That's very funny. 

Botting is allowed. Its very popular in pirates where top leagues are botters. Its becoming a problem in Stormfall now. But the player didn't break any rules since multi-account are allowed. 

But this is funny. 

i

I thought people were allowed alts but botting was against the rules.

Guess I'll have to review the rules again, they have changed a couple of times on this stuff.

OK so I read the T&C's again.

There is no specific rule that says "don't bot". Would be useful if a CM would confirm whether botting is in fact against the rules.

Some parts of the T&C's via which they could address this particular situation:

"Plarium reserves the right to refuse any user access to the Service without notice for any reason, including, but not limited to, any violation of the Terms "

- that is the catch all right at the start of the T&C's. They can effectively do what they want.

"decipher, decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, or otherwise attempt to derive any code or underlying ideas or algorithms of any part of the Service, including any Service available on or through Third-Party Platforms;"

- you can't write the kind of bot being used without breaking this specific rule (the botter has to analyse the comms from the client to the server and then mimic the instructions the client generates to instruct the server directly

"interfere with or disable any security-related features of the Site or Service, or any part thereof, including any Service available on or through any Third-Party Platforms; "

- I don't know for sure but I suspect that bypassing the client is quite likely to by pass some elements of the games security as well. Be interesting if they log in via the log on server or just generate their own token (which certainly would break this rule).

"Plarium reserves the right to determine what conduct it considers to be in violation of the rules of use or otherwise outside the intent or spirit of these Terms of Use or the Service itself."

- another catch, which means they don't have to write a rule speficially to cover a particular action, it just need to break the spirit of the rules

I think there is enough in the rules to cover banning an industrial scale botter, even if there appears to be no specific anti-bot rule.

Yep, I'm pretty sure this violates the T&C.  Will forward to plarium.  

That's right, it's against our ToU. But without their coordinates, I won't be able to find them. The best way here would be to report them to our Support team indicating these bots' coordinates. Please use this link to file a report. Thank you!

I don't understand the moral basis for this. 

A player is allowed to make multiple account,

Another player is not allowed to make multiple account (Bots)  and win a brawl. Why?

That player might have used numbers as names, but that is what he wants. 

I think he should only be banned if he is selling products, accounts, or cheats. He might be using an artficial method like a software to send intructions to a server. But there is no reason to believe he is harming Plarium. 

 At what level of sophistication does multiple account become illegal. 

Why not just ban all multiple accounts, bots, Alternative accounts, family that don't exist. Lets just have One account for every IP Address. This seems to me like the rules are prejudice against smart players who, because of their dedication, have invested their time and energy in doing things more efficient, like using mouse recorders and softwares.  

I think it not a matter of  Numbers or Names Plarium will only act if they see an account using a code that alters and or changes the code in the game.

 If they look into the account and find it has an altered game code then it will be acted on.

From terms of use 

Malicious Behavior

This includes any wilful attempt to compromise the security of our users, servers, or gaming environment. This may include, but is not limited to, the use of exploits, hacks, cheats, third party software, interference with financial transactions, or the malicious targeting of Plarium or user computers or networks. To help us combat these abuses, we rely on the assistance of our players. If you encounter an individual who appears to be engaging in any of the aforementioned behaviours, please report them to us immediately for investigation. 

I think the moral angle is about a level playing field.

Everyone is able to play multiple accounts. You get a benefit proportional to the time and effort you want to put into the game. If you only want to put in a fraction of of the time and effort, don't expect to be able to compete with someone who does. But there is a resolution to being behind, put more effort in.

With the industrial scale botting, someone can achieve progress than NO ONE can compete with. Therefore for fairness in the game it needs to be dealt with. Lack of game balance turns players off playing (Pirates got wrecked by the bots who ransomed beacons, killed many, which drove a ton of players out of the game - good for no1)

On a different note, the industrial bots are more often than not used to sell goods / services and sometimes accounts. This is directly canabalising Plarium's revenue stream. It's fine for Plarium to work to prevent this... and as it preserves the revenue generation and presumably possible investment in the game, good for the players also.

True. I agreed with the rules when multiple accounts were banned. But this seems unjustified now.

let me ask, If I make my own software, and use it to play my castle, or castles, is this OK? Since its  mine it is no longer "third party software". There are players that use mouse recorders to win Champion Duel. 

The league is called "The Faithful". It is possible to search the league list by name, and therefore access the complete list of accounts and ban them all in one go.

But to jump through the hoops....

Example castle can be found at -2855, -2359. 

The castles directly above and below it on the map are all all from the same league and are also bots. 

I did raise a support ticket. But I posted it hear because it's a pretty unique situation. No point just banning the single castle I reported. Support person needs to understand entire league is a serious problem and needs dealing with. That is best dealt with by explaining it here. Also we need feedback that is has been dealt with and how (which you don't get from support).

Thanks, in advance, for your help.

i

Here you have another league like the one mentioned above. I cannot even spell the name though, but ranking lists are full of them.

Yikes, the bots are raiding now?  :O

Quite easily, not sure if you are allowed to mention other games around here, but in another one I played that sounds similar to travesty they were a major issue. It is not too hard making armies of bots doing simple things like raiding and such on their own. In one server, while fighting a russian clan, we had hundreds of incoming attacks every day, 24/7, for months. Here it is not an effective tactic, thankfully. :)

That Russian league is not a bot league, but looks like an alt league managed by a couple of individuals. Alts are allowed. Sending a couple of raids with your alt is allowed. Doing a bunch of BG's is also allowed. 

To me it seems that this topic is just a simple prejudiced attack against players who have mastered the arts of multi-accounting. The issue here seems to be certain people complaining that certain players are doing better than them when it comes to alts. 

But we both know that every major league has over 30% alts. KT has over 60% alts. KoK has alts, Emperors have alts, everyone has alts. The issue here is that certain players are better at playing with their alts than others.

Also posting private coordinates of players is bkreaking the rules. Especially because you seem like an alt yourself. 

I can send this Russian player a list of all "bots" catles or alts of major leagues, and lets see if you will find it funny for him to post. The only who seem to be breaking the rules is you by posting their coordinates on the forum.  

This leagues are being misrepresented, those players are not bots, but are alts. Alts are allowed. 

This topic seems to be degenerating to a point where players label other players that are better than them as alts. If it is allowed to degenerate any further, then we will have a situation whereby  players post alts of other players/leagues as bots.

But an important issue has been raised, is using a self made, private assistive software that doesn't interfer in anyway with the game codes allowed. The player that DJ posted about was using a mouse recorder to play a bunch of BG's and Champions in multiple account to win a brawl. 

The russian league posted above just did a bunch of BG and raids, perhaps manually and legally without a software. Who is allowed to use assistive softwares? Who is allowed to have multiple accounts?

Oracle, I can't believe you are derailing the the topic- for what reason?

It's easy to see which accounts are a few ppl on alts and which are industrial scale bots which bypass the client and sent instructions straight to the server.

Simple alts don't all end up at the same level, with exactly the same points, with castles set out in exactly the same way, in perfect rows because they were all set up on the same day at exactly the same time by a machine following exactly the same code each time, everyday from now to eternity.

If you play alts manually, you end up doing different things on different days on different accounts. It's the human effect, cause you won't repeat the same steps identifcally every day on every account. You'll miss some accounts some days, forget to do some steps on one, linger and do more on another. Simply running alts, they all end up looking slighly different.

Even if you run a click bot like some players do, they fail at points and so the accounts diverge over time. They have to run with utter perfection to have exactly the same outcome - and that comes only from sending the instructions direct to the server. 

Here will be the easy pointers for Plarium:

a) same IP address for ALL the accounts (although if the botter is really covering their tracks they would be able to VPN and change the IP

b) the client is being bypassed to send the instructions (which is something Plarium could run checks for - given we all have to run their app now, if playing legitimately)

If they don't want to do it technically as per above - point b) being incontraverial fact that it's bots - then they can do it more subjectively by looking at the similarity between accounts and account performance. Where things are too indentical it's obviously hard core botting.

Can't believe you are being so blase about something that has ruined other games. It even ruined Pirates within Plarium's own product range.

It was plainly stated  But to make it clear if your not clicking manually or using an ingame purchased Feature sold by Plarium and avalible to all.  Any alernate means that give an unfair advantage is deemed  to be  Malicious.

 This means any wilful attempt to compromise the security of our users, servers, or gaming environment. This may include, but is not limited to, the use of exploits, hacks, cheats, third party software, 

At the very least what you are asking is to be allowed to use a cheat program to gain advantage over others who play by the agreement we all signed when we gained permission to Play any Plarium games.  It is inmaterial that you feel differently now about your Agreement now it is still in effect as long as anyone wants want to use and enjoy Plarium's games.  

Not sure if you are truly so ignorant that you think alts and bots are the same thing. DJ have pointed out a few ways to spot what is a bot rather than an alt, but I suppose you rather just ignore any evidence and think we are just jealous. 

As for me on a personal level, well, I can understand why you think I am an alt hiding behind this account. Even though you are wrong I would say that in 99% of the cases like mine, "old" account, never posted much, quite active and so forth, you would be spot on suspecting me of being an alt and I do not mind if you do. It is even to my advantage if you do. I do, however, find it funny that you attack me for being an alt while you at the same time try to defend other "alts" from my abuse. :)

To me alts are fine, abusive but fine, since I have never played any games that did not have a lot of alt abuse. However, bots are a completely other thing. They take things from being abusive to outright absurb, and if you think that your accusations will make me shut up and be afraid to post about that, then you are wrong.

As for posting coordinates, well, Alina said she cannot do anything without coordinates, so there they are. Who am I to say no to such requests. Sadly the same league has pages up and down with similar accounts, what I posted is only an example page. Now, if you feel this is so unfair of me and want to "abuse" my coordinates and post them somewhere to get me punished feel free to, they are: -1445; -2059 (Dark Plains).

Back to the topic of bots though, are admins going to do anything about it or let them run free? Remains to be seen, stay tuned.