botting is out of control

[Cryonic]

What you think are bots are usually multiboxers. I've seen them time and time again trying to auto follow, for example (I love it because I take them and jump off a rock about 4x and they die). I warn them the next time they will die, it's a fun side game. Can't rack up honor dead.

You can't move them all at one time without the means to do so, it has to be part of the game. Any other way Blizzard can see it's a clear exploit and ban them.

That's not how multiboxing works.. sorry.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

That's not how multiboxing works.. sorry.

Tell me how it works? Since I have three accounts and play them ingame at once.

Please tell.

[Edds]

Botting has always been 'out of control'.

Would be interesting to see some sort of data on how many percents of the total playerbase that uses bots, but there is no such data available

its more so out of control as you can just go to mmo owned. look around for less than 15minutes and download a free botting program.

[anothdae]

easily fixed by adding a computer ban on botters. Ban the account the botter is on. Also ban the computer. Like gpu, motherboard or HD ID. When they call and say the account was "hacked". Thats ok. Harder to say your computer was stolen and used for botting

Could possibly work with Ip aswell. Lock the game to your ip adress. if you get banned for botting on that ip adress. just never open it again

The problem here is that bots are all paying customers. If you are blizzard you send out warnings hoping that the bot is just a kid playing around with a botting program and a warning will scare him. You don't want to ban him, because that is money lost.

[Cryonic]

Tell me how it works? Since I have three accounts and play them ingame at once.

Please tell.

While multiboxing the follow is set to a main on the multiboxers account. your post seems to suggest they set follow on you. either that or your post a bit fuzzy

[Deleted]

/bg "OMG RAPOORET BOT PLZ BLIZZ R SUK".

The majority of "bots" are players AFK'ing, not Bot'ing. Blizzard will be getting sick of getting false reports from morons that think being AFK in a tunnel is botting, it's really not. Bot's actually do something.

[Frozenbeef]

I didn't believe people when they said stuff like "there are tons of bots in bgs!" i just thought they got it wrong it thought the terrible players were just bots...however in eots there was literally a row of people running between set markers on the map...and they changed depending on what bases we owned >.<

[kage]

How do you figure? Stolen Accounts, when reported, have the time in which they were stolen refunded to the credit card holder, which costs money on the part of the business to run as a service. So they actually lose money per compromised accounts.

There is actually a fairly informative blue post on this topic. A little reading would go a long way to educate the uninformed masses on this issue.

How 'bout a link to said blue? It's not very helpful telling us there's something that could inform us better then not giving any info as where to find it.

[MasterHamster]

its more so out of control as you can just go to mmo owned. look around for less than 15minutes and download a free botting program.

Doesn't sound like anything new.

I always say the same thing.

Blizzard won't take botters down, just because they give more money than a player. A player can pay for 1 or 2 accounts, but a botter can pay for 2 or 5 accouts (some even more, in fact many botters have several accounts).

I think Nevalistis summed this up quite well: This is one of the biggest misconceptions we have, and I genuinely wish we could permanently clear it up. I'll provide a few hypothetical situations (mind you, these numbers are ENTIRELY made up).


Let's say 90% of botters were compromised accounts. This means that 90% of these botters aren't paying accounts; they're stolen accounts, which are generally fueled by stolen credit cards. These payments usually get disputed and taken back, which actually costs us money. If we're looking to make a purely fiscal observation, it makes no financial sense to let these continue (aside from the fact that we don't like compromised accounts to begin with — we want our players to be playing their own accounts safely and enjoyably).


Let's go on the other side of the fence and say 90% of these botters were otherwise legitimate players paying for their accounts, as you purport. When players bot, other players are inconvenienced by this behavior (and trust me, you guys outnumber the botters, even if you may feel it's the other way around). The inconveniences range from normal players having difficulty farming on their own to struggling to keep up with an economy that's being forcibly fluctuated via unfair advantage. When players are inconvenienced in this manner, they submit petitions.


Every petition submitted goes to a Game Master for review. A living, breathing person that is paid to provide customer service looks over it, does what's necessary for the situation (in botting cases, usually forwarding the info on to our exploitation/hacks team), and provides a response. Let's say 1–2 people are inconvenienced by a single botter (in all likelihood, we probably get many more petitions per botter than that). This would mean each botter is inconveniencing at least as many, and likely more, players that are positive to the community (the kinds of players we like and want to continue to play our game). For each botter we allow to continue botting, we potentially stand to lose more than we gain for a single subscription, just out of the sheer inconvenience it causes other players.


Even if you change those numbers around of legitimate players versus compromised accounts — we only stand to lose more if we don't take action on bots (which we do, regularly).

So tiring to read about how bots earn them money, as if? And yes, I'm such a fanboy that I rather trust that logic than the simpleminded account = money

[Kevyne-Shandris]

While multiboxing the follow is set to a main on the multiboxers account. your post seems to suggest they set follow on you. either that or your post a bit fuzzy

Not if they want to tag around on someone else. Not everyone uses that multiboxer software...I don't, as it's not needed. I could tell that dude in AV was manually setting follow by how long it took to keep trying to follow me again (he did it 3x. After his toon's third death, and a long pause dead, he quit doing it too!).

[ringpriest]

What you think are bots are usually multiboxers. I've seen them time and time again trying to auto follow, for example (I love it because I take them and jump off a rock about 4x and they die). I warn them the next time they will die, it's a fun side game. Can't rack up honor dead.

You can't move them all at one time without the means to do so, it has to be part of the game. Any other way Blizzard can see it's a clear exploit and ban them.

God, I love the excuses bot-apologists come up with. I have to admit that "they're all multiboxers!" is new to me. Thanks for sharing. Just for the amusement's sake, do you have an explanation on why these supposed "multiboxers" roll their toons on different realms? (And just to let you know in advance, I won't believe you if you claim it's because xfers are too expensive.)

[Deleted]

They are paying customers, nuf said!

[Kevyne-Shandris]

God, I love the excuses bot-apologists come up with. I have to admit that "they're all multiboxers!" is new to me. Thanks for sharing. Just for the amusement's sake, do you have an explanation on why these supposed "multiboxers" roll their toons on different realms? (And just to let you know in advance, I won't believe you if you claim it's because xfers are too expensive.)

I don't excuse them. I'm trying to differentiate them because people like you are so confused about them.

Because it's fun. I have toons on another realm, that yes, are multiboxed. Nice little train of them!

[MasterHamster]

They are paying customers, nuf said!

No they aren't. Either they are run by stolen credit cards, or they cause Blizzard to be forced to waste manpower on handling the effects of "legit" players botting.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

"legit" players botting.

What is legit botting? When did botting become legit, again?

[dklol]

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6469...ned-08_11_2012

Same thing happends with WoW. Ban comes in weaves, we should have one soon - few months after MoP started.

Botting since end 2010, no ban yet. Your argument is invalid.

Edit: And my bot plays better then many "real" players in BGs, so that shouldn't be a problem

[MasterHamster]

What is legit botting? When did botting become legit, again?

Didn't really say that botting was legit, but the player is.
A "legit" player botting, someone who is in possession of his own uncompromised account. I have yet to come up with a more fitting term to describe it.

[Marema]

What you think are bots are usually multiboxers. I've seen them time and time again trying to auto follow, for example (I love it because I take them and jump off a rock about 4x and they die). I warn them the next time they will die, it's a fun side game. Can't rack up honor dead.

You can't move them all at one time without the means to do so, it has to be part of the game. Any other way Blizzard can see it's a clear exploit and ban them.

You understand that a multiboxer is somebody who is playing multiple accounts with one keyboard right?
Usually somebody who's multi boxing isn't following anybody except the main toon on the multiboxing account. I.E. if you are multiboxing 5 mages, one of the mages is the main mage and the other 4 are programmed to follow/assist that one. So if the main mage targets somebody and casts a frostbolt, the other 4 are programmed to cast whatever spell has been set up at the main mages target. That's what multiboxing is. It's not something you use to log on in AV and follow somebody. That would be what botting is.

[DeadmanWalking]

Its not about them being paying customers, the majority of bots are stolen accounts. How would you react if you found out that not only you got hacked and your account stolen but Blizz deleted you because your character was used as a bot?

People who spew craziness about bots=mo' money for Blizz are just immature and don't understand how things work before glancing at the surface of a book and telling you the whole book sucked because the book cover was blue.

[StationaryHawk]

Botting since end 2010, no ban yet. Your argument is invalid.

No, the fact that you haven't been banned yet does not make the argument invalid. That'd be like saying that since someone hasn't been hacked yet, people don't get hacked.