Jagex Responds: Recent Bot Discussions

[Trent!]

Mod Kelvin [19-Dec-2014 13:55:15] (QFC - 14-15-968-65539489)

Recent Bot Discussions​

Hi Everyone,

I’d like to offer some commentary around recent bot bans so that everyone can clearly understand our position and have the full facts to hand regarding the current ban situation. Much of the discussion you may have read on social media and our own forums relates to a couple of specific recent situations. We’re not perfect, sometimes we do make mistakes as we’re human – thanks for letting us know to anyone who genuinely feels we’ve got it wrong, but generally, we want to keep as many players playing as possible – it’s as much against our interests as yours to ban players for no reason, and that’s what we try to do in an extremely complex game environment.

It was really unfortunate that we banned a particular player who wasn’t cheating at all. We’ve put that right of course and the player is happily back in game. In this case, the player was a very effective and highly productive RuneScape player – and their game play was so efficient that a member of staff interpreted the data our systems produced about the account as macro use. Now before you start thinking ‘well I’m efficient will I get banned’ – the context of this situation is that this account is one of only two other accounts that we have ever seen play so efficiently that they look like a bot, and we have been looking at this data for years now, so it really is incredibly unlikely that anyone will ever appear this way to us again. Naturally we are not happy with even that small risk though, so we have (for now) stopped applying manual staff bans so we can conduct a thorough review of our macro ban processes to ensure they are robust moving forward.

The other incident that is being discussed relates to a number of players complaining on our Forums and social media due to a recent mass ban for bot use. This ban was designed to specifically target bot users based on data and system analysis information that we collate on an ongoing basis and I can confirm that this wave of bans centred specifically on RSBot users. I should also add that we have banned, and will continue to ban, players for bot use both daily, and periodically. Some of those people banned may feel the ban is unfair because they may have only used RSBot once, or twice – RSBot, or the use of any other bot program, is against the Rules of RuneScape, and we will take action if players use them – even if only once or twice.

The accuracy of these recent bans is 100% - all those who were banned used RSBot – we checked them manually, and we remain confident that our detection systems are up to scratch. On other bot bans, just to be sure, every day we sample and verify a number of bans and we will continue to apply solid checking and analysis of our heuristics before deploying anything that can lead to a player being banned.

Finally, I wanted to touch on offence appeals – I’ve read a lot in the past few days about people finding it hard to appeal, not getting a response to their appeal and so on. The truth is I agree – our current offence appeal system is not fit for purpose and I have been working with some of the guys here at Jagex to get some changes to the offence system implemented. We openly discussed this in the Offence System Q&A back in October (Quick find code: 103-104-1-65498132). Right now I’m not 100% sure what any changed system will look like or when we may release it – but throughout the project (which we have been working on for some months now) I have retained some key principles that must exist in any new offence appeal system we use.

These are:

1. It must be clear whether an offence can be appealed or not
2. If an offence can be appealed – submitting an appeal must be a simple process
3. We must offer players more ways to explain their side of the story in any appeal that can be made
4. We must promptly review and answer every single offence appeal that is submitted

I hope that provides some context around the recent bans, what we are doing to make sure that bans remain accurate and also how we are looking to make things much better for those players who wish to appeal offences in the future.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this clarifies some questions.

Mod Kelvin
RuneScape Customer Services Manager

 

[I Bleed Duke Blue]

It's refreshing, at least, to see a member of Jagex actually acknowledging their customer service is literally non-existent.

Interesting details though Trent, cheers for sharing. I'm not on the botting scene myself but I saw these threads all over the forums over the past week and was wondering what was happening.

 

I doubt that the appeals will do much, there are way to many people that try to take advantage of the system.

 

[Trout]

It's refreshing, at least, to see a member of Jagex actually acknowledging their customer service is literally non-existent.

Interesting details though Trent, cheers for sharing. I'm not on the botting scene myself but I saw these threads all over the forums over the past week and was wondering what was happening.

so true. useless system

 

The problem here is that their accuracy is not 100%. There was a player who uses an alt for nothing other than merching phats - He uses it to scout for buyers/sellers while playing on his main account. The account has no stats and doesn't even leave the GE. It's only ever done unbalanced trades with one account (the player's main account) and he clicks on it maybe once every few minutes to stop the account lobbying.

We're talking a player in the top 100 overall with an alt that has over 10b on wealth on it and a completely clean record on all his accounts. You'd have absolutely no reason to bot anything if you're that rich and almost a top page player.

I don't remember where the posts are, but the Jmod's response that the ban was reviewed a second time on the player's request was posted within less than 5 minutes of the player making the request. It really makes you wonder if they have customer satisfaction standards or if they're just paid a set amount for every appeal they handle.

 

[Trout]

The problem here is that their accuracy is not 100%. There was a player who uses an alt for nothing other than merching phats - He uses it to scout for buyers/sellers while playing on his main account. The account has no stats and doesn't even leave the GE. It's only ever done unbalanced trades with one account (the player's main account) and he clicks on it maybe once every few minutes to stop the account lobbying.

We're talking a player in the top 100 overall with an alt that has over 10b on wealth on it and a completely clean record on all his accounts. You'd have absolutely no reason to bot anything if you're that rich and almost a top page player.

I don't remember where the posts are, but the Jmod's response that the ban was reviewed a second time on the player's request was posted within less than 5 minutes of the player making the request. It really makes you wonder if they have customer satisfaction standards or if they're just paid a set amount for every appeal they handle.

The fact their accuracy is off, is really dumb they would even have the nerve to ban someone not 100% knowing.

 

There we go. Turns out I'm wrong - They didn't give it another investigation but instead got someone who has no experience in bot detection & analysis to tell him he botted. I'm not sure what's worse.

Here's another one which was banned, investigated and told they were 100% certain he was a bot and then reversed on a third investigation:

 

[Xier0]

It's refreshing to see this from Jagex actually. Poor response on appeals was one of their most frustrating issues.

 

[l0llyp0pst3r]

Jagex have to start doing more of these to ensure player confidence

 

[HamzaAbbasi]

Wait, where could I post regarding an account that got banned wrongfully?

 

[Not Stable]

Their systems are completely shit, got banned on fresh account for xfering 20m 07 lol. (Rwt Ban perm as well)

 

[diamonds]

My appeal has been pending for a year now.. Is there anything I can do? Should I contact them via email? I played legit on regular rs on the account for 7 years but better 07. Do they seriously not even care enough now to even deny these?

 

[Winters]

oh jagex....

 

[Whipped]

I'd like them to read my appeal for my 92 rcer...it was botted ona VPN so I have a good chance in getting it back lol...if they read it xd

 

[Bare]

I like the fact that they are admitting they were in the wrong. I mean, I'm not happy with how they use the ban system, honestly I think there's alot more than a few 'rare' scenarios of legit players getting banned, but that's my opinion. Compensation to that player should of been given, Jagex will end up losing the confidence of their players sooner or later. I mean the fact they have to sit there and basically promise to players "please, don't think we will ban you if you're a good player". Come on guys, if you didn't act in the way you do half the time you wouldn't have players scared they're going to lose their accounts.

RuneScape's dead, but this is really going to hit an impact within the community if they keep doing this. I like that they acknowledged they were the ones in wrong and unbanned him, but still...

 

[Seahawks]

should be interesting to see what happens. if they actually start listening to people or not.

 

[SupremeLeader]

Jagex, like half cares which is the worst... They care about bots, but no other aspect of the community. So if they wrongfully ban you GG. To me, you gotta be consistent at least... Like, don't care about the players and the bots... Or care about the bots, ban them(which I hate), but then you gotta care about the community... Jagex to me is a bad business practice, currently their customer service like I is half caring and half not caring. But right now, the divided "customer support" is the worst possible combination and it is killing the game.

 

[Saint Versace]

Who was banned, I recall it being someone famous