I’m 90% sure I need to post this here, but I’ve been to Tanaris 3 times to farm the turtles like a normally play and there has been the same exact bot here every time! I’ve reported it and reported it, and nothings been done. I’ve lost out on xp and loot that could have been some serious gold, but Blizzard won’t do anything about it. I’m seriously upset that it’s come to this. Blizzard should be ashamed, and if this is how they handle bots farming everything, I’ll just get whatever program you use to bot and let my account bot and make my gold for me while I do whatever.
It isn’t that we don’t do anything, Ragnah, it is massively more complicated than that… We absolutely do investigate these reports, but it often takes time. The makers of the bot do everything in their power to hide as best as they can. While we try to figure out what kind of footprint the bot is leaving when interacting with our systems so that we can do more than go after a few bots that you may see.
We want to do what we can to have the most impact possible and try and break, block or automatically delete anyone who may be using this method of exploitation.
Do we wish we could find and remove them faster? Absolutely, but I respect the work that our Support staff and our Hacks department does. It’s a tough job, made tougher all the time without any real recognition and often disparaging comments about our integrity. I’m sorry that most will never have any real idea of what they actively prevent, and have done so over the years.
I wouldn’t recommend that. It is a hard lesson and one many thousands have learned over the years.
I’d ask that if you encounter a character you believe to be exploiting in some way, please use the right click report option to report for: Cheating… It is very much appreciated.
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I have reported him, multiple times. And I’ve asked many, many users on the realm during the past 3 days and most say blizzard never comes into contact with them and almost never do they see the bots being taken care of. That is my concern, I’m losing xp and mainly items right now between the bot and the time it’s taken to post this and reply. I’m attempting to farm for Golden Pearl to get a head start on my mount for 60 and I’m having to deal with this bot and the fact it’s been reported and nothings been done and the fact that the mass majority of people say nothing is being done is upsetting. I understand it takes some time, and I understand that it isn’t as easy and 1, 2 , 3, I’ve watched years and years of youtube about WoW and heard countless remarks and statements about the lose of communication of GM and problem solving and the community. I’m just asking that this be solved. The character name is {Removed} on the realm Ateish.
- The CS forum isn’t a bypass to the ticketing system.
- The blues here won’t act upon a post because they assume someone is a bot.
- The forums isn’t for callouts.
- Folks been yelling about Blizz doing nothing for years, all the while wanting everything for themselves.
- Getting folks on what they think on something isn’t proof of anything, as folks will yell that they don’t like Blizz while still playing their game.
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It is advised that you remove the player’s name from your post before Vrak or another blue comes in and fixes it for you as it’s been mentioned already that call outs are not allowed.
The thing is, no matter that you think that person is botting, it may just be someone else who is out there farming for golden pearls for their mount too. Seeing as that person is nearly your level. Or they very well may be botting. Unless you’re there to see the scripts and have the behind the scene records that Blizzard has, all you can do is offer your hypothesis of what is going on.
And if it is truly a bot? Trust me, they’ll get caught. It may not be nearly as quick as you’d like for it to be, but if you’ve been around for very long at all, you would have seen all of the folks caught up in a big ban wave flocking to these forums to protest their innocence.
TLDR; Play your game. Blizzard will do their due diligence and handle it as they have been doing for so many years.
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I’ve watching him inch forward in a set interval of seconds, he targets ANY turtle that is spawned, no matter who has the tag, cast the same exact spells in the same exact pattern, and takes the EXACT same pathing every single time, so yes, I’m 100% he’s a bot. I’ve been around long enough to see a bot or see someone who is in a rythme of sorts.
And to report a player, there is not ticketing system, at least what I was attempting to do. That I’m unsure of seeing as I’ve only made a handful of tickets and none of have been to report a player, it has all been account issue based. I’ve done nothing wrong here, maybe something(s) may be frowned upon, but nothing against any rules I’ve ever seen. So I’ll keep the name in there until a blue says otherwise. I’ve asked irl friends that play and they claim the same bot has been there for weeks doing the exact same thing. I can’t account for the factual parts of that statement, I can only account for the past few days, but if that is in fact the truth, it is beyond reasonable to be slightly upset about this. I’m not bashing Blizzard, I love the game and will continue to play, and I know I’ve said some outwardly things, but all within reason and with truthfulness behind the words. Again, all I’m wanting is for something to be done, because I’m losing out on xp, currency, and items.
The blue edited it out of your post because it’s against the rules. You not knowing that it’s against the rules for call outs, or that the forums are not a means to report players is understandable. But after being told it’s not allowed, it’s best not to push to see if we’re wrong 
We all get upset when we see people or non-people (bots) breaking the rules. But what you need to understand is that Blizz takes time to look into these reports and then they look into “how” the bot works so that they can break the bot and ban everyone using it instead of trying to ban one account at a time.
Best thing to do is report and move on. They’ll have a negligible effect on your overall game-play. Just continue to report the ones you see
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Do you sit there and watch this person 24/7? Though if you did, you’d still not have the data that Blizz does. Right click on them, report them for cheating. That is all that you can do.
Just keep doing what you’re doing, and they will get theirs in due course. You won’t know if or when they are sanctioned, as we are never entitled to follow ups to see what has been done. Work on your grind, and be wary of whispering others to report this person.
On the off chance that you’re wrong? Technically it could be something that comes back at you as attempting to harass another player which would then leave you open to being sanctioned.
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I’ve seen what happens when there aren’t effective anti bot measures in place. I’ve seen other MMOs completely overrun by bots. And then considering how popular WoW is, and how much these botters have to gain with their shenanigans, I have no doubt that the people working on this behind the scenes, prevent a huge amount of botting and other abuses.
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Call outs are considered harassment.
If the account is compromised, it’s the criminal on the game. When the player recovers their account you have made them prone to harassment in-game because of what the criminal did with their account.
Maybe you spelled their name incorrectly on the forum. Then you have opened a totally innocent player to harassment for something they didn’t do.
If the player in question is not actually botting, you have again opened them up for harassment for something they didn’t do.
As well, you calling someone out on the forum could result in others harassing guild members of the one you called out.
We understand your frustration, but posting on the forums and calling out players will not speed up the investigation of your reports. There is a dedicated group that investigates them. They don’t take reports from the forum. With the huge influx of players because of quarantines and stay-at-home orders, there are a lot more reports to go through. It’s great that you feel strongly enough about players breaking the rules to report them. Blizzard just can’t act on it instantly.
If you farm an area long enough you develop a pattern. You go the same route. You use the same spells. You help others with their kill because it helps keep the respawn timers consistent for your runs through the mobs. You do it for hours while watching Netflix. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m not saying they aren’t botting. Blizzard doesn’t need you to police them.
The right-click report system is the ticketing system. One report would give Blizzard the information Blizzard needs. It includes all the log files needed for the investigation. It is the most efficient system for reporting botting. That is why it is the suggested and preferred method. A manual report would require a GM to manually locate the log files needed. That is very time consuming. It is possible to miss a log if it’s done manually. It is possible the log file no longer exists because the logs aren’t kept indefinitely.
There are other things to do in the game. It is not a required activity. If you are losing out it’s because you are spending time watching this player instead of doing other things. Why didn’t you just move ahead of this player and get the next turtle?
They don’t remove bots in a whack-a-mole fashion. They remove them in waves. They investigate the botting software and what exploits it may be using. They develop a fix for the exploit and test it in-game and sometimes on the PTR. They apply the fix to the game. They run an algorithm to look for what account was using the bot. They then double-check the results. Then they send out the bans.
If you were playing Classic when honor was added and remember the problem with the totals because the weekly totals result was missing some honor from specific sources. Remember also that it took a bit of time for them to update the process so that the totals showed correctly. Then it took a couple weeks for them to rerun the data from the first weeks to correct their totals. That fix was fast in comparison to removing bots. And botting software gets updated as Blizzard updates the game. It’s a never-ending battle.
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Hello Rágnáh,
I wouldn’t expect contact regarding a bot report. Logs are far superior to asking people to remember what they’d observed.
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its funny they put in 5mil gold mount i try to farm said gold mount but cant because they let these dudes bot ive got 2 in drustvar atm screwing me on leather, and by the time they get around to botting the bots got over millions in goods
“Let these dudes bot” is more than a little misleading. We don’t “Let” people bot, anymore than law enforcement lets people commit crime. We do what we can to curb the behavior, both in preventative measures as well as reactive penalties.
Again, we’ve love to remove 100% of the bots, or better yet prevent them entirely, but it is far more easy to say than do. These folks aren’t slouches, they are clever and their only goal is to go undetected. Asking players to use the right click report option to report these characters might seem like a placebo, but the reports folks make do a lot to help our teams with their investigations. The more people use it, the better, as it helps to collect data which is used on those investigations.
I think we’ve covered pretty much everything we can so I’m going to lock this one up. Thanks, all!
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