Sunday, September 26th, 2010
Issue: 48   Editor: SeanGoesToUni


BOTS oAltro
This week a Bootleggers age old debate started up about the use of Bots in the game. Could this become a battle of the scripts?

For those of you who do not know, and there will be a few, a bot is an account which is not a person but a computer. You should also be aware that they are (under the Bootleggers Terms of Service) illegal. However, a few, just a few, have, in the past, been allowed, most notable bootcrews, which we will come to later. A bot can have several purposes, it could, for example, commit crimes in order to rank, send out messages or collect information. While all of these forms of bots have been banned, a few have been given permission to collect information.

The original Bot, and currently the only authorized bot, was Bootcrews of Bootcrews.com, the bot originally only collected information about players in crews, ranking crews in order of perceived strength and providing a summary of that crew. Later, sub created a bot to create what is now known as a maxbets page. The bot collected information about the casino maximum bets, the holders' wealth and who was holding the casino in each state. This has since been replicated by every other authorised bot, including Bootcrews and blhelp (which no longer exists).

This week, Brad of MyBl.us continued his quest for a Bootleggers bot, which has so far lasted several years. It sparked a bit of a debate. Many players do not like the idea of a bot for many reasons. If the bot is private, like bootcrews was for many years, it gives those players who have access an unfair advantage, which is why they have to be authorised in the first place. A bot has the ability to do things other players cannot, for example check 100 profiles a minute. Staff members therefore have to check that this restricted access is not abused. Moreover if one person is allowed one, why are other people denied them? Over the years there have been many people requesting bots and being denied.

MyBl.us is one of those, for a while it operated with an unauthorised bot, illegally and privately. A fact a few were keen to point out, some players have even been placed on the Ban on Sight (or BOS for short) for having an illegal bot. For a while his site continued to sponge off blhelp in order to collect Maxbet information, however, when blhelp stopped working and fell inactive so did his site. For some time the site hasn’t even worked at all, Brad put this down to the fact the staff have ignored him or failed to get back.

Given that bots are allowed to collect this information and that all the information is already available a few people have asked for an open API, in order to allow anyone to access this information. An API would make all the information available, it would just be up to users to store and display the information as they wished. The other option would be to include all this information in the game, which would remove the need for a bot at all. However, in the past the staff members have been reluctant to do that, even when asked to build max bets in to the states page.

It is undeniable however, just how important the maximum bets page has become in Bootleggers culture, with addicted gamblers complaining every time the bootcrews is unavailable. Perhaps MyBl.us will act as a suitable backup. Since the topic has been posted, 5litre has suggested that they try a trial period with the bot to see how it goes. Could Bootleggers soon have a new helpsite?