustration players feel about the subject and what they're resorting to, not this one specific toy in particular (although I also think the toy i cool if problematic). Also the fact it's bad is ALSO newsworthy, nowhere does it state this should be done or is a good idea.

You can totally disagree whether YOU are interested in something, saying it's not newsworthy is just objectively incorrect.

Oh and if you genuinely really value reddit posts by the number of upvotes and comments... you must REALLY not know reddit much at all.

I realize you can't report on everything as a writer, but this surely would be a low priority? This idea is getting absolutely panned in the small amount of comments. It's cool to report on things by the community, but one was just a miss. You have to allot your time appropriately as a writer.

The thing is, if something is creating a buzz, then it's a good idea to report on it! If people aren't interested, then it's harder to justify writing an article on it. The Reddit comments and upvotes can be a good measure of this (some great contributions can get buried, yeah, but this idea just wasn't a great one to start with). Although you may find this idea interesting, it's important to think of your readers, too: people on Reddit didn't want to see this, didn't upvote it, panned it in the comments, so again, I feel it takes much more justification to try and say this is newsworthy.

[Starym 3,775]

26 minutes ago, mrschishi said:

I realize you can't report on everything as a writer, but this surely would be a low priority? This idea is getting absolutely panned in the small amount of comments. It's cool to report on things by the community, but one was just a miss. You have to allot your time appropriately as a writer.

The thing is, if something is creating a buzz, then it's a good idea to report on it! If people aren't interested, then it's harder to justify writing an article on it. The Reddit comments and upvotes can be a good measure of this (some great contributions can get buried, yeah, but this idea just wasn't a great one to start with). Although you may find this idea interesting, it's important to think of your readers, too: people on Reddit didn't want to see this, didn't upvote it, panned it in the comments, so again, I feel it takes much more justification to try and say this is newsworthy.

Actually I don't have to allot anything. I post stuff I personally find interesting unless it's actually breaking news, blue posts etc. My only standard is, truly, if I was a reader, would I want to read this. Sometimes it's only mildly interesting sure, when there's not much to post, but this wasn't the case for this article. And again, the fact that this was a BAD idea (the toy) doesn't mean it's not worth posting - the fact people are thinking of stuff like this shows how pissed they are at botting etc, which is a worthy topic. Maybe some smart people could have come up with a solution to actually make the toy work, who knows.

I absolutely wholeheartedly disagree with you on reddit. I've been reading the feeds for all post a LONG time now and I can tell you that while something being upvoted does indicate popularity, it absolutely, categorically does NOT indicate quality on any level. (This has nothing to do with my posting it as news or not, we're just chatting ? ). Also the number of times I've posted something that was "low comments low upvotes" or just negative comments, only to have it be on the frontpage a while later is too big to count.

And again, I don't need any justification to find something newsworthy. The simplest way I know if I made the right decision is the number of people that see it on Icy Veins. In the end this is a community of its own and people here are interested in different things than perhaps r/wow. This particular article was interesting to them (both in terms of how many read it after the social posts/title AND in terms of responses it got - both good and bad). There have been plenty where my personal judgement on what is worth posting was wrong and people were not at all interested, and THAT is the measure I use to modify my personal opinion, not reddit upvotes or anything similar.

For example, your comment would absolutely have impacted my next choice of a post if you just said you didn't like it personally/thought it was bad (and explained why) - that is information that is useful to me and I want to get. The "lol low reddit comments and upvotes" just made me not take you too seriously (you've now engaged me in a more deep conversation, so that has changed and I do now).

I'm sorry the article wasn't interesting to you, but that's totally ok, there will be plenty more that will and some that won't! Just use your own judgement and standards, not other people's and DEFINITELY not reddit's ?

Also, sidenote, thank you for the actually in-depth discussion. Usually people just talk shit and then leave haha! I appreciate it despite us perhaps not seeing things the same way.

[Starseed 113]

8 hours ago, mrschishi said:

 If people aren't interested, then it's harder to justify writing an article on it.

Why the heck do you think he even has to justify writing it? 

Are you paying per written article or do you break a finger every time an article is written here that you don't find interesting holy molly so many people on this site behave like they own it

[dudemeister 12]

Lol such a bad idea

[Acronus 1]

Wouldn't it be easier to just add a toy that morph's people for 12 hours unless they remove the buff? Granted you could code around that eventually. Honestly you could even code around the questions after enough data logs as well. The intent is there with the idea, but it has to much room for abuse. Would it be limited to certain areas? I.E. outside of battlegrounds and arenas? You could seriously slow down an Alterac valley push with this toy and don't think for a second people wouldn't do it. There is a toy that people use in Winters grasp. Currently when you drop it in the vehicle workshop the vehicles cant get through. Is it spamable by multiple players? I.E. Jane hits you with this toy and then  John does? Putting it in a players hands to hunt bots with a toy like that just reeks of opportunities to abuse it and by the time the kinks are worked out the botters will find a way around it.

They could add "random events" where an npc spawns at your location. Maybe a scourge to infect and kill  "bots", Similar to the invasion. You could still keep the aoe debuff with these as well if you fail to meet certain requirements and possibly a reward if you do. I.E a 10 minute buff of some kind that actually has an impact on your gameplay in a meaningful way. Runescape had a similar system at one time but even that never fully got rid of bots. They actually removed it because it was deemed an inconvenience to players that were not bots ironically.   At any rate it's an idea that is simple but the problem is not simple.

[Syridian 14]

Even if this instance of the idea wouldn't work, I like how much thought and effort went into an attempt to improve things, as opposed to the usual doomsaying and whining

[Starym 3,775]

7 hours ago, Syridian said:

Even if this instance of the idea wouldn't work, I like how much thought and effort went into an attempt to improve things, as opposed to the usual doomsaying and whining

Yep, that's what impressed me as well. Definitely can't say I agree with the specific idea but it's generated more constructive discussion than the last 50 bot/multibox whine threads combined.