Should trade and idle bots also be banned?

[French Vanilla]

I've been letting this question marinate in my head for a while now, and I'm no closer to answer. All I have in my head are theories and speculation, so I do apologize if what I'm about to say is in-fact wrong.

So, lately, I've been thinking, "Why do so many trade bots exist?". For reference,-in the wake-up slap made by Zesty Jesus-he mentioned that most of the bots that infest TF2 are infact trade/idol bots, meaning, most of them are not immediately nefarious. They farm for items, and then sell them to players.

But that got me really thinking; how likely is it, that the trade, idol, and hacker bots are all owned by the same people? I know it sounds far-fetched, because, yes, this is just a theory, based on no evidence. But really, how unlikely is it? I want to know. Because ever since I've brought that idea up, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, and it's really made me distrust trading sites like scrap.tf and trade.tf. Not to say; some of them aren't nefarious, but that; most of them could be, assuming they weren't bad for the game already.

Now, keep in mind, that this is just a theory, but I do think it's a plausible one that should be considered ... despite being unlikely.

Please tell me what you think?

[Cutthroat Cutwire]

Whether or not they "should" it will never happen, as they stimulate TF2's economy and make Valve money. I think you may be a bit paranoid immediately assuming that the aimbot hosters are the same people though, there's not a lot of incentive in killing the game you've centered a significant amount of your resources around.

[ɐǝ⅄]

Valve should ban trading and idle bots and the mains of those who host them.

[French Vanilla]

Originally posted by Mr. Jester:

Whether or not they "should" it will never happen, as they stimulate TF2's economy and make Valve money. I think you may be a bit paranoid immediately assuming that the aimbot hosters are the same people though, there's not a lot of incentive in killing the game you've centered a significant amount of your resources around.

I honestly don't mind being paranoid, but you do have good point. There's not really an incentive to cheat/ruin a game for the people your trying to trade with.

[Rando the Crit Clown]

They should, but not for the weird conspiracy theorist reasons you've given. Although it'll never happen because

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Originally posted by ezedicus:

ok then that’s just motivation for valve to clean up the very obvious idle bots

No, neither Valve nor you guys want the bots gone. If the bots were gone Valve would be unhappy because the bots inflated keys to be worth like 100 refined instead of 2 refined so there'd be less people buying keys if things were more affordable. If the bots were gone you guys would be unhappy because you'd actually have to trade with people who are awake and want to trade with you, you'd have to talk to people and stuff. You couldn't just click a button and instantly have the trade become completed. You wouldn't be able to buy things from third party sites either, since those operate on bots.

[supersand]

I think removing the trade / idle bots would be good for the game. Was the convenience nice at first? Sure, but they are only hurting the game at this point by devaluing every item.

The bigger problem would be actually maintaining a ban against them. It might just be easier to turn off random item drops.

[French Vanilla]

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

They should, but not for the weird conspiracy theorist reasons you've given. Although it'll never happen because

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

No, neither Valve nor you guys want the bots gone. If the bots were gone Valve would be unhappy because the bots inflated keys to be worth like 100 refined instead of 2 refined so there'd be less people buying keys if things were more affordable. If the bots were gone you guys would be unhappy because you'd actually have to trade with people who are awake and want to trade with you, you'd have to talk to people and stuff. You couldn't just click a button and instantly have the trade become completed. You wouldn't be able to buy things from third party sites either, since those operate on bots.

That's really interesting, I never thought of it that way. But, now I have to ask; what's so bad about trading with real people? Isn't the point of an MMO the whole social-interaction part?

[Schorsch Wadschinken]

Item farm bots are a myth, the free items you get for idling wouldn't cover the server costs. There were suggestions such bots exist for a very short time immediately after a big update when crates and cases are somehow worth more than a single cent as they normally are, like at all times, but even that is unproven and merely speculation

As far as I can tell, trading bots are "in-game" so they have access to and can sort their inventories

Also Zesty's video was old news, a lot of people had reported this years before, they just didn't have the same reach

[French Vanilla]

Originally posted by Thornskade:

Item farm bots are a myth, the free items you get for idling wouldn't cover the server costs. There were suggestions such bots exist for a very short time immediately after a big update when crates and cases are somehow worth more than a single cent as they normally are, like at all times, but even that is unproven and merely speculation

As far as I can tell, trading bots are "in-game" so they have access to and can sort their inventories

Also Zesty's video was old news, a lot of people had reported this years before, they just didn't have the same reach

That's interesting, but it doesn't really answer my question.

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Originally posted by Thornskade:

Item farm bots are a myth, the free items you get for idling wouldn't cover the server costs. There were suggestions such bots exist for a very short time immediately after a big update when crates and cases are somehow worth more than a single cent as they normally are, like at all times, but even that is unproven and merely speculation

As far as I can tell, trading bots are "in-game" so they have access to and can sort their inventories

Also Zesty's video was old news, a lot of people had reported this years before, they just didn't have the same reach

Yeah man they totally don't cover the pennies it takes to run the game. Which is why 90% of the playerbase is bots, because the other 10% are just doing SO MUCH trading that you need 9x more bots than players. It's why keys rapidly inflated to be 50x more expensive over the course of only a few years. It all makes so much sense. You solved the riddle, dude.

[Schorsch Wadschinken]

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Yeah man they totally don't cover the pennies it takes to run the game.

Hm. No, as a server hoster myself, it does not cost pennies. Sorry to burst your bubble

Originally posted by Rando MacArthur, Crit Horologist:

Which is why 90% of the playerbase is bots

Proof?

Originally posted by Flip Floppa:

That's interesting, but it doesn't really answer my question.

Nobody can answer that question as it's an opinion. Just wanted to point out item farm bots don't exist as they make zero economical sense

[Jaakko.Jalo06]

yes they should ban them

[72deadmice]

banning trade bots would be a net positive for the game and trading from a scrap to an unusual could actually be possible again.

[Jaakko.Jalo06]

Originally posted by Thornskade:

Item farm bots are a myth, the free items you get for idling wouldn't cover the server costs. There were suggestions such bots exist for a very short time immediately after a big update when crates and cases are somehow worth more than a single cent as they normally are, like at all times, but even that is unproven and merely speculation

Poor countries with lot of natural resources have way cheaper electricity than in the west so its economically viable

[supersand]

Originally posted by kiritan:

banning trade bots would be a net positive for the game and trading from a scrap to an unusual could actually be possible again.

tbh I think that is over for this game even if all bots were banned. That inflation just isn't gonna vanish its gonna stagnate and then slowly drop over a long time.

[72deadmice]

Originally posted by supersand:

Originally posted by kiritan:

banning trade bots would be a net positive for the game and trading from a scrap to an unusual could actually be possible again.

tbh I think that is over for this game even if all bots were banned. That inflation just isn't gonna vanish its gonna stagnate and then slowly drop over a long time.

inflation mainly exists due to the rise of trade bots though