Another one bites the dust! (bot)Follow

BAND TOGETHER TO BAN BOTTERS!!!

Thanks for posting the step-by-step process. Please everyone else out there please report when you find it. Remember that if your a fisher that your going to be affected.

This is probably the same type of person that has reported me twice for botting. Both times I was there behind the controller, but the common belief is that if a fisherman doesn't waste their time talking to every loser that walks by asking if they are a bot or is in one place for an hour or more or seems to have good casting times that they are a bot. Well, I'm sorry, but if I'm going to waste my good levelling time fishing then I'm going to do it efficiently. I cast as soon as humanly possible after the last to get the most gil per hour. I turn on all of my filters so I can go back in my log and get a simple list of bite/catch percentages so I can decide if the place is a good fishing place for me or not. This is kind of difficult to do if you have every idiot's emotes and crafting attempts (not to mention sales spam and other inanity) flooding your chatbox. I don't respond to tells unless they are in my linkshell or are friends, and even those replies are along the lines of "look me up later cos I'm powerfishing now".

Every day I get more tells while fishing from idiots asking "Are j00 a b0+???" Quite frankly, I'm at the point where whenever I see one of these people I just reply with "you are blacklisted for being a nosy idiot" and blacklist them (I made a macro for this, hehe). The next time they decide to come around harassing me then they can go ahead and submit my name to the GMs ... it doesn't matter much to me. All it does in the end is keep people like the parent poster from harassing me while I'm trying to make money, and hopefully they'll never be in a party with me because I'd probably forget to heal them. "OH SORRY, I WAS TOO BUSY RESPONDING TO PEOPLE'S TELLS INSTEAD OF DOING MY JOB TO HEAL YOU!!!" You get the picture.

I agree with Nachtstern. I reported someone the other day that I watched for 20-30 minutes and sent repeated tells to. They didn't respond and it was quite obvious that it was a fishing bot. The GM said thank you and that was that.

I am not trying to start a pissing match here, but if you can set up a macro to blacklist, why don't you set a macro that is "/shout I'm not a d@mn fishing bot, so leave me alone"??? Comparing fishing bots to people constantly sending you tells is like comparing apples to oranges.

I'm not trying to start a pissing match at all, so don't get me wrong. I just find it extremely annoying to have people constantly harassing you when you're fishing. Even firing off my blacklist macro takes up the time of another cast (which could be another fish, hence, money out of my pocket). My latest tactic is trying to fish in places that people don't normally go (such as SE Ronfaure or the inlet in S Gusta or the bridges in N Gusta) to fish, since most of the narc wannabes like to hang out in the more popular areas like the knight well, PS, or E Saru. I was literally chased out of Port Sandoria, and here's the irony: even though I'm only gaining half the skill ups per cast in the gustaberg region when compared to PS (skilling off of Tris and Golds) or at the knight well (Catfish), because since I'm not doing the song and dance routine for all the wannabe GMs (what is sick is now even the lowest of the noobs are doing this: I had lvl 4s coming up asking if I was a bot at the knight well ... good example you all are setting) I'm able to get twice as many casts in and I skill up the same, but I do it in a way that I can be in peace.

I just don't understand why so many people think that just because somebody can afford fishing gear and is pole in hand that they want every nosy kiddie in the zone to come up demanding to know if they're a real person or not. If I wanted to socialize I wouldn't be standing with a pole in hand, and the fact that nobody here seems to realize and/or care how offensive this is to legit fisherman is indicative of a problem. If you want to see how serious fishermen take their job just jump on the ferry during prime time. From one port to the other you won't here a word from any of them, yet only a fool would consider botting there. You can send them tells and emotes to your heart's content but not a single one will respond to you. Yet every one of them is behind their keyboard on the offchance they pull up a monster (which happens a few times at least per fisherman on that trip) and most have scrolls of instant warp in case a sea horror is caught. If you look at that group you'll understand where I'm coming from: JP or NA alike, serious fishers do NOT like being bothered because in the end it is no different than stealing money from our pockets.

Airspirit, while I understand what you're saying, I don't really understand your argument about how talking to people will cause you to miss a cast. There's a good 10 seconds between each cast and that leaves times to chit chat or toss a macro out. I know I esc out of what I was typing a lot but that's because I'm a real blabbermouth in LS. If I waited til between casts all the time I wouldn't worry about missing anything. The reason I say this is because I know that fishing is really boring. Talking to people helps to alleviate this for me. ^^

reporting a bot to the GM's doesn't do anything...the GM's have a way of telling through statistics who is using one. Basically sometimes you might just be reporting or on a witch hunt against people who are legitimtely fishing.

I've been called a bot several times by annoying people when I want to be left alone. I just ignore 'em.

Airspirit has every right to be mean to them. I hate bots but if there is one thing I hate more than botting it is people who spend their time going around trying to find bots.

Not only is it a complete waste of time for the person doing it but it is extremely annoying when you want to spend some peaceful time fishing and start getting a tell every 5 - 10 minutes with someone saying "r u a bot?" if you answer them they might go away, however i've met a lot who start talking and asking questions to ensure its not a macro or whatever.

Maybe I am just in a bad mood when I fish but I just want to shout at them and tell them to mind their own business for once.

Let the gms do their job and ban the botters, bot hunters don't help at all. You might ban one or two people but not only do you annoy another 5 at the same time but you also have 3 or 4 more botters pop up in that time.

I wish I could get into the head of a bot hunter and see what they think they are accomplishing.

Sorry this turned into more of a rant, it just bugs me that I can't be left alone in the game for more than 5 minutes without getting someone asking if I am a bot.

My investigation procedure:

I am friendly to people. The first question out of my mouth is not "r j00 a bo+, as airspirit so eloquently put it. I just talk, usually its a compliment, like "wow you sure do fish alot you must be great!"

I check and recheck I tend to casually observe the person (no I do not park myself over them) I simply notice people as I walk through windurst or anywhere running daily errands whatever they may be. I usually send them a tell also, (nice one)

If I suspect someone I check them I am not likely to report someone using a bamboo rod and little worms, for one thing, they arent likely doing much to hurt the economy and most likely are just afk running a perfectly legit macro (ingame macro).

If I get enough red flags- I ask if they are botting, this usually takes a total of three days before I even go this far. If I still get no response then-

I spam them with something like please respond in 10 minutes or I will report you, and each minute I send them another tell with 9 mins and so on.

Finnaly I then report if all of the above cases lead me to suspect they are botting. I have caught a few people this way, one person twice, I havent seen him back on for two days now (could just be another 72 hour ban but thats ok).

Now I am sure anyone could come up with any method of testing bots, and none of them should include directly asking someone if they are botting after observing them for 10 seconds. But you dont have to be an economics major to realize that bot fishing kills the economy for fishermen, and I dont just mean moat carp here.

The way I see it you are either a botter or a bot fighter, if you don't even passively look for fishermen bots then you are supporting the botters in their destruction of this great game, the GMs don't have time to investigate each individual, its our job to report anyone we suspect!

I hit 28 fishing last night, so my delay is 10 seconds between casts. I really don't have much time to chat without stopping my fishing. It may not annoy some of you out there, but then again, when I fish I do it for hours on end (in two weeks I'm approaching 30 fishing if that tells you anything). I know many people are like me out there and don't want to get bothered. Think of it as the FFXI equivalent of telemarketers: you're interrupting me for no reason other than for your own perceived benefit. I think I'll just leave it at that ... if you wonder why people start blacklisting you (I got the idea from a few other fishermen), this is probably why. Nobody likes a telemarketer, and nobody likes being harassed by clueless kids with nothing better to do.

Seriously, pikko ... it may not bother you and that's fine, but can you picture yourself running around harassing everyone with a fishing pole out of some perverted sense of justice? Seem a little immature to you? It does to me too.

YesIBot and others like you, if you find this game so anoying, slow, boring or otherwise that you actually play your Game Cube while playing this game, shouldn't you do yourself a favor, not to mention the rest of us, and save the ~$12 a month and quit playing?

Bot fishing may not hurt you but it hurts everyone else by ruining the fishing economy for those that do it fairly. Talking doesn't interupt fishing at all. YOu have 10+ second between casts and a few seconds before you even try to reel something plus it will reel automatically if your talking.