I’m back, he’s back and so are the tears

I’m back from my nice Christmas getaway, and it seems I’m not the only one.  MoxNix is back, and what do you know, he’s already whining about the same non-existent botter.  His latest blog post goes on to describe how he reports the same guy for botting every week, then getting upset because he didn’t get banned (because it’s not a bot) started reporting him once per day, then when further getting upset, started reporting him every 5 minutes.  How does he not understand that if this was a bot CCP would have done something.  He isn’t, he’s simply an aggressive nolifing trader.  The fact that MoxNix is also able to be at the keyboard for the same length of time cutting at the same frequency should make it obvious that he’s working within human limits.  The more aggressively he attacks this other trader, the more he proves that the level of activity is sustainable by an actual player.

As you’ll no doubt know from previous posts, I’ve toyed around with this “bot”, and his behaviour is far too inconsistent to be anything more than an aggressive trader.  I’ve been more aggressively undercut in the hubs by people I’ve had conversations with and know for certain are not bots.  Unlike a rookie trader like MoxNix however, I understand the difference, and know how to deal with competition without losing my mind and screaming for CCP to come ban legitimate players I don’t like.  Knowing and accepting that it’s not a bot, there are better ways to fight him out of the market, but that requires competence, while MoxNix it seems runs on rage and tears.

Further to that he’s now started accusing me!  That’s right, the conspiracy theory knows no bounds.  Apparently when I chose to use the name “Belgarion”, an incredibly popular name from some books by David Eddings, to post on MoxNix’s blog I was not the only one, and someone in Genesis is using the same name (with a surname) and happened to buy a PLEX from MoxNix.  The funny thing is, I do live in Genesis anyway, and I have bought items from MoxNix, I’m just not that character.  And no MoxNix, I’m not an alt, friend, family, business partner or a random who thinks you are talking about me.  I’m a fellow trader (a superior one it seems) that can tell when someone is just making things up because they are too poor at trading to deal with legitimate competition.  I didn’t even read your blog before this, and picked Belgarion almost at random (I was re-reading The Malloreon at the time) when wordpress asked me for an alias.  Since you then decided that facts aren’t allowed on your blog, I’ve decided to dedicate just a little time to showing the world just how childish and full of crap you really are.  Thanks for helping with that.

More talk about nonexistent botters

On the other Merchant Monarchy, the other guy is still going on about the botter.  In case you missed this before, the short of it is that MoxNix is trader who was aggressively undercut by a competitor.  When this happened MoxNix decided to accuse this trader of botting publicly claiming he had been botting for years.  While CCP had supposedly been informed, they had done nothing (obviously because the player was not a bot), and when others tried to test out this “bot” by competing with it, the claims he had made about the response and activity times turned out to be completely false.  You can read more about that here in one of my previous posts if you so wish.

Now he’s back claiming once again that there’s this botter, now claiming he must have been slowed down by release changes, rather than like many players simply playing less prior to Christmas.  Beyond this he’s making outrageous claims.  Here’s one from one of his comment on his own post.

I also know for a fact many high end guilds (talking guilds in the top 100 and top 1000 here) had botters in guild who sold other members gold. That was a great way for the botter to explain away large gold transactions.

“He’s a guild mate, I can’t raid but I can help the guild by giving members gold”.

No doubt it’s the same in Eve with corporations and alliances. After all doesn’t it always seem like whenever a major botter gets banned he’s a member of one of the largest corps / alliances?

This must either be incredibly ignorant or a complete fabrication.  The truth is that CCP don’t release who they ban for botting, so to say “doesn’t it always seem like whenever a major botter gets banned he’s a member of one of the largest corps / alliances” can’t be based on any information actually released by CCP.  Sure, people accuse other large alliances of botting, the same as they accuse them of everything else.  That doesn’t mean they actually are, and until CCP break their non-disclosure of information we can’t really see who is and isn’t botting.

It’s both intriguing and disturbing to watch a player with clear problems interacting with others trying to hard to discredit other players to put themselves ahead.  MoxNix: if you can’t handle competition when you are trading, then don’t bother trading.  Attacking other players in this way for playing against you makes you look sad and pathetic.  Simply be a better trader than your competition, if you can, and I don’t know, go do mining if you can’t.

The lies about botting

Over at the site run by Moxnix, there’s been posting about an EVE player he thinks is botting.  He likes to keep saying how the bot *always* undercuts in minutes, emphasis on the always, getting real mad every time someone suggest he might be wrong and the guy might just be a nolifer.  This will not do.

So I logged in one of my spare traders, took a trip to the region cut the price on the “botter”, and watched.  I was expecting it to be cut within minute, since he *always* does that.  But it didn’t happen.  25 minutes passed, and I thought, “well this isn’t a few minutes at all”, so I took a screenshot and posted it up on his site.  Did it appear? No, it did not.  And this is just one of many.  At least 10 posts with clear evidence or good arguments about the “botter” possibly not being a botter at all just never materialised.

So it appears that if you have anything to say that is against what moxnix is posting, the likelihood is he will moderate out your comment.  Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, and people should be able to exercise that right wherever they want, not get silenced when it shatters someone’s argument because they’re too precious to be proven wrong.

As for the “bot”, with further playing about it became starkly obvious that this was no bot at all, just a player with way too much time.  This was easy to tell as there were emotionally driven responses to changes in the orders if you posted yours quick enough, even with a margin trade order from one of his alts trying to inflate my prices without risk, as well as the order in the screenshot above reach 45 minutes in age before a different player sold to it with the “bot” still not cutting the order.  A bot would not do this.  Moxnix is just an angry rookie trader who gets mad at people undercutting his prices, and figures he can use his blog to push out lies against another player rather than simply improving his trading ability and beating him fairly.

Pathetic…

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Update:
He’s now come back on his site once again infuriated at the allegations laid against him, now claiming above all else that I’m another poster on his blog, and that somehow a bot not instantly cutting is somehow further proof of a bot.

MoxNix: The player you are attacking is *not* a bot. Bot’s don’t respond in the way this player has responded, and I’ve seen no evidence of any cutting that is beyond the realms of a human nolifer (and you claiming he *always* cuts you instantly is not evidence, it’s hearsay, and it’s biased).  You are obviously just furious that another player dares to compete with your market orders and compete well, so you slander him hoping that he will be scared off by your threats of CCP action.  Well CCP won’t act because he’s not a bot.