Yo Blizzard, stop letting this happen.
Even though we might complain a lot on these forums, we like this game. We might not like other players, but we prefer them over bots.
We may have no life, but we can’t compete with bots running 24/7.
Ban the bots. Get it done.
Thanks,
A player
Quote of the century right here
Ban the bots
The issue is its just to profitable for the bots even if they get banned they make a new account and start again. Im not defending blizz ban the bots but a large issue is also the player base who continues to fund them and why we see so many
That means they aren’t being banned fast enough. They make a profit, because they get to bot for 3-6 months. It wouldn’t be profitable if they are banned in a matter of days (not months).
There’s simply no (monetary) incentive for Blizzard to invest resources into this.
Can tell you know 15 -10 years ago I earn 600 - 800 bucks a week selling gold an account cost 50 bucks even monthly bans wouldn’t help
Agreed, should be days not months.
This would help but how do you go about enforcing that? The only fix to the issue is players stop paying money for gold and carry services
I don’t agree. I think there’s a number of measures that could be implemented to discourage people from botting.
For example they could start by making a statement that they hear the player base. There’s botters, that shouldn’t be a thing and they take it seriously. (this is the cheapest step, as it doesn’t require anything but an approved message of a community manager - this has to be followed by something tangible or would have an adverse effect).
They can hire more Game Masters that only deal with botters. Look at the most reported players, start there. People will also report more if they know it will actually do something.
They can invest resources into policing the behaviour and detecting it earlier through algorithms.
All of this requires resources (time & money) though. And it might not be easy, but I believe it is worthwhile. Unless we all had our fun and move on to a different game.
I won’t disagree those are steps that could be taken but lets throw some real world logic here. Selling drugs is illegal and results in punishment when caught yet we still have drug dealers as its profitable for them to do so. This is the same as botters you can police the situation all you want and invest as many resources as you want but as long as they can make a profit they will dl so
Well, that’s because drug use and addiction should be a medical issue not a criminal issue. That was done by design and it depends on where you are in the world.
For example if you look at Portugal, they have a good system in place (at least better than most countries) that is both cost effective and doesn’t hurt their society further (by incriminating people).
Nothing about the war on drugs is based on ‘logic’.
This wasn’t a debate on drugs or the war on drugs it was a comparative to the situation of classic and bots. But fine then breaking into someone’s house and robbing them results in punishment but people still do it cause they can make money from it.
Yes, and if a neighbourhood (like a server) gets overrun by robbers you start policing those streets. You might call in additional personnel for extra hours and place them undercover (walking a dog).
And if people call and say “hey, I think there’s like 3 people running around my neighbour’s backyard.” You show up and respond.
That’s really it, blizzard doesn’t respond. And people are complaining and the arguments formed for blizzard are “well it might be difficult” or “well if people wouldn’t buy stolen goods, then there would be no robberies”. Okay. Guess it’s our fault then. I’ll double down on not buying stolen goods and wait for this to blow over.
Blizzard isn’t an indie game dev who are ‘trying their best’, they are a public traded company that can tackle difficult problems. However, is this botting problem really showing in their quarterly numbers? probably not. This is fine.
Hey im not disagreeing with you they could do more and think they should. Just pointing out that as long as a player base supports them and funds them they will exist. Steps need to be taken by the player base aswell start naming and shaming those who pay for these services, start excluding them from guilds and raids finding the players who support them is just as easy as finding the bots
Yea I do like this idea. Imagine if you got a certain badge or debuff for having bought gold that lasts 6 or 12 months (or forever?).
I mean, that’s gotta hurt walking around your capital city and receiving all the /spit and /laugh thrown at you (well deserved though).
Obviously on top of a nice long vacation (ban) and all your gold being taken away.
Just look at the ah to see who is selling junk with 1000s of gold buyouts then name and shame in trade. Stand outside instances and call out the lower levels who go in with a capped mage. Make it known on the server who these players that are supporting the bots are. Literally shame them from the server
I guess WoW players went from metaphorically having to life to being actual unliving, non-sentient beings.
Well, gold selling legitimately might slow the bots down since there would be less demand
Corpses! Lumbering, rotting, cadavers. What contrivance could have wrought this… this… this abomination?! Diseased science? Blasphemous occult rituals? How can something so… so dead, yet be so alive? And hungry?! They lust for flesh, human flesh… and fest upon all the sweetbreads a man has to offer…
But heres the issue… buying gold, or selling gold in itself really isn’t the problem. People do this on the AH all day long as part of the game. Making the jump to real world dollars means nothing because it is perfectly legal to sell characters.
The PROBLEM is exclusively BOTS that run 24/7 gathering every resource, farming instances, and leveling characters to then with zero effort, sell those resources and characters.
This destroys the economy and server population to the point of login queues at odd hours because jackie chan is running 300 robot accounts farming dreamfoil and killing turtles.
Automated software is the problem, not that people buy gold.