OSRS - Bots, they are back

Bots have always been in Runescape (and other games), but, I have noticed in the last couple of weeks that there are more and more.  Every time I go to the G.E. (Grand Exchange) there are two or more bots advertising various sites for bots.  They think they are clever by using special characters and punctuation to hide the name of the site, but, I a person can recognize the URL it isn't that hard for a script to scan the logs of public conversations to find them too.  Every one I see I report just-in-case there is something new that may get missed.  I have noticed that Jagex has made a minor, but, nice change to the reporting function.  Before I would report and then mute so I wouldn't get 'spammed', but, now mute is part of the reporting function and that is a small AND nice change.  I trust that Jagex is on top of this and in the future do another bot nuke.

In my less-than-humble opinion they should also collaborate with the other gaming companies and see what can be done as a group.  I suspect the bot makers are not just Runescape specific and if the group can shut them down it would improve the game play as players cannot buy/cheat their way to being top tier players.  They also should follow the money.  Who is processing the credit card orders may be pressured into dropping the companies.

The sad thing is that bots will always be around and there is a small core of gamers who will not follow the rules and cheat their way through the game.  They think the goal is to finish all quests, get 99 in every skill, max out their banks and they are wrong.  The goal is explore what is there and the above is the end result of having fun.

Spam bot invasion

For the last few months the number of spams I receive daily has grown from maybe 1 or 2 a week to several an hour.  I need to leave my private on as I am a deputy owner for a clan and sometimes clan members need to pm me and they are not on my friends list.  I don't know what Jagex can do about this and I hope the next generation of bot detection/killing will help a bit.

I am not sure how feasible this is, but, if an account is reported by say 10 members for spamming maybe a mute for 72 hours could be implemented. 

Spammers, scammers and bots

After the nuking last year of a lot of bots it looks like the spammers, scammers and bots are making a comeback.  I know Jagex is doing what it can to kill them, but, the ones who turn loose the spam bots, scam bots and resource bots are still out there.  For the last several days I get anywhere from two to four 'PM' from throwaway accounts advertising the 'gold' sites (I won't name them so they don't any more business).  They try to hide the website names so that auto detection doesn't work, but, humans can detect them easily.  Each time it happens I report all of the accounts so that Jagex can see where they originate. 

I did a WHOIS lookup for the accounts and every one I found was a Chinese registered web site.  I wonder how long it will be before the internet as a whole tells China they will not have access to the internet until they clean up their house and prove it. 

I don't know what Jagex does in the background, but, if they are not already talking to other gaming companies it would be a good time now to start.  They can compare notes on how they handle this problem and as a group try to shut down this crap.  A good place would be to see who does the credit card processing for those sites and let them know what is going on and if they continue then they may be also be hauled to court as an accomplice to the spam/scam/bot providers.

The gold sites give an unfair advantage to players in that they can 'buy' gold for Runescape that can then buy materials for various skills or weapons.  With that flood of gold they drive up the price for the items so that it is harder for legit players to obtain those items.  Also, do you really trust these sites with your credit card information?

Bots make it harder for legit players to obtain the resources they need and also flood the market with a large amount of raw materials which has the effect of driving down prices.  With the low prices and competition for those resources a lot of players are not doing those skills or going to other games.  This hurts all legit players.

One of the good places to look at right now is the green dragons.  There are a lot of players there with identical setups taking out the dragons for their bones and hides. 

Bots and scammers

For the last bit I have noticed that I am getting private messages from obvious bots to go to a site for 'GOLD'.  Obviously that is a scam looking for your credit card information.  If you get that message ignore it and report the user.

I have also seen spam bots in Yanille advertising the new RS 3 Beta site.  As far as I know there is no BETA runescape.  I won't give the name of the site as I don't want to drive traffic to their site.

1. The people who are advertising are normal players and not Jagex.
2. I checked the WHOIS information and it is registered in Los Angeles and not to Jagex.
3. If Jagex truly has a new version it would either be mentioned on the website or a secure email sent to players on the site and not advertised to everyone.  The point of a beta is a controlled run to see how it works and get feedback from the players.
4. The java certificate is not signed and therefore it is not Jagex!

Don't go to the site advertised as all they are wanting is your userid and password.  Once they get they get that they probably will wipe out your account, or, turn it into a spam bot and you lose absolutely everything!

I also reported it to Google safeweb as something that should be blacklisted.  If it works and enough people report it then Google Chrome and Firefox (and maybe other browsers) will flag the site as unsafe and give those people who don't know any better a second chance before entering their log on credentials.

Bots are getting to be a major pain again

For the last bit I have noticed more bots on the P2P sites.  The auto typing bots at the G.E. advertising the sites are getting to be a major pain.  When I was on the F2P site with my other account it was even worse.  The G.E. seems to be almost all bots, the chat window scrolls with all of the bots advertising various sites for 'GOLD' and other crap.  I was glad when I saw the Jagex announcement on the bot problem and that they are looking at it. 

I hope that they are also looking at the companies who process the payments.  Follow the money and then find the choke point financially and shut that down.  It won`t shut all of the bot makers, but, if we shut off their flow of money it will hurt them and possible cause a number of smaller outfits to shut down.  That and when they do get the list of players who make use of those services Jagex should ban the accounts for life.  These bots are making playing in a number of areas almost impossible as we cannot compete with them for the resources and the fact that players are `buying` gold and that allows them to buy other resources and increase the price offered for the items.  That causes a bubble in the prices that makes it harder for legit players like me to pay inflated prices. 

Lastly I hope that Jagex does figure out how to detect bot and macros then ban those cheats for life.  If you want to play then follow the rules and don`t use the cheats. 

Another dumb scammer - Jag Corp Aja

I just got a private PM from someone with the account 'JAG CORP AJA'.  They noted that 'we can noticed a certain maturity...' and then they offered me the chance to fill in a player moderation form for the chance to become a player moderator.  I decided to '???' back to them for a response and when they replied I noted that they are a free account and there was not a crown on their chat.  They told me that if I didn't trust them I didn't have to fill in the form and that they had a lot of players waiting.

Jagex never offers that, you receive an invite via your Runescape account mail so it was a scam.  I reported them for impersonating staff as the name does try to give the air that they are official Jagex.  You can check out the Safety & Security Guidlines - Scamming Prevention Guide for more information.