Auction House Botting

Community General Discussion
1

Hello fellow adventurers,

I wanted to bring attention to a troubling issue I’ve noticed recently in Thunder Bluff: Auction House botting. Over the past several weeks, there has been an increasing presence of automated bots from multiple servers posting items and flooding the auction house. This has made it difficult for legitimate players to use the AH efficiently and fairly.

These bots seem to be running 24/7, posting and undercutting with little to no human interaction. It’s frustrating for players who are trying to buy or sell items for reasonable prices. Not only does this negatively affect the economy, but it also creates an unfair environment for those who want to enjoy the game and make a profit through legitimate means.

I’m reaching out to the community to raise awareness of this issue and hopefully find a solution. If you’ve noticed similar problems in Thunder Bluff or elsewhere, please share your experience here. I also encourage Blizzard to take a closer look at this situation, especially in Thunderbluff as it’s impacting the auction house experience for many players.

Together, we can hopefully make the Auction House a fairer place for everyone.

Thanks for reading and happy adventuring!

3 Likes
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it falls under ‘automation’ and it should be reported.

3

TBF, I’m seeing less herb and ore bait posting now.

it still happens but it is way less than it was.

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Funny thing is Warden should have detected this (as well as the rampant bott problem in classic wow) ……nope :frowning:

But you are right report them under exploiting and botting

1 Like
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They did detect, and nuke the biggest windows bot recently. Thats why the biggest public bot was Mac OSX only for while. The mac version didnt get nuked.

Warden can only do so much. But its come a long way since the blizz took down bossland gmbh in court.

6

Not gonna lie. It;s kinda nice having some rich bozo buy all my stuff for 5 silver cheaper than the lowest seller. I still get a fair price, and my stuff is not rotting away in the AH. I know bots are an issue, and Blizz should ban them. Until then, I’mma take gold from anyone who buys out my stuff.

1 Like
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Keep in mind the lowest seller is half that of the 2nd lowest, and is selling 1 single item, to bait you into kneecapping yourself .

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If they are truly active 24/7 then sure ban them. But a lot of them are just actual players using addons to continually cancel and repost items to dominate the market.

I did it in the past, but I do think they should break the functionality of these addons like TSM and break the “goblin” dominance of the economy.

9

I’m almost gold capped, and if I drop drastically, I can buy another 10 tokens. I stopped playing the AH for gold years ago, and the simple fact that I need to shop by item level, and not character level to avoid getting lvl 80 gear for a 73 alt is just more proof the AH is hosed. So my kneecaps are fine. If I need it, I farm it. If I am poor, I grab tokens.

1 Like
10

Time to get a level 70 alliance to lay waste to thunderbluff.

Can’t bot without the auctionhouse! XD

11

who do you report though?

i dont even know where they are operating from

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I’m following up again on the persistent issue of Auction House botting in Thunder Bluff, and I wanted to provide some additional details about the current state of the problem, along with some concerns I have about Blizzard’s response.

They rotate between 8-12 different servers within an hour, and it’s become pretty clear that they’re not just random players, but part of a well-organized and automated network. These level 1 Tauren bots follow a very distinct pattern, moving back and forth between the AH vendor and the mailbox with exactly the same movements every time. They’re easy to spot because they all use odd characters and accents in their names, like Èrêðàrðar or sêñjîñjîñ, a technique likely meant to avoid detection. Each of these bots has the server name in their character name in some form.

What’s especially concerning is that I’ve seen this particular botting network banned in the past, and I even received a Blizzard notification stating that the reports I filed led to their banning. However, despite this, the same group has been back at it again for months now, and Blizzard hasn’t responded with any updates or plans on how they intend to combat this ongoing issue. I’ve sent reports via the usual channels, including the hacks@blizzard email and the in-game reporting system, but there’s been little to no communication from Blizzard about the state of this kind of botting and how they plan to combat this since the expansion (as far as i know).

I’m concerned that the lack of visible action and communication has allowed these bots to persist and flourish. The fact that they rotate between so many servers and use such distinct patterns makes them extremely easy to spot, yet they continue to dominate the Auction House in my server as well as at least 8 others that i’m aware of.

I fully understand that combating bots is an ongoing battle, but I think it’s time Blizzard addresses this issue more transparently. If you’re skeptical about this situation, I implore you to visit Thunder Bluff yourself and observe these bots in action. Once you see the exact same movements and naming conventions, it becomes clear these aren’t just players, they’re part of an automated botting system.

Finally, I’m hoping to find more effective ways to contact Blizzard about this issue, as it feels like the current reporting channels haven’t been fruitful. If anyone has had success reaching out to Blizzard regarding botting or if you know of better ways to escalate these issues, I’d appreciate your advice.

Thanks for reading

2 Likes
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op they will not ban then right there they are waiting for the right time so that the program could not be fixed that fast
a good example would be after a few updated on the ah bot program is when they hit
makes it hard to find what patch was caught in the ban detection

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Slow down, they get the reports but probably dont want to alert the bot creators by telling some guy who runs to the forms how they are dealing with the issue, blizz and other major game devs do bans in waves without warning to get the greatest effect without the bot makers being able to circumvent the changes that deactivate their abilities

15

If you find bots, report and then move on with your day. Investigations take time, and bots get shut down on Blizzard’s time, not yours.

Most botting organization have tens or sometimes hundreds of thousands of stolen accounts to use for this, individual banning is like playing whack a mole and it’s counter productive because it allows botting software to make adjustments to prevent detection. It’s far better to ban all of them at once in a wave months later, so they have no idea how they were detected.

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The problem is if you don’t get them immediately, then it was all done for nothing.

The botters know how to launder gold to newer accounts without systems flagging such. If they earn enough before their ban they just can go again to infinity. ie, pays for itself on the next go-around, plus profit.

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Blizzard has also started banning people that are involved in gold laundering, even without their knowledge (GDKP’s and such).

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How would anyone know if they got dirty gold? I mean is dirty gold now in circulation? And a ban can pop up just for unknowingly having it?

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Yep…you don’t know if you got dirty gold. That’s why you don’t take part in unsupported transactions. Because if someone gives you gold as part of an unsupported transaction, Blizzard will suspend for it. See the CS forum where people have gotten suspended for receiving dirty gold as part of an unsupported transaction.

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I mean is there dirty gold in the Auction House? So you are taking a risk buying and selling items to and from players on the AH.

How would anyone know if other peoples gold is clean? If the Auction House is compromised then they need to shut it down. Cause why risk account ban selling items on the Auction and receiving bad gold without knowledge?