I got a ban for botting, and I am appealing it

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I’m not sure how in the world anything I’ve ever done could be picked up by some sort of AI that calls out automation. I’ve never been in one place, or doing one thing, for any prolonged period of time on WoW. Not on my rogue.

I also don’t gather, and I have neglected fishing this season so far. Usually I’m capped up, but I haven’t bothered.

I know locations I’ve been, chat time stamps, what’s being said to and by me, mobs I’ve killed (or not killed) the time spent not doing anything in trade chat, I know there’s -nothing- that would alert that.

I got off earlier, and after doing work for some folks down the road, I came back and hopped on to feel my stomach drop at my account is suspended.

I didn’t know what it really even meant— but it led me down a rabbit hole of how to appeal, that people have them overturned (or not) quite a bit. I got a response from the GM team, and that’s all they signed on the message as, was GM team.
That’s crazy, and the only things they sent, in regards to my asking what in the world said I did that-- offered to send my SSD to forensic analysis lol, i’m not even kidding-- was:

Greetings,

This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673 ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players.

Our Battle.net Terms of Use can be found at https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html

Regards,
Game Master Team
Blizzard Entertainment

I legitimately know that I’ve not done this, and I know anyone around me knows, and there has to be proof, be it recorded chat logs, or recorded locations/time spent there, bblah blah blah, that shows I never exhibited anything but regular, me behavior, and you’d think they’d be used to my sitting around talkin’ bs by now. I’ve been doing it since the barrens.

What do I do, where do I go from here? I met a great group of people online in october and they’ve helped in a lot of ways. I dont want our main connection line to be severed.

I guess just cross my fingers and pray?

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You keep apealing till they tell you to stop nothing u say or do will affect it.

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It might have been something detected on your computer, even if it’s not used when you play WoW.

For example, you might use your computer for work from home, and use a program or such to automate certain tasks. These programs can easily flag your account for investigation because they can also be used to automate things in-game.

Nobody can or will tell you what was detected though. That’s juicy information that the cheaters would love to have.

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I know they don’t have proof, so is that something we are privy to? Like, I’ve asked in my appeal, to have what seems to be an initial investigation.

Had there been any sort of looking into this, I promise you, lol, I’ve seen these on reddit. And I never really believed them. 98% i just said naahhhhhh. 2% I said… mmmmmmm…naaaaaaah. There would be no post here for everyone to read, bc I’d be on WoW.

I exhibit no behaviors that would even SEEM like that. My bot sits in dornogal, in the engineering room, crafting bolts, with money he made from craftin’ bolts. But then he’s programmed to forget, go to patron orders, and then see he needs to buy an item and gets hooked outside of the engineering room so to mount the dino w/ ah and mailbox. Buys some items, goes back in…to realize the thing he went outside for was not bought.
So the things programmed to do this a handful of times, and 1000s of gold later, he now flies to the PvP vendor. But noone would know that because they gothe wrong way, right past the doors to the timeways -EVERY TIME-.

And he doesn’t shut his trap at all in gchat. For real.
It’s got to be obnoxious.

It’s crazy. It’s even more insane to think it is a 20+ year old, clean account. No record.
And I get, as my only reply in an appeal, links to the tos and some other bs, that didn’t even say what it was I was suspended for 6 months for, just that “decision was made because of words you agreed to. bleep bleep. Boop.” signed by noone with a name, a whole freakin’ team of folks wrote that one ladies and gentlemen.

I just want a fair look into it, and that’s what I’m here for.

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They have something. Something that looks similar enough to the metrics they have to identify the bots they’re hunting down.

No, we are not privy to that information. Bot authors would sell their soul for that information so that they could continue to ply their trade unhindered.

All you can do is keep appealing via tickets. It’s put in front of a different team member every time.

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Possibly.
I don’t know what that would be. I don’t use it for anything but youtube, gmail, wow sites, discord and wow.

(open discussion here about all this i have to maintain honesty i do use the pc for something else, but we all use the same site(s) now, so its not some virus i got that’s pinging blizzard to my account.

I honestly think it was some wsg people this morning that wanted to report me for being afk during a d/c and reconnect to see someone saying to report me, when I say HI and for real, get the flag from enemy room, and get to ours (to die) but still, like, obviously from that point on I was playing, and I dont know if that’d be enough to tick this. Or even if more than one did, that’d be crazy to maliciously do that to someone without discussing it , just everyone choosing what to report me for, and its just botting? instead of reporting me afk like they were asking.

I just dont know.

I legit don’t think anything has been added that would even be running, nor what it would have to be doing to say I was being a bot-- in which case, I still stand by that look at what i’m doing in the game, or how long i’m doing something for, and you’ll see I spend all my time doing nothing. Getting summons. On ah mount. In - and - out of the engineering room.

I just really don’t understand.

I’m talking literally to someone at some point every couple minutes. at least.
That’s got record of me being aware of not just the words being said, but the environment my character would be in or the specific situation. And then respond appropriately.

It literally is anti-productive and anti-getting rich, this bot. Idk why it would even exist lol

But really, there are so many ways to see I wasn’t, or haven’t, been doing anything like this-- because I do none of the things that an automated thing would do.

You’d’ think, anyway.

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Blizzard using AI is a myth. Blizzard does not use AI. Now, assuming you’re saying you’re banned for botting, I assumed you were suspended or had your game license closed for hacks/cheats.

While we can’t confirm on what the Warden actually did detect, I think there is somethings to point out:

  • This could be an error that Blizzard has made, and could’ve been one of those false positives, assuming that there was a recent banwave or something. Us players here though can’t fully confirm on what this is, as this is usually between Blizzard and yourself, and is only done through the appeals process to see if Blizzard did make that error on that end…

Or…

  • There is something that is on your computer for Blizzard’s warden sent to the hacks team to investigate and take action upon. This litterly could be anything, and honestly, kind of hard to pin-point what it is.

Like, it is either 1 of the 2. I do hope that it is another false positive and Blizzard did made an error on their end, which is why you just got to keep appealing. But spending a lot of time here on the forums too, I don’t think it is wise for me to say this is a false positive when there could be something on your end that you could possibly be aware off.

Honestly, just keep appealing, and don’t stop until told to stop. Does not mean submit as many appeal tickets all at once.

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Do u use autohotkey or any other automation software for other games.

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I imagine it’d be more Warden being configured to detect a specific signature or set of pre-requisites, having individuals randomly and thoroughly investigate a random sampling of detected accounts, then refining the process further.

Anyway, just chase after the appeals process. It goes to a fresh set of eyes each time, and every investigator will have a slightly different viewpoint.

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No I legitmately do have steam downloaded, but I don’t play anything else.
I have some work to do with my mental health and the only thing that’s keeping me stuck to wow are the people who’ve picked me up and let me chill and be myself along the way.

Which is cool, bc,yeah now the game— and SOMETHING is fun-- which is good, when nothing really else is.

I’m working on it tho. Ketamine therapy and TMS therapy coming up in the next few weeks.

I’m excited, beyond words.

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Your 3rd paragraph screams automation this is what probably got you whatever program u have to run ur bot.

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I don’t read it that way. I read it as dripping heavy with sarcasm. In the context of how it reads to me they are replacing CHARACTER with BOT as an attempt at pointing out how very un-BOT like their character acts (i.e., a true BOT would be more efficient and not forget where its intended destination is truly located nor would it forget its essential items).

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So from what I can gather: OP thought he had some good system worked out to avoid Warden’s detection(probably a VM and a VPN), botted(probably for fishing/gathering like they are trying hard to claim they don’t do, seen a few of those lately), got banned, is now mad about it and is trying to spin some tale of innocence. Yeah, we’ve seen this one a thousand times.

You can contest the ban, sure, but after the second time of them upholding the ban, I wouldn’t recommend trying anymore as it can lead to further consequences. My best advice is to just eat the ban and don’t do it again.

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I don’t think it is fully wise for us to speculate when we don’t have any access to the logs to be honest. Like, anything is possible, but we do not have access to any of the logs to fully confirm.

They can submit an appeal to see if there was a mistake on Blizzard’s end, but they can not contest the decision.

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That’s fine, we don’t work for Blizzard and nobody here can actually unban them.

https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/appeal

verb as in request:
Strongest matches

apply, call, call upon, claim, contest, demand, petition…

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This one is very unlikely to be overturned, Norosbashi.

There was something on your system - that our systems detected. Several times, in fact. Now, whether you were actually using it in WoW or just had it active on your system while playing WoW - that really doesn’t matter.

If prohibited software/cheats/abilities of programs are detected at the same time WoW is running, that exposes you to being actioned.

Hacks know what they found, but that information is not shared, even with us. I know that can be frustrating.

Any program that can do automation, or manipulate programs is suspect. That’s not even touching the many cheats in existence that may be used for other games.

I’d strongly recommend you take a look in task manager to see what else might be active before launching, just to be on the safe side.

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Also, FYI, player reports have nothing to do with botting ban waves. Nothing whatsoever. Even if someone reports someone for botting, all it does is send time stamps and the general area to the hacks team. Bans for this sort of thing are weeks or even sometimes months after they detect something, there is an intentional delay so that bot makers can’t figure out what Blizzard detected or when it happened.

Player reports are mostly for social penalties. Nobody is getting banned for botting as a part of player reports.

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