Zwift has terms of service, these bots are against those terms of service. So I don’t see why those folk shouldn’t be kicked out. It’s not a matter of “offending” ones sense of justice, they are violating the terms of service.
They disrupt group rides as well. I’ve seen them turn up at be on a hard ride at 4.8w/kg+ for 120km or more forcing the pace faster. It’s a negative on the experience - which of course is covered by the terms of service 5.viii and cheating covered under 5.xi.
Q: I use bots to stream my rides; can I still do that?
A: If you want to use bots, for any purpose, shoot us a note at five-o@zwift.com with your request. We have approved uses of bots in some cases, but any use of bots requires written consent which we’ll issue on a case-by-case basis.
Everyone doing the right thing is part of maintaining a good community. If more and more people start using exploits or bots, honest users will just get fed up and go elsewhere then it all starts to fall down. Worse is they will tell everyone else the experience is bad and there are lots of cheaters, then the word gets around and you can see what happens then. That’s why you have to stop the exploits.
You’ve circled back around to exactly what I said before. KQOM/Sprint jerseys are part of Zwift, and have value to many people, even if you don’t agree. So, yes, people using the software the way it wasn’t intended, and against TOS, is cheating people of the experience they signed up for. People signed up for a game/workout/competition against other people, not bots. The same as if you and I entered any video game competition and you used disallowed software to prevent me from achieving goals I was trying to achieve. That’s very different from your skill, an intended component of the game, preventing me from doing the same.
Someone’s bot is in fact affecting other people’s use of Zwift, the use they signed up for and agreed to. That you don’t care doesn’t matter, neither does your dismissiveness of what other people find value in. If it doesn’t matter to you, then don’t object to it. But your oh so jadedness is no reason for other people not to care. And you posting here telling people not to care is an exercise in pointlessness.
I would also add: post your own posts. You’d be a lot happier worrying and posting about whatever happens to concern you than worrying about what concerns me. Other people posting here in defiance of your preferences shouldn’t bother you at all, right? Hike your own hike, forum your own forum.
I fail to understand these apologist types that just have insert their apparent care that you shouldn’t care. It’s just a typical part of using the internet nowadays. Like clockwork they crop up.
It is similar to the apologists care that other people don’t care about what others care so much about. In fact these types care so much they feel the need to revive year old threads.
Don’t get too upset. Someone riding around on a Tron bike they did not earn does not affect you in any way. The outrage is all in your mind.
All outrage is in anyone’s mind. That’s no reason not to care.
Edit: What’s funny (not in a ‘laughing at you way’, but in a ‘huh, that’s funny’ way) is that you are repeatedly trying to convince people that something is unimportant. If it’s unimportant, why are you trying so hard? If it’s unimportant to you, you wouldn’t care what people thought about it. And if you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t be posting here. The behavior makes sense for people who think it’s important.
Others find it important that there are people engaging in this behavior. What you find important is the fact that others find this important. For some reason, people caring about this issue or not is very important to you. Which is fine. It’s just funny that you’re trying to simultaneously shrug and also talk about how important this all is.
Just my 2cents from having played multiple games where item/account trading is against the rules but very common.
If Zwift introduces some kind of anti-cheat scheme, the botters will respond by improving their techniques. For example, if Zwift started banning people who ride at constant ridiculous wattage for multiple hours, then the botters would most likely just vary their watt output during their ride.
As long as there is money to be made, i.e. demand for accounts, some will try to bot the game.
At least for now development resources are better targeted at improving the game and not trying to combat bots.
Yup, let them continue but put a server side lock on the account where it can ONLY do free rides. No races, no group rides, no special events,… they can still get their monthly sub if needed.
There’s still a benefit to making it harder. Perfection is not required (or possible) but that doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial to turn the screws. Another way to approach it would be to identify those accounts and silently disrupt transferral (eg, disallow changing the email address without contacting support). Let them find out later when it doesn’t work. Plus there’s more than one way to identify abusive power, and doing so would help in a variety of situations. There’s already a need to be smarter about that.
, I’m totally with you on this one.
