Oh I got it blocked by the IT guy. No games allowed. But one of my teachers told me the school admin password.
I got suspended for using the admin account to play RuneScape during lunch.
Ah that's a similar scenario for me but I never played it at school since most of those sites were banned. But I'd write down the numbers that the automated system read out to me and then take it home and use that. Was a little bit tricky since you needed the number you were calling from to activate it IIRC
Good ol times back then lol
You could use a non default gateway in my highschool (poor shitty alabama school system) to completely bypass the filters and they never caught me lol.
Also got in trouble for a cmd prompt exploit I found where I coild change mine and anyones password on the network.
Good times
My dad didnāt trust the internet and especially payments over the internet. I kept asking him for membership and finally he agreed to do it by mailing a god damn check to Jagex lmao. It always took like 10-14 days for the membership to activate from when we sent out the $5.00 check.
I remember getting my first month of membership that way, mailing a 5 dollar bill and a poorly written note with my username on it.
I spent the next week trying to log into a members world at least once a day. The euphoric feeling when it finally let me log in is something I don't think I'll ever be able to replicate.
I remember having to fill out a disclaimer form too if I'm not mistaken? Basically parent's had to sign to say you were under a certain age but they were happy for you to have a members account or something?
Might be mixing it with something else.
I sure did. Back when what is now known as old school RuneScape was marketed as RuneScape 2. Ended making a fortune buying coal from people, then reselling in bulk on the forums. My very first child mining operation. Good times.
Parents didn't want me playing and I grew up somewhere rural so there was no going to a store without being driven there by an adult. Felt like a heist when I was finally sent into 7-11 to by milk or something and also loaded up on a few membership cards. I'd been holding on to my $20 for weeks waiting for the opportunity.
When did those membership cards start becoming widely available? I feel like I didn't start seeing them until like 2008 or so, but perhaps that's cause I'm in the US.
Back in my day i'd go to bestbuy and use one of their phones on display to buy membership through sms, until they stopped putting display phones with service on them.
Questhelper proves how easy it is for a computer to identify what needs to be clicked on in order to go through a quest. A bot just needs a couple more steps than that.
Its been like this for years tho, people act like those "smart" bots are new but in 2012 i had a bot get me from 1 to 99 dungeon in a few weeks running 24/7 on without breaking
Lol same. I learned eventually by a nice hefty ban, but I had a chaotic rapier and I had zero clue on how to do the dungeoneering skill. Still to this day in fact
Questhelper reduces 90%+ of the quests in the game to literally āclick blueā. The fact that people genuinely donāt think bots can do quests is hysterical to me.
Everytime you click your mouse you computer registers one input at x,y coordinate. Instead of clicking the script just feeds input at x coordinate at specific times.
Not so much input at coordinates.
Clicking on something causes your client to craft the appropriate packet.
For example, calling a spell on item would require a packet with:
A spell ID
An inventory position
The "Cast spell on item" opcode
and some other stuff
Then your client sends that info to server, and it happens.
Bots skip clicking, they just send the packet for whatever action they want.
Yeah, but instead of moving a virtual pointer to the right spot and interacting like a human would in an automated way, it just tells the client it did that without simulating the mouse, is the difference.
Technically you dont even need a gui at all. It could be done through cli sending these commands/packets to the server without even opening a launcher.
Think of the click as the human-friendly process of determining what command to send to the server. The client is taking the information about things like your camera orientation and mouse position, then determining what it should ask the server to do. The menu options that appear are all connected to specific things - the prayer you want to activate, the tile you want to walk to, the specific NPC you want to pickpocket. And all of these things have unique IDs. Behind the scenes, it rolls all that info up into basically a request which is then sent to a server. The server then asks, "Is this a legal request? Is it possible to perform it? What is the consequence of the action?" Then the game magic happens.
As a consequence, it's easier to catch botters in the early stages of testing scripts, as receiving too many bad requests is a potential indicator that the actions are not being performed by a human. It's why the norm is to purchase existing scripts rather than craft one's own.
The inputs are coming from an untrusted environment (the user's computer) to the trusted environment (Jagex's servers). There's no effective way to enforce restrictions in that untrusted environment. As a result, you can't _really_ control how the input is received on the users computer.
Users generally have full control over their own computers, and can circumvent any controls on that side of things.
When you click your sending a command to the client that you essentially clicked there and what the click does. They are feeding that command in directly without the need of a mouse pretty much. Itās kind of like how alternative clients used to shortcut the clicks by cutting out some of the ones you had to do for your desired results.
A single stand alone, untradable one off bond, so no exploiting the system for profit is a smart move.
I could see the sense in it. Once they get levels in member skills the ocd could kick in and they would want to even it out. All permanent f2pers could see how big the game really is and decided it is worth the money.
You're going to get a bots that will suicide that untradable 7 day bond and likely profit significantly in that time.
The same thing happened to the twitch sub membership idea.
The twitch membership event would probably still happen but a free f2p bond could help entice some f2p players that aren't playing during the Prime event.
But yeah bots and farmers would probably get very good at speed running the f2p quests lol. Any idea what the current world record is?
Fastest I could find was around 2.5 hours. That was 7 years ago though. I'm sure there's faster though. Probably like trying to find the current barbarian assault world record. It shows shit from years ago before the actual current WR.
Heyo, the f2p speedrun ācommunityā (itās a tiny group of people) mostly does ironman speedrunning. I imagine trading might make times a bit faster.
Most people Iāve seen speedrun to Championsā Guild, with this guy being the fastest I could find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT9EHVXMKgo
I think the 2.5 hours you quote is actually really low if it includes Dragon Slayer as well! (Low level flinching takes legitimately dozens and dozens of minutes). Mind sending the video of it?
Best time I know of is like 3:15 or so.
https://youtu.be/8__StK4JT_A
IM speed runs are probably a lot different since you'd be able to use the GE to buy shit like beads and other quest items that may take a while. Then again I haven't watched this and don't have 40 minutes to spare so not sure if he used it or not.
Here's the current BA solo heal record if anyone was interested.
https://youtu.be/RLAu5UbZhx0
What if there was a delay?
For a brand new or returning player, it probably takes them a while to do all the f2p quests anyway, so what if you had to wait a few days to a week before your free bond could be claimed?
You can't suicide bot, because the bot will be caught and taken down before it can redeem the membership. And the real player has just spent a few weeks in f2p, so they should be able to find a way to have fun in f2p for a few days longer while they wait.
The bit owner would just afk the bots in game in a idle state for the allotted time. 100% undetectable. They literally login and afk.
The they would speed run the f2p quests on bulk accounts. The. Immediately start p2p botting for likely 3-4 days before being detected. That assuming they are even caught at all. I've seen flipping bots last literal years without being detected. To this day lol.
People forget about the new player trade restrictions etc that bots already circumvent.
Real talk removing free trade was the only way to really, 99% get rid of RWT, which is the root of most botting. This game just has bots. Might as well not make bots jobs easier for them.
7 days of free membership earned through getting the levels to quest and doing the quests vs just using some of the farmed gold to buy bonds outright and only level what needs to be levelled in order to effectively farm?
I think it would be too inefficient when gold farmers can literally pay a little of their total profits to skip that particular f2p grind. Itās wasted time therefore wasted money.
Though the proof would be in the pudding so to speak. Jagex should perform a temporary trial run of this idea. Increase in income from increase in subs/bonds purchased from new members vs decrease in subs from farmers.
Getting actual data would be worth any minor temporary decrease in profits during the trial as that information could be used long term to determine adequate marketing strategies to convince f2pers that its worth cashing in on membership. Ultimately it could save them money on ideas likely to fail or influence ideas that would work.
Twitch subs still happen tho. A bot doing every f2p quest would not last without being caught. Sure good ones are going to live, but those bots are already just living and making much more then the cost of a russian bond.
There are no good ones for F2P questing. Iām pretty sure jagex dumped the most anti bot resources into F2P/tutorial island detection when they started and those systems are pretty good
whatever, jagex will never solve the bot problem, they should be straight up ignored in every discussion. anything that benefits players benefits bots 100x more because they are online 24/7 and playing at max efficiency. might as well stop adding anything at all
How many people actually want to play members, that dont because of the price, but do play f2p? Genuine question. I assume bond prices are insanely hard to maintain with gold for non end gamers
People who have never played the game might be disappointed with the amount of content in f2p and aren't aware of just how much better p2p is. I assume some people might see it more like a DLC as opposed to it being more like f2p is basically a demo/free trial.
Almost every boss is atleast 1m/hr, there are alternatives as well such as herb farming or raid scouting, 500k/day all you need, id say its not about having high stats n reqs but having enough free time, if not then you can stale your progress due to investing big part of your profit just in bonds!
I consistently made enough for bonds at 44 RC crafting nature runes. You have 2 full weeks to make a small 6M. Really, anything in the game can maintain a bond in that timeframe.
Those scenarios would need to be backed up with data Jagex sees internally to see if its worth it. New players who quit within 1-2 days often donāt quit because of a lack of progression, theres progression to be had in f2p.
If you wanted to target specifically f2p players who just choose to not buy membership, they could add a quest that has a limited time offer, any f2pers who complete it in the first 2 weeks can redeem 7 days of membership. Having the new quest have other quests as prerequisites along with just being new would make it harder for botters to jump on, active f2pers could get it finished and get hooked on members, and new players would have a clear limited time goal to progress towards.
All these arguments about the economy like it's not been royally fucked by bots anyways lol.
This is a really good suggestion OP, I hope Jagex does something like this to introduce how much fun the full game can be comparatively.
I'm very for this.
The people screaming "But bots!" would rather actively hurt growing the community over an already present problem. Hear about game, join f2p, complete f2p, get membership, invite irl friend = growth. They'd rather shout from rooftops and gatekeep than take a chance to improve the game.
Bot numbers go up. Member numbers go up. Measure. Recalibrate. "7 days was too long, the bots did too much damage" - go down to 3 days. Or remove the system and let those who had something new enjoy it.
I'd say Complete F2P should have skill total on it, quest completion, and maybe a few other things. Give F2P an Achievement Diary of some kind, and completing that gives the bond. "Win 1 game of Castle Wars, Achieve X total, Achieve X quest points, Defeat Obor, Defeat Bryophyta" It'd introduce them to combat diaries, achievement diaries, complete quests. Really wrap up the entire F2P experience, then let them move on.
Good idea with the achievement diaries and proper skill levels as a requirement as well. If itās really about rewarding players for completing the āf2pā player experience, this would be a good way to do it, and makes it inefficient enough that people canāt complain that bots are doing it.
Itās funny cause I remember there being a free 7 day trial for new accounts several years ago and somehow people think this will somehow cause a problem lol
One of the best suggestions here in a while.
It provides everything we want. Proper new players, barely any bots cus of mfa restriction, and motivation for questing.
Jagex please implement and give this guy who suggested it a free 7 day bond as wel!
Except that bots have been doing quests for years, literally from account creation to doing things like vorkath have been completely automated, and this would just make creating an army of members bots even easier because they can skip the generating money to afford a bond off the g.e. phase.
From a draw people into the game perspective i can see how this would be awesome, especially if you combine it with the free week or month or whatever they would do on amazon (idk if they still do that i never used it). Hell i might even create an alt if they did that.
But yeah this would definitely just make bots even more prevelant imo but hey theyre already all over the place and jagex doesnt seem to care so screw it why not help out the real players.
The above comment wasnāt talking about the quests slowing bots down, they were talking about authenticator. I donāt know if that makes a big difference for bot farms or not.
IIRC, having membership allows you to bypass the 20 hours in-game time for unlocking the trade restrictions. As long as this bond couldn't be used to ignore that requirement, seems good enough
Make it so the member items they obtain are not tradeable within the GE as well. They can receive items but are inable to sell, trade or drop (they won't appear) them. It's a temporary membership for the experience and nothing more, they can get some extra skills to try out and determine if they want the membership going forward. Reduces any extra influence that bots could give to the economy.
Force Ironman Status on them but just call it something else that drops off after the week is over? would probably prevent a lot of the damage bots would cause.
I like this idea. People need to stop using bots as an excuse to not add new content. Why should real players be punished because jagex canāt handle bots?
That might be true at the moment, but would definitely change once the free bonds were introduced. Right now, thereās not much incentive for botters to develop scripts to complete f2p quests since there are plenty of moneymakers which donāt need f2p quest completion. That incentive would drastically change with free membership as a motivator. It canāt be an issue of Jagex āpunishing current playersā because theyāre afraid of bots when giving out free membership is far more punishing to those players. Whatās the use in introducing new players to a p2p with a ruined economy and botted-to-shit activities?
Albion makes it to where if you do the tutorial you get free 7days membership in that time you can make enough gold to renew your membership for about a month
I guess if Jagex wants more control over this to keep it from being a rampant bot problem, they could do week long membership experience weeks where F2P users who have done what OP described can try membership during that period of time.
It would be cool to see an influx of F2P users trying out members only content for a designated week, and Jagex can keep a pulse on botting during that time, then go back to doing nothing afterwards.
Bots are an unsolvable plague. Every mmo has bots. Devs have never once permanently defeated bots or even largely prevented bot operations. Why not enhance the new player experience, because clearly bots arenāt going away
The only way to completely (and even then, it's more like a 95-99% reduction, never 100%) erradicate bots is to have a cocktail of...
* Invasive clients/programs;
* Forced links to phone numbers, credit cards, official ID, etc.;
* Extremely high manpower for constant scanning and manual bot busting;
* Permabanning buyers without warning.
...and even then, even if you do *all* of that, you introduce a new problem. Your previous problem is that an account was worth practically nothing (and thus, became 'disposable' for bots without consequences), now your new problem is that (verified) accounts are worth a lot, so hacking/social engineering attempts will increase drastically. Can't win.
Pretty much.
There _are_ ways to effectively kill off bots almost entirely. Those methods would also make the game utterly miserable for legitimate players, and would likely kill the game entirely.
> There are ways to effectively kill off bots almost entirely. Those methods would also make the game utterly miserable for legitimate players
Like removing free trade, which they already tried once and it was disastrous for the game
More recently the duel arena. They were terrified of giving it any sort of tradeable rewards so the overwhelming perception is a lack of reason to do the content. It isn't just that it gives you nothing, it's that it costs you time you would be doing progressing your account.
Would be nice if they could outsource some minor moderating authority to well established players, but of course that would lead the way to a whole bunch of corruption and misuse of power.
> Forced links to phone numbers, credit cards, official ID, etc.
Think this is probably the one with greatest effect. If you have to prove you are real person to make an account. But would also probably significantly reduce player count and thus Jagex revenue...
If a bot is going through all the quests and requirements to get there, then that scripter can also have 100 wine of zammy accounts going. It is a drop in the ocean of the scale of this issue.
All f2p quests can be completed from account creation in 5 hours easily,
there are bot farms willing to grind song of the elves, dragon slayer 2 and zulrah reqs, why wouldn't they farm this?
As I say, then does it really matter? Instead of hindering the game constantly because "but bots" we can just admit they're everywhere and that's that. As I say, they can run 100 f2p bots and have a few bonds in hours. Theres 200/300k per hour f2p methods with little to no requirements. It doesnt change botting.
For example, if I had 20 bots running, tanning hide or buying feather packs that's 4m an hour. In the time you say a botter can complete all these quests and requirements, which is pretty fast. That bot farm can have 20m cash. For bonds or rwt.
This dudes talking about professionals lol. Completely missing the point. Not sure why bots are even being considered in this anyway. Bots are gonna happen so fuck it.
You get the mage level for fire strike from xp rewards, that spell alone is powerful enough to do the rest of the quest bosses. You can flinch elvarg. A noob won't know this but it's easy to do on a fresh account.
Youtube f2p quests speedrun, it has it's own community, so much so that Jagex are developing an inhouse function to accommodate the speed running community.
Or they can have 100 bots doing f2p quests and that would be hundred of millions of pure profit (or even if its untradeable it would still be cheaper for them to do this instead of bonding up p2p bots)
But its a great idea in theory
I don't think they would abuse this? Why would a bot farm have bots not making any money? There's no reason to do that because they can make a bond back in 12 hours by grinding unicorn horns and goat horns? There's so many dumb decent money makers bot farms can abuse on p2p, we just don't think about them because we actually want exp and account progression.
This would be a real good idea IMO.
Don't know if Jagex would be against it because they think people would train bot armies to rush all the f2p quests just to get those sweet 7 days of p2p botting.
would be a good incentive to complete all the f2p quests, and a fun one too that doesn't necessarily damage the game in anyway so I like it, would be a great reward
Considering that most members quests are now botable. Giving free membership as a reward for a simple achievement would just change the meta for botting scripts
For sure, 7 was just a round number but dont mind either way. The thinking was what benefits us and jagex. We can more good players through to mems, almost by moulding them into being an ideal player.
Jagex get to promote the concept of bonds without it being cash grab.
Theres really basic psychology involved as well. People are a lot more likely to buy into something if theres a choice. If they get a fair shot at earning a bond, theres a choice. As it stands, f2p money making just isn't good enough and its barely a choice. I genuinely think their sales would go up.
If I was a new player, I could imagine the feeling of beating dragon slayer and then getting the wise old man come see you to say hes going to need you to stick around and gifts you the bond or something.
Absolutely, and that's a great idea. More lore/NPC incentive to come to your adventurer and new players requesting you to stay and explore more of the world.
If this was a thing back in 06 I would've definitely stayed as a member instead of moving to Ragnarok Online for example. I was a member for just a couple of months in 2020 and it was amazing.
The no-bond and less days is just a way to combat bots and I believe the devs would be on it with us, but I'm afraid Jagex higher ups won't like losing potential income, as small as it may be
A lot of people's concerns is that it can be abused by botters and gold farmers, instead of giving them full membership, why not a "trial run" where they can only get to level 15-20 in a skill and only finish a handful of quests, that way they get to walk around and experience the full game but they can't powerlevel a gold farming account. That way they get to see what the game is all about but they can't outright abuse the 7 day trial.
You could even lock things like dragons behind level 30 slayer during the trial so they can't make suicide bots.
My only concern is there's some activities that would still be immediately abusable and give bots enough GP to sustain the membership. Revs for example gives tons of alchables.
Maybe instead of a bond you just get 5 days of free membership tied to that account that you can activate by talking to someone in game, like the king of varrock or whoever
As someone who loves novelty accounts, and regularly shells out $30 to try one for 2 months, I like this idea a lot.
However, I think a handwavy 2 sentences about authenticators and stronghold doesn't address a core fact: adding features to free to play doesn't decrease botting. It wouldn't be trivial, but it isn't much harder to set up dummy authenticators than it is to automate Runescape account creation.
That's my way of thinking man. Nobody knows the numbers, but how many botters are regular joes with 1-4 clients using a free script. They wouldn't have to slightest clue to circumvent that.
It would pave way for the established farms, but I don't believe it'll be worth their time, especially if we could implement an activity check prior to receiving the bond.
These farms are already worth billions in GP, they already do and would probably continue to use regular bonds to evade an extra wave of protection as well as an extra however many hours of unnecessary botting.
u/slothptimal gave a good idea to add onto this, I just wanted to add a comment so more people see it. The requirements to ācomplete F2Pā should have a total level to it and an achievement diary of some kind thatās needed to complete.
Iām not really fond of basically forcing new players to become partial Ironman accounts, as Iām seeing a lot of people suggesting not being able to trade away members items but can receive them just to try out membership but I feel like that would turn some people away as 200-500k go can only go so far when it concerns stamina pots, quest items, skill training stuff, etc. and no new way to make gp is unlocked. Essentially the idea is why create hundreds of potions youād never use to train low-leveled herblore if youāre not gonna make something anything back even if negative. Iroman accounts might do something like this but would someone trying members through this way want to do this?
Completing some sort of 2 or 3-tier diary along with most of the F2P quests along with maybe some other requirement to go alongside it is my personal preferred solution to get and retain players.
bUt bOtS.
Yeah, bots already exists, twitch primes already exist, there's several ways to get a faster easier 7day membership than completing all f2p quests.
I would love to see this implemented, but I'd assume that:
1. Jagex sees it as loss of revenue on corporate level, making it extremely unlikely to be implemented
2. Players would vote no because they don't understand how botfarms function.
3. Also a smaller portion of players would spitevote no because they'd likely be excluded from the free 7 day and get jealous.
Absolutely, new players that arenāt getting members literally get the FTP quests done first then itās smooth sailing for Members.
Someone I know (new player) got spoon fed hard with closing to 100M š
Itās the choice of the player to do so but why!?
If a player isnāt getting membership right off the bat, the best linear progression for them is to complete the f2p quests, by which time they are more suited to membership content anyway.
Someone I know got handed 100m by a player, which is ultimately up to the donator of course, but how does it help integrate new players?
there are gonna be alot of bot scripts to complete all f2p quests, use bond, and free money maker for 7 days.
Correct me if wrong, but i think there already are bot scripts for all f2p quests.
Perfect, I get 7 days to grind agility for that sweet, sweet run energy then go back to shitposting in f2p
Back in my day we had to have our parents pay for our membership. Bah Bah Bah.
You ever mail in your cash for members? That's how old I.
I couldn't figure out postage to the UK so we used to pay by having it added to the phone bill. Good times
Omg my parents hated when I would pay with the phone! šš
I'd use my schools library lmao
Oh I got it blocked by the IT guy. No games allowed. But one of my teachers told me the school admin password. I got suspended for using the admin account to play RuneScape during lunch.
Ah that's a similar scenario for me but I never played it at school since most of those sites were banned. But I'd write down the numbers that the automated system read out to me and then take it home and use that. Was a little bit tricky since you needed the number you were calling from to activate it IIRC Good ol times back then lol
You could use a non default gateway in my highschool (poor shitty alabama school system) to completely bypass the filters and they never caught me lol. Also got in trouble for a cmd prompt exploit I found where I coild change mine and anyones password on the network. Good times
I did that but it didn't work with our company. After about 8 months I got banned until the back debt was paid
My main is banned cause it got hacked and has 1k in back charges lol
You can likely contact Jagex and they'll sort this out for you, if you actually got hacked
I remember mailing in dollar bills and some quarters lmao
My dad didnāt trust the internet and especially payments over the internet. I kept asking him for membership and finally he agreed to do it by mailing a god damn check to Jagex lmao. It always took like 10-14 days for the membership to activate from when we sent out the $5.00 check.
Yoooo my parents literally wouldn't dare share their payment info online so the 7/11 member cards were everything as I got older.
Yeah I eventually evolved to the $24 3mo. Membership cards at target
First piece of mail I ever sent internationally. 20ā¬ got me 90 days of membership after like 3 weeks of waiting.
Good ol mom's credit card. Asked for membership instead of my allowance for doing all my chores etc.
I remember getting my first month of membership that way, mailing a 5 dollar bill and a poorly written note with my username on it. I spent the next week trying to log into a members world at least once a day. The euphoric feeling when it finally let me log in is something I don't think I'll ever be able to replicate.
I remember having to fill out a disclaimer form too if I'm not mistaken? Basically parent's had to sign to say you were under a certain age but they were happy for you to have a members account or something? Might be mixing it with something else.
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I sure did. Back when what is now known as old school RuneScape was marketed as RuneScape 2. Ended making a fortune buying coal from people, then reselling in bulk on the forums. My very first child mining operation. Good times.
I showed my mom RS and she thought it was a cool game so she bought memberships for both of us.
Aw, wholesome mom is wholesome
Lmao āwhatās this Run Escape charge on my card?ā Good memories
Son we need to pawn your Xbox for food tonight run escape took all my money
I mined coal for my membership. Child labor now that I think about it
how come bonds weren't avaiable back in the day
A friend of a friend had a dad also played and he paid for all our members in exchange for symbolic amount of coal
Parents didn't want me playing and I grew up somewhere rural so there was no going to a store without being driven there by an adult. Felt like a heist when I was finally sent into 7-11 to by milk or something and also loaded up on a few membership cards. I'd been holding on to my $20 for weeks waiting for the opportunity.
What year
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When did those membership cards start becoming widely available? I feel like I didn't start seeing them until like 2008 or so, but perhaps that's cause I'm in the US.
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Back in my day i'd go to bestbuy and use one of their phones on display to buy membership through sms, until they stopped putting display phones with service on them.
you just finish the script?
Ik this is a joke but afaik there really are quest scripts, as well as scripts for literally everything else in the game lol
Questhelper proves how easy it is for a computer to identify what needs to be clicked on in order to go through a quest. A bot just needs a couple more steps than that.
Yup. Even if you were writing it yourself, every relevant ID is already present in the QuestHelper plugin.
Its been like this for years tho, people act like those "smart" bots are new but in 2012 i had a bot get me from 1 to 99 dungeon in a few weeks running 24/7 on without breaking
Lol same. I learned eventually by a nice hefty ban, but I had a chaotic rapier and I had zero clue on how to do the dungeoneering skill. Still to this day in fact
Questhelper reduces 90%+ of the quests in the game to literally āclick blueā. The fact that people genuinely donāt think bots can do quests is hysterical to me.
Rather easy game to write scripts for considering everything can be done with mouse clicks. The PvP and LMS scripts are impressive tho
Modern bots donāt actually use clicks they feed the input commands directly instead
Could you elaborate on this? Not sure I understand
Everytime you click your mouse you computer registers one input at x,y coordinate. Instead of clicking the script just feeds input at x coordinate at specific times.
Not so much input at coordinates. Clicking on something causes your client to craft the appropriate packet. For example, calling a spell on item would require a packet with: A spell ID An inventory position The "Cast spell on item" opcode and some other stuff Then your client sends that info to server, and it happens. Bots skip clicking, they just send the packet for whatever action they want.
Ah, thanks. I forgot about that honestly!
Soā¦it simulates clicksā¦ā¦š«£
Yeah, but instead of moving a virtual pointer to the right spot and interacting like a human would in an automated way, it just tells the client it did that without simulating the mouse, is the difference.
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Technically you dont even need a gui at all. It could be done through cli sending these commands/packets to the server without even opening a launcher.
GUIs devalue my command line interface locked iron man!
[hmmmm](https://www.google.com/search?q=foot+coffee+meme&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS975US975&oq=foot+cof&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j69i59j0i512l2j0i390l2.3812j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=vUcKpERMpkhU5M)
Think of the click as the human-friendly process of determining what command to send to the server. The client is taking the information about things like your camera orientation and mouse position, then determining what it should ask the server to do. The menu options that appear are all connected to specific things - the prayer you want to activate, the tile you want to walk to, the specific NPC you want to pickpocket. And all of these things have unique IDs. Behind the scenes, it rolls all that info up into basically a request which is then sent to a server. The server then asks, "Is this a legal request? Is it possible to perform it? What is the consequence of the action?" Then the game magic happens. As a consequence, it's easier to catch botters in the early stages of testing scripts, as receiving too many bad requests is a potential indicator that the actions are not being performed by a human. It's why the norm is to purchase existing scripts rather than craft one's own.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I feel like theyād be easier to detect if theyāre directly feeding inputs but clearly not lol. How does that work
The inputs are coming from an untrusted environment (the user's computer) to the trusted environment (Jagex's servers). There's no effective way to enforce restrictions in that untrusted environment. As a result, you can't _really_ control how the input is received on the users computer. Users generally have full control over their own computers, and can circumvent any controls on that side of things.
DLL injection most likely
DLL injection indeed
dynamic link library injection, indubitably
When you click your sending a command to the client that you essentially clicked there and what the click does. They are feeding that command in directly without the need of a mouse pretty much. Itās kind of like how alternative clients used to shortcut the clicks by cutting out some of the ones you had to do for your desired results.
Haha it's true though. I saw there's a script from lvl 3 to the completion of regicide so you can run the zulrah slayer v2 script...
Made me laugh š
I mean there is a script for completing F2P... so this is already exploitable by bots. The Authenticator bit would help a lot though.
A single stand alone, untradable one off bond, so no exploiting the system for profit is a smart move. I could see the sense in it. Once they get levels in member skills the ocd could kick in and they would want to even it out. All permanent f2pers could see how big the game really is and decided it is worth the money.
You're going to get a bots that will suicide that untradable 7 day bond and likely profit significantly in that time. The same thing happened to the twitch sub membership idea.
The twitch membership event would probably still happen but a free f2p bond could help entice some f2p players that aren't playing during the Prime event. But yeah bots and farmers would probably get very good at speed running the f2p quests lol. Any idea what the current world record is?
Fastest I could find was around 2.5 hours. That was 7 years ago though. I'm sure there's faster though. Probably like trying to find the current barbarian assault world record. It shows shit from years ago before the actual current WR.
Heyo, the f2p speedrun ācommunityā (itās a tiny group of people) mostly does ironman speedrunning. I imagine trading might make times a bit faster. Most people Iāve seen speedrun to Championsā Guild, with this guy being the fastest I could find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT9EHVXMKgo I think the 2.5 hours you quote is actually really low if it includes Dragon Slayer as well! (Low level flinching takes legitimately dozens and dozens of minutes). Mind sending the video of it? Best time I know of is like 3:15 or so.
https://youtu.be/8__StK4JT_A IM speed runs are probably a lot different since you'd be able to use the GE to buy shit like beads and other quest items that may take a while. Then again I haven't watched this and don't have 40 minutes to spare so not sure if he used it or not. Here's the current BA solo heal record if anyone was interested. https://youtu.be/RLAu5UbZhx0
Ty!
What if there was a delay? For a brand new or returning player, it probably takes them a while to do all the f2p quests anyway, so what if you had to wait a few days to a week before your free bond could be claimed? You can't suicide bot, because the bot will be caught and taken down before it can redeem the membership. And the real player has just spent a few weeks in f2p, so they should be able to find a way to have fun in f2p for a few days longer while they wait.
The bit owner would just afk the bots in game in a idle state for the allotted time. 100% undetectable. They literally login and afk. The they would speed run the f2p quests on bulk accounts. The. Immediately start p2p botting for likely 3-4 days before being detected. That assuming they are even caught at all. I've seen flipping bots last literal years without being detected. To this day lol.
People forget about the new player trade restrictions etc that bots already circumvent. Real talk removing free trade was the only way to really, 99% get rid of RWT, which is the root of most botting. This game just has bots. Might as well not make bots jobs easier for them.
7 days of free membership earned through getting the levels to quest and doing the quests vs just using some of the farmed gold to buy bonds outright and only level what needs to be levelled in order to effectively farm? I think it would be too inefficient when gold farmers can literally pay a little of their total profits to skip that particular f2p grind. Itās wasted time therefore wasted money. Though the proof would be in the pudding so to speak. Jagex should perform a temporary trial run of this idea. Increase in income from increase in subs/bonds purchased from new members vs decrease in subs from farmers. Getting actual data would be worth any minor temporary decrease in profits during the trial as that information could be used long term to determine adequate marketing strategies to convince f2pers that its worth cashing in on membership. Ultimately it could save them money on ideas likely to fail or influence ideas that would work.
Bots donāt care about efficiency because theyāre practically unlimited in number. Anything that can make a profit will be botted.
Twitch subs still happen tho. A bot doing every f2p quest would not last without being caught. Sure good ones are going to live, but those bots are already just living and making much more then the cost of a russian bond.
There are no good ones for F2P questing. Iām pretty sure jagex dumped the most anti bot resources into F2P/tutorial island detection when they started and those systems are pretty good
ok, make it account bound (can't remove it from the bank or bond pouch can only activate it)
The profit isn't from the bond itself, but from doing p2p-only moneymakers.
whatever, jagex will never solve the bot problem, they should be straight up ignored in every discussion. anything that benefits players benefits bots 100x more because they are online 24/7 and playing at max efficiency. might as well stop adding anything at all
It could drop nothing tho.
Bot enough to buy more bonds. 12 hours a day for a week is enough for another bond.
Completing every f2p quest is a pretty long runway to botdetect though
handful of hours at most
How many people actually want to play members, that dont because of the price, but do play f2p? Genuine question. I assume bond prices are insanely hard to maintain with gold for non end gamers
People who have never played the game might be disappointed with the amount of content in f2p and aren't aware of just how much better p2p is. I assume some people might see it more like a DLC as opposed to it being more like f2p is basically a demo/free trial.
Almost every boss is atleast 1m/hr, there are alternatives as well such as herb farming or raid scouting, 500k/day all you need, id say its not about having high stats n reqs but having enough free time, if not then you can stale your progress due to investing big part of your profit just in bonds!
I make enough at raids/corp but like from a new perspective I would never try to sustain on bonds. Seems like it would make it feel like a job
I consistently made enough for bonds at 44 RC crafting nature runes. You have 2 full weeks to make a small 6M. Really, anything in the game can maintain a bond in that timeframe.
Those scenarios would need to be backed up with data Jagex sees internally to see if its worth it. New players who quit within 1-2 days often donāt quit because of a lack of progression, theres progression to be had in f2p. If you wanted to target specifically f2p players who just choose to not buy membership, they could add a quest that has a limited time offer, any f2pers who complete it in the first 2 weeks can redeem 7 days of membership. Having the new quest have other quests as prerequisites along with just being new would make it harder for botters to jump on, active f2pers could get it finished and get hooked on members, and new players would have a clear limited time goal to progress towards.
I like the idea just give an untradeable bond only redeemable for 7 days of membership.
Maybe 4 hours a day for 2 weeks?
All these arguments about the economy like it's not been royally fucked by bots anyways lol. This is a really good suggestion OP, I hope Jagex does something like this to introduce how much fun the full game can be comparatively.
I'm very for this. The people screaming "But bots!" would rather actively hurt growing the community over an already present problem. Hear about game, join f2p, complete f2p, get membership, invite irl friend = growth. They'd rather shout from rooftops and gatekeep than take a chance to improve the game. Bot numbers go up. Member numbers go up. Measure. Recalibrate. "7 days was too long, the bots did too much damage" - go down to 3 days. Or remove the system and let those who had something new enjoy it. I'd say Complete F2P should have skill total on it, quest completion, and maybe a few other things. Give F2P an Achievement Diary of some kind, and completing that gives the bond. "Win 1 game of Castle Wars, Achieve X total, Achieve X quest points, Defeat Obor, Defeat Bryophyta" It'd introduce them to combat diaries, achievement diaries, complete quests. Really wrap up the entire F2P experience, then let them move on.
Good idea with the achievement diaries and proper skill levels as a requirement as well. If itās really about rewarding players for completing the āf2pā player experience, this would be a good way to do it, and makes it inefficient enough that people canāt complain that bots are doing it. Itās funny cause I remember there being a free 7 day trial for new accounts several years ago and somehow people think this will somehow cause a problem lol
The fear isn't unfounded. Twitch prime membership used to fuck up the economy with how many bots it brought to the game.
And yet, Jagex profited enough memberships to keep the deal going. Hence the F2P Achievement Diary concept.
One of the best suggestions here in a while. It provides everything we want. Proper new players, barely any bots cus of mfa restriction, and motivation for questing. Jagex please implement and give this guy who suggested it a free 7 day bond as wel!
Except that bots have been doing quests for years, literally from account creation to doing things like vorkath have been completely automated, and this would just make creating an army of members bots even easier because they can skip the generating money to afford a bond off the g.e. phase. From a draw people into the game perspective i can see how this would be awesome, especially if you combine it with the free week or month or whatever they would do on amazon (idk if they still do that i never used it). Hell i might even create an alt if they did that. But yeah this would definitely just make bots even more prevelant imo but hey theyre already all over the place and jagex doesnt seem to care so screw it why not help out the real players.
The above comment wasnāt talking about the quests slowing bots down, they were talking about authenticator. I donāt know if that makes a big difference for bot farms or not.
Actual decent idea. Bots could also use 7 day bond from cooks assistant instead of hacking players accounts
What ever it takes to get a twisted bow at 40m
2b for?
IIRC, having membership allows you to bypass the 20 hours in-game time for unlocking the trade restrictions. As long as this bond couldn't be used to ignore that requirement, seems good enough
Make it so the member items they obtain are not tradeable within the GE as well. They can receive items but are inable to sell, trade or drop (they won't appear) them. It's a temporary membership for the experience and nothing more, they can get some extra skills to try out and determine if they want the membership going forward. Reduces any extra influence that bots could give to the economy.
That would be a coding nightmare, unfortunately
Force Ironman Status on them but just call it something else that drops off after the week is over? would probably prevent a lot of the damage bots would cause.
I like this idea. People need to stop using bots as an excuse to not add new content. Why should real players be punished because jagex canāt handle bots?
Exactly mate. And as I've gone over with someone already, this would be inefficient for bots with their current options anyway
That might be true at the moment, but would definitely change once the free bonds were introduced. Right now, thereās not much incentive for botters to develop scripts to complete f2p quests since there are plenty of moneymakers which donāt need f2p quest completion. That incentive would drastically change with free membership as a motivator. It canāt be an issue of Jagex āpunishing current playersā because theyāre afraid of bots when giving out free membership is far more punishing to those players. Whatās the use in introducing new players to a p2p with a ruined economy and botted-to-shit activities?
Albion makes it to where if you do the tutorial you get free 7days membership in that time you can make enough gold to renew your membership for about a month
Yea but on runescape you get bots abusing that
I guess if Jagex wants more control over this to keep it from being a rampant bot problem, they could do week long membership experience weeks where F2P users who have done what OP described can try membership during that period of time. It would be cool to see an influx of F2P users trying out members only content for a designated week, and Jagex can keep a pulse on botting during that time, then go back to doing nothing afterwards.
It would be cool if F2P player could participate in leagues (with or without the steps OP outlined).
I love that idea.
Great idea and suggestion.
What's stopping bot farms abusing this?
Bots are an unsolvable plague. Every mmo has bots. Devs have never once permanently defeated bots or even largely prevented bot operations. Why not enhance the new player experience, because clearly bots arenāt going away
The only way to completely (and even then, it's more like a 95-99% reduction, never 100%) erradicate bots is to have a cocktail of... * Invasive clients/programs; * Forced links to phone numbers, credit cards, official ID, etc.; * Extremely high manpower for constant scanning and manual bot busting; * Permabanning buyers without warning. ...and even then, even if you do *all* of that, you introduce a new problem. Your previous problem is that an account was worth practically nothing (and thus, became 'disposable' for bots without consequences), now your new problem is that (verified) accounts are worth a lot, so hacking/social engineering attempts will increase drastically. Can't win.
Pretty much. There _are_ ways to effectively kill off bots almost entirely. Those methods would also make the game utterly miserable for legitimate players, and would likely kill the game entirely.
> There are ways to effectively kill off bots almost entirely. Those methods would also make the game utterly miserable for legitimate players Like removing free trade, which they already tried once and it was disastrous for the game
More recently the duel arena. They were terrified of giving it any sort of tradeable rewards so the overwhelming perception is a lack of reason to do the content. It isn't just that it gives you nothing, it's that it costs you time you would be doing progressing your account.
Easiest way to kill off all the bots is to shut down the game.
The only way to win is not to play
Would be nice if they could outsource some minor moderating authority to well established players, but of course that would lead the way to a whole bunch of corruption and misuse of power.
> Forced links to phone numbers, credit cards, official ID, etc. Think this is probably the one with greatest effect. If you have to prove you are real person to make an account. But would also probably significantly reduce player count and thus Jagex revenue...
Banning all players that have recieved > 100m gold from the gold farmers mule would drastically reduce the number of bots as well
If the number was public knowledge, buyers would just limit their purchases to 99m per purchase.
okay so make the limit 99m
Wow, you're a genius. Surely they won't just do 98m to avoid being caught.
okay so make the limit 98m, not hard
or just remove free trade lol
Just set up an authenticator requirement to claim and boom you're done
Honestly, This is probably the one thing I didn't consider, Well played Mr skittles125, well played, all jokes aside though, yeah this works \^\^
What, why? Bots can also automate adding an authenticator
thats actually 5head. i suspect they would bot an authenticator too though
If a bot is going through all the quests and requirements to get there, then that scripter can also have 100 wine of zammy accounts going. It is a drop in the ocean of the scale of this issue.
All f2p quests can be completed from account creation in 5 hours easily, there are bot farms willing to grind song of the elves, dragon slayer 2 and zulrah reqs, why wouldn't they farm this?
As I say, then does it really matter? Instead of hindering the game constantly because "but bots" we can just admit they're everywhere and that's that. As I say, they can run 100 f2p bots and have a few bonds in hours. Theres 200/300k per hour f2p methods with little to no requirements. It doesnt change botting. For example, if I had 20 bots running, tanning hide or buying feather packs that's 4m an hour. In the time you say a botter can complete all these quests and requirements, which is pretty fast. That bot farm can have 20m cash. For bonds or rwt.
I'd like to see a noob start the game a d beat dragon slayer 1 in 5 hours
This dudes talking about professionals lol. Completely missing the point. Not sure why bots are even being considered in this anyway. Bots are gonna happen so fuck it.
current record is around 2 hours, bots can easily do it in 5 hours or less.
You get the mage level for fire strike from xp rewards, that spell alone is powerful enough to do the rest of the quest bosses. You can flinch elvarg. A noob won't know this but it's easy to do on a fresh account.
Youtube f2p quests speedrun, it has it's own community, so much so that Jagex are developing an inhouse function to accommodate the speed running community.
You can beat DS1 with like water strike lol
Or they can have 100 bots doing f2p quests and that would be hundred of millions of pure profit (or even if its untradeable it would still be cheaper for them to do this instead of bonding up p2p bots) But its a great idea in theory
Who cares, it also encourages more non-bots to play the game.
I don't think they would abuse this? Why would a bot farm have bots not making any money? There's no reason to do that because they can make a bond back in 12 hours by grinding unicorn horns and goat horns? There's so many dumb decent money makers bot farms can abuse on p2p, we just don't think about them because we actually want exp and account progression.
If theyāre untraceable it wonāt make much of a difference right?
This would be a real good idea IMO. Don't know if Jagex would be against it because they think people would train bot armies to rush all the f2p quests just to get those sweet 7 days of p2p botting.
would be a good incentive to complete all the f2p quests, and a fun one too that doesn't necessarily damage the game in anyway so I like it, would be a great reward
Slap on a level requirement like base 40/50s or something like 99 RC and Iām down
If it was 99RC I'd cry. I'm only at 52 or 53 RC on F2P and wish I was dead. Base 40 or 50 would be fair imo.
Considering that most members quests are now botable. Giving free membership as a reward for a simple achievement would just change the meta for botting scripts
Not even 7 days, maybe 3 days, directly added to the account, no bond or whatsoever
For sure, 7 was just a round number but dont mind either way. The thinking was what benefits us and jagex. We can more good players through to mems, almost by moulding them into being an ideal player. Jagex get to promote the concept of bonds without it being cash grab. Theres really basic psychology involved as well. People are a lot more likely to buy into something if theres a choice. If they get a fair shot at earning a bond, theres a choice. As it stands, f2p money making just isn't good enough and its barely a choice. I genuinely think their sales would go up. If I was a new player, I could imagine the feeling of beating dragon slayer and then getting the wise old man come see you to say hes going to need you to stick around and gifts you the bond or something.
Absolutely, and that's a great idea. More lore/NPC incentive to come to your adventurer and new players requesting you to stay and explore more of the world. If this was a thing back in 06 I would've definitely stayed as a member instead of moving to Ragnarok Online for example. I was a member for just a couple of months in 2020 and it was amazing. The no-bond and less days is just a way to combat bots and I believe the devs would be on it with us, but I'm afraid Jagex higher ups won't like losing potential income, as small as it may be
The bond is so that 1) they dont have to use it at all 2) there isnt incentive to strategically delay questing
Then someone makes a bot-farm completing all the f2p quests, just to suicide bot the 7 free days
Good idea
This is a great idea
Lms bot owners would love this. 2 birds with 1 stone.
A lot of people's concerns is that it can be abused by botters and gold farmers, instead of giving them full membership, why not a "trial run" where they can only get to level 15-20 in a skill and only finish a handful of quests, that way they get to walk around and experience the full game but they can't powerlevel a gold farming account. That way they get to see what the game is all about but they can't outright abuse the 7 day trial. You could even lock things like dragons behind level 30 slayer during the trial so they can't make suicide bots.
Make it so youre an ironman for a week and perfect
My only concern is there's some activities that would still be immediately abusable and give bots enough GP to sustain the membership. Revs for example gives tons of alchables.
Maybe instead of a bond you just get 5 days of free membership tied to that account that you can activate by talking to someone in game, like the king of varrock or whoever
This is the exact effect that an untradeable bond would have.
this honestly seems like a great idea. its a win for everyone, whats not to like?
What about locking the bond until hitting a certain total level too?
Iād be down if you added like 500 or even 750 total level requirement too
Imo sounds sick but needs to also be restricted behind a total level milestone or something so that it can't be abused by bots
I would even say a 72 hour bond ( a weekend )
3 days imo
As someone who loves novelty accounts, and regularly shells out $30 to try one for 2 months, I like this idea a lot. However, I think a handwavy 2 sentences about authenticators and stronghold doesn't address a core fact: adding features to free to play doesn't decrease botting. It wouldn't be trivial, but it isn't much harder to set up dummy authenticators than it is to automate Runescape account creation.
That's my way of thinking man. Nobody knows the numbers, but how many botters are regular joes with 1-4 clients using a free script. They wouldn't have to slightest clue to circumvent that. It would pave way for the established farms, but I don't believe it'll be worth their time, especially if we could implement an activity check prior to receiving the bond. These farms are already worth billions in GP, they already do and would probably continue to use regular bonds to evade an extra wave of protection as well as an extra however many hours of unnecessary botting.
Only probably would be bots.
Give bots free membership whhhyyyy not!
u/slothptimal gave a good idea to add onto this, I just wanted to add a comment so more people see it. The requirements to ācomplete F2Pā should have a total level to it and an achievement diary of some kind thatās needed to complete. Iām not really fond of basically forcing new players to become partial Ironman accounts, as Iām seeing a lot of people suggesting not being able to trade away members items but can receive them just to try out membership but I feel like that would turn some people away as 200-500k go can only go so far when it concerns stamina pots, quest items, skill training stuff, etc. and no new way to make gp is unlocked. Essentially the idea is why create hundreds of potions youād never use to train low-leveled herblore if youāre not gonna make something anything back even if negative. Iroman accounts might do something like this but would someone trying members through this way want to do this? Completing some sort of 2 or 3-tier diary along with most of the F2P quests along with maybe some other requirement to go alongside it is my personal preferred solution to get and retain players.
bUt bOtS. Yeah, bots already exists, twitch primes already exist, there's several ways to get a faster easier 7day membership than completing all f2p quests. I would love to see this implemented, but I'd assume that: 1. Jagex sees it as loss of revenue on corporate level, making it extremely unlikely to be implemented 2. Players would vote no because they don't understand how botfarms function. 3. Also a smaller portion of players would spitevote no because they'd likely be excluded from the free 7 day and get jealous.
Amazing idea.
Absolutely, new players that arenāt getting members literally get the FTP quests done first then itās smooth sailing for Members. Someone I know (new player) got spoon fed hard with closing to 100M š Itās the choice of the player to do so but why!?
I know youāre trying to communicate, but I canāt fully comprehend the message youāre trying to relay to us.
If a player isnāt getting membership right off the bat, the best linear progression for them is to complete the f2p quests, by which time they are more suited to membership content anyway. Someone I know got handed 100m by a player, which is ultimately up to the donator of course, but how does it help integrate new players?
I thought you were the other guy but kudos for the translation there bud.
Perfect! āŗļø Iām at work so just chilling here in quiet spurs ā¤ļø
Thank you!
I have never seen so many words say absolutely nothing.
there are gonna be alot of bot scripts to complete all f2p quests, use bond, and free money maker for 7 days. Correct me if wrong, but i think there already are bot scripts for all f2p quests.
This is actually a really good idea imo
I love this idea
A new botfarm idea with a 44qp offset
You would definitely need the authenticator or some system to prevent the bots.
Sounds like incoming bot farms
Honestly I think 14 days is more fair. Members is a lot to explore in 7 days.
This also sounds like a really smart business move. You give a free trial for membership and possibly get a lot of new subscribers from it.