Is it allowed to auto-collect tokens?

[(°^°)7]

Since the first time I joined the events I've been wondering if its possible to programm a computer to collect tokens while it's running and I'm pretty sure it is and people do.
Is there any rule prohibiting that?
I never saw one so I was curious how that is handled.
I know that there's a maximum of tokens a player can collect during the event so this might make ot fair for those actually taking the event seriously xD
Anyway how is this dealt with?
Thanks for help in advance

[Disgustedorite]

Wait, you can only get a certain number of tokens per event? That's the first I've heard of such a limit.

Given how event banners work, it would not surprise me at all if people have found ways to bot it. I would say it's probably against the rules, as being able to collect tokens 24/7 gives you an unfair advantage. I'm not so sure if a less malicious form of it, like notifying you when there's a banner at the bottom, moving it to the top, or automatically clicking it if it appears are considered cheating, but we should probably wait for a mod to say something about this. I don't think botting is mentioned in the rules at all.

[Burrito Bunny]

Hi there,

Using a script or bot to collect tokens during the events is against the rules. It's considered cheating and will be punished, because using a bot is like exploiting the site and the event, and it creates an unfair advantage over those who play in the spirit of the event.

As Solloby once said on Tumblr in response to questions about this issue:

Just a reminder while the CS Dream Event is on that cheating is not allowed on CS.
This includes:
- Using multiple accounts to collect tokens for yourself
- Using scripts to collect tokens (aka botting)
Both of these are unfair to players who do the right thing and collect tokens for themselves. The CS Admins can detect cheaters, including those who have used the banner-clicking script that’s recently been posted on the CS tumblr tag, and will ban their accounts, so please play by the rules.
Thank you!

This post was obviously made awhile ago (2013 to be exact) but the principle behind it still stands.

There are many people who reach the token limit in each event! It's a rather large limit, but easily reachable for those who are dedicated enough. But they do so fairly, manually coming on and clicking banners. Those who are caught using bots will be punished.

[(°^°)7]

Fascinating
Well thanks for the answer
I often see people making auctions with incredible amounts of tokens offered after just 24h (amounts like 70 tokens or so) are there people banned?
Anyway thanks again

[nickjr]

Some people do sacrifice their health to reach token limits quickly (we don't promote this, of course) and actually stay up for like 72h straight with only 20-minute naps between banners. Legal but definitely discouraged for your own health lol but usually they know the consequences and do it anyway and we can't stop 'em because they're manually hunting like they're supposed to (hopefully they're the resilient type...). It's not healthy, so that's the price paid for hitting the limit sooner than everyone else. (Whereas using a bot means you can sleep and hit the limit sooner than everyone else--i.e. no price paid, hence why botting is not allowed while staying up for a loooong time to manually click banners is only strongly discouraged)

Some people buy tokens off of others for C$ or trade for others' tokens. There's also doing art for tokens, offsite trades for tokens, etc. like with all other trades. Offering C$ for tokens is fairly common from what I've seen. So that's how some people get super high amounts of tokens so quickly

Limits are definitely reachable without sacrificing your health, although they're not as easily reachable if you're still busy when you're awake to the point where you can't check CS for hours at a time during the day. I regularly hit banner limits while getting 5-8 hours of sleep per night and attending school (in grade school, I had plenty of chances to use my phone throughout the day, and in college, I avoided taking more than 2 back-to-back classes)