Is botting getting out of control?

[Azerate]

Well I got cought, after botting 24 a day for 2 months. Made 1 million gold and was selling it at the same time and I made about £2k. I was selling it from behind a proxy server and then saying i'd been hacked and getting my gold back from the hack and reselling it. Iam not botherd, we all know the risks of selling gold. But I think I got of lightly with a 48 hour ban. When it finishes ill start again :P

So how do you know the guy is saying the truth? Looks like a load of bullshit to me.

[Mordaren]

I wouldn't report as it's just a game hes cheating on and it's not players job to find bots and report them.

Leipuri I really like your signature...

Now returning to the post, send a ticket with the info, or just keep playing soon or late he will get what he deserves.

[Strakha]

I ran out of ticket space the other day reporting bots.

Now I just realize that when I report them, Blizzard has less incentive to hire people to fix the problem.

Player is not responsible to police the game, and I am not going to report anyone else, I'll just stop trying in a BG if there are 3+ bots and watch TV til the BG is over, I don't care to invest the time from my enjoyable hobby into policing a game as a charitable act for a billion+ dollar company.

Blizzard can either hire some minimum wage employees to monitor BGs, or they can watch people get angry and disappointed with their game and quit, either way, it is their problem to address and nothing any player can fix.

[PaybackX]

I report every single player - server name of a botter that I find(via in-game ticket).

If you want to play the game: play it.

If you are exploiting the game, and trashing the in-game economy and ruining my BG experience you deserve whatever you get. Sure they may never catch you, something may or may not ever be done, but I have tickets open 24/7 on several toons with lists of botters. At the end of the day, it's not going to get better but maybe it will at least get a little curbed if more and more bans start going out.

I don't really care how people feel about what I do or my opinion: If you're gonna play the game: play it. I'll make it simple with the analogy I gave a GM: How would you feel about going to work if a few of your co-workers just sent in automotons that sat and drank coffee for them and never really contributed to any of the work, so you have to pick up the extra slack. Meanwhile, the "real" co-worker is there every other Friday with you collecting their paycheck. I know some of you have the response: "It's a game." Yes it is, and it's for fun and botters ruin it for me.

Later edit: Botters in BG's often auto-follow, auto cast predetermined situations/spells/abilities. Some just sit and buff every 20 seconds or so, some will even mount and run to the middle of the BG and auto-attack or auto-heal. They are garbage regardless, and contribute nothing other than wasting spaces human players can be using.

This. This exactly. I applaud you sir.

[Oneirophobia]

Yeah it always gets out of control when honor items become easier to get than raid items.
People fill up BGs and bot because its possible in a PvP situation, whereas in raids they'd actually have to play or they'd get noticed.

Its sad, but there isn't much you can do. Report them AFK or open a ticket and hope it goes through.

[shamann]

How is a Bot used in BGs?

basically hops on a mount runs to a base n just melee attacks with a dagger. it's so they dont have to be there but dont get kicked for being afk

[Zethras]

Without bots all herbs, ores and other farmable content would have been much more expensive, but at the same time people who would actually farm it legit would get more gold from it.

I can't say Im 100% fresh, hell I've used Fishing Bots, I have used Model edits to change my characters look, hell I have even been botting herbs. But will I get banned? No because they can't detect me as long as im not reported and not being retarded botting 40h+ in a row.

I dont think many here is 100% fresh to be honest, that being modeledits or farm bots Idc.

I've never, EVER, used a bot. Ever. I play this game for the entertainment value, and if I bot it, I lose that entertainment value, and i'm fairly sure i'm not the only one.

[Cassette]

There seem to be a lot of players who bot inside bgs. I have been in bgs where there was at least 4 bots on my side and these were just the ones I could easilly notice.

Some research show me that there is a lot of programs for botting these days, lot more than there used to be. There is even step by step guides how to write your own bots for WoW (I am not kidding). There is several flyhack/doorhack type programs and interrupt bots (where you can specify spellIDs of spells you want to interrupt), there is bots that farm herbs/mine/skin mobs then mail these materials to another char.

I checked one bot forums that have its forums public and I found that bots often just got temp ban. Here is few quotes from there:





Then there is some posts explaining tips&tricks how to recover even perma banned accounts.

Do you think Blizzard still have bots/exploits under control or not? Personally I think they don't care as much as they used to and don't want to permanent ban since they don't want to lose any subscriptions.

I'm sorry, are you referring to duel-boxing in battlegrounds? Because that isn't against any rules.

Any "guides" about recovering your banned account won't work. Accounts are dealt with on a situation-by-situation basis, and looked at individually by actual people. If a pattern is seen somewhere, they'll just make it a strict rule to ban everything and not give any grace.

[Tyrionlol]

Honestly it's like it's tbc again =).

[HatakeSC]

Botting is an interesting subject. Surely botting in BGs ruins the experience of other people trying to have a good time in the same BG and I would say should really be cracked down upon. We play this game to have fun. Botting in PVE on the other hand (fish bots, gather bots) I think isn't nearly as bad. The only downside is when you are doing your own herb/mining and are unlucky with node spawns and feel like you can blame bots for this unluckiness/inefficiency. Even if the botters are selling huge amounts of herb/ore/gems at low prices and "destorying the economy" this is really just playing to the laws of supply and demand and making these materials more affordable for everyone else. Don't pretend that herbing/mining and selling the results is the only way or the most effective way to make money either. Just go find another product or service to work with if you don't enjoy the profit margins of a given activity.

Most of the Wow billionaires I've ever met (and I am not one of them because I don't enjoy the pursuit of money for its own sake in this game or IRL) have very frankly stated that all of their money is made from the ye-old-tradition of buying low and selling high (of anything) on the AH.

But there are no real accolades in this game for the wow billionaire. No one would even know you were one unless you opened trade and showed them. The real public heroes of the game are those who excel in rated BG/Arena or in PVE raids. People who don't play for this e-heroism just enjoy doing instances or w/e with their friends.

TLDR: PVP Bots = Bad, terrible, should be removed. PVE Bots = Make your own call, but consider if you're really a harmed party.

[Yunru]

The easiest way to ban a bot is too report him as a posible hacked accaunt--heck you can even lie you are his RL friend. 3 day ban increases prices on AH a lot.

[commanderbeatdown]

different question: if an IRL friend were to tell you about how he was not reporting everything for taxes and thus committing a major crime would you
a) tell the police because you're a pussy or
b) tell your friend to shut the fuck up and you will too.
when this friend gets caught and asks for your help you should
c) tell him to fuck off he won't be dragging you down

there are no real consequences for botting in real life so just enjoy the ride and play another game if you get banned for knowing him (maybe profiting who knows)

You commit a major crime, you pay the price.
Calling the cops does not make one a "pussy" any more than breaking the law makes you a man.

There are reasons there are rules against botting. Botters screw everyone else, and I will seize every opportunity to screw them back.

I will screw over anyone who thinks that doing bad things is fine as long as you get away with it and make a profit.

[Deleted]

How is a Bot used in BGs?

there are several things possible. The simplest is by using macros for joining BGs where you just join the BG, afk at the start until you win/lose/get reported AFK. This actually works quite well for some time. Me and some guildies tried out the "report AFK" function, (5 man in the same arathi reported one afk) but found it useless.
You also get Honor and Rep via Ressource-ticks, captured towers and so on.
Its not a highly sophisticated bot, but you can do that with macros, addons and a g18 keyboard. There was a time (around S3/S4) when Alteracs were full of them. I once played an alterac all by myself because everybody was afking.

The wrath-age-bots are a lot more developed. There are several Developer-companies whom develop bots, some of them are scriptable for users and you have quite a big script librabry. There are scripts for farming stuff, doing quests, doing BGs. Archeology is quite commong with people whom bot, because its simple, nets insame amounts of XP (for a gathering profession) and yields gold/Epixx. Also the developers offer live chat support and have FAQs for what to tell when you get banned.

These bots are very hard to spot because they behave like bad players. In arathi they run around and hit at players just like the next guy. If you have experience with bots you might see things which help you to report them. Some of them are:

Oscillation - they run in one direction and soon into an other, back and foth
Stuck - they fly into trees, when they get stuck they slowly back off, increase altitude and start flying straight again
Common Paths - Some move on waypoints
Chat behaviour - If you whisper to a player some give you a generic message á la "Sorry, got to go" and disconnect. Most only do this on GM answers
No outline/overview - They move from enemy to enemy, attack flags that are heavily guarded, try to mine an ore spot which is guarded, instead of waiting for the mob to pass
Uptime - Most botters let their bot run 24/7 for months, because they dont get caught
Grinding - Bots usually do tedious tasks. The player might be a hardcore raider, but he hardly playes 2 hours a day, while the bot manages the remaining 22h.


More on topic:

Blizzard does not do anything to stop botters. There are some quite simple things they could do:
Collecting player data - who does 0 healing/ 0 damage in an bg was obvious AFK, who collects insane amounts of ore in very long sessions
Actually writing warden - Warden was an attempt to write some kind of "virus scan" (scanning for application signatures/memory hooks/injections) for bots which runs client-side. It has been inactive for quite some time now and never did what its intention was. Its a failed project, probably the guys who wrote it got booted for it.
Harsh punishment - At the moment there is zero penalty for botting. While its in the eula that botting is illegal no punishment is given if you state "i was hacked lol". A livetime ban and maybe a lawsuit (read DMCA) would be really daunting.

Blizzard won a lawsuit against some Bot-Writer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDY_Ind...Entm%27t,_Inc. but that seem to cost a lot of money so they stopped trying/caring. So they changed their policy regarding bots. If you write on the official forums, the thread will be soon locked down. If you write links to 3rd party sites where you can read up or download bots you get banned. I short if you bot, if you talk about bots you get punished.

Blizzards current policy is to act only on reports ingame. But most players dont spot the bots and even if they get reported, they just tell "omg i gotz hacked plz restore my millions of gold". And it works. some of my collegues at work run bots and i got quite some insight.

[Drifted]

Part blame of increasing ammount of botting is on Blizzard. In Wrath you could get all honor items during one AV weekend. That was clearly too fast but now we have gone to other extreme where you are getting really small compensations of your efforts considering how tedious BGs currently are. This comes even clearer when you are doing PvP on multiple characters. No wonder people go for botting. They can easily get 1-2 chars fully geared before getting banned. And it doesnt really matter as Blizzard doesn't perma ban accounts for botting if you don't have earlier warnings.

[Deleted]

My IRL friend bots bgs, it is really good bot thou. You can set up your rotation, if your a healer etc. It also caps flags. One BG he had 7/2 Oo

[RichL]

So how do you know the guy is saying the truth? Looks like a load of bullshit to me.

You'd be surprised. My friends bot and make a shit-ton of gold.

I've botted BGs. It's pretty nuts what the bots are capable of now-a-days (compared to the fishing bots of vanilla)

[Strakha]

My IRL friend bots bgs, it is really good bot thou. You can set up your rotation, if your a healer etc. It also caps flags. One BG he had 7/2 Oo

haha this makes me want to try botting.

[barker]

I don't get it, I'm not really into BG's so I'm probably not understanding.

Do they buy gear with HP's, then sell the gear? I thought the gear purchased with points was BOP?

[RichL]

I don't get it, I'm not really into BG's so I'm probably not understanding.

Do they buy gear with HP's, then sell the gear? I thought the gear purchased with points was BOP?

The value of botting BGs on mains will diminish come 4.1 because there wont be a need for honor as everything will be bought with Conquests points. Now? People might still need bloodthirsty or trinkets. Botting BGs isnt about money its about gearing up quickly. Honestly the only reason people bot BGs is because the honor grind is nucking futs.

Botting ore or herbs is where the moneys @@@@@

[barker]

The value of botting BGs on mains will diminish come 4.1 because there wont be a need for honor as everything will be bought with Conquests points. Now? People might still need bloodthirsty or trinkets. Botting BGs isnt about money its about gearing up quickly. Honestly the only reason people bot BGs is because the honor grind is nucking futs.

Botting ore or herbs is where the moneys @@@@@

Oh, yeah. I misread some of the posts in here, I thought they were all referring to BG botting, some were referring to environment botting and making gold. It sucks that the grind is so bad people need to resort to bots.