Can we stop pretending Blizzard is helpless against these bot scammers? If they can scroll chat with AI programs, it’s absolutely ridiculous to expect players to believe that bot-behaviors can’t be analyzed, identified, and banned. It’s impossible to believe Blizzard isn’t able to follow-the-money and target players buying gold.
I mean, maybe I’m wrong here b/c this is the same company that can’t seem to figure out how to even make it snow in dun Morogh anymore, but considering people are being banned for mean, naughty words there’s NO EXCUSE for bots to exist in World of Warcraft.
People do not want thresholds to be set to ban 100% of bots, even if that means a percentage of false positives that bans legitimate players.
Which necessarily means the opposite. Human review of the edge cases is likely where a not insignificant portion of resources are consumed.
Now, there’s another very legitimate consideration: Are bots actually problematic? Why? They aren’t as much of a problem as people make them out to be. Neither is RMT in and of itself.
Fraud, credit card and account theft, etc. are legitimate problems, and these may go hand in hand, but it isn’t clear that any good would come from devoting virtually unlimited resources to removing bots.
I’d be fine with waves IF names were publicly posted and they happened weekly. As it stands right now many that I know and play with are convinced nothing is being done, and if something IS being done it’s no where near fast enough.
We police the bots on WMC with hyper violence. Consider to do the same, turn it into a sport killing the bots; report their positions and make a PVP event out of it.
This could get real juicy on a NS post PVP system.
Hell just turning on the honor system without BG’s and posting botter locations would exterminate most of them in mere minutes. The thirsty PVP’rs would eradicate the issue so fast you have no idea.
6 full time employees per region literally just flying around the servers banning bots.
I’m sure the 50,000+ subs they’re collecting for the US Anniversary Servers would cover their salaries easily.
They farm mobs in the world until they reach cap and make it hard for legitimate players to complete quests.
RMT is cheating.
Cheating is bad.
Like I said.
6 full time employees per region would get 99% of the bots off the servers.
That’s what the + means at the end of 50,000.
I know there’s at least 50,000 people active on the server at peak hours.
Anything after that is speculation.
Would there be any ROI on such an investment of resources? That would be interesting to consider. If you have any actual data/numbers/projections, even speculative, I’d be interested in knowing more here. Anything that might cause some stakeholders to think that this is a worthwhile investment.
Yeah? I ran into a pretty obvious bot once in SoD in an area I went to farm at quite often. I reported it. I got some mail. I didn’t see the bot again. That’s a completely anecdotal story, but I found it interesting. Do keep in mind that in my own personal experience, I have very rarely run into bots in-game, and this personal experience most likely leads me to form some experience-biased opinions.
There are several ways that Blizzard supports RMT that are not cheating. Sure cheating is bad, and some RMT may be cheating, but that doesn’t mean that all RMT is cheating, at least according to the rules created by Blizzard.
Great. Do you have a track record of building/leading such teams? If so, maybe present your pitch deck to someone at Blizzard or Microsoft. Otherwise, my guess is you haven’t done much or any research into how bots work, what Blizzard has done/is doing, or how any of this works. And are actively inflating the negative impacts of bots that are supported by many players in the community.
Are bots beating you in ranked PVP? That might be a legitimate concern if it’s the case, and games like FPS games where aim hacks lower the quality of the gaming experience will typically take actions to prevent that from happening, especially in ranked play.
Anyway, for the record, I’m not trying to advocate for bots nor say that botting is wonderful and we should all support it. I’m just rather skeptical that it’s as much of a concern for anybody’s legitimate play as is being made in this thread.
Anyone who supports bots/botting is a cheater, you have zero reason to support botting if you aren’t buying their gold.
RMT on Era, SoD, and Anniversary is cheating.
It doesn’t matter if Blizzard sells a token on other versions of WoW.
I have no interest in with debating someone arguing from a disingenuous standpoint who relies on gaslighting to win arguments.
Bots are bad for the game.
RMT(even the token) is bad for the game.
RMT on Classic Era, Classic SoD, and Classic Anniversary is cheating.
Bots on those servers are cheaters.
That’s a very handwavy way to dismiss what I’ve stated.
I’ve heard you state that. Can you elaborate? This isn’t the first time I’m asking you the same question, and you are ignoring it.
According to what sort of metrics? You may have some ideological beliefs that are not inline with the game design from the point that tokens are introduced, and that’s fine, but it would be nice if you at least shared the framework through which you are viewing things so we have an established common-ground for the conversation.
Why would you say that this part is a complex concept? I don’t disagree that botting is against the EULA, and that it is cheating. I don’t even think I’ve stated anything that would suggest such a thing either.
What I am stating is that I don’t think botting is interfering with legitimate play to the extent that you and this thread appear to be making it out to be such that additional resources, beyond what Blizzard is currently doing should be allocated to combat it.
And If you legitimately think that botting is so out of hand that it should be, then I should think that it would be pretty easy to elaborate or at least articulate what specifically the issues are that you are facing in your legitimate play where you’re hindered by bots.
I would also expect this to be a repeatable and verifiable process. If you want to call that gaslighting, go ahead. If you wish to not have this conversation, then go ahead and opt out.
I’m asking these questions because I’m trying to understand what sort of genuine place someone might be coming from where botting is such an issue to their legitimate play that it is causing them to believe that the issue is so out of hand that it must be addressed.
Saying it more slowly or louder doesn’t explain much.
OK, so what? Are you having issues with a particular quest? Is there an area you are trying to farm that is infested with bots? Where is it? Can I log in an find these bots? Is this repeatable?
Are you actually experiencing any issues or are you telling me that I am:
and
While you are not experiencing any issues, are unable to articulate what they are, and are unable to provide any repeatable processes for verification of any issues in-game that are causing negative experiences for legitimate players due to bots?
