When a member or segment of a given society suddenly gets shown under a negative spotlight, it is quite easy to paint faceless and sinister mental images of the reviled member. This is usually the case with Eve Online bots. Most of the readers to which we have received feedback from envision bots as part of a makeshift server somewhere in a Moscow suburb. For the majority of the cases, this couldn’t be further from the truth as the most of the bots in Eve are in fact what we would otherwise call “Average Joes.” Meaning players like you and me who enter into game breaking practices, with a “it’s not illegal, just frowned upon” attitude.

When we announced our intention to make botting so mainstream CCP would have to run and act against it, we received a lot of flak, both in the comments section and via e-mail. Others players were quick to advertise their advisory services for a “Fee”, and others really opened the proverbial “Pandora’s Box” and shared their tips with us. Some were kind enough to bring in their most sincere experiences, one of which we are sharing today, so open your drawer and break out the Kleenex box, because we have us a heart-breaking testimonial.

Rise of the Machines: The Human Face of Botting.

Background

I ‘ve been playing this game for several years. 2004 char in fact. Shortly ago my wife gave birth to our second child, and I realized that this could mean the end of eve for me. I still enjoyed eve, but I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to keep up with the increased pressure that members within large alliances experience. The super-cap race means a lot of grinding to get there. Not everybody have time to rat for hours, and not everybody is lucky enough to get escalations through anomalies. Like me.
I have several chars and in order to get a SC I would have to sell them and run 1 main and 1 holding char. In addition using isk for plexes. My real life obligations costs alot and I have to pay for my game-time with isk.

How and why I started botting

Last summer there was a lot of focus on a post on Kugutsumen. “The summer of exposure 2010″ or something like that. So I started rereading it just to see what all the fuzz about botting was. I was stunned to see the proportions of it. I knew bots existed and I even reported them myself back in the day, but the size of this was very surprising. Then some guy called Horus gave some insight in how to do this. I got curious. I ‘ve never cheated in a game ever prior to this, not even considered it. But the extent of botting and the route that CCP has taken with the last few patches has given me an “attitude wear”. So I started looking into it. Curious at first, but at the same time I started preparing a character for what could come.

I did a lot of research and it boiled down to 2 options, EveBot and H-Bot. I decided to try both. Evebot requires more work to get started, and you have to pay a subscription fee. That equals the cost of 1 account in eve. The advantage is that you can use it for as many accounts as your computer can run. Very good hardware can run up to 12 accounts on 1 computer if you use Vmware. I run 2-4 bots. H-Bot has a 1 time fee, either with isk or rlm. H-Bot has more options for looting and is more computer newb friendly (for people like me). The disadvantage with H-Bot is that you have to pay a 1 time fee for every account you want to use it on. With isk that equals about 3b for each account.

Trick of the Trade

I mostly use Evebot. I never rmt, and I never bot without being next to my computer. I have a laptop that I run evebot on. When I play eve with my main on my stationary computer I have evebot running on my laptop. The advantage with a laptop is that I can bring it with me to the living room and spend time with my kids and wife, and just toss a glance at the screen now and then if people talk to me in local. In that sense I “play” the game. I never do it “afk”. When there is a faction spawn or special event I get a sound alert.

This way of botting pays for my accounts and keeps me on top of the race. Im pretty sure that the average user do as I do. We use bots as a mean to pay for our accounts, and to get what we need without spending hours on hours to grind for it.

Theres a lot of opinions about how much botters earn pr. hour/day. And I sit here sipping my coffee reading forums at work, laughing. Thank god I have my own office. My collegues would think I was mad if not. Running 2-4 bots dont give the income near to what people think. I run beltbots, and not anomalies. Its less risk of getting caught by bothunters and requires less attention and knowledge of scripting. I dont know anything about scripting. I run my bots in “ok” security system and each of them make about 10-15m pr. hour if you exclude faction spawns and a rare officer now and then. Each bot is fairly good skilled and with a tengu. I run them an average of 4-8 hours dependet on weekdays or weekend. Each bot cost 4x plex each month. That equals 1.5b each month to cover the bots. Pluss the investment in ships and skills equals 500′ish m each both. So investment alone is 2b. I have to rat 100 hours to cover the plex fee on my bot accounts (if you exclude faction spawns). If someone kill my bots, which is very rare (but happens), that is a 500m loss. I dont use faction gear on them cause imo its not worth the risk vs. gain. If you add in the neuts and reds that enter local that means loss of isk as well.

Differentiating Apples from Apples

Since im not one of the “afk” botters I avoid the log on logoff traps that has caught a lot of the dumbass botters here in the south. I keep the regular visitors in my buddylist so if I notice them in local and they log off, I warp my bots to safe and cloak, go outside, and have fun with my kids for a couple of hours. If ppl stay in local to annoy me for several hours I wait them out, keeping a couple of bots online cloaked. I have done this for several days as well. Its ok, I have no rush as long as I can pay for my bots. I also try to make them more playerwise by logging them off in between etc.

All of this gives me enough isk to pay for all my accounts, bots and main, and some extra on the top. Its not much and im not a pro botter. I rely on programs that others make, and im not skilled to tweak the scripts. Getting started with bots takes time in opposite to what many think. It takes patience and a few welps before your properly set up. In addition it takes some isk in investment. As I said earlier in this mail, im sure that most botters operate as I do, and if you bot smart theres little chance to get caught.

The biggest problem as I see it is the rmt botters, market botters and the 23.5/7 miners. Those are the ones who welps the eve economy. That doesn’t excuse what im doing mind you.
Im not proud of what I do at all. Its plain necessary to do it in order to play the game for me. Is eve better off without me? Probably, however im still an active player. Would the majority of the player-base want to get rid of me? probably. Is CCP willing to lose 8 accounts that pay for plex, and thus generating income for them? Less likely. Its a bit sad to break the rules in order to play a game properly, but I personally have to.

To avoid getting caught I use a VPN provider, so my IP isn’t traceable, and I use different emails on my accounts in order to avoid them all getting banned. I had one account temporarily banned at 1 point, but kept going on the others. I was a bit more cautious for a while until things cooled down.

I hope this adds some insight in botting and I apologize for my bad english. If you have more questions feel free to contact me. Keep me anonymous.

Talk about flawed characters and judgmental crowds. We will keep presenting the layers that compose the mystic surface of botting, for you dear reader we would ask, what can be learn from this?

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