"Slow down, hotshot!"

[Purlieu]

I vend a decent amount so this happens to me quite frequently. They do need a new system, but gaia seems not-so-great with captchas. Even the ones they have in the forums now mean basically nothing. You can enter anything you want, and it will let you. (I assume it might inform someone higher up of the activity if it's done repeatedly though). That was somewhat irrelevant, considering captcha breakers do exist anyway, therefore making it no good as an end-all solution. I also assume this happens with the vend and inventories not because you're making gold by refreshing the page (like Ben entailed with his suggestion of turning the gold giving system off) but because people are creating bots to vend FOR them. They do this by setting it to get particular items (tickets / fish drops). Your inventory then has to be loaded to open the fish drops, therefore if you're using your inventory too fast that also warrants the dreaded "HEY, HEY. You're refreshing pages too fast!" message.

I am no expert, mind you, this is all pieced together guess-work and personal perception from what I witness in the vend. An example is certain users (not to name names) seem to buy particular drops only under a certain price. If it even wavers by 1 gold, those same users will not buy it. The same often will happen with tickets, and both of these items seem to be good choices because of how often they enter the market.

I hope that maybe this helped clear up for some people why gaia chooses to do it this way for now. I believe a more viable solution to the problem would be to simply differentiate between the items that are constantly being abused and those that are not. Set a system in place that puts suspicion on users that are uniformly buying only particular items, instead of in general for page refreshing.

[Nyadriel]

I am one of those picky about the price by what I buy something for. Bugs for example. I refuse to buy over 1 gold - especially if I can get them for FREE in Towns.

What is so damn difficult in SLOWING THE __ DOWN! And also not doing something repetetive for two hours or something (I know there are some out there that do just that) that the servers will mistake you for a bot. The program is there to save their servers and it does NOT need a new system for this. If they did use a different system (as was suggested by another poster), botters can get around it by avoiding those items differentiated by another. Sorry, but not a good idea.

Also, the servers cannot tell the difference between a bot and someone pressing F 5 frequently (or placing a penny on that button) and even at times between a bot and someone on a power-speed boost like what you get on DSL. I have gotten that warning for just surfing and posting here in SF - even if its only for the first 5 minutes after logging in when the servers themselves have slowed down and need to catch up due to previous activity by others.

[Nyadriel]

With the changing the avi thing... I have not encountered the warning ever - adn I do not understand why anyone should. Unless the servers themselves are being bogged down by the numbers of users all at once. Even if they WERE to update to faster ones, they will still very quickly get bogged down. Its not YOU personally the warning is intended for in that instance. The warning is probably asking a number of people to "please wait one moment".
Think of it this way...Its like either getting a busy signal or being placed on hold when wanting to talk to an operator of a big business and they have a lot of calls to handle at that moment.

[Purlieu]

Nyadriel

I am one of those picky about the price by what I buy something for. Bugs for example. I refuse to buy over 1 gold - especially if I can get them for FREE in Towns.

What is so damn difficult in SLOWING THE __ DOWN! And also not doing something repetetive for two hours or something (I know there are some out there that do just that) that the servers will mistake you for a bot. The program is there to save their servers and it does NOT need a new system for this. If they did use a different system (as was suggested by another poster), botters can get around it by avoiding those items differentiated by another. Sorry, but not a good idea.

Also, the servers cannot tell the difference between a bot and someone pressing F 5 frequently (or placing a penny on that button) and even at times between a bot and someone on a power-speed boost like what you get on DSL. I have gotten that warning for just surfing and posting here in SF - even if its only for the first 5 minutes after logging in when the servers themselves have slowed down and need to catch up due to previous activity by others.

It would seem as though you are mostly addressing my post, so I will make the response. First, you must understand something like bugs would not be targeted in my solution, they are not profitable and therefore will never be used in a botting attempt. It would be like counterfeiting pennies. (no offense is meant by this, I just wanted to be perfectly clear). I get the feeling you think I mean to just eradicate anyone buying the same items frequently, which is not what I'm suggesting at all. In my suggestion I am thinking for it to act similar to how gaia chooses to deal with fishing bots: It sifts through the logs and finds frequent and very similar user activity regarding item buying and sales done by one individual user.

I would also like to make it clear that it's not simply a problem of "SLOWING THE __ DOWN!", many users that clearly do not vend or refresh pages absurdly fast suffer from this (I believe you admit to having this problem yourself simply from surfing), therefore this thread was started to begin with. Botters can get around this system as it is, what is your point in saying my system has flaws? There is no flawless solution, only less obtrusive solutions. I feel as though my suggestion would probably be so seamless that you would not even know it was there. Clearly what we have now is affecting quite a few average users.

You also seem to believe venders are just tapping away at the refresh button, which is just flat out not the case. As I vend I click on, and sometimes buy, many different items. I am not mindlessly refreshing the page as fast as I humanly can. I honestly believe they put this entire thing in place more as a way to prevent botting than to "save their servers" as you say.

To put it blatantly as possible: sometimes doing repetitive actions just cannot be helped. It is how I earn my gold on gaia. What you're saying to me is like if you were to say, "STOP MAKING SO MUCH ART" to an artist that receives their gold from mainly doing just that.

[Shouko]

I am Saoris' main account, just in case anyone was wondering.

Nyadriel

What is so damn difficult in SLOWING THE __ DOWN! And also not doing something repetetive for two hours or something (I know there are some out there that do just that) that the servers will mistake you for a bot. The program is there to save their servers and it does NOT need a new system for this. If they did use a different system (as was suggested by another poster), botters can get around it by avoiding those items differentiated by another. Sorry, but not a good idea.

I have slowed down. I can't dress my avatar any slower than I have been, I can't go through my inventory any slower than I have been, and if I play the Midsummer Swirl item any slower than I am, it's going to put me to sleep. It's clearly not an issue that's only triggered by speed, especially since there have been people with slow connections getting the error as well.

I was looking the error up a few weeks ago and I found that a lot of people were having this issue a year ago, and that it was happening to random people. I assume that's fixed, since you don't hear much about it anymore, but that still leads me to believe that the system has a few spots that need patched.

I'm not suggesting a new system, I'm just suggesting that the system in place be examined. A lot of Gaia's features haven't been updated since they've been introduced (Fishing, Slots, Cards, and wasn't the lack of rare events [floating giftboxes] even due to the fact that Gaia was still operating as it was a long time ago?), and, I'm merely guessing here, but this could be a long the same lines.

And I'm not doing anything repetitive for hours. I could play a couple of Midsummer Swirls in a row, get booted out because of the error, come back a minute later, play a few more, and in a matter of minutes, get the error again (as an example). I could also do nothing for hours, start dressing my avatar, and then suddenly get booted out (I thought I'd throw that in there to help foil misconceptions).


And thank you Purlieu, I'm glad to see you understand where I'm coming from. sweatdrop

Nyadriel

With the changing the avi thing... I have not encountered the warning ever - adn I do not understand why anyone should. Unless the servers themselves are being bogged down by the numbers of users all at once. Even if they WERE to update to faster ones, they will still very quickly get bogged down. Its not YOU personally the warning is intended for in that instance. The warning is probably asking a number of people to "please wait one moment".
Think of it this way...Its like either getting a busy signal or being placed on hold when wanting to talk to an operator of a big business and they have a lot of calls to handle at that moment.

I really don't think that's what's happening. If that were the case then why isn't it doing it to more people, especially since it happens to me almost every single day? Additionally, I'm usually on fairly late at night when most of Gaia's users are asleep (20,000 to 30,000 people online, versus 80,000 during the day).

Honestly, the thing I want most right now is just some information. I would love to hear more about this warning and what it means for us users. sad I can base my future feedback off that, if/whenever I get it.

Purlieu

I also assume this happens with the vend and inventories not because you're making gold by refreshing the page (like Ben entailed with his suggestion of turning the gold giving system off) but because people are creating bots to vend FOR them. They do this by setting it to get particular items (tickets / fish drops). Your inventory then has to be loaded to open the fish drops, therefore if you're using your inventory too fast that also warrants the dreaded "HEY, HEY. You're refreshing pages too fast!" message.

What about when it happens on the avatar screen (which happens way more often than the inventory screen, at least for me)?


EDIT: Whew... I'm sorry if I was a little incoherent anywhere in there, it's, like, 6:00 A.M. and I haven't gone to bed yet, so... excuse the mess. sweatdrop

Also, I'm not trying to make any enemies here... I'm just a concerned user looking for a little bit of information to ease her mind and the minds of others. sweatdrop
...and seek to fix this issue, if it is one.

[flamejutsu88]

A way to solve this problem is to turn the computer speed down by putting a limit on it

[Sepulcra]

I've had this screen only once - when I was selling items in my inventory (it takes 3 screens to sell one item =.= and I was selling around 20).
This screen is probably there to keep the servers from being overloaded. But keeping users from doing anything for 4 hours is just rediculous. This didn't happen to me though.

[LanceKent]

I was seeing that a fair bit when there were a lot of page loading errors. It's not as bad now but I still see it pop up when the site itself is lagging bad.

[zphal_girl87]

I've always had to limit my vending in order to not get the message. I might be able to do ten minutes of quick vending, but then I need to take a break in order to not recieve the message.

I used to do a lot of quick vending when new items came out, like EIs and sealeds, but I've mostly given it up because I'm too afraid of my account being banned permenantly.

[Shouko]

Sepulcra

I've had this screen only once - when I was selling items in my inventory (it takes 3 screens to sell one item =.= and I was selling around 20).
This screen is probably there to keep the servers from being overloaded. But keeping users from doing anything for 4 hours is just rediculous. This didn't happen to me though.

And keeping people from doing anything for even longer than four hours is also ridiculous (especially when all they did was try to change their avatar). And not knowing when I can actually access the website again, despite the "a few minutes" part in the error is also ridiculous. gonk

[Valgaror the Vicious]

I think Gaia needs to be a little more lenient with this, especially since some of us have quick computers, or for activities like deleting a lot of PMs or cleaning out a guild. It doesn't take a lot of time to delete a message or thread, and I seriously got about 10 of these stupid things when I was going to sell an emptied-out guild...

Though the most ridiculous one was when I was just browsing forums as usual, not in any hurry but not really doing much - went downstairs to grab some beverage or something - and when I came back upstairs the first page I loaded, "WHOAAAA SLOW DOWN YOU'RE GOING TOOO FAST!!" It seems way too sensitive.

If it's meant to catch people who use an autorefresher to bot gold, they could have it so it activates when people load a page within a consistent interval, like every exact five seconds, or something like that, since it is less likely for this to be done by a human. In forums and things like this, you would think that the captchas would be enough to indicate that someone's human.

It's not just a case of 'slowing down'... in fast-moving threads you have to post fast or you'll lose track or get behind in conversation. And yeah, those RIG items that require a lot of loading screens, or any other activity that can and is meant to be done quickly and repeatedly...

I wish a dev or someone would communicate what exactly these screens are meant to prevent, with literally tens of thousands of people using the site, one person loading pages a bit too quickly is not going to be that much of a strain on the system, is it? And aren't the captchas enough to prove that people are human?

Our frozen hearts, our frozen minds, can't feel compassion
We breed our sons to live their lives behind a gasmask
Why seek the sun? Why should I care?
We're all immortal

[BarefootWood]

I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be this way. I only got this warning once, and I was really clicking like crazy for a long time (there were lots of awesome deals at the marketplace that time). So I think something is wrong with the system, I have no idea how these things work... You really should contact someone.

[youngwarrior4]

It happended to me just yesterday. I was on a thread when it popped up. I said ok and then refreshed my pae. Then 5 minutes later it happended again. I said okay then it happended again and it wouldn't leave so I waited 10 minutes. Then I logged back in. It was still there. It just showed the messgae. I waited again and put in my mule account. It wasn't there. I waited some more and finally it was gone. I think the system needs a little fixing.

[Shouko]

BarefootWood

I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be this way. I only got this warning once, and I was really clicking like crazy for a long time (there were lots of awesome deals at the marketplace that time). So I think something is wrong with the system, I have no idea how these things work... You really should contact someone.

youngwarrior4

It happended to me just yesterday. I was on a thread when it popped up. I said ok and then refreshed my pae. Then 5 minutes later it happended again. I said okay then it happended again and it wouldn't leave so I waited 10 minutes. Then I logged back in. It was still there. It just showed the messgae. I waited again and put in my mule account. It wasn't there. I waited some more and finally it was gone. I think the system needs a little fixing.

I'm really happy to see other people who think the system might need to be checked on. xd

And youngwarrior4, it does it by account, not by computer (I know you know that now, but I'm just saying).