Just been lurking in discord and I think people who cry about bots are just looking for a scapegoat.
I don't know much about blockchain and to be honest it seems like that aspect of Steem Monsters is a bit of a disadvantage as well as an advantage. I've looked at some of the technology and it's looks like a database that synchronizes itself to a bunch of servers (nodes) with verifications to ensure validity. Fair enough. Seems like overkill for a game like this, though.
I'm not dismissing blockchain. I'm trying to understand how it fits. I see the advantages. But I'm trying to understand the disadvantages.
All of the blockchain projects I've looked at usually have some kind of fee. Usually fees are a good way to prevent spam. I'm not sure if Steemit has considered having fees or if they use some other limit system.
While verification and integrity seems like a good advantage, it's not without drawbacks. One of them is bots. If you don't like bots, you'd better stay away from Steem Monsters. This is only the beginning.
Me, I'm intrigued by the idea. Like, how do you combat them? Do you combat them? Or do you make them work for the game? Is it automatically bad for the game to have bots running around? Can you limit bots without limiting the humans?
Can you find them with statistics? A bot that's just questing to get booster packs probably doesn't have a strategy. It isn't trying to progress in the leagues. It's just farming booster packs. Doing some analytics on them should be pretty simple.
In fact, why not limit booster packs if you look like a bot? Who looks like a bot? Someone who has a 50/50 win to loss ratio (or whatever the true mathematical ratio turns out to be). If you can't beat chance, you're probably a bot. No boosters for you! Then again, that might also impact 7-year-olds. Is there an age limit for playing Steem Monsters?
Anyhow, I guess I see it from the perspective of traditional information systems. If non-blockchain wanted to limit bots, they raise the bar by adding a CAPTCHA. This doesn't even prevent bots. It just raises the requirement so that only people with enough resources to beat the CAPTCHA can run their bots.
In terms of blockchain technology, it looks like adding a CAPTCHA would be pretty difficult, but not impossible. I don't think adding CAPTCHA is the right solution anyhow.
If you really want to limit bots, you have limit everyone. Pick a limit that is high enough that bots are hindered while humans are not. Make it so that if you go over the limit, you have to pay a little or wait a little (or you don't get perks like boosters as often). It doesn't eliminate bots. It just amplifies their weakness.
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