Just a forewarning that this is more to vent frustration than to expect a fix as I know the time spent on this is being spent elsewhere currently with the expansion on the horizon.
For months now I have been seeing a character stay AFK for days or weeks at a time and only going offline when restarts occur. This character is always on an auction house mount by a mailbox. Now whether they are botting the auction house I can’t say as they never seem to post, however they may be sniping. Either way the use of a bot program to keep from being kicked while AFK for such long periods was always against the rules before, but for some reason it is being allowed now for this character.
This leads to the conclusion that despite over 100 reports that it is allowed by Blizzard. Perhaps we should all partake in this now and enjoy the same results since there are no consequences. It doesn’t matter if the character is not abusing the auction house since they are breaking the rules either way to such an extent at this point.
I’ve played since the original Beta and can say that I have never seen botting as overlooked as it currently is. I hope that once the expansion releases things will change since the staff that handles reports may have more assistance or time. To the staff that is focusing on that difficult task I still appreciate what you have done and understand you may be overworked/underpaid.
TLDR: I keep reporting bots, and nothing is done, most likely due to the focus on the expansion.
Edit: Changed the title to be less aggressive sounding. Let’s continue to discuss this peacefully and grow the game in a positive manner =)
Sounds like that isn’t a bot then
2 Likes
Just because you don’t see immediate results doesn’t mean “nothing is done” or that nothing is BEING done.
They don’t just look at your report, go “fair enough” and delete the alleged “bot”.
That’s not how it works nor is that how it SHOULD work, because all it takes is a single false positive and the community would be up in arms.
1 Like
They take several down and several more will take its place.
When the character never goes offline or moves from the same spot it is very odd. Why would they do this? I understand people play for different reasons but if it’s not a bot then it is possibly account sharing. I have a terrible sleep/work schedule and find myself logging in at inconsistent times and on a daily basis and always see them. Online and flagged AFK.
It’s not financially beneficial for them to ban bots in classic anymore so I think they’ll stop doing it.
Very true and I appreciate that is the case. There need to be checks and balances for both sides of reporting or it would indeed be chaos. Like I said the opening post when you fail to see results the frustrations make you feel the need to vent. I appreciate all they can do for these matters, but when myself and others I know have reported this for months it does make it feel ignored.
I was in a guild that had a player on 24 hours a day. As a human being, that’s impossible. I agree on the bottling thing.
1 Like
If you report they do take action. Sometimes it takes weeks or months. They tend to do ban waves like once a year as well.
There’s no way for them to stop it completely, unfortunately.
2 Likes
True, but the waves do seem less frequent these days. I know they work hard doing what they can and may be frustrated themselves at the limitations to what they can do.
While this is true, the lead time is still a little much. By the time action is taken, a ridiculous amount of damage has been done and the botter has made back the cost of a new license and sub many tens of times over.
It’s clearly a problem that’s deserving of more time and energy than is being allotted to it.
How do you know this? You say they’re always on when you’re on, so what makes them the bot and not you?
other than ‘i always see them online’ what evidence do you have that theyre a bot? i work from home and afk on my ah mount all day long, tabbing over to post auctions or chat in between work. i would probably look like a bot, too. being online all day does not make someone a bot in and of itself.
2 Likes
I have asked other players about this character that I have seen, and they also report seeing a very similar situation. Now granted I spend way more time playing than I probably should I do have some understanding on how these things are achieved from my education in Game/Simulation Developpement. Now whether you believe me or not is up to you. I do also know from screenshots I’ve taken that the location appears to be the exact same each time I see them as well.
This may just be because they have more people focused on making sure the expansion goes off well.
Once that’s done and they feel they can shift the resources, we’ll probably see them focus on this more.
1 Like
I think there are addons that will get you the coordinates of the targeted unit (player, mob, whatever) which may be useful if you need more proof.
If it’s returning to exactly the same coordinates day after day, week after week, etc, yeah that’s probably not a human.
1 Like
Botting bans come in waves, probably so that it’s harder for the botters to pin down any specific thing that got them caught.
1 Like
If that’s how you enjoy playing than more power to you, but from discussing this situation with other players in game and screenshots taken the character in question seems to be something different. Looking at your profile I see that you have done other game content and acquired gear from it. They character in question has not appeared to but that may not be a factor of importance since I know some people prefer to do other content. I sometimes enjoy spending time creating new weakauras just to see what I can accomplish, especially as we are in the downtime before Dragonflight.
Thank you to everyone for keeping this civil and constructive. You have helped me to broaden my view on this subject.