there is some amazing news for the legit players still playing .

The last weeks , GMs are hitting the bots very hard, showing up live ingame and cleaning whole areas!

Just read the official forums , or any forum about L2

Finally ^^

Damn, finally...

they would be banning their whole playerbase if they showed up in areas and banned everyone. This game is run by people who bot, and people who farm. I can now see why they never did ban any bots .... its because the majority 80-90% of the playerbase bots.

2 years too late :( , if they did this 2 years ago this would have been a great game still.

Yeah , they are to late on this, people who bought adena have adena , now the people who need to catch up and buy some won't beable too. Mostly one of the more powerful guilds who run an adena selling circle complained to NcSoft. NcSoft contracts out to get a % of sales.

Don't worry, they'll be back.

You know who can blame for NCSoft North America's poor management? Big ol' Lord Brit Richard Garriott. All that guy was worried about was keep his numbers up so that he could get his little rocket trip into space. Every time there was a layoff he cut CS positions. He didn't give a f*ck whether the subs were players or farmers.

Everything the guy did was a frickin mess. Almost everything NC NA has done in the last 4 years has been a flop. AA shut down in record time and TR, the game that Rich claimed would be the end all of MMO's is on clearance at Amazon for 0.96 cents one year after launch. The last decent thing NC did in NA was GW and before that CoH which Crypic cut and run from NC first opportunity.

The guy was a complete tool who could give a rats arse about the quality of the games he produced. He was to busy pretending to be a video game rockstar and playing Spaceman Spiff to worry about running NC NA. Now he's off to play field scientist and pursue his new interest inspired by his trip to space. NC more likely asked him to resign is probably the real story. They positioned Star Long in there a few months ago for a reason.

Originally posted by Torak

You know who can blame for NCSoft North America's poor management? Big ol' Lord Brit Richard Garriott. All that guy was worried about was keep his numbers up so that he could get his little rocket trip into space. Every time there was a layoff he cut CS positions. He didn't give a f*ck whether the subs were players or farmers.

Everything the guy did was a frickin mess. Almost everything NC NA has done in the last 4 years has been a flop. AA shut down in record time and TR, the game that Rich claimed would be the end all of MMO's is on clearance at Amazon for 0.96 cents one year after launch. The last decent thing NC did in NA was GW and before that CoH which Crypic cut and run from NC first opportunity.

The guy was a complete tool who could give a rats arse about the quality of the games he produced. He was to busy pretending to be a video game rockstar and playing Spaceman Spiff to worry about running NC NA. Now he's off to play field scientist and pursue his new interest inspired by his trip to space. NC more likely asked him to resign is probably the real story. They positioned Star Long in there a few months ago for a reason.

 

 

 

 

ummm richard garriott only worked on Tabula rasa, unless you got a link or something to prove he worked on L2.

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Torak

You know who can blame for NCSoft North America's poor management? Big ol' Lord Brit Richard Garriott. All that guy was worried about was keep his numbers up so that he could get his little rocket trip into space. Every time there was a layoff he cut CS positions. He didn't give a f*ck whether the subs were players or farmers.

Everything the guy did was a frickin mess. Almost everything NC NA has done in the last 4 years has been a flop. AA shut down in record time and TR, the game that Rich claimed would be the end all of MMO's is on clearance at Amazon for 0.96 cents one year after launch. The last decent thing NC did in NA was GW and before that CoH which Crypic cut and run from NC first opportunity.

The guy was a complete tool who could give a rats arse about the quality of the games he produced. He was to busy pretending to be a video game rockstar and playing Spaceman Spiff to worry about running NC NA. Now he's off to play field scientist and pursue his new interest inspired by his trip to space. NC more likely asked him to resign is probably the real story. They positioned Star Long in there a few months ago for a reason.

 

 

 

 

 

ummm richard garriott only worked on Tabula rasa, unless you got a link or something to prove he worked on L2.

http://www.gamesfirst.com/articles/aaron/garriott/garriott2.htm

also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott

[edit] Video game works
Game Name First Released System Name(s) Garriott's Role(s)
Akalabeth: World of Doom 1980 Apple II & DOS Game Designer & Programmer
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness 1980 Apple II, Atari 8 bit systems, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns & MSX Original Conceptor, Programmer & Graphic Artist
Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress 1982 Apple II, Atari 8 bit systems, Commodore 64, DOS & FM Towns Programmer
Ultima III: Exodus 1983 Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8 bit systems, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, Mac OS & NES Project Director
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar 1985 Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8 bit systems, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, MSX, NES, Sega Master System Project Director
Autoduel 1985 Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8 bit systems, Atari ST, Commodore 64 & DOS Programmer & Designer
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny 1988 Apple II, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns & NES Designer, Writer & Programmer
Omega 1989 Apple II, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 & DOS Designer
Ultima VI: The False Prophet 1990 DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, FM Towns, SNES Designer, Producer, Sound Effect Worker, Writer & Voice Actor
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire 1990 DOS & SNES Executive Producer
Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams 1991 DOS Creative Director
Ultima: Runes of Virtue 1991 Game Boy Creative Director
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss 1992 DOS, FM Towns & PlayStation Director & Voice Actor
Ultima VII: The Black Gate 1992 DOS & SNES Director & Producer
Ultima VII: The Forge of Virtue 1993 DOS Creative Assistance & Producer
Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle 1993 DOS Creative Director & Audio Team Member
Ultima VII Part Two: The Silver Seed 1993 DOS Director & Voice Actor
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds 1993 DOS, FM Towns & NEC PC-9801 Director & Voice Actor
Ultima VIII: Pagan 1994 DOS Producer
Ultima: Runes of Virtue II 1994 Game Boy Creative Director & Additional Design
Ultima VIII: The Lost Vale Expansion Pack Cancelled DOS Producer
Bioforge 1995 DOS Executive Producer
Ultima Online 1997 Windows Producer
Ultima Online: The Second Age 1998 Windows Executive Designer
Lineage 1998 Windows & Mac OS X Executive Producer
Ultima IX: Ascension 1999 Windows Director
Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle 2003 Windows Executive Producer
City of Heroes 2004 Windows Executive Producer
City of Villains 2005 Windows Executive Management
Tabula Rasa Nov. 2 2007 Windows Executive Producer
 

Originally posted by Zorvan

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Torak

You know who can blame for NCSoft North America's poor management? Big ol' Lord Brit Richard Garriott. All that guy was worried about was keep his numbers up so that he could get his little rocket trip into space. Every time there was a layoff he cut CS positions. He didn't give a f*ck whether the subs were players or farmers.

Everything the guy did was a frickin mess. Almost everything NC NA has done in the last 4 years has been a flop. AA shut down in record time and TR, the game that Rich claimed would be the end all of MMO's is on clearance at Amazon for 0.96 cents one year after launch. The last decent thing NC did in NA was GW and before that CoH which Crypic cut and run from NC first opportunity.

The guy was a complete tool who could give a rats arse about the quality of the games he produced. He was to busy pretending to be a video game rockstar and playing Spaceman Spiff to worry about running NC NA. Now he's off to play field scientist and pursue his new interest inspired by his trip to space. NC more likely asked him to resign is probably the real story. They positioned Star Long in there a few months ago for a reason.

 

 

 

 

 

ummm richard garriott only worked on Tabula rasa, unless you got a link or something to prove he worked on L2.

 

http://www.gamesfirst.com/articles/aaron/garriott/garriott2.htm

also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott

[edit] Video game works
Game Name First Released System Name(s) Garriott's Role(s)
Akalabeth: World of Doom 1980 Apple II & DOS Game Designer & Programmer
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness 1980 Apple II, Atari 8 bit systems, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns & MSX Original Conceptor, Programmer & Graphic Artist
Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress 1982 Apple II, Atari 8 bit systems, Commodore 64, DOS & FM Towns Programmer
Ultima III: Exodus 1983 Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8 bit systems, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, Mac OS & NES Project Director
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar 1985 Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8 bit systems, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, MSX, NES, Sega Master System Project Director
Autoduel 1985 Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8 bit systems, Atari ST, Commodore 64 & DOS Programmer & Designer
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny 1988 Apple II, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns & NES Designer, Writer & Programmer
Omega 1989 Apple II, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 & DOS Designer
Ultima VI: The False Prophet 1990 DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, FM Towns, SNES Designer, Producer, Sound Effect Worker, Writer & Voice Actor
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire 1990 DOS & SNES Executive Producer
Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams 1991 DOS Creative Director
Ultima: Runes of Virtue 1991 Game Boy Creative Director
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss 1992 DOS, FM Towns & PlayStation Director & Voice Actor
Ultima VII: The Black Gate 1992 DOS & SNES Director & Producer
Ultima VII: The Forge of Virtue 1993 DOS Creative Assistance & Producer
Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle 1993 DOS Creative Director & Audio Team Member
Ultima VII Part Two: The Silver Seed 1993 DOS Director & Voice Actor
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds 1993 DOS, FM Towns & NEC PC-9801 Director & Voice Actor
Ultima VIII: Pagan 1994 DOS Producer
Ultima: Runes of Virtue II 1994 Game Boy Creative Director & Additional Design
Ultima VIII: The Lost Vale Expansion Pack Cancelled DOS Producer
Bioforge 1995 DOS Executive Producer
Ultima Online 1997 Windows Producer
Ultima Online: The Second Age 1998 Windows Executive Designer
Lineage 1998 Windows & Mac OS X Executive Producer
Ultima IX: Ascension 1999 Windows Director
Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle 2003 Windows Executive Producer
City of Heroes 2004 Windows Executive Producer
City of Villains 2005 Windows Executive Management
Tabula Rasa Nov. 2 2007 Windows Executive Producer
 

ahhh ty zorvan, i didnt know he also worked on COH and COV either. thats interesting.

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Zorvan

Originally posted by tvalentine

Originally posted by Torak

You know who can blame for NCSoft North America's poor management? Big ol' Lord Brit Richard Garriott. All that guy was worried about was keep his numbers up so that he could get his little rocket trip into space. Every time there was a layoff he cut CS positions. He didn't give a f*ck whether the subs were players or farmers.

Everything the guy did was a frickin mess. Almost everything NC NA has done in the last 4 years has been a flop. AA shut down in record time and TR, the game that Rich claimed would be the end all of MMO's is on clearance at Amazon for 0.96 cents one year after launch. The last decent thing NC did in NA was GW and before that CoH which Crypic cut and run from NC first opportunity.

The guy was a complete tool who could give a rats arse about the quality of the games he produced. He was to busy pretending to be a video game rockstar and playing Spaceman Spiff to worry about running NC NA. Now he's off to play field scientist and pursue his new interest inspired by his trip to space. NC more likely asked him to resign is probably the real story. They positioned Star Long in there a few months ago for a reason.

 

 

 

 

 

ummm richard garriott only worked on Tabula rasa, unless you got a link or something to prove he worked on L2.

 

http://www.gamesfirst.com/articles/aaron/garriott/garriott2.htm

also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott

[edit] Video game works
Game Name First Released System Name(s) Garriott's Role(s)
Akalabeth: World of Doom 1980 Apple II & DOS Game Designer & Programmer
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness 1980 Apple II, Atari 8 bit systems, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns & MSX Original Conceptor, Programmer & Graphic Artist
Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress 1982 Apple II, Atari 8 bit systems, Commodore 64, DOS & FM Towns Programmer
Ultima III: Exodus 1983 Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8 bit systems, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, Mac OS & NES Project Director
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar 1985 Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8 bit systems, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, MSX, NES, Sega Master System Project Director
Autoduel 1985 Apple II, Amiga, Atari 8 bit systems, Atari ST, Commodore 64 & DOS Programmer & Designer
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny 1988 Apple II, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns & NES Designer, Writer & Programmer
Omega 1989 Apple II, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 & DOS Designer
Ultima VI: The False Prophet 1990 DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, FM Towns, SNES Designer, Producer, Sound Effect Worker, Writer & Voice Actor
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire 1990 DOS & SNES Executive Producer
Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams 1991 DOS Creative Director
Ultima: Runes of Virtue 1991 Game Boy Creative Director
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss 1992 DOS, FM Towns & PlayStation Director & Voice Actor
Ultima VII: The Black Gate 1992 DOS & SNES Director & Producer
Ultima VII: The Forge of Virtue 1993 DOS Creative Assistance & Producer
Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle 1993 DOS Creative Director & Audio Team Member
Ultima VII Part Two: The Silver Seed 1993 DOS Director & Voice Actor
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds 1993 DOS, FM Towns & NEC PC-9801 Director & Voice Actor
Ultima VIII: Pagan 1994 DOS Producer
Ultima: Runes of Virtue II 1994 Game Boy Creative Director & Additional Design
Ultima VIII: The Lost Vale Expansion Pack Cancelled DOS Producer
Bioforge 1995 DOS Executive Producer
Ultima Online 1997 Windows Producer
Ultima Online: The Second Age 1998 Windows Executive Designer
Lineage 1998 Windows & Mac OS X Executive Producer
Ultima IX: Ascension 1999 Windows Director
Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle 2003 Windows Executive Producer
City of Heroes 2004 Windows Executive Producer
City of Villains 2005 Windows Executive Management
Tabula Rasa Nov. 2 2007 Windows Executive Producer
 

 

ahhh ty zorvan, i didnt know he also worked on COH and COV either. thats interesting.

Uppers, if you notice he was also involved in L1 which put NC on the map.

But what I was meaning in any event was that he was responsible for the NA end of the company and he didn't give a rats arse, not what games he actually worked on. I didn't refer to any particular game he personally worked on.

This is irrelevant to my point. He was in charge and as a result, responsible. Thats why they paid him the big bucks. He drove NCSoft NA into the ground.

 EDIT

By the way...I would also like to point out that one of the grand daddy's of the stereotyped "Korean Grinder" was big Rich. L1 and L2 were emulated by.....probably hundreds of Asian games at this point. Even the old SWG pointless Bol grind aspects mimiced it.

Um, this has been happening for years now.

Every once in a blue moon a GM will log on and a ban a few groups of bots and then publicize it, then naive people will all cheer that NCSoft really cares and that everything is going to be good.

But then the bots come back, the GM's stop banning, people start bitching again, and the whole cycle starts over again.

The fact is NCSoft will never ban all bots because it's half their subscribers, and banning half of the people who are paying you monthly to play your game would be a stupid ass move

Its different this time, bans are announced ingame everydag so far. Something really is happening!!

Maybe it has to do with a new bot report button they introduced last update

Some real players are already coming back.

And t he remaining bots in my area are "trained"  in oldschool style again by my fortune seeker

Hehe Im having fun again^^

Originally posted by kuliasko

Its different this time, bans are announced ingame everydag so far. Something really is happening!!

Maybe it has to do with a new bot report button they introduced last update

Some real players are already coming back.

And t he remaining bots in my area are "trained"  in oldschool style again by my fortune seeker

Hehe Im having fun again^^

 

 

Something is happening;  Its called WoW released another expansion and NC always does mass bans the week of a WoW release. 

Simple banning the accounts who appear to be botting isn't going to do anything.  If the people who make a business of selling adena are even half way intelligent then they'll make sure the accounts who are holding most of the adena for sale have nothing to do with the accounts actually doing the farming.  NCSoft isn't going to ban somebody for sitting in Giran with a sell shop.

The only thing the botters are really losing is a few high level characters who do the farming which can be replaced in a few weeks.

Originally posted by isurus

Don't worry, they'll be back.

how right you are!

they always do this... look we did a big bot sweep because we care about our players. Then 2 weeks later you are back competing for mobs with a train of characters named ffjexyla, b and c.

Originally posted by kuliasko

Its different this time, bans are announced ingame everydag so far. Something really is happening!!

Maybe it has to do with a new bot report button they introduced last update

Some real players are already coming back.

And t he remaining bots in my area are "trained"  in oldschool style again by my fortune seeker

Hehe Im having fun again^^

 

 

I am happy your are having fun, i remember sitting there sending the GMs lists of bots, and nothing would get done about it.

Originally posted by dave6660

Simple banning the accounts who appear to be botting isn't going to do anything.  If the people who make a business of selling adena are even half way intelligent then they'll make sure the accounts who are holding most of the adena for sale have nothing to do with the accounts actually doing the farming.  NCSoft isn't going to ban somebody for sitting in Giran with a sell shop.

The only thing the botters are really losing is a few high level characters who do the farming which can be replaced in a few weeks.

This is the crux of the scam NCsoft has ran on its customers since at least late C2.  If you are a regular player you will only get banned for botting if your are unlucky or one of the most egregious offenders.  If you are a farmer you are going to have to be "taxed" to do business on L2 servers.  The tax comes in the form of taking the bulk of the bans.  The farmers come back because the regular player base is largely exempt from bans and is waiting with real money in hand to buy their services.  NCsoft gets to sell a batch of game licenses and gets to publicly brag about how many accounts they banned.  What they dont tell you is that 95% of the accounts were farmers that replaced the accounts within 3 months and the short term loss in revenue was offset by CD key sales generated from the ban.  Legit or at least fair minded players are kept on the hook with petition responses like "Thank you for reporting this bot.  We take this very seriously ...", adding useless and inexpensive anti-cheating measures like gameguard, HGM Spam doing high visibility token bans on the servers, press releases and interviews saying how  NCsoft is doing everything possible to enforce the rules and talking about how many accounts they have banned.   NCsoft can't be trusted to do the right thing when it effects their bottom line.

Just trying to clean face for the upcoming Aion.

BTW, http://www.aionsource.com/forum/general-discussion/9340-first-bots-aion.html

Only time will tell if NCsoft NA will behave the same way with Aion regarding bots that they did with Lineage. The Korean branch has always been far more competent; it's the NA area the problem here...