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Hello everybody,
A little bit of background information: I have been botting on RuneScape since early 2009 and have managed to achieve over 80 skillcapes spread over multiple accounts. Today, I want to share some tips on minimizing your chances of getting banned. Rule number one is that there is always the risk of getting banned and that if you don't want to lose your account you simply shouldn't bot.
This guide takes two forms of getting caught botting in mind: triggering Jagex's bot detecting system, and other players identifying you as a bot and reporting you. Before I go into detail, there is one rule of thumb: simply blend in with the crowd.
The account itself:
Frequently Asked Questions:
Interesting posts:
Used sources:
1: Careers at Jagex
2: Mod MMG on Myths and Misconceptions
ALWAYS UNDER CONSTRUCTION!
A little bit of background information: I have been botting on RuneScape since early 2009 and have managed to achieve over 80 skillcapes spread over multiple accounts. Today, I want to share some tips on minimizing your chances of getting banned. Rule number one is that there is always the risk of getting banned and that if you don't want to lose your account you simply shouldn't bot.
This guide takes two forms of getting caught botting in mind: triggering Jagex's bot detecting system, and other players identifying you as a bot and reporting you. Before I go into detail, there is one rule of thumb: simply blend in with the crowd.
The account itself:
For best results, your account should meet most of these criteria
- The account should be at least more than 6 months old; username login accounts are perfect
- Don't look like a bot; get a fancy outfit but don't wear unusual items to avoid people asking you about it
- Have every skill trained; there is nothing more suspicious than a level 3 with all stats 1 but 80+ Woodcutting
- Have some useful quests done and wear quest items; the standard botter doesn't do quests
- If you plan to use a new account on Old School RuneScape, do Tutorial Island by hand.
- The Old School team has said (source needed) that they catch most botters within 24 hours. There may be a relation between heavily watching the Island and fast bans. I'm not sure, but for a 6 minute task it's better to be safe than sorry.
Where to be and how to behave when botting
- Make sure you use high quality bots; if a bot doesn't work properly then don't use it (and notify the Bot Author that is bot his broken).
- Avoid any location that is often botted at; Jagex checks botting hotspots often, so do 'bot hunters'.
- On Old School, do activities you have to do at hotspots in the weekend or after Jagex Headquarters closes in the evening to avoid manual bans.
- Don't bot the same thing day after day; keep switching between skills or methods at least every other day.
- Bot outside Jagex's office hours to avoid being seen botting by a Jagex Moderator.
- According to their website1, their hours are very flexible, but you can get a general idea of what the workschedule of a Jagex employee looks like from the website. Don't forget to convert your timezone to Greenwich Time (GMT).
- Do things bots don't do; complete a quest regularly, do farm runs, buy/sell things, etc.
- Talk and interact with the players around you; say hi, ask things like "Whats the best method to 80 Cooking?"
- Don't bot for long periods; always keep it under 4-6 hours a day and bot on times during which you'd normally play.
- The average player plays for 2 hours during weekdays, and 2 hours and 32 minutes in the weekend2.
- Switch what you're doing every few hours. Do, for example, two hours of fletching and then two hours of hunter a few hours later, with a farm run in between.
- When doing a certain activity, don't stay in the same world days upon days; change what world you're in every few hours or at least daily.
- When chatting, only type while the bot is idling; keep it real and remember a humans has only two hands.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Wether you get a ban or not depends on many, many factors. Because of that there is no real numbers or formula available to calculate an accurate banrate per bot let alone for the whole client. Follow the guidelines above and make sure you use high quality bots for the best botting experience.What is the banrate when using RuneMate/botting a specific skill?
Let's remind ourselves that the main goal is going unnoticed. You go unnoticed in two occasions; when you are in an area with a huge amount of people, and when you are on your own. I prefer to do so called bankstanding skills or activities that don't require a specific spot (like high-alchemy) in a very busy area such such as Wintertodt bank. Avoid Grand Exchange, it's botwatched. Some bots however don't do well in The Grand Exchange so as alternative I would go after banks where you wouldn't expect someone to come and talk to you specifically. For skills that require you to be at a specific spot I prefer to be in empty worlds where I expect no-one else to come. All in all make sure that there is either 20+ people around you or make sure you are alone.Should I bot in at empty worlds or in busy worlds?
Good point. My own philosophy is that not using your home IP only brings suspicion to your account and therefore I would not recommend hiding your IP when botting on your main account(s). If you goldfarm while also botting on your main(s) then I suggest to hide your IP on these goldfarm accounts while not hiding it on your main account to make sure JaGeX can't link these goldfarming accounts to your main. Remember that this, of course, only works if the goldfarming accounts have never logged in on your home IP before as I'm sure Jagex keeps these logs at least for a respectable amount of time.You've missed one of the biggest ones; the IP-Address.
From my experience? No. If you are running just two accounts and maybe even three, then I think that the chance you get banned stays the same. After all, there is many people who play on two accounts at the same time. However, I do believe that running say five or even more can alarm Jagex. Who knows, but just two or three is safe and nothing to worry about.Will the chance of getting a ban increase if I bot/play on multiple accounts?
Interesting posts:
The tl;dr to bot detection is that Jagex has developed (or can develop at any time) models for how humans behave (acceptable ranges for online time, algorithmic estimates for effects of tiredness, behavioral similarity to common botting practices, etc.) and have each of these models act as flags. Set off too many of these flags and you get the banhammer.
P.S. Oversimplification for verbosity's sake. Surely the flags are weighted, ranges statistically distributed, etc. As a disclaimer, these explanations are purely speculative, but if I know Jacmob half as well as I think I do and I am half as intelligent as he is, this is the way he would do it because it's the way I would do it.
P.S.S. All this being said, I would imagine most bot clients aren't even getting into the behavioral analysis portion. There is probably a tier one non-intensive analysis that is done to catch the clients that have fallen for Jagex's traps and/or utilize hacks/shortcuts that are easily detected. That would explain why certain bot clients are being called out by name by Jagex and accounts being banned simply for logging in through the client without even running a bot.
Used sources:
1: Careers at Jagex
2: Mod MMG on Myths and Misconceptions
ALWAYS UNDER CONSTRUCTION!
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