New Ascension Area: Manual Hunting Only

[chrenraf]

I think it would be great if there was an ascension area built where LICH would not work at all. Once you entered, you have to hunt and do everything fully old school (no teams of 1 controller and 5 ghosts). The critters would be built with human speed in mind and not computing speed. Same with swarms. Pump up the silvers/rewards and take away the overhunted/under hunted loot balance mechanism in order to reward players who are present. Maybe even add a 10%-20% permanent absorb rate for all EXP gained while in that specific are. This would also reward ACTUAL team playing amongst live players.

Thoughts?

[Neveragain]

I think it would be great if there was an ascension area built where LICH would not work at all. Once you entered, you have to hunt and do everything fully old school (no teams of 1 controller and 5 ghosts). The critters would be built with human speed in mind and not computing speed. Same with swarms. Pump up the silvers/rewards and take away the overhunted/under hunted loot balance mechanism in order to reward players who are present. Maybe even add a 10%-20% permanent absorb rate for all EXP gained while in that specific are. This would also reward ACTUAL team playing amongst live players.

Thoughts?

You are never going to beat innovation and automation, billion dollar AAA game developers have been trying for years.

Most coders take pride in beating new attempts, it's their greatest reward.

[Rjex]

Lich is just a 3rd party software to interpret game data and generate responses. Simu can't disable it as it has no control over it. If somehow, lich vanished tomorrow, you can write dozens of other programs that communicate with the game to do the same thing. You'd never be able to tell them apart.

For massive online games there are now actual AI-driven bots that mimic a player, so soon enough the whole multiplayer genre will have to undergo some fundamental shift because the technology is changing. Online FPS games in particular will become pointless as bots that can't be distinguished from good human players will dominate.

[Tgo01]

Lich is just a 3rd party software to interpret game data and generate responses. Simu can't disable it as it has no control over it. If somehow, lich vanished tomorrow, you can write dozens of other programs that communicate with the game to do the same thing. You'd never be able to tell them apart.

Yeah Lich did many things before the GMs tried to mimic all of the data.

Lich calculated when spells were cast on your player and how long they lasted, it gave each room in the game a unique room ID so you could move around via ;narost and ;go2, it even had a game wide chat system via ;LNet.

The GMs only recently allowed the in game ESP to go game wide, only very recently allowed us to see the duration of spells on our characters, and only very very recently allowed us to see the in game room numbers.

It almost sounds as if the GMs are trying to replace Lich entirely, but that won't happen anytime soon because Lich is 90% all about the scripts people create for it and use, but it sure seems like they are trying anyways.

The only way the GMs could ever really "disable" Lich is if they went out of their way to make it impossible for Lich to know all of this stuff, like not giving a specific game line for when you receive a specific buff, instead it's just a generic game line so you have no idea what spell was cast on your character, stuff like that. And that would be the most petty thing I can imagine the GMs doing, though not entirely out of the realm of possibilities.

[chrenraf]

You could perhaps modify/adapt the client and allow entries by exception. I know there were macros and some scripts prior to lich, but lich made everything able to be entirely automated. Now, that is cool for some aspects, but not for others. Lich can be sniffed easily as it's parameters are set. The timing is set. It is easily identifiable. If you built a new area that banned lich and monitored it for non-human activity I think it could be successful. Also, in that area you could be perma-banned if you try to circumvent the rules. Not perma-banned from the game, but just that specific area and if that area is super beneficial and fun people would think twice about trying to do so.

The system itself may not 100% be able to stop people from "cheating" but they would be easily recognizable and banned from entering that specific area of the game. Obviously, macros as intended by the game originally would be fine. The goal would be to have an area that has to be hunted the old school way, advocate for the players to be present, which would in turn create more dialogue and RP. If this area was much superior to the rest of the script allowed game it would be met well. Nobody will mess with any of the game areas currently out there, just a new area. Perhaps a whole new small city with ascension hunting grounds.

If that area had say a 20% increase in absorption, 20% increased mind capacity, and a 20% increase in loot with it's own legendary hopper I think we would find a lot of people there and more engaged. The best part is you can leave that area and go back to lich world anytime you want.

[Methais]

I think it would be great if there was an ascension area built where LICH would not work at all. Once you entered, you have to hunt and do everything fully old school (no teams of 1 controller and 5 ghosts). The critters would be built with human speed in mind and not computing speed. Same with swarms. Pump up the silvers/rewards and take away the overhunted/under hunted loot balance mechanism in order to reward players who are present. Maybe even add a 10%-20% permanent absorb rate for all EXP gained while in that specific are. This would also reward ACTUAL team playing amongst live players.

Thoughts?

And how do you propose that they do this, on the technical side?

EDIT: Keep in mind this is Simutronics we're talking about.

[Gelston]

You could perhaps modify/adapt the client and allow entries by exception. I know there were macros and some scripts prior to lich, but lich made everything able to be entirely automated. Now, that is cool for some aspects, but not for others. Lich can be sniffed easily as it's parameters are set. The timing is set. It is easily identifiable. If you built a new area that banned lich and monitored it for non-human activity I think it could be successful. Also, in that area you could be perma-banned if you try to circumvent the rules. Not perma-banned from the game, but just that specific area and if that area is super beneficial and fun people would think twice about trying to do so.

The system itself may not 100% be able to stop people from "cheating" but they would be easily recognizable and banned from entering that specific area of the game. Obviously, macros as intended by the game originally would be fine. The goal would be to have an area that has to be hunted the old school way, advocate for the players to be present, which would in turn create more dialogue and RP. If this area was much superior to the rest of the script allowed game it would be met well. Nobody will mess with any of the game areas currently out there, just a new area. Perhaps a whole new small city with ascension hunting grounds.

If that area had say a 20% increase in absorption, 20% increased mind capacity, and a 20% increase in loot with it's own legendary hopper I think we would find a lot of people there and more engaged. The best part is you can leave that area and go back to lich world anytime you want.

So.... You want a specific area to have 24/7 human monitoring? Because that is what it would take to shut off lich.

[Neveragain]

You could perhaps modify/adapt the client and allow entries by exception. I know there were macros and some scripts prior to lich, but lich made everything able to be entirely automated. Now, that is cool for some aspects, but not for others. Lich can be sniffed easily as it's parameters are set. The timing is set. It is easily identifiable. If you built a new area that banned lich and monitored it for non-human activity I think it could be successful. Also, in that area you could be perma-banned if you try to circumvent the rules. Not perma-banned from the game, but just that specific area and if that area is super beneficial and fun people would think twice about trying to do so.

The system itself may not 100% be able to stop people from "cheating" but they would be easily recognizable and banned from entering that specific area of the game. Obviously, macros as intended by the game originally would be fine. The goal would be to have an area that has to be hunted the old school way, advocate for the players to be present, which would in turn create more dialogue and RP. If this area was much superior to the rest of the script allowed game it would be met well. Nobody will mess with any of the game areas currently out there, just a new area. Perhaps a whole new small city with ascension hunting grounds.

If that area had say a 20% increase in absorption, 20% increased mind capacity, and a 20% increase in loot with it's own legendary hopper I think we would find a lot of people there and more engaged. The best part is you can leave that area and go back to lich world anytime you want.

Because of the loot changes they made during "War of Nations", Lich or not, the treasure would be wiped clean within 3 days.

1 person, lich or not, can empty the hopper of an unused hunting area in under a week.

[Izzy]

This is a terrible idea. Also, impossible. That is all.

[chrenraf]

Well, when doing so is a ban-able offense it wouldnt take long to weed it out. Also, like I said, lich uses very specific timing for it's commands and can already (and most likely probably did ages ago) make a program that instantly recognizes it and could ban those using it in that area. In order to get to the area you would be well aware of the consequences. no oops I didn't know! monitoring it wouldn't take quite the manpower folks would think. Everything is logged and they just would have a program that sniffs lich users out, extracts the logs, places then in a folder, and then staff reviews it as able.

It's a post cap ascension ground so it's not like people will just make new characters to evade the system. That, and getting caught jacking around in that area and getting a ban would result in lowering the re-sale value of the character especially if it became a well liked area.

[Rjex]

Well, when doing so is a ban-able offense it wouldnt take long to weed it out. Also, like I said, lich uses very specific timing for it's commands and can already (and most likely probably did ages ago) make a program that instantly recognizes it and could ban those using it in that area. In order to get to the area you would be well aware of the consequences. no oops I didn't know! monitoring it wouldn't take quite the manpower folks would think. Everything is logged and they just would have a program that sniffs lich users out, extracts the logs, places then in a folder, and then staff reviews it as able.

It's a post cap ascension ground so it's not like people will just make new characters to evade the system. That, and getting caught jacking around in that area and getting a ban would result in lowering the re-sale value of the character especially if it became a well liked area.

You know how trivial it is to add a randomized pause before and between every lich command to emulate human player input? Or even random typos for that matter.

[chrenraf]

it would take quite a bit more than that. every action would have to have a randomized pause or delay. Even then, a quick check will find someone on auto.

[Rjex]

It's very easy to add randomness to all commands by passing them all through a humanizing function that mimics human behavior and speed, and no, it wouldn't at all be easy to tell apart who's a human and who isn't so not sure what you mean by a "quick check". If this was quick and easy online MMOs wouldn't all be overrun by thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of bots.

[chrenraf]

I meant a quick check by a GM in the same way they do script checks now.

[chrenraf]

that being said, would you manually play in an area such as this if the rewards were greater as stated?

[gilchristr]

So can warriors berserk in this area?

[Methais]

Well, when doing so is a ban-able offense it wouldnt take long to weed it out. Also, like I said, lich uses very specific timing for it's commands and can already (and most likely probably did ages ago) make a program that instantly recognizes it and could ban those using it in that area. In order to get to the area you would be well aware of the consequences. no oops I didn't know! monitoring it wouldn't take quite the manpower folks would think. Everything is logged and they just would have a program that sniffs lich users out, extracts the logs, places then in a folder, and then staff reviews it as able.

It's a post cap ascension ground so it's not like people will just make new characters to evade the system. That, and getting caught jacking around in that area and getting a ban would result in lowering the re-sale value of the character especially if it became a well liked area.

You're aware that this:

a) Would require a ton of resources from Simu to both implement and monitor/enforce

b) Would get abused as fuck by some of the mentally ill staff members who have a permanent a boner for banning people

c) Would be remarkably unfun for people who use combat and/or movement (i.e. ;wander) scripts for QoL reasons and not to automate their hunting

d) Wouldn't be worth the hassle no matter how good the loot or exp is.

e) Would piss off the entire playerbase

f) Would eventually get "beaten" by some nerd anyway

[Methais]

So can warriors berserk in this area?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEtpPJF22CA

https://i.imgur.com/RGmBL1x.gif

[Gelston]

Well, when doing so is a ban-able offense it wouldnt take long to weed it out. Also, like I said, lich uses very specific timing for it's commands and can already (and most likely probably did ages ago) make a program that instantly recognizes it and could ban those using it in that area. In order to get to the area you would be well aware of the consequences. no oops I didn't know! monitoring it wouldn't take quite the manpower folks would think. Everything is logged and they just would have a program that sniffs lich users out, extracts the logs, places then in a folder, and then staff reviews it as able.

It's a post cap ascension ground so it's not like people will just make new characters to evade the system. That, and getting caught jacking around in that area and getting a ban would result in lowering the re-sale value of the character especially if it became a well liked area.

GMs can barely hold back blatant AFK scripting and you are saying they should go after lich. You’re a funny guy.

[Ramrod]

that being said, would you manually play in an area such as this if the rewards were greater as stated?

It's doable if Simu wanted to do it. Creatures with random names, random objects flagged as monsterbold, heavy script checks, more severe punishments, etc.

That said, I wouldn't play it unless the rewards were massive. If you got 10x exp/loot and no loot cap then maybe?

The appeal to GS today is the automation. It's a game I can play while I work. The game is way too slow and the world way too big to play manually.

[Rjex]

The appeal to GS today is the automation. It's a game I can play while I work. The game is way too slow and the world way too big to play manually.

This. It's a game you play in the background, focused on long term progression. If it was all manual, no, I wouldn't play it. It'd be tedious, repetitive, and boring.

[Methais]

I don't see how anyone plays manually without murdering themselves irl. I can't imagine even just moving around manually anymore while hunting or traveling, and that's assuming I had the map memorized and didn't have to print one out to keep track of where I am like in the 90s.

The good news for OP is he still has the option to play manually.

[Methais]

I don't see how anyone plays manually without murdering themselves irl. I can't imagine even just moving around manually anymore while hunting or traveling, and that's assuming I had the map memorized and didn't have to print one out to keep track of where I am like in the 90s.

The good news for OP is he still has the option to play manually.


It's doable if Simu wanted to do it. Creatures with random names, random objects flagged as monsterbold, heavy script checks, more severe punishments, etc.

That said, I wouldn't play it unless the rewards were massive. If you got 10x exp/loot and no loot cap then maybe?

The appeal to GS today is the automation. It's a game I can play while I work. The game is way too slow and the world way too big to play manually.

This is correct.



This. It's a game you play in the background, focused on long term progression. If it was all manual, no, I wouldn't play it. It'd be tedious, repetitive, and boring.

This is also correct.

[drumpel]

I don't see how anyone plays manually without murdering themselves irl. I can't imagine even just moving around manually anymore while hunting or traveling, and that's assuming I had the map memorized and didn't have to print one out to keep track of where I am like in the 90s.

The good news for OP is he still has the option to play manually.

I used to have the room movement memorized for running between the North Gate at the landing to the North Market in Solhaven. I think I could stumble through it today if I had to, but it would be a 5-10 minute run instead of the 15 seconds it takes for ;go2.

In fact, I used to know the route to get to the EN, too.

You forget so much once you become reliant on lich to get you to and from places, but I guess to make up for it I've memorized room numbers for places I visit a lot:
TSC = 228
adventure's guild in Landing = 3785
west gate where the guard stands = 420
North Market = 1438
adventure's guild in Solhaven = 12805
guards in Solhaven = 1507
Ice Mule center = 2300
and I've got a few dozen more room numbers memorized that I use.

[Tgo01]

You forget so much once you become reliant on lich to get you to and from places, but I guess to make up for it I've memorized room numbers for places I visit a lot:
TSC = 228
adventure's guild in Landing = 3785
west gate where the guard stands = 420
North Market = 1438
adventure's guild in Solhaven = 12805
guards in Solhaven = 1507
Ice Mule center = 2300
and I've got a few dozen more room numbers memorized that I use.

In case you didn't know you can just do ;go2 town and it will bring you to the nearest TC, or ;go2 advguild to bring you to the nearest guild.

Memorize even fewer room numbers!

[drumpel]

In case you didn't know you can just do ;go2 town and it will bring you to the nearest TC, or ;go2 advguild to bring you to the nearest guild.

Memorize even fewer room numbers!

Easier for me to do numbers. They stick in my head.

My first checking account number was 273100981821 that I opened when I was 15. 27 years later and I still remember it and I closed that account when I was 18.

[Methais]

I used to have the room movement memorized for running between the North Gate at the landing to the North Market in Solhaven. I think I could stumble through it today if I had to, but it would be a 5-10 minute run instead of the 15 seconds it takes for ;go2.

In fact, I used to know the route to get to the EN, too.

You forget so much once you become reliant on lich to get you to and from places, but I guess to make up for it I've memorized room numbers for places I visit a lot:
TSC = 228
adventure's guild in Landing = 3785
west gate where the guard stands = 420
North Market = 1438
adventure's guild in Solhaven = 12805
guards in Solhaven = 1507
Ice Mule center = 2300
and I've got a few dozen more room numbers memorized that I use.

Muscle memory plays a good part too. Years ago I had to run around manually for a little bit for some reason that I can't remember, and I was pretty surprised at how my fingers knew which way to go on the keypad without having to think about it.

[Gelston]

I used to manually go from Landing to EN and back constantly right after it opened. I had it just about memorized, stopping to look at rooms sometimes when I came to dead ends and stuff. Then sbc came out and I never did it manually again.