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The Silk Boycott Part 2: Why all F2P gamers must support it.
RamenThief7
Member Posts: 362
Having seen the initial success of the original forum, I have decided to create another forum, but this time in an area where a mass majority can see it.
So, what is the silk boycott? Well, first you should know the history of how it started.
In Silkroad Online, it is a beautiful game. But, it is overrun by bots! And I mean thousands of them, up to the point where all servers are crowded 24/7! And the worst part of it all? Joymax, the company that created Silkroad Online, has done nothing serious for years to combat and destroy the bots for good! In fact, it is rumored that Joymax purposely does nothing so that the bots fill the servers up, thus forcing the legit users to buy premiums (an item that allows you guarenteed access into the game) from the item mall (well actually at this time it's almost a given that Joymax really is doing nothing on purpose since they've done nothing to solve the bot problem for years now). So, although Silkroad Online is a F2P game, it has become more like a P2P because we the legits are forced to buy premiums to actually play. Although we have asked Joymax for a long time to solve the bot problem, they do nothing other than make empty promises.
The Silk boycott is an effort by Silkroad Online legit players and other F2P gamers to try to break this evil cycle. Think about it this way. What if other F2P games followed Silkroad Online's example? Your F2P game could all of a sudden be filled with bots, and you have no choice but to buy a special item from your item mall that allows you to actually play the game. Therefore, the game is no longer F2P at all.
The Silk boycott emphasizes a few things:
1. Many legits of Silkroad Online (such as myself) have stopped buying "silk," the virtual money used to buy items from the item mall (and in turn, you buy silk using real money). We are also encouraging others to stop buying silk until Joymax gets rid of the bots and emphasizes on ideas that would reduce crowdation problems.
2. We are spreading the word of this boycott throughout numerous websites. The boycott here is but one of many. This will raise awareness of the problem, and if it becomes general news everywhere on these types of websites, we can expose the bot problem and the fact that Joymax does nothing to solve the bot problem at all. If a mass majority became aware of the situation on Silkroad Online, Joymax will be under pressure to start getting rid of bots.
3. In the future, many petitions may be started to get Joymax to solve the bot problem once and for all.
Here are a few guidelines to follow when supporting the silk boycott:
1. Do not post completely anti-Joymax thoughts. Although were are angry that Joymax has tarnished Silkroad Online, they did create the game after all. This boycott is for the purpose of forcing them to clean up their act (by destroying bots and preventing any more illegal third party programs from entering Silkroad Online), it is not to unseat Joymax and violently have Silkroad Online destroyed.
2. Simply post if you support the boycott or not. Remember, it's not just the Silkroad Online legits that should worry about this problem. All future F2P games are at risk of following Silkroad Online's example and being infested by bots while the company of the game does nothing to stop them.
3. If you are a Silkroad Online player, then immediately stop buying silk. I understand it will be difficult for you to play afterwards, but if this boycott is successful, we can change the situation so that the servers are no longer crowded 24/7 and you no longer are forced to buy premiums to play.
So, having said the thoughts, I urge you all to support the Silk boycott! Not just for Silkroad Online's sake, but for the sake of all F2P games out there!
Comments
even without the bots, Silkroad is a horrible game, and anyone playing it must have some mental issues or be a glutton for punishment
i bow to Joymax if they found another way to milk their customers. They are smarter than the average F2P publisher
Maybe Joymax is behind the bots, and that's why they don't do anything about it.
F2P games are worth every penny.
How is the game horrible?
There are only a few problems with the game that I see. First, the bots and terrible/non-existent support by Joymax, the company that owns the game. Secondly, there is alot of grinding (but it wasn't mind numbing in the past because there used to be alot of people that I partied with on that game). Third, I do wish that there would be level restriction on who you can fight in pvp (there's none in Silkroad, so a level 80 can go up to a group of 30's and slaughter them instantly). Four, we really need to get rid of the stall system and replace it with the auction house idea, it would save alot of server space.
Then again, many popular F2P and P2P games are similar (without the terrible support by its owner). The scenery is beautiful, the fighting is solid and cool to watch, and pvp is alot of fun (especially the job system).
So, all in all, Silkroad Online is a good game, but it has been infested with bots, which needs to change.
Even if you don't play Silkroad Online, remember that this boycott asks anyone that supports F2P games to support this boycott. If successful, this boycott will show all F2P game owning companies out there that you can't mess around with the game without consequences. So, help me help Silkroad Online legits help all F2P gamers make sure that their F2P game is never overrun by bots. So why not support the Silk boycott today?
Edit Part: A friend of mine found a way that you can all contact the American branch of Joymax. The following website is your key to contacting the American division of Joymax.
http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C2872817
So, why not contact Joymax today...
wow theres many f2p players here nowadays. lol not that im mmocist however you call it.
i got lv 60s in silkroad and gave up 3 and a half years ago. difficult time logging in server. bot farmers took over silkroad. i just give up and move on.
silkorad is sure a brainless grind fest and one of the slowest leveling f2p out there but thanks to the cool looking moves and skills i give silkroad 10 out of 10. the trade-run is sure unique from other mmo.
$500 for compy that can probably play the game
$15 - $50 for Internet to play an online game
Lots of other places to throw money for rent/utilities/whatever so you have a comfortable place to play.
A penny an hour for running your compy.
The Opprotunity cost/time for using your hobby time to play a game.
__________
Sure all of those are argueable to some extent or another like you're going to need a computer/internet for life anyways and similar. But it still costs you quite a bit that saying F2P games are worth every penny seems silly when $15 is a drop in the bucket of everything else(cook at home one time, buy a bit less beer, or whatever).
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
But aside from that, any game, any game to me where vendoring is yourself or a bot of any nature, including a hello-kitty cat in the middels of a sqaure, or anywhere for that matter, is a horrible, horrible waste of time and is an utter failure of a game, imho.
I'm one of the ppl that supports the boycott, both when it was made on the SRO forums, as well as here.
Things are so bad over at SRO that JoyMax and the moderators actively go into the forums on their own site and delete any and all threads that tell the truth about them. Last week, they even deleted all threads with the theme of "SAVE SILKROAD ONLINE". Yet they allow posters that cuss up and down till their faces turn virtually blue. They also post fraudulent "bot punishment" lists. I say fraudulent because as many of the posters say, a lot of the names on the lists are banned, put on the list, and then un-banned within days, sometimes by the next day.
If a moderator posts any messages, it and any replies are all deleted within minutes. Plus, other than that, there has been no GMs within the game itself in at least 2 years.
The line must be drawn, here and now, and action must and will be taken. If you have purchased silk and want to take part in taking action, support the boycott. if you have not purchased silk but want to be part of putting an end to the bots and fraudulent actions, support the boycott. Even ppl FROM OTHER F2P GAMES have and are supporting the boycott because of the fact that this sort of thing can and will easily spread to the legit games unless it's stopped here.
Ah yes, i remember silkroad. I gave up at lvl 20 when i was asked to kill 800 creatures, as they stole someones picnic basket or something. Ya, loved that game. I'm confused as to why it is still around. The only game that i was ever tempted to bot in would be this one. I don't even blame them (the botters) for doing so.
supporting this action. no silk since Nov '08.
Not only are there no live [GM]'s ingame, the forum is run by a very immature moderator. Changes titles of threads and edits posts to humiliate members; deletes valid threads and leaves the ugly ones.
Waiting on the 48 bots i submitted for Babel to be banned. Never did get an email response confirming my list. Babel has had 0 bots banned in 6 months ... and that kind of management deserves no $ support from the customers.
Giving the thread a good BUMP so it doesn't get swallowed by the other threads here.
Bots can only thrive in games with poor design.
m8 LEAVE THAT GAME
i played it in beta on Aegis (think twas the server name ) i think it was round 2003 or 2004 ,,,dont remeber .whatever the reason is that they dont give a F... bout BOT abuse..and im sure by this time they got at least a dozen open exploits , they wont change a damn thing bout it . After these years i think they never designed the whole thing to have GM watch or even a Devs eye on it .Its like hack exploit +pay and yougonna be roxxor .Jomax is retard planet ...whoever joins their game becomes one
If you think removing the bots from sro will make it a better game, your mistaken (aside from the fact they screw you by making you buy a pass to login with the bots)
yeah its a beautiful game, but thats it. theres no real content, every mob type has a kill/drop quest that increases with level.
I think i remember there being a few "kill 100 mobs" followed by a genious ploy of turing that quest in, just to get a request to go do it all over again.
people bot games like this for a reason, its more fun than actually playing it.
remember a f2p game will ALWAYS be more expensive than a p2p game, if you want to be competative and level at a realistic pace.
i feel like these f2p games (even bying the xp items) require you to spend at least 10-15 hours a day to accomplish anything.
Either way ill boycott sro/joymax/f2p... for nothing more than the fact that f2p games are garbage, untill that changes ill stick to a reasonable $15 a month for a quality mmo, with a storyline, decent quests, and more to do than farm'n'gank
Crunchyblack, it all comes down to opinions. The fact is, Silkroad Online to me is perhaps the greatest F2P game I've ever played. You see little potential in the game, but I see much potential.
Anyways, everyone, by reading many of these posts it is clear many of us here do not understand the true purpose of the boycott. Like I stated earlier, every F2P gamer must support it, and it's not to just save Silkroad Online. It's to save ALL F2P games out there from potential bot infestation. If Silkroad Online falls to bots completely, it will have shown after all this time that a F2P game could be milked like a cash cow easily. This boycott, if successful, will get the message through to all F2P game owning companies that bot infestation to make money isn't a good idea at all, unless you feel like facing the FCC (or a related company) as well as an enraged fanbase.
Silkroads lame dont support it.
Easy to fix this problem, just don't play the game. After trying it and finding all the problems with the bots I just chalked this game up as a unsupported game by the devs and moved on.
Unfortunately most of these f2p games have very marginal support. I do feel sorry for those that do like this game, but when you have such uncaring developers it is time to find another game.
This is Cassiopaeia.
I have a message for everyone from Ramen.
Due to personal reasons, the player known on here and on the iSRO forums as RamenThief7 will be offline for a while.
Before anyone says anything...No, the reasons for him going offline have NOTHING to do with the boycott itself. He is not getting cold feet, rest assured of that.
Until his return, he has asked me to take over on the Silk Boycott. I will do so, but only until he returns to us.
So let's spread the word to not only the SRO players, but our fellow F2P gamers as well. What happens to this game can and will have serious reprocussions elsewhere in the MMORPG gaming world, especially if others decide to follow SRO's example. Let's keep the boycott going!
I remember playing SilkRoad, loved the game from the begining, since it was a very cool F2P game back in that time.
It was free so the enjoyment was even better, but the grind were so huge that after getting some levels and more quests to kill more monsters got me bored... was great but now is not, due also to many others F2P that came out to give the players more stuff to choose from.
Surprised to see how many players still play it. Look around and get amused with other games.
--------------Gamer for life.--------------
You are anathema to everything I stand for.
if the OP started a request to close all F2P games, i'd be the first that /signed
You have my support. I've played SRO before the bot investation and it was great. These days it's impossible to logon and play (even with the logon status page). And when you finally manage to log on (mostly after 30 minutes minumum, and that's in low population hours!), you can't walk in the villages without bing invited by those damn bots & spammed completely by the goldsellers...
And that while JoyMax uses GameGuard to prevent botting (BIG LOL here) and bans 1500+ bots a week per server.
About the suspicions that JoyMax is in legue with the botters/goldsellers. It crossed my mind as well. Look at the wolf pets. They sell for 1M and you can use them from level 5. No way you can have 1M at level 5 if you start clean. With a bit of luck you'll have that money at level 25 (at least that used to be true, dunno how the game is these days since I've been gone way too long)...
From reading the comments since the announcement, I've got some things to say.
Tailou, while it would seem to be easier to just go find another game, I believe that in the long run, it would be costly. How about when the next game you go to wind up following the example of SRO? Will you simply continue the chainand go on to the next one? What would happen, I wonder, when people run out of games to run to, trying to run from the bots?
Reizla, your support is definitely appreciated, by both RamenThief7 and myself. I would be so kind as to suggest that you also spread the word to your friends, both SRO players and non-SRO players. After all, more is at stake than just one game or one group of players. This is something that affects everyone.
Arcdevil, not all F2P games are worthless or bot-ridden. There is such a thing as an F2P that can stand toe-to-toe with a P2P in quality and community. The difference is whether or not the company puts serious effort into getting rid of crippling forces like goldbots and RMTers...and whether or not the users of these games call the company to account when the latter fails in doing so. Non-violently, of course.
Whoa, I'm gone for a few days and look what happens...
Anyhow, this is a official update from yours truly. Because of personal reasons, I will be gone for a while. So, for now on, Cassiopaeia is the new official leader of the silk boycott here on MMORPG.com. Now I will not be gone permanently, but I have handed over leadership to Cassiopaeia. I will try to support the boycott whenever I can.
Another thing...
Nightbloom (Correspondant of Silkroad Online), your thoughts in the previous thread relating to this topic had me thinking. Overall, it is the players who started the problem with bots (after all, who else controls and buys the bots to begin with?). However, this came to mind as well. A company should always look after the game they created. So, when we see zero support and instead continuously see new ideas that would only make joymax more money it makes you question the legitimacy of the company as a whole. Joymax could've stopped the bot problem years ago, yet they have done nothing serious to solve the problem (those "weekly bot bans" they do are a joke, and someone has visual evidence that bots they had seen banned came back a few days or weeks later).
I see threads lately talking about how mmorpgs are starting to die out or are losing popularity. Well, let me add to that idea of why that's happening. When a company shows zero support for a game and allows illegal third party programs to run havoc, it harms the image of all mmorpgs out there (not just F2P). We as a gaming community need to address this problem, otherwise we'll see this trend that Joymax started evolve and spread to other companies as well. So, support this boycott today! Not just for Silkroad Online's future, but for the future of all mmorpgs out there!!!