Not really. This is the equivalent of shoving your finger through a Cheerio. Even the most remedial detection system will immediately shut down 384 active accounts coming from the same IP or with the same credentials for payment. You don’t need to be a grand master among IT specialists to see 400 people entering a building all at once through one doorway, all moving in lockstep.
Noclipping and flyhacking doesn’t necessarily need third-party software to accomplish a feat; you can still clip through walls in Stormwind to get underneath it, something you could do since 2006 at the very latest. (By which I mean, I did this in 2006.) Same with getting into Hyjal when it was on the map in vanilla. Hell, with there being logout skipping and death skipping still in the game - to the point that there are add-ons that show you where you’ll spawn if you do a logout or death skip, and leveling guides utilize these skips - it’s completely feasible that wonky software interactions could trigger something like a Z-axis determinator.
That having been said, I don’t disagree on flagging this. I disagree on an instant perma-ban. If something flags this and the activity that follows the flagging is obviously not a human player, then yes, you can manually issue a perma-ban. However, this is a never-ending arms race between game devs trying to prevent bots/hacks, and software devs creating new, harder to detect bots/hacks. In fact, this arms race has been going on for just under two decades in WoW at this point. This is something that literally any video game that has any form of cheat/bot detection takes part in.
Could Blizzard do better? Definitely. But you’re making assumptions that don’t align with the truth of the matter, when it’s not nearly as cut-and-dry as you’ve claimed.
That argument would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that bots make significant amounts of money and it’s very easy to use disposable emails to keep doing it. Bots will absolutely make more money over time than the cost of a monthly subscription.
It’s less about the subscription itself and more about not being in violation of FTC regulations. That’s, at the very least, a terrible idea. It’s also highly illegal, and anywhere from grossly negligent to compliant with fraudulent activity.
Did you just repeat back to me, the quote I provided? That’s what I said. Blizzard didn’t get any money from it, and it cost them both money and legitimate subscribers.
No-one is disputing that. Blizzard isn’t making any money from these bots though. Bots wouldn’t be here if they weren’t making money, but Blizzard isn’t losing 4 million in subscriptions by banning accounts. They never had the 4 million to start with and it costs them more in the long run.
how much more money would be lost in the long run by not banning them when the entire playerbase quits from lack of game integrity? probably more than $4 million
I highly doubt this claim. Everquest has a very similar problem with plat/krono sellers, and the cost of people buying/selling krono for less is negligible when comparing the cost of the accounts people subscribe to do it (though the major function of these farmers is to sell time; the amount of time it would take someone to farm a specific item that the buyers don’t want to do).
And, of course, it’s much easier to play the victim and act like you’re in the same boat as the people who “suffer” from this phenomenon than to admit that you can’t (or don’t) really do anything about it.
But, I will concede that there is probably some loss here just from the people who quit playing the game over time because of this problem. Still, Blizzard has never, and probably will never, actually release any substantial information to corroborate their claims that they are “losing money” from this, and I find it hard to pity a multi billion dollar company that doesn’t put any noticeable effort towards combating it.
They should do hardware bans, that way the botters have to keep buying new parts or PCs to keep functioning. Oh and region locked servers would go a long way too.
Also, just had a thought that I find rather humorous… the idea that the report system might actually auto-layer these bots to lands unknown to obfuscate how prevalent the problem actually is. It wouldn’t surprise me… a little tinfoil hat, maybe, but the layer system is certainly perfect for hiding this kind of activity and at least remove the competition for general play and quests.
People also forget that these bans aren’t in JUST SoD. Or JUST Classic. That’s 270k bans across all flavors of Classic and Retail combined, over the course of a month.
Wrong. Lagspike and you get permabanned for no reason. Also such system will effectively increase server load by at least 100% given theres no proper z coord tracking.
Anyway, its true that Blizz already has needed tools to find bots.
Also its true that no mmo game can totally win the game against bots.