It's really easy to draw conclusions when we don't understand the problem. We can only assume what their setup is so none of us really have any idea. But, if we can't see how someone running even 1 bot puts additional strain on available resources I don't think we can make any educated assumptions at all about where the problem lies.
That said, I'll go ahead and make an a** out of myself and say that the problem is twofold. Both the server and the normal client.
Server: If you had any experience scripting a bot at the lowest level allowed, you know that most actions (and reactions) are sent to the server for validation. Almost every click (and drag) is sent to the server. Certainly every attack result is calculated on the server. It has to be that way because otherwise it would be extremely easy to hack resources, troop counts, wave sizes and anything else that isn't tracked by the server. If it wasn't, I'd have Atlantis within 5 minutes of the server opening. Each request to the server costs resources and there is a finite limit to how much that server can handle simultaneously. If everyone on the server is running multiple botted accounts, it's obviously going to be struggling a lot more than if no one botted. This isn't even taking into account the routers, firewalls, switches, or load balancers between our clients and their servers. Any one of those hops could have a problem too.
Client: Oftentimes, when I was experiencing lag, I would log in with a bot and not have any issues at all. Other times the lag would go away if I just re-logged in. Those cases point to a client issue where it's doing too much or leaking memory. I'm sure those issues are compounded when the server is lagging too, but there is definitely some performance improvements that can be done on the client.
All that aside, we need to consider the motivation behind the recent stance against bots. It wen't from denial, to acceptance, to consequence over the span of 4(?) years. Why did they let it go for so long? I can only assume (again) that bots helped their bottom line. For a long time I couldn't figure out why they wouldn't stop them on Age II when they were losing gem revenue. Then I realized that more troops and better heroes sells more ports and more Vesta's. Their flaw was not realizing the extent at which this community has accepted cheating as the norm and how much that would strain their infrastructure. They have the resource utilization numbers so I'm inclined to believe them when they say that bot usage is now at a point where they are costing too much for them to sustain.
It will be interesting to see the fallout from this when they do shut it down. The only suggestion I would have is to allow marching without food. On Age I, turn off refuge. On Age II increase the star level odds.
The bottom line is, bots have been around since the first server. This kind of unplayable lag has not. Evony has always had occasional lag. Right as a new server opens or right as servers get merged the lag spikes and gets worse, but in the "between times" lag is generally minimal and there's no problems. Around the same time it went from showing as Regan Mercantile on the paypal statements to showing UCool on the paypal statements, is the same time the lag became unplayable. There were server "upgrades" at that time. There were server merges around that time as well. The lag got huge around this time, and it never stopped afterwards.
Either evony "upgraded" us to weaker machines, or they merged them onto fewer machines, or something got broken in their code or database that is still broken and causing the stuck marches and returns and glitches and intolerable lag. The bots and alts didn't get greater in number that month. They were already there. I know that this is not something Evony wants to hear. I also know that bots and alts are not helping the lag situation. But pointing the finger at us without also looking internally to see if there's anything that can be done on their end... is not going to help anything. There has to be a solution that doesn't alienate their paying customers.
-pier117
*sitting on a porch enjoying the view*
Holiday mode is not required to sustain large upkeep. Keep in mind as long as they are in holiday they aren't kicking your butt. While people say oh I'm just gonna holiday to build food... it usually happens when someone has ported in on them. The sad part is that your on here saying penalize holiday when there is no reason for it.
You say charge 2 or 3 days food for a holiday. Ok I will remove all but 2 or 3 worth of food out of my city's and put in alts before I holiday. So there goes your stupid idea. The few players who maybe don't have an alt get screwed if they want to holiday.
Or i will make my army a little smaller and deprive evony of revenue and not holiday as much.
Lets not forget the unintended consequence of your il-conceived idea. You will be punishing the majority of people who holiday for reasons such as vacations, busier than normal work schedule, busier than normal school schedule, funeral, family emergency or maybe you just are plain sick of playing and want a break. Your gonna punish those people with your draconian idea?
As with all of the limiting, capping, and restricting evony has done to level the playing field or limit cheating, ultimately it is the smaller players that get punished the most by such changes. And it is ultimately the reason why 99.9% of all players have more than 1 account and are all on a bot.
Are you done spouting off your "penalize for holiday idea" yet?
I've told you how to beat it and how you would punish players not using holiday to build up food or players who only have 1 account. Do you still think its a good idea? Do you see the incredible flaw in your thinking yet? And don't feel like I am only picking on you. Your idea is right up evonys alley. It is exactly something they would do. It is their pattern. It is why we are here today discussing this.
But that is still no excuse for you.
Correct. People assume the operating environment of the game has remained static, or gotten better, and all that has changed are the quantity of bots. But, for all people know, Evony took their server off a 24-core AMD-based server with 64 GB of RAM and a 10GB network link and shoved it on a 486 running Redhat 6 with an old coaxial ARCnet connection. Now, they're sitting there watching the little time-glass spin saying to themselves "those g..damn bots!", when the lag they see has absolutely nothing to do with bots.
Evony controls the information flow, and thus can affect public opinion on what the "problem" is.
Evony will never use public opinion first off. and second when they made they new game tynon were do you's think they put it? from what i heard it's sharing server with evony and that's why ALOT of servers when they did that quote on quote system upgrade ALOT of servers were downgraded to weaker systems. Even tynon gets lag yesterday i crashed 3 times trying to do the dailies. when log into tynon takes a min or 2 to load the server. So i still don't see were botting and multi accounting come into play. And again the lag was around way before botting. So people need to stop the b1tching and complain to evony so evony can get to the real issues. Like the market on ss46 still messed up. Like the fact that people with eather a new account or an account there leveling up can't promote anymore. And like the fact that with all this complaining your taking away the the time for evony to sit down and listen to players about what they want and how to make the game alot more fun to play. Dam so just stop!
from a lot of your comments in this thread, do you even play anymore? (I second what GirlSeeksGirl said to you)
Now you make a comment about a server, I got a question for you buddy; how do you think a lot of people run 100+ accounts? I bet you think those guys got the next gen super computer command center or something stupid like that. But news flash, a lot of those people rent out servers.
Now I'll try to dumb it down a bit for ya, most computers can handle somewhere between 30-50 accounts. We'll say these 30-50 accounts can support a 7 billion an hour war city. Now there's quite a few ways to break down how you will use 7 billion food an hour... lets look at a few
1) you have 1 war account with 7 billion food an hour upkeep... no holiday (not buying as much cents)
2) you have 2 war accounts with 7 billion food an hour upkeep.... 1 account is always in holiday (buying cents)
3) you have 3 war accounts with 7 billion food an hour upkeep each... you can feed again 1 account so 2 accounts in holiday
4) you have 3 war accounts with 14 billion food an hour upkeep each.... you can feed 1 account for half the month (even more cents)
-I hope that was simple enough for you to understand, now lets implement your brilliant plan to feed while in holiday
Person #1 it doesn't affect
Person #2 either has to drop a war account or get 2x the number of alts
Person #3 either has to drop 2 war accounts or get 3x the number of alts
Person #4 either has to drop 2 war accounts and half the upkeep in the 3rd or get 6x the number of alts.
-So if you're coining for holidays, then it affects you worse (bad business for evony), Player 4 alone is spending $75 a month on holiday (75 days of holiday).
I hope that was simplified enough for you on how your idea affects the people that spend money the most, now here is the question you need to think about now. Person #4 has 3 options
1) drop 2 war accounts and cut his upkeep in half on the third (I would say this one is unlikely, unless they decide they've had enough and will quit evony)
2) buy more computers and build more accounts to bot (very pricey and not very practical)
3) use that $75 they spent on evony each month to holiday to buy access to a server and build the bots they need to feed themselves (they are already spending that 75)
-I'd say a lot of people would choose option 3... so now with your bright idea (which several people have said isn't all that bright already and you've chosen not to listen), evony is losing more money (instead of making $75, they are making $0) and now there's even more alts on each server which is one of the main issues as is (you've just made it worse).
So in conclusion, Congratulations on a job well done (if your goal is for evony to implode and be done for good)
Limit accounts to 14 days of a new server, put all new servers on old 500x500 map.
no new accts will be less traffic, all the money you generate comes from new players, so not much in lost revenue, and start a new server every four weeks.
problem solved, less accounts, more future mergers where active inactive accounts can be separated and put on 800x800 maps like in 2009
keep the game fun for those who play, and keep revenue streams alive for age 1
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