otservlist spoof epedemic (rant)

[Sun]

Spoofing has been ridiculous the past couple of years, especially since the inception of the otcv8 bot (or maybe it always has been?).
Why even have rules against spoofing if everyone and their granny is doing it?

The 4/IP rule is a joke. Every server adds incentives for players to run multiple MCs, and many owners are likely using something like POTCP + Proxifier.
Many servers have built-in bots. I've seen full afk bot servers with over 200 online, but barely 10% of the server is active.
On many servers, the majority of players are afk in training rooms.
On many servers, you see 4 online on the same account, I guess they want to make it clear that the 4 per IP rule is a joke meant to be abused.

It seems the rules are only there to enforce discrimination against randomly picked servers.
Why allow counting players in trainers, bots, and MCs on the same account?

Apparently, it's not considered spoofing as long as we can't prove it's the owners themselves with more than 4 online
What's the difference if it's the owners pc or the players if it's not a real person playing the character anyways?

It's really lame to year after year go on botservlist.org and see spoofed shit all the time and to know that for any new server to compete they too have to implement some of this "not spoof" spoofing nonsense.

 

[xKrazyx]

Spoofing has been ridiculous the past couple of years, especially since the inception of the otcv8 bot (or maybe it always has been?).
Why even have rules against spoofing if everyone and their granny is doing it?

The 4/IP rule is a joke. Every server adds incentives for players to run multiple MCs, and many owners are likely using something like POTCP + Proxifier.
Many servers have built-in bots. I've seen full afk bot servers with over 200 online, but barely 10% of the server is active.
On many servers, the majority of players are afk in training rooms.
On many servers, you see 4 online on the same account, I guess they want to make it clear that the 4 per IP rule is a joke meant to be abused.

It seems the rules are only there to enforce discrimination against randomly picked servers.
Why allow counting players in trainers, bots, and MCs on the same account?

Apparently, it's not considered spoofing as long as we can't prove it's the owners themselves with more than 4 online
What's the difference if it's the owners pc or the players if it's not a real person playing the character anyways?

It's really lame to year after year go on botservlist.org and see spoofed shit all the time and to know that for any new server to compete they too have to implement some of this "not spoof" spoofing nonsense.

The majority of the community voted to remove the service from OTLand, but for whatever reason, the request was denied. It's important to focus on realistic expectations at this point.

It seems the rules are only there to enforce discrimination against randomly picked server
I was permabanned from otservlist for discuissing specific instances where this occured. (Retrocores, darkot, (since 2014)

Any developer with a thorough understanding of protocols and sockets knows how easy it is to mimic a real player, similar to that of a client.

The core issue lies with the online count and online list. I encourage developers to address the root cause that enables such marketing schemes. This would involve removing the online list from AACs and disabling the status protocol that displays the number of players on your server.

Botservlist consolidates this information into a single comparative pane of glass, making the focus point the very metric used to scheme players. While at the same time, he gatekeeps the ability to show a higher player count without paying him money. It is quite disgusting, but I will admit, it does seem to be... a lucrative setup.

This issue isn't unique to Open Tibia. Here are examples from other communities:

• War Thunder faking player numbers
• Online game spoofing player numbers on Steam

Best to focus on word of mouth, not the displayed number of online players, to garner attention.

 

[kay]

The core issue lies with the online count and online list. I encourage developers to address the root cause that enables such marketing schemes.

Nowadays the advertising value of otservlist is close to zero anyway, so you're not losing anything at all if you choose not to play their games. It only exists because too many hosters still believe that they need it, not because they actually need it. Sadly, that apparently includes the otland staff as well.

 

[Codinablack]

botservlist.org

Had me rolling!

 

[fridai]

voting like xtremetop100 would be more reliable than online players count

 

[AnOldGuy]

Nowadays the advertising value of otservlist is close to zero anyway, so you're not losing anything at all if you choose not to play their games. It only exists because too many hosters still believe that they need it, not because they actually need it. Sadly, that apparently includes the otland staff as well.

Could you please back up your statement with any data? I'm very interested in the topic, so I'm wondering if there's any knowledge behind what you write, or is it just an assumption about low value?

 

[Codinablack]

Could you please back up your statement with any data? I'm very interested in the topic, so I'm wondering if there's any knowledge behind what you write, or is it just an assumption about low value?

you mean aside from the countless threads that complain about this problem over the years? Or the fact that everyone wants otcv8 for its bot? or the fact that there was a C++ code released specifically for spoofing? Or the fact that many are here looking for help to "proxy" their server?? Come on guy... have some common sense...

 

[Night Wolf]

Could you please back up your statement with any data? I'm very interested in the topic, so I'm wondering if there's any knowledge behind what you write, or is it just an assumption about low value?

I can give a +1 to everything he said, we literally put 200 dollars into otservlist and had 0 ROI of this. Paying 20 bucks to random streamers to play our server had way more impact.

Also, this discussion is cyclical. IMO, everyone should migrate to OTCR (Yes, redemption) and every server owner should separate a few bucks to donate to devs to develop features for all of them (collaborative features). IMO I also see the future of OTC having a serverlist in itself (goodbye web lists?)

I have said that in the past, along other criticisms towards otservlist, xinn and otland mods

Post in thread 'New Otservlist'

Feb 28, 2022

It's not just building a new site, even if you make a better list you need to think on what kind of problem otserv list has today that yours will solve, and if that will be enough to at least try to compete with a 10+ years consolidated website that is in the heart and mind of all players and otadmins.

That's why I personally dislike the idea of having another website, the best server list IMO would be a common Launcher shared across the community (steam format, perhaps?) or in otclient itself.
This way you're reducing the effort of joining a website to search a server and plus you would...

• Night Wolf

• 

Feature Thread 'Spoof system'

May 6, 2020

Dear all,

I've seen several servers using spoof systems throughout those years and it made the otservlist react to it making it better and better within time. We still have lots of tutorials out there, specially for older versions, that can be easily converted to newer TFS.
Despite being very controversal, below I'll share with you a code that allows you to spoof otserverlist. It was made by a very skilled programmer that worked with me and it's highly customizable. My goal by sharing this is to invite the community to re-think how our lists works and see if @xinn will be able to...

• Night Wolf
• Replies: 38
• Forum: C++ Codes

• 
• 
• 

Post in thread 'Should OtLand Open New OtServerlist site?'

Aug 20, 2020

From Xinn I can understand the defensiveness, replying here is a method to back himself sending the message: "Hey I'm watching out, you can't say I don't care" but at the same time doing nothing to actually address those problems. But from you? What's your interest in defending a point against more options to help other servers that are not copy paste from Global?

Also, I didn't though I would need to give any proof of concept than those 2 things:

• andersonfaaria/antibot (https://github.com/andersonfaaria/antibot)
• Feature - Spoof system...

• Night Wolf

• 

Post in thread 'Otservlist.org online counter'

Apr 6, 2018

They read the players count from a port, I don't recall which one (perhaps 7173?)
There's a couple functions in the source that are responsible to update the amount it sends to this port, you'll have to create a logic to only counts online players that aren't afk.

People here won't help you with that because otlist heavily relies on the lack of knowledge about this system, otherwise anyone would be able to spoof their fragile system.

• Night Wolf

Until we have a better system to rank servers (perhaps like grading system and comments, similar to google reviews or steam), it's always going to be like that...

 

[Adposatnr]

well i have weird taste for 0 online custom servers and only way for me to find these on otserverlist is when they advertise ONLY on otserverlist thats kinda weird because many of those servers are quite... nice? you play for free and have from 5h to 100h free content to explore

 

[damianek113092]

well i have weird taste for 0 online custom servers and only way for me to find these on otserverlist is when they advertise ONLY on otserverlist thats kinda weird because many of those servers are quite... nice? you play for free and have from 5h to 100h free content to explore

You and me are alike, i only play empty servers , they dont requir eyou to donate because there isnt anyone to compete with 0-50 online since 2013 And still loving it