Botany Bay

Botany Bay is the name of an area in RuneScape where players are allowed to choose punishments for accounts of players found to be bots and watch them be judged in a special court system. It was released on the 26th September 2012 along with the Al-Kharid graphical rework.

"After a cheating, rule-breaking, botting account has been caught in the act, they are teleported to Botany Bay: a new location, hidden on a dark, foreboding island and run by the Botfinder General. Here, real players are invited to listen to a fully voiced speech from the General, while pelting the offender with rotten tomatoes. You'll then be invited to choose one of three game-ending punishments for the offender, resulting in a brutal set of animations and a permanent ban. You’ll be able to hear about ongoing trials via the announcers that sit near several busy in-game locations. They will also offer a handy teleport to anyone nearby.

For those actually voting and choosing the account-ending punishments, you’ll also be able to access new cosmetic rewards, including a flaming pitchfork emote."

- Behind the Scenes: September

Location
Botany Bay is accessible by being teleported by an Announcer who can be found in major cities.

Voting
Once a bot arrives to Botany Bay, it will judged by the Botfinder General, who will read his verdict.

The players will then be able to vote for the punishment in the interface by choosing the punishment and clicking Judgement, and then a chat message will confirm that the vote has been count. Note that in busier worlds, you might not have enough time to vote and it wont count towards the rewards.

Punishments
There are 3 punishments for the bots:
 * Claws
 * Deity
 * Swallow

Rewards
Players gain rewards for voting on punishments for bots. You must be wielding your pitchfork for your votes to unlock the emotes.

Note: Make sure you look down at your chat box to see your vote has been received.
 * After 3 votes, the player gains the Pitchfork of vigilantism
 * After 4 votes, the player gains the "Angry Shake!" emote for the pitchfork
 * After 5 votes, the player gains the "Furious Shake!" emote for the pitchfork
 * After 6 votes, the player gains the "Burning Shake of Justice!" emote for the pitchfork
 * After 7 votes, the players gains the Pitchfork of justice, a golden colored pitchfork

The Botfinder General
During trials, the Botfinder General is in charge of sentencing three-time offending bot accounts to a player-decided doom. After the bot account receives its punishment from the Botfinder General, it will be permanently banned from RuneScape.

Facts

 * There is a three-strike system.
 * Strike 1 - Temporary ban + content restrictions
 * Strike 2 - Longer temporary ban + content restrictions
 * Strike 3 - The permanent ban interface shown to the right will pop up and lock the bot account
 * If players are banned with a substantial amount of discontinued items (e.g. Party hats) on their account, there is a means of returning them back into the game.
 * Botwatch will target all types of bots in the game, including spam bots.


 * Display names held by bots become available as soon as they are banned.
 * Random events will be removed at a later date.


 * The bots in Botany Bay will have the real usernames of banned bots.

Pre-Launch
On 18 September 2012, Jagex added preliminary bot watching code to RuneScape, and spam bots started to explode and get banned.

They can perform two animations when they get banned.


 * They gasp for breath, choke, and then fall over. (Doing the Dramatic Death Emote.)


 * They glow and start a cry emote, before a fireball burns from inside them and kills them from the inside out, finally making them explode.
 * On the release of this update, the map had been completed for the first time. It is now a regular rectangle with no pieces of land leading into dark nothingness.

Trivia

 * The name Botany Bay is a reference to the real-world Botany Bay, located in Sydney, Australia, which was the landing place of the British Empire in 1788 when Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet established the first colony in Australia. This colony was used as a penal colony for Britain's criminals, but was later dissolved as the country took form.
 * The Botfinder General is a reference to the self styled Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, who conducted witch hunts in parts of England around 1645-7.