That isn’t remotely true, Kwashiormor. It matters if they are reported or not, it matters a lot. Though without those report our hacks team will continue to investigate bots/exploitation, but those reports help a great deal in those investigations by providing additional data.
That isn’t true either. It could take a while for a character suspected of botting to have actions taken, but it depends on the situation. If we are actively investigating the method used, they may be kept around for that purpose. So that our team can use the data collected to find and deal with other characters using the same program. Or, we may have already completed our investigation and are able to use specific data to help verify if a character is using a specific bot. The report allows us to investigate and take action.
In some, they may. In others, maybe not so much. Unfortunately, we tend to get the lion’s share of them, so making the comparison on what other MMOs may do really isn’t applicable.
In either case, reporting them is the best course of action and not discoursing folks from reporting. The only one that benefits is the folks botting.
Yes…oooook… but you realize the damage is already done so what is the point of “investigating” them further for weeks or months while they ruin the economy and get away with the cheating they are doing?
This makes no sense. The only sense it makes to me is that:
You want to have lots of botters active so when you do a mass botting ban then there follows a buying spree for more accounts. So it is about getting money over protecting abuse in game that affects other paying legit customers.
I think instant bans would be better if it is proven they are botting, why let them continue ruining the game for science sake? Is there no other way to crack their code of the same program that is being used? Fine study 1, but ban the rest… like what?
Logic ftw? I think you darn well know you could squash them but don’t because it is a cash cow to you. Just my opinion. Prove me wrong. You know banning them on the spot one by one would stop the gravy train, because they are done that way, finished, over and out… that’s all I see.
They bot because they know you let them do it for a while before banning them… and with the damage done they make way more cash then what you sell the account for… again logic is lost here.
Sorry but it has to be said, because that’s how it looks.
And how would you prove they were botting? By just watching them? See if they run the same pattern? Sure, they could look like a bot, though there are addons that allow you to create routes for gathering, but ignoring that and many of the behaviors that players exhibit that could be misinterpreted for botting, say the account is closed.
What happens when they appeal? In a day, week, month, year? Would you be okay with losing your account and the only evidence is “I watched the character, it looked like a bot”?
We do actually take action on suspected bots all the time, using evidence that can be double checked months later.
Other suspected bots are investigated because there are many methods out there and we use them to try and figure out what kind of foot print they leave so that we can either block them outright or develop detection methods to find them when they are botting. It is also important to keep in mind there are different versions of bots out there, so two bots may be running two entirely different programs.
Your theory is that because we feel it makes a bigger impact to hit as many bots as we can at once that it is so they all buy new accounts to bring in more money? That is beyond ridiculous, Poisonberry, and illustrates that you don’t understand who the botters are.
The majority of botters are not using legitimate accounts, they are either compromsied (stolen from legitimate users) or purchased with stolen credit cards. So in the end, we don’t make anything from the sale of those accounts, in fact we lose money because now we have to deal with charge backs and other complications from illicit purchases like that.
It only looks nefarious when you don’t put any real thought into it.
Wait are you saying you cannot detect these programs using Warden or whatever method to see the pattern of the bots or the timing of actions from the bots etc…? Whoa. It still does not explain why the need to study them when the study still won’t do nothing… won’t even detect them. Ya I guess i’m lost here.
I read on the botters forums that people were getting permabanned almost immediately after logging in because the program was detected… (Friday the 13th banwave)
How do you think warden learns to detect those programs, Poisonberry? As for patterns, our hacks team looks at patterns all the time, but that isn’t a guaranteed indication of a bot. It often takes a bit more. For situations in which we feel that evidence is enough, we take action. If it doesn’t, we continue our investigation until we find evidence that we can lock onto.
I’m sorry, Poisonberry, but even if that was my field of expertise, I wouldn’t really be able to provide an education in how programming and computer security works. If you want a deeper understanding of how that works you’ll want to take up the study yourself.
Yes, due to painstaking investigations that allowed us to verify the kind of footprint that particular program left, which allowed us to hit the folks who had been using it previously, as well as hit the folks who were logging on with it active. As I said, developing means of prevention and detection.
The underlying issue here is that while these bots are free to farm up gold unfettered, they are destroying the economy of the game. While it is pure speculation on my part as I have never done any significant amount of farming out there, the YouTubers who have done this in groups suggest these farms can return 100,000 to 200,000 gold a day or more. At that rate, these bots are potentially dumping 1.5 million gold per week into the economy. If there are three active farms going on at once, that is between 4 and 5 million gold per week.
There is just no reasonable way anyone not using automated farming tools can hope to keep up with that level of revenue generation. Perhaps while these folks are being “investigated” for two or three months at a time, it would be an appropriate action to somehow prevent any transfer of items or funds off these characters. If they are legitimately farming that much money, they will soon complain and you can confirm verbally with them how they are going about the activity. If, as the rest of us can clearly see, they are just bots, they won’t complain, or they won’t care, and you have all the time in the world to investigate how they are going about it without risking the already fragile state of the economy.
If you go stand out there for 5 minutes, it is 100% certain that they are using some sort of automated tool to run their farming. They run pixel perfect routes (all five in each group that is), repeating the exact same loop every single time. They always pause in the exact same location to sell their loot when their inventory gets full. If the bot has to run off it’s pre-determined path to pick up loot, even when that path causes it to run forward along it’s route, it always runs back to the exact same location it was at when it left the route before it starts up again. They are 100% non-responsive to any form of communication, and even if you run around in front of them tagging all the mobs you can, they never once say anything or ask you to stop.
You mention developing methods of prevention and detection, but all we are asking for is for Blizzard to have some investment in preventing the economy from being destroyed by the rampant farming that seems to go on without end. In the last 4 months, there has been a group of druids farming each of the areas on Isle of Thunder non-stop every time I go there. At a generous 1 million gold per day, that would mean they have dumped a potential 240 million gold into the economy.
As someone who multiboxes (and I suspect this was the original perception that started this thread) I can talk to your concerns.
Firstly, it’s incredibly unlikely that botted accounts overlap one another at a gathering node. When you see multiple accounts doing this, look at their guild tags and/or server tags. They are much more likely to be multiboxed accounts.
Bots differ usually in that they have preloaded pathing mechanisms, where you’ll see a recurring path taken by the same character over and over again. This is a good time to just /report that character.
Insofar as the destruction of the economy I 5 box all my gathering. Fish, herbs, etc. That means I gather at 5 times the rate of people playing one account. Seems like a problem right? Well, not really because even though I’m gathering at 5 times the normal rate I am also gearing and supplying consumeables at 5 times the rate to my team. It all balances out this way. The actual commitment to the economy isn’t outpaced by the consumption of it.
“where you’ll see a recurring path taken by the same character over and over again. This is a good time to just /report that character”
This. Exactly. Pixel perfect loops, by all five druids in the same group, every time. All day long. Every day. And at least three active groups doing this in different areas. No guild, gibberish random names, etc.
As for your 5 boxing, you are gathering herbs and fish and ore, and presumably selling that on the AH? You are not impacting the economy, you are supporting it.
The bots on Isle of Thunder are killing mobs to loot all the green/blue drops and they are selling everything to a Traveller’s Tundra Mammoth, accumulating the gold, then selling that gold which destroys the economy. If there is an unregulated flow of currency into the game, it devalues the currency of everyone else.
I appreciate you feedback, but I can 100% guarantee you that the druids on Isle of Thunder are botting. Go there on your server (it really doesn’t matter what server you’re on) and see for yourself, or come to Farstriders/Silverhand/Thorium Brotherhood, and trial a 100 or 110 character, and I’ll take you there myself.
If you watch them for 5 minutes, you’ll agree. And we HAVE been reporting them. Every time I go there, every one I see, and yet, they continue botting to this day.
It’ll boot you if the report target has moved out of range. Type your report text, copy it to clipboard, close the dialog, then catch up. While the bot is still targeted, report, paste, submit, and it will work.
Or, just wait for it to come around again if the loop is short. (You did follow for a couple loops to make sure it’s repeating a pathing glitch somewhere, and not just because it’s a druid, right?)
Spoken like a true botter. Way to fight for the botters.
Reporting works, they do action accounts. Don’t listen to the botters spreading the false stories about Blizzard not doing anything. They simply don’t want you to report them so they can continue to bot.
That’s not always the case, and there’s been mini waves of bans all along. Mostly they like to monitor what programs are out there to reliably detect bot software, and reports will always help them to gather information faster.
They also do try to remove ill gotten gains now as well.
The only advice that would help is to continue to report what you can, but understand there is a whole team in the hacks department doing what they can to minimize the impact.
It’s looking like the conversation is starting to devolve. I’m hopeful we can avoid getting it locked down. I know it’s a topic people are passionate about.
You are using the same flawed logic and lies that botters use to try and convince people not to report. The bottom line is that Blizzard does action botters, and they don’t always wait until a wave to do so.
They use stolen credit cards to fund it. When the card-holder disputes the payment, the money is taken back from Blizzard as well as a handling fee, so Blizzard is out the cost of the subscription plus extra. Fact is, Blizzard loses money on these accounts. An account bought and paid for with a stolen credit card number is just as much a stolen account as one they hacked. Your belief of what the facts are doesn’t mean you are right.
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