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FuriousGeorg 		December 20th, 2012 at 9:10am We need a CAPTCHA system to detect humans are playing, implemented correctly it will not be obtrusive to genuine players and will not need any account bans.

Here is how the system works:

Initially the CAPTCHA will appear at random say ever hour, correctly answering the CAPTCHA however will start to massively ramp up the time between subsequent CAPTCHA's.

Answering the CAPTCHA incorrectly initially, but getting it right in the same session after a few attempts will have no effect on CAPTCHA time.

Continuing to issue mouse and keyboard commands whilst the CAPTCHA is active but not answering, or immediately disconnecting when the CAPTCHA appears will massively ramp down the time between CAPTCHAS.

That's the initial idea for the system, obviously needs some tweaks and refinement but in a nutshell that system will stop botting stone dead and be very little hindrance to genuine players.

Edit:Further ideas:

The CAPTCHA only need appear at all if the client/servers detect activity that may be botting. And a legitimate player detected in this way, that has answered the CAPTCHA a few times, will have the time between CAPTCHA's massively increased.

So once running it will be something like, excluding the botters:
90% of players will never see a CAPTCHA
10% of players, who trigger the bot match pattern, will very quickly have it reduced down to say once every 2 days or even more.
Vaneras 		December 20th, 2012 at 12:00pm
20/12/2012 09:13Posted by CrimsonDeath
No thank you.. It would be very anoying to have to stop in the middle of some fight to type in some CATCHA every hour or even every 2 hours..


This is indeed a concern we have with CAPTCHA systems, which is that they can feel very intrusive and annoying for legitimate players.
Vaneras 		December 20th, 2012 at 12:21pm
20/12/2012 12:09Posted by Damir
This is indeed a concern we have with CAPTCHA systems, which is that they can feel very intrusive and annoying for legitimate players.


If CAPTCHA means no boters the then im fine with it even there is every 30 minutes some checkpoint.


Yep, I know many would not mind this at all (chosing the lesser evil and all that), but there are people who would be very annoyed by a CAPTCHA system like the one suggested here.
Vaneras 		December 20th, 2012 at 12:46pm
Bear in mind Vaneras the CAPTCHA only need appear at all if the client/servers detect activity that may be botting. And a legitimate player detected in this way, that has answered the CAPTCHA a few times, will have the time between CAPTCHA's massively increased.

So once running it will be something like, excluding the botters:
90% of players will never see a CAPTCHA
10% of players, who trigger the bot match pattern, will very quickly have it reduced down to say once every 2 days or even more.

Thanks for the feedback though.


Sure, a CAPTCHA system combined with other detection systems would be an improvement, in that legitimate players would be less likely to be bothered by it. If we were ever to implement a CAPTCHA system, this type of approach would likely be considered :-)


A question i have everytime i see a blue post is whether u have the info to answer advanced stuff concerning the game. I mean arent u a community admin? Or do u have other responsibilities aswell ?


This is rather off-topic, but I will answer it anyway as this is a question I get fairly often.

As a CM I am often privy to information regarding the development of the game, but I do not know everything of course as I am not a developer. Some of the things I know I am unable to share right now as said things are still eligible to change.

The developers get player questions and feedback from us all the time, but it is not always that they are able to answer said questions and feedback because they have not yet decided on the best way of doing so. The processes for everything the developers do are all very iterative, and this means that things can change dramatically before they reach certainty. Once the developers have made their decision on something though, that is when we can give you information and be sure that it is the correct information.

Basically what I am trying to say is that the right answer to a question one day may be wrong answer the day after, so we prefer not to give answers until we are certain that they are the right ones. I can assure you that when I do have info to "answer advanced stuff concerning the game", I will share that info with you right away.