Bots Taking Over Shadowlands! Asmongold Leads a Protest on Every WoW Server

[Master Factician]

"hurdur you can't stop bots xd"
WoW is no longer Blizzard's big cash cow, so they don't really devote much customer support time/manpower to it anymore.

There's so much garbage and misinformation in this thread but I'll at least comment on this. WoW makes Blizzard more money than any of their other games.

https://investor.activision.com/stat...a-416d87163950

There are few entertainment franchises that generate over $1 billion in annual net bookings, and today, we operate three of them. Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush, and each has clear opportunity for sustained growth.

Before I discuss the specifics of our outlook, I'll provide some context. We are entering the holiday season with strong momentum across Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush, our three largest franchises, which bodes well for the future.

[fwc577]

It's not that they lack the ability to think critically, it's that you have not considered that the cost-benefit of creating a bot is simply in favour of creating new or replacing existing bots.

No, I've thought of that. In another post on here in the last page or two I discussed it further. It takes roughly 5-6 days for a bot to reach profitability. The team should be able to detect druids running the exact same path completing the exact same quests to get themselves to level 50 in order to start botting in that 5-6 day period.

A good example of (1) is an OSRS bot powered using ML, which has seen some success. Now most of the bots that we typically see are not this advanced, they typically only use some small subset of abilities and are fixed onto specific tasks (i.e.: Guardian Druids farming skinnable mobs in specific areas with high respawn rates), but that is hard to label as just "bot behaviour" in a game like WoW, esp. considering the amount of players who will actively participate in activities like long-form farming and raw gold farming. This is why any reports take time to action, because player behaviour over the course of days or weeks is required to take action. Due to it taking time to determine if the account's behaviour is malicious, this means that the cost-benefit skews in favour of creating new bots with minor alterations (i.e.: changing location, rotation, varying activities of the bot, etc.).

Great video, but we're still a long ways off from this type of botting in WoW. Runescape is a 2d environment and has less inputs that WoW which is a 3d environment. Also, the server costs are astronomical for Runescape in that 2d environment to get these neural networks to where they are today.

The people doing this in WoW are doing this dirty and pure for profit.

Within the last 3 pages, I delved into a 2x4 farm. None of these guys are doing any input whatsoever, everything is based on cycling casting of abilities over and over.

There is another factor that these bots will never be able to accomplish either (should they get good enough to mimic real player behavior in WoW) and that's human intervention.

It's one thing to observe one bot that looks like it's moving like a normal player.

If you do a /who 50 Druid on most servers right now, you're going to find large amounts of druid bots farming and providing extra scrutiny. The factor a bot doesn't understand is "fun". If you see, for example, 10 level 50 druids all in Iron Docks running around killing all the mobs and resetting instance. They repeat this action for 16-24 hours a day for several days, this is clearly not a person. Why would one person do that? Let alone 10 players?

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There's so much garbage and misinformation in this thread but I'll at least comment on this. WoW makes Blizzard more money than any of their other games.

https://investor.activision.com/stat...a-416d87163950

He's just praying to god that WoW killer comes out one day so he can quit. That's why he's trained himself to believe that WoW doesn't make Blizz cash.

[anon5123]

There's so much garbage and misinformation in this thread but I'll at least comment on this. WoW makes Blizzard more money than any of their other games.

https://investor.activision.com/stat...a-416d87163950

Yeah, WoW is totally Blizzard's cash cow with a constantly dwindling playerbase and maybe a quarter the players of games like hearthstone and overwatch

[bloodykiller86]

I agree. Someone needs to handle asmongold. His toxicity is a detriment to everything WoW related (even if only because his words are worshipped by his cult-like followers).

what toxicity? have you actually watched asmongold? lol i ask this because i used to be like you and think this guy was toxic af

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I don't blame Asmon. I blame his sheeply followers and especially OP, who posted a video with little to no context, which I think is against the rules? Promoting YT channels and such. Asmon is smart in exploiting the hate that is inherent in the WoW community, he lives for it. I don't like him personally, but he is just doing his job.

I can get behind that for sure. It's also a little ify to do the "come over here and mass report" type things. While here it certainly was used to shit on bots and that being a good thing, hut I could see that easily exploited as well.

[Ielenia]

The whole argument you and Rray trying to make in here that they will just create a new account and it solves nothing is fundamentally flawed by the fact that you both cannot critically think and seem to believe that there is no cost associated with creating a new bot account.

Right. If you cannot keep the discussion civil and has to hurl insults, thinking that this make you sound superior (newsflash: it doesn't) then we have nothing else to discuss.

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Difference being is he offered no explanation. Just the attack. No justification. Maybe go and quote my whole response and not just a snippet.

There is absolutely no difference. It doesn't matter if you follow up on your insult with a dissertation. An insult is an insult, and you have demonstrated yourself to be incredibly hypocritical by calling him out on his behavior while you engage in the exact same behavior you accused him of.

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Let me ask you this tho: does this procedure solve any of the problems bots cause? No it doesn't.

No, there are bots almost all the time. They ban what like twice a year and then for maybe two weeks you have fewer bots. And when bot makers catch up another half year of unhindered botting with all the problems normal players suffer from it.

So if Blizzards current procedure doesn't solve anything it might be time to go for a new approach.

Banning the moment they get a report produces even less results, too. Because the botter would just return the very next day, at worst, and start botting all over again, no skin off their back.

[Frolk]

Man. His hairline has really receded in recent years.

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What people seem to forget is blizz does bans in waves to avoid bot makers to learn what exactly tipped blizzard off to their program. As such they tend to just pile and log these names and accounts and then do a mass ban every few months.

Ye, do a big ban wave every 8-12 month, im sure that will totally fix all the issues and not have em back to botting in 1-3 weeks.

[rowaasr13]

Prime example right here bashes the streamer instead of addressing the issue, this forum is pathetic.

If you want to only discuss the issue, put only the issue in OP title/post. But if you put there vomit-inducing visage of unshaven cunt staring at people, be prepared that those people will express disgust. The only "prime example" here is the first post.

[fwc577]

Right. If you cannot keep the discussion civil and has to hurl insults, thinking that this make you sound superior (newsflash: it doesn't) then we have nothing else to discuss.

Sounds good. If you want to ignore evidence because your feeling are hurt, then we really do have nothing to discuss. Continue your blissful existence in ignorance.

[Aureli]

Yeah, WoW is totally Blizzard's cash cow with a constantly dwindling playerbase and maybe a quarter the players of games like hearthstone and overwatch

What about reading the link you react to?

[Sinyc]

Seconded, not because he's toxic. Just because he's got the face I most want to punch. Worth the jail time.

Does it feel good to pretend to be a tough guy online? You wouldn't punch him. And you wouldn't risk spending time in jail over WoW. So why make this idiotic statement that adds zero value?

[Ielenia]

Sounds good. If you want to ignore evidence because your feeling are hurt, then we really do have nothing to discuss. Continue your blissful existence in ignorance.

I'm not ignoring evidence. Please do this entire forum a favor and learn civil discussion. Be less toxic, and people might want to engage with you more often. Have a good day.

[prwraith]

Does it feel good to pretend to be a tough guy online? You wouldn't punch him. And you wouldn't risk spending time in jail over WoW. So why make this idiotic statement that adds zero value?

Another assumption. Is your statement an attempt at redemption or something? Another of zero value.

[Rinaul]

Ye, do a big ban wave every 8-12 month, im sure that will totally fix all the issues and not have em back to botting in 1-3 weeks.

Yeah I guess we could just ignore them then. No action is better than some action I suppose. /s

[Doffen]

Man. His hairline has really receded in recent years.

Thank you for bringing on something that is of value. This thread was sinking, but you lightened it up!

He can always draw some hair with some eyeliner. Its trendy!

[Usernameforforums]

You just described mutli boxing.

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I don't bot. I only play one toon, so you can stop with the false accusations.

You also show that you never read or listened to Blizzard at all. They don't ban right away so they can study the bots behavior and then break it. If you immediately ban them, you can't break the bot because you already got rid of it. THey will get a new account and start with teh same bot. You aren't accomplishing anything because you aren't even bothering to break the bot. You are only blanket banning anything that even remotely looks like a bot. All you will have done is wasted your time.

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You are naive. They will just make a new account with a new bot. YOu cannot stop it if you don't break the bot no matter how many ties you ban. To think they will just give up if you ban faster is to live in a fantasy world.

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It's not going to matter how you wae the war. YOu cannot win if you don't break the bots. THe bot makers are continuously working to make their bots undetectable as Blizzard is to breaking them. You will NEVER stop the botting by simply banning them because it takes no time at all to create a new account.

The only one that gets an f for their argument is you.

A multiboxer wouldnt continue sit there for 30 minutes with an Asmongold raid without saying something. A multiboxer wouldnt maintain a PERFECT ROUTE for more than never, watch the video again as i was describing that. Youve never multiboxed before as you would never reply like this if you have. Its 100% clear that it wasnt multiboxing if you look, each boomkin was looting independently but others keep running. Something you can never do with mutiboxing no matter how few boxes you have and continue on a perfect route

[Rinaul]

Thank you for bringing on something that is of value. This thread was sinking, but you lightened it up!

He can always draw some hair with some eyeliner. Its trendy!

I require visual representation! STAT!