Frequent botting locations

I’ve been using Sliver of N’Zoth in Zuldazar (definitely not for ganking purposes) and have found a frequent botting spot. It’s called The Slough. They park Boomkins at specific spots and AoE everything down and loot. I report all of them. But if GMs know of this specific location, they can just check it every once in a while and instaban.

Spot 1 = 62.76, 35.31
Spot 2 = 62.60, 39.55

I have seen bots at these 2 distinct spots in Zuldazar every single time I’ve flown by it. They’re Horde so I kill them with Sliver of N’Zoth (doing my part). Idk if reporting is enough so I’ll just post this here. The more info the better i guess?

Reporting here does nothing the only proper method is right click and report no its nont instantaneous it takes time to investigate weather its a bot player assumption or multiboxing then break the bot program then issue bans/suspensions.

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It is, thanks for the efforts :slight_smile:

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Well yeah I’m aware its not instantaneous. But if the GMs know where to look, they don’t have to go through the avenue of checking logs when they can catch them redhanded.

Yes but instant ban only alert the bot maker programers and lets them alter the program. Its better to investigate first then break the program before they catch on I can gaurentee you blizzard aware of teh multiple bots out there but they still have to make sure which is a bot and which is multiboxing.

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There are no GMs that check this particular forum, hence why it’s always said to right click and report. This is Customer Support, not Customer Service. This particular forum is for players to help other players. While the Blues we have here are lovely folks, they’re SFAs and have absolutely nothing to do with bots or anything beyond moderating the forums or help to provide insight or offer advice.

So please do continue right clicking and reporting any potential bots. It does help and flags the specific time and location for an easy reference point when the staff does go in to research who is doing what.

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Except that they do need to check the logs. Visuals aren’t the proof that players feel they are. When someone appeals a suspension/ban the GMs need the logs to confirm the botting and the punishment. “Looks like they were botting” isn’t proof. Logs are. When Blizzard does a ban wave they run the logs. They don’t manually go and watch to see who’s botting.

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When you report, it doesn’t just send some kind of a flag to the GMs that says “random player has reported other random player.”

It gives them a name, and a point in the logs to check.

Logs that include time, zone, names, activities (down to the millisecond in some cases, such as player pausing and turning - bots aren’t perfect when it comes to simulating natural human pauses and reaction times), chat logs, and probably a dozen other things I am not privy to.

You are correct, it would be kinda ridiculous if they needed to come to the forums for locations of alleged “bots” which is why they do not. It would be massively counter-productive.

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Report, move on.
As they may not be bots (you really don’t know) it’s best to just report and move on and let Blizzard deal with it.

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Wouldn’t they just do that anyways? This seems like a cop-out excuse to allow botting on the servers.

And theroies like this is why botters prosper people dont report because they dont think reporting does nothing.

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Yes, they do. However, if Blizzard bans one bot by detection method X, then there will be an update to the bot program within a couple days that works around being detected by method X.

If they wait, they can gather information on the bot software itself, gather information on the offenders, and gain insight into how the bot software programmers are avoiding detection (this time.)

It is the same reason, putting it very simply, that sometimes the police or FBI wait and watch the low-level criminals instead of busting every two-bit hood for petty theft or vandalism or street-level dealing. They do so for a better understanding of how the criminals are currently working, who they are, and how best to bring down their operation.

It’s literally not. You see people speeding on the freeway, right? That doesn’t mean the police either “don’t care” or are outright allowing or supporting speeders.

As humans, we fight the evils. At no point in history have we vanquished all the evil, though. We fight the good fight, because we know that if we were to actually “allow (criminal activities)” on a server or in real life, we’d soon be overrun by the bad folks.

It’s just a fact of life that some of the evils will always remain visible.

Blizzard go about it in one of two ways:

One, the one players like you advocate for, is to ban every bot they can confirm as soon as it’s reported; allowing bot makers to continually tweak their program to make it harder to detect and some cheaters to continue to bot unnoticed due to these changes.

Or two, the way they currently do it. Watch the bot, figure out how it works and how to break it. Then, once they can break it, they do so while banning all cheaters previously reported during this process and catching even more that weren’t reported due to Blizzard figuring out how it worked first.

Sure, the second method takes longer for you to see any action, but it catches more cheaters and gives the bot makers more grief. Now, instead of a minor tweak to stay undetected, they’ve got a broken bot.

Seeing a botter instantly punished does feel better in the short term, but breaking the bot and catching those that might’ve gone undetected otherwise is better in the long term.

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There was an excellent explanation in another thread. It does a great job describing why ban waves have a bigger impact than whack-a-mole.

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Thanks, that gave me a better understanding of the situation. I report as many as I can find, but when they’re killing mobs needed for a campaign quest, and completely ruining your progression, it puts a sour taste in the players mouth. :slight_smile:

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I agree. It helps if you have an AOE spell you can use around them. You have a much better chance of hitting the mobs you need.

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I don’t doubt that it does work, it just apparently seems like its not enough. There are very clear spots where bots migrate to and it makes blatantly obvious sense to be aware of those spots. I still report on an individual level, but more information is always better. Especially when bots still run rampant.

Forums arent the proper place to report them either R&R or send a email to hacks@blizzard.com with date time and information most prefered method is R&R always has been.

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