I mean, that’s a good idea too… that way there would be thousands of mats at the same price and whoever’s name would pop up first would be the person you would buy from. A stack of linen cloth could be 3 silver at the vender so 9 silver at the auction house with “LOLIMABOT” as the first 10,000 linen cloths.
I tbh am a fan of the retail AH where I don’t even see this.
500 items at same price, 1 line item. I jsut buy 60 of them. and laught at line number 5 at 1000 gold. Scammer or rmt telling the dude to post that item at that price to mask rmt? A fun guessing minigame I guess.
50/50 chance of bot or real player sales. and I just want my 60 items. Looking for even 3 stacks of 20 is pita in classic imo.
Botting problem isn’t solvable, its a cat and mouse game.
Make a change within the anti-cheat that will detect bots even more, bot devs will find ways to avoid detection or get around things that prevent multiple accounts being made with the intent of botting.
As long as there is a market for gold buying, these people will find ways to avoid or get around these types of things to continue selling gold and making money off of the demand for gold, there is no real end to the problem, come up with a solution to completely stop botting and within 24 hours these bot devs have found a way to get around your solution and now you are in the same situation.
The only way I could think of that the bot devs or bot farms that really cant get around is gold buyers getting punished harshly but I dont think it will end botting, it will lower it but not end the problem.
Consider the real world context that the bots we’re seeing are braindead and walking the exact same pixel path over and over again for 500+ hours straight and they’re doing this with hundreds of other bots in the same line constantly.
If these were sophisticated bots that actually changed their paths or actions or were able to mimic humans or anything like that, maybe you’d have a point here, but they’re not.
Blizzard already has the ability to automatically detect and ban players for non-participation in AV, and in addition look at the parsing websites that use Blizzard’s own logs to record, analyze, and visualize every single movment, every single action, every single piece of gear, every single consumable.
Literally every piece of data that you can possibly imagine is already recorded by Blizzard, and is being uploaded and analyzed on-demand for hundreds of thousands of raiders every single day constantly.
If you see that capability, and then compare it to the brain dead bots that are in the game, it should become clear there is no cat and mouse game, there is no arms race, there is no real attempt to shut these bots down at the source at all.
If Blizzard started banning these bots while they’re levelling up before they can make a profit, they absolutely could make it so the botters begin operating at a loss.
If the botters are stymied enough to the point that they’re not profitable for long enough, they will go out of business.
^ This is a very important point, because the inverse is also true, if the botters can survive long enough to make a profit enough to re-subscribe, then they will simply see any kind of “too late” ban as a simple cost of doing business. That’s where we are currently.
Blizzard could absolutely shut these botters down if they wanted to, a single guy was able to do so much damage to hardcore bots that the botters started issuing death threats against him and his family.
If one guy with literally no development resources can do that, what do you think Blizzard could do if they actually tried?
The fact of the matter is Blizzard has every single advantage, they own the game, the code, the rules, the infrastructure, the payment methods, all of it.
If they wanted to, they could shut these bots down, but it’s not profitable, so they don’t.
Do not confuse a lack of trying for it being “impossible”
“We just did a ban wave after these bots made hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars of profit, and suddenly 300,000 new accounts just subscribed to us at the exact same time after the banwave.”
“Huh, weird, oh well, let’s wait a few months til they make enough profit and ban them again, that’ll show them”
You could make bot detection software the best it could be, even the best in the market and yet these bot devs will find ways to get around it, these people make it their living and want to continue making that money.
The reality is that it is an arms race that you will engage in and it wont end, You update your detection software, bot devs update their software to avoid detection and you update your detection software again, this will repeat and it will keep repeating.
There is no permanent solution that will end botting, it is a tug of war, even if you are being aggressive about it, as I have said in my post as long as that market of gold buying, these people will continue to bot no matter how many hurdles you throw at them, it doesn’t help the fact that there is some sort of leniency on gold buyers which would mean it would drive up the demand more and then you will have more bots out in the world because of it.
“Exposing The Botting Mafia in World of Warcraft” by Madskillzzhc shows what you are saying pretty much. The botters will always be a step ahead of blizzard, unfortunately
What you’re talking about is a hypothetical and not looking at the real world.
It costs the botters money and time to compete in this arms race.
This is a finite thing, not an infinite hypothetical.
Who has more money, Blizzard and Microsoft, or these botters?
Who has more technical capability in WoW, Blizzard, or the botters?
Who controls the entire game, the code, the development, the infrastructure, the rules, the payment acceptance, all of it? Blizzard, or the botters?
Both of these entities are businesses that if they don’t make a profit they go out of business period.
You absolutely can force them into a position where it isn’t profitable to continue, even if hypothetically they “could” like you’re claiming.
It’s a cute thing to say, but it’s not true in the real world.
I do 100% agree with you tho about the leniency towards gold buyers, if Blizzard aggressively banned those gold buyers and massively reduced the amount of demand by doing that, it can be yet another factor to drive the botting companies to insolvency.
But they don’t, because it’s a choice, not because it’s impossible.
Hate to tell you, OP, but bots make Bizzard-Microsoft more money than any legitimate player will. They will never solve the botting crisis, unfortunate as that is. Just keep on reporting every time you see one - and they sure aren’t hard to spot, either.
Easiest way is to remove gold from drops. Remove repair costs and skills train free. Make the mount a quest that you have to do. They added gold sinks for players 20 years ago and they have never updated thier thinking. Give all players the gathering skills, all of them. And give big gold for completion of dungeons and make all loot at the end of the dungeon fly out of a chest. Problem solved. The only reason bots exist is because there is a need from the player base for them to exist. Remove the need and they won’t exist. Will also wash off a bunch of profit for blizzard though.
You’re forgiven for assuming this since that’s where you most visibly see/notice them, but sadly bots are also packed into dungeons tighter than sardines.
Let the bots pay for the game. Why cant people understand they want bots for more subs… This game is about the $$ not the game, The people originally passionate about it have grown weary and moved on. Why pay for a sub anyways when steam has much better games for FREE?
Now, how do you compensate blizzard for the lost revenue due to a loss of botting subscriptions. I ask because they are still a business and somebody’s gotta respond to some vp or svp somewhere ‘why has revenue dropped?’
I think the botters will always be a step ahead of anything you try. However, what you can do is interfere with the delivery of gold from the seller to the buyer. Hurt the business model enough and the commercial bots will diminish.
Mailbox (from a different account) or face to face trade, set limits on individual and communitive amounts.
AH transfer via ridicules markups. If detected, the system can fulfill the order, thereby taking the seller’s gold. Removing the sellers name from AH will also sow mistrust as to whether the buyer received their gold or not.
Be creative and introduce measures that take away the need for the trade window, so genuine transactions are not affected by restrictions. For example, the enchant vellums introduced later.
No doubt, you could circumvent this by providing high value items in lieu of gold (but even this could be addressed). But this is very inefficient as opposed to raw gold and would likely tank the market for certain items.
Strath runs will come in time. When Phase/Season 3 gear more common here or tbc 70 for sure.
Even antiboost code didn’t kill that. It jsut slowed it down. You just pull less is all. I know for my wrath now cata tailor crap I jsut go slow and steady across the mechanar trio.
I could wander the world for mobs. that added travel time. Or I can know there is like 200+ mobs up in here. Maybe 30 steps between the packs. 4/5 die at a time…watch the bags fill.
And even the bulk sales of greys, bop and boe makes for nice pocket change. It wants to drop crap tons of potions/food weak as hell now…its still some silver from a vendor.