Runescape Bot Maker Loses Big In Lawsuit

Xan Krieger

Completely insane
Feb 11, 2009
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"Shortly, all references to iBot and Impulse Software will disappear from the internet."
Riiight, they seem to forget that once something in on the internet it's there FOREVER. Someone has the bot code and someone will repost it and bots will continue to exist.
 
Jul 13, 2011
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This is an excellent event, if you ask me. Despite that Runescape is indeed a very grind-y game, I've found its excellent minigames and quests still make it more worthwhile than say...facebook games.

I honestly hope this sets a precedent for botters in other games as well. I personally cannot stand botting as I lump them in with every other cheater who cares far too much about winning.
 

Hero in a half shell

It's not easy being green
Dec 30, 2009
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I am (to my shame) am actually occasionally still active on Runescape (free2play only)
Atmos Duality said:
Actually, botting does not go against the point of the game.
Think about it: The point of most MMOs is to "level up" so that you can overcome greater obstacles. Botting accelerates that process; it doesn't replace it.

If the sole metric of challenge is a player's ability to withstand hours upon hours of boredom, IT ISN'T A LEGITIMATE GAME.
Yes, the point of MMO's is to level up, to see that little bar go higher and higher as you perform actions within the game. If you are botting then you are not leveling up. You are not accomplishing anything, you are not playing the game, but your little avatar is running around the mining guild taking up valuable resources, which stops legitimate players from being able to play and what do the botters get out of it? An end-game character they have no idea how to use.
I've had loads of level 100+ characters approach me in game and ask me noob questions. With a few questions I can discern that they have no knowledge whatsoever of how to actually play the game, because they botted or bought their high level account, which most will readily admit to doing.
Botting adds nothing to the botters gaming experience, and reduces the playing experience of legitimate players because there are finite resources in Runescape, and they swarm the best places. If you don't have the time to waste leveling up your character, then don't play Runescape, because the grind is sort of the point of the game.

i) "Botters ruin the player-driven-economy"
So they do. But you know what gives real-life value to those items the botters and gold-farmers sell?
Grind. The value of an item is based largely on two things: Its availability and its usefulness.

"Usefulness" is a function of the metagame, and doesn't tie into grind at all on its own (beyond the trend that developers place the most useful/powerful items at the highest rarities, but this is an arbitrary decision on their part).

"Availability" however, is a function of economics...Ahh.

So...
If everything were readily available, but not necessarily useful, then it becomes a game based purely on execution (after some trial-and-error to eliminate the weakest metagame choices of course).
But...
If everything were not readily available, then the value of any given item would increase by simple Supply and Demand; AMPLIFIED by usefulness.

So when an item is only valuable because you have to waste your time doing lots of mechanically-easy, but boring busywork to find it, it's hard to justify an entire economy comprised of those items.
Literally your only argument here is that it doesn't matter that botting ruins the in-game economy because it is based on grinding. If that is an issue for you then again I will say the solution is to not play the game. There are people who enjoy the grind, there are people who don't, if you are in the latter group then play a different game.
Yes, the Runescape economy is based off supply and demand, amplified by the items usefulness, but bots made supply of all materials several magnitudes higher than the demand, so inflation made most items valueless/ This especially affected the lower level items, so it was incredibly hard for new players to make money as they had to compete with bots to gather resources, and had to sell them at far lower prices, making less money (iron ore went from 99gp to 250+ when the bots were all banned!) Making playing the game less rewarding and more frustrating.

Believe me, the game is a million times better now that the bots are gone, and for anyone that relied on bots to play the game, well, Runescape is better off without them. Simply put, the game was not meant for them.
 

Ilikemilkshake

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Jun 7, 2010
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JMeganSnow said:
Ilikemilkshake said:
As a former Runescape player, bots harm the community and they wreck the ingame economy.
Yes the bots still pay membership, but thousands of legitimate players get fed up and stop playing because whats the point when half the people on a server are botting.
If it's possible to actually wreck the ingame economy using an automatic system, that's a *design flaw*, and the owners should not be entitled to harass people who take advantage of it. They're entitled to fix their design flaw is what they're entitled to do. And if they're too lazy to do it, oh well. Their players will leave, there will no longer be an incentive to bot, and the flawed, badly-designed game will die the death it deserves.

Now, me, I play an MMO where nobody bots, because you CAN'T--it takes an actual involved intelligence to get any of the benefits in the game. Heck, the devs accidentally broke the economy about a year ago by putting in a stupidly easy way to farm tons and tons of platinum. They then fixed it and never did anything to anybody who took advantage of it. Prices went up for a month or so. Now they're considerably LOWER than they were before since the devs also introduced several new, fun, and cool things that eat up tons of cash and resources.
You make a fair point. I still wouldnt agree that that makes it acceptable for players to exploit this though and use bots when its both against the rules and the spirit of the game and community.
 

CardinalPiggles

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Jun 24, 2010
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It's a bit late for this really, about 6-8 years too late I think.

But god damn it it's nice to see some justice for a change.
 

PinkiePyro

New member
Sep 26, 2010
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I dont fucking care about runescape
but ..
I hate bots
Hey Nexon! take some notes on this
if you did something like this to rid mabinogi of all the spam bots I would start playing again!
 

Frostbyte

New member
Jan 1, 2012
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Well, I play Runescape. I, however, prefer to avoid the skills as much as possible, with a few exceptions. I mainly do the quests, which are actually rather good, and play the minigames. On topic, Jagex has made an nice start, but need to do more.
 

Filiecs

New member
May 24, 2011
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HA, I remember the botting got so bad that Bot Hunting became an actual way to make profit. There were entire guides made for it.
 

Jimmybobjr

New member
Aug 3, 2010
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Damn, i was too soon for "INB4 RUNESCAPE HATERS"

I played runescape for 3 years, some of the best gaming of my life. I quit when the bots simply demolished the economy, some time after The implemetation of the Grand Exchange. I had since learnt of the Bot Nuke, but have moved on.

I honestly loved runescape, still do, and love JaGeX. Its good to see them finaly get on the winning path.
 

Erttheking

Member
Legacy
Oct 5, 2011
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Runescape? Damn, it's been awhile, I gave up because of the grinding (before anyone says anything for me this is less of a problem for Runescape and more of an inherent problem for MMOs in general, in reality it's the monthly fee that killed it for me. If it was free I would still be all over this game) but...I still have fond memories of that game. Falador, Lumbridge, Varrok, the crystal elven city, defeating Iban, uncovering the ancient Magiks, fighting the spirits of the Barrow brothers, the supreme commander, DEAR GOD the supreme commander. "sigh" good times

Anyways, nice job on slamming those hackers.
 

Tiger Sora

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Aug 23, 2008
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I remember when I played this game. My 1st MMO. How excited I was. How fun killing your 1st goblin is. I got up to 70 something with one of my guys, got hacked, and quit.

Surprised people can still play this game, the game formula is so outdated I couldn't stand to go back.

But theres worse MMO's out there people still play, so let them be happy with what they do.

Wonder how many bots are going to be scorched from the earth by this. Though the economy I'm sure will be forever broken.
 

OldNewNewOld

New member
Mar 2, 2011
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I'm not really sure what to think about bots.

Here is my situation.
When I was playing a MMORPG, I used a bot.
But here is the thing, I never played the MMORPG. I always played it as an RPG. I didn't interact with other players. I never did PvP, nor did I sell/buy items from the auction house. I liked the story in the game I played, but in order for the story to progress, there was lots of farming/grinding required. I didn't have that time, but I wanted to know the story.

On the other hand, I know that the majority of bot users will have some kind of interaction with other player who don't use bots. That will give them some kind of unfair advantage. Mostly in money, which reflects in gear. And that's why I don't like bots.

Bots conflict with the MMO part of the game...
I don't know. If only people could just be honest. Nothing more, nothing less. Just honest. Then you could just allow those who don't intend to interact with other player to use bots, but those who will interact can't use them...
Or they could just open another server which would be the story server. Less grinding required, some better balance for solo action... then I would be completely against bots.
 

Elvaril

New member
Dec 31, 2010
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I am so glad that Jagex won this. After all they have been doing this past year, they definitely deserve it. I have been playing Runescape for over seven years now and I have no plans to stop. I met my irl best friend because we sat next to each other in history and the first thing he said to me was "do you play any online games?" It turned out that we both played Runescape and we still love to hop in the game and go run through the latest quest with each other, which leads me to another reason I still play Runescape.

The quests. Jagex has some absolutely amazing quest writers. The Dorgeshuun quest line was an absolutely amazing series that had best story of any game quest I have ever played through.

I played World of Warcraft for about a total of three months. I hit 80 (this was during WotLK) within a month and then had nothing to do except grind instances. It was dull and boring. There was really nothing to do in the world and so I quit. As I said earlier, I have been playing Runescape for seven years. There is always something new to see and new people to meet. I will always rank Runescape as one of my top games just due to how much fun I have exploring and adventuring. Sure there is a lot of grind, but there is always stuff you can do and people you can meet.

I thank Jagex for creating a fantastic game world in which to explore and adventure. And I also thank them for removing the bots. They really did have a huge negative effect on the game, not just on the economy but also on the feel of the world. It was depressing running by people and knowing that probably not one of those people chopping willows in Draynor or hunting chinchompas in the Feldip Hills was actually another human and adventurer like yourself. The realization that followed the bot nuke that everyone I ran by was actually another human dashing about to save Varrock from the massive zombie invasion or mining to make the money for that next piece of armor was surprisingly uplifting. I had not realized the negative morale effect that bots had on the game until they were gone.
 

Necrofudge

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May 17, 2009
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I realize this was all good and necessary and stuff, but damn, they really degraded the people in the company. The public apology, the banning from any Jagex game ...

and having to give up and destroy all their source code and domains... Might as well ask em to just undress in the court room with that last demand.
 

Twilight_guy

Sight, Sound, and Mind
Nov 24, 2008
7,131
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I'm sorry Escapist, I really want to care about his story, really. Unfortunately the phrase "knuckle sandwich of litigation" has me me imagine the classic statue of of blind-folded justice delivering a Shoryuken to the face of the unsuspecting company and I am unable to stop laughing.

It's interesting to hear the latest politics of bots and banned activates. There's quiet a bit of argument that goes on over this despite it looking like a simple issue.
 

Blatherscythe

New member
Oct 14, 2009
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Kopikatsu said:
Andy Chalk said:
Along with having to fork over an unspecified but inevitably hefty amount of money, Impulse is also forbidden from providing information on how to hack Runescape, its employees are permanently banned from any and all Jagex games and it must transfer ownership of its websites to Jagex and destroy all bot code. It's even legally barred from commenting on the case, although it did issue an apology to Jagex and acknowledge that it was in the wrong.
Ouch. Still, I do hope this sets some kind of precedent. People who use bots/trainers are terrible people and should feel terrible. (Yes, Escapees. I made a blanket statement. COME AT ME, BRO!)
Oh boy, trust me, anyone who plays this game is fully aware of the scumbags that are gold-farmers and bot users. You can't go to a lucretive mine, tree or monster without coming across a bot. I think I speak as a member of the Runescape community when I say that it's about god-damn time and that these bastards are getting off easy for helping kill this game.
 

michael87cn

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Jan 12, 2011
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CM156 said:
gigastar said:
keiskay said:
and how do bots hurt the company anyways? you still gotta be a member if you want to access all the skills/weapons/armor/world anyways.
According to Jagex, almost all bot users were gold farmers and thier bots were paid for with stolen credit cards, meaning that they ended up having to pay that back.

It may sound like its not much, but 2 months ago over 60% of the active playerbase was banned for bot-related offences.

Plus Runescape has a player-driven economy, so with bots doing all the tedious labor almost no one could make a decent earning with gathering raw materials.
Hey, they're only doing the work that Americans players don't want to do.

OT: Don't play runescape, but I found this to make me happy.
Your nationalism disgusts me. When will people learn to not discriminate people by groups and categories.

OT: Good, bots are bad. They've ruined many a good game despite what some silly posters claim, "if the game was good, no one would bot". hah. boot up diablo 2 and try to play without having 10 bots join your game every 5 seconds. And thats one of the best action rpgs ever made.
 

CM156_v1legacy

Revelation 9:6
Mar 23, 2011
3,997
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michael87cn said:
CM156 said:
gigastar said:
keiskay said:
and how do bots hurt the company anyways? you still gotta be a member if you want to access all the skills/weapons/armor/world anyways.
According to Jagex, almost all bot users were gold farmers and thier bots were paid for with stolen credit cards, meaning that they ended up having to pay that back.

It may sound like its not much, but 2 months ago over 60% of the active playerbase was banned for bot-related offences.

Plus Runescape has a player-driven economy, so with bots doing all the tedious labor almost no one could make a decent earning with gathering raw materials.
Hey, they're only doing the work that Americans players don't want to do.

OT: Don't play runescape, but I found this to make me happy.
Your nationalism disgusts me. When will people learn to not discriminate people by groups and categories.

OT: Good, bots are bad. They've ruined many a good game despite what some silly posters claim, "if the game was good, no one would bot". hah. boot up diablo 2 and try to play without having 10 bots join your game every 5 seconds. And thats one of the best action rpgs ever made.
Uhhhhh, I was kidding and satirizing that response to immigration. I hold no such nationalistic thoughts.

Then again, you may be kidding with me too. I can't tell.