by Dax Bradley
For the most part, the discussion of bots in gaming revolves around those that fall within uses of
morally and legally acceptable standards. Bots and macros that are
widely regarded as legal appear to be distinguished by the factor of
a human operator being present. However, the question persists as to
what happens if an intrepid programmer creates a bot capable of
playing an online game. This topic is a hot-button issue in the
gaming community, and partly rests about intent. A player may
program a bot to carry out commands in sequence for the game’s
avatar. For example, suppose a player in a game can score a large
amount of points by attacking an enemy with a hack-slash-slash-jump
back sequence, but the keyboard commands are complex and difficult to
execute. A bot could be created to carry out the keyboard
combination automatically if the user simply presses ALT-1.
One
argument for this scenario is that the bot is merely an extension of
the player. The human must be present to initiate the command, and is
thus not fully relying on an AI tool to play for him. However, users
can (and already have) created routines that fully control a
character’s actions, including searching an environment, taking up
resources and “killing off” other players to win the game. This
brings to the front a concern in the gaming community. A player in
one forum expresses it in this way (User Aceboy1993, 2015, June 23):
“This
question has been on my mind for a while...mainly because I see bots
for all sorts of games like WoW and others. My question is; how do
the bots know what is appearing on the screen? I don't play WoW so my
example may be wrong but if for example there is a monster, how does
the bot know where that monster is on the screen and how does it know
how to interact with it?Can
you apply this to any game or is it specific for each game? I'm sorry
if the question isn't clear...and I'm not asking how to make a bot,
more asking how they detect things on the screen as its quite
fascinating to me! Thanks
in advance :)”
The
question also points out an interesting angle: the applications are
available that play the games such as the above-mentioned World of
Warcraft, but how?
How do they perceive the environment well enough to interact? One
answer is the software Netshark,
which reads encrypted net code and “announces” loot to the bot,
triggering whatever actions are wanted to acquire the loot (Nilly,
2013). Besides gobbling up the loot and other rewards, bots have
created a dilemma for online gamers by clogging up networks with
drones, creating trouble for humans who pay monthly fees for the
gaming service.
Game
developer Blizzard responded to bots on their World of Warcraft
server by aggressively flagging and banning suspected bots, resulting
in the removal of over 100,000 accounts (Grayson, 2015). Bot makers
have responded by coming up with tools to avoid being flagged,
ranging from highly complex algorithms to simple techniques. One
such project, RsBot,
manages to copy the contents of the game client to its own memory,
check the state locally, and make decisions there without risk of
detection (Kaslai, 2015).
Another reason bot
makers draw the ire of game makers is in how they profit off of a
game they had no hand in developing. Developer Josh Phillips of
Kapersky Lab, claims to have sold 100,000 copies of his creation,
which gives users invulnerability in online games (David, 2012). The
industry has even taken a bite out of online gambling. Ray Bornert
developed an AI program capable of counting cards on an online Poker
site, allowing users to play Poker and Blackjack with the precision
of a computer (Kushner, 2005). Gambling sites have caught on to the
nonhuman players, however, and responded by including a chat feature,
allowing players to chat in a sidebar. The feature has been used
successfully to flush out bots incapable of human conversation.
References
Aceboy1993. (2015,
June 23). Bots in WoW. [Discussion forum]. Retrieved January 4, 2017
from https://github.com/PokemonGoF/PokemonGo-Bot/issues/2578
David,
B. (2012). Hacking online games: Josh Phillips and Michael Donnelly
at Defcon 19. Retrieved January 4, 2017 from
http://privacy-pc.com/news/hacking-online-games-josh-phillips-and-michael-donnelly.html
Grayson,
N. (2015). World of Warcraft bot maker calls it quits after massive
ban wave. Retrieved January 4, 2017 from
http://kotaku.com/world-of-warcraft-bot-maker-calls-it-quits-after-massiv-1704809117
Kaslai.
(2015). How do gamebots perceive the game world & other entities?
[Discussion forum]. Retrieved January 4, 2017 from
http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/102849/how-do-game-bots-perceive-the-game-world-other-entities/102853
Kushner,
D. (2005, September 1). On the internet, nobody knows you are a bot.
Wired.
Nilly.
(2015). How to read packet data using Wireshark? [Discussion forum].
Retrieved January 4, 2017 from
http://www.mpgh.net/forum/showthread.php?t=700530
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