Exactly, bots gather and flood the AH. Prices shift. People not farming gold have to buy it. Token sales increase. Botting is just a win-win for them, hence only banning in “waves” once a year.
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Drac I forgive you trolling me about MM hunters because you are ultimately super based.
Accurate take. Botters are paying customers that provide subs to Blizz throughout and immediately following their “ban waves,” which are simply token gestures that tell the rest of us they are doing something about it.
Meanwhile we are throwing gold to bot farms on the AH just to have our consumables for raid night.
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is it illegal to make a guild about hunting bots (mass report)?
I farm and don’t make much gold. Maybe if botting was easy we could all do it. We could make everyone rich from Blizz to my underperforming druid farmer. Tips tips tips…
Well, like I told the other person, I’m a sort of DGAF kinda guy, but I have mad respect for you. Your opinion is always spot on, and despite my genuine enthusiasm about trying out that new spec, I value your opinion on this forum. And agree 100% with bots being a source (albeit small) of income for Blizz. I mean, math is math. 500 botting accounts is $7,500 a month in income for them. Plus whatever token sales they drive moves it up the chain. Out of what is likely 6M active subs, 500 bots is a LOW and conservative estimate.
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It’s not against the rules to report bots. But since it only takes one report it’s a waste of time to have a lot of people do it.
Yup, until the credt cards they use come up fraudulent and then the money is returned. Blizzard actually loses money because of botting.
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thats not a problem. that is a win win. blizzard gets money for their subs and we get ah prices to be cheaper.
I wish people would stop attributing bots with druids, it’s just not true.
Hey now…
/10char
technically my first experience was with druid bots and probably many others.
Folks please keep in mind, Bots are not statically coded, they are coded in many different ways, under many different patterns. Blizzard does not just auto-ban these bots on sight because A: It gives away how blizzard is identifying them and has the bot makers change tactics, and B: Blizzard apparently does it to cost bot makers money by getting them within the 6 month refund window, (at least according to piratesoftware)
People are thinking that its just as simple as “Bot go brr, blizz should ban”, but the simpler truth is that its a perpetual arms race, the same arms race that exists in software security and everywhere else. Bad actors make new code, blizzard has to find the new code and add it to its algorithims so they catch as many as possible, ban waves roll out, botmakers adapt to the banwave and create new strings of bots and the process goes on, and on, and on. Even FF14 has its bots, both harvesters and RMTs, and they are Far more proactive about banning them as quickly as possible.
Does Blizzard have an incentive to do this? Could they do it? Would we have any way of knowing?
They. Do. Not. Care.
They do not care about much anymore. No matter what they say.
You reap what you sow…
Bots are here to stay; this isn’t anything new. lol
They are using the Blizz approved gathering bots.
the bot operations have insiders in the company thats how
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Blizzard deploying bots to farm things that they could just make magically appear instead seems like an odd move for them. If they wanted to add gold or materials to the economy, they can just create them.
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Every popular MMORPG has a bot problem.
It’s profitable to sell gold - something they can get for (effectively) free.
It’s literally impossible to shut down botting. You can do bans. And they’ll deploy another version of the bot almost immediately. Alongside the others they already have running that weren’t banned yet because they’re slightly different.
The only way to actually kill bots is to make it unprofitable, but the means of making it unprofitable is to shut down the concept of a player-driven economy entirely, which ends up hurting actual players just as much as it does the bots – not worth it.
(Someone in a similar thread said FFXIV does this by making gold largely for cosmetic / vanity / housing purposes only – No. Turns out people in MMOs care about vanity. A lot. FFXIV has a ton of bots too. It was very blatant last time I played. I’m sure WoW has more. But it’s not a solved issue by any means over there)
They have to keep doing their bans / ban waves, otherwise the game becomes a full blown bot haven. But it’s never going to be effective in actually STOPPING it.
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Bots pay subs