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. 

Bot-busting and rewarding good players

It has finally happened.  Jagex, the makers of Runscape are now getting around to nuking the bots who are making game play almost impossible for F2P in many areas (and some P2P) and distorting the market by making materials cheaper than they should be.  They are also rewarding players who didn't bot with bonus experience points (XP) for a variety of tasks for the week starting October 25.

It was overdue, but, I can understand why it took so long.  They had to determine a way to detect the bots reliably and then figure out what they needed to change in the game code to flag them.  I am very happy that they got around and kill the bots as I was looking at something else to play as I couldn't get much done with the bots.  A lot of players probably will be upset at getting banned, but, from my point of view 'do the crime do the time' and that means you get banned for breaking the rules of the game.  They also don't realize that the 'bot' they buy may also have other code that will steal information (like banking, password, etc) or make their machine into a spambot.

I know that for some people that working on skills is a long, hard and boring process.  There are ways to relieve the tedium of game play.  I normally work on a skill 30-60 minutes and then switch to another skill.  I also try to work on skills that feed other skills.  For example I woodcut yew.  I then fletch the logs into longbows and string them.  Once I am done I sell the bows and buy more bowstrings.  This is actually paying for itself and I have over 16,000 bow strings already for future work.  Another example is that I mine gold ore.  Once I get a good supply I then smelt the ore and then make amulets and then I sell them to buy teak planks for house construction.  Another hint is I play penguin-hide-and-seek each week and apply the rewards to what ever skill I want.  I normally get 35k of experience a week from playing one hour.  My next to last hint is the 'Jack of all Trades' aura, you can use that once a day and the reward amount depends on your skill level.  My last hint is that you should also check out the shattered hearts distraction as you can redeem your stones once a week for a nice bit of bonus XP.  I normally get 1 million to 1.5 million XP per week doing all of the above and working on all my skills and I spend maybe two hours an evening playing.

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.

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.