A Bot infection

Support Customer Support
1

Over the life of classic thus far I have watched the bot population increase and increase without anything being done about it. There are Auction House boters, leveling botters, herb bots, mining bots, and instance farming bot teams. I have personally reported and then added dozens of these to my friend list to see if ANYTHING has been done, they’re all still active regularly.

This is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. This is against the rules, the player base is complaining, do something about this!

If none of you care enough to do something, hire someone who does, there are thousands of people who love this game without a job right now, get some of them.

This is genuinely unacceptable.

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It just doesn’t work like that. We report and then Blizz studies the bots to see how they work so that they can ban them all at once. But assuming that nothing is done because you can’t see the work that happens behind the scenes is incorrect.

And that’s all assuming that those you are reporting actually are bots!

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These bots have been farming strat every night for months, I am correct in assuming nothing as been done if a bot can hold farm for 100 days after being mass reported.

I see the same script in Arathi every night, pacing back and forth at the flight master, dozens of accounts doing the exact same scripts.

They literally aren’t doing anything about it so they can make the subs off each one.

4

You “literally” are assuming nothing is being done. Again, just because you don’t have access to the team that handles these and the work they do, doesn’t mean your assumption is correct.

Our job as players is to report and let Blizz handle it. If you want to stalk those accounts and keep checking in on them, that’s your call. But when a ban-wave hits, feel free to come here and feed on the tears and fake ‘stories of innocence’ with the rest of us!

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I’m sorry, but the forums isn’t to to get a mob behind you or something. The CS forum isn’t to rant and rave about what you dislike is currently happening. The blues here ain’t going to jump to do whatever a poster wants.

And coming here with a chip on one’s shoulder won’t make others want to help.

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This isn’t how you report bots. Right-click and report for cheating.

Because people would use it for things like this. It was also never for reporting bots.

If you feel a change needs to be made to how they handle bots, you’ll want to post in the Classic General forums with your suggestions on what you think they need to do differently.

Alternatively, suggestions can also be made in-game using the suggestion feature.

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Think of it this way. If you reported a player for language, they will not respond to your ticket and tell you what course of action they’ve taken in whatever discipline was offered. That just isn’t how things are done.

You think the reports don’t mean anything? You’ve obviously not been around when Blizzard has finished compiling their research and reports and the ban waves start rolling out. These forums are flooded with people pleading their innocence, so while the actions taken aren’t done within what you to believe is an appropriate time frame, actions are taken. It may take months just because they don’t respond to snip one or two bots. They wait to figure out how they’re operating to try and fix whatever thing it is that is allowing so many to do the things they’re not supposed to be doing, and then hit so many more than just that one or two.

So do please try and calm down a little bit, and just keep reporting. It will catch up with them and it will be taken care of if they are truly bots and not multi-boxers.

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Wrong. Plenty gets done about it, you’re just not privy to the details. Others have already covered what gets done. If you’re expecting bots to be permanently stopped from entering the game, then you’re out of luck. Internet security doesn’t work like that. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn’t.

You’re literally wrong again. Most bots are operated by criminals on stolen accounts and/or paid for with stolen credit cards. The chargebacks and refunds that follow the stolen accounts and cards getting reclaimed leave Blizzard without a cent.

I see the same script from some dwarf hunter follow bot who keeps standing next to me at the flight master.

Not really, but see how your observations don’t constitute proof of anything? That’s why Blizzard’s security team looks for more solid, verifiable evidence.

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You are right, Boulder, it is ridiculous. Bots, exploitation, cheating, shouldn’t be in our game. The unfortunate reality is, they are, and they will likely continue to be as long as people look for short cuts.

Our Support and Hacks team does what they can to combat them as best as they can but it is a great deal more complicated than “I see a bot, ban it”.

As Perl mentioned, our hacks team works to do more than just take out an individual bot, they work to see what kind of trace a bot leaves in our game and they work to either break it, block it or detect it, so that they all can be dealt with and not just the ones that are reported. This often takes time as we don’t want to tip our hand, we don’t want the bot creator to focus in on what may have been detected so that they can improve their program to hide. It is a constant battle and we want to make sure we have the most impact when we take action.

Do things get missed? Some slip through the cracks? Unfortunately, yes. We try to have the greatest impact we can, but we also try to not negatively impact legitimate players. This means that we generally need more than “It looked like a bot”, as evidence. So yes, it can take a bit longer to catch certain exploitation, but our teams are dedicated to the task.

To be clear, our Support staff does respond to tickets, but they aren’t part of the Hacks team and they aren’t directly tasked with those investigations. They won’t be able to provide any details.

You are correct, we do not have an email address for CS contact, though we do have a hacks email you can submit suspected reports to. No, you will not receive a response, it isn’t intended as a contact point only submissions.

We also do not have a direct number, we have a callback option, but again, CS wouldn’t be able to provide direct assistance here outside of ask you to use the right click report option for any suspected botters.

Correct. Our forums are here for players to discuss the game, and aspects of it, with their fellow players. It is also used by our Devs as a source of player feedback/suggestions. They actively monitor ongoing discussions about the game and the various player concerns. If you’d like to see a change to how we handle something, or more transparency on what actions we do take, etc… then that is where the discussions should happen. It will unlikely receive a blue response, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be read and taken into consideration by our Community and Dev teams.

MVP’s aren’t doing a Community Managers job, but they represent part of the community. They tend to be subject matter experts and lead in having productive discussions. They don’t always agree with everything Blizzard does, but they do tend to express any feedback they have constructively.

I understand you are frustrated, Boulder. I do. However, attacking other posters, trying to insult them, is never okay. You are welcome to disagree with someone or dismiss what they are saying. What you aren’t allowed to do on these forums is disparage your fellow players.

I will edit/delete some of those violations, and the responses to them, but please be mindful of our forum policies going forward.

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