I understand that when you run an external program to do complex things in game, such as farm mats for you is considered using a bot, which is against the terms of service.
The question is though, are macros considered bots? For example, say you had a macro that you created, using some external software which would perform it for you. All it would do is press two buttons indefinitely, until you turn it off. Would this example be considered as a bot?
The basic rule is one keypress (or click) does one action.
If you run a script or macro that lets more than one action occur with just one keypress or click, then you are using automation (bot) to perform in game things.
If you run a macro or script that performs any in game action without you doing anything, that is automation (bot).
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Anything that is automation, can be considered to be a bot.
General rule of thumb is one keypress for one action.
Repeating actions without manual intervention definitely falls into that category.
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Good to know. Thank you for informing me before I did something ban-able. I would rather not lose my account.
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Agreed! Basically, you don’t want to use anything that’s not in-game macro functionality.
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This should be the first indication of a no no, just as a general rule of thumb.
While it has been touched on, I want to expand on one thing.
If it can be made using the in game macro system, such as a mouse over cast, or on my Shaman pop my trinket and use an ability it is ok. The actual game allows you to do this, if you write the macro correctly.
Once you get into external though, like say a keyboard macro like my G15 was capable of, then you start to do things that are not possible in game only, and that is bad ju ju mon.
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Just to note, that writing an addon that performs a basic action and then triggering that addon through a macro would still not be botting since it’s one keypress for the macro to perform one action by the addon. That’s why addons like DestroyusPro! are allowed but other addons that would perform combat actions are not and are considered botting.
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I recently received a “banned acct” decree from blizzard, which I appealed to no avail. I’ve been playing WoW since 05’ and have never been “banned” before. The blizz ban referenced; " the use of “illegal auto program” and “botting”. In all my years playing WoW, I have never used macros and/or any other illegal programs. The only things I do use are acceptable addons, such as, Questie, Mapster, etc.
Blizzard was very vague regarding any details of my alleged violation and, the appeal process was a total waste of time. I also had three active and one inactive acct under that battlenet.acct and they banned all four accts. I mention this because at the time of the alleged violation, I had only two accts open w/ two toons (one from each acct) interacting together trying to complete some quests for the lower level toon. That was it!
It is also noteworthy, that about a week before this “alleged botting” accusation occurred, I had a problem w/ my acct toons, unable to see and/or interact in-game, when logged-on to my multiple accts. I submitted a request for Blizzard to fix the problem, and asked if they had been, “Layering” on my realm due high population issues. They never responded back to me, but after about four days the problem had been fixed, (which was two days before the allegation occurred).
I was not real nice with Blizzard about this account problem and was irritated because they were costing me game-time, delays, and game money to mail items back and forth.
I can’t help but feel that someone at Blizzard wanted to retaliate for my attitude/impatience over the "account interaction issue.
Or, on the day of the “banning” another player in the area reported me for, alleged “botting”.
I’m retired, and an older WoW player. I use WoW as not only an escape, but it also helps me keep my mind memory sharp.
As we all know, there are a lot good and bad people that play WoW and that the bad or stupid ones can cause real problems for other players. In my opinion, Blizzard seems to over react and does not do diligence in researching these “accusation situations”.
Good grief - bad necro! Anything that is older than a few weeks, you should just create a new thread.
That said, a few things.
- You are allowed to keep appealing until they warn you no more appeals will be accepted, lest you be slapped with further sanction.
- Blizzard has and always will be vague. If they give explicit information, that only provides more insight that botters may use to work their way around the system. It’s a safe guard, no matter player or botter who is under review.
- No matter how snippy or down right rude you may have been, Blizzard does not attack someone and dredge up a reason to go after them. Just does not happen.
- Players can report you day in and day out. Sanctions are only applied after an independent investigation on Blizzard’s side of things. I main a druid. People have told me they’re reporting me many times as a supposed bot, and I’ve never been sanctioned.
Now, those things out of the way. Customer Support is not Customer Service. This forum is one for players to assist other players. As such, there are no GMs or anyone here who has direct involvement with tickets and account investigations. Our Blues here, while rad, are SFAs. They’re here to offer advice, insight and to try and keep us lot in line.
I daresay that since you somehow dug this two and a half year dead thread up, you should be able to see the more recent threads in CS. There’ve been a handful of false positives here these past several days. I would advise you to keep pushing your appeals and be patient. We’ve seen some overturned, even after being warned no more appeals will be heard. That isn’t to say your case will definitely fall under that catagory - it’s more to offer some sense of hope if you’re truly on the up and up. And as I told the last guy after his was overturned? Be sure to apply for getting your time lost credited back. When they’re in the wrong, Blizzard does try to make things right. I’m sorry you’re in the position that you’re in, and I do hope things work themselves out.
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Were you multiboxing on those accounts? Account actions are rarely a result of something that happened at the time of the ban/suspension. It’s usually something that happened much earlier and could have been from when all accounts were active too.
There were recent changes to Multiboxing rules (which I only mention since you stated you had multiple accounts) and that could have been part of the problem.
Nevertheless, your only option is the appeals process. Each time you put in an appeal, a new set of eyes looks at the data for the account action and either they uphold it or overturn it.
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The severity of the offense affects both the time period and the scope of a ban.
Some offenses have a penalty scope of an individual wow licenses. More severe offenses have a penalty scope of the entire battle.net account.
That is incorrect, Venger. You do, however, eventually get to the point that if this has been re-reviewed multiple times, we are no longer going to entertain the appeal.
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Still incorrect, Venger.
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I copied and pasted the directly from my appeals as opposed to screenshotting because I can’t post links, however if you’d like to lookup US79893997 and US79909411 you can check for yourself
Just to let you know - they could already see it, they can go through anyone’s ticket history for themselves and read, word for word, what was said and replied in them.
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The thing is Venger, despite how their template might read (or be interpreted), each time you appeal, they do look at their data again and it’s done by a different izz to employee.
And as Orlyia mentioned, at some point, when their data shows no Avenue of appeal, they have to let you know that no further appeals will be accepted.
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Yes, it was looked at 3 times. This has also been sent on for further review, but that takes a bit longer - and there is absolutely no guarantee that it might not still be upheld.
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And absolutely none of those things were communicated to me. You just provided me more information than either of my 2nd or 3rd appeal did. The copy/paste I provided in my original deleted post was directly from the response to my tickets and indicated that no further considerations would be made. However, thank you for looking into it
Unless it gets overturned, there won’t be, Venger.
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Just to let you know, the blues here ain’t part of the team whom handle appeals. She’s just stating what the tickets said.
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