Botting is allowed now?

[Charge me Doctor]

Perhaps you have not read any of what has been said previously.
Banning a bot only draws attention to its activity being noticed.
Doing that each and every time there is a minor change to a bot isn't realistic.

Instead blizzard collect information over a longer period and then hit a lot of users at once.
Hence the previous accounts of ban waves, which you either made no effort to read up on or conveniently ignored.

I agree it isn't a fun experience to see exploitation day after day, but that is how blizzard approach it.
You not seeing it done the way you want to see it does not mean it isn't being done, even if you disagree with it.

Exactly. Then 4 months later when banwave hits you get threads like "i did nothing wrong but got banned what to do?" on mmo-champ

[TriHard]

these guys makes money as long as you guys buy gold, that's how it works. Gold buyers are just as guilty as botters.

These guys literally make thousands of dollars each month thanks to it

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No mate they ban you for 6 months, typically about 2 months after a major patch. So you'll be unbanned right as the new patch arrives (With all of your botted gold, items etc intact)

The more you think about the process, the more harmful to Blizzard and more stupid it sounds.

Seriously, I know multiple botters that do this EVERY new patch cycle. They bot for months on an alt account, trading it to their main, get banned and stop playing the game for a few months on both accounts, then just come back and start up both their bot (now unbanned) and their main acc.

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Great retort. Completely obliterated everything I said.

FelPlague wins!

you're factually wrong though. As a botter myself, I had all my gold and crafting items removed. Such is the same for EVERYONE that gets banned for botting.

[Zoldor]

I've always wondered do they just ban your account or the ip? I figure an account is a pretty band aid fix over an ip. Then again, I'm prolly not tech savvy enough to say ip is something they could do or even want to do. Does anyone actually know?

[endersblade]

This too. Wave hits em all at once and honestly I do chuckle when I see people coming on and crying they got banned but they weren't doing anything.

It's nice that you just automatically assume guilty before innocence. I'd hate to be your friend.

[rowaasr13]

And yes, banning bots is totally ineffective. They just make new accounts and continue botting. It is far more effective to break the bot itself.

No it isn't. Pretty much any discussion about those things on not-sure-if-THAT-site-name-is-allowed-starts-with-O-ends-with-E I've seen is like this:
- New build have new function offsets, we can't hook in with old offsets any longer.
- Ok, loading debugger, will see where they are now.
[some hours later]
- Here they are the new ones, paste this into config.

Having bot user lose account and money paid for activation would be way more effective, but only if they'd act in a day or two after user starts their endless run on same routine or he'll simply earn more by selling that farmed gold.

[endersblade]

these guys makes money as long as you guys buy gold, that's how it works. Gold buyers are just as guilty as botters.

These guys literally make thousands of dollars each month thanks to it

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you're factually wrong though. As a botter myself, I had all my gold and crafting items removed. Such is the same for EVERYONE that gets banned for botting.

That must be something new, I've never once in 10 years of botting had anything taken away from me.

[Eleccybubb]

It's nice that you just automatically assume guilty before innocence. I'd hate to be your friend.

I don't. I never said that either. I said you see a lot of those posts during the bot ban wave and they are amusing to read such as "I got banned but I'm innocent I swear". They are a dime a dozen on the official forums during a bot ban wave. And you regularly see a few here. Maybe there is a false positive but it's very unlikely. Maybe they do ban that odd account by accident and well the support base exists for that. If they don't give it back then the answer is right there.

Again I never assume guilty before innocence. I merely said you see a lot of those posts during the banwaves and some of them do make for a good chuckle because you can tell some people are trying too hard. If someone was banned accidentally then of course I hope they get their account back. If it was legitimate then deserved just like my first account was deserved.

[endersblade]

I don't. I never said that either. I said you see a lot of those posts during the bot ban wave and they are amusing to read such as "I got banned but I'm innocent I swear". They are a dime a dozen on the official forums during a bot ban wave. And you regularly see a few here. Maybe there is a false positive but it's very unlikely. Maybe they do ban that odd account by accident and well the support base exists for that. If they don't give it back then the answer is right there.

Well I'm butthurt about that subject because I have legitimately been banned twice for botting, when I wasn't botting. I have two threads on the subject. The only thing we could narrow down was that the desktop app for TSM was getting me hit, but that didn't make any sense since other people use it just fine. I have been on a fresh system that has never even seen botting software for a year now, and several months ago I got hit twice. I'm currently serving out the second of two 6 month suspensions on my main account. I have no problems admitting I bot, and I never came here to complain about it when I got hit before, because they were legit bans. But not this time, and it just irritates me that people automatically assume anyone who gets hit for botting is automatically a botter and there is nothing that can be said otherwise.

[Eleccybubb]

Well I'm butthurt about that subject because I have legitimately been banned twice for botting, when I wasn't botting. I have two threads on the subject. The only thing we could narrow down was that the desktop app for TSM was getting me hit, but that didn't make any sense since other people use it just fine. I have been on a fresh system that has never even seen botting software for a year now, and several months ago I got hit twice. I'm currently serving out the second of two 6 month suspensions on my main account. I have no problems admitting I bot, and I never came here to complain about it when I got hit before, because they were legit bans. But not this time, and it just irritates me that people automatically assume anyone who gets hit for botting is automatically a botter and there is nothing that can be said otherwise.

I think you misinterpreted me a little. Of course I hope those unfairly banned get their accounts back. I could have worded it better admittedly. What I meant is false positives are just very unlikely these days but still possible. And all you can really do is contact support directly to get it sorted. I had it with GW2 before and I rang up the support and it was all fixed.

Btw even I've botted in Cata for Azshara's Veil and other stuff that sold well and got caught. I knew what I was doing and I still did it. I will happily sit here and admit it too. I haven't since then but the ban was well deserved.

[Zyster]

I heard Blizzard doesn't ban anymore, they just suspend anyways. I think they have a massive amount of research (can't remember what they said accurately) that found that suspensions were better than bans since bans were typically resulting in the players just getting another account and doing it all over.

[Eleccybubb]

I heard Blizzard doesn't ban anymore, they just suspend anyways. I think they have a massive amount of research (can't remember what they said accurately) that found that suspensions were better than bans since bans were typically resulting in the players just getting another account and doing it all over.

I think it's moronic they do temporary suspensions personally. Cheat in Overwatch it's a perma ban but cheat in WoW then it's 6 months?

I don't care how different the games are. Cheat in any of their games it should have the same consequences.

[Zyster]

I think it's moronic they do temporary suspensions personally. Cheat in Overwatch it's a perma ban but cheat in WoW then it's 6 months?

I don't care how different the games are. Cheat in any of their games it should have the same consequences.

I agree. I just remember hearing this a few years ago, so not entirely sure on their process anymore.

[cFortyfive]

Report these things to Blizzard

Feeding the invisible typewriter.
Anyway Blizzard always did very little overall against botting.

As a programmer who did all of the following:
1) Caught and analyzed bots in another MMO as admin.
2) Wrote automatic casting priority for other games where it is allowed (hello, Runes of Magic).
3) Wrote automatic casting priority in Classic when it was allowed by API.
4) Wrote automation stuff in current WoW where it is still allowed by API - see Garrison Mission Manager.

I still DO NOT get why can't they ban them faster. What is there to "study"? All the internal WoW bots - those that run alongside the running game - I heard about over years are pretty much the same - they either break secure Lua execution lockdown by freezing flag or patching function that manages it or hook into some specific WoW internals. What is there to "study" over time? The hooking is same no matter how long you look at it. I don't know if Blizzard grabs this data with alleged Warden, but if they do - they only need one dump, if they don't - then there's just nothing to study at all.

Behavior? Pretty much all bots I've seen are routine based - they're fed list of stuff to do and they do it in circles, like:
register account, activate boost, endlessly run Mogu'shan until account is baned, while sending all earned gold somewhere. It won't change no matter how long you look at them! You've seen it once - you've seen it all. It is EXACTLY why people frustrated about lack of bans - it is not changing and therefore painfully obvious to anybody who sits near entrance and sees hundreds of Level 100 Druids like Adoiusdfhg or Gfsoduiyo pop out for a moment, reset it and run back in.

So, what exactly is there to study?

Personally I don't really get it either aside from potential financial motivation.
Even if we presume they seriously suck dick and warden is just a piece of trash very limited amounts of manual supervision could cut down bot numbers significantly. Same thing applies to the industry surrounding botting and other third party services.

[Makorus]

Oh, so thats why my Tickets take so long; because somebody abuses the Ticket system for things that arent meant for it.

[Tanthoris]

I've literally seen the same 4 or 5 bots on my server herbing and mining like crazy since 1 day of Legion. It's obvious that they are bots AND that they are cheating as well because I've seen them literally run up cliffs to get to nodes that are shear drops. I report em every time I run into them while I'm out farming, but blizz doesn't really care. It's impossible to prove to them that someone is a bot by just reporting them in tickets, finding out that a person is a bot can be a lot harder than you'd think. Sadly blizzards Warden program barely detects anything when it comes to people cheating in game anymore.

[Livevil]

The chance of having a bot banned via manual reporting is very low. Unless the guy is botting during peak times in battlegrounds, where he can amass quite a few reports, single reports like yours won't be even looked at. They'll eventually get swept with the banwave.

[Deleted]

Do some bot thing and see for your self i can guarantee you a topic here whining how blizz are not fair banning you for your fishing bot
It may be not today but will be

[Deleted]

This too. Wave hits em all at once and honestly I do chuckle when I see people coming on and crying they got banned but they weren't doing anything.

A lot of Bot Action comes from compromised accs. Blizz themselves confirmed this.

[Playintrafic]

Feeding the invisible typewriter.
Anyway Blizzard always did very little overall against botting.


Personally I don't really get it either aside from potential financial motivation.
Even if we presume they seriously suck dick and warden is just a piece of trash very limited amounts of manual supervision could cut down bot numbers significantly. Same thing applies to the industry surrounding botting and other third party services.

Warden isn't always active. Several of the better bots and hacks can tell when warden is scanning and won't even work when it is. And most of the new bots don't inject. The simulate keypresses and read memory, but dont inject. The biggest thing is most of them use click to move and it is very noticeable especially when the botters are running 40/100 accounts on one one system and that slows the background fps and makes the bot slower moving, and very jerky.

[thilicen]

It's something inside me that makes me feel like it matters to me. You know, like if I see people torturing dogs and cats, even if they aren't mine, it bothers me that they do that. Not that it would affect my life if I would just let it go, but I kinda want to do something about it. Same with bots.

Based on replies so far I might start botting myself. It's fine I guess.

Are you seriously comparing someone torturing a helpless animal to some jackass running a bot in an online game?