FOOD CLUB BOTTER

[oneofthefcbs]

And you are? Not to be rude, but I think it would be helpful if you shared your insight as to your role and what you are doing

Fair question, I am one of many who has coded a custom bot and sold Neopoints. I will not share which sites/businesses I associate with. I have been in the business for many years.


Food club simply being the most obvious and easiest point of entry if you have OLD accounts

Another reason why removing FC would be counterintuitive. If they froze the "FC botter's" accounts then removed FC, then the botter can simply register new accounts on Neopets.com instead of needing old accounts. It would make his life much easier.



Am I wrong in assuming he was just someone who was probably making money via exploits …"if I can't have fun nobody can!!!!"

Very possible that nt made millions selling the genned items. But the person definitely isnt a hero who just showed up a few years ago. Nt also gives lots of info to random people on Reddit by DM, which would be considered a breach of Neopets user privacy (such as ips, emails). There are lots of people with big mouths, and lots of high profile players (with connections to tnt) who do feed information to the NP sellers. TNT dom summed it up well: "botters and cheaters are among us".

[I_royalty_I]

And you are? Not to be rude, but I think it would be helpful if you shared your insight as to your role and what you are doing

Fair question, I am one of many who has coded a custom bot and sold Neopoints. I will not share which sites/businesses I associate with. I have been in the business for many years.


Food club simply being the most obvious and easiest point of entry if you have OLD accounts

Another reason why removing FC would be counterintuitive. If they froze the "FC botter's" accounts then removed FC, then the botter can simply register new accounts on Neopets.com instead of needing old accounts. It would make his life much easier.



Am I wrong in assuming he was just someone who was probably making money via exploits …"if I can't have fun nobody can!!!!"

Very possible that nt made millions selling the genned items. But the person definitely isnt a hero who just showed up a few years ago. Nt also gives lots of info to random people on Reddit by DM, which would be considered a breach of Neopets user privacy (such as ips, emails). There are lots of people with big mouths, and lots of high profile players (with connections to tnt) who do feed information to the NP sellers. TNT dom summed it up well: "botters and cheaters are among us".

Interesting. Is this your first foray on ck? I feel like I've worked for/with or generally known a large majority of people who run independent selling sites. I guess we never crossed paths before. Don't need to know which sites as it's not important. I can deduce from the ones I do know and the ones I don't to get a general idea. How's the third party selling going now a days? I hopped out of it once NC became the craze, entirely too much to keep up with on that front.

NT definitely does play favorites. He will feed info to players who were frozen or "hacked" to help them when TNT does not have the logs. Or give a heads up on things that are coming so his friends can take advantage. I'm sure there are many more examples of behind the scenes workings - and if his past is anything to consider, I'm sure it's not all monetary payments that he takes lol

In the end, while botting doesn't play any detrimental part in site performance, it does play a role in the general QOL of players. If nobody but bots can get a restock, then what's the point in trying. At the same time, if nobody but bots can restock then it sures up their business model at the same time. It's a double edged sword. One I don't really side with more than the other because I don't play legit. It is kind of funny how botting has soared into conversation lately though, and well done to those who have capitalized.

[Miri]

(you need an account to see links)

the both of u

[j03]

Always a chuckle when someone comes over with a totally new account, potentially ashamed to show their true identity or maybe just banned from before - begins a "let me debunk all these questions" discussion.

Other sites are safer than cK for trading? We've developed a system with standards and regulations, going on for years now with hundreds of scammers filtered out. You don't have any of that in these other shady sites.

60,000+ accounts running doesn't cause any stress on the game servers? :|

"Keeping the site alive for years" - Bro, what? Show yourself and prove this.

Made few valid claims but all is ruined with the few points I skimmed over that made me scratch my head and laugh.

[I_royalty_I]

Always a chuckle when someone comes over with a totally new account, potentially ashamed to show their true identity or maybe just banned from before - begins a "let me debunk all these questions" discussion.

Other sites are safer than cK for trading? We've developed a system with standards and regulations, going on for years now with hundreds of scammers filtered out. You don't have any of that in these other shady sites.

60,000+ accounts running doesn't cause any stress on the game servers? :|

"Keeping the site alive for years" - Bro, what? Show yourself and prove this.

Made few valid claims but all is ruined with the few points I skimmed over that made me scratch my head and laugh.

I don't see any of the behind the scenes stuff staff is running lately, but I know we ran a tight ship back in the day. I'm sure it's even more improved now a days with the ace team we have holding things down!
Can confirm that running a selling site was sketchy because you never know who is buying and always thinking in the back of your head whether this big purchase is going to get hit with a chargeback.

[Miri]

Made few valid claims but all is ruined with the few points I skimmed over that made me scratch my head and laugh.

Which claims are valid?

[♥ SomeClown ♥]

Damnit...I missed the "cue Joe coming in to tell us who this guy is" moment. Such a pecant way to come in, create even higher grandeur for the botter(s), and even a little extra self-hype lol

[Buizel]

Which claims are valid?

The ones about NT not being the white knight the fanbase portrays him as are definitely true. But of course, anything that comes from ck is just hearsay and cheaters being salty when you tell this to the hivemind. I guess ignorance must be bliss to some of those people.

[oneofthefcbs]

I feel like I've worked for/with or generally known a large majority of people who run independent selling sites

I’ve been in it for many years, and I’m still constantly finding new surprises




How's the third party selling going now a days

It has gone crazy. And new sites are popping up everywhere. Wouldn’t be surprised if the “15k per month seller” sold 50k+ in the month over Xmas. 15k is just the minimum achievement for their publicly displayed rank level.

The better neopets is doing, the better third party selling is going. More players are returning and the rereleasing of items has made them more accessible to buyers



If nobody but bots can get a restock, then what's the point in trying

That’s a game mechanics issue with restocking. It has been botted for 20+ years and it’s not like TNT spent no time on it. It’s not a new thing. It simply isn’t technically possible to stop. Even with the best bot detection, people can still get their kids to do it, use userscripts, automate captcha solving, or pay a person in the philippines $2 to spend a day



Other sites are safer than cK for trading? We've developed a system..

Not familiar with the system here but the biggest problems with forums (not necessarily this forum) are:

Buyers: getting sold a recently stolen account, or a player sells and delivers an account, then opens a ticket with TNT saying they got hacked. The buyers main acc gets frozen and loses everything. The forum can ban, but the damage is done. While the forum can say “use trusted sellers”, that helps, but it doesn’t alleviate an exit scam situation, which is usually the most devastating

Sellers: chargebacks (esp through PayPal family/friends). I suggested the site that this “15k per month seller” is using is safe because they wear the chargeback cost, and control the finances from start to end

Lots of people also show up with new names a while later after getting banned.



60,000+ accounts running doesn't cause any stress on the game servers?

Didn’t say that. Point is that the botter is not generating the lag that the average user is complaining about, and attributing to the botter because they don't know better.

Mathematically speaking, if Neo has another 60k non-botting daily users, and if the bots are causing 10% of the normal traffic, then only 5% of Neo’s traffic is generated by these hypothetical accounts. Even if way more conservative, the impact is negligible. Neo has been "laggy" for its entire existence.

It would be different if all 60k accounts were used simultaneously, but highly unlikely. It’s in the botters interests to spread them out, one to avoid an obvious unnatural spike on Neo’s Azure panel, two, to reduce the bottters own cost of computing resources (assuming they are not using an autoscaled cloud system). The botter obviously doesn’t want to DDOS Neo either.



"Keeping the site alive for years" - Bro, what? Show yourself and prove this.

Didn’t say I did. Just meant that multiple people have said that, and probably more so the main “15k per month seller”. Over the last few years, Neo has been added to more and more "gold selling" websites. This in turn causes players who buy points in other games to see Neo again, and realize that they now can return to Neo and easily buy a large number of NP/rare items.

[♥ Decepticon ♥]

60,000+ accounts running doesn't cause any stress on the game servers? :|

Yeah, this... This had me scratching my head. I know a couple of bots aren't gonna be that much change to server stress, but 60k+ accounts?? That has to have some impact on servers