@Zaineman thanks! I never thought I'd be at the top! And I love the dancing pickle guy!

@32 I put you into my top friend list Click Here you are the 4th one down from the top. Check it out and tell me what you think. Z 😺

@Bellcat yeah I mean this is just a concept, the exact details are definitely out of my scope of knowledge. You seem to have done at least some research here, so I'll take your word for it that you know what you're talking about. Basically, I don't want bots on the site, and my idea is that you have to buy the game in order to post. If the devs can think of a better way to do it, then they should by all means go ahead. Unfortunately they don't really seem to care that much about this site. The last update was a few months ago, and all it did was disable the upvoting of unlisted stuff.

@32,

“an account used with this device has been banned and this game is now invalid“

If you want to disable a person’s game, you would need some sort of identification for a person’s game. Preferably, the device or application’s unique identification would work, but scanning, then, storing such data is the same as storing an IP address, which only happens to prevent said IP address to access (or log in) to this website for repeated ban evasion for storage and cost-saving reasons. So, this is nearly redundant. Also, do note that data protection laws vary differently.
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Regarding that email problem, I appreciate your efforts to clarify the problem. Essentially, you are creating an authentication system by having a person buy SimplePlanes and log in to it, taking advantage of an existing system. While it may not eliminate the bot problem, it can only reduce the number of bots that log in on this site (hackers can still use a myriad of techniques to hack into accounts and convert them into bots, such as what happened to the accounts that were converted into bots that act as advertisers for a seller of financial accounts). As explained before, said idea cannot be used to prevent the circumvention of bans. So consider me slightly satisfied, unless a more experienced person (preferably one of the developers of this game) creates a more effective counterargument, or I have found more concerning aspects about your idea.

@Bellcat Not necessarily. All you would have to do is create an account via the site, then log into it ingame. You already do this when you upload a plane, so I don't see an issue with it.
Also this would be optional. You wouldn't need that to just play the game, only if you wanted to post.

@32, on top of that, for your idea to work, you have to put an ID for every copy of the game sold, and that is expensive, as it requires unnecessary data collection to be put into servers that can be expensive to maintain (imagine how much gigabytes, as well as the number of designations, would you need to store an ID of every person on earth, anyways, what to do with the old IDs and other complications). An alternative solution would be to use the email address you have already mentioned (but in a way that would not hinder gameplay). However, data collection on such a scale would not only still be expensive, if any data breach occurs, your email would be exposed to literally everybody, including adbots (data anonymization would still not protect you, especially those commonly used that are really easy to break), threatening your privacy and/or spamming your feed with advertisements, personalized and/or not, hate mail, love requests, links containing viruses, et cetera. On the other hand, some bot operators would bypass this system by hacking other people’s accounts, through a myriad of techniques. So I am still skeptical wether this doable idea would work effectively.
.

Ok but see bots and AI are getting more advanced and really the dev team can't really do much unless there's a governing agency and laws implemented for AI usages &32

@Numbers2, it would be pretty complicated and inefficient to enforce such a law and creating a separate agency to combat bots might be quite redundant (law enforcement agencies already fulfills that role, it’s just that they usually respond to reports that are usually made during or after an incident); even the mere presence of such laws would not completely discourage the malicious use of bots. What you could do to reduce the number of bots entering a website is to implement an effective CAPTCHA, and simpleplanes.com’s CAPTCHA found during registration is easy to break (there is a reason why Google’s text-based CAPTCHA was replaced with an image-based one).

@Numbers2 I don't think the bots are actually set up by a person. Someone probably scoped out the site and found a way to let bots create their accounts. We can at least try to make it hard for bots to do their thing.

Yeah but they are still getting in and what people can still do is rig the system override the verification system then set the bot up to do its job @32

@Numbers2 I disagree. These ad bots really aren't that advanced (except the Veri*pro ones.) Even if they were, a government agency wouldn't be able to stop them.

Ok but see bots and AI are getting more advanced and really the dev team can't really do much unless there's a governing agency and laws implemented for AI usages @32

@Nahida1645 not necessarily. All the code already exists, it wouldn't be too hard to put it into the next update.

The game would need a rework or a rewrite for the function, and could be useless if the website has been moved.

@OwO And servers cost more than this one

useless

@MrCarrot horny man

@Bellcat these are all minor details. My idea is a good concept (I think) but as you have pointed out, there are a lot of stumbling blocks between thinking of and actually implementing it.

@Michiganstatepolice, @32, an IP address-based ban would work (and has already been implemented on this website). On the other hand, the CAPTCHA used for registration is extremely easy for bots to bypass.

@32, most email services do not allow users under the age of 13 to create and use emails by law, so your idea would lock out users under the age of 13 from playing, then enjoying the game. Some of them might require phone numbers for emails, which is can be pretty complicated.

@Michiganstatepolice you mean like a captcha? Yeah that's a good idea.

@OwO I think for the most part its just bots posting via a script, the people in charge of those probably aren't willing to go to the trouble.

@Bellcat I'm thinking it would be more of a one-time deal, sort of like when you verify your email. I think it would be a little annoying not being able to post without owning the game, but it would hopefully obliterate the bots from our site.

In order to post a forum or comment, you need to log in to your account in game.

How does that work? It’s like you need to play the game to post in or comment in the website, which may look quite reasonable, considering it is a forum about games, but this isn’t a practical idea. Not everyone has the ability to play the game at times where something else needs more attention. I have been quite an active member, answering questions, and I do not want to lose access to the website, considering I rarely play SimplePlanes and focus on other things. Forcing me to play SimplePlanes to help users is going to waste my time, and there are times where I cannot access SimplePlanes, due to many circumstances that prevent me from doing so. So I do not want this idea implemented in the game and in the website. Anyways, I have never seen any sandbox game require you to log into the game to post on their game-related websites.

@Mustang51 usually just advertisements for online games, and stuff like that. There was a period of time where bots kept posting links in the forums that were capable of taking over the accounts of existing users. Obvious security threat, and just plain annoying.

Wait I havent noticed the bot posting. What kind of stuff do they put in the forums?

@32 if a persons been banned they should be able to create a new account, only for permeant bans tho because they payed for the game, how about have it be 3 permeant bans on the device then it device bans them, by then they should've learnt there lesson, also the bot thing should instead be one of then tap the numbers in order thing when you log in, would be better and less work