In Elite Dangerous the annoying bots are now being fought. Numerous players want to work together to rid space of bots.
What is Elite Dangerous? Elite Dangerous is a large open-world game with an optional MMO mode. It is a mix of economic and flight simulation with a persistent game world and a main story that is continuously expanded.
- According to the developers, the game includes 400 billion procedurally generated star systems.
- Players can choose to be a trader, bounty hunter, smuggler, pirate, or take on other roles.
- Actions affect the entire game world(s).
Many factions and empires have emerged in the various systems. With Power Play, there is a kind of meta-gameplay that encompasses these different factions and territories. In the upcoming expansion Odyssey, players will even be able to land directly on planets.
What happened now? Apparently, a large number of bots are seen as a threat to the well-being of the galaxy in the eyes of thousands. Over 20,000 players now want to join in an agreement to combat this bot threat.
Over 20,000 players declare war on bots
That’s why they are fed up with the bots: In Elite Dangerous there are so-called “Shadow Wings” and “Ghost Fleets.” These are not ships and fleets controlled by players, but by bots.
These significantly influence the events in the systems. Third-party software is used to manipulate territories and the Power Play. Thousands of players are fed up with this. The “Anti-Botting Agreement” was announced in the official forum.
Here is the explanation of the agreement by user Asamith:
The time has come to set aside in-game rivalries. It is no longer Federation against Imperial, or Communists against Capitalists, or Anarchists against Dictatorships. Now it is Players against Cheaters!
via Elite Dangerous Forum
By the end of January, over 160 groups and fleets, comprising over 20,000 players, had joined the agreement.
The forum has various requests on how developers Frontier Developments should actively combat bots.
- This includes options for players to better recognize and report them.
- There are also ideas for the developers on how to effectively identify and eliminate bots.
How did the idea come about? The idea for the agreement originated according to PCGamer.com from a bot user who proposed a truce to a fleet of players after they acted against him. The conclusion: If a small group of players can become a problem for a bot user, what about a huge alliance?
The signatories of the agreement want to work with Frontier Development to find solutions.
What does Frontier Development say about it? The developer told PCGamer:
We are very grateful to the players who express their concerns about the bots in the game and ask them to continue reporting any violations to our customer service. Frontier wants to assure everyone that it remains committed to combating these issues, now and in the future.
via PCGamer.com
The team is continuously working to ban bot users and cheaters. However, they do not want to publicly disclose the exact methods of bot detection in order to prevent users of these bots from being able to circumvent these methods.
This makes it difficult to work publicly with players to combat the bots.
What do you think of the story? Are you affected by bots yourself, or even part of the agreement? Let us know in the comments.
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