I have been reporting a bot for a year now.
First he had 3 accounts, then 1 of them got banned, and now a few months later he has 3 accounts again.
Since Blizz doesn’t care about bots, I would like to clarify, do they not ban bots only in classic or in Cataclysm people use them freely too?
Buddy, please think about what your saying here.
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I asked AI why there are so many bots and got the real answer:
Blizzard publicly condemns botting, but privately allows a certain number of bots to operate. Why? Each bot represents a paying account, bringing in steady subscription revenue. Regular players report bots frequently, and Blizzard will ban those with high visibility to maintain their public stance. Additionally, they make occasional announcements about banning large numbers of bots to reassure the community. However, I believe they minimize these bans to keep the subscription money flowing.
In essence, while Blizzard needs to publicly denounce and sporadically ban bots to maintain credibility, they also have a financial incentive to allow a controlled number of bots to continue operating. This approach maximizes their revenue while maintaining a semblance of integrity and player trust.
That ban was ~8 month ago, that’s it
Bots running 8 hours, five days a week
I was reporting 10 reports a day, 1 report a day, 1 report every other day
Nobody cares
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it’s because of the bot union. they arent legally allowed to bot more than 8 hours, and must be given2 weeks of PTO. Also maternity leave for software upgrades.
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Et tu, chatgpt?
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Sometimes these “bots” are actually playing farmers, which is not bannable.
Oh my expression of chagrin was directed toward the reinforcement of the idea that
People report players for botting.
At times knowing that the reported character is simply farming. I’ve had others broadcast in zone general chat that “[my character name] is being reported for botting. Everyone report them.” or some equivalent nonsense because they are “mad because bad” at aoe grinding (and attempts to grief me aren’t successful).
Not trying to say one way or another that OP’s reporting is being ignored or disregarded. None of us have the data to make that determination and Blizzard isn’t going to give us a peek. Report if you have truly observed bot-like behavior then let Blizz sort it out. Maybe you’ll get a thank you in game mail - but maybe not. That goes for all versions of the game.
I’ll explain what’s going on.
There are three accounts with alliance characters.
2 bots hunter level 14 on different layers stand in the Burning steppes in one place and spam eagle eye looking for black lotus.
As soon as the flower appears, the bot calls a human-controlled level 60 hunter character into the group to move to his layer and he runs to collect the lotus.
The human-controlled level 60 character never uses Eagle eye, only runs to the flower when it appears and then stands afk waiting for a new signal from the bot.
Before one of the bots was banned, both bots would not stop spamming eagle eye even when level 60 was already running to the lotus. Now, after detecting the lotus the bot pauses for 5 minutes and then continues spamming.
If you’re assuming this is all the work of a regular farmer -
that’s three paid accounts with three people working 8 hours a day for two or three lotuses an hour. On a hardcore server with minimal population. How true does that sound?
Right now checked both Hardcore servers 15 minutes each, both have low level alliance hunters in Burning steppes. It’s not hard to figure out what two level 14 dwarves are doing in a location for level 55. It’s easy to check z-“burning steppes.”
Why hardcore servers? Because they have free transfer to any classic server where these lotuses are sold then.
Now after a year of my reports that no one paid attention to I can assume that the administration control over the server is missing and transferred to automatic systems that can be easily fooled
Still a lot of hunter bots on DP that run over to Westfall and go to the field right next to Sentinel Hill. Been doing that since day 1. People have been reporting them and they are still doing it.
A couple weeks ago I started noticing a bot with a new name in their usual spot and as usual made my reports to him too. And a few days later I got an mail that someone was banned on your reports etc. I haven’t seen that new bot anymore, but the old bots are still there.
The other day, without much hope, I created a new character and wrote one of the old bot a link to my discord. He texted me. I asked him how he managed to avoid getting banned, even though the new bots were banned. He laughed and texted that he has connections with the administration and now I will be banned for false reporting. I don’t want to believe it, but we’ll see.
The issue you tend to run into reporting bots is there are really two types of farmers, there are actual “bots” when reported these will often lead to them being banned, as they tend to have very bot like behaviors. The other type is where you have actual people farming items to transfer them off the server due to the free transfers to servers like Whitmane, its harder to ban these because technically if someone is actually playing the account there is no real violation which they can be banned for.
Also do not worry any Blizzard employees actually working with them, as that would be an extremely quick way not only to lose their job but potentially impact future employment in the field. So report away, but to be honest if you message them and they actually respond they probably aren’t a bot, just a farmer, so likely wont get the boot.
To solve the problem they need to limit low characters from doing free transfers with things like black lotuses or other commonly bot farmed items, changes like this would kill the use of low population servers from being feeder zones for the high population servers.
Now these bots keep spamming the eagle eye even after finding the lotus, would a human do this nonsense? The 60 hunter gathering only lotus, no other herb or thorium. It’s more like the bot owner is now too lazy to turn off the program for a short period of time.
Lotus is gathered by a level 60 hunter, why does he just gather lotus and immediately go afk? Why does he never use eagle eye from this level 60 hunter, that would be more handy right? Because the bot is configured to work from a certain position.
Why a couple weeks ago a new exact same level 14 hunter was banned from the same location doing exactly the same thing? I can only assume that the reports from my account alone are not enough to initiate a check, or somehow affect the automation that does it. And the new bot was reported from all three of the old botmaster’s accounts plus my account, and that was enough to get him banned.
All I can say is keep reporting them, if possible triggering something that actually shows bot like behavior, this is a bit easier on the PvP servers since when you kill them, they always defend themself in the exact same way, making it pretty obvious they are a bot. I do understand how frustrating it can be especially on HC or non PvP servers, where you can’t easily kill them.
Unfortunately even when you do ban them, it’s only a temporary fix, and they will soon be back on a new account. Since free transfers are unlikely to be removed, especially on HC, it means they need to look at other options to eliminate the ability to transfer the items off, killing the benefit of farming on low population servers.
An option since they already limit gold being transferred, perhaps they need to look at consumables such as lotuses and other high value items, and further limit them by level, eliminating the ability to simply transfer off thousands of lotuses with a low level alt. Also as long as they don’t announce it ahead of time, they could even grandfather in all current characters, adding much harsher limits on new characters, then give people a warning on character creation, similar to the HC one, so they are aware that farming on the server will have limited value.
They dont transfer, if you check lotus prices and gold prices on one well-known site, its still more money to sell it on hc then on era.
How come no one kites mobs towards the low level bots?
While prices could be higher on Defias, I didn’t think they were, but either way they likely can farm far more lotuses then they can sell on Defias with its low population and even lower raiding population, and while Defias certainly has a viable AH compared to some of the other low population servers like BSB, DD, Grob, or probably even SR, the number of lotus, and other high demand items sold on DP is probably a tiny fraction of what is sold on Whitemane, so they could easily keep what they need for Defias, and than export the rest.
I’ve only come back playing for maybe two weeks if that. I reported two bots, one i got a mail stating they took action. The other I reported recently i hope i hear back soon.
I’m not typically one to defend blizzard but i was happy to hear that.
yes they can, because petri flask is high demand on hc and not only for raiding people.