Foiling Scripters

[olympe]

I recently had a discussion with another member which led to an idea how scripters *might* be thwarted. The thing is, I'm no coder and can't really tell if it works. Anyway, I think it's time to add more people to the discussion. Maybe it's harebrained, maybe it could work, I don't know.

 

The following excerpts from our PM conversation are quoted with the knowledge and full permission by _Sin_.

 

I'm no expert, but would it help if the egg description wasn't a plain text, but the a picture (containing said text with transparent background)? The "names" of the pics could easily be swapped regularly to keep scripters off balance.

 

As you might have guessed, I'm no expert and merely brainstorming here. Well, maybe more like grasping at straws.

Egg description in a picture could deter scripts for a bit (probably would be just another exciting challenge for a coder) but would create more issues to normal users. I do not know about you but every time I must read a captcha, I need to refresh a couple of times. Try suggesting that. I will get popcorn and wait for fuzzbucket

I wasn't thinking of making the description-pics captcha-style - that wouldn't work at all! I was thinking of using a screenshot of the description (on scroll background, no less) instead of the written description.

 

Or wouldn't that work? I figured (maybe wrongly) that scripts use the coding of the site to determine what the egg description actually is, not read the actually visible description.

Oh I understand now. Wouldn't people with vision problems have an issue with that? From TJ's point of view, that would have impact, bandwidth wise, due to the size of the image/screenshot.

Why would people with vision problems have a problem with a screenshot of what they see now?

 

 

I also just tested screenshots. For a 2-line description, it would be around 233 x 33 pixels, where most of the pic is transparent. For a 4-line description, it would be around 233 x 74 pixels. (I had to copy and paste with a two-liner to "create" a 4-liner, which might have set it off by a few pixels in height.) On the plus side, there are only three of them in need of being displayed per page.

OK let's assume that the screenshot does not create vision issues, I'm ready to agree. What about bandwidth consumption on TJ's side and downloading time on our side? We already have a ton of lag.

The other consideration is: would the images stop the scripters? They would look for the .gif or .png name instead of looking for the description. TJ could keep a gigantic database of different images and rotate them but would still not block the scripters.

A decent coder would view each egg and get the info from there.

All this said, there is a big pro on your suggestion: it would take care of all the cheaters that use the scripts but can't code.

Why don't you create a suggestion/request topic? Would be good to get different points of view. And there are a bunch of programmers in the forum that could give input.

I think that bandwith and/or lag might be the deciding factors here - then again, it might not be quite as bad. As I pointed out before, it's only three pics that need to be loaded. When you load your scroll, you get between 50 and 200 sprites loaded at once. And for breeding... let's just not go there. So, after all, I guess it may still be negligible.

 

Of course, scripters would look for the name of the pic, so these names would have to be rotated time and again. (Ideally, they'd get rotated in such a way that the name of the CB rare description gets used for a CB common that turns up in more than one biome. That would sure help with scripters - stopping them (due to "oops, all pinks? WTF?), annoying them and making them easier to catch. (Who, in their right mind, catches countless pinks from various biomes?)

 

Ideally, this switch would automatically happen every single hour. Meaning that the name would change almost as soon as people have a chance to find it out in the first place.

 

But, as I pointed out before, I have no idea of how to code, or of how feasible this suggestion is.

Seriously, why don't you post the suggestion? Many brains work better than two. In general smile.gif

If I recall correctly, the rotation of the images happens already on the AP.

 

So, here I am. Any comments?

 

 

[CowlRaven]

I think there's more cons than pros to this idea unfortunately. The images would need to have a temporary link like dragons already do and generating, then loading, this randomized unique link to the image would take some time. Then of course there's the problem with bandwidth and how the images, no mater how small, could potentially eat away at it. People who play on mobile would also be out of luck as most of the time when I'm on mobile the images don't load. None of them. It takes several refreshes to see what a dragon is on my scroll or in the ap if I'm lucky enough to get an image at all. For the people who are stuck on their phones all the time this would make catching CB eggs almost impossible.

 

The only pro I see to this is that it stops scripters from using the text in the egg descriptions from using said text to catch eggs automatically, and even then it would only be a temporary fix. I can see several workarounds for this that a scripter may use. It'd be more trouble, but wouldn't stop the problem. In the long run it would hurt far more innocent users who are just unlucky enough to have poor internet or no computer. I'm saying this as a programmer myself.

 

EDIT: Even though it was just an offhanded comment I'd like to say something about this line

 

That would sure help with scripters - stopping them (due to "oops, all pinks? WTF?), annoying them and making them easier to catch. (Who, in their right mind, catches countless pinks from various biomes?)

 

This wouldn't necessarily mean the person who caught all the pinks was a cheater. I know many people who like to build armies of dragons and sometimes when they have no other project to work on, just go around collecting as many as they can. I'm one of them. This, by itself, would be bad. But if we added in how many dragons were on the scroll, how active it was beside the time it grabbed the eggs, what kind of trophies it has, when the scroll was created, etc. would help identify cheaters.

Edited May 13, 2016 by CowlRaven

[olympe]

Well, that comment was phrased poorly, I'm afraid. What I was getting at is someone who routinely "harvested" CB rares would suddenly get only commons, and lots of them. Which would look kind of off. Especially if the common they got had the same image file name as golds/silvers had previously.

 

Since I'm really not a programmer - is it possible to use scripts when on mobile? I'm pretty sure it should work with tablets, but what about cell phones?

[CowlRaven]

I see what you mean, I just wanted to point out that it's really fairly common for people to grab hoards of dragons from different biomes. But someone who was hoarding golds all of a sudden hoarding say, purple dragons, definitely would seem off.

 

It is, technically possible, but it would actually cost money haha so I think we can safely rule that out (I doubt anyone would be willing to shovel out $100 just to catch some sprites). I think it's the same on tablets actually, since they generally have the same layout. At least for Apple products.

 

Anyone who uses scripts to cheat on dragcave would be on the computer all the time, or they wouldn't be able to do their thing. But changing the text to images would hurt people on their phone or tablet too, since it's quite a bit of work to put such a drastic difference between the desktop version and mobile version and would just be easier to have both use images.

 

The sad truth is that cheaters are always going to find a way to cheat, even if it means more work for them. If the pay off is better than the work they put in, then why stop? I'm not sure there's any way to really stop them unless we had some sort of... task force that spent time hunting down people who used scripts, or multiscrolled (which would likely go hand-in-hand).

[_Sin_]

Out of curiosity. Does anybody know why eggs are shown as images in the AP and instead as text description on the biomes?

Probably only TJ knows for sure but maybe there's a reason to use text. Other than to make us pick up purple instead of red Dorsals

[olympe]

So, it would be possible to make a mobile version (that cannot be accessed via PC) like now, and a regular version with screenshots for descriptions. However, it's a lot of work.

[CowlRaven]

Out of curiosity. Does anybody know why eggs are shown as images in the AP and instead as text description on the biomes?

Probably only TJ knows for sure but maybe there's a reason to use text. Other than to make us pick up purple instead of red Dorsals

I'd say this is because it keeps an air of mystery in the biomes, especially to new players. It keeps us from snatching alts who have their egg sprites different, keeps us from only grabbing the rarer dragon who has the same description as a more common cousin, and is also designed to keep it a mystery what a new release egg looks like until you grab it. That last part is of course for anyone who doesn't stalk the news subforum and only sees new releaess by chance.

 

In the AP, the egg has been seen before. It's been seen, grabbed, or bred, and tossed back out. People are less likely to toss rares into the AP unless they're feeling generous and there's no real reason to keep the mystery around the egg.

 

From a design standpoint, it's also far less cluttered to use the images instead of walls of text. It'd be way more difficult to use the AP if you had to read 30 lines of text all squished together before you found what you needed rather than just seeing the picture.

 

But this makes it so that the AP is slower to load than the Biomes even if just for a few seconds for players with better internet.

 

So, it would be possible to make a mobile version (that cannot be accessed via PC) like now, and a regular version with screenshots for descriptions. However, it's a lot of work.

 

At that point it'd be easier, and far less time-consuming, to just make a dragcave phone app which has been discussed and shot down several times.

 

Setting up websites by themselves is hard enough but to make a functioning mobile version that's so drastically different from the desktop version (one having images and the other not doesn't seem big but it is) would be too much work for me to ask of TJ. Especially since he works so hard on the mobile version of the site already.

 

I'd personally be willing to put in the work if I were asked, but again it would take a long time to figure out. Especially since on most mobile sites you can switch to desktop at any time. We'd have to take that away as well.

Edited May 13, 2016 by CowlRaven

[olympe]

Where do we have rarer or more common dragons in the cave that share a description, apart from ridgewings and dorsals? Even so, this problem could be avoided by the egg changing color from "normal" (purple) to the other variant during the hatching process. Or just keeping one egg for both versions.

 

Skywing/Horse/Ochredrake are all commons.

You can easily avoid the Pink/Flamingo mix-up by hunting for pinks in desert, alpine, forest or volcano. Same for spitfire/stripe: spitfires drop exclusively in desert, stripes in both forest and jungle.

Sunstone and moonstone are both about equally common, as far as I can tell.

You don't have to worry about a stone/geode, silver/soulpeace, gold/prize or deep sea/shallow water mix-up because only one of each group actually drops in the cave.

 

[_Sin_]

Where do we have rarer or more common dragons in the cave that share a description, apart from ridgewings and dorsals? Even so, this problem could be avoided by the egg changing color from "normal" (purple) to the other variant during the hatching process. Or just keeping one egg for both versions.

 

Skywing/Horse/Ochredrake are all commons.

You can easily avoid the Pink/Flamingo mix-up by hunting for pinks in desert, alpine, forest or volcano. Same for spitfire/stripe: spitfires drop exclusively in desert, stripes in both forest and jungle.

Sunstone and moonstone are both about equally common, as far as I can tell.

You don't have to worry about a stone/geode, silver/soulpeace, gold/prize or deep sea/shallow water mix-up because only one of each group actually drops in the cave.

Maybe the image could show both: i.e. 50% of the egg looking like a Purple Dorsal, the other 50% looking like a Red Dorsal.

Afterthought: the advantage of using the images of the eggs instead of the "image of the descriptions" would be size. I just checked the eggs in the AP, they seem to be 26x28.

ETA: the same size of the mystery eggs images already shown in the biomes.

Edited May 13, 2016 by _Sin_

[cyradis4]

I think there's more cons than pros to this idea unfortunately. The images would need to have a temporary link like dragons already do and generating, then loading, this randomized unique link to the image would take some time. Then of course there's the problem with bandwidth and how the images, no mater how small, could potentially eat away at it. People who play on mobile would also be out of luck as most of the time when I'm on mobile the images don't load. None of them. It takes several refreshes to see what a dragon is on my scroll or in the ap if I'm lucky enough to get an image at all. For the people who are stuck on their phones all the time this would make catching CB eggs almost impossible.

 

The only pro I see to this is that it stops scripters from using the text in the egg descriptions from using said text to catch eggs automatically, and even then it would only be a temporary fix. I can see several workarounds for this that a scripter may use. It'd be more trouble, but wouldn't stop the problem. In the long run it would hurt far more innocent users who are just unlucky enough to have poor internet or no computer. I'm saying this as a programmer myself.

 

*snip*

I, too, can see a couple of work-arounds. To be honest, this suggestion has come up in the past and... it would cause too many problems for too many people who aren't cheating, in order to stop cheaters who will within a week or two find a work-around. If that.

 

So while I agree that more effort needs to be put into finding and eliminating Scripters and Multis, this sadly won't get the job done. Not over the long-haul.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[olympe]

Since I strive to understand, would you care to enlighten me? What workarounds are there? And how would three images be worse than 30 smaller ones in the AP?

 

ETA:

Thanks, but I got my enlightenment of the day via PM.

Edited May 13, 2016 by olympe

[AGYK]

I have various critiques of the idea. tl;dr: no support.

 

Why would people with vision problems have a problem with a screenshot of what they see now?

* Screen readers (usually?) won't process images, but will process raw text.

* Zoom in is likely to be far more ragged for an image than for text, because text is usually auto-aliased to make it look crisper. Edit: testing this with one of my dragon's /view/ pages confirms this. The text still looks very crisp after several zooms, but the dragon sprite got ragged around the edges very quickly.

 

So, it would be possible to make a mobile version (that cannot be accessed via PC) like now, and a regular version with screenshots for descriptions. However, it's a lot of work.

Anything you can access on mobile, I can probably access on PC with enough work. A site doesn't just magically know to show you its mobile version - it checks certain things about the environment it's running in. To the best of my knowledge, anything a site can check can be spoofed with enough effort. For example, user-agent checking is fairly common, both for selecting desktop vs. mobile and for selecting display rules to make the site look good across different browsers. However, users can very easily forge the user-agent. Years ago I played around with being Googlebot, just for the heck of it. Today, there's nothing stopping me (or anyone else) from identifying as a mobile browser.

 

I wasn't thinking of making the description-pics captcha-style - that wouldn't work at all! I was thinking of using a screenshot of the description (on scroll background, no less) instead of the written description.

The reason captchas are so hard to read is because text recognition software and captcha breaking software have gotten very very good, so any simple captcha is easily "read". I fully expect anyone with enough time and knowledge would be able to adapt to image-based descriptions.

 

Edit: as I type this, an even simpler way of breaking these images occurs to me. The content of the image itself would have to be changed every so often. Welcome to the world of running a captcha: your image content needs to change periodically, your filename needs to change periodically, and you probably need to put some garbage in the background to keep any basic image recognizing software from eating your images alive.

 

There's also the point that image-based scripting off the AP has been a Thing for a very long time now. Even back in 2010-2011 there were whispers about people who sat in the AP with a script looking for bouncing Neglecteds and for Hollies at Christmas time. If memory serves, the AP still had image rotation back then, so any AP scripts in question would have worked by identifying the image.

 

At the end of the day, you'll probably stall some of the people who just download a script and run it. You won't defer whoever's building those scripts, and eventually updated versions would make their way out and we'd be right back at square 1. I also don't think the costs to normal players are worth it. The extra lag will be noticeable and the lack of accessibility has definite potential to be harmful as well imo.

 

I don't think this is worth it.

[VixenDra]

I'd prefer there to be a system allowing detecting scripters instead or blocking their scripting actions or making their 'lifes' just a bit more complex while influencing other players as well. So TJ could punish them and them only.

 

1st could be a detector that would sent an automated notice to TJ if one scroll gets more rares and 2+ ultra rares from the cave within short period of time. I personally can't believe that any of the trade offerers that offer more than CB 2 Golds or/and Silvers could catch them genuinely, regular players doen't even SEE those eggs in the cave, let alone grab >some<. But well, innocent until proven guilty. TJ would need something else that would actually allow him to check if the egg/s were grabbed via some script.

Perhaps that's what should be done? some detector of activities different than intended? Idk maybe this might be possible to code, just difficult to find the way to code it so it works?

 

Anyway, I'm much more for detecting and catching the scripters than just preventing them.

 

 

For me, images sound as adding pain to regular users - images need much more to load than text.

Idk, maybe the text should stay and maybe it's posisble to change the actual code determining the breed so this code changes frequently while the text we see stays the same but so a script can't get an egg by this text(egg description that is) but only using this hidden code? idk if that's possible but would be way better than adding to the loading time by changing the text into images?

 

Images are not a big deal to me right now but poorer connection/device users shouldn't be put in such additional disadvantage:( We want to punish the scripters, not regular players.

[AGYK]

I personally can't believe that any of the trade offerers that offer more than CB 2 Golds or/and Silvers could catch them genuinely, regular players doen't even SEE those eggs in the cave, let alone grab >some<.

Don't forget the powertraders. Depending on what else someone is carrying on their scroll (NDs, 3g prizes, etc.) I could very reasonably expect to see multiple trades for CB metals. At the end of the day your hypothetical trader might have 2-3 from completely different sources. I'm sure some of the heavy traders get even more.

 

Idk, maybe the text should stay and maybe it's posisble to change the actual code determining the breed so this code changes frequently while the text we see stays the same but so a script can't get an egg by this text(egg description that is) but only using this hidden code?

Sounds like Mossy Eggs, or a variant thereof? Not sure if I'm understanding you correctly.

[_Sin_]

Idk, maybe the text should stay and maybe it's posisble to change the actual code determining the breed so this code changes frequently while the text we see stays the same but so a script can't get an egg by this text(egg description that is) but only using this hidden code? idk if that's possible but would be way better than adding to the loading time by changing the text into images?

I don't understand. What is the hidden code you are talking about?

[VixenDra]

some of those large trade offers can have all eggs grabbed in the same minute or 5-10 which is quite unlikely to happen to 1 person, even if they get them by trade? I just mean a signal, so TJ could start checkign if everything was legit.

 

 

 

I mean the code that determines what breed or alt the dragon is. Because I guess there needs to be some code like that? What about breeds that share the same egg desctiption? There must be some difference... what if this part was somehow changing? If possible that is... or it cave eggs needed sth else to get caught (in code) than already not growing and on scroll ones? no idea, just guessing and hoping this might give some tiny hint to start thinking?

 

Anyway, I'm out of it.

[_Sin_]

some of those large trade offers can have all eggs grabbed in the same minute or 5-10 which is quite unlikely to happen to 1 person, even if they get them by trade? I just mean a signal, so TJ could start checkign if everything was legit.

 

 

 

I mean the code that determines what breed or alt the dragon is. Because I guess there needs to be some code like that? What about breeds that share the same egg desctiption? There must be some difference... what if this part was somehow changing? If possible that is... or it cave eggs needed sth else to get caught (in code) than already not growing and on scroll ones? no idea, just guessing and hoping this might give some tiny hint to start thinking?

 

Anyway, I'm out of it.

I'm even more confused now. First of all, how did you determine that those large trade eggs had been grabbed the same minute or 5-10, when all we can see is the number of days and hours left?

 

I've no idea if there is a breed-determining code, unless you are talking about the Dragonpedia code. Anyway, to be able to pick up eggs, people must see one of two things: the description of the eggs (as happens in the biomes) or the image relative to the breed (as happens in the AP). How would the hidden code help? I'm lost.

[diaveborn]

I am against anything that would decrease accessibility.

 

edit: Against it being implemented for everyone. I would not be adverse to a captcha or something only for any scrolls who were showing clear signs of cheating behavior, if such a thing were able to be distinguished in a way that an extremely minimal amount of users playing fairly were to be very rarely affected, and as long as accessibility was kept in mind. So of the things discussed so far, I would prefer a captcha that has an audio option to a screenshot type method or to a captcha without an audio option.

Edited May 14, 2016 by diaveborn

[pinkgothic]

Three contributions to this:

 

1) for emphasis: instead of making images with the backgrounds of the different themes, you could make two variants with transparent backgrounds (one with dark text, one with light text). That may be less work to arrange, and is compatible with scrolling backgrounds like on Portal 2 Dark.

 

2) if you're going to rotate image names, be sure all images have the exact same dimensions, otherwise scripts will check for description image dimensions rather than bothering with the contents. (This would put an upper bound on how long egg descriptions for new releases can be before images need to be replaced, though.)

 

3) when the cave is fairly laggy, some users switch off their images so they can still hunt in the cave without having to worry about site images loading. This would destroy that lag work-around.

 

Other people have already pointed out accessibility problems, bandwidth problems and how good automated optical character recognition is these days, so I won't repeat those points, other than to say that I consider them important.

 

That said, I am not strongly opposed to giving this idea a test run for a while, maybe, to see if it ends up being a net positive. I'm sceptical, but not firmly convinced that my scepticism is warranted. My biggest concern is accessibility; ignoring that I would say it's definitely worth a try if we think scripting is a big issue. That said, I don't want to ignore accessibility, so I am leaning toward 'no'.

 

Trying to rescue this idea from an accessibility perspective: A hybrid solutions where you start getting image-based labels once you have a CB metal or two on your scroll could perhaps be an acceptable compromise between accessibility and scripter-thwarting? Maybe? It's still unfair to people relying on screen readers, but if the threshold is picked wisely the amount of people unfairly impacted may be significantly less than the amount of scripters thwarted. (I say that without having an idea how many people are in either group. There may be no reasonable threshold.)

 

Also, since it came up, a list of CB-dropping dragons that share descriptions (the following list clumsily attempts to be complete):

 

- Tan / Purple Ridgewings (A cool mountain breeze blows around this egg.)

- Red and Purple Dorsals (This egg has multiple bands of color on it.)

- Blue and Purple Dinos (This egg looks like it doesn’t belong; it is brightly colored with white spots. It’s much lighter than the other eggs.)

- Moonstones and Sunstones (This egg resembles a glowing stone.)

- Flamingos and Pinks (It’s bright. And pink.) - some biomes have both species, though there are CB pink only biomes. I don't believe there is a way to exclusively hunt for Flamingos.

 

CB-dropping dragons that share descriptions but are completely distinguishable by what biome you're in:

 

- Pyralspites (This egg feels like polished stone.)

- Coppers (This egg gleams with a reddish shine.)

- Stripes and Spitfires (This egg has brightly colored markings on it.) - though there was a temporary(?) glitch that let both appear in a biome (was it Forest?) for a while

- Skywings, Horses and Ochredrakes (This egg has strange markings on it.)

 

CB-dropping dragons that share descriptions but are completely distinguishable by the time o day / lunar cycle / year:

 

- Seasonals (The markings on this egg match the weather outside.) - not really important for anything since they're mutually exclusive, but I figured I'd list them for completion's sake.

- Lunar Heralds (This metallic egg shows faint iridescence in moonlight.)

- Sunset / Sunrise (This egg is glowing as brightly as the sun.)

Edited May 14, 2016 by pinkgothic

[SullenCat]

Compared with the issues that this suggestion would create, in particular accessibility and lag, are scripters that big of a problem? In particular, if after going through all this, the scripters just implement some workaround?

 

ETA: I'm not the most enthusiastic proponent of the store but, the way the discussion has been evolving, the opportunity of getting metals and prizes from there could mitigate this issue.

Edited May 14, 2016 by SullenCat

[Starscream]

on a site where we used captcha style to do things, it was a true pain in the butt for those who play legitimately. its more punishing for those who follow the rules, than those who do not.

 

[Wymsical]

Well, this is quite an interesting thing to see suggested here. I can give quite a lot of insight on a proposal like this, having been part of putting together this exact type of thing in the past elsewhere. However, I'm not going to explain in great detail how it works because doing so on a public platform doesn't sit well with me and is just bad ethics in general. (TJ if you see this and are curious, you are free to contact me privately to discuss it.)

 

Regarding legibility: Black text was generated on a transparent background. On the site these images were displayed in a box that utilised a light shade of a particular theme's background colour to ensure readability on all themes. Really, it wouldn't be that hard to have specific text generated for each separate theme on DC. Impact on both the server and client side was negligible, because the file sizes were all very tiny.

 

When implemented fully and properly, this type of system works insanely well to stop text-reading (and more advanced ones as well) scripts. It even thwarts work-arounds. Unfortunately, you'll just have to take my word on that as I don't want to publicly discuss it for a number of reasons. The other big one outside of ethics being that... I just really don't want to give the wrong people the ideas/clues they needed to go that extra mile. You can never know who is watching (this is nothing against anybody in this thread or any specific person, it's just a general comment).

 

If you have questions for me, feel free but... I will not answer anything that gets into internal workings of how such a system functions.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Commander Wymsy

[cyradis4]

on a site where we used captcha style to do things, it was a true pain in the butt for those who play legitimately. its more punishing for those who follow the rules, than those who do not.

While this wouldn't be captcha, I do agree that it would cause more problems for legit players than it would those who cheat.

 

Having said that, I'd think some analysis of user-catching patterns would quickly net the scripters that are causing issues. After all, who cares if someone is grabbing, say.... Blacks in a mass? Its the CB Golds and CB Silvers that could cause a problem, and its the ones grabbing lots of them at that that cause problems. *shrug* but that's nothing the userbase can do anything about.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[SullenCat]

Well, this is quite an interesting thing to see suggested here. I can give quite a lot of insight on a proposal like this, having been part of putting together this exact type of thing in the past elsewhere. However, I'm not going to explain in great detail how it works because doing so on a public platform doesn't sit well with me and is just bad ethics in general. (TJ if you see this and are curious, you are free to contact me privately to discuss it.)

 

Regarding legibility: Black text was generated on a transparent background. On the site these images were displayed in a box that utilised a light shade of a particular theme's background colour to ensure readability on all themes. Really, it wouldn't be that hard to have specific text generated for each separate theme on DC. Impact on both the server and client side was negligible, because the file sizes were all very tiny.

 

When implemented fully and properly, this type of system works insanely well to stop text-reading (and more advanced ones as well) scripts. It even thwarts work-arounds. Unfortunately, you'll just have to take my word on that as I don't want to publicly discuss it for a number of reasons. The other big one outside of ethics being that... I just really don't want to give the wrong people the ideas/clues they needed to go that extra mile. You can never know who is watching (this is nothing against anybody in this thread or any specific person, it's just a general comment).

 

If you have questions for me, feel free but... I will not answer anything that gets into internal workings of how such a system functions.

Without exposing the internal workings of that system, could you at least let us know the address of the site or sites using that system so we can try it?

[Starscream]

Having said that, I'd think some analysis of user-catching patterns would quickly net the scripters that are causing issues. After all, who cares if someone is grabbing, say.... Blacks in a mass? Its the CB Golds and CB Silvers that could cause a problem, and its the ones grabbing lots of them at that that cause problems. *shrug* but that's nothing the userbase can do anything about.

 

Cheers!

C4.

I feel that, where there may be some cases of scripters, that there are some people who are lucky, have good connections or just have a lot more time on their hands. To a degree I feel it mostly is a witch hunt fuelled by jealousy in that respect. "They got 5CBsilvers today, they must be scripting!" (I have caught 5CB silvers within two days once. People should not be punished for having a good connection, or being persistent.

 

for those who want to cheat, they will be absolutely determined to do so. Scripting is only a minor part of their problem, the chances are also that they multiscroll, if htey are getting so many golds or silvers then it is best directed at a mod so they can look into it. Cheating on this game, to what end? I do not understand their need.

 

Scripting is not a rampant problem, and to be honest, it also isn't the biggest issue that needs to be addressed either.

 

I do believe TJ has been addressing this issue. Will he tell us directly, the answer is likely a good solid no. TJ is Mysterious :3