author: Anna Dymarczyk
Throne and Liberty Already Faces a Bot Problem. Devs Begin Clearing Servers
Bots in MMOs are one of their biggest banes. Now they've become a nuisance in Throne and Liberty as well, and will probably be hard to eradicate.
Throne and Liberty has already encountered a fair number of problems shortly after release. The new MMORPG is not free from the troubles that other games of this genre have been struggling with for years. This is most visible in the context of bots – accounts that serve only to earn real money and in the process ruin the game for others.
Throne and Liberty battles bots
"Today, we enacted a set of bans against accounts suspected of operating bots within Throne and Liberty. We will continue to monitor activity and take action against any bad actors intent on negatively impacting the experience of our players. Maintaining a fair and equal playing environment for all players is our top priority. We appreciate your understanding and support as we work to uphold the integrity of our games,"
reads the official statement issued by the developers of Throne and Liberty.
Player LinkofHyrule took to Reddit to quote the statement and announced that "the bot purge has begun" A heated discussion flared up in the comments about whether the problem has really been resolved and to what extent it is actually present in Throne and Liberty.
Bots ruin the gameplay for players at every turn.
One player shared a story about how a bot literally trapped them in a party during a dungeon raid - it kept re-queuing, the party join window kept popping up and not allowing any action, nor did it allow the user to leave the party. He also added that almost half of the dungeons he completed that day had at least one character whose nickname was a string of letters and numbers.
Some even claimed to have seen guilds full of bots where the leader was a real player. From the fans' side, the only suggestion was to report all characters that, according to them, didn't look like real players, but like running NPCs.
The problem with bots is nothing new.
Bots are not a novelty in MMORPGs. As long as buying gold through unofficial channels is semi-legal, the problem with bots will exist. Bot farm owners have been dealing with bans in various games for years and the actions taken by developers of Throne and Liberty only work in the short term.
Many players in the comments under the post on Reddit reported that although there were supposedly purges on the servers, many script-controlled characters are still running around the world as if nothing had happened. The creators still have no idea how to deal with bot farms. Sometimes they are even accused of staging actions that ultimately yield little. So far, it seems that no one has yet won against the bots.