Blizzard laying waste to the botting community

[Xarian]

So it has only been about a week since the last major banwave hit the largest rotation bot on the market, aswell as the largest bot on the market.

The largest bot on the market recently released a new version of their bot noting "We made changes to our protection system, but cannot promise it will resolve the banwaves"

Today another banwave went out, hitting the same rotation bot and general bot with massive bans across the board.

Prior to 2014, there had been no reports of banwaves for this bot since its launch in 2012, since 2014 Blizzard appears to have been ramping up their game and striking down these bots

In 2014 there were 0 banwaves(only play reports)
in 2015 there were 2 banwaves, first offenders recieving 6 month bans, 2nd repeat offenders recieving 18 months
In 2016 there has so far been 3 banwaves, each repeat offender receiving an additional 6 months on top of their previous ban length duration.

It looks like Blizzard is paving the way for a bot free game, these public bots cannot possibly stay in business with the loss of sales being a direct result of their customers being banned

[Ambulatory Cube]

It's an ambitious endeavor, one I'd love for them to achieve, but I doubt they'll ever truly be able to get rid of bots. Smart botters bot on throw-away accounts anyway, so banning them does little but slow them down.

[Deleted]

Good. The more often and the harder they crack down on cheaters and any method to do so, the better it is for the majority of honest players and the game as a whole.

[Deleted]

It's against ToS and always has been, glad to see they're stepping up the process.

Not sure what else there is to say, really. Botting is pretty toxic behaviour and only makes the game world feel more artificial, not to mention the issues it causes on the AH and in Battlegrounds.

As for the collapse of the "community" surrounding it? Well it's pretty fucking stupid to base your life around doing something that is illegal, whether that's actual laws or just breaking the ToS of the game your software controls. People relying on botting for an income, and subsequently losing that income, have themselves to blame for making their income based on breaking rules. Simple as that.

[Deleted]

Uppy thumby.

[Xarian]

It's an ambitious endeavor, one I'd love for them to achieve, but I doubt they'll ever truly be able to get rid of bots. Smart botters bot on throw-away accounts anyway, so banning them does little but slow them down.

This used to be true, because banwaves were months apart, so users that were botting just to gather and make gold, would be able to buy new accounts, level them up and sell enough gold to make back what they spend on purchasing new accounts.

With banwaves like this, 3-4 times a year, and if they keep up, several times each month, it will simply be impossible to make back what a new account cost in the time you have before a new banwave.

This new hands on strategy can prove to be really effective, theres only 1 public WoW bot left, in recent months 3 alternative wow bots all shut down due to legal issues with Blizzard.

Victory for blizzard is not far off

[Shudder]

theres only 1 public WoW bot left

No. No there isn't.

As for the OP, doesn't matter what they do. The botters will figure out how they're being detected and adapt.

[TheVaryag]

So it has only been about a week since the last major banwave hit the largest rotation bot on the market, aswell as the largest bot on the market.

The largest bot on the market recently released a new version of their bot noting "We made changes to our protection system, but cannot promise it will resolve the banwaves"

Today another banwave went out, hitting the same rotation bot and general bot with massive bans across the board.

Prior to 2014, there had been no reports of banwaves for this bot since its launch in 2012, since 2014 Blizzard appears to have been ramping up their game and striking down these bots

In 2014 there were 0 banwaves(only play reports)
in 2015 there were 2 banwaves, first offenders recieving 6 month bans, 2nd repeat offenders recieving 18 months
In 2016 there has so far been 3 banwaves, each repeat offender receiving an additional 6 months on top of their previous ban length duration.

It looks like Blizzard is paving the way for a bot free game, these public bots cannot possibly stay in business with the loss of sales being a direct result of their customers being banned

Let's not forget the Innocents potentially caught In the ban waves, at least a quarter, at maximum who are banned during these waves were not bot-users at all, and Blizzard just thought they bot, there's always victims to this, and while I'm glad they are ridding the game of Bot-users, I hope they'll also strive to restoring the people's accounts who were caught In these ban waves as an unfortunate accident, and also restore accounts to those who haven't done anything In the last 5 years give or take.

If this Is some wave of hope for WoW, a way to rid the game of bad players, they should also strive to pull back players, even those banned for actual good reasons before, like economy abuse, or some exploit, harassment of minor mention and restore those accounts. I believe blizzard believes In second chances (And more money) so they should strive to do that as well.

It hurts nobody to try that, and If those people who were granted amnesty and a second chance misbehave again, simply lock the accounts, drop the key down a large pit and never re open the accounts. SImple as that, but giving them a chance Is the point here.

[demonyaa]

So it has only been about a week since the last major banwave hit the largest rotation bot on the market, aswell as the largest bot on the market.

The largest bot on the market recently released a new version of their bot noting "We made changes to our protection system, but cannot promise it will resolve the banwaves"

Today another banwave went out, hitting the same rotation bot and general bot with massive bans across the board.

Prior to 2014, there had been no reports of banwaves for this bot since its launch in 2012, since 2014 Blizzard appears to have been ramping up their game and striking down these bots

In 2014 there were 0 banwaves(only play reports)
in 2015 there were 2 banwaves, first offenders recieving 6 month bans, 2nd repeat offenders recieving 18 months
In 2016 there has so far been 3 banwaves, each repeat offender receiving an additional 6 months on top of their previous ban length duration.

It looks like Blizzard is paving the way for a bot free game, these public bots cannot possibly stay in business with the loss of sales being a direct result of their customers being banned

Good riddance. The game is better of with zero bots.

[Kaleredar]

No. No there isn't.

As for the OP, doesn't matter what they do. The botters will figure out how they're being detected and adapt.

And Blizzard will keep banning them.

Blizzard will keep making money off of WoW; I'm dubious botters will be able to consistently extrapolate value from WoW with their accounts cyclically being banned.

[Shudder]

And Blizzard will keep banning them.

Blizzard will keep making money off of WoW; I'm dubious botters will be able to consistently extrapolate value from WoW with their accounts cyclically being banned.

It took Blizzard two years to figure out how to detect the new bot when the old one was destroyed. It's cat and mouse, new bots will be made and Blizzard will have to spend a couple years figure it out. It will never end.

[Deleted]

Not really sure why they get an additional 6 months, they should just be permanently banned if they keep on botting after their first 6 month ban.

[Kyanion]

Let's not forget the Innocents potentially caught In the ban waves

Some innocents maybe, but not you. You posted threads multiple times about this and got caught lying about things and changing your story multiple times. Every time a bot thread shows up you post in it to try and claim being innocent. Not happening.

[Kaleredar]

It took Blizzard two years to figure out how to detect the new bot when the old one was destroyed. It's cat and mouse, new bots will be made and Blizzard will have to spend a couple years figure it out. It will never end.

Seems to me like they're banning waves of bots all the time.

[Tradu]

Good. The more often and the harder they crack down on cheaters and any method to do so, the better it is for the majority of honest players and the game as a whole.

The only problem is that without bots consumables stay super expensive(too expensive for most players)

[demonyaa]

at least a quarter, at maximum who are banned during these waves were not bot-users at all,.

And why did you make up this number to support your point of view and present it as a fact?

[Kyanion]

The only problem is that without bots consumables stay super expensive(too expensive for most players)

So what? Maybe some of those people can go get their own mats, use cheaper options or *gasp* do without. And really that is a BS argument. So some things are cheaper. However, OTHER things are more expensive because bots will use that gold to funnel to their real accounts and buy things like mounts and certain rare items and drive the price up of those. So what if you get a few mats cheap if you get screwed out of buying a mount you wanted because the price is astronomical because cheaters bought them up.

[Nibu]

Of course they are taking the fight against bots now. They have to. You will soon be able to add battle.net balance via WoW gold (tokens) and buy other games, services, etc. Bots would basically make all Blizzard games and heroes, card packs, crates and so on "free". Not ideal.

[Kyanion]

And why did you make up this number to support your point of view and present it as a fact?

Yeah that is a good question. So he thinks that 25% of all bot bans are innocent players? I would bet that number is far far lower.

[demonyaa]

It took Blizzard two years to figure out how to detect the new bot when the old one was destroyed. It's cat and mouse, new bots will be made and Blizzard will have to spend a couple years figure it out. It will never end.

Do you really believe it takes Blizzard two years to figure out how to detect a new public bot? It probably takes them less than two days, remember for any public bot they can simply download and analyse it.